"C'mon. Get up." Cass's voice pulled Jericho awake. "Big day today. New Nipton's one year anniversary." She shook his shoulder gently. "Gotta go be an emperor."
"I'm not an emperor, Cass." Jericho rolled over and watched her walk to the curtains and pull them apart. His eyes traced her naked silhouette in the bright morning sunlight. "I'm just a guy." He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
"You're THE guy." She glanced over her shoulder at him. "You're not A man. You're THE man." She walked over, put her hands on his cheeks, and kissed him. "Now get dressed."
"Jericho's log. Day 2555. It's been 7 years and one day since I freed New Vegas. Last night's personal part was great, and has been logged. Arcade managed to find and repair an old camera, and we took pictures. All on my wall now. I'm glad I managed to get Veronica and Arcade. Always out with the Brotherhood Caravans and Followers…" He spoke into his pipboy, and reached his hand out, touching the picture of him and all his friends. ED-E, Arcade, Boone, Cass. Veronica. He remembered his friend Lily's departure. "Maybe I'll seek out some older friends, take a picture for old time's sake." His thoughts shifted to Dog, to Joshua Graham. Ulysses, still sitting on that hill over The Divide. He turned away from the pictures and looked at the radio by his and Cass's bed. "Raul's Story Time starts soon. I can't miss it. Never have, never will." He looked down at his pipboy. "I'll continue this later." He turned off the recording. He took the pipboy off and sat it on the foot of the bed, and turned his attention to his clothes, neatly folded and prepared on his bed.
"Jericho, the driver's waiting." Boone watched his former spotter snatch a bottle off the Lucky 38's bar counter.
"Yeah yeah, I'm coming. Go on and get in." He waved Boone off as he picked and prodded through the shelves of alcohol.
"We'll be out there…" Boone stepped out.
Jericho followed after him, carrying a few bottles of assorted alcohol.
"My Leigh, the praetorians are ready." The slender man in the wolf hat bent to one knee before his king. "We await your order."
"Of course" Fiara stared at himself in the reflection of his armor, hung up by his bed. The dark, cold metal was custom-built by the best armorer in his forces. It did it's job. It could stop a 50 caliber bullet hitting center mass. He reached up and unhooked it, lifting it with one arm and lying it across the bed. "Tell them I'll be ready soon. I expect this to be an easy mission. Novac won't know what hit it."
He exited his tent atop a large hill, and looked down on the lines and lines of prime legionnaires. Five lines of soldiers all facing west. Praetorians by their motorcycles, loading their guns. Armed to the teeth. Spears, machetes, knives, a 45 pistol in each boot, and a marksman rifle on their backs. "SOLDIERS!" His booming voice grabbed their attention, and they all turned to him in unison. "Today we throw the first spear in a long war! We reclaim the Mojave and overthrow the False-Messiah! We take back what's ours! I expect this mission to be swift and simple. Enslave the women and children, murder the men and elderly. We decapitate that dinosaur with a cannon." He walked down the hill. The soldiers followed him with their eyes, facing the distant town of Novac. "RIP AND TEAR! UNTIL THERE IS NOTHING LEFT!" He drew his spear and pointed away. The soldiers roared in approval, and charged. The praetorians burned out before exploding from their starting positions and riding off into the desert. Fiara watched them disappear over the horizon. "Lucius, grab my truck." He started off up the hill. Lucius, the one remaining praetorian, ran off to get The Chariot.
Jericho stared out the window, sleepy-eyed, watching a coyote run along the hills, chasing a small gecko. "Maybe we can make a canine unit." He looked to Boone, and got a look in return. "Ooh and vehicle-using police officers!" He got more hyped up. "Set up a car factory, make some police vehicles, start making stuff for the public. People could live in them, if they wanted. We can donate vans to those guys that have campfires outside Vegas. They can get jobs at the factories. They can make money… Get enough to buy a house in Freeside. They'll be a full citizen." He smiled at Boone.
"Always so enthusiastic." Boone held back a smile and shook his head, looking past the driver and out the windshield. "I'm glad you're running Vegas, Jericho."
"Everyone, everyone! The Courier has arrived!" The mayor of New Nipton waved to get everyone's attention. "Give it up for Courier Six, Jericho!" He clapped and stepped away from the mic, and off the stage.
"Wow. Wow wow wow…" Jericho walked onto stage and looked at the dozens of denizens of New Nipton, cheering for him. "Alright, alright. Thank you."
He waved to the people, and they cheered. "Ladies and gentlemen it has been one year since my first executive order, to restore Nipton and show its true prominence." He adjusted the mic, and, due to his lack of patience, took it off the handle and started to walk around, dragging the cord with him. "I see the New Nipton Order as the birth of a nation. A birth of a new empire. The New Vegas Empire. And I'm proud, and most importantly, honored to work with Mayor Hallis on rebuilding this place." Jericho looked to the mayor, who was hanging in the darker area just off the stage. "Come up here."
"W-Well err…" The crowd cheered him on.
"ON-THE-STAGE! ON-THE-STAGE!"
"Fine, fine…" Hallis stepped meekly onto the stage, and over to Jericho, who was wearing a wide smile.
"For New Nipton." Jericho held out his hand.
"For New Nipton…" The Mayor shook his hand.
Jericho downed shots like a machine gun. The much smaller group of bar attendees chanted him on as he went shot for shot across the long counter. Eighteen. Nighteen. Twenty.
"JER-I-CHO! JER-I-CHO!"
Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.
"JER-I-CHO! JER-I-CHO! JER-I-CHO!"
Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty. He rumbled his knuckles on the desk before slamming both hands down, and letting out a holler. Everyone responded with a louder hoot.
"Shh shh shh shh! Raul's Story Time!" Jericho waved them to silence, and moved the radio over. He turned the volume up, adjusted the dial, and sat down.
"Welcome everyone. It's time for Story Time, with Raul Tejada." A man in the back of the bar let out a 'yahoo!' "First, I'd like to humbly congratulate. Mayor Samuel Hallis on the rebirth and restructure of Nipton, now known as New Nipton. I'll have to swing by and have a drink." The radio went hazy, and people in the bar started groaning. 'Come on!'
"Hold on hold on…"
"Moartea profetului fals!" A booming voice came from the radio. "Death to the false prophet! We will burn Vegas to the ground and raise the flag of the flaming bull!"
The bar attendees froze. You could hear a pen drop in the room. Jericho turned off the radio, inhaled, exhaled, and turned. "Everyone, get back in your homes. Lock the doors. Do not let ANYONE in."
The people suddenly shoved their way out of the bar. Some screamed, some yelled, some tussled to escape.
They left Jericho alone.
"Jericho what's going on?" Hallis walked after him while he closed the distance to his car.
"I don't know."
"How do you-"
"I'm gonna find out. Get in your house and don't let anyone in." He slammed the car door in his face. "Driver, where's Boone."
"He took off to Novac after hearing about the 'flaming bull'." The driver tinkered with the radio. "He told me to keep you here till he got back."
"I'm overriding his order. Let's go." He slammed his fist against the roof of the car.
"FIRE!" The cannon on the back of The Chariot fired. The massive shell ripped through Dinky The Dinosaur's head, shredding it and blowing it apart. Fiara stepped out of The Chariot and over to the remnants of the dinosaur head. "This will mark the beginning of Bull's Run." He looked to the legionnaires circling him. "AM I UNDERSTOOD?"
'SIR, YES SIR!'
"DAMN RIGHT!" He kicked the wooden piece away.
"Sir." The man in the wolf hat dragged a struggling brute over. "What do we do with this one."
"What makes this one different than the rest? I said to kill them, Vulpes." Fiara stared at Vulpes, but blinked when he lifted a red beret.
"Colonel Craig Boone." Vulpes read the tag on the beret. "The False Prophet's companion."
Fiara went silent, and put his arms behind his back. "Hold him up. On his knees, turn his face to the sky."
Vulpes nodded, and jerked Boone into place. Fiara walked over to the struggling sniper and swung. Boone's face after the strike made it obvious the new Caesar rang all of his bells.
"You'll be my flag. You'll be crucified at the top of that dinosaur statue with a legion flag drilled to your wrists. You're the top of Bull Run." Fiara looked to Vulpes. "I want to see him from camp. Let's go."
"Yes sir." Vulpes and two praetorians dragged him off, and Fiara disappeared back into his Chariot.
Jericho held his emotions under lock and key. He could barely see it. The figure of Dinky The Dinosaur. Headless, nothing but a cross remaining. He rolled down the window and pulled the binoculars out of his courier's satchel. "What is it, sir?" The driver could barely see, and was mostly focused on the road, afraid to see a legionnaire stepping out of the shadows and firing.
"...Nothing." Jericho put the binoculars back in his satchel. "Stop the car."
"What?"
"Stop the car."
"Sir I can't just-" He argued.
"Fuck it I'm tucking and rolling." Jericho pulled his satchel over his shoulder, opened the door, and dived out. He rolled to break his fall, and burst into a sprint.
"SIR! PLEASE BE CAREFUL!" The car screeched as the driver watched him vanish into the dark. He sighed, and looked to the cross that replaced Dinky's head.
Jericho stared at the cross aligned with the setting sun, not even feeling the pain in his rushing legs. "Jericho…!" A whisper-yell pulled his attention.
"Jesus John… What the fuck is going on…!" He scampered over to the large rock hiding the sniper.
"Legion. A lot of them. With a lot of guns." John leaned over the rock and looked out the sniper scope. "They're leaving."
"We gotta get them." Jericho instinctively went to pull his Anti-Mat. rifle off his back. "...God damn it. Give me that rifle."
"No, Jericho."
"John, right hand to God I will order your decapitation if you don't give me that FUCKING RIFLE!"
John put his hand over Jericho's mouth. "Shut up." After a few seconds, he removed his hand and looked back down the road. "They're gone." John holstered his rifle and stood up. "I called in backup. But you should use that pipboy and call in extra. These guys have marksman rifles and AK-47s."
Jericho couldn't take his eyes off the cross. "Look." He pointed to it.
"Yeah. I know." John stepped around the rock, and started off down the road, towards Novac. "Clean this shit up…"
A few hours later, the New Vegas Army had arrived to clear the area. Novac was filled with corpses. The pungent irony smell of blood coated the air, thick enough to lodge a bullet. Jericho ran up the crumbled remains of the Dinky statue, and looked up at his friend. Boone's eyes were glazed and empty. His sunglasses were shattered below the crucifix, his blood stained and flooded the legion flag hanging from his wrists, and covering his torso. Jericho was enamored, locked in place, eyes staring at the golden bull, slowly turning red from the Colonel's blood. "Boone. ...Boone." he shook his foot gently. "Craig. Come on." His shaking made his head swing downwards, revealing a bullet hole in his temple. Jericho tightened up, and stepped away. "Jesus… Boone… I…"
"...Jericho?"
A feminine voice snapped the already-tugged heartstrings.
"...Veronica." He looked down the staircase at her. Standing, full suit of power armor, at the very bottom. "What… ...You're supposed to be with the Caravan."
"We turned back when we heard the chatter on the radio." Veronica started up the stairs, but Jericho jumped. She caught him easily due to the armor. He clung to her neck and nestled as comfortably as he could into her hard, rubbery neckpiece. Veronica took her helmet off, and looked at him. "...Is he dead?"
Jericho nodded.
"Oh my God…" Veronica covered her mouth, and hugged Jericho with her other arm.
"They're clearing out the bodies, then getting him. They set up roadblocks in and out of this place. I just… ...I wanna go home."
"I'll call up a vertibird…" She sat him back down on his feet and walked out of the Dinosaur.
"Good seeing you, Veronica." John glanced at her. "I'm awful sorry you returned to this."
"It's fine, John… As long as this is settled soon." She finicked with her radio, gaining contact with the Brotherhood bunker. "Head Paladin Crowe. I need a vertibird to Novac immediately."
"I don't think this'll end any time soon…" John said. Veronica hushed him and continued talking to Crowe.
"What's the need for this, Veronica?"
"Look, Jericho's out here, and something happened. I'll explain it to the Elder in person. This is going down…" her words drifted.
"...Of course. Dispatching immediately." Crowe's connection went cold, and Veronica turned off the radio.
"...She's here, Jericho." Veronica looked up the staircase. Jericho pulled his eyes from Boone and looked down to her.
"Got it." Jericho gave her a thumbs up. The emotion on his face was tangible yet unreadable. He took another look at Boone, and walked down.
Jericho's mental haze blurred the rapid wind of the vertibird. "Courier." Crowe leaned out of the vertibird. "Come along. The Elder wishes to have a word."
Without a word, Jericho pulled himself into the iron bird and took a seat. "Head Paladin, can we not interrogate him?" She nodded to the top of Dinky. "He's been through a lot." She pulled herself in.
"Veronica, you forget we're not an official part of New Vegas. We work on our own. We worry about ourselves first." Crowe tapped the pilot on the shoulder, shut the door, and took a seat. Jericho stared out the window in silence, eventually looking to the soldiers pulling Boone's crucifix down.
Fiara sat on the end of the table, ripping gecko meat off the leg with his rather sharp teeth. His eyes didn't lift from the table, tending to be silent at dinner most of the time anyway, letting the others hoot, holler, and talk for him. But the eerie silence messed with him. Chila sat all the way across the immense, food-filled table, eating grilled deathclaw steak.
"Shall we talk about our success at Running Bull?" Chila eventually broke the silence. The high praetorians looked to her, then Fiara, almost in unison.
"There's many more battles to come. This is a launching point." Fiara dug his teeth into the gecko leg. "Running Bull. From there, we take over Nelson again. Primm. Goodsprings. ...The south will be ours. We march up and gore everything in our wake. Vegas will be ours." He finally looked up, realizing all the eyes at the table were on him. Vulpes read the situation, took his bottle of alcohol, and stood up. "To the Red Revolution! May the horns of The Bull, and our machetes stay sharp!"
The group raised their glasses and cheered.
Fiara smiled and returned to his gecko.
"Lord Fiara." A woman stepped into the tent. Fiara lifted his head once again and peered past his wife, to the woman with pale white hair tied up in a ponytail "I must speak to you after dinner."
"Of course Snow. Tell the guards to let you wait out there. I'll be out soon." He said. She nodded, and stepped out.
Chila looked at Fiara quietly, and went back to her Deathclaw meat.
After dinner, Fiara walked out of the tent. He turned to Snow. "What did you need…" He scratched his jawline.
"Come." Snow turned and walked down the hill. Fiara followed. "How long will this last?" She turned and stared at him.
"This war-"
"Not the war, Owen. This. You and I." She walked over and put a hand to his cheek. "What are we."
"Lovers, Snow. Chila doesn't satisfy me." Fiara put his hand over hers and held it there.
"What will satisfy you?" She said "Assassinating her?" She took her hand away and crossed her arms, looking away.
"Chila doesn't need to know about us, Snow. As far as she knows, you're my prodigy." Fiara stepped over and put his hand on her shoulder. "I need you in this."
"...Yes sir." She moved forward and locked lips. He put his arm around her waist and pulled her into him.
"We'll be fine." He reassured her.
"Yes sir…" She replied.
"I love you…"
"...Yes sir."
"Courier, you told us The Legion was dealt with."
"I thought they were. I killed Caesar." Jericho stared at the metal, vented floor of the bunker. The lights from all the monitors illuminated his upper torso, but the shadow of Elder Travis's large, semicircle desk left his legs, hands, and boots caked in darkness.
"That seems to have not done enough." He said. "Cutting off the serpent's head seems to have only delayed its takeover. This has gone from a bull to a hydra."
"Elder Travis, I'm going to handle this. But we'll need your help."
"Of course you do. You just need multiplas rifles, plasma casters, and a few laser RCWs to deal with spears, machetes, and skirts." Travis leaned back in his chair. Jericho inhaled, and exhaled. He removed his hat and hung it on The Elder's computer terminal. "Get your hat off-" Jericho stood up and slammed his hands on the desk.
"Elder Travis, you'll listen to me."
The guards around him lifted their rifles.
"What do you know about me." Jericho asked.
"Wha-"
Jericho slammed a closed fist on the desk. "Just what in the fuck do you know about me, huh?" He leaned closer.
"Your… Name is Jericho. You were once a courier, Courier Six. Which is where you got your nickname, Six. You… Took over New Vegas…" He paused, thinking.
"You don't know if I have allegiance to you."
"But Veronica-"
"Veronica is my friend, but does not control me. We both know I don't really need you, but I'd be nice to have at least some moral support. And laser rifles, yes. But if you're willing to bluntly pull out, I'm willing to help pull you out of your burrow." His voice dug into the Elder.
"Jerich-"
"The Legion uses guns now. Marksman rifles… Pistols… How much they pillage, they might even have laser weapons. They could be sitting on tons of ammunition. But I don't know. Something blew the head off Dinky The Dinosaur. DINKY THE GODDAMN DINOSAUR!" He slammed his fist on the table, furious over the decapitative state of his dinosaur statue. "OBLITERATED IT! The Legion can and will throw every single soldier they have at this place, until they break your tin can, and ram a machete through the gash in it. If we don't kill them, they'll spread through this place, and kill you."
"I uh… ...I'm… I'm sorry Jericho. But we just can't do it. We appreciate all the help you've done to further-"
Jericho snatched his hat and walked out.
"Jerich- …" He sighed as the door slammed shut.
"Calm down, Six." Veronica followed after him as he exited the bunkers. "Look, please… You can't take this personally."
"Fuck off." His voice hit her like a bat.
"Please calm down?"
"No." he walked through the gap in the fence and started off to Black Mountain Radio, now Tejada Radio Station. "Without me, you all would still be rotting in tin cans. But he can't bother to give us some soldiers. So we can be a united state. The NVE, the Brotherhood Of Steel, The Boomers…"
"The NCR." Veronica added.
"Yeah… The NCR… ...Oh God I never told their president about this." He put his hand over his face and let out a heavy groan, still walking. "Fuuuuuck…"
"I'm sure Kimball will und- ...Oh…"
"Yeah. I don't even know who the new president is."
"I heard the name Abrige, but I don't know if it's his first name or last name…" She put a hand on Jericho's shoulder. "Can we please talk?"
"Veronica I have to get to Raul, I need to broadcast to everyone what's going on…" He opened the gate to TRS and walked in. He waved to the guard, and got a wave in return.
"Jericho…"
He ignored her while walking to the main station.
"Jericho. ...Jericho!" She grabbed him and put him to the wall by the door. "Listen to me, please."
"...Fine, fine…" he looked to the left, and downwards, not wanting to directly look at his friend. "...What."
"...Six look at me." She turned his cheek and looked him dead in the eyes. "I… Don't think you should tell them."
Jericho removed her hand and held it. "I refuse to hide information from my people."
Veronica sighed, and put both hands against his cheeks, putting her elbows against his chest, and pinning him to the wall. "Jericho, you will scare everyone, and there will be riots in the streets." She spoke calmly. "Look, you can't have perfect transparency. That will scare people. I'd… Rather you not cause tension. Just… Fix this quietly." She paused and stared at him. "...Okay?"
The gears turned in Jericho's head turned slowly. His eyes refused to break his gaze with Veronica.
So many things hidden from her. So many thoughts under wraps. So many wishes kept secret.
"...Alright." He closed his eyes. "...Alright… Fine." He gently pushed Veronica away. "I have to go back to Nellis, then. Get the military prepped. The NVCS… I'm not underestimating The Legion a second time."