Alright, this is my first 2000 chapter. Please, any and all feedback is wanted. No matter how small. Oh and this is less funny and more serious. I'm just asking you to have an open mind until the end. Feel free to tell me if you liked or not.

Chapter 9- Broken bones

The courier twiched at the feeling of cold metal making contact with his skin. "Please don't move, it's distracting." Julie Farkas told Six.

The courier shot the woman a look. She was acting as if she wasn't in trouble. "You know I'm pissed, right?" Six said scolding her.

"Yet, you're here getting your check up anyways." She said as a matter of factly.

"I thought you brought medical aid for my people." the courier said.

"I did," Julie told six.

"You're also helping the Japanese." The courier said.

"They had wounded and we were here, that's our mission," Julie answered.

"They have their own doctors and plenty of supplies." The courier told Farkas.

"They don't have any advance medicine. We do and we want to help. They even asked for samples." She told the courier without any hesitation.

The courier growled at the woman's high morals. "We are at high risk to going at war with them and our only advantage is the quality of our troops and our technology. We lose that and we might as well say goodbye to this world."

Farkwas put down her equipment and walked to face the courier. "You use to be a hero to everyone. You use to help everyone. Being the Messiah and bringing miracles was part of the legend of the courier. Kids went to sleep know you would come and stop the evil men. Now your here complaining about helping people." The Julie told the courier angrily.

Six slouched on the surgical bed. His head lowered itself and he let his hand rub his face. "I'm not going to give the bullshit of me saying that everything I do is necessary. I cannot help everyone anymore. There is a hundred battlefield across New Vegas and not all of them are simple, I cannot even say they all have a reason. All I can tell you is that I'm no longer interested in helping everyone. Only the people that put their trust in me. That's why I'm angry you giving away secrets to the Japanese, because I don't trust them." He told her that while looking at her eye's and not blinking once.

She relented and crossed her arms. "Fine. I understand I don't like it, but I understand."

"Will you stop helping the greenbacks?" The courier asked hopefully.

"No." Julie's answer was quick and to the matter. Leaving no room to speculate.

"Just don't build any bases yet. You don't know who you are dealing with. They might be Caesar's Legion 2.0." the courier told her.

"Doubt it." The follower told the leader of Vegas.

"Alright then, I have to work quickly then. That's the only way you won't run in and compromise the operation." Six told Farkwas.

Six motion to get up but The doctor's hand stopped him. "Before you do I have to give you your results."

"Really, This is the third round of test you made me go through." The courier complained.

"It serious," Julie said worriedly. This got Six's attention. "We've been check up on your implants in an attempt to replicate your unique ones."

Six's hands balled up. "Are you bragging or did you find something while abusing my trust." The Man was furious at the woman. Sticking her nose into something that she had no right to look into.

"We've asked you to bug Houses network for similar reasons. You shouldn't be surprised about us doing the same to you." She defended herself.

"You know what, it isn't important, those implants aren't special anyways." The courier hand waved away.

She nodded and explained. "When we were recording data on you we found some disturbing images." Julie's moved to her desk and grabbed a file. She proceeded to grab a bundle of papers out of it and showed them to the courier. Inside were Auto-doc X-rays and pip-boy readings. The Courier had a great deal of medical training and even could be considered an unofficial biologist. He knew what he was seeing.

"My bones are… fusing." He said somberly.

"Yes, for now, it's just a few ribs but in a few years you won't be able to move a finger." Even though Julie's had a falling out with the man and even disliked his method of government, the condition he was in was something no one should suffer.

The courier sat there for a few seconds, pondering the new information. "Any way of reverting it." The courier no longer had a merry tune to his voice. It was cold and calculating. Something he only expresses when he was cornered.

"So far… No." Julie's attempted to be comforting. From the look from the courier's face, it wasn't working.

"How did this happened." Six's asked while absorbing the X-rays.

"You have too many implants in your body and some of them were never meant to work together. The clinic implant and the foreign implants both give healing properties and both attempt to heal. Some even stimulate your healing property but that the problem. It's plural, one is fine but with stimpacks and the Phoenix implant are being doubled and doubled again. In other words, your being over healed."

"If I cut down on stimpacks and avoid as much damage as possible this condition would slow itself down. Right? Then again I could go and remove some of the tech inside me and get my old body parts." The courier still had them in big mountain and had a few being clones just in case.

Then Farkas showed him his spine x-ray. There were fleshy growths on it, tendrils of unknown biomatter snaked its way into the technology that made up his own spine. "What the hell is that!" The courier raised his voice in surprise.

"As I said, your body is overhealing itself and what your seeing is your spine… growing another spine." Julie's said nervously.

"That's not possible." The courier said dumbfounded.

"We don't know how it could be. It might be some sort of FEV or radiation, mutation or even a glitch in your implants. All we know it would take a lot of caps and years of research to learn how to cure it. Since we have no protocol for this or even seen something like it." She knew the man had the resources and time to do it. He owned new vegas and discovered old world tech that is helping rebuild the new world. He could find it and cure himself.

The courier's reaction was different from expected. He snarled and shook his head. "No, too costly for just one person, it's better if we just warn future generations and avoid any future instances. The resources could go in just improving the current ones as well. Making any cures pointless."

Farkas was surprised at the courier's casual disregard of his life. "What! This is your own life and you'll live horribly. You'll pretty much be a living statue and have to reamind inside for the rest of your life." She knew it was expensive but still, the courier had to see the importance living.

"As I said, too expensive for one person." The courier told her in a stern voice.

"You own an empire that builds robot army's overnight. You can afford it." The doctor attempted to reason with her patient.

"No, we can't. Vegas is hanging by a thread. The legion is recuperating strength, the tunneler wars are raging in our backyard and The NCR still sees us as their territory. We have people to feed and industry to fuel. Every grain of wheat, every bullet is being used to achieve it. Not a single resource has been spent for me and everything I own I built or scavenged To top it all off, we have a chance to let people live happy lives and all that stands before us is a nation. We still know very little about them but the fact that we're going to need every last ounce of strength to match them. My fear will not get in the way of that. I don't want it, I just want my nation to prosper now and beyond my death."

The woman was stunned. She didn't know what to make of it. He has no reason to lie and if it was true… She lowered her head in respect. "I'll respect your wishes"

"Thank you. Now I'm very busy and need to get to work." The courier jumped off the bench and dressed.

"Oh and one more thing. Keep it between us, the old doctor-patient confidentiality and stuff." The courier asked.

Julie's nodded quietly.

The courier stepped out of the tent and started to walk in the night sky. The Rookie's death was made pointless now. He didn't kill that reaper girl and he was going to suffer a fate worse than death. He let out a sigh. He placed his hands in his pockets and decided to learn his name and where he came from. He at least owed him that.

For half an hour the courier searched for the Sergeant. The man was responsible for recruiting and training the New Desert Jackals and was the best person to tell him about the rookie. He walked and walked until he found Lucy outside a brightly lit tent that had laughter and cheering coming out of it.

It didn't take long for the teen to notice Six walking towards her. She perked up and started jogging towards him. She had an angry frown on her. The courier wondered if he did something to piss her off. He got his answer as soon she started to speak.

"Heyyy YOU! *hic* YoU'lvE tOrld me tHAt yOu GoNna sMack THem skirt bois! ANd yoU kNows whaT… wE AIn't. WHAts uP WitH thAT!" Lucy slurred.

The courier faced palmed. Of course, the tiny girl couldn't hold her liquor. "Lucy your drunk."

"hEy I'M TaLKing TOwards yOu. ThiS lUCy PErson cAN waiT." The woman drunkenly misunderstood.

"Okay, you know what, you're right. Vauban asked for a Jackal to help deal with Empire bandits harassing us. I'll just send you. Good." The courier said slowly for the drunk woman can understand.

Lucy proceeded to vomit in front of him. Making the courier jump back in surprise. Then the Sergeant ran out of the tent, still in his armor. His face was bare, revealing his blond pompadour and handsome feature. Still, he was old and had wrinkles forming on his tanned face. "Lucy! There you are, I told you not to drink that woman under the table." He sounded casual and had an amused smile plastered across his face.

The courier saw her falling and caught her. She was blacked out. The Sergeant walked up to Six and greeting him. "Yo. Looks like she quite the handful ain't she." The courier nodded.

"Yup, The gifts of youth eh." The courier quipped.

"Boy, you young enough to be my son. You got that long future ahead of you." The sergeant said amused.

The courier smirked. "Yeah. Well, I'm off to my tent, might as well bring her with me. You mind walking with me, got a few questions"

The sergeant gave a large wave. "Ah, I'm too old to stay awake this late. Might as well turn in so no bother."

"Good."

Six threw Lucy across his shoulder carelessly and she let out a long moan. Then they both started walking. "Now tell me, what was rookie's backstory."

The older man shot the younger one a look. "Sound like you drank some of that green back alcohol snake I think they called it because it would a cold day in hell when you care about the dead."

"Kinda, pissed that that infinite live's girl is still kicking." The courier answered.

"I feel ya. It just ain't fair, the few rules in life is that when you kill something it stays dead." The Sergeant complained

"Life's a bitch and gives half a shit on what's fair." The courier responded.

"True. Well, rookies name was Pup Lover." The Sergeant said entirely seriously.

The courier stared in disbelief. Even Lucy unconscious form found it hard to believe and puked a little. "That's tamed compared to the rest of it."

"Shoot," The courier told him. Still shocked at the name

"Well turns out that pup was a special synth that was made by 111 himself." The Sergeant told Six.

The courier found this to be strange. "Why did you recruit him." He asked worriedly.

"He was upfront and needed to be tested. 111 found out war with the tunneler to be a prime testing ground. He was mean looking as well too so I said yes and he aced every test with flying colors." He was seemed to be looking back in his memories. Smiling at his training of the boy and pride swelling in his heart.

The courier understood. 111 would do this a lot, offering help in a form of some sort of experiment. It normally went fine and great rarely. "What made rookie so special." Six asked curiously.

"He was some sort of mix breed synth. 111 said he wanted to create an unflawed creation. So he took the research the institute had and made his own. He learned to mix gorilla, deathclaw, dog, cat, hawk, and human. Ended up with a balance between power and intelligence. He also had the parts of the brain removed, like the primitive feeling a civilized people didn't need. Like fear of anger and that junk and replace with a more calm version. Created a nice kid, barely talked through." The sergeant explained in a somber tone.

"You were friends." The courier asked.

"He was… all the good parts of humanity." The sergeant said as if was attempting to make a point. "He even died for someone because he knew he could prevent some else's suffering doing it." The Sergeant was a bit teary at that.

"You seemed to know him quite well." The courier said.

"Yeah, hey I know you'll make his death worthwhile. Kids will wake up happy and safe and no one will try shooting some else for food. That's all he'll ever want." The sergeant said with a happier tone.

The courier smiled. "I'll bring down hell on anyone who'll try and stop me and make the future twice as bright in spite for the people who'll tied to do it."

"Here hoping the world goes against you then." The sergeant said waving goodbye and walked into a tent that had the giggling of women coming from it. Then the man said something about love all night and that sort of shit. The courier dropped lucy in her bed on her side and walked into his own tent. He sat down and looked at the paperwork. He let out a pained groan and got to work. The Japanese won't be backing down on their own. He thought to himself.