Chapter 58 - Bombshell Broadcasts


"Ah... it's good to be back." Jaune hummed contentedly, as he and Pyrrha finally left the canyon wreckage, and set their eyes on Primm at the base of the hill. "You know, I'd never thought I'd miss the Mojave, but compared to the Divide... uh, no offense, Pyrrha."

"No, no, it's fine." Pyrrha quickly waved it away, not wanting her angel to think that he'd in any way offended her. "It's home, or it will be... for better or for worse."

"Yeah... if only Ulysses hadn't decided to stay behind." Jaune sighed.

"If I could ask... why didn't you convince him to join us?" Pyrrha asked deferentially, not wanting her angel to think she was questioning his decisions.

"It was his choice to stay, so I respected it." Jaune shrugged. "He felt that he could only make up for what he'd done... what he'd almost done, by staying in the Divide, and making sure the... uh, inhabitants, never threatened the Mojave. They didn't really do anything on our way out, though..."

Pyrrha had also been initially surprised, that the tunnelers, the Marked Men, and even the Deathclaws had avoided the pair like the plague, as they'd travelled back to the Mojave from Ulysses's temple. Hell - uh, heck, a Marked Man and a Deathclaw had even cowered in the same cave, trembling as the pair had passed by. Then she'd shaken her head, wondering why she'd been taken aback.

"They must have feared your divine light." Pyrrha stated confidently. "And I'm not going to complain about a blessing in disguise; it took me twice as long to get there!"

"It's just Aura, Pyrrha..." Jaune replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "And I'm honestly surprised you haven't actually asked me more about it..."

"Well..." Pyrrha looked away bashfully. "I mean, I guess I really should have figured it out from the moment we first met, that you're not exactly from around here. The Wasteland in general, I mean, not the Mojave..."

"Oh?" Jaune raised his eyebrow.

Pyrrha felt her face heat up, as she explained what she felt was blatantly obvious. But clearly he was testing her, not using his apparent omnipotence, wanting her to voice it out, and so she played along. "You're clearly from another... plane of existence. One where such abilities are probably relatively common."

"That's... actually correct." Jaune blinked, not having expected Pyrrha to be right on the first try.

Then again, this was Pyrrha Nikos. Presumably, like her fame, her ability to excel at anything she chose was a constant.

Pyrrha preened at his praise, even though she didn't feel like she deserved it. After all, he was obviously an angel from Heaven. What else could he be? Where else could he be from? How else could he have healed two bullets to the brain, her ruptured organs and fractured leg, in an instant?

"So... if it's not a secret from mortals, what is your home like?" Pyrrha pressed curiously. "And... what are you actually doing here?"

"Hmmm..." Jaune thought it over. "A lot more colorful, I'd say. Oum, if only you could see Forever Fall; I'm sure it'd knock your socks right off! And as for what I'm doing here... honestly, I don't know."

"You don't?" Pyrrha leaned forward, simultaneously intrigued and amazed. Were things even the mighty Arc-Angel didn't know?

"... long story short, I was fighting a dragon that was supposed to eat the world." Jaune awkwardly explained, deciding that, since Pyrrha had apparently taken the revelation that other dimensions existed in stride, she could probably handle learning about Skyrim dragons too. "I drove it off, but I was hurt pretty badly... and when I woke up, it was in the Capital Wasteland, in 2277."

"The dragon must have been strong as hel- er, heck." Pyrrha quickly corrected her language. "Strong as heck, to hurt you so badly."

"You don't need to restrain yourself, Pyrrha." Jaune clapped her shoulder lightly, trying to get her too loosen up. Oum, he really wasn't used to her being so stiff! "We've been travelling together for well over a month. I already know you're the most vulgar and foul-mouthed courier in the Mojave."

Pyrrha huffed and scowled at him, embarrassed by his flippancy over her attempts to change herself for the better.

"And I guess it was pretty strong..." Jaune continued, unaware of her thoughts. "But what do you mean, to hurt me so badly? I'm not that tough, Pyrrha..."

"... you survived a fucking nuke, and a fall from basically space." Even Pyrrha couldn't let that slide. She knew the Arc-Angel was humble, but he did realize what he'd just done, right?

"... to be fair, that wasn't the first time." Jaune weakly countered. "The Enclave did it to me in the Capital Wasteland too..."

Pyrrha's jaw began flopping soundlessly, and her eyes boggled, as she was torn between righteous outrage at the fact that someone had deliberately tried to nuke him, and amazement at the face that he'd survived (though it was tempered by the fact that it was the Arc-Angel).

"Well, after that, I woke up near Goodsprings, just before I met you." Jaune shrugged. "Anyway, I'm really not that tough. Oum, I was honestly at the bottom of my class when it came to combat..."

Pyrrha nodded in understanding, finally seeing what he meant. He was comparing himself to the other angels of his class, other archangels (for what else could the Arc-Angel be, but one of the highest of the Heavenly Hosts?), and found himself wanting when compared to the likes of Michael or... was it Abaddon? Apollyon? Uriel? She found herself regretting her lack of knowledge, when it came to old religious texts.

Anyway, she could understand his point. Jaune Arc, the Arc-Angel, wasn't a weapon.

Even so...

"Don't sell yourself short, Jaune." Pyrrha warned, even though she knew he knew it. "Fighting wouldn't have changed Ulysses's mind. Fighting wouldn't have stopped the nuke. Fighting wouldn't have shown us another path. But you did, Jaune. Only you could."

"Uh... thanks, Pyrrha..." Jaune rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, not knowing how to explain that he'd only been able to get to Ulysses because he'd had a similar conversation with Joshua Graham just five minutes before he'd confronted the two couriers. "I just said what came to mind, though."

Pyrrha found herself tempted to giggle at his bashfulness. She could see he wasn't used to sincere praise, but she did feel the need to remind him that the standards of mortals and archangels were vastly different.

"Whatever it was, Jaune, it worked. Don't forget that." Pyrrha bumped her shoulder against his affectionately, finding comfort in his warmth. "Anyway... so, you don't know why you woke up here, or in the Capital Wasteland?"

"Not a clue." Jaune admitted, shaking his head. "Well, it doesn't matter anyway. No matter where I am, I can still fulfil my original goal."

"And that is?" Pyrrha leaned closer to him, excited to hear her Arc-Angel's purpose.

"To help people." Jaune said firmly. "To be a hero. That was why I originally left my home."

Oh, right, he had mentioned that before, hadn't he? When they'd first reached the Strip?

"Your Father refused to train you, right?" Pyrrha recalled. "And you still left on your own?"

"Yup." Jaune nodded, smiling sadly.

Pyrrha found herself touched by the Arc-Angel's infinite compassion and mercy, that he had willingly Fallen, left Heaven, just to help more people, despite everything people had done to themselves in the Great War and everything after that.

Then again, the New Canaanites preached that their Lord had a plan for everyone and everything, so it may have been that he was allowed to Fall, in order to better help people.

She shook her head. Theology had never been an interest of hers, never having found a use for it in the Wasteland, and it was far too late for regrets now.

Then a thought occurred to her.

"You were in the Capital Wasteland in 2277, right?" Pyrrha asked, pulling out her copy of the Wasteland Survival Guide. "So... this foreword..."

Jaune felt his face heating up in embarrassment, and he coughed and looked away, much to Pyrrha's secret amusement.

Her mood suddenly fell, though, as he admitted: "Yup... that's for me, alright. Ruby Ironwood was my partner, in the Capital Wasteland... I ran into her, just after I woke up, and saved her from some drugged-up Raiders. "

Before a frowning Pyrrha could ask for more details, however, her Pip-Boy suddenly began beeping, and the pair turned to it.

As Pyrrha automatically twisted a dial and turned a knob, House's voice urgently came through in a burst of static: "Miss Nikos, Mr. Arc, you two are back much earlier than expected. What are you doing west of Primm? Never mind that, we have a situation."

"House?" Jaune replied uneasily, sharing a concerned look with Pyrrha. In all the time they'd known the man, he'd always come off as a calm and collected chessmaster, with contingencies and plans for every possibility.

Never once had they heard him sound so... desperate.

So worried.

So relieved.

"What's wrong?" Pyrrha asked.

"The forces of Caesar's Legion are on the march, establishing staging areas east of the dam, at Nelson, and at Cottonwood Cove." House quickly explained, much to the pair's collective shock, before urgently giving out instructions: "Miss Nikos, between the Strip and HELIOS One lies the El Dorado electrical substation. Meet Victor there, take an override module from him, gain access to the substation's control room, and install this override module to jumpstart the Lucky 38's dormant reactor; broadcasting encrypted VMQ-boosted command signals to hundreds of Securitrons eats up more power than you might expect, and in any case this isn't a good time to be dependent on energy from the Hoover Dam.

"Once you're done, retrieve another override module from Victor, reach a control room halfway across Hoover Dam, install the chip, and reroute power to the Securitron Vault underneath Fortification Hill, to jumpstart the Vault's reactor as well.

"Mr. Arc, I want you to make your way to Hoover Dam first; the Legion's assault could begin at any moment. You've faced the Enclave in the Capital Wasteland; while I am not expecting you to rout the entire Legion by yourself, between your contacts in the Boomers, and your experience in battle, I hope that you can at least prevent the NCR from suffering a total military collapse, and delay the Legion until Miss Nikos can activate the Securitron army.

"And don't worry about payment; I will ensure the two of you are generously compensated for your services, once the battle has concluded."

-HOOVER DAM, MOJAVE WASTELAND, TWO HOURS LATER-

Morale across the dam was low.

To be fair, though, that was the default state of things on the dam.

Most of the rank-and-file grunts manning the defenses were barely-trained conscripts, drafted throughout the states of the New California Republic, shipped hundreds of miles to some god-forsaken desert in the East, forced to fight a Legion of fanatic slavers who crucified those unfortunate enough to be captured, because of reasons they barely even understood.

And that had been before Camp Searchlight had been hit, the Battle of Nelson, the Razing of Nipton, and the recent arrival of General Wait-And-See, whose presence meant that the troopers couldn't even mock the motherfucking bastard in peace.

But today, morale on the dam was significantly lower than ever before.

Ranger Station Echo and the guys in Recon had spotted massive troop movements, east of the dam, and all across the Colorado river, just a few days ago.

All over the dam, behind the sandbags and gun emplacements, in the towers and rooms, men and women checked their guns and ammunition quietly, knowing that, soon enough, it would be time for The Battle, the one that they'd spent four years bleeding and dying for.

There was only grim, resigned determination on most of their faces, most having little hope in the leadership of General Wait-And-See, little hope in the bloodthirsty and callous tactics of Colonel Moore... little hope in any actual, eventual victory.

And then the bombs went off.

On the dam's anti-air gun, in key sniper nests, and within the offices and visitor's center, there were a total of six recorded explosions, crippling the NCR's defense efforts for a brief moment, as ad-hoc response teams were forced to run damage control, and NCR heavy troops in salvaged power armor and veteran rangers alike braved the fires and the rubble to perform search-and-rescue efforts.

And then the assassins, the frumentarii, and the spies revealed their true colors, turning on the NCR personnel they'd worked with for months if not years, people who'd trusted them, let their guards down around them...

And then the Legion forces began advancing on the dam, while the Arizona Veterans began their infiltration efforts from the dam's intake towers...

-CAMP MCCARRAN, MOJAVE WASTELAND-

"What the fuck just hit us?!" Colonel James Hsu roared, as soon as the ringing in his ears stopped, and he managed to pull himself to his feet. "Boyd! Curtis! Anyone?!"

Captain Ronald Curtis stepped into his office, and Colonel Hsu breathed a sigh of relief.

Then he saw the captain pull out his service sidearm, and his instincts screamed at him that something was wrong.

"True to Caesar!" Curtis declared, as Hsu reflexively ducked under his desk just in time to avoid a 9mm meant for his brain.

Colonel Hsu's mind raced.

What the hell had just happened?

What was that explosion?

Had Captain Ronald Curtis just said...?!

His body, however, instinctively reacted, and he grabbed his own service pistol from under his desk, before kicking his desk at the treacherous captain.

Curtis easily leapt over the desk, and dodged to the side, knowing about the hidden pistol.

What he hadn't expected, however, was for Hsu to charge at him after that, knocking him into the wall like an enraged bull.

But he was a frumentarius, unlike the Profligates, and was far better at melee combat than any of them.

He drove his knee into the colonel's solar plexus, while smashing his knee into the small of his back, and as the Colonel doubled over, he pulled out his combat knife, and prepared to stab him in the throat.

Fortunately, before he could, a gunshot rang out, and Curtis toppled over, a bullet hole in the side of his head.

Lieutenant Carrie Boyd stood at the doorway, smoking gun in trembling hands, as she raced to help Colonel Hsu to his feet.

"Sir... why was the captain trying to kill you?" Boyd asked, fighting to keep her voice level and suspicion-free.

"Legion assassin." Hsu coughed out, cautiously accepting the MP's hand.

"Him?" Boyd raised an eyebrow, as the colonel got to his feet, and she kept an eye on him even as she studied the body, before finding something suspicious.

"Huh..." Boyd murmured, pulling out a remote detonator from his pocket. She hadn't liked the man much from the beginning, with his attitude having driven most of the volunteers in Bravo company, but she'd always chalked him up as an overly-zealous disciplinarian...

"Lieutenant, status report." Hsu barked, trying to take his mind off of the dead captain. He'd known Curtis for a while, had even considered the man a friend of sorts...

"Sir!" Boyd responded, spitting on the captain's corpse before turning away. "Two bombs went off, one on the monorail, and one in the concourse. I guess we know who did it, now..."

Hsu fought down a wince. "Casualties?"

"... it's not looking good, colonel..."

Hsu looked away for a moment, before heading to his fallen radio and turning it on, preparing to give the General a status report (and hoping that it hadn't been damaged by the impact of the fall, from when he'd kicked his desk over).

To his surprise, however, the radio crackled to life first, and a nervous man began: "Uh... am I broadcasting? I'm broadcasting? Shit, ok. This is the NCR Emergency Channel. It sounds like the Hoover Dam is under attack. This comes in just after reports of explosions and Legion spies murdering NCR personnel at the Dam...

"Hold on, this just in. There is a confirmed report that the Legion is mounting a simultaneous assault at Camp Forlorn Hope... and where else?! Camp Golf? I repeat, Camp Forlorn Hope and Camp Golf are also under attack."

"Colonel Hsu!" Major Dhatri burst in urgently. "It's the Fiends! They're attacking! And they're being led by Motor-Runner!"

-MOTHERSHIP ZETA, SPACE-

(Former) Private Elliott Tercorien let loose a sigh of worry, as he looked at the communications device, and still saw no reply from Jaune.

It had been five days since that robot had burst out of the teleporter, beeping worriedly, as the alien workers had raced to follow its instructions. After they'd shut down the teleporter, much to his shock, the workers had begun to translate.

A nuclear missile had been launched. Jaune had used the alien scout ship to intercept it.

They'd seen the explosion from orbit.

"Lighten up, Elliott." Sally said, coming to sit next to him. "I'm sure Jaune will be fine. He's tougher than Captain Cosmos!"

Elliott looked away, but nodded. He'd seen many of his friends fall in Anchorage, but Jaune had been able to dodge shots from those alien weapons. Still, though, as a medic, he couldn't help but be worried.

"Anyway, can you believe Paulson actually became a sheriff?" Sally tried changing the subject, to cheer the private up. "I really can't imagine... hold on, what's that?"

Elliott looked away from the communications device, and turned to a viewport, facing the moon.

"Looks like rockets taking off..." Elliott shrugged, turning away disinterestedly. Then he blinked, and looked back.

"Oh, right... Jaune told us about them." Sally snapped her fingers. "Where do you think they're going?"

-HOOVER DAM, MOJAVE WASTELAND, THREE HOURS LATER-

"All unit commands, relay your current position and status." General Lee Oliver spoke into his microphone, with a lot more calmness than he felt, and grimly studied the map as his unit commanders reported in.

The situation was not looking good.

The Legion held over two-thirds of the Dam, and had even taken a few towers, fortifying them against potential counter-attacks and using them as staging areas and resupply points.

The NCR was still holding, though, at their last few lines of defenses, with rangers covering them from the west side of the dam, and heavy troopers holding off the veteran Legionaries who kept creeping out of the intake towers, their miniguns and salvaged power armor more than a match for anything the Legion could bring to bear in the close confines of dam's interior. At least, until the ammo ran out, and the Centurions managed to close the distance and begin using their super sledges...

The strategic situation was a lot worse than the stalemate at Hoover Dam, though.

Camp Forlorn Hope had fallen two hours ago, and though the NCR had managed to evacuate a good number of men, they hadn't been able to get their supplies out as well.

More pressingly, the Legion was now pushing north from Hope and Nelson, with only the personnel at Ranger Station Delta slowing down the Legion's advance on the Dam's southern flanks with harassing tactics.

The last they'd heard from Ranger Station Echo, at the start of the battle, a massive Legion force had departed from Cottonwood Cove, heading West, threatening to attack the Mojave Outpost and cut them off from reinforcements from the Long 15.

Ranger Station Charlie was still dark; the town of Novac, dangerously close to HELIOS ONE, was just circled with a question mark on his map.

The Mojave Outpost reported heavy fighting at Primm, but Oliver ordered them to hold their position, in case a Legion party snuck in from the south-east. He didn't have much hope for Primm; they'd been savaged by just Powder Gangers.

Camp McCarran, crippled by the bombing, was still under heavy siege from the Fiends, who were slowly but steadily gaining ground over the battered NCR troops under Colonel Hsu.

Camp Golf had managed to fend off the Legion attack, with some assistance from Ranger Station Alpha. Unfortunately, they'd taken numerous casualties, and only a few veteran rangers could be spared to the dam as reinforcements.

"Sir, update from Hsu!" Colonel Cassandra Moore spoke up excitedly from her position, as she helped him consolidate the information and coordinate the war effort. "The Kings have just arrived from Freeside! They're helping Camp McCarran against the Fiends!"

"The Kings?!" General Lee Oliver couldn't help the shock that entered his tone. "Since when did they care about us?!"

"Hsu just spoke to the King himself." Moore informed him, listening closely to the radio. "Apparently, when that courier and her bodyguard helped stop the shootout between the Kings and the NCR, they also coordinated relief efforts between NCR and Freeside. Hsu figures the King felt like he owed the NCR for that, and is using this to even things out between us and them. To quote the King... ugh, "time to teach those hound dogs the jailhouse rock". Kings..."

"No time to look a gift horse in the mouth, Cassandra." Oliver chided, noting the information down. While he doubted the Kings could really do much against Fiends, at this point, he'd take literally anything he could get. "Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky and the Kings and Fiends will wipe each other out?"

"If only..." Moore rolled her eyes, turning back to her radio.

Then she froze, and spoke: "Repeat last mike, Romeo Sierra Alpha."

"What's wrong, Colonel?" Oliver asked, not liking Moore's tone. He knew the Colonel was a former ranger with four tours of duty against the Brotherhood of Steel, which meant that if she sounded worried, something was wrong.

"Ranger Station Alpha has a visual, sir." Moore replied automatically, incredulous disbelief coloring her tone. "They're reporting multiple sightings of Vertibirds, approaching from the East!"


Author's Note: And the Second Battle of Hoover Dam finally begins, with the NCR getting it's absolute shit kicked in across the entire Mojave theatre, and things progressively getting from bad to worse.

Also yes, I decided to stick to canon in that Ulysses decides to stay in the Divide, though this time he's doing it as a form of atonement. I also decided to follow the Lonesome Road ending slides about how the Marked Men and tunnelers just leave the Courier the fuck alone after the Clash of the Couriers.

I'll be honest, Pyrrha's interactions with Jaune were... not very easy to write. In fact, it felt pretty stilted... because Pyrrha was never the most social person to begin with, and now there's the added awkwardness of knowing the person you've been travelling with is some divine messenger. Sure, now she's far more deferential... but too far, and Jaune would definitely feel that something was very wrong. Moreover, even if she's far more respectful than normal, she's still Pyrrha the Courier, and I did want to preserve elements of their previous relationship, rather than going full blown Tyrian Callows-levels of cultist. And so, instead, while she definitely reveres him, and engages in selective hearing and chooses to interpret things in a way that would make Demiurge from Overlord nod in approval (sasuga Arc-sama), she will still try to point out to Jaune that what he did was, in fact, a Big Fucking Deal™, and he should fucking own it.

And, once again, I do feel the need to stress that no, I don't hate the NCR. But, canonically speaking, they do engage in conscription and a draft, and while I certainly understand the necessity of conscription in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland (seeing as how some countries do still engage in it even in real life, usually out of plausible reasons), I can also definitely understand what it feels like, being taken from your home, given a bare pittance of an allowance, and told to die for an ungrateful society by armchair officers who don't work in the field and don't know the challenges faced by troopers on the ground. Knowing the necessity of their actions is one thing, but that doesn't make it easy for the men and women on the front.

And yes, I'm aware that Caesar's initial plan for his frumentarii were that they keep their identity concealed, so that he could continue using them even after the battle, to continue subverting the NCR . Here, however, thanks to "the Beast from the East", Caesar is forced to focus purely on short-term gains, and fast. He is willing to burn even the long-term assets, as long as it increases his chances of seizing Hoover Dam, and marching on the Lucky 38 before the Beast from the East catches up. Too late, though; the Vertibirds are almost here.

I also tried to at least make General Wait-And-See... I mean, General Lee Oliver, a bit more competent. Oh, he's still outmatched by the likes of Hanlon, Hsu, and Lanius, but at least his failings are more of him doing what he feels is best (but being way over his head) than just being contrarian for the sake of proving a point. He strikes me as a decent tactician but a poor strategist, and he does have a point about Ranger sharpshooters on the ridge overlooking the dam. Sure, they'd be a lot more effective there... but that's also the obvious place to put them, and Caesar and Lanius know it. In fact, Caesar wanted the Boomers' howitzers specifically so that he could shell the ridge and suppress NCR snipers. And in the narrow corridors and room-to-room fighting of the Hoover Dam's interior... well, there's not really much the Legion can do against salvaged power armor...

And no, Jaune hasn't reached Hoover Dam yet, what with it being on the other side of the Mojave and him having to get there on foot. He's less than an hour away, as of the end of this chapter.