Author's note: This is my first fanfiction so far. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I head while writing it. Enjoy!
She smelled the fires long before she saw them. The reek of burning flesh got stronger with every step she took towards Nipton. Something terrible had happened here, the woman known as the Courier was sure of it. If she hadn't made a promise to Ghost she would have turned on her heels and ran away from Nipton as fast as her feet could take her. But since she had made a promise she forced herself to continue to walk in the direction the reek came from.
When she arrived at Nipton a man came running across her. He looked like he cracked the jackpot at the Gomorrha and waved a piece of paper while running. The man came to halt in front of her. " I made it! I won the lottery!" he panted.
"What lottery?" the Courier asked clenching her teeth together. The reek of burning flesh was almost unbearable and threatened to make her throw up. She had never been good at handling offensive smells, even her work as a courier hadn't changed that fact.
"I won the motherfuckin' lottery! In front of the town hall! They spared my life! They killed so many but I made it! Miss Fortune was on my side today!" The man looked so happy and relieved, but not in any way the Courier had ever seen. He looked almost insane.
The Courier decided that it would be no use in asking the man who "they" were. The man didn't seem to be in a condition where he could answer such complex questions. She would have to see for herself what was going on in that goddamned town. Her hand twitched to the grip of the gun at her hip. She felt much better reminding herself that whatever she had to face at the town hall, she wouldn't have to do it unarmed. She sighed heavily and moved on.
Crucifixion. The word came to the Couriers numbed mind while wandering towards the town hall. There were wooden crosses with bodies bound on them. Some of the people were already dead. Some weren't. She frantically tried to get one of the crucified off the cross, but the man died before she could lay him on the ground. The reek of smoke, burning flesh and blood stung in her nose and her stomach revolted before she could pull herself together, she found herself throwing up behind a car wreck. Get your damn act together! She thought to herself when she pulled out a bottle of water to rinse her mouth. She needed to know what the hell had happened here. Just how sick was whoever crucified those people? That almost crazy guy she met on her way had babbled something about winning the lottery. The people hanging on those crosses seemed to be the losers of that game. She forced herself to look at one of the crucified. He was dying and getting him off the cross wouldn't save him, as she had learned before. The Courier fought with herself. She couldn't just walk away doing nothing. In one of the books which survived the war, she read about crucifixions and that it took a long time until the victims were dead. In those ancient times she read about crucifixion was the capital punishment for the worst criminals, but whatever those people did, nobody deserved to die that way. A sound ripped the Courier from her thoughts. She needed a few moments to realize that the sound she heard came from one of those crucified Powder Gangers. His cracked lips parted, forming words but she couldn't catch what he was saying. She came closer, so she could look him in the eye. Broken, pleading eyes glanced back at her. "Please" The sound came out ragged, barely understandable. The Courier didn't need to ask what he was begging for.
"Are you sure?" she found herself asking, even though she knew how stupid that question was. That man would die no matter if she shot him or not. If she did nothing he would spend hours in mortal agony.
The man on the cross tried to grin, but it turned out as a bloody grimace of pain. "Please" he repeated, his eyes wandering from her face to the gun at her hip. The Courier locked her eyes to his, and reached for her gun. The silenced .22 pistol suddenly lay heavy in her hand when she unlocked the safety. It was mercy, she told herself. Shooting him was mercy. If she was the one hanging on the cross she would do the same. She couldn't save him. The only thing she could do for that man was ensuring that he died a quick death instead of a death struggle lasting for hours. The man's grey eyes grew calm when she lifted her arm and aimed at his head, her eyes never leaving his. She had the feeling that she should say something, some last words but nothing came to her usually fast working mind. She felt numb as she exhaled and pulled the trigger. The man was dead immediately.
Unable to stand the sight of blood dripping down on the ground beneath her, she turned and heading towards the Town hall after making sure that the other crucified Powder Ganger were already dead and she didn't had to "help" them the way she had helped the other man. She should've at least asked for his name, a tiny voice in her head said. But to what use?
She saw strangely dressed men standing in front of the town hall. The Courier cursed herself for not being more careful. She had been totally absorbed with thoughts of the man she just killed that she totally forgot to check if the people responsible for this massacre were still nearby. She very much liked to slap herself for her own stupidity, but the men had already spotted her. She briefly thought about running away but had to realize that she wouldn't make it very far since those men had dogs with them. She was a fast runner, but nowhere as fast as a dog chasing after his prey. The men looked at her direction, but they didn't make any efforts to pull their guns. Straightening her shoulders the Courier began to walk towards the men. Scanning her environment for possible cover if the men suddenly decided that she would make a nice victim for crucifixion next the Powder Gangers, she walked towards the group of soldiers. At least that was what she thought they were. On top of the town hall, someone had put up a flag. No, not a flag she thought, it was a standard. Legion, she thought. For the second time in only minutes she felt the urge to slap herself. Maybe the shot in the head really did scramble her eggs.
A man with a headgear that looked like a wolfs' head stepped forward, his eyes hidden under that strange fashion statement.
"Don't worry, I won't have you lashed to a cross like the rest of these degenerates." The man said, a cruel smile on his lips." It's useful that you happened by. I want you to witness the fate 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 thought here, especially any NCR troops you run across."
Shuddering inwardly the Courier worked up the guts to meet that wolf guys eyes. She always thought that brown eyes couldn't be cold eyes. But those man's eyes were the coldest eyes she had ever seen.
She forced herself to hold out against his cold remorseless gaze, fought the urge to lower her eyes. She wouldn't let them see her fear.
"And what exactly" she asked with slightly trembling voice," was the lesson you have been teaching here?"
His lips twitched. "Where to begin? That they are weak and we are strong? That much was known already. But the depths of their moral sickness, their dissolution? Nipton serves as the perfect object lesson."
The gaze of his fox-brown eyes seemed to pin her down; she couldn't get herself to move. A man, she thought who just ordered the crucifixion of the whole town as it seemed shouldn't give lessons about moral behaviour. Anger spiked while she listened to him talking about Nipton being a town of whores and how he herded them to the center of town and how he announced the lottery.
"Everyone clutched their ticket, hoping it would set them free. They did nothing when their "loved ones" were dragged away and killed." His voice grew mocking at the term "loved ones".
"So you slaughtered innocent civilians?", the Courier asked, her voice barely betraying the vicious fury the words of this man had induced in her. Her voice was just slightly trembling and she could detain herself from clenching her fists, her face a near perfect mask of faked calm.
"Innocent? Hardly." The wolf man retorted sarcastically. He had noticed her attempts to hide the fury that was simmering inside her, but she was not good enough fool him. He had heard the slight trembling in her voice, seen the way she flexed her fingers.
"They outnumbered us, yet not once did they try to resist. They just stood and watched as their fellows were butchered, crucified and burned, one by one. They stood and hoped that their turn would not come. Each cared only for himself." Finished, he shot the Courier a questioning glance. "So, what will you do, girl?"
"I will do as you ask." The Courier spat out. She was no fool, she knew that was the only answer the man would accept and that wouldn't get her killed on the spot. But that didn't mean that she didn't felt ashamed for bending to his will.
Those cold fox-brown eyes that had held her captive turned away from her, releasing the Courier from her inability to move.
"Then I bid you Vale – until we meet again." For one last time his eyes met hers.
The soldiers withdrew without worrying that she might shoot them in the back. The Courier thought of doing exactly that, just to show them that they were wrong in disregarding her. But all she could do was watching them being swallowed up by the Mojave, the smell of burning flesh stinging in her nose.