Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

War. War never changes. When atomic fire consumed the earth, those who survived did so in great, underground vaults. When they opened, their inhabitants set out across ruins of the old world to build new societies, establish new villages, forming tribes. 

As decades passed, what had been the American southwest united beneath the flag of the New California Republic, dedicated to old-world values of democracy and the rule of law. As the Republic grew, so did its needs to expand and evolve into a semblance of the Old World. And with the wins from those expansions came losses from their conquests. As the Two-Headed Bear reared its head toward new, uncharted territory, their colonization of land South only continued forth, pushing toward what was now ruins of Mexican soil, until they began their journey east.

Scouts spread quickly, seeking territory and wealth, in the dry and merciless expanse of the Mojave Desert. They returned with tales of a city untouched by the warheads that had scorched the rest of the world, and a great wall spanning the Colorado River.

The NCR mobilized its army and sent it east to occupy the Hoover Dam, and restore it to working condition. But across the Colorado, another society had arisen under a different flag. A vast army of slaves, forged from the conquest of 86 tribes: Caesar's Legion.

Four years have passed since the Republic held the Dam-just barely-against the Legion's onslaught. The Legion did not retreat. Across the river, it gathers strength. Campfires burned, training drums beat. Through it all, the New Vegas Strip has stayed open for business under the control of its mysterious overseer, Mr. House, and his army of rehabilitated Tribals and police robots. None of them aware of a wild card approaching the game.

Eighty-three miles from New Vegas, a young girl kneels before a puddle of water.  Not irradiated, not in the Mojave. Maybe had to do with the fact that the desert land had remained relatively untouched from the Old World wounds. Less fortunate places, Mint had mentioned to her during a particularly bad night of storm as they waited it out in a small cave, such as the Capital and Commonwealth, suffered through monstrous natural disasters like radstorms, and thus had an overabundance of dirty water.

“They don’ las’ long, but that ain’ mean you wan’ be caugh’ in the middle o’ one!” Mint, whose breath did not live up to his name, had warned, spitting out a wad of chewed tobacco onto the campfire.    

The girl removes her headscarf, scooping the lukewarm water into her cupped hands.  She holds her breath as she splashes herself several times, rubbing at her face and savoring the renewed freshness.  

“Alma, hurry your ass up, girl! We gotta git to the border by noon!” Mint called out to her from the side of the eroded road where the caravan had stopped for lunch.  The girl hastily dries her face with the headscarf before wrapping it over her face once again.  She stands, hurrying over to where the guards had already stashed away their lunch.

“Sorry,” she says sheepishly.  “Sand in my eyes.”

“Yeah? Well, you gon’ have to go ‘head and get used to it, girlie,” he says.  “Ain’ nothin’ but sand n’ gamblin’ up in Vegas.”

“I’m not staying long,” she replies, keeping up with the steady pace of the group.  “Just this delivery and I’ll be traveling with the next caravan back to Dayglow.”

“Hell, for the trek you done, I’d figured you’d wanna stay a while, go sightseein’ at the Strip,”  Crispy pipes up, still munching on his sandwich.  

“No, it’ll be a quick job,” the girl says with a shake of her head, careful not to jostle the headscarf too much.  “Standard delivery.  No point in sticking around.”

A tiny blip in the shining city of sin.  By the time she left the Mojave, it would have been as if she’d never been there in the first place.

Thirty-five miles from New Vegas, in the small settlement of Goodsprings, a doctor’s patient wakes up. Standard delivery forgotten, only two starburst sutures on her forehead as payment for her job.

“I'm Doc Mitchell.  Welcome to Goodsprings.”

Chapter Text

Bang.

Bang.

The girl flinches with each recoil of the varmint rifle pressed against the front of her bicep. After the sixth shot at the Sarsaparilla bottles Sunny Smiles continuously propped and replaced on the wooden railing at the back of the saloon, her shoulder began to ache in weariness. It was only after the eight shot she took did the red-haired woman decide that she'd done well and was ready to move on.

"Well, that's a start. But I don't reckon you came to me to learn to fight Sarsaparilla bottles. Tell you what. I gotta go chase geckos away from our water supply, anyway. Darn critters are attracted to it. Why don't you come along?"

"Geckos, the…fire lizards?"

"That's the one, but we don't get that kind around here, just regular ones with mean bites. Maybe East. You don't have 'em where you're from?"

Despite her brain trauma, she wasn't at a complete loss of her bearings. The paper Doc Mitchell had retrieved from her belongings before sending her on her way turned out to be a delivery order, the sixth out of six. It was for a platinum chip she'd been hired to deliver, and included details of the job - one of which was a travel route for when she reached the Mojave, which included road routes, highway numbers, and other directions on how to make her way to the city of New Vegas. The stamp confirming departure and process of delivery had been from Dayglow, California, so it was safe for her to assume that's where she was from. Still, she was still had quite a few ways to go before she felt like she was back to normal.

As of now? Even her last name is a mystery. All she knows is her first.

Esperanza.

She was still growing used to the sound of it, the vowels coming off strange tasting as they rolled off her tongue whenever she introduced herself. This phenomenon caused a rather dull chest ache the more she wondered about it, laboring the idea that even prior to her assault, there had already been a part of herself fragmented from the rest of her being, possibly even stolen. However that might've been possible. Far beyond materialistic, she was sure. Esperanza continuously pushes this thought aside, choosing to instead focus on the present and what she needed to do now to get back on steady feet. Her name and a gun is all she needs for now.

"I don't know," Esperanza says to Sunny Smiles. Curious name. Not that she was well-versed in the linguistics of names when she drew a blank for her own surname. "Maybe."

"Huh. Well, I can tell you, the ones here? Not very friendly. You oughta be careful while you're out here. Sneaky little bastards can come up to you any moment and take a nice, big chomp of your skin. Seems like Doc Mitchell spends most of his time patching up nasty bites than anything else. So, how about it? Wanna come along?"

Esperanza gives it a thought before nodding. "Okay, I'm in."

The Mojave desert didn't prove so ominous when explored with good company. Cheyenne chased after small iguanas scurrying under rocks to hide from the aching day heat beating down on their backs. After chasing and shooting down the geckos at the water sources, Sunny helped Esperanza mark down nearby locations, like the Yangtze Memorial (neither of them were aware of who Yangtze might be, but Esperanza typed down the name on her Pip-Boy nonetheless.) The Devil's Gullet, as Sunny claims the locals call it, wasn't anything special (though, after clearing out the coyotes from a reasonable distance, Esperanza found a grenade and a peculiar bottle cap with a glowing blue star, both of which were stashed into her pack.) They steered clear of the cave on the outskirts of Goodsprings after spotting a pack of coyotes, but Sunny made a comment about bringing it up to Victor before the animals crept any closer to town. Esperanza wanted to explore the land north, but Sunny said the back road had been closed off from trade and travel routes for about three years, after some nasty creatures had crept in from outer Vegas.

So, after two hours of adventuring, with nothing else to do, the girls made their way back to the Prospector Saloon.

While nursing a bottle of Nuka-Cola in their hand, they recount their day to Trudy, who stood behind the counter wiping glasses and occasionally sighing dreamily at Mr. New Vegas' smooth flirtations between song transitions on the radio Esperanza had fixed and been repaid with the caps that paid for their drinks, to which she and Sunny would giggle at behind their glass bottles.

Eventually, the conversation fizzles away from the gory, unfortunate side effects of shooting a gecko square in the face, and trails into the topic of Esperanza's departure.

"I'm not sure what I'm going to do," she admits. "I don't know how I'd explain to my boss that I lost my package."

"Well, gettin' shot twice in the head is a hell of a reason to get out of courier work," Trudy quips.

"What would you suggest I do? I mean, if I did decide to quit," she says.

Sunny, who was petting a sleeping Cheyenne, sat up on her bar stool. "Southeast of here is Primm. I say go through there, make your way to the Mojave Outpost. All sorts of NCR stationed there, supposedly. You could try grouping with one of the caravans crossing the border, head back home."

Home. Another foreign word on her tongue. Esperanza shook off the dull ache in her chest and instead focused back on the conversation.

"Primm's plenty safe," Trudy says. "It's the road that might give you trouble. All sorts of things are happening lately. Take that Joe Cobb fella for example."

Earlier, just as Esperanza and Sunny had returned from their trek around the area of Goodsprings, they'd caught the tail-end of Trudy's argument with a man. Despite being dressed in a nearby prison guard's uniform, he looked nothing like a law-bringer. There was a mean glint in his eye that Esperanza found to be familiar, mostly through a sense of deja vu she pushed aside once he turned to leave and barked at her to mind her own damn business. Cheyenne had growled at him, and that seemed to be enough for the man to continue on his way out of the saloon.

"You think he'll be back?" Esperanza asks the older woman. She and Sunny nod, but it's Sunny who answers.

"Joe Cobb talks about leaving us alone if we hand over Ringo. But I know his type. He and his friends will come 'round back to town eventually."

Esperanza finds herself surprised by the next words to come out of her mouth. "Maybe we could fight them off, so the rest of them know to not come here looking for trouble." Trudy snorts.

"Between them and us, we'd just be sharin' a grave with Ringo," she says.

"Try talking to him first, see if he even wants to put up a fight. We'll talk gun-slingin' after."

Esperanza downs the rest of her drink and sets the empty bottle gently on the bar, then turns to Sunny.

"Where is Ringo now?"

Chapter Text

Esperanza stares down at the murky puddle in disdain, sighs, then stashes the metal canteen back into her pack. She isn't so desperate for water she'd drink from an irradiated puddle. Not just yet, anyway. She'd just have to push forward until she found a well, or came across a traveling caravan. After a quick look into her inventory, she's back on the road.

Five days, twelve hours, and seventeen minutes.

That was how how long Esperanza's Pip-Boy motion log calculated it took her to leave the tumbleweed town of Goodsprings. Noted, three of those days were spent on Doc Mitchell's surgery table, under the knife while she fought for her life after being shot, one was spent in recovery, taking it easy and getting a lay of the land with Sunny's help, another used in preparation for Joe Cobb's mob of Powder Gangers looking for Ringo, and the first half of the last day was spent packing and saying goodbyes to the amiable people who'd helped her get back on her feet.

Despite her best efforts to complete her trek towards the Mojave Outpost with minimal pauses, Esperanza found herself taking breaks much more often than she was fond of. And it was all due to the problem in her knapsack.

After stashing what little supplies the Great Khans left her with (a dull machete she sharpened with a whetstone, a flimsy 10mm she repaired with a beat up weapon repair kit, and a canteen with the number '13' painted on it) and thanking Doc Mitchell for allowing her stay in his home until she was ready to depart, the old man stopped her and brought out what looked like an oversized egg. Which, as it turned out, was exactly what it was.

A colossal gecko egg.

Standing at about a foot tall, weighing roughly three pounds, it was beginning to become an inconvenience for Esperanza's lengthy travels. Still, the girl couldn't bring herself to part with the oddity. Something familiar and maternal made her withhold from merely picking it out of her knapsack and leaving it on the side of an unmarked dusty road for bigger, hungrier creatures to finish it off while it remained in its moist, vulnerable cradle. Besides, if this had been with her belongings prior to her assault, that meant her pre-amnesia self had clearly valued the thing. That added, Esperanza felt she had no choice but to keep it. So, with her unborn companion, Esperanza adjusts her pack, reties her scarf, and continues on to the Mojave Outpost, lips dry.

The people of Primm were in trouble. That much was obvious after clearing the Bison Steve Hotel of the recently escaped convicts of the New California Republic Correctional Facility. The people of the other New Vegas, as Esperanza had heard Mr. New Vegas address the small town, with little hesitation opted to help her out when she arrived to town with no clue as to what's been happening in the Mojave, nor a clue as to who she was, too. Johnson had been the most help with that, being an employer of the Mojave Express and all.

"I'm a courier from the Dayglow branch of the Mojave Express." Esperanza pointed to the NCR flag printed on her knapsack.

"Well, I don't got any work right now, sorry to say."

"Actually, I…lost a package I was supposed to deliver."

"I'll tell you whatever I can help with. You got a delivery order you can show me?" Esperanza handed him the order slip Doc Mitchell had returned alongside her other belongings. "Oh, you're talking about one of them packages. That job had strange written all over it. But we couldn't turn down the caps."

"What was strange about it?"

"That cowboy robot had us hire six couriers. Each was carrying something a little different. A pair of dice, a chess piece, that kind of stuff. Last word I had from the office, it looked like payment had been received for the other five jobs. Guess it was just your chip that didn't make it." Johnson shook his head, scoffing at a small reminiscence. "First deadbeat we hired to do the job canceled. Hope a storm from the Divide skins him alive. Well, that's where you came in."

A flicker of deja vu breezed by at the mention of the Divide, but Esperanza shook it off in favor of asking, "Robot? You mean the one over there?" She pointed to a protectron, who curiously wore a cowboy hat, patrolling the Vikki & Vance casino's premises.

"Nope. Different fella. Bigger. Had himself a face on a screen, and he talked more like you or me."

…

Victor?

What business could he have hiring couriers? And for such random objects, too? A platinum chip, dice, these things were typically found in casinos. Which, as everyone in the Mojave was widely aware of, many were located in New Vegas. That also happened to be the destination for her package. A securitron who just so happened to be nearby when she was attacked by Great Khans and a city boy? If Mr. House, whom Chet had stated to be the overseer of New Vegas, monitored all of what occurred in his casinos and with his technology, then could he have been involved? Why?

None of it could be a coincidence.

From what she understood, the New California Republic owned most of what is considered the Old World's western land. Whatever the government could get its hands on, it did. And in a post-nuclear country, a lot was up for grabs. Even, Esperanza came to find out, Hoover Dam. That'd been the driving factor for the war that took place here in the Mojave just four years ago. The tipping point for what everyone was convinced was rising to become the second battle in the Mojave's land. Esperanza could only hope she wouldn't be anywhere near Nevada when the tension finally snapped between the two armies and once again met each other to fight for the bloody gory of the dam's ownership.

Five hours after leaving Primm, in the weak sunlight hours of dawn, Esperanza reaches the bottom of the uphill road leading towards the California-Nevada border. The cracked and weathered pavement is a car graveyard, littered with the vehicles of those who'd unsuccessfully attempted an escape from the impending doom of the nuclear bombs dropped 200 years ago. In a rare stroke of luck, she arrived just as a caravan had begun their journey through their trade route. In an offered exchange of two 5.56mm boxes and a shabby 9mm pistol, Esperanza succeeds a barter for two water bottles and some much needed sustenance. After a gentle pet to both heads of the pack brahmin and much needed gulps of water, she goes on, albeit with a weary expression towards the slope of the road.

Esperanza tries not to pant too loudly when she finally reaches the top of the sloped hill, where the Mojave Outpost stood, in all its bleak glory. Looked more like a glorified mountain pass. She leans against a giant statue of two men, a ranger and a desert ranger, respectively. While she relishes the cool shade, away from the creeping heat of the early morning, reaching into her pack for what she deemed were some well deserved sips of water, a sergeant approaches her.

"Coming from the North?" He says. "Must be crazy to brave those roads."

And Esperanza figures she might be. From the moment she'd left the somewhat secured area of Primm once the convict predicament was dealt with, her traveling had brought nothing but trouble, even after avoiding the highway as much as she'd been able to without sidetracking into another direction. From stray feral ghouls wandering from somewhere north-west, radscorpions hissing and creeping around the Pre-War race track just a ways from the road, to those chemed up raider gang members that'd holed up in the highway police station, Esperanza had dealt with far too much in these few hours. Still, if this helped bring peace to the people of Primm, not many complaints would be heard from her end, even if, for whatever reason, the idea of asking the NCR a favor made her somewhat squirmy. So, she shrugs.

"Guess so." Esperanza looks around. The brahmin pen is packed with cattle, who rest, moo, drink from their tub and eat from their feeding trough. "Why is there so many brahmin?"

"Ah, caravans have been stopped for a while, waiting for the roads North to clear - or their clearance papers to go through."

That, however frustrating it might be for the caravans who wanted to start their journey back to California or simply go on about their trade, brought small a sense of relief to Esperanza. Even if she had been able to complete her delivery in New Vegas, she would've been stuck at the outpost when trying to cross back West, regardless. Just from a quick overview of the area, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of things to keep herself occupied.

"Must be frustrating," Esperanza muses. The sergeant laughs, small and weary.

"Tell me about it," he says. "Anyway, looks like you've walked a ways, so if you need to shake the dust off, head to the Barracks. The bar's there. Not much, but better than nothing." He squints his eyes, gaze narrowing as he gave her a once over. "You even old enough to drink, kid?"

Esperanza's ears warm. "I-I don't know."

"You don't know." The sentence is said in a disbelieving tone, but the man's brow is arched.

The warmth from her ears creeps down to her cheeks. She adjusts the headscarf that'd been concealing most of her face and unties it, brushing her inky hair away from her forehead, where the two bullet scars were surely still quite visible. "Unknown occupational hazard of being a courier," Esperanza says.

"Well, shit. That's some bad luck."

That's one way of describing her situation. She shrugs again.

"I'm looking for a bureaucratic officer that can help with the situation back in Primm," she tells him. "You've heard of it?"

"Mm. That would be Major Knight." He points to a building some distance away. "He'll be at the front desk. Won't be able to miss him."

"Thank you."

"No problem, kid."

Receiving the pardon from Major Knight wasn't easy, but nothing Esperanza couldn't manage. Especially given her status as an NCR citizen (much to her surprise). Before heading back to the NCRCF, Esperanza figures she could stock back up on supplies, and sets aside some caps so the Major could begin servicing her varmint rifle. They get to talking as the man takes her weapon apart. When he mentions missing the trade route from the Divide that helped steady traffic like the one he was dealing with presently, Esperanza is brought back to her conversation with Johnson Nash just hours ago.

"That man…the one you said canceled on the job. What was his name? What did he look like?"
"Hm. He didn't leave a name for the log, but he was a character. Spoke a little funny. Had darker skin than mine, and had this hairstyle. Odd thing to see around here, maybe, but probably common tribal practice somewhere East. Yeah, had it down to his shoulders, some kinda-"

"Twisted hairs?" Esperanza offered, hands suddenly clammy.  No conscious clue as to why, but somewhere deep in her mind, she knew this man.

God only knew how.

Chapter Text

The last giant fire ant of its colony screeches as Esperanza fires at its antenna just before shooting its head clean off, finally clearing the area. The girl huffs and looks down at her rifle, forcing the reloading lever until it finally clicks. She'd just gotten the thing fixed, and it was already jamming up again. Better to buy a new gun than to waste caps keeping this one hanging on by a thread. After some looking around the overpass, she began making her way back towards the slope leading back to the Outpost.

Just as Esperanza approaches the intersection where the Long 15 meets the north road leading back to Primm, her new companion, ED-E, beeps loudly.

"Hm?"

Small beeps.

"You want to check out that store?"

An affirmative bob of its spherical body.

Esperanza's lips quirk. "Okay, but I don't think there'll be much if it's so close to the Outpost. It's probably already been looted, ED-E."

Beep.

"If you say so."

To her surprise, the door is guarded by a moderately adept lock. Esperanza kneels to examine it while ED-E bobs around the area, keeping watch for any stray creatures. One broken lock pick later (she'd gracefully moved on from the three she burned through on lousy novice locks) and the door is creaking open. She smiles in triumph and stands up, gun steady as she steps inside.

It's a small general store with a single room, the back door boarded shut. Esperanza coughs, swatting at the stale air and watching particles of dust fly as she does so. Not much to it but a pack of open gumdrops and a yellowed copy of Pugilism Illustrated. She walks behind the counter and punches a button on the cash register until it opens with a loud cha-ching!

"Not much use for this," she murmurs while shifting through wads of hundred dollar bills, then-"Aha!"

A perfectly shaped, semi-dusty Sunset Sarsaparilla star bottle cap was at the bottom of the coin tray. Esperanza smiles and picks it up. She'd started collecting them after finding her first one back at Goodsprings. They weren't heavy in the slightest, but they also didn't have much else to them except that glow that made them stand out from a distance. So, she'd figured she'd just keep them as trinkets from her travels.

Apart from the cap, there's only a few other things in the tiny space between the register and the wall. A few sacks, a locked metal cabinet, and what looks to be a notebook tucked against the counter. After scavenging a couple of ammo boxes from the locker and fresh fruit from the sacks, she plucks the journal from the counter and flips its stiff pages open to the only legible entry.

A promising development, if I do say so myself! It seems things went to hell at the NCR Correctional Facility north of here, and escaped prisoners are roaming free.

Sounds like a bad thing - and would be, if not for the political acumen and interpersonal alchemy of yours truly, Mayor Joseph B. Steyn, Esq. I sent the Jims out to make contact with the prisoners (or "Powder Gangers," rather - they insist on this name) to let them know Nipton's open for trade - with free turns with the girls as door prizes.

Ha! You know they went for that deal. As sold by Little Jim, anyway. Big Jim, R.I.P.

I see a lot of potential here so long as I can keep the NCR troops and Powders (ridiculous name) from running into each other and shooting it out in the streets. Luckily, the troopers only come at night (double entendre), so if the Powders will only come during the day (again), I'll have them coming (third time, the charm) and going.

Yours in confidence,

Mayor Joseph B. Steyn, Esq.

"Mayor Steyn…" she mulls. This clearly couldn't have come from an NCR mayor, not with his dealings with the Powder Gangers, and his other arrangement with the troopers. Given the location of this rest stop, this Mayor Steyn was most likely the governor of Nipton. She hardly notices the downturn of her lips until she's full on scowling. She shakes her head and looks up at her companion.

"Let's go back. You did a good job, ED-E." The eye-bot chirps in a giddy tune at the praise.

Before heading back towards the Mojave Outpost, Esperanza takes a quick look into the garage where piles of useless rubber tires lay. Some words are grafittied on the wall, asking,

'Where's New Canaan, anyway?'

"Roads are clear from Fire Ants and Radscorpions," Esperanza tells Ranger Jackson, trying not to eye his lounging figure with too much disdain. There wasn't much they could do around here, sure, but it'd be nice to not have to come across the sight of him drinking a nice cold drink after she had to fend off packs of mutated creatures just as a repayment for a piece of paper. "The caravans can get moving as soon as they're ready."

"Appreciate the help, kid," he gruffs out, and she tries to not bristle at the condescending title. She'd just slain mutated fire-breathing ants and giant venomous scorpions, a little more respect wouldn't hurt. "Wish I had more work for you, but nothing else on the radar at the moment.

"You mentioned additional payment?" She crosses her arms, and ED-E beeps, as if to back up that the man had indeed mentioned a reward just a few hours ago. Ranger Jackson eyes them, unimpressed, but sighs.

"No, I mentioned you might accidentally get supplied, and I meant it. Not allowed to contract mercenaries at the Outpost." So, Esperanza leaves the office, 100 caps, eight boxes of ammo, two weapon repair kits, and a single caravan lunch heavier, a bit less dissatisfied with the NCR.

"Oh, hey. Leaving already?" Major Knight says when he spots her. She nods. "If you're heading towards Nipton, you mind speaking to Ranger Ghost up on the barracks' roof? She mentioned having a job for anybody who wanted it."

"Okay," she says. If she was going in that direction already, then Esperanza supposed she didn't mind all that much. Still, it could be left unsaid that she was more than glad to be leaving the stuffy Outpost already and be far from these people, 'civilized' as they were.

Despite everything she'd been hearing about the ranger in her short stay at the checkpoint, Ranger Ghost wasn't so bad. Maybe people weren't used to women with blunt attitudes. She seemed like a gender bent version of Ranger Jackson, only much more pleasant to speak to since she was direct and didn't make it a point to claim Esperanza owed anything to the New Republic of California. And she was also very strict on telling her to turn right around if trouble was lurking in the smoky town.

Apart from the sight of Jackals chasing after a lone Radscorpion, laughing maniacally as they ran off into the sand-storming desert, Ranger Ghost had been right about the lack of activity in this road. Esperanza looks around to make sure all the gang members are gone before rushing out of her hiding spot behind a thick bush, sprinting to the encampment and checking if they had any medicine. Though she'd yet to fall ill or be injured (again), better to be safe than sorry. She finds a few grenades, which she carefully stashes into the messenger bag she'd tied to ED-E's metal body. After quickly ransacking their packs, she successfully pockets a few doses of Med-X and Stimpaks. She looks up towards the giant billboard near the camp, and makes out the words stating,

'The Burned Man Walks!'

Rapid blinks. Esperanza shakes her head, disoriented at the sight of the graffiti. Tries to hurry, before any of the Jackals return from their hunt, but-

"-am, for your crimes against Caesar and His Legion, you have been declared to death by flame!

A girl's wails. Young. Naive still, in ways. Not enough to be unaware of what he's done. Just enough for her to want him to live, anyway.

Her breath quickens, and she grunts as she gets back on her feet and hurries away, mind panicked and aching.

The sun is starting to set when Esperanza approaches the outskirts of Nipton, head much more clear, and realizes the extent of the town's situation. The first thing she sees as she walks closer is the smoke Ranger Ghost mentioned spotting with her binoculars. Next is the smell. Both of burning flesh and rubber. Hints of wood, probably from houses. Esperanza groans as the smells awaken bits of a faded life in her fractured mind. Clutches her head, hissing as she keels over.

"¡Vuelve a la casa con tu abuela! ¡Escóndete como las demás mujeres y niños! ¡Ahora, hija!"

"¡Papi, tengo miedo!"

"¡Están lanzando catapultas de fuego! ¡La escuela y la iglesia están en llamas!

"¡Ay voy! Hija, haz lo que te digo. Tengo que irme."

"¡No!"

"Tienes que ser valiente."

"Maldita cabeza," she hisses, knees shaking as she struggles to stand back up. She waves away ED-E, who hovered close to her worryingly. "I'm OK, ED-E. It's OK." Esperanza takes in a deep breath, rubbing at her temple. "I'm fine, I'm fine-"

"YEAH! Who won the LOTTERY-"

BANG!

The body drops to the ground a second after Esperanza fires the single round from her rifle. She steps over the bleeding Powder Ganger, not bothering to check where she even hit him, listening to the sounds of his wet gurgling fade the farther she walks away from him.

Two red and gold flags are presented boldly on either side of the Nipton road as she approaches, a bull rearing proudly in the middle. She pours water over her head wrap, tying it tighter over her face as the dark smoke grows much more stifling the deeper she wanders into town.

Legion.

Both sides of her know who they are. Something in her brain is whispering it. To which extent, she's yet to discover.

Tienes que ser valiente, a small whisper urges.

Rows upon rows of severed heads decorate both sides of the asphalt path. Blood drips freshly from the slits on their necks, causing soft, barely audible plat, plat, plats.

"Why are they doing that?" The girl pointed to the small group of soldiers hauling bodies to another group, helping each other hold the still-warm corpses while they jagged a knife across the throat of each man. It was a messy process, and she couldn't help the grimace that settled on her face. The boys doing it couldn't be any older than herself, grunting in exertion from the force of the knife wielding and staking of the poles.

"Intimidation, child, sometimes is far more efficient than any weapon," the man said, looking down at her. His piercing gaze still scared her, so she kept her eyes on the children. "At times, it snuffs out wars before they can even spark. Who'll dare to rebel when everyone is bowing their heads and kneeling before us after seeing the fates others have suffered? They're so blinded by fear they fail to realize they, too, possess the same two hands capable of this violence."

She's standing in the street leading towards the town hall, where any single inch of space seems to be covered in crosses with people crucified to them. Some men are still breathing, but hang on to their life with a thread, groaning lowly as they're subjected to the town's smoke and the Mojave's sweltering heat. The corpses are warm and starting to stink, their sallow, reddened skin being picked at by crows. The closer Esperanza looks at the hellish scene, she realizes some of the crows are eating some of the men that are still alive. She coughs against her head wrap, because otherwise she might vomit. She continues on, only glancing back to look back at the pile of tires burning a particularly brutal cross, where something that could hardly qualify as a body was still burning, entirely blackened and charred.

This is what Ghost meant about running into trouble, she tells herself firmly. Leave now, or join them.

Tienes que ser valiente, the other voice whispers again.

Esperanza could only continue to gape at the scene before her. And before she can even react, the doors to the town hall are pushed open, and five Legionaries walk out. They're accompanied by a pack of ugly, scarcely haired dogs, their mutt eyes blank and feral. While the men talk amongst themselves, some of the dogs stray from their masters and approach the crucified men. Even at her distance, Esperanza still manages to hear the faint crunch that comes from one of the dogs biting into a man's burned leg. She gasps, hand thrown over her mouth, and steps back. A Legionnaire's head, the one in the middle wearing an odd headpiece, snaps in her direction. He points at her, then beckons her to him.

Her feet are moving before her mind can even catch up to the fact.

"Don't worry, I won't have you lashed to a cross like the rest of these degenerates." Even with the venom he spoke, the boy's voice is smooth, a velvety silk caressing Esperanza's warm ears. "It's useful that you happened by. I want you to witness the fate of the town of Nipton. To memorize every detail. And then, when you move on? I want you to teach everyone you meet the lesson that Caesar's Legion taught here, especially any NCR troops you run across."

"What..lesson did you teach here?" Esperanza's question is asked with caution, in the wary sense that might've alerted the man or his underlings that she could be expecting an altercation. Yet, he only smiles, closing his eyes as he does, and only then, when they're not boring into her own, does she notice them. She's taken aback by their striking blue shade. For a boy that could possibly be responsible for the massacre of an entire town, he appears unfairly angelic. The only thing altering that image is the coyote head he's wearing. And the burning town around them.

"Where to begin? That they are weak, and we are strong? This much was known already. But the depths of their moral sickness, their dissolution? Nipton serves as the perfect object lesson."

"But..what happened here? Those men on the crosses..." Esperanza spoke softly, voice muffled by her head wrap, dark brown eyes glancing around her, acutely aware of how terribly outnumbered she is, both by men and vile mutts. Mercy ran dry in their blood.

"Nipton was a wicked place, debased and corrupt. It served all comers, so long as they paid. Profligate troops, Powder Gangers, men of the Legion such as myself - the people here didn't care. It was a town of whores. For a pittance, the town agreed to lead those it had sheltered into a trap. Only when I sprang it did they realize they were caught inside it, too."

"You captured everyone?" The real question lay underneath her words.

Were you really the one to commit this atrocity?

"Yes, and herded them to the center of town. I told them their sins, the foremost being disloyalty. I told them that when Legionaries are disloyal, some are punished, the others made to watch. And I announced the lottery."

Punished. Watch.

"Quaeso, eum sinite ire!

"Silentium!"

A hint of a distant memory flashes through Esperanza's mind at the words, but it's far too fleeting for her to dissect anything recognizable.

Fire. A red-rock chasm. Silence.

The boy with the coyote head does not seem to notice, and continues to speak.

"Each clutched his ticket, hoping it would set him free. Each did nothing, even when 'loved ones' were dragged away to be killed."

"You slaughtered innocent civilians?"

"Innocent?" He scoffs. "Hardly." Then, a slow smile spreads on his lips. His mouth is pale, pink, maybe like petals of a dainty rose. Nothing delicate about his cruelty, though, nor the easiness he spoke of these atrocities with. "Cowardly, however… They outnumbered us, yet not once did they try to resist."

Resist.

Another flash of pain came from her forehead, a flicker of recognition from the word.

"They stood and watched as their fellows were butchered, crucified, and burned, one by one."

Burned.

The pain grew stronger, and Esperanza struggled to maintain her composure.

"They stood and hoped their turn would not come. Each cared only for himself."

"I…I'll do ask you ask," she murmurs faintly, head muffled with static white noise.

"Then I bid you vale - until we meet again."

A sickly feeling in Esperanza's gut tells her that day will come sooner rather than later.

"Okay, we're near done. Any more details about this? Did you recognize their ranks? Maybe a centurion, or-"

"I-I-" Esperanza pants, shaking her head. "There were spikes with heads and crosses with bodies-I don't-"

"Hey, it's fine, kid. You don't have to tell me any more," Ranger Ghost assures her. "You did good, alright? You brought me back more than I would've asked for if I'd known the Legion was behind it."

Esperanza nods, despite not entirely believing Ghost. About doing good, that is. She felt though as she hadn't helped at all. After all, what good would spreading word about this bring? It wouldn't bring back the people that had been massacred back to life. If anything, this would only make matters worse by instilling fear in the NCR soldiers that were bound to hear what happened to the town a lot of them and their comrades made trips to. It would be exactly what the Legion wanted and expected to happen. She takes in a deep breath and shakes her head.

"I-I only really noticed the one who spoke to me," she murmurs. "He wore this kind of coyote head, and the others followed him when he left."

"He look anything like that?" A pale finger points to a propaganda poster. There, drawn and painted with near exact detail, was the boy with the coyote head. And under his form were the words:

'WHEN YOU STEAL NCR EQUIPMENT, TOOLS, AND PERSONAL PROPERTY…YOU ARE HIS BITCH!'

Esperanza nods.

"Shit," Ghost sighs. "Just that fuckin' kind of day…. He's one of Caesar's top soldiers. Some of the rangers think he's one of those, hell are they called.."

"Frumentarii?" Esperanza blinks at the ease she recalled the title with.

"Yeah, those. But we've never seen him in action, or at least realized it. Fucker's probably walked around our bases without so much of a finger of suspicion on him," Ghost spits.

"What now?"

"Well, ain't much we can do, unfortunately. It's good you brought this intel, though. We'll keep patrols off the Nipton highway, and I'll put in a word to Jackson about your help on this."

A few beeps. Esperanza flinches at the sudden sound. Through the whole duration of her journey back to the Outpost, she'd been in a blank daze. So deep in it, actually, she'd managed to temporarily forget about her surroundings and her companion. Only now that ED-E made his presence known did she remember.

"Oh, right. Can't forget about this little guy, huh?" Ghost muses, her lip quirked. "You did good, too, buddy." ED-E preens robotically. Esperanza turns to leave when Ghost calls out to her. "Was there any survivors?"

"One. He was injured, and I gave him some Med-X, but he managed to escape when he realized I was heading towards the Outpost," Esperanza lies. Well, technically, she only lied about him escaping, and even then he kind of had. Boxcars was safer in Primm, outside of NCR control and the danger of being prosecuted for his past crimes. Fine by her if he never got caught, as long as he learned his lesson. And she was sure Sheriff Meyers would make sure he did.

"Figures. Well, thanks for hoofing it there and back." Ghost scoffs, half turned to look out at the Mojave down below the steep slope of the Outpost. "Fucking Mojave's going to hell, and all I can do is sit here and watch."

For the first time, since she'd woken up in Goodsprings from the silence of violence and an erasure of life, Esperanza finally heard words she could relate to even through their tragedy. Especially in their tragedy.

That same night, a frumentarii dreams familiarity. Things and people he's come to know very well, despite having lost them longer than he had them.

A girl with a long braid and a kind smile. A hardheaded boy. A burning town.

Chapter Text

"Who are you hiding from?"

Esperanza tilts her head curiously at the silver bearded figure sneaking behind a small boulder, standing over him. From the loud yelp and impressively high jump he gave, this wasn't the best position to question the jittery man.

"Doggone it, girlie! Scared the livin' daylights outta me. Either these eyes are gettin' old or you're the youngest commie spy in the country! Which is it, hm? Hm?"

"I'm sorry," she says, and means it. From what Alice McBride had told her earlier, No-Bark Noonan was as harmless as he was eccentric. Had a lack of malice in his heart. Esperanza's learned that's a hard quality to come by in the Mojave these days.

She crouches next to him and lowers her voice to whisper, "Are they nearby?" Whoever 'they' might be. Just seemed like the right thing to ask.

"Always are," No-Bark replies grimly.

It takes a few minutes of nonsensical ramblings from the man, but eventually Esperanza manages to redirect the conversation towards what the McBride's had asked for her help with: finding the culprit behind the massacring of their brahmin. Unsurprisingly, No-Bark had plenty to say about the matter. She was nodding along to the information she managed to decipher from his paranoid theories until a particular word stood out to her.

"-work of the chupacabra, the livestock vampire, says No-Bark. But nobody pay no mind. Too many holes, they say, and there's bullets in 'em. Well, says No-bark, we got a chupacabra with an automatic weapon. And that's when they get real quiet, 'cause now they see the predicament we're in."

Esperanza blinks.

"Chupacabra? I thought they weren't real, just really hungry coyotes," she says.

"Oh, they're real child, and they never stop hurtin' for a meal!" No-Bark cautions. Strange, hearing the word coming from a gringo, so far from its home, but then again, Esperanza was here, and she knew it, too.

"Thank you, No-Bark, this will definitely help me." And she's on her way.

"If anyone asks, we never spoke!" He hisses, still crouched behind the rock.

Novac was a nice enough town, Esperanza mused as she walked around the McBride's corral and its surrounding area, searching for any potential clues. People were friendly, but kept to themselves. Merchants of all specialties came in every once in a while to trade, so the population wasn't entirely isolated. The only downside was the motel's distance was much closer to the Colorado River than Esperanza thinks she's comfortable with. Closer to the men in crimson. It's for that reason that she plans on finishing her business here and head for Boulder City first thing come break of dawn.

Night is near when Esperanza reaches the motel, announced by the melting of the sun as it blends with the sky, creating a warm, volcanic shade of orange, the big yellow just barely hiding beneath the horizon. She'd been out for some time now, gathering fruits and herbs in the outskirts of town. Even spent some time with the McBride's brahmin, or what was left of them, anyway. She makes it a point to stare at Victor (who'd startled her immensely upon her earlier arrival to Novac, bringing her back to the conversation she had with Johnson Nash back in Primm) when he greets her cheerfully while she carefully walks up the rickety stairs of the motel's second floor, opening her door and swinging it shut.

ED-E is still stationary in the corner of the room where Esperanza had left him earlier, and her gecko egg was still propped up against the heat of the radiator by the bathroom. So, with nothing else to do for the next couple of hours, she sighs and throws herself down on the bed, kicking off her dusty boots and staring at the water-damaged ceiling. Better to get some shut-eye now, before she had to go back out. She curls up in bed, not bothering with the covers at all. Her eyelids grow heavier, and Esperanza's mind conjures an image of a pistol-packing chupacabra just as her consciousness slips away.

It's 11:42PM when Esperanza wakes up, according to the orange LED of her Pip-Boy. She blearily tugs her boots back on, re-tying them with weak fingers. After a quick splash to the face, adjusting her her headscarf over her face, and a look over her varmint rifle, Esperanza's on her way out.

Nice as the town of Novac was, it got eerily quiet after sundown. Distant howls of coyotes could be heard, but they sounded more like echoes coming down from the mountains. Esperanza braves a glance back towards the courtyard gate, where Victor had been stationed since she got here. She lets out a huff of relief when she realizes his 'face' is powered off. His constant presence to where she traveled unnerved her, and Esperanza knew she'd have to address this with the Securitron sooner or later.

It's a few minutes past midnight when the confrontation occurs. Less words and more bullets, it seemed. Esperanza had been standing by the corral, pressed against the house's wall to stay within its shadow and remain hidden, when bullets had started to fly no sooner than she could catch a glimpse of the culprit.

The fight went on for what seemed like forever as Esperanza dodged the onslaught of a machine gun's force while blindly shooting until she could throw herself behind a large rock. The brahmins' wails only seemed to agitate the assailant, as it screamed louder. Only when the bullets slowed did the girl stand and point her rifle. She took in a quick breath before pulling the trigger. Even through the piercing, pained screams that hurt to bear through, she kept shooting until a loud thud was heard.

Then silence.

There's white noise ringing in her ear, but it's ignored in place of cautiously approaching the corpse.

A large, blue body lies on the flat desert ground, its wounds steadily oozing dark, maroon blood. It didn't look human, but it wasn't entirely monster either. Strange humanoids were a common occurrence, it seemed, in the Mojave. Its large hands continue their hold on the still smoking mini gun, albeit weakened in its death. Something glints near its belt, and Esperanza recovers what looks to be a holotape. She catches her breath and plops down on the dusty ground, playing the audio.

She could hardly understand the insane rambles, but she still felt a pang of sadness as the creature raved about the brahmins' constant screaming keeping it awake into the night. She, too, understood what it was like to suffer through a tormented mind.

"Who's out there?" A gruff, masculine voice breaks the fresh silence. Esperanza relaxes once she realizes who it is.

She clears her throat. "It's just me, sir," she calls back, grunting as she uses her rifle to stand up. Dusty McBride walks out of his ranch, warm light spilling out from the open doorway, murmuring something to his wife before meeting the girl by the corral.

"What in the hell…" he mutters as he looks down at the large corpse.

"What is it?" Esperanza asks, tilting her head while Dusty McBride kneels to examine the corpse.

"A Nightkin, though they ain't very common 'round these parts. Must've wandered down from the building up west, I reckon. Strange happenin's there these days."

"As for the Nightkin and Super Mutants in Jacobstown?"

"I'm still debating on whether we should bribe them into joining or annihilate them. Though that takes low priority. The first steps to rebuilding New Vegas into our Rome will be to exterminate North Vegas' population."

"My men come with word of underground settlements in that area, and there's talk about creatures roaming the tunnels, as well."

"Underground?"

"Sewer savages, my lord."

"You're fucking joking."

"Will more come looking for it?" She looks down at the creature. She wasn't quite sure how the town would handle more of these things, especially if they came as heavily armed as this one.

"Nah. Nightkin travel in packs, but if one strays away, it was probably out of their own free will. No point in lookin' for 'em."

"I see," she murmurs.

"Well, I don't know how you done wasted this thing, but I do know how to thank you." He hands her a small pouch of jingling caps. "It ain't much, so you're welcome to stop at the ranch anytime and help yourself to some steaks, too. We got more of them than we'd be able to eat in a year."

"Thank you, sir." Esperanza bows her head. "I should go now."

"So long, kid."

Victor's screen is no longer powered off when Esperanza passes by the gate again into the courtyard, but his face doesn't appear. Instead, a gray flickers restlessly. It makes her uncomfortable, not knowing whether he can see or hear her, so she keeps walking. She eyes Dinky, chewing the inside of her cheek. She'd been wanting to go up to its mouth since she'd arrived, but had refrained once she had a conversation with Manny Vargas and it'd gone sour once he refused to tell her where Benny Gecko had run off to (which later resulted in her breaking into his room in search of clues).

What's the harm, anyway? When's the last time you were inside a dinosaur's mouth?

With that sound logic, Esperanza makes her way up the small set of wooden stairs, opening the door quietly. It was odd, not seeing Mr. Cliff standing behind the counter listening to the radio, but everything felt off at night. Uncanny.

She eyes a particular rifle on the wall longingly before making her way to the mouth of the dinosaur, opening its door with a quiet creak.

She startles at the barrel of a sniper rifle being pointed at her jaw. It's lowered when she's cleared as a non-threat.

"What do you want?" The man with the red beret says in a low tone.

"I just wanted to check out Dinky, I'm sorry," Esperanza offers genuinely, a hint of an embarrassed flush on her olive skin at the prospect of having interrupted the man from his job. A very important one, if Jeannie May's reverence for the snipers was anything to go by. She'd completely forgotten they worked in day to night shifts. Then, in an attempt of at least being helpful, "If you're looking for someone in particular, I could let you know." She points at the binoculars tied to her utility belt.

"Yeah, well, you see anybody wearing Legion red, you just let me know."

Esperanza stops in her tracks, already halfway turned, to stare at him. "Legion?" Her recent introduction to the men in crimson had been less than stellar, and had certainly left its mark.

"My wife was taken from our home by Legion slavers one night while I was on watch. They knew when to come and what route to take, and they only took Carla. Someone set it up. I don't know who."

Despite the bile building in her throat, Esperanza manages to swallow it down to ask, "You're trying to track down your wife?"

"My wife's dead. I want the son of a bitch who sold her."

Well, okay. "What do I do if I find him?"

"Bring him out in front of the nest here while I'm on duty. I work nights. I'll give you my beret to put on. It'll be our signal, so I know you're standing with him." A short huff escapes his lips, though it sounds more like a sigh carrying years worth of exhaustion. "And I'll take care of the rest. I need to do this myself."

Esperanza swallows and stomachs the fear bubbling inside her in favor of helping a grieving widow find closure with the fate of his wife. After a moment, she manages a shaky nod. Boone instantly relaxes, though not for long, as his shoulders square up again.

"Good. I'll make it worth your while. And one more thing. We shouldn't speak again. Not until it's over."

With the exchange of a beret and the promise to be outside the nest after sundown but before sunrise with the culprit, Esperanza's once again on her way.

Even with the grim task, she still found herself looking on the bright side. If she managed to help the man, she'd be a few caps closer to buying the gun she's had her eye on since her arrival to the sleepy town of Novac.

Paciencia.

Cliff had told her nobody wanted a rifle with such a small bullet capacity, much less one that was so pricey, so he was willing to knock down the price. Esperanza wasn't so keen on the capacity, either, but it'd been the only weapon she'd been interested in while browsing his merchandise that was still in decent condition.

Two thousand two hundred and seventy-four.

That was the total amount of caps she needed to raise to buy the rifle off from the man. So far, in just a week of traveling, scavenging, the reward Ringo gave her for helping him fend off the Powder Gangers, and trading, she'd managed to save up….thirteen hundred caps. That left nine hundred and seventy four caps left.

"You were up there a while."

Esperanza startles again at the sound of Manny Vargas' voice. He takes a drag of his cigarette, and the smoke he blows from his lips makes his face look hazy, but his narrowed gaze pierces through the cloud, anyway.

"I was just checking out the view," Esperanza lies. "Never been inside a dinosaur before."

"You talk to Cr-Boone?" So that's his name.

"No," she lies again. "He doesn't talk much."

Something akin to a smug smile makes its way to his lips. "Yeah, not unless he knows you. Like I do. We've been friends for years now." Manny Vargas unnerved her, for some reason. Didn't even have to do with the fact that he was a Great Khan, either. It was something else she couldn't quite place her finger on. "Longer than he's known Carla, actually. Or married to her, for that matter,"

"Okay," she says, and starts to make her out of the courtyard.

"Not going to your room?" Manny Vargas drawls. "It's late."

"Can't sleep," she calls back, not glancing at him. She was wary that if she did, he'd see the truth in her eyes. She lets out a deep breath once she turns the corner of the reception building.

Now, to find a murderer.

Nobody had really stood out to Esperanza in the whopping total of fifteen hours she'd been in town. Granted, she hadn't even talked to that many people. Inquiring about Paciencia to Mr. Cliff had probably been her longest conversation thus far.

Esperanza bites her lip, kicking a small pebble as she stares vacantly at the cracked road.

Who possessed such levels of cruelty and evil to do what they'd done to Boone's wife?

Truthfully, her mind immediately goes to Manny Vargas.

The way he'd spoken of Boone brought murky memories to the surfaces, but she could hardly unveil them to create a clear picture. It wasn't dissimilar of possessive, and she could try to understand why Boone, rather than entrusting his alleged best friend, (alleged, because Boone hadn't mentioned Manny Vargas even once, whereas Manny had looked far too concerned about a theoretical conversion she might've had with the man) recruited Esperanza, a total stranger, to do it instead. Perhaps what Manny felt for Boone wasn't only not reciprocated, but also a way Boone was incapable of feeling at all, and all of Manny's frustration from that had been directed to his wife, instead.

"Nemini de hoc conventu narra, puella, et Legato de secretis visitationibus cari centurionis tui non dicemus."

"Non id facere constitueram. Relatio inter viros nihil ad me pertinet. Attamen, si me iterum minaris, Legatus ipse poenam tuam curabit."

It was Jeannie May Crawford.

Jeannie May sold a very pregnant Carla to the Legion and Esperanza stares straight at Boone just as the woman's brains are blown out by his bullet. Some of Jeannie May's last thoughts splatter against Esperanza's cheek.

She wonders what they were. If she felt regret for what she did, or if she was simply angry at being found out. Maybe she was wondering who'd dote and care for the town of Novac just as diligently as she did.

Probably Mr. Cliff.

"How'd you know?" Boone asks once he comes down from Dinky's mouth, staring down at Jeannie May's corpse.

Esperanza hands him the bill of sale.

"No-Bark told me he saw people go into the reception building. I figured she might've had something to do with what happened to your wife." A small moment of silence while he reads the paper, expression unreadable behind his shades. "I'm sorry."

He's quiet for some long, stretched seconds. Then, "It wasn't you who did this."

"I know. But…nobody deserves whatever fate the Legion bestows upon them."

They're both quiet again. Esperanza kneels before Jeannie May.

"Moriste como viviste," she whispers to the monster. "Con poca misericordia. Ahora tu sangre fría mancha la tierra donde te pudrirás."

A girl with no memories and a widow are on the road by dawn, making their way to a fallen city.

Chapter Text

Under the twilight that cloaks the crimson men's camp, a fox skirts past guards and training soldiers by lit torches. Unlike the cowards of New Vegas, the Bull never slept. He slinks through the deepening shadows seamlessly as the sun sinks further into the horizon until he reaches the drape of the Kaisar's tent. Silently, he slips under it.

Caesar spots the glint of the frumentarius' icy blue eyes by an obscure corner of the tent from his seat at the throne and dismisses the few night praetorian guards stationed nearby with a sharp wave.

"What news do you bring me?" Caesar asks into the night.

Vulpes Inculta steps out from the shadows and approaches his throne, kneeling beside it. Once Caesar makes a gesture for him to stand, he speaks.

"The prospector I spoke to in Nipton kept true to her word of cautioning the Mojave Outpost about our actions, my lord. My men have reports that they've rerouted patrols away from the road leading into the town."

"Mm. Good. That should keep those NCR pussies away from our plans for Nelson. You're to report to Alexus and Dead Sea and inform them of their new roles to play in taking the camp. After that, I want you to deal with Camp Searchlight. I don't care how you do it. We need a stable route to connect us to the West side of the Colorado already."

"It will be done, my lord," Vulpes vows.

He tells him of other developments, like the negotiation ongoing with the Omertas, new intel Picus had relayed to Vulpes' men, some of which derived from the information Martina Groesbeck provided from her time skulking around the casinos. Though the Kaisar nods along to what he's being told, Vulpes knows it is not what he's most concerned about. His speculation is confirmed when Caesar speaks again.

"Has Lucius Pullo sent any word of his findings?"

The frumentarius paused, then inclined his head. "I'm afraid not."

Truthfully, Vulpes was beginning to question if his fellow comrade was even alive. His trek was now inching toward the five month mark, and in that time frame, he'd sent a total of three coded letters through courier, all of which contained roughly around two paragraphs worth of findings. The last letter had come five weeks ago, and did not report what Caesar was after.

The leader scoffs. "Send word to one of our radio stations to make contact with a sleeper agent in Shady Sands. I don't give a shit which, just get him to find Lucius Pullo. I don't care if he has to throw himself into the Glow, he doesn't come back until he finds something."

"Ready to return to the profligate land so soon, Vulpes?" Lucullus asks when he spots the frumentarius making his way down to the river dock.

"The dissolute may be sleeping, but there is always work to be done."

The two board the small wooden ferry and begin their journey back to Cottonwood Cove.

"Why don't you like training with Dead Sea?"

Vulpes scoffed. "He thinks too highly of himself for a tiro," he sneered.

Truthfully, the boy's age had nothing to do with Vulpes' dislike for him. He'd merely used it as a scapegoat to avoid explaining that their one sided feud had blossomed during sparring after Dead Sea had won their every single one of their matches, as well as another few with other soldiers. Two weeks had passed and Vulpes still found himself bitter over the loss.

"He's been impressing the magisters with his training scores, though. He'll be next in line for tiro decanus like he wants in no time."

"Who told you that?"

"He did."

Vulpes glared at the girl. "You've been talking to him?"

"He talked to me first," she shrugged, kicking a small pebble as they walked through the city of Flagstaff. Nearby, a batch of slaves knelt before a well and filled buckets to carry. A Legionary stood near them, whipping the ragged people when they so much as spilled a drop.

"That doesn't mean you had to talk back!" He huffed, shifting to glare at nothing, his back to the girl.

"That's how conversations work," she shot back, crossing her arms. "If you're going to keep being mean I'll just go find Aurelius. He's supposed to be back from Two-Sun already."

Vulpes turned to look at her and tell her to stop, that he hadn't meant to be, but she was already walking away. He opened his mouth to call out her name.

"Vulpes."

The boy startles. In the time he zoned out during their passage, he failed to realize they'd arrived at the Cottonwood docks. The men step out, and with a slight nod, Vulpes bids him, "vale." Lucullus responds with a fist to his chest.

Aurelius is at his desk when Vulpes enters the quarters silently. A cigarette dangles from his lips as he writes reports. He looks up from the papers and huffs when he sees him.

"Thought you weren't coming back until next week."

"And I thought you quit smoking."

"It's been a shitty week." Vulpes waits for an elaboration to follow, but it doesn't, so he moves on.

"I've come to relieve you of two decanii."

"Oh?" Aurelius never quite mastered the art of masking his boredom in conversations he had no care for. Vulpes' eye twitches, but he schools his face.

"The twins," he prods. Perhaps informing his friend that he'd be removing two of his best men from camp would garner a reaction.

Wishful thinking.

"Hm. They'll be happy to finally partake in some action. They've been growing restless."

"Let's hope their enthusiasm serves as an incentive for them and their contubernia when they strike the profligates' camp."

"And you? What's your next job? Some more gambling with your friends at Gomorrah?" Though Vulpes' attempts of riling up his friend tended to fall short, Aurelius' sarcastic words never really failed to affect him, even if they were both messing with the other. Vulpes clicks his tongue.

"I'll be too busy clearing out Camp Searchlight to do any meddling in the city, I'm afraid."

"You'll be overrunning Searchlight by yourself?" Though really, after years of knowing him, Aurelius shouldn't find himself surprised by what his friend was capable of.

Vulpes smiles wryly. "Not all of Caesar's men require bloodshed to get things done, frater. Besides, I find that the less company I'm with, the more efficient I am."

The two friends continue to catch up, swapping recounts of what's been occurring lately. Aurelius begrudgingly admits Centurion Silus and his men had yet to return from their mission in the ruins of South Vegas. Vulpes promises to order some of his frumentarii to keep their ears open for any word of them.

"Has..has Lucius Pullo sent word from Shady Sands?" The question is hesitant, and feels as though Aurelius doesn't really want to ask in fear of its answer. But there's a tinge of hope. Wavered over the years. Still, though battered and weary, some of it remains.

"No, he hasn't," Vulpes replies. "I've sent an order to a radio station for someone of the Legion to seek him out, by Caesar's command." A silence settles between them until Aurelius breaks it.

"I don't even know why I expect him to bring back anything from New California," he mutters. "It's probably a dead end, just like Arizona-"

"Our Kaisar would not waste resources on a lost cause," Vulpes snaps. "You question the Son of Mars?"

"No," Aurelius says indignantly. Then, a little quieter, "But it's been almost four years."

"Do you forget who raised her?"

Aurelius scoffs. "As if I ever could. It's his fault this all happened, anyway. We wouldn't be stuck fighting another war if he'd just done his job right the first time around."

Vulpes says nothing. He plucks a cigarette from the pack Aurelius had left lying on the desk and starts to walk away. He turns to look back at the centurion.

"Stipendium peccati est mors. Illa erat angelus inter daemonia in quae nos ipsos finximus ut superviveremus. Et ubi vita est, ibi Spes est."

Aurelius meets his gaze steadily. "Boni quoque puniuntur. Interdum plus quam ipsa mala. Noli fidem tuam in fide bonitatis ponere, frater."

Chapter Text

Roughly around one hundred yards from a Fiend camp north of Vegas, Boone and Esperanza lay on the desert ground and scope the area with their respective rifles as ED-E bobs around them to keep watch. While an erratic Violet injects herself with Psycho, her feral hounds continue to prowl around the makeshift metal shack.

"What's your count?" he mutters.

"Ten, but I saw two walk behind that fence," she whispers back, adjusting her headscarf. Just as Boone was adamant on keeping his beret and shades on, Esperanza was firm on keeping half of her face hidden. Maybe one of these days she'd figure out the reason why her brain didn't deem it safe to go without it.

"Yeah, I saw 'em too."

"We'll pick the ones we can see clearly from here. The rest will come running towards us soon enough, and ED-E will help finish them off."

"Fine by me."

Esperanza adjusts her position on the ground, squeezing one eye shut as the other looks through her scope. Much sharper and efficient than her weathered flimsy varmint rifle she'd sold first chance she got, that was for sure.

Once the first shots are fired, the rest come barreling towards Boone and Esperanza's position under a honey mesquite tree. Faintly, they can hear Violet's howl of fury upon seeing her mutts being slaughtered. A last shot is fired from Esperanza's rifle before a click sounds.

"I only have a bullet left," she tells Boone, unsheathing her machete and standing. She rolls her shoulders and watches the filthy mongrels continue to charge, even as most of them have been shot down, left to soak in their blood. ED-E's battle music ensues from his speakers.

"Down to my last round," he replies, reloading his sniper rifle.

A stray bullet whizzes past his arm and hits the sand mere inches from it.

"Keep the dogs off me, I'm going after Violet," she says.

"Leave it to me."

Killing a Fiend is a slippery business.

That's another thing Esperanza's learned in her time in the Mojave as she got closer to the city of sin. While most enemies in the desert wasteland proved to be clear-headed, of average intelligence, and sentient to their mortality as a means of picking and choosing their battles wisely, the drug addicted raiders were a whole new ordeal.

They were clouded by the drugs streaming through their blood, slurred their words and executed clumsy attacks, and had no care for their lives as they charged at one with the intent to kill. It was one thing to kill a human, but to kill one that didn't register the possibility of death?

That was something she would avoid whenever she had the chance.

"ARF ARF! HAHAHA!"

Esperanza grunts as she avoids the mongrels' bites and the irregular gunshots of Violet's rifle. Rushes to hide behind rocks and zigzag until she's reached the trailer fort. By the time she peeks over the boulder, the Fiend is running away, accompanied by a hound whose patchy fur seems to have a maroon-violet tint to it.

"Don't fuck with Fiends!" she shrieks, crazed eyes locking in on the sight of her dogs being slaughtered by Esperanza's companions and screaming savagely. She was headed in the direction Driver Nephi was reported to be last spotted nearby.

One Fiend leader on their lonesome was enough trouble, depending on what they did, but to have one team up with another pack of Fiends? Esperanza wouldn't take the chance to find out what type of havoc they were capable of wreaking.

She lifts her rifle and kneels, taking a deep breath as she closes one eye and points. Violet's sprinting form was only growing smaller by the second. A flash of pain strikes her temple as she adjusts the finger on the trigger.

"Vince aut morire."

Esperanza gasps just as she fires. The Fiend makes no noise as she is felled, except for the thud of her body collapsing. The mongrel that had followed after her stops, howls, and begins running back towards the three of them. Out of the pack, this one seemed to be the fastest.

"I'm out of rounds," Boone says once he joins her. ED-E is thrown somewhere among the dead dogs. The girl glances at him and nods.

"We can take it down together," she says, unsheathing her machete. Boone takes out his own army knife.

And so they do. After a few minutes of avoiding its snarling bites and foamy barks, kicking it and stabbing its sallow skin, the feral mongrel finally collapses, graceless as its owner. Esperanza pants and bends down, clutching her knees and catching her breath.

"Damn dog bit me," Boone hisses while tugging at the fabric of his cargo pants.

"Where?" She looks up at him.

"Leg, I think. 'S throbbing like hell." Sure enough, a dark crimson stain was staining the area of his calf, slowly spreading down to his ankle.

"You don't look so good, either."

"Thanks," he replies flatly, grunting at the pressure he was putting on his ankle.

"No, I mean, your face is pale, and you're getting kind of clammy." She points at his face, where under the sweat formed from the harsh beating of the sun, Boone's usual beige tan looked a few shades lighter, and he was beginning to tremble. "We should get back to Freeside."

It hadn't been Esperanza's first idea to do the NCR's grunt work, on three Fiend leaders, no less, but they'd had little options for acquiring caps. They'd burned through the few small jobs the Followers of the Apocalypse had offered. And now that there was another person traveling with her, the girl had to spend more on sustenance, and even more on ammo, with the way her new companion was carrying on.

For some reason, no matter what the target on their radar seemed to be, Boone immediately shot it if it proved to be a foe. From bloatflies to the occasional stray raider, they ended up with a .308 from his rifle. Between the time they'd left Novac to the minute they arrived to Vegas territory, the companions had been running low on money to keep up with their gun usage expenses.

Not a problem unheard of in New Vegas. Unfortunately for them, they weren't trying to enter the city for gambling. Bullets and information were proving to be much harder to acquire than good luck on a coin slot machine in New Vegas.

By the time the three approached the gates of Freeside's north entrance, Boone was leaning heavily on Esperanza's much leaner frame, her face warm with exertion as she kept him hoisted, one of his arms wrapped around her neck, while ED-E lifted his other arm and kept him steady. His gruff, "I'm fine," to her occasional check ins had transitioned into strained grunts. With little choice, she hires one of the King bodyguards loitering near the gate. They're escorted through Freeside until they eventually reach the Old Mormon Fort, to which by then Boone is nearly passed out.

"Look, we can help your friend, and we will, but you can probably tell things are still a mess around here. If you could help out a little more, even just a bit, it'd go a long way, and we'd greatly appreciate it."

That was the exact opposite of what Esperanza needed to hear right now. After paying the King bodyguard his fee of one hundred caps, she was left with fifteen caps. That wouldn't even be enough to cover a single round of ammunition at Mick & Ralph's.

So, as much as she wanted to help the Followers of the Apocalypse, especially after the charity they'd bestowed regarding…complications with her head injury, she wasn't going to wander the streets of Freeside with just her good intentions of repaying them.

"I'd like to, but Boone and I were on a job trying to earn caps, and now he almost ended up septic from a dog bite," Esperanza tells Julie Farkas. "I don't have much on me to be working right now."

"I see," the woman frowns. "What about going to the King for jobs? I know Freeside isn't the best place to do business, but the areas he oversees aren't so bad with his men at every corner. I'm sure he'd be able to help you."

Esperanza considers it for a moment. She and Boone had seen the Kings around, sure, but they'd yet to meet their boss. She was wary of what the man might be like.

"How is he? I mean, with treating people on his land."

"Well, I'm not very fond of his ignorance towards NCR squatter problems, but he and his men have kept the Followers safe from raiders or the occasional Fiend looking to score from our med stashes. He's no tyrant. I'd keep an eye on his right-hand man, though. Pacer. He isn't as level-headed as the King."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"If you wanted," Julie adds hesitantly, "you could see about finding someone to travel with for the time being. At least until Mr. Boone is cleared to get back on the road. Beatrix-"

"-is very forward about what she's around to do," Esperanza replies flatly. Julie gives a grimacing smile, a small blush on her cheeks.

"Right. Well, the only other person I can think of is Arcade Gannon. He's one of the doctors around here. A very good one, too, but he dedicates his time to our research for alternate medical treatments. I suggest you speak to him first before you wanna consider a latex-clad cowghoul." Esperanza sighs.

Arcade Gannon it was.

He's sitting at a rickety table with a clipboard in his hands when Esperanza enters the tent.

"Hello," she says. Arcade glances around the empty tent to make sure she's speaking to him before responding.

"Hi. If you're looking for medical help, try the other doctors," he says. "I'm just a researcher. Not even a particularly good one."

"Julie tells me otherwise."

"Flattery tends to take people very far. So does reputation, if you're who I think you are."

Esperanza holds out her hand, which Arcade is surprised by, but shakes it nonetheless. "Esperanza. Your people helped me a few days ago with the migraines I was suffering from."

"Right. You must be the courier I heard about on the radio, too. You survived a gunshot to the head. The human body's resilience to any and all forms of injuries is fascinating."

A twitch of her nose. "I'd hoped not many would've paid attention to that bit of news. I prefer to not be recognized by people I don't know."

Arcade smiles a little, toying with the clip of his doctor badge. "Another fellow introvert? Not all Followers are 'people persons'. It's why I have no problem with Julie sticking me back here. Though I do admit, it is a bit boring."

"Well, you could travel with me," Esperanza offers. "I'm traveling with another man, but he's currently resting here after he got bit by a mongrel."

"And that's supposed to convince me to go with you?" Arcade replies dryly, brows raised and arms crossed. "Like I said, I'm fine doing research back here, even if it is a bit boring…and pointless…and a complete waste of time."

Right.

Esperanza resists the urge to roll her eyes at the older man. "I can't guarantee you won't die going out there with me, but I think it's fair to say nobody can avoid the danger of mortality and violence here in the Mojave, or anywhere else for that matter. I will promise that you won't die from any reckless decision making on my end. You'd be doing me a favor as well as the people of Freeside. I'm doing this for Julie Farkas, after all." Arcade purses his lips before sighing.

"I'm enthusiastic about helping people, but nihi novi-"

"Quod fuit, iterum erit, quod factum est, iterum fie." "…sub sole."

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."

"Like war?" She was young, he knew, not yet strong to wield a spear or hold a rifle properly. Most guns the Legion used were about half her height and her entire arm's length, but it's that tender age that'll only make his teachings much easier to drill into her mind.

"Precisely like war, child. It's in our nature and our blood to fight and self-destruct."

"Is peace also like war, then?"

"Peace is the purpose of war. It's as our old saying goes: Si vis pacem, para bellum."

The two stare at each other for a moment before Arcade scrunches his nose in what looks like a smile, pushing his glasses up the straight slope of his nose.

"My theory that speaking Latin doesn't naturally exclude one as a decent human being proves right, if anything I've heard about you is true," he says. "It's unfortunate that the language is now associated with the gentlemen across the river."

Esperanza blinks rapidly for a second before shaking her head. "I'm sorry. I don't…I'm unsure where I know that saying from."

"Well, linguistic fluency might just be a new side effect of amnesia not yet studied."

Her lips twitch into a small smile. Guarded, but slowly easing into Arcade's dry friendliness. "Where did you learn it?"

"Not from the Legion, if that's what you're thinking. Books. Sheet music. Gladiator movie holotapes. Bits and pieces here and there. The Followers have extensive libraries, but we all draw water from the same old well. Even Caesar."

That gets her attention. That name…"Do you know much about him? Caesar?"

The doctor gives a thin sigh of dismay. "I don't know anything that the others couldn't tell you. Caesar was one of the Followers-"

"Bill Calhoun. You'd do well in remembering that name, girl. The man who possessed it was the embodiment of cowardice. Bastard couldn't see a good thing even if it smacked him in that stupid fucking face of his."

"-anyway, as long as you keep working to help the people around here get a fair shake, sure, I'll lend a hand."

Esperanza snaps out of her thoughts once she hears that and smiles.

"Okay. We'll be heading out to meet the King while it's still light out. Do you know where he is?"

"Oh, yeah. The School of Impersonation. Kind of hard to miss. There's a huge obnoxious guitar sign hung on the side of the building."

It's only when the two step outside of the tent that Arcade finally takes notice of her robot companion. The wary and uncomfortable look he was giving her eyebot companion couldn't have been any more obvious.

"Something wrong?" Esperanza asks when he grimaces at the chirp ED-E gives at the presentation of another companion.

"There's something about that robot that doesn't seem…all right to me. I'm not saying we shouldn't take it with us, I'm just saying if it were to fall into Lake Mead and be irreparably damaged…and if you threw in an EMP grenade in after it…"

Esperanza raises an eyebrow.

He gives a nervous grin. "Well, there are worse things happening in the world, right?"

"What do we have here? Another petitioner for the King?" a man drawls as they approach the door he was guarding.

"We're here to speak to the King," Esperanza says. Not even a full minute of interacting with the man and she was already over the cocky smirk that wouldn't wipe off his face.

"Anything's possible, I guess. How much is it worth to you to meet the big man?"

"Excuse me?"

"We have to pay to talk to him?" Arcade gawks. "I haven't heard of anyone ever doing that to see him!"

"People seem to forget who runs this place, so your donations just let us know you ain't forgettin'."

This must be Pacer.

"We're not giving you anything," Esperanza tells him with a cross of her arms. "We're here because we're looking to work for him, but if this is about respect, I can show you exactly what happens when someone happens to have a lack of it with civilized people."

Pacer stares at her with a scowl on his face for a few moments before scoffing, lazily gesturing for them to pass. Arcade swallows in relief at the avoidance of a nasty confrontation.

When they enter a vast theater with a stage where a lone King member was dancing, they take notice of the singular audience. A man in a white suit and a dog that looked more tin can than pet. Esperanza's brows furrow, and it's only when the dog sluggishly turns his head to eye the guests that she feels something.

Her head throbs, but her heart more so.

The dog barks loudly, drawing the attention of the King. He lets out a hearty yelp when the cyber-dog rushes to jump at Esperanza and begins licking at her face, letting out high pitched whines.

"Non est animal domesticum, puella. Tracta illud sicut bellator quem Antonius formare conatur."

"But his fur is so soft!" The girl pouted, scratching the robotic dog's chin while his tail wagged happily, preening under her touch.

The Malpais Legate gave her a pointed look. "Doctrinas tuas Latinas in usum adhibe."

She lowered her head sheepishly. "Ignosce, legatus."

A ghost of a smile adorned his lips. "Multo melius."

"Quis est bonus puer? Tu es, Rex!" she cooed at the mutt.

"Cani iam nomen dedisti? Nescimus quidem an sit bellator idoneus!" He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

"Sed iam pauca artificia scit!" She looked down at the dog, attempting a strict face, similar to the one she saw on the legionary instructors while they ran drills on their recruits. "Rex, sede."

Immediately, the mutt sat on its haunches, head tilted as he stared up at her. Her lip twitched, as if she were holding back a smile. "Latra!"

The dog barked, tail thumping against the dusty ground of the legate's tent.

"Nunc in dorsum tuum volve!"

Rex was on his back within a matter of seconds, mouth open wide to show his teeth and lolled tongue. The girl laughed, kneeling and hugging the animal.

"Rex, stop it, boy!" The King scolds. "Leave our guest be!" When the dog settled, still whining, the man sighed and smiled at her. "He must like you if he took the energy to run at ya, miss. Poor boy. He hasn't been feeling well lately. I'm the King." He looks over to where Arcade is standing. "And I see you brought one of our Follower friends over. What can I do for you?"

"Do you always charge the people that come to talk to you?" Arcade asks once he realizes Esperanza wasn't going to say anything. He glanced at her worriedly while she stared blankly at the dog.

"Charge?" the King repeats, then laughs. "Pace must be at it again. What did he take you for?"

Finally, Esperanza tears her gaze from the dog sat on the floor, still wagging his tail contently as he tilted his head at her. "Nothing. We talked our way in."

"Mm. Pace must be losing his touch. Either that or you're a smooth one. So what can I do for you?"

Half an hour later, with some more grunt work to get done, the companions conclude their business with the King. They stand from their seats, and Rex perks up from where he lay by Esperanza's feet.

"Where…where did you get the dog?" she asks.

"I got Rex here from a salvager a few years ago. He was a little dinged up when I got him, but one of the Followers fixed him right up."

"He doesn't seem very happy," she says. The thin accusatory tone could've slipped by the King, but Arcade gives her a sideways glance.

"He goes through spells like this from time to time," the man explains. "The Followers said his brain is going bad or somethin'."

Under the guise of examining the clear brain case, Esperanza frowns and kneels before the dog, absentmindedly scratching behind his ear. But she searches for another thing.

Just to be sure, a small voice whispers in her head. Maybe it's only a coincidence.

But alongside the metal surface of the dog's side, under a fading mark of a red bull, the handwriting, though small, is still clear as day.

REX

The writing was steady, even if a bit wobbly on the curve of the e. It looked like that of a child's whom had just begun to improve their penmanship.

"Quomodo mihi curandum est ut omnes nomen tuum sciant?"

Esperanza lets out a shaky breath and stands back up.

"Could I…help somehow?"

Another fifteen minutes later, the now four companions leave the School of Impersonation. Rex's ears perk as he immediately spots a giant rat out on the street, and he clumsily chases after the creature, barking as he went. Esperanza, a bit recovered from her episode back inside, smiles faintly at the dog running through the sunset. It was nostalgic and refreshing both at once, and she knows, deep inside, there'll come the day to confront what her mind was trying to protect her from.

For now, she stands beside her newly made acquaintance, who sighs at the sight.

"A courier, a doctor, an eyebot, and a cybernetic dog. After we deal with this whole 'imminent conquest of New Vegas' problem we should open an act at the Tops."