AN: On Hiatus

Chapter 1 - A Fortunate Tragedy

Sunbeams fell as heavily as rain on the uncovered head of a lone walker. The oppressive heat of the day caused shimmering heat haze all along the horizon. Nothing except cacti grew in the blasted desert of the Mojave. Its sands partially concealed many of the remaining structures, entombing the monuments to a bygone era. The solitary figure continued his swift march through the inhospitable landscape as wind gently pelted him with sand and fluttered his duster. Even in the face of the intense solar radiation hitting it through the weakened atmosphere, the two headed bear emblazoned on the back of the duster remained uncowed. As the trail the man left in the sand became obscured by soft, curling gusts no greater than ankle height, an observer might wonder at the identity of this peculiar individual and how he had ended up in this simultaneously desolate and picturesque landscape. The answer to that question was a story that consisted mostly of death.

Markus Friedrich was a man of many names. Few knew his given name, even fewer used it. In the Capital wasteland he was dubbed the Lone Wanderer, in the Mojave he was known as Courier Six, or simply as The Courier. His enemies gave him their own names. The Legion called him Thanatos, the god of death, and they feared him even more than they did the Burned Man, as there was no question of whether he lived. The Enclave had designated him "Apollyon". There was the irony of coincidence in this christening, though only those few who had studied scripture after the apocalypse would recognize it. The Biblical Angel of the Abyss was perceived nearly as ambiguously as he was; considered a Lucifer by his enemies and a Messiah to those he allied with. Despite hailing him as a hero, the NCR high command remained wary of him, realizing that if he turned on them, their days would be numbered and therefore attempted to get him out of their affairs as soon as possible.

In the days following the NCR's victory at second battle of Hoover dam, the Courier found himself spending increasing amounts of time in the Big Empty. As one of the brightest minds of the twenty-third century, he, with the aid of the Think Tank, pushed the boundaries of science further than they had ever gone before. Now that the war with the Legion was firmly in the hands of the NCR who were more than capable of finishing off the dying empire, the Lone Courier had turned his attention to less violent ways of improving the universal standard of living. Of course, the Courier's strict morals imposed on them prevented many of the Think Tank's less ethical ideas from harming the people of of the Mojave wasteland. Still, science flourished once again in the crater that was the Big Empty, and not long after the Courier's arrival, a prototype Transportalponder was ready to be tested.

This Transportalponder Mk. II would form the basis for a revolution of transportation in the wasteland. The new version would be able to take a person from the place of activation to a set point, in this case the sink, and back to the initial position of activation. In addition to this, the range would be increased to cover the entire continent. It was easy to imagine the benefits of such a technology. Such technology would allow the NCR to more efficiently maintain a vast nation without a network of infrastructure that was virtually impossible to rebuild without industrial centers. These devices could put the entire continent decades ahead of where it was now and speed the eventually rebuilding of civilization through unification of all the isolated pockets of humanity.

The most difficult feature to implement had been extended range. Therefore, in order to test this, the Lone Courier left Big Mountain began to the trek to the pre-war train station that ran between the Mojave and Capital wastelands.

The NCR had largely forgotten about Courier after the award ceremony and he, for his part, was content to be forgotten. He had no real investment in the NCR, he supported it merely because he had found it the most moral option. Not that there was much competition. The corruption and inefficiency that were the vices of the NCR paled in comparison to the detriments of the other options. The brutality and backwardness of the Legion made the organization's very existence a crime against humanity. House's plans for a dictatorial police state ruled by a man on life support and an army of robots was also an unattractive alternative.

The Second Battle for Hoover Dam, and the conflicts preceding it, had left the Courier hardened and cynical, having a pessimistic view of human nature. Yet, he still retained the belief that one man could change the course of history. That particular lesson was one taught to him by the other Courier Six, Ulysses. The Lone Courier still had not checked up on him following the Battle of the Divide. Nor had he returned to Zion to see the progress of the tribes now that the White Legs had been eliminated.

He still felt guilt about the fate of the members of the Happy Trails Caravan. Both the lives he had taken and those he had failed to save weighed heavily on the shoulders of one too young to bear them. Despite his successes, the ordeals the seventeen year old had been through left him with permanent mental scars and issues that he had no way of resolving. It was true that in the heat of battle he felt little emotion in killing. The Burned Man had once told him that killing when done righteously, was a chore. And in battle, he agreed with that sentiment. However, once the dust settled and there was no threat to his life, he felt sympathy and towards those he had killed, not knowing whether they were evil or merely victims of the circumstance. This was accompanied by an immeasurable and not entirely rational guilt.

His fairly routine reflection on his own psychological state was interrupted by his arrival at his destination. The train station was in much the same condition that he had left it in. That is, dilapidated and dangerously decayed. Some feral ghouls had taken up residence in the area. They were hardly a threat to the Courier, and six rounds from A Light Shining in Darkness later, six bodies were on the floor. Each had a single bullet wound in the exact center of its forehead.

A sudden wind caused the Courier's duster to flutter much like the flag which was emblazoned on its back. His sunglasses shielded his eyes from the dust of the Mojave that the draft blew through the desolate train station.

It had been months since he had first arrived in the Mojave. Unfortunately, as a result of a near fatal dose of acute lead poisoning, he had forgotten all events that had occurred between boarding the train in the Capital wasteland and waking up in Goodsprings. While some would be concerned by the loss of memory, he was merely thankful that the loss had not been more extensive. He could have easily woken up with no idea who he was.

Once he had boarded the train he sat down and prepared for hours of boredom as the automated vehicle traveled across the continent. Eventually, lost in his thoughts, he drifted off into an uneasy sleep plagued by nightmares and phantoms of the dead.

The piercing squeal of the brakes brought him out of his unconscious self torture. Drawing A Light Shining in Darkness, he stood, and cautiously approached the door. He stopped and listened for a moment. The telltale growls of feral ghouls greeted him. The Courier slammed the door open and activated VATS.

His Pip-boy sent electronic signals to his brain that caused time to appear to have stopped. He could still move, albeit extremely slowly. Four targets sighted. Three were on the ground level while one was on the upper level of the train station. He targeted them on his Pip-boy. Four suppressed rounds discharged. Four bodies hit the floor. All created a singular dull thud. It was over in less than a second. Quickly swapping mags, he then surveyed the area for additional targets. He saw none. Now that the location appeared to be clear, the Lone Courier prepared to test the new and improved transportalponder MK. II.

Despite his pleading (or as he insisted on calling it "well reasoned arguments") with the Think Tank to rename the transportalponder to something less silly, or at least with less syllables, they were adamant that its name remain the same. The Courier eventually gave up (realizing that attempting to reason with them was a foolish idea in the first place) and settled on renaming it without their knowledge if it ever went to mass production.

Atomizing A Light Shining in Darkness and summoning the transportalponder MK. II in its place. He held the device at about shoulder height and depressed the trigger. The new version, owing to its more powerful nature required a nearly half a minute to activate. While this was an inconvenience, the Courier was not overly concerned as he did not use it in combat situations to avoid it being damaged. As soon as the transportalponder started charging, With a large amount of dramatic irony, he suddenly heard someone yell,

"It's him!."

His head snapped to the source of the exclamation. Metal helmet, weird bug eyes, there was no doubt who it was: the Enclave. An Enclave squad had wandered onto the upper level while he had been absorbed in using his Pip-boy he had failed to notice them enter the area. There was one officer, two hellfire troopers, and one with a Tesla, who had identified him.

"Damn, those Enclave bastards just don't know when they've lost," the Courier thought to himself, "Well, time to add four more to my body count."

Despite this confidence, the Lone Wanderer was aware that he was in an undesirable situation; he was not wearing any significant armor. This was an experiment after all, not a combat mission. While he was confident that he could operate his Pip-boy one-handed, once he had equipped his armor he would not be able to wield a weapon as long as the transportalponder was activating.

His plans were thrown into disarray when the transportalponder started to glow with blinding light forcing the Courier to avert his eyes even though he was wearing sunglasses. Seeing this, the Enclave troopers began to blind fire at the Lone Wanderer. While the projectiles missed, even near perfect luck can take one only so far as, much to the Courier's horror, the Tesla cannon beam collided directly with the transportalponder. The device began to glow green and became hot in his hand. The beeps became more frequent and intense. The Lone Couriers last words before being sucked into the portal were, "Oh son of a…"

Despite the efforts of many individuals and organizations in both wastelands, the Lone Courier was not to be found. That did not however, stop the Brotherhood of Steel and the Outcasts from massacring the Enclave in retribution. Despite others having given up the search, the Brains in the Big Empty continued to search for their CEO and missing technology, experimenting with portals of decreasing stability and increasing power.

This incident would further prove Ulysses right. Not only could a single man change the course of history, but the Courier could change two worlds.

AN: This character is a result of a heavily modded playthrough I did. Notable mods include TTW (Tale of Two Wastelands), Project Nevada, Weapons of the New Millennium, as well as several more perk mods. This character is a "Lone Courier", meaning that the Lone Wanderer and Courier Six are the same person. I will be ignoring the time gap between the two games as it has no practical effect. The Lone Wanderer also left Vault 101 earlier in this universe so that he is the same age as the other students at Beacon. You may not recognize some of the weapons of the Lone Courier but they are weapons from the real world. The Lone Courier will be relatively overpowered. This is intentional. The purpose of this story is not to compare the power of Fallout and RWBY. Unlike most fanfictions of this nature, the Lone Courier will not be saying "I'm from another dimension, can I go your school now?" Instead, he will do what he normally does if he needs information in a strange place: he will infiltrate Beacon. Seeing as Jaune accomplished this, a master hacker with experience in this kind of thing should have little trouble.

Complete list of stats and items has been moved to Chapter 22.

Here is a list of stats that the character possesses. This can easily be ignored if it's too boring for you. Its main purpose is for the reader's reference.

Character Stats:

Gender: Male

Name: Markus Friedrich

Race: Caucasian

Aliali: The Lone Wanderer, Mr. 101, "that kid from vault 101", the Courier, Apollyon

SPECIAL Stats:

Strength:10(+)

Perception: 10

Endurance: 10

Charisma: 10

Intelligence: 10

Agility: 10

Luck: 9

Skills:

Barter:80

Energy Weapons:90

Explosives:100

Guns:100

Lockpick:100

Medicine:100

Melee Weapons:100(+)

Lockpick: 100

Medicine:100

Melee:100

Repair:100

Science:100

Sneak:100

Speech:100

Survival:92

Unarmed:90