Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

-~oOo~-

For once, the Courier wished Benny could have aimed better.

Chapter Text

The Courier was drunk when he let them loose on the Strip.

It seemed like a good idea at the time as it finally got them off his back for once. So far, he had been enjoying a nice long solitary afternoon at the bar up in the Aces Theater with nothing but his paid-for alcohol while Billy Knight monologued on stage about how hilariously shitty life is in this part of the Mojave. No whiny brats, no damn upkeep, no questions. Just me, Miss Pina Co Lada, and Mister Vodka On The Rocks...

Well into the evening, he was already too deep in the bottle to notice the hand nudging him off the bar.

"Sir? Sir..."

"Mmm~, Veronica...ask Raul...he'll fix it up for 'ya..."

"Excuse me, sir."

"Damn it, Vee," Six slurred, his head planted firmly between his arms and a cemetery of drained liquor bottles. "I'm busy..."

"Six." Tommy Torini's voice sobered him up a bit.

For the first time since happy hour, he glanced up. "Wha~?"

"You're, uh, friends got into some trouble," the owner of the Aces Theater explained.

The Courier scrunched his eyes. There's Tommy. And two—or was that four?—NCR suits in front of him with their bright 'MP' armbands and stenciled helmets. What was with the cattle prods? "I swear, officer... Wadn't me this time..."

"Sir, that's not what we're here for," a military police sergeant began. "You were referred to by a..."

Six could barely hear what they were saying. He just about shrugged them off until he heard...

"...Miss Ruby Rose claims that you are their legal guardian."

Wait, what? The Courier snapped his head back up at them. "Who?"

"Sir, would you please come down to the station with us?" another officer requested.

It took Six awhile to register what he meant. Station? What station? The NCR Embassy? No. McCarran Headquarters? No, that was way too far. Wait... Station, station, station...have I been there before? Then it clicked. "The old LVPD building down the road?"

"Yes, sir."

Did I do something again? I swear I paid Crocker off that one time but... The sudden realization kicked him back into sobriety. "Ah, shit."

"Six! Over here!"

In his mind, the Courier was raving in anguish fueled by pure, vexing frustration. Meanwhile, his body calmly followed the NCR MP to the holding cell where Yang's arm had been waving at him through the bars. Weiss was sulking in the back of the cell while Blake was standing on the only bed around, staring through the barred window above them. Ruby twiddled her thumbs next to her sister, trying to look as innocent as guiltily possible.

"Six! Great! I swear it wasn't my fault," Blondie started. "You see...um..."

Six's tired eyes moved from one person to another.

"Hey, don't look at me," Hyper protested. "It was a natural response!"

"What the fuck did you four do now?" he seethed.

Yang deflated in front of him. "Err, long story?"

The MP sighed. "Some drunks groped her, they got into a fight, drew in a big crowd, nearly caused a riot in front of Gomorrah. Sir."

Ruby chuckled nervously. "Yeah, uh...that's sort of...what happened. Heh-heh, whoops? Crazy night, right? Say, could you, um, bail us out?"

Goddamn it. How much are these kids going to set me back? Four thousand caps? Eight? The Courier nodded at the MP who proceeded to unlock their cell. Blondie and Hyper hugged him while Snowball walked by looking miffed with Cat-girl giving him an apologetic tap on the shoulder.

"Hey, guys!" someone called from the far end of the corridor. "What about us? Ruby!"

"Who the fuck—" was all Six managed to get out until he heard the most painful thing to come out of Hyper's mouth to date.

"Jaune! Of course! Hey, Six, could you bail out our friends, too? They're over there at the back. Six, meet Jaune, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren. Could you bail them out for us? Ple~ase? Please, please, please, pretty please with cookies and milkshakes and sugar on top?"

Are you fucking kidding me, woman, his mind screamed. Seeing four more kids in overly colorful weird-ass outfits—is that redhead wearing Greek armor?—staring back at him like he was their only hope was enough to give him a migraine on the spot. Where the fuck are you all coming from?

"With all the hardware these kids got, you wouldn't think they were Brotherhood of Steel agents," the MP whistled while cycling through his keys.

"Brotherhood of what?" that blond Jaune boy asked.

"Long story," Yang said. "Right, Six?"

Goddamn it, kids, he thought while he rubbed his temples.

Needless to say, all these kids made it back to the Aces Theater in time for Bruce Isaac to hit the high notes on his latest single. Meanwhile, the Courier was back at the bar in the far back, three bottles in and sixteen thousand caps poorer—eight thousand for the bail and the rest on damages and bribes. No~obody kno~ows the troubles I've seen~... No~obody kno~ows my sorro~ow...

"Six. This. Is. Awesome!"

"I didn't know you owned the whole tower."

"Are you some authority figure here?"

"Can Victor make pancakes?"

The Courier dropped onto a stool by the bar in the massive cocktail lounge of the Lucky Thirty-Eight while his Securitron valet Victor poured him a strong mix from all the hard hitters stockpiled behind the shelf. He really needed a good drink after all the shit that went down over the past week. Teams RWBY and JNPR—what drugs were these kids on that they named themselves like that?—was costing him by the thousands in damage control. That was not to mention the countless times Yang, Ruby, or any one of these brats nearly got them all kicked out of every casino on the Strip.

"Look at this view!"

"You can see the whole Mojave."

"Vegas is very bright tonight."

"Hey, um, Pyrrha? You want a drink?"

"Of course, Jaune."

Six had already downed four whole glasses when Victor started blasting Sinatra's Blue Moon over both its built-in speakers and the speakers installed around the lounge. Of course, the kids started dancing like they were at a Californian promenade or some fancy Ultra-Luxe ball. Even Snowball, Cat-girl, and that redhead Spartan were doing the waltz with their respective team partners. So much for some peaceful quality drinking time...

Later that night, a few good hours after the brats all went downstairs to the presidential suite for some shut-eye, he stumbled into his personal quarters half-plastered only to find his own luxury bed occupied by a snoozing Hyper, Snowball, Cat-girl, and Blondie. Goddamn it.

"Colonel, it's for you," said the puzzled radio operator. "It's him."

Colonel James Hsu of the New California Republic Armed Forces picked up the receiver. "Yes, Six?"

"Colonel!" sputtered the voice on the other end of the NCR emergency frequency. "Shit...ah, you ever had kids?"

Hsu exhaled deeply before gesturing at the operator to lower the volume a bit. "Six, this line is for emergency purposes only. Do you need any support?"

"I need a fucking babysitter," came the slurred response.

The colonel was pinching the bridge of his nose at this point. "Six. You're drunk."

"Wha'da'ya mean I'm drunk?" An audible hiccup. "Fuck it...I'll get Cass to come over..."

The line clicked off before Hsu handed the receiver back to the operator.

"Is everything okay, sir?"

"Everything's fine. As you were," he dismissed while walking back to his office.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 1, 2018

LAST EDITED: June 18, 2022

INITIALLY UPLOADED: February 1, 2018

Chapter Text

Ruby had been staring at the Courier again.

Rather, she had been staring at his decorated lever-action brush carbine slung over his shoulder while he fanned the small sparks in the fire pit into a sizable flame. By the time the campfire had gotten large enough to cook raw meat, he could feel her drooling over his back.

"For the tenth time, Hyper: no," Six said tiredly.

"But I didn't say anything," Ruby deflected.

"I don't have any of that Aura crap but I can feel you gawking."

"She has a crush on you~" Yang teased and earning herself a glare from her sister.

"She has a crush on your gun," Blake droned.

"Ruby, please stop bothering him so he can cook our dinner," Weiss harped only to hear Yang playfully snicker something about her being jealous to which Snowball went on a tirade about some lady standards that Six could care less about.

Meanwhile, Hyper dropped back to her place beside her teammates with a pout. Team JNPR later joined them around the campfire with pickings of barrel cacti, banana yucca, and prickly pear fruits that they had foraged nearby. Well, most of them; it took a while for Jaune to limp over.

"The hell happened to you?" Six asked. Upon closer inspection, he sighed. "Really?"

Blondie burst out laughing, pointing at the many cactus thorns that Pyrrha and Ren were cautiously pulling out of Knight-boy. Still, he refused to sit down on the ground along with the rest of them. At that, the Courier gestured at him to turn around.

"You missed a spot," Yang choked out before laughing again.

"Not funny, Yang!"

And you want to be a fucking knight, Knight-boy? "Pull it out of your ass. I ain't doing it for you," Six ordered sharply.

"I can't reach."

"Yes, you can," chorused everyone to which Jaune hesitantly and very clumsily (and much to Yang's entertainment) extracted the rather large cactus spine out of his rear.

"Hey, Ruby, 'ya want some?" Nora offered, munching on a chunk of banana yucca.

"No thanks."

She tilted her head. "You alright? You look a little down."

"She's just upset because Six didn't want her to touch his big gun." Yang stopped midway through her bite when she caught up to what exactly she had just said. "You know what I meant! I meant his rifle! His rifle! She wanted to mess with his rifle!"

Goddamn it, woman. "Wow, Blondie. Thanks for calling me a pedophile," Six groused, letting the fire crackle at the awkward silence.

"Does it have a name? Did you give it a name? You should give it a name."

Answer the damn question and maybe she'll finally shut up.

"Seriously? Why'd you call it 'Medicine Stick'? Ooh, wait! Does it shoot medicine darts? Like those poison darts but instead of poison, it heals you up? That's so cool! Why'd did you put feathers on it, though? It looks weird. And won't they come off when you swing it like I do Crescent Rose?"

Damn it. That backfired. Screw it. Just ignore her and keep walking.

"Si~ix, these bottle caps are making my hips itchy! Why can't we just use the NCR's paper money?"

One more mile. Just one more mile.

"My feet hurt. Six! I can't go o~on... Could you carry me, please? Pretty please? My feet hu~urt..."

Almost there. Right up this hill.

"Si~ix, can we stop for a bit? I want to pee! I need to pee!"

The Courier yanked her arm and pointed to the perch peeking past the old cargo truck hanging over the edge of the parking lot. A low wall of sandbags surrounded the makeshift alcove cobbled together from a few poles and metal sheets—a convenient sniper's nest that had an unobstructed view of Cottonwood Cove and much of this section of the Colorado River.

"Stay there and watch for any threats," he ordered her.

Ruby whined, hopping with her hands between her legs. "Si~ix, I really need to pee! I've been holding it in!"

Goddamn it, woman. "Fine. Go find a spot but I want you back there providing overwatch—"

Swoom!

Six deflated in the wake of her Semblance, grumbling at the rose petals floating to the ground. Tired, my ass. Feet hurt, my ass. And you bolt faster than a missile when I let you loose for five minutes to do your shit. Goddamn Hyper.

They had one job. One goddamn job.

A simple job that didn't even need this many people to begin with. Hell, he thought they were competent enough for it!

All they had to do was to make sure nothing and absolutely nothing would compromise their rear flank—say geckos and lakelurks repopulating Cottonwood Cove—while he crossed the Colorado River alone. Now Six was at the end of his rope when he hurried back from scouting the promontories across the river after seeing thick smoke all the way from his position on the Arizona side of the Colorado!

Half of Cottonwood had been leveled. It looked as if the Boomers had flown a sortie over the whole area, turning this part of the Mojave Wasteland into an even worse wasteland. All because his eight shitty brats used their Dust or Semblance or Aura—whatever the fuck they called that physics-defying shit—on the poor sons of bitches who thought it was a good idea to sneak up on them while they were all skinny dipping in the water.

Skinny dipping in the fucking water. All of them. With lakelurks, geckos, and schools of mutated man-eating fish nearby. While people watched.

"What in the goddamn..."

"Our actions were completely justified!" Pyrrha argued, her free hand holding a towel over most of her bare body while her other arm pressed her alternating spear-rifle—was it 'Milos' or 'Akouo'?—against the throats of the uniformed, slightly singed, and rightly terrified NCR privates tied to the guardrail.

"Put some clothes on, damn it," Six ordered. "I'll handle this."

"We should castrate them," Weiss hissed from behind a derelict Chryslus. In fact, all the girls bar Pyrrha were crouched behind the only unexploded car parked by the railing, stark naked, covering their bare chests with their arms, and peeking their heads over the car frame to glare at the unfortunate sods.

The Courier glanced around. "Where are the boys?"

"Over here," Ren called, his damp pale arm waving from the window on the door of the concrete dockworker's office that had once been the headquarters of the Legion bastion stationed here.

"Are they done?" Jaune's voice rang out from inside the building. "Can we come out now?"

"NO!" chorused all the girls.

"But I'm sticky, there's giant roaches in the bathroom, and it's freezing in here," he whined. "Can someone at least toss me a towel, my sword, or any of my clothes?"

"Whose idea was it to strip naked and go swimming in the river, anyway?" Six demanded, his hands pressed firmly on his hips while the NCR privates whimpered underneath him.

Fingers pointed to Yang who pointed to Ruby. "Wasn't my idea!"

"Yes, it was," Cat-girl deadpanned.

"You all agreed to it!" Blondie deflected. At that, most of the girls nodded with complimentary 'yeah's and 'it sounded like a good idea at the time.'

Six, meanwhile, pinched the bridge of his nose. I'm getting sick of this shit. "What if it was a goddamn Legion scouting party? What if these goddamn perverts shot back at you? What if the rapids picked up or them scaly man-eaters got one in on you? You kids could have fucking drowned! Did you ever think of that?"

"We grew up on an island," Yang and Ruby sheepishly said. "We can swim against the current."

"At Remnant, there were a lot of swimming tournaments usually in the summer," Nora chirped. "They're really fun!"

"I doubt Jaune could swim, though," Blake remarked much to Pyrrha's amusement.

"I heard that!" Jaune barked.

"He actually almost drowned," Weiss added nonchalantly. "Twice. He was panicking even after Ren pulled him out of the water."

"That was not the case, Weiss!" snapped Knight-boy.

The Courier massaged his temples to kill his growing headache. He was going to have to restock on aspirin after this. And maybe some extra alcohol, too. NCR is definitely going to be asking a lot of questions. What the fuck am I supposed to tell them now? "You kids are bleeding me dry, holy fucking nut-sack..."

"We're sorry, sir!" one of the privates cried. "We won't do it again, sir!"

"Please, we've learned our lesson!" another whinnied while tears and sweat rolled down his cheeks.

"Just don't tell our CO, please!" the third pleaded.

Six rounded on the bound soldiers, bearing down a glower so fierce that they could have shit out whatever spine was left in them.

"You boys have done screwed yourselves," he began. "If I were you, I'd forget about this whole experience and march back up to your posts 'fore you get slapped with goin' AWOL. Better yet, ask for a transfer. These brats of mine won't be forgettin' your faces anytime soon. Sure as hell, I won't."

The privates feverishly nodded.

The Courier turned to the girls staring at him from behind the Chryslus. "What the hell are y'all still doing slinking around there for? Put some goddamn clothes on!"

"Crap! Sorry!"

"Oops!"

"Don't look!"

"Girls, can we come out now?"

"NO!"

Meanwhile, Six withdrew the NCR emergency radio from one of his vest pouches and began extending the range on the antenna so he could call in a ranger squad to retrieve their men at the planned designated drop-off point further up the highway. "Goddamn kids had one goddamn job and they somehow manage to fuck it up..."

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 1, 2018

LAST EDITED: June 18, 2022

INITIALLY UPLOADED: February 2, 2018

Chapter Text

The Courier regretted not bringing any extra rations on this excursion.

That meant he had to leave the brats to go scrounge up some grub for tonight. They call themselves Huntsmen and Huntresses and they can't even bring back a damn carcass to fry. Besides, after the fracas at Cottonwood, he was sure they would botch up something as simple as hunting geckos, much less coyotes and wild dogs.

Suffice to say, Six was actually relieved when he got back. He was expecting some sort of carnage or maybe the NCR probing the kids. Instead, everything was peaceful. They even managed to get a small fire going without his help, laughing and prattling like it was another dull day. No incidents, no bright lights, no magic shit, no massive smoking crater... Huh, I guess I was just being paranoid. Maybe I should've brought one of them hunting with me.

"We're having bloatflies tonight, kids," the Courier announced, holding up a colony of dead mature bloatflies strung up together in an upside-down bouquet.

The brats went green—the girls recoiled while the boys went pale.

Why am I not surprised? Should've expected they'd act like this. Damn it. He shook his head and began laying out his catches over a make-shift grill fastened from bits of rebar, wire mesh, and a couple of iron water pipes. Dusty but not too rusty. And definitely not radioactive.

"Suck it up," he snorted. "It's dinner and there aren't any geckos around."

"Why..." Weiss turned around to keep from heaving upon seeing the puss oozing out of the sizzling carcasses.

"So...large flies for dinner, huh," Ren gulped. He unsubtly began glancing around for barrel cacti while Jaune dug around their collective rucksacks for any food that may have been buried underneath all their supplies.

"You kids need to learn to suck it up," Six barked. "This is the desert. Out here, these little buggers will save your life. They're rich in protein and a good source of energy."

"And..." Ruby covered her nose. "...smelly."

"I want panca~akes...not flies..."

"Nora, don't be so...overtly rude."

"Could be worse, I guess..."

Picky little brats. The Courier pulled out a fresh packet of aspirin, expecting another migraine to come on. "Either you eat or you starve, kids."

"Six has a point," Pyrrha said, standing up and (hesitantly) picking up a skewered chunk of barbecued bloatfly.

Six raised his fist to the sky in gratitude. Thank you, Sparta, for agreeing with me! Finally, someone with some proper survivalist sense—

The look on her face completely betrayed her previous confidence. "These are...edible, right?"

Goddamn it, Sparta. "Why else did I cook them?" he growled.

Pyrrha gulped. She took several deep beaths, exchanging unsure glances with the other brats, then chomped down with her eyes firmly shut. The Courier almost rolled his eyes when the rest of the kids goggled closer to see what would happen next.

"It's...actually pretty good. Very much like chicken," she said, devouring the rest of her dinner.

"See? It's not that bad. Now eat," he ordered as the brats took their respective skewers, with his eyes narrowing pointedly at Weiss. "No excuses, Snowball. Dinner is dinner."

"But...it's a fly."

"Six is right. This isn't really that bad," Yang remarked, happily munching on a mouthful of her share.

"It's a bug. We're eating bugs, Yang," Weiss countered, holding up her stick of grilled bloatfly a good arm's length from her face. "Big, oversized bugs with puss and eggs and m-m-maggots..."

Six let out an audible groan. "Snowball, you had mutant ant stew this morning and you weren't complaining."

Weiss froze, almost dropping her food. In fact, all the other brats tensed up like statues, their half-eaten bloatflies starting to attract smaller flies. They stared at him like he had suddenly grown a third head.

"What?"

"I thought that was...beef," Blake mumbled.

"Yeah. Wasteland 'beef' stew. And when I mean beef, I mean meat that's good enough. Brahmin meat, ant meat, radscorp, radroach, mole-rat, or all of the above in one pot. You kids got lucky today 'cause the chef threw in the menu favorite: brahmin balls. Man, I'd kill for some fried brahmin balls right now; that stuff hits the spot good."

Things had gotten far too quiet. It was at that moment then that Six learned that the kids had an aversion to wasteland meat because all of them—including Sparta and Cat-girl of all people!—were heaving their guts into the ditch behind them.

"Six, why!?"

"Faunus don't eat...that..."

"Never...never ever!"

"Why didn't you tell us!?"

"I thought they were chicken eggs..."

"I'm checking the meat next time..."

The Courier dropped his face into his palms. Why did these kids have to so fucking picky? Why, goddamn it, why?

"That's disrespectful, you know," he seethed through gritted teeth. "At least be damn grateful that you aren't eating the shit they serve at the Ultra-Luxe."

"I'll have you know," Snowball suddenly hollered, "that the food at the Ultra-Luxe is among the best in this whole accursed Wasteland!"

"No offense, Six, but I agree," Hyper added apologetically while patting a retching Yang beside her.

"You ate at the Ultra-Luxe?" Six asked incredulously. "Seriously?"

"We all did," Nora answered. "They had the most wonderful pancakes ever! It was really fancy and the White Glove Society were really nice and polite. A little creepy though with all the masks and the fancy-shmansy stuff they got going there but not that bad of a social club. Say, weren't you there? Don't you remember? You were like on the super-duper high-end guest list or something! You were there, right?"

"Actually, that was when he was passed out drunk at the Lucky Thirty-Eight," Blake corrected. "So he wasn't with us that time."

"They even offered us honorary membership," Ruby added. "And that was before we, y'know, sort of, almost, kinda, messed up their—"

Jaune tapped her on the shoulder. "No need to bring that up again. I'm just glad we're not on the blacklist or something."

Yang held up her hands. "Hey, wasn't our fault the White Gloves get really scummy clientele. All we did was call the bastards out to save the casino some revenue. Who'd a thunk they were stupid enough to try and shoot up the place."

Nora snorted. "Eh, some people are so rich they think they can get away with anything. Still think the White Gloves should've broken their legs instead of just kicking them out...with us, sort of."

"The White Gloves have been the most forgiving of the Three Families," Ren intoned. "Given what we could have gotten, a one-week expulsion from their facilities is not so bad."

That's them saving face 'cause they want to be the Vegas high-class poster child. The Courier raised his brow at them. "I suppose that one time you all stayed the night meant you sampled their, ugh, cooking."

Weiss folded her arms at him. "I don't understand why you simply refuse to go near that place, Six! The Ultra-Luxe serves the cleanest, most filling banquets serving the finest meats and lentils we've had in a good long while, besting all the other casinos on the whole Strip. The White Gloves provide only virtuoso music, the most exquisitely clean facilities, and supreme social amenities that rival even that of Atlas. Why you'd settle for anything less despite being so wealthy just boggles my mind!"

The disbelieving mug the Courier sported throughout her diatribe started to unsettle them though.

The long, drawn-out silence made Yang ask, "Uh, Six? Yoohoo! You still there?"

"Ah... You brats do know that they used to serve human meat at the Ultra-Luxe, right?" he deadpanned. "Didn't you get the memo or did I forget to tell you that whole story?"

Six felt the edges of his duster ruffle in the breeze while a tumbleweed bounced passed.

"WHAT!?"

Huh. I guess I forgot to tell them. The Courier sighed, popped in another aspirin, and went back to tending the campfire as the brats went back to gagging. On the bright side, he didn't get a headache tonight. The downside, though, was that he had to settle for the reasonably expensive prepackaged food being shipped over from California at their next stop.

He really regretted not bringing any extra rations.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 3, 2018

LAST EDITED: June 18, 2022

INITIALLY UPLOADED: February 4, 2018

Chapter Text

"I don't know what to do with them," Six groused, hunched over his seat and sloshing around a half-empty bottle of home-brewed tequila.

A ghoulified hand tapped the shoulder pads on his duster. "You haven't ditched them yet, boss."

"What are you going on about?"

Raul leaned back on his lawn chair as the embers flickered out of the fire pit in front of his shack, feeling more relaxed than sardonic today. "If you really hate them that much, why haven't you kicked them to the curb already?"

"I don't hate the little brats," the Courier corrected. "They're just costing me a fortune."

"Is that so?" The ghoul took a swig of Sunset Sarsaparilla while thick smoke continued to rise from the pile-up of military supply trucks smoldering in the middle of the battered interstate highway. He gestured at the wreckage. "How much did you pay the NCR for that now?"

"Enough to buy out a whole trading outfit."

Raul chuckled. "Well, you are pretty well off."

"You know I always keep a contingency fund. And these goddamn brats are draining it." Six took a long swig and sighed. "Been going out more so I wouldn't dry up. Have to lug them around with me, too, 'cause they might burn down the Strip if I left 'em there."

The ghoul raised a brow. "They can't be that bad."

"They collapsed the Freeside sign."

"That thing was going to come down anyway."

"They publicly humiliated an NCR brahmin baron."

"You expect me to think he was innocent?"

"They broke into the casino vaults 'by accident.'"

"Huh. How'd they do that? Wait. Vaults? As in not just one casino?"

"Goddamn it, Raul! They're fucking me over," the Courier sneered. "I'm loosing caps just on hush money and don't get me started on the bullshit I had to pull just to keep them from starting another goddamn riot."

Raul raised a brow. "And you're doing all this...why?"

"Because they don't know how to cover their asses! They need someone to to do that for them! 'Cause they don't belong here, for fuck's sake!"

The ghoul laughed. "Boss, admit it. You like having them around."

Six gave his old friend a long hard glare. "... Have you ever had kids, Raul?"

Raul Tejada leaned back in thought. "You know me, boss. Had a large family. I used to take care of my cousins whenever they visited the ranch. The little diablos would run around, stir some trouble, get themselves hurt from some putos in the neighborhood."

"Must've been nice."

A warm smile stretched over what was left of his face. "Si, si. Those were the days."

The Courier dipped his head. "Well good for you then."

"Boss, I don't have the best advice for you when it comes to this but I have to say that you should trust those hijas and hijos. Unlike the both of us, they are blessed with still being in their youth."

"I get it. We're old, our bodies ain't what they used to be—"

"You know what I mean," chided the ghoul. "They still got that starry-eyed mindset that's inspired a lot of those people you and I used to work with. These kids have that drive to do some good in the world what with their unique, eh, 'innocence' that you and I both know should not exist in a place like this. How old is the youngest?"

"Hyper is a goddamn child. For a fifteen-year-old, though, she can swing that oversized garden tool of hers better than a professional baseball pitcher. The rest are about sixteen, seventeen, I don't know."

"That young, eh. You have to admit: they're acrobatic, skilled, and unbelievable."

The Courier nodded. With their 'it's-not-magic' shit, they really are unbelievable. "I've seen them move. They have their own little squads, too. RWBY and JNPR. Pretty dumb names but I guess I could see how that works in a pickle."

"I suppose you weren't their instructor on squad tactics because they seemed pretty efficient from the get-go."

He didn't realize it but a small smirk curved on the edge of his lips. "Yeah, they're sure are efficient. Keepin' a solid eye on each other and moving like a well-oiled machine way before I jumped in to haul their asses out of trouble. Hell, what I walked into...gotta say that was some of the best teamwork I've seen in a long while..."

"Teamwork, eh? You know, boss, that sort of reminds me of—"

The smile was suddenly replaced by a sharp scowl and a pointed finger. "Don't bring it up."

The ghoul snickered. He turned on his waist and called out to the shadows stretching out from behind the rocks east of his shack. "You can come out now, little diablos!"

Silence.

"Raul is cooking!" Six hollered.

At that, the brats slowly drew themselves out. Seeing them looking all sheepish made him suspicious of something potentially expensively stupid that they should not have yet somehow done. So he ran a quick headcount...

"Shaolin, where's Pancake?"

"We thought she was here," Ren replied uneasily.

"We've been looking all over for her but can't find her," Ruby added.

You lost your own fucking teammate? "Where'd you last see her?" he demanded.

"We got split up while foraging," Jaune explained.

The way the Courier bore into the blond team leader almost made the boy melt into the ground. "And?"

"Well, uh, she s-sort of...d-disappeared?"

Six growled. Goddamn it. "Where was this?"

Jaune raised his arm to point to the expanse of rolling desert behind them when a familiar pink blob hopped out of the rocks with something in her hands.

"Heya, everybody!"

"Nora! Where have you been? We were looking all over you!" screamed pretty much the rest of the brats.

Raul chuckled. "Quite the lot, eh, boss? I told you: trust them. They'll prove themselves when you're not always around breathing down their necks like a hungry death...claw..."

Both veteran wastelanders felt their jaws go slack when they saw the massive egg Nora was snuggling against her chest.

Weiss popped the question for them. "Nora, where did you get that?"

"Oh, there was this abandoned train yard near the lake," Pancake said with a dismissal wave. "Could you believe? The mutants there couldn't even see me! I think they're blind."

"Ay Dios mio, hija..."

You have got to be fucking kidding me, woman! Six could tell that even Raul, with his two hundred years of experience, was as stupefied as he was at this. He paced over to her. "Pancake, how the hell did—"

The egg, which had been trembling, began to furiously shake and Nora held it out for the whole group to see. Cracks began to form until the top flaked off and an infant deathclaw reared its head into the world with a soft cry. Predictably, Blondie, Hyper, and Pancake started fawning over the newborn monstrosity.

"Ah, shit," was all the Courier had to say when the roars of several adult deathclaws echoed less than twenty yards away.

"I swear to God, if I find a gateway to Remnant, I'm kicking you all back in," Six grumbled over his glass of whiskey in the corner of the shack.

It would not be long before the NCR would start asking him about how an entire colony of deathclaws somehow fell from the sky and landed (in pieces) outside the walls of McCarran Headquarters. For now, he could only grimace at his misfortune while teams RWBY and JNPR relished Raul's vegetable stew (after they politely and meticulously confirmed that the stew was made with only the vegetables that were grown from the ghoul's modest yet bountiful garden patch outside).

Trust them, my ass. The Courier looked to the group huddled in the middle of the shack, the brats clearly enraptured by Raul's lighthearted stories of the Old World. Well, they did a good number on those deathclaws. Granted, those fuckers were blind and the kids had some slip-ups and some scrapes but at the end of the day, we're all in one piece. Maybe... Maybe, they deserve a bit more credit.

Six turned away to hide the prideful smile forming on his lips. Damn kids. Damn good kids.

Meanwhile, Pancake's baby deathclaw nuzzled its sleepy head against the side of his boot.

The Courier was still awake when he caught her slowly tiptoeing over her sleeping friends towards him with a determined look on her face. "What are you going to ask me this time, Hyper?"

"I'm asleep!" Ruby squeaked, frozen as a statue.

"Don't expect me to hold your hand while you pee."

"It's not that," she hissed back. "It's just something...important."

He sighed, sat up on his mat, and flashed the light of his Pip-boy against the vacant space beside him. He waited until the pipsqueak plopped down next to him, her curious eyes refusing to meet his. "What is it?"

"If you don't mind me asking. I...I'm just curious... Well, actually, we all were so...I mean...i-it's not my place to ask... But if you're comfortable with it, you know... We just wanted to know, you know..." Hyper took in some deep breaths before throwing him her most determined look. "Were you part of a team? Y'know, with Raul? Did you have a team? Like us?"

Goddamn it, Raul. Six held a frown before shifting his attention to the wall.

"I'm sorry. I was just...I couldn't sleep and I—"

"Ruby, I'll tell you another time. For now, get some rest."

The girl blinked. "You will?"

"Yeah. But not tonight. Go to sleep," came the somber response as he turned off his Pip-boy light.

"Okay. Goodnight, Six," she mumbled with a solemn nod then carefully inched her way back to her cot next to her snoring half-sister. Six caught her parting glance before she turned onto her side.

Goodnight, Ruby.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 1, 2018

LAST EDITED: June 18, 2022

INITIALLY UPLOADED: February 11, 2018

Chapter Text

"I told you: trust them. They'll prove themselves..."

And look where that's gotten me, Raul. No offense, buddy, but that was some shit advice. The Courier set the NCR emergency radio back into one of his many pouches, letting the light from his Pip-Boy illuminate the chunks of dislodged bedrock and granite that sealed them inside this potential coffin. No reception. Too much interference. Ain't that fuckin' dandy, eh? Goddamn it, kids.

"Hey, Six?"

"What?" he groaned.

"I'm...I'm really, really sorry."

Six turned to glare at Ruby's apologetic mug reflecting off the green light. Despite himself, he could not stay mad at her—or any of the other brats—forever now, could he? "It's okay, Hyper."

Her eyes glistened like fragile glass. "No, Six. I'm really, really sorry about all this."

It's fine, Hyper. You didn't do anything wrong. Aside from caving us in this abandoned Old World mineshaft a good thirty meters underground, of course. "Sorry about what? Shit like this happens. Lady Luck just gave us the finger again. Right up the ass, too. Then she'll fuck you sideways and doggy-style 'til you come out your nose."

"I...what?"

The Courier wanted to slap himself. Of course. Choice words for a sheltered fifteen-year-old. Way to be a role model with a vocabulary, Six. "Never mind." My radio won't work but maybe... "Check your scroll. That thing keeps tabs on your buddies, right?"

"Uh, about that..."

Six felt his eyes narrow behind his visor. "Hyper."

Ruby shuffled her boots against the dirt until she showed him her scroll. Or what was left of it. The rest had been hopelessly crushed by the debris.

Well, shit. No use in dallying any further. He stood up and began running his hand against some of the chunks of rock that separated them from the rest of the other brats. "Get up. I could feel a draft somewhere. If we can find it, we might be able to get out of here."

"Okay," came the soft, demure reply.

It took them awhile but a section of the rubble folded under enough pressure from his rifle's stock, collapsing into a disused rail cart rusted into place. The tracks led deeper into the mine and, oddly enough, the source of this constant breeze. Six semi-cradled his gun such that his arm was raised at an angle to for his Pip-Boy light to properly illuminate their path.

"Stay close to me, Hyper."

Ruby silently followed him. The Courier may have been on-guard for all possible threats but he was perceptive enough to tell that the little tyke behind him was shouldering all the blame for this potentially deadly mishap.

I don't entirely blame you, kid. Don't blame yourself too much, either.

They had been walking in the darkened silence for a good twenty minutes until they came across a cavern where the tracks split. Six heaved down on a lever on the wall and the entire room hummed; the fluorescent lamps hanging off the overhead wires all lit up. That meant that either whatever power source here was somehow still functional after all these years or the generators had been recently restored to working capacity. But he knew that no automated machine independent of HELIOS One or Hoover Dam could still generate this much electrical output after being in disuse for over two hundred years. Either there's a dormant nuclear core somewhere in here or someone's been here recently.

The rotting wooden furniture and the oxidized shelves were a welcoming sign of respite with the cold benches sturdy enough to support the combined weight of his supplies on top of his gear on top of his own heavy ass. And he was right: someone took the time and effort to clean off the dirt and grime on the table. A closer look revealed old cobwebs that had been freshly disturbed. The splotches of crude oil were still damp while an assortment of spent casings lay scattered about. Someone's definitely been here. Whatever they were shooting at though better be dead or...

"Hey, Six?"

Contrary to what he thought, he was actually relieved to her voice. "Yeah, Hyper?"

"You think everyone else is okay?"

Six raised his brow at her but she couldn't see that. "Pretty sure they're faring better. We got the worst of it, anyway."

"You think so?"

I like to think so. "Mmhmm."

Ruby was choking on her words now. "But...but I caused the cave-in. I...hit the support beams and...it got the mutants but...we—"

"Hyper, don't blame yourself for bad luck."

"It wasn't bad luck, Six!" she snapped. "You warned us about close quarters! You warned us to be careful with our weapons. You told me not to use Crescent Rose. You warned us and we didn't listen!"

The Courier could only stare. Ah shit, is she crying?

"I'm sorry. Really, really, really sorry, Six. Yang is probably hurt and so is Weiss and Blake. And Jaune and Pyrrha might be trapped with no air and, and, and, and Nora could be...and Ren...and, and, and, and—"

He never considered Ruby to be the type to hyperventilate but for good measure he gripped her arms and forced her to sit down on the bench just in case. "Hyper. Screw-ups like this happen whether you like it or not. How you adapt to it and survive is what matters. And have some faith in your buddies, damn it."

"But—"

He wiped away a wet mix of tears, sweat, and gunk off her cheek. "Ruby."

She stared at him as though he had grown a third head.

"Listen to me, kid. Blaming yourself isn't going to help. Your team needs you to dig through this mountain to find them while they do the same. Trust your teammates. Trust your friends. Have faith in their capability to survive on their own. They may give you hell but in the end, when you think everyone's left you, they're going to be the only people in this godforsaken world who'd run up out of the blue and take the hit for you when the shit hits the fan." Take it from me.

He let her go and turned towards the two branching tunnels. It was like the flip of a coin. Heads, you get death. Tails, you get death. The difference was how long it took before death came. Wind's coming strong from the right, possible exit route. Then again, the others could be still trapped in the left. Or they're both dead ends.

"Six, we should go this way."

He looked back to Hyper; having wiped her face, the girl peered into the dark of one of the tunnels with budding confidence and determination that reminded him of his own. And he felt proud. A bit.

"Six, you hear that?"

"Shhh."

Movement. Muffled voices. To their right, behind these rocks.

"Syrup! Syrup, wait!"

"Nora, be careful!"

"Hey, I can feel something over here!"

"Syrup? You smell something, boy?"

The three girls and their pet infant deathclaw crashed through the layer of cracked granite in a thick cloud of dirt. Syrup the infant deathclaw leaped vigorously around the legs of the Courier staring at the three disheveled girls struggling to get off each other. He lifted his arm to give them some light.

"Weiss! Blake! Nora! You're all okay!" And almost immediately, Hyper launched a rapid string of apologies. "I'm so sorry, sorry, sorry! It was my fault, I'm so, so sorry!"

"Ruby, it's okay. We're all fine." Cat-girl glanced to her right. "Right, Weiss?"

Snowball huffed. But the Courier could see through her front. Prissy girl was actually relieved and forgiving. "I'm just glad we're not separated anymore."

Pancake, ridiculously chipper as ever, flailed her arms around. "I thought we were goners! But Syrup led the way, didn't you, you good boy! Oh. Hey, Six!"

Six didn't wave back, instead keeping his rifle trailed towards the dark while he shuffled the mangy little monster away with his boot. "Good. You kids are still alive." I was starting to get worried.

"Oh, your concern is well appreciated," hissed Weiss.

"You can feel that, right?" Blake interjected, her fingers catching the end of the black ribbon waving over her shoulder.

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, we were following these tracks. This draft should be coming from down there."

"What about the others?" Snowball asked.

Pancake was all over Hyper. "Did you find Ren or Jaune or Pyrrha—"

Ruby deflated. "I don't know. I was hoping you ran into them."

"Her scroll broke," Six deadpanned. "Check your scrolls. You should have tabs on your friends, right?"

All three girls held up their sophisticated electronic devices. "No signal."

Are you kidding me? Really? If it were not for his helmet visor, they would have seen the disbelief scratched all over his face. So much for your 'advanced' Remnant technology.

"Don't worry, we'll mine through this mountain 'til we get them!" Nora declared, hefting her explosive supersledge-cannon against the ceiling, scraping a good chunk off a rickety support beam. Six grabbed the shaft and forced it back down to the ground.

"Damn it, Pancake! We've already had one cave-in," he growled.

"Oops, sorry!" she chirped.

The Courier was about to proceed further down the tracks when he felt something warm and damp against his pant leg. It took a lot of mental and emotional restraint in the wake of the brats snickering—yes, he heard them snicker—to not kick the horned little bastard into the wall.

Pancake would not stop laughing though. "Syrup! Ha-ha! Bad Syrup!"

Six growled trying to shoo the prickly devil away, having now learned that its piss smelled just as bad as he would have expected. That and he found out that the filters on his gas mask needed to be replaced again.

The rusted hinges held the wooden door shut. The Courier gave a solid kick, reducing it to splinters and provoking a familiar shriek from the other side. It was a familiar shriek and when he shown his light inside...

"Oh my..."

"It's not what it looks like!"

Well, shit. "Goddamn it, kids."

Six was sure he would have to address some rather physically sensitive issues with the brats sometime in the future. Stumbling into something that Snowball declared as 'absolutely scandalous' and 'unspeakably unbelievable' and then seeing how Hyper and the rest reacted made him reconsider their level of maturity. Seriously, if this was how those Remnant people behaved towards something like this, then the place must be God's Heaven compared to this radioactive Hell he called Earth.

"You guys saw nothing!" screamed Jaune, his sweaty cheeks redder than the stuttering redhead beside him.

"Sure, we didn't," Blake said with a little smirk.

Great. Your goddamn hormones decided to kick in now of all times. This drama between teenagers was eating away at his patience and he was well into his years to bother with this crap. Least you kept your clothes on and haven't gone any further than a smooch.

Ignoring the banter, the Courier made his way upstairs to a platform accommodating a hill of decrepit machinery with hoses and heavy-duty cables wiring it into the earth. No doubt, the terminals here were connected to the mainframe powering this whole underground mine. And while a lot of industrial equipment were fitted with varying console designs, they all had the same buttons that mostly had the same functions. It was not that hard to find the proper switches and after a few flips, the gears that had been running this place years ago came humming back to life, filling this whole section with fluorescent light.

"Oh!" Jaune yelped. "Huh. I knew there was a switch around here somewhere."

"Of course, you did. You just turned on the wrong—"

"Shut it, Blake!"

Six continued to work his way around this decrepit piece of Old World hardware that he knew should control the massive hydraulic blast doors in front of them. Then again, why were there massive hydraulic blast doors here anyway? In an abandoned gold mine in the middle of the desert? Unless the gold dried up and this is all a front for something what with all these damn wires, pipes, catwalks, and grinding steelworks... Christ, it's like the Divide. Is this...is this another pre-war bunker?

"I called it, I called it! Pyrrha, was he your first?"

"Nora! That's i-inappropriate!"

And it just had to be Sparta making the first move. Real smooth, Knight-boy. The Courier shook his head. He was too old for that. The console was far more attractive; the controls should be understandable at this point with the terminal now coming to life...

"You...a-and... You and..."

"Um, you okay, Weiss?"

"Pyrrha, I...I, well, you...actually—"

"Everyone, you all saw nothing. Nothing!"

"Keep telling yourself that, Jaune."

Six heard scratching and he looked down to see Syrup—goddamn that little monster—fervently clawing against the hydraulic doors. He let his right hand drop close to his right upper hip holster while his left continued to type away at the keyboard.

"Syrup? You smell something, boy?"

"Should we be worried?"

The sound of Remnant weapons clicking and shifting outwards echoed back in reply.

"Just in case, guys," Ruby intoned.

Weiss hummed back. "Something's behind those doors."

"Six—"

"Keep your wits about you, kids!" the Courier yelled down below, while chancing glances at the hydraulic doors. This should do it. "Conserve ammo and be mindful of your combat radii this time."

They all heard the klaxons hooting over the lamps flashing red. Six then heaved on the lever beside the console. The doors hummed and vibrated until they noisily lifted off the ground. A pair of human legs were waiting for them on the other side.

"See? I told you it would open by itself," remarked Blondie.

"Yang?"

"Huh, guess they found us," added Shaolin.

"Ren! You're okay! I was really, really, really worried! Look! Syrup was really worried too!"

Lucky. Now the whole gang is back together. The Courier could see gray metal walls up ahead and the familiar colors painted across them. United States Army. So much for an unassuming goldmine. Hsu was right. Something's up in here. He could feel something watching them from the dark. And he was sure whatever it was had been keeping a good eye on Blondie and Shaolin. It was no ordinary automated security system. It was something more sentient, more intelligent...more malevolent.

Yet, mechanical.

His fingers continued to rest against the ivory grip of his magnum revolver while he leaned over the platform to see the reunited teams RWBY and JNPR getting excited over them crashing in on Sparta kissing Knight-boy.

"Real smooth, Jaune."

"Yang, don't even—"

"So, Pyrrha. You finally took action."

"Ah, what are you talking about, Ren? Ah, ha-ha, what do you mean I took action?"

"A~awww, the two lovebirds are shy."

"Yang!"

Six looked back at the dark then at the bickering brats. For good measure, he worked through the terminal and dug as deep as he could into whatever security system was in place here. He could hear the gears grinding in a dozen places behind the walls. He could also hear light footfalls against the grated floor of the platform he was on.

"What is it, Cat-girl?"

She stopped. "You feel it, too?"

The Courier exhaled. At least she can tell. "About time you noticed."

"It's not...human." Blake's hands were already on the hilt and grip of her weapons.

"Security system is still active. I can't disable it from here." The mainframe has got to be further in. The data he managed to salvage from this particular computer was as confusing as it was alarming. Shit. This ain't RobCo. I don't recognize this name. 'U.S. Army prototypes?' What the hell is this? Damn manifest doesn't make any sense...but the recent entries... Someone has definitely been in here, putting this shit together and keeping them running.

Cat-girl shuffled closer to peek at what he was seeing on the screen. "What is all this?"

"I got a feeling we won't be going up against some RobCo scrap metal."

"What do you mean?"

Six shut down the terminal and unslung his rifle. "I mean keep an eye out. We're not alone down here." What have I gotten these kids into?

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 9, 2018

LAST EDITED: June 20, 2022

INITIALLY UPLOADED: February 11, 2018

Chapter Text

What in the goddamn..."

"This...how did...h-how..."

Six stole a glance behind him; out of the bewildered brats, Weiss sported horror on her puffy mug. You know about this, Snowball? "Don't tell me this is from Remnant."

"It looks a lot like Atlas technology," Yang mumbled dumbstruck.

Atlas? "So this is from Remnant," he grumbled.

"Atlas is one of the four kingdoms of Remnant," Blake explained. "So yes, this is...most likely a product of Atlas. Or resembles something they might be working on. I'm not sure."

Goddamn it. First people, now war machines. The Courier rapidly replaced the standard bullets in his rifle with hand-load explosive rounds. He scanned the hulking robotic beast huddled dormant atop its dais. Bipedal; two arms fitted with enough firepower to level a multistory house; body of a damn T-Rex; armor designation and metallic composition unknown. With that design, barring the firepower its packing, this battle-bot might be as predictable and vulnerable as deathclaws.

"If that thing comes alive, aim for the legs," he advised.

"We know how to deal with this," Ruby addressed with a hint of confidence. Her scythe had already extended to its maximum radius.

"Start dropping hints then," Six said, noting every discernible feature on the construct as well as the rest of this cavernous underground complex they had wandered into. "But if it comes alive, you kids better put it down quick."

"We got you, Six."

"Don't have to tell us twice."

"Don't worry! Just leave the leg-breaking to me."

The humming in the walls grew louder until sparks flickered from rips in some of the wires running over the floor. Energy surged instantly into the machine, bringing it to life in as much the same way as Doctor Frankenstein would with his own zombies.

The machine's 'head' flashed its omniscient red eye at them, registering every single individual on its sensors and immediately labeling them as hostile. Before it could so much as aim, Six fired two shots in quick succession. The first round blew a hole in its armor while the second tore dug into the hole and ripped apart its left leg, severely stunting its mobility and forcing it down onto the floor. Just like deathclaws.

The rest was a flurry of movement courtesy of the teams RWBY and JNPR. While flashy, their attacks reduced this 'United States Army prototype' to smoking scrap metal.

Knowing the Old World, there's bound to be more of these in stasis somewhere. "Stay alert, kids! Expect more of them," the Courier hollered. Earth borrowing Remnant technology or the other way around? Either way, this ain't good for anyone.

He stepped over the broken robot. A closer, incriminating look revealed details that triggered more alarm bells in his head. The hell? This...this doesn't look like it's two hundred years old.

"This thing...is too fresh out of the assembly line," he muttered under his breath.

So why the hell was it labeled a 'U.S. Army prototype'? Enclave? No. That wouldn't make much sense. Pre-war? Can't be pre-war if it's this clean or there's some time distorting shit going around. Big MT? No, I should be notified if something happened there. Then again, it has been a long ass while since I last checked up on comms with those eggheads. What the hell is going on here?

"You got something, Six?" asked Ruby.

He pointed to the catwalk above them. "Hyper, take your team up there and give us overwatch."

She nodded, her apprehension betraying her nerve.

If only she could see through his closed helmet. I trust you, Hyper. "The rest of you, follow me and stay close."

They stumbled into a damn warehouse.

"No," Weiss squeaked. "No, no, no, no... This...this can't be..."

The supervisor's office had a good view of the elephantine grotto housing three rows of inactive 'Atlesian Paladins' or something along those lines. Or they somewhat looked like Atlesian Paladins, or an earlier version of some kind of Remnant robotic war machine. At least, according to Snowball.

Six was sure he heard the brats skip a few heartbeats at seeing something like this. It was nothing new to him though. Besides, the secrets he strove to keep hidden underneath the Lucky Thirty-Eight and the rest of New Vegas sort of ran along the same vein.

He checked the wiring and found the terminal on the desk still operational. He switched it on, hacked his way in, and perused the data flooding onto the screen. "We got a whole damn platoon down there."

"Weiss, have you come across news of any...recent supply problems in Atlas?" Pyrrha asked, the worry seeping through her inquiry. "Or perhaps anything significant?"

"Or involving these?" added Jaune.

Weiss shook her head in disbelief. "I...I don't understand... None that I particularly recall. These all look like...previous designs. Look, their weapon systems are different and the main body looks too small to house a pilot. The hoses and the servomotors are even exposed. If I recall correctly, per Atlas combat system design regulations, they should be encased."

"So...are these ours? As in 'made in Remnant' material?" Nora wondered.

"They're all inactive," observed Cat-girl. "Even then, if they really are earlier Paladins, then that makes them mechanized battle suits. They're made to make the basic foot soldier a formidable battlefield weapon."

Ruby nodded. "So without a pilot, they're basically scrap metal."

"I wouldn't bet on that," echoed Six. Teams RWBY and JNPR huddled around the shimmering terminal screen displaying lines of code and text that were either too sophisticated or too convoluted to be understandable to the layman. "These are all automated. They don't need direct human control. All it takes is a power source and these bastards will light up like the Securitrons on the Strip. Complete with their own A.I."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Jaune looked a little pale. No one could blame him. "You're saying that these Paladins...have minds of their own? And they just need new batteries?"

"Pretty much."

A gulp. "Anyway to shut them all down?"

"I'm working on it." The Courier perused the schematics, identifying chinks in the armor.

Whatever these Atlesian Paladins were, they were clearly miles apart in form and function from RobCo's commissioned models. Based on the information he was getting, a single Paladin outclassed a Mark-II Securitron. That meant that these war machines were designed by Remnant for Remnant. Someone took the time and effort to transport them to Earth and had them refitted to fight on Earth's terms: no Dust, no Aura, no Semblance. Just raw science coupled with heavy firepower.

Then he uncovered the munitions manifest which listed their ammunition: thousands of twelve-point-seven depleted uranium rounds and a gross of M42 Fat Man micro-nuclear warheads. "Ah, shit..."

"I'm starting to get a feeling that whenever you say that, something bad is about to happen," remarked Knight-boy, his 'family heirloom' sword tight in his grip and his shield up in front of his face.

"Jaune, shut up before you jinx—" Yang was cut off by the vibrations caused by over a dozen Paladins coming to life.

By then, Six had shut down the terminal in a futile attempt to counter the bunker's automated security system. That's settled then. These things shouldn't see the light of day. He dug into his munitions pouches, feeling for what he needed to put an end to this engagement before the entire facility would come crashing down over their heads.

"Hyper!" he called out.

Ruby slid up to him with Crescent Rose in her grip. "Six?"

The Courier began chambering his rifle with pulse rounds. "Use Crescent Rose."

Hyper blinked. Twice. Three times. Then smiled as she twirled her oversized gardening tool in a proud display. In her mind, this was going to be easy.

Only, it wasn't.

The Paladins had been retrofitted to be absurdly resistant to Dust. In contrast, the twelve-point-sevens chipped away at their Aura like buzz saws. Their Semblances could only do so much in the face of this much firepower. Oh, and the facility was collapsing on top of their heads; the system's automated monotone voice announced the irreversible countdown sequence minutes earlier.

"Six! We have to get out of here!"

"They're blocking the exit!"

"I don't know if we can smash through!"

The Courier lacked Aura, had no Semblance, and was useless with Dust. But he did have his own skill set and a few built-in tools that accommodated the lack of those. His eyes took less than a second to note the positions the brats placed themselves in. Teams RWBY and JNPR managed to take down a handful of Paladins until the remaining robots utilized their built-in artificial intelligence by tactically regrouping and coming onto them in full force.

The brats' formations splintered after that.

"We're stuck!"

"Can't hold this for long!"

"Six!"

Nine robots. Close-knit formation.

Hyper was trapped on the catwalk above with her sister, with the only option to jump atop the machines. Shaolin, Pancake, and her damn pet were corralled into an empty room with only the barricade they put up being their only protection from the barrage of bullets tearing into it. Knight-boy, Sparta, and Cat-girl were exhausting themselves frantically dodging the enfilading fire that was ripping apart the entire complex. Meanwhile, Snowball was trying desperately to maintain a cluster of glyphs to delay their approach and support everyone else.

All it takes is at least one...

"I don't want to die here!"

"SIX!"

He had to wait for the right moment. Nothing was invincible; there was always that opening that he had to look real hard for. A moment later, he saw it. Reflex rapidly centered his aim and he fired.

Time to move.

The pulse round did enough damage to stun the closest prototype and that was when everything else in his God-forsaken, overused, over-abused, over-experimented body kicked in.

"Ruby, Yang! Hit 'em from the top! Now!" he boomed.

They hesitated for a bit. Then Crescent Rose and Ember Celica rained down fire into the mass of robots.

"Nora: legs! Ren: arms!"

Shaolin and Pancake burst through the barricade, ripping through the forest of appendages that kept the Paladins standing and sending the bulk of them tumbling down on top of each other. Even that little monster of a pet Syrup scampered up to the only robot unaffected by the attack and tore away entire coils of servomotor wires from an exposed gash in the rear of its torso, rendering it immobile and vulnerable.

"Pyrrha, spear! Two o'clock! Blake, distraction!"

The redhead's javelin-gun had already wound its way into the head of a Paladin still standing, knocking out its sensors and sending it toppling onto the other war machines that had been confused by the many illusions of the feline faunus girl jumping between them.

"Jaune, cover me! Weiss, put one under me now!"

The blond knight nodded and planted the base of Crocea Mors into the floor, absorbing the debris and shrapnel sent sputtering their way. A widening glyph glowed beneath them, charging the soles on the Courier's boots before he leapt high above the tumbling prototypes.

Whether it was adrenaline, a break in his psyche, or the various little special trappings sown into his body, time seemed to slow. Six was several feet above the Paladins. All eyes followed the round metallic object flying out of his palm, its piercing red lights flashing...

"Cover!" the Courier yelled, lining the sights of his revolver on the active EMP mine.

He squeezed and everything went deafeningly white. For three seconds. And the retrofitted Atlesian Paladins were forever still.

It took a while for Raul to find them. The ghoul assailed the rugged cliff face to reach the other side of the mountain where he literally dropped in on them catching their breaths in front of the entrance to a disused mine-shaft. It was not too hard to figure out what had happened in there.

"That was some shit advice, Raul," Boss snarled, wincing while massaging his arms. "Christ, I'm hurting from my pelvis all the way down."

Raul snickered, popping open two bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla and handing him the other. "It still worked."

The Courier could not help the twinge of pride showing on his scowl.

"What are you going to tell the NCR now, Boss?"

"Cave-in."

"You sure they'd buy that?"

"I'd be dead before they catch on."

And the little diablos would be back where they came from or far away from the NCR as possible by then. That much went unsaid.

Six allowed a mischievous smirk. "Besides, I barely made it out alive of that goddamn shit-hole."

Raul raised his brow. He chuckled and threw a thumb over his shoulder at teams RWBY and JNPR huddled by a campfire they started up. "You still keeping them in the dark over the little diablos? They already know."

"Not much."

The ghoul conceded. "They still know."

"They don't know everything."

"You have a point there, Boss. Not like I don't always underestimate the capabilities of a military government with an effective intelligence agency subsisting multiple departments specializing in various fields of, oh say, intelligence gathering."

Boss gave him a fierce glare. Raul would never tire of it given how much shit the Courier always dragged himself through whether or not he wanted to.

"You know, Boss, if it makes you sleep better at night, I did some digging and the best anyone in the NCR knows about them are their first names."

"And I plan on keeping it that way," Six growled.

"For how long exactly?"

"As long as it goddamn takes."

"They really are special to you, huh."

Raul never let up. It was just like him to be so persistent. Poking at him for answers about why the kids were catching their breaths a good ways across from them.

"They really are special to you, huh."

Six exhaled. "I'm not going to even lie to you. Those kids don't deserve to be here. They should be back home. Where they came from. Where they belong."

"Boss, you can't regain innocence—"

I know. "That's not what I'm worried about. I don't want them turning back up in Remnant like us. Trigger-happy, jumping at shadows, burning bridges before building 'em... I don't want them having shit like this hanging over their heads, them acting like us in a place that isn't meant to have people like us."

Raul grunted. "You're right. Unlike those little angels, we both deserve to burn."

A long sigh. The Courier leaned his head against the rock, eyelids finally shutting. "I don't know how the hell they wound up here but when I found them..." Why'd they have to behave just like her? They look so much like 'em. Why'd she even have to look so much like her?

"Boss?"

He took a long swig hoping the sugar in the sarsaparilla would make him feel any better than he already was not. "I'm going to find a way to send them back. 'Til then, I'll maybe watch over 'em before they, I don't know, disappear."

"Why again are you still holding onto them? Because I'm sure their antics are being counterproductive to your productivity, Boss."

Getting really tired of your sass right now. "You know why. I just don't want to find a mass grave filled with kids again."

If there was one word the ghoul could use to describe the voice that he heard, it was tired. Very tired. "Boss... What is it this time?"

The Courier kept drinking until the bottle was near empty. "Followed up reports on Legion activity way too close to the front. Pay was good and it was a good enough excuse to get the kids used to the outdoors."

"You led them to the Legion?"

"Had them garrison Cottonwood while crossed the Colorado."

"Scouted Arizona?"

"Just last week. Mass grave east of the promontories. Lots of dead on both sides of the highway. Dumped into open trenches and freshly-dug ditches. Some of them lined up like a collection of chewed-up dolls."

"How many?"

"Way too fucking many. Damn bodies already started attracting the wildlife. Could smell them even from where I was."

Raul exhaled, his peeling face grim. "Who were they fighting?"

"It wasn't a battle, Raul. The Legion's marching south. Those bodies I found..." They looked so much like them. "They were slaves and their families, the sick, the elderly...anyone who couldn't keep up the pace."

"Does the NCR know this?"

"They won't do anything about it, anyway." Six grimaced as he raised a sluggish arm against his ears. "Damn EMP might've given me tinnitus."

The ghoul stared at him, fully aware of the attentive dark-haired girl with the cat ears who had snuck up and crouched behind the rock spire to their right, no doubt listening in to their conversation. He continued to pretend being oblivious about it. Besides, the Courier was probably ignoring her too.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 12, 2018

LAST EDITED: June 26, 2022

INITIALLY UPLOADED: February 16, 2018

Chapter Text

The peaceful solitude afforded by the privatized cocktail lounge of the Lucky Thirty-Eight was interrupted by the ding of the elevator and footfalls pacing unevenly over the carpets.

"Six! There you are! I really needed to talk to you about something...important."

"Hnn...?" The Courier lifted his head off the bar to glare at the blurry son of a bitch who was ruining his quality drinking time.

Jaune slid onto the stool next to him, shuffling and fidgeting like a drenched kitten. "Good to see you still up. You see, I'm in a bit of a...predicament. Or a bind. I don't know. I'm stuck in a pickle is what I'm trying to say."

Six blinked, trying so hard to forget the boy's presence and register his every word at the same time. As much as he wanted to, he was too plastered to even bother shooing him away.

"You know...I think you know. It might be pretty obvious, heh, given your experience in this stuff. Right? Um..." The blond scratched the back of his head. "I guess you could say that I have a crush on Weiss."

Snowball? She giving you a hard-on? For some reason, he felt he should not be surprised by that.

"I've been trying to, you know, deepen our friendship since we first met. Well, back on Remnant, of course. We go way back. I mean, not way, way, way back but to the first day at Beacon. First day of classes and all. So...she's been, um, living up to her monicker, heh. You know... 'Ice Queen'... Um, I haven't given up. And I think she's been warming up to me recently. I think. I can't tell, honestly."

The Courier raised his brow, squinting his eyes at him as he half-heartedly tried to understand what he was saying. Even the words he heard in his messed-up brain came out slow and slurred. You want to fuck Snowball?

"But that's not the problem here." The boy was too finicky, laughing shakily and muttering phrases to himself. "I just want her to...be less cold, you know? I mean, is that so hard to ask from her? Ruby likes me. I mean, as a friend, of course! She's like a sister to me. A sister from another mother, yeah!"

You want to fuck your sister? What the fuck— Wait. Did the elevator ding again? Shit. I'm hearing things.

"Six, I want to get your opinion on this. It's not about Weiss—okay, so it is about Weiss—but on someone else too."

Weird. Could've sworn I saw Snowball walk in. How deep in the bottle am I? The Courier could barely tell. The throbbing in his temples concerned him more.

"You know Pyrrha, right? Of course, you do. You keep calling her Sparta. What does Sparta mean, anyway? Is it some kind of Wasteland compliment or something? Not that I think you're demeaning her but it would kind of suck if that was the case. I mean, she's family. And as the team leader of JNPR, I will not stand for any insult directed at my partner or any of my team members! Not that I think you're insulting them but, well, you're...uh...never mind."

So you want to fuck Sparta too? Six blinked, rubbing a sloppy hand over his pulsing forehead. Wait. I'm pretty damn sure I just saw Sparta over there next to Snowball. What's with that weird look on her face?

"I know I can be dense sometimes. Hell, I don't need Nora yelling in my ear or Ren saying something vague every now and then. I've got enough of that from my sisters. But I've noticed how, uh, weird Pyrrha's been acting around me, you know? Ah, who am I kidding... You've seen it. You walked in on it. And I reiterate that she initiated the kiss! I was just reacting to it."

The Courier groaned, his mounting annoyance directed more at his hangover than at the blurry shapes congregating at the far end of the bar. Ah, damn. Now I'm seeing Blondie and Hyper. Alcohol's getting to my brain. Maybe I should lay off the sauce a bit more.

"And...I sort of, well... Don't tell anybody about this, okay? But that kiss? Down in the mines? I sort of, kinda, really, really liked it. I never actually thought Pyrrha felt that way about me. It was shocking, to put it lightly. But it opened my eyes. Or, my eyes were open. Uh, what I meant to say was that...it got me thinking."

The veteran wastelander burped then slumped back into his arms, his bloodshot eyes dilating at group of girls idling awkwardly behind the bumbling teen beside him. Are they even real? They sure look fucking real.

"Now, I'm conflicted. I really, really want to open up with Weiss. I mean, she may not like me that way and I get that. I still want to be a better friend to her, you know? I'm pretty sure that underneath that prim and posh, there's a modest girl with a kind heart who's had to grow up the way others wanted her to, y'know?"

Is Snowball...crying? Nah, she's...she's rubbing her eyes or something. Definitely wiping her face. Right? I can't tell. What the fuck, man... Six blinked. Nope, she's just smiling. Has to be. Smiling sad? How the fuck do you smile while sad? Can I do that?

"At this point," Jaune continued, somewhat oblivious to those behind him. "I'm fine with being that dude friend who's just there to listen to all her woes and at least try to understand her problems. And, where we're from, guys like those are...they aren't around as much, I guess. I mean, you've got jerks who just want to get with someone because they're filthy rich or they've got connections and that stuff..."

The Courier noticed movement and nearly drew his revolver except for the fact that both his hands were on the bar holding an empty shot glass and an empty bottle of whiskey. Oh, it's just Sparta popping open a cold one.

Jaune exhaled while staring dreamily at the Mojave skyline. "If Weiss sees me as that guy then...I don't blame her. I guess it's in the Arc family bloodline to sacrifice our own happiness for that of others. But I just want her to know that...I'll be here for her. As a friend. Because I really do care...y'know?"

Six angled his head only to feel that needling pain in the back of his head suddenly spear right through the side of his brain. Shit! Goddamn migraines. Where's my aspirin? Now the girls were looking confused...or conflicted...or convoluted. Something along those lines. Defeintley real, though. Yeah. They look really real.

The blond shrugged at himself. "And then...there was that thing in the mines, y'know. After what happened...I feel like I've been neglecting someone so close to me this whole time."

Close your mouth, kid, I can smell your breath. Or is that me?

Jaune dropped his head into his hands, moaning. "I'm an idiot. I'm such an idiot! How did I not see the signs? Weiss kept shooting me down but Pyrrha was there right beside me, giving me all her support...even though it hurt her."

Hurt her? You popped her cherry? Shit, already? I mean, I thought that already broke from them jumping around in their magic-acrobatic mumbo-jumbo... Wait. Whose cherry? This was getting even more confusing and all this thinking was compounding the stressed neurons in the Courier's drunken brain.

"This whole time, Pyrrha was...I mean...I'm her partner. We're partners! Was I that dense? Oh man, I feel like a big jerk. To be honest with you, Six, I kinda-sorta-maybe really like Pyrrha, too. She's...I think she's actually been more than just a friend to me for the past couple months." Knight-boy flashed this look of momentary panic as if he had reached some sort of traumatic epiphany. "Six, I just realized... I think I might feel the same way towards Pyrrha. Aw, crap. I screwed up! I'm screwing up!"

What the flying fuck are you going on about now, son? All Six could piece together from the poor kid's rambling was Snowball, yadda-yadda, Sparta, yadda-yadda, I like them, yadda-yadda...

"I'm stuck. Weiss has been, well, more open recently and that's, like, a major milestone! But I just can't...go on knowing that I'm ripping apart someone else's heart." A sigh. "Ugh. That last line was cheesy. You know what I mean, right, Six?"

The Courier reached for another bottle across the bar. Need a refill.

"I mean...don't you think? What do you think? Should I keep trying for Weiss or should I maybe let Pyrrha speak her mind? You know, clear the air."

Six popped off the cork and poured himself another full glass, downing it, burping, grunting, then finally slurring, "Snowball and Sparta, right?"

Jaune probably thought he had been paying attention more than he actually was because his eyes lit up and his hands were flying everywhere. The poor kid was on the verge of a panic attack. "I know, right!? Should I go for Weiss or answer Pyrrha? Weiss or Pyrrha? I mean, oh no...I... Weiss or Pyrrha!?"

He stared at him from his spot on the bar, his cracked eyes boring deep holes into the poor kid's ever-loving soul. With a long sigh, he clapped his hand on his shoulder. "Boy..."

Jaune stilled as eyes went wide with anticipation. Along with the four girls silently watching them with rapt attention a couple stools back.

"... I am too old for that shit."

With that, the Courier slid the blond Huntsman-in-training an unused shot glass and the uncorked bottle of vodka before stumbling to the elevator, passing by a conflicted Weiss, a blushing Pyrrha, a grinning Yang, and an awkward Ruby.

"Move, kids."

"Kids?" Horrified, Jaune spun on his stool and froze up. "You were there the whole time!?"

"Wow, Jaune," whistled Yang. "Didn't know you were having a relationship crisis."

Things loudly escalated from there. Six pressed himself against the wall until the elevator doors closed, shutting out the noise. Is it hormone season for these kids? What the hell. They're going to be humping each other soon and I'm not in the mood to deal with that crap. Ugh. I need an aspirin or seven right about now. He hoped they would not break anything up there. Or blow up the Lucky Thirty-Eight. Both were likely to happen.

Blake was the only occupant he found in the presidential suite, lounging on one of the sofas in the recreation room and reading some faded Old World history book that she found somewhere.

"Where's Shaolin and Pancake?"

"Went for a walk with Syrup."

Goddamn it. Six groaned as he sat back down across from her, his fingers crushing circles against his temples. His hangover seemed to have gotten a bit worse. Two ridiculously destructive teens walking a domesticated infant deathclaw in a public sidewalk on the Strip without (his) proper supervision was guaranteed to end in disaster. All it takes is one finicky son of a bitch to put one through that little fucker and Pancake's going to go berserk. Total costs are going to range in the tens of thousands—

"You don't have to worry about us so much," Cat-girl remarked.

The Courier raised his brow at her. "Come again?"

Without so much as taking her eyes off her reading material, she continued, "We're old enough to handle ourselves. You don't have to worry about finding us in a mass grave."

Sly cat. He chuckled and tilted his head at her; his amusement met her confusion. "You honestly think I'm that paranoid?"

"Yes."

"Fair enough judgment."

"... How bad is the Legion?"

Six sighed. Her book had been set aside for him to receive her full attention. "You already know."

"Slavery?"

He nodded. "Slavery. A despotic empire of pure misogyny where the word of a single man is held as divine and absolute."

"Oh."

He caught the twitch in the corner of her eye and held back a beguiled grin. Guess you don't have these types of folks back in Remnant, eh? "It's a fucking mockery of the real Romans but at least they try to behave like 'em, adopting all the good and the bad."

"What was good and what was bad?"

The Courier coughed out a bitter laugh. "You have security and order. At the cost of freedoms, science, and even fucking modern medicine. It's a civilization built on living backwards but it just so happened to work. And it worked well. At least, to those who don't end up as slaves."

Blake frowned. "How could all this exist in the first place?"

"Look around you and you'll see why." Six leaned back to catch a glimpse of the book she had been reading: A Concise History of the Roman Empire, Fourth Edition. How appropriate. "You're lucky you kids didn't get dropped in Arizona. Even with your Dust and Semblances, I doubt you could hold off the full tide of the Legion before they slap their collars on your necks and whip you into hauling their baggage train like starved brahmin. Because that's what women are to the Legion. Nothing more than something to scratch their dicks with."

Her fists were clenched and pale but her voice was calm and controlled. "You make them sound worse than what everyone else says."

"Yeah. Much worse than the White Fang."

Her eyes went wide over his knowing mug. She was already in front of his face, a full range of emotions flashing through her piercing gold irises. "How did you..."

The Courier was unfazed while he popped in two pills of aspirin. Gotcha, kitty. "You mumble in your sleep."

"I what?"

He pushed his finger onto her shoulder until she deflated back onto the couch. "Word of advice, kid: eat less before bedtime. The more you munch down, the more you talk over snoring."

Blake sunk into the sofa for the next five minutes. Her head dipped, her attention lost to the patterns of the carpet on the floor, her mind wandering back to memories she tried so hard to suppress.

In that time, Six had gone to the kitchen and whipped himself up a non-alcoholic beverage to help kill his hangover. He walked back into the recreation room and surprised her by sitting beside her..

"Adam Taurus," he said. "I take it he's a bull faunus."

Cat-girl was now glaring daggers. "He has a dominant bovine heritage."

So he is a bull. 'Taurus' pretty much gave that away. Six briefly reciprocated her hollow stare with his own. His brain was starting to hurt less, which was good. Should make more of these smoothies. Better stock up on banana yucca. "The way you talk about him in your sleep makes him the perfect poster boy for the Legion. Horns and all."

"Do you ever think about the people you killed?" she nearly flared.

So this is where we're going, now. "No."

That answer took her aback because he heard her neck crack when she snapped her head at him. "No?"

"No."

Silence. Then a more aggressive inquiry. "Have you ever considered that these people...have others who cared about them?"

"Yes," he deadpanned.

She blinked. "Then...why...?"

"Blake." Six put down his glass on the table and faced her completely. "Don't be like me. Please. I don't know what this White Fang business is really all about but from what I've been picking up... You've left behind a world of hurt to build a world of healing. I mean, that's what you hunting-folk do, don't you? That's what they teach on Remnant, right? Serve and protect and all that?"

Her face was as solid as stone.

"Well, let me fill you in. You're not on Remnant now. I know you miss it; homesick folks tend to walk and talk in their sleep...well, as far as I've seen, anyway." He tapped her shoulder. "You're playing by the Wasteland's terms now. There's neither time nor room for sentimentality out here in the Mojave or much less anywhere else on this godforsaken rock."

Her voice was soft. "Do you ever feel guilty?"

He was quiet for a long moment but his weighted pupils studied every detail of her expression. "Sometimes."

"Is that why you drink?"

"I have my reasons."

"You know, you have a reputation. It's hard to ignore. I mean...I can understand why you're not proud of some of the things you did. Or, what they say you did." Blake studied him only to find a blank expression. "I'm sorry if I..."

The Courier tittered. "It's fine, Blake." He raised his brow at her when he felt her hand rest over his palm. "I won't blame you for being curious."

"You had a job to do," she croaked.

He nodded. "And we did it."

Blake glanced up at him. "We?"

Six was silent. His bloodshot eyes bore deep into her for a half-minute before tearing away to the smoothie on the table. "What's done is done. Long since moved on to...heh, well, bigger and better things as they say."

"... Six... Thank you for trusting us."

"... You're welcome."

"So...how's that hangover?"

The Courier leaned against the cushion. "I thought you and Shaolin were the quiet ones. You've been very talkative today, you know that?"

"This is just one of those rare instances..." Blake brought her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. "Hey, we really appreciate all that you're doing for us. Ruby shows it. She looks up to you. And Jaune, he's also taking after you."

Well, I'm fucking flattered. He smirked. "So they'll be drinking with me in a couple weeks, eh?"

Cat-girl chortled softly. "We'll rein them in. You worry about Yang trying to outdrink you again. You two brawling is kinda stressful."

Hell, I can't believe I even agreed to be her punching bag in the first place. "She breaks my chin, I'll break her forearm." And no amount of Aura is going to heal all those broken bones.

"Duly noted."

He nudged his thumb to the dining area. "You want a smoothie?"

"No thanks," she answered with a bright and relieved smile.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 14, 2018

LAST EDITED: June 26, 2022

INITIALLY UPLOADED: February 19, 2018

Chapter Text

Six did not know whether to be anxious or amused with what he found outside the very doors of the Lucky 38. Down on the steps was a crowd of tourists, troops on furlough, and MPs huddled around Shaolin and Pancake. Or more specifically, their little devil Syrup. Pancake's wrist was cuffed to a chain that ended on a bright red shock-collar locked around the infant deathclaw's neck.

"Step right up, folks! Pet the deathclaw! A once in a lifetime experience!" pitched Nora as Ren stood across from her with a flipped Stetson hat already filling up with bottle caps and NCR bills.

"That...thing isn't going to bite, right?" asked a nervous onlooker.

"Only if you have meat on your hands," Pancake winked.

"How'd you tame it?" another wondered.

"It's a secret," teased the bubbly teen.

"Probably fake. Got to be a robot with some good latex and silicone," an MP muttered.

The Courier, still comprehending what he was seeing, descended onto the street. "What in the goddamn...?"

Nora nearly gave him a hug. "Oh, hey, Six!"

The sudden influx of gazes coupled with the disruptive silence was uncomfortable enough—he often loathed the attention his reputation heaped upon him. Everyone except for a few MPs wisely took several steps back. At least they were smart enough to recognize the real power-players in the Mojave.

Pancake exaggerated her faux disappointment. "Six, how could you!? You're scaring my customers!"

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Earning our keep," replied Ren, showing him the money in the hat. He leaned in slightly to quietly add, "So you won't have to pay for bribes anymore."

"Shut up, Shaolin."

"Excuse me. Mind if we take a photo?" asked a woman in a bright orange summer dress. Her partner in the wooly cardigan carefully meandered over with a camera ready.

"Sure!" burst Nora.

Six let himself be shooed to the side while the bubbly ginger teen positioned Syrup between the two Californian tourists. The flash from the camera almost made him reach for his sidearm; deathclaws were known to react to sudden stimuli and flashing lights were one of them. To his surprise, however, Syrup was as docile as the Sphinx...assuming that the Egyptian wonder was still standing for the past two hundred years. A few scenic shots later and Pancake was three hundred NCR dollars richer. Three hundred NCR dollars...

"Um, sir... You're not going to stop this?" whispered an MP.

"I don't care anymore," the Courier grumbled.

Trust the kids. Trust the kids. Trust the kids not to burn down the goddamn tower. The Courier took a deep breath before bellowing, "I'm heading out, kids!" Damn it, I sound too damn old.

Hyper was in his face the instant the last word left his lips. Jittery excitement screamed out of those wide silver pupils that it was hard not to fold to her demands. Good thing he drank just enough to be immune to her charm. He pushed her head away from his nose with his finger.

"But, Si~ix!"

"No, Hyper. You and everyone else are staying here." He tapped the frame of the Securitron next to him as the brats slowly gathered before the elevator doors. "Victor'll keep a close eye on you and he will drag your asses back here the moment you step out of line!"

"You won't have to worry about us," Blondie chirped.

"Yeah. We got everything under control," assured Knight-boy.

Shaoling headed to the kitchen. "I'll go make pancakes."

Huh. Why do I have a feeling that somehow something's going to go horribly wrong the moment I get into the elevator? Six shook the apprehension out of his head even his though his gut was screaming like a banshee. Nah. Just the sauce talking. Better go before—

BOOM!

Snowball shrieked from the showers. Everyone else had to help Nora restrain Syrup from tearing through the walls to get to the 'emergency' while they all muscled to the lavatory in a panic. Victor turned to the Courier with that stupid fucking cowboy avatar grinning at him on its screen.

Don't you say a single word, Vic—

"You want a go back up for a drink?" chirped the Securitron AI.

Goddamn it. "Shut up, Victor."

"Are you kidding me, Ice Queen!?"

"Do I look like I'm humoring anyone!?" screamed a drenched, flustered, and obviously underdressed Weiss who was wrapped in a ripped shower curtain. The showers themselves were encased in a thin chamber of jagged ice. Several of the brats' clothes could be seen floating in and around the flood of water rising out of the severed drainage pipes angled out of the broken shower floors.

"You had one job, Weiss!"

"Now what are we supposed to wear!?"

"Well, it could be worse..."

How the fuck... Six gawked. He was too dumbstruck to notice Pyrrha worriedly nudging him about the involuntary twitching in his eye. "Snowball. Were you doing laundry...in the shower...while showering...with your Dust...and Semblance?"

"I was being pragmatic!"

His eye twitched even more. It's pragmatic if you don't blow up all ten cubicles on this suite! How the fuck did you fuck up your own laundry anyway!? How does that lead to this!? How the fuck do you rip out the drainage while washing clothes and yourself? Just how!? Why the hell did you have to use your goddamn ice tricks anyway!? Was that even necessary!?

"Uh-oh." Jaune nervously chuckled. "You know, Six, we couldn't find any, um, good places to do laundry. So..."

"I guess this just proves that Weiss doesn't do her own chores—"

"Excuse me, Ren!" Snowball angrily screamed, the curtain crumpling in her grip. "I'll have you know that—"

"You have butlers that do everything for you," completed a smirking Blake.

"Especially her 'cake butler,'" mused Ruby.

"Yeah. 'Cause she's an heiress with like a hundred servants," added Yang.

"On the bright side, we could always go dry cleaning," suggested Pyrrha.

Ren balked. "Pyrrha, you do know that most of our clothes are not tailored for dry cleaning, right?"

"Dry cleaning is still cleaning, Renny. Besides, we could always go to Freeside where it's cheaper." Nora bent down to rub at Syrup's chin. "And buy you some treats along the way! Isn't that right, Syrup? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And maybe get you a bath too!"

"You can always fix it," hooted Victor from the corridor.

I'm surrounded by idiots. The Courier slumped onto a chair to massage his temples. It amazed him how the brats were able to break something that was the least likeliest to be broken, let alone something he never thought could be broken in the first place. That and he was equally frustrated that he would have to deal with this mess because Lord knows these brats wouldn't. Why? Because they couldn't!

"Hyper, get me my tool kit. And Snowball...put some goddamn clothes on."

"I don't think she has anything clean to wear," Blondie snickered.

"I don't think any of us have anything clean to use right now," mulled Shaolin.

"I wonder why," echoed Cat-girl, a taunting smile creeping on the edge of her cheek while Weiss merely flushed with fury.

Ruby burst back into the room in a flurry of rose petals, dropping Six's toolbox next to him, and raised her hand. "I call a vote! Anyone in favor of banning Weiss from laundry duty, say 'aye.'"

Everyone else (including Snowball) raised their palms.

"Anyone in favor of teaching Weiss how to do laundry, say 'aye.'"

"Hey!" Alas, everyone (except Snowball) raised their palms.

"So who's going to teach her?"

Jaune squeaked. Then stumbled in front of Weiss, very nearly ripping the shower curtain off her hands. Behind him, Yang whistled a merry tune.

"Eep! I refuse to be taught by—"

"Too late," Blondie snickered. Then her eyes suddenly lit up as a thought crossed her mind, a flashy grin morphing on the edges of her cheeks. "Now that we don't have anything remotely clean... Does that mean we're going to have to go shopping? We don't have much of a wardrobe, after all."

Hyper and Pancake suddenly flanked Six, prodding him on his shoulders and arms with hungry grins while Syrup breathed eagerly against his leg. Great. Five hundred caps on laundry, a thousand on new clothes, and six hours to fix the goddamn plumbing and everything else in the shower rooms. The Courier had barely set foot outside the Lucky 38 and he was already feeling exhausted. Goddamn it, kids.

"I'm bo~ored..." Ruby drawled.

In the back of the recreation room, Yang leaped from her chair with a fist pumped in victory. "Hah! I win, four to one!"

"Argh! You just got lucky," Nora drawled, the cards flopping from her hands while Syrup lapped at her legs.

"You were just throwing out cards," Ren corrected. "You do remember the rules, right?"

"You guys still playing Caravan?" the reaper asked, dragging her legs towards one of their table.

Yang beamed. "Yep. Too bad no one was betting."

"We are not going to gamble away our earnings, Yang," reiterated Ren.

"Aww, come on. Take some risks! Makes everything worth it. Besides, with my luck and your income, we could've been rich enough to buy us all tickets to the Aces Theater! Legitimately this time."

"Do they have any other better acts?" huffed Weiss from across the room, her body framed over the recliner with a book on the recent history of the United States resting in her grip. "That 'comedian' has horrible humor."

"Dark humor is still humor, Ice Queen."

"Of course. Leave it to Yang to find death funny," the heiress muttered.

"How long did Six say he was going to be gone for again?"

"Three days," Blake replied, herself engrossed with a weathered tome.

"Say, anybody know where Jaune went?" Ruby asked as she took her place across from Ren with a full hand of cards.

It was hard not to notice the naughty glint in Yang's eyes, much less the mischief dripping from her tone. "He's having some alone time with Cereal Girl down on the Strip."

"She muscled Swank into locking them alone in a room together at the Tops," corrected Ren.

The reaper scrunched her brow. "I thought we weren't supposed to leave the Lucky 38."

"Actually, we weren't supposed to leave the Lucky 38 without proper supervision," said Nora as her lips curled into a smile. "And Victor is an AI so he can basically jump to any Securitron on the Strip so~o..."

Her partner sighed. "No, Nora. We're not going out for another walk."

"But Renny~!"

Ruby tapped the hammer-wielder as she pressed the infant deathclaw against her chest. "Don't worry, Nora. After this round of Caravan, we can all go down to the Strip with Syrup!"

"And visit the Kings."

"Yeah, the Kings are so cool!"

"Wait. Aren't the Kings in Freeside?"

"Eh, there's a bunch of Securitrons in Freeside so Victor can watch us there."

"You're turn, Ruby."

"So, Weiss," Yang began, sidling next to the heiress on the recliner. "How're you dealing with being jelly?"

Weiss dropped her book, revealing a distasteful scowl. "For the record, I am not envious in any way. Also, as a friend, I am supportive of their relationship. Especially now that the buffoon won't be pestering me anymore."

"Aww, it's okay, Ice Queen. Denial is the first stage of grief, after all."

The heiress scowled even more. "I am not in denial."

"Admit it. Jaune's pretty good at getting rid of those stains on your combat skirt. He was really hands on, eh?"

Weiss groaned. "You're insufferable."

All the while, in the corner settee, behind the pages of a pre-war textbook, Blake kept trying to mentally convince herself that some of the rumors about the Courier were untrue. It would not be surprising that some of his enemies would claim that he was hiding an army of Atlas-like robots somewhere, waiting for the right time to strike at the NCR and seize New Vegas for himself. Six did not come off as the type of person who would actually go for that.

At least, that was what she believed.

"Did you honestly expect me to believe that?"

"No. Nor do I care. The mine's gone, anyway."

Colonel James Hsu was as calm as ever but the fire behind his nonchalance burned clear. "You're treading on a minefield. Boyd and Crocker can't be bought out forever."

"And what about you, colonel?" jabbed Six. "I'm just returning the money your government keeps sinking into this place." After all, it's a big cycle of cash flow that 'helps' everyone, don't you think? Besides, half the grunts on the frontier haven't got their paychecks yet. Not like they'll be able to spend them.

"Moore is breathing down my neck. That's all you need to know."

The Courier smirked. "It might interest her to know that the Legion's marching south down Arizona."

The NCR colonel raised a brow at that. "Can you prove that?"

"Get First Recon to track the body trail. Won't be hard to miss." He turned to leave the office. "Who knows? They might find something big." Like those mass graves you can't do shit about.

"... Like a gateway to Remnant? That place sounds like a paradise compared to the Mojave, don't you think?"

Six paused in his stride, his fingers stopping short of knob on the door. You son of a bitch. "Good thing Oliver ain't here to drool over it."

"Six, I'm asking you to reconsider your options. We're neither blind nor stupid." Hsu was already standing up from his chair and by the looks of it, one of his fists was clenched. "I trust you to be sane enough to think things through. Don't think that those teens you're sheltering are none of our concern."

The Courier stepped away from the door to face the officer. He couldn't feel the deep scowl he was giving but was he was aware of the sudden hostility in the atmosphere. "They have nothing to worry about. And neither do you." Back off.

Hsu was unfazed. That or he had a strong pokerface. "Moore and I know about Remnant."

Oh? Humor me then. "Sounds like some fortified scavenger camp."

"It's not that hard to piece together. Eight teenagers who can defy the laws of physics? Strutting around in colorful clothes, utilizing unusual weaponry that can outdo most conventional field kits? We can't ignore that."

Six bared his teeth in an uneven grin, his head nodding slightly. So be it. "Congratulations, colonel. I'll be sure to commend your intelligence division for their efforts. I'll also send Moore my regards. Have a nice day."

"Six—"

The Courier turned on his heels and left his office. As usual, the NCR colonel did nothing to stop him.

Three days later, Hsu received the dispatch relaying his sudden promotion to the rank of major general in light of Moore's sudden recall to California to tackle certain long-standing 'issues' that had only recently surfaced. First Lieutenant Carrie Boyd was the first to raise the dubious context behind it.

"We're all guilty of war crimes but money laundering? Really?" she huffed. "And slandering the head of state? Not even the president would believe that. I know you know that Six is up to something. And you and I know what that something is."

"Can we prove that he's involved?"

Boyd clicked her tongue. "If you squint hard enough, you'll see he left a couple hints. They all say the same thing: 'back off.'"

"... Any leverage?"

"We got nothing solid. The bastard's good at covering his tracks. Even Contreras is in the dark and he's his go-to guy. Those kids he's been taking care of though..."

Hsu's face radiated caution and apprehension. "Lieutenant."

Boyd raised her hands. "I'm not that desperate. And you know we have laws against that. Besides, I have kids myself. But if push comes to shove..."

"We will not pursue that option, lieutenant."

"Acknowledged, general."

For the first time in a long time, the normally nonchalant officer let his emotions slip through his facade. It was going to take some time to acclimate to his new rank and title, long after he had given up trying to pursue it.

Freeside was the same as always. The only difference though was the massive blaze eating up one of the decrepit apartments, illuminating the whole street. The squatters had long since dispersed with the Kings responding to the scene and forming lines to effectively pass along buckets of water to kill the blaze while the Followers took in the wounded. When asked about what had happened, they shrugged and told him it was an accident—gas leak or something along those lines.

The Courier easily saw through the lie. He cornered the nearest Kings gang member with a glare that demanded answers. "What did they do?"

The townie ruffled the back of his head, sweat drenching his shirt and his pompadour slightly bending from the stress of the past few hours. "Wh-who?"

Six clapped his hand on his shoulder. Hard. And he pressed down. Hard. "What. Did they. Do."

The kid gulped. "Y-you can't blame 'em, really. They meant well!"

He let go of him. "Come on, man. What exactly did they do?"

"You won't get mad at 'em?"

A bit. "No."

"They were helping a bunch of hookers weasel out of Gomorrah. Apparently, the Omertas followed them and...they kind of went overboard."

God-fucking-damn it. Omertas'll be shooting for answers now. "What happened to the escorts?"

"They're fine. A little shook up though. They're at the Old Mormon Fort."

"And the Omertas?"

"Also at the Old Mormon Fort."

Of course. There's only one functioning hospital in this whole ghetto. "How many dead?"

The kid smiled. "No one, actually. It's pretty amazing! No one died tonight."

Really now. "So you're saying that that fire burned a few hairs but didn't kill anyone. And even the Omertas didn't get too badly hurt? No one tried to off 'em?"

"They were burned real bad and a lot of us really wanted to stomp their faces in but...then we'd be pissing off the Omertas and that'll start a gang war."

Cachino won't start a gang war over a few missing girls and a few dead grunts. He knows the consequences. "You could've just left 'em in the building to burn. Say the fire killed them before you could respond fast enough."

"We could've but...we couldn't. Ruby talked us out of it. And she...sort of...was right. We shouldn't be killing each other like this. We should be working together. I don't think those mobsters liked the idea all that much but even they said she had a point."

Hyper? That pipsqueak convinced a group of cold-blooded, murdering thugs to stand down and let a few prostitutes go? "Did she now."

"I mean, this whole place is a mess but look what's been going on lately." The townie gestured to a fellow Kings gang member help a Followers nurse clean soot off the face of one of the people affected by the smoke. "Sure, they crashed the sign but they're making up for it in droves, man. We got more people falling in line, less fights, less brawlers, and even troublemakers turning up at the Fort wanting to sober up."

"Ruby's preaching solidarity?"

"And preaching it loud and right. Killing shouldn't be the only solution to the problem."

The kids can carve up mutants in the blink of an eye but can't bring themselves to do the same to humans. Oh, the irony in that. "Sounds fair." Six folded his arms with the frown still tacked onto his face. "Doesn't mean they ain't getting away from this scot free."

The amiable gangster then tried to placate whatever wrath he thought the veteran wastelander was spewing. "They were doing good, actually. Freeing those poor girls. I mean, it wasn't their first choice...working at Gomorrah. But they did good! Even offered to pay for the detoxing. Pretty awesome for them to do."

"Uh-huh."

"And, if you ask me, that's a win in my books. Can fight, willing to help, and really cute to boot."

Six eyed him.

The townie stiffened. "Uh, forget I said that..."

Going to have to get used to these punks hitting on the kids. "Yeah, sure."

The Courier waved him off, making a complete turn on his heels in the direction of the Old Mormon Fort. Now, for a little chat with those goons.

Suffice to say, the Omerta hit men, their pockets lined with more cash than their average payout, returned to Cachino in his office suite up in Gomorrah with a neatly-crafted, well-rehearsed, and very convincing lie while the liberated hostesses were loaded up in a military truck occupied by a squadron of NCR rangers headed for California.

The situation at the Strip was not as bad. Almost everything seemed normal. Up until an MP sergeant jogged towards him looking a little concerned. And exhausted. With a strangely opportunistic glint in his eye.

"Sir!"

Six stifled a groan. "Yes?"

There was the sly grin he was expecting. It lasted barely three seconds but it was enough to set the tone of their conversation. "That'll be eight hundred dollars in damages."

The Courier angled his head behind him to take a good long look at the group of sobered-up shivering drunks while Securitrons and MPs used blowtorches and flamethrowers to melt the solid ice that cemented their lower bodies to the concrete. He growled as he handed the enforcer eight NCR bills.

"Oh, and throw in another six hundred for our...sudden amnesia."

I get it. Don't wink at me, you greedy son of a bitch. "Any other 'incidences,' officer?"

"Yeah. But they covered for themselves," the MP replied as he slickly pocketed the cash.

What? "Come again?"

"Yeah, that weird Asian guy and his crazy girlfriend with the pet deathclaw. They went to the embassy, had a little chat with the governor, and now we get a cut of their earnings to cover up the...unsanctioned stuff...they do on the Strip. Win-win situation, am I right?" The MP's cheshire grin lasted five seconds before shifting back into that professional police scowl as he went back to yelling at his subordinates.

Corruption goes both ways. As much as the Courier relished in fostering this culture among the NCR's "incorruptible" military police force, he was beginning to regret going overboard with the frequent bribes and cloak-and-dagger business. Need to keep a closer eye on some of these bastards. At least the Securitrons did not demand compensation for having their data banks constantly overwritten.

It was close to three in the morning when the Courier arrived back at the presidential suite. Most of the kids were already asleep. Most. And it just had to be her. Why am I not surprised.

He sighed. "Yes, Blake?"

Cat-girl emerged from the kitchen in a black silken nightgown, a glass of water in one hand while a fresh book was tucked under the other. "Major General Cassandra Moore is facing charges of corruption and treason. Colonel James Hsu has been promoted in her stead and is set to replace her as the commander of all NCR forces in the entire Mojave. So says Mister New Vegas."

"So I've heard."

Blake blocked the way to the master bedroom. The light from his Pip-boy revealed her teammates haphazardly sprawled over his bed, messing up the blankets as they always did, snoozing peacefully. "Six, what did you do?"

Exposed a war criminal. "Went to the frontier."

"And?"

Had a nice chat with the NCR doves over the wire. "Scouted."

"And what did you see?"

Moore getting arrested by her own MPs. "I'm not taking you there, anyway," he said, brushing her off as he turned on his heels for the kitchen. She followed him.

"What's stopping us from going there on our own?"

Six let out a long sigh as he poured himself a full cup of Jake Juice. "You want to go die out there? Be my guest."

"Did you bribe Hsu to go along with your plan?"

Kitty's a damn good lie detector, I'll give her that. Probably a faunus thing. "Nice nightie. Must've been a bargain purchase at Mick and Ralph's, huh."

"Six."

Enough, Blake. I'm tired. "Go to bed. I'll sleep on the couch."

Cat-girl folded her arms. Her piercing gold irises flashed with a fiery intensity. "Ren and Nora struck a deal with Governor Crocker. You and I both know that what they did was wrong."

So? "They're earning their keep."

"Through bribery? Deceit? They didn't want to but they had to."

Your point? "I can't cover for you forever. About time you kids helped pay the damn 'bills.'"

Disappointment. Then anger. And finally contempt. "I guess some of the rumors are true. We really shouldn't be like you," she hissed.

"Exactly. Now go back to sleep," he growled.

She stood there, glaring for a while, before she finally relented and shut the door to the master bedroom.

"Goddamn it, Blake." You don't know what you're asking. Earth is not for you.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 20, 2018

LAST EDITED: January 29, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED (FFN): February 24, 2018

Chapter Text

"Alright, Sparta. Your call."

Beside him, Pyrrha pressed her cheek against the stock of her weapon: a mechanical hybrid that morphed between a spear and a rifle. The stillness of the air, coupled with the absence of nary a breeze, made her steady breaths ridiculously audible to his ears.

Six kept his eyes glued to his binoculars, magnifying his view of the multiple steel targets he had set up across the side of the rugged cliff face half a mile away. Both had their bellies pressed against the gravel atop one of the many abandoned sniper's nests overlooking the vast expanse of desert this side of the Mojave. If there was one thing he could do to help these kids survive in the Wasteland (other than making them stomach the natural cuisine and go more than a day without bathing, both of which ended disappointingly), it was helping them improve their Remnant-based fighting capabilities with respect to Earth's rules.

This was one particular exercise. While seemingly redundant with regards to the person he was 'training,' it was not irrelevant. The redhead had good aim; it was just a matter of tweaking it further. And if he himself could nail a solid kill-shot at this distance with Medicine Stick, then he was sure Sparta could land—

POP!

Ping!

The Courier couldn't help but smile. Just below the chin. "Impressive."

Another steady breath is what he got in reply.

POP! POP! POP!

Ping! Ping! Pla-kang!

Damn. She's good. "You're not using your Aura or any of that Semblance stuff, right?"

Sparta briefly angled her head away from the end of her gun to flash him a meek (and minutely prideful) grin. "No."

I find that hard to believe. "Remnant must really be something if you're this good for your age."

"A lifetime of training and tournaments," she hastily replied, her focus now on the remaining six shaped metal sheets sticking out of the rocks five hundred meters away.

"Before Beacon?"

"Yes."

POP!

Pang!

"Got 'em," Six acknowledged pridefully. A bit more practice and she might give First Recon a run for their money. He had to admit, this level of accuracy at this distance was enough of a challenge for many of his contemporaries. Sparta was proving more and more adept at marksmanship than he had initially judged. Now he just had to get her accustomed to killing people...

No. They have to learn but they shouldn't have to do it unless they need to. Not just yet...

The Courier focused on Pyrrha hitting the rest her marks on the remaining targets without a single miss. Much less, a full reload. Come to think of it...

"What's your cartridge?"

"Hm?"

Six lifted himself off the ground to lean against the sandbags while Sparta readjusted herself to sit on one of the empty plastic beer cartons. "What's the caliber of your ammunition? Forty-seventy government? Three-oh-eight?"

"Oh, um...not those. They're actually Mistralian match grade Dust rounds."

Wait, what? "Say again?"

"Match grade bullets. For sharpshooting competitions and hunting Grimm."

"No, no, no. Before that. You said they're..."

"Mistralian Dust rounds."

Dust. Shit. "Did you retrieve the spent casings?"

"Yes. I always do."

"And...do you recycle your bullets?"

Sparta shrugged. "Well, not personally. Usually, we have the quartermaster at Beacon supply our ammunition..." She trailed off, confusion reining momentarily. Then realization. Her eyes were as wide as saucers the moment her hands dug into her pouch. "I...I think I'm low on Dust."

The Courier stared incredulously at her. Goddamn it.

The rest of Team JNPR-S (the 'S' added on after Syrup's induction into the group) idled by the campfire below the old sniper's nest, no doubt basking in the pride of their own champion who they faithfully believed could best the NCR's trained marksmen. Their cheers petered out when they noticed how cross Six looked in compliment to how apologetic Pyrrha seemed.

"So...did she beat you at your own game?" Jaune cautiously inquired after they had descended from the perch and huddled by the fire pit.

"Do any of you have any Dust on you?" the Courier demanded. "And I mean Remnant Dust."

"I've got enough to take down a whole fort!" Nora declared, raising Magnhild proudly over her head, the massive retractable super-sledge transforming into a sophisticated revolving six-shot grenade launcher.

Ren shook his head as he carefully fed large chunks of raw gecko meat into Syrup's waiting maw. Come to think of it, he was running low on ammunition for his akimbo... Oh. So that was why Six was asking. "I, uh, have about a hundred rounds left. Total."

"Are those Dust-based?" followed Six.

"Yes."

"So are mine," Nora added.

"I guess we have a...shortage?" Pyrrha shakily concluded.

"What shortage?" Jaune's confusion only skyrocketed with the mix of looks that came his way. "What?"

The Courier narrowed his eyes at him. "Does your sword double as a gun, Knight-boy?"

"Uh, no."

"Any ranged weapons you have?"

The blond scratched the back of his head, still unbelievably unable to grasp the severity of the problem much less the problem itself. "I can throw my sword...but then I'd have to get it back."

"Ooh! Ooh!" flailed Nora. "Are we going to learn about Earth weapons now? Can we get to blow up stuff now!?"

Six released a long, pained sigh. "Yes, Pancake."

Thank fuck Hyper ain't here. Who knows what fresh hell was going to happen if Ruby ever managed gain entry into the Gun Runners facility. It was stressful enough just keeping her from breaking the fence to get in. He hoped that with all the recent upgrades, Victor should be keeping a good eye and a solid leash on team RWBY while he was away training team JNPR.

"We're going gun shopping," he announced. "You're all on a budget so don't be picky."

"Awesome!"

"Well, I guess it won't hurt to have a little extra punch in case of emergencies," Jaune intoned.

The Courier huffed—finally, the kid understands!—and reached over to take in his share of their lunch. "Just don't shoot yourself in the foot."

"Authenticate caller."

"Caller Charlie Sierra India X-ray. Requesting supply drop. Over."

"Authorized. Nature of content?"

"Assorted ammunition. Standard package. Limited explosives. Over."

"Acknowledged, Charlie Sierra India X-ray. Coordinates to be forwarded. Out."

Six tucked the NCR emergency radio back into his satchel then checked his Pip-Boy for the designated drop zone. Going to be another long walk. "Pack up! We're heading north, kids!"

An hour later, team JNPR (excluding Syrup) were reequipped with an array of salvaged Californian firearms and their respective ammunition. To their credit, they were eager to try and learn them. Unfortunately, in their zeal, Jaune accidentally depressed the trigger to his shotgun, sending a beanbag round into Six's unguarded crotch. It would become the first of many non-lethal misfires that would plague the next several hours of impromptu weapons training.

Thankfully, the only person to get hurt from all that was the Courier. Damn kids and their damn Aura. And it was not like he was seriously injured; he had survived far worse. Twelve-gauge beanbags, forty-millimeter grenades, and three-oh-eight full metal jackets were nothing serious when the necessary precautions were taken. Well, except for the three-oh-eights. Goddamn Sparta. 'It was an accident,' she says. 'It ricocheted off the plate,' she says. Tell that to the brand new hole in my ass! Walking never hurt this goddamn bad...

By nightfall, they had detoured to the clinic of the Followers Of The Apocalypse outside the walls of New Vegas to extract whatever shrapnel was still left in his body. At least the kids chipped in to pay for half the treatment.

"My, you've got quite the litter," remarked Doctor Keiko Usanagi as she tightened the gauze around his forearm, covering up half the scars all over it. "I don't mean any offense but I didn't know you had this big of a family."

Six raised his brow. "What?"

"Fathering eight children. That must have been quite the challenge. I can understand why you had to keep them out of the Mojave until now."

Oh, shit. "... Right." Goddamn rumor mill. Where did you hear that bullshit from? "They're not really..."

"Don't worry. You can always count on us to safeguard them," Usanagi said with a warm smile.

"Doc, they're not my—"

"Is daddy okay?"

The Courier blinked. What. His mouth hung agape at team JNPR peaking their heads around the door frame. The. Pancake was on the verge of crocodile tears. Flying. Shaolin, Sparta, Knight-boy, and even Syrup (how is that little demon even smiling!?) all sported very convincing looks of innocent, infantile concern. Fuck.

"Don't worry, Nora," cooed Pyrrha. "Dad is going to be fine. Right, doctor?"

Being the caring physician, Usanagi was quick to offer them her concern in the manner that one would address worried relatives."Yes, dear. Your father is not seriously injured. But he has to stay here for the night. His body needs to rest. And so should you four. You've all been out in the sun too long."

"So...does that mean we can watch over our daddy?" Nora prattled.

"Sure. We can spare a couple extra beds for you."

The moment the doctor turned her back, Six caught the thumbs up from Nora and the other teens nervously pointing at her. Of course. Leave it to the hyperactive ginger to start shit like this.

'It was her idea,' lipped Jaune to which Pyrrha and Ren nodded a little too enthusiastically.

Six was speechless. Complete and utter disbelief. His mind was still trying to comprehend the fact that people in New Vegas—no, the whole damn Mojave—were thinking that these brats were his own flesh and blood. The rest of his brain was either sputtering like rusted cogs or screaming gibberish at the sky. All he could do was gawk, jaw practically hanging off his head, unable to neither glare nor smirk. God-fucking-damn it.

He would rather get shot in the head right now.

"Blondie!" greeted Swank. "How're you doin', doll?"

Yang, emboldened by her revealing party dress, swayed her hips after she closed the doors to the man's penthouse suite behind her. She slid onto one of the stools lining the man's personal bar with a wink and a disarming grin. "Swell! I got a really good feeling about tonight."

The head of the Chairmen raised a curious brow, replacing the glass he was cleaning back onto the rack. This girl had assets, was technically legal, but put him off for behaving more like a whiny child than a responsible adult. Also because she was the 'daughter' of one of the most terrifying people in the whole Mojave.

"Feelin' fancy, eh?" Swank sniggered. "Ring-a-ding, this ain't the Ultra Luxe but I'm flattered."

"Just feel like dressing up, you know?"

"You're pulling my strings, baby. Got another couple needin' some alone time?" After all, for what other reason did this busty teenaged-yet-technically-legal bombshell go through all the trouble to visit him in his private paradise at the top of the Tops?

"Nope. Not tonight. Something different." She traced her finger across the marble bar top, leaning a bit close and letting her conveniently exposed cleavage encase his attention.

Swank leaned over as well, curiosity hiding behind his trademark smirk. "Oh? Might cost 'ya."

On cue, Blake rounded the Chairman to slide a whole stack of neatly-wrapped NCR bills across the tabletop. The slip running down her long black maxi revealed the pommel of the serrated combat knife tucked against her thigh. Constant visits to the casinos made it easy for the girls to learn how to smuggle contraband passed security—a good workaround to having to leave their signature weapons back at the Lucky Thirty-Eight. As to how he had not seen her enter, he chalked it up to the black-haired girl being that slick. Uncomfortably slick. Seriously, it freaked him out how she just materialized out of his right flank like that.

"There's more where that came from," teased Yang, her bare arm squeezing an empty glass and showing how much muscle she actually packed.

Swank, for his part, was good at looking smug if not amused. Or unnerved. "I'm guessin' your sister and her girlfriend's hangin' 'round in the back, eh?"

"We are not in that kind of relationship, mind you," retorted Weiss in her elegant white pouf, suddenly waltzing out from his own bedroom, what the fuck. Ruby silently followed after her in a more modest crimson dress, her cheeks slightly flushed while she awkwardly tried to smooth out the hems and not trip on her own heels. Damn, seriously, how the hell did they get in through there? They were on the top floor!

The Chairman chief stayed put behind his own bar now appearing more reserved than concerned. "The whole gang's here. To what do I owe this lovely audience?"

"A little harmless gossip," Yang replied, her intimidatingly charming smile never once faltering.

For a moment, Swank remained silent. Four teenaged girls—four dangerous teenaged girls—had wormed their way into his private quarters, somehow slipping past security, maybe even climbed up the side of the building, squeezing through the damn windows to get in, and most likely cornered him like a rat in a cage, trapped behind his own cocktail lounge. Even without their hardware, he was smart enough not to test their patience.

For crying out loud, they lodged with Courier Six; and the big man almost never lodged with anybody unless it was for a job. And now with these kids—the big man's supposed offspring—sleeping in the most cushioned up beds in the Lucky Thirty-Eight, it made sense that he taught them how to rip a man's head off his shoulders with their bare hands. They were his kids, after all. Right? Most likely adopted or otherwise illegitimate but his kids nonetheless. Yeah, definitely adopted. Miss Xiao Long right here had tried to pair up two of her own 'siblings' in one of their suites.

Said blonde readjusted herself on the bar, offering a wider view of her (technically legal) cleavage over the marble countertop. "What's the matter, Swanky?"

Right. He had been quietly stewing behind his own drinking space. Salvaging his air with a light huff, he said, "Runnin' the numbers, doll. Now why'd you come to me for something Mister New Vegas yammers over the air?"

"Oh, the air's a bit thick recently. Not everyone knows what's going on. Besides, Six has...secrets. Secrets that matter," Ruby finally intoned, the adorable little kid trying to look serious.

"What do I know then?" Swank deflected. "The Chairmen run things around here. Omertas and White Glove do their own thing but we keep the balance."

"Not much of a balance if your net balance is greater than what is considered acceptable," snorted Weiss.

"We know where your money comes from," Blake added. "We traced your paper trails, tracked your sources. It's not that hard to do."

"Been skimming off the pot too much, Swanky," Yang cooed. "Not a very Chairman-like thing to do, eh?"

Holy shit. Swank's poker face stayed strong. "Are you calling me a fink, doll?"

Miss Schnee harrumphed. "We're not making any accusations. It's just odd that the NCR hasn't caught on yet. After all, I doubt they would in any way be too pleased to discover of a few unsanctioned incentives being diverted elsewhere."

"Much less some of their hardware stolen," Miss Belladonna threw in.

Miss Xiao Long snickered. "Or making arrangements to whack a few cops. Now that's not just going to piss off the NCR; that's not going to make Six happy either."

"We did our homework," Miss Rose concluded. "So is there anything else we missed?"

The leader of the Chairmen took the next moment to rein in the rapid beating in his chest. Intimidated? Yes. Frightened? More than that. Panicky? Most definitely. "Girls, girls, you're all comin' at me way too hard, give a man room to breathe. Are you sure you can afford what you're askin'?"

"We have the money and we have the means," Weiss countered with an icy glare while Ruby forwarded another stack of NCR bills.

So it seemed like they were taking after their dad now. Swank started to laugh. "Ring-a-ding, baby dolls, what can the chairman of the Chairmen do for you fine ladies?"

"Six has got quite the reputation, don't you think?" Yang started. "Pretty big name around here. Way too big to be some run-of-the-mill NCR war hero, if you ask me."

Another chuckle. Of course. Daddy didn't tell his little girls what he'd really been up to out here. As the timeless adage goes: what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas. Then again, some things never really stay in Vegas. On the bright side, at least he was being paid for information instead of the usual fist to the gut or bullet to the brain box.

"Wasn't that big a name until a couple years ago," Swank began. "Ever heard of Mister House?"

Omake

Shortly beforehand...

"Is it that far in there?"

"Whoa. That's a deep hole."

"I'm sorry, Six. I really am."

"That's okay, Pyrrha. So how do we pull it out?"

Would you goddamn kids shut the fuck up!? Six grimaced as he pushed himself off the ground, his derriere both damp with blood and numb from the crumpled full metal jacket lodged above his sphincter. Wincing and growling, he limped past the kids to pick up the rest of their equipment, along the way, passing the sheet metal targets bearing the dents from which a stray round from Pyrrha's Garand bounced off and literally tore him a brand new anus. Today's marksmanship lesson had officially ended.

"You still alright there?"

"I can walk," the Courier spat bitterly, his awkward gait made more difficult by Syrup's constant attempts to lick his backside clean to which the little shit got a solid slap to the head.

"I'm sorry."

Shut up, Sparta. "We're done here. Let's get moving," he ordered between grimaces.

"You sure you can walk straight? You're still bleeding."

"Six, you should sit down. We could help—"

"I'm fine, kids." Like hell am I letting you do surgery on my ass!

Pyrrha whimpered a little. "Um, I could use my Semblance...to extract the bullet..."

Oh hell no! The Courier felt his brows rise, having already seen her break apart any metallic thing through the sheer magnetism coming from her bare hands. And given his situation, electromagnetic shielding be damned, it was not the safest method at all. Are you even thinking, Sparta!? The shrapnel's going to rip through my colon! As such, he was about to savagely tear her offer apart until Jaune placed a hand over hers.

"Um, I think that would do more damage than anything," Knight-boy said.

"So..." Nora drawled, picking up the pace. "... When are we learning field stripping?"

A round of chokes echoed from the rest of the teenagers, eliciting a vexed groan from the limping veteran wastelander. Context, Pancake. Goddamn context. "Not today."

"Aww, but I was really excited to strip!"

Son of a bitch. "Nora."

"Yes, Six?"

Shut the hell up. "Be quiet."

"Okay!" she lied.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 25, 2018

LAST EDITED: April 30, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED: March 2, 2018

Chapter Text

"Take it slow. You still need another day's rest."

"I hear you, doc," Six replied, waving her off. "I can handle this." He made for the doors of the clinic, grimacing with every step, only to have both Pancake and Shaolin suddenly latch onto his arms like walking crutches. "The hell!?"

"Don't worry, doc," Knight-boy reiterated. "We'll make sure the old man won't push himself too hard."

The Courier growled under his breath. He wriggled and squirmed until he was free but Ren and Nora were adamant to be his unofficial orderlies, holding on even when he tried to shove them off. I can very well damn walk, kids. Fucking hell, I'm not a damn cripple! "I'm fine, kids. Get your goddamn hands off of me."

"It's for the best," Pyrrha said. "You might tear through all your stitches if we let you walk like that."

"She's right, Six," added Jaune. "This is for your own good. Besides, let us take care of you for once."

Alright, this is bullshit. Six once again wormed of their grasp and took point as soon as the doors closed behind them, standing straight and tall on both his legs with solid poise. He tightened the straps on his combat harness and slung his laden duffel over his shoulder. "See? I'm fine. Now come on. We can make it back to—"

Then he tripped on the gutter. Then landed on his face. And felt something stretch painfully over his freshly repaired sphincter. Like paper tearing against staples. Searing pain javelined into his rectum. Shit.

"You need help, daddy?" mused Nora.

Six grit his teeth and spat out the gravel in his mouth. Goddamn it.

They were almost there. Almost there. The massive reinforced walls of New Vegas stood on the horizon three streets away, the relative safety (and manageable thuggery) of Freeside only a half-hour of walking distance. The ever-blinking sanctuary of the Lucky Thirty-Eight was taunting in its display, its radiantly omniscient saucer towering above the skyline from within the luxury of the Strip. And yet, this happened. Somehow, by some stroke of sudden misfortune, this had to have happened.

Six stomped on the nightstalker twice, on the tail to immobilize it and on the head to kill it. But not after it sunk its envenomed teeth into the rear of a passing Jaune Arc. While team JNPR-S responded to their wailing leader, the Courier paced to the manhole in the middle of the street and shuffled the errant sewer grate into place to keep any more of mutated hybrids from clamoring out. Goddamn shits are infesting the underground again. Always slinking through from the desert...or someone at the Thorn got sloppy.

"I just got bit by a dog-snake!" howled Knight-boy as he clutched his bleeding derriere. "What the hell was that thing!? How did it climb up out of a manhole!?"

"It's the Wasteland. Be glad this was a lone wolf," Six droned, limping over. "These nightstalkers hunt in packs—"

"Packs!?"

"This one must've gotten past the fodder in the sewers." Going to have to dump some more bodies in there. Six made a mental note to have Red Lucy release some of their captive Fiends into the northeastern sewer networks to bottleneck the damn mutants. No one would miss any of those junkies. He nudged the tip of his boot against Knight-boy's rib. "Looks like we both got a stinger up the ass, eh, kid."

"Don't worry, Jaune!" soothed Pancake. "We'll fix your butt."

"Um, what exactly do you mean by that, Nora?" asked a worried (and flustered) Sparta who just so happened to be the appropriate snuggle pillow for their distraught team captain.

The Courier stepped (or rather painfully limped) into their circle, his hands digging through his field kit. "Survival one-oh-one, kids." Now where did I pack that tubing?

Shaolin looked up at him expectantly. "You have a remedy?"

Six frowned. He searched again. Nothing. Shit. Got the seeds but nothing else. I knew I should've stocked up on some anti-venom. "No tourniquets. Looks like we're doing this the old-fashioned way."

Jaune paled as he latched onto Pyrrha with a vice grip. "Am I going to die!?"

"Is Jaune going to die!?"

"He's not going to die, Nora."

"If we don't act now, he might," mulled Sparta, who reciprocated the iron embrace, her cheeks as red as her hair. "It'll be okay, Jaune. Hush now."

"I'm still going to die!"

The Courier groaned. "Shut up and spread your butt cheeks, boy!"

"... What?"

Six grimaced as he knelt down. His pelvis ached from the surgery that pulled out several pieces of shrapnel out of his posterior. But the stitches beside his nether regions were on the verge of ripping (again) if he so much as bent over. He hoped he had enough morphine to dull the pain while he recovered. That meant he had to stay on the sidelines and guide the kids on how to do this right. He began by gesturing for Jaune to kiss the asphalt and raise his posterior.

"You're not serious, are you?" prodded Ren.

Sparta appeared completely conflicted, wrapped around a petrified Knight-boy.

"Come on, kid. Pull down your pants and get your ass up." He produced a bundle of buffalo gourd seeds. "Rub these on the wound quick. Come on. Chop-chop! Any longer and the venom'll be too deep in your system for us to do anything."

"Are you..."

The Courier shook his head. My ass still hurts. "I just got surgery. Again. I can't risk ripping out the stitches now. Again. One of you'll have to do it." Besides, you kids need to damn well learn these basics.

"Oh." Ren looked around. "Pyrrha, are you okay?"

"Huh?" Sparta shook her head, her entire head glistening with sweat and a bright fluster. "Uh, I'm fine, Ren. I, uh, I'm totally fine, hah!"

Goddamn Sparta and her goddamn hormones. "Get your heads straight, kids. This is survival! You want Knight-boy to live? Well then one of you'll have to bend down, rub the seeds on his ass, and suck the damn venom out of it." He snapped his fingers impatiently. "I said put your ass up, boy!"

"That can't be the only alternative," Pyrrha protested shakily, the look on her face a mix of bug-eyed horror and drooling satisfaction.

"Shut up and suck it up, damn it!"

Team JNPR-S eyed each other (Syrup, meanwhile, was busy gobbling up the dead nightstalker). It was as though time had frozen and there before him were four divided teens, contemplating what to do while one of them held on for dear life, his arms literally holding onto his partner who was on the verge of passing out from embarrassment while the ginger and her best friend silently argued who would do it and how it would be done.

"Fuck's sake, kids! Hurry up before his Aura closes up the—"

And then the world snapped. Or at least, something triggered the response he saw played out before his very eyes.

In two seconds, Pancake pulled down Knight-boy's jeans only to be subdued by a mortified Shaolin leaving Sparta to frantically tear his boxers off, exposing the bulging snake-bite on a muscled butt cheek. All the while Jaune screamed and clawed at the concrete. Then...the expected happened.

Back again at Doctor Usanagi's clinic for the third time, the nurses wheeled in a cathartic Jaune for proper treatment while Six sat back at reception, haggling for spare surgical tubing. Across from him, Pancake chirpily consoled a feverish Sparta, the redhead clearly deprived of whatever sanity was left, her hands trembling, sweat dripping from every orifice, her porcelain skin reddened for good reason, her wide-eyed gaze cemented to the floor. Any uninformed person in the room would have mistaken her for either a junkie on withdrawal or an escaped mental patient.

All the while Shaolin shook his head and continued writing down Pyrrha's anti-venom intake schedule. Two doses of antibiotics for the next three days, enough to flush out every toxic drop and more. He sighed, having caught the bare hints of a satisfied (if not animalistic) grin on the edges of her lips. He wondered if his fellow Mistralian would actually bother to properly wash her mouth after that.

Fifty-fifty chance she might not.

He was sure she was savoring the taste. For crying out loud, she was all over the place and they had to pry her off and subdue her after she nearly poisoned herself. Ren leaned back on his seat as Nora took the catatonic Pyrrha in a warm hug with Syrup nuzzling its head against her legs. He wondered how team RWBY was doing.

The New Vegas Provincial Capitol of the New California Republic was an establishment that bore a deceptively unimpressive facade that concealed the hectic inner workings of the local government authorities. Once the NCR embassy to the former independent territory of New Vegas previously dominated by the maverick autocrat Robert Edwin House, the compound had since received significant renovations inclusive of improved security, an extra floor in the administration building, and a parking lot that accommodated the armored vehicles of the both the NCR military and NCR dignitaries.

Inside, there permeated an air of suffocating diplomacy that all of team RWBY immediately recognized. While politics was mostly out of their purview, the venomous atmosphere in here felt so toxic that it seemed noxious fumes were flowing out of the ventilator. For now, at least, politics was not really what they were here for. All the girls did was accept an invitation from Governor Dennis Crocker, once the former ambassador responsible for helping orchestrate the annexation of New Vegas by the Republic, for a special meeting in his office.

They expected a nondescript room with dry scentless walls, stuffed bookshelves, and a cluttered desk flanked by cushioned chairs. They did not expect Major General James Hsu pouring himself a glass of water in the corner as they squeezed into the recliner in the middle of the governor's office. Even to Ruby, this was a clear warning sign of a dangerous game they had woven themselves into.

Pleasantries were quick with the occasional elbow to Yang and glare from Weiss. General Hsu meandered to the edge of the table, sipping at his glass. "How are you today, ladies?"

"We are doing quite well, general," the heiress replied with the classic formality of a Schnee complete with a raised chin, straight back, and arms folded neatly over her lap. "Is there anything of the matter that needs to be discussed?"

"There is. It's best if I'll be frank with you today."

"By all means, general," Blake replied evenly.

The NCR commander had no visible discernible emotion on his face, his modest irises concealing whatever motives could be discerned. "Your investigation into the person that is Courier Six has not gone unnoticed. We won't deny it; he has been a stabilizing force in the Mojave for over three years now. However, recent events have...prompted a review of his activities."

The girls were silent with Weiss nodding along.

"We can neither confirm nor deny that he has accumulated the means to destabilize the region. Whether or not he intends to is a matter of speculation. Both are of great concern to us and contrary to what you may have heard of us, we do not always know everything."

"Hold up," Yang interjected, muscling her arm up much to Weiss's discomfort. The couch could only fit so many people, after all. "Are you asking us to do your dirty work? 'Cause, news flash! We're not taking any commissions right now!"

"We're not asking you to act directly against anyone, Miss Xiao Long. We're asking you to monitor someone important. Keep him from doing anything drastic."

"Or damaging," added Governor Crocker.

Blake narrowed her gaze, her fingers paling with how tight she was gripping the armrest. "What makes you think that Six is a threat, sir?"

"I'd rather not use that word," the governor corrected. "More of a potential concern."

General Hsu continued, "Courier Six helped us greatly before but things are different now. I'm going on the assumption that you are aware of the fresh changes that have been going on in the Mojave and the NCR, particularly here in Clark County."

"You mean the scandal around General Moore, your promotion in her place, and the Three Families scrambling to abuse the apparent power vacuum?" listed Ruby. Heads creaked and she had to address her amused teammates. "What? It's what happened, right?"

"You're not wrong there, Miss Rose" the general confirmed. "But let's leave it at that for now. What matters is that our discussion does not leave this room. I trust you will hold to this agreement of nondisclosure. As Huntresses."

Team RWBY stared back at him. No one outside of Six and his cadre of trusted associates (Raul) knew the true meaning of their designation as Huntresses. They weren't even official; they were still in training and barely out of their first year when they ended up here!

Stupefied, the girls tried to read the men in front of them. While Governor Dennis Crocker seated behind his desk had that pokerface of an experienced gambler, Major General James Hsu standing in front of them efficiently denied them any means of catching onto whatever ulterior motive there was. Ruby and Yang itched with fearful surprise in contrast to the wariness seeping from Weiss and Blake.

The reaper felt her voice hitch in her throat. "Alright, sir. What is that you want from us?"

Crocker handed them a dossier he withdrew from his drawer. "Good enough. No sense in neither confirming nor denying. Team RWBY, we have strong reason to believe that Courier Six is harboring a weapon of mass destruction."

"A weapon of mass destruction?" Weiss repeated as they pored through the file, finding details hard to believe and grainy photographs hinting at something that a madman would covet.

"The Samson Option," Hsu replied. "A potentially dangerous apparatus that only Six is capable of activating. That dossier you're holding has everything we know about it as of this time."

The girls felt the world condense. This was a sudden influx of information. Swank was very cooperative the previous night but they were wise enough to take everything with a grain of salt. Gossip was untrustworthy compared to this official report by the NCR, a government with a well-oiled and experienced intelligence division. And whether or not General Hsu was tossing them a bone, they were very tempted to sink their teeth into it.

It was difficult to believe. Six, the grumpy not-so-old man who begrudgingly took care of them, had actually done all this. And is suspected to be capable of doing even more. They had to be wrong, right? This can't all be true! This has to be... This can't be...

"... Why are you telling us this?" asked Ruby after going through the file, her mind still reeling, her emotions conflicted.

The way that the general folded his arms and raised his chin reminded them starkly of a certain Atlesian military commander. "Courier Six needs help. You can help him better than we—or anyone else at this point—can."

Blake cleared her throat. She did not like how this was going. But for the sake of their current predicament, she felt it best to play along. "How exactly are we supposed to 'help,' sir?"

"Find out what this Samson Option actually is and, if proven to be dangerous, shut it down."

"Six won't like that," mused Yang. She may be the best brawler in the Mojave, as most people would claim, but she still remembered the time Six snapped and easily put her out of commission with a solid straight. How he shut her down like that without Aura or a Semblance still stumped her since she was all fired up at the time.

"It's for the best interests of the Republic and the Mojave," Governor Crocker intoned. "That man has been a blessing to our nation, a war hero on many accounts and highly popular amongst the troops, but we have reason to believe that he's considered taking matters into his own hands as of late. If he decides to activate this Samson Option, there may be nothing we can do to stop it. Whatever it really is."

"After much consideration," the general continued. "We've deemed you to be the most capable of carrying out this contractual obligation. You would be the least susceptible."

"Let's clarify things first, sir," Weiss breathed. "You want us to disrupt this...secret weapon...before it gets activated by Courier Six and possibly cause mass havoc and destruction. Because Courier Six can't lift a finger against us? Because we're his, quote-unquote, kids?"

"Because Six, the guy who's literally taking care of us, lost a bolt in his noggin somewhere?" Yang pressed through clenched teeth. "Because you think this guy who practically saved your country has gone off the deep end?"

"If that's how you see it, then yes," General Hsu answered plainly.

"And what if we don't want to?" Blake retorted. "What if this is all just speculation? Faulty evidence? False leads? What if this Samson Option is not as belligerent as you believe it to be? What then, sir?"

For all she knew, they were being used to get at someone as widely influential and undeniably authoritative as Six. There was no denying the influence that he exuded over the Strip, a massive cash cow that was technically governed by the NCR but actually subservient to the heavily-armed alcoholic mailman who bled way too much for it. And the NCR itself was no different than a soulless government, that much she learned in her down time.

"Then you're free to walk out from this room and forget we ever had this meeting," Governor Crocker evenly replied. "We'll handle the fallout and run damage control like we always do. Operations like this are easy to sweep under the rug regardless of the outcome."

General Hsu cleared his throat in response to the girls tensing. "We're not threatening you. Dennis means that we clean up after our messes. We keep our word, you keep yours. If you turn this down, we never talked and never will talk about this again."

If anyone were to ask Ruby about politics, she would say as much as the next person on the street. Yang was more acute to it but preferred to let her fists handle the problems at hand. Weiss had a mindset sharpened by a lifetime growing up at the helm of a controversial business conglomerate. Blake, on the other hand, had been raised on the other end of the spectrum and from whose lenses she viewed and acted, the cloak-and-dagger approach being more natural to her. With these differing mentalities, team RWBY mulled over the proposal. Divided, confused, and now reasonably distrustful of the NCR. But also wary of the Courier based on what they had learned.

After a quiet minute, Ruby asked, "Why? Why are you doing this?"

The governor eased back onto his chair with a face that tried to be sympathetic. "Preserving the Republic is neither an easy nor a clean job."

"You will be helping to secure the lives of hundreds of thousands of people," eased the general. "Future generations depend on efforts like this."

The girls stewed quietly for another long moment.

"There has to be strings attached," piped Yang.

"What are you offering in exchange for our services?" Weiss asked diplomatically.

The answer was quick and predetermined. "Unrestricted access to Project Fragment."

Team RWBY were quick to understand the meaning behind the name.

"Project Fragment is a top secret scientific endeavor hosted by the Office of Science and Industry to either discover or create a gateway to your world of Remnant," Governor Crocker explained. "Again, I trust that you keep this information strictly confidential."

"We knew from the beginning," General Hsu continued. "The details fell into place shortly thereafter. Dust, Aura, Semblance, the Grimm. We've been picking up the pieces for months now. You were not the first articles of Remnant to end up here in the Mojave and believe me when I tell you that you won't be the last."

"Wait! Y-You know?" Ruby sputtered. "You knew!?"

The general nodded. "We can't overlook the details. Your antics at the casinos, the incident at Cottonwood, the pile-up along I-95, your vigilantism in Freeside and the surrounding Vegas communities. Not to mention your rather colorful attire that you almost always strut around in. And the list continues to grow."

"We have eyes and ears everywhere," the governor intoned. "Sometimes, all we have to do is turn on the radio and tune in to Radio New Vegas."

"It was not that hard to connect the dots," the general concluded.

"You knew this whole time..." Yang mumbled.

"Of course, you did," Blake muttered. "Six bought your silence. Ren and Nora made sure you kept that silence."

Governor Crocker shrugged. "We can keep secrets if the price is right. It is Vegas, after all. Things run differently here. The fact that we know carries strong implications. If it helps you sleep better tonight, know that this is a closely guarded secret. No one else other than myself, the general, and the people working on Fragment know about this. You can also thank Lieutenants Pappas and Boyd for the complacency of the military police."

General Hsu emptied his glass. "We don't have much time but I'll allow you the rest of the day to think it through."

The Huntresses-in-training gave them a minute of uneasy silence before Blake initiated the walk-out.

Dennis stretched against his chair and let out the breath he had been holding in.

"Well, James...we tried."

James hummed. "That doesn't mean they didn't refuse."

"They didn't agree, either."

"Give them a few hours. They'll come around."

The governor almost slapped his desk. "What makes you so sure? We took a gamble. We laid out all our cards on the table. Told them things no one else should know. These are kids with superpowers that we tried to turn. And we lost. They'd be telling Papa Six—"

"They won't." Hsu poured himself another glass of water. "They have their convictions to worry about. But if all else fails, then I have the manpower and the materiel to deal with any problem that would arise from this."

Dennis nearly scoffed. "Don't get carried away with all our assets. Sometimes, I wonder if we should put a price tag on each star an officer gets. The one you just got is worth at least ten or twenty thousand troops."

"That's twenty thousand more people ready to help the Republic stay on its feet out here."

The governor snorted, more unnerved than concerned for his old friend. "Oliver and Moore sure rubbed off on you, eh, James? Makes me think the position of general is a living curse. Turns all good men like you into something else."

"I'm just doing what needs to be done, Dennis."

Meanwhile, out in the corridor, Blake's faunus ears twitched underneath her bow.

Omake

"Okay, you got the venom."

Sparta's normally calm and collected demeanor quickly devolved the moment her face mirrored the color of her hair; her cheeks puffed as she struggled not to lose a single drop of the poison filling up the whole cavern of her mouth. Her breathing became frantic, her hands flailing wildly around her, squeaks loosed through her tightened lips and bits of dusty old metallic bits floating up from the concrete.

"You got it, Pyrrha!" cheered Nora as she and Syrup held Jaune down against the concrete (or more appropriately sat on him). By then, Knight-boy was nothing more than a young teen sapped of all his strength and sanity, akin to a man who had been violated.

"Take it easy," Ren advised, helping his teammate calm her flying arms. Only now, her legs started stomping erratically, threatening to kick him in his shins and gonads. "It's not that bad."

"Focus, Sparta," Six instructed. "Now spit it out—"

Gulp.

Eyes bugged out of their sockets.

Six blinked. Are you fucking kidding me? "... Sparta..."

"Pyrrha, did you...?"

Nora leaped around them, her boot still on top of their team leader. The ginger took a closer look at the now catatonic redhead, her mouth starting to creak open while the tiny floating metal pieces surrounding her fell back to the ground. "Uh, Pyrrha. You know, you weren't supposed to swallow."

The Courier felt his hand smack against the side of his face. Goddamn it.

"... Uh, guys? Is it over?" Jaune whinnied.

"I think so," Nora replied. Then she slapped his bare keister. "Nice butt, by the way."

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: March 8, 2018

LAST EDITED: April 30, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED: March 10, 2018

Chapter Text

By the time they reached the ancient wooden gates of the Old Mormon Fort, the Courier could barely trudge more than three streps before clenching his buttocks to keep the stitches from ripping apart again. Usanagi needs to recalibrate her goddamn Auto-doc if she keeps using it so much. That rickety old torture chamber needs a tune up! High-class surgery my ass—it's going to tear open again!

It didn't help that the sweat that came with the searing Mojave heat made it feel like he either shat his pants or sat on something really, really wet. Having to muscle through the desert for hours in underwear made sticky by bodily fluids was one of the most discomforting quirks of trekking. That and he had to put up with Pancake's constant eye-spy games because Sparta and Knight-boy were being damn awkward again while Shaolin was on Syrup duty (keeping that tightly-leashed infant deathclaw from clomping down on anything that moved within five feet of them).

"Welcome back," greeted a tired Doctor Julie Farkas, licensed medical physician and regional director for the Followers Of The Apocalypse. Despite her visible exhaustion, she mustered enough energy to give him the standard once-over. "Are you alright?"

Sparta shot me in the ass and that rickety-ass Auto-doc of yours sort of fucked it up. "Nothing serious," Six replied, waving her off. "Just need some extra painkillers."

"Are you injured?" she pressed.

"Oh, he's just cranky, doc," Nora mirthfully dismissed with a wave. "Pyrrha accidentally shot him while training."

"It was an accident," the redhead muttered with her head bowed.

Julie blinked. Then nodded. "Oh, I see. Well, I'm sure your father wouldn't hold that against you forever."

Oh for fuck's sake, not you too! The Courier groaned, leaning against the empty supply crates piled around the flagpole in the middle of the yard. Having something to sit on relieved a bit of the pain.

"Julie, I'm not their..." Ah, fuck it. "Look, just...please, just go check if you got any painkillers. Morphine, dipyrone, Med-X, anything."

"Well, we don't have much left in reserve at the moment but I'll go check. Where exactly does it hurt?"

"His butt," Jaune replied tiredly. He yawned, missing Six's paralyzing glare. "Doc, can I get something for me, too?"

Julie rounded him. "Are you injured?"

"I was bitten," the blonde replied.

"Where and by what?"

"Um..."

Ren exhaled. "In the rear. It was a...night-stalker, was it?"

The mention of those mutated rattlesnake coyotes jolted Julie awake. She quickly leaned into his pupils. "No dilations, no discoloration... You're not feeling nauseous or dizzy, are you?"

"Oh, don't worry, doc!" Nora chirped. "We got rid of the poison."

"Are you sure?"

"Yep. Pyrrha sucked it out of him."

And that was when the atmosphere in their circle fell dead silent. Syrup let out a sound that came close to a snicker. Pancake just kept grinning while Sparta tried to melt behind her hair.

Julie cleared her throat. "Right. Uh, follow me please."

Huh. Nobody home. The Courier stifled that uneasy feeling in his gut on his way to the kitchen of the penthouse suite while team JNPR-S fell into their routine comforts. Nothing serious had happened with team RWBY (or courtesy of team RWBY) for the past week so he had no reason to worry about their absence from the Lucky Thirty-Eight when they returned. Victor said they went to help out at Vault Twenty-One. Of course, they did. Petty altruists.

Six sat back on a chair, popped in a mix of antibiotics and painkillers courtesy of the Followers then took a long swig from the whiskey bottle. And promptly spat out his drink. Son of a bitch! He raised the glass to his eyes, watching the clear fluid slosh inside. This was neither tequila nor vodka. It wasn't even alcohol. It had a lot of sugar, though, enough to make Hyper jump off the walls.

"Fucking...juice?"

"Doctor Farkas recommended you reduce your alcohol consumption," Shaolin remarked, firing up the stove.

Six let out a low growl. Damn it, Julie. He knew she meant well but there was a reason why he often ignored the advice of physicians when it came to his select poison. "What have I told you, kids? Never touch my liquor!"

Ren shrugged, instead focusing on mixing a bowl of eggs, butter, and flour. "We were only concerned for your well-being."

The Courier made to rebut when he heard Nora's voice boom across the dining hall. "This is an intervention, Six!"

Are you fucking kidding me? Pancake stood by the doorframe, radiating mischievous determination.

"We can't have our dad getting too drunk to take care of us," she continued, clearly savoring how far she was taking this stupid charade.

He glared at Knight-boy and Sparta twiddling their thumbs behind her. The former simply pointed at the ginger while mouthing, 'It was all her idea.' The latter shrugged and added, 'Sorry but you sort of need this, to be honest.'

I can't believe this shit. "This has got to be some kind of joke."

Nora shook her head. "Nope. We're going to fix you right up."

The Courier chuckled. With a twitch in his eye. "You can't take away my alcohol."

"We just did," Ren answered somberly.

Jaune let out a defeated sigh as his shoulders sagged. "She made us dump all your liquor in the sewer while you were talking to the cops down on the Strip."

Six didn't want to believe him. But even as his eyes bugged out of his sockets, even after he feverishly dug through his field pack, regardless of frantically running inventory on his Pip-Boy, he came to accept the painful truth that Pancake had indeed disposed of every single alcoholic beverage in his arsenal. Even his precious home-brewed wasteland-brand tequila squeezed from the plump tendrils of Nevada agave that he constantly kept in a special hands-off, hard-to-reach place had been thoroughly disposed of.

Fuck.

He yanked hard on the fridges, nearly ripping them apart with how hard he was gripping the handles. The corks on all the bottles had cracks in them while the seals below the caps were either broken or missing. Every single article of liquor had been replaced with whatever crap these kids came up with. He slowly glared at the ginger, somehow finding her grin disconcerting.

"Pancake... You... How...?" How did you sneak my stash out from under me!?

"You have an unhealthy addiction, dad," Nora outlined. It was bad enough selling the illusion to the public but to take his apparent 'paternity' this far was getting too damn ridiculous. "Alcohol is bad for your health."

"The alcohol was disinfectant. For injuries," he argued.

Knight-boy snickered. "Yeah. Usually, you drink it to dull the pain instead of pouring it over open wounds like you keep telling us to."

"You use clean water more than anything else as disinfectant," Ren added dryly.

The Courier turned to Sparta, expecting some meek snark or something. Instead, she simply ignored them all and kept staring at the ground. Probably a side effect of her prescription anti-venom. Or the awkwardness stemming from the embarrassment of the previous day.

"You kids don't know what you're doing," he countered.

"Hey, if the Followers can sober up drunks and druggies, then why can't we?" Nora flipped pulled up a clipboard to show him a physician's checklist. "Besides, we've got, uh, basic know-how. And if there's something we can't do... Well, there's no harm in trying."

Six felt his jaw go slack. You're fucking crazy.

Pancake joyously pumped her fist into the air. "Alright then! Let's get started on your rehab!"

Goddamn it. "You do know that I can kick you all out right now."

For once, Jaune simpered. The damn kid that kept getting the short end of the stick among the kids gave him a coy grin. "We dare you."

Why you ungrateful little shits... He stood to give him a piece of his mind when Pancake jumped him with her hybrid super-sledge. Finicky little monkey gripped tight onto his shoulders like a stubborn sloth.

"Don't move! This won't hurt if you don't fight back," she barked cheekily into his face.

If it wasn't for the meds he just took in, he might very well have. Then again, even if he did, he would most likely feel like absolute shit if he did. Strange. Maybe he should have eased up on the meds; he was being way too docile. I hate this...

As far as Ruby could recall, they had been in the Mojave for a whole month now. The first week alone was enough to shear them with the heartless reality of the Wasteland. The second week was spent acclimatizing to their new environment—from the constant death, the lack of care, and the near absence of order to the exotic flora and fauna and the scarcity of resources and bare necessities—while struggling with their homesickness. The third week yielded them with the quirks of being taken under the wing of one of the most influential persons in the entire region. This week shattered their illusions of him.

She could understand why hope was rare to have here. This world ate up those who tried to change it. Those who had some success ended up consuming themselves. It was bleak and heartless, despotic and cruel. Nonetheless, she still stubbornly held onto that vestige of hope.

Ruby knew there were still good people out there. Rebuilding, restoring, renewing... That was why nations like the New California Republic existed. To rebuild the world from the ashes of war. To keep nasty groups like the Imperium Americana and their monstrous American Legion in their places. Sure, the Republic had its questionable moments but despite its flaws, it still kept trying. And that was what solidified her resolve.

That was why she endeavored to help the people of this land. That was why she tried her hardest to help those escort girls escape from Gomorrah; to help supply the beleaguered Followers Of The Apocalypse with badly needed medicine and supplies; to help Six deal with his personal demons...even if he would not let her. That was why she ran along with Blake's insistence to investigate the man's past. That was why she overruled Weiss's protest not to meet with the NCR. That was why she let Yang crack her knuckles on some information brokers.

And that was why she was here, sitting on a sink top in the lavatory of the New Vegas Provincial Capitol, watching her teammates argue over General Hsu's offer. It was a good thing most of the staff in the facility were male lest they would be causing a line in front of the women's bathroom.

It was difficult to believe. But all those rumors and little tidbits they had been picking up over the past several days were founded on truths. And some of these truths were hard to stomach. Ruby always held Six as a hero but held back on admitting that he was a worse villain than any they had ever dealt with. Decorated, admired, glorified, vilified... He did not earn his place in this world by being nice, that was for sure. The reaper decided not to think of all the other ways he did to get to where he was right now. She still did hear about of some of them.

Then again, the same could be said of the NCR. The girls all had their reservations towards the Republic but they equally had every reason to consider them as the best...allies...in the Mojave Wasteland, making their intel more believable than most. And the fact that they knew everything this whole time, that they were complacent in everything, that they were coming to them of all people and asking them to do this...

"Six isn't a bad guy," Yang remarked, diffusing the argument between Weiss and Blake that had been going on for the past ten minutes.

"He still doesn't count as a good guy, either," the faunus said.

"He's a war criminal," Weiss retorted. "We've been living with a war criminal!"

"Still, think about what he's done for us so far," the blonde countered. "He's been feeding us, training us, gave us a roof over our head—heck, people won't even touch us because they think we're his children!"

Blake shook her head. "I think it's more out of fear than respect."

Weiss nodded. "I doubt his service record holds anything meriting any respect. Much less anything of proper moral standing!"

"Do you think he even cares about morals?"

"I don't. And that's what worries me." The heiress sighed. "Why is he going out of his way to even bother with us when he could have just disposed of us like he did with...with the last people he worked with?"

Six did not ditch Raul, Ruby wanted to say. The famous 'Vegas Nine' went their separate ways after a nasty falling out. That was what most people said, right? That was even in the reports, too. Right?

"Because we didn't piss him off?" interjected Yang.

"Because he doesn't want anymore complications."

"Complications?"

The faunus gazed at the mirror, as though seeing through their reflections at some distant memory, some idea that was lurking over the horizon, some sort of eureka moment that... "So that's why..."

"Uh, you got something there, Blakey?"

"General Hsu is probably right. Six wouldn't bother with anyone unless he needed them for something. Say a means to an end. A tool. A buffer for prying eyes or...a front for something."

Weiss cast doubt through her narrowed gaze. "Are you implying that our technically legal guardian is using us? As a sort of means to distract the outside world?"

"While he worked on something in secret," Blake continued. "This Samson Option sounds ominous. I couldn't get a solid read on the general but I could see through the governor."

"Alright. Lay it on us," Yang goaded.

Ruby listened intently as the faunus laid down her thoughts. From what they had gathered during their short investigation, Six was an aggressive recluse. He only brought along company only when they were needed during a job. And while he kept his working group limited to at most two people (including a hardy cyber-dog that used to belong to the King in Freeside and a Pre-War eye-bot packing enough firepower to level a base), the only time he ever expanded to a full squadron was during the Second Battle of Hoover Dam.

Now those eight people who had fought and bled with him on that bloody day had since dispersed, some never to be seen again. And Six moved on like they never even existed to begin with. The scary thought of it was that the same could happen to them. Both teams RWBY and JNPR (excluding Syrup) amounted to a full squadron with Six in charge. What could he possibly need them for?

Sure, they could not return to Remnant at this time but why else would he still bother with having them around in his personal spaces if there was nothing urgent to deal with? The American Legion had since retreated back to Arizona. Raiders were easy pickings for NCR patrols. New Vegas had already been pacified. There was nothing else that the Republic could not handle alone.

"Unless he wasn't working for the NCR," Weiss mouthed.

Blake nodded. "You remember what Swank said? Since the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, he's cut his ties with the Republic and most anyone directly associated with them."

"I can understand his reasoning to an extent. I mean, I would be more than disappointed if all my efforts would come to a sorry state as this."

"But why though?" Yang pondered. "If he's not doing any big jobs that he'd need extra muscle for then... Why take us in?"

"The Samson Option," Ruby piped.

"About time you spoke up," her sister murmured. "You've been really quiet, you know."

"You have a point, Blake," the reaper continued. "The NCR says the Samson Option is some kind of secret weapon that only Six can use. And they're afraid that he might use it against them because he isn't working for them anymore."

"And he probably needs us..." Weiss felt her brows rise to her hairline. "...to help him activate it."

"Or cover it up while he uses it against...whoever it is he's got a problem with," Yang added resolutely. "No offense, Blake, but I hope this is just some kind of crackpot theory. Sounds too far-fetched to me, honestly."

"We can't possibly be sure of anything right now," Blake corrected. "But I agree with you, Ruby. If the records are accurate, Six would be too calloused to consider keeping us after he's done with the Samson Option."

"This doesn't sound right," grumbled the brawler.

"It's not supposed to," Ruby said. "But do you guys remember what General Hsu said? 'Six is a broken man' but we can fix him."

"And they can't?" retorted Blake

Weiss sighed. "He only said that to sell it to us—"

The reaper shook her head. "No, no. They're right on that one. Six is broken. As a person, he's got his issues. That's why he drinks. Some people drink the way he does to forget things."

"Like Uncle Qrow, you mean," quipped Yang.

Ruby shook her head and pushed herself off the sink top. "Uncle Qrow has his reasons but he's not like Six. I mean, they have a lot in common with the drinking but he's not...well, you know what I mean. Guys, you know Six has issues that he keeps to himself. Whatever reasons he has for keeping us around, we'll make the most of it and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid or dangerous."

"You want us to accept the NCR's offer then?" Weiss slowly worded.

"Yes," came the quick reply.

Blake was reasonably apprehensive. "Are you sure about this, Ruby?"

"I don't know why we ended up here. But for whatever reason, we'll make our stay worth it. We're already here, we're here to help, and we will help. There are a lot of broken people here but I don't think there's no one as badly in need of healing as Six is. It's pretty obvious he needs fixing. And if no one else can do it, we will. If he's going to use this Samson thingy as a weapon, we'll stop him. It's for his own good."

The reaper felt the eyes of her teammates bore into her. While this was a normal occurrence within their team, this particular situation carried with it the burden of being far away from home, with no possible chance of going back, trapped in a distant land where death was likely to come around as easily as a fly would land on someone's face.

Ruby gulped. But she also steeled herself. She was not a child; she was old enough to handle dilemmas like this. Or so she hoped.

She took a deep breath and said with clear finality, "We may be far away from Beacon but we're still Huntresses-in-training. And as Huntresses-in-training, I say we take their offer."

It did not take much else for the rest of her team to agree to that.

General Hsu and Governor Crocker were still in the latter's office when they returned. Team RWBY shared apprehensive glances and curt nods with each other before Ruby stepped forward.

"We'll do it. On our conditions."

"Name them," the governor prodded.

"First off, we want everything you've got on Six," Yang started. "And we mean everything. Names, dates, places he's been to, stuff he's done. No lies, no half-truths."

"Secondly, we also want to see improvements in some of your administrative policies," Blake added, "towards minorities, second-rate citizens, and refugees."

"And because we are basing this on an agreement of trust," Weiss echoed, "we trust that you would refrain from hounding us with your spies. We prefer to do our business without your constant surveillance."

"That means your deal with Ren and Nora is off," Ruby reiterated. "Your cops can keep their mouths shut without our money."

To the surprise of the Huntresses-in-training, both men agreed to their terms. Maybe the NCR was fully capable of conceding some things, of being less belligerent and more considerate of human life. Or they were desperate. Probably both.

They returned to the Lucky Thirty-Eight later that evening. Strangely enough, Six had decided to go all the way to the Atomic Wrangler in Freeside to get hammered.

"If you're wondering, it was Nora's idea," Jaune remarked tiredly, rubbing his backside. "We staged an intervention and tried to get him to stop drinking so much. It worked at first then...he sort of slipped out when Nora got distracted."

"Don't worry, we'll get him!" the ginger declared, raising Magnhild. "He's not done with day one of rehab!"

"Guys," Ruby called. She waited until all of team JNPR-S gathered around them in the corridor. A simple order sent Victor downstairs to the empty casino to watch for 'security threats' even though no one else could get into the tower to begin with. "We've got something really serious."

"Did anyone of you burn down a building again?" Ren inquired.

"Not this time," muttered Yang.

"What then seems to be the problem," asked Pyrrha.

Ruby looked at her teammates and then their sister team then took a deep breath. "Six...needs help."

"We're already working on that—"

"No, Jaune," Weiss interrupted. "Six needs restraint on serious matters."

"Alcohol is serious—"

"Not the problem, Nora," Blake corrected.

"Listen," the reaper ordered. "The NCR asked us to investigate something Six is hiding. Something potentially dangerous. Something that they think could destroy the world as we know it."

Sensing the doubtful silence, Yang motioned to the elevator. "Let's talk about this upstairs. Some of you guys might be needing some cocktails for this one. I sure as hell need a couple."

Omake

He felt the vibrations in his gut and paled. It was that damn rumbling again. That unbearable, godforsaken rippling in his abdomen that screamed for release. No, he was not secretly a woman (even if he was, he was sure this was not what that time of the month felt like). Instead, a certain someone had laced his flask with some damned laxative. A really strong one, too.

"I still have fifty stitches in my ass," he seethed through grit teeth while clutching onto the metal railing so hard it was difficult to tell which would break: his hands or the bannister.

"That's what you get for cheating on your rehab," Nora scolded.

"I've got shit worse than hemorrhoids right now and you're making me shit like there's no tomorrow!" Another growl and agonizing rumble meant that the dam was about to break. A mudflow was coming. He could feel the chunks crashing against his rectal walls in repeated waves and dreaded the red streaks that might trickle with it.

As if the universe had conspired to spite him, the nearest lavatory was a long walk away. Either he did his business in some dark corner or he muscle through it until he found an unbroken porcelain toilet in some abandoned apartment.

"Do you need butt wipes?" Pancake called.

Shut the fuck up! Six waved her off as he struggled through the Strip to the streets of Freeside, eventually ditching her with a convenient distraction from the locals, until he stumbled into an alley.

There! This will have to do. He had been through worse. It did burn though—those damn chili beans Shaolin cooked up were literally biting him back in the ass.

An hour later, a Vegas hobo returned to his cardboard box to find that he needed a new one.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: March 10, 2018

LAST EDITED: April 30, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED: March 24, 2018

Chapter Text

This was not the worst hangover he woke up to but it was still disorienting as all living hell. Dizzied and nauseous, Six rolled to sit on the side of the bed, wondering why his room looked different...

Wait.

The Courier rubbed his eyes, grimaced at the burn, wiped his hands clean of his own dried vomit, and then rubbed his eyes again. He blinked several times until he could see some pale-skinned brunette snoozing comfortably in the same bed. Shit.

The blanket covered most of her young frame. Young. Maybe a little too young. Too dangerously young. Shit. Fuck.

Here he stood, half-naked, trying to put on the rest of his clothes, staring dumbly at the back of some broad who he may or may not have knocked up. Why did he come to that conclusion? Because he never carried protection on him. Because he never needed to. Because he never bothered with that kind of comfort. Because people were thinking that he had fathered eight children somehow and he was damn determined not to actually be a father. (Again.)

Shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Goddamn it. Just be quiet, grab your all your stuff, and sneak out as best you could. Maybe ask the Garretts downstairs what the fuck happened last night. Six wanted to kick himself so bad. Keep breaking your own damn rules. Keep telling yourself never get wasted outside the Lucky Thirty-Eight and then you do and then this happens! He began reaching for his duster tossed against a chair when she stirred.

And long bunny ears flopped out off the top of her head like folded rubber springs.

What in the living hell?

For one, the girl was not naked. Not completely, no. She was just in her nightie. Skimpy, scanty nightie. Additionally, she did not carry that atmosphere of being some Vegas spinner. In fact, when he actually bothered to look around, the room was not in a complete mess. No clear signs of anything...steamy happening. Well, maybe she was being thorough. Maybe she was a...dominatrix?

He shuddered at the mental images of a mole-rat-looking broad in black leather. And he had damn well seen—no, interacted—with literal mole-rat-looking broads on more than one occasion. It didn't help that they smelled like mole-rats, too.

Or they maybe all the action was confined to the bed. Who could really tell?

Weird. He scrunched his eyes. Her bunny ears looked too real. Either the Garretts got some animal fetish theme going on with their hookers or the chick just had a personal preference for that crap.

Focus, man! Get the fuck out and get back to the Strip. Check up on the kids, hope the tower's still standing. Shuffle, shuffle. Stir, stir. Damn it, my gear's all over the place! Can't risk losing anything else right now—

"Oh... You're awake."

Holy shit.

"That's alright... You don't have to rush... Last night was...interesting," she said meekly in some weird Briton accent. Was it Briton? British? Fancy European? Agh, he could barely think!

"Uh...right," he croaked, his back completely turned.

"It wasn't that bad. You looked like you really needed it."

She...liked it? The fuck did I do last night?

"Don't worry about me. I enjoyed the company." She chuckled. "Though you were quite terrifying. Barging into my room like that...uninvited..."

Oh shit.

"Ah, sorry 'bout that, ma'am." He breathed deep as he turned to face her, genuinely apologetic and awkwardly scratching the back of his head.

She beamed at him. And her bunny ears moved too. Her bunny ears moved. By themselves. When she flashed him that warm smile, those furry appendages straightened up.

"The hell...?"

Strangely, she laughed it off. Then she said, "You don't remember, do you? That's okay."

The cogs in his brain started to grind together more cohesively. Disjointed thoughts and pointed memories came together. Oh, no. This can't be happening.

"You've been the most open person I've ever encountered since I...came...here. You...didn't react as badly as most when they saw my ears." She held out her hand. "Reintroductions should be in order, I suppose. I'm Velvet. Velvet Scarlatina."

He wiped his hands before taking it. "Uh-huh... Um, nice to meet you...again...Miss Scarlatina."

"Oh, you can just call me Velvet." Her ears bent over. "You already know what I really am after all that you said last night so...that makes me comfortable enough..."

The Courier could feel his eyes bug out of his sockets. Please, no. Not another one! "What?"

"I'm a faunus." She blushed. "Or part-rabbit, you could say."

Six felt the urge to swallow one of the grenades hooked onto his combat harness. "Ah, shit."

The Courier rubbed circles on his temples over his mug of coffee while Velvet casually went through her morning tea and biscuits. Sure, breakfast at the Atomic Wrangler wasn't the best but at least he didn't have to worry about Pancake maniacally drilling him to abstain from alcohol.

"How much did I...?"

"Well, you were clearly out of it," the faunus answered timidly. Good thing most of the Wrangler's clientele slept in. Apparently, the Garretts and their staff, along with most everyone else who stopped by this early, passed off her faunus traits as some silly decoration that went along with whatever she was into.

"Yeah, I got that," Six breathed. "What was I...what was..."

"Oh, we were just talking. Well, you were talking. Uh, mostly you were just rambling on about taking care of teams RWBY and JNPR. You probably didn't think I was in the room. You were actually talking to yourself most of the time."

Is that what really happened? "Nothing...else? Nothing, um, untoward?"

She shook her head, a bit of mirth gracing the corners of her cheeks. "No. You didn't even try to touch me. It was like I wasn't in the room. You just dropped onto the bed, vomited over the side, and fell asleep."

Six was more relieved than embarrassed at that. Could've been worse.

Velvet eyed him apologetically. "I don't mean to pry but you were mumbling...names and events, err, dates..." She raised her hands. "Nothing I bothered to remember!"

He sighed. I guess I really should lay off a bit if I keep dropping hints like that when I'm that deep in the bottle. "So...I guess the cat's out of the bag then."

The faunus shrugged. "It's the gossip of the town. Mister New Vegas would occasionally report about you...or, well, about RWBY and JNPR doing something bombastic. But hearing it from you... It was quite an interesting perspective." A proud smile stretched across her features. "Nothing quite surprising given their behavior. It's so much like them."

The Courier raised his brow at her. "So you know them?"

"We went to Beacon together." The mere mention of that mysterious academy's name clearly dampened her mood. "I'm a year ahead of them. I'm from team CFVY."

Six caught on but waited for her to compose herself and continue.

"Things...haven't been going well when I, uh, ended up here." A sigh. "Hope Coco and the others are doing okay," she muttered under her breath.

I don't need to know how that happened. "How long have you been around? Here. In the wasteland."

"More than a week, so far."

Huh. Lucky you. Looks like the raiders didn't get to you. Those bunny ears are pheromones to any psycho junkie out there. "What brought you here?"

"Trading caravan. They were friendly and very helpful. Taught me the basics, gave me some starting money, and pointed me in the right direction."

I don't know if this was even the right direction. It was debatable about which was safer (or least dangerous): New Vegas proper or the open Mojave, NCR 'protection' be damned. "Uh-huh. So what are you going to do now?"

Velvet looked down and her ears followed. It got some short-lived curious looks from across the lounge. "I, uh...honestly, I'm not sure. I was hoping I'd run into some help. The Kings were quite amiable. The Followers were very generous but I don't think they'd be able to help given their situation. That leaves the NCR and...well...now that we're acquainted..."

Six raised his brow.

The rabbit faunus gulped, shuttered her eyes, then hesitantly met his waiting gaze. "... You."

Goddamn it.

"They have a very optimistic view of the world."

"Optimists are the first to go. Then the pessimists. That leaves the cynics and the realists to duke it out until the winner either gets eaten by a deathclaw somewhere or dies of dehydration."

Velvet scratched at the back of her head, feeling for the tips of her folded faunus appendages. Under his insistence, she tucked them under a brimming bonnet thus effectively concealing her faunus heritage despite the discomfort it brought to her ears. Not that she needed those extensions for anything other than extended hearing, for all he knew. Perhaps she was used to having them out, about, and free...for someone to tug on.

"I'm only saying that you should forgive them for being, um...ambitious?" she bargained.

Six scoffed. "What a word. They're being fucking stupid. Trying to change the goddamn world overnight. Like that's even possible. Takes more than a damn lifetime to try to even change a fucking government policy."

The faunus followed the Courier's lead by sidestepping around a tattered drunk sprawled across the sidewalk. "You can't blame them. It's what we've all been accustomed to."

He stopped and leaned under the awning hanging off an abandoned barber shop. "Oh? Is that what they teach you at Beacon? That, no matter where you are, no matter how fucked up the world is, you can still make it a better place? Even if there are people who don't want it to be so?"

"I'm not saying—"

The Courier folded his arms and sighed. "Kid, I can't completely understand where you're coming from but I've a good picture of it. But just because it works at Remnant doesn't mean it works here on Earth, too."

"I know that."

Behind his visor, he raised a brow. "Really now."

Velvet clenched her fists. "Remnant is not a perfect world. But neither is here. And for your information, they're freshmen. They're still...hopeful."

"Right. And because you're a year ahead, that means you've seen as much as the folks on the frontline?"

She glared at him. "Not what I meant! Look, I've been through that stage. I used to have that outlook. But you can't just crush their hopes like that." Her eyes fell to the concrete, her mien downcast. "It...hurts."

Six pushed himself off the brick and mortar. Get used to it. "It's never painless." I just hope you're more realistic than Hyper and her merry band of idiots.

"Can you at least go easy on them?"

There's no other way. "No guarantees." He held up his palm to stifle her protests. Mainly because he felt the minute vibrations coming off his Pip-boy alerting him to some incoming messages. He turned around to conceal the screen. Hsu. Huh, what does he want now? And Raul? Huh.

"Is there...something..."

"Stay here," he ordered before he walked into a nearby alley to find out whatever urgent errand the NCR had for him this time around.

Velvet was not fond of confrontations. As such, she did her best to avoid them and was consequently denied growth in the area of diffusing nasty encounters. So when one of Freeside's many roaming gangs surrounded her while she waited outside the alley, she did her best to weasel her way out of it. Unfortunately, they were just about what she expected them to be: persistent and...hungry.

"Well, if it isn't the little bunny that everyone's been talking about. Can't stay in the Wrangler forever, you know," the dominant one prodded, the odor from his breath nearly making her gag. "You looked really cute in them bunny ears."

"She's got a nice ass, too," another remarked.

Velvet squealed when a third grabbed her arm.

"Boys, I think we got ourselves a squeaker."

"This is gonna be good."

"Haven't had any in a while."

"H-hey, s-stop it!" she pleaded, trying to pull her arms away from their grips. "Let me go!" She really hated having to resort to force.

"Stop squirming, bunny-girl," the leering alpha cooed. "We'll take care of everything from here."

Now a fourth one had wrapped his arms over her body, his filthy hands worming up to her chest. The rising growl in her throat died in a faint squeak when the leader of the group snatched her hat, exposing her appendages.

The new attraction amused them. "Holy shit. You still keep 'em on? Must really like being a bunny, eh?"

Then they tugged at them. It hurt. A lot.

"Huh. You glued 'em on or somethin'?" one of them scoffed. "Shit. Yeah, you really glued 'em on."

"S-stop it!" she gritted, her passive resistance waning. Any more and she would have to really go wild. Corner a faunus and face the consequences. Especially if it was a female.

"Shut up, bitch—"

A powerful shot echoed from within the alley. Velvet stared wide-eyed as the alpha dropped to the ground, crimson pooling through a clean hole above his left ear. The other three gawked dumbly before another deafening pop burst from the darkness, ripping through the man on her right, giving her free reign over her arm while he fell motionless onto the concrete.

The faunus blinked, recovered her suspended adrenaline, and let her combat training kick in. A quick leg sweep and two quick jabs later, the other two townies were on the ground writhing in pain. She swiveled on her heels to come face to face with the Courier brandishing his smoking revolver.

"Shit," sputtered one of the panicked thugs. "Oh shit, oh shit!"

"Six! Thanks so much for the sav—" Velvet felt paralyzed at what happened next.

Six ignored the pleas of the two Freeside junkies. He squeezed twice, one bullet in each head. It was hard to tell what was behind that dusty old helmet of his as he casually wiped off a few spatters of blood that made it there, the rest of his face covered by that haunting combat mask. He strode over the corpses, smoking gun at his side, annoyed at this...chore.

"Y-you...th-they..." she stammered.

"No one'll miss them," he said coldly. "You alright?"

She nodded edgily, heart pounding, mind comprehending her apparent 'rescue.'

"Good. We're taking a detour. East."

Velvet blinked. Everything she had learned so far about the famously infamous Courier Six was ringing true. "E-east?"

"We're going to meet with a friend of mine."

"But...the Strip is right there."

She could feel his glare from behind those tinted lenses. "East. No questions."

"O-okay."

It took another several hours for Velvet to come to grips with the deaths of those men—vile as they were—even as she followed Six through the outskirts of New Vegas, back into that damned desert, wondering whether or not she made the right choice of roping herself with a conscienceless killer over asking for help from a military government. Then again, military governments tended to field disciplined conscienceless killers into their ranks to fight undisciplined conscienceless killers out in the wilds.

She may have seen the cruel reality of Remnant—quirks of being a faunus—but the Mojave Wasteland had a lot more to offer. And that made her damn well scared shitless.

Omake

Velvet stared at this stranger wobbling at the foot of her bed, at a loss for words, her mind wavering between confused and afraid. Here she lay under the covers, in revealing discount nightwear, away from her team—from anyone she knew—and at the mercy of this tall, unkempt prowler who had suddenly kicked down the door to her room.

Her hands felt numb from clutching the duvet over her chest. Her weapon Light Copies sat on the nightstand next to her but she worried that any sudden move might cause him to lash out at her. Or at least, that was what her paranoid self was screaming in the back of her mind.

Because all this intruder did was ramble incoherently, swinging his arms around and spilling alcohol all over the floor. For the past half hour. With her natural hearing, she could pick out the minute details being said. Or mumbled. Or groused. Or gargled.

Yeah, he was ranting about his life story, that much she could gather.

"Uh, mister...?" she tried for the fourth time.

"Fuckin' Hyper and her fuckin' scythe-gun!" he rambled. "Like she fuckin' knows what it's fuckin' like out there in the goddamn desert..."

He took another swig before stumbling over to her right. Velvet edged away despite his clear ignorance of her presence.

"I should've fuckin' left 'em in the fuckin' desert...should've left 'em to rot...in the fuckin'... Fuck... What the hell were you thinkin', eh, Six? You done fucked up again, 'ya did!" A burp. "Screwed over the best squad you could pull out of your fuckin' ass since...since...since Ar'zona..."

"Mister, please, you're—"

"Wond'r how V'ronica's takin' it... Ah, who the fuck am I kidding? She'll knock my damn head off... Like she'll ever fuckin' understand the big picture... Damn... I done really fucked that one up... 'Vegas Nine' no more. I'll toast to that!"

The faunus decided to reach out to him to calm him but he recoiled away, raising his near empty bottle to the coat rack, barking at said coat rack, and taking a long swig while telling the coat rack that he regretted killing some people.

"Hope Arcade's doin' well... Don't drop the soap, Arc! Eh, you'd probably like it..." He crawled onto her bedside. Somehow, despite his bloodshot eyes brushing over her form, he still thought she was nothing but air. Even the neon sign flashing outside her window did little to convince him that she was right there. "Cassidy Caravan's back in business! If Boone won't put you under, Cass will! That's a fuckin' slogan right there..."

Wait. What was that about Cassidy Caravans? Does he know Miss Cassidy? And Mister Boone?

"Mister, you need to sit down..."

The stranger, a big bulky man who could have easily stood a foot taller than Headmaster Ozpin (it was hard to tell in the dim lighting), haphazardly undressed (were those scars?), gave up halfway (was taking off the duster that hard?), and groggily collapsed right next to her on the bed (seriously?). "Fuckin' whiny-ass kids...an' their high-maintenance bullshit...costin' me fuckin' every cap... Spent whole fuckin' years raisin' funds like that an' they come an' fuckin' funnel 'em down the goddamn drain... Makin' everythin' fuckin' complicated... Yeah, keep tellin' yourself that..."

Velvet watched him mumble himself to sleep. Confused and bordering between amused and worried. She started to relax after she heard snoring. "Huh... That could have gone differently."

The man suddenly spasmed, heaved, and promptly vomited his dinner onto the floor.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me..."

The snoring resumed immediately thereafter.

The faunus gawked. Her mind tried to process everything once again but petered out half way through. She was already too tired to care. She had been walking for miles, under the blistering sun, through the unforgiving desert, around ruined buildings, over uneven rubble, passed homeless predatory gangs to finally get some respite. And this happens.

Velvet groaned out her frustrations, letting her head drop back onto her pillow. Her whole body was still aching from all that traveling and she would really snap if she was so much deprived of any more hours of sleep. So she shuffled to the farthest edge of her side of the bed, ignoring the stench, and drifted back to sleep. She would deal with this first thing in the morning.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: March 24, 2018

LAST EDITED: April 30, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED: March 31, 2018

Chapter Text

"Got something in that pot?"

Raul nodded, lifting the tin lid to let the aroma of the broth overcome the odors of charcoal, sweat, and sand. "Rare specialty. Never thought I'd see another one of these until I saw the tracks. A whole nest of them, just up from the old Brotherhood safe house."

Six huffed. "Lucky you. Thought all the little hoppers this side of the Mojave died out."

The ghoul shook his head. "No, no. They're everywhere, boss. Stable numbers, no need to really cull the herd. You'd be surprised by the caballos running around down in Texas. Wild and unsaddled, some of them ghoulified. Used to wrangle them for a local rancher until his farm was hit by raiders."

Velvet took her place beside the fire pit, savoring the warmth of the flames. The Mojave desert had a climate unlike any she had ever experienced on Remnant. And she had been to all four kingdoms during her childhood. By day, it was as hot as Vacuo in the summer. By night, temperatures dropped to Atlas-levels of winter. At least she was acclimating better than when she first arrived on this world weeks ago.

Raul laid out three bowls, pouring in good steaming portions of soup with neat slices of meat and vegetables grown from his little garden patch outside his modest shack.

The faunus welcomed the scent, relishing the comforting heat that bristled through her fingers. Odd. The stew itself was marvelous but it felt...odd. Somewhat. Something felt off. Something in her gut that made her feel a little uneasy. She couldn't put her finger on it but she was too grateful for the food that she kept her peace. Besides, she didn't want to be disrespectful to the elderly mechanic who was known to have lived for over two hundred years and witnessed firsthand the deadly fires that had consumed Earth.

"So, hija. How are you feeling?" Raul started.

Velvet licked her lips clean before answering. "Better. The food is lovely, Mister Raul."

Whatever the ghoul had in response to that flattery died in his throat the moment she took off her hat. And let her ears spring free.

It was so good to have them out and about again, swaying back and forth with the late afternoon breeze. Having them tucked and folded for hours really put a strain on her muscles there. It took her another moment to feel the silence. She opened her eyes to see Raul lean over to Six. She couldn't help but overhear.

"You should have told me what she was, boss."

"My bad."

"You do know what I was cooking, right?"

"She doesn't have to know."

The mechanic frowned. "Really now, because the last time that happened, the little diablos savored every drop. Come on, boss. I mean, if she really is one of those animal-people..."

"I fed the kids dog meat," the Courier groaned quietly. "Seemed like Cat-girl's favorite, too. Besides, Velvet's mature enough. Even if she knew, I'm pretty sure she won't overreact to eating rabbit stew—"

Velvet choked. Loudly. She gaped at the bowl in her hands, the remaining bits of meat floating in the soup.

"Huh, she figured it out, boss."

"Ah, shit. I forgot she had good hearing."

Raul sighed. "It's okay, hija. I can get you something else."

Velvet felt sick. Sick at herself for inadvertently disrespecting the ghoul's selfless hospitality and sick at the fact that she may have committed something taboo. Unless cannibalism was acceptable here in the Wasteland... Was this really cannibalism? Such questions had very controversial answers back on Remnant. She slowly angled her head. Six was staring at her.

"I... I, uh," she stammered. "S-sorry..."

The Courier shook his head, grumbled something vulgar under his breath, and took the bowl from her hands. "Ever heard of the story of the Ultra Luxe, Bunny-girl?"

She gulped.

The small, quiet town of Goodsprings boasted nothing beyond its natural radiation-free reservoirs. Compared to everything they have had to live off of outside of the Strip, the untainted mineral waters pumped out of the ground in this wooden oasis was a godsend. That and the open kindness of the (armed) locals.

"For bein' the 'wonder kids' o' New Vegas, you sure look the part," remarked Sunny Smiles, the resident game hunter.

Yang chuckled as she capped off her canteen. "Yeah, we do stick out."

She bent down to shoulder the pole leveraging a quartet of water jugs that had been refilled and nodded at Pyrrha who hefted her share of half the town's water supply. They began the trek back up to the town under the orange beams of the setting sun.

"So what brought y'all here to the Mojave?"

The blonde glanced at the Mistralian who had nothing prepared for that inquiry. "Um, well, we, uh... We sort of, you know, uh, wanted to, um, see more of the world."

Sunny smiled at that. "Heh, guess I can't blame you. Ain't no use in bein' sheltered most o' your life."

"Can't really say sheltered but it's, um, close enough to that, yeah." Yang glanced again at Pyrrha who kept going up the trail. Why did she have handle keeping their cover? That was supposed to be Weiss's job! Ice Queen got lucky with the coin tosses. Then again, this was a good opportunity to ask around a bit. "So, uh, this is where, um, you know, ah...it all started. Right?"

"You mean where Old Green Eyes 'rose from the grave'? Yeah. Right up the cemetery. Lots o' folks come here askin' 'round about it since the war. Pretty annoyin' but gives us a bit of business."

"I can understand why," mumbled Pyrrha.

"Yeah. You survive gettin' shot in the head, buried alive, and a damn all out war. People'll start askin' 'bout you. That's one way to get famous. Or infamous."

"What was he like?" the blonde pressed. "You know, right after he got dug up?"

"Messed up. Ugly scar on his forehead, stitches on his face all the way up to his scalp. Doc Mitchell did his best but you can't really fix a skull that's been shot up more than once."

"Was he, um, y'know..."

"He wasn't as bad as most people out there say," Sunny contested coolly. "Sure, he did some things that'd pro'lly give Doc Mitchell a heart attack but that's what you gotta do to survive out there. Besides, you can't really believe what you hear."

Yang and Pyrrha let out some nervous chuckles.

"Anyway, thanks again for your help back there. Raiders been gettin' desperate lately. You gotta to be pretty stupid to try to beat down on Goodsprings."

Pride beamed from the blonde. "Well, they messed with the wrong people."

The game hunter snickered. "Lucky too 'cause most of us here would'a shot 'em where they stood. More merciful folks like you are hard to come by on the frontiers."

"Odd that they slipped through the NCR patrols," Pyrrha mused.

Sunny let out a dry snort. "Stickin' to the roads is what they've been doin' for the past couple years. An' the raiders ain't dumb. You'd think that with all the taxes we have to pay that they'd put in a sheriff's office like what they got down in Primm. I reckon we're not that worth protecting."

"That's not right," Yang protested.

"Ain't nothin' right. NCR tells you one thing, they do the other. If anythin', they're not as good as what they think they are but then again they aren't as bad as what everyone else says 'bout 'em. But that's just me."

Pyrrha hummed. "Fair enough judgment."

"So your old man's fine with you trekkin' all the way out here?" Sunny asked.

The blonde did her best to deliver the lie. It was becoming a bittersweet comfort having to constantly sell the daddy story, especially now that she was starting to picture her father Taiyang's head on Six's shoulders and Uncle Qrow's flask in his hand. "Yeah. He won't mind. We can take care of ourselves."

"Say, where were y'all headed to anyway?"

"Oh, nowhere specific, really." Yang chanced furious glances back at Pyrrha. Back me up here, P-Money! "You know, ah, finally visit Primm and, uh, you know, um..."

"Go sightseeing," Pyrrha injected flawlessly. "We've always wanted to see the statues at the Mojave Outpost."

Sunny paused mid-stride, clearly puzzled. "I thought y'all were from California."

"Ah, no. Well, not really."

"Utah then? Old Green Eyes had been there more times as much as those trading outfits. I heard there were some good settlements up north. Must've been a long walk if you're coming from the Great Salt Lake. Though I don' blame you for hoofin' it south given what we been hearin' 'bout what's been goin' up that way recently."

"Can't really say," Pyrrha worded, her green irises flickering to Yang. We need a better cover!

Thankfully, arrived on the outskirts of Goodsprings where Sunny shifted to getting the water into the town's only cantina. "Ah, well. Guess it ain't my business to pry."

They followed the road until they arrived at the porch of the Prospector Saloon.

"Smells like Trudy's gotten started on our steaks..."

An explosion erupted in the near distance followed by a shrill but familiar ecstatic howl and a normally calm voice echo 'Nora!' over the rolling hills.

"...and I think your sister's discovered our dynamite stash."

Pyrrha sighed and set down the jugs as another blast sent shockwaves across the canyon. "I'll go get Ren and Nora."

Ruby stared down at the grave marker.

The haphazard wooden cross sat atop the plot of land where Six allegedly 'rose from the dead' over three years ago. This was where his journey to the top of the Mojave began. This was where he began an infamous vendetta that would carve through the wasteland, leaving several hundreds—maybe even thousands—dead in his wake. Whether by his hand or by his word, people died.

"Hey," Blake prodded.

"Six is a good person. I know it. You know it, right, Blake?"

The faunus felt her voice die in her throat. She did not know how to answer that. After all that they had learned about the man, it was becoming difficult to see him in a more benevolent light. "He's a...he's..."

"He's not a bad person. Not entirely."

"Ruby...I believe that. We all do." Blake had to choke out the words but they were no lie. "Are you going to be alright?"

"I could ask you all the same thing."

"We're all powering through this, Ruby. We're doing this to help. Not just him but everyone."

Ruby nodded, letting the moment pass in the silence. She breathed deep, once again going through the highlights of what they had learned from the trove of (mostly redacted) information granted them by the NCR's intelligence division.

Courier Six: male, mid-forties, widowed, alcoholic. Desert Ranger, NCR contractor, rebel, fugitive, mailman—a storybook service record for a man summarily shot and haphazardly tossed under the soil she was standing over. And the estimates...the chilling estimates.

From what limited knowledge she had, the Desert Rangers were like Remnant's Huntsmen; heroes of this arid, sandy wasteland who had been serving and defending since before the bombs that burned the Earth. NCR contractors, on the other hand, often blurred the lines. Rebels reminded her of the White Fang. Fugitives though were nothing short of criminals the likes of Roman Torchwick. But mailmen... He was a courier, the 'unlucky sixth' in a conspiracy that changed the landscape of the Mojave...and probably beyond.

All it took was a couple bullets.

Ruby let her fingers trace her belt, running through her limited supply of ammunition for Crescent Rose. The absence of Dust in this world meant that their Huntsman weapons were strictly last resorts. She could feel the weight of the loaded five-fifty-six magazines pocketed in satchels on a separate bandolier slung over her shoulder as well as the pair of fragmentation grenades hanging from a loop on her belt. She still had to get used to NCR's standard-issue carbines, shoddy as most of them were.

At least the one she picked had been well-maintained and fine-tuned by skilled gunsmiths. Weapon nut as she was, she could not be picky when the best that was offered was considered the worst by Remnant standards.

"Is everyone done with their, y'know...?"

"Yang and Pyrrha are coming back up from the water run. Ren and Nora have gotten some extra explosives. Weiss and Jaune had already dropped the raiders off at the sky-diving office down at the intersection. An NCR patrol should have picked them up by now." Blake rested her palm on her shoulder. "Come on, Ruby. We should head back to the saloon."

"Yeah. Let's."

Ruby threw a final glance at the taunting poetic epitaph chiseled on the wooden cross before departing the Goodsprings cemetery:

'Here lied Old Green Eyes risen from the dead

Pity the bastard done shot him in the head'

Omake

"At least let me buy you a drink."

Weiss eyed him. That dirty brimmed hat favored among the rural locals hung off the back of his head from the cord around his neck. His blond hair was damp with sweat from the Mojave heat. And while his training with Pyrrha showed proudly from his rolled up sleeves, he was still leagues away from her standards...even though she lowered them (for his sake).

"Come on, Weiss. There's nothing to this. I'll just cover our tabs. That's it."

There was no harm in it, she thought. "Fine."

Jaune beamed in relief. He held up two fingers to Trudy, the owner and bartender of the Goodsprings saloon, who poured them each a glass of sweetened cacti juice. He slid the heiress her drink while he raised his own. "A toast?"

"Really, Jaune?"

He sighed. "Weiss, I know I haven't been stellar so consider this a fresh start. A toast to a job well done. As friends. Please."

She raised her brow at him. They were friends, after all. She treated him as a friend. An annoying pest of a 'friend' but a friend nonetheless.

"I mean, it's been a rough day but, hey! We're all still alive."

She regarded him for a bit. And felt a little angry at herself. He wasn't flirting. He wasn't even trying to flirt. Not anymore. But covering her tab? No. It was just a friendly gesture. A warm, caring gesture. And the small talk? Clearly no underlying tone. Just harmless small talk. He didn't even call her 'Ice Queen', 'Snow Angel' or any of those stupid sobriquets.

Weiss mentally scolded herself for being so ungrateful and tapped her glass with his. "It has been a troublesome day."

"I know, right?" he replied with a wide grin before taking a large gulp. "Could've been worse. I mean, it was like they ran out of bullets and just started chucking dynamite at us."

"That was exactly what they did, Jaune."

"Heh, yeah, but we did what we had to in the best way we could and we came out alive and on top."

Weiss let her lips curve a little. She was proud of what they had accomplished here in Goodsprings. Clearing the distant groundwater wells of coyotes and geckos, helping fix up some broken machinery needed to keep the small garden patch farms alive, and successfully defending the town from a mob of raiders constituted a day well spent. No serious harm on their side (the raiders would need a lot of medical attention, though).

"Your stance was a little off and your aim was horrible," she sniped.

"Hey, I'm learning," he replied with a cheeky smile.

Before he knew it, he threw a light jab on her shoulder. Like friends often did. And she clearly liked it.

"Don't jinx our luck," Weiss answered with a quiet chuckle.

"Aww, ain't that the sweetest, most wholesome thing I've seen in a long while," Trudy teased. "Most siblings usually beat each other senseless a few drinks in but you two must like to rib each other from time to time. Not that I mind you all acting like you don't know each other much but I've seen weirder families. Your dad won't show it but, if you ask me, I think he'd enjoy how close y'all are with each other. Goodness knows that man's been through hell and back that he needs something wholesome to remind him good people still exist."

Jaune choked on his drink while Weiss nearly spat out hers. Of course. Their cover. His hand went up to scratch the back of his head while the heiress hid her face behind her ponytail. They glanced across the table but snapped away with awkward, if not nervous, chuckles.

"Yeah, heh. We're pretty close," the blond Huntsman-in-training sheepishly noted.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: April 7, 2018

LAST EDITED: July 7, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED (FFN): April 14, 2018

Chapter Text

I knew it.

"I was hoping I wouldn't see that glint in your eye again, boss," Raul quipped.

The Courier kneaded the strip of rubber he picked up from the ghoul's worktable until he felt comfortable enough to keep from sounding any more pissed than he already was. "You don't have to worry about me." All this damn time... We were being played. I was being played. Again.

The ghoul leaned back on his chair, clearly unconvinced. "If you ask me, this job has got 'bogus' written all over it. You know I could go out there and 'investigate these anomalies' in your place. I'm just concerned about what exactly you'd be doing in the meantime."

Sorry, Raul, but you'd kill me if I told you. "Something personal."

"Boss, those 'U.S. Army prototypes' you discovered in that mine not too long ago... The way you described them...sounded a lot like what I saw over at Fort Mead. Pristine condition. Commonwealth stripes on the arms and legs like what you said. Nothing like anything I've ever seen before and you know me; been in more than enough bunkers to know what fits in this place and what doesn't."

I trust your judgment on that. "Someone was in that cave before we went in. Fresh oil on one of the tables. Warm casings. I brought the kids with me and they knew I'd be bringing the kids." I was too obvious, too reckless to show them that.

"Probably engineers went in to make the set-up look more convincing, keep the rigs well-oiled for you." The ghoul ran his fingers through the strips of hair that still remained above his lip. "You really think it was an assassination attempt?"

Maybe. "Nah. Hsu's too smart for that. It was probably some kind of distraction or a test or something." Or trying to gauge that the kids really are the Remnant wonders they've been suspecting all this damn time. Six peaked over his shoulder. Velvet's curved form lay huddled over the mattress by the corner of the shack, wrapped in a warm blanket, the steady rise and fall of her sides as she slept.

"So the NCR basically sent you on some wild goose chase to check up on something they planted in a mine that they knew was going to cave in sooner or later. Sounds like an assassination attempt."

The Courier shook his head. "'Happy little accident,' more like it. Had to have been Moore before she got recalled. Crocker's too chicken-shit to step on my toes and Hsu knows that directly killing me would make things worse around here."

"Gee, what a high opinion you have of yourself."

"Your opinion is highly valued," Six grunted. "I get snuffed and shit's going to go down so hard the NCR will have their hands fuller than when I got shot in the head."

"What makes you say that?"

"Trust me. I wrapped those bastards in enough chains to make him second-guess the keys to the padlock." But they still wriggle around to pull a Houdini on me. Well, there's always a limit to playing with the Republic's own bureaucracy.

"And the little diablos?"

Six remained silent, staring at the shadows inhabiting the corner of the ghouls' meager living space. He kneaded the rubber harder until it bent and snapped between his calloused fingers. "They're my responsibility. First things first, I'll check up on 'em."

"Boss, I told you: the general commissioned them on something. That something is over west."

"I know, I know. Thanks for the info." The Courier stood.

"Boss?"

"I'll check up on the kids, make sure they don't shoot themselves in the foot. Take care of Bunny-girl for me. Don't let her out of your sight."

Raul got to his feet only to meet his palm.

"I don't want to burden you with this one. Just keep that rabbit safe. It's all I'm asking."

"Boss. Knowing what you saw there, I can only hope my intel is off."

Six smirked. "All the more reason for me to get them out of trouble before it finds them." He slung his carbine over his shoulder on his way out.

"... Don't get yourself killed, amigo."

With how my luck's going so far? I can't guarantee that. "See you soon, buddy."

Meanwhile, in the back of the room, Velvet's ears relaxed against her head, her gaze cemented on the sheet metal in front of her face. Teams RWBY and JNPR were dispatched west on a mission for the NCR while the Courier was ordered to go east on a separate mission for the NCR. Why? Was something big going on? Were her only Remnant friends whom she had yet to be reunited with in danger? She could not risk it. She can't.

It was bad enough seeing Remnant burn before her eyes while she sat helpless and let herself be wrenched away to this new world, away from friends and family. She could not afford to see another disaster befall the only people she valued at this point.

Velvet relaxed on her side, sleep avoiding her well after she heard Mister Tejada's snores from his worktable on the other side of the shack.

All the information the NCR could provide did little to prepare them for what they had wandered into. Even to the most literate of them, there were little words to accurately describe the Divide. The whole region was a twisted canyon of bent steel and broken concrete shrouded in an almost endless storm of shearing sand and dirt. It was a place where, in Ruby's mind, Goliath Grimm would go to die. The air was dry, odorless, and restless.

"This," Weiss breathed, "This...is where Samson is kept?"

"It would make a lot of sense," Blake said, herself gawking in frightful awe at the sight of the 'valley.' "No one would want to come here unless they're either desperate or..."

"They've got something to hide," Yang completed.

Jaune wiped the sweat off his face, letting the muffler around his neck soak up most of the residue while he dusted dirt and sand off his clothes. He sat on a boulder as did the rest of his team and began massaging his legs which were sore from walking miles over desert rock and Old World rubble.

"We're already here," he breathed. "I say we rest for a bit."

Ren set down his backpack, laden with supplies and half of the their dynamite supply, and stretched his arms. "This is a nice overwatch position."

Ruby nodded. The deathly wind drafting up the cliff face towards their perch rippled through her cloak, sending a shiver down her spine despite the bravest facade she could put up. She bent down to heap a pile of stones into a mound to sufficiently steady the rifle barrel of Crescent Rose—a karmic tic knowing that Six taught her to do it at Cottonwood.

"I'll keep watch."

Pyrrha motioned at her. "I'll switch with you in thirty minutes. I suspect we won't be safer here any longer than an hour."

The reaper nodded, her carbine slung off to her side while she lay prone against the jagged gravel to shoulder Crescent Rose. Limited on Dust rounds as they were, she was willing to expend half her irreplaceable supply for this leg of their mission. Then again, given how serious this mission was, she expected to use up all of her remaining Dust. If only to protect the Mojave from whatever secret weapon was hiding down there.

Overwatch had never felt so tense.

The only way down to the valley from where they were was through an abandoned United States Army bunker built into the mountainside. Walking through it was haunting to say the least.

Cold, dimly-lit, steel floors. Cold, dimly-lit, steel walls. Broken pipes, dislocated catwalks, and machinery that somehow still functioned after years of misuse thanks to some nigh inexhaustible power source rendered inaccessible by debris. And then the trails of blood. Dried blood. Mixed with oil, the stains and foul odors were faint but telling. The countless bullet holes narrated the rest of the story.

Whoever had been here were dispatched rather brutally, their remains disposed of, and the blood sloppily mopped or scrubbed.

"This place is giving the creeps," Yang muttered.

"I still think there's something crawling in the walls," Nora added.

"Gotta be the ventilation system," Jaune said.

"Not just that," Blake countered. "I don't think whatever else is in the walls is alive though."

"What's alive?" Weiss asked.

"Whatever got stuck in the walls and is causing the uneven noises I'm picking up," the faunus among them answered.

Pyrrha approached Ruby who had wandered through an open doorway. A half hour later, team RWBY were gathered around the desk of the late United States Army General Martin Retslaf, deciphering the unfortunate events here at the Hopeville Missile Silo Bunker up until the final hours of the Great War. Team JNPR-S, on the other hand, opted to search the other rooms.

"This whole place was supposed to protect a nation," Weiss mouthed somberly. "This is...difficult to stomach."

"With you on that one, Ice Queen," Yang assuaged somberly, herself digesting the despondence in Retslaf's final entries. "Skim through and see if it mentions anything useful."

The heiress paused to gather her thoughts. It was going to take a while to file away some of the more depressing sections of the records she combed through. "Here. There are mentions of something about...repositories stocked with supplies to last several years."

"What kind of supplies?"

"Food. Though they're undoubtedly expired by now."

"What else?" Ruby interjected.

Clack, clack, clack. The screen refreshed with a digital manifest. "Ah, here we are. Hmm... Weapons, ammunition, heavy ordnance, body armor, and a range of assorted auxiliary equipment. And a lot of this is still in storage. Unused and somewhat accessible."

"If it were guns, chances are they'd be rusted up," mused the reaper. "I don't think we'll need extra body armor for now. What about ammunition stores? If the bullets won't work then maybe we could find some extra explosives that we might be able to use."

"Assuming we could carry that extra," her sister countered. "Look, we're already hefting around a lot of stuff and going through this place is tiring."

Ruby sighed. "Yeah, I guess. Blake?"

Blake waved them over to a console housed in an alcove outside the office. "I think I found a way to directly access the repositories but..."

Sparks flew out of the keypad.

Yang grimaced. "Is this like...a slot machine?"

Ruby rubbed some of the grime off the panel. "'United States Military Commissary Terminal,' huh."

A bit of careful tinkering showed that indeed the supplies were obtainable with most still useable. More tinkering revealed that this particular console was useless despite still being powered by whatever energy source still kept this whole place up and running after all these years. They were later joined by JNPR-S who informed them of another commissary terminal installed on the oher side of the facility. Unfortunately, said terminal had long ago been eviscerated by a hail of bullets.

The reaper huffed. "This one's still powered powered but the slots are jammed and the buttons are useless."

"Well, if we can't find anything else in here, might as well keep moving?" Jaune suggested.

Ruby sighed. At least they tried to access the bunker's armory. Then again, the manifest could have been dated over a hundred years ago and Six or someone else could have looted the repository dry. However, aside from the list, there was another detail that she and her teammates salvaged from Retslaf's office: a detailed printed map of the Divide complete with locations that even the NCR was completely unaware of.

Save for a few straggling mutated bugs, the pit of the canyon itself was desolate. Even then, the only traversable roads winding through them were broken up by whatever devastation had occurred here. Single paths led to dead-ends; massive holes pockmarked the highway; their Geiger counters registered countless hotspots that complicated moving around.

Even then, most of their trek had been uneventful and with Retslaf's map, they navigated easily through the rubble. Still, the journey ate at them.

Never had they been witness to such desolation. Long abandoned cars dotted the interstate alongside derelict military trucks loaded with supply crates that had long since been picked apart. Their exhaustion grew the more they pushed their feet forward and their worries compounded every time they checked their supplies. Frustrations nearly reached their boiling point when the few commissary terminals they came across had their access ports destroyed or their caches emptied.

And then there was that uncomfortable feeling that lingered in the back of their minds. Over the miles they walked since their arrival, everyone in both teams RWBY and JNPR-S shared the nagging feeling of being watched. Throughout their journey, they found several huts and igloos assembled from concrete and debris, riddled with garbage and decayed offal, along with dried up fire pits and broken storage containers. A lot of somethings (or someones) had lived here. And it felt a lot like they had their eyes on the two teams the whole time.

Like they sensed they were coming and deserted their homes to spy at them from afar.

Someone in the buildings? Just rebar. Figure on the highway? Rotting carcass. Shadows up ahead? Remains of an encounter between NCR and Legion forces.

Wait.

NCR troops? Legionaries?

The teens scattered behind cover while they checked to make sure none among the things they saw were moving.

"We clear?" Jaune whispered.

"I think so," Ruby hissed.

"You should go first."

Slowly, RWBY and JNPR-S crept to the junction, their weapons at the ready. Bodies lay scattered over the asphalt. Tattered NCR fatigues, broken cuirasses, cracked legionary kits, makeshift armor padding dented and destroyed. Except the dead men themselves were...

"Oh my..." Weiss cupped her mouth in horror.

The bodies were all flayed. Dried, exposed muscle. The teams did not know which was more horrifying: that these soldiers were skinned alive or were skinned after they died. What sadistic bastard would go so far as to tear the flesh off human beings whole? Sure, they had heard stories of psychotic raiders and desperate cannibalistic survivalists but who else could be inhabiting the Divide to even bother with this?

"Look at the bodies," suggested Pyrrha.

"What else is there to look at?" whined Jaune.

The redhead shook her head. "Look at how they're arranged. Their bodies... They're all facing east. The direction of their attacks were...where we came from."

Blake tracked the bullet casings scattered about, even noticing what looked like either a camera or a motion sensor installed high up on the edge of one of the multi-story buildings. "They...weren't fighting each other. They were being tracked too... Who were they up against then?"

"Six," Yang echoed, her nails digging into her palms. "Who else? He's hiding something here. These guys got in the way and he didn't want to leave witnesses behind. And he clearly left a message to anyone who was pushing too deep."

Nora hummed in thought, conveniently having turned away from the grisly sight to concentrate. "So...what were the NCR and the Legion doing here in the first place?"

"My guess? Since the Divide used to be a part of the Republic, this was either a patrol or a scouting party that ran into these Legion guerrillas and they formed a truce in the face of something more dangerous," Blake hypothesized. "Odd though how the Legion got this many men this far west..."

Weiss waved dismissively. "Another mystery for another day."

On the edge of the intersection, Ruby surveyed the distant ruins of Hopeville. The eerie silence emanating from the twisted concrete towers was enough to put her on edge. If there were any Grimm on Earth, this would be the perfect place for them to nest. She shuddered at the memories of the Breach—come to think of it, Mountain Glenn in all its haunting glory was much more soothing compared to this place.

"We should be on our guard," Ren reminded them. "Mutants might be hiding in the cracks."

The two teams collected themselves.

"Watch for traps too," Jaune added, having finally steeled his nerves. "Keep an eye out for any blinking lights or weird mounds. They could be mines."

Ruby nodded. "The sooner we get to Samson, the closer we'll be to some answers."

Some of those answers came in the form of an ambush. By the flayed men.

It all happened so fast that instinct kicked in. Ruby and Jaune coordinated their movements while they themselves maneuvered around the fissured intersection, deflecting strikes and dodging bullets. Their individual Semblances meshed effectively with their developing Huntsman skills and crude Wasteland gunpowder technology, stopping short of expending their irreplaceable Dust supply. There was a lot of gunfire, a lot of close calls, but the young Huntsmen- and Huntresses-in-training dominated the fight.

Until Yang, fueled by the raging fire of her Semblance, threw a haymaker at the head of the last standing enemy, the combined force of both her punch and the discharge of the Dust-filled buckshot in her ballistic gauntlet causing his neck to snap back, his skull to crack and shatter, and the rest of his head to disappear in a puffy crimson cloud of bone and membrane that splattered against the concrete. His limp body dropped in front of the now mortified blonde.

Teams RWBY and JNPR-S screeched to a halt in dumbfounded silence, panting and sweating until after the adrenaline subsided.

Nora, coming down from her combat high, slowly and fearfully gawked down at the body below her heel, his chest unmoving and his whole arm gone. Pyrrha nearly dropped her Garand while Weiss stumbled back onto her rear. Out of the dozen or so flayed men who emerged out of the rubble to murder them, nine were clearly dead, perforated and eviscerated. By their hands. Their first true kills in the month that they had been here. The reality was suffocating, emerging finally from the back of their minds. It didn't help that Syrup had begun ripping and tearing at the corpses, the grisly sound of bone and flesh crunching in its jaw echoing off the rubble.

The numbing stillness lasted three seconds.

Then it all came crashing down.

The NCR First Recon unit reported back to Fort Mead late in the evening following a week-long excursion into western Arizona, a pre-war Commonwealth state now forming a core province of the Imperium Americana. To the surprise of the entire garrison, the ragged eight-man squadron was followed by a ragtag bunch of 'freed Legion slaves.' The irony sank in, alluding to the fact that Fortification Hill was rechristened Fort Mead after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam to rewrite the stronghold's legacy as a paragon for slavery.

Most of the poor bunch were confused and wondering where they were. It was not uncommon to the medical staff who diagnosed them with shock and provided adequate treatment with generous NCR rations. That was when they noticed the odd natural hair colors, the unusual 'mutations' such as animal horns, an extra pair of ears, and even a tail. Then there were the questions.

Questions that dumbfounded the NCR garrison and ultimately led them to the two people among the refugees who apparently instigated the slave revolt that figuratively broke their Legion chains. Figuratively in the sense that they were still unable to break their strangely unbreakable slave collars which, for some alarming reason, was made of some kind of alloy that ranked beyond the ballistic levels scaled by the NCR.

The two individuals, colorful as they appeared, were segregated from the bunch while the base commander contacted the military leadership at McCarran Headquarters. Six hours later, Major General James Hsu stood before the odd pair inside the fort's administration building, reconstructed out of the Legion command tent that once housed the late Imperium founder Edward 'Caesar' Sallow.

"Those are some durable slave collars," Hsu remarked.

"You are astute, general," one of them replied with a salvaged air of formality.

"Before we continue any more attempts to get those devices off of you, I feel it pertinent that I personally brief you on the context of where you are right now."

"What prompted that if you don't mind us asking?" the other inquired.

"It's the only option I have that would not compromise your origins."

"Pardon, sir. Origins?"

"You're neither the first nor last people to come from Remnant." Hsu skillfully concealed his mirth at their reactions. "Welcome to Nevada."

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: March 24, 2018

LAST EDITED: July 7, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED [FFN]: May 2, 2018

Chapter Text

The motorbike sputtered and finally died (again) halfway through the crevasse between the canyons west of Primm. Six hopped off, salvaged whatever bits of scrap he could use from the vehicle, and collected his equipment before continuing the rest of the trek on foot. Unlike the kids who had most likely taken the long way in, he detoured through a narrow short-cut he had carved through not too long ago. With this route, he would already be in the Divide by sundown.

Once more, his Pip-boy beeped and he brought it up to see the blinking icons flashing in the corner of the screen. Another sensor triggered. Someone was messing around Hopeville. They were getting close, tripping sensor after sensor. Getting too close. And endangering everything that he had been striving hard to keep buried here.

These kids are going to be the death of me, he growled in his mind, his nails digging deep into his gloved palms. He did not mean to rip the metal doors off its hinges but he felt nothing but pent-up fury when he descended back into the accursed canyon.

Goddamn it, kids. You don't know what the hell you're doing.

Velvet was determined.

Mister Raul Tejada had caught her early that morning in the garage beside his shack, developing a functional replica of the ghoul's personal motorcycle with Light Copies. Six had already departed two hours before dawn with the other salvaged Old World motorbike. Interestingly, the other one, the mechanic's own, had been installed with some boosters salvaged from an old rocket factory near Novac. A beast like that could catch her up to the Courier and perhaps even teams RWBY and JNPR before anything bad could happen.

"Eep!"

The ghoul chuckled warmly. "Relax, hija. I won't tell."

Velvet fidgeted with her Dust-infused camera. "But you're his...friend?"

He shrugged. "Long-time associate, you could say. I've known him long enough to know that his decision making isn't the best. And in my lifetime, I've met a lot of people like him. Today's just one of those days where he's being more stupid than sensible."

"So...you're not stopping me?"

"Oh sure, I'm stopping you. Not standing in your way, watching you make your escape with my hands so far from my holsters. Completely stopping you."

"Wow. Then you're helping me. Right?"

He reached inside one of his drawers and handed her a pistol snug in its own belt and holster. "You're going to need this."

"But I—"

"For your own protection."

"I'm not that good with guns." She took it regardless and allowed Raul to buckle the accompanying holster to her waist. "So...this is the one where you slide the magazine in, right? Right here? Not the manual loading thing?"

"Si. Quick rate of fire, strong punch. Just push it up in here, pull the slide back, and you're good. Be aware of the safety switch. Won't shoot unless that's off. This gun uses forty-five ACP ammunition. Remember it. Forty-five A-C-P. Automatic Colt Pistol, in case you have to haggle with the merchants for extra bullets. ¿Comprende?"

She nodded. "Y-yes. Forty-five ACP. Automatic Colt Pistol, got it."

"Good." He handed her three loaded magazines as well as a few NCR bills and some bottle caps. "Here. Some extra money for any picky traders you come across."

Velvet pocketed the tightly taped pillars of bottle caps and the wad of NCR bills. "Thank you, Mister Tejada. Um, why are you helping me though? You're his friend, right?"

A chuckle. "I told you. Boss and I go way back. I care for his hide as much as he cares for your friends. He's too thick to admit it. And I know better than to keep you here while he does something stupid way over there."

"He seems smarter than that."

"He seems. You see, there is a limit to intelligence and a stubbornness to wisdom. Know that he is as much the prey as he is the predator. He is a victim of himself and if you ask me, I'd rather he not make the little diablos victims of his own guilt."

"I guess so... I can sort of understand where he's coming from. I think." The rabbit faunus had heard much in her short time here and had even read some of the published material offered by the traders she had traveled with. They were all NCR publications so there was no helping the bias.

"With what little you know, it's easy to assume."

"He was a Desert Ranger, a hero...right? I keep hearing good things about them. The Desert Rangers, I mean."

Mister Tejada smiled away from her, forlorn. "Heroes come and go. He's...someone else now. And as long as I'm still here, I'm not going to let him fall down the rabbit hole any further." A pause. "No pun intended."

Velvet deflated. Perhaps some of the other rumors were not just rumors. Maybe that explained why the folks in the trading caravan that rescued her were very careful with their words whenever they talked about Courier Six or how he used to work with their boss Miss Cassidy at some point in the past.

"What happened to him?" she asked.

"Another story for another day. If you can get it out of him, then better. It's not healthy for him to keep ignoring the ghosts of the old days."

"He did say a lot...when he was drunk."

"Hah, I'm sure he did," the ghoul chuckled. "Up to you with how you manage all that you heard about him. If you remember any of it."

Velvet beamed. "Thank you. For your help, Mister Tejada."

"De nada, de nada," he waved. "You and I have a lot in common, after all. We are both no strangers to judgment. From that, we learn to withhold our own judgment until the truth reveals itself to us. Then we act accordingly."

Her lips curled into a smile. Ghouls would probably have had it much worse than faunus but then again, the discrimination here on Earth was a war crime compared to the hostility of the worst bigots on Remnant. With that in mind, she felt an invigorating camaraderie with him.

The ghoul leaned in to inspect her portable replicator camera and the box she kept it in. "You have a nice, eh, device there. You take pictures of things and it makes a working 3D copy like that? Madre de Dios, what I wouldn't do for a handy tool like that. You say you made this yourself?"

"Yes," she replied with a meek but prideful blush. "Took me six whole months."

A haughty laugh. "Youth these days. Ah, but you might have missed a few spots. Like that one right there..."

Mister Tejada pointed out the minute parts on the motorcycle copy to which Velvet made the appropriate adjustments. She was ready for the road in ten minutes.

"He tends to go overboard so be careful. And make sure the little diablos are in one piece," he bade as he handed her a satchel with some salted jerky, a few bottles of clean water, and a field kit containing sterilized medical supplies.

"You can count on it, Mister Tejada," she answered confidently, revving the engine in deafening cacophonies.

All she had to do was follow the highway west through South Vegas, then down to Goodsprings until she reached Primm, and from there take a detour west up to a tight crevasse between the cliffs. She was determined to find RWBY and JNPR. Though she was not very close with them, they were the only pieces of Remnant in this cruel wasteland and she desperately needed that comfort and familiar camaraderie if she were to keep her psyche intact. Because if she were to admit it at some point later on, she had considered giving herself up to the desert more times than she could count.

"And one more thing, hija. Watch for the wildlife like conejos. A lot of them on the road nowadays."

"I won't."

A mile into her trip, Velvet was distraught at having run over a stray desert cottontail. It took her another fifteen minutes to peel and scrape the roadkill off the tires. And like hell was she cooking the meat!

Their tracks on the trail were still fresh; boot marks, ashes in a pit, a damp patch of soil. Then the handful of expended cartridges laying about. Untarnished brass ranging from five-five-sixes, twelve-gauges, three-zero-eights, and a single casing the size of a fifty-caliber nestled under some rocks that were propped to hold the barrel of a sniper rifle.

The shape and smell confirmed it. Dust round. This is Hyper's bullet.

Six descended from the perch and proceeded down the all-familiar path towards the Hopeville Ballistic Defense Station. His Pip-boy pinged him to the motion sensor concealed in the ventilation shaft that had been triggered by his intrusion onto the threshold. He saw now the claw marks of the infant deathclaw they dragged along.

He passed through the six other motion sensors he installed in the underground facility until he arrived at the hydraulic doors that were annoyingly left open. God knows what could have come in here with the entrance left exposed. He sealed the doors behind him on his way out.

Down below stretched the surface compound of the defense station and beyond lay the battered highway snaking through the ruins of Hopeville proper. Tracking the kids had been easier than he anticipated; they clearly tried to push through whatever obstacle had been in their path (thanks to their Semblances and whatnot). They also failed to cover their tracks. Overconfident. Wouldn't think no one'd be keeping tabs on 'em.

Though the winds erased many of the footprints, the festering carcasses of oversized mutant insects were left exposed, acting as bait for flies and landmarks for trackers like him. Then the expended casings scattered all about. Tiny craters that weren't there before. More mutant cadavers that had been gutted up and eviscerated. And then, the festering remains of the Marked Men.

"They really put in the effort," he said to no one but himself.

The dead soldiers were lined neatly on the side of the road, their legs bunched together, arms folded over their chests, pickets and posts planted by their heads to mark where they lay. Maggots had already begun devouring the flesh but he was at least spared the odor by the fresh filters in his gas mask.

Still have enough of a conscience left to give them a good old-fashioned sky burial.

The Courier continued walking, the clouded skies already darkening, until tiny yellow dots flashed between the cracks in the ruins up ahead. He detoured to one of the trails running up the side of the canyon leading to a ramshackle overwatch position overlooking a district of Hopeville, one of many sentry nests set up and ultimately abandoned by the Marked Men. He needed neither his scope nor his binoculars to see what was sitting half a mile in front of him.

There, inside one of the few standing buildings in Hopeville, through the glassless windows, were his brats. His kids. His children.

No. They're not my flesh and blood. Get that out of your system.

There was Hyper. And Blondie. Snowball and Cat-girl. To the right behind the furniture...that was Sparta and Knight-boy feeding that annoying piece of shit Syrup. Shaolin was cooking something over the fire pit while Pancake was blabbering and throwing her arms around trying to cheer up the whole group. Out here in the desolate wastes of the Divide, her optimism was falling flat.

Oh no.

Six sighed. "Shit."

He pulled out his binoculars and peered closer. If the looks on their faces were anything to go by, then he had clearly failed in one of his goals as their guardian.

Goals? Guardian? D'you still believe in the bullshit you made up that God threw these kids down to earth so you could watch over 'em? 'Cause, congratulations, asshole. Innocence finally lost. You done fucked up again, Six.

I never wanted to be their guardian in the first place.

An' here you are. Guilty 'cause their 'purity' just had to be your responsibility. A responsibility you done willingly shouldered. A 'responsibility' you knew better to ignore. A lesson you should'a done learned since Arizona.

I know. Following a quick sweep of the perimeter and a brief check on his equipment, he pressed on towards Hopeville proper. Time to end this charade.

'Bout damn time.

Be quiet, me. He was halfway to the middle of the town when the distinct pops of an automatic carbine ripped through the still air.

Velvet was shivering stiff by the time she came across the other motorbike discarded and picked apart by the side of the road. She wiped off the bugs that splattered over her goggles before sliding them off and unwrapping her shawl to dry off some of the sweat on her skin. It felt so good to breathe!

She really hated the travel. Her trip was rocky so to speak; she had to dodge some interruptions on the road (rattlesnake-coyotes, oversized venomous wasps, tweaked raiders, and—ew!ew!ew!ew!ew!ew!ew!—giant ants) and she was sure her squeals echoed across the desert all the way to those two massive statues in the distance. That and her rear was starting to hurt from constantly bouncing against the not-actually-comfortable bike seat.

"Alright, at least I'm on the right track," she told herself.

The canyon was right there. And already, Velvet could hear the shearing winds ripping through the Divide. The whistling sent shivers down her spine but she blinked away and steeled her nerves.

She peered through the doorway, seeing the rocky trail that wound down into the crevasse, through bits and pieces of debris. She turned around to get back on the motorcycle only to find...that visage had run its course; as a temporary tangible copy, the chopper fragmented the instant she got off.

It was back to being on foot.

"Oh, bugger."

Velvet's feet hurt now. Alternating between runs, jogs, and speedy walking took its toll. Not to mention her back was aching and her shoulders were locking up from the weight of her duffel bag. So many supplies. Did she really need all these? She was starting to regret packing so much.

But the view... The view was...breathtakingly dreadful. The valley was indeed an ominous place. Through her lenses, it was a massive graveyard. With a tired sigh, she plopped onto her rear without seeing where she stood only to feel something damp seep through her trousers and weave between her fingers. She brought up her hand to get a sniff. And recoiled.

"Really!?" she hissed.

Nothing like sitting on someone else's piss still wet in the middle of the desert. Quite the welcome here in the Divide.

Blake began to understand now that the flayed men were nothing short of suicidal. The rage—no, raging madness—that she saw in their eyes when she got close enough to knock them back... Their fanatical resolve brought back memories of the radicals who had been willing to throw away their own lives for the causes of the White Fang.

"Freezerburn!"

Ice encased the floor of the ruined grocery store to the cracked asphalt in the street. Blake heard Yang slam her fist into the frost, throwing up a thick mist that clouded the entire block. Perfect for disrupting the aim of their attackers.

"Checkmate!"

Blake slid across the frosted surface, the mist working to her advantage. Her coordinated tactic with Weiss worked nearly flawlessly, administering diversionary strikes intending to both disorient their foes, deny counterattacks, and defeat them from their exposed flanks. Perfect for bulky hulking Grimm, rogue battle robots, and rowdy sparring partners. Only...

...it worked well in open spaces.

In a cramped, urban ruin such as this, there was not enough space for either the faunus or the heiress to fight, let alone maneuver properly. The mist bit them back hard as it concealed junk that had been thrown around as well as the uneven fissures in the ground courtesy of the Divide's notorious earthquakes.

Blake saw Weiss lose her footing and completely miss her target while she herself rammed into a jutting slab of concrete before she could fully round three of the dozen or so skinless madmen. Her chin bounced against the floor, narrowly missing splintered wood and broken rebar, as her body careened hopelessly towards where they stood, Gambol Shroud clattering out of her grasp.

Immediately, a boot landed on her hand. She yelped in pain only to be cut off as another connected with her gut, sending her rolling towards a wall.

"Blake!"

She tried to get up only to be suddenly pinned against the brick and mortar by the end of a long metal rod. Her Aura flickered but still held, preventing what could have been a fatal stab. But it still hurt and she was held in place. Her assailant pushed the pipe harder against her midriff, dragging her body up from the ground, her back scraping against the wall, until her legs were flailing above the floor.

Blake focused her reserve energy to create a shadow clone but almost immediately her copy disappeared when a serrated machete nearly clipped the side of her head. There went her final chance of slipping out of this now that she was effectively locked in place. She glanced around through the mist; the silhouettes moving in them were discouraging. She could hear the pained grunts and cries of her friends, muted partly by the cacophonies from their shoddy NCR-issued guns contrasting with the volleys of gunfire coming from these...'men.'

"W-weiss!" she strained to call out, over the shoulder of the man pushing the pipe into her stomach. "Anyone! H-help!"

No answer.

Ping!

"Agh!"

"Jaune!"

"Pyrrha, watch out!"

Rat-tat-tat!

"Ruby, duck!"

"Get your hands off Ren!"

"Behind you, Nora!"

Roar. Snap. Crunch. "Syrup!"

The cat faunus heard leather flapping and was met by the barrel of a pistol over the bridge of her nose, the bloodshot irises of her would-be killer burning with what could only be described as pure unadulterated hate. Her Aura was dangerously petering out from the rod being forced into her midriff, the pain becoming unbearable enough to draw tears. She mewled and struggled, her innate animalistic survival instincts overcoming rationality. Her grip tightened on the pole; her breathing grew more and more rapid thanks to the rising pain in her diaphragm as the seconds ticked by.

No! This is not how she was going to die! She was not going to die today! She was Blake Belladonna! She will not go down this way! She—

POP!

Blake's eyes shot wide as the head of her attacker jerked to the left in a puffy red plume, the smoky barrel of a revolver resting inches to the right. Ears ringing, she traced the gun to a gloved hand attached to a covered arm connecting to a shoulder straightened over a filtered full-faced gas mask. A faint green glow shone off the fringes of his collar.

Her savior proceeded to rapidly empty four more rounds into the four other heads around them before she hit the floor.

"Six?"

Six ignored her. Five empty, smoking cartridges bounced against the marble but he was already aiming through the mist. Could he see them through that thick a fog? What if he might hit the wrong person—

POP! POP! PAP! POP! POW!

Rapid succession. Five more bodies crumpled to the ground. Blake staggered to her feet, reclaimed Gambol Shroud, and rushed close enough to see...the flayed men. Dead. Blood pooling around their eviscerated heads... She turned her head to say something only for Six to brush past her, walking directly into the cloud. His arm snapped from one unseen target to the next.

POP! PAW! POP! POP!

Four more fell out of the cloud. Dead.

Blake tried her best to keep up despite her the bewilderment. "H-how...?"

She ran through the mist, finding herself in the middle of the street, darting around to see if any of her friends were still standing. By then, Six had vanished, leaving behind expended cartridges.

"Six!" she cried out desperately. "Wait!"

Blake had long been fascinated by Six's impeccable accuracy; his ability to engage targets at distances as far as a mile and somehow managing to land a single clean (deadly) shot was proving second to none. But in this situation, if the man was just shooting at whoever happened to be in the closest proximity...

"Blake!"

The faunus whipped behind her and nearly decked her partner. "Yang! I almost clipped you!"

"I'm still in one piece. You alright? You seen Ruby?"

"I'm good. No, I haven't seen her. But I saw someone else."

"Another skinned bastard?" she seethed.

Blake pointed down the fogged road. "It's Six."

Yang stilled. "What!? H-he's here? Like right here? Right now?"

The faunus nodded. "He went that way—"

"Six? I-Is that you?" That was Jaune. Somewhere further ahead.

POP!

Crunch.

"Jaune!"

Blake and Yang sped through the dissipating fog. Visibility returned when the two reunited with Ruby, Weiss, Ren, Nora, and Syrup. They skidded to a halt on their heels—the infant deathclaw held back from pouncing by Nora's grip on its tail—no time to properly acknowledge each other.

In the middle of the junction cutting through Hopeville's industrial district, leaning behind a burned car, Pyrrha clutched at her bleeding leg, her Aura depleted. Jaune arched above her with his shield over them both, a dead skinless NCR soldier in patchwork armor weighing down against it. He shoved slightly, letting the corpse slide off and flop onto the ground, leaving human blood smeared all over Crocea Mors.

Blake felt the urge to adopt a defensive stance upon seeing Six standing several paces nearby, his duster rustling in the breeze, his fingers flawlessly replacing the expended cartridges in his revolver with new ones. The last of the flayed men, a grunt dressed in a tattered NCR uniform held together by strips of Legion cloth, hissed and growled rabidly under his heel.

"You," the soldier rasped up at him. "You did this to us!"

The Courier centered the barrel over his forehead. "I don't regret it."

POP!

Crunch.

Thud.

Quick, thoughtless execution. Something the White Fang rarely ever did, even with Adam spearheading the more aggressive operations in the Vale chapter. Over fifteen combatants—soldiers from two sides, united in unbridled rage, their skin ripped from their bodies—were killed in under a minute by a single man. Blake felt a weight drop into the pit of her stomach when he craned his head towards them, a pair of green glowing eyelets boring into her soul.

"Goddamn it, kids," Six growled.

Velvet had lost track of time during her journey down the side of the mountain to the valley itself. Moving alone had never felt so mind-numbingly terrifying. She had been to a few abandoned houses in her childhood and had a couple times tracked an elder Grimm to the fringes of Mountain Glenn with her team. But all that paled in comparison to walking through an empty, underground, nearly collapsed military base. The fact that the facility was still humming with electricity chilled her spine with the prospect of someone or something watching her from every nook and cranny.

Even after she had to unseal the hydraulic doors at the end just to get out back into the open, the feeling of being watched never left her. She hated to claim paranoia but she was damn well sure something was following her. Or maybe it was just the wind. The screeching, shearing, sandy wind.

Then there was the constant ticking of the Geiger counter on her hip; the noise chipped away at her calm, always reminding her that radiation—that deadly unseen plague hanging over the air—was anywhere and everywhere, waiting to enter her body and eat her up from the inside. She could only hope that she was treading on safe ground and that her clothing was sufficient to deflect these 'particles.'

"Okay, okay, calm down. You're panicking," Velvet reassured herself, catching her breath after what felt like a marathon of going through a maze. "Slow, steady breaths. Right food forward."

The Divide was a scary place. This fear was nothing new but she honestly preferred the near-sighted racist bigotry of a crowd to this unending dread. There was always a chance something would pounce out from the shadows. Her furry appendages constantly stood erect, on alert for the faintest noise while her hand rested over the holster of the pistol in her holster.

Rustling.

She flinched.

Footsteps? Rocks tumbling down the slope.

Scraping? Wind blowing against hanging sheet metal.

Pops?

Velvet stopped in her tracks. She listened again. Gunfire. Distant gunfire. Coming from further west, from the heart of Hopeville itself it sounded like. She sprinted, the pain in her soles searing up her legs but she didn't care. For all she knew, it was RWBY and JNPR fending off mutants or whatever it was that inhabited this graveyard. Or maybe Six dispatching foes.

What she came across, however, was a standoff.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: May 5, 2018

LAST EDITED: July 10, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED [FFN]: May 11, 2018

Chapter Text

"Goddamn it, kids."

Ruby's scythe dipped. "Six?"

The Courier strode over the dead with his grip tight on his smoking revolver. His voice, though muffled by his haunting gas mask, dripped with venom. "You're crossing a mighty fine line here."

"You shot him!" snarled Blake.

Big deal. "Yeah, I did."

"Y-you executed him!"

So? "It's called euthanasia."

"He's not some wild creature that needs to be put down!"

You dumb little shit. "He was feral."

"Yeah, he was," Yang interjected bitterly. "There's only one reason why. You all heard what the guy said. Six did this to them. How do you suppose that happened, eh, Courier Six?"

"Or perhaps we should address you by your true identity, Major Vickers," Weiss corrected with an air of condescending judgment that was beginning to grate on his nerves.

Six huffed. "So you did your homework. Should I be impressed?"

"It's true then? You're really harboring these so-called 'weapons of mass destruction?'" demanded Cat-girl.

The Courier snorted. Be careful with those questions, kitty. Certain secrets are best left buried. "Where'd you hear that horseshit?"

"What's horseshit is that you're a crooked, lying mass murderer!" Blondie snapped. "People say you got a lot of dirt on you. Didn't really believe it 'til I saw it, Major. That's right. Major Theodore Vickers, ex-Ranger. Did a lot of good in your day."

For some reason, he found that funny. Try as he might, he let out a snicker loud enough to make Syrup growl.

"What's so funny!?"

"Yeah, had quite the service record." He bowed a gentleman's bow, magnum still in hand, his tone mocking. "I'm flattered by your praise, my dear dumb blonde bimbo."

"Oh fuck you!"

"Yang, keep it together!"

The Courier shook his head. "Never trust your sources, kids. They may be the best around but that doesn't mean they can skewer the details to get what they want out of you. Ain't that the truth, Cat-girl?"

"Honestly, I don't trust the Republic too much because they're not too different from what we had to deal with back in Remnant," Blake admitted. "But so far, there have been more truths than lies when they briefed us on you."

"None of us are strangers to deception, Major," Snowball interjected. "Even then, given our circumstances, I would rather take the word of a functioning state over petty street gossip."

"I don't entirely believe them," Yang said, calming down after Ruby tugged at her arm. "Until you admit that you're guilty, of course, which you obviously are."

Six chuckled. Folly is rich in the young, they said. Ain't truer than this. "Do you really think the truth would help?"

Hyper stepped forward, those silvery orbs of hers pleading for reason. "Six, please. You need help."

Do I look like a loose cannon to you? He tilted his head. "So this is some kind of intervention then. Ditch the man who gave you a roof over your heads to go stick your fingers in places that'd get them chopped off."

"The NCR said—"

"James is a damn fool." The Courier paced towards them. Syrup bared its teeth at his approach; the little shit could smell trouble from a mile away. Funnily enough, his gut agreed with it. Things between were going south quick. "The NCR looks after its own interests. Always have, always will."

"They annexed New Vegas," argued Jaune as he and Ren wearily shouldered a crippled Pyrrha away from him. "They have every right, every jurisdiction—"

"Jurisdiction that I gave!" Six roared. "My blood was spilled on this very soil decades before that greenhorn Republic waltzed in! Bled for them on the West Coast all the way to the goddamn Midwest. How fucking gullible are you that I have to spell it out for you!? Do you honestly fucking believe the shit the Republic says about me? Or what anyone says for that matter!"

Ruby, wincing, tried again. "Six, you're angry. We know how much you've sacrificed for this. But you don't have to go this far."

Sacrifice? A scoff. "Look at you, Hyper. Talking about sacrifice. As if you've ever truly felt sacrifice. No. You don't know what it's like to give up something you care about for something that wasn't even worth a damn thing in the end."

She deflated. "But Six...you...this... This isn't how it's supposed to go. You're smarter than this! I know you are! I believe in you—"

Enough! He snapped his finger at her. "Listen to me, you stupid little shit—"

"Hey!" Yang hollered.

"Same goes for the rest of you goddamn troublemakers." Turning his eyes back at the little reaper, he could see the green glimmer of his visor reflecting off her wide silvery pupils. "You know nothing. Who the fuck do you think you are? Strutting around in your goddamn rainbow suits, playing hero to people who don't need goddamn heroes? We never asked for your help. I never asked for your help. And I damn well never wanted any of your help! All you ever were was a liability. A goddamn patronizing liability that never stops fucking things up!"

"S-six," whimpered the little reaper, her silver pupils going glassy.

His chin locked up for a moment. Where the hell did those words come from? O' course, they came from you, you stubborn old son of a bitch. These pieces o' shit were never your flesh and blood. Just a bunch of troublesome brats that got dropped out o' the sky onto your lap so God could laugh at you.

"Get out of here," he hissed. "Go back to the Strip. This place isn't for you."

Her response struck him. "No."

What. "Hyper."

She stomped her boot. "No! You're wrong! You're wrong! I don't care if you think we can't be heroes but we are going to make something good out of what's here whether you like it or not! We're going to stop you from hurting other people!"

Six felt his blood boil. Then simmer. And then the cold bitterness he had been burying under years of drinking and denial once more resurfaced. So be it. "You...are too fucking naive."

He took a solid step forward. She took one back. Everyone else flinched.

"If the world's got to burn, then so be it. Even if I have to do it, then so be it. Innocent an' the guilty be damned, humanity can always start over," echoed former Major Theodore 'Old Green Eyes' Vickers.

"Desert Ranger," Pyrrha sneered between gasps while Ren silently worked on stopping the blood from draining out of her shattered ankle. "You...you were a guardian...used to be a protector...earned your commission through blood, sweat, tears..."

Earned on the bodies of a hundred others.

"You were the guys who stood up for the weak. Took out raider gangs, cleared mutant lairs, fed the hungry, clothed the sick, the whole nine yards," Jaune listed off indignantly. "You were just like Huntsmen. Guardians who had a duty to fulfill."

'Guardians.' What a word.

"You hunted down the worst of the worst, made sure they'd never hurt anyone ever again," Nora added, her normally bubbly demeanor darkened. Her knuckles were white from gripping her oversized super-sledge. "You brought families together...built communities full of hope...helped raise the next generation..."

A pathetic next generation.

"Yet you turned your back on all of it," Weiss intoned. She had her foot planted in front of her with her rapier leveled at his head. "Bribes, dissension, terrorizing those you were sworn to protect. You inspired an insurrection that cost countless innocents their lives! You're corrupt! A war criminal!"

Ain't we all guilty o' somethin'?

"We really looked up to you," Yang hissed, her boots pounding against the asphalt as she got closer, her fists clenched and rising above her waist. "You were someone we thought we could trust. Someone who helped rebuild this whole messed up Wasteland. Guess you're no different than Mister House, you heartless bastard."

Mister House, huh. Did y'all ever know the real Robert Edwin House? The genius bastard o' the Old World who played me—us, the NCR, the Legion, everyone!—all like cards in a poker game until we done picked ourselves apart? "And what does that make you?" the Courier countered. "Self-righteous brats with an inflated morality compass?"

"At least we choose to do what's right," Cat-girl sneered, expecting a fight with the way she was standing.

Give me a fucking break. "Really now. D'you think it was right to kill those men back there? Or maybe you thought it was right to save your hides by puttin' 'em down like that—"

"They attacked us! We..." Blondie stuttered, her outburst faltering as her conscience caught up with her. "We had t-to defend ourselves. Things happened! W-we c-couldn't control the fight."

Old Green Eyes stared at her. Then chuckled mirthlessly. 'Control the fight' my ass. No plan ever survives contact with the enemy. "And you done killed them. This is the Wasteland, kids. Ain't that one hell of a welcome, don't y'all think. No drinks, no parties. Just poof; snuffin' out one's life like that. That's how greenhorns survive in this hellhole."

"No!" echoed the resounding protests.

"We're not like you—never be like you!"

"You're the monster!"

"Shut up, Six!"

He straightened himself. "Don't deny it. You killed them. You're killers now. Killers, looters, and thieves like the rest of us. Quit calling yourselves heroes 'cause there ain't no such thing. Doesn't matter what you do. In the end, you're just like us. Take it or leave it. The whole lot of you. Killers, liars, thieves, war criminals—"

The Courier caught the spark in Blake's amber irises; he struck a strong cord. Alas, they were predictable when they came at him.

Yang leapt at him. Left hook. He shifted right. Follow up. He caught her forearm and thumbed the trigger that ejected every single buckshot casing—used and unused—from Ember Celica. My turn. And he slammed his knuckles into her belly with enough force to send her flying back into the group. Her body flickered mid-flight. Goodbye, Aura.

Red flashed to his side. He slid back, watching Hyper miss him spectacularly with Crescent Rose. She tripped on her own momentum and tumbled. Up. He caught Pancake coming down on top of him from the sky and swept to the side while Magnhild blasted another crater in the street. Before the dust settled, he had already maneuvered behind her and landed a quick chop to the back of her neck. Right on the spot. She was out cold by the time she hit the ground. Goodnight, ginger.

"Nora!"

Shaolin was quick. His palms connected with his chin, knocking him back. Good one, Bruce Lee. Six held his ground, ignoring the debilitating pain in his jaw, and raised his arms to meet the connecting blows that coming from both Shaolin and Knight-boy. Left. Right. Up. Mid. Then the opening presented itself.

A boot to the gut sent Jaune tumbling onto the sidewalk. Ren tried to tackle him from behind, wrapping his legs around his chest so he could rain his blows from above. In response, Six reached up and, taking a step back with a solid grip on his opponent's shoulders, hurled him violently against the concrete. White blurred past his vision almost immediately.

"Wha—?" was all Snowball could utter before he gripped her arm, twisted her wrist, and threw her to the side, Myrtenaster clattering to the ground.

The Courier kicked it into the crater then made his way towards her. Of course, that left Sparta who, despite her handicap, managed to plant herself in front of him like a stubborn wounded hoplite, Syrup quickly coming to her side and baring its budding claws and teeth. No use in beating down a crippled horse.

"That's enough!" he hollered.

Stubbornly, the other kids got back to their feet. Or tried to.

Idiots. "Stubborn little shits."

"No..." huffed Hyper. "We won't let you activate Samson."

Samson. He let out a dry laugh. So this is how it's going to be. Congratulations, James. You have successfully turned my kids against me. "You see these ruins around you? You see all these?"

They did while they recovered and regrouped. The glares they threw back at him was strangely tickling.

"Ten years ago, this was a paradise. A rare jewel in the desert that made the Strip jealous. A model city rising out of the ashes of the old one, living off the caravan trade, a ripe fruit for hungry, desperate powerhouses." Six gestured at the corpses of the Marked Men. "These bastards? Two whole NCR regiments raised to secure Hopeville. Then Hoover Dam happened. Five Legion cohorts skirted north of the Mojave, broke into the canyon, made it here. Like two wild animals fighting over a plump apple. So what do you do to put an end to the duel?"

The two teams were silent. Apprehensive. Curious.

The Courier grunted. "You spoil the apple."

Cat-girl got the hint first. "You... Th-this was the work of Samson?"

He grinned beneath his gas mask. "Samson was here the whole time. From the very beginning. All he needed was a trigger. And boy, it was an easy switch to flip."

"You..." Hyper seethed. Her knuckles went white over the shaft of her scythe.

He paced around them, noting their sloppy adjustments as they tried to keep tabs on his every move. "Remember everything the NCR said about me? Hero? Turncoat? Mass murderer? Terrorist? Dirty thug? Can't say they're wrong on that. Congratulations, kids. You get a passing grade on your homework."

Shaking away regretful tears, Ruby declared, "No! We're not going to let you do this again!"

If I have to, I will. "You're all so stupidly naive." And Old Green Eyes turned around the second he tossed the active stun grenade into their midst.

The canister clattered, rolled, and bounced off the tip of her boots. Yang chanced a glance at it before everything flashed painfully and deafeningly white.

"Shit!"

"I'm blind!"

"My ears!"

"Gah! C-can't see!"

She swung wildly, hoping to connect with something. But her senses were thrown for a loop. Her eyes hurt and her rings were ringing. She fell onto her knees, vulnerable. This was the perfect opportunity for the coup de grace; she was too debilitated to fight back. She knew it was coming and there was nothing she could do to block it.

Tears welled up inside her eyelids as she held them shut to block out as much of the mind-splitting pain as she could. This was it. This was her end. Snuffed in a desert wasteland worlds away from home via a bullet to the back of her head. Was Six this cruel? She trusted him, looked up to him, cared for him as much as she had her father and uncle. A man flawed yet concerned, tender...loving...

This can't be happening!

"Rabbit ears? What the hell—" Then the air suddenly left Six's lungs.

Yang rubbed her eyes and staggered to her feet. The blur cleared and she almost stumbled back onto her behind. "... Velvet!?"

"Get to safety! I'll handle him!" the rabbit faunus ordered as her leg swept against his shins, knocking him back down onto the ground.

The brawler's movements were disjointed, sluggish, but she managed to get some bearing on her surroundings. She grabbed Ruby and dragged her disoriented sister away. Blake was wobbling to her right with a dizzy Weiss hanging off her shoulder. Team JNPR had already vacated the area. Pyrrha's blood trail led into an opening in the rubble. Ren was sticking out between a pair of collapsed pillars, waving them through.

Yang hobbled as fast as she could until team RWBY funneled through the crack. She paused to check behind her. Velvet had already exhausted her element of surprise had fallen back to catch her breath, while Six recovered fast, regaining the upper hand. The blonde itched to help.

Before she could run back out there, Ren grabbed both her and Ruby and pulled them deeper into the tunnel of ruined highways. They did not stop fleeing. Even in the dark and dimly-lit caverns, squeezing through tight corners, scraping themselves against rebar and concrete, through the halls of an apartment that collapsed into the earth, they kept moving and moving until they collapsed onto their knees on the other side of what felt like an endless underground maze.

They took a moment to savor the dry air and suffocating walls of the canyon that squeezed this valley tighter and tighter. That was when they noticed a single road winding through the crevasse, ultimately leading up to an obtuse path that concluded before another military bunker carved into the side of the mountain.

Perhaps it was the unsettling noise that they heard behind them or the speed at which the skin-shearing sandstorm was seeping down into the valley. Winded as they were, they pushed on, past more collapsed buildings and broken settlement remains, following a marked trail that led to the entrance of another bunker. Without much thought, the teens crashed through the hydraulic doors, breaking into the relative safety of the underground complex.

Blake was thunderstruck.

Six had never displayed such agility since their first encounter. Even with what little she knew of his combat prowess, it was clear that his reactions were too perfect for a man his age: sharp accuracy, quick tactical wit, ridiculous damage threshold. Yet all these with no Aura, no Semblance, not even any kind of Dust. And somehow, he was able to not only intercept Semblance-based attacks before they landed but also shatter their Aura in single solid hits.

The way his head snapped to meet every threat, his body twisting away from a strike with flawless dexterity, his hands jetting outward to block and grapple...

By Remnant terms, he would have easily been considered an elite combat specialist with extensive training and experience. He moved with the speed of a veteran Huntsman yet operated with the mindset of a coldblooded killer. He was almost...superhuman. Yet, he wasn't. In essence, he embodied every monicker bestowed him by allies and enemies alike.

"How...?" she whispered to no one in particular.

Courier Six, popular alias for former Major Theodore Vickers of the now non-existent Desert Rangers, had proven himself to be the most terrifying man she had ever met. He had so casually admitted to what she refused to believe he was guilty of. While she held little faith in the Republic or the veracity of their information, she found it difficult to ignore it. Most of the data they could glean from the heavily-redacted records confirmed the rumors and hearsay they squeezed out of Swank and every other connection to Six in New Vegas.

Vickers was the joker in the Wasteland's deck of cards.

He knew it. And exploited it to the fullest. The man tore a warpath through the Mojave, imbalanced the status quo, twisted the political landscape, broke the leadership of the Imperium Americana, and gave New Vegas to the NCR at the cost of so many unneeded losses. Blake was apprehensive to these claims. She was sure Weiss, Pyrrha, and even Ren shared her sentiments. Out of the eight of them, Ruby seemed the most painfully optimistic and gullible enough to rake in every word.

The faunus slumped against the cold, steel wall of the second military bunker they had been in since coming to the Divide. Had they fled that far? It was hard to tell. She recalled racing through underground tunnels, traversing collapsed buildings, and walking through a twisted canyon of debris until they took shelter in here in fear of a dust storm brewing. Heat pulsed up and down her pained legs while sweat continued to dampen her clothes.

Her team fared almost the same with Ruby having exhausted her Aura from dashing back and forth to clear traps, gather supplies, and ensure that they were safe from threats like the skinless men, Wasteland mutants, or their very angry guardian. Heh, guardian. What an ironic monicker. The bastard almost broke Yang's ribs and nearly snapped Weiss's wrist. To her right, Jaune helped Pyrrha onto a metal bench, her ankle cocooned in bandages while Syrup lapped at a visibly shaken Nora who held onto a stone-faced Ren.

"Guys," Yang intoned. "Any idea what we just got ourselves into again?"

Weiss looked up from massaging her arm. In their haste, they neglected to pay careful attention to their surroundings. Much like the Hopeville Ballistic Defense Station, this underground complex came complete with pipes running overhead and a faint humming that resonated from both above and underneath them.

Yang hesitated to push the button next to another set of hydraulic doors. "Should I...?"

"Can't say if this place is empty," Blake warned, her hand dropping onto the hilt of Gambol Shroud. "Though, we can't stay in this antechamber forever."

Seeing the others nod back, she took her chances. The doors hissed and ground its gears before opening to reveal a wider room filled with broken up crates and lined with shattered terminal screens, broken control panels, and a sigil of stars and stripes stenciled overhead. Importantly, there seemed to be nothing hostile within. So far, at least.

"Elevator," Yang called.

The two teams huddled over.

"Should we?"

"Call it," Ruby ordered. "There's not a lot for us here."

"You sure? What about—"
"JNPR's coming along," Jaune said, Pyrrha still hanging off his shoulder. "No sense getting separated in here."

Hesitantly, they filed into the elevator and rode the trip further up where they deposited into an antechamber leading to what appeared to be the command room.

"This appears to more functional than the last one," Weiss mused. Then she pointed to the bright orange telemetric screen the size of a mural. "Look! That's a map of the Mojave."

"I don't think it's just the Mojave," Blake muttered as she approached the console she thought was connected to the display. This whole place was as much electrically alive as Hopeville, perhaps even more so. Given the amount of automated activity still going on around them, there was no other conclusion other than the bunker they were in was fully operational. Which probably meant...

The faunus pressed a button and the map zoomed out to display the entire continent from the western seashores to the eastern shorelines along with the names that she recognized from the Old World books she had been reading.

Nevada. Arizona. California. Oregon. Texas. Utah. Colorado. Once the constituent states of the country that had been described as a world superpower long, long ago.

Weiss was over the console now, fiddling with the controls. And the map was bathed in a layer of shapes and diagrams. Cities and settlements across thousands of miles of sprawling landmass were marked. Highlighted. Targeted. And the numbers displayed on the screen drove her up the wall: projected casualties and estimated potential damage costs.

They ran from the thousands to millions. It appeared outdated but considering the booming population of the NCR and other known independent city-states like New Vegas, the data was not irrelevant. So many 'projected casualties,' a hypothetical apocalypse—no, genocide—waiting to happen.

"Guys," Ruby piped from the very end of the command center. "I...I think we might've found Samson."

Both teams scrambled over, past a wide arch, to where the reaper stood. They gathered on a balcony overlooking a...wide...cavernous...hall...

"Whoa."

"Look at this..."

"Is this...?"

Blake recognized the tattered flag hanging off the beams on the other side of the massive lair. United States of America. The country that used to exist before the 'Great War' destroyed everything and reset civilization on this planet two hundred years ago. She shifted her gaze to the smooth pillars of steel resting in long rows lining both flanks. Each were marked with the same flag, each were stenciled with the same name. It was all coming together now.

"Samson," she breathed. "Samson is an active nuclear missile silo."

Yang looked confused. "A what?"

Blake glanced around her. Weiss caught on. Amazing how her skin blanched more than her hair. "Intercontinental ballistic missiles. Long-range rockets tipped with atomic warheads. Oh, no..."

Steam and smoke plumed out of the pits where the missiles were resting which meant another thing. Ren approached the bannister and looked down to where pipes and wires snaked across the corners of the floor.

"Everyone," he called. "We should be careful. This place has been well-maintained. No molds, minimal residue, even the floors look to have been swept clean."

"Refueled and awaiting launch," the cat faunus added. "They've been maintained all this time...they're active."

Yang knocked on the railing. "Um, translation?"

Blake had to stop herself from grabbing her partner by her collar and screaming the obvious into her face. "These are the weapons of mass destruction the NCR warned us about!"

"What!?"

"Are you serious?"

"Whoa, hold on!"

Now she screamed. "These are the same weapons that created this Wasteland in the first place!"

…

The cat faunus was sure all her friends' minds were collectively going 'Oh, shit.'

Old Green Eyes maneuvered around the ruins of Hopeville with renewed vigor. And pain pulsing throughout his aging body. Got to hand it to Bunny-girl. She sure as hell got a solid kick. Haven't had something hit me hard like that in a long while.

"Don't make this hard on yourself, kid."

He caught a shape bouncing off a concrete slab. Quick aim. Fire. It was meant as a warning shot. The impact of the bullet cracking into the cement elicited a yelp. Her furry appendages straightened out of cover before folding back down.

"Come on out, Bunny-girl. I won't kill you."

You sure about that?

Shut up.

The Courier rounded the corner. He raised a hidden brow. "Really?"

The pistol shook in her grip. She was nervous. Sure, she kicked like a damn horse but she lacked the nerve to pull the trigger. Fatal flaw right there.

Her voice was shaking too. "Th-that's enough, Six."

He let his reflexes work, hand darting to the grab the barrel of the automatic, ripping it from her grasp, and reversing his grip to point it back at her face. Only...in the same moment, her knee came up to meet him right in the baby maker.

Oh you bitch...

Six backpedaled with his thighs pressed together. "Good...one...kid..."

By the time he recovered, she had already disappeared into the collapsed highway underpass. Which led to the silo itself. Shouldn't have ditched those crotch cups. Knew she would've pulled something like that. You share a bed with someone and they sock you right back in the nuts.

The Courier pulled himself to stand despite the pain.

Technically, you done did slept with her, snickered Old Green Eyes.

Vickers grimaced at himself. Technically, I slept on the same bed as hers. Was drunk. Faculties out the window.

Yeah, sure. Somethin' more nefarious could'a done happened.

I didn't touch her.

You still got into her bed without her consent.

Shut up, me.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: May 10, 2018

LAST EDITED: July 10, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED [FFN]: May 19, 2018

Chapter Text

Courier Six followed the blood trail up until to the last drop. From there, it was a no brainer as to where the kids had gone off to. There was only end for this road. And like a bloodhound, he tracked them through the canyon all the way to the blast doors of what Ulysses had once dubbed his own 'temple.'

There was sand freshly displaced all over the floor of the antechamber and deathclaw marks on the walls. And then there were the expended casings. None of the kids were issued guns chambered in forty-five ACP because the NCR stocked their armories with the cheaper five-fifty-sixes. Bunny-girl was catching up to her Remnant buddies.

Deluded idiots, the whole lot of them. You should'a done just left 'em to rot. Should'a shot 'em when you had the chance.

Warning shots. Those kids don't belong here.

Oh, they ain't don' belong here, you say? Then send 'em back to where they came from or put 'em in the ground. Either way, they wouldn't be a right problem anymore.

Shut up, me. I'm not drunk enough to deal with your shit today.

His footsteps echoed across the derelict halls of the largest dormant nuclear missile silo in the Mojave. The countless motion sensors he had scattered throughout the Divide constantly sent him constant alerts that he had to shut them off to keep his Pip-boy from vibrating so much. He stopped in front of the command center where the map displayed the targets he had set for each missile.

So far, there was nothing else beyond showing the same fluctuating numbers. Give or take a quarter of the arsenal in the silo and the NCR would be back to the irradiated craters it was born in. It would take a bit less to do the same to the Imperium Americana, backwards as they were. The rest would cover the hot spots he was getting from Boston in Massachusetts all the way to Washington D.C. of the so-called 'Capital Wasteland.' Enough to erase those Enclave and Brotherhood strongholds as well as a bunch of other rising offshoots.

Not that he intended for it. But just in case.

Just in case. As your Old World philosophy dictates.

As necessity dictates.

Sure. You just keep tellin' yourself that.

Six took deep breaths to clear his mind before returning to the console. Looks clean. Other than triggering the mainframe, no clear evidence of anything else they tampered with. He bit his lip. Given how those kids could achieve the impossible, they could either screw up the systems of the entire facility or worse...

"Really, Velvet!? Seriously?"

"K-keep it down, Ruby! I-it's n-not what it sounds like, okay?"

That came from the silo itself. The Courier crossed the nerve center to the catwalk overlooking the sacrificial floor where he and Ulysses had gutted each other in the presence of sleeping atomic titans. And down below on that same floor were his kids and Bunny-girl. Beaten, bruised, tired, but otherwise okay. Chatting. Catching up. Checking on Sparta's heel and gawking at the ICBMs in their launchers. Nine brats. Nine of them and a pet. Full on squadron with a mascot. Just like...

Syrup started growling. And the two teams looked back up to the catwalk. Back at him.

"You like what you see, kids?"

"You're insane," Snowball hissed, drawing her revolver-rapier.

"You're idiots." He gestured at the rows of missiles lining both flanks. "This...this is power."

Hyper detached herself from Bunny-girl and redeployed her scythe. "This has to stop. Why are you doing this?"

Good question. "You're too young to understand. And drinking milk doesn't make you more mature."

"Why?" Blake demanded. "Why do you want to destroy civilization all over again?"

Old Green Eyes gripped the railing as he bellowed, "Necessity, Cat-girl! The situation demands it."

Why'd you have to explain yourself to these brats? Just kill them an' be done with it already.

Shut up, goddamn it.

Weiss and Blake both shared an affinity for reading and that hobby had blossomed the moment they could understand the language written on every publication they came across in the Wasteland. Should one of them fail to understand a text, she would refer to the other and vice versa. Together, they pieced together much of the world around them and shared what they learned with their friends.

Old World history books, encyclopedias, manuals, ripped magazines, tattered journals. Every piece described or at least referenced the bombs that burned Earth on that fateful day two hundred years ago. Millions dead in an instant. All with the push of a button or the flip of a switch. And there would be nothing to stop these death machines from soaring through the atmosphere to rain consuming hellfire down on the unsuspecting populace.

For what reason? War. That was what all those faded books said. War over principles. War over resources. War over territory. War over food and basic necessities.

War for the sake of war.

Yet, such a catastrophe had long since come and gone with the bombs themselves expended or disabled to the point of utter uselessness. It stunned them that it could happen again. It mortified them that it was going to happen sooner than they thought.

"What precedent could you possibly have to pursue this madness!?" the heiress screamed back up at Major Vickers.

He only shook his head on his way down the stairs. "Haven't you all been paying attention to the world around you? No. You were too busy being vigilantes to even notice."

Weiss found herself cautiously stepping back with Myrtenaster on guard. In her peripheries, the rest of her team covered her flanks. She could hear Pyrrha's pained mewls as she tried to contribute to the situation despite Jaune urging her to stay behind cover and rest.

"The NCR is the leadin' powerhouse in this goddamn hellhole," Six began. "Legion's split and bitin' its own tail. No Enclave to worry about, no paranoid Brotherhood, no Fiends cannibalizin' travelers on the roads. You'd think things'll finally be lookin' up."

He laughed bitterly.

"I done thought that after Oliver, things'd be different. Never expected it to get any better or any worse."

"Six. What happened to General Lee Oliver?" Blake interrogated.

He shrugged and shook his head insincerely. "He slipped and fell. Tragic. Accidents happen to the best of us."

"What really happened, Major?" Weiss grounded.

The Courier raised his hands in mock innocence while the words came deliberately slow and patronizing. "Accident. He happened to step on a faulty section o' the Dam. His bodyguards were unable to save him. What can you do."

Pyrrha spoke up, having to sheepishly hang off of Jaune's shoulder. "Oliver had many friends in high places. And just as many enemies everywhere else. Even in the NCR. Don't you agree, Major?"

Six tittered. "Loyalty has a price. Funny who'd actually turn up for the highest bidder. Funnier still when they don' give a rat's ass who the target is. Hilarious that they knew him as much as they hated him."

Amber irises narrowed. "I knew it."

"Oliver assassinated, Moore incarcerated, Hsu promoted," the heiress listed. "And scandals rocking both the Republic's leadership and the Three Families. Why am I not surprised."

Slow. Loud. Claps. Major Vickers was sniggering now.

"You should've been a detective instead of a Huntress," he barked. "I s'ppose you read 'bout the part where I took up arms in Mexico with the old breed. Tied down the NCR's best for years. Tier One groups 'chasing ghosts in Baja,' they said. Then retreated east to Sonora and back up through Texas, silencin' marks around Arizona while runnin' jobs for the Mojave Express under false identities. Heh, kudos to them Californians; they got all that right. It was fun bein' a fugitive."

Slack-jawed, Weiss could only blink. The man before her continued to unashamedly admit to more of what the NCR suspected him to be guilty of.

"And you slept with Velvet!" Ruby hollered.

…

Wait, what!?

"Wait, what!?"

"Oh, son of a bitch," Six groaned.

At Ruby's shocking accusation, the rest of the other two teams stared in disbelief at the older faunus who had understandably gone full scarlet. To punctuate her embarrassment, her ears instinctively folded inward. That and she tried to shrink deeper into her clothes while her face disappeared behind her shawl.

Despite having overheard their conversation prior, Blake was still as surprised as everyone else. "Y-you're not serious...were you, Velvet?"

"N-no! N-not in that w-way! I-it's not w-what you think!" veiled Velvet protested.

The little reaper stood by her side, clasping her arm tight with a rigid and confident expression. "But you said he forced himself into your room and—"

"Yes! No! But- Wait, hold on! That's not—"

"If Coco was here, you'd be so dead," Yang crowed towards the Courier, imagining how stupefied he must be behind his intimidating headgear.

"What the hell, Bunny-girl!"

"What the hell, Six!"

"I didn't touch her!"

"You're a war criminal and now you're a- you're a- you..." stuttered a flabbergasted Weiss.

Six flailed his arms in exasperation. "Goddamn it, I didn't touch her! You kids are gettin' the wrong idea here."

"Well, to be fair, Velvet is cute and really adorable," Nora piped distractedly, rushing over to pinch the elder girl's cheeks. "Pretty sure a lot of people would want to hit on her."

Cue stolid Ren. "People already have."

And gauche Jaune. "Yeah, heh, she is kinda pretty."

Pyrrha too. Distantly. "Yes... Pretty."

Meanwhile, Syrup was confused between growling at the man with the glowing green eyes or nuzzling the leg of the strange rabbit person.

"Oh, come the fuck on!" the Courier howled. "You kids can't be that gullible!"

Weiss hummed in thought and gave him a quick one-over before mouthing, "Hmm, Major Vickers technically is without a partner."

"Probably sexually frustrated," mumbled Blake.

Six threw his arms in the air. "This is too stupid to be real."

"We didn't do it!" Velvet finally screeched, her eyes flaring with an almost complete loss of sanity. "... We did not. Have. An affair!"

In the deafening silence, the two faunus could have sworn they heard a tumbleweed bouncing around outside the silo's antechamber.

The Courier cleared his throat. "Thank you for clarifying that."

Ruby was more puzzled than provoked. Befogged, she poked Velvet in the arm. "But you told me you two slept together."

"He was drunk. I was tired," the sophomore explained as coolly as she could. "He barged into my room, complaining about taking care of you guys. Then he fell onto my bed, vomited onto my floor, and went to sleep. That's it. That was all. Nothing else, nothing untoward, nothing involving...you-know-what."

Velvet was unaware that her panicked and very animated hand gestures almost killed her argument. She just wanted to get the point across that she was neither taken advantage of nor did she take advantage of anyone because frankly she was not into smelly, drunk, recalcitrant old men. Ew.

Jaune raised his hand with a thumb craned towards the dormant missiles. "Um, don't you guys think we have a bigger problem to deal with other than arguing over whoever Six likes to sleep with?"

"Would you please stop sayin' shit like that?" Six barked. "I got drunk and I forgot what happened but I didn't damn touch her."

"You 'forgot' what happened but you insist you did nothing to her," Weiss outlined.

"Not the best argument if you're trying to plead innocence," Blake included analytically.

"I mean, if I were a guy, I'd definitely tap that," Yang mulled.

"So you didn't try to make a baby with him? Like make a baby-baby?" Ruby prodded the twitching rabbit faunus. "You know, like when a man and a woman really love each other and they get together and they—"

"I did not have sexual relations with that cottontail, goddamn it!" decried the Courier. "Where the fuck are you kids getting these damn ideas!?"

"I know, right?" hissed Velvet who had resorted to pulling her appendages down to wrap them around her already covered face.

"Hey, Velvet's old enough, right? So there's nothing wrong her with hooking up with a guy who, well, you know, could be old enough to be her dad...I think," Nora remarked to which Yang and Ruby choked, Weiss went green, and Blake nearly gagged.

"It is unfortunate that people still think we're his offspring," Pyrrha said.

Ren nodded. "It has become quite problematic. Rumors abound that we are either adopted or borne from several mistresses."

The heiress dropped her face into her palm. "Not just problematic. Very troublesome now that we are even being suspected of"—she shuddered—"incestuous behavior!"

Again, Jaune tossed his hands in the air and started waving with sword and shield while gesturing at the pods. "Guys! Bigger problem here!"

Six let out a very audible, very exasperated sigh. "Alright, this has dragged on for too long." He pulled out his revolver. "I'm haulin' all y'all kids back to the Strip if it's the last thing I do."

And just like that, they reassumed their battle stances. Typical.

Raul Tejada amplified the magnification on his binoculars.

Within the walls of Fort Mead, through the open garage door of the large workshop converted from the old Legion arena, three crews of engineers in jumpsuits set to work stenciling the colors of the United States Commonwealth onto the mechanical ligaments of two more oddly-designed battle-robots. Where they got those war machines was a mystery—the most advanced technology to come out of the NCR were the scraps salvaged from the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel—but the fact that they were making them appear old and retrieved from some abandoned U.S. Army depot was enough to convince him of another planned NCR operation.

Or something involving bipedal, semi-humanoid battle robots thrice the size of Securitrons and fielding about as much firepower.

The ghoul shifted slightly on his perch, a tiny cavern carved into the side of a seemingly unassailable cliffside, and shifted his attention all the way across the cantonment on the hill where three rows of wide tents had been recently pitched.

This was interesting. The occupants all appeared to be non-combatants. So those must be the 'liberated Legion slaves' people were talking about. With every head of hair dyed to match almost every color on the rainbow. Odd. And slave collars still locked around their necks. Why was that? Shouldn't those have been taken off by now? Unless the NCR wanted to keep them collared for some reason?

Raul zoomed in closer. There was something different about those collars. They were bulkier and appeared to have been designed with chambers to hold something. Batteries? Additional explosives? Some kind of augmentative technology? Too distant to know for sure.

He adjusted the magnification. There. Two figures addressing the whole group. Most likely their leaders or representatives. There was an air of authority to them despite the glaring collars wrapped around their own necks. At least they were no longer in rags. In fact, they were dressed in garb that seemed to match their desired color scheme despite the clothes provided by the NCR.

There was no mistaking it. That pair was from Remnant. Which meant some or perhaps all of those slaves were from Remnant. NCR radio chatter later confirmed that they had been personally briefed by General Hsu and most probably going to be held there until they would be relocated to either McCarran Headquarters or the Aerotech Rehabilitation Park to be properly 'accommodated.'

The ghoul continued observing them until they retired for the night to which he descended off his perch with an entire log of data recorded on both paper and holo-tape. A handful of advanced battle robots, around two dozen Remnant refugees, and NCR military build-up in and around Fort Mead?

Not to mention the 'hot spot' Boss was supposed to 'investigate.' Raul was starting to assume why General Hsu chose that sinkhole Devil's Throat all the way east as the location for the bogus job. The place was a hornet's nest complete with a highly radioactive reservoir. While the Courier was careful enough to skirt severe irradiation, even with treatment, the isotopes on the edges alone would keep him out of action for a good week to a month at least. For a ghoul like him, though, it was nothing. He had been there before and he was not expecting much when he would visit the place again even if the NCR somehow managed to plant something all the way out there.

Boss was definitely not going to like this. And honestly, neither did Raul.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: May 19, 2018

LAST EDITED: July 10, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED [FFN]: May 23, 2018

Chapter Text

"Jaune, see if you guys can disable the missile systems."

"What? Wait, Rubes! What about you?"

"We'll stall. Just go!"

"A-alright. Got it. Pyrrha, you okay?"

"Yes, Jaune. Let's find the controls."

"You do know that none of us can tap into the mainframe."

"No need for that hacking stuff, Renny. Let's smash it to bits! Right, Syrup?"

"Team RWBY, I'll stay here with you."

"Great to have you in our corner, Velvet."

The Courier silently tracked the kids as they spread out. Already, team RWBY plus Bunny-girl occupied his flanks, obscuring his view of JNPR-plus-deathclaw. Now's the perfect opportunity. Kill 'em. Kill 'em all!

No.

Revolvers fully loaded. Carbine within reach. A bunch of teens with ridiculous hybrid weapons charging to incapacitate him. Five targets. Five bullets. Standing my ground is out of the question. I still have stitches in my ass. Dodge their attacks, exhaust them, old-school hit-and-run. Whittle them down. Watch for the nukes; them fuselages ain't exactly bulletproof. Six heard footsteps clapping against the floor. He breathed deep.

Time seemed to slow as his brain—and everything that had been sewn into it—jolted into overdrive. Incoming strike, one o'clock. He automatically deflected the first blow.

If most of his engagements were this acrobatic, then Six would have died from either a heart attack or fatigue. Or organ failure. But Courier Six was anything but a normal human being. Alas, a decade of being science's guinea pig—insane Big MT eggheads included—had reworked him into something beyond his natural physical and mental limitations.

Whether or not he wanted any of it.

That did not mean he was ungrateful for the current state of his body. Every move felt a bit mechanical. Every reflex came through nearly flawlessly. Sure, parts of him were showing the telltale signs of age. Sure, he was moving around with over a hundred pounds of gear on his person. Sure, some of his reactions were several milliseconds slower. But at least he was still alive, still energetic, and effectively wearing down the five hyperactive brats trying to knock him to the ground. And he occasionally stole glances at JNPR-S, tracking them as best he could while they bounced from console to console.

"Why. Won't. You. Stay. Still!" Blondie screamed, frustratingly blasting away her gauntlets' buckshot.

Try aiming, you bimbo. You should know better to conserve your 'irreplaceable' Dust ammunition. Six continued to run circles around them, Dust and gunpowder ripping holes up in the floor with bits of shrapnel (thankfully) bouncing harmlessly off the unshielded missile pods.

"Freezerburn!"

Mist can't hide you from me.

"Bumblebee!"

Stonewalled.

"Checkmate!"

Block, dodge, and counter.

"Ladybug!"

Parried and evaded.

"Ice Flower!"

You missed.

"Steer clear, girls!"

Not this time, Bunny-girl. Six slid across the iced floor, past a completely winded team RWBY, and, pivoting on his hip, snapped to the rabbit faunus coming down on him with a literal carbon copy of Hyper's scythe. For one, she was fast. Then again, she was also predictable. With solid replicas of the brats' different weapons, he guessed that it came with the same strategies they used. Dodge here, slide there, block, evade.

Opening, three o'clock. The Courier forwarded a tightly clenched fist as Velvet charged at him again. This time, he felt something crack against his knuckles and in that momentous second, he caught the sudden shock in her eyes when her face passed over his shoulder. Then her body flashed a bright glow.

His arm arced sideways, throwing her back, and he skated back around to watch her tumble and roll along the floor. The glow flickered and disintegrated, like a lightbulb squeezing out its final kilowatts before bursting into flakes. Her Aura was gone. She twisted in pain, her arms wrapping around her midriff.

Her ribs. Velvet cried out when her body slammed to a stop against the barrister lining the perimeter. I broke her ribs. Her pained sobbing reached his ears and triggered something that made his lip twitch. I broke her ribs...I hurt her.

"Velvet!"

"Are you okay!?"

"Her Aura's gone!"

"I'll get her to safety!"

I nearly killed her. Six found himself pacing over. There were no breaks to the adrenaline pumping through him.

"I warned you, kids," he snarled. "You should've just left."

Hyper glared at him with determined rage. "Stop, Six! Just stop! Stop Samson! That's all we ever wanted!"

"You don't understand the hell we all live in," the Courier declared. They're tired enough. Time to get the other four. Sparta could be tearing through the console right now.

Ruby charged at him via her Semblance. Six swept to the right, then suddenly pulled back left, leaving his right arm stretched firmly outward. Her chest collided with his bicep. Perfect clothesline. And her momentum dragged his body along with her. Damn physics!

The both of them flew briefly, their weapons flying out of their grasp, then landed apart from each other. The Courier was the first to get back up.

"Hyper," he called out to the fifteen-year-old girl writhing on the floor. Just like Velvet, her Aura sputtered and died. "Enough! Stand down!"

"I won't...let you...kill innocent...people," she wheezed.

Fucking moralist. "Stubborn little shit... Too young to put two and two together."

"I...am not...a child!"

Six paused. Did her eyes just flicker? He swore her pupils glimmered for a second there. It was weird enough that she had silver irises but them suddenly flashing like molten nickels? There was not that much light reflecting off her face. Was it her Aura? Probably his own creeping exhaustion.

He retrieved his revolver and checked to see half the chamber unspent. Don't make me shoot you.

Ruby crawled over to her scythe which she used push herself up. "Six... Major Vickers... Theodore..."

"Don't use my name," he hissed.

"Why...? Why are you doing this? If anything, please, tell me why." Her legs wobbled as she propped herself up with her weapon. "I want to know why... I'm asking you now for the truth. What you see, what you hear, what you know that leads to this... I want to hear it...from you. I want to know...why..."

Something warm and soft tugged at his chest. The Courier grit his teeth. He had lost too much patience to argue. "You want to understand? You want to really understand, Ruby?"

A few yards back, past a collapsed section of the ceiling, Cat-girl laid Bunny-girl down against a cannibalized control box to recuperate.

He tried not to raise his pistol at her head, his finger rubbing the trigger guard. On the other hand, her mechanical scythe had the reach to rip open his stomach from where she stood.

"Be honest with me, Six..."

"Were you part of a team? Y'know, with Raul? Did you have a team? Like us?"

"... Please."

"Ruby, I'll tell you another time. For now, get some rest."

The Courier saw Blondie and Snowball skidding to a halt right behind her. Hyper, despite the pain she was in, held up a clenched fist: a clear order to stand down.

"I want to understand..."

"Trust your teammates. Trust your friends."

Her silver pupils searched him. "Help me to..."

"They may give you hell but in the end, when you think everyone's left you..."

"... So I, we, can help you."

"...they're going to be the only people in this godforsaken world who'd run up out of the blue and take the hit for you when the shit hits the fan."

Major Theodore Vickers shut his eyes to shutter the memory. "Goddamn it, you are so stubborn."

Yang and Weiss inched closer to Ruby, their stances slacking when he lowered his revolver.

"Please," Ruby pleaded. "Please..."

Damn you, Ruby. Damn you, you naive girl. Six breathed. One. Two. Three.

"Samson isn't just a weapon," he finally intoned. "It's more than that. There're strings attached to these cards. When you have a sword that can cut through anything, a magic bullet that can kill anything, a card that ends the game... You have a weapon that's not only tactical but strategic on a global scale."

"What do you mean?" prodded Hyper.

Damn you, Vickers! Damn you for bein' soft! Damn you for caring for these kids! "There's a diplomatic principle that governed the nuclear states before the Great War. Samson was one of thousands that were built to serve that purpose."

Weiss gasped. "Th-thousands?"

"Why...overkill," Yang breathed.

"That was over two hundred years ago," the Courier continued morosely. "These birds have aged passed their heyday. They can still flatten cities but it doesn't have as much of a punch as it used to. The best Samson can do now is act as a de—"

Six felt his breath hitch in his throat. Not because of the emotions rising from the past. But because of the sudden blaring of the alarms; klaxons started flashing in and around the silo. When he finally found his voice, his head whipped to the elevated platform upon which sat the central control terminal. Team JNPR-S was frantic and fumbling around it. Up and down the complex, the silo doors hissed open.

Dear sweet Lord, no! "Ah, shit!"

"What happened!?"

"What's going on!?"

"Is Samson...?"

Knight-boy hollered over the noise. "Uh, guys! Something went wrong!"

Shaolin backed into him and they both tumbled down the steps of the platform. Steam burst through the grills and filled each launch pad so much that the missiles themselves were partially visible.

Just as Six feared, the dreaded automated voice echoed over the entire complex.

"[Systems breached]"—static—"[Interference detected]"—static—"[Emergency protocol initiated]"—static—"[Warning, warning, warning]"—static ringing.

"Dear God, no! No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!"

"[Launch sequence initiated. Tee minus sixty seconds. Sixty. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight...]"

The kids paled. Syrup emerged from a hole under the main platform and swallowed a whole bundle of ripped copper wires.

The Courier screamed in horror. "You goddamn IDIOTS!"

"Six, wait!"

"[Fifty-five...]"

"He's going for the launch controls!"

"[Fifty-two...]"

Ruby darted after him, her Semblance sputtering. She could hear Yang, Weiss, and Blake huffing to catch up with her. "Six!"

"Sis, hold up!"

"[Forty-nine...]"

Jaune and Ren tried to intercept him. Six kicked up a dislocated piece of bent metal and hurled it against them, knocking them both down. Nora ran towards him but he shoved her aside, almost pushing her off the railing. Syrup dove in for a bite only to be suddenly punted out of the way. The Courier closed the gap towards Pyrrha who stood befuddled in front of the partially dissected control pad. A mess of dislocated buttons, coils, and bolts floated around her.

"[Forty-three...]"

"Get off!" he barked.

The metal fragments coalesced into a shield. "Six, you—gah!"

"[Thirty-nine...]"

Ruby skidded to a halt a yard behind. Six forced his hands through the suspended mess of metallic bits, took hold of Pyrrha by her biceps and flung her behind him. The reaper caught the champion as she landed on top of her, bolts, screws, and the fragments of the console bouncing off them.

"[Thirty-five...]"

"Six!"

Ruby had to act fast. As far as she knew, the missiles—refueled and re-calibrated—were going to launch, armed with their payload, and once they were in the air, they would be powerless to stop it from reducing entire cities (tens of hundreds of thousands of lives, innocent or not) to radioactive ash. Again. Panicking, she loaded her last Dust bullet into Crescent Rose and took shaky aim at his back.

"[Thirty-one. Thirty...]"

She breathed deep to steady her grip even though her team nearly bumped into her. Her mind debated over whether this was the right thing to do, even as the Courier appeared oddly alarmed while he worked furiously on what was left of the console.

"[Twenty-seven...]"

"Ruby, wait!"

She felt Blake's hand yank her shoulder. "What are you—?"

"Look! He's..."

Yang huffed. "Is he...shutting it down?"

"He's disabling it," Weiss muttered. "He's disabling Samson."

"[Twenty-two. Twenty-one...]"

"Come on, come on, you outdated cockamamie pre-war tech," Six hissed. "Don't fail me now, goddamn it!"

"[Eighteen. Seventeen...]"

"Sh-should we help?" Ruby asked.

Blake shook her head. The look on her face was resigned, forlorn, and...ashamed? "No. I think we've caused enough trouble already."

Yang's arms dropped to her sides with Weiss nearly dropping Myrtenaster.

"[Eleven. Ten. Nine...]"

"Dear God Almighty, don't do this to me!" Six pleaded, flipping a line of switches then reaching over the terminal for a lever hanging off the side.

"[Six. Five...]"

Team RWBY stood paralyzed alongside their bewildered sister team, their confused pet, and the pained faunus sophomore, watching helplessly at what they had caused.

"[Three. Two...]"

Crack!

Beep.

Silence.

The Courier slouched over the panel. Panting. Sweating. Tired. The rusted lever was down. The alarms stopped blaring leaving the klaxons lit and blaring. Then the automated voice returned.

"[Launch sequence aborted]"

Ruby let out the breath she had been holding. Did he just...? Is it over? Is Samson down? The rest of her fellow Remnant teens gathered themselves around the central platform, wondering what exactly happened.

She felt euphoric, akin to the emotions that arose in the aftermath of the Breach. A crisis averted. Lives saved. It was cathartic. She drowned in her relief. Only to be pulled back out by a cold, bitter, unforgiving hiss.

"Get out."

He still had his back to them. She reluctantly reached an arm out. "Six?"

"Get. Out."

Blake could have never felt any worse than Ruby appeared to have been. Her leader fought back tears. Her attempts at negotiation were muted by two words that kept repeating until they came out as a raging snarl. Then the Courier swiveled on his heel...

...and very nearly backhanded Ruby.

His hand hung high, stiff and ready to crash against her cheek. Yang flinched and it felt like a whole minute before Weiss tugged Ruby away.

"Get out," he repeated.

"U-um, Six?" Nora tried.

Ren reached out. "Nora, don't—"

She ignored him, inching closer to the bigger man with a plastered smile. "Six? You won't, uh, blow up the world, right? R-right, d-dad?"

Six snapped at her. "I'm not your fucking dad, ginger! You are not my flesh and blood so drop the act because for all I care you're nothing to me. A waste of space, waste of time, waste of effort! Never needed you, never even fucking wanted you from the beginning!"

To say that Nora shattered like glass was mildly putting it. Her smile vanished instantly. Her lips quivered. Magnhild almost slipped out of her hands. "W-w-wh-what d-did y-y-you...?"

"I'm not your 'dad,' never was your 'dad,' and never fucking will be your 'dad!' If I fucking was, then I should've just done what any sane parent would do and shoot myself to get away from the bullshit I have to put up with from you, you goddamn failed abortion!" He closed the gap until he was bearing down an arm's length from her face. "Never call me 'dad' again because you are not. My. Fucking. Daughter!"

Blake blinked hard. That was...harsh. Ren immediately stepped between them to pull Nora back. That or he almost retaliated on her behalf. In her peripheries, green molded orange away. Said orange was sniffling... Nora was in tears. Bubbly, crazy, cheerful, always jubilant Nora was downright sobbing.

"Hey!" Jaune growled back. "That was uncalled for! She was just trying to—"

Pyrrha stopped him. "Enough. Let's just go." She appeared resigned but even more so guilty than a convicted criminal in a courtroom full of witnesses. "We should leave."

The blond protested even after he was tugged away. The boys of team JNPR-S turned on their heels, throwing very contemptuous looks at the Courier who probably had a fiercer, more furious, and more unforgiving glare behind his gas mask. Ren guided a visibly shaking Nora and a mewling Syrup while Jaune shouldered Pyrrha across the complex, stopping briefly behind a disabled control box to help Velvet up.

Blake decided that the best course of action now was to follow suit. She nodded at Yang who went to assist Jaune with the two girls hanging off his arms. They were all halfway up the staircase when they heard a roar and a loud crash. Looking back, Six had practically ripped the entire control panel off the whole missile control box and hurled it halfway across the complex, shoulders heaving as he raged.

He then sat on the steps of the central platform with his head in his hands. Shaking. Trembling. His gas mask unclasped and hanging off his neck, the haunting green visor reflecting the bright red of the klaxons. Blake heard him muttering curses to himself. Though she knew better, she could not tune out some of the rambling details that reached her ears: 'wasn't supposed to happen,' 'no one to blame but yourself,' 'she won't forgive,' 'all for naught,' 'in the basement,' 'horrible husband,' 'heartless father...'

She glanced up. Velvet nodded; the sophomore heard them all too. And by the way her gaze softened, she knew more than the rest of them. The two faunus looked back when they stopped hearing words.

Six was crying.

Blake lingered on the mezzanine until she was alone, listening closely, gazing back down at the lone figure. General Hsu claimed he was a broken man. Ruby voiced the same opinion. The proof was evident now.

Six's actions disproved her assumptions about him. For all his deeds, this one act proved that the guardian that was the Desert Ranger was still alive inside the madman that was Old Green Eyes. Borrowing Yang's vocabulary, she could say that he pulled a reverse Adam (or something along those lines).

Blake continued back up to the nerve center, passed a map that flashed errors, and dragged herself to the elevator where the rest of her friends and teammates slumped idle. Ruby brought her knees up to her chin, gazing forlornly at the wall despite Yang's attempts to cheer her up. Weiss sullenly tended to Velvet's broken ribs. Jaune wordlessly kept close to Pyrrha while Ren had his arm over Nora's slouched form, Syrup worriedly lapping at her legs. Blake found her spot in the corner far from the group. No books to read, no small talk coming to mind. Just her thoughts (conscience) that tormented her.

They rode the elevator back down but they never left. Rather, they stayed there for the next hour. She knew the unspoken reason why no one had moved yet: despite all that he had said and done, they could not bring themselves to leave the Courier behind.

If there was one thing former Major Theodore Vickers would ever regret in his whole life, it was that he did not pull the trigger when he could (should) have. It was always the case regardless of the situation. And the consequences he had to deal with had taken a massive toll.

Countless times in his life he refused to pull the trigger. And the results cascaded through a domino of disasters. Because he froze on the trigger, they failed to save Arizona. Because he hesitated on the trigger, Graham lived to attack Hoover Dam. Because he refused to pull the trigger, Oliver crushed their uprising in Baja, annihilating the last of the Desert Rangers. And now that someone else had pulled the trigger...

"Really sorry you got twisted up in this scene. It's only a job, Tee. No hard feelings."

"Keeping it professional, eh, Benny."

"Ring-a-ding, it's all professional. I really hate to do this to you, buddy. But it's been an eighteen-carat run of bad luck for you."

"Ain't that the truth."

"Truth, huh? Well, the truth is...the game was rigged from the start."

...he ended up nearly nuking the wasteland back to square one out of (grief) principle. He really was no different than the bastards he put down.

"Don't even suggest we're equals, Ulysses. You couldn't have done this without me bringing you what you needed."

"And you did even after you knew you were tricked, Theodore. To this day, you take pride in it."

"Pride at what I've done, yes. Joy at what's to come, no. What's done is done."

"Do you truly believe that?"

Here he sat, eyes dry, face damp. Broken and in complete conflict with himself. In the middle of Ulysses's Temple. We're not equals but we're both of the same ilk, Ulysses. Even in death, you still hound me. With a defeated sigh, he looked up at the open silo door in the ceiling, the only one that had remained open after he shut everything down. Moonlight beamed through the gap, painting the living ICBM before him with a haunting blue hue.

This all could'a gone down differently, you know, echoed Old Green Eyes. Nine bullets. That's all you needed. Nine bullets an' this all could'a done been avoided.

I couldn't do it, whimpered Vickers.

His shadow snorted. All that effort restoring Samson wasted because you put the kids first. Way to choose your priorities. You should'a pulled the damn trigger when you done had the chance. The moment they fell out o' the sky, you put the barrel to their heads. You could've ended it there and that little shit wouldn't have done fucked this all up.

His heart whinnied. Ruby was only trying to help. In her stupid, misinformed, adorable way.

Hyper was bein' a stubborn, gullible brat, Old Green Eyes snarled. Vigilantes die quick in the Wasteland.

But they didn't, Vickers protested.

Old Green Eyes roared. Because of you focused everything on them! You gave 'em everything! Doted on 'em like they were the reincarnations o' your own damn bloodline! And look at what they'd done to you. They bumped you down fifteen solid pegs. Those powerhouses are going to notice. Good luck bringing Samson back to life a third time 'fore another bullet splits open your noggin.

Vickers mewled. Samson was supposed to be a last resort.

Samson was a weapon of America. A weapon that's been always there, always waiting. An endgame. NCR was smart enough to know something was up. They used them brats to figure it all out for 'em, to sabotage you, to break the biggest gun aimed at them. Ironic that you ended up doing it for them.

I never intended to burn the world again.

Play with fire, you get burned. The Devil won this gamble, you fuck-up.

Am I really this fucked up?

Yeah, I am.

Six laid flat on his back, gazing at the clear evening sky. Full moon tonight. Lots of bright stars, too. Against the deep blue hues of the moonlight night, a pitch black dot rounded the open silo door. A dot with wings that was squawking overhead.

Lone vulture. Smelled death before it happened. Then again, I probably reek of carrion. Huh. How does that song go again?

"Black raven, circling over my head," the Courier croaked. "You won't get anything from me... I'm ain't yet dead, I ain't yet your prey..."

I wish I was you, birdie. Hogging the sky for yourself without a care in the world.

The bird didn't answer, obviously. It just continued flying circles above him, silhouetted against the lunar light, until he picked himself up and started walking. Back to New Vegas. Back to the kids. Back home.

Goddamn it, Theodore.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: May 19, 2018

LAST EDITED: July 10, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED [FFN]: June 1, 2018

Chapter Text

Being a faunus had its quirks.

Low-light vision was a natural trait but sensitive hearing was one of the more identifiable features that set them apart from humans and other faunus. With two extra furry appendages, soft snores and shearing desert winds resonated far louder than they needed to be. Having dragged themselves out of the elevator, they had intended to get some fresh air only to be stopped by the weather. At that point, exhaustion took over and most everyone nodded off. Though, kept awake by the noise, Velvet glanced around until she caught a pair of weighted amber dots meeting hers in the dim anteroom.

"How're you feeling?" Blake asked her.

"Better," she answered with wince.

"Hey, don't push yourself."

"I know, I know. What about you? Can't sleep?"

"Not with the noise outside. The sandstorms out here are pretty...terrifying."

"I guess that makes the two of us."

The cat faunus huddled over, toeing past the sleeping forms of her teammates. Blake barely knew Velvet and that showed when she took a moment to gather her words. "So... Did you hear...?"

Velvet nodded. "This is more than just politics. I think it's personal."

"Should've been pretty obvious from the start, huh."

"Not that anything should be obvious when there are secrets that can kill." The rabbit faunus sighed. "I don't know if I should tell you..."

"Tell me what?"

"He..." Velvet bit her lip. No matter how hard she tried to forget what she heard that night, the random ramblings of a drunken old man turned out to be clues to a life story that was turning tragic the more she connected the dots. "He knows, or knew, a lot of people. Some of them, he...fought alongside with for a time, I guess? As far as I can tell, he used to have...a family, I think. Something about being...a father or something. I can't really say."

Blake pulled her knees close to her chest. "You think so? Huh. Um, I guess I should let you know then. The NCR gave us a full dossier on him before we headed here."

The Beacon sophomore straightened against the wall despite her broken ribs. "What did they say?"

"Most of it was redacted but there a lot of details left out. War hero, protector. Had a decorated career. Then he...he changed somehow and...things went differently from there. The files were meticulous about what he looked like, his usual gear, what he usually does, and all the things he's done. Not once in those documents though..." The cat faunus paused. "I think we weren't told everything now that you mention it."

"You mean they didn't redact enough information."

Blake shrugged. "Either that or they actually didn't know. They never mentioned...him having familial ties to anyone."

"Friends? Subordinates?"

"'Working associates,' they said. A lot of them...aren't active anymore. His old associates, I mean. Up until three years ago, he was the head of this...group. They were called the 'Vegas Nine.'"

Velvet tilted her head. "I've heard. Who exactly were they?"

"A mixed group, really. There was a caravan merchant, a doctor, and a scribe of all people." Blake shook her head, her eyes glossed over as she recalled the details that she memorized from the papers they had vigorously pored through back in New Vegas. "He cobbled together a team and led them on operations. They wandered with him, they fought side by side... Then there was a falling out or something shortly before the Second Battle of Hoover Dam."

"... Second Battle of Hoover Dam?"

"Oh, right. Yeah. There was this big battle over the dam which supplies much of the electrical output in the whole region. Probably even up to the western coast of this continent."

"And the Vegas Nine...was involved?"

"From the build-up all the way to fighting in the battle itself. And when the dust settled, they...broke apart."

The rabbit faunus raised her brow. "Dramatic fallout?"

A sigh. "I wouldn't assume."

Velvet hummed. "You mentioned caravan merchant. Did that merchant, by chance, go by the name of Cassidy?"

Blake eyed her. "Rose of Sharon Cassidy. Have you...heard of her?"

"I...when I ended up here, I...I was taken in by this merchant caravan. They were running supplies up to communities in the ruins east of the Strip. Their boss was in the NCR. Rose of Sharon Cassidy, head of Cassidy Caravans."

"Huh. Talk about coincidence."

"Lucky me, I guess. They took me in and were, sort of, understanding. But they did help me out. Helped me get used to this...Wasteland. Vegas Nine, Miss Cassidy, I heard it from them."

"What else did you hear?"

A sigh. "A lot more than I needed to..."

It had been several long minutes until they heard the elevator working. Followed by heavy footsteps echoing from the depths of the facility, getting closer and stopping short of the anteroom.

"What the hell are you kids still doing here?"

"Resting," Blake replied dryly.

Velvet tried to meet Six's glare with her own only to grimace at the agonizing pangs suddenly shooting up from her midriff.

"Easy there, Bunny-girl."

She scoffed through clenched teeth. "Oh, I'll just be dandy, Major."

"Bones heal. Your Aura should help with that, I guess." The Courier stared pointedly at her. "Raul let you go, didn't he."

The rabbit faunus bit her lip. He didn't seem angry. Rather mildly annoyed? "Y-yes. He th-thought it best if I followed you and made sure you, um, didn't mess up or something."

He exhaled. "Of course, he did."

"Raul cares about you, Six," Blake interjected. "So do we."

"Do you, now?"

Her glare fell. "I don't trust the NCR but they've gotten a lot of things right. And I hated that. I hated that they were right! I hated that you have almost no remorse for it all."

"Why're you even bothering?"

"Six—Theodore, please. Some of us are really confused. And really frustrated. But we're all concerned. For you. For your sanity. Seeing you lose yourself like this isn't healthy for us, too." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Are things really that bad here that you have to go this far?"

"Ain't it obvious?" The Courier scowled deeper. "There are reasons for how things are. And reasons for why you came all the way out here, don't you think."

Velvet saw Blake shrink under his withering glare. Come to think of it, why did teams RWBY and JNPR trek to such a dangerous place anyway? They never did have the time to discuss that.

"Blake."

Blake yelped. Her normally stoic demeanor had shattered to pieces with her rubbing her arm and trying to avert her gaze from him. She lasted three seconds.

"The NCR was worried that Samson was a secret weapon that might be used against them," she stammered. "They asked us to investigate and...shut it down."

Velvet flinched when she heard the man's heavyset boots thud against the metal floor. The cat faunus fidgeted with her thumbs before continuing.

"Weiss and I have been...studying your history, Six. No offense. We wanted to know more about you but you were so aloof. Either you were too drunk to have a reasonable conservation with or you were off somewhere doing things that you never tell us. We ended up worried, especially Ruby. So we had to ask...others. What we learned... None of us wanted to believe any of it. I didn't want to believe that you could do something like, well, this."

"And Hyper wanted you to jump in because she thought it would 'help' both me and everyone else," the Courier finished with arms folded.

Blake nodded sheepishly. "You can't blame Ruby for being an altruist."

"Uh-huh. Her being stupidly helpful overrides all common sense then. So even though you knew better to keep your nose out of my business, you agreed."

"I...won't deny that."

The pause that followed was constricting. Velvet glanced between the two, worried about the Courier's current mental state. He had this foggy gaze that lingered over them. Silent contemplation perhaps? Or maybe an argument going on his head? It looked like any wrong word might set him off.

So it came as a surprise when he kneeled in front of the freshman and calmly said, "I guess this is all on me then. Listen, kid, I have my issues. And I admit I let my demons get the best of me. Maybe someday we can have another reasonable...meaningful conversation."

"Like when you were hungover that one time?"

"Yeah, like that one time." Six flicked her feline ears. "Blake, you and your buddies are a bunch of fucking idiots. But you're my idiots. And 'fore you get your jimmies in a knot, I'll patch things up with Pancake over there."

Blake smiled warmly. "That'd be nice."

"Don't hug me, though. Seriously, don't hug me."

She nodded and pressed herself back against the wall. "Understood."

"Get some rest, you two. It's way past your bedtime."

She raised a brow. "Have you even had any sleep?"

He waved her off. "Don't worry about me."

"Are you sure about that?" Velvet piped. "I mean, we did have a scuffle."

"I have my quirks."

"You tracked us halfway across the Mojave, killed several soldiers, and even beat us at our best. You look like you haven't slept for the past three days," Blake highlighted. "You have some interesting 'quirks.''"

"Some secrets are best left unsaid."

"Unless you're intoxicated," Velvet interjected. She smirked at the brief stroke of panic that flashed in his eyes. "I can keep a secret. Or ten."

"We're going to have a long chat about that, Bunny-girl."

The older faunus huffed and shook her head. She was too exhausted to argue, after all. Besides, her Aura was coming back and slowly mending her broken ribs. Though not necessarily regenerating shattered bones, it would make it easier for treatment from a licensed physician. Come to think of it, there was a competent doctor in Goodsprings.

"Do we remind you of anyone?" Blake suddenly queried.

Velvet looked to the Courier. His body language betrayed his poker face. Leave it to Miss Belladonna to prod for more answers, not that she could blame her.

"A few certain individuals, yeah."

The sophomore met Blake's uneasy glance. She shrugged. Curiosity killed the cat, as the saying goes. Perhaps this would be a tender moment.

Feeling slightly reassured, the cat faunus took another deep breath. "Yang's kind of like Veronica, isn't she?"

Six leaned against the wall and chuckled. "Yeah. Except Vee hates drinking, doesn't use puns, and is as snarky as you are."

"Amazing how no one else has woken up to this conversation," Velvet muttered. Were they conversing that softly or were the others just that tired? Or maybe it was just her sensitive sense of hearing? Then again, the sandstorm outside was rather lulling in an off-putting way.

A prideful grin slowly formed over his unkempt chin. "She's more like Hyper and Blondie rolled into one: can pound someone three times her size while going on about the parts of a rocket launcher."

"Sounds like a handful."

"Yeah. Witty, snarky... Directionless... Not as crass as Cass though."

The rabbit faunus raised a brow. Cass? As in Miss Cassidy? Now she was interested.

"Rose of Sharon Cassidy, right? Head of Cassidy Caravans?"

With snappy traders and skilled guards more amiable and open-minded than most in the Wasteland, Velvet did not add.

"Mm-hmm," he hummed. "And you're sort of like Boone. Well, you and Shaolin are sort of like Boone. Only neither of you served and even if you did, you don't mope about it."

"What about Arcade?"

The Courier exhaled as he focused his full attention to the curious girls. "I know where this is going, Kit. You too, Cottontail. I can see it on your face."

Blake raised a brow while Velvet scowled. "Are those our new monickers now?"

"Y'know what? Since most of these brats are out cold, how about a little exchange?" Major Vickers smirked, most probably at their apprehension to whatever bone he was going to throw at them. He proceeded to list off the fingers on his right hand. "Veronica hates my guts, Cass won't talk to me, and Boone would rather pretend I'm dead. Hell, I'm surprised Raul hasn't ditched me yet. Not to mention Arcade, the poor bastard."

"Vegas Nine?" mouthed the rabbit faunus.

"Heh," he snorted, digging into his satchel and pulling out a roll of tobacco leaves that he rolled up and started chewing. "What a name..."

"Brotherhood scribe, caravaneer, sniper, and doctor," listed Blake. "What a team. What happened?"

"Shit happened. Besides, there other things that...can't say they were out of our hands...out of their hands, more on mine. Now, on other hand, what about Mister Adam Taurus?" He simpered at the discomfort that froze up the cat faunus. "And whoever this Coco is."

Velvet felt her ears droop. "This is going to be a long night."

Hours later, Velvet was shaken awake by Weiss.

"Good morning, Velvet. How are you feeling?"

"Better," she groggily replied. "Still hurts to breathe though."

The heiress grimaced at that but still tacked on a comforting mien. "At least you're feeling well."

The rabbit faunus strained to see past her silhouette. The bright orange sun peeked over the rugged horizon to shine into the now open antechamber, blaring right into her eyes. "Ugh, what time is it?"

"Just past dawn."

Across from her, Blake stretched her arms and tried to ignore Yang's best attempts to coax her off the floor. Velvet yawned and nearly nodded off again.

"Velvet, have you been awake all night?"

"No. Just couldn't sleep. Did sleep for a few hours, I think..."

"A few hours? Then again, with your hearing, I could imagine it difficult to rest with the weather being what it was. Hmm. That might explain..."

Velvet pushed herself up to sit. "Hmm? Explain what?"

Weiss shook her head. "Nothing."

The sophomore nudged the heiress aside so she could see the towering vigil of a shadow perched on the threshold, scanning the valley with his binoculars. The man had never slept, it seemed. It could have been the tobacco leaves or something he mixed in his alcohol. Or perhaps there was something more to him...something that gave him such ridiculous endurance without the benefits of Aura or a Semblance.

Despite her worries, Velvet couldn't help but smile. Stubborn old man actually stood guard for the whole night.

Weiss sighed. "How has he not fallen over?"

She shrugged. "Quirks?"

"I suppose." The heiress slumped next to her. "Ren and Jaune woke up first and saw the hydraulic doors open. They thought we were breached so they ran outside..."

"And?"

"Major Vickers apparently set traps from the barricades in front of the door all the way down the path."

"Traps?"

"Tripwires and some buried explosives." Weiss snorted. "Jaune nearly triggered the first one and Ren had to carefully pull him out of it."

Velvet grimaced. "Wow."

"At least the buffoon didn't blow himself up."

Across from them, Ren sorted through all their rations while Nora continued to sulk in the corner, half-heartedly playing with Syrup. Ruby and Pyrrha flanked her, saying nothing but trying to think of something to cheer her up while Jaune tended to all three.

"Give me five minutes," the sophomore requested and went back to peaceful slumber before she could hear Weiss protest.

The next time she woke up, she was helped onto a makeshift stretcher despite her protests. She hated encumbering those around her so it came as a bitter pill to swallow when Jaune and Ren—wrapped in bandoliers, guns slung over their shoulders, and field kits weighing over their backs like army grunts—ended up having to carry her down the path. Her feeling of helplessness was compounded by the still air that surrounded the group as they silently followed Six through the canyon, once a city called Ashton, back to Hopeville.

Yang stood in front of the line of open graves with her hand over her face. The stench was gagging but she had to pay her respects at least. It was hard trying to get over her first (human) kills and she knew she would be drowning her troubles at the nearest bar. As far as she knew, she had to address her guilt to make the coping easier.

Six wordlessly agreed to her suggestion to stop by at the intersection where they laid to rest the remains of the Marked Men. While team JNPR-S carried Velvet inside a derelict tenement (partially out of precaution and mostly because of the smell), team RWBY crossed the street to the open graves, vultures and corvids flapping away with bits of rotting flesh in their beaks. Maggots inundated the cadavers in moving white puddles, exposed bone and rotting flesh glistening under the sunlight.

"I'm sorry," she whispered behind her palms. "I didn't mean to. We had to defend ourselves. I'm sorry for doing this to you."

Regardless of what they did in life, they were still human beings. Granted, they were tortured human beings who were in constant pain and driven mad by their agony. Yang tried to convince herself that they had gone feral—fair game when they've devolved into Grimm-like rabidity, right?—but when she heard that NCR soldier call out Six in a sentient, understandable sentence...

"They're in a better place," Ruby choked behind her tightly wrapped hanky. Optimistic baby sister, how she would give anything to have that outlook.

"They gave us no choice," Weiss added softly. "Our actions were...justified. We abided by the standard rules of engagement...if they have any."

Blake rested her hand on her partner's shoulder. "We did what we had to do, Yang."

The blonde brawler wiped her face. "I suppose so."

Nodding at her team, she turned on her heel, and followed them back to the group. How did Six get used to this? Oh, yeah. He was a war criminal. A war criminal with a skewered heart and fucked-up standards buried under a lifetime of horrors. Hard to believe and she would sometimes scoff at it. Then again, he didn't abandon them. He even had several chances to off them then and there. But he didn't. And it was for that reason she believed that they all subconsciously agreed not to leave him behind.

Yang exhaled then turned on her heels. Team RWBY returned to the tenement. When they stepped inside, they bore witness to a spectacle that made the blonde feel a bit better.

Pyrrha could imagine how pathetic she must have appeared, crying on Jaune's shoulder. While Yang mustered the resolve to face her victims head-on, the champion sat here, using her shattered ankle as an excuse to evade the remains of the two men she fatally shot. It made it slightly difficult to use her Garand, let alone touch it. How discomforting even that that gun resembled Miló's rifle form so much.

Jaune was very encouraging with his words, though most of them missed their mark. Ren had a few choice phrases, though most of them had been used futilely to gauge Nora out of her shell (and the girl herself still had to deal with the fact that she maimed a handful of others under the mistaken assumption they had Aura). Uplifting as they were, she still felt the weight of having actually taken another person's life over her conscience. She was a tournament fighter; every opponent was another individual who had a home to return to, a family that cared for them, friends who were expecting them regardless of the outcome of the duel.

The four Marked Men she killed yesterday were leagues beyond those who she had faced in battle. Tattered, flayed, and seething with pained rage. Insane with hate but intelligent enough to finely execute standard military tactics. As they had been trained to do.

Yesterday's skirmish was no duel, no sparring match, no exhibition game. It had been a struggle for survival where the outcome was irreversible. She was no murderer; she was brought up to slay Grimm and pacify troublemakers! Why did she have to feel so guilty? They fired first! She didn't mean to kill them!

Just as she was about to break into another fitful of tears, she felt Jaune's arms wrap over her head, pressing her damp cheek against the nape of his neck.

"I can't really fathom how hard this is for you. But know that this won't change who you are. I know you, you're better than whatever it is you think you turned into. You're my partner, Pyrrha. Don't beat yourself so much over this. Please. For me, for Ren, for Nora."

She beamed up at him even as fresh tears trickled down her moist cheeks. "Th-thank you, Jaune..."

As she reciprocated his embrace, she noticed his eyes suddenly dart away. She followed his wayward attention to Major Vickers who had been leaning against a concrete pillar, shoving dried tobacco leaves into his mouth. Jaune was doing his best to comfort her while dealing with his own issues. Might as well return the favor.

"Let it go, Jaune," she hoarsely pleaded.

"Let what go?"

"He didn't mean any of it."

A snort. "Oh, I'm sure he didn't."

"Jaune."

"I'm sorry, Pyr," he sighed. "You just don't say those things. Especially to Nora of all people. After what she's been through, what you've all been through..."

"He was caught up in the moment." They had detached from each other and she caught him glancing across the room. "He was angry."

"So am I."

"Jaune, please."

"If you have something to say to me, boy, say it now," echoed Six.

Pyrrha turned around. The look on the Courier's face was...not contempt. "Major—"

Jaune stood, voice cold. "Sorry for breaking Samson."

Major Vickers was...unimpressed, if Pyrrha could narrow down the proper word to describe what she was seeing.

"Don't bullshit me, kid," the man huffed. "We can talk about that fuck-up later."

"Oh, I'm sorry," the blond knight sneered. "What were you expecting me to say?"

The champion stiffened. That anger and sarcasm she had heard before when Jaune was going through a phase with Cardin. They were treading on burning coals here. She was not in the mood for an argument right now especially after having gone through her own roller-coaster of emotions.

"Not that half-assed bullshit. Go ahead. I've got the time."

Her partner's fists were white and shaking. Pyrrha made to pacify him but he stepped out of her reach. "Jaune, wait."

"I admit that we were in the wrong here. But was it really necessary to go that far?"

Six raised his chin. "It's survival. It's natural."

The leader of team JNPR-S coughed out a bitter laugh. Now Ren and Velvet were eying them, the former ready to intervene should anything go awry. "Really now. Does verbal abuse count or is that just natural to you?"

"No, that's just me."

"Is that so." Jaune was seething. "You do know Nora and Ren are orphans. Ruby and Yang lost their mothers. Weiss doesn't even have a proper father figure." Too caught up in his own tirade, he gestured at the rest of the bewildered group while keeping his glare centered fully on him. "You do know that half of us here don't have stellar childhoods. Didn't you get the memo or did we forget to tell you that story?"

The Courier straightened and made one step in his direction. Jaune flinched, causing everyone else to flinch. To his credit, the blond knight did not yield any ground despite how his nerves were starting to fail him. Pyrrha winced as she stood up, silently praying for calm.

"Boo-hoo," the man snorted. "Does that make you special?"

"Are you saying you don't care!?"

"I'm saying there are kids who've gone through far fucking worse."

Pyrrha was speechless. As was Jaune.

"Ask the next raider you find who their parents were. Either he won't remember 'em or he never had any." With that, the Courier shoulder-checked him on the way out.

He strode past Ren, past Pyrrha, towards the huddled Nora. Syrup planted itself in front of its master, baring teeth and growling. Six angled his head, nudged the beast away with his boot, and waited until the ginger girl stopped ignoring him.

"Don't hold back."

Nora twitched.

SLAP!

Six's head was whipped to the side. Nora was standing, huffing, fury burning in her moist reddened eyes. Her shoulders pumped and her fists were clenched tighter than Yang on her Semblance. He recovered quickly and stretched his arms.

"I won't stop you," he croaked.

Instead of a mighty Viking fist of fury, the bubbly teen constricted his waist with her muscled arms. She started crying.

"I'msorryi'msorryi'msorrypleasedon'tbemadSixRenandIdon'thaveanyparentsandIreallywantedustobelikeafamily!"

"Goddamn it, let go of me!"

"I'mreallyreallysorrySix!"

"It's fine! Now get off!"

"I'llstopcallingyou'daddy'andmakeRentobakeyoulotsofpancakes!"

Six pried her arms off him. "I get it, I get it!"

"Well, you two made up real quick," came an amused remark.

The Courier glared at Yang. "Shut up, Blondie."

The warm air blowing up from the desolate Clark County, Nevada brought about a welcoming feeling that nearly sent Ruby tumbling back onto her rear in ecstasy. She landed on her rucksack, threw her arms over her head, and let the mildly cool breeze dry off her sweat.

"It's so good to be back!"

"All that walking," Yang groused. She plopped onto her rear, undid the laces on her boots, and pulled the blisters off her feet. "Damn. I miss Bumblebee. Maybe we can get Raul to put together a new bike."

Jaune and Ren carefully laid down the stretcher before resting on their ends. Other than Velvet and Six, everyone savored the rest from the long arduous trek back out of the Divide either by dropping onto their ends or shedding their boots and bags. Even Nora skirted the limitations of her endurance after cradling Syrup, Magnhild, and a separate China Lake grenade launcher at the same time for the duration of their egress.

"Amazing how you seem so unfazed by this journey," Weiss remarked to the Courier.

"You get used to it," he answered, sweeping over the highways and the nearby gambling pit stop called Primm. His head suddenly locked a few degrees to southeast. "Ah, shit."

"Something wrong?" Blake inquired, following his gaze to the cliffside and the distant mountains.

Six tucked away his binoculars. "You kids head on to Primm. Head straight to the Mojave Express office and talk to Johnson Nash. Tell him it's on me. He'll know what to do."

"Wait, who?"

"Johnson...Nash?"

"Wasn't he your boss at some point?"

"Why?" pressed Velvet.

The Courier began working rapidly on his Pip-boy. "Things have changed now. Avoid any NCR troops you come across. Ignore them if you can. If they accost you, keep the conversations short and unassuming."

Weiss scrunched her brow. "Why the sudden—"

He held up his hand. "I'll be heading east. You all lay low in Primm. Move up to Goodsprings first chance you get. It's much quieter there. Nash'll give you the details."

"Um, why?" Yang asked.

"Politics." Six almost smirked at the guilty looks on their faces. "The NCR doesn't know about what happened in the Divide. Not yet. Once they do... Well, you'll see how the landscape changes. So best to keep this all hush-hush 'til things get sorted out."

Ruby brought up her knees to sandwich her chin. "We screwed up real bad, huh."

"I won't hold it against you, Hyper. Just stay out of Vegas for a couple days. Get your bearings first. Do not, I repeat, do not make contact with Hsu or Crocker or any NCR liaison. Maintain radio silence 'til I get back to you. Got it?"

"What are we going to say if they do contact us?" asked Jaune.

"The truth or whatever half-assed lie you could come up with. It wouldn't matter anyway. The fact that you made it out of the Divide means only one thing: Samson is down. And they won't hesitate to act on that."

"But they're unsure if Samson is even a weapon, let alone exists!" argued Weiss.

"Bullshit." The Courier continued chancing glances to the south. "I'm going off of borrowed time here so get moving as soon as you can."

"I take it you'll be handling some sort of damage control," Pyrrha guessed.

"Nothing new to me, Sparta. I've been cleaning up after airheads like you for years. There are a lot of idiots out there that are dumber than you think. Done dumber shit than what you pulled off." Six slung his field pack over his shoulder. "Watch yourselves."

He barely made it three steps down the slope when he felt Ruby pulling on his arm. "Six, wait!"

"Damn it. What now, Hyper?"

She bit her lip, twiddling her thumbs and gazing with faux interest at the bits of grass growing out of the waterless soil.

"I ain't got all day."

The little reaper closed her eyes and breathed deep to suck in the tears that threatening to spill out again. "I just wanted to say...I'm really, really sorry for ruining—"

Vickers stooped to a knee to level his glare at her silver pupils and said, "Ruby, it's taking me every fiber of my being to not wring your damn neck right now."

"I...I'm s-sorry..."

He tapped her on the shoulder and spoke softly. "That don't mean I'm angry at you forever. It's only taking me a while to let this slide. Just don't pull off shit like this next time, okay?"

Ruby nodded, noticing the cloudiness in his eyes.

"Good." Six ruffled her hair, a foggy expression crossing his features, his voice sounding distant. "Be a good girl, sweetie. I'll be gone for a while, 'kay? Remember to lock the doors and windows unless your mother says otherwise."

And he immediately departed, leaving behind a bewildered group of teens and their ever-oblivious pet deathclaw.

Later that evening, teams RWBY, JNPR-S, and their 'group mom' Velvet were huddled upstairs in the guest rooms of the Nash residence in Primm. Well-fed, cleaned-up, and kept well away from the curious eyes of the NCR presence in the town, they could not have been anywhere safer. While most of the teens were still mulling over Six's parting words, Blake and Velvet were more attentive to the chatter downstairs in the office.

"That's a damn shame," echoed Mister Johnson Nash.

"Yeah. They looked real tight, too," sympathized a younger voice, probably one of Mojave Express couriers dropping off their packages.

"Shit. Four dead NCR Rangers? Only Legion could go toe-to-toe with them tough sons o' bitches," a third voice piped, most likely another courier.

"I thought the Legion got kicked out years ago."

"Eh, wouldn't be surprised if they still got their damn scouts moving back up here. Finicky bastards."

"Now, now. Where'd you boys find them bodies?" Nash inquired.

"Wasn't just us that found 'em, boss. NCR guys were swarming the area," the first began.

"A few clicks southeast of Canyon Wreckage, they said," continued the other. "Place even had a nice view of Primm and everything. Hell, one of them greenies said you could pro'lly see through the crack in them cliffs all the way up to the Divide from there."

"Apparently, some distress call went out. They were being attacked while scouting something. By the time the cavalry got there, they got four dead bodies with their body armor all done shot up, holes in the back of their heads, and most of their gear missing."

"Sounds like an execution."

"More an ambush and an execution."

"Seems more and more Legion-y if you ask me."

"Yeah, but then they'd crucify 'em and we didn't see no crosses there."

"Oh, by the way, you heard? Bunch of ex-slaves from Arizona got let in at Fort Mead. Got out from some slave revolt or something."

"No shit? Jarheads are pro'lly screening the poor bastards in case of a Legion spy."

"Alright, I think that's enough talk o' that," Nash dismissed. "You boys get some rest 'fore you head back out. Best leave that all to the NCR. Maybe they'll do something about this time. That's what all these damn taxes are for, anyway."

Upstairs, the two faunus girls shared knowing looks. Without saying a word, they both agreed that the unfortunate Ranger squadron was hit neither by Legion affiliates nor raiders.

Omake

Six picked up the discarded book to give it a good look. Unlike most pieces of literature he came across in the wasteland (drenched, burnt, or weathered with age), this one appeared to have come off the printing press rather recently. Probably a new publication from California.

The cover was...colorful, to say the least, having caught his attention while rummaging through the corpses at this highway pit stop.

'Ninjas,' huh. He flipped through the pages. Oh. Great. Another sappy romance novel... Huh, it ain't that bad.

He lifted the book and an entire spread unfolded before him.

"Holy shit. Now that's a katana."

The Courier averted his gaze to look at the dead raiders around him. Whoever they got this off of, they got some really weird kinks. Not my kind of thing but damn...this is fucking graphic. Or perhaps that one junkie who was busy beating off to this while his buddies were getting shot up actually purchased this legitimately from some passing caravan. Who knows, really?

Folding the pages back in, Six was about to toss it back into the desert when he remembered...

There were people who would actually pay for this stuff. Smut is rare. Well-drawn smut with a decent plot is even rarer. Definitely a market for this. Probably fetch a good price from some rich bastard with a creepy fetish. And then there was that ghoul Beatrix Russell up at Freeside. He shuddered at the thought of her sexual preferences.

Deciding that he had wasted enough time, Six tucked the book into his pack and continued walking.

'Ninjas of Love' is a pretty stupid title, though.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: May 19, 2018

LAST EDITED: July 10, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED [FFN]: June 18, 2018

Chapter Text

It had been two days since they stayed cooped up in the Nash residence, mostly helping Pyrrha and Velvet recover enough to walk on their own while lending a hand to the Nashes on mundane chores, only rarely stepping outside to fix the plumbing or clear debris. Interestingly, Mister Nash vigorously countered the NCR Sheriff's attempts at taking 'protective custody' of the two teams, even so far as brazenly telling off his deputies with a hand on his revolver.

It would not be long, however, before a more thoroughly-equipped military unit would come knocking to 'escort' the 'Vegas Wonder Kids' back to McCarran Headquarters. Thus, the Remnant teens were making preparations for the journey up to Goodsprings before any more NCR troops would show up in Primm.

"Thank you so much, Mister Nash," Weiss said with characteristic Schnee curtsey.

"No need to get formal on me, young lady," Johnson Nash waved off. "You young'uns needed the help and I'd never be able to sleep well in my grave if I left you out on the streets."

He leaned on the counter while half of the 'Vegas Wonder Kids' made final checks on their equipment. The rest were upstairs feeding their pet deathclaw. How they managed to find one and domesticate it was beyond him. As long as it was keeping to itself and not chewing on anyone, he was fine with the damn thing staying in here.

"Say," Jaune threw in. "You, uh, got any advice for, y'know, traveling on the highway?"

The elderly man chuckled loudly, grabbing the others' attention. "Don't shoot yourself in the foot, son."

"I think I already got that."

"I'm sure you did." Then the mirth died and the mien that graced his wrinkled features made them weary. "Of course, given what you all done did in the Divide, I reckon the NCR'll be all over the roads keeping an eye out for you. They'd be wanting an explanation themselves. Especially since they apparently lost some of their own."

"We'll try to keep out of sight," Velvet assured.

Ruby cleared her throat. "Um, Mister Nash? You were Six's boss, right?"

"For about four or five years, yeah. In the courier business, o'course."

She twiddled her thumbs. "So...can you say that, uh... Would you think that, um...after what we did...that Six is, y'know, still mad at us?"

"O'course he is," Nash deadpanned.

The girl winced at that while the rest gawk disbelievingly. "O-oh..."

"He didn't show it," added Jaune nervously. "Much."

Johnson shrugged. "Stubborn mule is almost always angry. Never lets faults as big as yours go that lightly. You said you screwed up his life's work in Divide or something. Any other man would either up and leave you or shoot you where you stood."

"So why didn't he?" Blake wondered.

"Because he's a sentimental son of a mule."

Weiss sputtered. "Come again?"

"If you would've burned down every single Express chapter in the wasteland and buy out the ashes, then I'd probably pull out my six-shooter and get revenge or shoot myself in the head, my age notwithstanding," Nash explained. "But knowing Vickers, he'd postpone the wrath of God until later. Hell, I reckon he's probably taking his time thinking about a proper punishment other than killing you all outright. He takes his time."

"That's reassuring," Velvet groused softly.

Johnson continued, "The fact that he decided to take you all in and raise you as his own—"

"We were not entirely reared in a familial manner per se," Weiss politely interjected.

"But he still treats you like his own. Or so everyone says." He studied their faces for a while. "I can tell that you don't know."

"Don't know what, Mister Nash?" pressed Blake.

The elderly man sighed onto the countertop. "I can understand why he didn't tell you. Hell, he hardly tells anyone these days." He paused a bit longer before shrugging to himself. "Pardon my language, kids, but my gut's telling me shit's going to go down soon and it's about time you know this. For your own good and his. The man's lost a wife and child in Arizona several years ago. Legion raid."

Ruby coughed while disbelieving sputters echoed from around the room.

Nash shook his head. "If you ask me, he still hasn't let that one go. Usually you have to get him a dozen bottles in to even talk about it. I hate to jump to conclusions but I get the feeling that you remind him so much of his, well, family that he'd be cutting himself open again if he let you go. That don't mean he'll let you off the hook though."

Glances were exchanged between the teens before Blake rasped her fingers on the wood and asked, "Mister Nash, before he left, he told Ruby to 'be a good girl' and to 'lock the doors and windows unless her mother said otherwise.'"

Johnson leaned back as his fingers rubbed at the graying stubble on his chin. "He wasn't drinking, wasn't he?"

They all shook their heads.

"Ah. Maybe the stress and the withdrawal triggered some suppressed memories. Not my place to say though; I'm no doctor." He frowned. "You kids must be curious about his family. I'm afraid that's all I can tell you."

Blake nodded. "That's okay. Thank you for the, um, information, though."

"Just be careful when asking those kinds of questions."

Ruby's gaze darted from one object to another, eventually settling on the radio sitting on the far edge of the counter. Nash reached over and turned the dial, the music fading and the soothing voice of Mister New Vegas filling the room.

"[...and now, for the news. NCR officials have dismissed unofficial reports of Legion refugees from Arizona occupying Fort Mead. Additionally, General James Hsu has reiterated the Republic's commitment to revise its foreign policy regarding the influx of migrants and travelers coming into Nevada from the east...]"

"There's been a lot of chatter about those refugees," Blake remarked.

"Something we should concern ourselves with?" Weiss inquired.

"It may not matter to you now," Nash intoned. "But what happens over there is going to matter over here sooner or later, whether you like it or not. Whatever you did in the Divide, it ain't my place to say whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. If it's really as bad as you say it is, then we'd all better start digging up our own graves out back."

Ruby shrunk shamefully at that.

The elderly man rebounded with a convincing laugh. "I'm just messing with you. Things aren't as bad as it is; it's always been like this. Killing, raping, robbing, looting, nothing new under the sun. You'd be surprised how many people here grew up all on their own, living off of scraps while trying to hide from slavers, hungry mutants, and the worst kind of folk to walk the desert. Some poor kids don't make it. The lucky ones find work and even that's another basket of rattlesnakes altogether." He smirked at their visible discomfort. "I take it Vickers didn't tell you too much about life out here."

They shakily nodded, Jaune suddenly paler.

"And you still don't know how bad it is?"

Hesitant nods and a couple uneasy shrugs.

Nash grinned. "You kids are so sheltered, it's adorable."

"I don't feel good about that," the little reaper muttered.

The elderly man folded his arms and exhaled. "That damn stubborn mule. Ah, at least you know who's in charge around here."

"The NCR?" came Velvet's slow and unsure answer.

"Hmph, you've got the basics covered."

"I'm guessing there's more to that," Weiss said.

Johnson Nash planted his arms firmly on the countertop. "A lot more than you'd imagine."

Major General James Hsu returned the salutes given him by the garrison troops of the Aerotech Office Park. The non-ceremonial parade review was quick and the soldiers immediately dismissed to their posts. He waited five minutes—when most of the privates and corporals stationed here started gambling amongst themselves in their tents—before he issued orders to the specialized platoons he brought with him.

Three comprising uniformed rangers with at least five years of service under their belt and three more decked out in the finest body armor the NCR could cobble up. The rangers fanned out to their spots while the heavy shock troops manned the perimeter of the building before him. Satisfied with the placement of his men, Hsu pushed through the double doors of the fortified suite.

The fact that the whole building was surprisingly almost entirely empty—even reception was devoid of staff—came off as a bit of a blessing given who he was meeting here. Former Major Theodore 'Old Green Eyes' Vickers was leaning next to a vending machine in the back with his arms folded.

"Back already," the General started, preferring to stand in the front of the unmanned counter.

"I work fast," the Courier replied coolly.

"How was the mission?"

"False alarm."

Hsu was hesitant before responding, "I see. Our intel must have been off then."

"Very."

The two men studied each other for the next minute—heavy bags under the eyes, unkempt facial hair, red cracks around the irises, signs that they were both under heavy strain but refusing to bend to the other—until James broke the silence. "Is there anything else to report?"

Vicker's gas mask hung off the side of his neck, revealing his full contempt for the military commander. "Why did you send my kids to the Divide?"

Hsu felt his brow rise. "Come again?"

"Why did you send my kids to the Divide, General?"

Stiff pause. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't bullshit me, James," Six rebutted coolly. "Those brats spent hours digging around in a place that would have gotten any older man ripped apart in minutes. They were lucky they didn't walk into a radioactive sinkhole."

The NCR commander remained impassive. "What is Samson, Six?"

"Nothing but a broken relic of the Old World. I wouldn't bother myself with it."

"I know when you're lying." Hsu began pacing around the reception area, radiating authority relevant to his rank. "There are so many things we cannot ignore anymore. Moving in and out of the Divide, clandestine deals with the local factions, transfer of 'scientific materiel' through independent channels, even twisting our own internal troops to suit your designs—"

"Wash yourself all you want, James. I moved the chain of command to get you where you are. The blood spilt to pin those stars on your lapel are as much on your hands as they are on mine."

"There is a limit to how much I can be persuaded, Six."

The Courier gestured mockingly. "Oh? Is this your patriotism speaking? Because, if I recall, you looked the other way while Oliver and Moore got what they so rightfully deserved."

"Enough is enough," countered the General with an expression rare of him: visible anger. "It's time you realized that. I have a nation to serve, people to defend! I swore an oath to serve and protect my country. You spoke the same words when you signed that merger."

"We only agreed to your Republic because it was better than capitulating to the Legion," Vickers flared back. "Times were different back then. We were desperate, on the verge of splintering. We gave up everything we had left—our identity, ourselves in exchange for your so-called 'protection!' We waited on promise after promise, sat through hearing after hearing. We bled more than we already needed to! All for what? This? My patience has already run out."

Hsu's anger subsided to allow for sympathy. "We made plans and we tried. Even then, no plan survives contact with the enemy. You know that. You understand that completely."

A snort. "My kids thought they were doing the world a favor. They nearly damned us all with what they did. Not just me, you, your Republic, but every single living thing across the entire continent..."

"So you admit to harboring Samson, an alleged unsanctioned weapon of mass destruction."

"'Unsanctioned,' huh. As if I needed your permission to use my gun." The Courier simpered, a mirthless chuckle slipping through his lips. "Samson is still active."

Hsu froze—his steely demeanor cracked slightly. "I'm inclined to disbelieve that."

"You used my kids. You turned them against me." Every word came off acidly. "Congratulations, James. You have won yourself a new enemy."

To his credit, the officer regained his composure with the same power returning to his voice. "You know, I've always been curious. Why the vested interest in these youths? Puts a strain in your efforts, don't you think? What benefit do they give you in the long run?"

"They're more than just tools, goddamn it! They're kids with special powers and a gullible sense of heroism. Lost, confused, and fucking stupid to boot." Six equally rounded the reception desk. "There's a reason why I've been keeping them from you all this time. We Desert Rangers got the short end of the stick and suffered for it. I don't intend to let the same happen to them."

"Was it for those reasons that you worked hard on Samson? A vendetta? A bargaining chip?" the General challenged.

"Samson is merely a tool to protect Nevada from any and all threats."

"Nevada has been annexed into the Republic since Hoover Dam. That puts Samson within our territorial jurisdiction." He made to add how the NCR was daftly unprepared for it only to bite back his tongue. The man before him can no longer be trusted with his country's weaknesses.

Six sneered. "Can you really call the Divide NCR territory? You lost two whole regiments when the valley fell apart and left the remains to rot," the Courier growled. "The Divide belongs to those who brave it and tame it. And I've been pacifying that hellhole for three years. I have to hand it to you. You convinced my kids to pull the rug from under me. Kudos. They didn't do a good job of it though."

"Whatever Samson may be, know that we are preparing for it." Hsu pointed an accusatory finger at him. "And know that you will be held accountable in the event that it will be used against us. We have the evidence and the means to prosecute you. Times are different now, Six."

Vickers snorted as he mockingly bobbed his head. "Oh~, I feel guilty already."

The General's fists curled. "A Ranger squadron was massacred west of Primm. Their final transmission was identifying you as the culprit. You know what that means."

The Courier remained unintimidated.

"You've committed a grave criminal offense in NCR territory punishable by NCR law. You say I've made an enemy out of you? Well, how am I supposed to react to this crime?"

"Consider it a declaration of war."

He scrunched his brow. "A nation against you?"

Six smiled wickedly. "I can ruin your career as easily as I did Moore's."

Hsu scowled. "You're only one man. We will ruin you."

"Never underestimate your foes. When the day comes, I wouldn't be the only one you'll be facing on the battlefield."

The General exhaled. "Then it's a shame that it has to come to this. You're a good man, Six, but know that you've brought this upon yourself." He withdrew his pistol from his holster. "I have Tier One groups outside covering every square inch of this building. If you intend to make a last stand, know that it would not be as glorious as you intend it to be. You should come quietly with us and we can all let bygones be bygones."

The Courier chuckled. "Do you honestly think I didn't see that coming?"

Hsu shuffled slightly.

Vickers refastened his gas mask, locking his respirator into place, and opened his gloved palm to reveal a detonator. His thumb clamped down on the bulging red button. "I've got gifts for you and your posse. Thirty tons of 'em. All over the place. Hell, you can go look for 'em and fiddle with the same old puzzles. Red wire, green wire, you know the game."

James's eyes went wide as quickly as he went stiff. "You sly son of a bitch."

"You want to keep playing? You can call in your bomb squads if you think they'll help. That is, if they get here in time. If you're careful, you could minimize the casualties. If you're smart, you can walk out of this alive and no one else dies."

Uneasy silence. The General cleared his throat. "Most of the refugees we have at Fort Mead are from Remnant."

The Courier raised a doubtful brow. "A little too late to be making a bargain now, don't you think?"

"They still have their slave collars on them. We couldn't get them off. Different design. Absurdly impervious to heavy industrial tools. We've been trying to find ways to disable them."

"Really now. And they can't use Aura, Dust, or Semblance to get out of it, eh."

"The collars deny them usage of those. It seems they were manufactured specifically for that purpose."

Six glimmered. "Quite the sell, James. Do you really expect me to believe that a bunch of 'freed Legion slaves' from Remnant out of all places couldn't get their damn collars off even though they're fucking capable of naturally defying physics and reality?"

"They are led by two capable Huntresses."

"Who can't get their own collars off, I presume."

"I already told you. The collars nullify their advantages."

The Courier scoffed. "Nice try deodorizing bullshit. You could've come up with a better story than that—"

"Winter Schnee, older sister of Weiss Schnee. Early to mid-twenties. White hair, claims to be a military specialist from a nation called Atlas in Remnant, holds significant authority over the group. She carries around a sword like her younger sibling. She is one of the two representatives for the refugees."

Vickers was unable to contain the sudden flare that broke his pokerface. He stared at the officer with an equally unreadable mien. Good thing he could still control the shakes from his withdrawal lest he would have slipped in this battle of wills.

"I don't doubt that you don't know who she is. I'm sure Weiss must have talked a lot about her. She must miss her dearly."

Six hardened his glare. His grip tightened on the detonator, his tone dropping dangerously. "What do you want with my kids?"

"We only want to return them to Remnant." Hsu could tell how unconvinced he was but pressed further. "We can discuss more intricate details as well as a potential pardon for the murders...if you come with us."

The Courier narrowed his gaze. "Weiss can see Winter at a later time. Make your choice, James. Either you go or we all go."

In the five minutes of silence that followed, the General mulled his remaining options; he played all his cards, tempted the beast, and now was facing insanity personified. There was no getting through this unscathed. Alas, this was inevitable. Breathing deep and knowing fully now that this was no bluff—and no other alternative in the Republic's favor—the officer mouthed into the communicator fastened over his chest. "All units. Stand down."

Clicks, crackles, and shuffling boots echoed behind the walls and windows.

"That's a shame, Six. The sisters would have loved a reunion. Miss Winter was very eager to see her sister again. I'm sure young Weiss would have felt doubly so if she knew," James bade as he holstered his pistol.

"Given the circumstances, it'd be safer for Snowball to keep her distance," Vickers countered, the detonator still wound tightly in his grasp.

The General was quiet for a while, locked deep in thought. He had thrown down his cards but there was one more nagging thought that needed to be addressed. "I'm not a religious man but I'm no stranger to the story of Samson. A champion of his age. Incredibly strong. And arrogant. He spelled his own downfall by falling for a woman named Delilah." He paused slightly before continuing. "Samson and Delilah." His voice dropped to a low whisper as he stared at a tile on the floor. "Delilah..."

Six's voice was deep and cold. "We're done here, James."

The doors opened and the officer's escorts stopped short of swarming the interior. He righted himself and turned on his heel. "I'll inform Miss Schnee of this unfortunate development." He spared one final glance over his shoulder. "Until next time, Six."

"Likewise, General." Former Major Theodore Vickers eyed the mix of lightly armored Rangers and heavy shock troops swarming around their charge. One of them had a black silhouette incessantly pecking on his shoulder.

Major General James Hsu paused in his stride to witness that particular member of his security detail flail away the vexing corvid.

"Shoo, shoo! Get off! Damn bird."

"[Hello?]"

"[Dennis.]"

"[General. I was just about to retire for the night.]"

"[Stay there. I'm on my way. We have a new problem.]"

"[... What is it now?]"

"[Six was one step ahead. He knows.]"

"[... Dear sweet Lord... Has Samson been taken care of at least?]"

"[We can't know for sure until we debrief the teenagers.]"

"[Have they returned?]"

"[We had eyes on them for a while. Give them four days. Passed that and I'm collecting them.]"

"[Papa Six is not going to like that.]"

"[He would have to let them go at some point.]"

"[And if he doesn't? If this triggers some kind of incident? The man is unpredictable! This will get bloody, I know it. And Samson—]"

"[Samson has a partner and its name is Delilah.]"

"[Come again?]"

"[We have a new problem and its name is Delilah. We'll talk later in person.]"

Line end.

Raul withdrew the headphones from his ears and tuned down the dial to withdraw from the 'secure' NCR frequency. In less than three minutes, the portable radio receiver was folded back into its case which the ghoul strapped onto his field pack. With skill honed from two centuries of wasteland vigilantism, he rappelled down the Highway 95 overpass, unlatched his hooks, and quickly disappeared into the night.

Trekking the wilderness, the ghoul pondered on stepping out of retirement again. Another crisis was rearing its ugly head. And apparently, Boss's secrets were far more ominous that he had taken them for. Samson and Delilah? What could those be? And why was the NCR so afraid of them?

This he could not ignore. He would have to confront the Courier about it. Especially now that the little diablos were dragged so deep into this.

The Courier squeezed himself onto the only vacant stool behind the bar. Dumb luck to walk into the Atomic Wrangler on a busy night. On the bright side, it was past two in the morning and most of the patrons were either liquored up in their rooms or liquored out on the streets.

"Man, you look like you haven't had any sleep," mused the casino's proprietor James Garret.

Six downed his first shot of the night. "Any spare rooms?"

"Sorry, buddy. We're fully booked. Tourist season's kicking up."

"Can't be helped, I guess," he grunted. Halfway through his second whiskey of the night, he angled over to his right to glare irritably at the amused man seated next to him. "What?"

"Hard times?" the stranger inquired with a slight curve on the edge of his lips.

"Yeah." Another shot. Probably his sixth. Or eighth. "Hard fuckin' times."

"Y'know, for the sake of our business, please keep it civil, 'kay?" Garret inserted nervously then went back to busying himself with some dirty drinking glasses behind him.

Six offered a dull wave. "I ain't gonna start a fire, Jimmy. Wouldn't have another place to drink freely if I did."

James Garret hummed in response.

The man beside him cleared his throat. "Say, you wouldn't mind me asking..."

The Courier exhaled. Ninth shot. Or was it tenth? "What?"

"Any suggestions for a good night out on the Strip?"

"... You're asking me?"

The stranger shrugged. "If you've noticed, you're the only one still awake and sober and I want to hear it from someone other than the bartender."

"... Fine. Gomorrah, if you're looking for some freaky kinky shit. Ultra-Luxe for your fancy pants. Or go for the Tops to get the classic Vegas experience. Bunch of other cash pots down the road but those are the big three."

"What about the Lucky 38?"

Six resisted the urge to grip the curious son of a bitch by his lapels and toss him halfway across the lounge. Having emptied his third (fourth?) bottle of the night, he swiveled to his side to fully face this really persistent tourist. "Privately-owned. On lockdown last I heard. Stay away from the place. It's bad luck."

The stranger smirked. "Really now."

"I think we're done here."

"Wait. Let me buy you a drink."

Six stiffened. He rubbed the back of his head. Whatever alarm bells that would be ringing in his head were silenced by the alcohol swimming through his body. "Ah, no offense, buddy. I'm straight."

The tourist laughed. "So am I! Come on, man. I came out here all by myself and the first friendly, helpful stranger I meet turns down a rare gesture of gratitude?"

The Courier felt his shoulders droop. He did have a point—generosity was rare indeed. Might as well. Free alcohol was always blessing (or a curse because the damn thing could be poisoned but he stopped caring at this point because he was tired and partly drunk). Yay for his wallet. He slid back onto his stool and waited until James Garret procured for them both two whole bottles of vodka and scotch. Following an icebreaking toast, the two men indulged in a night of awkward conversation: one bitter, the other magnanimous.

An hour later (or two?) later, the stranger slurred, "Ne'er really got 'yer name."

"Jus' call me Six."

"Sex? Shit. I know we jus' met an' I'm flattered but I don't swing that way..."

"No, no... 'Six.' As in the fuck'n numb'r."

"I ain't askin' for your contacts, man. Jus' your name."

The Courier raised (shoved) his extended fingers in front of his drinking buddy until he counted all six extended digits. "How many? Six. Got it?"

"... Sex six times?"

"G'damn it. Y'know what? Jus'...jus' call me Tee. Tee 'n' Vee. Tee-vee."

"Sure thing, Six," laughed the tourist.

Six glared at him. "Smarmy son'v'a'bitch. What 'bout you, stranger?"

"Eh... Call me Kyu-bee."

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: June 13, 2018

LAST EDITED: February 23, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED [FFN]: June 22, 2018

Chapter Text

The Courier still saw the world in a blurry filter even after a late breakfast and two full glasses of water. Getting plastered and hungover at the Atomic Wranger for the second time in a long time was another warning sign that he was losing his touch. At least this time, there was no half-naked half-chick or something-something mole-rat-looking broad sleeping next to him.

Mole-rat faunus in lingerie... Son of a limp horse dick, get that out of your head!

He leaned back on the couch in his own little private cubicle in the far corner across from the mess of a parlor. Apparently, he had gone off the deep end last night. He swore it was someone else but the Garrets irately singled him out as the chief troublemaker. Hence the bullet holes, the re-shattered windows, the broken furniture, and the handful of bouncers sleeping away their broken bones upstairs.

How the fuck did I end up chasing a bird last night? Six shook his head. Something about a tourist trying to pin the massive tab they both accrued on him and trying to get away when he tried to nail him to the floor. Bastard thought he'd pull an Irish goodbye on my ass.

Strange how things just sort of went downhill from there. Tripping over chairs, missed shots, and the Courier jumping around the parlor trying to catch that nimble asshole. Maybe it was all a weird dream. I swore he turned into a fucking bird... Eh, must be the sauce.

After all that had happened the previous night, he was surprised the whole building didn't come down on top of them. Hell, he was more surprised he wasn't even mugged with how messed up he had been. Probably because Raul was right there sitting across from him reading Ninjas Of Love. And commenting on every explicit scene.

"Boss, I didn't know you were into this kind of stuff."

"I'm not," Six groaned, wishing for an icepack for his migraine.

"And here I thought I had seen it all. Candle wax, rope, bananas and cucumbers... But eggplants, squash, and watermelon—"

"You don't have to deconstruct everything—wait, watermelon?"

The ghoul played deaf, still casually flipping through the pages. "Say, isn't it dangerous to be using swords like that? I mean, other than for cutting and stabbing but, you know, like that. Maybe the pommel all the way up to the hilt but the blade itself? Dios mio."

"Oh for the love of—"

"Wooden clothes pins? And there of all places. Aren't there veins there? Important veins?" He shook his head. "Some kinks...they never fail to amaze me. You know, Boss, there's no shame in still being in the game."

The Courier glowered at him. "Would you stop? I'm too old for that shit."

"Boss, you're not that old."

"I'm in my forties."

The vaquero shrugged. "Eh, can't you say you're not virile."

"I'm widowed."

"And I'm sterile."

"Are you done?" growled Six.

Raul dangled the novel high above the table to allow a familiar centerfold to cascade down. "Caramba! Now that is a katana."

"Hey, don't swing that around like that."

The ghoul appeared to smirk for a fraction of a second. "But I thought you weren't interested in all this—"

"There are folks out there who'd pay a lot of money for a sex book," the Courier argued. Come to think of it, where the hell was Beatrix? Was she still working here at the Wrangler? Did he even see her around lately? She sure as hell stuck out for her lack of skin or whatever was left of her body that her black laced leather straps didn't cover up.

This novel was right up her freaky alley. Sure, ghouls were infertile—mostly, I think—courtesy of a lifetime dosage of radiation but that did not stop them from trying to have some fun. Ugh. He should probably stop thinking about that; once again, his messed up mind was coming up with unwanted mental images of peeled rubbery skin in skimpy black leather.

Raul raised a brow. "You sold sex books before?"

"Don't ask. I just know how much they go for on the market these days, okay?"

"Where exactly did you find the sex books to sell at a profit?"

"I just know. Don't ask." Not a story worth telling. Besides, most of them were about some lusty lizard maid polishing some guy's staff. Christ, the fantasies of some people.

"Alright, alright," he hummed. "Comics get old fast anyway. Why try to sell this though?"

"I need pocket money."

The ghoul flashed him a deadpan stare that carried a month's worth of dripping sarcasm. "The man who owns the wealth of the Three Families needs pocket money. Gee, boss, I wonder why."

"Don't give me that look. I just need something to spend. Feel like spending a bit."

"Have you been gambling again?"

"No," Six hissed. "How long have you been here anyway?"

The mechanic shrugged. "Three hours."

The Courier blinked disbelievingly. "I was out of it for that long?" Holy shit. That ain't good. His hand wormed up his head until they were rubbing circles over his temples. "Damn. Getting reckless... Can't risk losing it. Not at a time like this."

"Eh, you're too big in this town. Anyone who can put two and two together would leave you alone." Raul sipped his orange juice and waited until the silence settled before hammering down. "Especially with Samson and Delilah on the loose."

Six froze. "What?" How the hell do you know that!?

The vaquero planted the book under his elbow and cemented a steely scrutinizing gaze at the man who he considered a trustworthy friend despite the many, glaring flaws. "Boss, it's about time we discussed this. Like men. Between you and me, no more lies, no more secrecy, no half-truths too. A man-to-man talk."

Goddamnit, Raul. "Wrong place for that kind of talk." Vickers scanned their surroundings. It had been a slow day for the Wrangler so not that many people were around. A lot of vacant tables and most of the guards were either too high or too drunk to pay attention to anything.

"Where else then? Either you were out cold or you've gotten cataracts that you can't see the NCR mobilizing again. Troop presence at the embassy doubled overnight. Army specialists are moving up and down the interstate highways. Supply convoys are becoming more frequent. I won't be surprised if we walk out that door and they already locked down the Strip."

"They can't risk that," the Courier snapped.

"With enough men and material, they might," Raul countered. "I assume the little diablos are wrapped up in this, no?"

A long tired sigh. And a clenched fist that nearly slammed hard on the table. "Ain't the right place and the right time, amigo."

Raul leaned over the table with that gleam in his eye that the ghoul normally reserved for those who far from his graces. "¿Soy realmente tu amigo? I'm the only one you got left, boss. You going to risk me, too?"

For the first time in a long time, Vickers glared at his old associate. "Don't push it."

"You have a minute before I walk out that door."

And the Courier would be left all alone to suffer. Again.

Fifty seconds of tense silence passed between them before Six begrudgingly grabbed a spare shot glass from the nearest table and poured the ghoul a shot.

Ruby was starting to have regrets about everything. Maybe she really was just a child. Acting on baseless assumptions, falling for fabricated 'facts,' seeing the here-and-now instead of the big picture. Perhaps she was not as mature as she thought she was. The long morose walk from Primm to Goodsprings gave her much time to mull over everything she did since winding up here. The more she thought about the harsh realities of the wasteland—and all the 'good things' she had done since getting here—the more her optimism suffocated.

Her worries were further compounded by the NCR convoy that bounded up the highway. The group of nine stepped to the side of the road while a row of covered military trucks rumbled past, each filled with mostly youthful faces, some of whom stared wide-eyed back at them. It disturbed her how most of them seemed more confused than confident.

"Rather young to be in uniform," Pyrrha remarked.

"They look...really unsure," Yang added, watching the vehicles disappear further up the interstate. "You're right, P-money. They're kinda...sorta...younger than us."

"Compulsory service age is sixteen," Blake tacked on glumly.

The blonde nearly stumbled in shock. "What!? Th-they were just sixteen? I thought they were like eighteen or twenty!"

"That would be the vets unwinding at the Strip," the cat faunus corrected. "Most of them, at least. Besides, you're technically underage and you keep showing up at all those clubs back in Vale even before Beacon."

"Oh yeah," Velvet chimed abashedly. "Mister Nash told us to fill you in on those bits about the NCR. And the Legion. And the Three Families. And, um, pretty everything else about the wasteland. Our bad."

"Do they even know what they're getting themselves into?" Weiss wondered emptily. "On Atlas, service is voluntary and the compulsory age is eighteen! In our case, we have been made to consider and reconsider our decisions for being Huntresses before continuing after the basics. To ensure firm commitment to a lifetime duty!"

"It doesn't work that way for everyone," Pyrrha reminded the heiress. "This is a different world. This could probably be their first deployment, maybe their first time ever going into a real life-threatening situation." Her expression was downcast. "If I'm not wrong, most of them are draftees. Some of them probably want to be anywhere but here."

"How much training do they even get?" Jaune asked.

Again, Blake had the answer. "Four weeks at most, two at worst. Pretty much covers the whole course. Then they're either put in reserve for the duration of their service or shipped off to...wherever."

"How do you know all these?" Yang mumbled to her partner.

The cat faunus was impassive. "I read. I hear things, too."

"... Right."

"Sad state of affairs," Ren opined. "Military service seems to be the better option for many."

Ruby was unable to argue against that. For the people who were raised away from the safety of the protected cities, the option of being supplied with a gun, a uniform, and a band of similarly equipped people ensured the least likeliest chance to be mugged, raped, or killed out here in the untamed wastes. However, the thought that maybe those soldiers were being sent to fight against whoever was out there because of what they did in the Divide...

The young reaper bit down on her lip while she wrapped her cloak tighter around herself. The world turned so fast it was getting hard to catch up.

Ruby was not as inattentive as others would take her to be; on the contrary, she was quite observant. There was not that much cover out here in the rocky barren desert and her sixth sense of sorts, honed from being raised to hunt Grimm, was constantly nudging at her. So in turn, she nudged Weiss and muttered, "We're being followed."

"What? Are you sure?"

Keeping her head facing north, she mumbled back, "Four guys on the side of the mountain to our left."

To her credit, the heiress nodded and pretended as though her leader's report did not alarm her She knew Weiss to be smarter than that. Quietly, the heiress passed it on to Blake and then to Ren who both agreed that they were indeed being tracked. Ruby could only shrink deeper into her hooded cloak from the feeling of being watched and the guilt she was piling on herself.

Surprisingly, Trudy and Sunny seemed to know what was going on. This confirmed another suspicion that Ruby shared with her friends: Six had a wider network than he let on. Trudy gave them additional provisions 'on the house' while Sunny had them follow her out the back door to a 'safe place.'

Now from inside the abandoned barricaded gas station on the northernmost part of Goodsprings, Ruby peered through the cracks between the boarded windows to see four men squeezing into the saloon. Of particular note were the guns slung over their shoulders. Uncommon, high caliber firepower. Guns that looked too clean compared to the weathered, duct-taped shooters hefted around by everyone else. That could mean...

"They could be NCR," Jaune whispered as he peeked beside her. "What do you think, Rubes?"

"I don't know," Ruby admitted.

"Just because they're not in uniform doesn't mean they're not," Blake said. "NCR or no, they're armed and looking for us."

The little reaper bit her lip. They were becoming a magnet for trouble. As much as she wanted to speed down the road to the confront these goons, she bitterly held onto the wiser decision to trust Trudy and Sunny and let them handle it. Even then, she had a hard time slumbering through the night, the constant worry of harm for their sakes weighing heavy on her conscience. She dreaded waking up to gunfire or the town burning so much to the point that she nearly cried herself to sleep.

Come dawn the following day and much to Ruby and everyone else's relief, Sunny showed up saying that the 'rangers went the other way.'

"I'm really sorry for putting you through this," the reaper apologized underneath her hood.

Sunny smiled as she patted her on the shoulder. "It's nothin', missy. It ain't unusual gettin' visits like these every now and again. You may want to hunker down here a bit 'fore y'all head back up to Vegas."

"How'd you know we're going there?" asked Yang. None of them ever mentioned where they were headed.

The freckled survivalist raised a brow. "Y'all headin' back home from your sightseein', aren't you? Besides. NCR come a knockin' lookin' for you. If you ask me, either they got a bone to pick with Old Green Eyes or somethin' big's goin' on and they need the 'Vegas Wonder Kids' on their side."

"How can you tell?" queried Ren.

Sunny shrugged. "It's happened before. One of the reasons why I didn't take up bein' a merc. Some say that it ain't no different from bein' an escort. You bleed and die and end up feelin' like used meat at the end o' the day...accordin' to some mercs I know."

"So we got mercenaries and NCR agents tailing us?" Jaune asked.

The trapper waggled her hand at that. "Eh, can't really say who's who. If it ain't the NCR, you still got someone's attention. For now, they think you're movin' up to Sloan on your way to Vegas." Sunny gestured them to follow her. "Come on. Settle down here for awhile 'fore you head back out."

"Yeah, the gas station needs more beds," Yang remarked lightly.

Sunny simpered. "Who said you're sleeping in here again?"

"You okay, sis?"

Ruby looked up from the carpet which she had been rubbing her feet on for the past half hour. Her voice came out dry and hesitant. "... No."

Yang sat beside her on the couch and took her in a big hug. "Hey, now. What's got you down?"

"I'm scared."

"Scared of what?"

"The future."

She scrunched her brow as she let go. "Huh?"

The reaper sighed. She looked around Doctor Mitchell's quaint living room. Blake and Weiss were reading through some of the books he had on the shelves while Ren and Nora were cooking in the kitchen with Syrup. In the other room, she could hear Jaune making rounds on that weird 'vigor-testing' machine while Velvet and Pyrrha were being treated by the aging physician.

"I've been thinking about the news and all the stuff Mister Nash said," Ruby muttered.

"And?"

"When we broke Samson, I think we sort of, um, I don't know, um—"

"Jeopardized the fragile balance of peace and power in the region?" Weiss injected.

"Really helpful, Ice Queen," Yang grunted.

"Yeah, that's it," Ruby agreed forlornly. "Those soldiers we saw yesterday. There could be more of them spreading out across the Mojave. Plucked from their homes, given a gun, and dumped all the way out here because Samson...isn't a problem anymore."

"Ruby, they don't know about what happened yet," Blake said, sitting beside her.

"I highly doubt it's coincidental though," the heiress countered.

The brawler huffed. "Maybe it's just a coincidence! I mean, maybe something's going on somewhere and they needed more troops. I mean, yeah, they still don't know what happened in the Divide so this can't be like a reaction to that or something."

"Not yet," the cat faunus added softly.

"Not helping, kitty."

Ruby continued. "And the news about refugees up in Fort Meat—"

"Fort Mead," Weiss corrected.

"—I think we're going to get dragged into this stuff whether we like it or not."

"Why so? It's not like there are more of us from Remnant that somehow ended up here," dismissed the heiress.

"I don't know how to feel about that," Blake admitted. "But Mister Nash was right. We should start paying attention to current affairs. We went into the Divide with the wrong motivations and the wrong contexts. And that's why...things ended up the way they are right now."

Ruby shrank at that. All that was true. She jumped to conclusions, believed the claims so easily, dragged her friends into harm's way, and nearly destroyed the world. Again.

"And it is for that reason that from now on we should temper our judgments and be more receptive to the news," Weiss declared. "I'm not saying this is anyone's fault—"

"It's my fault," the little reaper interjected.

"Ruby—"

"No. I got us all to take up the NCR's offer. It's my fault. I should take responsibility. We even dragged team JNPR into it, too."

"Don't blame yourself, sis—"

Ruby was having none of it. "If it's not me then whose fault is it? I got us into this mess! We were used, girls! They knew the right words to say. They knew what buttons to push. I wanted to make mature decisions. This one was a mistake."

"We all make mistakes, young lady," Doctor Mitchell echoed, limping back into the living room with his cane. "It's part of growing up. You have your regrets but don't let them hold you down."

The little reaper sank deeper into the couch while he slunk down onto the cushioned chair opposite them.

"Velvet and Pyrrha are recovering quicker than I expected," he informed them. "There isn't much I could recommend other than avoiding any more strenuous activity that might exacerbate their muscles. That means no jumping around for the time being."

"Thanks for the help, Doc," Yang said.

"No need to thank me. Just doing my part." He held up his hand before Ruby could speak. "I know what you're going to say, Miss Rose. Trouble gravitates to anyone. This town has had its share of trouble. Times we've been lucky, times we haven't. But we always manage with what we have and will continue to do so."

"Do you think...that all this stuff that you're doing...is it all worth it?" Ruby asked.

"For one, it gives us purpose. It's in our nature to survive. So we do what we can and try to be civil about it. Whether or not all this trouble is worth the effort doesn't matter, if you ask me. I've been living my life on the principle that I give my best to make someone else's life better. Even if they aren't the best or the kindest, they still have a story that's worth telling...and a story that needs a better ending than what most others get out there."

"Do you have any regrets?"

Doctor Mitchell chuckled. "I have my fair share. But that don't stop me from doing what I do."

"Say, Doc," Yang started. "You operated on Six, right?"

"Yes, I have."

Ruby eyed her sister in the same manner that everyone else did. The brawler shrugged and continued, "It's like he's indestructible. Any professional guess to that?"

The physician rubbed his stubble. "I guess...the hard life he's had growing up toughened him up some. The Desert Rangers were a rough hewn society. You could say they're up there with the toughest tribes in the whole continent. Recruits start off as young as they can walk. Frankly, I believe they start training as early as they can shoot a gun."

"Wow," whistled Yang. "That dedicated, huh."

"Dedicated, yes. There are a lot of stories about them, though most are hearsay. But out of all the hubris, there is one more thing that I can say for certain about some of them. Or about Vickers in particular."

The teens leaned in close.

The physician leaned on his cane. "They had access to specialized Pre-war technology. Left-overs from the Commonwealth that they fine-tuned and innovated on over the years."

"Like the Brotherhood?" chirped Nora.

"In some ways. Unlike the Brotherhood, there was no esoteric hierarchy or any of that knighthood. They were pragmatists and whatever they found that could work, they made work. One of these technologies was...well..."

"What is it?" prodded Yang.

A sigh. "... It's a bionic system that is surgically integrated into a person's central nervous system. Classed under something auspicious as an 'assisted targeting system' but does more than that. And I believe that it may have given him the boost he needed to get to where he is today. Some would even claim it made him 'superhuman' in a sense. Though I doubt the veracity of that claim. Lots of people have had the same enhancements but are no better than I am on any given day."

There was a silent exchange of confused looks and weary glances until Ruby caught the realization building up on Blake.

Doctor Mitchell remained neutral and contemplative. "In my opinion, I have no doubts that he is as lethal as a man without it."

"I hope you don't mind all these questions," Ren said, spreading platters of pancakes to everyone in the living room. "Were you the one to install that system in him?"

"Oh, I only pulled out the bits of lead that wound up in his noggin a few years back. Other than that, he came by sometimes for check-ups on his radiation doses and his, well, addiction to anti-depressants."

"Six wasn't a druggie," Ruby protested. Hesitantly. "Was he?"

The physician shook his head. "No, no, Miss Rose. Alcohol is the most basic of anti-depressants, on the threshold below the cheapest manufactured substances. He has had a history of over-reliance on painkillers, though. But that was a long time ago, I'm sure."

"This bionic targeting system," Weiss interjected. "What else can you tell us about it?"

"It's monitored by his Pip-boy."

"You mean that oversized watch on his arm that almost never ever takes off?" Yang inquired.

"It's more than just a watch," chuckled Doctor Mitchell. "It monitors his vitals. And has more functions than you could fit on a terminal. Both the device and the system were manufactured by the same pre-war company: Vault-Tec. Can't say his particular model's the same as the recent models like the ones I grew up with. What I can say is that it's been through some modifications over the years...along with the rest of him."

"The...rest of him?" queried Pyrrha.

The physician sighed. "When he was brought into my clinic those years ago, the only pieces of metal in his body were shrapnel and bullet fragments. Months later, he showed up for a check-up and... Imagine my surprise when I found his brain, his spine, and his heart...held together by what I could describe best as military-grade technology."

"He's...a cyborg?" Yang guessed.

"I knew it," Nora snorted through bits of pancake in her mouth.

Ruby caught Blake glancing knowingly at Pyrrha who seemed to be deep in thought. Jaune, meanwhile, detached himself from the arcade machine in the parlor with a set of punch cards.

"Um, guys?" he called.

"Checking up on your results?" Doc Mitchell noted.

Jaune shook his head. "Not just mine. I hope you don't mind, doc, but I dug through the Vig-o-matic's logs and found these..."

Nora pranced over. "What is it?"

"Are these your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. results?" chirped Yang. "Five points on strength. Not bad. Pretty average. Can't say much for charisma though."

"Ha-ha, Yang. No, look at this one."

Blake snatched the card off his hands. "This is Six's."

Ruby quickly hovered over the card as the cat faunus read out the numbers.

"Talk about unlucky," Velvet remarked, leaning against her crutch. "And a single point on charisma? What kind of scoring is this?"

"I wouldn't call that old thing accurate," Doc Mitchell intoned. "But it is the most accurate you can get around these parts."

"It's an arcade game," Weiss snorted.

"It's a primer," Ren argued. "The only working frame of reference for one's performance outside of any advanced medical assessment technology."

Yang huffed. "Can't believe he actually has a higher score than me."

"He beat you at an arcade machine and in an actual fist fight," Nora said. "Ooh! I wonder what my score is? I wanna try!"

"Don't let that vigor-tester fool you," Doctor Mitchell said, shuffling over. "That rickety thing can't measure a man by his true worth. Can't measure kindness or heart. Much less common sense. Don't you think so, little missy?"

Ruby perked up from the couch. "I...guess. I never really tried it."

"Well, you don't need to. You still want to go back to New Vegas, right?"

The reaper nodded. "Um, yeah."

"We have to set things right," Weiss added. "We have to own up to...to our mistakes."

"We'll show the NCR that we aren't tools to be used up like that," Yang said with grit teeth.

"The people of New Vegas need our help too," Blake continued. "Even some in the NCR."

"We also have to be wary of Six, too," Jaune said. "Who knows what he could be up to. He's smart and strategic so he has to have more cards hidden in his sleeve. Samson can't be the only one he's hiding that as dangerous."

"Jaune's right," propped Nora. "Six couldn't have done all of this alone. He had to have had help. Setting up all this stuff, all the traps and machines takes effort. Lots of effort. Like some extra hands or even an extra head...or brain...brains?"

Ren hummed. "Point is, doctor, we will have to return to New Vegas. The NCR is expecting us and if we do not report in, they will start suspecting the worst and might act brashly."

Doctor Mitchell beamed. "Ain't that the finest thing I've heard from youths in a long while. Looks like your friends are all in, eh, little missy."

Ruby nodded. And her confident smile wavered when her stomach growled. As did everyone else's.

"So what were you guys cooking?"

That was when Ren remembered they were still cooking a full course and together with Nora dashed back into the kitchen to catch Syrup slurping up the last of what could have been everyone's lunch. On the bright side, Doctor Mitchell had a garden full of produce in the backyard and some frozen brahmin steaks in the freezer.

"Here's an easy dish for you, kids," he told them later on as they set the ingredients down on his kitchen counter. "Something we like to call a desert salad. Safe and healthy, don't worry. Now this is how you do it..."

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: June 13, 2018

LAST EDITED: July 2, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED [FFN]: March 20, 2020

Chapter Text

Like most people who had been ghoulified during the Great War and survived this long, Raul had thought he had seen it all. The best, the worst, and the weirdest fell in with his storied years of wandering the wastes. To think nothing else could surprise him to such a degree, here comes Courier Six; a bitter boozehound of a man polishing a hidden arsenal of undetonated nuclear warheads.

The ghoul had been tempted then and there to shoot the messenger. Yet he understood that there was more to the message. That message sank in deeper and deeper that it nagged on him every couple hours. It made it difficult to concentrate on what he was doing.

Raul leaned back to clear his head so he could focus. And maybe mutter an agnostic prayer to Jesu Cristo if only to feel little better. Before him, in his own garage out in the middle of the arid Clark County desert, sat the unfinished motorcycle that had been his newest side project. No doubt the chopper Boss hijacked was gone to the wastes. The other one—his own personal machine that Velvet photocopied with her mind-blowing thingamajig—sat in his garage after a thorough routine maintenance check. This new one that he had started piecing together had been not been too difficult. However, the weight of over a dozen live nukes sitting in the Divide made his dirty, ghoulified hands tremble.

"Focus, cabron," he commanded himself.

He turned on the engine. And there it was. That annoying buzzing sound. It had to be the battery; there seemed to be no other source. Either he had to recharge it or he had to find a new one. The latter option was realistically the most feasible at this point.

"Puta..."

Raul was not in the mood to trek miles across the arid wastes for a new motorcycle battery. He decided to check his cabinets for paint instead.

What was it that hija Yang said about her own chopper? 'Bumblebee,' she named it. The ghoul sighed; he hoped the girl was smart enough to know that a healthy engine revved more like a chainsaw than a hornet. Also, was it yellow or black? He could barely remember the details. Besides, whatever paint he had stored up had either dried up from years of disuse or used up on some other forgotten project. Instead, what he could scrounge up was a can of tarnish, some lacquer, home-made solvents, kerosene, gasoline—paint thinners, basically.

Raul shrugged to himself. Might as well. Better no rust than no paint.

Maybe he should ring Boss up. Ask for a fee. After all, if he wanted to go all the way for a surprise apology gift, he might as well chip in. Not like he was poor. If the man had the means and the resources to refurbish an entire nuclear arsenal, then he could spare a couple grand for a paint job, extra parts, and maybe a new battery too.

Or perhaps he should just suck up his pride and say sorry to the little diablos. Goodness knows the Courier really meant it.

The vast New Vegas underground was an odorous maze that Six was no stranger to. It was a second world to him, albeit without the searing heat, the occasional dust devil, or the near infinite amount of open space that was his element. He entered through the often ignored sewer grate behind the Atomic Wrangler and navigated the sewage-ridden labyrinth towards one of the major canals snaking through the city's underbelly.

It was via this route that he evaded the ever-growing NCR presence on his way back to the Strip. Or rather, the cavernous basement that the late Robert Edwin House had constructed underneath the Lucky 38 to coordinate his robot army. Now that robot army was sitting in its underground depots; upgraded, polished, rearmed, and recalibrated to respond to the commands of someone else.

How fortunate that the NCR was still ignorant of them all this time. Well, up until recently that is. Ever since annexation, the Republic had maintained only a single squadron in the entirety of the New Vegas underground: nine soldiers forced to sit in a fortified culvert under a manhole outside the main gates of McCarran Headquarters. The privates and their grumpy sergeant were too indignant to expand their patrol routes further into the sewers. If they did, they could have discovered the handful of maintenance rooms that had been around since the Old World.

Six had been in one of these rooms, reversing the flow of waste in one of the tunnel systems running directly under the Strip. The first lever pulled down to block a vein in one place, a second lever dragged sideways to open up another elsewhere. He waited for an hour. By then, the water level in the tunnel he needed access to had dropped to knee level.

Obviously, the NCR squad under McCarran had been hit by the overwhelming stench of a thousand people's piss and shit flowing their way and they scrambled to the surface for respite. They blamed it on a bad day and waited out the odor until sundown. No one suspected anything else. No one ever thought of thoroughly checking how the waste disposal system worked in New Vegas and hence no one had discovered the tunnel that led to a set of hydraulic doors blocking access to the cavernous basement of the Lucky 38.

And since yesterday, this was where the Courier had spent most of his time. Doing equipment maintenance on his vast arsenal, watching numbers run on the holographic screens arrayed on the massive wall spanning half a casino parlor, and working on the scientific chamber-pod that had been his side project since reactivating Samson and recalibrating Delilah. After all,it wasn't everyday that he had days off like this.

"Anything else?" hummed the ever disturbingly chipper voice of Yes Man, the semi-sentient AI he had 'requisitioned' from Benny.

Vickers turned to the bright, white cartoonish face staring at him from one of the massive terminals built into the walls. "Estimated total of NCR forces in the whole of Clark County by next week?"

Yes Man responded instantly. "That'll be between thirty to thirty-five thousand personnel including vehicles, technical crews, and civilian contractors. That's assuming redeployment continues as smoothly as it is going now."

That's an entire corps concentrated here on the southern tip of Nevada. "NCR military spending?"

"Lots and lots of money! The numbers are doubling. It looks like they're preparing for a fight."

James is. "Their economy?"

"Based on the limited statistical data I could recover from our entire network so far, it'll put a dent. A really painful dent. If they're going to start another war, they better end it quicker than the one they had with the Imperium Americana."

Or else the Republic is going to sink into its worse recession since its founding. Six returned to the map. So far, the NCR remained ignorant of the time bombs they were sitting on top of. They managed to screw up one. The thought of the kids getting so involved with it made his blood boil.

"You look distressed," Yes Man chirped joyously.

"That obvious?"

"Your facial features have adopted an uncommon pattern that my sensors have detected to be similar to the one you had on when you were going to kill Mister House."

Of course, this damn AI can see that. "Sure. Whatever. What about RWBY and JNPR?"

"Telemetry scans confirm they're still in Goodsprings."

Good. "Keep tracking them. Alert me as soon as they start moving."

"You got it! What about the NCR?"

"Keep an eye on the NCR, too."

"You can count on it!"

Six made a mental note to meet with Red Lucy at the Thorn. He hoped he was still in her good graces; that woman was not keen on losing any more of her precious cage fighters to 'vex the surface.' Bribing her would be a downright insult so he had to be creative.

"Is there anything else?" Yes Man prodded.

"That's all for now."

The Courier crossed the underground nerve center, rode the elevator up to the main casino floor of the Lucky 38, and headed straight for the bar. He needed a good buzz and right now he preferred to drink in a place away from the city lights. Goodness knows the NCR MPs on the Strip were keeping an eye on the tower, checking to see if there was any activity.

I can't blame Hyper for this. I pushed James too far. And the kids showed up at the wrong time. But I still kept pushing. This is all on me. I'm fixing this...

Much like the Nash residence in Primm, Doctor Mitchell's humble abode provided clean water, good plumbing, and soap. Much unlike the Nash residence, however, Doctor Mitchell only had one bathroom. Such amenities that were commonplace on Remnant were prized luxuries out here in the wasteland and teams RWBY-V and JNPR-S began to value them greatly.

This was manifested when tensions ran high during the line that had formed that warm, early morning when they all came out underdressed to take a long overdue bath.

Because they all stank. It was a nightmare sleeping in the same room as each other with how rancid they were. Sure, moving around for days in the arid, radioactive Mojave wilderness and fighting the horrors of the wasteland left little room for proper hygiene, let alone provide them with the means to even exercise basic hygiene.

Perhaps it had been the sandstorms masking their scent all this time or their noses had dulled during their extended forays into the outdoors. Or maybe because they had idled indoors long enough that they began to pick up on the smell that had always been there since the beginning.

"Hurry up, Weiss Cream!" Yang yelled, nearly banging her fist on the wooden door. "My hair's getting sticky!"

Two paces behind her, Blake huffed while holding up another new book she had picked up from the shelf in the parlor. She was followed by Pyrrha—also keeping a distance of two paces—whose toiletries were draped over her arm. Yet even the slightest twitch was starting to crack her morning smile. Nora gracelessly lounged in the rear, trying to stay awake while standing up.

Ruby and Velvet had gotten lucky, their dry pine scent replacing the stench that had lingered in the parlor for far too long. Ruby, amazingly, woke the earliest. Or she didn't sleep at all last night. The rings around her eyes were clear as the burning Mojave sun even as she tried to shrug it off.

Given that the girls decided now of all times to take a bath—and they were very cranky because of it—Jaune and Ren wisely decided to postpone their own much needed bath times. They stomached each other's natural fragrance as they watched over Syrup outside in the back garden...and keep the deathclaw from eating Doctor Mitchell's produce.

Yang's voice rumbled across the house. "Weiss Cream!"

"Have some patience!" Weiss shrieked back.

"You're wasting ours!" Blake hollered. "Hurry up!"

Finally, the door creaked open and out walked an irate Weiss Schnee, her long snowy hair wrapped up in a turban while a longer towel graced the rest of her bare form. "If you'll excuse me..."

"Ugh. You take forever!"

"Says the girl who takes twice as long with just her hair!"

"Will you two shut up and go already?"

In the medical wing of the house, Ruby and Velvet vehemently apologized to Doctor Mitchell on their behalf.

"Ah, it's nothing to fret over," he replied. "My wife had worse days."

"Your wife?" Velvet raised.

A soft chuckle. "Yes. Like her, like every woman, they have their moments. I guess you could say my wife was the hurricane that comes in the desert."

The reaper twiddled her thumbs. "Um, Doc? I hope you don't mind me asking but... Did Six have...or ever tell you about...his family?"

The physician rubbed his chin in thought. "He never spoke much of it. I knew he had one but I never pushed beyond what the paperwork asked for. Not my business to pry unless I needed something for profiling."

"May we see his profile?" requested the rabbit faunus.

"Pardon me, young lady, but for what reason?"

"It's okay," Ruby said. "We're only curious. Mister Nash said Six had a wife and child back in Aree-zoh-nah?"

"He did now? I see." Doctor Mitchell hobbled over to one of the boxes on the shelf. In it was a selection of folders that he rifled through until he withdrew one with the name 'Courier' written on the top corner. "I suppose if Johnson trusts you with that information, then I guess I'm obligated to fill in some of the blanks."

"We don't mean to intrude," Velvet said. "It's just that...we're concerned for Six."

The physician set down the folder on the gurney and spread out the dated forms within. "I can see where you're coming from with that. Hmm. Yeah, Johnson's not wrong on that one. Mister Vickers had a daughter, to be precise."

The two girls hovered over the documents. Most of the details were sparse and some of the answers were vague. No names, no specific dates, the word 'deceased' written beside the status of family... Other than alcoholism and liver failure being listed as recurring in his family history, there was nothing else that seemed out of place save for...

"The daughter was born sick?" mouthed the reaper.

"Wife had an 'unknown debilitating medical condition?'" Velvet read aloud. "Gave birth to a daughter with 'similar debilitating medical condition.'"

"He never elaborated on it," the physician admitted. "I remember he did ask me once if heterochromia was a symptom of something serious to which I answered none to my knowledge."

Ruby furrowed her brow. "He-te-ro-chro—?"

"OH COME ON!"

The reaper leapt to her feet and rushed over to the line in front of the bathroom which was now ajar with Yang fuming over an unresponsive shower head. In fact, the faucet in the sink had been twisted all the way and was coming up dry. The other girls peeked in, now finding out why Yang was so infuriated that she had not even bother cover herself up, let alone dry herself.

"No water!?" Nora gasped.

"That's...unfortunate," Pyrrha intoned with an edge to her voice.

Blake sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Doctor Mitchell trailed over with his cane. "Alright, what's the matter?"

This time, Yang grabbed her towel and wrapped it around herself. "Sorry for flying off the handle, Doc. But the water's gone."

The physician worked the shower tap and the faucet, equally perplexed that nothing was coming through. "Hmm, that's odd."

"Is there something we can do?" Ruby proposed.

"Maybe you could check the back garden. There's a water valve over by the corn stalks. Something probably clogged it up and it might take a monkey wrench to fix it. Don't worry, ladies. This happens sometimes—"

"Wait," Blake interjected. "Aren't the boys out in the backyard with Syrup?"

The girls eyed each other. Nora was the first to frown; she stomped over to the back door, leading the pack. Lo and behold, in the back garden, Jaune and Ren were hovering awkwardly over the water valve. The former was holding the dislocated valve in his grip while the latter had his hands on the knob where the valve was supposed to have been fastened to. Said knob was twisted out of place with the connecting pipe bent upwards and spewing clean water all over the dirt. Meanwhile, Syrup was fastened to a post looking...smug?

"Uh, look we can explain!"

"We're fixing it!"

It took some effort—and Ruby pointing out the incriminating bite marks—to convince Yang, Blake, Pyrrha, and Nora that Syrup had bitten off the valve thinking it was a bright red fruit because the boys had been keeping it from devouring the corn stalks and the other plants growing in Doctor Mitchell's garden. On the bright side, they were all still able to bathe...at a neighbor's house half a block down the road.

Teams RWBY-V and JNPR-S spent the rest of the day in the same way they did in Primm: helping around as much as they could. Except, instead of water runs and catching highwaymen down the road, they opted to take on the more dangerous tasks that Trudy and Sunny often deferred to experienced mercenary teams (because the NCR had more important missions for their inexperienced, unmotivated, under-equipped conscripts).

Ruby put on her most mature face and took on the task of clearing the highway north of cazadores while Jaune spearheaded the operation to exterminate the large radscorpion colony in the rugged valley between Goodsprings and Sloan. With their Semblances and their skills, they were confident they could get it done before sundown.

Trudy and Sunny begged to differ. Then again, the teens weren't called the 'Vegas Wonder Kids' for nothing. So off they went. Though, Jaune and Ren pounced on Nora before she could finish saying the dreaded phrase: 'what could possibly go wrong?'

Given how similar the giant mutated insects were to the Grimm Deathstalker they had faced during Beacon's initiation, it seemed like the same tactics applied to kill that massive Grimm would apply to these bugs.

Not exactly.

Especially when there were a lot of them. And they came in swarms. Like bugs naturally did. Except the radscorpions were, on average, bigger than humans...and faster...and severely more venomous than their bark-skin cousins. Also, their carapaces were tougher than Atlesian body armor. It was like fighting a colony of smaller but more coordinated Deathstalkers.

Needless to say, team JNPR-S used up their entire dynamite stash clearing out the nests and in the process reshaping portions of the valley. Not that the residents of Goodsprings complained at the end of the day.

"You know, Six said something about insects and tribal wisdom," Jaune remarked absently.

Nora frowned. "Jaune-Jaune. No."

"Hey, just saying. I just remembered that he kept going on about how some tribes across the wasteland developed these techniques that made these bugs edible somehow."

"Can we not discuss this?" Ren pleaded.

Pyrrha nodded hastily. "Jaune, I think it's best if we head back now. I'm sure Velvet and team RWBY are worried about us."

"Alright. Man, what a day." Jaune whistled over his shoulder. "Syrup, buddy! Where are you?"

Across the valley, the infant deathclaw perked its head up from behind a rock. A dislocated radscorpion stinger hung from its maw. It regarded their masters with a mewl before bending back down to devour the rest of the massive arthropod.

The blond team leader shrugged. "Wow, he's really hungry. Maybe we should let him eat first?"

"Syrup!" Nora barked. "What did I say? I told you to stop eating these disgusting bugs! It's bad for you! Let mama feed you the right food!"

Ren tugged her arm. "Nora, it's part of his natural diet. Let him be."

"But Re~en..."

"Think of it this way," Pyrrha interjected diplomatically. "We'll save time, energy, and money on caring for him. Syrup needs to grow and I'm sure this is how his, uh, species learn how to survive. As a predator, I think it's natural for him to devour whatever he wishes."

Nora folded her arms with a pout. Then she lit up with a query. "Including dead people?"

Her teammates fell silent. The sound of their pet deathclaw's jagged teeth ripping through the exoskeleton on a radscorpion carapace echoed off the cliff sides.

Crunch, crunch, squish, crunch...

"O~okay," Jaune drawled. "Ren, how 'bout you and Nora go on ahead. Pyrrha and I will watch over him 'til he finishes. We'll meet you back at the saloon later."

"Sounds good."

The blond mustered over to where their team mascot was happily gorging on another cadaver. "Wait. Guys, ammo check."

Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren ruffled through their pockets, satchels, and bandoliers. They came up with an alarmingly low amount of bullets for their respective firearms.

Jaune tapped his chin. "Say, do we still need more dynamite?"

"What do you mean?" asked his partner.

"Y'know? Just in case we might need them for, say, clearing up a blockade or blowing up a massive wasp den or something?"

"Come to think of it," Ren said. "Didn't Sunny advise us to share some of our ordnance with team RWBY?"

"I...don't recall."

"Eh, it's RWBY," Nora waved off. "They don't have to blow stuff up to fix something. Besides, there's Yang. She'll burn through anything and that's as good as getting rid of something, right?"

"You're not wrong," Pyrrha admitted.

"Not really wise to always rely on a Semblance like hers," Ren intoned.

"Well, I hope they're doing fine. Those cazadores sure looked really dangerous," Jaune mused.

The deadly gargantuan wasps had repopulated in droves and were now threatening to spill out of their nests in the mountains. From previous observations (with a few bits of Six's occasional advice), team RWBY-V learned that cazadores were fast, poisonous, and deadly. They quickly found out the hard way just exactly how fast, poisonous, and deadly they were.

They also discovered—to their horror—just how dependent they were on the synergy between their Semblances, their custom-built weapons, and the crucial Dust supplies needed to make them effective. Ruby tripped more than she needed to because she miscalculated her speed in conjunction to the NCR rifle she had been issued. Yang had to be pulled out of danger because she had expended her entire buckshot during an induced fiery rage. Blake almost lost her own NCR-manufactured guns because she thought they were as durable as Gambol Shroud. And Weiss...well, she practically ditched all forms of grace after she ended up exhausting herself with her glyphs to save the other three from being swarmed.

Velvet, surprisingly, proved the most levelheaded and effective. Her still-healing ribcage locked her in a static position throughout the job—perched on a rocky outcrop with a forty-four magnum trail carbine overseeing the section of the highway where the cazadores were scurrying around. Not only was she far enough away from the bugs to be attacked but she had an unimpeded view of this section of the highway. She may not have been the best marksman in her class but that did not mean she was not good with a rifle.

Ruby stumbled and was about to stung. Bang!

Yang stunned a wasp with a solid straight. Bang!

Blake confused a bug with her shadow clone. Bang!

Weiss ensnared three cazadores with her glyphs. Bang-bang-bang!

This went far longer than they planned on it, leaving them sweating and panting and scrambling for their water canteens. To their credit, by the mid-afternoon hour, they practically painted the road with cazador guts. They had done it. They killed all the big, damn wasps.

Now, all that was left was to destroy the nests built into the rock faces and bury the rest sprouting out of the ground. Except...team JNPR-S had all the dynamite and explosives. And they were on a different job. And Nora probably used it all up.

This left them in a position they rarely considered even back on Remnant.

Despite being Huntresses-in-training who had faced down Grimm larger and more numerous than them on many occasions, the task of manhandling insect domiciles such as these oversized cazador nests bigger than a Freeside shanty was no different than clearing out normal-sized beehives hanging off the gutter of someone's house. It would have been left up to people like 'best dad' Taiyang Xiao-Long or 'best butler' Klein Sieben or that unfortunate White Fang neophyte Perry to do the job. Unfortunately, none of them were here and the girls were on their own.

But hey, Ruby argued. This was part of the job of being Huntresses; exterminating Grimm and clearing out their nests. What was the difference?

Ruby looked to Yang who turned to Blake who glanced to Weiss who turned around towards Velvet sitting on the outcrop on the other side of the highway. The rabbit faunus shouldered her carbine and shrugged.

Team RWBY craned their heads up at the massive cazador cocoons the size of small caves complete with gaping holes where they could see something moving inside. Shooting them off was out of the question; they were low on bullets and even then, the nests themselves were sturdy enough to resist their high-caliber rounds. Not to mention, they left all their remaining Dust reserves back in Goodsprings. Then again, they had Semblances so they used those instead.

It ended up being an interesting, if not unforgettably cringeworthy, hands-on learning experience for team RWBY sans Velvet because she was on the other side of the highway watching it all happen.

The rabbit faunus would later swear up, down, and sideways that she felt very, very genuinely sorry for team RWBY. She really did! Her laughing was just a normal reaction. Between her cackles, she did cringe on their behalf. Also, because they screamed so loud that it hurt both pairs of her ears. Besides, it was not like she was the one who was bathed in layers upon layers of cazador larvae when the oversized nest burst directly over their heads.

Well, one nest down. Five more to go.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: January, 2019

LAST EDITED: April 15, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED [FFN]: April 13, 2020

Chapter Text

If Goodsprings was the oasis flourishing in the Clark County desert, then Bonnie Springs was the one that dried up a long time ago. Half the buildings in the ghost town were rubble under the sand with the other half either boarded up or barely standing. Also, more cazadores.

Team JNPR-S now understood why team RWBY-V hated the oversized wasps with a passion. The four girls (sans Velvet) viciously took up four hours back in the shower last night, using up three bars of soap and overflowing the bathtub that even Pyrrha and Nora had to use force to get them to stop wasting all that clean, mountain spring water.

Now they were here, over half a day later, in the middle of Bonnie Springs, north of Goodsprings and south of Red Rock Canyon. Around them lay the cadavers of the massive mutated wasps that had traumatized four Huntresses-in-training. And on the walls, on the gutters, on the roofs, and in the heaps of rubble sprouted over a dozen cazador nests that team RWBY vehemently insisted on blowing up with whatever explosives they had on hand.

In fact, it was probably the only time since ever knowing the little red reaper that anyone outside of the Xiao-Long family had heard Ruby swear.

"F-f-f-fuck that shit," she squeaked.

"I know, r-r-right?" squealed Yang.

"Whoa," Jaune echoed. "That bad, huh."

Pyrrha hummed along, herself keeping a full spear's length away from the cocoon built on the ashes of a burned down house. "I, uh, can understand why."

"I got an idea," Nora chirped.

Ren narrowed his eyes immediately. That glint in her eyes meant something potentially dangerous. "Nora, what are you planning?"

"Oh, a little something I picked up from an old magazine. I'm going to need an egg timer, some electronic scraps, and a roll of duct tape," the Valkyrie declared enthusiastically. A little too enthusiastically. "Do we have any? Anybody brought any?"

The blond team leader waved at them all to gather by the dried up fire pit cobbled together in the plaza. "Guys, how about we take a breather, have something to eat, and then be on our way? If we hurry, we might make it to Vegas by sundown."

"We're camping outdoors," Blake argued.

"I'm in favor of sleeping under the stars," Weiss added.

"Vomit Boy, we are blowing up these fuckers if it's the last thing we do," hissed Yang.

Ruby nodded her head, staring with an unnervingly haunted look at something indiscernible in the distance. "Cazadores must not exist..."

"We could just leave them alone," Jaune argued.

"And let them repopulate to terrorize and devour poor, innocent travelers braving these roads to ply their trade in the Mojave!?" Weiss nearly shrieked. "Have you gone mad, scion of the Arc family!?"

Okay, one: 'poor, innocent travelers?' and two: Jaune was mortified at how dangerously close the heiress got into his face to scream her hysterics at him.

"They will inevitably become fodder for other predators in the region," Ren interjected diplomatically. "Perhaps we should allow nature to take its course."

"Nature's crazy," Yang threw in. "We can't leave 'em alone. They'll follow us and try to sting us so they can eat us and, and drown us in a s-sea of, of, of icky, gooey, white stuff..."

"Extermination is better than tolerance," Blake chimed with a glare that never left the colony of cazadores infesting Bonnie Springs.

"That's...something I thought I would never hear from you of all people, Blake," Pyrrha intoned uncomfortably.

Velvet, already seeing that this was getting them nowhere, exercised her seniority and called in a vote. The consensus remained at a stalemate with the two teams arguing over flattening the town or moving on. That stalemate lasted until Syrup tore into a nest after sniffing out some grub. A blanket of abnormally large cazador larvae spilled out all across the rubble with the deathclaw lapping it all up like the hungry predator that it was. Jaune went green, Pyrrha squealed, Nora screeched, Ren paled, and team RWBY scampered away vindicated.

The previous votes were rescinded and a new consensus was reached.

It took an hour of careful scavenging around Bonnie Springs to find the closest junk to what Nora needed to make whatever it was she wanted to make...which happened to be a ticking time-bomb. Except, there was no timer, it was held together with rope and the strips of dirty cloth, and the primer that was supposed to trigger the detonation fizzled out which meant it had to be manually activated via a well-placed bullet from twenty yards away.

They never left the area that day. Instead, teams RWBY-V and JNPR-S camped out on the rugged outskirts north of the ghost town. They had picked an ideal spot on the other side of the dried up creek that had given the place its name, surrounded by honey mesquite pods and barrel cacti, which attracted the largely docile bighorner herds. Thankfully, Syrup had had its fill from all the cazadores and cazador larvae that it ignored its evolutionary victims—the bighorners—in favor of a long rest until morning.

Besides, the sounds of the conflagration before them and the cooing and mooing of the mutated bovines lulled a lot of them to sleep. It was a pretty sight to cap off the day, to be honest. Nora's 'Bonnie Springs Bonfire' lit up the night and reduced what was left of the accursed ghost town to ashes.

Burn, cazadores, burn!

It had been awhile since the Courier was last in the throes of the legendary New Vegas underground death battle tournament. Then again, other than the odor, he hated the noise of the Thorn—primarily because all these hooting and cheering and screeching worsened his hangovers and gave him migraines.

"Welcome back, my hunter," cooed the venomous vixen that was Red Lucy.

Six neutrally nodded his greeting. "Hello again, Red."

The woman smirked as she sized him up from her makeshift throne. Built on a reinforced catwalk, the view from this bird's nest was unrestricted. The matron of the Thorn could oversee the entire arena that had borne witness to more duels than the violence the NCR had seen since entering the Mojave.

"What brings you back to the Thorn?"

"A favor."

Red Lucy's smile darkened. "Of course. Another favor. Your debt—"

"Still rings, I know." The Courier respected the woman but he was not in a mood to be any more courteous. "I'm here to settle it first."

"I see. I need eggs. New specimens to replace the ones I released to the Republic."

"Is that all?"

The vixen sized him up. Sharp eyes, a subtle lick of her tongue, that slight tilt of her chin. "A shame you are committed to the past."

You horny bitch. Six held himself down. He was off the market since Arizona twenty years ago. He tolerated having this woman know too much, all the way up to the disastrous Battle of Flagstaff—disastrous for the Desert Rangers, that is—but it pissed him off every time she dredged up what he had lost there. His stare transformed into a glower, much to Red Lucy's amusement.

"Or I must have mistook you when we first had our dealings." She snickered. "Eight children. Or was it nine?"

The Courier found it harder to suppress his rising anger. "Just rumors."

"More than that, it seems." Red Lucy stood from her throne and had one of her many sycophant guards bring her a RobCo tablet. The faces of his kids appeared on the screen, captured on tourist cameras and hacked NCR security feeds. "Quite dissimilar in appearance yet bonded together by camaraderie seen only among those with strong familial ties."

He held his tongue.

"I've heard tales of their...wonders. The 'Wonder Kids' of New Vegas." Red Lucy sauntered over to where he stood, rigidly planted onto the carpeted floor of her domain while two wasteland predators tore at each other down below to the merriment of the impoverished crowds. "Such wonders, I'm curious myself."

Vickers folded his arms. Better than showing clenched fists to this lioness.

She was close now. Close enough to smell her dizzying perfume, for her warm breath to lick his ear. "A match against one of my chosen champions."

"You know I'll make the match quick—"

"Not you." She pointed to the screen on her tablet. "One of yours against one of mine."

His heart skipped a beat. I'll kill you, you fucking whore. "... Deal."

Red Lucy purred.

The Courier watched her saunter back to her throne as the fights below ramped up in intensity. A chance glance revealed a mature deathclaw ripping apart the last of a quartet of drugged up Fiends to the roaring climax of the crowd. For a second, he mistook the wide spray of blood on the arena floor for Ruby's cape.

I'm sorry, kids. He turned away to see one of the guards grumble a curse while passing a bundle of caps to another. Dad has to do some gambling. Daddy needs to win...

Goddamn it, he needed a drink right now.

The Courier stayed with Red Lucy for the next several hours, some of which were spent touring the cages where the deadliest predators of the Mojave Wasteland thrashed about. Eventually, they monitored the release of over a dozen of her largest cazadores unto the surface through a tunnel system that exited through a drain pipe close to the crucial highway east of McCarran Headquarters.

The matron of the Thorn assured him that more would follow in the coming days, hitting random points in the Mojave across random intervals. By next week, she expected his best 'offspring' to square off against her mightiest beast.

Six knew that he had used up his last grant of leniency from Red Lucy. From now on, he had to deliver on his end else risk a loosing an important card in his hand. As he made his way back to the surface in the western ruins of Vegas, his Pip-boy had already picked up the first confirmed reports of NCR forces being diverted to clear the roads of wasteland predators.

Your move, James.

When their tour of duty came to an end in the months following the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, the Misfits contemplated either reenlisting together or going their separate ways. Mags wanted to pursue her dream of becoming an NCR ranger, O'Hanrahan yearned to go back to his family's farm in California, Poindexter pondered an offer to work for some start-up tech office, and Razz had a mind to drift to Baja to see the beaches there. The four of them had every right and every reason to leave this chapter of their lives behind.

Instead, they met-up again not too long after at the same recruitment office with their papers filled out and their bags packed. Maybe it was because of that fateful week at Camp Golf years ago, or their galvanization in battle, or the fact that Ninth Platoon was spared disbandment and rotated around Clark County to ensure total annexation. For some reason or another, they could not find it in their hearts to let go of what they had going for them.

So here they were, three years after the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. Still called the Misfits but revered throughout the military, and even back home, for their gallantry and heroism. Sure, they still had their moments but they were seen as among the most determined in the core army of the NCR. Hell, they reached a point where command sent them on missions that were normally undertaken by either the vaunted rangers or the heavy shock troops.

This newest mission in particular was to investigate the thick smoke rising from the desert plain south of Red Rock Canyon. There were three landmarks charted in that particular area: Vault Nineteen, Bonnie Springs, and Spring Mountain Ranch. Normally, a ranger squad would have been the logical choice given the presence of some of the wasteland's deadliest predators making that region their home.

Then again, they had heard the reports of deadly wasteland creatures popping out of nowhere across the highways inside NCR borders. That meant sending the elites to fend them off and eventually assist hunter teams in tracking down the source. Compounding the issue was the confirmed sightings of even more wasteland hostilities moving around further east, leading to many of the regional troops being concentrated on potential hotspots up and down the Colorado River.

"Man, what a stroke of bad luck," snorted Corporal Razz. He wiped the sweat from his brow while fiddling with the cards on his hand. It was humid in their tent up here in Fort Mead which was not doing miracles for his mohawk which, thankfully, the NCR military didn't try to shave off this time.

"It's Vegas," huffed the bespectacled technical Specialist Poindexter who had up to this point won two out of their three poker games today. "Wouldn't be Vegas without bad luck."

Corporal O'Hanrahan shuffled into their tent, caring to avoid hitting his head on the beam because of his height. "So y'all ready to go?"

"Where's sarge?"

On cue, Master Sergeant Mags walked in with her face alight. "You guys ready to hunt cazadores?"

Razz dipped his head in his hands. "Oh shit."

Poindexter took off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Really?"

"Not really," O'Hanrahan said modestly. "Hopefully not."

"Pray that we don't," Razz grunted, throwing down his cards. "I hate those fuckers."

"Man, I was really liking the view up here, too," Poindexter whinnied.

Mags folded her arms. "I thought you hated the view."

"That was the desert, sarge. I meant the lake. The lake's beautiful. And it's clean, too."

"Uh-huh. Did you pack up your clean Lake Mead water?"

"Oh ha-ha. Did you say goodbye to your best friend with the collar?"

O'Hanrahan glanced to his superior who was hiding back a flush. "Sarge, I thought we weren't supposed to fraternize with the civilians."

"It doesn't count as fraternization when the civvies started it, right?" snickered Poindexter. "'Sides. Who gives a shit? Not like command's doing anything about game night over by the bunkhouse every Friday."

Mags frowned. "Winter is a disciplined lady! She acted defensively in response to verbal provocation as is her prerogative as an officer, herself."

"'Officer.' Sure. From At-las? Like I believe that crap." Razz threw up his hands and dropped his voice in mocking mimicry. "'A city in the sky, high above the clouds...' Pfft. Yeah, right. How the fuck can a city be floating up in the stratosphere? We can't even shoot a satellite up there yet."

"Can you swing a sword?" challenged their sergeant.

"Do I need one?" sneered the reformed Fiend raider. "Sarge, we have guns. With armor-piercing bullets. And grenades. Fuck, our combat knives are better than that sword or whatever the fuck you call that shit she swings around."

"Twin sabers," Mags corrected.

Poindexter snorted. "She'll get shot before she gets close. And she's got more reach than that psycho dominatrix with the riding crop."

"Goodbitch?" hooted Razz. "Yeah, what the fuck's up with her? Always got a stick up her ass or something. Acting like a fucking drill sergeant."

"Have some respect, you two," barked their sergeant.

"They didn't respect me, sarge."

"You weren't inviting any."

"Oh sue me."

"Um, I think we should start packing up," O'Hanrahan said diplomatically. "Captain McCredie wants us at command for a last briefing. Just the four of us, by the way."

With that, the Misfits mustered out of their tent, past the rows of others and occasionally bouncing back greetings and raps with the other troops of Ninth Platoon. Their route had them walking the path that snaked between their barracks and the refugee quarter. A chainlink fence separated the two but that did not stop some of the troops from crossing over and chatting up the weird-looking folks with the fantastical tales of a shattered moon, shadowy-like creatures that preyed on emotion, and some kind of soul-like energy that had half the officers here lose their minds.

It was an open secret to everyone here that something weird was going on with these people and not even the eggheads and college degree contractors had a suitable explanation for. At first they thought Lake Mead had been contaminated this whole time. Then word got around that their rations were spoiled or spiked with LSD or something. Eventually, the concept of Aura and Semblances came to be accepted as a facet of the wasteland that would forever remain a mystery, granted only to these refugees.

As far as Ninth Platoon knew, these civilians were supposed to have been transferred to the Aerotech Rehabilitation Camp in the Vegas suburbs east of McCarran Headquarters but something (unspecified but apparently really concerning) happened there that made command change their minds and transform half of Fort Mead into a tent city for the civilians. Not that the soldiers here were complaining. Much.

"Hey. That bird. It's eyeballing me again," Razz whispered, pointing at a curious looking black corvid perched on top of one of the tents.

"You're loosing it, man," Poindexter snorted.

"No, for real! I swear it's the same one. You know the one that keeps flying over the Fort?"

"Like a bad omen? Seriously? Come on, Razz. If you weren't sober, I'd say you smoked something strong."

"Look, I'm just saying it's weird, alright?"

"Whatever."

Razz kept his eye on the damn thing, even narrowing his eyes when it tilted its head at him. It eventually flew off over towards the refugee quarter. Particularly, it landed close to the one thing that got Mags giddier than the day Courier Six walked into Camp Golf.

And, of course, Mags just had to stop in the middle of the damn way, causing O'Hanrahan to freeze up so he wouldn't bump into her. Which meant Poindexter bumped into him. And Razz bumped into Poindexter. All because their hyperactive squad leader was grinning wider than a kid on Christmas. Like an excited schoolgirl, she waved across the yard at Winter Schnee, white hair tied up in a bun and dressed up in the NCR's surplus army garb as she set up a quintain for practice. All the while, the ugly metallic collar on her neck continued to blink its ominous red light.

Winter didn't notice any of them at first. Instead, she had that trademark frown of hers directed at the same bird of all things. Huh, that little shit was getting on her nerves too.

Mags kept waving until Winter looked their way. And the Ice Queen smiled, posture prim with back straight, and waved back. O'Hanrahan smiled and waved as well. Razz and Poindexter rolled their eyes. If Winter Schnee—or even Glynda Goodwitch for that matter—ever smiled, it sure as hell wasn't at them.

All the while, that lone black bird flew to a higher perch to continue its lonely vigil over the entire camp.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: April 10, 2020

LAST EDITED: July 5, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED: May 2, 2020

Chapter Text

"Are those...trees?"

"What?"

Yang pointed to the green stippled brush strokes she was seeing in the distance, west of their campsite on the edges of Bonnie Springs. "Over there! I think those are trees."

"We've already seen trees, Yang," Weiss dismissed.

"No! I mean, living trees! Like ones with real, green leaves in them." The blonde brawler handed the binoculars to her teammate. "Look, Weiss-cream! Green leaves and bushes, too."

Weiss surveyed the location herself and, with a gasp loud enough to draw in the rest of their friends, stammered that there was indeed a literal oasis further up the dried creek. Ruby zoomed ahead, snatching the binoculars from her teammate and perching herself on a rock several paces ahead. She was giddy in seconds.

"Water, guys!" the reaper squealed. "I see water!"

"Water?" Nora echoed excitedly.

"Real water?" Jaune asked.

"Clean, non-irradiated water?" Blake inquired.

Ruby took a second sweep and nodded. "Yep! Water. Like a pond. A really big pond. With bushes, shrubs, and trees around it. I can see bighorners too!"

"Alright, that settles it," Yang declared cheerfully, shouldering her pack and the pushing up half of her sticky mane under her cone helmet. "We're heading over there right now."

"We could all stand to be hydrated," mused Pyrrha with her Garand snuggled between her arms.

Ren hummed along, clicking shut the straps to his backpack that housed much of his and Nora's supplies. "It'd be nice to clean up after ourselves as well."

"A drink, a bath, and a maybe even a little swim?" listed Nora with Syrup nuzzled against her boot. "It'll be just like Cottonwood!"

Velvet held up her hand. "Shouldn't we be heading for Vegas? Why the detour?"

Heads turned to the sophomore.

"Come on, Velvet," cooed Yang, throwing her arm over her shoulder. "Think about it! Refill your canteen at a natural spring? Have some real leaves ruffle your skin? Maybe dip your head in a cold, crystalline pool? Imagine the clean water of Goodsprings except it's a lake."

"If you wanted that, you should be heading to Lake Mead then."

"You're no fun."

Velvet sighed. "Fine then. I could use a refill. Go wet your feet if you feel like it but I'm for reaching Vegas before dusk."

"Or Red Rock Canyon," posited Blake. "It's an NCR settlement but it's safer and more populated than the city ruins."

"Better hope there aren't any troops there," grunted Nora.

With another collective decision made, the two teams shouldered their weapons and packed up their camping gear. Weiss's compass identified their bearing west, allowing Ruby to take point on their trek towards the oasis. The sight of living trees, shrubbery, and lush greenery growing over a burned down building outweighed the thought that this may be too good to be true. In the months that they had been trekking across the Mojave—or rather Clark County—such a sight was rare and far more welcoming than the concrete rubble jungle that was New Vegas.

Blake and Velvet became hesitant as they got close, though. And for good reason. They could hear something moving around up ahead and they were damn sure it was not the bighorners that Ruby had spotted.

Definitely not just bighorners. And definitely not cazadores. But still just as bad.

The girls stomped their boots down hard on the giant mantises that had emerged out of the greenery; once on the head and once on the abdomen as Six often emphasized (and once demonstrated to that nightstalker that one time). The bugs were already dead but they needed to be sure. That inevitably left them with muck and grime on the soles of their boots, sticky innards that had to be washed away or manually peeled off.

Good thing there was the pond, right?

Not quite.

Tick. Tick. Tick-tick-tick. Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic—

"You have got to be shitting me," Yang growled, nearly hurling her raving Geiger counter into the water. "It's irradiated."

"So much for a break."

"Or a drink."

"Or a bath."

"Or a swim."

"Look on the bright side," Ruby chimed in. "This place can't be that bad. The bighorners are drinking from it."

Heads turned to the mutated bovines perched on the bank across from them. Half were lapping up the water while half were staring at them...or mainly at the infant deathclaw that was licking away the bits of crushed mantis from the heels of Nora's boots.

"Ruby," Weiss chimed in. "Have you been checking our dosimeters lately? We can't risk absorbing any more rads. We don't have enough meds to detoxify."

"Maybe we could get something off the trees," the reaper bargained. "I think I can see some fruits up there."

They traced her pointing finger to the California junipers growing on the pond's edge, some branches hanging directly over the water. Sure enough, amid the leaves dangled more than a handful of the honey-colored bulbs. Or some of them looked like dried honey...except there wasn't a beehive anywhere. And honey did not have a shade of green. Was it even honey?

"Sis, as much as they look really appetizing, I don't know what the hell they are and that worries me," Yang countered. "These plants—these trees—grew out of this pond. They might as well be irradiated."

"Well, it's not like we're all at risk of anything too serious."

"Yet," Blake murmured dryly. The Mojave sun was getting to her and despite being from Menagerie, the heat was still a pain.

Ruby paused to check the readings on her own dosimeter. She herself had low isotope levels but with Weiss being the absolute paragon of caution, she had to mount an argument if only to vindicate their trek all the way here to this burned down ranch.

"Rad levels are low on me," she announced.

The others did check their own readings and likewise concurred: no one was at definite risk of anything serious. Not yet.

"Man, this sucks," Nora groused. Even Syrup groused with her. "Ain't that right, boy? So much for an oasis."

"If we're we won't find use for the water, then perhaps we can forage around it," Ren suggested.

"What's there to forage?" Weiss snorted.

Velvet shrugged. "Edible leaves? I've hand bites of mint before and they kept me going for a few hours."

"Hate to burst your bubble, Velvet but I can't see any mint anywhere. No barrel cacti or honey mesquite either," Jaune reported. "Except for those berries up there, I don't see much we could gather without having to go all the way back out into the desert."

Pyrrha leaned over to her partner. "Jaune, I don't think those are berries."

"Crusty honey?" Yang guessed defeatedly. "Mutfruits? Mutated mango?"

"It does look appetizing," Ruby drawled.

The group eyed each other. Six had often said that vegetation that had managed to grow and flourish out of irradiated soil was largely safe, having absorbed a majority of the dangerous isotopes to mutate into something safe and beneficial. Perhaps the big, bulging, slightly misshapen 'fruits' dangling off the branches were as clean and healthy as banana yucca.

Said branches stretched directly over the water. Which meant someone had to go up there to get them. Because goodness knows no one wanted to wade into an irradiated pond to gather fruits shot off a tree. And also because Blake was the only one among their number who was nimble enough and the most experienced at scurrying up thin, bendable trees much like how a house cat would...

"You guys suck," she muttered as she approached the closest malformed California juniper.

Now, it had been a considerably long while since the cat faunus had had to live off the land. When Blake abandoned the White Fang, by extension she largely abandoned the outdoorsman practices that was part of daily life there. She had acclimated greatly to the urban landscape which meant having to relearn much of the tricks that kept her alive and on the move in the wilds.

There was also a major difference between the wild forests of Vale and the dry, merciless expanse of the Mojave Desert. Not to mention, she was assailing a precariously shaped juniper in surplus combat fatigues. Not really the type of clothing she wanted to be wearing when assailing trees the way she naturally did.

That was why her original attire was tailor-suited to match her agility and flexibility. That and all she carried on her person was Gambol Shroud. Not a combat harness laden with twenty pounds of equipment, a service rifle hanging off her shoulder, a sidearm strapped to her hip, and Gambol Shroud. Granted, she dropped most of it back on the ground but she did not like how Yang was sitting close to her stuff with a hand digging through her satchels and pouches.

"You can do it, kitty-cat!"

"Careful! I think I heard that thing creaking!"

"Nice hiney!"

Oh shut the hell up, Blake mentally screamed. Yes, she was a cat faunus. Yes, she could climb up trees. Yes, she was nimble, sleek, and sneaky. Yes, she was aware of her blessed posterior so stop bringing attention to it, Nora!

"Do I have to put a glyph under you in case you fall?"

Fuck off, Weiss. "Do you want to eat or what!?" hollered the cat faunus.

That seemed to shut them up.

Except for Yang who, in addition to pilfering her gear for a dumb joke, saw a ripe opportunity for her big, dumb mouth. "Hell yeah, I do! Move that ass and get us some sweet, juicy, filling booty!"

Blake resisted the urge to gnaw at the bark she was wrapped around. Gods, these spare trousers she bought from Chet back at Goodsprings were making it so hard to inch around—

Rip!

"Well..."

"Shit..."

"What a view..."

Growl. Yes, she heard Syrup let out a very un-predatory growl.

"Perverts," hissed the cat faunus.

"Says the pot to the kettle," Weiss sniped.

Blake scurried further up the branch, carefully twisting around to hide her lower half in the canopy. She made a mental note to switch immediately back to her own pair once she got down. In the meantime, she crawled to where she needed to be; just close enough to grab a handful of...

"Uh...these don't look like what I think they are," she announced. The rough texture of these 'fruits' made her hairs stand on end. They didn't seem right but they were soft, bulbous, and—thanks to the Mojave heat and how tired she was—attractive.

"Can you see anything else, then?" Ruby barked back.

The cat faunus glanced around, trying to recall the differences between various berries and nuts and conifer leaves and which among them were edible and hallucinatory. Of course, with half the group pestering her to hurry up (and other half vocally doubting her ability to forage while endlessly poking at her rear end), she threw discernment to the wind and ended up indiscriminately grabbing as much as she could before climbing down.

"Aren't these a little too green to be berries?" Weiss noted, eyeing a particularly oval bulb larger than a head of barrel cacti.

"Oh, don't be picky," Blake snorted.

"Yeah, that's what Six says," Nora added. "You sure you're not turning into him?"

"She does spend an awful lot of quality time with him," Ruby added.

Yang snickered. "Heh, more like giving him back rubs after a bad hangover. Ain't that right, kitty-cat? I mean, you did show him your new nightie, right? You know, the one at Mick and Ralph's that you just had to buy because it was just purr-fect for your reading sessions?"

The B in RWBY groaned.

"These don't look like mutfruits," voiced Jaune, rolling around his share. "I know we can't have much choices out here in the desert but...isn't this supposed to be purple? And is it this...rough and...squishy?"

"It smells off," Velvet added.

"Feels rather calloused," Ren noted apprehensively.

"Gods, if Six was here, I'd help him shove these down your throats," Blake hissed exasperatedly.

"You guys know that dude's a cyborg, right?" Yang raised. "He must have some kind of like iron liver or something that filters out all the nasty stuff."

The cat faunus twitched. "Quit your whining and eat up."

"Sheesh, calm your tits, kitty-cat," grunted her partner.

"I don't mean to be rude," Pyrrha interjected. "But...are you sure these are, uh, edible?"

"This again? Ugh! If you don't want it, you can go dig through the bushes over there," Blake barked, now stressed from the heat, the bugs, and the fact that she was thirsty, sweaty, hungry, stinky, and forced to forage for her picky friends.

Gods, was this what Six felt like when he was feeding them?

"You mean you saw something over there that didn't involve climbing up trees?" Nora raised.

"You know what? Give me that!" The cat faunus snatched up someone's share and proceeded to take a big bite off of it.

Everyone leaned in close to watch Blake chew angrily at what they all thought were mutfruits. Except, it turned out not to be a mutfruit. To their horror, what had been budding off of these oasis trees were actually bundles of mantis oothecae.

They quickly fed it all to Syrup while Yang rubbed circles over Blake's back as the latter regurgitated into the irradiated pond.

"Aww, it ain't that bad, kitty-cat."

"I just ate, ugh, bug eggs, Yang!"

"Not the first time you had that, right?"

"I wasn't that desperate to live off of that crap!"

"Hey, on the bright side, at least you're hungry for lunch."

Blake eyed her partner. She did not like how wide Yang was grinning. "... What's for lunch?"

"Uh...boiled eggs?"

And the cat faunus went back to heaving.

Six moved as fast as he could.

He bought very little from the traders in the underground. Once on the surface, he kept a steady pace, avoiding the sun as much as he could—there was too much reflective material on him. He only took what he needed as he maneuvered through the South Vegas ruins, leaving behind a trail of cadavers that would be the boon of the next scavenger to walk these parts. With the Fiends largely scattered to the desert, the only hazards to worry about were petty raiders, wasteland predators leeching down from the mountains, or NCR troops gone AWOL because they gambled their asses off at the casinos.

And it was as he was hiking over the crumbled concrete hill of a collapsed multi-story that he first caught the lone covered Dodge following the streets west. The NCR army truck moved at a moderate pace, rumbling over broken sections of highway and slowing down to carefully carve around corners and tight turns.

Who do we have here and where are you off to?

The Courier maneuvered rapidly through the rubble, pushing his abused body to the limits until he found himself a comfortable spot on the second floor of one of the concrete apartments on the outskirts. From here, he saw the Dodge weave out of the ruins into the open desert highway. He counted four heads bobbing around inside. It was hard to tell who exactly they were but that did not matter in the moment.

By now, they were too far for him to intercept them and, even if he tried, he could not outrun a vehicle. So he sat back and watched as the car disappeared behind the mountains. He would catch up with them later.

A single squad headed west, seems like. So much for drawing away the NCR from his rendezvous point with the kids. Four troops. Could be grunts, could be rangers.

Six had a feeling they were going to be a problem later down the line. If they did and they couldn't be paid off, then James would have to write more condolences to more families in California.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: January, 2019

LAST EDITED: May 19, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED [FFN]: May 19, 2020

Chapter Text

Red Rock Canyon was as beautiful as it was dry.

"Welcome to the Red Rock Commune!"

"Christ on a stick, I'll be damned... You're them 'Vegas Wonder Kids', aren't'cha!?"

"Is it true that you got superpowers from all that radiation?"

And, as teams RWBY-V and JNPR-S learned from the rather excitable NCR settlers residing there, the whole area had previously been the home of one of the most aggressive yet well-organized tribal societies that existed in the Mojave up until the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. Said group still haunted the people living here with their murals and effigies dotting the walls of the canyon.

"How 'bout a deal. We won't tell anyone you're here if you can get rid of them statues up there on them hills."

"And put down some goddamn wasteland beasts while you're at it."

"Don't worry too much about the graffiti. We'll scrape 'em off ourselves eventually."

Blake hummed deep in thought. After spending an hour cleaning the clifftops with Yang, she found herself resting her legs on an outcrop where an old mural towered over her. Beside her were piled the dismantled totems that had been cobbled together from sticks, bones, and plastic and metal junk.

"It's like a cave painting, don't you think?" Yang mused.

"Hard to believe that an entire society thrived here for so many years and then suddenly vanishing in a single day," Blake remarked distantly.

"Great Khans," the blonde worded, tilting her head at the crude painting of a supposed Great Khan gutting three men in black suits with a spear. Her thighs and knees still ached from the hike all the way up here. "I don't know what a 'khan' is but they sounded pretty badass."

"They were raiders, Yang," retorted her partner. "They stole from other people just to get by. Did you not see the effigies we just had to take apart? Not very friendly."

She sighed. "Still badass though. Wouldn't mind having a few badass-looking ghost statues looming over the valley, y'know. Besides, I heard they were supposed to be really tough. Like stonewall tough."

"To their credit, they did try to live off the land," Weiss remarked, coming up beside them with Ruby and Velvet. "Good work on taking apart these dreadful icons. They were rather disturbing."

Yang raised a doubtful brow. "You really think these people won't rat us out to the NCR? Y'know, considering that they are NCR?"

The heiress folded her arms. "They have their reasons for helping us. Besides, we've helped them more than their own government did so we are in their good graces."

Blake shrugged. "I mean...look at this place. Where was the government support they were promised when they headed out to found their own town?"

Ruby twiddled her fingers. "They're self-sufficient, though."

"True," Weiss sighed. "Amazing how much you can grow out here with such arid soil and a single mountain stream, let alone scramble enough scrap to make these images to plant on these precarious perches."

"Six did say that desperation breeds creativity," intoned the reaper. She shuffled her boot against the junk that Blake and Yang piled on the ground. "The settlers said that we could keep whatever scrap we could get from all these Great Khan stuff so that's a plus, too."

"Useful goods we could barter away for extra supplies if need be," added the rabbit faunus. She handed her juniors their field packs, now laden with hardened bread, slices of cheese, heads of preserved corn, and strips of jerky. "The logistics are running smoothly around here. Most of the produce is from California but it's better than, well, bugs and the wildlife."

Yang swiped a piece, already gorging herself with her new rations. "Cheese...sweet, filling cheese..."

"Remember they came from a brahmin udder," Ruby teased.

"Don't care. Hungry. Cheese good."

"Ammunition?" Blake asked.

"Should be delivered to our new sleeping areas," Weiss replied.

"Dibs on top bunk," chirped the reaper.

"We can't be picky, you dolt."

"I still get dibs on top bunk."

"Ugh. Fine. Sleep in a hammock over my head, why don't you."

"Speaking of sleeping areas, how's team JNPR-S on that front?" wondered their team blonde.

Velvet shrugged. "They should be setting up our beds for the night. Something about getting rid of some stuff from the last tenants but I'm sure it's just leftover junk."

Yang pumped her fist. "Fifty-fifty we're sleeping in one room together."

Blake groaned. "I've had enough of Nora's snoring, thank you."

The blonde poked her partner playfully in the ribs. "Aww, don't you worry, kitty cat. Mama'll make sure you get a goodnight sleep tonight, eh?"

"I've had enough of your snoring, too."

"Excuse me. I do not snore."

The other four girls eyed her warily.

"Okay. Maybe a little."

"As long as I have a solid roof over my head, I'm satisfied," Weiss groused.

"But I thought you liked seeing the stars," Ruby raised.

"I wouldn't enjoy them because your sister rasps louder than her own motorbike—"

"Hey!"

"—and our sleeping bags don't offer full body protection against flies, mosquitoes, ants—"

The reaper rolled her eyes. "Alright, alright, I get it. Not like we can find some kind of face cream repellant or whatever."

"Point is," reined in Velvet. "We have solid shelter that we can rest in. Hopefully one that isn't an abandoned military bunker or a moldy building that's about to fall on top of our heads at any moment."

"I suppose we could see the positive side in all this," Weiss acquiesced.

The five of them glanced back down on the rest of the canyon where many a hovel had been put together on top of lots where the Great Khans had once pegged their tents. Between them were gardens that were being cultivated to the best of the settlers' abilities, relying solely on the single mineral pond kept alive by a stream flowing out of a tight crevasse wedged into the mountain. Coupled with the total absence of any NCR military presence to protect their open flanks and a single vulnerable land route from which vital supplies could be brought in, it seemed almost impossible to survive in a place like this.

And yet these people somehow made it through, carving out a new settlement that they re-christened the Red Rock Commune. Crops, though scarce, still thrived on desert soil. Commerce, though weak, kept flowing into the commune. Camaraderie and cooperation helped to put this place on the map, even if it seemed they were invisible to the war machine that was amassing on the banks of the Colorado River.

"I'm amazed they haven't given up," Weiss remarked softly. "This valley appears rather desolate."

"Giving up was a choice they had and they chose not to," Blake replied evenly. "They're making the best of what they have."

"The Great Khans had survived in this very same spot but they...they're not here. Not anymore." The heiress turned to her erstwhile opposite. "Blake, do you recall anything in the NCR reports that mention what happened them?"

"Six...dealt with them."

"Oh. I suppose the details are either vague or have been redacted?"

"Both."

Yang raised her brow. "You two onto something?"

"The Great Khans were a long-time enemy of the NCR. General Moore, who was a colonel at the time, ordered Six to..." Blake averted her gaze to the 'cave art' that had attracted her to the top of this shelf on the side of the canyon. "... Six made sure the Great Khans wouldn't support the Imperium Americana when they were going to attack Hoover Dam."

Given that Red Rock Canyon was a resettled NCR village, the insinuations made them uneasy.

"Do we want to know how he did that?" croaked Ruby.

The cat faunus stared at the cracks in the dirt before looking up at her curious teammates. "Honestly, right now I'm really not sure if what we read in those documents are true."

Weiss sighed. "Even I'm starting to disbelieve everything we've learned so far."

Yang, Ruby, and Velvet eyed each other warily. Out of their whole group, Blake, Weiss, and Pyrrha had been the most meticulous in combing through Courier Six's NCR records.

"Did people die?" the reaper asked hesitantly.

Blake and Weiss slowly nodded.

"Let's leave it at that then," Velvet concluded. "How about we all find team JNPR-S? I'm sure they're lounging in their hammocks right now."

"So this used to be a drug den," Pyrrha remarked uneasily.

Team RWBY-V gawked in mild disbelief at the ransacked trailer park festering under the Mojave heat at the end of a wide crevasse often forgotten by the rest of the Red Rock Commune. The smell of something dead and rotting had been balanced out by the metallic odor of chemical waste. Thankfully, none of the air they were breathing in was toxic since most of the lethal components had either been buried deep underground or salvaged by the settlers.

"Eh...I've been in worse," shrugged Nora from one of the trailers. She stood nonchalantly over a decaying wooden porch hammered in front of the doorway. "This is our spot, by the way. Can't fit everyone in here so you're going to have to find your own."

"This whole dumpsite is our spot," Yang groaned.

"Please tell me they actually cleaned this place up," Weiss begged.

Before Pyrrha could reply, Jaune and Ren emerged out of one of the trailers with handfuls of used syringes, broken glassware, and other decaying narcotics paraphernalia that they unceremoniously heaped into the compost pit dug at the far end of the plot. Syrup followed after them with what appeared to be a dirty elastic...something...hanging from its maw.

"Might as well make the best of what we have, right?" Ruby quipped.

Weiss opened her mouth to retort. Only to snap it back shut. Then sighing as she defeatedly dragged herself to one of the vacant trailers.

"Weiss?"

The heiress peeked in and nearly heaved. A few deep breathes later and she used her glyphs to empty out the garbage decaying in the back.

"You know," Jaune remarked. "I'm kinda surprised all the bloatflies, the geckos, and the cazadores skittering way up there didn't just swarm this whole place with all the crap piled up in here."

Everyone's heads creaked towards him.

"What?"

Ruby gave him the flattest look. "Jaune?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't jinx us, please."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

Later that day, the whole lot of them hastily sardined themselves in their trailers trying to hide from the four uniformed NCR troops that had suddenly arrived in the commune. They could hear their footsteps and their idle chatter reverberate against the canyon walls.

"Goddamn," gruffly drawled one of them, "and I thought the Khans buried this shit-hole 'fore things went to shit."

"So you've actually been here before," remarked another, a lady.

In trailer number one, Ruby did her best to keep from making a sound. Blake was naturally silent and, together with Weiss and Velvet, sat conveniently on top of Yang who, in the scramble, ended up face first on the dirty metal floor. Over in trailer number two, Jaune did his very best to ignore the mosquito that landed on his nose. With how cramped they were in here, he was surprised he was able to hold his rather painful and awkward position—tightly sandwiched between rusty shelves and metal boxes with Pyrrha made it difficult to breathe. Across from them, Ren was pinned under Nora and Syrup, the former clamping her hands down on the latter's maw.

"Campfire looks fresh," reported a nasal third.

"Guess we're staying here then," concluded the fourth.

Both teams felt their insides twist.

"Damn. Still smells like a shit-hole. Fuckin' A."

"Hey, Sarge. How long do we have to stay here again?"

"Not too long, I hope."

"I hate to complain but...this isn't really a nice spot to set up camp."

The mosquito was getting really plump on Jaune's nose. Not to mention, the itch was driving him nuts. Meanwhile, Yang was starting to get very agitated by the weight of three people pressing down on her spine and the fact that she was starting to taste something other than rust, tin, or copper from the floor.

"Man, this place brings back memories."

"So you ran with not just the Fiends but with the Khans, too?"

"As if I could make the cut to be a Khan. Listen, sometimes Khan couriers would get whacked on the roads so smarter guys in the herd like yours truly got sent topside to fetch the drugs."

"And this is where they made the drugs, correct?"

"Hell, yeah. Jack and Diane cooked up all the good stuff right here. Hell, I'm surprised the trailers are still around. If things haven't changed that much, then I think I can show you where they used to brew the meth. They had a really cool set-up in here—"

Pitter-patter, gasp, and growl. Ruby's eyes went wide as did everyone else.

"Whoa! What the fuck!?"

"Hands in the air!"

"Wait! Don't shoot! Let us explain!"

"Syrup! Down, boy!"

And that was how the Vegas Wonder Kids ended up engaged in an awkward standoff with four dazed and confused NCR troops.

The standoff lasted for thirty seconds. Ruby was as slack-jawed as her friends when the sergeant's eyes went wide and her face changed from authoritative concern to giddy jubilee. Aggression quickly turned into confusion.

For both sides.

"Oh. My. God. Boys, stand down! Oh-my-God-oh-my-God-oh-my-God!"

The little reaper glanced around to see everyone else equally perplexed. Conversely, the other three NCR soldiers were suddenly vexed by their own squad leader, the tips of their rifles already arcing to the ground.

"Oh, shit," sighed the mohawk guy.

"For fuck's sake, sarge," growled the one with the glasses.

"Don't mind her, she gets like this," apologized the tallest.

Jaune shrugged. "Um, it's fine?"

"Oh my God!" shrieked the sergeant. "You're the Vegas Wonder Kids! You're his kids! You're the real deal! Oh my God, I didn't think I'd ever meet you all in person! This is all so much for me, oh my God!"

Perturbed, Ruby nonetheless reciprocated by turning the muzzle end of Crescent Rose away from the soldiers. "Um, that's, uh, appreciated? Nice to meet you, uh—"

The uniformed woman extended her hand. Or rather, grabbed hers in a vigorous handshake. "Master Sergeant Maggie Stonham, Ninth Platoon, First Infantry Battalion, NCR Army! But you can just call me Mags. It's an honor to finally meet you, Miss Ruby Rose!"

"L-likewise, s-sergeant!"

"So," drawled Nora. "Are we, like, we're friends, now?"

"And you must be teams RWBY and JNPR!" prattled Mags. "Did I get that right? You're always on the news! Doing these awesome things like clearing out deathclaw dens and rebuilding Freeside and exposing a scandal on the Strip!"

Ruby nervously scratched the back of her head, glancing back at her teammates with a silent cry for help. "Y-yeah, err, that one. Pretty wild, h-huh, r-right?"

Pyrrha, with her characteristic smile, stepped forward. "Excuse me, Sergeant Stonham—"

"Just Mags is fine. And you must be Pyrrha, right? Pyrrha Nikos? The Super Spartan?"

"Super...Spar-tan?"

Mags, apparently, had drifted into her own world at this point. "Oh! And you must be her partner, Jaune Arc, the White Knight!"

"Um, I guess I am?"

"Ooh! And you two! You're Nora the Little Valkyrie!"

"Hey! Who're you calling little!?"

"And you're her sidekick, the Shaolin Master, and their pet—wow!—you really tamed a baby deathclaw. Awesome!"

"Uh, thank you for the compliment, sergeant?"

Mags, for some strange reason, cooed at the confused growl of the tethered infant deathclaw before jumping onto to team RWBY-V, excitably jumping from person to person with a pointed finger matching her manic groupie face.

"And you! Rowdy Red Ruby Rose!"

"Better than 'Little Red,' I guess."

"And you're Buckshot Bimbo—"

"What the fuck, seriously!?"

"—and you're the Kitty Caper—"

"Caper? Really?"

"—and you're the Ice Queen—"

"Of course, the monicker stays."

"—and you're the oldest of the bunch, the big sister, the Bad Bunny!"

"Oldest sibling of the bunch, huh," Velvet drawled, eyeing her 'family members.' "Yes. We are very much...siblings...in a way, I guess."

"Okay, this is getting out of hand," barked one of the soldiers. "Sarge! Get a fucking grip. Who the fuck are these people?"

Mags instantly turned around and paced to her subordinate with righteous fury. "Corporal Razz! You will address a national hero's offspring here with utmost respect and dignity!"

"'National hero's offspring'? What the flying fu—"

The trooper with the glasses sighed into his hand. "It's the Vegas Wonder Kids, dip-shit. The 'superhero' kids of Courier Six. Y'know, the teenagers with the weird radioactive superpowers or some shit. Like super speed and super strength and—ah, I don't fuckin' know—telekinesis?"

The tallest one, who towered over them all by a full two feet, approached the confused Remnant teens with a warm smile and his hands clasped before his chest. "I'm really sorry for my squad-mates. They can get a little rowdy sometimes."

"This is an oddly familiar scene," Weiss replied slowly. "So it's not that surprising, sir."

"Oh, that's a relief. Don't mind Mags. She can get really excited when she sees celebrities in person."

"Celebrities, huh," Yang remarked doubtfully. "I know we're famous and all but are we going to have worry about your chief going rabid over us?"

"I do hope so for your sakes." The man unclasped his helmet and dipped his head in a gentleman's bow. "By the way, I'm Corporal Jonah O'Hanrahan. Those two over there are Corporal Razor Tibits and Specialist Timothy Poindexter."

"Right," Ruby nodded, cautiously shaking O'Hanrahan's hand. "Nice to meet you all, sirs and ma'am."

As though she herself had a speed Semblance, Mags was already standing next to her subordinate with her hands on her waist and an even wider grin on her face. "I am so glad to be finally able to meet and talk with New Vegas's most famous defenders! Not like I get to meet with other famous and important people all the time, y'know, as part of being a soldier and all that but—"

"So you're supposed to be some superhero freak shows, eh?" snorted Corporal Tibits who had slinked over with Corporal Poindexter.

"I'm inclined to believe that you...cannot possibly be capable of such feats defying the laws of physics," the latter added condescendingly.

"So," Jaune started. "Does this mean that you're not going to report us to General Hsu?"

Heads quickly swiveled to him, some with eyes that glowed like ominous headlights in a dark train tunnel.

"What?"

Mags, for her part, expressed the confusion of her squad-mates. "Report you to the General? Why? Is there something going on? Maybe we could help! Not like we have anything else more important to do other than, y'know, 'chasing ghosts' as they say."

"It's...complicated," sighed Velvet.

"Hold up, hold up!" Yang interjected. "How can we be sure that we can trust you not to turn us in?"

"Turn you in?" Poindexter snorted with a raised brow. "What the fuck are you going on about? You got something to hide, bimbo?"

"You wanna go, four-eyes?"

Blake vexedly stepped between them. "Be civil, you two!"

"So you're here on a separate mission, then," Weiss quipped.

Razz folded his arms. "That's classified information, missy. In fact, why don't you give us information. Specifically, what the fuck is the brass thinking that they're having a bunch of kids with 'superpowers' run around New Vegas doing God knows what."

"You mean," Pyrrha said. "You don't know?"

O'Hanrahan humbly shrugged. "To be frank, ma'am, we don't really have clearance to know the specifics. Even if we did, we're not allowed to share it with you. Sorry."

Mags raised her hand. "What my squad-mates are trying to say is that we don't really know what's going on with relation to what the brass is having you do. We have our own purpose for coming all the way out here...even if it seems a little pointless."

Teams RWBY-V and JNPR-S exchanged glances between themselves.

"Pointless?" Ren raised.

Mags bit her lip as the color drained from her face. It seemed she had said too much. "Forget it. Nothing to concern yourselves with."

"Technically," Ruby remarked. "We're just coming back from a mission ourselves. It's an NCR mission so we're all on the same side. There really isn't not much to hide."

"Is there?" Razz snorted. "So you're telling us that you're working as contractors for the NCR."

Poindexter raised his chin. "How 'bout you tell us why you're out here in the first place. Seems fair, don't you think?"

Weiss put her foot forward. "Fair enough. We had just concluded dealing with some...complications in the wilds. The usual riff-raff, you could say. And you?"

"Uh-huh, alright then." Corporal Tibits smirked. "Well, we're here to investigate some...complications in the wilds. The usual riff-raff, as you like to call it."

Sergeant Stonham ultimately raised her voice, puffing out her britches and glaring at her two smug subordinates. "Okay, so we're all working for the NCR. Let's leave at that, shall we?"

"Sarge—"

"Shall we?"

Ruby nodded. "We can agree to that, sergeant."

"Good!" Mags sat on the wooden bench in front of the fire pit. "Now that that's out of the way...how 'bout getting to know each other more? First off, where are you all staying?"

Fingers pointed to the ground.

"Funny," drawled Poindexter. "We were about to set up camp here, too."

"I'm sure there's enough space for everyone," O'Hanrahan chirped.

Nora quickly thumbed the trailers. "Already called dibs on that one and that one."

Jaune chortled. "Don't worry, sirs and ma'am. We just got done clearing up the junk in the other trailers."

Razz raised his brow. "So you got rid of all the needles and condoms? Neat. Did you scrub the floors, too?"

Yang froze at the mention of the floor.

"We've got sleeping bags."

Corporal Tibits sighed and shook his head. "Uh-huh. Make sure you stay in those sleeping bags. Word of advice: make sure that you're skin doesn't make contact with any of the bare surfaces of those trailers. If you're going to sleep on the floor, best to either really cover it up or mop it clean."

Yang slowly creaked her head at the mohawk soldier.

"Why's that, sir?" Jaune inquired.

"This place has seen it all. Trust me. Orgies, overdoses, and the occasional piss- and shit-stain. Not just on the floor but on the walls and the ceiling too. Don't ask me how it got up there, though."

This time, Yang was not the only one who froze where they stood. Blake, Weiss, Pyrrha, and Ren each creaked their necks towards Razz.

Jaune gulped. "B-but that was a long time ago, r-right?"

The man shrugged. "Eh, you never know. Hell, I wouldn't trust the folks who just moved in. Who knows what freaky stuff they pulled off in here. What I'm saying is that you better watch where you lay your head 'cause if your skin makes contact with that metal, you're guaranteed a rash worse than a cazador sting."

"R-really?"

"Really," winked the former Fiend. "I've been here back when this place was an actual drug den. Not a very clean place."

Several minutes later, the Misfits had to stand guard while the Vegas Wonder Kids lined up for a bath at the only known accessible source of water in Red Rock Canyon. It was an amusing sight to the settlers.

It was also a very concerning picture for the Courier who had been watching them through his binoculars from across the valley.

Well, well. Been awhile since I last had a run-in with these numb skulls.

The lack of any sort of military presence in Red Rock Canyon was laughable but Six did not laugh. The only thing that had been keeping an eye on him when he entered the commune was that lone black bird that had been following him for the past couple days. Said bird had perched itself on an outcrop several feet above him.

I swear, there's something about that little fucker... Can't be natural for a lone corvid to be tracking something as big and troublesome as me.

Caw, caw!

"So you can read minds, too, birdie?" he joked to himself.

The crow tilted its head at him before fluttering away...across the valley...towards the kids and the soldiers.

You trying to tell me something or you found something else to poke your beak at?

Whatever the case, the Courier was done loitering up here. He had seen everything, reconnoitered everything, and was going to head down there and make his presence known. He felt conflicted on the way down, though. He really did not want to harm the Misfits—for all their stupidity, they were good kids.

Just like Ruby and company...

"Oh! Hello, s-sir!"

Six waved away the startled teenaged sentries guarding the only road into Red Rock. It was chaffed him that deeper he went, the quieter the place became. The settlers clammed up so much that by the time he passed the arena-turned-depot, the only noise he could hear was the banter between the kids and the soldiers.

And when he finally got up there, the last person to stop talking was Ruby who stared at him from the middle of the pond half-naked with silver eyes going wider than the curious red orbs of the bird that had perched itself on the rocks behind her.

"Hello, kids."

Major General James Hsu read through the dossiers again.

On his desk in his office at McCarran Headquarters were piled the recently printed profiles of every single Remnant refugee sheltered at Fort Mead. The statistics office had finally come around after a painfully long processing period, yielding additional details about the Remnant refugees that he had been sheltering in Fort Mead for weeks now.

Twenty-one people. Thirteen of them were 'faunus' or, in layman's terms, half-animal.

Hsu pored through the names, the details, the noted oddities, and the photographs for the third time, paying careful attention to the comments about their relations between them. Then he cross-checked some of those details with the other dossiers he had on file. When he was done, he leaned back on his chair.

He now had solid confirmation that Winter Schnee and Glynda Goodwitch were not the only refugees in his custody who had special ties to the Vegas Wonder Kids.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: March 17, 2020

LAST EDITED: June 10, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED [FFN]: June 10, 2020

Chapter Text

Courier Six stared into the embers in the fire pit trying to stifle an impending migraine.

While Red Rock Canyon had changed a lot over the past few years, the drug lab where over half the chems of New Vegas came from remained nearly the same. Looks like a shit-hole and still smells like it. Should've packed aspirin.

In front of him prattled one of his 'biggest fans' as Master Sergeant Stonham put it. The damn trooper remained at attention even after he expressed his disaffiliation with the NCR. Though she did give him a meticulous after-action report of everything that had transpired.

"Is there anything else, sergeant?" Vickers asked, seated on the wooden recliner in front of the fire pit.

"No, sir!"

Christ on a stick, I'm not your CO. "At ease, soldier."

Mags loosened up. As did the rest of the Misfits who breathed a sigh of relief after being strictly prompted to straighten their backs in front of him by their sergeant. And that was when Six finally had a clearer view of the brats skulking behind the squad. They all had their own visceral reactions to what they had heard but none more so evident than Kitty and Snowball. Can't blame 'em. Having an older sister leading the pack, half of which are half-animal, and they're all tagged and collared in a brahmin pen, I wouldn't be as concerned.

"Dismissed," Six said.

The Misfits—being the mascot misfits of the NCR Army—immediately slouched onto the ground around the fire pit, unceremoniously stretching their limbs and belching out. The Courier left them there to meet with the sister teams idling inside one of the trailers, half of whom were scratching at their arms, necks, and cheeks.

"Winter Schnee and Glynda Goodwitch," he started. "Care to tell me who they are?"

"Don't you already know?" snarled Weiss. "Winter is my sister! She's here in the Mojave, bound like some animal in a refugee camp!"

Calm your non-existent tits, Snowball. "'Collared' is the right word. What else about her?"

Taking three long breaths, she controllably replied, "She's an Atlesian military specialist. Graduated from Atlas Academy as a registered Huntress and enrolled into our armed forces as a technical specialist and liaison to General James Ironwood, the commander of all Atlas forces."

Another Jimmy, eh? "And Glynda Goodwitch?"

Blake answered, "Professor Goodwitch is our combat class instructor at Beacon. She's one of the best and most respected Huntresses in Vale."

She some kind of wicked witch of the west, huh. Goddamn, all this fairy tail bullshit is getting annoying. "So two femme fatales leading a ragtag bunch from your world. All still collared for some reason."

"Why are they still collared?" Ruby wondered aloud while unsubtly rubbing her bare arm which was getting redder by the minute. "Can't the NCR really—"

"It's what they were told," Jaune echoed. "Sergeant Mags didn't seem like she was lying when she explained that they tried everything to get them off. Her squad mates, too."

"I don't understand," Pyrrha added. "The NCR should have been able to disable those collars, right? They have the means, don't they?"

"Sounds fishy to me," chimed Nora, who had so far been constantly scratching at her neck.

Ren hummed. "We can only conjecture."

"Something's definitely not right," Yang piped. "There's something going on that they can't even trust their own troops."

"They're grunts," Velvet said. "I hate to sound blunt but they are technically low-level soldiers who might not take well to the deeper motivations of their commanders if they were informed of it."

Six looked over his shoulder to check on the Misfits—the four troopers were so caught up in their own conversations that they were most likely inattentive to whatever was being discussed over here. Meanwhile, Syrup nuzzled his boot, sniffing for that parcel of brahmin jerky that was supposed to last him until next week.

Fuck it. Here you go, you little shit. The Courier led the infant deathclaw outside where he had the Misfits try to feed it, the troopers being both parts stunned and fascinated that such an apex predator could be domesticated like this. Besides, whether in the wilds or in the civilized lands of the NCR, it was not everyday that one would see a deathclaw panting and collared like a dog.

Collared. Goddamn. Brings back some nasty memories. Six flushed away the memories of a toxic red cloud over a vain paradise. Either the NCR couldn't or wouldn't try to get rid of the damn things. They could be rigged to blow or worse. Fucking hell, James wasn't bullshitting.

He returned to the trailers, tapping on the doorframe to get the kids' attention. "Alright, everyone sit back and rest. You've been walking around the desert long enough."

"Yeah, no shit," groused Yang, who had begun scratching at her legs. "I've got blisters, my hair's a mess, and I stink."

"Don't we all?" groaned Blake, her arms folded and her fingers minutely digging at her reddening elbows."

Wait a minute. Six glanced around. Pyrrha was massaging Jaune on the shoulders while Ren tried to keep Nora from peeling her arm open. On the other hand, Weiss and Velvet were digging through their own supplies to have something for Ruby's, Yang's, and Blake's rashes...

Rashes. He eyed the dirty, rusted steel walls and the messy floors. Ah, shit.

"You didn't touch any of the bare surfaces here, right?" the Courier asked.

The two teams failed to meet him in the eye.

Six felt the veins in his temples start to pulsate. "Hyper, hold your arm out."

Ruby hesitantly did so, pulling up her sleeve to show the clear signs of a nasty skin rash stretching from her palms all way up to her shoulder. "Is it...bad?"

He twitched. Then sighed. Even a hot spring bath can't get rid of that shit. "Goddamn it."

"Cooking one-o-one!" barked the Courier. "Pay attention."

Teams RWBY-V and JNPR-S huddled by the campfire, some digging their nails into their skin and rubbing their arms and legs so much that the rashes they had gotten from the filthy trailers were getting even worse. With the Misfits out on patrol in their jeep (and covertly instructed not to divulge their location to any of their NCR comrades they might come across), he could freely focus on treating the nasty skin rash that had somehow infested his kids.

Just peachy. They're looking like junkies now. "Alright, we don't necessarily have what we need but this is close enough."

"Is it for our—"

He cut Jaune off. "Yes, Knight-boy. This is for your rashes. Quit scratching, you'll make it worse."

"But it itches!" whined Nora.

Goddamn it. "Stop scratching and pay attention!"

Minutes later, he emptied half a bottle of spare vodka just to calm his nerves after the kids came up with a 'balm' that almost gave him a rash when he tested it.

This was absolutely not what Six wanted to to end up doing but he had long since stopped giving a shit.

If you want something done right, you got to do it yourself. Can't believe these kids. He scooped a small portion of the gel he mixed together from the extracts of Nevada agave and barrel cacti growing around the canyon and rubbed them up and around Ruby's bare arms and legs. This'll help get rid of these rashes. And keep her from scratching herself 'til she bleeds.

Ruby squeaked.

Six stopped. "Tell me if I hit a nerve."

"N-no, you didn't," she mewled. "I'm just a...just a..."

"What?"

"She's ticklish," Yang finished for her, standing behind her sister who had been seated on the recliner while the Courier continued to spread the ointment across her fingers, toes, and even parts of her bare neck. "Like really ticklish. Like if you touch a certain spot and she'd moan like—"

"Shut your trap, Blondie," he hissed.

She threw up her hands. "Hey, I'm just saying. This looks kinda—"

Six flicked a some residue gel at Yang. "Can it. I know what you're thinking."

"Yang, don't make this weird," Blake added, trying to be subtle with her scratching on her elbows.

"Wh-what's the s-s-safe word again?" Ruby mewled. "Y-your pushing too h-hard!"

I sense a dumb misunderstanding coming. The Courier grit his teeth, only grunting in response as he spread the ointment over the ugly red patches scattered over Ruby's pale skin. Huh. Kid's pretty skinny to be able to swing around that scythe of hers. Then again...

"Ow, ow!"

Six stopped. "You're pretty stiff."

"Y-yeah!" Ruby hissed cathartically. "It f-feels...good?"

"Christ Almighty, am I your masseuse now?"

"Technically," Yang worded.

"Don't start with me, Blondie." Six paused to pop open a bottle of whiskey he fished out from his field pack. A few big swigs later and he was able to tune out the quips from everyone else around him and focus on kneading Ruby's tight muscles because it dawned on him that the girl needed a release and no one else around seemed capable of properly doing it.

"You know," the cat faunus said. "You were just supposed to demonstrate where to rub the ointment, right?"

"Too late for that now," winked the blonde.

The Courier groaned. Too late now. Might as well get this over with. "Can't believe this shit..."

To say that Ruby was in bliss was one way of putting it.

It was great that her skin stopped itching. It was amazing that she was getting a well-deserved massage. Trekking the Mojave and fighting all these wasteland horrors did a number on her. Seriously, all her stiff muscles were coming loose in fits of pain that actually felt good. Really, really good. For a moment, she thought she was in a massage parlor instead of some dirty old abandoned drug lab.

"Having a good time there, sis?" Yang chirped with that malicious smirk on her face.

"Don't ruin it," the reaper moaned.

"We've prepared more...ointment," announced Weiss with Velvet in tow, both plopping out of the trailers and carrying cans of the same refined gel that they had vigorously refined with a salvaged and thoroughly sterilized hot plate. "... What is...going on?"

The blonde winked. "Ruby's getting some spa treatment."

Velvet cracked a small smile. "She seems to be really enjoying it."

"That's an understatement," Blake quipped.

"Would y'all shut up, I'm trying to work here," the Courier barked tiredly.

Yang threw up her hands. "Hey, we're just here for the ointment. The free complimentary massage though..."

"Christ, Ellie," sighed Six, his tone suddenly dropping. "Why don't you get Alex to run your limbs, eh?"

The brawler's smile died. "Ellie?"

The heiress narrowed her gaze. "Alex?"

Ruby propped herself up on the recliner only to be pushed down while Six expertly kneaded her shoulder blades. "Six, wait—"

"Stiff like your mother," the Courier echoed.

The other girls froze.

"M-mother?" the reaper quivered.

"What did you just say?" Yang carefully worded under her balled fists.

"Can't have you constantly runnin' 'round with Ellie an' Alex, y'know? Y'might trip and we don't have enough meds for your condition, darlin'," he continued absently, a hauntingly foggy smile directing his hollow eyes towards the dirt.

"What are you saying?" Velvet prodded.

"Girls, wait," Blake interjected, holding back her teammates. "Look. He's not...he's not himself."

"You're right," Weiss conceded, peering close and catching Six's blank stare and a small, homely smile curling on the edge of his bearded lips. "He's... I can't say he's spaced out but he's..."

Six blinked once. Twice. Three times. Then he pulled back, stood up, and wiped his hands on his pants. This time, the mystique in his eyes had been replaced with the same weighted contemptuous pupils. "Alright, I'm done here."

"What about me?" Yang raised.

"Rub yourself," he countered gruffly, tossing her the can of gel.

"But—"

"Come on, Blondie, do I have to fucking hold your hand all the time?"

"I mean...n-not really."

Six twitched. "Shut up. You and Kit can get busy. You're partners, after all. Snowball and Cottontail, too."

Blake frowned. "Really?"

Velvet scowled. "You want us to rub each other?"

The Courier pinched the bridge of his nose. "For the love of... Pull your heads out of your asses! You're fuckin' old enough. Treat each other for fuck's sake. I ain't doin' it for you."

"No offense, Blake," Yang started. "But Six is better with his hands than anyone of us and..."

Six swatted her in the back of the head. "Shut the fuck up and treat yourselves already. Those rashes aren't goin' away by themselves."

"And where are you going?" Velvet called.

"A drink. God knows I fucking need one after this shit."

"Just a drink?" Weiss pressed.

The Courier glowered at her sharply. "Goddamn it, Snowball. I'll be back for dinner if that's what you want to hear."

And with that, he quickly saw his way out through the ravine before the girls could stop him. Along the way, he did his best to ignore the sounds of team JNPR-S awkwardly trying to massage each other in one of the trailers with another can of the same type of ointment they had cooked together over the fire.

Blake hugged her knees closer to herself on the outcrop overlooking much of Red Rock Canyon. She had switched into more comfortable yet still pragmatic clothing offered by the settlers whose generosity she feared they were continuously exploiting. A part of her argued not to think too much about it—the people here were only being kind and were willing to give away what little they had to help them. Unfortunately, said voice spoke in the tone of either Courier Six or Adam Taurus.

She did her best to clear her mind and in the process amplified her hearing, picking up the crickets and the whistling of the dry Mojave wind that blew sand and dirt onto her back. She pulled her jacket tighter around herself before laying down on the rocks to stargaze. She could hear the noise of her friends down below, goofing around the campfire they had set up with that oddball NCR squadron. There was also this bird, a strangely curious crow, nestled on one of the jagged edges of the cliff a few feet away.

It had been the only thing in the sky, occasionally squawking but constantly flying around. Almost as though it had been following them. For a moment, she thought she saw something similar in the Divide but she chalked it up to delusions brought by physical exhaustion and mild radiation sickness. But that bird was here, staring at her with its piercing red eyes, tilting its head every now and then.

Blake had given up trying to shoo it away; it always came back. She tried feeding it but it only stared at the crumbs she tossed at it. Then she just accepted its existence and occasionally fought the temptation to talk to the damn thing, even though she knew it wouldn't reason back with her. Because it was an animal...like her...

Rocks falling.

She whirled around with her pistol whipped towards the silhouette emerging out of the starry evening sky.

"At ease, Kit," Six said.

Blake holstered her gun and laid back down while the man clamored over the rugged clifftop to where she was. Strangely, that bird stayed atop the same outcrop, now bouncing its attention between the two of them.

"Nice spot," he remarked, now crouching next to her. "Not easy getting up here. Especially without climbing gear."

She ignored him, pushing her cheeks against her knees.

"You still itching? There's still some cream left."

"I'm fine," she blurted out.

"Let me see your arm."

With a huff, Blake unrolled her sleeve and showed him that her rashes were indeed fading.

"That's a relief," Six grunted. "You had dinner?"

"An hour ago. You're late, by the way. Ruby panicked and Weiss nearly threw a fit."

"Hey, at least, I came back." He glanced around. "This ain't an easy spot to go for a piss, if you ask me."

"Why are you here?"

"I'd ask you the same thing."

Blake frowned. "Overwatch."

He pointed to the carbine slung over her shoulder. "You don't have a scope attached, no binocs on you. And I doubt you have the range to pick off targets from this position. Plus, you have shitty aim."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. You got me. I just wanted some space, that's all."

"Right." He adjusted himself to sit next to her, the both of them now idling precariously on the edge of a high cliff. "A lot of space up here. Nice view of the stars."

"I don't plan on sleeping up here."

"Hyper know where you are?"

"I told them. JNPR and the Misfits, too. So they don't have to worry about me. What about you? Does Ruby know you're here?"

"Yeah. Kid needs to relax."

"She worries. Weiss, too. Everyone does. We all do."

"I ain't goin' to tip over and die anytime soon. Quit your worrying. It's annoying."

"Tell that Ruby then," Blake growled. "Tell that to Weiss. You said it to me, now say it to Yang and everyone else, too. Won't stop us from feeling concerned for you."

Silence.

Rustle, rustle.

Blake turned to see the Courier popping the cork off a glass bottle so he could take a big swig of his specially home-brewed 'wasteland tequila.'

"Want a drink?" he offered.

"No."

The subsequent moments passed wordlessly with the occasional sloshing of the alcohol in the bottle whenever he took a swig. For a spare second, both of them eyed the crow perching itself closer with more focused attention to Six's tequila.

"What's got you thinking, Kit?" the Courier started.

The cat faunus stared at him. "Why are you asking?"

He motioned at her cheeks. "You got that thinking face on."

She frowned. "What? You can read minds now?"

"Hah, I wish I could. Would've solved a lot o' problems that way."

Silence.

"You're not going away, aren't you," Blake remarked.

"Neither are you," Six rounded.

The bird crowed from its perch and the Courier and the cat faunus both decided to ignore it completely.

"We know," Blake started. "We know about the family you lost in Arizona."

Whistling wind.

"It must have been very hard for you and...I can't imagine...none of us can imagine...the pain you went through."

Crickets.

"I'm sorry. We...we screwed up and we thought we knew better and..."

Six fished another drink from his pack, twisted off the cap, and handed it to her without bothering to even look at her. "She was frail."

Blake hesitantly took the bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla, finding the taste a little too sugary than she wanted. "Who was frail?"

"Sick, really," the Courier continued distantly. "Born sick but none sicker than her mother. She couldn't speak either. And her eyes...they weren't even the same color. We all ate so much rads walkin' the wastes that we thought we ended up with a rad-child."

"Your...daughter?"

"She was four years old when I...when we left."

"Left?"

"To keep the world safe for everyone," Six choked out bitterly. "At least, that's what we told ourselves every time we mustered out."

Blake shifted in her spot, her legs now dangling over the edge with her face locked onto his. "You...left your family?"

Six kept swigging at his drink until the bottle was half-empty, his bloodshot weighted eyes dragging over the revelry below. "Long deployments, long missions, long time away from home...doin' things that were the opposite of what we stood for."

"What..." The cat faunus bit her lip, finding the right words. She glanced to the crow which continued to watch them with morbid, taunting fascination.

"She was walkin' healthy though. Runnin', too. Skinny little girl jumpin' 'round, ignoring her sickness so she could squeeze into tight spaces whenever she played hide-and-seek with Ellie, Alex, and the other kids," drawled the Courier.

Blake took in a deep breathe. "Who were they? Ellie and Alex?"

Six set aside his drink and pulled out a small plastic bag from one of his many pouches. In it were dried tobacco leaves, the same ones that he often chewed but never swallowed. She watched him shove a bundle into his mouth, waiting until she started smelling the faint pungent odor of coyote tobacco.

"Imperium fugitives," Six answered. "Alex got caught, pressed into service, escaped Legion boot camp with his centurion's favorite slave girl. Made it through the desert for days, livin' off the land an' squeezin' out every drop o' water they could find."

"They sound resilient."

"Ain't just that. Alex had moxie, Ellie had sass. Both got a kick out o' the Old World fairy tales and stories of heroes. Boy acted like Robin Hood even though he read the wrong book. Hell, he picked up the wrong name: Alex. Ellie wasn't Ellie until she started goin' on and on about Cinderella."

Blake cracked a small smile when the Courier chuckled at the memory. "They must have had a wild imagination."

"Sure did. They loved to read. Volunteered to help catalogue our backlog of Old World records, y'know, holodisks and holotapes. And then they...they acted out these...fairy tales with my little girl. Heroes, damsels-in-distress, a party of adventurers, a gang of...super...heroes...savin' the world like their dad...like the Desert Rangers that raised 'em, trained 'em, and protected 'em."

And as easily as the warmth came, the air cooled.

"But there's only so much protectin' you can do."

"You left," Blake said slowly. "You left the ones you cared about... You left to protect others."

Chewing. The smell of tobacco was stinging.

"Is that why you couldn't hit Ruby?"

The chewing stopped.

Blake found it hard to look the man in the eye. When she did, she saw him staring down at the campfire below. She followed his gaze, narrowing down to Ruby having fun with the rest of her friends. It looked like they were playing a betting game or something with the Misfits and their laughter resonated against the cliff walls, reaching her faunus ears. They were having fun.

"Hyper is Hyper," Six spat. "She's not my little girl. None of you are."

"But do we remind you of them?" Blake asked impulsively.

For the first time tonight, he turned to look at her. But just like the day when they emerged out of their misadventure in the Divide, his eyes were foggy and his stare was unfocused while his hands mechanically dug through his little plastic bag for more tobacco leaves. When he spoke, his voice came off as hollow.

"My little girl couldn't say a word. But she did her best to let us know what was on her mind. She made faces, she pointed at this an' that an' everywhere. She made shapes with her fingers, then made shapes with her hands...and when she started walkin', she started making poses, bendin' and stretchin' like she was born o' plastic... And on some days, I swear...I thought the colors of her eyes would change..."

"Six," Blake tried only to be cut off.

"She wanted to help, she wanted to save the world like her dad. She wanted to...she wanted to...she would've tried to stop people like me from doing what I do."

"Six?"

The Courier stopped. He blinked multiple times, snapping out of what he was seeing before spitting out a cod of saliva and tobacco leaves. "Her mother was a tribal. From what tribe, we couldn't figure out. She never told us, just said that she came from a far away place filled with giant wolves and angry black bears. Eventually, we stopped asking."

Blake opened her mouth only to be stopped by his finger pressed to her lips.

"Shh, Kit," he whispered hoarsely, his putrid breath assaulting her nostrils. "You might spook our visitor."

Her eyes went wide as her faunus ears picked up on the faint footsteps on gravel. She had been so caught up in their conversation that she failed to identify whoever it was that had crept up on them. That was when her nose picked up the scent, a sharp flowery balm that pierced through the thick odor of tobacco. And her worry died down.

"Christ Almighty, where the hell did you get that much soap to smell like a pixie, Snowball?" Six barked.

"Excuse me but Nevada extract is a treasured commodity around here and it behooves me not to waste such a thing!" screeched Weiss Schnee who now angrily paced from the outcrop behind them, balancing herself on the uneven rocks with her revolver-rapier. "Ugh! How did you manage to even get up here? There's barely a straight path!"

Blake furrowed her brow. "How long have you been...?"

"Not long enough, it seemed," groused the heiress. "Was I interrupting a tender moment?"

Six snorted. "I didn't touch her inappropriately if that's what your getting at."

The cat faunus groaned. "What is it, Weiss?"

"It's late," Weiss deadpanned. "Ruby and Jaune are calling everyone in to hunker down."

"You better go," the Courier prodded. "I'll keep watch from up here."

"And when was the last time you had any sleep, Major?" the heiress pressed.

"I sleep when I sleep."

Blake shuffled off her perch and tugged Weiss by the hem of her sleeve. "We should go."

Crackle.

The heiress tripped on a loose rock and with the cat faunus holding onto her, they both tumbled down the cliff. Or they could have. Instead, before either one could scream or activate their Semblances to salvage their fall, they found themselves hanging off the ledge. Six had both his hands gripping their belts.

"Watch where you're stepping, goddamn it!" he hissed, pulling them back up.

"Sorry," Weiss breathed shakily.

"Th-thanks," Blake mouthed in relief.

"Do you need a flashlight?"

The girls nodded and carefully made their way down with an industrial torch the Courier had salvaged from the Vegas ruins. When he returned to his perch, he found that lone bird gone. He thought nothing of it and continued drinking well into the night.

Crackle, crackle, snap, crackle.

"So yeah, uh, that's how it is."

Team RWBY-V sat in morose silence around the campfire. Master Sergeant Stonham poked at the embers to keep the flame alive a bit longer. In one of the trailers, more than one person howled over another intense round of poker between team JNPR-S and the rest of the Misfits.

"Y'know, Friday night is usually poker night at Fort Mead," Mags said. "Sometimes, a couple of the refugees would sneak over the fence and play a few rounds. Pretty sure the brass knows but they don't give a shit."

"That's one way of funneling extra supplies, I guess," Ruby remarked. "Thanks for filling us in on all this stuff. We haven't been able to catch the latest news recently."

Sergeant Stonham smiled back. "Happy I could be of help then. I hope it wasn't all that much of a downer though."

The reaper glanced to her partner who sat in deep thought beside her. In the same way, Blake huddled in her own bubble, unresponsive to Yang constantly shaking her shoulder. Both had recently come down from the cliff top, leaving Six to his lone vigil.

"Weiss? You okay?"

"Winter," breathed the heiress. "Enslaved and treated so...inhumanely by the...by the Imperium."

"Don't forget Miss Goodwitch," added the blonde.

"Faunus, too," her partner mumbled. "A dozen of them. Collared like...animals."

Velvet twiddled her thumbs. "Did you know anyone else among the refugees?"

"We were only allowed to engage with their representatives," Mags replied. "Fraternization was largely discouraged."

"But not prevented, right?" Ruby asked. "So you'd have met the others, too, right?"

The sergeant flashed them a conflicted face. "A few. Mostly Winter and Glynda though. While a lot of us did try to connect with the others, the brass tries to keep a strong eye on the camp but there's only so much a chainlink fence can do. Anyway, I'm pretty sure General Hsu's doing his best to get them rehabilitated."

Sideways glances and uneasy looks were all the five Remnant girls could offer at this point. To her credit, Mags was as sharp as she was a 'big fan' as she described herself.

"I guess I don't have clearance to know what the general sent you out here for, huh," she groused.

Yang exhaled. "Right back at you, sarge."

"As long as we won't get in each other's way then."

"We have to head back to New Vegas soon," Blake reported.

"Good luck on your trip then. Now that you've got Courier Six with you, you won't have anything to worry about."

"Good luck to you as well," Weiss reciprocated. "I hope you complete your mission without any serious complications."

"Eh, we're just here to patrol the roads while the main force clears out the east. That and figure out what caused this massive smoke plume that literally riled up whole colonies of mutants in the surrounding hills. My guesses? Either a brush fire or some asshat probably caused a big explosion."

"Ah, ha-ha, yeah, something happened here, huh," stammered Ruby. "Not like we know anything about that."

"We don't," Weiss cut in. "If you don't mind, what else can you tell me about Winter and Miss Goodwitch?"

"And the rest of the refugees," added the cat faunus.

Mags glanced around. With the rest of her squad so heavily invested in their poker game with team JNPR-S, she felt free to disclose what would have been considered dubious information on an after-action report. After all, she was the leader of the Misfits—the best and worst of the NCR. Besides, it was not like any of their superiors were around to keep things any more hush and hush...and these were the Vegas Wonder Kids she was talking to.

For all she was concerned, they went out on stuff that was as clandestine. So fuck it, she thought.

"Winter's awesome," the sergeant started dreamily, stretching her back on the bench. "Like, her swordplay is really something. And I haven't seen a lot of swords myself but damn, she can cut through wood and steel with a rusty machete like butter...with some glitter in it, too! Like magical, shiny glitter..."

Weiss held off from mentioning Semblances, instead coming up with a substitute. "You could say it's a natural flair that comes with every stroke."

"Huh, and I thought special effects only existed in movies."

"By the way, do the Fort Mead folks know about us?" Yang asked.

Mags hummed in thought. "Pretty much. Winter knows. Glynda knows, too. Hell, everybody and their mother know all about the Vegas Wonder Kids. No surprise that they really want to meet you. I can imagine why since the Ice Queens are sisters."

Ruby tapped her chin. "What about Six? Does he know about Winter and Miss Goodwitch and everyone at Fort Mead?"

"Does he?" the sergeant wondered. "I was going to ask you guys that myself."

Blake sighed. "Wouldn't be surprising if he did."

Yang nudged her partner. "You asked him?"

"No. And I don't think he'll give a straight answer anyway."

"You sure about that? I mean, other than Ruby, you're the only one who can get through to him."

The heiress sighed. "He has to either be very drunk or very tired to really open up to anyone close to him."

"What about Raul?" posited the reaper.

"He has his reasons," Velvet interjected. "Believe me. He's not as cryptic as Six but he won't give a straight answer if it's something really serious. And he's an open book. Granted, some of the pages have fallen out but an open book nonetheless."

"That's one way of putting it," Yang noted.

The rabbit faunus shrugged. "His words, not mine."

"Goddamn it! Shit!" someone screeched from the trailers.

Mags sighed. "Guess it's time to hit the hay. Nice chatting with you. I'll go get my boys before they do something stupid. See you in the morning."

Bidding goodbyes, team RWBY-V watched the sergeant march up the ramp and chew out her subordinates before their poker game would turn into a fistfight. Later on, as they were settling down for the night, Yang noticed Blake leaning against the doorway, eyeing the cliff tops. She traced her gaze up to the small but defining silhouette perched on the outcrop above. Ruby, Weiss, and Velvet also shuffled over to see.

The shadow waved at them.

They waved back. Then Ruby fished out her walkie-talkie, twisted the knob to the right frequency, and held it between her and her teammates.

"Goodnight, Six," she announced.

There was a buzz. Followed by chitter. And then a faint, tired reply. "Go to sleep, Hyper."

"You too, Six. Don't push yourself. Please. We're safe here."

Buzz. "Just making sure."

"Okay then. Um..." Ruby regarded her teammates.

Wordlessly, they all leaned in to the speaker and chorused, "Goodnight."

Up on the clifftop, the Courier's hands trembled so much that he nearly dropped his communicator. Although inebriated, he did his best to hold himself together. After a while, he tossed the empty bottle behind him, wiped his eyes dry, and unsheathed the old broad machete that had served him well over the years. The campfire down below had petered out as did the light coming from the trailers, leaving much of Red Rock Canyon in relative darkness.

"Goodnight, kids," he slurred, tracing the shapes of the giant mountain geckos scampering over the rugged hills searching for prey. "Sweet dreams. Daddy'll keep you safe."

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: June 11, 2020

LAST EDITED: July 2, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED [FFN]: July 2, 2020

Chapter Text

Among their peers, Weiss and Pyrrha were known to be the early birds. The former woke up early because it was improper for an heiress to still be in bed after the sun began cresting over the horizon. The latter woke up early as part of her morning exercise routine. Hence, in this case, the two of them stretched out of their sleeping bags at an hour before sunrise purely out of habit.

And they were the first to smell the turpentine.

Weiss checked to see her teammates still asleep. As did Pyrrha who carefully tiptoed over Jaune, Ren, Nora, and Syrup to the doorway. Even the Misfits who were supposed to be up at this time were still loudly snoring from their bunks in their own trailer. So with their hands on their weapons, the two teens walked outside to find the skinned hides of many a mountain gecko stretched over makeshift racks or hammered over the soil around the fire pit where the Courier was having a mug of steaming coffee to himself. He waved at them.

“Mornin', kids.”

The girls relaxed, both noting the heavy bags under his bloodshot eyes and the cracks in his voice.

“Good morning, Six,” Pyrrha returned.

“Good morning,” Weiss mimicked. “What is all this?”

“Gecko skins,” he answered over a yawn. “Fire geckos. Big ones. Lot o' em up in the hills.”

“Is that what you were doing last night? Hunting geckos?”

“Hides are good money. Properly cured hides make even more money.”

“Why did you even go out there hunting last night?” the heiress started. “Shouldn't you have been, I don't know, standing guard? Keeping watch? Overwatch?”

The Courier groaned. “Geckos were runnin' 'round up there. Sniffin' y'all out in your sleepin' bags. Made sure they wouldn't be a problem anymore.”

“Prevention over protection?” the champion remarked.

He gave her a tired smirk. “I like how you think, Sparta.”

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose. “Look, Six. While we do appreciate your initiative, we're concerned that you're doing too much.”

“This ain't too much, Snowball.”

“Really? We can handle ourselves, you know. Gods, why are you pushing yourself so hard? When was the last time you had any decent sleep? Have you even had any breakfast?”

Six raised his mug. “Seven minute power nap and coffee with gecko steak. I'm good.”

“Are you really?” Pyrrha pressed. “It appears that you worked yourself hard the previous night.”

“Told you. Geckos were sniffin' you out.”

“Yes, but what about these?” The heiress gestured at the skins. “These look like it took more effort than it did to put down a rabid animal.”

He shrugged. “Figured I'd keep the money flowin' since y'all are, well... You won't get paid yet 'til you report in to the NCR.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Six, please. We can scrape a living on our own. You don't have to do this...all the time.”

Vickers emptied the last of his coffee before standing up to collect the hides. “Old habits die hard.”

“It's not that we're implying that this is a bad habit,” the champion said diplomatically. “We're only concerned that you haven't been resting much. We've noted that you've been overexerting yourself—”

“I know, I know,” he waved away. “Heard it all before. As I said; old habits die hard. Couldn't let all this good game go to waste. It'll attract even more predators, mind you. And there a lot of them up in the hills and they got bright orange wings.”

“You need to rest,” Weiss insisted with her hands on her hips.

“And you,” he countered with a pointed finger. “You kids need to learn how to properly hunt. Y'all are Huntsmen and Huntresses but none of you can skin a damn coyote to save your life. Well, that's going to change soon enough.”

The girls raised their brows.

“How soon?” Pyrrha prodded.

Six rolled the skins into tied bundles. “We're going hunting today.”

“You're kidding,” Weiss sputtered. “We should be heading back to the Strip, shouldn't we? Also, you need to sleep. Just look at yourself! Your body is clearly—”

“I'm fine, goddamn it,” he hissed. “Besides, Jimmy can wait. Now tie up these skins so we can get moving after breakfast. No further questions about me. It's too damn early for that shit.”

“More like you're too cranky to answer any of them,” mumbled the heiress as she reluctantly began unlacing, rolling, bundling, and segregating the hastily cured gecko hides with Pyrrha.

A few hours later—after the Misfits lethargically did roll call and mustered out on patrol in their jeep and after the Vegas Wonder Kids had their precious hygienic baths at the only pond in this damn waterless canyon—the Courier had led the two teams to one of the few secluded backdoors out of the commune. A tight path snaked out into the Red Rock wilderness between a crevasse that looked as though it had been carved into the cliffs by God's hatchet.

“Alright, listen up, kids,” he barked. “We're going on a little detour. I know you're all broke right now—”

Knight-boy cleared his throat. “Not really—”

Six ignored him. “—and I don't want to keep shilling out for all your shit so pay attention 'cause you'll be earning keep the old-fashioned way. There ain't no textbooks for this so if you can write this down, do it. Hell, whip out your scrolls too; whatever puts this on record. There ain't going to be any more chances like this. Any questions?”

The teens glanced at each other as Jaune repeatedly kept raising his hand.

“Good,” the Courier concluded. “Now do what I say when I say it. No objections.”

Ruby gulped, Yang fidgeted, Weiss harrumphed, Blake frowned, Jaune sighed, Pyrrha patted him on the shoulder with a smile, Nora whistled excitedly, and Ren nodded readily to the idea of hunting. Velvet, on the other hand, fed the last chunks of salted gecko meat to Syrup before trudging over with her trail carbine sitting in her arms.

“Where are we going exactly?” asked the rabbit faunus.

“A few money-making spots.”

“How do they make anyone any money?”

“That's what you're going to find out,” Six remarked. “I'm going to show you how to be proper hunters out here in the Wasteland.”

“Most predators rely on speed. A fast critter may not outright kill you on the spot but it will sting you to death 'fore you can outrun it. So you cripple 'em first chance you get. Do that and you won't have to worry about runnin' 'til your legs fall off.”

While Pyrrha was designated the best sharpshooter in their group—even better than a lot of NCR frontline troops if the Misfits were to be believed—she was absolutely stunned by the deadliness borne from the combination of Six's impeccable accuracy and rapid rate of fire. Something about the way he engaged those disgusting cazadores was, as Blake had described it, 'inhuman.'

The champion described him as mechanical.

Almost a dozen loud bursts echoed off the rocks surrounding the gullet they were in. Five and six high-caliber bullets from two power-packing handguns tore the wings off three adult cazadores. The rest of the hive buzzed out of their nests with their stingers zeroed in on the Courier as he holstered his empty pistols and pulled out a third.

That was when both teams leapt into action, adjusting their aim at the bright orange wings. The first volley didn't exactly hit the mark but the concentrated firepower stopped the creatures in their tracks. Semblances took on from there. Six took five steps back, letting the kids do their part with intense vigor, then swung around gullet to finish off the stragglers with a few well-placed shots from his back-up three-fifty-seven revolver.

By the time the dust settled, Pyrrha was pridefully beaming alongside her friends at their accomplishment. An entire cazador colony had been exterminated without much of a hitch. She almost thought that the fight was going to be a challenge but Six echoed the same principles that her trainers had often emphasized during her tournament bouts: if speed was key, then take it away from the enemy.

She congratulated her teammates and joined in the merriment until she heard the sound of blade tearing into flesh.

Apparently, Six had whipped out his machete and began cutting open the cazadores and extracting their eggs. Characteristically, he did not have the patience to bear the any of their protests. He even ignored their subsequent complaints after he forced them to literally comb the hives up on the rocks for more cazador eggs.

Seeing the heaps of pulsating larvae—and manhandling them with her bare hands because the gloves were too worn out to be of use—almost made Pyrrha empty her stomach into a pit. Or onto Jaune who had been carrying her on his shoulders so she could reach up to one of the hives perched overhead. At least she was doing better than the others.

From what she had been hearing behind her, the Courier had gotten team RWBY to stop stalling and screaming. As curious as she was though, she resisted chancing a glance to see how he did it. Especially not with an open oothecae dangling over her head. At least, in the corner of her vision, she could see that Ren and Velvet had Nora on a tight leash, the former having confiscated all the explosives on her person.

“You got the eggs?” Jaune asked.

Pyrrha nodded hastily, depositing the pulsating sacs into their field pack before sliding off his shoulders. Good thing they moved away from that spot immediately because the cracked hive collapsed onto the ground, spilling a sea of giant maggots all over the ground which Syrup, the hungry infant deathclaw, was eager to lap up.

“We're not going to do this again, are we?” her partner wondered. “I mean, we've got enough...eggs, right?”

“Put your backs into it!” Six hollered not too far away. “This ain't going to cover our expenses so keep digging!”

The J and P of team JNPR felt really bad for team RWBY who were now holding back tears of disgust while sorting through a pool of spilled larvae. Whoever was buying these things must have offered the Courier a pretty penny to have to go this far.

“Big game rakes in big profit. Butchers like the meat, tanners take the hides, and eggheads usually go for the rest. So it pays not to damage the animal too much. Buyers don't like holes on their fancy new rugs.”

No matter how hard Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, or any of them tried, none of them could really get used to the visceral sounds or the sight of skin being carefully and meticulously peeled off a freshly slaughtered cadaver. It did not help that said cadavers were these massive mutated mountain geckos the size of adult human beings.

Courier Six, knowing how uncomfortable the kids were and having already given up giving a shit about their aversion, scooped up the bloody mess of gecko hides, gecko eggs, and gecko body parts. “Line up, kids. Let's distribute the weight.”

“You're kidding, right?” Nora said.

“Ugh, the smell,” groused Jaune.

“Suck it up,” Six snorted. “Hyper, come here.”

Ruby shuffled over and received her share of the spoils. It took a lot for her not to gag and she was sure even her teammates were holding in their breakfast. Yang held her nose while Blake stomached the smell. Weiss hid her discomfort but that was because she had purchased a gas mask from a settler at Red Rock Canyon and refused to take it off since encountering the first festering cadaver out in here in the wilds.

“At least the Grimm vanish after being killed,” groused Velvet.

“Cottontail,” the Courier called. “Your share.”

The rabbit faunus reluctantly received her portion of the spoils, including a glass jar crammed with eyeballs, teeth, and selected gizzards.

“Ugh, who buys these?”

“I'm guessing the Followers of the Apocalypse,” mused Weiss. “They have an entire research department devoted to the study of alternative medicine and the sort.”

“Collectors, too,” added the blonde brawler. “Remember that pawn shop in Westside?”

Her partner shuddered. “Don't remind me.”

“What's so weird about dicks in jars?” Nora quipped.

Jaune and Ren instinctively shielded their crotches.

“There's a lot of really weird people out there in the world, huh,” Ruby chimed in uneasily, the weight of her pack sagging with the added bundle of bloodied organic material. “I mean...this is how people here make a living, right?”

“Now you're catching on,” Six intoned. “Study the market. See what sells. Quarry is the usual bread and butter around here but trinkets can also get you gold, especially if you've got a good eye for the rare finds.”

“You got rich off of scavenging?” Yang asked.

“Let's just say I found some very peculiar buyers who were interested in some very specific things,” Six replied tersely. He then shouldered his own pack and started walking back towards the mountain trail before the kids could ask him any more questions.

“It's easy to get lost out here so mark the roads you're walking. Keep a good eye on your surroundings. If you're traveling as a group, don't stray from the group. Stay with the group at all costs and don't get distracted chasing some shiny little gecko.”

They would have stayed on track had not Syrup been so agitated by the geckos scurrying up and down the mountaintops. Even Nora was having trouble keeping a leash on that little shit.

Said leash then snapped and the infant deathclaw went charging after its prey. Naturally, its owner gave chase. And her partner gave chase after her. Which forced Jaune and Pyrrha to go after them. Team RWBY-V did not have to ask permission to follow team JNPR-S because the Courier was moving in the same direction, leaving a string of curses in his wake.

They did manage to catch up to Syrup and get it under control.

But by then, they had torn through a whole lot of wildlife ranging from normal coyotes to giant coyotes to fire-breathing mountain geckos to oversized preying mantises and even to deformed carnivorous mammoth rabbits that Velvet, in particular, had a hard time putting down. The whole affair was tiring and the Courier had to redistribute the ammunition to make up for the ones that were used up so frivolously.

That was when Yang, after gazing around, posited the question, “Uh, Six? Are we on the right track?”

Six checked his Pip-boy map and swore. So much for a brief detour.

“Good news or bad news?” Blake asked.

“Good news is we're not lost,” he grunted. “Bad news is we're going to be out here for a little longer.”

Ruby looked around. Interestingly, there were more shrubbery than rocks all around. Some of the stones even had moss on them. “Well, we can't be that far from the nearest town, right?”

The look Six gave her discouraged any more inquiries.

“Don't get too excited when you see something you haven't seen in a long time. It can be very overwhelming and sometimes, it disarms you. But remember that just because it looks pretty doesn't mean it's safe. So keep your wits about you and, again, don't stray from the group.”

From afar, Mount Charleston appeared to be the other jewel in the wastes that contrasted the flashing lights and casino-hotels of New Vegas. Stretching over rugged terrain was an expanse of unadulterated trees teeming with wildlife unlike most that prowled the desert. Catching sight of it alone from almost a mile away was enough to fill the kids with enough euphoria to give the Courier another headache. Not that he really minded at this point.

Seeing them this happy, even at his expense, was not always a bad thing.

Of course, that pride at witnessing their joy lasted until Hyper and Blondie starting literally jumping up and down and pointing excitedly at the towers and cables running down the slope of the snowcapped peaks. Immediately, guesses were thrown around as to what could be there that needed those installments. Six dreaded having to divulge the not-so-secret sanctuary that he had labored (bribed) to keep protected from (ignored by) pesky NCR bigots.

And, of course, Kit had to be a smart-ass about it. “I've heard about that place. A safe haven for...uh, special victims.”

“What do you mean by that?” Sparta asked.

“Jacobstown,” Snowball answered, herself as much informed as that damn cat-girl bookworm. “I've seen it on a lot of maps. It's apparently a sanctuary for super-mutants. Including the not-so-friendly ones, I'd venture. Strangely, the NCR knows nothing else about it beyond that...even after spending men and resources scouting this whole area for years.”

“Huh, that's weird,” Yang remarked, throwing a not-so-subtle gesture at Six. “Why's that, I wonder?”

“I ain't takin' you there, if that's what you're thinking,” Six grunted.

“Why not?” poked Nora. “I mean, not every super-mutant's a bad guy. They're just misunderstood, right?”

“Misunderstood is mildly putting it,” Ren said.

“You mean mistreated?” quipped Velvet. “I mean, you've heard the stories, right? They seem to have it worse than the ghouls.”

“Poor Mean-son-of-a-bitch,” mumbled Jaune with a shake of his head. “They didn't have to do him like that.”

“Come on, Six,” Ruby begged. “We're friendly enough! We helped out in Westside, remember? There's a super-mutant there and—”

“I know about him,” the Courier growled. He brushed past the kids, nudging them to face the other way. Specifically away from the direction of Jacobstown. “Just 'cause you made friends with one doesn't mean you're friends with the others.”

Blake tapped him on the shoulder. “Uh, Six? I'm all for respecting boundaries but, well...”

She gestured to their field packs laden with skins and selected mutant viscera. Even Jaune and Ren who often ended up as the pack mules were sweating out their water intake from having to haul around their accumulated loot.

“We need a place to offload,” Snowball deadpanned.

To this, Six scowled. “No.”

“You're not seriously forsaking any traders they might have there.”

“No traders in Jacobstown. You want to offload? Hope we meet some caravaneers on the road back to Westside.”

“That's three times as far from where we are right now! How do you know that there are no traders in Jacobstown?”

“Yeah, Six,” Ruby added. “Is the place abandoned?”

Sensing an impending barrage of questions, and intent on avoiding the subsequent headache, Six answered quickly. “Jacobstown's a super-mutant stronghold built around a pre-war ski resort that survived the apocalypse largely intact and a place that we are not going to visit.”

“Ski resort!?”

“Intact!?”

“What do you mean we're 'not going to visit!?'”

The Courier whacked Hyper, Blondie, and Pancake in the back of their heads. “We ain't goin' there and that's final!”

He then proceeded to physically drag the rest of the kids along the mountain trail, either ignoring or shouting down their pleas to stop by at Jacobstown. He even threatened to shoot their legs off should any of them make a break for the place, Aura be damned. And while getting shot at was nothing new to these Huntsmen- and Huntresses-in-training, they knew that being shot at by Courier Six was not something they preferred to experience...especially since they were well aware that his bullets were specially hand-crafted to punch through the toughest of hides with the purpose of either eviscerating tissue or tearing the limb off entirely.

In essence, he chambered Aura-breaking ammo was not above shooting them with it to get them to fall in line.

So for the time being, they did. Which Six found greatly relieving. Goodness knows what fresh hell he would have gotten to deal with should any of his kids encounter those finicky super-mutants living there.

“Some creatures are docile. Leave them alone. Even the lone calf separated from the herd. A mother's instinct knows no bounds and unless you can handle a dozen ornery bulls, you're better off leaving the damn thing alone.”

The lush pine forests of the Mount Charleston Nature Reserve were a massive respite in the Mojave Wasteland. Though there was little in the way of water, the assurance of underground streams, and the presence of small ponds forming out of melting snow trickling from the mountaintops excited the kids so much that they were in greater spirits than Six had ever seen them before.

Other than the times they were screwing around in Freeside or at the Strip, of course. But unlike those places, the Courier would not have to worry about property damage.

A part of him wondered how they would behave if ever they saw Zion Canyon.

He dismissed the thought. Probably best not to dwell on things that would never happen. Besides, what were the chances that any of these annoying teens would wind up there anyway? A wild goose chase? Some convoluted series of events? Hell, a freaking magic portal? Then again, that probably was not out of the question...

Right now, he was staving off another headache. While at the same time staving off an aggravated bighorner bull that Ruby, in her joyous frolicking and foraging, had inadvertently gotten a little too close to.

“Hyper,” he hissed while crouched behind some shrubbery, “stay still.”

The reaper did to the best that she could. Being stared down by a massive bull with massive horns and massive jagged teeth was no similar to being stared down by a fierce Grimm. Ruby knew this but she was not invincible and she still had jitters. Her hands were fully occupied by the bundle of fruits she had collected so that left her the option of speeding out of there.

But that would mean losing everything she had painstakingly gathered for the past couple hours.

“Shhh,” Six echoed, his voice a little closer. “Easy now, big boy. Easy...”

Ruby turned her head slowly and saw the Courier inching over. The bighorner growled and scraped its hooves against the dirt.

“Easy, easy... Ain't here to hurt you, big boy.”

The reaper tried to move but his heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder, rooting her in place. Then the other reached for a head of banana yucca from her pile.

“You like this, don't you, big boy?” Six cooed, waving the fruit in front of the bighorner.

Surely, the creature eased, tracing the fruit with its head, sniffing out, almost as if reaching out for it.

“Yeah, that's it. You like this stuff, don't you. Easy now. Here you go...”

Ruby's eyes widened in curiosity. The animal took the gift and turned away to feast on it.

“Alright,” Six said. He then guided her stiffly out of the area towards where most of her friends were foraging.

“Uh, Six?”

“What?”

“I, um...you sounded different back there.”

A sigh. “Sometimes, you gotta play the softie to get out of dodge.”

“Yeah, but...”

“But what?”

She stuttered. “You're...you don't really do that. Um, you never do that. You're never like that when we're, uh, you're, um...y'know, uh... You always shoot first.”

Silence. Boots crunching on gravel.

“S-sorry.”

“Bighorners are peaceful creatures,” he intoned warmly. “They're probably one of the only beautiful things that nature crapped out after the apocalypse. And you don't always have to shoot the beautiful things in life.”

“Oh.” Ruby picked out another head of banana yucca from the bundle in her arms. “So bighorners like this stuff, huh.”

Six hummed in agreement, recalling some memories of that riverine Utah paradise where bighorners roamed freely with pure-hearted tribals. He then noticed a moment later that Ruby was beaming at him silly and that was because he himself was smiling silly. He quickly hardened his face into a glower before turning away.

“Don't get lost like that again, alright?”

“I won't.”

“Good,” he answered softly as his hand unconsciously slipped off her shoulder down to take her by the hand as much as a concerned adult would guide a missing child to safety.

“It takes a lot of patience to track your prey. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes even a day. But all that won't matter if your pixie smell gets carried by the wind over to the damn animal and it spooks it enough that it gets away from you. So stop smelling like a goddamn pixie when you're going out hunting, for fuck's sake.”

Weiss clicked her tongue in frustration.

For the third time, the geckos she had been following had caught onto her and vanished into the wilds before she could even pounce. She did her best not to be seen, she moved as gracefully as she could, and she even set up crude but effective traps along the path she thought they would be moving across. Yet somehow, the creatures had detected her and fled.

“I just don't understand,” she mused upon her return to her team.

Her teammates merely shrugged while Six shook his head in his own frustration.

“Seriously, stop smelling like a pixie. Not only did you scare off the good ones, you also attracted the bad ones!”

Weiss pridefully breathed in the pine-scented air...mixed with the pungent fragrance she had gotten from the scented California-brand soap she bought and had been using every time she had a chance to bathe, or much less, clean up.

After cleaving in half a bunch of giant mantises that had crawled out of the woodwork, the heiress flaunted how she managed to stay refreshingly fragrant despite the filth, even pointing out that everyone else was starting to emit a rather distasteful odor despite trekking through mutant-infested woodland for hours. Her friends and teammates responded with pointedly sarcastic praise for her immaculate scent.

Except for the Courier.

He was pissed. The man had expended more ammunition than he needed to, carved up one of the few traversable hiking trails around, and drove off almost every other big game in a ten mile radius. To top it all off, his headache was already being compounded by the pungent scent of Snowball's goddamn 'Nevada extract.'

And so he scooped up some dirt off the ground, mixed in some bighorner manure, and began rubbing it all over her.

“SIX!” Weiss shrieked. “WHAT IN THE GODS ARE YOU DOING!?”

“I'm masking your scent,” he hissed, using his strength to keep her still so he could keep smearing shit across her clothes. He even had to wring her wrists roughly to keep her from throwing him off with one of her glyphs.

“You're rubbing filth all over me, you brute!”

“You're attracting all the predators, you damn pixie!”

“But Nevada extract—”

“Will get you eaten!” the Courier snarled. “Goddamn it, Snowball! Out here, it's better to be covered in shit than to smell like a walking buffet fresh out of the oven.”

Yang snickered. Then devolved into outright laughter. Followed by Ruby and everyone else.

“Six's got a point, Ice Queen,” wheezed the brawler. “You gotta be one with nature if you want to survive out here. Am I right, Six?”

He nodded, leaving Weiss writhing in horror and trembling at the tear-jerking odor of natural waste that now coated her from head to toe. Not even her iconic white hair was spared.

“S-sorry, Weiss,” apologized Ruby between her fits.

“It's not too bad,” Blake snickered.

“Yeah, it ain't,” the Courier grunted, scooping up even more piles of dirt and manure. It was not that hard to pick out the dung heaps in the underbrush since most bighorners and their mutated herbivore cousins cared less where they shat. “Now line up! Y'all still smell like damn pixies.”

The laughing stopped. Followed immediately by incredulous stares. Shortly thereafter, the bargaining began. Because if any of them tried to run, they would expect an Aura-breaking bullet to their legs. And even Nora was wary of that because Six barely missed.

The man was having none of their crap though and, with handfuls of crap, paced towards his first target: Ruby.

Hyper, being Hyper, decided to risk the bullet and triggered her Semblance. And she could have gotten far enough away had it not been for the glyphs that suddenly appeared in front of her, blocking her escape, bouncing her back, and immediately caging her between some trees so the Courier could effectively mask her scent.

“Weiss! Bestie!” Ruby cried out. “How could you!?”

Weiss, angry tears running down her shit-stained cheeks, grit her teeth in reply. “If I have to suffer through this, then so you should you, 'bestie.'”

“Wait! Six!” Yang bartered desperately, knowing better than to punch her point across when it came to the Courier. “Y-you know you have to do this to yourself, too, right?”

“Why the hell do you think I keep a gas mask on most of the time?” he retorted as his dirty, smelly, unwashed, hideously-stained, bullet-ridden, and frankly shit-stained duster rippled in the Nevada wind.

“Oh, for fuck's sake... Don't shoot the super-mutants, kids—hey, don't approach them! Don't—what did I say!? Hey! Hyper, what are you— Hyper, stay back! That's an armored car with an automatic grenade launcher! Hyper! … What the hell? Are you seriously...? … Oh goddamn it. Shit. Hyper, get back here! Let me handle this. God-fucking-damn it.”

As far as the Courier could tell, Jacobstown was not what the kids imagined it to be but it was definitely up there on the list of the best places in the Mojave.

Snowcapped forested slopes surrounded this pristine ski-resort fortified with a solid wooden palisade and a handful of guard towers cobbled together from the surrounding felled pine timbre and assorted metal scrap. The more intelligent variety of its denizens served as the protective militia of the entire 'town' if one were to call it that. To someone who read a lot of Old World books, the Jacobstown looked a lot more like a motte-and-bailey fort than a town.

Still, the resort was vast enough to accommodate the budding population of super-mutants gathering from miles around. And while the estate itself had vacant rooms for newcomers and lodgers, a lot of the residents—out of their damaged psyches or self-imposed social distancing—opted to stay in the smaller cottages dotting the north-western district.

Six walked alongside Marcus, the most intelligent and levelheaded brute in the whole known Wasteland and the only one around capable of leading this psychologically broken horde. The two teams followed after them, stretching their limbs and savoring the fresh air after a cramped ride in the two armored vehicles that had picked them up, shit-stained and all, from the side of the road. No doubt, they were awestruck and wary but nonetheless grateful that they were finally detouring to a place with comfortable beds, good food, and clean water. Snow, too.

Cold, soothing, numbing snow.

“You have quite the litter,” Marcus remarked.

“Tell me something I haven't heard before,” Vickers grunted, balancing his watchful eyes between the kids and the super-mutants eyeing them, some of whom sported a sort of crispier shade of green which was, based on his experience, entirely unusual here in Nevada.

“How long have you been out in the wilds? You look like you've crawled through a mud pile for hours, if you don't mind me saying.”

“Eh, you know how it is. Got to mask the scent if you want to stave off predators.”

“True, true. You know, to be honest, I was not expecting a visit so soon.”

“Well, I wasn't planning on it but these brats ran into your folks and just couldn't help themselves.”

A wince. “I hope my people were not a bother.”

A snort. “It wasn't your people, it was mine. Hyper over there straight up couldn't stop wagging her tongue asking all sorts of questions about your kind. I'm surprised your guys didn't straight up pummel her for getting into their personal space.”

“Yes, I've heard of their quirks. A fast runner, that girl. Ruby, was it?”

“Ruby Rose. Fifteen or sixteen, I don't remember. Can move really fast. Faster than me. Also has a sweet tooth so keep her away from anything sugary unless you want to get an earful.”

The two paused on the portico to the Jacobstown lodge. From there, they could see the flurry of activity that revolved around the Vegas Wonder Kids striding across the trimmed lawn. Both teams were indulging with some of the more curious denizens though the rest kept their distance because of the smell. Judging by the tone of the conversation, however, violence was least expected.

Marcus was impressed that Six had brought amicable company compared to most humans (and the occasional ghoul) who visited their haven.

“Pardon me,” he remarked. “But are those...cat ears I see? In fact, does that girl over there have rabbit ears as well?”

Six sighed. “You're definitely not seeing things and I'd appreciate it if we end the inquiries there.”

“Duly noted.”

The Courier made eye contact with Blake who failed to hide a small smile after exchanging compliments with a third-generation super-mutant.

A third-generation super-mutant.

Nightkin.

The type who were violently schizophrenic due to their extensive usage of experimental United States Military stealth technology. Also the type who were either easily negotiable, easily irritable, and sometimes easily fooled.

This half-girl, half-cat 'equal rights' activist managed to have a deep and personal conversation about family with a psychotic mutant gorilla sporting a sharpened big rig bumper for a sword and possessing the mentality of a child soldier.

Six felt a little outdone. The last time he got that deep in conversation with a nightkin was after he had survived an intense battle with Lily Bowen at his side. That old lady of a super-mutant literally babied him for hours afterwards. Christ Almighty, that was a very uncomfortable time.

Though, it did allow him to breach the wall of insanity to get to the human being inside. Or what was left of it. Good thing Doctor Henry finally got that breakthrough he needed to knock some of that crazy out of these crazies. At the last minute too. The Courier could remember that stare-down he had with Marcus's rival Keene over the whole thing.

Come to think of it, what was that crazy up to?

“Keene?” Marcus hummed. “He's become more docile as of late. Not that he has been since his third phase of his treatment but it's a relief not having to spend an hour every morning arguing with him.”

“That's good to know. He still around?”

“Oh, yes. In fact, he's taken up a few hobbies to ease his mind.”

“Hobbies, huh. He skinning geckoes now?”

“No. He's knitting.”

Vickers did a double take. “Excuse me? Did you just say...knitting?”

“Yes. Keene's actually sown together a lot of the old blankets and quilts here. Boosted morale now that we could keep warm at night.”

“Knitting. Right.”

“Hard to believe, I know. But big fingers, when diverted elsewhere, are gentle and caring.”

Six had to blink several times to deliver context to that statement. “... So Keene's a tailor now.”

“Technically. He's had help from Lily, of course.”

“Lily's still around?”

“Yes. We've rotated her out of shepherding the herd to maintaining our facilities. You know, preparing food, cleaning up, replacing displaced furniture.”

“You mean housekeeping.”

Marcus nodded. “Yes, housekeeping.”

The Courier huffed in surprise. When the kids finally made it up to the portico, he went through a rundown of the list of do's and don'ts. The constant glares he followed up with were for insurance though Marcus thought they were unnecessary. Then again, did that super-mutant even have kids?

Six didn't know and would rather not ask.

“One more thing,” Marcus interjected before opening the doors. “Don't make eye-contact with any of the super-mutants in here unless they approach you. Especially the third-gens.”

“Aren't they the same as the ones out here?” Yang asked.

“No,” Six deadpanned. “So behave.”

“Aye-aye, Cap'n!”

“You got it, Six.”

“We'll be on our best behavior.”

With that out of the way, the leader of Jacobstown led them all inside. And already, Six could feel a headache coming.

Because the first person to greet them was none other than the irritable and very unsociable third-generation super-mutant Keene. Except, Keene was looking far different than he was before. He was still the hulking, blue-skinned brute that could easily crack open a man's head with his bare hands. Though, that visage of intimidation was somewhat counterbalanced by the ripped up outfit that looked like an attempt at a maid costume complete with mobcap, apron, and a tutu knitted out of tanned leather strips and old blankets.

“Jesus-fucking-Christ,” was all the Courier could say as he buried his head in his palm.

“Humans!” Keene spat, shielding his face with the feather duster he was cleaning a table with. “Don't look at me!”

“With that get up, how can we not—”

Jaune and Ren by now had established a routine of pouncing on Nora to shut her up. On the other hand, Yang—whose puffed up face made red with laughter so suppressed it was leaking from a dam about to burst—was about to make a quip before being forcefully contained by Blake, Weiss, and even Pyrrha.

Unfortunately, that did not stop neither Ruby nor Velvet from inadvertently staring for far too long at the super-mutant in the makeshift maid outfit.

Thankfully, Keene only growled something about filthy humans dirtying the carpets before stomping off.

“Um,” Blake drawled. “Is it safe to ask?”

Marcus sighed. “One of our super-mutants here, Lily, insisted on the...attire. She said it was how people of the Old World would dress whenever they took up duties such as cleaning and the like.”

“You mean housekeeping?” Weiss asked.

“Yes, housekeeping.”

“I mean...they don't have to,” Ruby remarked, struggling not to laugh.

“It's not required but some of the mutants have their own reasons. Each one is free to dress however they like so long as they don't offend or inspire harm. Others, like Lily, insist on keeping to the old traditions for the sake of their humanity. And sometimes, it works. Therapeutic, impressively.”

“Tell me again,” Six said slowly, fingers massaging the bridge of his nose. “Whose idea was this?”

“Lily. I know, I know. Even I had my reservations but Keene doesn't seem to mind.”

“He did seem to mind.”

“That was because there were too many eyes on him at once. Need I remind you that you are the largest group of humans to have visited Jacobstown and entered the lodge itself since the Second Battle of Hoover Dam.”

“Can we just...where's Doc Henry? And do you have aspirin? Because I need ten. And another thirty for the road.”

“Right this way,” Marcus said, guiding them across the main hall, past the super-mutant with the blonde wig, heart-shaped glasses, and bright red lipstick manning reception.

“Good afternoon, Master Marcus!” greeted the robotic assistant hovering next to her. “Good afternoon, dear guests! Good afternoon, Major Vickers! Welcome to the Jacobstown lodge.”

“Good afternoon, Rhonda, Tabitha,” Marcus returned.

“Too many humans,” growled Tabitha who scrunched her nose in disgust. “Ugh, filthy and smelly.”

“Now, now, Mistress Tabitha,” Rhonda reasoned. “Let us not be rude. They are our guests and have not caused any breach of security or broken any existing rules yet.”

Another guttural growl. “Fine. Just too many of them. All staring. Stop that.”

Ruby whipped her head away and whispered nervously to her partner. “This is normal for this place, right?”

“Be quiet, you dolt,” Weiss hissed anxiously.

Raul noticed that the crow that had been circling over his shack for the past thirty minutes was, more than anything else, interested in the bottle of tequila he left on the hood of the dilapidated Chryslus outside. And since he was not in the mood to spend the last couple hours of daylight scouring for geckos, he went outside and poured a small portion of the alcoholic drink onto a bowl.

He set that bowl on the hood then went back inside, shutting the door behind him. What he lacked for windows, he made up for in peepholes and strategically placed gun ports that allowed him to take out threats before they could make it to his outer fence. And it was through one of these eyelets that he kept an eye on his trap, waiting for the bird to perch itself on the hood and start dipping its beak into the bowl.

With the revolver of his barrel trailed through another craftily disguised hole, he waited until the creature would start wobbling. Then he would take the shot and have a nice serving of plump corvid stew.

Any second now.

Any second...

Just a bit more.

Start wobbling, start losing control, start...

...looking at the shack?

Raul scrunched his non-existent eyebrows. It seemed as though the bird was looking directly at him. Those hypnotic red eyes were locked onto his, seeing through his peephole. Then they darted down. Towards the barrel of his gun poking out of port.

“Puta.”

BANG!

He missed.

“Puta!”

To think he blew his chance at an easy meal, the crow once again perched itself on the hood of the car. Again, staring at him. Almost daring him. Mocking him.

Raul was not one to loose his temper so easily. In fact, for a ghoul who had lived for over two hundred years, he had attained a fine mastery over his emotions. Countless experiences had shaped him to be a man who could keep a cool head and a steady hand during the worst of times.

This was not one of those times.

Yet this was one of those rare times where he was very much offended and very much agitated. By a bird, no less!

Raul let off another shot.

BANG!

He missed again.

The bird flew off. And again, the bird returned. This time, it was tilting its head.

For some reason, the ghoul could picture a taunting smirk on that animal. So taunting that he felt obliged to blast its head off. Regaining control of himself, he switched to a different approach. A more direct approach. One that involved disregarding the concealment of his shack and boldly stepping out into the open with his revolver.

That was one brave bird, he had to admit. Also a weird one. Instead of flying away at his imposing form standing in the doorway, it hopped a little closer, almost teetering on the edge of the Chryslus, appearing somewhat curious instead of afraid as nature would have dictated for these avian creatures.

“Either today's just not my day or you're one lucky bird.”

Caw, caw.

Today was a strange day because Raul nodded as he though understood bird-speak. Which he didn't, by the way.

Now, he was a good shot. An even better shot than the Courier sometimes. Suffice to say, they rivaled each other in marksmanship, speed, and gunplay. So when he missed the next three shots, he had proven that he was indeed still human and just as flawed as Six. After all, just because his aim was superb did not mean that he would never miss. But just because he missed did not mean he had bad eyesight.

To the point, the ghoul's vision was still sharp enough to trace the crow as it flew away, interestingly in the direction of Fort Mead.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: June 11, 2020

LAST EDITED: August 20, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED: August 11, 2020

Chapter Text

"So what's the diagnosis, doc?" the Courier asked.

Doctor Philemon Tate Henry pushed up his glasses before regarding his patient with an irate stare. "Your sleep deprivation is putting you at greater risk of some very serious ailments."

"I get enough sleep."

"Do you? According to the data from your Pip-boy, you've averaged between five to ten hours of sleep over the past week."

Six was too bothered by his migraine to argue with the elderly physician. "Look, I'll get the damn six to eight hours—hell, even ten—as soon as we get back to Vegas."

"And that is where the second problem lies."

"Vegas?"

"No. Your constant procrastination when it comes to what your body really needs."

"Just tell me if I'm sick with something."

"You are," Doctor Henry grunted. "Stage-three alcoholism, clinical depression, chronic migraines, fatigue, stress, and the classic hardy stubbornness that seems to infect people of your ilk."

"... I just need some aspirin."

"You'll get your aspirin together with a liter of water and the recommended eight hours of sleep provided by the lodge."

"Come on, Doc—"

"No buts, Major. You are my patient and I am your physician and as your physician, I can and will confine you to a night's stay here at Jacobstown pending any improvement or complications. For your sake and the sake of these poor children you have following you around."

The Courier growled. "Great. There goes my itinerary."

"Whatever you have planned, you're going to have to postpone. Marcus and Lily will see to your care. I will have Calamity look after your belongings and do the necessary maintenance on your equipment. That goes for your children as well."

"They're not my—"

"Adopted children, then."

Six massaged his temples; there was no point in protesting anymore. His head was throbbing so much that he was effectively disarmed here. Sure, he still had his guns and he could shoot his way out but that option was only for those who were braindead. In the end, after stewing in his frustration, he sighed and accepted the doctor's terms.

"Alright, Doc. How long do I have to be here?"

"At least a day. That you are to spend entirely resting."

"You really don't think I can hack it back to Vegas, huh."

"Absolutely not. Especially in the state that you are in, barring your modifications."

"Fine. Just knock me out with some booze then—"

"And no alcohol, either."

Blink, blink. Cough. "You're killing me here, doc."

Frown. "You are killing yourself, Major. For the duration of your stay here, you will be served no alcohol and any other substances that are not recommended for your recovery."

"Oh goddamn it," Vickers sighed. "I should've known you'd say that."

"That brings another issue: withdrawal." The doctor scribbled some more notes on his clipboard. "I'll have you listed for detoxification should the need arise."

"Come on, you know the bottle needs me as much as I need it."

"To that I call bullshit."

"Thanks for the professional opinion, Doc." The Courier read through the prescription list he was handed and sighed dejectedly. "So are we done here? Can I get my pills now?"

Doctor Henry reared his head out a little. "Calamity!"

Calamity, the only other non-super-mutant resident of Jacobstown, strode into the clinic in her white scrubs. The supercentenarian ghoul of a nurse, assistant, and all-around handy-woman handed the Courier a packet of aspirin and a set of keys to one of the suites on the fourth floor.

"Lily misses you, by the way," she said.

For some reason, the migraine he was having had gotten a little worse. "She's in charge of housekeeping, right?"

Calamity nodded. "And everything in between."

On the way out, Six flashed a trained glare on each of the Vegas Wonder Kids sitting on stools and folding chairs in the waiting area. They all straightened in their seats, acting all innocent as though they were hiding something stupid they had done. Not that he would chew them out for it because he was actually feeling quite exhausted, he was still in pain, and Calamity was literally pushing him to keep moving until they were out of sight.

Meanwhile, back in the clinical ward, Doctor Henry replaced his clipboard on the shelf and spoke to the curtain that separated him from the rest of the other guests in the waiting area.

"Now you wouldn't have to worry about your father pushing himself too much."

The curtain was pulled slightly by Weiss. "Thank you, Doctor. You have no idea how difficult it was for us to convince him to take a break."

"He's a stubborn fool but he would not be foolish enough to ignore a professional opinion, especially from someone he trusts."

"He doesn't trust a lot of people out here," Ruby remarked. "A lot of them were really professional, too."

"Well, the word 'professional' has often been used very loosely," Doctor Henry replied. "Now, I take it you've all deposited your goods with Marcus?"

"Is he also the trader around here?" Yang asked.

"Not really. Calamity's the one who handles most of our logistics. She usually runs our supply chain to Vegas. Check in with her if you want to exchange some of those gecko skins for something more useful."

The rest of the teens breathed sighs of relief. Then rounded their heads on Nora who had been clearing her throat a little too vigorously.

With a sheepish grin, she asked, "You said something a little bit ago, Doc. Something about Six. Um, what'd you mean by 'modifications?'"

Heads turned again, some apologetic for her prodding but all of them undeniably curious.

To this, the experienced elderly ex-Enclave officer Doctor Philemon Tate Henry let out a warm laugh as he sat down on his chair and flicked through the papers on his clipboard. "Synthetic augmentations that would make a man more than what he can be. It's not my field of expertise so I don't have much to say on the matter. But what I can say...is that you'd best ask your father about it yourself."

"He won't say," Blake replied instantly.

"And so you're asking me. Tell me why I should break confidentiality?"

"Because the others did," Yang followed up. "Doctor Mitchell in Goodsprings told us a lot and...we wanted to know if you knew the same."

"And why are you so curious, might I add?"

"Because we're concerned," Weiss unusually defended. "He's erratic, he drinks too much, he's sometimes gets lethargic and unfocused and...and..."

"And we're very worried," Ruby finalized. "He's been taking care of us for so long and we want to do the same to him. And you probably know that he doesn't want us to do that for him but...we just can't ignore him suffering."

Doctor Henry laughed again. "I can't say I'm convinced but I guess I could humor you for a bit. But after your clinic hours are done."

He picked up another clipboard left behind by Calamity.

"Now, which one of you youngsters is going next? It says here that one of you has a shattered ankle, another has a fractured ribcage, and...one of you ingested raw mantis eggs..."

Barring the messier quarters of the super-mutants themselves, the entire lodge itself stood to rival the other main casinos on the Strip. While the services and the food were basic—and sometimes unnerving due to the social nature of super-mutants in general—the Vegas Wonder Kids found themselves enjoying the company, accommodations, and modest atmosphere of Jacobstown.

In particular, Weiss was feeling more and more at peace. Perhaps it was the sight of real snow or the high altitude chill or even the fact that the interior architecture reminded her so much of her home in Atlas. Whatever the reason, the heiress walked the halls of the lodge with a faint smile that did not go unnoticed.

"Walking on clouds there, Ice Queen?" Yang started.

"Gliding by the looks of it," quipped Blake.

Weiss sighed but the gleam never left her features. "Please don't ruin my moment."

Ruby snickered. "We're just walking around."

"Feels nice though," mulled Velvet.

Team RWBY-V had opted to wander for a bit after settling in to their new room. Conveniently just across from the team JNPR-S, too. Though, judging by the locked door and the noises coming from within, they had their hands full containing Syrup. Or Nora. Or both.

"It's just...the smell of pine, the peace and quiet, and even the décor," the heiress listed dreamily as they passed into the lodge's vast luxury hall. "Much different than the Strip."

"Now that you mention it, it's not too crowded here," the cat faunus added.

"No noises from the casinos, no flashing lights, no intrusive staff—"

"Oh, hello there!" barked a rather particular super-mutant. The apron, the bonnet, and the trolley of cleaning supplies all screamed housekeeping. "You must be the new guests."

Team RWBY-V awkwardly returned the greeting. The guttural voice and the liberal display of jagged teeth did not really match the whole get-up. In comparison, the five girls were dressed more amicably than before; they had switched out of their shit-stained garbs into more comfortable clothes conveniently provided by Miss Calamity.

"I'm Lily," the super-mutant continued. "And you are all so adorable just like my grandkids."

"Your...grandkids?" Ruby worded uneasily.

"Yes." Lily then made a face that almost looked like she had remembered something important. "Oh, dearies! Forgive an old lady. My memory can get hazy. I should have recognized you sooner!"

The five girls shared confused and worried glances.

"You're my great grandchildren!"

Team RWBY-V's minds collectively went, 'what?'

Team JNPR-S had barely gotten Syrup under control when something heavy repeatedly rasped against the hardened oak of their room door. With Pyrrha helping Nora keep their pet deatchlaw on a leash, and Jaune replacing all the displaced furniture with Ren, the most they could do was to ask who it was.

"It's your great grandmother, dearies!" growled the person on the other side.

Even Syrup paused from being ornery to sniff out the scent of whoever it was in the hallway.

That was when another voice squeaked through. "Guys! Open up!"

Nora reached for her hammer. "Was that Ruby?"

Pyrrha fetched her buckler. "She sounded in pain."

Ren had barely opened the door a crack when it swung open, knocking him aside, and a rather uppity super-mutant—one of the crazier blue-skinned ones—entered with the whole of team RWBY under both arms. Velvet, on the other hand, meekly waved from the corridor.

"Dearies!" the intruder (happily?) remarked. "I never knew my grandson could be so virile!"

"Um, wh-who are you?" stuttered Jaune.

"Your great grandmother, silly! Oh, aren't you just lovely, you! You look so much like Arcade, the poor dearie!"

The super-mutant unceremoniously dropped the four girls and scooped the blond knight up in a hug while sparing a massive hand to pinch his cheeks.

Nora, a little weirded out, looked to team RWBY groaning on the floor. "Explanation?"

"Why don't you connect the dots?" Weiss groused against the carpet.

"What a litter!" the super-mutant continued, eyeing the rest of team JNPR-S. "I hear you like pastries, dearies. Do you like pancakes?"

Interestingly, little Miss Valkyrie was rather hesitant to respond even as Ren and Pyrrha were quickly swept up into the bear hug that was strangling the life out of the rest of her teammates.

Six could barely sleep.

But at least the migraines had subsided for the time being.

Here he was, sitting in a suite at the Jacobstown ski lodge with an unimpeded view of the whole resort and the surrounding forests with a comfortable bed fluffed and cleaned like the ones on the casino-hotels at the Strip. He was even served one of those complimentary meals delivered to him by Keene of all people.

"Don't look at me!"

The Courier ignored the outburst and simply took the tray of biscuits, water, and pills off the super-mutant's massive hands and shutting the door. Why the hell did Lily have him wear a pink tutu? How can anyone not look at him with that thing on?

So he nibbled on some sugarless cookies while watching the sun go down on the Mount Charleston Nature Reserve. Might as well enjoy this while it lasts. Tonight's looking really beautiful though...

Knock, knock, knock.

Again? "Who is it?"

"It's me, sugar!" echoed the (enthusiastic?) guttural reply. "Grandma!"

His tired eyes went wide. Ah shit.

Six hesitated before opening door. And on there in the hallway stood another super-mutant. A friendlier one with an apron, a duster, and an old yellow sorghum shawl. "Hello, Lily. Nice to see you again."

"It's so nice to see you again, too, deary!" howled the nightkin Lily Bowen. "Give grandma some sugar!"

"Ah, Lily, that's not—" Shit!

Maybe it was guilt or his exhaustion that kept the Courier from going against being swept up in the bear hug. He struggled to keep his airways free, wiggling against these massive super-mutant arms, and getting a strong pine whiff off of his old schizophrenic companion.

"Grandma missed you a lot, deary!"

Air! Lungs! "Noted, breathe, please..."

She let go. "Oh, sorry. Grandma just got very excited."

"It happens," he wheezed. Shit, she's not right in the head right now.

"Grandma also found out she has great grandkids!"

Oh God no. "Lily, hold on. I can explain."

Lily did not give him time to explain as she dragged him out by the wrist to the hallway to have dinner with her 'great grandchildren.'

It was a good thing Marcus was around to keep order. Though they were pretty sure he was badgered into letting this happen considering how fragile the nightkin mind was. With regards to Lily Bowen, it was best to let her indulge in her delusions if only to stave off her more dangerous alter ego for a bit longer. Despite Doctor Henry's efforts, the threat of violence had only been mitigated and it would take something as simple as a casual comment to trigger a long-overdue episode.

And Marcus was keen on keeping the peace in both mind, body, and property even at great cost. Well, there were limits to how far he was willing to go but hosting a lavish dinner for twelve was a good enough trade for Lily's continued sanity and Jacobstown's continued peace and order.

The super-mutant herself sat the end of the long table with Courier Six to her right and the rest of the Vegas Wonder Kids arrayed all around. The food at least made up for the rather awkward atmosphere...even though the menu was limited to lentils and bighorner servings.

"Say grace, deary," Lily egged.

The kids nervously eyed Six who by that point was wearing a face of a man resigned to his fate.

With a defeated sigh, he apathetically harked a faithless prayer. "Dear Lord Jesus, we commit to you our daily bread—"

"Amen." And just like that, the super-mutant who had once been a kindly old lady from a long-forgotten vault began digging into her dish with savage gusto. "Eat up, deary. You need to be fat, plump, and healthy if you're going to work yourself to the bone like you always do."

The Courier slowly began cutting up his portion of steak while casting glances at the two teams. "Just eat, kids. Really. Just eat."

"So nice to see my great grandchildren! You all grow up so fast," Lily remarked with bits of meat stuck in her massive jagged teeth.

"Um," Weiss said uneasily. "We're not—"

"Would you like some water with that, deary? My, you're very pale. Have you been indoors for too long? You need to be out in the sun, you know. Good for the skin."

Ruby and Yang stifled a snort while Nora hid hers behind her bowl of bighorner stew.

"Just roll with it, Snowball," Six hissed between bites. "Lily's not in the right state of mind, right now."

The heiress opened her mouth to say something only to have a glass of water shoved into it by Blake. The cat faunus had an almost manic smile as she did so, only shifting to a grim glower when she regarded her teammate.

"We're surrounded by a lot of really unstable people, Weiss, so play nice, okay?"

Weiss glowered back even as she was forced to gulp down her drink.

The Courier nodded his thanks to Blake shortly before Lily forcefully fed him a spoonful of his own meal much to the contained amusement of the Vegas Wonder Kids.

"I do apologize for that," Marcus sighed.

"It's fine," Six waved off. "As long as it'll keep Lily from losing it, it's fine." Not that I'm all for it but better indulge the crazy before shit starts going crazy.

The two were in one of the empty guest rooms in the less populated eastern wing of the lodge. Having endured Lily's dinner—and sufficiently entertained her enough to trigger a memory that caused her to wander off and obsessively conduct her chores in the kitchen—the group eagerly retired for the night with the two teams wandering back to their quarters unsupervised while the leader of Jacobstown pulled the Courier aside for a private conversation. The latter already guessed what it was about.

"Those new arrivals," Vickers said. "Where're they from?"

"Arizona. Specifically, a county in eastern Arizona where the radiation is so thick that the Imperium barely has a presence there."

Six narrowed his eyes. His heart began to pump in anticipation. "Where exactly?"

"Darwin."

Ten seconds.

Ten seconds of slow, labored breathing.

Followed by twenty seconds that the Courier spent rubbing his face and temples.

"I must've heard you wrong. Where are they from?"

"Darwin Village," Marcus answered solidly. "A former scientific hub built—"

"Under the ruins of a dead city," Six completed.

The super-mutant leader nodded, withdrawing a tin box from his satchel. "They brought much of what they could carry from Darwin. Their exodus was not easy and some have fallen along the way but—"

"What's in the box?"

An uneasy pause. "... They stripped Darwin as much as they could to deny the Imperium. Everything from weapons technology to medical supplies and equipment. The rest they had to unfortunately destroy."

Vickers breathed deep. "Marcus. What's in the box?"

Marcus hesitantly unclasped the lid and arrayed most of the contents on the table. "... I was told that you might recognize some of these."

He did.

The world seemed to condense around him as the Courier picked up the first item and held it against the light: a ringed tin star bearing the words 'Desert Ranger.' He ran his thumb over the metal, feeling the cold dig into his skin, then flipped it over and read the name scratched into the back.

The super-mutant wisely kept his mouth shut, leaving Six to peacefully sort through the rest: a black bracelet, a pair of cracked round shades, and a handful of faded photographs of a group of people challenging the cruel world with the biggest, most confident smiles one could have. Four of them, in the prime of their adult lives, bore the proud stars of the Desert Rangers. The other three, still children, wore the hope of becoming like them.

He set the pictures aside, revealing at the bottom of the box a gold ring with an inlet molded into the shape of a diamond. Inside the band were chiseled the letters 'T-N-T.'

T and T.

Theodore Vickers and Tatiana Averis.

To others, the ring was an extra bag of bottle caps from the trader. To former Major Theodore 'Old Green Eyes' Vickers, it was the missing pair to the one he had kept sealed away in a safe underneath the Lucky 38. While the two T's shut down his battered brain, it was the N that stopped the world around him from turning.

N.

Nia Polis Vickers.

My little girl.

Your mother would've hated me for what I've done, for what I've turned into...but you would've killed me first chance you would've gotten, wouldn't you? I'd probably let it happen, anyway. I deserve it. I'd put the bullet in, I'd teach you how to pull the trigger, and I'd tell you to aim at it me...point blank, right between the eyes, no mistakes this time. Your old man doesn't deserve that Heaven you're in, having all the ice cream in the world with no worries about your teeth or your damnable sickness. You and your mother...

He rubbed his thumb over the letters, his mind split between apologizing to ghosts and mocking himself for being so pitiful. At least, of all the pieces of the past to come back to haunt him, the anklet and the bowler hat were left out of the package. Not that they would fit in the box, anyway. Ellie and Alex had probably been buried with them.

A few minutes later, the Courier wiped his face dry and returned everything in the box, clasping the lid on tight with loud thunk.

"They never found this in Darwin," he said.

"Come again?"

"These were salvaged elsewhere."

"How can you be sure?"

Six turned around, baring a face that triggered a moment's worth of primal fear in the super-mutant leader. "The last time we'd ever been to Darwin was a year before the Imperium was formed. Even back then, that place was a radioactive hell-scape. Either some robust legionaries put these back there for these mutants to so conveniently 'recover' or they had gotten their hands on these from someone somewhere who knows way more than they need to."

Marcus raised his hands. "Major, I'm only telling you what I know."

Vickers gripped the box tightly. You're only telling me what you've been told. "Everything in here belonged to my people and no one else. I find that hardly coincidental."

"If you're seeking more definite answers, I don't have them."

"Someone put these together with the knowledge of who they belonged to and who we were."

"Again, I reiterate that I have no prior knowledge of that. You know me, Major."

"But these newcomers don't know who I am, do they," Six retorted. "These Arizona mutants from Darwin who strangely didn't know who we were even after we helped save their asses years ago. Stupid or smart, you super-mutants don't forget faces easily."

The leader of Jacobstown likewise hardened his stare. "We don't. We don't forget names and deeds either. And if you plan on interrogating the refugees, then you're going to have to go through the process with me from start to finish. No ifs or buts. Knowing you, I have to be there to keep a leash on everything and I will not hesitate to use necessary force if need be."

Silence.

Then a snort. So be it. "I don't need answers right now. I need a bed."

Marcus let out a sigh of relief but remained wary as the Courier departed the room with the box in his hand.

Six took five steps down the corridor before stopping in front of an unlit room with its door hanging wide open. Complete darkness filled every corner save for the threshold dispelled by the light from the corridor. But he knew they were there and he knew that they had heard some.

"You kids have a bad habit, you know that?"

Silence.

He shrugged at the carpet, too tired to be angry. "But I guess some habits die hard. You're all some nosy little shits, y'know that? Didn't you hear? Curiosity killed the cat an' there're a lotta dead dead cats out there."

Through the darkness, he could feel someone glaring at him.

The Courier reached for his hip flask only to remember that Calamity confiscated it from him when she frisked him for all the alcohol, tobacco, and discouraged chems on his person. He let out a mirthless chuckle, not once bothering to even look into the room where these girls were hiding in.

"Before the Vegas Nine, before the merger with NCR..." Glazed eyes bore into the patterns in the carpet, followed by a hollow voice recalling the distant past. "There was Team Echo. Four o' the best the Desert Rangers could put to the field, they said."

Someone let out a hitched breath muffled behind some hands.

"Ellie an' Alex wanted to be like us...though they were barely in their teens when we found 'em crawlin' out o' their cave lookin' for water... Hell, they weren't even recruits yet when the Legion..."

Something fell.

He chuckled dryly. "I guess puttin' together the Vegas Nine was my last shot at relivin' the days o' Team Echo again. It was great while it lasted."

The floorboards creaked.

"Story time's over, kids. Daddy's tired. So, so tired..."

Slowly, the shapes of five girls meshed against the darker shapes of the furniture. He was sure one of them was trying to reach out to him, the diminutive silhouette almost looking like Nia wordlessly asking when her dad will be coming back from his mission. Vickers lethargically waved the illusion away.

"Y'all should go to sleep. It's late." Then he walked off.

A moment later, team RWBY-V stumbled out of their cramped hiding places in the dark. They peeked around the corner only to be confronted by Marcus who shook his head at them before guiding them back to their room on the western annex of the lodge.

"Somehow, I don't think stalking Six was really a bad idea," Yang mused from her bed.

From the dresser, Weiss scoffed. "And whose idea was that?"

"You all agreed to it!"

The heiress rolled her eyes. "You really need to consider the consequences of your actions."

"Don't you mean our actions?" corrected her partner, her petite frame sprawled over her own bed just across from her sister's. "You joined in, too, you know."

"It was better than leaving you to your detrimental antics, you dolt!"

"Who's idea was it again to explore the lodge after dinner?" Blake droned. "Something about taking in the solitude, the fresh pine scent, the 'fragrance of unadulterated—'"

"We needed a stroll!" Weiss rebuffed as she whirled on her stool and continued vigorously brushing her uncoiled hair.

The blonde snickered. "This place remind you of home, Weiss-cream?"

"I will accede that the layout and the interior are similar in design and structure to the Schnee manor."

"Is that the best excuse you can come up with?"

"We had a haughty dinner. It is unwise not to burning off the fat before retiring for the night." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "And we needed it after that experience."

The girls stewed in silence for a moment, each collectively expressing their pity for Lily whose mind had been so broken by technology that the old lady of a super-mutant constantly mistook them for her progeny. And while the food was good, the atmosphere had been intensely awkward and a little unnerving. It was hard to say way whether or not it was a good thing that Lily suddenly lapsed into some kind of fugue state halfway during conversation.

"... So," Yang drawled. "I say we got lost looking for our room and ended up at the wrong place and at the wrong time. What do you think, kitty cat?"

The cat faunus shrugged behind her pre-war book, part of the complimentary reading left still intact at the lodge. "Good enough excuse, I guess."

"We really did get lost," accentuated Ruby. She threw her hands over her head. "And it's not like we wanted to eavesdrop on Six. Like how were we supposed to know he and Marcus were going to be there? I mean, seriously! This place is huge! Like, remember when we got lost at the Ultra-Luxe? So many hallways!"

The blonde shuddered. "The food though..."

Team RWBY shivered, banishing the memories of their lavish feasting there after learning the horrible history of the place as well as the history of the White Glove Society with all their unusual politeness and manners and emphasis on high-class living and etiquette. No wonder people called them creepy.

"What about them?" Velvet asked innocently enough. The sophomore had the irony of being the most uninformed among them, sitting pretty on her bed, the fifth one squeezed into the room hours ago by an exasperated Keene.

"You don't want to know," Blake warned.

"Is there something going on over there? I heard their food is to die for."

The other girls shared a look. Then the cat faunus shuffled over and whispered, "I'll tell you later."

"Okay, how about we forget the Ultra-Luxe and talk about how Six actually had a team just like us," Yang started.

"How about we not?" Weiss protested. "We've intruded enough into his personal life. We've uncovered enough secrets about him that, frankly, still disgusts me. And need I remind you how unfavorable he was to our being privy about—"

"Team 'Echo,' huh," Ruby worded loudly. "Echo isn't a color, right?"

"It's a sound," Blake added.

"Should we really be delving into this?" Velvet raised nervously.

The heiress pounded her fists on the dresser. "Will you all stop please? We should set a limit to our curiosity. And you, Miss Blondie, should stop being such a gossip-girl!"

The blonde in question raised her hands. "Chill, Weiss Cream. Just looking for idle talk. Not like we got anything else to shoot the shit with other the usual, you know. Fun as these super-mutants are, it's kinda depressing just thinking about them sometimes. And besides, it's not like any of this stuff is leaving this room, right?"

"Why don't we all just go to sleep?" Blake suggested, clasping her book shut and replacing it on the shelf.

"Idle chat before bedtime?" Yang pleaded.

Weiss manifested a glyph over the blonde that pushed her down on the bed so she couldn't resist while the heiress pulled the covers over her. "Sleep. Now. It's late. We're tired. I'm tired."

"You're no fun."

Ruby yawned. "Sleep sounds good."

"Goodnight, everyone," Velvet said, finally flicking off the light switch.

Winter Schnee jolted awake and, with practiced grace, she whipped the Browning pistol out from under her pillow. She quickly restrained herself from squeezing the trigger at the figure standing inside the tent she shared with Glynda Goodwitch who likewise had her Beretta locked onto the intruder's head.

"Damn, ladies. Fidgety much?"

"Qrow?"

"You buffoon! We nearly shot you."

Qrow Branwen, his eyes weighted by lack of sleep, snickered and kept his hands raised until Winter flicked on the handheld oil lamp on top of the crate squeezed between their cots.

"That thing still itch?" he remarked, pointing to the modified Legion slave collar that remained locked around their necks, the green lights forever glowing brightly in the dark.

She sighed tiredly, replacing the gun under her pillow and adjusting the flame of the lamp to a mild dimness to avoid alerting the NCR sentries. "Not anymore. What do you have for us this time?"

"Straight to the point, huh. Can't I get a 'how are you' ever now and then?"

"They're doubling the number of personnel here at the fort," Glynda said wryly. "Some of whom have been relegated to watch us instead of watching for outside threats as I'm sure you've noticed on your way in."

"Pfft. Half of these guards are asleep."

"And the other half are out there doing their job keeping an eye out for intruders like you! So this better be important that you're taking this big a risk seeing us like this. What do you have?"

He pouted mirthfully. "Man, you're cranky tonight."

They glowered at him.

"This is not the time for games, Qrow," hissed the former Beacon staffer. "General Hsu tries to make it a secret but it's obvious that we're being treated less as guests and more as specimens. To that effect, many of the troopers we've become familiar with have been transferred and their replacements are more obedient to their directives against fraternization."

"You mean Friday poker night is out?"

"There wouldn't be another one according to what we heard."

He shrugged. "Well, shit. They at least letting you in on the loop?"

Winter snorted. "If you call Mister New Vegas a reliable source."

Glynda sighed. "Well, you're keeping us well-informed. Even if most of it is not very savory and could very well be frivolous hearsay."

Qrow gestured at them lethargically. "Don't worry. I fact-checked. Got something solid."

"And that is?"

"The kids are back from their secret mission, bruised but still in one piece. They haven't checked in with the NCR yet though."

Immediately, the drowsiness evaporated from Winter's eyes and she sat bolt upright on her cot. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," he replied with equal seriousness despite the swagger in his step. "Been tracking them for awhile now. Confirmed it with the locals, too."

"Does the NCR know about this?"

"Not yet." He leaned in, dropping his voice low. "Courier Six got a hold of the kids before they could report in and this time, he's keeping a tight leash on them. Most likely, he doesn't want them working for the Republic anymore."

"So all this talk about this mailman going rogue is true then."

"He's not just a mailman, Glynda," Qrow hissed, his face crunched in an uncharacteristic display of dread. "He's a very serious player who's been shuffling the deck out here and the cards he's pulling are better than what General Hsu has in his hand."

Winter kept her gaze on the rug, contemplating in silence. In all her years of knowing this drunkard of a Huntsman, she made an effort to deny him the satisfaction of seeing her outside of her steely facade. But now that she was stripped of her Aura and Semblance by this damnable slave collar, now that she was in a foreign land, now that she was in a world where the Grimm was the least of humanity's problems; she found putting on a mask a waste of effort. Other than Master Sergeant Maggie Stonham, Qrow Branwen was the only person outside of their chain-linked fence she could fully trust and she did not need to drive him away by keeping up whatever petty rivalry they had.

"Qrow, is...is he treating her well?" she asked softly.

"He's not hurting them," he replied tersely. "Yet."

She bit her lip. Whoever this Courier Six was, he was a man that clearly struck fear into the NCR, a nation that—despite its mediocrity and bureaucracy—was the only stabilizing force in this whole wasteland. And she had survived the Imperium Americana, the NCR's greatest enemy and the most terrifying civilized entity that humanity could conjure as far as she knew. Yet even then, the Courier's fearsome reputation had rattled the Imperium's troops to the core.

"Mind you," Qrow added. "Weiss isn't the only person he has in his custody."

Winter nodded apologetically. "Of course, I...I'm sorry. Your nieces and—"

"Teams RWBY and JNPR," he corrected. "And that sophomore Velvet Scarlatina, too. From team CFVY."

"Yes, yes. I'm aware." She breathed into her hands. "I'm sorry, I..."

"Hey. It's okay. I'm as worried about them as you are. But I have to take this slow. Oz and Ironwood aren't here to give directions. We're all on our own and for the safety of everyone, I'm doing this step by step. It's not my favorite strategy but I can't take any chances right now."

"I understand."

Glynda shifted to sit on her cot. Even for a lady who rivaled Winter in almost every facet, she too bore the same scars from their enslavement by the Imperium. "Qrow, is it true that the children are willingly following the Courier?"

"They're not running away from him as far as I can tell."

"Don't they know that he's a mass murderer?" gasped the former Atlesian specialist. "How can they be so...complacent to such a man?"

The veteran Huntsman took a swig from his flask. "Probably because he's doing a better job taking care of 'em than the NCR is doing to you."

Green eyes narrowed behind thin glasses. "What makes you certain of that?"

He pointed at their slave collars. "Is the NCR still trying to get that off?"

"The last attempt was two weeks ago."

"And what was the reason why they haven't done anything since?"

Winter replied, "They are waiting for more powerful tools from California. With how dangerous the wasteland is, even within civilized borders, that delivery will take some time."

"Not to mention the bureaucracy of the Republic which I find very irksome," Glynda added. "Additionally, until the necessary equipment arrives, we are being put under observation to study the effects of these collars which, General Hsu claims, is unlike anything they had encountered before."

"That what they told you, huh," Qrow grunted. "That's weird. Could've sworn I saw some power tools back at McCarran."

"Qrow, we're not referring to—"

"They're not your average power tools," he continued. "I'm talking advanced thermic lances, surgical titanium rippers, prototype industrial stuff that'll cut through military-grade steel. And they're all picking up dust at McCarran. I've seen them used to take apart decommissioned Securitrons and salvaged Atlesian Paladins."

The two ladies eyed each other.

"What are you saying?" worded Winter.

"I'm saying that it's pretty weird that General Hsu has a whole repository of advanced deconstruction gear being used to reverse-engineer Atlesian tech which, funny enough, according to my source, are made from the exact same stuff that those collars are."

Quiet descended in the tent.

"Where do they keep find our technology?" Winter quietly demanded.

A tired shrug. "All over the place, apparently."

"They're salvaging them," Glynda worded.

He nodded. "My guess is that the NCR's grabbing everything they could find and turning it into a weapon they could use against whoever's going up against them. I mean, you've got at least five Atlas battle suits being recalibrated and rebranded right here at the Fort. There's a bunch more in poor condition being reverse-engineered at McCarran. And it's not just Atlas tech, it's New Vegas tech, too. Securitrons and all the stuff that the Republic doesn't have but the folks here at the New Vegas are using to keep law and order. Just goes to show you what these guys don't have in their arsenal, huh."

"What about us?"

"Beats me. My guess? You're weapons. Me, you, the kids, anybody who's supposed to be impervious to damage because of their Aura and able to achieve more than the Average Joe could because of their Semblances. In a world like this, that's definitely something to kill over."

"With how popular teams RWBY and JNPR are," echoed the former Beacon staffer.

Qrow nodded after another swig. "The NCR saw the potential of people like us. People from Remnant. At least the ones who've been to a combat school anyway. Just so happens that Courier Six got a hold of the first batch before the NCR could. You remember Project Fragment?"

The two ladies nodded. From what they could piece together, Project Fragment was an on-going clandestine attempt by the NCR to establish a connection to Remnant be it by portals or some other experimental design. General James Hsu had made them privy to it as soon as they confirmed that they were indeed from Remnant. When Qrow began his clandestine visits not too long ago, he unveiled much more than they had been led to believe. And despite their differences, Winter and Glynda believed the Huntsman more than anyone else.

"They're still not making a lot of headway," he said. "But they're still picking up a lot of the stuff that's been dropping in this hell-hole over the past several years."

"Including our weapons and technology," Winter remarked.

"And our students, staff, and fellow citizens," Glynda added.

Qrow grunted. "This begs the question. If pieces of Remnant are somehow getting wormhole'd here, is it possible of the reverse? Like pieces of the Wasteland popping up in our home turf?"

The former specialist frowned. "I thought we were done conjecturing on that topic."

"Wouldn't hurt to bring it up every once in a while. Makes you think, you know."

"Makes me uncomfortable knowing that the more horrid abominations of this place are terrorizing our friends and family on the other side," mused the former combat instructor.

Winter exhaled tiredly. "We can't dwell on what we know the least of, especially with regards to what's going on back on Remnant. Right now, what do we have to worry about? Have you found anything else from your gallivanting on the outside?"

"Yeah," the Huntsman replied. "I got in touch with the big man himself."

Silent, wide-eyed surprise.

"Can't say he's open to helping us out though. Man lives up to his reputation. Nearly got me when things went south."

"So he can't be trusted," Glynda remarked.

"I didn't say he can't be trusted. I just mean that he's dangerous. Doesn't look like it but, if you ask me, he's the one pulling the strings in New Vegas. So I followed where those strings lead to. Got a hold of his contact at McCarran. Same guy who keeps the tools that are supposed to get rid of those collars easy."

Qrow unfolded his scroll to reveal candid shots snapped from a window sill opening down into a dingy warehouse occupied by a balding man in an NCR uniform checking off a list on a clipboard. Surrounding him were boxes of various sizes, some bearing the stenciled designations of the Republic and the nature of their contents. Most notable, however, were the industrial machinery wrapped in chains and the various heavy-duty equipment arrayed on the tables and on top of the opened containers.

"He's...McCarran's quartermaster?" Winter coughed.

He nodded. "Sergeant Daniel Contreras. Smarmy bastard. Puts a price tag on everything, sells to the highest bidder. NCR nearly put him behind bars until our dear friend Courier Six came along and straightened things out. Now he's Six's inside man. And—"

"He's willing to work for us for the right price."

"Pretty much. He's scared of Six more than he is of the NCR and he wants protection from both in case things go south."

The two women regarded him warily.

"What did you propose?" Glynda slowly asked.

"That I'll keep him safe."

Winter blinked, eyes going wide with incredulity. "Can you keep that promise? You're only one man! How can you—"

"Courier Six is only one man, too," the Huntsman countered. "No Aura, no Semblance. Just some heavy guns, fast hands, and a massive network of the right people."

"Do you have a network? Do you even have a sense of who to talk to and who not to offend!? This isn't Remnant, this is—"

"You don't have to worry about me, Ice Queen. I'm not trying to overthrow him, okay? What I'm trying to do is getting you all some real help. And first thing's first, we need to get those damn collars off."

"Qrow, don't be reckless," Glynda hissed, her brows bending in a rare show of concern. "You're our only contact with the outside. Knowing your habits, you'd risk compromising everything!"

"You think I don't know myself?" he angrily retorted. "You know me, Glynda! You know what I can and can't do. I know I got problems but you know that I'm not stupid enough to do what I can't. At least cut me some slack. Quit trying to be Oz for once, goddamn it."

The former Atlesian specialist was surprised to see the former Beacon staffer deflate at that, almost reeling as though she had been slapped, piercing green orbs immediately moving away to hide some kind of guilt hidden there.

"I need to get going," Qrow muttered coolly. "Got to follow through with this deal I'm working on with Contreras."

"I thought he wanted protection," Winter worded.

"That's the half of it."

"And the other half."

"I can't tell you that yet."

“Qrow,” she pleaded. She still had much to say, much to ask, much of her worries that needed to be assuaged. Yet her mouth hung open with the words drying up on the tip of her tongue.

He pulled away from her. “Look, I'm doing my best here. But Contreras is after something really big, something really sensitive. I can't risk you two or anyone else here—”

“He could be leading you into a trap or—”

“I know what I'm doing.”

“Winter,” Glynda echoed with a resigned sigh, unable to look back up at the veteran Huntsman. “Let him go.”

The former Atlesian specialist looked conflicted but nonetheless woefully stepped back. “Be careful then. You're the only one left.”

The morose Huntsman exhaled. “I know. You take care of yourself, too. Be seeing you around, ladies.”

He then stepped outside and promptly vanished into the early morning darkness.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: August 5, 2020

LAST EDITED: September 1, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED: September 1, 2020

Chapter Text

Everything hurt.

Literally everything hurt. Not debilitatingly painful but painful enough that he couldn't move two feet without wincing.

"Son of a bitch..."

Six groaned in pain as he lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the sun beaming down through the window of his suite. His body ached as badly as his brain did during hangovers and he knew damn well why.

The Mojave was a desert. Naturally, it was terribly hot. From Arizona to Texas to Nevada to even California, it was goddamn hot. And he was used to it. Then suddenly, he was up in one of the most frigid places in this part of the wasteland. And despite the radiator in his suite keeping things warm, his body—no matter what kind of technological wonder-crap got sewed into it—was not liking the sudden change in temperature one bit.

Damn cold.

"Ugh, damn cold," hissed Yang who had been coated in her own blanket after waking up to her body adapting to the high-altitude chill.

"Tell me about it," Blake moaned from her own cocoon on her own bed nearby.

Ruby let out a garbled noise against her pillow just as Weiss trudged out of the bathroom with hands too limp to lift a book and a face too tired to face the day.

Velvet then walked in with a tray of their mid-morning breakfast and a dosage of everyone's medication. With an apologetic smile, she laid it down on the end table and segregated the dishes. And though she played the part of caretaker, it was obvious in the slump in her step and the bags under her eyes that the rabbit faunus was suffering about as much as her underclassmen.

"Doc never said anything about, ugh, this," the blonde groaned. "I'll take a runny nose over this..."

"Eat up, everyone. One tablet per person," Velvet chirped as cheerfully and optimistically as she could. Even though her legs hurt. And her ribs still hurt. And her joints too. In fact, she had been straining to be lively for her underclassmen's sake despite the aching in her muscles.

"Moving for days under the searing desert heat and to suddenly be pummeled by the freezing cold," the heiress droned. "Our bodies are acclimating poorly to the change..."

Her teammates grunted out unintelligible responses.

Thud, thud. Knock, knock.

Weiss opened the door.

"Oh my dearies!" exclaimed Lily, whose housekeeping duties landed her in front of their open room. "You're all so sick! Don't worry, your great grandma will fix you all up."

Team RWBY-V eyed each other warily.

"Um, that's okay, Lily," the heiress tried diplomatically. "We can—"

"No, that's not okay, dearie! You all need to stay in bed! Don't worry, sugar. Great grandma will make you some nice brahmin soup."

With that, Lily Bowen pushed her cleaning cart down the hallway and while having a loud disjointed argument with someone named Leo...who must be either downstairs or behind the corner because, as far as team RWBY-V could tell, there seemed to be no one else around.

When Lily mentioned that they were going to have pancakes and brahmin stew for breakfast, the first thing to hit the five girls was relief. This was followed immediately by sudden realization capped with primal dread knowing that Nora loved pancakes.

Then team RWBY-V noticed the door to team JNPR-S's room was open. And it was empty.

Then they saw a small group of super-mutants idling in the foyer. Some of whom were covered in batter. Copious amounts of batter. Ridiculously egregious amounts of batter.

Then they walked into the kitchen. Or what at one point had been a kitchen.

With Ren sitting tiredly on the floor, covered in dough. And Jaune, dazed and confused, slouched over one of the fluorescent lamps suspended from the dough-painted ceiling. While Pyrrha painfully tried her best to keep Syrup from eating Nora's bowl of...something. Something that she baked. Something that she, Nora Valkyrie, had cobbled together from the lodge's assortment of ingredients and threw into the oven until it exploded in the hopes of conjuring something edible.

And to think either Ruby or Weiss were bad at cooking.

In the corner, Marcus let out a long sigh as he picked up a mop and began mopping the pasty cream pools on the tiled floors. Meanwhile, Keene strolled past with his feather duster and pink tutu, grumbling about 'these dirty humans always ruining everything.' To which Nora harked that she was 'just trying to make pancakes.'

Then Lily, overseeing the entire fuster-cluck of an operation, clasped her hands in adoration and loudly admired her 'great granddaughter's' handiwork.

Team RWBY-V, their bodies still painfully reeling from getting slammed by Mount Charleston's average mean temperature, slowly began to feel the migraines that Six complained about.

Six was fiddling with the knobs on his hot plate when he heard the knocks on his door.

Damn it, housekeeping! Go away, I'm busy. "Who is it?"

"It's grandma, sugar!"

Ah hell, what is it now? With an angry sigh, the Courier hastily put away his makeshift moonshine still—a tray that held an empty glass bottle, a bottle of water, a fission battery, a pouch of yeast, two heads of corn, and some cuttings of Nevada agave that he plucked from the lodge's back gardens. With his alcohol-to-be safely tucked under his bed, he trudged over to unlock the knob and stood back in anticipation of it being yanked off its hinges.

"It's open," he called.

"Good!" greeted Lily who, thankfully, calmly eased the door open. For some reason, Pancake was grinning behind her. "You need to be more responsible, dearie."

The fuck is she going on about this time? "Responsible for what exactly?"

"Your children, of course! My great grandkids. In fact, they need you right now."

Six raised a brow as he regarded Nora sheepishly grinning behind the super-mutant and whistling not-so-subtly at the ceiling. I don't like the look of this. "Need me to do what?"

Lily then regarded Pancake with a grandmotherly (or somewhat grandmotherly) nudge on the shoulder. "Go on, sugar. Tell daddy what you need."

This better be good. Then again, this is Pancake. This is probably the opposite of good. "What is it?"

"So~o," the ginger drawled. "We're kinda doing something re~eally important and...we're sho~ort on one person so~o..."

The Courier was unimpressed. "I'm busy."

"Oh. Maybe you're not busy now?"

He glared at her. "What did I just say?"

"But that was like three seconds ago," Pancake whinnied. "Are you not busy now?"

I don't have time for this shit. I got maintenance to do, moonshine to make, and balances to check. And a lot of other, more important things to handle that involve keeping the Mojave in order. "No. I'm busy."

"Sugar!" chastised Lily. "Don't be so rude."

"Yeah, Six!" parroted Nora. "Don't be so rude."

Shut up, both of you. It's ten in the morning and you're giving me a headache. "Look, I'm pretty sure you can get Marcus or Keene or—wait, scratch that. Not Keene. Uh, you can get Calamity to help you out if it's that important."

The super-mutant folded her massive bulging arms and shook her head like a disappointed parent. Which confused and irritated Six even more.

"I think this calls for a sterner hand," Lily remarked.

I don't like the sound of that. He eased his hand back over the knob. "I'll see you later then."

"Hey, that sounds like a yes to me," chirped Pancake.

"It actually does, sweetie." With that, Lily grabbed Six's wrist before he could swing the door closed and dragged him out into the hallway. "Come, now, dearie. Your kids need you to spin the bottle."

Spin-the-...are you shitting me? "Seriously!?"

"Seriously," snickered Nora.

For all his strengths and augmentations, the Courier could have easily muscled his way out of this. But the look on this little ginger's face, the smile she had, the brightness of a child eager to play with someone who never had the time for them because they were so busy with more important things...than spending time with those who...really mattered...

"You left... You left the ones you cared about... You left to protect others."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily. Fuck it. It's just spin-the-bottle. Nothing really bad comes out of that dumb game. What could go wrong?

So many things nearly went horribly, horribly wrong.

First, someone dared Nora to make a bomb out of the ingredients in the kitchen. Six put a stop to that quick. Then Nora dared Pyrrha to do some kind of sleight-of-hand bullshit with her Semblance. The Courier ended up tackling the redhead after she sneezed and accidentally magnetized every single metallic thing in the room. Thank goodness he had enough electromagnetic shielding on him to keep from getting dangerously tingly.

By the time he got Sparta under control, the empty whiskey bottle had landed on Lily.

"Ooh! I know just the thing," chirped the nightkin.

Christ Almighty, what is it going to be this time!?

So they waited. And waited. Then something more concerning happened: Lily started talking to herself. Specifically, she started to talking to Leo...her violent warmongering alter ego that was characteristic of the purposes for which super-mutants were initially created.

The Courier's eyes went wider than any of the others in the room. Oh no.

"Who's Leo?" Ruby asked.

"Uh, Ruby," Blake eased in cautiously. "I don't think Lily's..."

"Lily's not in the right state of mind, right now," Six intoned. "Hyper, call Marcus. Now."

The reaper tilted her head. "Huh? Why?"

"Shut up and go," he hissed. "I'm serious. Call Marcus! Use your Semblance if you have to."

"Um, okay then." Then she disappeared behind her rose petals.

Damn it. Did Lily take her meds today? Doc said her dosages have been irregular lately. "Lily? Listen to my voice."

"Sugar? Is that you? Hnn, sorry, dearie. I'm having a really"—snarl—"urgh, a very important talk with Leo right now."

"What's happening?" Jaune whispered.

"Is Lily okay?" Pyrrha asked.

The Courier ignored the questions behind him. "Lily. It's me, Theo. You know you shouldn't be talking to Leo. Especially not now."

"But Leo...he doesn't really like you."

"Yes. He doesn't. Which is why it's better if you talk to me, instead. Theo, not Leo."

Growl, hiss, snicker. "Of course, sugar. What is it you need?"

"How about..." Six noticed the bottle rolled up to the side his boot. He gave the kids a fierce glare that told them to shut up and let him handle this. "It's my turn to give you a dare, Lily. And I dare you...to go back to cleaning the lodge. For the day. How's that?"

"Ooh! I like that dare! Don't worry. Grandma will keep this place spic and span!" With that, the nightkin got up, withdrew her duster, and existed into the hallway just as Marcus ran in with Ruby in tow.

A moment later, Yang asked, "What just happened?"

Six sneered. "This. This is why this game is fucking stupid."

"Now, now," Marcus interjected, clapping his shoulder a little too roughly. "Let's not be too harsh, Major. Lily's still playing the game, after all. And if she finds out that it ended, she wouldn't have to continue fulfilling her dare now, would she?"

The Courier gawked at him. Shit. Does that mean I have to stay until this whole shebang's over? Seriously?

"You don't have to be so denigrating," Weiss groused. "It's just a game."

"Game, huh? Speak for yourself, Snowball," Six snorted. "I thought you and I had a same mind about this charade."

The heiress blinked back at him, eyes wider than usual.

"O~okay then!" Ruby interjected with a fragile smile. "Whose turn is it?"

And just like that, the brats went back to spinning that empty whiskey bottle. At least that pesky deathclaw wasn't here; something about Velvet being on 'Syrup duty' which meant she had to chaperone the damn thing while Doctor Henry held his magnifying glass over it so he could figure out how to get his own pet deathclaw.

I could really use some booze right about now. Goddamn it, Doc.

At least from now on, Marcus made sure that whatever crazy ideas these kids (particularly Pancake and Blondie) thought up wouldn't cause any significant damage to the lodge or the entire commune. And after enduring more stupid dares (letting Ruby piggyback him like a horse, armwrestling Nora until he nearly broke her arm, and bench-pressing Blake of all people), he managed to weasel his way out of this after being given the chance to issue a dare.

He dared the kids to let him leave or they stop playing.

And so they did.

They could argue and pout and puppy-dog-eye him all they want; he was done. Well, not really. Not entirely. He just wanted to get back to his room and get back to his guns and get back to secretly brewing his moonshine. Goodness knows he was itching for some booze. At least the pills Doctor Henry prescribed him were keeping tabs on his withdrawal so he wouldn't have to worry about his hands shaking every now and then.

Besides, these brats could have all their fun without him.

Really, for crying out loud.

They didn't need to waste his fucking time doing dumb shit that wouldn't help anybody.

Why the hell are you giving me that look, Marcus? You know damn well I'm not interested in this bullshit. I got work to do.

Marcus only shook his head with that same level of disappointment that continued to irk him. The super-mutant didn't stop him when the Courier violently kicked the door open.

On his way back to his own suite on the other side of the lodge, Six couldn't forget the look on Snowball's face when he stormed out, like he shot her dog or something. Out of his supercharged brats, it was Weiss—not Ruby, not Yang, not Nora—who seemed the most offended over the fact that he up and walked out of their game like it was a damn waste of time.

Because it was.

In fact, he had expected her to be the least involved with this crap. That little ice princess was very uptight and even hesitant to even play to begin with. And she smiled the least. Granted, she still smiled at the stupidity of it. But it wasn't like the wide grins that the brats had on their faces after every cockamamie dare.

Either it's that time of the month or she's just being crabby.

Ruby was doing her best, Weiss noted.

Their hyperactive team leader, though under the weather as half of them were, gave her all to make their sick day as fun as could be. After their rather messy breakfast, she had gotten team JNPR-S to hang out in their dorm (since they were under the weather as well) and even initiated a few parlor games that she claimed she and Yang played with their father back home in Patch.

The heiress bit her lip.

Even now, after the Courier so callously left their game (even if it was a little...childish) to go do whatever it was he did, Ruby still tried to maintain their spirits. But the exhaustion from their bodies and the fact that Six did not mince his words when he expressed how...disinterested...he was in this charade...

Yes. Charade. This was all a charade. A pointless mimicry of something so benign and irrelevant that it was worth no one's time at all.

Truly, there were far more important things to attend to other than spending the rest of the day indoors coughing at crude jokes and building pillow forts within the walls of their self-induced quarantine. Because, out of their whole party, Weiss—born and raised in Atlas—was the least affected by the chill temperatures.

Which meant that she was the most fit to brave the snowy outskirts surrounding Jacobstown.

Come to think of it, she could use a break right now.

Why? She...honestly...did not know why. Or she did not want to acknowledge why. She just stood up, fetched Myrtenaster and her Browning sidearm from under her bunk, slipped on her oversized leather boots, and donned her NCR jacket as she made her way out of their room.

"Weiss? Where are you going?" Ruby asked her.

"Just...need some air," Weiss squeezed out. Why was her throat suddenly dry?

"Um, you okay there, Ice Queen?" Yang tried.

She finally found her voice. It came out a little too harshly than she intended. "I have a name, Yang."

"Whoa. I was just asking."

"Weiss," Blake prodded. "Are you—"

"I'm fine. I just need some space, that's all."

Weiss felt the jovial atmosphere cool and mentally cursed herself for being so abrasive. Then again, she couldn't help herself. For some reason, her emotions right now were...difficult to control.

"Miss Schnee?" Marcus asked.

"If you'll excuse me, I would like some time alone," the heiress managed. She could sense the uncertainty between the two sister teams behind her.

"I see. Very well," acquiesced the super-mutant leader. He shuffled aside and opened the door for her. As he would have for the Courier earlier...if the man didn't tear it off its hinges while spitting his vitriol.

Blake had a mind to go after Weiss.

She could tell that the heiress was not in a very happy place right now. And she knew that it was because of Six; he had been having one of those moments where he didn't realize he had been thinking aloud. Then again, the man sometimes had no filter.

Ruby and Yang tried to get back into the game, spinning the bottle and pointing at each other for who got to give the next dare. Then Marcus fished out a packet of playing cards from one of his satchels to which Nora then jumped on, insisting they play Caravan. Since the cat faunus was admittedly never really good with card games, she used this as a chance to check up on her teammate.

"You're gonna check up on Weiss, huh," Yang chirped.

Blake tilted her head. "How'd you know?"

"You're easy to read."

Seriously? Was she that easy to discern? "Look, I'll just make sure she's okay."

"Well, if you're going to do that, then we're coming along," Ruby said.

"But you're—"

"Sick?" The blonde brawler scoffed. "So are you, kitty cat. I mean, I'm feeling better now with some pain meds. And besides, it's not like Ice Queen's gone too far. She's probably sulking in an empty room somewhere."

"Yeah," her sister agreed. "We're A-okay to go walking around the lodge."

"Mind you don't stray too far," Marcus intoned. "I do hope you find your teammate as well. You're all under our supervision now that you've been confined her to the lodge for health reasons."

Yang shrugged. "We're not that sick."

"I can see that. But I suggest you adhere to Doctor Henry's advice. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to check up on the other residents so I trust that you all can handle yourselves from this point on?"

"We can," Ruby replied firmly.

"Team JNPR?"

Jaune likewise gave a thumbs up. "Looks like we're going to be here for awhile. Nora really wants to play Caravan so...yeah."

The super-mutant nodded. "Alright then. If you need me, you know where to find me. Oh, and if you happen to come across Lily, it'd be best if you continued your spin-the-bottle charade."

Charade.

Blake had a feeling that Weiss did not really like that word.

The Courier was halfway through secretly brewing his moonshine when he caught the blue lights flashing between the pine trees on the northeastern slope. For sure, a lot of the other super-mutants did so, too.

That ain't right. He peered through his binoculars and caught sight of something moving between the dense woodland. Okay, if that ain't some mercenary squad fucking around with their strobes, it's probably much worse. Goddamn. Could be something more serious than that. Shit. Worst case scenario, it's some scientific anomaly or some mutant thing... Hell, it's probably another trans-dimensional rift.

Six did not like the prospect of something from Remnant dropping within sight of Jacobstown. It was best if he dealt with this quickly and quietly before these super-mutants might get tangled up in this...assuming they weren't already. Goodness knows, Marcus had his fair share of secrets here.

Damn. At least, the kids are out of commission.

He quickly replaced his alcohol behind the dresser and started packing for a light excursion into the wilds. With an excuse worked out and a rough perimeter outlined on the GPS on his Pip-boy, the Courier then headed downstairs where Marcus was discussing the sightings with Keene. It took awhile to convince them to let him loose for this one—after all, Jacobstown wouldn't be risking much of anything if he went out to investigate it instead of a standard patrol. Goodness knows what it could be really: wasteland anomalies or something more belligerent that could be dangerous even to heavily-armed super-mutants.

The flashes were abrupt and sporadic, attracting a curious crowd of onlookers from the commune. Even Doctor Henry and Calamity were peering through the windows from the medical bay.

Great. So this isn't normal for this place.

Outside the walls, Six found a single set of bootprints snaking up into the northwestern face of the forested mountainside. They were irregular and showed that someone who was not entirely used to trekking on untrodden snow had been hiking up here hours ago. Interestingly, the boot size was similar to his own.

Okay, not a super-mutant.

Still, someone or something was out there. Revolver out, Six continued meandering up the slope until he reached a point on the mountainside where he could see the entire whole haven from point to point. Set against the sun going down, it was like witnessing a bastion of hope lighting up this dim apocalyptic hell-scape. Funny how vulnerable that fortress looked from up here.

Flash. Two o'clock.

Low rumble. Five yards out.

Resonant humming. Creak, creak. Crash. What the hell?

The noise of splinters—definitely timber being ripped apart—echoed between the trees. Now it wasn't just lights, it was also ejection of force. Something strong enough to fell a whole pine.

Doesn't sound like any weapons discharge I've ever heard of. Looks like something an energy-based weapon would do, though. The Courier watched and waited until he zeroed in on the location of the possible source: a small glen marked by a few twisted logs. A shape was moving around in the dark; twisting and turning, it looked like.

Hold on. This looks familiar. Dropping to a crouch, he made his way as quietly as he could, using the low shrubbery to conceal his silhouette, until he got a solid visual on his target. Is that...?

The person in the middle of the glen slouched into the snow, panting and sweating and leaning on her weapon for support. That was when she saw him easing out of the wilderness.

"Six?"

"Snowball?" Was this all you? What the fuck are you doing? Where're your teammates? Shit, are you alone out here? "What the hell are you doing out here?"

The look Weiss gave him was most unwelcoming.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: August 6, 2020

LAST EDITED: October 19, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED: October 6, 2020

Chapter Text

When the girls saw the lights on the snowy forested mountainside, it was a no-brainer that it was Weiss practicing her Semblance. Her glyphs emitted a similar glow and had a distinct hue; if they weren't shimmering black, they were bright white with a tint of blue. Not to mention, the thickness of the forest allowed for that particular disturbance to physically resonate against the trees.

“Shit,” Yang hissed, peeking through their shared binoculars. With how thickly wooded the area was, and the onset of dusk denying the revealing power of the sun, there was no way to tell exactly what was going on. “Damn it, I can't see shit. Is she all the way out there?”

“She actually ran off,” mouthed the cat faunus.

Ironic how back on Remnant, it was Weiss who chewed Blake out for running off to face her problems on her own. The latter wondered what exactly the former's problem could be in this regard. Obviously, the heiress had been offended by Six's careless diatribe earlier today but was it enough to actually push her to seclusion in the wilds? Where she was prone to the wasteland's worst and Brothers know what else?

That did not seem like the Weiss that Blake personally knew. In fact, that sounded a lot like...

“That kinda sounds a lot like you,” Yang remarked.

The cat faunus regarded her partner with an annoyed glare. “I get it, okay? I didn't infect her with going prodigal, if that's what you're getting at.”

“Girls, focus,” Ruby intoned sternly. “Weiss might be in serious trouble!”

“We're not allowed to leave Jacobstown, are we?” mused her sister.

Blake shook her head. “I don't think so.”

Her team leader brightened up suddenly. “Technically, we can't...but you can.”

“What do you mean?”

Ruby pointed to the fortified gantry constructed over the section of highway that led into the commune. “There's only one way in and out of this place and it's through the front gate. But we can't just walk out of here because we're technically confined on medical reasons. And fighting our way out is pretty dumb.”

“So we climb over the palisade?” Yang raised. “No offense, sis, but it's not that easy.”

“Not us. But Blake can.”

Said girl blinked in disbelief. One, she was flattered that Ruby thought that highly of her. Two, she was not keen on scraping herself over the spiky, barbed-wire, timbre wall surrounding Jacobstown. “I don't know...”

“Come on, Blake,” Ruby pleaded. “You're the only one who can pull this off. Please. Velvet's busy handling Syrup at the clinic and team JNPR's busy keeping Marcus busy.”

“She's got a point,” agreed her sister. “You don't seem to be hurting as much as we are. And the meds are making me feel all really jello, you know?”

Blake sighed into her palm. Screw it. Weiss was out there by herself caught up in Brothers know what. She just hoped that she got her teammate back safe and sound because goodness knows, Six wouldn't be very happy if he found out about this. Come to think of it, they hadn't seen him since this afternoon.

“Alright. But you two need to run interference on Six.”

“Will do. He won't know what happened,” Ruby assured.

The cat faunus doubted it. “Right. First off, we're going to need our walkie-talkies.”

Yang fished out her scroll and clicked her tongue when at the near-empty energy bar. “Well, shit. Guess we really can't rely on our scrolls this time.”

“Yeah. And I'll also need a flare gun. If things get too hairy, you'll know where to find us.”

“Six?”

“Snowball? What the hell are you doing out here?”

Weiss glared at him, huffing and catching her breath. After spending hours pushing herself to the limit with the more advanced aspects of her Semblance, she barely had the energy to stand upright without so gracelessly leaning against Myrtenaster for support. “I'm being busy.”

Six glowered back. “Busy my ass. What's going on? Are you out here by yourself?”

“Can't you tell?” she seethed. “I'm being productive with my time.”

“Tearing this place apart? You're attracting predators!”

She paused to catch her breathe before biting back. “I'm mastering my skillset so I can properly deal with them! As I should be, don't you think?”

He narrowed his eyes at her, holstering his revolver. “I don't like your tone, woman.”

“Oh, as if you ever cared for my tone, dear sir.”

“Snowball—”

“I have a name!”

The Courier regarded her for a moment. “... Weiss. What are you doing out here by your lonesome?”

Lonesome. Weiss stared back at the snowy ground, not liking how hard that word hit her. “I told you. I was perfecting my abilities—”

“What are you really doing out here?”

The heiress grit her teeth. “What? You don't believe me? You have to constantly ask for confirmation?”

“Answer the question.”

“I already did. After all, why should I waste my fucking time doing dumb shit that won't help anybody?”

His expression shifted from annoyance to something else beneath that deep frown. “... What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What's wrong with you!?” she shrieked. “Why do you have to be so angry all the time!? Why do you always have to drink so much? What is it with you that everything we do is the worst thing that could happen to you?”

“Weiss, not everything—”

Weiss forced herself to stand even as her knees began to buckle. “It was just a game! We just wanted to spend time with you! Ruby wanted to spend time with you, Yang wanted to spend time with you. Nora, Blake, Jaune, Pyrrha, Ren, Velvet... Me. I wanted to spend time with you.”

Major Vickers rounded one of the pines that had been freshly uprooted. “You. Wanted to spend time. With me?”

The heiress almost scoffed with the way he said those words. It was like he was surprised that they even bothered to give him the light of day out of the goodness of their heart. It was like their time—her time that she was willing to expend, time that was meant to be spent on other...more selfish...things—was worthless to him. And that was infuriating.

“Don't you care that we care?” she growled. “Yang, Ruby, Blake. They were under the weather. They could have spent all day in bed but they decided to spend that time with you. The others too! They wanted to...they wanted to...”

Her turbulent emotions became difficult to contain. Her grasp on Myrtenaster tightened, pushing the blade deeper into the dirt as her legs once again gave way. She slumped onto the snow.

“They wanted to...get to know you more... Without spying on you, without stalking you, without walking in on sensitive conversations in the night. Why can't you see?”

She felt something warm trickle down her cheeks but she didn't care.

“I wanted to know the man who could be so kind to me yet so cruel to the world. I wanted to know one of the few adults in my life who actually really cared... I wanted to, I wanted to... I wanted to impress you...by being someone who could help the wasteland...instead of making it worse like you always say we do...”

Sniffle, sniffle, sob.

“I... I... I didn't want to be a burden...”

Creak, crunch, sigh. “... Weiss.”

She looked up to see him sitting on the log, the angry frown gone. Instead, his eyes seemed to glaze over her, becoming unfocused. He seemed to be slipping back into the haze of his past again.

But then he spoke. Yet his voice was unlike what she usually heard, even when he was either heavily intoxicated or completely lost in distant thought. No condescension, no antagonism, no vitriolic language that characterized his disdain for the world around him. What she heard was a voice that she only heard when he was lost in the hazy memories of his past.

“Weiss... You sweet, stubborn, sad snowflake... Why do you care so much anyway?”

Weiss was flabbergasted that Six did not know why people cared for him. What in the world happened to this man that he believed the world hated him so much? She sputtered in response, wanting to scream out the many reasons why she and her friends valued him greatly. Even after all that had happened, after what he had done, after his history and his misdeeds, he was still valued highly. How could he not see this?

Eventually, she found her voice. “... Why can't I?”

He huffed. “What is it about me...that even after all the threats and all the bullshit...even after I almost killed you...even after all the things I've done and will continue to do...you haven't made for the hills yet?”

She wiped her face. “Because I know that you're doing all these things for the betterment of everyone. Yes, it's ugly. Yes, it's despicable. But underneath it all, you think it's the best option...or the least worse...to take to keep the peace. You didn't want to launch nuclear missiles at the world to destroy it again. You only needed them to pacify those you saw as a threat to the weak and the innocent.”

A bitter snicker. “Weak, yes. Innocent? Hardly.”

“Still, you try to protect them...even if they never asked for it.”

“Now you're seeing things for how they really are.”

“The same exists on Remnant,” Weiss croaked forlornly. “It's not a perfect world. Indifference, bigotry, injustice...they still exist. Sometimes, Huntsmen aren't welcomed by those who need their help the most.”

Snort. “Did they teach you that in class?”

“I saw it with my own eyes,” she countered. “When my father needed Huntsmen to fulfill what our army could not, he'd hire them. Then he'd dispose of them like a rag. I've seen men and women devoted to their causes, to their advocacies, left to hang after they've served their purpose.”

“If that's what you saw growing up, then why'd you even bother to become one?”

“For the same reasons I believe you had when you signed up to be a Desert Ranger.” She saw his face change and his knuckles harden. “I wanted to be a Huntress so I could help people. To show the world that a Schnee is not some corporate monster that didn't care for its own workers. To prove to my father that I could be successful in a different way. I didn't want to be a hero, I just wanted to undo the wrongs my father did...”

“... Some wrongs can't be undone,” Six echoed.

Weiss wanted to cry again. Because it was true.

“... But that don't mean you can't make up for 'em,” he remarked softly. “Your old man...knew what he wanted from the beginning, huh.”

She shook her head bitterly. “... I thought he cared. As a child, I didn't know better. All those birthday parties, those recitals, the events and the galas...all the attention that people gave me...just to hide the fact that everything was just lip service.”

“What did he do to you?”

It took her a long, painful moment to reply. “... On my tenth birthday, my father finally admitted to my mom why he really involved himself with my family. He missed the big dinner, she got mad, he finally snapped. It was the first time I saw him for who he really was...how much value he really saw in us as a family... How petty things like my birthdays and my recitals were...nothing but a 'damn fucking charade.'”

“... What about your mother?”

She responded with an almost defeated shrug. “She...did her best to cope. First, it was separate lunches and dinners, opposite balconies at my recitals, a glass of wine here, a glass of wine there. Then it was no dinners, no recitals, a bottle of wine here...and... She wasn't the same after...”

He exhaled loudly. “Your siblings?”

She bit her lip and shook her head. “Winter had had enough. She was willing to be disowned... Instead, her birthright was passed to me and she went and joined the Atlas military. Whitley, on the other hand...”

“You talk a lot about your older sister. But I don't hear the same for your little brother.”

“I'm sorry, I... Whitley and I aren't...very close. He's been...He's just been...”

“He's not like you, in't he? Actin' more like his old man, treatin' you the same, seein' the world the way your old geezer does, huh.”

Weiss's tears poured anew.

Six exhaled. “Look, I ain't gon' tell you how much you hurt a lot o' people by runnin' off an' dealin' with how hurt you are.”

She snapped her head at him in shock. “I didn't—”

“Yes, you did,” he deadpanned. “The way you're actin', the way you see the world, the way you think that your way of dealin' with things is the best way o' dealin' with things. You, your sister, your mother...y'all busy mopin' over your own issues that you forget there's a bunch more folks who needed you the most.”

“I didn't realize...”

“Course you didn't. But I don't blame you. At your age, you sometimes get so caught up that you don't realize what's goin' on around you...and that what you're doin's actually causin' more harm than good.”

“We just wanted to help.”

“I know,” he sighed. “I know. Your hearts're in the right place. But sometimes, you gotta let people like us do the work...even if it costs lives... You know that, right? You ain't stupid, kid. I know you know that. Hyper, too. Blondie, even. Hell, y'all pro'lly don't want to admit it but sometimes people gotta die for others to live. All you can do is hope that you saved the right people...and live with the consequences if they don't turn out the way you thought they would.”

Weiss was startled when she felt his finger wipe her cheeks dry.

“There's some really long lonesome roads I've walked, sweetie,” he said with a slight trembling hoarseness. “You'd think there's an end to it but a million miles on, twenty years down the line, and you find that you're still walking it.”

She took his hand. “Then maybe you don't have to walk those roads alone.”

He chuckled quietly. “You could barely manage half a mile on the interstate without bitchin' and moanin'.”

The heiress began to crack a smile up to her tear-streaked cheeks. “True, I bitch and moan. But I don't give up. And neither do the rest of the, ahem, New Vegas Wonder Kids.”

Former Major Theodore Vickers laughed softly. “Well, you little shits never do let up, after all. And, you know, that really ain't a bad thing.”

The sun set an hour ago, bathing the entire region in darkness with Jacobstown being the only source of light around. Blake used both the commune's lights and the stars overhead to move around out here. Crunching through piling snow was proving more difficult than bearable; her combat boots kept the moisture out of her feet but she could feel the damn cold seeping through the leather.

“Damn it, Weiss,” she groused. “Why'd you have to scamper off?”

The blue lights had since stopped, making her worry. Blake did her best not to lose sight of her destination. Whatever hiking trail existed on this side of Mount Charleston had since been eroded by years of neglect and the only traversable paths were way too precarious. But then again, Weiss somehow managed to get this far without falling off the edge or sliding down the steep snow-covered slopes.

Low rumbling.

Blake gripped onto the low-hanging branch she leapt onto, focusing her hearing to better pick up the noises that were sounding a lot like Weiss's glyphs.

Cracks.

Timbre breaking.

Wind whistling.

The cat faunus shivered upon being pelted by conifer needles, pine cones, dead leaves, and bits of snow thrown around by the sudden gale sweeping across the mountainside. Now the lights were back but with greater intensity. If that was really Weiss, then she was most probably exhausting her Semblance. Which was not a good thing out here. Especially in the physical condition they were in.

Blake grit her teeth as she pushed through the woods, leaping between the trees, baiting her breathe at how fickle some of these low-hanging branches were. Several painstaking minutes later, she made it to her destination: an open glen that looked like it had just been carved up. And in the middle of it was Six and Weiss...and a giant glistening metallic construct bending its knee as a knight would to his liege.

“What the...?”

The golem—as best she could describe it—stood to its full height as Weiss, breathing heavily with her legs actually shaking, turning to face Six.

He whistled. “Sweet Lord, Snowball.”

“You...you like it?”

“As long as it ain't gon' chop my damn head off, I'm buyin' it.”

Weiss chortled weakly. “For you, I'll adjust the price. I'm going to need...a payment of one good, replenishing meal...and a whole day in a warm bed...”

The Courier moved to quickly catch her before she tumbled into the snow, her massive frost giant dissipating into thousands of tiny snowflakes that vanished with the wind. “Easy there, now.”

Blake sat in the underbrush, biting her lip to fight the cold biting into her skin.

“What the fuck are you starin' at, Kit?” he barked. “Help me out here!”

Okay, one: how the fuck did Six find out she was here? In fact, how does he do that? How does he figure out where someone is, how he can spot an ambush before it could happen, how he could expose targets that were seemingly unseeable? Two: what the hell is that giant shimmering thing standing in the middle of the glen? Did Weiss actually summon that? Three: what was that loud hissing she was hearing? It sounded a lot like a bunch of barking rattlesnakes galloping down the mountain.

Six snapped his head in her direction. “Blake! Eyes up! We got night-stalkers!”

And now things were definitely much worse.

It had to be the modifications.

It definitely had to be whatever cybernetic surgeries or augmentations that enabled Six to single her out from the darkness.

Blake couldn't help but wonder, thirty-seconds into the fight with the large pack of half-coyote, half-rattlesnake mutant hybrids. The notion of the Courier being a 'synthetic human' with enhanced reflexes and deadly precision was becoming more believable the more she saw him in action. The brutish strength to crush a whole skull with his bare hands, the steadfastness to stonewall solid blows that would have easily knocked down a giant, and the way he would rapidly pick out the most well-concealed targets.

It had to be this supposed 'assisted targeting system.' And maybe more...

Then the cat faunus remembered that she was currently fending off a pack of hungry predators. She was pushed to her limit trying to counter these nightmares that were about as deadly as Grimm. Not to mention they were as agile as she was and their venom could kill anything in minutes. She had to bounce between her shadow clones to dodge their bites while relying on her bulky Californian carbine to pick away at the damn things because Gambol Shroud was about as useful as a back-up bladed chain at this point.

“Get Weiss out of here!” the Courier barked, reloading his revolver in bare seconds as he trudged over the cadavers of three large night-stalkers. “I'll handle the rest!”

“Be careful!” the cat faunus hollered, emptying her second clip and switching to Gambol Shroud as she hurried over to where the heiress was laying. “Damn it, Weiss! Why're you out cold!?”

Six snorted. “'Cause she tuckered herself out, that's why.”

POW! PKOW!

Blake glanced up to see another dead mutant tumble into the snow, sliding to a stop at the tip of her boot. It unnerved her still how such creatures could exist. A mix between two predators to create one hybrid monstrosity that was about as lethal as cazadores.

“Where are they coming from?” she wondered aloud.

“Caves at the peak.”

Kick. Yelp. Crunch.

Another one bit the dust with its head brutally crushed under the heel of Six's boot. “What are you lookin' at!? Get Snowball outta here!”

The cat faunus flinched when he opened fire again. Maybe it was her body poorly adapting to the cold or her unbalanced hearing or the fact that Six chambered his rather loud guns with heavy, hard-hitting, specially hand-crafted magnum rounds; either way, the discharge of Six's revolver so close to her stung her ears and made it difficult to concentrate. It was as bad as when he shot the Marked Men back at the Divide...

“Focus, Blake, focus,” she whispered to herself as she hefted Weiss's arm over her shoulder and wrapped her arm around her waist, dragging her away from the glen as fast as she could.

“Alpha on your six!” the Courier hollered. “Hit the dirt!”

She dropped to the snow before she could register his command. And a large shadow—almost reminding her of an alpha beowolf—passed over them, landing with an aggravated noise into the snow. It then rounded towards her with its serpentine eyes and massive King Taijitu-like fangs. Then it lunged at them faster than she anticipated.

Blake acted quickly, dropping a free hand to her hip until she felt the grip of a sidearm. Without thinking much of it, she whipped out her flare gun and squeezed.

Burning phosphorous burst forth, twisting wildly and missing her target completely. But it was enough to startle the alpha night-stalker and throw it off-balance, its fangs missing her and Weiss by inches. And though she couldn't see much because of how bright it was, she did hear the noise of what followed.

Yelp. Crunch. Hiss. BANG!

“Gah! Son of a bitch!”

Blake slowly turned her head to see Six pull the eviscerated head of the mutated half-coyote, half-rattlesnake off his arm. Then she saw the fangs that had gone through the leather of his coat, sunken deep into his skin...

“Oh gods, Six!”

“I'm fine, Kit,” he grunted.

“No, you're not! The venom—”

“I said, I'm fine. Calm your tits.” He then knelt down and withdrew a plastic tube from one of the satchels on his harness along with some large gourd seeds that he quickly crushed before rubbing onto the bleeding bite mark on his arm. “This is how you do it.”

And Blake saw that he did. Then again, it was difficult to doubt Six when it came to sticky situations like this...unless he was drunk. But that did not mean he couldn't suck the venom out of a wound.

“You're bleeding,” she remarked.

“I know,” he grunted, spitting out the night-stalker's poison. “I should really teach you kids how to do this properly.”

Six returned with Weiss and Blake just as a super-mutant patrol was going to head out to investigate the apparent anomaly.

The Courier continued to shoulder the unconscious heiress over his back all the way to the medical ward in the lodge where Doctor Henry had been waiting with a reasonably anxious Ruby and Yang. Interestingly, Syrup was very docile, even without Velvet running her hand over the back of the infant deathclaw's head. Though, it was probably because someone had injected the damn thing with a sedative strong enough to put knock out a horse or twelve.

Blake staggered in after him and promptly dropped onto one of the folding chairs.

“We got hit by night-stalkers,” she reported dryly.

“Oh gods, have you been bitten!?” the reaper gasped.

“I wasn't. But Six was.”

“How long ago was it?” the physician asked.

“Dealt with it,” the Courier grunted, showing the strips of stained cloth wrapped around his forearm. “Classic snakebite tourniquet.”

Yang hurried over to the heiress lying on the gurney. “What about Weiss?”

“She'll be fine, Blondie. I think. She's just tired.”

“Anything we should know?” asked Doctor Henry.

Six waved. “Exhaustion. She tuckered herself out so you don't have to stick her with anything. How's JNPR doing?”

“They're upstairs,” Velvet said.

“Everything's fine over here,” Ruby quipped, her cheeks slightly going a little red. “Honest. Nothing wrong whatsoever.”

He didn't believe that one bit. “... Right.”

Six returned to his room more exhausted than he thought he would be. He withdrew the moonshine kit from behind the dresser and was pleased to find his concoction ready for consumption. The alcohol smelled strong and he was already close to salivating at the taste.

Cass sure as hell makes some damn good shit. He emptied the canister into a metal cup and took a whiff of his drink. She sure as hell makes some damn good stuff... Cass... Hope you finally got that heart surgery you needed... Maybe a liver transplant too, with all the whiskey in California you're downing.

He caught his reflection in the window.

Lookin' like shit there, Theo. Mind if I have a drink?

Why, don't mind if I do.

The Courier toasted to himself. “Bottoms up.”

He brought the cup to his lips...

...taking in a strong whiff...

...anticipating the taste...

...some good booze to cap off the day...

“... Nothing but a 'damn fucking charade.'”

Six breathed deep and stared at the dark liquid sloshing in his cup.

“First, it was separate lunches and dinners, opposite balconies at my recitals, a glass of wine here, a glass of wine there.”

Okay, so maybe he wasn't that thirsty. But he still could use a drink, right?

“Then it was no dinners, no recitals...”

He was never an alcoholic to begin with, only picking up the habit during the Desert Rangers' war with the Legion.

“...a bottle of wine here...and...”

He never anticipated it to take over much of his life. And while it led to some poor decisions, it did keep him in control of himself. At least, that's what he had been constantly telling himself for the past twenty years.

“She wasn't the same after...”

The thought of having a drink right now was starting to leave a bad taste in his mouth.

“We just wanted to help.”

The cup had inched farther from his chin, now pressed against his chest as he began to remember things he did not want to remember.

“Then maybe you don't have to walk those roads alone.”

Former Major Theodore 'Courier Six' Vickers put his moonshine down on the table and sat on his bed deep in thought, his craving for alcohol gone and his hands wrapped tightly around each other to stop the shaking.

Weiss woke up uncharacteristically late today. But it was okay; she needed the rest after the absolute stupidity she forced herself through the previous night. What in the world was she thinking going out there in the cold by herself? To train? To exercise her Semblance? To master her hereditary gift at the expense of her already weakened body, further strained by the uncomfortable mountain chill and the stresses of trekking across the Mojave Wasteland?

She was an idiot! If she could slap herself, she would gladly do so. In fact, she would do that right now! But then again, that was a stupid thing to do in itself so instead pulled on her hair in frustration.

“Bestie!”

“Ice Queen!”

“Finally, you're up.”

Weiss regarded her teammates. Oh, how much she chastised herself for worrying them so much. Just look at them arrayed tiredly over the folding chairs here in the medical ward. The heiress ought to have been ashamed of herself for making her friends put themselves through such uncertainty and inner turmoil because of her stunt.

Here was Ruby hugging her and expressing how much she was relieved that her partner was fine. And Yang sat there with her arms sluggish, smiling weakly and trying to come up with an unused pun to alleviate the mood. Blake appeared to have spent the entire night reading the countless medical texts on the bookshelves, if only to stay awake.

“Good morning, Miss Schnee,” greeted Doctor Henry from the doorway. “I see your condition has improved.”

“It has. Thank you.”

“Oh, no need to thank me. I wasn't the one who dragged you down from the mountains.”

The heiress winced. Right. It was Six. Everything she said to him, everything he said to her... The memories of their time spent sharing so much about themselves to each other returned to her in full and she almost shot out of the gurney in worry.

“Is he alright? How is he feeling?”

“The same as he often is. Though, a bit more winded but nonetheless as healthy as you are.”

But Weiss was not too healthy at the moment. Did she push him too hard? Did she cause him to exhaust himself to dangerous levels? Did she endanger his safety? “Is he feeling ill or...?”

The physician chuckled. “Ah, I seem to have misspoken. Major Vickers is tired and prefers not to be disturbed for the next few hours or so.”

“But—”

“Now, now, Miss Schnee. It'd be best if you let your legal guardian rest. He needs it.”

“I see. If I may, can I see him as soon as he's able? I need to...I need to apologize.”

The blonde snickered. “Why don't you rehearse your apology right here? Not that we're a little peeved you went and pulled a Blakey on us.”

Her partner rolled her eyes as she flipped through the pages of a medical journal on vasectomy. “Very funny, Yang. And don't worry, Weiss. I'm not going to ream for you going out on your own out there.”

“Yeah, bestie,” her sister quipped, pouting first before suddenly beaming. “I forgive you, by the way.”

Weiss soured her look. Then softened it. And finally cracked a small smile. “Right. Um, as a rehearsal then, I would say... I'm... I'm...”

Yang clapped her on the shoulder while Ruby cupped both her hands, both sisters grinning. Blake glanced over mimicking the same face the heiress had.

“I'm sorry.”

“We forgive you,” the other three chorused.

One warm group hug later, Doctor Henry cleared his throat and asked, “By the way, which one of you is nearing her birthday?”

Team RWBY raised their brows.

“If you must know,” the physician continued. “Someone made a birthday cake last night. It's still in the kitchen, assuming no one else either ate it or threw it away.”

“I don't know if the calendar here's the same as ours back home,” Yang carefully worded. “But I don't think we're celebrating. At least not yet. Maybe team JNPR?”

Ruby shook her head. “I don't think so. Jaune showed me their team calendar and their birthdays were months ago. Velvet?”

“No,” Blake said. “Hers was at the start of the year. Perhaps one of yours, doctor?”

Doctor Henry shook his head. “Super-mutants rarely commemorate milestones in their lives, present or past, much less remember them.”

“Who baked the cake?” Weiss inquired.

“Can't say yet,” he answered. “But what I can say is that the best chefs we have can only cook meat and vegetables. The best baker we have has just come back from patrol and the most he could do are muffins...or I assume they're supposed to be muffins. A noble effort, to put it kindly. Then again, the one in the kitchen right now seems like a noble effort.”

The blonde turned to her teammates. “Want to check it out?”

“Let's,” the heiress intoned, sliding off the bed. “I'm done laying down, anyway.”

Sure enough, a very unkempt, uncomfortably disheveled, and rather awkward team JNPR-S was also at the kitchen with Velvet. And they were huddled over the mystery cake. Said mystery cake was indeed a noble effort albeit a mediocre, if not terrible, creation. Unusual shape of the bread, uneven layers of icing, and a message written on top that looked like it had been scribbled by either a toddler or someone with really big, uncontrollable fingers.

“Doesn't look too bad,” Nora remarked with Syrup sniffing at the dessert.

“I swear we didn't make it,” Jaune insisted. “It was here when we got here.”

“Okay, what happened to you guys?” Yang chirped. “You look like you had a massive workout or something.”

“Long story,” Ren muttered with an almost haunted look.

Pyrrha opted to hide her face behind her hair.

Meanwhile, Velvet cut a slice off the cake for Ruby to taste test. It wasn't too bad, she said. In fact, it was actually pretty good. Decent, at best. Of course, being the one with a sweet tooth, the reaper did mention that there was a lot of sugar in it.

Weiss, however, hovered over the cake, reading and re-reading the greeting sloppily written on the top. And her mouth slowly curled into a smile. A wide smile. Even as her lips began to quiver and her eyes began to water, she still kept that smile.

“Whoa, um, Weiss?”

“You okay there, Weiss?”

“Yoo-hoo, Ice Queen?”

The heiress sniffled and wiped her tears. “I'm fine. Just something in my eye.”

Glances went around with the others confused as to why she was beaming so much while crying at the same time. But Weiss didn't care, even with Ruby giving her a slice of cake, Blake giving her a knowing look, and everyone else wondering why the heiress was acting a little weirdly.

Omake 1

What the hell is that racket?

Even though his suite was across the lodge, he thought to take a peek and see if the other half of the Vegas Wonder Kids weren't tearing things apart. So he detoured on the second floor towards team JNPR-S's room. And even before he rounded the corner leading into the corridor, he could hear the muffled screams, hoots, and pained grunts that made the neighboring super-mutants move a few rooms away.

Goddamn it, what are those little shits doing now?

By the time he reached their door, the ruckus had died down.

How convenient. “Kids?”

Rumble, thud, muffled giggles and a bunch of other noises.

Okay, screw knocking. I'm coming in hard. You kids aren't going to be hiding any more bullshit from me. Six anticipated the door to be locked so he unlocked it with the spare key Marcus provided him because even the super-mutant leader understood that team JNPR-S tended to go off the rails without proper supervision. And that was what he expected when he got a glimpse into the room...

“Alright, what the hell are y'all...”

...and was greeted by an unnecessary carnal display.

Oh for fuck's sake.

“Six!” Nora shakily greeted, her grin stretching way too much. “Y-you should've knocked, y'know!”

“Oh my!” Pyrrha stammered, redder than she had ever been.

The Courier dropped his face into his palm. “Jesus Christ, Lord Almighty...” Don't tell me. Please, God, don't tell me what I don't want to hear.

“Um, we can explain!” Pancake stammered, trying to hide evidence of their bullshittery with her petite form...which was unfortunately stripped down to a thin undershirt and shorts.

Six turned to an equally underdressed Sparta only to find her too catatonic to speak. Most probably because the other two boys in the room were busy trying to regain whatever modesty they had lost in whatever the hell they were doing. Which the Courier hoped was not what he thought they were doing.

Clothes everywhere? Beddings tossed around? Pillows over their crotches? Smell of sweat and shame?

“Kids. Were you all...fucking each other?”

Team JNPR, as a whole, drowned in a sea of embarrassment as they stuttered mortified denials. It was a mess of four voices scrambling to explain why two of them were butt-naked and the other two were close to being butt-naked.

Then Nora loudly screeched, “We're playing Strip Caravan!”

Six saw the other three vehemently agree. Not that he didn't believe them but so far, the room didn't smell like bodily fluids...yet.

“Really! We were just playing Caravan with extra rules,” Pancake continued. “Pyrrha and I teamed up, boys versus girls 'cause girls rule! We've been on a winning streak lately so...”

The Courier did not feel any more relieved by that explanation. “Strip...Caravan? As in Strip Poker?”

“No, silly,” drawled the ginger. “Strip Caravan. Where if you lost the round, you strip! I mean, it was so~o boring with just poker chips and whatever stuff we had so we made it more exciting.”

“And they all agreed to your idea?”

“Oh, no. It was Pyrrha's.”

Six turned to the aforementioned redhead very unsubtly admiring the sweaty, meager abs of her partner.

Nora started timidly poking his arm. “So, um, Six? If you don't mind...?”

Perhaps it was the humidity in the room or the smell of sweat. Or maybe it was the stress that he was getting from having to deal with this shit because right now, he was getting a new headache.

Omake 2

Easy now, easy now...

'Happy'

Good, good. So far, so good.

'10'

Nice, big numbers...

'Birtd'

“Shit. I fucked up.” Damn it! You can't get your hands to stop shaking, you dumb fuck!

Six hissed and growled and almost tossed the icing spatula against the wall.

Get a grip, man! You're smart, you can figure something out. Remedy this shit.

“Yeah, I can remedy this...”

The Courier ran his hand over his oily, unkempt hair as he read through what he had written so far. It was...not bad by his standards. It looked pretty average, almost the same as most any cake baked by any capable wastelander. Or so he thought.

Looks like absolute shit. I'm not a baker, damn it. “Just fix this, Theo. Come on. Think o' somethin', for the love o' God.”

'Happy 10 birtd'

“I got it.” I think I got it. Fuck it, ten plus eight is eighteen. Good enough.

He picked up the spatula and began squeezing again, this time forcing a cross right next to the big large zero he painted. Then as he was finishing adding in the small number eight, he realized that he could have just easily transformed the zero into an eight.

“Oh, goddamn it.” And somehow, I convinced that crazy brain-in-a-piss-jar to rename himself Zero instead of O.

Vickers seethed at himself. He was almost done here; just persevere for a bit more. Like, for crying out loud, it was almost dawn, he was even more tired, and the withdrawal from the alcohol abstinence was kicking in harder than brahmin hooves to the gonads.

“Okay. That's it. That should do it.”

He read the greeting: 'Happy 10+8 Birtdhay!'

Good enough. “Great. I just need a candle.”

As he dug through the cupboards for a candle, he noticed something. His hands were covered in icing. No wonder they were sticky.

Hang on.

He ran his hand through his hair again and realized to his dismay that he just rubbed icing over his scalp. Not to mention the stuff painted all over his hairy arms, his rolled up sleeves, and even on his pants. He was sticky and sugary all over.

Ah, hell! Ants are going to have a field day with me.

Six eventually did find a candle and plopped it on top of the zero he wrote on the cake top. Seemed like there wasn't much anything else to add to that. Except clean up the mess he made in here in the kitchen.

A rather big mess considering this was his fourth and only considerably successful attempt at baking.

Fuck it. Fuck it! I'm done. This is good enough. I'm fucking out o' here, holy shit. I've had a long day; I had to deal with a kid with daddy issues and kids who were playing a game they weren't supposed to be playing. Lily can clean all this shit up. I'm done here.

As he stormed back upstairs to his suite, he passed by the medical ward where he could see Ruby and Yang snoozing on folding chairs next to the bed that Weiss was on. Blake was still awake though, apparently reading up on the male anatomy; she caught him staring. The Courier gestured at her to zip her mouth to which she slowly nodded.

If I ever meet Schnee Senior, I'm sure as hell going to chop his nut-sack off and feed it to him 'fore I blow his brains out with a super-wadcutter.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: August 6, 2020

LAST EDITED: October 24, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED: October 24, 2020

Chapter Text

Weiss tilted her head in surprise. "You're not mad?"

Six sighed. "I am. I just don't think it ain't worth yellin' in your face, is all."

"Well then," the heiress exhaled, letting her hands sweep back down to her sides after being primly clasped together to keep up with the formality of the apology she delivered to the Courier in his own suite at the top of the Jacobstown lodge on an afternoon. "It seems we're back on good terms."

"Not so fast, Snowball. Just 'cause I didn't rip your head off don't mean you're off the hook. You now owe me for these here brand new holes I got in my arm."

Weiss grimaced upon seeing the aforementioned injury held up to the light. Night-stalker bites apparently ran quite deep. As far as she knew, it was short of a miracle that Six managed to survive a crippling injury, much more the lethal venom of the mutant. Had it not been for a quick thinking, quicker reflexes, and a quickly-applied tourniquet, the Courier would have been in much worse condition. And that made the heiress feel all the more guilty than she already was for it.

Six then used his perforated arm to drag a pail out from under his bed, turning it over and checking for holes. "For that, I gotta ask. Can you make ice?"

"Pardon?"

"Can you make ice? Like, uh, when you do your glyph thingies and ice comes out."

"Oh. Actually, those were all manifestations of the potent energies of the Ice Dust crystals that—"

The Courier frowned. "Shit. Dust. Really? So all them Frosty-the-Snowman bullshit was all Dust?"

"Pretty much. Unfortunately, and as I assume you know very well, we are down to our final reserves." She paused to ruminate for a moment. "... Come to think of it, I don't even know how we are even able to use them given that the atmosphere in this world is...different from our own."

Probably something I might get those eggheads at the Big MT to look into...if I can somehow get back to them. Goodness knows, it had been a long while since he last visited the Think Tank. And knowing those brainiacs, they might actually figure something out underneath all the horse shit they usually come up with. Better ask them about the possibility of inter-dimensional shifts, too. Either they know something about Remnant bleeding into Earth or... Shit. What if they had a part in it? What if they actually caused it? Damn. I really should stop putting off that transportalponder project under the Lucky 38...

"Six?"

He blinked back up at her. "Right. How about this... Can you create ice...without Dust?"

She blinked in return. "I...I don't think I've been able to before..."

"Have you tried?"

"When I first unlocked my Semblance, yes. But they were largely futile."

"Largely. So some margin for success in there."

Weiss appeared unconvinced. "I can't consider that. I mean, I was probably using Dust at the time and I didn't notice."

"Well," Six intoned, scraping the bucket off the floor. "Since you're bound to run out of the stuff soon, might as well see if you can replicate the effects without them."

"I'm not so sure I can. That's not how my Semblance works..."

"You can't be too sure of your limitations, Snowball." He gestured to empty scabbard on her hip. "Your sword. Myrtenaster."

"Oh, wow. You finally said it's name right."

Probably 'cause I'm sober. "You can start practicing with that. See if you can actually create ice without Dust."

The heiress raised her brow. "You can't be serious."

"Do I look like I'm joking?" He raised his perforated arm. "You owe me for this."

"Is that wound...debilitating?"

Shrug. "Hurts like a bitch but I can still fight. I can still shoot, I can still swing a stick, and I can damn well sock you in the stomach right now for getting me bit in the first place."

She backed up towards the door. "Alright, alright. Um, I just don't think I could..."

"Give it a shot, kid. You may never know what might come out."

"But I—"

"Weiss," he echoed, resting his hand on her shoulder. "You showed me how hard you've been working to master the art of conjuring up some walking ice sculpture with a big-ass sword. Now, I don't know what that thing is made of, probably magic or some kind of mysterious molecular structure that defies the laws of the physics, but I can feel that it's close to ice."

"I don't think it's made of ice."

"Did you check?"

"... No? Check how? I don't—"

"Then you can't be sure that it's made of ice. Hell, it probably doesn't have to be ice. As long as it can make the air around it colder than the peak of Mount Charleston at midnight, then that's good enough for me." He patted her and shuffled past. "Try it when you got the time, kid. Think of it as...mastering your skillset."

Weiss watched him stroll down the corridor, mulling the possibilities. It would be another day before Doctor Henry would let declare them physically fit to leave so she had all the time to practice. Then she realized...she almost forgot.

"Thank you for the cake!" she called.

Six lazily waved back before disappearing around the corner.

The heiress was left to stand in the doorway, gazing at her palm and manifesting a small spinning glyph. Slowly, a small, shimmering armored arm emerged gripping a tiny but razor-sharp edge. Come to think of it, her summons did feel a quite cold to the touch.

After spending nearly a week at the secluded chilly peaks of Mount Charleston, the searing heat of the Mojave basin felt a little homely. Then again, it was searing hot so it also felt like they were walking back into a massive oven. Which meant their bodies had to acclimate again.

"I'm starting to miss the snow," groused Yang as they trudged along the broken asphalt of the interstate running from the northwest into Clark County.

"Couldn't we have just, like, you know, asked them to drop us off at Westside instead?" Ruby whinnied.

"Three armored cars equipped with high-caliber machine-guns and automatic grenade launchers and driven by super-mutants riding into New Vegas where people aren't very friendly to super-mutants," Weiss droned. "I wonder how that would turn out."

"At least it's better than walking," mumbled Blake.

"Eh, cheer up, guys," Velvet huffed. "It's not so bad."

The four girls eyed her. Then they eyed their sister team who was following up the rear. Jaune and Ren were drenched in sweat, huffing and puffing from the weight of their rucksacks which had been laden with nearly half of everyone else's stuff including food, ammunition, and medical supplies. Pyrrha and Nora walked beside their partners, equally supporting them in whatever way they could. Even Syrup had to nudge the boys ahead every now and then...by literally pushing its head against their keisters whenever they seemed like they were lagging behind.

A few paces ahead, the Courier soldiered on in his usual gait, unfazed by the travel.

Because he was a courier. A mailman. Deliveryman. Ferryman. People like him were used to hoofing it across the wastes because it was their job. And they were reasonably experienced, well-armed, and capable of self-sufficiency in the outdoors. At least, that was in the job description for anyone applying for the Mojave Express...or any courier service out here.

"We're almost there, kids," Six announced. "Hack it a bit more and maybe I'll get you all some nice, refreshing, ice-cold desserts from Etienne at the Westside Co-op."

The two teams stared at each other.

Unless they were either at the Strip or in the more prosperous areas of New Vegas, the Courier almost never offered to treat them to anything special. But for now, they decided not to question the incentive and roll with it. After all, with how blistering hot it was, they could sure use some frosted vegetable smoothies at the end of this journey.

The smoothies were actually really good.

As her friends and teammates suckled on their frozen treats with reasonable gusto—the Mojave heat had been very unbearable today—Weiss decided to take Six up on his suggestion.

"You okay there, Ice Queen?" Yang chirped.

"Excuse me?"

"You've been staring at your cup like there's a bug in it." The blonde's smile quickly faded. "Wait. Is there?"

"No, no. Just thinking." The heiress held her palm under the base of the cup that held her dessert. "I'm going to try something."

A small glyph appeared over her palm. And from it slowly emerged an equally small pair of hands. Hands that clasped the base of the cup, pulling it down and then wrapping around it in a soft hug. This time, Weiss paid attention to what her fingertips were feeling...

...and Six was right.

It was feeling a little cold. A substitute to ice. A substitute that did not melt and was cold enough to disperse nearby heat.

"Whoa," drawled Yang. "That...that looks...that looks really cool."

Both the hands and the glyph immediately dissipated as the heiress gave her teammate a flat look. "Was that a pun?"

The blonde grinned back at her. "Wasn't meant to be but thanks for giving me a bunch of new ideas."

"Ugh."

"You gotta show this to everybody," Yang chirped.

"I'm not sure yet—"

"Hey guys! Weiss just did something pretty awesome!"

Weiss nearly facepalmed into her own smoothie. "Damn it, Yang."

Courier Six eyed the medical clinic down the street. Situated on the westernmost end of Westside, it was manned by 'volunteer specialists' from California. And unlike most clinics that usually closed up shop a few hours after sundown, this one remained open well into the night; it was twenty-two hundred hours and the lights were still on.

"So far, they've been keeping to themselves," quipped one of the ghetto's militiamen. "Not doing much of anything other than patching up those who needed to be patched up."

Six remained in the obsidian shadow of the alleyway, careful not to fully expose himself to whatever eyes the NCR had here. "You sure about that?"

The guard dragged long on his cigarette before answering. "I wish I could give you some dirt on them but they haven't really done anything too bad. Sure they got guns—way better than ours—but the only time they shot somebody is when some drugged up junkies from the sewers tried to stage a heist. Man, what a mess that was. And we had to clean it up for them. Pricks."

"Right. Anything else?"

"Doctor Kemp still won't slash his fees," he snorted. "In fact, he just raised the prices on some of his meds. Greedy bastard's milking us harder since the NCR can't tax us. Fuck, I wish the Followers would've just stayed. Sucks that they had to pull out their only guy here and send 'em somewhere else 'cause they ain't got enough people."

The Courier grunted. The Followers of the Apocalypse had a presence here; too bad, they were muscled out by the NCR. He had to hand it to Governor Crocker, though. That bald son of a bitch was smart: grant communities like Westside 'autonomous status' to keep the illusion of independence alive even though the whole of Clark County was now part of the Republic. While the stipulations of that autonomy included immunity from taxation, there were other ways for the NCR to get their money out of these people.

The cigarette burned out and was quickly snuffed under a boot. "Hey, man. I gotta get back to my shift."

"Go on. We never spoke."

"Hard to lie these days, sir."

Six handed him a few neatly-taped rolls of bottle caps. It quickly disappeared into the guard's pocket who walked back out onto the street, having conveniently forgotten about the conversation he just had with someone in the back alley.

The Courier then slinked deeper into the darkness, using the low light filter on his visor to avoid rustling against garbage before slipping through the backdoor of the boarded-up apartment that was supposedly abandoned because it was too damp and too rat-infested for the locals to use as a permanent residence.

"You heard enough, Kit?" Six called.

Blake dropped down from the hole in the ceiling with a clear sneer. "Okay, seriously. How do you do that? How do you always figure out where I am?"

"You're obvious."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

She tilted her head. "Not even the others could see me."

"Because they're not smart enough to look for the places where cats like you usually hide," he dismissed. "You done eavesdropping?"

"I wasn't eavesdropping."

"Really now. What were you doing up on the third floor for the past ten minutes?"

Blake mimicked a fish out of water, coming out with no feasible explanation as to why she had indeed been up on the third floor, eavesdropping on Six in the alleyway for ten minutes. She sighed in defeat. "Fine... I was looking for you."

"Why?"

"It's Ruby. She's bleeding."

His eyes immediately snapped up to her. "What?" Why the fuck did you wait fucking ten minutes before telling me!?

"She's bleeding," the cat faunus reiterated. For some reason, she seemed less concerned than she needed to be.

Immediately, the Courier began pacing towards the exit. "Shit. Where is she?"

"Casa Madrid. Look, we just need to—hey, Six, wait. Wait! Six, hold up!"

Six tuned her out as he hurried out onto the street and headed straight for the Casa Madrid Apartments, the den of iniquity in the whole of Westside and, debatably, one of the few safest places in the whole ghetto. Goddamn it, Hyper. You just had to get yourself injured so much that your Aura breaks and you're fucking bleeding!

His mind began churning through what medical treatment he could administer with what he had on him: some mild painkillers and some chems to slow hemorrhaging. There was some extra gauze in his field kit and he made sure that any surgical tools he carried had been sterilized recently. But first, he needed to assess the situation...up until he saw fresh spatters of blood on the pavement.

Shit. I'm coming, Hyper!

"Six, wait!" Blake called.

Six barged in, one hand on his holster and the other digging through the satchels on his person for the rolls of gauze he anticipated he would need. His strides thundered harder over the filthy carpets, brushing past patrons, hookers, and the local pimp Pretty Sarah who almost dropped the box she was holding with how hard he shoulder-checked her in his rush to find Ruby.

Blood trail's getting thicker. And it led further upstairs. To the third floor. To an unassuming room that was locked. He banged on the door.

"Kids!"

The noises he was hearing were indiscernible with the moans and shouts echoing from the other rooms in this sex den. He pounded his fists on the oak again.

"Hyper! Ruby! You in there?"

"Six?" someone replied.

"Six, wait! Don't—"

Damn it. Ruby's hemorrhaging right now and these kids don't know how to fix it! "I'm coming in!"

One solid kick tore the door off its hinges. Before the splinters landed on the floor, he was already four steps inside.

"Alright, kids! What's going oOouoafffucking shit!"

The Courier immediately swiveled on his heels as four reasonably startled girls screeched at him and tried to cover up what he had already seen.

"Six!"

"What the hell!?"

"Don't you ever knock!?"

He grit his teeth, mentally rebuking himself for never even considering that spatters of blood was not always indicative of a life or death situation. But still, come the fuck on! Goddamn it, Theo! You stupid, stupid, stupid son of a bitch! You dumb fuck, you should've known this was a thing.

"It's that time of the month, isn't it?" he seethed.

"Really, I wonder how you figured that out," drawled Blake who now showed up with the local pimp Pretty Sarah.

"So all that blood—"

"Oh, you mean the cranberry sauce?" Blondie interjected.

"Cranberry sauce?" Etienne's selling cranberry sauce? Where the fuck did he even cranberries? Shit, are they farming cranberries here now? How have I not seen that?

"A gift from the co-op for helping the farmers a few weeks ago," Snowball clarified. "We may have spilled some in our haste to secure some privacy after we noticed the blood."

"No offense, Six," Velvet intoned as modestly as she could. "But unless you're here to help, please leave."

He was about to. Then Ruby squeaked out, "Stop! Wait."

Six stopped under the doorframe and planted his hands on his hips, keeping his gaze solely on the wall of the corridor outside. "What, Hyper?"

"Uh...is there, um...does Miguel sell, um, uh..."

"Say it. What is it?"

"Tampons," Yang answered dryly. "Does Miguel sell tampons?"

The Courier blinked. "Tampons?"

Weiss sighed. "Sanitary napkins, menstrual cups, anything relatively clean to soak up our—"

"I don't know," he barked. Goddamn it, really? "Maybe. I didn't ask."

"Could you ask him?" Blake requested. "That's why I was looking for you. Other than Miguel or the physicians at the NCR clinic down the road, we were wondering if you knew anyone else here in Westside who can—"

Son of a walnut-chasing Ice Age squirrel on a spit-roast. "Fine," he growled exasperatedly. "Stay here. I'm going over to the pawn shop."

He could have gone down to the clinic instead and asked Doctor Kemp but that would mean shaking up the NCR beehive and Six was paranoid that some Ranger battalion was stationed nearby ready to pounce on his ass the moment he so much as walked in front of the damn building. That and Doctor Kemp was too fucking expensive and too damn patriotic.

Where the hell can you find tampons out here in the Mojave?

Incidentally, the Courier saw team JNPR-S moseying on out of Miguel's Pawn Shop with some brand new trinkets of their own...including a jar of dirt. Which was not too eye-catching because it was overshadowed by another jar, this time filled with formaldehyde and housing a...horse penis. Definitely a horse penis. A very hairy, circumcised horse penis. Wait. Who would circumcise a horse?

What in the flying fuck? Six clapped Jaune on the shoulder and yanked him over. "Tampons."

"Um, what?"

The Courier jerked a thumb at the pawn shop. "You see any tampons in there?"

Team JNPR-S eyed each other, perplexed.

Six sighed. "Menstrual shit. Like napkins, sponges, pads, all that stuff. Is Miguel selling any?"

Nora tilted her head, holding that severed horse-dick-in-a-bottle under her arm. "Hold up, who's bleeding?"

"Was it Ruby?" Pyrrha raised with definite concern. "She's the most likely to..."

"Yes," Six hissed. "Don't embarrass her. She's up at the Casa Madrid with her teammates."

Pancake made a noise. "The whorehouse, huh. Well, I guess better to bleed there than in most places around here."

"Tampons," the Courier repeated impatiently.

After a moment of looking at each other and looking around, they shrugged.

"I don't recall seeing any," Ren answered.

"Yeah, nada," Jaune quipped.

"Sorry," Pyrrha apologized.

"Eh, it's Ruby," Nora dismissed. "She'll be fine. She's got her teammates with her."

Useless pieces of... With a growl, Six brushed past them and walked into Miguel's Pawn Shop. Unfortunately, Miguel did not sell any of the menstrual products he was looking for. Annoyingly, the vendor informed him that the best place to find them was at the NCR clinic. Fortunately, the Courier didn't need to go there. Because as soon as he stepped back outside, he bumped into Ruby wearing a pair of baggy trousers. Very, baggy trousers. So baggy that if she fell from the sky, she would have used that as a parachute.

The little reaper told him that she was fine, that Pretty Sarah, the local Westside pimp based at the Casa Madrid, had a cache of menstrual management materials that she kept on hand in case any of her younger 'talents' reached that time of the month again.

"Sorry you had to see, uh, th-th-that," the reaper apologized timidly.

"It's fine, Hyper. It's fine. It was my bad. It's fine," Six groaned, the images of period blood running down Ruby's bare legs still fresh in his mind. "You good now?"

"Yeah! Uh, just that for the next few days..."

"I know, I know. I get it." And this is just Hyper... Shit. "Uh, what about your sister? Your teammates?"

"Oh, the girls?" Ruby twiddled her thumbs. "They can handle themselves. I mean, we're girls."

"And two boys and a deathclaw."

"Right. But we're Huntresses, too! So we can manage."

Six stared at her deadpan. "... Just...just give me a heads-up when it's that time of the month, okay?"

"You got it. And, uh, please, no kicking down doors?"

"I'll try not to."

"Great! By the way, Yang's coming up next. Her or Weiss. Blake's usually the last. Not too sure about Nora and Pyrrha though. Uh, just a heads up, after all. Not like you're a doctor or anything..."

"Hyper," the Courier breathed tiredly. "I'm not a gynecologist."

The reaper perked up. "Oh! I didn't mean that. It's just that...in case this happens again, um...it gets really serious and...there's no doctor around..."

He pinched the bridge of his nose while he let out a long breathe through his teeth. You can't be serious, woman.

"I mean," Ruby prattled disjointedly. "You have better medical training than...any of us and, um..."

"Ruby. You come from a Huntsman Academy," he worded. "A place that, according to you, trains 'guardians of humanity.' And before that, a damn combat school that, according to you, teaches you the basics of combat. Did they not teach you anything medical outside of first aid or weren't you listening to the instructors?"

Little Miss Rose shrunk under his glare. "... Both?"

Six felt the urge to massage his temples if only to stave off a headache that he was expecting.

"Spotters have got a fix on Charlie-Sierra in Westside," reported Lieutenant Carrie Boyd.

General James Hsu sifted through the report, glancing over the grainy photographs taken by the Ranger team he had stationed on overwatch in one of the high-rise ruins east of the Strip. While not on par with the vaunted Tier One 'Black Armor' veterans, they were at least less liable to bend to the Courier's whims...being that these specialists he was bringing up from California were fresh out of Ranger school and were, to the best of his knowledge, solid against the corruption plaguing his forces here in southern Nevada.

"Positive ID on Romeo-One and Juliet-One as well," Boyd continued. "Intel suggests they came in from the north, northwest."

"He's intercepted them and keeping them from reporting in," Hsu mused. "Status report on Westside?"

"All quiet at the moment. Progress on winning over the locals is abysmally slow and general sentiment remains towards us is largely the same."

"And our forces there?"

"Hasn't changed since last year. Very minimal presence compared to the rest of our outposts in Clark County. One squadron—in plainclothes with light arms—manning Doctor Kemp's clinic over there. Another squadron serving as back-up stationed at South Cistern east of there, currently patrolling the surrounding area. Uniformed, equipped with the standard kits. Additionally, they have one heavy machine gun and a small cache of handheld explosives."

"Are they requesting for reinforcements?"

"Not at the moment. Doc Kemp's sent in another requisition form for medical supplies, though."

"Give me the form. Assign two squadrons to ferry the supplies. They are to maintain a separate presence outside of Westside, preferably occupy one of sturdier to buildings there. Have them at maximum readiness. And have the Rangers continue monitoring Charlie-Sierra and friends."

"Yes, sir."

"Is there anything else?"

Boyd flipped the page on her clipboard. "We have a problem with our supply chain, sir,"

Hsu was unsurprised, so much so that he didn't bother to look up from his desk as he skimmed over Doctor Kemp's requisition form. "What is it this time?"

"We're missing a few important items on the general manifest this week."

"Aren't we always?"

"This is something we can't let go, sir."

He grunted. "I decide what we can't let go. What is it that we're missing?"

The lieutenant flipped over the papers on the clipboard in her hand. "Vital components for the thermic lances that the engineers over at the OSS use to do their jobs."

"How does this affect us?"

"Progress on Operation Chainsaw, Operation Dragline, and Project Fragment has stalled."

The general raised his head. Operation Chainsaw and Operation Dragline could risk the delays—they had all the time in the world to dissect the advanced technology and wartime relics of New Vegas. But not Project Fragment. Especially not now. "Have Sergeant Daniel Contreras brought to my office. Now."

Boyd smiled. "Yes, sir."

Qrow squinted his eyes.

Then he rubbed them clean of any dirt.

He squinted again.

And rubbed them again.

Then he held up the photocopy of the classified NCR report to the light to make sure that he wasn't seeing things.

Sure enough, he wasn't just seeing things. It wasn't the searing Mojave heat, or the exhaustion, or the lack of sleep, or the lack of alcohol, or the combined odors of a dozen people's sweat, piss, and shit getting to his brain. And while it was not the information he was expecting to find, it was about as welcoming as it was alarming.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered to himself. "Shit just got crazier."

The Imperium Americana had discovered a new god.

And Qrow Branwen knew that this new 'god' was the same arrogant son of a bitch who had been instrumental in the Fall of Beacon and the destruction of Vale. And probably was either involved somehow or knew something about the blending of their worlds and the mass displacement of men and materiel between Earth and Remnant.

Rustling and footsteps.

The veteran Huntsman quickly tucked away his copies of the files, replaced them in the drawer, and slipped into the shadows behind the wall of junk crammed into the back of the NCR command tent here at Fort Mead. Seconds later, Colonel Joseph Polatli stomped inside with his cadre of aides.

"Sir, I am telling you," pleaded one of his subordinates, a marksman wearing a crimson beret. "Someone has infiltrated the camp."

"Not just once," added another, a technician assigned to monitoring the radio calls between the NCR facilities across Clark County. "But multiple times, sir."

"And until I can provide evidence of that to the brass, we can't do anything about it," Polatli countered angrily. "I'm aware of this 'shadow man' that our Remnant friends have been meeting with in secret."

"Sir, you don't think—"

"I'm pretty sure. 'Cause I saw him leave Miss Schnee's tent."

Qrow mentally cursed himself as he continued to listen in from behind the file cabinet. Tight as it was, at least there was enough space for an unassuming bird to move around in.

"Black hair, unkempt beard, red cloak, lanky, tall. And pretty damn slick. One minute he's there, the next he's gone like the wind." Polatli rounded over to his desk. "I want a thorough review of the last patrol. I also want an evaluation of our perimeter with every single weakness highlighted. I want every inch of this Fort secured, understood?"

The other officers saluted affirmatives and departed.

Qrow watched Polatli take his seat in front of his desk before gesturing at the technician manning the comm station in the corner.

"Sir," she called, pressing her headphones to her ears. "We are clear on channel ten."

"Good. Are Miss Schnee and Miss Goodwitch audible enough?"

The Huntsman's eyes went wide. Then he mentally rebuked himself for being too busy running errands for Contreras that he had failed to notice that the NCR had bugged the tent that Winter and Glynda were living in.

Sergeant Reyes replied, "Affirmative, sir. Though I still have to manage the other—"

"I know. I'll be assigning you aides to focus solely on monitoring our lovely guests. Prepare for daily transcripts. We should have something to give to McCarran if they finally take us seriously with this."

"Understood, sir."

Qrow lingered a bit longer, picking up even more bits and pieces of information, until he was able to exfiltrate the NCR command tent. He then circled around the Fort for good measure, his natural color blending in with the night sky. To his surprise, Colonel Polatli exited the tent...and brought up a pair of binoculars to track him.

The strange red-eyed crow immediately flew westwards towards McCarran Headquarters.

Omake

"Hey, Six?"

"What?"

"Why do we still have all these eggs?"

The Courier looked up from the workbench in the corner of Miguel's Pawn Shop. Yang stood uncomfortably beside him, trying her best not to look too disgusted by the fact that she was shouldering a large bag packed to the brim with incubated cazador eggs that Ruby swore were pulsating on their own.

"Because we still need them," he answered tersely.

"Yeah, but..." The blonde twiddled her fingers. "... But why though?"

"I got a buyer."

"Oh. Um, how much are they offering?"

"Enough to cover expenses." Go away, Blondie. I'm busy making bullets for all of us.

"Okay... Who's the buyer?"

Damn it. She's not going away. "Someone I know."

"Scientist? Or, maybe, collector? Chef? Not that I'm saying I don't want to eat, um, err, I mean, not that I want to see these on a dish or something but..."

"An associate." Seriously, Yang. Go bother someone else.

"Oh. Right. Um, I don't want to sound complaining here but, uh..."

Goddamn it, Blondie. "What? Just say it."

"Uh... I think one of the eggs...hatched?"

The Courier stopped his work to glare at her. "Say again?"

Yang, who was now sweating and looking far too nervous, fidgeted and stuttered for a bit longer before Six gestured at her to turn around. And when she did, sure enough, he saw a large wet stain building up around the lower section of her backpack: the leather was soaked through and through. Which meant that some of the eggs had, indeed, spoiled throughout the journey and, unfortunately, split open.

"Ah, shit," he hissed.

"Is it bad?"

"Eh, don't move around so much. You might get the larvae all over you."

At this, the blonde brawler froze up. "Wh-wh-what do you m-mean?"

The Courier unbuttoned the flap and extracted some of the still intact eggs. And at the bottom of the pile, he saw it: a white pool of maggots crawling all around. "Hey, Blondie?"

"Y-y-yeah?"

"You wouldn't mind a little white in your hair, right?"

Normally, Yang would erupt into righteous flames at the minutest defilement of her glorious mane. But, right now? Nah, she could control herself. Besides, she needed context. "Wh-what do you mean wh-white?"

"You ain't gonna freak out or anything, are you?"

She gulped. "I'll try not to."

"Well...it's going to take me a while but...you might want to hold still."

Yang gripped onto the nearest solid object within reach—rather, she hugged a mannequin bolted to the floor. So much so that her knuckles were white. "Holding still."

"Good. Wouldn't want these little fuckers to explode all over your hair now, wouldn't you?"

Hell to the no. "Can I just use my Semblance and burn 'em all up?"

Seems fucking stupid but I guess I haven't been cutting these girls some slack. I think they know better by now. Blondie's probably got better control of her fire compared to last time. "You know what? That don't sound like a bad idea."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Let's give it a go. See if it works." I'm trusting you, kid.

"Um, you won't get mad?"

"Just don't go overboard."

Five minutes later, Westside's water brigade responded admirably to a conflagration that almost ate up the empty apartment across from Miguel's Pawn Shop. Yang did apologize to the locals for it but they forgave her...without any catches or strings attached or anything. This was largely because she and the other Vegas Wonder Kids were very popular. And not really because of Six's 'small monetary donations' to the community.

On the bright side, the larvae were all gone. And the Courier, after downing an ice-cold bottle of Nuka Cola to cool his head, forced Yang to shoulder another sack of eggs. Gecko eggs, this time.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: October 30, 2020

LAST EDITED: November 10, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED: November 10, 2020

Chapter Text

Director's Cut

(Chapter: Cranberry Sauce)

Courier Six eyed the medical clinic down the street. Situated on the westernmost end of Westside, it was manned by 'volunteer specialists' from California. And it wasn't a lie. Then again, it wasn't the whole truth and everybody here knew it; it was an NCR outpost, just without the uniforms and the heavy guns.

"So far, they've been keeping to themselves," quipped one of the ghetto's militiamen. "Not doing much of anything other than patching up those who needed to be patched up."

Six remained in the obsidian shadow of the alleyway, careful not to fully expose himself to whatever eyes the NCR had here. "You sure about that?"

The guard dragged long on his cigarette before answering. "I wish I could give you some dirt on them but they haven't really done anything too bad. Sure they got guns—way better than ours—but the only time they shot somebody is when some drugged up junkies from the sewers tried to stage a heist. Man, what a mess that was. And we had to clean it up for them. Pricks."

"Right. Anything else?"

"Doctor Kemp still won't slash his fees," he snorted. "In fact, he just raised the prices on some of his meds. Greedy bastard's milking us harder since the NCR can't tax us."

The Courier kept his smirk hidden. He had to hand it to Governor Crocker. That bald son of a bitch was smart: grant communities like Westside 'autonomous status' to keep the illusion of independence alive even though the whole of Clark County was now part of the Republic. While the stipulations of that autonomy included immunity from taxation, there were other ways for the NCR to get their money out of these people.

The cigarette burned out and was quickly snuffed under a boot. "Hey, man. I gotta get back to my shift."

"Go on. We never spoke."

"How can I forget that?"

Six handed him a few neatly-taped rolls of bottle caps. It quickly disappeared into the guard's pocket who walked back out onto the street, having conveniently forgotten about the conversation he just had with a shady guy in the back alley.

Said shady guy slinked deeper into the darkness, using the low light filter on his visor to avoid tripping on garbage before slipping through the backdoor of the boarded-up apartment that was supposedly abandoned because it was too damp and rat-infested for the locals to use as a permanent residence.

"You heard enough, Kit?" Six called.

Blake dropped down from the hole in the ceiling with a clear sneer. "Okay, seriously. How do you do that? How do you always figure out where I am?"

"You're obvious."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

She tilted her head. "Not even the others can see me."

"Because they're not smart enough to figure out where you usually hide," he dismissed. "You done eavesdropping?"

"I wasn't eavesdropping."

"Oh? What were you doing up on the third floor for the past thirty minutes?"

Blake mimicked a fish out of water, coming out with no feasible explanation as to why she had indeed been up on the third floor, eavesdropping on Six in the alleyway. She quickly sighed in defeat. "Fine... I was looking for you."

"Why?"

"I... I was wondering if...you could...um..."

"Spit it out, I ain't got all night."

For some reason, the cat faunus found it difficult to look him in eye. "I...wanted to ask you if...if you could, um...uh..."

The Courier groaned. "Did Blondie burn down another goddamn house?"

"No! No, not this time. Well, other than—"

"So what the fuck is it? I don't got a lot o' time, right now."

Blake, with the most flustered face, finally blurted out, "Could you spare some cash?"

Six blinked. And blinked again. "... You're asking for spending money?"

"... Yes?"

"What for?"

"Um, you see, over at the pawn shop... Miguel had this, uh, book that he had on sale—"

"Books are cheap. Use your own money."

"No! No, it's not that. This was a, um, special, one of a kind book."

"What, like a collector's edition? 'Cause if it is, use your own money. Just 'cause I've got the funds don't mean I'm going to shill out for your crap. What did I teach you back out there? Go hunting, sell quarry, use that money to buy food and essentials, and save up for whatever the fuck you want."

"But...Miguel's got a buyer and..."

"And what? It's just a book. It ain't the end of the world, Kit."

Blake sucked in a long breathe. One that did not sound very pleasing to the Courier for some reason. "... I need that book, Six. I need it. Please. Please, please, please..."

"No."

"Please."

"No."

"Please!"

"No."

"Six, please, I'm begging you!"

"No."

"I'll stop eavesdropping and sneaking up on you!"

"You'll keep doing it anyway. No."

"But—"

"Christ on a stick, what is this goddamn book anyway?"

"... So you'll help me out?"

"... No."

Blake's ears fell back on her scalp. After a moment of silence, she asked, "Can I at least show you what it is?"

The Courier was about to reject the offer. But decided against it. Might as well check out what this damn literary piece was that got Kit so excited to the point that a person like her wasn't supposed to be that excited. "Fine. Let's see what this shit is."

"Oh, goddamn it."

"It's a rare, unblemished, hardcover," explained Miguel of Miguel's Pawn Shop. "A one in a million find, I was told. But I think it's a one in a thousand. Still, with the condition it's in and the fact that it's never been opened, I'd say it's worth the three hundred caps."

The Courier eyed Blake who was almost fawning over the book. Then he turned to the book itself. Notably, the title emblazoned over the rather enticing image on the front cover:

'Ninja's Of Love: The Man Of Four Souls.'

There's a sequel? This is an actual book series? "Three hundred caps?"

"Yep." Miguel paused, running a studious eye over his customers. "But for you, I'll be willing to cut fifteen percent off. I could go lower but I gotta make a living, you understand."

Six breathed deep. Then he noticed Blake breathing deep. In a very, un-Blake-like way. Not that he knew her long enough to know how she normally behaved. But this was not really normal as far as he can tell. Oh, no. Is she one of those readers? Is she really into this stuff?

"Um, is your daughter...feeling alright?"

The Courier pinched the bridge of his nose. Ah, hell. She probably is. "It's that time of the month, I think."

"Oh. Then I think you should have her checked out at the clinic. You still got an hour before Doctor Kemp closes up shop."

"No. She'll be fine. She's just..." Goddamn it. The things I do. "Never mind. Let me see that."

Miguel handed him the book and Six flipped it over. The premise was exactly what he was expecting. Who writes this shit? Hell, who even reads this? Then he turned to Blake to see her close to drooling. By that point, he already come to accept that this girl—of all people—had a thing for the freaky. And he did not want to imagine any of that.

Better get this over with or she'll be on my ass more than Hyper on a sugar high. "Two-fifty and a stick of dynamite."

The trader rubbed his chin. "Two-sixty and two sticks of dynamite."

"Two-forty and a frag grenade."

"Hmm. Make that an incendiary grenade."

"Two-thirty and a plasma grenade."

"Two hundred, a plasma grenade, and ten kilos of junk."

"Deal."

Six then shoved the kinky-ass book into Blake's hands and did his best to ignore the squirming in her legs and the uncomfortable noises she was making. Damn cat-girl and her fucking hormones.

The cat faunus however snatched his wrist before he could transact. "Wait!"

"For fuck's sake, what now?"

"I forgot. Do you have tampons?"

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: November 2, 2020

LAST EDITED: November 8, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED: November 13, 2020

Chapter Text

"So, Nora," Ruby started uncomfortably. "Any reason why you, uh, bought that?"

Nora tilted her head as she cradled her most prized purchase from Miguel's Pawn Shop. "I think it looks cool."

Yang coughed into her palm while Blake did her best to subvert her unusually rapt attention to the pickled...member...floating in a large formaldehyde jar. Weiss, on the other hand, busied herself with practicing her miniature summoning in the far corner of the parlor of the Casa Madrid which, after several tries, proved useful in minutely combating the draining Mojave heat.

"Is there any reason when it comes to Nora?" drawled Jaune, running a whetstone over the shaft of Crocea Mors.

"I mean," Velvet quipped uneasily. "There has to be a reason, right?"

"If you mean a comprehensible reason, then you would need to reconsider a lot of things," Ren said as he held the reins to Syrup's leash while the infant deathclaw continued sniffing at and licking up some of the suspect stains on the hostel carpet.

The bubbly ginger blew air through her lips and dismissed them all with a wave of her hand. "Come on. You all know that I got the best souvenir out of Miguel's Pawn Shop for a steal!"

The sound of glyphs shattering like porcelain echoed off the walls as the heiress almost choked on her own spittle. "Excuse me... Souvenir?"

"Yeah! Way better than the jar of dirt Jaune bought."

The blond in particular sighed. "Yes, Nora. I know."

"To be fair," Pyrrha remarked. "Miguel mentioned something hidden underneath all the dirt."

"He said that there was something valuable in it," Jaune continued. "Said it was an artifact that belonged to some seaman named Johnny Davis or something and that it was worth enough for the guy to build a floating island on Fort Mead so he could hide it there."

"I thought he said that Johnny Davis was a squid-man sailor spirit who haunted Lake Mead in his submersible frigate and couldn't set foot on land so the jar of dirt was supposed to be some kind of ward against him?" Nora prattled. "And that a sassy pirate named Jackson Birdie made a deal with him but wouldn't cash in because he was Jackson Birdie, the best of the worst that nobody's ever heard of."

Everyone else stared back at her, plunging room in relative silence...save for the noises coming from the rooms upstairs where the Casa Madrid's usual clientele were loudly making the best of their meager lives with the people they paid for.

"... Miguel sounded convincing," admitted the swordsman.

"And you believed him," Yang droned. "So you bought it, opened it up, emptied all the sand, and got zilch."

Team JNPR-S nodded.

"Told you he was shady," Blake remarked, flipping through the pages of another book she picked up.

"Says the girl who thought he was selling, ah, what was it?"

The cat faunus suddenly narrowed her eyes at her partner. "Yang—"

The brawler simpered. "It was a smut book, right?"

"It's not smut!"

Blake received a flat look from everyone else in the parlor. Including Syrup, the infant deathclaw who somehow managed to look disappointed with its half-lidded, reptilian eyes and budding crocodilian maw.

"It's not smut."

"Sure, Kit. Keep tellin' yourself that." Heads turned towards Six tapping the doorframe with his knuckles, himself kitted up with his gun, his bullets, and his field pack readily strapped, locked, and loaded. "Alright, kids. Off your asses, we're heading out now."

He paused, looking at Nora and her package.

"... Um, Pancake?"

"Yeah?"

"Wrap that up. Seriously. Cover it with tarp or something. Wouldn't want people looking at some hyperactive kid hauling around a massive horse di—"

"No problem!"

Without any more complaints—and after Ren helped Nora to properly conceal her purchase in layers of ripped canvas—teams RWBY-V and JNPR-S mustered out the Casa Madrid, ready to for another day-and-a-half of painful walking under the dry, desert sun. What they found when they got out into the streets of Westside at the early dawn hour was the Courier paying two members of the Westside militia to stand guard around an open manhole.

"Um, Six?" Ruby prodded. "Are we...?"

"Safer down here," Six grunted, sliding down the hole in the ground.

The teens crowded around, gaping incredulously into the darkness.

"So...y'all just gon' stand there or y'all gettin' in?" asked one of Westside guards. "We don' got a lotta time here, y'know. Damn NCR's got eyes everywhere an' they gon' be lookin' here pretty quick."

Needless to say, the Vegas Wonder Kids whined, whinnied, and wept as they squeezed themselves into the putrid pits of the New Vegas underground, shit-filled sewage and all.

"Ugh, it reeks in here!"

"Tell me about it."

"I seriously need a nose peg."

"Ew, ew, ew!"

Six tuned out the complaints of his little motley crew as they trudged through knee-high sewage flowing through the northwestern tunnels of the Vegas underground. At least the water here was not too dirty...in terms of radioactivity. The tearjerking sludge of piss, shit, and puke was better than an odorless pond brimming with cancerous isotopes.

"Look, I get why we're going through the sewers but, uh..."

"I don't think complaining's going to get us anywhere, Yang."

"Crap. I think I stepped on something."

"Is that a dead rat—oh gods, it's huge!"

"Nora, don't touch it."

"Ugh, I can smell that thing from here."

The Courier pretended that the kids were not gagging as he checked the localized map on his Pip-boy; he scowled at the screen displaying the path he planned on taking through the underground maze. A fresh telemetry scan revealed some frustrating developments; notably, the canals he intended to pass through had been clogged up by heaps of debris displaced there. Either someone had been manning the switches in the sewage maintenance rooms recently or Red Lucy had her boys shift the flow of waste so as to force him to pass through the Thorn.

The latter theory seemed the most likely.

Because the only clear detour he could take at this junction took him (and everyone else) straight through New Vegas's underground citadel. And goodness knows, that horny bitch was waiting for him. It had been over a week now since he convinced her to 'lose' some of her 'pets' up on the surface to keep the NCR busy. He just hoped that all these mutant eggs he and the kids harvested would be enough to placate her.

Or maybe not.

Six grit his teeth; there was no way in hell he was going to be able to sneak the kids past her nose this time. And, knowing her, Red Lucy was hell bent on seeing them in action.

"Couldn't we have just, y'know, bribed the NCR to let us through?" whined Jaune. "I mean, they practically know we're in New Vegas proper already."

"And the patrols seemed very sparse along North Vegas," added Pyrrha.

"I think there's going to be some issues that would arise should we take the surface route," Weiss argued coolly. "Given the recent developments we've heard about, a chance meeting with an NCR patrol would undoubtedly result in us getting railroaded straight to McCarran Headquarters, bribery notwithstanding."

"Not to mention the NCR spotters on the rooftops," Blake added.

"You saw them too, huh," remarked Velvet.

"Sunlight reflecting off binocs, scopes," Ruby explained, hobbling over to the Courier, the sewage having seeped through her boots. "Six? Are we there yet?"

"We're almost there," he replied evenly. "Just follow my lead. Do not talk to anyone, understand? Do not engage with anyone unless I already have."

"We get it," Yang groaned. "We just wanna know how long we'll be down here."

"Not for too long." Damn it. This corridor is a one-way street to the Thorn. Damn you, Red Lucy. "Now shut up and fall in, kids. Single file. This is a tight corridor."

"Is it...dry?" Weiss all but pleaded.

"You'll get your fuckin' bath when we get there," Six growled. Seriously, what's so wrong with getting a little shit on your boots? This is a cakewalk compared to swimmin' in toxic, radioactive coolant to keep a shot-up nuclear reactor from melting down.

Qrow snuggled closer to the cell where Sergeant Daniel Contreras had been pacing around in for the past several hours. Either his Semblance screwed things up for them or Contreras's luck had run out. Though, according to the NCR grapevine, this was not the first time in the slammer for one of the most notoriously corrupt Californian officers this side of the Mojave.

While security here at McCarran Headquarters was as tight as Atlas Academy during a simulated breach, the veteran Huntsman noted the same oversight shared by all these heavily-armed guards in their bulky salvaged power armor and reinforced combat cuirasses: these troops were on the lookout for a human intruder. Not a black corvid that had somehow flown through one of the shattered windows hugging the ceiling of the former airport terminal building. Said corvid hopped from rusty beam to rusty beam until it reached the brig.

From there, it was a matter of waiting for the jailor to fall asleep on his desk before Qrow was able to safely shift into a more recognizable form. Then he rounded the corner, walked right up to the iron bars, and smirked as Contreras literally jumped three feet back the moment he turned around.

"Fucking hell, how'd you get through?" he hissed.

The veteran Huntsman shrugged. "I have my ways."

The sergeant hugged the bars. "We're both lucky that they haven't fixed the security cameras in here yet."

"And you're louder than I am," Qrow returned with a subtle gesture to the corner behind which the jailor shuffled in his chair between snores. "Is this going to be a problem?"

"Gee, I don't know. What the fuck d'you think?"

"I thought you can still pull some strings while in there."

"I'm flattered by your praise but as you can see, I'm flat broke right now. Thorough confiscation."

"They fingered you good, huh."

"Oh, ha-ha, prick. You know how to put together a thermic lance?"

"I've read enough manuals."

Contreras frowned. "Sure. But d'you know that those manuals weren't talking about the ones we've been, ahem, moving around for awhile. Or maybe you didn't notice the differences between the standard models we use and the prototypes that haven't even seen much sunlight."

The Huntsman shrugged. "Just tell me what I need to do to keep this thing afloat."

The sergeant huffed and allowed a small smirk. "Either you get me out of here or you're going to have to steal the rest of the lances—crates and all—yourself. And move them, yourself, to wherever it is you move 'em to."

Qrow matched him with a wider smirk. Inwardly, he was not liking where this was going. "Getting you out is easier. How 'bout we do that instead."

"Sounds like a better option," sniggered the quartermaster. "Things have gotten tighter right now, though. It ain't just Boyd on my ass this time."

"I heard. Old Jimmy's got a foot up your ass, huh."

"Uh-huh. Wait. You know the general?"

Shrug. "I know a Jimmy. Just not this Jimmy but he kinda acts like him sometimes. Damn, I'm seeing a pattern. Can't really trust a guys named Jimmy, huh."

Eyes rolled. "Right, right. Look, I know you're slick. But are you careful?"

"Just tell me what needs to be done."

"Just like Charlie-Sierra," sniggered Contreras. "Listen up. Here's the plan..."

It was good to be king.

Or god.

Or demigod...something.

Whatever. There was really no distinction because he was treated like the center of the world regardless. Or the center of these idiots' world. Or maybe he really was the center of the world...wherever this world was. Because this sure as fuck wasn't Remnant.

"Ave Mercurius!" declared the high priest, some wacko decked out in white robes and polished carbon fiber padding named Pontifex Maximus.

Mercury Black didn't really know. Nor did he care. He simply did his thing and raised his hands. That got the whole crowd assembled out in this searing desert heat to let out a fanatical cheer. Because they legitimately believed he was a god. A living god. A reincarnation of some ancient deity from whatever the fuck it was these backwater crazies believed in. Because they were actually, quite honestly, very crazy.

So crazy that it scared him. So while he enjoyed the special treatment, he was also playing along for the sake of self-preservation. Because there was only so much a single man with weaponized prosthetic legs like him could do against an entire legion of these...legionaries. But hey; better to be worshiped than to whipped.

"Subjects!" Mercury said, his voice booming over the open field—a massive parking lot that was revamped into some kind of temple forum complete with statues, colonnades, an altar, and a bunch of other fancy looking buildings that were supposed to look ancient but came off as more a reconstruction of a modern-day commercial center—where his 'worshippers' had gathered.

Now what could he make these gullible idiots do for his entertainment? He already had a harem of slave girls 'eager' to please him and a massive army of fanatical machete-wielding, gun-toting, dress-wearing, weird-speaking, muscled-up freaks eager to die for him in pitched gladiatorial combat. He even had final say in who lived and who died. He was literally living like a god in a literal desert paradise amid the ruins of some 'ancient' civilization that looked kind of like downtown Vale. Or more like what Vale would look like a hundred years after what he and his...associates...did to it.

Then again, he wasn't in Vale anymore. Hell, he wasn't even in Remnant anymore. Fuck, he probably wasn't even alive anymore. For all he knew, he must be in some twisted version of the afterlife that he grew up learning from the countless mystics and wacko ministers going around evangelizing about the return of the Two Brothers and the end of the world as they knew it at the time.

Well, as far as Mercury knew, the world he knew ended. And he woke up in another one where people like him were gods, people who weren't were crazy, and everything else was fucked.

But it wasn't all so bad.

Really.

Pontifex Maximus here was going on his usual spiel or sermon or whatever in his indiscernible language—Mercury heard it was called Latin or pidgin Latin. Something about the god of wealth and commerce demanding total obeisance from the populace in exchange for economic and military success. Sure. Whatever. Might as well go with that then. Made him richer than he already was with all the gold coins and fancy stuff piling up in his 'temple treasury.'

Mercury reclined back on his throne, crossing his mechanical legs—that he initially used to kill scores of legionaries and later convince the rest of their friends that he was a god because 'Mercurius' was some kind of ancient deity with magic legs or something—and letting the whole charade play out. Goodness knows he was bored with the theatrics and was more eager to get back inside his 'desert palace' and be pampered by his harem of slave girls...

...which was kind of difficult to stomach given that they were actually slaves. Literally. Mercury had his limits but, well, he can't really fret over some random chick plucked out of butt-fuck nowhere. What was it that Pontifex said?

'Slavery was the only salvation for these profligates.'

Yeah. There was seriously something wrong with that. But, hey, play along. Not his fault those ladies let themselves get caught by the Legion. Definitely not his problem if one of them starts having a mental breakdown in the middle of feeding him grapes. Sure as hell isn't his problem if they get dragged off by the Legion to be 'punished' for 'inconveniencing' the 'god of commerce.'

Speaking of girls... Come to think of it, even if he hated thinking of it, what were Emerald and Cinder up to? Wherever they were, of course.

For all he fucking cared, they were dead. Deader than him. Deadest? Was that a word? Eh, maybe not. Who knew? Who cares? Not like he missed them or anything. Emerald was a bitch and Cinder scared the shit out of him. But it wasn't like he cherished their company, right? Not like he missed getting on his whiny partner's nerves or checking out his crazy boss's ass.

Not like he missed their company, no sirree. Nope. Nada. Nuh-uh.

Damn it, something got in his eye.

Mercury Black was a god now. He didn't need friends. He didn't need more 'friends.' He was a being on a higher plane of existence. He could make his own happiness with the snap of his fingers. He had everything he needed. Everything he wanted. Everything he...hoped would make him happy. He didn't need that little piece of shit to keep him company. Not that he wanted her to stay. But it was her choice to leave. And she did. And he let her...sort of...

Maybe it was a bad idea to let her loose and...

No. No, that ungrateful bitch could go wither up and die in the fucking desert for all he cared. He gave her everything (or had his servants give her everything) and she still up and left, almost killing off an entire cohort of his troops on her way out. Leaving him alone...

...all alone at the top.

Fucking hell, he just wanted company. Was it so hard to ask?

He wasn't even touching her anyway. Hell, like he ever wanted to! She wasn't his type. Too crazy, too annoying. Besides, she would chop his dick off anyway. Yet even if they never got along, even if he called her a bitch to her face, even if they got into some pretty destructive fights and almost killed each other, she was at least better than a whole empire of religious sycophants.

Goddamn it, he really needed to find another living god to chat with.

The Thorn was a scary place.

So much so that it scared even those in the group who steeled themselves the most. Still, Yang, Nora, Velvet, Ren, and Pyrrha put on a brave face towards the bloodstained arena that hosted at least a dozen death battles per day, the last one having been a match between a group of narcotically frenzied raiders and a pair of giant radscorpions. The radscorpions wouldn't need to be fed for awhile.

"Who's the creepy lady?" whispered Pancake, eyeing the woman in the trench coat overseeing the whole spectacle from her decorated booth.

"Dunno. Kinda reminds me of that one transfer student from Haven though," hoarsely replied Blondie.

"You mean the one who looked way too old to be a sophomore?" quipped Knight-boy.

Cottontail, for some reason, let a low grumble, never once letting go of that hostile mien that suddenly appeared when they caught sight of Red Lucy sitting on her throne.

"Shut up, all y'all," Six growled. "Stay close."

He stuck to walking close to the walls, chancing glances over his shoulder to make sure that none of the kids were in too close proximity to the squatters crowding in here. It did not take long for a pair of armed guards to stop them in their tracks. One of them thumbed his communicator. This was followed by Red Lucy craning her head, her eyes sweeping across the massive cavern, and landing on the group of new entrants into the Thorn. From several yards away, she gave them a welcoming smile.

It was not so welcoming to any of them.

"Welcome to the Thorn, honored guests," greeted the matron of New Vegas's underbelly in a manner that reminded them of a certain transfer student from Haven Academy back on Remnant. She then sauntered over to Six, matching his scowl with a leer. "Welcome back, my hunter."

The tightlipped Vegas Wonder Kids nervously glanced around. Surrounding them were an entire coterie of hardened gunslingers—more imposing than the other guards in the Thorn, better-equipped than the Westside militia, and undoubtedly better-trained and more experienced than most NCR grunts. To Six, it was obvious that half the men making up Red Lucy's elite guard were former Tier One groups left to hang out here. It made one of the Thorn's more luxurious visitor lounges a lot less hospitable.

Growl.

Nora uneasily tried to pacify the infant deathclaw.

"Impressive," the older woman remarked. "Not many can say they could tame such a fearsome beast at such a young age."

Ruby cleared her throat. "N-nice to meet you, ma'am."

"Polite, too. I am Red Lucy and I oversee this paradise of blood that you now set foot on. It is a pleasure to finally be acquainted with the famed 'prodigy heroes' of New Vegas."

The teenagers would have preened if they were not so heavily scrutinized by a dozen or so armed veterans and the Courier.

"We've got the eggs," he started, startling the two teams. Without breaking eye contact with Red Lucy, he snapped his fingers and gestured at a wide table pushed up to the wall. "Kids, drop 'em there."

One by one, the nine Remnant teens deposited their meticulously wrapped sacks of mutant eggs before returning to their spot behind the Courier.

Red Lucy pursed her lips. "You've brought more than you needed to. You never cease to please me."

"No charge," Six said.

"Wait! I thought there was pay—"

He flashed a quick, fiery glare at Weiss. The heiress clammed up, wide-eyed like her teammates.

The matron snickered. "Strict and domineering. I always knew you had a penchant for discipline."

"I believe we're done here."

Several guns clicked. Team RWBY-V whirled around to see the only exit blocked by a quarter of the guards present, their trigger hands hovering inches from their guns.

Red Lucy shook her head. "On the contrary, my hunter, I don't think we are. While you have gone above and beyond to deliver, I must still hold true to our more pressing bargain. It should only be fair, don't you think so?"

Six could feel the eyes of his kids staring back at him, nervously darting back and forth, some trying to match the intimidation, fingers itching over their own weapons. As absurd as it sounded, he could smell their fear. And he did not like it one bit.

"Did you forget, my hunter?"

"I'm a busy man."

"Of course, you are," she cooed. "So busy that you tend to forget important details such as our...previous agreed upon compromise."

The Courier held out his hand. "I want my kids to be accommodated."

Red Lucy simpered and snapped her fingers. "Already done."

Immediately, the guards parted before the Vegas Wonder Kids, one of them opening the hydraulic door and the rest subtly nudging the confused and, frankly, unnerved teens outside.

Six turned to see Ruby silently pleading for clarity.

"Get yourselves comfy, kids," he told her, tapping her shoulder and lightly shoving her out. "We're gon' to be here for a while."

"But..."

"Not now, Hyper. Us adults gotta talk so y'all just mosey on over to the lounge an' kick up yer' heels with some drinks," his gravelly voice echoed back. "Everythin's gon' be alright, kid."

For a moment, the little tyke froze up. Like she saw a ghost or something. But then, one of the overhead fluorescent lights flickered and he caught the bare glimpse of his reflection in her glistening silver orbs. And Courier Six turned away.

Ruby Rose was not talking to Theodore Vickers anymore; she was now talking to Old Green Eyes.

What the hell was this place?

A dream? She'd been beaten, cut, starved, and shot at more times than she could count to know that this was real. Illusion? No. Emerald couldn't fuck with someone's brain to this extent for this long. Delusion? She drank enough water to stay hydrated. Hallucination? Maybe the damn heat was finally getting to her.

Or maybe, just maybe... Was she really dead? If so, maybe she could find him here. Or find someone who understood her or, at least, wouldn't want to kill her on sight.

After all, she had all the time in the world to do what she wanted. Now that she was free of that damn 'empire.' Yes, she loved the thrill of killing but after doing so much of it non-stop, day in and day out, being chased by assassins that would never get the hint... She was done cleaving through these fanatics who kept coming at her with machetes while crying out something about their god or their nation or something. And while she had no qualms about massacring even more of them, to be frank, she was tired.

So, so tired.

She just wanted to get away. To get away from these people who...who...who were making her anxious, uneasy, paranoid...afraid. Why?

It was like she knew them. Knew them from as far back as she could remember, from as far back as when she was... How old was she back then? She really couldn't recall all the way but she knew deep in her gut that these were the nightmares that kept her awake at night, her own personal Grimm that she couldn't kill. The Legion, the Imperium, the men of Caesar...she swore she legitimately grew up fearing something like that a long time ago...

...boogeymen in red who burned everything to the ground...

...boogeymen who did horrible things to those she cared about...

...boogeymen who feared other boogeymen...

...boogeymen who waited until their boogeyman went hunting somewhere else...

...so they could sweep down from the hills and destroy everything that she cherished.

Neopolitan shook her head. What was wrong with her? Where was all this coming from? And why the hell was this janky old meter strapped to her hip constantly ticking like there was no tomorrow? It was always doing that wherever she went!

She looked up to the sky and almost thought they genuinely looked green. But that must have been her exhaustion. Or something in the water. Goodness knows she had been lying on this raft for hours, drifting afloat along this river running through this dry gorge, encountering messed-up wildlife—mutants, she corrected herself—and ultimately coming across this twisted hell-scape that looked like an entire cache of volatile Fire Dust had gone off in there all at once.

Not that it was a bad thing. Like hell was she going back to 'His Divine Righteousness' Mercury Black and plead for the 'living god's' forgiveness. Fuck him. He can rot on his scrap metal throne in his scrap metal palace for all she fucking cared. No. She was not going back to the Imperium Americana. She was not going to live another day in a despotic theocracy where women, no matter what they did, were nothing above donkeys or those two-headed cows—brahmin, she remembered they were called.

All those days, the bullshit she tolerated, searching for Roman Torchwick in a 'Roman' Empire...

Eventually, she had enough.

Eventually, she headed west.

To an oasis in the desert called New Vegas.

And maybe head even further to New California, too. All those New Californian slave girls told her that their republic, for all its faults, was heaven compared to the hell that was the Imperium.

Neo digressed. Atlas was touted as the same thing; a floating paradise in the sky where the people who lived there pretended that Mantle, the massive shit-hole underneath it, did not exist.

She blinked out of her reverie to shield her eyes from the wind blowing sand taken off the roofs of the concrete ruins she was looking at. She then picked up the oar and rowed closer, ignoring the ticking on her Geiger counter. By the time she got her feet on dry ground, she was met by the smell of burnt flesh.

It wasn't something she wasn't used to, being who she was. But the more she got closer, the more she got deeper into these ruins, the more the odor compounded. The stench of a hundred rotting cadavers burnt to varying degrees assaulted her nostrils and Neo had to backpedal just to keep her breakfast from coming back up.

Fighting the nausea, she scrambled to higher ground until she clamored onto a ramshackle tower cobbled together from metal sheets, rebar, rubble, and various scraps. Someone even took the time to stack sandbags around the perimeter. In fact, from what she could tell, this used to be some kind of watchtower if the shell casings scattered all over the floor were any indication. That and she could pick out faded smears of dry blood spattered almost everywhere.

Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic—

Neo almost hurled the damn thing over the edge.

Then she remembered why she always carried it around on her person: to track radiation.

Radiation.

Something so foreign yet so familiar. Something she felt vehemently averse to from the start, even before it was explained why everyone feared it. This...poisonous air that could rot a person from the inside out.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Neo gathered her bearings and surveyed the area where she had washed up. The best description she could give this place was if someone had set off a massive cache of explosives—maybe Fire Dust and more—in the middle of a busy urban district. And for all she knew, that might have been what had happened here. At least she was far enough away from the smell...and high up enough to see where it was coming from.

Bodies. Most were reduced to bones, a few others with some meat still stuck to them, dried up to black ugly jerky. The fleshiest one she could pick out was sinking in a pool of maggots.

The young woman sunk back behind the sandbags and pulled out an old map she had pilfered from one of the dead legionaries pursuing her. She traced the markings, running her finger over the blue trail that was the Colorado River, and ultimately pinpointing where she had ended up:

Dry Wells.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: October 30, 2020

LAST EDITED: February 22, 2021

Chapter Text

Pyrrha Nikos seldom wondered if the day would come when she would be booked into a match that would only end in either her or her opponent's death. And in the days leading up to their unexplained arrival into the wasteland, a part of her dwelled on the possibility of getting into a life-threatening duel that she might actually lose. Life-or-death bouts were illegal in Remnant's tournament circuit with her parents, managers, trainers, and sponsorship companies uniting to protect her from such an eventuality. And ever since taking up the path of the Huntress—and cutting through several layers of red tape just to get into Beacon—her most dangerous battles up until then were against the Grimm.

Alas, she was not on Remnant. And her battles here in the Mojave were the very horrific things that she had been sheltered from. So it came as little surprise that her current guardian—or 'parent' as was more publicly known—would actually put her in an even more dangerous situation in exchange for...some political leverage or something like that.

The thought of being played like a discardable pawn in some great game made her queasy. But now was not the time to be queasy.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the main event!” bellowed the Thorn's announcer, a rather excitable man in a dirty grey suit holding up a megaphone. “A special match set up by the Lady herself and a special guest to the Thorn!”

Pyrrha steeled herself as the massive mechanical doors hissed opened and she stepped out into the steel mesh cage that housed her side of the underground arena.

“In the red corner: the hottest hotshot of the Vegas Wonder Kids, prodigy fighter and primetime celebrity of the Vegas Strip, the Super Spartan, Pyrrha Nikos!”

The industrial spotlights beamed bright down upon her. It was a familiar feeling yet this time, given where she was right now, it felt sickening. Ahead of her spread the wide, cold, steel floors where for the past few hours, the redhead had witnessed some gruesome deaths play out in fights that were nothing less than savage, unrefined, and morbidly glorifying.

Pyrrha once again hardened her resolve, creaking her neck and rolling her shoulders; she tightened her grip on Miló and Akoúo, hovering her right arm close to Velvet's forty-five ACP pistol holstered by her hip. Her eyes scanned the field of blood, trailing up towards the stands and the walkways where the audience hooted and cheered. Among them, sandwiched in a heavily guarded observer's box segregated from the rest of the spectators were her friends, all of them rooting for her. Nora, Yang, and Ruby were the loudest with Ren, Velvet, and Blake showing their utmost concern. Weiss, visibly worried, noticed Jaune's distress and tapped him on the shoulder to which he nodded shakily back.

Directly across from them, on the overseer's platform, standing next to the Thorn's matron with his arms folded and his weighted green eyes boring heavily down no her, was Courier Six...the man who arranged for this death-match as part of some kind of deal he had with Red Lucy.

What was it that he would gain from this? Weapons? Money? More soldiers for his supposedly secret army? Red Lucy's continued 'allegiance' to him? Pyrrha did not want to think about it.

“Look at her standing tall, folks!” hollered the announcer. “As you all know, our lovely young lady here has been making waves on the airwaves. New Vegas hasn't seen anything like her ever and now she's here, prepped up and ready to go up against the Thorn's very own champion!”

The crowd erupted into a greater frenzy as the steel doors on the other side of the arena grated apart with the massive shadow of her opponent lumbering out, stopped by the reinforced steel mesh cage housing its corner.

Pyrrha's eyes went wide. She was not expecting this.

“Here he is, folks! Give it up for your boy! Undefeated, unstoppable, un-killable! Our very own, the King of the Thorn! The big, the bad, the mother-fuckin' ugly: Rawr!”

The redhead, her jaw hanging gobsmacked, took in the majesty of the largest deathclaw she (or anyone else in the wasteland) had ever seen. Spiked metal armor protecting its chest, shoulders, and joints, the beast let out a deafening roar befitting its name. The fluorescent lights glistened off the sharpened steel claws fastened to its talons. The scars marring its body showed no lack of experience with one of its jagged horns either sawed off or hacked off by a previous foe.

Pyrrha gulped down her fear—yes, she was afraid (rather, deathly terrified!) and she would admit it if asked!—and glanced back up to the overseer's box, frowning at Red Lucy's grin. Behind her, the Courier remained nonchalant, almost unamused, even as he met the champion's pleading eyes with his own uncompromising glare.

“You can do this, champ... Use your smarts, use what you've got. I know you'll win this.”

“You can do this, champ.”

“Do what?” Pyrrha seethed. “You booked me into a death-match.”

“And everythin' else on the surface ain't no death-match to you?” snorted Courier Six, leaning against the wall of her own 'locker room' which was lined with all sorts of tools designed for gladiatorial combat.

The redhead almost choked on her retort. “... What are you doing? What kind of choices were made that necessitates that...that I...that I have to...have to fight here?”

“The kind of choices that'll save everyone's asses. Don't act too righteous, kid. You already got your baptism by fire at the Divide. Killed your fair share and lived with it. And now you got a problem with this one?”

“The circumstances were different! I don't fight in bloodsports!” she barked.

“Really,” he snorted. “Don't you draw blood in your tournaments back on Remnant?”

“The match ends when our Aura drops to—”

He rolled his eyes. “Of fuckin' course. Aura. Cushions up the fight and spoils the fun, don' it?”

Pyrrha backed up wide-eyed. “Six, what are you...?”

Old Green Eyes glared back, his voice coming off cold. “You're gettin' out there and you're gon' fight 'til that sum'bitch who's squarin' off with you drops dead. Am I clear?”

Her lips quivered while her fists shook.

For a brief moment, the Courier's features twisted with remorse before hardening again. “Am I clear, Sparta?”

“... Yes.”

“Good.” He dropped off a small leather pouch. “Use your smarts, use what you've got. I know you'll win this. Like hell did I book you to get gutted out there.”

The champion watched him leave. When the doors shut, she slumped onto the bench with her head in her hands. Then she noticed something metallic peeking out of the satchel in the corner. Shaking off her distress, she rifled through them, wondering why this was here and if ever she was going to use them. Ultimately, she decided to simply carry the whole bag with her into battle. After all, there was barely any space left on her belt or on her combat harness to house a few stun grenades, some flares, and Blake's flare gun.

The fight was on.

And it was a fight against something Pyrrha had minimal experience against. The last time she ever engaged deathclaws was when a colony of them attacked them out in the rocky desert east of New Vegas. Even then, she was working with her teammates, team RWBY, the Courier, and Raul—the latter two displaying some of the (deadliest) most accurate gunplay she had seen in her entire life.

This time, she was up against one: a trained and hardened alpha with armor enhancements, weaponized claws, and probably a few questionable substances in its bloodstream.

Gods, this seemed a little unfair.

And it felt so unfair five minutes into her duel. She rebounded back onto her feet after being tossed around by the beast, parts of her leather armor already shredded with her Aura protecting her exposed skin from Rawr's razor sharp blades. The beast in question recovered from her initial strikes and charged.

The redhead moved quickly, launching herself off the chain link fence and over the mutant as it skidded to a halt underneath her. In the few seconds she was airborne, she swept her gaze across the audience, meeting the anxious stares of her friends—Jaune was gripping the railing hard enough for his knuckles to go white—and catching the Courier giving off a small, brief smirk.

“You don't have to do this!”

“Pyrrha, you don't have to do this!”

“Jaune, stop!” the champion barked. She quickly tugged on his wrist and pulled him down to sit on the bench with her. “Please, stop. I'm doing this anyway.”

“No, you can't—”

“I can't but I still will. I...I have to.”

Jaune grasped her hands desperately. “You don't have to. We can work something out.”

“Jaune, I'm not changing my mind,” she reiterated sternly, pleadingly. “I'll be fine. Trust me.”

Her partner grimaced before bowing his head. “... Fine... You are the 'Invincible Girl,' after all. You're going to wipe the floor with the Thorn's number one...whoever that is.”

Pyrrha winced at that. She hated that monicker but for the moment she was relieved that she talked Jaune out of getting himself beaten up or shot. “I can handle myself. You know that. But I'm going to need your help.”

“Whatever it is, you have it.”

The redhead eyed him apologetically. “Yes, I know. I'm only asking for your support, Jaune. Our friends' support as well.”

“If you want to, we can—”

“No, Jaune. I don't want you to try to fix the fight or anything. I want you to just...give me your trust and let me handle this.”

“I guess...I guess so,” Jaune sighed. He gestured at her get-up. “You look like you're already decked out for the...the fight.”

Pyrrha smiled meekly back. Her signature weapons, combined with Velvet's pistol and the munitions she was carrying over her chest, made for some extra weight that would have hindered her back on Remnant. However, hauling around heavier things across miles of dry mountains and rugged desert conditioned her well. The lightweight leather armor provided to her by the Thorn's quartermaster also surprisingly did not compromise much of its protection in favor of greater maneuverability.

“I do need to properly accustom myself with this, though,” the redhead said. “I've haven't often fought in anything like this before.”

“I guess now's a good time as any to learn.” He looked around. “Is there anything you need?Anything you need help with? Maintenance or last-minute checks?”

With a smile, she handed him her shield while adjusting the straps on her waist. “I could go for some final checks on my equipment, yes.”

Pyrrha yelped.

The swipe from Rawr connected and effectively tore off the hardened leather padding shielding her chest, leaving her torso protected only by her undershirt. She leapt back to avoid another connecting swipe before bouncing off the wall to reposition herself behind the hardened deathclaw alpha.

“That's our girl!”

“You got this, P-money!”

“Chip off its armor!”

Armor! Jaune's right! Of course, the metal plates were fastened tightly around the mutant's joints and could sustain direct hits from small arms fire. But how long could they hold onto something this lumbering and agile? Pyrrha whipped out the pistol Velvet had given her and took aim at the leather straps holding the plates in place: minuscule targets that she could take out more easily thanks to the Courier's marksmanship lessons.

POP! PAP! PKOW!

Snap!

The redhead rolled to the side to avoid Rawr charging at her. When she recovered behind it, she smirked at what she saw: the straps were shredded and the welded steel braces shielding Rawr's legs had fallen off.

“Don't celebrate now!” Blake hollered.

Weiss screeched. “Cripple it! Take away its mobility!”

Pyrrha never thought she would ever hear those two raise their voices so excitedly. But they had a point. Acting fast, she parried Rawr's swing—damn! The talon blades sunk past her greaves—and with her Aura being chipped away, she backed away to give her a moment to assess the deathclaw's remaining bits of armor.

“Pyrrha, watch out!”

Oh snap—

Thwack!

She flew halfway across the arena, slamming against the wall and dropping onto the cold steel floor. This silenced the audience with many loudly hissing at how painful that must have been. But that was what Aura was for. And as the redhead picked herself back up, she noticed her body flickering: her reserves were running low.

“He's coming at you again!” Yang hollered.

“Dodge, run, block, whatever!” Ruby yelled.

Once again, she leapt out of the way as Rawr pounced at her, his bladed claws open wide. However, this time, the alpha displayed some of its evolved intelligence and reached up to catch her leg with its extended blade, the tip hooking at the heel of her boot, and pulling her back down. Hard.

This was followed by its leg slamming down on her abdomen, pushing the air out of her lungs. Her Aura sputtered, safeguarding her body. Regaining her senses, she started hearing more of the bewildered crowd.

“How the fuck is that girl still alive?”

“Beats me but holy shit, man, this is the best match I've seen in a long time.”

“Damn it, can I switch bets?”

Pyrrha writhed under the mutant's weight, struggling with all her might. Her weapons were scattered across the arena, out of reach. And in full view of the rest of the Thorn. Might as well use her Semblance; it was an open secret at this point what with Mister New Vegas parroting her 'radiation-induced telekinetic super-powers.' Besides, she could worry about the consequences later.

Right now, she needed to wi—no. She needed to survive!

Rawr roared in her face, spittle splattering over her cheeks. A moment later, the jagged tip of Miló flew right into the hammered steel sheets fastened over the alpha's cheek. Rawr's head jerked to the side, its leg coming off her.

And Pyrrha rolled away, staggering back to her feet, and using her Semblance to drag her weapons back into her grip...much to the delight of the New Vegas audience.

“Holy tits-on-a-molerat, did you see that shit!?”

“Now that's just fucking cheating!”

“Hey! Who the fuck spiked my drink!?”

Ren's voice rang back down. “Your bag, Pyrrha! Look!”

The redhead turned. The satchel she was carrying had been ripped off her person and tossed across the arena where its contents spilled out. Stun grenades, flares, and Blake's flare gun. All made of metal.

Pyrrha decided now was the time to expend her final Dust reserves. Shifting Miló into rifle form, she fired the last of her cartridges at the deathclaw, the volatile rounds causing dents in the armor. Buying her enough seconds to retrieve a flash-bang, pull the pin, and toss it at the alpha's feet.

BOWF!

Half the audience howled in annoyance at having been blinded.

Taking her arm off her eyes, the redhead could see her opponent staggering back. Stunned.

Good. Take aim. Fire.

Click.

Oh for the love of—

There was no time to reload. Dropping the pistol, she shifted Miló back into spear form and, hefting Akoúo, she charged.

“Melee's my forte anyway.”

“Melee is my forte anyway.”

“That's your strategy, huh,” Nora quipped.

Pyrrha nodded back. “I have a few back-ups as well.”

“Have to cover every possible avenue,” Jaune groused. “Because they still won't tell us who she'll be going up against.”

“Rules of the Thorn, I believe,” Ren mused.

Syrup whinnied.

Team JNPR-S slumped back onto the benches in Pyrrha's locker room, the redhead in question feeling understandably nervous. They were later joined by team RWBY-V coming in to check on them.

“The fact that Six even agreed to this simply baffles me,” grumbled Weiss.

“I'm sticking to the political angle here,” Yang added. “Ain't that right, Blakey?”

Blake nodded.

“Well, Pyrrha can win this, right?” Ruby chirped uneasily. “Right, guys?”

Velvet approached the champion with her pistol belt wrapped around the holstered Colt automatic along with the spare magazines that Raul had given the rabbit faunus. “Here. I think you'll get more out of this than I ever could. It packs quite a punch though.”

Pyrrha nodded her thanks, saddling the gun against her right thigh.

“How long until the match?” her partner asked.

“Not very long,” purred Red Lucy, whose sudden appearance by the doorway startled most of the Vegas Wonder Kids into standing up. “Very impressive. Miss Nikos, if I may, that lightweight suit of leather armor looks absolutely stunning on you.”

It took a lot of self-control not to stutter. “Thank you, miss.”

The matron of the Thorn was about to make another quip when she was interrupted by the Courier coming out from behind the corner in the hallway, stepping in front of her, and irately shutting themselves out of the locker room. There was a muffled exchange on the other side of the hydraulic door that ended with Red Lucy chuckling and the sound of heavy steps—the Courier's—pounding away in another direction.

Nora blew raspberries. “Guess Six doesn't like her too much.”

“You're not supposed to like your allies,” the Schnee heiress intoned dispassionately.

“Can't believe he's letting this happen for an 'alliance,'” Yang growled. “As if the, ugh, the eggs weren't enough to get that woman to play nice with him.”

“On the bright side, he's not drinking anymore,” Ruby said.

The room went silent. Then Blake remarked, “No, he isn't. But he still gambles.”

Pyrrha grimaced at that. Her life was being wagered in bid to maintain the loyalty of a significant faction in the New Vegas. But, alas, this was how things were in the wasteland, was it not? They were the odd ones out for trying to go against it, for even aspiring to change it, before the Courier made them second-guess all of that.

Though, that did not mean that they shared his cynicism. That showed with how the conversation detoured into Nora defending her...souvenir...from Westside, claiming it was a worthwhile investment and not because it was...fascinating in its own way. And that jovial atmosphere was what kept her spirits up until the final quarter of an hour before the match when Red Lucy's enforcers arrived to usher her friends and teammates to their segregated observer's booth. Jaune, being his stubborn self, stayed, adamantly insisting that he was going to escort her to the arena.

By then, the Courier returned and Pyrrha was thankfully adjusting her gear behind the lockers to be able to avoid getting distracted by the argument that followed. Thankfully, it was not too intense, ending in her partner croaking in despair.

“I still don't like that Pyrrha has to do this,” she heard Jaune bemoan.

“Neither do I, son.”

“But you arranged for this. You let this happen. You could have done something else, some alternative instead of this death battle.”

“I could've. But that'd mean some poor bastard out there will have to take the fall.”

Pyrrha winced. She really was doing this so some stranger, who was probably worse than her yet did not deserve any of the suffering she had seen, could live...for another few days or so.

Her partner snorted. “Is there anything else that doesn't involve people getting sacrificed?”

“There are a few. That'd mean that thing's will go to shit, though. And we can't have that happening.”

Tense silence.

“... Blake's right. There really is something political behind this, huh. Something involving the NCR?”

Long, gravelly sigh. “... Some things you have to let slide, kid. Red Lucy's got the whole underground under her thumb and I need—we need—the underground to keep New Vegas from sinkin' into the shitters.”

Jaune dropped his voice low enough that Pyrrha had to strain to hear better. “... Why don't you just, um, well, replace Red Lucy with someone else? I mean...you could do that, right?”

She almost froze up at the word 'replace.' Was her partner seriously suggesting...?

Mirthless chuckle. “I can. But I ain't gon' do it. 'Cause where the hell can I find another Red Lucy? Out o' every piece o' shit in this shit-hole, she's the only one who's mean enough, smart enough, and sassy enough to keep this whole place in order.”

“... It's not like she's not the only one. There's got to be at least someone like her out there...right?”

“You'd think that, wouldn't you,” the Courier grunted. “Let's just say, at the moment, I don't like any of the candidates lining up for her spot if she, well, retires early.”

The blond chortled bitterly. “And I suppose you don't have your own trump card for this? No replacement you'd like to nominate instead of the ones available?”

“If I did, we wouldn't have to be down here in the first place.”

“I thought the purpose of moving underground was to evade the NCR.”

“Ain't the proper time to be askin' a lot o' questions, son,” warned Old Green Eyes in that voice that chilled her to the bone. “Best you head back to your buddies before the show starts. Wouldn't want Sparta to be missin' her favorite teammate cheerin' her from the stands, now, wouldn't we?”

“Shit!” Pyrrha hissed.

She recovered, albeit hobbling thanks to her ankle which was now flaring back with pain. Damn it, the bones were still healing and it was finally making this more difficult than it should.

Across from her, Rawr licked its wounds before growling at her. Its armor had all but been taken apart from her strikes with more cuts adding to the scars marring its body. Yet, somehow, the damn thing was still standing and still filled with energy to keep fighting. This was tougher than the Deathstalker back at Initiation, and that was an Elder Grimm that took the entirety of both teams RWBY and JNPR to put down.

“You're almost there, Pyrrha!” Nora hooted.

“A few more and that ugly bastard is going down!” Yang added.

“You can do this!” Ruby barked.

The redhead wanted to smile at her friends' heartfelt cheers. They were so invigorating. Matching Rawr's attack, she raised Akoúo to block its right claw while spearing Miló into its left palm.

The alpha recoiled and bounced back as Pyrrha once again pulled the pin on another stun grenade and left it at its feet before bouncing off the wall and turning her head away from the blinding blast.

“Holy shit, folks, ain't that flashy!” the announcer-turned-commentator remarked.

Boos and cheers rang throughout the arena with the audience's support swinging back and forth between the two champions. Pyrrha checked her satchel and clicked her tongue when she saw that she was down to only a handful of flares and Blake's flare gun.

Roar!

The redhead parried the incoming swipe. She pushed back, pulled out a flare, twisted the cap at the bottom, and held the burning phosphorous stick up towards the alpha's eyes. And Rawr backed away in primal fear.

“What's this!? Shit-balls-on-fire, folks, what are we seeing right now!?” the announcer boomed.

Pyrrha ignored the outbursts from the crowds as she held the lit flare before her, taking back every step that the deathclaw was surrendering in its animalistic aversion towards anything that bright and burning.

Sensing an opening for her to put an end to this whole affair, the champion raised her free hand—no longer caring about keeping her abilities discreet—and grasped the shaft of her weapon flying back into her palm. With one aching heel over the other, she launched herself at the beast. With her throat hurting at how much she was screaming, she buried Miló deep into Rawr's right eye.

To which the entire Thorn fell eerily quiet.

Rawr, the undefeated monster of the New Vegas underground, crumpled to the cold steel floor after Pyrrha dragged her spear out of its perforated skull.

All she could hear for the next few moments was her ragged breathing.

Followed by the announcer clearing his throat. “... Well, folks... The unthinkable just happened.”

The Invincible Girl stood straight and raised her head up to the stunned audience, her gaze drifting from the guarded box where her friends sat in wonderment all the way to the overseer's platform where Red Lucy was smirking. A few paces behind, leaning against a pillar with his arms folded, Courier Six offered a single nod.

“Your winner: Pyrrha Nikos!”

And the crowd erupted into a frenzy. Normally, Pyrrha would have waved back with a bright smile. Tonight, though, she dipped her head to hide the tears streaking down her cheeks. None of this was glorious, none of this was enjoyable, none of this made sense. Slowly, she walked back to her corner, unwilling to face the audience. As soon as the hydraulic doors closed behind her, she ran back into her locker room, dropped everything, huddled against a corner, and cried.

The sun had gone down an hour ago but Neo did not stop. Instead, she rowed faster despite the increasing darkness, the rising nausea, and the fact that minutes ago she had just regurgitated what little she ate. Her reflection in the old car mirror she salvaged was telling: pale skin, weighted eyes, bits of her own loose hair sticking to her drenched sleeves.

This was not good.

She was sick with something really serious. It had to be whatever she had eaten or perhaps the water was not as clean as she thought. Or maybe it was the radiation she absorbed from lingering too long at Dry Wells. Either way, she rowed like her life depended on it. Hoover Dam was only a few miles upriver and she was willing to risk getting arrested by the NCR if it meant putting a buffer between her and the Legion's tireless assassins who just won't get the fucking hint!

Neo kept rowing until her joints were burning and she lay flat on her back on the raft. At least she had anchored herself by some rocks along the riverside, keeping her from being swept downstream back to Arizona.

After a moment, she checked on her map and plotted her location directly across from NCR-held territory. There were supposed to be a few settlements behind the towering cliffs across the river and a military camp a few clicks north of those. And if those radio towers were any indication, she could very well be within sight range of the vaunted Californian Rangers.

She just hoped they were friendly enough not to shoot her on sight.

Neo dragged herself over to look at her reflection in the water. She shut her eyes and opened them again; a green-eyed, raven-haired, tattered-looking girl smiled back up at her. Good. She could still play the part of an Imperium refugee; she hoped that the NCR prisoners-of-war she had been interrogating back in Arizona were right about their military protocol of not shooting civilians on sight.

She pulled herself back up and stumbled onto the quagmire. At least the mud was colder than the Mojave sun. Dragging herself up to some rocks, she dirtied herself to beef up the illusion she was going to use.

Growl.

Her eyes went wide. She carefully peeked over her cover. Squinting, she saw something lumbering further up ahead. From the looks of it they were...

Growl.

Neo ducked back down and frantically checked her map again. Just her luck. She landed on the shores of a deathclaw promontory.

Gods damn it.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 24, 2021

LAST EDITED: June 11, 2021

INITIALLY UPLOADED: June 9, 2021

Chapter Text

Yang knew she had a temper problem. And she also knew the consequences of letting her temper get the best of her. She also knew that if she lost her head, Six was going to shove his boot so far up her ass that she'd be spitting out leather for weeks... Gods damn it, that was something he would have said.

Consequences aside, she was still mad at the Courier for forcing one of their friends into something that, while it was entertaining, really negatively affected the girl in particular. And while the blonde tried to call him out on it, she ended up having to admit that he had a pretty solid reason: New Vegas needed a secure foundation and Red Lucy's underground empire provided a big chunk of that. Literally and figuratively.

So, accepting the fact that she was in the wrong in this one and having to suck it up, Yang sat back in the corner of their temporary quarters in the Thorn, biting on her lip hard enough to nearly draw blood while glaring at the back of Six's head as he brandished the 'trophy' that, technically, belonged to Pyrrha. Unfortunately, the Invincible Girl was still so badly shaken by her fight with the biggest deathclaw anyone had ever seen (even by wasteland standards, apparently) to even acknowledge her reward, much less form coherent sentences.

"Seriously, anybody want it?" the Courier asked. "Last call 'fore I get rid of it."

Yang glanced around. Ruby kept staring at the holes on the grated floor while Weiss catalogued their supplies with Velvet. Blake, as usual, dug her nose into another book (something about science this time) while chancing glances at team JNPR-S who were busy consoling one of their own and keeping Syrup from gnawing at Six's leg.

"No takers?"

The trophy did look interesting but... "What are we supposed to do with a severed deathclaw hand?"

To which Six tossed the damn thing at her. "Don't ask me."

The first thing she noticed when she caught it was the smell. It reeked of turpentine and formaldehyde. But at least it wasn't slimy or moist and so far looked clean...or disinfected. Then again, this still organic material and Yang was sure the decay set in really quickly, especially in the searing Mojave heat. Still, beggars can't be choosers and she now had her own personal deathclaw hand, sharpened claws and all.

"Okay, this is pretty cool," she started slowly. "But...not to sound ungrateful here...what am I actually supposed to do with this?"

"Mantelpiece?" Blake suggested.

"What, like a stuffed gecko head or something?"

"Something like that," Ruby raised. "Maybe when we get back to the Lucky 38, you could hang it up on the wall in the rec room."

"Yeah," Nora chirped. "We'll hang it up next to my pickled horse di—"

Ren coughed hard into his palm. "Perhaps we could sell it as it seems to be of great value."

"Or you could use it as a weapon," Jaune remarked, his arm still hanging over the shoulder of a still catatonic Pyrrha. "Like recycle the claws into knives or, um, use it as a gauntlet or something?"

"You mean wear it like a boxing glove," the blonde brawler chirped. Come to think of it, a lot of weapons being sold around here were jury-rigged from mutant parts such as giant mantis hooks and mutant bear claws. "I guess it might work. I...think we could put a strap or something here and..."

"Save your upgrades for later," the Courier interjected, rasping his knuckles on the wall. "Pack up. We're moving."

Yang tucked the hand into her rucksack and, taking on her share of the group's supplies, filed out the door. Despite her disagreements with Six, she had to give him credit for conditioning them all so well that packing on extra weight didn't hurt so much anymore. She still wasn't used to horrible smells though and, like everyone else, she put on a gas mask when they waded back into all that irradiated shit-water.

Granted, the blonde would have taken extra care to keep her hair from getting sullied any more than it already was but by this point, Yang felt like they had been through so much shit (literally and figuratively) that it didn't matter much anymore. Besides, Weiss had longer hair and she had already given up on keeping that white waterfall from turning any grayer.

Ten minutes later, Yang and most of the other girls tied their hairs up into ponytails and tucked them into their jackets after Velvet felt a cockroach scurrying up the back of her neck.

Ruby could neither barely keep track of the time they spend underground nor comprehend the increasingly convoluted maze that was the New Vegas underground tunnel network but she was ecstatic when the Courier said they had already arrived at their destination. Covered in sewage water and smelling worse than the toilet on a weekend after dinner at McDwendy's, it was so relieving to finally be able to relax in a warm bath, rake three bars of soap over their skins, and have a strawberry smoothie on a recliner while listening to the radio.

Hiss, grate, clang.

The reaper saw the Courier walk into the darkness behind the massive steel pump doors that had been keeping this part of the underground sealed. And she could tell that this place was kept secret because they had to literally go through a maze of tunnels and squeeze through debris and mounds of...solid waste...to get here. Not to mention, other than a few giant mutated rats and disgusting radroaches, there was barely anyone else around.

But all that trekking was going to be worth it. That warm shower and strawberry smoothie...

"I knew there was a secret entrance!" Nora bellowed, pointing to another set of steel doors down the hall. This time, they bore the sigil of the Lucky Thirty-Eight complete with the roulette wheel and the stripes.

"Wait," Blake drawled. "Are we literally right under the Lucky Thirty-Eight?"

"Sharp kitty," the Courier quipped, dialing the code onto the keypad.

Yang whistled. "Wasn't expecting this but I'll take it."

Weiss sighed. "This is far more practical than climbing back out onto the street and having to torment those around us with our stench."

"Could be worse," Jaune said. "I mean, we could be—"

Ruby quickly tugged on the blond's sleeve to get his attention before flashing him the flattest look she had ever given someone, flatter than everyone else in the chamber.

"Jaune," Ren started.

"Don't jinx us, please," Pyrrha ended.

Ding.

"Get in, kids," Six ordered.

At least the elevator wasn't cramped. In fact, it felt so good to be back in a familiar space. The old pine scent that hung from the ceiling was a welcome relief to the Vegas Wonder Kids as they filed in, eager to enjoy the luxuries of the Lucky Thirty-Eight casino-hotel-restaurant-fortress. As soon as the doors hissed closed though, the actual smell hit them.

Hard.

And Ruby had to pinch herself to keep from gagging when they started moving up. She was not the only one, too. Nearly everyone else was trying not to heave. Save for Six who was probably used to this (and he still had his gas mask on) and Ren (because Ren was just good at being...Ren).

Though, the reaper did notice something during the ride. She kept her eyes on the button pad where they started from the bottom, labeled as 'U-3,' and then blinking up the basement levels until they passed the ground floor. But there was a tiny, almost insignificant, clip right below U-3. Just enough for her to squeeze her finger in and...

Plunk.

A whole new panel revealed itself to her right under the keypad. This time, with buttons labelled 'X-1' to 'X-4:' no doubt four additional 'secret' underground levels. Ruby suddenly had her hand slapped away before the Courier wordlessly slammed the cover, giving her that glare that made her freeze up and behave like she had been paddled with a metal bat.

Glancing behind her, though, she could tell that most everyone else had seen that too. No one talked about it though during the long elevator ride up a hundred floors.

"Say, Ren?"

"Yes, Jaune?"

"You think Pyrrha's going to be okay?"

"I don't have a professional opinion on that."

"Not what I was going for. I mean, what do you honestly think? Is she going to be alright? After, y'know, the whole Thorn business?"

"I'm sure, given time, she will recover. She has a strong, determined spirit and with our support, she will persevere. We only have to be there for her."

"Yeah, you're right. Guess there's only so much we can do, huh? The rest is on her?"

"That is the only assessment I could give."

"Fair enough."

Scratch, scratch. Scrape, scrape.

"Hey, Ren?"

"Yes, Jaune?"

"How long have we been down here?"

"... Thirty minutes."

"Huh. You got a timekeeper on you?"

"Educated guess."

"Okay."

Sniff, sniff. Scrape, scratch, snuffle.

"Um, Ren?"

"Yes, Jaune?"

"You sure we shouldn't, um, rein Syrup in?"

"... As much as I would love to, I don't think it would be possible at this point."

"I guess so. I mean, he looks really busy over there and he's gotten really ornery lately. You think he's not going to break anything again?"

"... Hopefully not."

"Alright, then."

Snap! Crash! Crunch, crunch. Silence.

"Ren?"

"Jaune?"

Scratching. "You think they're done by now?"

Sigh. "I don't think so. I think it will be a few more hours before we would be allowed back upstairs."

"No argument there. I'm getting really itchy all over and I seriously need a change of clothes."

"Likewise."

"Plumbing's still broken, right? I mean of all the hundred or so guests rooms here, the only working shower is the one up in the penthouse."

"This place has been sealed for over two hundred years. The damage caused by neglect could be irreparable."

"Yeah, that sucks. And we're not allowed to visit the other hotels, right? Like, ask if we could borrow their showers for a bit?"

"Assuming the Lucky Thirty-Eight has not been placed in a state of lockdown and we have extreme liberties to simply utilize the facilities of the other establishments on the Strip, I think we could."

"Bu~ut...we can't right now."

"Unfortunately."

Crash!

Jaune and Ren looked over their shoulders. Somewhere down below on the dimly lit casino floor of the Lucky Thirty-Eight, Syrup had knocked over a slot machine, ripped the cables out of another, and began chewing at the carpets and tearing at the wallpaper. The two Huntsmen-in-training were too tired and, frankly, too burned out to care at this point, opting instead to slump back onto the upstairs bar and nurse their glasses of diluted beers while team JNPR's mascot wreaked havoc because it was itching to go outside and no one was allowed outside. Not like Six was going to chew them out for it because the man himself had bigger things to worry about than a trashed casino that nobody ever visits.

"Hey, Ren?"

"Yes, Jaune?"

"You up for a game of Caravan?"

"Sure, why not?"

Yang couldn't sleep.

Even after a long, sweet shower and a nice dinner that Ren and Jaune whipped up from whatever was still left in the fridges, she still found herself restless. Tossing and turning in her bed to the point that she almost fell onto the floor. It was almost midnight and everyone else was asleep aside from her.

So she did what came natural.

She walked around...

...until she reached the elevator where Victor was standing guard.

"Howdy, young'un!"

She waved. "Hey, Vic."

"Pretty late to be wanderin' around, don't you think?"

Yang chuckled. This robot was too smart for its own good. Not like Remnant had any of those, right? Definitely not, even though Ruby gets weirdly finicky every time the topic gets brought up. "Eh, couldn't sleep. Counting sheep wasn't working so I thought I might need a drink from upstairs, you know?"

"Guess so." The Securitron rolled aside to trigger the elevator. "Might not want to spend too much time up there. Pretty young ladies like you need your beauty sleep after all."

She laughed. "I do, I do. But I'll give tonight a pass. Just one glass is all I need."

"That's what they all say," chuckled the cowboy AI.

As soon as the elevator doors hissed closed, Yang popped open the secret panel under the button pad and there they were: the four buttons that corresponded to four secret floors directly underneath the Lucky Thirty-Eight (and probably another secret underground network underneath the New Vegas underground). The fact that they only discovered this now showed how cleverly it was kept hidden in plain view. Painted the same color as the wall and the trigger was so small, it was almost invisible to the naked eye.

For a moment, her finger lingered over the button for X-1.

By then, Victor had remotely accessed the elevator controls, effectively locking out any human control, and sent her up to the cocktail lounge. Yang closed the panel and waited until the doors opened and she could whip herself up a Long Island Iced Tea. At least, that's what she remembered it was called; she had read about it in a pre-war magazine about cocktails and was enticed by the idea of mixing Nuka-Cola, vodka, and a bunch of other stuff that she was sure the Lucky Thirty-Eight had in droves (thanks to the automated restocking system in place).

So she was going to give it a shot.

Several wasted drinks and one messy bar later, Yang Xiao-Long was reclining on one of the lounges close to the windows where down below, the lights of New Vegas burned ever brightly. She was halfway through her somewhat successful attempt at Long Island Iced Tea (with less Nuka-Cola and extra vodka) when she heard the elevator doors ding open.

"Blondie?"

"Hey, Six," she waved.

Five seconds later, he groaned. "... What the hell happened to the bar?"

Yang scratched the back of her head. She was definitely going to clean that up later. Definitely. "Um, well, y'see...I, uh, experimented and, y'know, things get messy when experimenting so..."

"Half the bottles on the shelf are gone."

"I-I'll make it up to you!"

He gave her a flat look. "How?"

Good question. "I mean...I could do some jobs at the casinos. Y'know, like a bouncer or someone to check the cards at the tables?"

He folded his arms. "Blondie, are you drunk?"

"Funny you should say that," she half-chuckled, half-gargled. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

Six thudded over, his glare softening upon seeing her sprawled over a leather couch in nothing but her top and shorts. "... It's late. Go to sleep."

She shrugged nervously. "Yeah, that's another thing I should be telling you, y'know? Instead of the other way around..."

He pointed to her glass. "What the hell is that anyway?"

"This one?" Yang held it up with a little shake. "Tea with ice on a lonely island?"

Frown. "A'ight, get up. You're heading downstairs."

She sighed. She was admittedly a bit under the influence and mayhap a bit angry to do anything else at this point. So she stayed put, sinking back onto the lounge, sipping at the rest of her drink. "... No."

The Courier stomped over. "What?"

"I-I...I'm not f-feeling sleepy," she choked out, not at all really that kind of sort of maybe a little bit afraid of the big, scary, gun-toting mass murderer who could easily pummel her into the ground, Aura and Semblance notwithstanding.

"Blondie—"

"I can't sleep."

Silence.

Rustling.

Yang raised her head from her empty glass to see the former Desert Ranger sitting across from her with a much softer glare. Definitely what she was not expecting but still creepy because he was never often like this.

"Bad dream?" he asked softly.

She turned away. "... Just thinking. Over-thinking, I guess."

More silence.

Eventually, Yang (or her mildly intoxicated brain) decided to break the ice with the next thing that came to mind. "So what's with the secret basement?"

"What?"

"You know. The X-floors or something. I saw it. Ruby saw it. Everyone saw it. How we didn't find out about earlier though..."

Six pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's just something that came with the property."

The blonde thought he was lying until she remembered that the man 'inherited' New Vegas from his last boss, some technocratic genius named Robert Edwin House. That was a saga that she wanted to ask him about. So she did. "Hey, Six, how'd you end up being, like, the head honcho of New Vegas?"

"You already know the story," he dismissed.

She blew raspberries. "Yeah, but that's from the NCR and we know they're not really reliable as you said. And I think Swank was making some shit up when we asked him so that's that."

"Why're you kids so damn curious?"

The blonde lolled her head to the side while stretching haphazardly over the couch. "'Cause we like you. And we wanna know more stuff about you. 'Cause we like you."

The Courier was quiet for a long while.

"Six?"

"Long story," he grunted.

"I wanna hear it."

"Not tonight, Blondie."

"C'mon," Yang prodded with a playful pout. "Tell me that bedtime story."

"It ain't a bedtime story."

"Doesn't have to be a bedtime story."

"Jesus Christ," the Courier groaned. "Shit happened. I got shot. Went hunting. Got snagged into some bullshit. Did my job. Pulled some strings. Fought a battle. Won a war. And here I am. The end."

"Boo!" she rasped. "I wanna hear about how you got this swanky tower."

Long exhale. "I did my dues with House."

She scrunched her brow at him. "That's it?"

"That's it."

Yang puckered her lip. "You're no fun, y'know that?"

Six remained unamused. "And you've had one too many, young lady."

Young lady? "You're not my dad."

He scoffed. "Might as well be."

She frowned. "You're not acting like it."

"What? You expect sunflowers and roses?" he growled. "A treat for every fuck-up I have to clean up?"

"We don't always fuck up," Yang barked indignantly. Sure, they screwed up a ton but not everything they did was a bad thing. "We only wanted to help."

His eyes hardened. "Help with what?"

She opened her mouth argue...only to end up with a dry tongue. Because she couldn't really think of an end goal as to why they were doing what they were doing. What was it that Ruby said? About helping the people of the wasteland because it was their job as Huntsmen and Huntresses? That was their job on Remnant and even though they were displaced, the problems were still the same so their duties still carried over here. Right?

Six shook his head. "I feel like a broken record for having to tell you that not everybody's asking for a hero to solve all their problems."

Yang looked down on the floor. "... I know."

"Really now."

"I get it, okay? I get it." She huddled onto the couch with her knees folded up to her chin. "I know I don't have to like it but...damn it, I really don't like it."

"Keep getting used to it then."

The next minute passed wordlessly. The blonde could faintly hear the music blasting down on the Strip; lively, jovial, free of the burdens of the outside world. Maybe the cost of this prosperity was the occasional suffering of some poor bastard out in the wastes. Or maybe some people just had to suffer for others to get what they want.

"Why'd you do it?" she croaked. "Why'd you force Pyrrha to do that fight down there? You could've just, I don't know, negotiated something else. Like...wasn't there anything else on the table?"

Sigh. "There wasn't."

Snort. "Bullshit. There had to be another way."

He nodded. "There were other options. But throwing Sparta into the wringer was cheaper any of them."

Cheaper? Cheaper!? Yang nearly flared up at that but she was sober enough to recognize that she was talking to Courier Six so she tempered herself a bit more by downing the rest of her cocktail. "What the hell do you mean cheaper?"

He reached over and took the empty glass from her hand. "It's cheaper to get rid of one big sum'bitch than a hundred little fuckers just to get the same result. That's too many bodies clogging up the underground and that ain't good for everybody on the surface. Not to mention, that girl got a free lesson on the realities of that tournament life she grew up with."

She sunk into the lounge. "... You mean...if Pyrrha didn't take that match...you were going to have to kill more people."

He rose and thudded back to the bar. "Not something I like doing."

Yang couldn't argue with that. She recalled how he never once smiled during the whole ordeal with the Thorn. At best, it looked like he was itching to cleave Red Lucy's head off. "... I hate that you have to do stuff like that."

"Necessary evils, Blondie."

She curled upon the couch, not liking the bitterness in her stomach. This was it. This was really it. This was the reality of the world she jumped into without much thought...because she was in it for the thrill. The fun of the fight, the adrenaline rushing through her veins, the excitement from the adventures of being a Huntress...

...except she was a Huntress-in-training in a world where Grimm were replaced by the worst kinds of people to ever share the same air she breathed. Slowly, a familiar voice in her head starting taunting her. That same voice that she imagined from what little hazy memories she could recall. The voice of her mother...

...calling her a fool for leaping into the pool before learning how to swim.

Shut up, mom!

Her mother snickered and resumed the onslaught. Taunting her, denigrating her, taking pride in having left the family for reasons that were above her...

Shut the fuck up, mom!

"Yang."

She righted herself on the couch, gasping in front of Six holding two glasses of orange juice. Shakily, she took hers.

"Th-thanks," she muttered.

"Almost had a bad dream there," he remarked.

"Something crossed my mind, that's all." As Yang set down her glass, she saw something reflected against the window pane. She turned to Six. "... Your hands. They're shaking."

He cupped them. "It happens."

"You're...having withdrawals, aren't you?"

Six glowered at her. "Just the shakes, is all."

Yang nearly whistled. She had to give Weiss some serious credit. Her prissy teammate managed to actually knock Six's chronic alcoholism down a peg, if not out of his system. And that brought back warmer memories of an old home remedy for these types of jitters.

"Wait here," she said, jumping to her feet and rushing up to the bar, caring not to slip given how tipsy she was at this point.

Minutes of rummaging later, she returned with a large glass of water and an unopened bottle of Nuka-Cola. Both of which she set down in front of him.

"Drink these," the blonde instructed. "I would've preferred anything other than Nuka-Cola but Sunset Sarsaparilla was way too sweet and at least this one does the job better than anything else I could find so...yeah."

"Lots of fluids, here, Blondie."

She planted her hands on her hips. "That's because you need them. You're drying up and without all the booze you've been chugging, you're body's—"

"Reacting negatively, I know," he grunted. "Don't need to hear it from you."

"Well, there aren't any doctors around and that shaking of yours is..." It was bringing back memories of her own father slumped over the dinner table surrounded by a cemetery of bottles. "... Well, it's making me worry."

"You kids never stop worrying, do you."

Yang rolled her eyes. "We can't help it."

Six exhaled and for a quick moment, he let the ghost of a smile grace the corner of his lip. "I guess that's a good thing 'bout having you around."

The blonde snickered, bucking her hips. "What can I say? We're good company."

"Is that how you were raised back home?"

Back home. Yeah. Things were different back home. Wherever home is now. Yang slackened and sat back down, her eyes glossy while recalling the many fond summers spent with Ruby and her father back in Patch. "... Yeah. Good times."

"... Still homesick?"

Pretty much. Glancing back outside, she nearly imagined the city of Vale down below with the rest of the wasteland shrouded in vibrant greeneries. "Now that you mention it, I am...a bit."

"That why you can't sleep?"

She shook her head. "More like...a little peeved. Peeved at you for forcing Pyrrha into that match and...and peeved at a bunch of other things. But now? Now, I...I don't even know why I'm angry. I don't even know why I want to keep being angry. It's just...there's a lot of stuff on my mind and...and..."

Yang dropped onto the lounge with her head into her hands.

"... I needed a break from myself, I think. Fuck, what is wrong with me?"

"... You know, this one lanky noodle once told me not too long ago," the Courier started, "about two girls who lost their mothers."

She raised her head.

"Ruby's too busy running around to get it through to her head that some people just ain't ever coming back." He met her gaze with his own. "I wonder though if her sister's in the same boat."

"What are you—"

"Blake's got a hundred restraining orders on some stubborn psychotic prick with a chip on his shoulder and Weiss is far enough away from some frosty son of a bitch what calls himself a businessman. Which makes me wonder..."

Yang felt those green orbs dig into her soul.

"...if you're running away from something too."

She wasn't running away from anything.

She wasn't even the one running away.

In fact, as she slammed her hands on the table, she had a mind to correct him about who was running away from who.

"Raven left," she hissed, her tears spilling onto her knuckles. "I...I want to know why."

"Raven, huh. Your mother?"

Yang seethed. "She was the one running away. She ran away from family. She ran away from dad. She ran away from me. Left without a notice or anything. She...sh-she... If it wasn't for what she did, dad wouldn't have been the slumps so hard that...that..."

"That?"

She paused to calm herself. When she opened her eyes, she faced her own reflection in the window. Her hair was a mess, there were droplets of liquor on her top, and her lilac eyes were weighted by the streaks running down her cheek. All in all, she looked great...for a wreck.

"Dad was a wreck," she rasped. "How ironic that the big, strong dragon of the family's the one with the weakest heart. He confided in his team, first and foremost. Ended up with his best friend Summer Rose...Ruby's mom...the mom that Raven should have been."

Yang let out a bitter chuckle.

"Funny that cliché. You lose someone and you hook up with your support group." She sniffled. "I'm not saying I didn't like Summer for swooping in like that but if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have had an amazing baby sister and a...a really amazing mother who...filled that gap that Raven caused. To think we'd finally forget about her and move on with our lives. But, like you put it, some people just aren't coming back."

"What happened to that woman? Summer, right?"

"She went on a mission and...never returned. With our parents' line of work, it was a no-brainer what the records were going to say after months of...fruitless searching." The blonde wiped her cheeks dry. "Dad sunk back into his old habits quick. He didn't even realize he had two daughters who were watching him puke blood 'cause he kept chugging shot after shot after shot to forget..."

Six slowly sat straight. "How old were you?"

"I was four and Ruby was only two. The week after that, I decided to start my own search, to find Raven, a missing Huntress. Not something a four-year-old was supposed to do, huh, especially when said Huntress is good at popping in and out of the conflict zone like that. But being a kid, you'd even take the breadcrumbs, y'know? So I waited for Dad to leave the house, put Ruby in a wagon, and headed out. I must've walked for hours, I had cuts and bruises, I was totally exhausted, but I wasn't gonna let anything stop me. When I got there, I could barely stand, but I didn't care; I'd made it. And then I saw them. Those burning red eyes..."

Beside her visage in the window appeared the Courier, a friendly stranger in a dirty duster, six guns on his person, ugly scars marring his bearded face, and a pair of green eyes peering out into the horizon.

"There we were: a toddler sleeping in the back of a wagon and a stupid girl too exhausted to even cry for help. We might as well have been served on a silver platter. But then our uncle showed up just in time. Lucky us, huh."

"Luck," Six echoed. "More like he was a responsible adult."

"I know, right? It was a really dumb thing to do looking back on it now. We almost died if it weren't for...for Qrow."

Down below, New Vegas lit up even brighter, obscuring the part of the Courier's face that scrunched up in thought.

"Several years of my life spent searching for my own mom... I let it control me. And it got me into some sticky situations, got me in some nasty places, almost got me arrested more than a girl my age should've been. Then I realized...that I was only tearing myself apart piece by piece." Shrug. "What good am I if I end up destroying myself in the process?"

Six hummed in agreement.

"I knew she was still alive...she was still out there. And maybe when I get to her, I could finally ask why. Was it me? Was it dad? Or was it...her?"

The reflection beside her popped the cap off the bottle of Nuka-Cola.

"Maybe that's the real reason why I was such the troublemaker as they say," she chuckled mirthlessly. "Maybe it wasn't because of the action or all that stuff... Maybe I just really wanted an excuse to vent...an outlet for all this pent-up anger and frustration and, and, and..."

"... And your dad?"

"Fell apart, picked himself up again, and did his best to raise us." Her lips curled into a sad smile. "To think that I had to stomach watching my dad be so... I've...I-I'd never seen him so broken before."

Yang rubbed her arms for a long while until turning to the Courier looking past the city skyline, perhaps past the dry mountains and sandy hills of the Mojave Desert.

"Yeah," he choked out. "fallin' apart isn't usually something we do."

Blink, blink. "We?"

"Now that you're here...you still gonna look for her?"

She scoffed. "As if she'd end up in a place like this."

He shrugged. "You sure as hell did."

"Not like I wanted to."

"You've been liking it so far."

Yang walked away from the window. "I really sound like a hypocrite, huh. Here I was thinking how awesome the wasteland is...how badass and how crazy fun things could get...then we get into the killing and..."

"Grimm can't be the only thing you huntin' folk go after," Six echoed. "To get to the geckos and the bighorners, sometimes you'd have to clear out the raiders getting in your way."

"Wish they'd tell us that before sending us out on our first training missions," the blonde groused, recalling the fracas that was Mountain Glenn. Thank goodness they had a chaperone and Zwei, too. But out here?

"Some things you learn out in the field better than in a classroom." He paced over, taking quick swigs off of his cola. "One that I learned from eating sand for breakfast growing up: when someone does something, there's a reason. It ain't always pleasant but whatever it is that made your mom take a hike—"

"What good reason is there!?" she shrieked, nearly slamming her fists against his chest. "For my whole life, I've thought of every single reason that she could have possibly had that made her leave us!"

"I never said it'd be a good reason," the Courier repeated calmly.

Yang slumped against him, her shoulders shaking as she broke down completely.

He sighed, ruffling her hair. "Yang, some people do what they do because they have to. Others simply 'cause they could. And others, well...it's out of their hands."

"I just don't want to be left alone like that again," she whimpered, sobbing against his shoulder.

Six wrapped his arm around her. "... I know, sweetie. I know."

First Cat-girl, then Snowball, now Blondie. Huh, I wonder how long until Hyper's going to come crying to me about something I don't right fucking know. Christ, this ain't just babysitting; this is therapy! But he couldn't really complain because he was already carrying Yang in his arms towards the elevator. She finally tuckered herself out and it was time to tuck her in. Surprisingly, she was about as light as a sack of potatoes.

Eventually, the elevator doors hissed open and Victor was there to greet him. "Howdy, Major!"

Six returned with a nod.

"Need help with her?"

"Nah, I got this." She ain't that heavy. Besides, I don't want your rusty-ass pincers squeezing the life out of her.

Though the penthouse had a massive floor plan, the rooms were at least closer to each other. Six paused to close the door to the recreational parlor where Nora's pickled purchase sat on the shelf alongside Yang's severed souvenir. Raul's almost done with that chopper. May have to fiddle with that deathclaw hand, too. Rawr was a tough son of a bitch but I'm not mad about that fucker dying.

After all, it took him immense effort to lure Rawr out of the Divide and into the trap that Red Lucy's hunters spent weeks preparing. How fitting that the monster went down in a glorious bloodbath at the hands of one of his own. No. Pyrrha's not my bloodline. None of them are. But...they're still my kids... And I'm proud of her for that.

Sure, keep tellin' yourself that.

Had to be done.

She's pretty shook up 'bout it. That look in her eyes, that same look that'll kill a person from the inside. Sparta ain't gon' last if you keep throwin' her into more shit like that—

I know what I'm doing, me.

His own voice chuckled back. Ain't that the truth.

The Courier paused to clear his head. And for the next moment, he heard Yang's soft snoring against his chest. Looking down at her, he was struck by how fragile she was. A wild girl with fiery fists of fury was curled up like a defenseless baby in his arms. Like a firecracker that got soaked. God, what I'd do to your mother if I ever meet her.

Quietly, he eased inside team RWBY's quarters and navigated through the darkness until he reached the empty bed. He then gently laid her down, pulled the covers over her, and brushed a few stray strands off her face. No one's going to leave you this time, kid. Nobody's leaving anybody alone. Not anymore.

"Goodnight, Yang," he whispered. I'm not going to make that same mistake again.

After cleaning up the bar and disposing of the empty bottles, the Courier slinked back down to the lounge near the windows with a glass of water. It was two in the morning and his mind was thankfully free from any headaches tonight. New Vegas still beat its sinful heart down below, not caring for the storms brewing outside its fortified walls.

"What a view," he muttered.

Sure is. Look at all those ants down there carvin' out a living in this golden oasis o' yours.

He scowled at his reflection. I ain't the goddamn overlord of this city.

There ain't much of a difference between you an' House though.

Yeah, well, unlike that self-righteous son of a bitch, I ain't a rotting corpse in a time capsule playing God and giving orders to gullible fuckwits.

An' now that gullible fuckwit's at the top o' the food chain tryin' to keep his 'precious kids' from getting what's due 'em. The man in the window bared his teeth. If it ain't the NCR comin' for 'em, it'll be the Legion. And past that, there's a lot more folks out there itchin' for a piece o' the Vegas Wonder Kids.

Let them come.

Quit deludin' yourself, growled Old Green Eyes. You ain't no saint. Survival's the game here and those kids are just weighin' you down. You keep up with this illusion of bein' their daddy an' this'll be the last time you'll get this kind o' view.

Major Theodore Vickers shook his head and cupped his glass tightly to still the trembling in his hands. If that's how it's going to be, then at least I'm going down a happy man.

He looked back up at the window pane to see the demon gone.

Hell, these kids got a lot more baggage than I thought. Courier Six chuckled at his own image. I don't know why but I think my shit list just got longer.

Neo could not have been any luckier.

These NCR troopers showed up right on time, saving her hide, and finally bringing her to safety. Safety here being a ramshackle military outpost with a massive graveyard, strained logistics, and troops who were just in it for the money and eager for a ticket home. So this was the glorious republic she had heard about.

At least, they weren't all bastards.

Like this group of apparently 'elite' snipers who were touted as the 'last thing you would never see.' Neo almost rolled her eyes at that boast. They were competent though—in fact, she'd admit they were damn good at their job of taking out their marks at a thousand yards—and she was so far enjoying their company. Which was the least she could do for them since they did technically rescue her from the herd of deathclaws in the promontory.

They even covered her when she took a chance and leapt into the Colorado River, hell bent on swimming across, nausea and aching muscles be damned. Because she was downright terrified for her life at that point. And she was still rattled by it even though it was only yesterday.

Good thing the squad that picked her up were looking out for her, even arguing for her own tent separate from the others pitched here at Camp Forlorn Hope as well as giving her some proper medical treatment for her radiation sickness...which, to her horror, had progressed to a such a serious stage that the army medics looking her over claimed that it was a miracle she hadn't either dropped dead or started to 'ghoulify.'

Neo could only shrug when she was repeatedly asked how she was still alive. Like she could explain to these numbskulls what Auras and Semblances were and how she was probably one of the very few people in this whole universe that had those and then some. She was glad they went straight to business and patched her up as best they could.

So far, these NCR folks were really good people. Like Lieutenant Gorobets who greeted her first thing the following morning with a warm mug of coffee and some biscuits.

"Good morning, Miss Polis."

'Polis.' It had been a long time since Neo last resorted to that monicker. She couldn't really remember where it came from but it was one of the first aliases Roman had her use when they pulled their first scams over a decade ago.

"How are you feeling?"

Neo shuddered and wrapped the blanket tighter around herself, making sure her face told him everything he needed to know.

He nodded. "I see. Has your medication given you any problems?"

Other than making her woozier than she already was while constantly pissing out these fucking isotopes, she was dandy. She was still feeling dangerously frail, which was seriously affecting her Aura reserves and making it difficult to use her Semblance, but no one here needed to know any of that. So she jotted down a few words on the pad she was given and showed it to the officer.

"Good to know. Well, I have some good news for you, ma'am. You're going to be transferred to a better place. Much safer than here and where...you'll be taken care of."

That sounded less like good news and more like a rehearsed spiel to kill the jitters. Neo wrote down a question to which Gorobets did his best to look reassuring.

"You'll be fine, ma'am. That place is as solid as a fortress with better amenities and, heh, better food than what we got here."

She raised her brow; Lieutenant Gorobets was clearly pulling a good-cop shtick on her.

"You'd even get a good view of the lake. Largest, cleanest body of water for miles."

If she recalled correctly, that would be Lake Mead. So she was going to be transferred to a place with a good view of Lake Mead. That didn't sound too bad. Though it was still sketchy that she was being kept in the dark on this one.

"We'll be leaving later this afternoon," the lieutenant concluded. "We'll be your escorts."

She didn't dislike their company (yet) so she decided to play along. But that did not mean that she was as trusting of them as the Imperium refugee she was disguised as. So when he left her tent (and after she gobbled up her coffee and biscuits because holy shit she was dehydrated and dying for something other than raw mutant meat), she pulled out the pistol she pilfered from one of the patrolling soldiers last night and pulled back on the slide.

Nine millimeter. Decent stopping power. Had a bit of age to it but it looked well maintained. Nothing too dissimilar to the Legion's guns. Tucking the weapon back under her shirt, she made a mental note to grab herself some extra ammo and a bunch of other supplies just in case. And maybe snoop around and see if the Republic knew about Roman; he had to be here, at least. When the master thief of Vale vanished during the coordinated attack on Beacon, Neo refused to accept that he was well and truly gone. There was no body; just his hat that she still carried with her. If she ended up here, then he might have as well. There could be no other explanation.

Besides, if the NCR couldn't give her the answers she was looking for, she had recently learned about another group that could: the Vegas Wonder Kids. And to go after them meant having lots of cash, a whole armory, and some powerful friends to back her up. Because other than the Republic, the Imperium, the heat, the radiation, and the mutants, there was one more giant standing in her way.

And Neo doubted that she—an exhausted, irradiated, ill-equipped assassin with fluctuating Aura reserves and a versatile but limited Semblance—could stand up to the man who decapitated the Imperium and shook the Legion to their very core. This was the type of person that Roman would have wanted her to stay away from and definitely someone that Cinder would have wanted on her payroll.

But Neo wanted answers; she wanted her friend, her only family, back. No government, no army, no glorified Huntsmen, and certainly no overhyped mailman was going to stop her.

She didn't want to be left all alone anymore.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: November 20, 2020

LAST EDITED: June 25, 2021

INITIALLY UPLOADED: June 24, 2021

Chapter Text

"This way, ma'am," ushered Lieutenant Gorobets.

Neo kept in pace with the First Recon squad, playing up her disguise as a traumatized Imperium refugee (as if she herself wasn't actually traumatized enough with all the shit she had been through up to this point).

"You're a really lucky girl, you know that?" quipped one of Gorobets' men, a sour-looking guy named Bitter-Root. "Escaping the Legion, wandering the wastes for weeks, and ending up in a deathclaw den with safety just across the Colorado right as we were spotting for Legion scouts."

Another marksman (or markswoman) slapped him across the shoulder. "Hah! Sarcasm ain't a way to a girl's heart, you know."

"I wasn't flirting with her, Betsy."

Betsy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Pretty young thing though, have to admit."

Neo rolled her own eyes. Professional jokers, these 'elite specialists.' Then again, none of them didn't go further than the catcalls.

"Load up, people," Gorobets hollered, opening the backplate of the covered military truck that would be ferrying them to Fort Mead on the other side of Hoover Dam.

"I-it's o-okay, ma'am," stuttered the bespectacled Ten Of Spades. "You'll b-b-be safe th-th-there."

Neo wondered how safe. Because she could still fight her way out if things would ever go south. It felt strange since she expected to be taken further inside the NCR's borders, like that shiny city New Vegas with all their brightly-lit casinos and high-class living. But, she was still being processed by the book so she guessed that the rest of the paperwork was being handled at Fort Mead. And she supposed it was more pragmatic to be in the company of other 'Imperium refugees,' than anyone else.

Halfway during the ride, Neo pretended to fall asleep. A few minutes later, she heard Bitter-Root confide to his colleagues about her not being 'collared like everyone else.'

"Relax, I don't think they'd slap one on her when we get there," Betsy dismissed.

"I wasn't saying they would. Would they?"

"High up our pay grade to be asking those questions," crowed the oldest of the bunch Sterling.

Bitter-Root groaned. "I'm still on the fence about it. Keeping all those people locked up and still having those things on their necks...pokin' 'em like animals in a cage."

Betsy huffed. "Well, we can't get their collars off. Besides, would you run the risk of their heads going off if we keep trying?"

"Point. Though I still think we should be pumping in resources into R-and-D to figure out how to at least get them off."

Ten Of Spades stammered. "I'm s-s-s-sure the brass is on the c-c-case."

Snort. "Wonder how long that'll take."

"Depends on who's in accounting," Sterling snickered. "Believe me, it's always accounting that slows things down."

Neo hoped things would speed up. Though it was pretty odd that some of the other Imperium refugees she had heard about were still collared and contained in their own little tent city. That and the rest of the conversation turned into a mild debate about whether or not Courier Six had turned on the Republic after a botched mission in a place called the Divide.

Qrow slumped down against the ramshackle door of the small cave he had been using as his personal storage closet. The fact that there were lots of these abandoned mountain hideouts spread across the Mojave made him wonder how many groups of people were living here before the NCR (or the Imperium) showed up. Still, he was glad he found a few that were largely forgotten and clearing them out wasn't too difficult. But running a racket like this was tiring. Moving around so many supplies in a desert worse than Vacuo on his own was painfully dehydrating, alcohol set aside. Besides, he couldn't always fly to Lake Mead to get a clean drink every single day.

And that was on top of the fucking isotopes that were nearly everywhere. What this world lacked in Dust, Aura, Semblances, and Grimm, it made up for in the unseen poison called 'radiation' and the leftovers of some thermonuclear war two hundred years back. Thank the Brothers, Remnant didn't have this...yet.

The veteran Huntsman lifted up his arm. This Pip-boy was a bit on the heavy side but it was so goddamn useful compared to his now dead scroll. At least Contreras wasn't bullshitting about this kind of technology, rare as it was out here; Courier Six himself had one and made the most out of it.

"Rads are down," Qrow muttered to himself. "Shit, I need a fucking drink."