Chapter Text
The Battle for Hoover Dam had gone smoothly. The Courier was small, sneaky, and fast, making it easy for her to weave through the chaos of combat, until she was face-to-face with the Legate. It took careful thinking and a lot more fake confidence than she thought she was capable of, but she convinced him to retreat. By the time General Oliver confronted her, she had had enough, and ordered for him to be tossed off the Dam, into the river far below. The rest of the NCR begrudgingly accepted her terms for them to get the fuck out of the Mojave.
She was actually relieved when one of the Enclave Remnants--Orion Moreno, she could tell from his tone alone--dragged over a pair of the NCR's engineers, going on about the NCR had the nerve to try to sabotage their Vertibird after they had won the battle for them and all that. The Courier, however, hadn't been listening past "NCR" and "sabotage".
"I think they were trying to sabotage more than just your Vertibird. I don't know about the other one, but that one," she pointed at Vulpes as he tried to quietly free himself from the soldier's power armor enhanced grip, "is a Legionary. Say, do what you want with the other one, but if you could, oh, I don't know, drop him off at my place later?"
Vulpes was well aware that his plan for one last "fuck you" to both the NCR and the Enclave had failed due to the Courier recognizing him. He had hoped to slip away and let the recruit with him suffer a swift death by plasma rifle. Even if he had been killed as well, or if they didn't manage to do any damage first, the blame would have been firmly placed on the NCR. What he wasn't immediately aware of as he was dragged, cursing the Courier and her allies, was that he was being escorted back to the Vertibird. He was not getting on that thing, and adjusted his curses and threats to reflect this, before he began pleading, promising his cooperation if he was just allowed to stay on the ground.
"Quit your whining, you didn't damage anything important." An elderly woman came out from under the Vertibird. Completely unarmored, much to Vulpes' confusion. "And in all my years I've only had a single crash!"
"While I'm certainly enjoying seeing this bastard uncomfortable, you're going to make me worried, Daisy." Vulpes recognized the voice of the newest arrival, who was also in the flashiest power armor, as the doctor who followed the Courier around. Certainly interesting, though it was much too late to make use of this information.
In the end, Vulpes found himself on the center of the floor inside the Vertibird, surrounded by the Remnants who sat in the seats along the edge. Doctor Gannon had been kind enough not to question him clinging to his leg, even as he remained like that for the entire flight, or when he stumbled out and fell to the floor once they had arrived back inside the bunker for refueling, and he just remained there on the hard metal floor.
Arcade had been hoping to get out of his power armor for the return trip to Vegas, but the Courier's prisoner was being difficult, and he nearly had to pick him up entirely to get him back onto the Vertibird. At least he managed to convince Vulpes to use one of the now unoccupied seats, and one look from him had stopped him from latching onto his arm, Vulpes settling on a white knuckled grip on the sides of the seat instead.
They had to land just outside of Freeside, but thankfully Vulpes was still out of it enough that Arcade didn't have to walk through the streets in full Enclave power armor. The Legionary was still disoriented by the time they reached the doors of the Lucky 38, and were greeted by a Securitron. The Courier's personal Securitron, if the creepily cheerful face was anything to go by. "I've got things taken care of from here, Arcade! And the Courier says you should go let Julie know you didn't die!"