Chapter 1: Prologue
Summary :
Not much is said about Courier Six. There are stories, however, of a bright-eyed girl who took the role as Death; the Ace of Hearts. And, for the longest time, her name was something uttered over bonfire – passed around as some foreign tale, a ruthless, vengeful spirit for the weak – a damning plague that promised the unveiling of the apocalypse, just by the shift of her hand.
She wrought the Division, and disappeared.
She was just one woman who held vigil with a stray eyebot, roaming the sands, dealing her hand at history; she's gathered a band who opposed the single banner in red, and marched headlong in the thick of battle, bracing her rifle as her lone flag.
Her funeral shroud.
The Legion, militaristic and damnable, knows more about her; they've faced her with zealous stride, giving in ammunition, robbed of young lives; she would make an accepting prize to whoever held her leash. They, however, had no idea who she was, or what she looked like – they didn't know her gender for a long time.
Five years has passed since the first Battle of the Dam, and while the NCR forces sacrificed, it was all in vain; the Courier, only eighteen at the time, watched in horror by her father's side; they're former raiders, claiming land and making an honest living on trade route – only to be barred from any equality once that red flag blotted the skies and the Dam ran in dark blood.
"I'll kill 'em." That girl would tell her father, "I'll kill 'em all."
-Prologue-
Death sits upon her perch on an old rotted log, watching the horizon fade into a timeless night – listening out for her eyebot's ominous buzz; ED-E hovers and analyzes, beeps conversation to his master, appeased by the quiet nature the Mojave supplied.
A bonfire burns bright, rivaling thousands of stars; embers ascend into bleak oblivion. Six drinks warm chicory by the fire, gray eyes mapping the flickering of dancing flames. Her expression is blank to the cold air of a desert night, lips dry by the weather – mindlessly running the tip of her tongue along her bottom lip, slowly replying back to ED-E who wished for banter to cease the deafening silence.
ED-E is a little louder in his buzzing when a shot fires in the distance, not at her, but at someone. And while her bonfire burns bright in the middle of nowhere, she stands up with an air of grace, retiring her mug of warm brew for her sniper that lay by her boot. With given height, Six levels her scope, panning out in the direction of the shot, catching a vision of dancing torches held by the grubby hands of her adversary.
With a sigh, Six drops the scope and reaches for her helmet with one hand, snapping the clasps by her neck to hold the armor down tight with a hushing hiss of escaping air. She can hear the screams of the innocent on the edge of the world, near the deathbed of the setting sun, kicking at her fires with sand on her heel, smothering the life out of the flames; she's playing vigilante tonight.
By the temple of her helmet, she dials the mask, the red tint of her lens illuminates against the unsettling night, scoping prey with sharper perception and young hands.
She sees two caravan boys; tied and alone with dead brahmin. Like malicious animals, legionaries crowd unmarked supply. Legion are pretty good at taking care of their own supply lines, Six gave them credit for that; lone companies are usually ambushed for their goods, or killed by fiends who survived this long after the Legion march for extermination on the weaker class. This is not the first caravan party she's rescued, probably won't be her last by the sheer number of recruitment and devotion to their one-nation-in-the-Mojave environment.
Six's fingers curl dangerously over her steel, boots sliding down the shift of sands; she sticks close to shadow, close to the lands – instructing ED-E to hold back and wait for her signal. She tramples over desolation and old root, hiding in the brush of thin vines and old vegetation that curled up like angry hands. She lives by tactic and karma, schooling her breath not to escape her distorted respirator from her gasmask.
The burning lens of her mask dims the closer she gets, finding better range and the possibility to killing one of the four men; but the statistics didn't look good: four men and one woman with too much pride. She can hear the sickening cackle, and the honeyed words of promise in domination. One of the legionaries touch a caravan boy, suggestive and evil – hands that didn't belong and the image makes Six itch to pull her lucky trigger.
Six lives her life on these lands, finding friends in unexpected places; she's heard and seen a lot of hell, anything repulsive doesn't surprise her anymore, she expects it. She's a wanted woman by Legion law, tried for treason and blasphemy, a woman with too much time that refuses to think about the place she belongs. In her reign of terror, dubbed the boogieman in young Legion boy stories, she stalks the unexpected and takes them out in droves – setting up impressive militia; her father taught her well, told her she was never meant to be some breeder under a Legion official. And, while she is not fond with the taxation of NCR, she works as their courier – smuggling information and contraband weapons, modded to be just as powerful as God's shiny revolver.
She marauds the Wastes, bracing the warmth of an unforgiving sun, dressed in blacks and red lens that color her mask. She tells her followers that New Vegas will be hers, she'll purge every damn Legion influence out and execute the stragglers.
Those she protect tell her she's crazy, others applauded her hell-bound nature, promising their gun in her war once the time was right; she's shot at Caesar, she's waved her gun at his Legate, screamed for their damnation over hills; many would expect Six to feel a sense of bravery when those two men looked back at her with disdain. It didn't. She's horrified and outnumbered, and one day the evil, who's garnished in reds and golds, will challenge her and consume her whole.
Her hands hesitate, cocking her gun back, finding comfort in the solid coil; she has a clear headshot in her range. She swallows her anxiety down, finding renewed revolting determination to fulfill her promise to her father.
Fate, however, had a different motive for tonight; just when she's about to unleash her justified execution, one of the caravan boys calls out to the Legion men and warns them about her looming figure in the distance; Six is flabbergasted in the face of youthful betrayal, jolting and bringing the scope of her sniper down; she takes a shot and manages to kill one of the men before their hasty hunt and her unnerving retreat.
This rescue display is a setup; they knew she had a weakness to extend her helping hand, they knew she was in proximity to find them.
The place is rigged, and a sea of red emerges like the dead from the sands; still, Six believes in a fight in the face of defeat; she proves so by the precautious slide of her hunters blade that slips from her duster sleeve, throwing her long-distance gun to the ground and retrieving her shotgun by the holster strapped to her thigh.
The weapons are knocked from her hands by a lone lasso, then more ropes follow, bringing Death to the shores of Hell – forcing her to look up at Hell's Gates, harbored in the eyes of cold blue: Malpais Legate. She can hear ED-E in the distance, victory music signaling rescue and she screams out – warning her bot to stay away and fly away. But faithful nature is the root of folly, and a single gunshot halts Six's reality; she struggles against her bindings, fist bone-pale under her dark glove with the call of war, and she's seething for that familiar feeling of revenge.
She jerks away from foreign hands, Legion dogs aiding their second master when he calls for the removal of her helmet; he lists her offensives, voice keeping monotone when his men manage to unclasp her helmet and harshly pull away; her red hair is unruly, eyes narrowed in promising murder. She still pulls from her restraints, held to the blasted earth by multiple, cowardly hands.
"You're a goddamn abomination," Six reels, voice powerful; her feminine voice has the men around her laughing, mocking her for gender and stature; they promised to degrade her and use her, she wouldn't face death – not yet, no. What she had coming would be worse than death. "A fuckin' dog. Caesar's bitch; all of you are guilty." She can hear the murmur of bets; they're starting to call keeps on who will fuck her first, and whose son she'll bear.
And that's what finally breaks her.
War is war, and rape is a tool used in war; it didn't matter on gender. All vile individuals fall into animalistic ethic, wanting to turn one over and having them submit in invasion.
After the Legate read her transgressions, he goes quiet and his dogs follow; with well-placed fear, Six observes the party, the decoy caravan men and the Legate. With shuttering anxiety, she can't help the loathing, mirthless chuckle that escapes her lips before a butt of a stranger's rifle knocks her out cold.