Joshua ran for what felt like hours. He ran uphill, and his legs begged him to stop. He ran through the wind and the dirt blowing with it, and his lungs screamed at him to quit. His heart raced in rhythm to every stride, up the hill to the fort in which Caesar resided. He prayed the NCR was not far behind him.
Joshua prayed for a lot of things.
He prayed First Recon could keep pace with him, he prayed he could outlast this journey, he prayed that the winds and the sun not take him, not just yet. Most importantly, he prayed for the strength to face Caesar with the collective he utilized to face all things in life. He prayed for the friends he'd made along the way. The friends who sacrificed for him, the friends who gave up their careers for him, and the friends who may give up their lives for him. He realized he'd forgotten to thank them, for they had blessed him so.
The door to the fort appeared ahead, posted by which were two Legion guards. Joshua's mind scratched at his skull. Pieces of him wanted to turn back, but the path of the righteous was without bend, and Joshua would walk it as such. The guards pulled out their machetes at the site of the blood infused Joshua racing towards them. They could not be prepared for what came their way. Joshua pulled his machete from his side. They attacked simultaneously, which, given the probability of success, was a preferable decision. Given the circumstances, however, it was inadvisable to attack at all. Joshua stopped short of the attacks, the two swings missing him by a close enough margin for Joshua to sweep one blow, and catch both throats. The two barely registered the attacks, but as sure as the sunrise in Zion did the blood flow forth from their necks. They abandoned their weapons without hesitation, and grabbed at their spurting throats. Soon followed their blood curdled gasps for air, and the sound of their knees hitting the ground. They mirrored each other, as if all men somehow died the same.
Sterling lowered the weapon, "Alright, we have to get going."
The president was vocal of his frustration, "Go fucking where?"
"Just get in the vertibird, Mr. President, I have to take you to Caesar's camp."
"No, you won't be."
Sterling wished he had the time to think long and hard about the proper course of action to take in the particular scenario he found himself in. He found, however, that life rarely afforded a man enough time for such moments. He raised the pistol, and slammed it into the head of President Kimball. His body lost its rigidity, and fell limply to the dirt. Sterling cursed. Then he began laughing.
"Well, if you're kidnap the president, you might as well assault him while you're at it."
Kimball's unconscious body was a lot more agreeable than his animated one, and Sterling assisted it back into the vertibird, making sure to reapply the handcuffs, as he imagined the president to be mighty ornery when he awakened.
10, Bitter-Root, and Betsy ran as Joshua did. That was to say, they ran as hard as the limits of their bodies would grant them to. Joshua may be able to make it to Caesar's tent, but even he knew he was no match for the entire praetorian guard Caesar stationed within it, and the prospect of fighting Caesar personal entourage wasn't just unpreferable, it was insanity, a death wish, even.
The praetorian guard are hand picked soldiers that have served long enough and committed enough murder to be acknowledged as the best. When a legionary is selected, he (or she, but the event would likely never take place due to the nature of being a legion woman) must select the soldier currently in the praetorian guard whom he believes he can best in a fight to the death. If he is successful, he is inducted. A system resulting in a troop of the most nightmarish individuals one would ever face in a close quarters battle. A system that meant every man who joins it must kill, and who leaves it by being slain himself. This was ignoring the fact that they all wore ballistic fists, wrist-mounted shotguns that fired by means of a weight plate across the knuckles. At medium range, they could technically employ the weapon by pressing the plate, but they rarely utilized it as such. For the most part, they were used for hand to hand combat, which felt like, 10 could only imagine, being punched with a grenade blast. Forced to take an alternate route to the camp, the three of them figured they would be just in time to aid Joshua, if they hurried.
"We gotta bust some ass! Graham will be in the tent in less than ten minutes!"
"He ain't fucking stupid, he won't go in that tent without us."
"Doesn't mean we shouldn't hurry!"
As they neared the door to the fort, they were quick to notice the wake of Joshua Graham. Warily, the three pulled their submachine guns from their holsters, and, somewhere in each of their minds, spoke a small prayer.
Chief Hanlon trudged up the dullest set of stairs he figured he'd ever climbed. It was a long walk, and he was an aging man, and sun was hot this day. He clutched the letter in his pocket, a letter one doesn't acquire in this world easily anymore. Its power, in the form of the humblest piece of paper he ever held, couldn't find its way out of his mind. He feared what would become of Joshua, he feared for the First Recon and their resulting publicity following this charade. He reached the top of the stairs. Trails of men who had walked this path before littered the Mojave earth. He imagined some of them were good men, likely led good lives. Some of them were likely the prints of the doers of evil. It seemed, however, that important men always left the easiest discerned flags of their actions.
Joshua entered the main portion of the camp. It had been so long since he last laid eyes upon it. Tents plagued the encampment, forming streets lined with the makeshift housing. A blacksmith sharpened a machete not far to his right. The blade glowed a light orange, and sparks showered the dirt. A spear leaned against the tent beside him. The arena still dominated most of the place, but the eye drew itself towards the massive tent stationed overlooking the rest of the camp. It was the tent Joshua had conducted many a war from, the tent he committed many a sin inside. It was the tent of Caesar. It was guarded with a praetorian out front. He looked around. The camp began to still itself, as if silence would be Joshua's welcome. The grindstone to his right began to lose spin, soldiers in their tents stopped their bustling about. Even the crowd gathered at the arena lost interest in it, favoring the sight of the Burned Man, having returned to the heart of the mountain that cast him out. Joshua started to run. Time slowed to a crawl. Joshua ran for the blacksmith. The man attempted to stand, but Joshua descended upon him too quick. He grabbed the machete, and, in the same movement, sliced the throat of the legionary. The still hot blade carved through easily. Joshua let his forward movement slide the blade across the man's esophagus. He let the blade do the cutting, it needed no coaxing. The spear just behind the blacksmith found Joshua's throwing arm, and in a spinning motion, he loosed the weapon toward the praetorian at the tent. The guard caught notice of the projectile too late, and it impacted the center of his chest, sending him through the tent door. If Caesar was not aware of him before, Joshua had hoped he would be now. The entire camp began to mobilize. His heart sank ever so slightly in his chest, and shortly after, it rose again, strangely enough, to the sound of gunfire coming from behind him.
"You got a knack for gettin' in shit!" The almost too familiar voice of 10 was on this occasion a treat for the ears. Legion soldiers poured into the bottleneck created by the tents, they dropped not at all dissimilar to the White Legs back in New Canaan, many years ago. Their agonized expressions fell into the dust as bullets perforated the army. The substantially under prepared army could not hope to reach the heavily armed group. The camp fell silent as the guns reached the ends of their magazines. Joshua had to practically climb the mountain of bodies generated by the submachine gun massacre. As he reached its summit, he saw a sight worse than a fully mobile Legion camp.
A fully mobile praetorian guard.
With empty guns and nothing but knives and the butts of rifles, the four could not hope to face Caesar's finest. They realized simultaneously, however, that they could not survive this mission and not succeed. They raised what little weaponry they had and charged at the enemy. Joshua looked to his side. 10 and Bitter-Root were little more than kids. Even if they were super-mutants, they could not survive an encounter with a praetorian, especially not one armed with a wrist mounted shotgun. But God, Graham found, so very rarely played with dice. The praetorian guard were strong, and they paraded from the tent in a line. They all readied their ballistic fists. Each of them as strong and wiry as the next. But it doesn't matter how strong you are, there is no man alive that can live through the blast of a missile supplied by a sky born vertibird. Joshua smiled and turned his gaze skyward, to find the waving Corporal Sterling in the cockpit. He hastened his pace for the tent. There was only one demon left to face this day.
Hanlon came to a door at the top of the stairs he'd labored in ascending. He passed through it. Inside, the paths were lined with the flags left behind by the great men of his time. He looked at them all. Amazing deeds accomplished by equally amazing people. All so similar, yet so very different. This place wasn't entirely foreign to him, he'd gazed upon it many a time, but he had never seen it in such a state. He climbed more stairs. His back could hardly handle such long walks anymore. He admitted this one may be his last.
So be it, he thought, as he reached the top of the stairs. He figured if any walk would be his last, let it be this one. As he neared the door, the ground began to tremble, directly beneath his feet.
Joshua looked to the end of the tent. His anger was overwhelming. The burns on his back, on his arms, his legs, his chest, and the ones that marred his face. The bandages that wrapped his body like a cocoon, the anger that infested his mind like a hive of cazadores. All of it made possible by the man sitting no more than twenty feet in front of him. He clawed for his composure. In his mind, this man may as well already have died. He would do just as well to take his own life at this moment.
"Joshua, it's nice to see you again."
Joshua ran at him. The speed he garnered could not be surpassed, the wrath he prepared to bring on this man was unparalleled, the pain he planned to return his way could not be stopped. Caesar stood, attempting to level a displacer glove at Graham's chest. Graham had never been more prepared for any attack in his life. No amount of trickery could leave Caesar's mind that Joshua hadn't anticipated. He was smart, and for years he would lord his intelligence over the people of the waste, but it would end here. Caesar could not win this fight. Perhaps less than a perceivable moment passed before Joshua gripped Caesar tight by the throat, but Joshua did not travel the Mojave to strangle Caesar. He did not brave the raiders and the Legion squads to walk in and shoot Caesar. He did not pit himself one on one against the Monster of the East to merely get an audience from Caesar. No, it would be Caesar who play audience this time. This time, it would be Joshua Graham who would preach. Holding him to his knees, Joshua spoke with a conviction, a damnation, a patronization he had saved for this moment. Joshua's eyes teared up. He had saved the tears, he'd saved the sweat, he's saved the screaming in his mind for this day. All his sins, all the wrongs in his life could be righted in this moment. Joshua spoke:
"And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains: round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,the lone and level sands stretch far away. Do you know what it means?"
"Joshua, please d-"
"DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS?" Joshua yelled. Doing so triggered excruciating pain, but in light of the circumstances, all pain would be a fair trade to Joshua Graham.
"Yes I know what it fucking means!"
Joshua threw Caesar into the dirt. The aging man could barely recover. He raised himself to his knees. The toss had broken his nose, and blood smeared across his face.
"Tell me, Edward, tell all of us, what it means." The severity in Joshua's voice only strengthened, as the moment of Caesar's end neared. The man needed only admit defeat. Caesar opened his mouth to speak. Blood and saliva sprayed through his mouth on his first attempt. He spit out a mouthful of blood, and reattempted communicating the lesson Graham was trying to teach him.
"It means that even the greatest of man's creations will wither away with time."
Graham could not believe the words left Caesar's mouth. The audacity he must harbor in order to utter them in Graham's presence must be immense.
"You will die today, and with time, so will everything you have fought for, your life will have been a tragic waste of a brilliant mind. You will die, and there will be no funeral, none shall mourn your passing. But I will bury you, Caesar, atop this hill, your gravestone facing Arizona, gazing upon your own work falling apart before you. Upon your pedestal, it shall read: "Here lies Caesar the False, the man who thought he could outsmart God."
Joshua razed his hands with the machete. It felt heavy now, laced with vengeance. As he went in for the blow, a familiar voice cut off his redemption.
"Joshua, stop this."
Joshua's eyes shot to the door of the tent. A silhouette stood in the sunlight that pierced the room. As the tent flaps settled, and the figure neared, Joshua could discern that it was Chief Hanlon.
"You can't stop this Hanlon! I've waited too long!"
"For what, Joshua? Revenge? Your vengeance will not solve your hatred, Joshua. You need to give this up, here and now."
Joshua's mind raced, "This man is responsible for the deaths of countless NCR troops, a war you yourself oppose! How can you stand against me now, after all we've planned, after all we've sacrificed?"
"If you kill that man, Joshua, it is only you who will be engulfed in death. This is the point of no return, Graham, if you kill Caesar, you're only proving your vengeance to be righteous."
"This man has to die! I will not stand for his continued existence!"
Chief Hanlon drew his pistol, faster than Joshua ever thought him capable of. He shot Edward Sallow directly through the forehead. Joshua's mind could not conceive the emotion he felt. Caesar's lifeless body filled Joshua's arms. He looked down at the man. All the pain, all the hatred. Nothing to do with it.
"Now what, Joshua? Do you feel better? You don't, do you? Your hatred is still there, the atrocities that plague your mind still haunt you, don't they? You didn't want justice, Graham, you wanted revenge. Well then, now what? I've taken that from you, are you gonna kill me too? Where will it stop, Joshua?"
Graham hung his head. The tears came easy now. He didn't feel better. He did want revenge. The world had continued to burn him long after the fires in the canyon that fateful day. Joshua fell to his knees. He was tired. His legs ached, he had pushed them so. His arms screamed, he'd killed many. His heart begged for him to stop. But the exhaustion in his mind outshone every pain he'd ever experienced. He was tired of his own wrath. He was tired of revenge. The air felt as though it thinned in his lungs. He inhaled long and fully. The air was pure. He exhaled slowly and laboriously. Joshua Graham then did what he discovered he had been unable to do for so very long.
He let Caesar go.
As Caesar's body hit the ground, it sounded like every other. As his body fell, Graham's spirit rose, from the ashes of his own burned heart.
Probably only a chapter left, but this is probably my favorite in the story. You? I added these words to make three thousand.
