This story is a retelling of the DLC, Lonesome Road, through the eyes of Ulysses, providing his interactions with Courier Six on his way into the Divide, as well as going into the backstory that made Ulysses the man he is today.
All of it is based off canon.
There was a message.
A simple transmission with the coordinates to the canyon wreckage that connected the Mojave Wasteland to the ravaged storms of the Divide. In addition to these instructions, a small address had been included, stating: "Courier Six – Ulysses"
This was the words that he had chosen to transmit to the other courier. From one courier to another, he would send the man on a mission to make his way through the land he created.
Since then, he had been waiting. From the perch leading to his temple at the end of the lonesome road, he could gaze out upon the twisted steel and nuclear hazards that stretched unto what seemed like the end of the Earth. Below him, he gazed at Marked Men and other enemies, unaware of his presence.
As his eyes opened slowly, the light penetrated deep inside his skull, he remembered. There was a flash of light, and then an unbearable heat that rose from within the Earth. It had been launch missiles, triggered by the Courier that had been sent by the Bear, the mighty NCR.
When it had happened, molten fire and earthquakes erupted from the land as if it was crying in agony from the abuse of the man. The heavens even retaliated, punishing mankind for its impudent fighting. Even the innocents. At first gaze, his neighbors were not present. The people with whom he would build his nation – his home – were gone.
Legion and NCR.
Bear and Bull.
What were these anyway?
Signs of power. Was this foolishness supposed to be strength? Men bickering over pointless, trivial things such as Hoover Dam and land full of sin.
As he moved forward, to sit up, his abdomen roared in fire and he clutched his stomach like it was a perch of sanctuary, and he was about to fall. His eyes journeyed down his chest, and he saw that blood was seeping through his fingers. As he swallowed his pain and felt the wound, he could indentify things such as shrapnel and metal.
He winced, determined not to scream in pain. He needed to get prepared. Be ready to help those that survived whatever fresh hell the war had brought here. Though he held respect for Caesar – for his Legion – he was disturbed that his home was being perverted by the dictator's attempts to cut off NCR supply lines.
Ulysses chuckled to himself. The Divide had been the second known route into the Mojave from the west. The expanding NCR had found it their rightful duty to annex the new-found area. Make it one in the same with their senate. By the time he was done with Courier Six there would be no supply to the Mojave. Much like his home, the Courier's would be destroyed.
He quickly ripped some loose cloth from his pant leg, and began to wrap it around his lower chest, grinding his teeth the entire time to work through the pain. He had known pain such as this. War had been fought in the Twisted Hairs. Men had been killed as he walked for Caesar. This was senseless. Without purpose.
Once finished, the courier stood. Blood rushed to his skull and the world around him blurred with a spiraling light that seemed to invade his eyes from every corner. It couldn't be the nuclear blast, he told himself, and it must be me. He knew he was weak. Perhaps dying, though he refused to leave the settlers here in this hell.
"Hello!" he shouted into the wreckage. Pathways were carved out in the destruction. Large craters in the heaps of metal that should have been sprawled about randomly. As his walk to find survivors continued, he noticed large warheads that sat on the ground, as if they were called to the surface, but did not heed the order to detonate. As he thought, he realized that some had been detonated by people: survivors. Someone, maybe even multiple people, had already awoken and were trying to escape.
How had they missed him?
Ulysses looked down upon them. The ghoulish, horrific creations of a man who knew not what he had done. To the left was an undetonated warhead, poking through a pile of steel frame that would've held a tower together. The courier smiled, and grabbed his rifle.
Ulysses' teeth grinded in his mouth, almost to the point where he was certain they would break. He could feel that winds whipping into him, carrying sand and small bits of debris, effectively ripping away at the injury. Tearing the flesh from his bones.
He checked his hands, making sure they looked normal. Before such an event, he would've sworn one who was close to such radioactive power would've certainly turned into a ghoul, but as far as he could tell he was still human. Or about as human as one could be after such an event.
Aiming through the scope, he lined up the warhead between the intersecting red lines. The antimaterial rifle had not been easy to come across. He could thank his journey to reawaken America for that one. When Courier Six came, he could tell him that it was his own fault his foe had such weaponry.
Ulysses gently squeezed the trigger.
An explosion jumped into the air, behind some wreckage that was around a corner of trash. Eager for interaction, Ulysses stumbled around the corner. Twenty or so yards away were two humanoid figures. At first glance, the dazed courier thought that they were ghouls, but as they turned to face him he saw what they had become. The skin had been ripped from their irradiated skin, forming a new body of mutilated tissue and blood. A shell of a man gone mad.
As he examined their attire, he noticed that they weren't even settlers of the Divide, as he had hoped. They weren't even men of an army. Both men bore different attire. One of the Bull. One of the Bear. To these new, insane creatures, the petty war of yesterday did not matter.
The one, apparently out of ammunition, presumably having used the rest of it on the warhead, charged towards him. Despite his condition, Ulysses easily side-stepped the man, and wrapped his hand around the foe's face. He bent his fingers, and dug them into the man's eye sockets, effectively blinding him and causing severe pain. Screams rang throughout the valley, and the courier did not stop until he felt the eyeball from the socket.
He relinquished his grip, and the enemy collapsed onto the ground. On his knees.
The other was quickly on Ulysses, taking advantage of his weakness. The marked hands of his foe attempted to rip past the cloth protecting his wound, to break into his flesh. The courier lashed like a serpent, attempting to throw the man off him. As he felt the rush of the winds come into his wound unprotected, due to the exposure that man had caused, he stumbled backwards.
That instance all of it stopped. As he turned around, he noticed that his backwards fall had caused the foe to fall as well, right over a piece of rebar. It protruded through his torso, killing him slowly. As the man tried to lift himself off it, a breath of pain escaped his lips and he ceased to be.
Ulysses was taken aback. In the distance, he heard the shouts of these people. These…
Marked Men flew everywhere. The blast sent the violent ghouls flying away from the Temple. Though the blast killed many, the courier was not yet ready for their invasion. He moved the bolt back, and began taking aim on the survivors, even the ones struggling to keep themselves alive on the ground.
Bullets tore through the air, ready to take out the innocents at a moment's notice. He took no notice of their armor. Whether or not they bore the sign of the Bull – a sign that he once bore – was of no concern to Ulysses, who sought to put his plan into motion.
He stumbled through the wreckage; his wound gyrated under the constant pressure of his moving body and the tough winds that whipped through the air. Fire would blow up through the newly broken Earth, and the skies would shout to man with anger. But the courier would not be taken so easily by the child. The child who brought the package that destroyed his home.
Soon, Ulysses told himself, Courier Six will be here.
Shawnson Gallows.
Just in case anything is unclear. The italics is the parts where Ulysses is remembering his past, in this case, the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the Divide. Shawnson Gallows is the name of Courier Six, the player character in Fallout: New Vegas.
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