This was stupid.

Stupid and reckless.

Completely and utterly devoid of anything resembling sanity.

She wondered if that made her brave. The possibility of temporary madness was an easy excuse, but not one she could currently entertain as she entered Nipton from the south, walking with a confidence she didn't feel. Every fibre in her body was screaming at her to get out and run and hide you coward, but logic and a promise kept her moving, one foot in front of the other in an almost mechanical stride.

Scouting and planning had taken the better part of an hour. Boone's mounting impatience only served to have Riley plant him at the western entrance to town with a firm command to stay put. If anything, Boone was built to follow orders, and had grudgingly replied that he'd sit tight while Riley prowled around in the shadows of buildings, unnoticed, using dust and the setting sun and years of built-in practice at remaining hidden. Initial scouting had yielded small numbers of low ranking Legion members clustered around the entrance to the Town Hall, the three story building apparently set up as their base of operations while they occupied the town. Two dogs played in the dirt while the soldiers idled, but muffled and distant yapping and howling hinted at more inside.

From experience, Boone and Riley agreed there could not be more legionaries mulling about in the various homes and buildings, due to the fact that they hadn't set up a perimeter guard around the town itself. Any and all legion in Nipton were either in front of the town hall or inside said building, and from what they managed to get out of the crippled convict they found, there couldn't be more than six or seven legionaries total.

It was... lower than she expected. For such small numbers to take over a town, taking out NCR soldiers, an entire townsfolk, and apparently a group of convicts as well... well it just didn't make sense. Nobody fought back? They could have easily overpowered them, especially with a small contingent of off-duty NCR soldiers in town, drunk or not. While these facts lined up told her that what they were dealing with were either incredibly experienced legionaries, the low numbers made success suddenly seem wonderfully palpable. It did not, however, make the feeling that what she was doing was fucking stupid any less prevalent.

Get out. Run. Hide. Do not play bait.

She hesitated when the soldiers finally started to notice her, coming out of various idle states, unfolding their arms and standing straighter and hands reaching for their weapons. They didn't draw, though, nor did they advance on her. It was more of a cautious move, a warning that should she try and attack they would reciprocate, and that confused her. She was a woman, and in the Legion's eyes there was only one thing a woman was good for. It was what she had banked on when she set the plan in motion, and Boone knew it from the sharp glare and the set of his jaw.

He thought her plan was stupid, too.

One legionary moved to give a single knock on the door to the hall. A signal. Her heart rate jumped and she forced herself to take another step, then another, as a single Legion officer stepped out into the evening air. She stopped completely while he talked to his men. The fox-head helmet commonly seen on Vexillarii sat upon his head, and he had a quiet air about him with a strong undercurrent of cruelty that made her fight-or-flight tendencies all scream towards run run run. He spoke quietly to his soldiers, and Riley's confusion grew as they relaxed their stances.

He turned his gaze on her, raising his hand and beckoning to her with the single cruel crook of a finger.

Get out. Run. Hide.

She wanted to check if Boone was in position, but couldn't risk giving him away. She wondered if Veronica had set up the mines like Riley had explained, with a drawn map in the dirt and instructions to remain hidden until the bullets started flying.

She took another step forward.

"We won't harm you," the officer crooned, "Unlike these degenerates we have made an example of, you we have a use for."

Boone's voice came back to her, irritable and curt while they argued over the finer points of using her as bait – a strategy he called crude and that she'd called necessary – telling her that they might try talking to her, and if they did, to use it to keep their attention on her and away from him while he scaled the General Store. She had asked why they would even bother, and he pointed out that both survivors couldn't carry the Legion's message of consequence to the NCR because they were convicts. She didn't think much of his words then, but now she had to admit she was impressed – Boone had a better grasp on how the Legion worked than she would have thought.

"Come closer, woman."

She tried, willing herself to move. Fear had her rooted where she was, however, and she settled instead for staring at him as impassively as she could manage. Which, to say, wasn't impassive at all. If this were a poker game, her gig would be up. Her breathing was irregular, her heart rate probably dangerously high, sweat beaded on her brow. She was taut like a coiled spring, muscles tensed and wound. Her stress was tangible, and this man beckoning to her smiled knowingly while she remained frozen in place.

He closed the distance between them himself, and she crushed a twitching impulse to back away. "You know who we are. What we are."

"I know," she managed to croak out.

"What we have done here - you, degenerate, will bear witness to." It wasn't a request, she noticed. He spoke as if he knew she would obey, that her fear would drive her to it. "You will spread the word of our deeds, of our strength and what occurred here, to the profligates infesting these lands, so that they know what's coming to them. You will do this because I, Vulpes Inculta, have allowed you to live. Know that you are blessed by the mercy of the Legion for this mission."

Her blood ran cold. Vulpes Inculta. She was standing in front of the leader of Caesar's Frumentarii, his personal spy and espionage network. This was the fourth most powerful man in the entire Legion, and he was standing in front of her and offering her mercy if she delivered his message.

Oh shit. Oh fuck.

"And if I refuse?" She asked, mindful of her task to keep him occupied, proud at the same time that her voice didn't shake.

"You have an opinion of our work, woman? We taught a lesson here, that disloyalty does not go unpunished. Our work is the will of Caesar, and this town of whores that laid bare to all who came to suckle was but the first to fall. Spare your sympathy," he said softly. "Spare your misplaced righteousness. This town deserved neither. The message-" he crooned, "-is all you need to take from this place."

She opened her mouth to tell him he could take his message and go fuck a molerat with it, but the crack of a rifle against the quiet evening air split the silence like a knife, her classy rebuttal dying on her lips before kissing air. Behind Vulpes, a legionary fell to the ground, grasping at his neck and the bullet wound while he choked on his own blood. In the few seconds she had to react, she had a brief moment of indignation because the plan was to take out the legionary closest to her as the signal, before she realized that her freezing before she reached them properly had drawn Vulpes down the street towards her and most likely out of Boone's sights.

Riley took her signal anyway, drawing her .44 and aiming it at Vulpes meticulously. He ducked and rushed her as she fired, her eyes widening while her bullet took down the legionary advancing behind him instead. He tackled her to the ground and she grunted, her gun went flying, bouncing away and landing uselessly in the sand, well out of reach.

Another crack of gunfire took down a dog, the crying whine going up as it flopped to the ground, and Riley could hear Veronica shouting taunts and laughing while she played with the few remaining legionaries and their last dog. Above her, Vulpes forced them to roll into the cover of a building, effectively taking him away from Veronica and her powerfist. She struggled to get the upper hand, to come out on top in the roll, but he had a vice grip on her arms, and pinned her easily between his legs. Fear shot through her, strong and cold and paralysing.

"Profligate," he hissed, leaning forward so he was whispering into her ear. "Had I known, I would have had other plans for you. Taken my time," he purred. Revulsion swelled and filled and she bit back the taste in her mouth. She bucked, using the opportunity to slam her head into his and then scramble away from him while he reeled. Her head pounded, but her knife was in her hand and she shouted out for Veronica to hurry up.

She couldn't attack with the knife, lessons from basic resonating in her mind to never engage the Legion in close combat - what might seem like an opening for you is them luring you in closer. The skill of Legion in melee was renowned and the cause of death for many NCR soldiers caught unawares. Her mind ran over where the mines were placed but something told her she couldn't outrun this man, not to mention that to get to the mines she would have to go through him anyway. She backed out farther into the street, hoping to pull him into Boone's sights again. From the corner of her eye she could see Veronica twisting the neck on the last Legionary, a pile of corpses surrounding her in a morbid circle. A glance to the General Store roof yielded no sign of Boone, and she panicked, wondering where he was.

Vulpes moved towards her, recovered. He had a ripper in his hand and even Veronica backed off when she saw it, the reach of the weapon obviously an advantage over her powerfist. He turned it on and the whirring noise filled the air as he advanced on them slowly.

"Oh Riley!" Veronica called out in a sing-song tone as they both backed away. "Now would be a good time to shoot the guy!"

"Lost my gun," Riley sang back. Her foot hit the bottom step of the porch to the Town Hall. "Where's Boone?"

As if in answer, Vulpes dropped to the ground, a bullet hole through his head. The girls turned to see Boone emerging from behind a building, rifle still drawn. He strode purposefully to the corpse of the Frumentarii leader, and shot him again for good measure. The ripper was still whirring in his lifeless hand and Boone bent to turn it off before facing them.

"You didn't keep them in range," he said, eyes on Riley. She swallowed.

"Yeah, well. You know, heat of the moment-" she trailed off lamely. He watched her silently.

"They wouldn't have hurt you."

She wanted to point out that they didn't know that for certain, and theories being just that, theories, she wasn't too keen on proving anything right or wrong by taking a few extra steps. She didn't however, because she knew that wasn't what he was trying to say. He was trying to say he wouldn't have let them hurt her, and she had no reason to be afraid.

She sighed, shaking her head, unwilling to get into a discussion on just how much of a coward she was, and turned away to search for her gun. She had done substantially well, she'd thought, all things considered. She hadn't ran, and that right there was a god damn success story as far as she was concerned.

Veronica was already looting the bodies, and after finding her weapon Riley moved to help. There was a small quandary where they debated what to do with the armour before Riley declared that caps were caps, and Boone left them to strip the corpses while he did a sweep of the remaining houses.

They tackled the Town Hall as a group, moving room to room, taking out dogs and radroaches as they moved up the floors. Each floor yielded more dead civilians, some set with mines that Boone moved to disarm. Some lay there, a silent and dead narrative of their last moments written in their surroundings that laid a somber mood over their group.

"And what about them?" Veronica asked once they were back outside, their packs full and heavy with the spoils of a slaughter that wasn't theirs. She was gesturing at the few remaining crucified convicts lined up down the street. Riley looked up at Boone, who nodded grimly, and they moved forward together.

"No good," Boone shook his head, staring up at the first man. Riley's stomach churned because she knew where this was headed. The man was bloodied all over, head down, breath shallow. He was sunburned and his lips were cracked from dehydration. Blood dripped from his wrists and she realized he'd been nailed to the cross before the ropes were added.

"We can't take them down?" Veronica asked sadly. "We have stims."

"The way they were strung up," Riley explained quietly, turning away. "We take them down they'll bleed out fast."

"So... what then?" Veronica folded her arms. "We leave them up there?"

In answer, Boone took out his sidearm, checking the clip and sliding it back into place. Veronica looked wide-eyed at Riley, and she could only give a terse nod while she took out her own gun. Veronica did the same, grimacing as Boone walked up to one of the men, raised his gun, and fired a single shot. Simple.

Riley gestured at Boone to watch Veronica shoot in case she missed, and moved down the road to the farthest cross. She didn't exactly want an audience for this.

She shook on the ground, sobs racking her body as they brought the whip to Noah again. The snap of leather against flesh and Noah's pained cries and the centurion's demands for her to watch were deafening in her ears, filling her head with pain and her mouth with bile and her stomach with acid. When she failed to lift her eyes to see the canvas they had painted for her they twisted a hand in her hair and dragged her to her ungrateful feet, forcing her head up to watch as they cauterized the wounds with a flaming sword, and then they began again.

The convict watched her approach through one bleary black eye, the other having swollen shut. He seemed to relax, maybe understanding that she was going to end his suffering for him. He didn't speak, didn't ask for forgiveness; whatever crime he committed was no longer important. Release from agony, death – she could see it in his gaze, the acceptance – that was the important thing here. She planted her feet in front of him, took her stance, and aimed.

"Don't let them break you," Noah croaked to her on the fourth day. She stared up at him, eyes wide and unblinking, face devoid of any emotion. The centurions were watching from a few yards away, always watching, and she'd stopped reacting days ago, unable to find a wellspring of tears to replenish what she had already spent. Now they were just letting her watch while he wasted away, occasionally forcing a meagre meal in front of her or escorting her to use the facilities.

She couldn't recognize him anymore. Her partner. The army fatigues hung from his body in tattered strips. His chest and legs covered in the myriad of half-healed oozing wounds that lay open under the Mojave sun. She could smell the thick, pungent odour of human waste. His curly, sandy blonde hair was caked with blood, red rivulets still dripping in thick succession to the ground below from a wound to his head that refused to close.

But his eyes were still the same. Kind and blue and focused - even now - on her while he spoke.

"Don't let them break you."

She pulled the trigger.