Chapter Text
The Courier died at Hoover Dam.
It was the best way his story coulda ended, honestly. Couriers don’t run nations, even though some build them. Better to be a legend than a governor—leave all that mess to the qualified folks and let your legend spin up.
I know, you want a Courier story, but a lotta them are faker than the legend of the Sarsaparilla Star. Sure, some of them might’ve got some truth to them, but the tales got taller the longer he was dead.
First, to take one example, he fought the Legate. Then he fought the Legate and his personal squad of legionaries. Then he fought Caesar’s whole entire Legion with just a switchblade and a silenced .22. Hell, some folks say he never actually died. He was the Mojave made skin and bone, that man, and just walked off into the sunset after Hoover Dam. It’s like a prophecy, even: when the sky goes dark and men rule with iron fists, the Courier will stroll back into Vegas like he never left. He rubs shoulders with notoriety, hiding away in the same stories as the Ghoul, the Chosen One, the Vault Dweller.
I think it’s better to cut the shit. I’ll tell you what’s real.
Courier Six Roy was a man. Not a particularly good one—spending the first ten years of your life as a girl will do that to you—but a man nonetheless. He tried to help the folks who got hurt and hurt the folks what hurt him, simple as that. That’s how he lived for half a year, wild and free and ultimately kind. Cause deep down he knew he wasn’t gonna be around for too long—soon as he heard about the possibility of a Second Battle of Hoover Dam his whole life crystallized before him. That right there was where he was gonna fight for Vegas, beat back the Legion and NCR alike before laughing his way to hell.
It did end up happening. It just wasn’t as big and bright an end as he saw. The Legate’s blade was poisoned, y’see, and he had taken a few too many bullets before challenging the Monster of the East. So, after him and Yes-Man’s powers combined threatened the NCR back west, he just… stopped. Sat down to watch the sun set over the Hoover Dam and never got up again, dying quiet and tired just like in Goodsprings. Might not be a happy ending, but at least it’s a real one.
And that’s how Six’s tale ends—well, how it ends in the West. Because, around the late 80s, tales came in from the East (as they sometimes did). Traders and caravaneers and travelers who heard it from a stranger up where the Long 15 meets the Old 90, all playing one tangled game of telephone about a man from Vault 111 who bent the Commonwealth to his will. Nobody fully believed it, since news of the East always has to be taken with a brick of salt that you use to beat the bastard who told it to you.
But a Brotherhood detachment—really just idiot kids who knew dick about squat, sent out on a milk run—confirming the story and more? Now that's something to be taken seriously. People might not like the Brotherhood, but they'll listen to its members. Sometimes.
After the unit struggled into a nearby town (and its saloon), one Scribe—I'll call her Cervantes, because that was her name. Scribe Cervantes interrupts a story to say that actually, the guy from one-eleven wasn’t just a Vault dweller. He was a Paladin of the Brotherhood and he didn’t just clear out a fort full of super mutants he took down a fucking BEHEMOTH. That’s a super mutant bigger than a Deathclaw, she says, with arms like tree trunks, and the last time someone killed a behemoth on their own it was twelve years ago but she had a Fat Man so it didn’t really count. At this point she’s had a few and her friend the Knight, Knight Wheeler, asks if she should be sharing all this with outsiders. She tells him to shut up, Timmy, and to drink his sarsaparilla.
Timmy shuts up and drinks his sarsaparilla.
The other Scribe, Sato, which is a goddamn useless distinction because there are at least fifteen Scribe Satos across the various chapters of the Brotherhood scattered across the remains of the States, is sober enough to know their audience wants more and just drunk enough to be the best storyteller present. After all, Cervantes is busy flirting with some girl, Wheeler is sulking over his Sunset, and Bauer is stuck in the town doc’s after the milk run curdled. Fucking Cazadores.
So Sato’s the one to tell the small town of Goodsprings about the Paladin Jack Six, and all at once the saloon is abuzz. It isn’t a town that forgets its own, and Six is a strange enough name that enough folks connect a few dots and arrive at that nice young man from a few years ago.
From there all it can do is spread. The Courier reincarnated or came back from the dead or just never died, uniting the Commonwealth and fighting for the people. Everybody loves a folk hero or, failing that, a good story. Eventually it makes its way around to Freeside and a certain collection of semi-strangers and oddities who saw it for what it was. Mostly a crock of brahmin shit, sure, but it has some truth dug down deep into it that makes them want to believe.
They’d spent enough time around the man that it all sounded plausible, if not probable. The shortest man briefly mentions Quarry Junction and taking care of its Deathclaw infestation, the tallest brings up chasing after a strange radio signal that lead them to an abandoned Brotherhood bunker. An old ghoul and his apprentice share a glance at the small eyebot bobbing around their heads. Their former companion ending up on the other side of the continent? Eh. Might as well be true.
I mean, it’s at least a nice thought. Means they don’t have to think too hard about what they lost at Hoover Dam. If he’s still alive somewhere out there, there’s always a dim hope he’ll roll back into town like a tumbleweed, bright-eyed and shiny with some wild tale on his tongue.
What they don't know is that it's all true. At least, the bits that nobody made up. A man out of time emerged from Vault 111, calling himself Courier Six, and went on to flip the Commonwealth upside down. He ran headfirst into trouble as often as possible, he conquered raider kingdoms of blood and sugar, he chased after foggy mysteries full of forgotten pasts and stared his own in the face.
That truth's what you've come to hear about, and that truth’s what you'll get.
We'll start at the beginning, or at least as near to it as I can get.
The sun is close to setting when the man stumbles into Concord looking for any sign of civilization. All he’s got is a bad attitude and a ten-millimeter pistol on his hip, no armor to speak of except for a red bandanna covering his face and that bright blue jumpsuit of his flagging him as a dipshit Vault dweller. A raggedy dog follows behind him, lean and mean and full of fresh molerat. It’s got a matching bandanna and a set of welding goggles to protect its eyes, which would almost look cute if the dog wasn’t such a little bastard.
Vaultie knows jack shit about the city, seeing as he just popped out of an underground fallout shelter, and Dog's a dog so she can’t help any. All they’ve got to go on is the maps on his Pip-Boy and the words of a slightly crazy and very lonely Mr. Handy, who said the people there only shot at him a few times. But he’s done more on less, and some wary settlers with guns aren’t something to be worried about.
The sound of lasgun fire causes him to reconsider.
Dog cocks her head and pants eagerly, itching for a fight. Vaultie sighs and unholsters his pistol. Close by, a volley of bullets and profanity answers the unknown laser-gunman’s shots. “Okay. Dog?” he whispers. “You gotta stay close. These fellas got guns. You’re probably gonna get hurt if you run at ‘em.” She whines. He scratches behind her ears sympathetically. “I know, I know. But if they’re mean, all bets are off. Go wild.”
That gets the dog up and happy again and she trails right behind him as they stealth their way to the main street of the town. Right away it’s clear the folks lining it aren’t settlers: two of them twitch back and forth like Jetheads, one guy’s smacking his lead pipe against a stop sign absent-mindedly, and oh yeah every last one of them with a gun is firing at the man in a cowboy hat standing on a balcony.
“Christ alive,” our boy in blue grumbles. He’s got three magazines for his pistol, and he’s seen how Dog's teeth tear through flesh easy. The two of them could definitely take on this batch of assholes, as long as he aims careful and hits all his—?
Balcony Cowboy completely disintegrates one of his attackers. Vaultie’s feeling a lot more optimistic about him and Dog's chances.
All it takes is two well-placed bullets to the chest and one of the shitheads crumples. The others turn and start yelling, something about Jared didn't say there were more of them, and a few peel off to go hunt down this mystery attacker. Of course, I’m saying this like they were being strategic about it. This is not the case. It’s more like kicking an anthill: everybody gets pissed but only some of them go do something about it. Jethead #1 and Pipesign, specifically. Neither of them expect sixty pounds of dog to launch herself at their ankles or 17 grams of lead to make a home in their kneecaps.
The rest of the fight is just as quick and dirty. The man darts from doorway to doorway, shooting in bursts at whichever one Dog sinks her teeth into. Balcony Cowboy offers covering fire after he realizes what's going on and even saves the duo from a bold (or stupid) bastard who charged Dog with a baseball bat. All things considered, it goes pretty smoothly. Vaultie even gets his hands on a double-barrel shotgun during the process; shells for that are bound to be more plentiful than ten-mill rounds since every dumbass with a gun in a fifty-mile radius seems to have either a shotgun or something only held together by duct tape and prayer.
The fella holding down the balcony would sag in relief but for the fact he’s too much of a soldier. Instead, he shouts down towards Dog and the vaultie. “Thanks for the help, but I’m gonna need a little more. I’ve got a group of settlers inside and raiders are almost through the door! There’s a laser musket down there: grab it and help out, please!”
There's a muffled bang from inside and even from this distance his pupils obviously shrink to fearful pins. So he ducks out and leaves the motley pair to weigh the pros and cons of oh who am I kidding. Vaultie grabs up the proffered musket, gives a quick apology to the dead fella it belonged to, and kicks in the door to the Museum of Freedom.
This is probably one of the worst tactical mistakes he's ever made.
Pretty much every marauding moron in the building sets on high alert the moment a door slams open that they didn’t beat down. A rain of gunfire descends on him from the upper floors so he ducks into the side rooms, where he’s confronted by mannequins and men alike. Hard to say which one is worse.
Besides the freaky old decor, Vaultie and Dog’s museum tour goes a lot like their fight through the street. Dog holds ‘em and Vaultie shoots ‘em. Of course, in the confines of a building, he takes a good few more bullets and bruises than he did earlier. At least nothing clipped any vital bits. He'll dig all the lead out after the settlers get safe. It'll be fine.
That thought's what keeps him going as he struggles through room after room, navigating old staircases and crumbling floors with all the grace of a brahmin on Psycho. It's a wonder he even makes it up to the third floor without breaking something—something of his, anyways.
The door at the end of the balcony creaks open and the fella from outside’s visible right there through it, relieved and desperate and barking “Inside!” In the fading light of the setting sun, the vaultie looks like an angel sent straight from heaven to solve all their problems. Once he’s in, the whole room un-tenses just a little bit. The whole room, of course, being six folks and a dog.
“Man, I don’t know who you are, but your timing’s impeccable,” says his new pal the cowboy. “Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen.”
“Hey, weren’t nothing,” says our old buddy the vaultie. He sticks out his hand for a shake.
“Six Roy. Mojave Express.”