"Number Nine"
Ch. 37: Everything burns.
Warning: sensitive material ahead. This chapter contains quite a fair share of violence, beheadings, explosions, internalized misogyny, and mentioned rape and child abuse. Tread with caution.
NOTE: wanna roleplay a little? Read the chapter as if you were loading a savegame and your PC is, quite literally, Legate Lanius, Monster of the East. There will be a campaign, Survival Mode, two boss battles, and a fair share of human limitations that not even Lanius himself can ignore. No cheating! TGM command not allowed! 😂
"'Till everything burns.
While everyone screams,
burning their lies,
burning my dreams.
All of this hate,
and all of this pain
I'll burn it all down
as my anger reigns."
- Ben Moody & Anastacia, "Everything burns"
The Speculatores he had sent in hours ago hadn't returned to update him on the city's state.
All pointed to the Great Whore knew already that he was unto her, and she had decided to blindfold him in advance.
Nothing that Lanius couldn't deal with. He already knew Ouroboros' layout, and this battle had been planned down to the inch for months. No matter how strong and well-defended, Ouroboros' walls had, like any other Dissolute city, flaws that he could exploit.
Such as the tall windmill generators that provided the city with electricity.
He had sent in two small units of Frumentarii to sabotage the ones that provided power to the electrical Deathclaw pens and the automatic turrets peppering the city walls before the assault. Nothing too noticeable to raise suspicions immediately while they took care of the guards silently until the exchange of an agreed signal. That would be when Lanius' men would attack, leaving Auxilia archers and Primi Legionarii marksmen in the rearguard to clean up the first line of defense.
They targeted a Frumentarius by mistake? No big loss anyway.
No sense in wasting good warriors when the rats could do the infiltration job. That's what Frumentarii were only good for anyway: clearing the way and acting as meat shields.
Lanius held particular contempt towards them. They used underhanded, cowardly field tactics that they didn't hesitate to put into practice even when they had an enemy face to face, capable of talking his ear off so the opponent would lower his guard, and then the Frumentarius could immediately stab him in the back.
They were trained in deceit and treachery, a weapon that one should never rely on.
He had seen it way too many times. First, that bland, fragile man of the West with the forked tongue that the men had called "The Serpent". With his affected manners and conceited speeches, his weak and very much feminine wrists, and his disgusting strolls around the freshest recruits, devouring the younger ones with his vile green eyes.
Once the Serpent bit the dust, came the Fox. Younger and stronger, yes, but even more odious than his predecessor.
Vulpes Inculta, "Savage Fox". More like "Tongue-Lashing, Back-Stabbing Weasel", if what the men said about him was true.
Barely a boy when he had defied the chain of command, he had already forged a reputation of his own, being the most advanced pupil amongst the Serpent's predilect in less than two years of apprenticeship.
And also the most ambitious one.
If mildly disappointed that a real man hadn't been the one putting Callidus Anguis' perversion to an end, Lanius had admitted that the kid got some balls by the simple act of expressing his wish to outmatch his Master.
Then… a disappointing fight. Sure, the older man had tried to poison his opponent with a hidden needle coated in venom, a woman's weapon… but it had taken minimal effort from Inculta to grab one of his fragile wrists and snap it like a twig.
Then, a humiliating punch that had thrown Anguis' face down on the mud. A paralyzing knee on the back, then a machete to the throat as one hand had grabbed the laughable tuft of hair that the western man still had kept on his head.
Caesar had given him the thumbs down, and the machete had serrated the flesh beneath slowly, allowing it to pool like one would bleed a molerat to prepare blood soup.
Once Inculta had presented himself in front of the Imperator, he had done so rigidly, nose up as if he had smelled something awful.
As if he believed himself to be better than the rest.
Not showing an ounce of modesty for being bestowed the honor of taking the place of his Master from Caesar himself, Lanius had felt an immediate antipathy for such arrogance, attacking the boy's vanity to teach him respect and show him his place.
"Were I interested in seeking judgment from a hammer, I would have devoted my career to the ironworks, Legatus."
Turns out that the brat had inherited his later Master's venomous tongue that, coupled with his arrogance, had somehow earned Caesar's laughter.
Watching a warrior as great as Caesar entertained by the antics of such a pretentious clown had enraged Lanius greatly. Why would his Lord elevate this man-child to greatness when he barely understood concepts only battle and not adorned words could teach you? Honor, valor, prowess… yes, but also deference, fairness, and respect.
Those were the values of a warrior. A real man. And a real man is never so until he has tasted defeat.
Lanius knew defeat's bitter kiss intimately, and he had learned a great deal from it. He had learned the finitude of his existence and how very little he meant out there if he didn't devote his energies to accomplish greatness. For a man had to aspire to be the best among his peers, working toward excellence every day.
That was the real meaning of being an aristocrat, a man better than the rest.
"Do you know that the word 'aristocracy' hails from the Greek words aristos, which means "best", and kratia, which means "power", Lanius?" – the Imperator had asked him once – "Through this word is how we name distinctive individuals who rise to power. The best, most powerful men arise from the masses to guide them; and they, in turn, serve these aristocrats as payment for their protection. In the Ancient Times, those men were heroes… now, they simply are lesser, weak politicians using money to buy power not meant for them." – he had sighed – "You'll see plenty of lesser men in the West, for it reflects in their military. Their soldiers don't believe in a cause they aren't paid to fight for."
Before joining the Legion, Lanius had never heard of warriors that fought not for glory, territory, or self-defense but material gain.
He had never heard about currency until he had received a heavy bag of gold three months after his first field maneuvers had resulted in victory upon the Hangdogs in Denver.
Confused, he had asked the Procurator in charge of 'the distribution of pay to public servants' what kind of payment were those metal round pieces.
The man then had given him one of those looks. The kind that Vulpes, nose so high he could wear his helmet on it, enjoyed so much delivering along with one of his insufferable verbose discourses.
"Those metallic round pieces are currency, Praefectus Legatus, sir. A medium of exchange for goods and services. You'll find that when you wish to acquire a property, being this a house, a slave, or even simple edibles, they are tagged under a specific number. That is the price translated into currency."
In other words: those rounded pieces, coins, were the physical representation of the time he employed to make the Empire greater and better. A form of gratification institutionalized by Caesar, so the soldiery felt appreciated for their efforts besides the food, clothing, and lodgings they already got for their hard labor.
Lanius had never been a man who had needed much, so his savings were mostly piling up, waiting for a special occasion when he would wish to acquire something that truly deserved it. If such an occasion would never come, so be it. His money would return to the public purse, devoted to useful, higher purposes.
He had witnessed how many men of the Legion would needlessly spend their pay on trifling things, such as new weapons, exotic wares from the caravanners, and women.
If you had a weapon, you maintained it until it broke, then you crafted another one. No sense in wasting your time on guns when a good sword could do the job just as well.
If you had food and clothing, there was no need to buy fancy things over the ones which worked just as well. You will always have spoils of war aplenty to get picky.
If you had camp slaves, you didn't need to acquire more women for physical relief. And if you grew tired of those, there were always new captures every once in a while. If you want a woman, seize her, don't give up your time of glory translated into currency for her. Instead, use spare time to make her obey.
He didn't need further incentivization to fight for Caesar other than the glory of fighting for a man who was cleverer than him, thus better.
He didn't need money to find carnage being the only road to greatness, to keep telling himself that, while defeated, he still was better than his enemies. For a man better than Lanius couldn't possibly be his enemy. He could be his death, of course, but never his enemy.
Black Dusk had understood this when his once-friend had sliced him in two. Lanius had never been his enemy; he simply had been better than him.
"Primus Legatus, sir." – his Tribunus Militum, Centurion Clemens of Albuquerque, presented himself before Lanius, saluting rigidly – "The Frumentarii are inside already. We have received the agreed signal, sir."
Whereas Lanius didn't trust anybody, at the very least he could say that he trusted Clemens' practical nature. The man only spoke when it was strictly necessary and made himself scarce enough for the Butcher not holding any kind of desire to crush his skull under his boot. A silent man is a prudent, wise man in the eyes of his betters.
"Is the power cut from the turrets, then?" – the Praefectus Legatus asked succinctly.
"It is, sir."
"Proceed."
It was a ten-minute walk up the Northwest through the Long 15 that Lanius could have accomplished in less than two on his own, march formation made in several Phalanx columns to enhance maneuverability. Triarii Maniple Legionarii at the front, Hastati Maniple and Principe Maniple Legionarii respectively behind, forming a perfect rectangle of three lines of defense.
A strong vanguard preceded the main body, including Speculatores, chariots, and light troops of either Militesor Auxilia, adult voluntary tribals.
The Auxilia troops consisted this time of archers from the Sidewinder tribe, still on probation after undergoing basic training after accepting assimilation peacefully. If they proved themselves in this battle, they would officially become one with the Legion.
Centurion Clemens accompanied said vanguard to survey the terrain.
Meanwhile, Lanius supervised everything from his own chariot, a repurposed front of one of those pre-War vehicles painted in black and red, with the Bull insignia on each side, drawn by two black great Quarter radstallions. Mighty, majestic beasts that had managed to survive the bombs… at the price of becoming kind of ghoulish and bicephalous, just as the brahmin, deer, and other Wasteland ruminants.
The ones bred by the Legion were deprived of the less attentive head earlier in their growing stage to avoid the usual directional/behavioral issues related to having two heads and 350-degree peripheral vision. If they survived the intervention, they were deemed apt for training, just as it happened to hounds and humans if they met certain standards, so Lanius could be damn sure that his radstallions were the best among the best.
Archers remained at the back while gunnery marksmen adopted strategic positions around the pre-War ruins, perching above concrete skeletons and terraces. Plains of broken asphalt and occasional greenery offering no cover whatsoever, being the city far too removed from the eastern mountain range to even consider attrition through long-range attacks.
Then, an unforeseen event happened even before they had reached Ouroboros' perimeter.
The first explosion sent a rain of debris and body parts from at least four different bodies to all directions, whereas the second and third ones were merely consequences of the first explosion, sending another five or six scouts to hell.
Landmines. Off they go the first formation line. The men barely flinched, but a low murmur began rambling around the front lines.
Lanius ordered a halt and a terrain inspection.
They lost almost half an hour before the scouting Speculatores came back, indicating safe passages among ruined pre-War buildings rounding the Old Air Force Base through the southern ruins that read 'Weber State University Davis' since all the perimeter around the Long 15 had been mined, thus rendering impossible a lateral assault through the western wall.
He began suspecting foul play when he saw the city shrouded in shadow, no artificial lighting coming out from any other place than the tall pyramid at its center.
Why would the Frumentarii give them green lights having a minefield between them and the city?
And why would they cut off most of the electricity when they had been ordered expressly to merely disable the turrets?
Still, the agreed signal. Which the Great Whore's agents couldn't possibly have knowledge of.
Or so he had thought.
Once his men were positioned all around the city's perimeter, catapults, ladders, and a ready battering ram at the very door, Lanius was handed a megaphone by one of the Optiones Candidati.
"I, Praefectus Legatus Lanius of Arizona, speak in the name of Caesar Imperator, Son of Mars, founder of the Legion, and Conqueror of 86 tribes." – he introduced himself despite not finding Hecate and her minions worthy of any chivalry, but honor-bound as he was to fairness. For even among the most undeserving enemy, one could still find sheep willing to surrender first, adding to the war spoils – "This will be my one and only warning for the inhabitants of this wretched city of heresy you call Ouroboros: render unto Caesar now and embrace Mars' faith... or face the consequences of His wrath."
The answer came almost immediately through a hidden public address system echoing around. A deep, feminine, somewhat condescending laugh.
"Oh, dear…" – the voice said after the laughter subsided - "I wasn't aware that Legion men knocked first before ramming inside like the ravenous, vulgar mongrels they are! I am flattered, Butcher. You truly know how to make a woman feel… wanted." – it finished with an intimate, almost wanton purr.
Impudent, revolting harlot. He shall teach her manners.
At his signal, the first catapult shots broke through concrete as the Auxilia archers prepared their arrows and let them fly over the walls.
The siege didn't become more complicated than a consistent bombardment of flaming cargos that eventually rendered the walls weak enough to breach through them. Not even two hours since Hecate had spoken, and her city was more vulnerable than ever.
And yet…
Everything had been too fast for Lanius' tastes. Too easy.
He ordered to cease the fire as soon as two Phalanx units were stationed at the front of the couple of holes the catapults had managed to bore in the walls.
As soon as they proceeded with the incursion, a shrilling chorus of demented howls broke through the night when glowing, fast blurs began pouring in masse from the gaps, sweeping the dabbling units with them. Many sporting some of the arrows they had been showered in as if they were nothing.
"NECROTICS!" – someone yelled as Lanius contained his neighing radstallions with a firm pulse.
"Cuneum Formate!" (1) – he barked – "Breach through their lines and don't let them get any closer!"
A sharp point drives deep into the enemy body, so the Wedge Formations, besides dividing the mass of necrotics, acted as a wall and impaled the ones that got too close with their spears, whereas sharpshooters and archers took care of the wandering ones.
Lanius himself got a fair share of glowing intestines decorating the edge of his blade once he made a sweeping movement across the left side of the eastern Wedge Formation, speed working in his favor as many of those animated corpses tended to jump onto their victims to rip their throats open once they were close enough.
It took less than twenty minutes. The first wave, they managed surprisingly well despite many men at the front lines showing symptoms of minor radiation sickness due to the wave attacks that those things launched once they found themselves corralled.
Lanius ordered a change of formations, bringing the heavy cavalrymen to the front, each sharing vehicle with a non-tribal light archer.
Then, the odious feminine laugh rose above the tumult again.
"Excellent!" – the smooth, contralto voice reverberated with delight – "I haven't had this much fun in years! You don't mind, do you, gentlemen? It just makes things so much more… interesting. You are doing very well, by the way. Very well indeed!"
Gnashing teeth, Lanius rode in front of his men.
"Shoot whomever or whatever goes through those gaps!" – then, he directed his commands toward the foot soldiers in charge of the battering ram – "I want that gate open now!"
For the Legion would enter the city through no door but the front one.
They only met the resistance the barred main doors posed. They brought the entrance down with a potent slam, and then, foot soldiers poured in on Triple Line Formations as sharpshooters were left in charge of cleansing possible runaways out of the perimeter.
However, the city welcomed them dark and empty. Tents fluttering in the wind and pens gawking open without a single farm animal left in them.
A trap.
"Testudo Formate!" (2) – Lanius yelled once the apparently disabled turrets from the walls came to life again and turned one-hundred-eighty degrees to begin shooting down anything near their radius.
Their long, sturdy scuta (3) endured the rain of bullets as ladders began to land upon the outer wall to bring veterans up to either smash or disable the turrets.
Though he had taken cover behind one of the few repurposed pre-War structures inside, one of Lanius' radstallions fell with a bullet firmly embedded on its skull, whereas the other frenzied, meeting the Legatus' firm grasp once more, whining in asphyxia.
The Frumentarii. They hadn't made it. The Great Whore had known all along.
One of those rats had betrayed them, giving up the agreed signal so the witch could use it against them.
The shadow of suspicion began to form at the back of the Butcher's mind.
He should have never trusted Vulpes' men. Lanius didn't think that the Fox would be above thwarting a field maneuver only to expressly humiliate him.
He relieved the beast from its suffering by cutting its head and he got out of his wasted chariot, Blade of the East in hand.
Then, a loud whistling cut through the night when a swarm of crazed, armored raiders fell upon them.
They came from everywhere, disrupting formations, attacking with laser rifles, pneumatic gauntlets, and spears.
But the most horrifying discovery came after they managed to bring down some of the men, for they didn't waste time in depriving them of their helmets to gain access to their throats.
The first screams and the sounds of wet mastication informed Lanius of the deranged nature of their assailants.
No better warriors than other tribals he had encountered throughout his life, Lanius despised cannibals for good reasons. Among those reasons was that their gruesome displays were a morale blow to the troops, for nothing deterred deranged flesh-eaters from displaying their wretched inclinations whenever they could seize the opportunity. They were well aware of how monstrous they looked in their enemies' eyes, and they abused such monstrosity down to sickening extremes.
One of them, a man with short dreadlocks, raised a hand with a severed head grabbed by the scruff, yelling tribal nonsense to the heavens as if enraptured.
"Vose seidde ale damnados, perros! Vojda ha nos zus unno festin gebrich!" (A)
He met Lanius' blade after the Legate dodged his spear. His cranium imploded when the Blade of the East sliced him from top to toe in two, drenching Lanius' already bloodied paludamentum. (4)
The Butcher shook his sword to get rid of the worst, disgusted to the core, to immediately being assaulted by another two vermin who also tasted his steel.
He moved quickly amidst fallen bodies, cursing the night inwardly, yet another recommendation coming from the rats, who had deemed the dark a more fitting environment to tackle the city's defenses before launching an attack.
Seeking his men, he found a good portion of the foot legionaries concentrated around a square with a three-headed feminine statue at its center, tackling the cannibals with their scuta to slice them with their machetes, whereas the cavalry ran in circles, spearing or running over bodies indiscriminately.
The enemy's tactic, though simple, was devastatingly effective: disrupting their formations and confounding them, slowing their progress throughout the city by chopping the first defense lines down to pieces by taking advantage of the dark and the deceptive layout of the field.
This wasn't a straightforward, honorable battle but daggers in the dark, guerrilla.
As he witnessed how many trashing silhouettes were dragged inside the houses amidst screams, Lanius grabbed one of the nearby legionaries by one of his shoulder pads.
"Regroup and form a circle!" – he yelled to the horrified soldier's face, a youngster no older than perhaps seventeen, a newbie – "Do not allow them to catch you alone!"
A healthy group of thirty or so legionaries heeded his advice and stuck together, bringing upfront their scuta. The rest imitated their example after a while.
The morale was decaying quickly the more screams died in the background and more gurgling and mastication sounds emerged from every corner.
The waves of cannibals came and went, zigzagging rapidly amidst tents and houses, ambushing the ones brave enough to pursue them to the interiors, shooting them from a distance as they escalated walls and perched over roofs, dancing madly with a gnawed arm or a half-skinned head held up as a prize.
"Burn down the houses!" – the Legate ordered as he managed to get a grasp of formations again – "Bring those vermin out with fire!"
It took a while as the cavalry formed a barricade between them and the cannibals to allow a line to go between them and the main entrance, so the foot legionaries could safely come and go transporting pitch and tinder, bringing in their second line of defense with them. Sweeping the city to its center.
Took a while until they cleaned the perimeter between the entrance and past the western and eastern walls, but the unyielding barrier or legionaries made their way slowly but surely toward the pyramid.
However, as they reached the pyramid, trapping the cannibals inside the houses or simply keeping them at bay with a strong line of defense, the cavalry was brought down by a line of Hounds and Daughters in Power Armors walling the pyramid's entrance. They used laser ammo until their reserves depleted and switched to direct contact.
Lanius had never fought against Power-Armored, trained warriors. The best he had come face to face with had been raiders with salvaged exoskeletons covered in metal trash.
He detained the sledgehammer from one just inches above his golden helmet and struggled with the weapon's weight and the enhanced strength of the warrior.
Despite wearing what Lanius was sure to be around fifty pounds of armor, the Monster of the East was fairly swift, even embedded in it. So, he took advantage of another Power-Armored warrior bringing a Shishkebab to the fight, slicing through his comrade's armor instead of Lanius when the latter rolled down on the ground, using the weight of his armor and sword in his favor when he sliced one of the legs from his second attacker.
Almost immediately, amidst the blood shower came down another blade. A chainsaw.
He dodged it out of sheer dumb luck as it encrusted on the ground below him.
The time it took for his enemy to release his chainsaw from the concrete ground, Lanius used it to get on his two feet again.
They circled one another, his men taking care of the rest, so they were only this single foe and him.
He charged upfront, bringing his blade horizontally to meet the roaring serrated blade of the chainsaw.
They struggled, the Blade of the East creaking through the chainsaw's teeth, testing its engine.
"You shame your innate strength by wearing that Old-World contraption." – he goaded, secretly pleased of having found a worthy opponent among this breeding soil of deceit and treachery – "An honorable warrior should trust his fighting skill alone to bring any foe down. Any other victory pales in comparison, for it is through the honesty of fair battle that a man comes to know himself."
The other didn't answer as he managed to disengage the chainsaw once again, hacking and slashing several times that Lanius countered with enthusiasm. It was so rare to find a non-wielding gun opponent who lasted this long…
Bringing the Blade of the East down, the warrior parred his attack once again as they struggled. Lanius relished the seconds in which he appreciated how his strength was winning over the Power Armor's, nearing the chainsaw's teeth to the warrior's helmet.
"Evidence does not lie: your reliance upon pre-War technology, a technology that only served to provide lesser men with the strength they lacked, has made you complacent, arrogant." – he told the other – "You serve under the orders of a madwoman, dwell in a den of degeneracy and heresy, defend false gods… even if your skill is worthy of admiration, your false confidence comes from a place of desperation and cowardice."
"Any man can claim bravery when he outnumbers his opponent." – a voice he did not expect at all replied from the depths of the metallic helmet – "But only a real coward nails wounded, broken people to crosses while claiming his victories to be fair and honest."
A woman. His opponent was… a mere woman?!
"You… an inferior creature, not worth the battlefield you walk on!" – Lanius hissed, making the daring insect bow knee while still embedded on that vile instrument that had made her cheat the very laws of nature themselves, giving her a strength she hadn't earned – "You dare accuse me of cowardice when you are the one wearing the skin of a world long gone?! You know nothing about war, and the tests only violence allows for the stronger to pass, arising among the weak and broken to rule over them as it is their right."
"Then, if that's true, you are weak as well. For you serve under the boot of a man that has proven to this very day to be stronger than you."
Blind rage coursed through Lanius' whole being, body and soul united in their pursuit to make this insect pay for her insolence as the edge of his blade began creaking through the chipped teeth of the chainsaw, slicing it down with a screech.
"Legatus!" – a voice by his right yelled.
Turning his sight around Lanius couldn't believe his eyes when they lay upon the sitting armored silhouette of that filthy chindi he had thought dead for weeks now.
"You…!"
"Eat shit!" – the demon barked, emphasizing his words by the load of bullets he unleashed through the shoulder-mounted machine gun he had affixed over a knocked-over wooden bench behind him.
Lanius fanned his blade to avoid the worst of the bullet spray, using its size and weight to roll over the ground until he met the fallen body of one of his men that he didn't hesitate to use as a human shield.
"Retreat!" – the woman he had been about to subjugate had yelled – "Everybody inside the temple now!"
Despite their best efforts, Lanius and his men were kept at bay by the machine gun of the demon and a handful of plasma grenades the cowards in Power Armor threw as a parting gift. Even leaving one of them as a suicide human bomb that ran to them.
Lanius used yet again two recruits as human shields when the suicidal soldier exploded.
"Barricade the doors!" – he heard the woman ordering again – "Dennis, get out of the way! GET OUT!"
The demon, Dennis, shot them a last spray before kissing his fist, raising the sign of the horns over his head as a farewell as he disappeared inside the pyramid's closed doors, grabbed by the woman in Power Armor.
"Get that door open!" – Lanius roared, bursting the pre-War crystal door with a brutal kick to discover a solid wall of furniture that the cowards were putting up together on the other side.
"Sir…" - one of the newbies, the seventeen-year-old from earlier, whispered by his left, horrified eyes taking in the roaring beast that came over them, claws the size of a longsword in the air as Lanius parred it with his blade.
The beast bared its enormous fangs as a long, thick tongue swirled around the Butcher's mask as if tasting it. Its eyes covered by a milky, opaque film.
A blind Deathclaw.
Lanius grabbed the beast's tongue with one hand and pulled until the muscle gave in, and he got his trophy dangling gracelessly in his hand as a gush of dark blood spurted out violently from the abomination's mouth.
The beast bled out as many legionaries bunched around it, spears impaling its belly and flaccid jowl.
However, another roaring echoed throughout the expanse as screams of men rose in volume while a voice he believed pertained to Clemens, Lanius' Tribunus Militum, barked out orders to slay the beast.
Soon, the screams died, and heavy, uneven steps began circling them.
There were Deathclaws surrounding them. Coming from everywhere.
Lanius raised his Blade of the East, and he was the first one to launch an offensive. Voice loud and clear across the night.
And his men followed his lead.
It was as if he had traveled back in time, when his mother would swaddle him around her hip with a cloth so she could do her chores normally while taking care of her one-year-old who still didn't know how to walk too well.
Now, he was twenty-six and the problem wasn't that he didn't know how to run.
He simply couldn't.
And it was pathetic.
"Why did you have to steal one of those from the Armory?! You can barely support your own weight, yet you insist on undoing the High Witch's hard work at the smallest opportunity you get!"
A man isn't supposed to be carried by his mother anymore. A man should be able to fend for himself and the ones around him.
A man isn't supposed to depend on a woman's support, but quite the very opposite.
"Damnit, Dennis! You're an adult! Why do you keep on behaving like a child?!"
But then again, Ivory's biological father had always depended on the physical and emotional support of his wife to do things as simple as getting up from the bed and eating his meals.
Then, his shitty raider gang would collect him for yet another "job", and he had been able to put on his helmet and grab his rifle no problem.
The hypocrisy of his ways had made Ivory hate him from a very early age, yet his mother would defend him, saying that he couldn't just get out of the gang. That things didn't work that way in the adult world.
That, the moment you joined a gang, your life belonged to them unless you wanted nasty consequences to ensue.
Not much different from what happened in the Legion, to be honest.
Even if you deserted and ran West, the Frumentarii would always find a way to get to you. No matter how long you're out of Legion business, you're marked as a fugitive for the rest of your life.
Before Hoover Dam and the Burned Man's fall from grace, Ivory had assisted the Frumentarii in tracking down one of such fugitives, who had been missing for nearly two decades.
When they had found him, the Slavemaster's gut had wrenched unpleasantly the moment he had laid eyes on the presumed fugitive: a feeble, bedridden man who could have been, like, sixty years old?
Why bother about teaching a lesson to someone who was useful to their society no more? Who would witness it? Who would learn from it?
Jebediah Gibson, had been the man's name. His original name before the assimilation.
A common mistake among fugitives was to believe that they could regain their old lives. Act as if nothing had happened at all under Caesar's boot.
Recover what hadn't been theirs in the first place. For, once you're marked by the Bull, you belong to Caesar for the rest of your miserable existence.
Gibson had settled for the scavenger life, going as far as marrying and building a home near Novac, one of those post-nuclear populations that had managed to thrive in the searing heat of the Mojave.
He had no children they could enslave, and his wife had already been too old to produce offspring, so the Frumentarius in charge of their reconnaissance group, Alerio, the Serpent's Second-In-Command at that time, had decided to leave her out of the equation. She hadn't been at home when they had ambushed Gibson anyway.
Ivory would never forget the old man's screams as that Alerio man had chopped his fingers, one by one, with a rusty machete he would throw with practiced skill, playing target practice with his bound victim.
The old man had fainted a handful of times until Alerio had grown tired of playing with such a pathetic toy and, finally, had sliced his throat. He had ordered his men to trash out the house, and they had abandoned the place without even waiting for the wife to return home.
A useless mission that had told Ivory the lengths that the Legion had been ready to go through just to prove a point.
Just to proclaim out loud that, once you turned Legion, there was no way back.
Any thoughts Ivory might have entertained about defecting once Vexillarius Terrence had fallen in battle, that very lesson had taken good care to suppress.
And now, he had turned into a marked man. One that didn't get to have a life, unlike Gibson.
One that needed to be carried by his mother to get out of the fire line.
He shouldn't have survived crucifixion at all. Not like this.
The trip underground until they were in front of the gigantic cogwheel door of Vault 9 went surprisingly fast to his much chagrin, wincing in pain once Commander Artemis placed him onto the Vault's solid ground a tad more brusquely than it had been truly necessary.
She had been fuming, and she demonstrated it by slapping him hard across the face with her flesh-and-blood hand once she had gotten out of her Power Armor.
"If I'm correctly informed, you were EXPLICITLY ordered to warn us about the Butcher's proximity and then evacuate the surface along with the rest!" – she had yelled furiously – "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!"
Ivory had kept his eyes on the ground below his feet, letting the sting of the slap spread throughout his face.
"Do you think this is all a game, that you are some goddamned big hero for needlessly wasting your life away?!"
His head snapped to face her, boring his eyes into hers, letting fury, the only outlet men of the Legion were allowed, wash over him.
"And you?" – he hissed venomously – "Do you fancy yourself valiant for engaging in close combat a foe no-fucking-body has managed to bring down to this very day?" – he accused, not knowing why he was so angry nor why, simultaneously, he hurt so much as he spat what had been at the tip of his tongue since he had witnessed how the Monster of the East had made her kneel, slicing her weapon in two like butter – "Do you want a reprise of what happened nineteen years ago at Denver? That time, it was a hand. Now what? A leg? Your fucking head?"
Even if her features didn't shift, Ivory knew her too well to recognize the hurt in her eyes as she replied irately:
"That's it, isn't it?" – she hissed as well – "You wanna play big to show your old lady how's done, huh? You wanna go out in a fucking blaze of glory, make the bloody heroic sacrifice to prove that you have a dick?!"
His first instinct was to return the favor by slapping her back.
But then, he remembered who he was talking to and attacked her the only way he could live himself with afterward.
"And what if I want to?" – he replied defiantly – "Are you going to babysit me every fucking time I decide that maybe my sister deserves to grow up with a mother instead of a disabled guardian that the only thing he has educated in all his life has been slaves?!" – pointing an index finger towards her, he added – "Do things right for once and don't bother with me. It's too late for that."
And, with that, he limped his way back to the main entrance to prepare the next phase of the plan once Lanius' men figured out their way down, not sparing a single look back.
Because, otherwise, he would have witnessed the woman whom he had inherited the foul mouth and flaring temper from biting down her knuckles to refrain from crying.
Claudius had been assimilated at the age of fourteen with next to no possibilities to become a legionary, given the scarce ten months of training he had gotten at the boot camp of Silver City, barely 112 miles from his birth town, Las Cruces in New Mexico.
"Evade the claws! Go for the jugular from behind with spears!"
His tribe, the Adnanites of the West, had been a proud branch of descendants of those who bore the blood of Ismail, son of the Islamic prophet and patriarch Ibrahim, in their veins.
"Don't you dare flee from the battlefield, legionary! Skulking like a coward will not save you! Fight or die!"
Immigrants before the Great War, their ancestors had been wealthy Vault dwellers from Texas who had managed to buy their inclusion into Project Safehouse before the bombs fell. And they had preserved the sacred scriptures of The Quran so its teachings could survive the post-nuclear Era.
"The next one who dares to turn tail will be getting acquainted with the edge of my sword!"
Everything Claudius had known before the Legion had been God's love through His perfect creation: life. Sacred and one of His greatest gifts and blessings to the Children of Adam, humankind. His creatures.
But then, the Legion had arrived three years ago at Las Cruces, preaching about a god Claudius had never heard about that was contained inside the mortal vessel of a man: Caesar.
"You!"
A gigantic, armored hand grabbed Claudius by the throat, hoisting him from the ground as if he weighed nothing.
"Keep fighting or prepare to feed the worms!" – the roaring voice of the Legate came from mere inches ahead of Claudius' face as the golden, blood-spattered mask neared his horrified countenance – "The ultimate insult is to be spared!"
Claudius hadn't stopped fighting because he was a coward.
He had stopped because his arms and legs would not respond to him. For he was paralyzed with fear.
Were he a coward, the Legate would have never caught him. He was the fastest of his promotion; the only reason he had been able to cheat death when he had been paired up with another boy from the boot camp at the age of fifteen when the time had come to test his fighting abilities. A test that decided whether you belonged among the troops… or you were collared and sent into servitude until you proved that you deserved a second chance.
The boy he had been paired up with had been three years older than him.
He wouldn't have allowed Claudius to walk off the arena victorious since that had been the second chance for the boy in question. Had he failed, he would have had to live the rest of his life as a slave.
Claudius' agility had permitted him to evade the other boy's blade long enough to wear him out and stab him when he had been the most vulnerable.
His Magister had applauded him, but Claudius hadn't been proud of it. In fact, he has had frequent nightmares since then.
But back to the present, luckily for him, the Legate's brusque manhandling had shaken him so brutally that his paralyzed limbs had reacted.
He had grabbed the first spear he had found on the ground among the shredded piles of meat that had once been human beings and had impaled the jowl of an almost-dead Deathclaw, bleeding out while still on its two haunches.
Another abomination launched a ferocious attack on his right, and a spear pierced its scaly cranium from one of the eye sockets to the back of the skull before it could render him to shreds.
Legate Lanius had always prided himself on having a most accurate throwing aim, and now Claudius could attest to it.
Indeed, only a monster could bring down another monster so magnificently.
For the Legate was a monster, no doubt about that.
After all, he had been the one who had made the Adnanites of the West bow knee in the first place.
Claudius had never forgotten how the titan in golden armor had ordered, after reducing Las Cruces down to ashes, that the Adnanite Elders would be put to the sword after refusing to acknowledge Caesar's divinity. Dying while proudly proclaiming that Allah was the one true God.
Then, like hungry wolves, Lanius' men had beaten the Adnanite adult males to death after forcing them to witness the defilement of their women. Even the unmarried, younger ones.
And so, the children had been distributed in rows of ten, forcing them to march on. The little ones to Flagstaff. The older ones, like Claudius, to Silver City.
Since that day three years ago, Claudius had been living inside a nightmare. A nightmare he prayed every day in silence to wake from, but that never seemed to end.
For, even when he slept, visions of blood, sin, and suffering seemed to haunt him whenever he went. Trapped in a perpetual loop of fear, pain, and hatred.
Fear of being discovered when he prayed; for the Legion punished what they tagged as "heresy" with death.
Pain for the harsh trials God had decided to test him with.
Hatred for himself, knowing he was no better than his comrades who, one by one, had bowed head to the power of Caesar, the will of Mars made flesh.
He hadn't understood how a god could reveal to a man if not through a prophet. And if Caesar was, indeed, a prophet… he couldn't be a god.
In fact, he couldn't conceive the existence of another deity other than the true God, their creator, who cherished life above all things, even if said life was of poor quality.
Caesar didn't cherish life one bit.
The next Deathclaw that charged on, Claudius dodged by rolling between its haunches, drawing the machete's blade blindly, hoping it would meet the soft skin of the belly.
Turns out he managed to slice the beast's stomach open. Rookie's luck, he guessed.
He got drenched in dark blood and entrails as he rolled far from the beast's tail radius before it collapsed, and he ended up with sore knees and spine once his uncoordinated rolling crashed him onto the pyramid's main doors. His limbs wobbled when he tried to get up and failed.
"Don't you just stare into empty space like a fool! Get that door open while we contain the abominations!"
Him? Opening a barricaded door? The Legate, definitely, didn't understand that not all men possessed the inhumane strength he had.
Sweeping the broken crystals away with his machete, Claudius pushed into the broken frame, feeling rough wood from the furniture piling on the other side.
No dice.
"Cannot open it, Legate, sir! I need help!"
"If you don't get that door open within the next minute, I will personally make sure to bash your skull against it until it yields!"
Claudius' trembling limbs didn't get any better the more he pushed as his stamina quickly depleted.
Then, another pair of strong arms added to his efforts until the wooden benches at the other side creaked and began yielding.
"Gotcha, amicus." – he heard a familiar voice coming in ragged panting from his left.
Regulus. The only friend Claudius had in the whole world.
The only reason he hadn't acted on his desperation by defying God's law about cherishing any manner of life. Including yours.
"Whoever slays a soul, unless it is for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he slew all men; and whoever keeps it alive, it is as though he kept alive all men" – said The Quran.
Claudius had often wondered if he still was in God's light after all. If His sacred words could still reach him at all.
If His mercifulness extended to heretics and murderers like himself.
Nevertheless, Regulus wasn't a guy who believed in gods at all… but he believed in Caesar.
Born and raised among the Roadrunner tribe in Arizona, Regulus had known from his most tender youth that the worth of a child's life out in the Wastes measures in the caps that his parents manage to get out of the travelers they invite into their shack to offer "services".
The Roadrunners hadn't known how to fight, nor how to hunt. Established in the pre-War city of Wickenburg, they had been farmers amidst an arid land where hard grain had been the only thing they had managed to cultivate, suffering constant raiding from the local gangs.
However, after a particularly bad harvest, with all the raiding tribes surrounding their vicinity becoming impatient and the caravans coming from the North through the I-93 becoming less and less frequent, the Roadrunners had come to a "temporary" solution for their many woes.
For they had realized that, by creating a market of exchanging sexual favors for protection and caps with the raiders, turning them into an organized force, the Roadrunner community would basically ensure the safety of two converging trading routes, the I-93 and the I-60, for the caravans that would make their town immensely wealthy.
And they hadn't batted a lash about selling themselves or their children to achieve such an endeavor. After all, the raiders had taken their fair share many times in the past, so why not turn it into something legal and regulated?
The community had known it was wrong, yet nobody had objected when the chief of their tribe had decreed that everybody had to contribute, regardless of age or gender, to support the tribe.
Using the trite argumentation that "in these trying times, everyone had to make sacrifices for the common good" - plus showing them a Vault-Tec presentation on a salvaged projector from their old Vault about how quickly they could economically recover to, eventually, bring real prostitutes into the city to do the deed instead of them - the old chief, who had never been an object of sexual abuse, had sold them the idea of a better future in exchange of roughly nine months of prostitution for them and their children.
And the adults had accepted without asking their children how they felt about it.
Regulus had endured a hell way, WAY worse than Claudius would have ever conceived for a year and a half, given that the chief had kept dragging his feet, raking in the extra profits his city of prostitutes had provided him by extending their market to travelers as well.
Then, one day, a group of men in red arrived at Wickenburg.
They had called themselves "Legion" and, for three days, the greedy chief had invited them to their town to partake in the flourishing "sexual tourism" under the watchful eyes of the Desert Dragons, the raider tribe they had struck a profitable bargain with to have them as their bodyguards, ensuring that the town and the nearby roads stayed safe.
The Desert Dragons had been widely renowned for their bloodthirst and savagery so, while they had made excellent guards, they had been the cruelest clientele to service.
However, when Regulus' parents had invited one of the gentlemen in red to their humble abode, the man in question had slit their throats without alerting the Desert Dragon guards, assuring Regulus, a ten-year-old by then, that he had nothing to fear. That Caesar had come to free them children from Wickenburg's degeneracy. That Regulus only had to play along with whatever he ordered him and he would never have to suffer molestation ever again.
And they had fulfilled their word.
For three days, the Frumentarii had infiltrated the Roadrunner community by slaying adults and earning the complicity of children and adolescents to play along as if nothing happened, letting corpses rot inside their homes without raising the alarm.
And so, once they had managed to get rid of the adult Roadrunners, it had been the turn of the Desert Dragons.
The Burned Man, Praefectus Legatus at that time, had led a brutal frontal assault on the town one night, slaying and burning everything in his wake while the Frumentarii had extracted the children from their homes to guide them to safety.
Hours later after the carnage, some of the Burned Man's men had dragged the tribe chief in front of the children, saying they could exact revenge from his pathetic hide however they pleased.
Regulus had enjoyed kicking the feeble, terrified old man down to a pulp, relishing his screams and his pathetic pleas until he had stopped breathing.
For their loyalty to the Legion, the Roadrunner male children had earned a place within their troops, whereas the female ones had been sent to Flagstaff to undergo training under the Temple of Mars' Priestesses to become prominent examples of piety and religious fervor.
Caesar had promised them not to suffer abuse again, and he had made good on his word, even for the girls.
To Regulus, the Legion had been a blessing sent from the heavens by a caring, though firm hand of justice that not only had fulfilled his promises, but had also given him food, clothing, a home, and a purpose.
Among the youngest recruits, there was nobody as dedicated to Caesar as Regulus was.
And Claudius knew all of the above mentioned because Regulus had trusted him with his secrets the same Claudius had trusted him with his own.
"One day you'll see, amicus, that the Legion is not as bad as you believe." – he had told him once – "Caesar might have killed my parents, but that is a small price to pay in comparison to all the good things he has done and given to us to this very day. I don't even hold any grudges for it, for I am grateful."
Caesar, the god they fought for. The god they sacrificed their lives for.
That was the real meaning behind the phrase "True to Caesar". For, to fight for Caesar was to live and die for Caesar. Beginning and end, indistinguishable one from the other.
Not merely a belief but a way of living. A path set in front of you that you had to travel with the best of your abilities until you invariably died. For him. For Caesar. Not for you or your beliefs.
And he must be doing something right to have people like Claudius and Regulus, who didn't see him as a god, serving him as they would to a real one.
Being that something fear or devotion, it didn't matter much in the end.
As the two friends managed to push further into the blocked entrance, the guys holding the battery ram finally reached the pyramid, their path cleared by the formations containing the Deathclaws.
The pyramid's main doors finally ceded, and a small squad got inside the place, including Claudius and Regulus.
The place had been bobby-trapped down to near-ridiculous lengths, making every step count.
It had also been oddly silent. As if it were empty.
Impossible. – Claudius thought – The only way they could hide would be…
Of course.
"Legate, sir!" – he exclaimed once the imposing silhouette of the giant got inside the building – "I believe…!"
But he was immediately shushed by a blunt gesture of Lanius' hand once the witch's voice spoke again through her public address system, sounding oddly close this time.
"Well, wasn't that something?" – her tone was purposefully sotto voce as if she were lulling them, like a mad temptress – "Were I a woman of the Antiquity, I would deem your efforts in the manner of an Abduction Marriage in the works, Butcher. Alas, I am no Proserpina the same I'm sure you are no Pluto."
Claudius could literally feel the fuming coming off in waves from the depths of Lanius' helmet.
"The voice comes from above!" – the Legate exclaimed, paying no heed to Claudius' attempts to catch his attention – "Death to the harlot Hecate and her degeneracy!"
Many more bobby traps and landmines ensued after the Monster of the East ordered Claudius and Regulus' group to redirect their steps upstairs, to the highest level where the false goddess' chambers were.
Pitch-black darkness received them whilst a lone figure embedded in Power Armor outlined against a closed window.
"Dear boys, I didn't think it would be so easy to spur you this far." – the woman's sultry, strangely distorted voice welcomed them – "That isn't how the game is meant to be played and, regrettably, unless you are alive, you cannot play. And if you do not play… that means you are all dead."
As soon as one of their lanterns hit the Power Armored figure, the sheer amount of C-4 duct-taped to the metallic carapace plus the talkie acting as a signal conductor froze them in place.
"EXPLOSIVE!" – Lanius yelled before grabbing Claudius and another recruit by their cuirasses to shove the three of them crashing through a nearby window.
Claudius' life passed before his eyes on a vertiginous dash as a rain of colored crystals fell down along with them. The pyramid's highest level exploded in all directions as Lanius brought the weight of the two recruits in his hands below him in midair.
Claudius clung to the Legate's armored torso and braced himself for impact.
The collision with the ground below was brutal… but even more brutal turned out to be the fate of the other legionary that Lanius had grabbed along with Claudius.
For the Legate had used the other boy as a cushion to absorb the impact of the downfall to spare his own joints from being busted by pressure.
And he hadn't managed to use Claudius for the same purpose because the young man had also used Lanius' volume to stabilize himself throughout the process.
Discarded aside like a soiled cloth, Claudius trembled as he felt how a burning, trickling trail of tears connected his eyes, nose, and lips as he took in the amalgam of cloth, metal, and broken flesh that the other guy had turned into under Lanius' colossal weight.
This could have been him hadn't he reacted on time. The Legate hadn't grabbed the two of them to save their hides from the explosion.
He had used them to ensure his own survival.
"Get up." - the giant in golden armor ordered him, eyeing Claudius with disdain not even his blood-splattered mask could conceal – "As long as you draw breath, it serves no other purpose than fighting for the glory of Caesar."
A bunch of dry earth gathered on Claudius' enraged fist as he clawed the hard ground under him.
The Quran teaches true believers the power forgiveness brings to the just and fair, for God would be the one rewarding them, given that He does not like wrongdoers.
However, Claudius could not bear to concede any more forgiveness for such a monster.
A monster who had stripped him from his life and faith, a monster who would gladly have sacrificed him to save himself.
Hatred is an insidious cancer that feasts upon the heart until it twists its original form, its original purpose of pumping life through your veins to turn it into a means to extend the poison all over you until there's nothing of you left. A void that cannot be filled, a rage that cannot be appeased.
That's exactly how Claudius felt as he followed the lead of the Monster of the East, noticing the small junctures of his armor around his joints for the first time, measuring the depth of his vision field by changing positions around him constantly, finding a wrong, immense pleasure at imagining stabbing him on the knee, sending his whole military career to hell.
Would he be discharged with honors to live the dishonorable life of a cripple back at Flagstaff… or would Caesar have him covered in pitch and lit ablaze the same he did with the Burned Man?
As they went for the pyramid's main entrance once more, a white noise coming from Hecate's public address system ensued, followed once more by the witch's sultry voice.
"Still alive, Butcher?" – she mocked – "If so, can you guess how to find me this time?"
"HECATE!" – Lanius roared like a feral, wild beast to the nocturnal skies, his deep voice echoing throughout the expanse – "SHOW YOURSELF!"
Delighted laughter followed his outburst.
"Such passion!" – she exclaimed – "Truly… inspirational. For that is what makes the blood of the men of the Legion boil with pride and courage: inspiration." – then, her voice turned into something uglier and less sultry, like nails raking on a chalkboard, hissing and cold. A voice best suited to a witch – "Inspiration to burn down villages, to behead and display corpses on sticks like savages, to take unwilling women on the spot like animals in heat, to steal from the poor and weak to feed your vices, to doom lives to servitude, pain, and humiliation in the name of your self-entitled leader!" – scoffing, her laugh turned into a snarl – "For that is what men like you find most appealing when you covet what you cannot have: to war endlessly until you sate what your fragile egos demand of you." – then, she added darkly – "Truly, you shouldn't have been born with greater physical strength… since you are unable to assume the responsibility that such a condition entails!"
Her discourse was enraging even Claudius, whose violent disposition kept escalating for the next twenty minutes, forced as he was by Lanius to crack the password of the RobCo terminal that gave access to a bulletproof door on the ground floor, the only place left that none of the other units had managed to access.
Despite being knowledgeable on RobCo Termlink protocol for Unified OS due to his tribe having lived in a Vault until their G.E.C.K. ran out of juice when he was seven, Claudius took his sweet time, enduring Lanius' threats and overall impatience without batting a lash, letting his hatred simmer beneath the surface of his impassive face.
He didn't oppose resistance when Lanius manhandled him once more to take him out of the way, hellbent on his chase after the witch.
And Claudius followed him, memorizing his walk pattern, noticing he favored the left leg.
"Hey." – Regulus caught up with him, giving him a worried glance – "You okay, amicus?"
Claudius nodded curtly while still running a set of stairs underground, deep into the hidden heart of Ouroboros.
Deep into the heart of his growing darkness.
Lanius was experiencing one of those rare instances in which his vision had narrowed down to a tunnel. And the carbon dioxide excess under his mask due to physical strain was making him light-headed.
The witch and her cursed public address system. No matter how many wall speakers his men shot, there seemed to be always more.
Women who liked to talk that much were like the plague: annoying and inescapable.
And this one seemed to enjoy her little discourses a tad too much.
After all, she hadn't stopped taunting him since he had begun to descend into the Earth down those never-ending stairs.
"Ah, finally. I was starting to think that not even all the brilliant minds in the Legion working together could crack the password."
The first thing he would do once he'd made her his prisoner would be muzzle her, so she would stop talking.
Her voice, serpentine and alluring, was a poison.
"I'm wondering who, out of all the Vault dwellers you assimilated, has been the one brave enough to claim in front of you brutes that he's knowledgeable on RobCo Industries Termlink protocol. Didn't your beloved Caesar forbid you to use such kind of knowledge, to begin with? You are a bunch of hypocrites."
Or maybe he should simply cut her tongue. That way, he may yet save himself many headaches in the future.
"You create a system based on laws and principles that you bend and twist at your convenience, so the powerful remain in power… and the cattle remain blissfully ignorant and obedient."
Lanius' teeth gnashed audibly behind his mask.
"You all claim strength and honor, appropriating a knightly code of chivalry that, somehow, works without a flaw inside those feeble minds of yours."
Poison. POISON!
"But then, when you return to your homes, instead of loving, overjoyed, and grateful wives surrounded by children that adore and admire you… you find tired, broken women richly dressed in the finery of your pillaging, grabbing tightly the hands of crestfallen, silent children who fear you and whose eyes never meet yours."
All a woman can speak are lies and deceit. Their only weapons when things won't go their way.
"Have you ever wondered why love cannot be bought by riches and respect cannot be taught through fear? That is why you are all living a lie. A lie that you, stubbornly, believe you can turn into reality."
They take their time observing you, analyzing you throughout the many hours they spend around you doing menial chores, listening through walls, tricking you into believing that they are invisible by remaining silent.
"Because it is easier to allow others to think and make the important decisions in your stead. That way, you cannot err. And, if you do, you are never at fault… because you are following orders."
Experts at masking their disdain through apparent complacency, they would disobey you if the opportunity presented. No matter how much you provide for them.
They were greedy, ungrateful creatures whose desire to be worshiped can never seem to be quenched.
"If Caesar says that you depart from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land he will show you, you obey."
Liars… all of them.
"If Caesar demands that you take your son, your only son, whom you love, and go to sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain that he will show you, you raise your knife without question."
And any man who wouldn't show their face in fair combat, opting instead to copy the deceiving ways of women… those men didn't get the right to be called men at all.
For honesty is a quality that men, and ONLY men, are born for.
"And still… alone and with your son's blood coating your hands… you believe that if Caesar says so, it was worth it."
A long, dark corridor stretched ahead behind a door decorated with the signs of the Old World. Sounds of old gas pipelines humming in front of Lanius as his men brought lanterns to light the path by their left.
The moment their lanterns and torches illuminated the tract, furious hissing echoed throughout the underground structure.
Nightstalkers.
Lanius' tribe used to call those 'the Gods' Joke', given their dual nature, half reptile, half canine. Their furs had been greatly appreciated among their warriors who wanted to become Shapeshifters, their women fashioning headdresses so they would bring them good fortune and strength in battle.
For the Hidebarks had once believed that divine essence passes onto you through the slain of your enemy, making you stronger and more lethal with every kill.
Quill had thrown the pelt of the massive specimen that he had hunted to his face, snarling in affront, saying that she wasn't sewing the skin of a tł'iish, a sacred animal in her mother's Navajo culture, saying that his careless slay would bring bad omens to them.
Perhaps she had sought his fall from grace right from the very start, for she had wanted the passion that he had brought to the bedding… but she hadn't wanted to serve him as any good wife would have done.
Since their first day as a married couple, she had said that he might have been her husband, but that he didn't own her.
A statement that she had maintained to the last extremity… and the nefarious consequences that had followed afterward.
The first abomination that pounced baring fangs at him clashed against the Blade of the East's edge, sending the scaly head and the rest of the body to opposite directions, a spray of dark blood zigzagging midair as another two abominations came in its place.
Lanius hacked and slashed his way throughout the whole corridor, reckless in his fury, indifferent at the possibility of landmines or the growing dark encasing him inside its womb, far away from his men's torches.
When he reached a point in which his visibility was near to none, the hairs of what was left of his once-glorious mane stood on edge behind his helmet when his ears were invaded by the intimate caress of a voice he now knew too well.
"I see that you have finally arrived, Butcher."
The voice had felt but a hair's breadth shy from his position, but the edge only met empty air when he swung his sword.
He was answered with a brutal kick on the shin that, despite the coverage the thick layer of his armor offered, Lanius felt too well.
Another swing, more air.
A powerful blow right to the stomach made his sight water, but his strong arms swung his sword once again, meeting in a metallic clash with something else.
"Quicker than I expected… despite your size."
Maneuvering with the Blade of the East, Lanius managed to push his adversary against a concrete wall through sheer brute force.
That earned him a kick on the chest plate, then a bite in his right calf.
His senses began to waver as the rattlesnake venom began pulsating throughout his bloodstream.
Reptilian hissing filled his ears from everywhere as he slashed blindly through the darkness.
Heavy metallic steps of a Power Armor grew far as his adversary led him further into the dark.
And Lanius followed.
The pre-War red emergency lights he found at the end of the passage signaled an automated door he managed to get open after dealing with the last of the Nightstalkers.
He was welcomed, once again, with violence the moment two shots of a laser rifle collided with his chestplate, making him roar in pain and affront as the tunic beneath melted against the skin.
The leader of the cannibals and the false goddess surrounded by her vile pets were aboard an Old-World industrial elevator that descended into the Earth, and they were about to depart.
He then shall have two harlots for the price of one.
"Legatus!"
With a savage roar, Lanius jumped into the wide expanse of the ramp tracing an arc so great midair that his men, who finally had managed to make it throughout the rounded tunnel, observed mouths agape how their leader fell right between the two women, denting the metallic floor of the elevator with his landing.
The Nightstalkers tried to overpower him while the cannibal woman kept shooting him as the Great Whore prepared a blow with her Super Sledge.
His pulse faltered as he parred the blow, noticing how his body fought with the venom through violent perspiration that was making his hands clammy under his metallic gauntlets.
He knew himself strong enough to withstand two or three bites without having to resort to medicine to help his metabolism assimilate and get rid of the poison… but the abominations were everywhere, and it was difficult to prevent their attacks as he shielded himself both from ranged and direct combat.
In such a reduced space that kept moving as they descended into the Earth and his ears began beeping, he wasn't able to develop any offensive strategy without lowering his defenses. And his stamina was depleting at a fairly quick pace.
His left hand was already shaking violently when the elevator's course reached its end.
Then, he understood everything.
Several paces ahead, in a carved cavity on the raw rock, rested a very identifiable Vault door that, right now, lay open with several armored people distributed in rows with energy weapons pointing at the entrance. A pale man sitting in front of a control panel eyed the scene ahead with cold, red eyes.
Then, the cannibal leader, along with the hybrid abominations, broke on a mad dash toward the aforesaid Vault door, leaving only the Great Whore to contend against the weakened Legate.
"I must admit…" – Hecate panted under the Power Armor's mask, her sultry voice coming off distorted but challenging the same. Her fighting stance impeccable as the two adversaries looked at one another, Super Sledge and Blade of the East struggling in a brutal lock – "… you have put up quite a fight, Butcher. You may yet earn a relevant place in Legion's history of failures. Perhaps even second to Graham, whom your Lord deems so dangerous that has even to pass a law to forbid from speaking his true name, least your fragile morale began faltering after five years of lies."
"You dare speak that name? Compare me with some lesser man, some other Legate?!" – Lanius bellowed, his fury coming back to him redoubled – "Perhaps you have the strength of a cornered animal… yet insufficient when it comes to holding one single city. No matter the walls of the Old World that you will choose to hide behind, I will find you." – nearing his masked face to her helmet, he added – "And then, you shall regret having defied the will of a god for the rest of your miserable existence, slave."
"Legatus!" – a voice yelled at his back as his men began pouring from the elevator's rails, having followed them further down.
This made Lanius grin maniacally under his mask.
"You see? My forces arrive as we speak." – he goaded triumphantly – "Your so-called people have abandoned you, leaving you to deal with me outside alone, exposed." – he added venomously – "Such is the loyalty of Profligates and recalcitrant slaves that do not know their place in this world. MY world!" – he roared - "I am the first of the Legion, and this pathetic city of heretics shall be mine this day!"
"If so, enjoy your victory and the reduced forces that you'll present to Caesar once he summons you to take Hoover Dam."
Kicking him in the chest hard enough to compromise his balance, Hecate shoved her Super Sledge against him and dropped it. And then, Lanius' incredulous eyes saw a slender, gaunt figure emerge from the back of the Power Armor as it was propelled against him, and the woman inside was pushed backward toward the Vault entrance. However, having dropped his sword and dodged the weight of the fallen Power Armor in time, Lanius slammed onto the ground to grab at one of her legs to impede escape.
He might not get the Profligates inside the Vault today, but their queen will suffice to quench Caesar's demands.
"Now, you are mine!" – he declared victorious, relishing the sounds of hastened steps coming by his left.
"No, you are now mine, you heartless monster." – a masculine voice stated before a machete cleanly stabbed across Lanius' left knee.
Treason!
Howling in excruciating pain, the Monster of the East rolled aside as a spray of energy shots landed around him, still holding his prey's leg like a rabid bloodhound until the traitor's boot came in contact with his mask while two curved fangs sliced through his arm and the pain and dizziness were so great that his fingers ignored the command to keep holding tight and then, finally, let go.
And, with that very relinquish, a part of himself crushed beneath the finitude of his physical endurance, reminding him how mortal and fragile flesh can be.
And so the man, at that moment, overcame the legend with the only thing he despised the most: weakness.
The very same weakness that had allowed him to fall prey to the hands of his treacherous tribesmen, killing Manhunter and everything he had once treasured, leaving a husk full of rage and paranoia in its place.
He had been betrayed once again. By the very people that he was supposed to lead to victory.
All... because of a woman.
And said woman, meanwhile, grabbed the traitor by the arm and began running with him and the giant abomination that had come to her rescue toward the closing Vault entrance.
"Run! RUN!" – she yelled, sprinting and, ultimately, rolling to get into the closing space of the cogwheel door with an agility of a woman half her age; the forearm of the betrayer still in her grasp - "NOW, MOONCHILD!"
And so, prying the offending machete off his leg while struggling to get on his two feet again, the last thing Lanius saw as the maws of the Vault closed was the chindi's eyes shine with malice while pressing something in the control panel.
Then an explosion so brutal it deafened the Praefectus Legatus momentarily ensued as loads of rock began falling unto them, burying the men coming from above.
And so, Lanius now understood, Vault door firmly closed in front of his eyes, that he had underestimated, once again, the lengths a woman is willing to go when it comes to trickery.
He wouldn't commit the same mistake ever again; he vowed as he took cover on a corner, witnessing how the avalanche engulfed everything around him.
Claudius could barely react as the explosion at the other side of the cogwheel door made his world waver. The iron grip of the woman having already released him so he could fall without an ounce of dignity on his butt.
Then, once the ground stopped shaking, the next thing he knew was at least a dozen nozzles pointing at his head.
"How… peculiar."
The woman from earlier, her voice distinctive to a fault, spoke.
"Two traitors in a single night. Sallow must be losing his old touch."
So, it was true their plans had been compromised right from the very start. Not that Claudius cared. He couldn't muster the will to care anymore.
He had betrayed the Legion, betrayed his friend Regulus. And not on a whim, but with careful, studied premeditation.
He had been the first one to launch onto a wild chase after the Legate's whereabouts. Climbing the rails hadn't posed much of an issue, and there had been only one way down.
He also had been the first one to reach Lanius and his prey.
He had seen the Vault door and the armed people guarding the entrance.
He had merely done a quick calculation of their odds against Hecate's forces. It had been a setup right from the very start and Hecate, on the other hand, seemed very fond of using explosives.
He had seen the plan all laid bare in front of him; not a single thread left loose: Hecate had lured them underground and had held up the Legate as much as she had been able until the rest of them had arrived.
Claudius had known they were going to die there, so he had made the best of his situation by taking the only chance he would get to spit at Lanius' face.
What he hadn't predicted was that Hecate would return the favor by saving his sorry ass too.
She shouldn't have bothered. He had been ready to die out there. He had accepted it as soon as his machete had dug into Lanius' popliteal fossa.
There was nothing left for him anyway. If he, by some fateful chance, had managed to survive the rock avalanche, Regulus won't.
And then, what?
And now? He hadn't planned anything beyond his petty revenge, anyway. So, finding himself among the rebels now held very little significance. He essentially was a dead man walking.
"You look fairly young, yet you don't strike me as the brainwashed type." – Hecate said, signaling her warriors to lower their weapons as Claudius remained sitting on the floor like a chastised child, deflated and silent – "Why did you save me?"
Claudius shrugged, knowing any explanation he would give would not suffice. He'd rather allow them to shoot him. It was better that way.
"I will reformulate my question: why did you decide to betray the Butcher out of the blue?" – she asked – "Let me guess: personal animosity?"
Claudius sighed.
"Revenge." – he muttered indifferently.
"Revenge about…?"
"Same thing as you, I suppose."
After a long silence, Hecate spoke again.
"Good enough for me." – she said – "You may walk among my people… however, until you prove yourself reliable, your comings and goings will be monitored at all times."
Claudius' head snapped up.
"Listen up, lady." – he growled – "I don't care if you lock me in one of your Vault cells and leave me there to rot. Don't waste resources on another mouth when you're likely going to spend a long time down here before your grandchildren or your great-grandchildren see the sunlight."
He watched Hecate's reaction play all over her painted face going first from surprise to end up, to his much chagrin, snickering at his expense.
"A teenager, definitely. If it weren't because I know where you are coming from, I would find your dramatism cute." – nodding then to one of her Viper Amazons, all snake-themed tattoos all over the woman's right naked arm and shaved skull, she added – "Take him to the infirmary, have one of the Witches take a look at him and designate someone to guard him." – as he was literally forced by the muscled Viper woman onto his two feet, Hecate added – "And get him some respectable clothes. I don't want anyone seeing him wearing that offending uniform inside these walls."
No matter how much he protested, Hecate's will was made immediate and then, out of a sudden, Claudius found himself stripped from all of his Legion armor like a child and put over one of the infirmary gurneys with a thermometer in his mouth.
If it weren't because he knew he could find himself with a punch right to the gut should he dare to behave violently, he would have thrown a fit.
So, he allowed these invasive ladies to do a thorough check on him as he grabbed tightly the sheet he had been lent around his nether parts, burning with shame.
Once all the fussing and checking was over, he found himself alone, with the guard lady they had assigned him on watch outside the curtain that separated him visually from other patients at the infirmary.
And, with loneliness came the invasive thoughts again. The guilt, the shame, the hatred, the sadness.
Regulus' body was probably outside that door, and Claudius couldn't give him proper sepulture. Not that his friend would have wanted any of it, coming from a traitor.
The aftertaste of revenge was all that he had left… and it was wearing off pretty fast once he'd gotten time to think.
Perhaps he had accepted that he had been about to die and had gone straight to screw up Lanius' conquest because he had secretly wanted God's judgment to take this last good deed into account.
Maybe, by dooming Lanius, Claudius had only wanted to save himself. To be worthy again in God's eyes.
And perhaps a small though crucial change of heart was, indeed, what God's plan had had in for him right from the very start… for the many prayers that he had conducted in secret for the last three years got an answer finally.
"Excuse me. I'm here to bring him a change of clothes. Our Lady's orders."
Because the voice he heard at the other side of the curtain was a voice he hadn't thought he would hear again.
"Alright, go inside. Careful, though. He's still a legionary until proven otherwise." – the guard lady confirmed, opening the curtain to allow another woman to enter.
He had been taught men shouldn't cry… but then again, she didn't have eyes any longer to cry in his stead.
"Khadija!" – he exclaimed – "Big sister Khadija!"
The clothes she had been carrying in her hands slipped through her fingers and pooled on the floor.
"… Ahmed?"
Tentative hands came forward and his own guided them to his face, allowing her to see him, changed but still the same boy from three years ago.
She had been the oldest of the two. When the Legion had arrived, she had tried to defend him, to save him from being captured.
They hadn't made it on time to both jump the fence and escape into the desert. She had managed to get to the other side, but the legionaries had caught him.
She could have run without him, but she had stayed to fight against them. For him. For her younger brother.
The aberrances she had been subjected to forever branded on her skin, on the absence of her once-vivacious green eyes.
She had always been the strongest, and she didn't disappoint when she cradled his shivering form in her arms, allowing him to cry for the two of them. To cry for what they had thought lost and now had found again.
To cry for the certainty that God, having seen that there was still goodness out there in the Wasteland to save, had blessed them with this reunion so they could, after so much suffering, begin again.
However, outside of faith, for the ones who couldn't bring themselves to believe beyond what tomorrow would bring, the prospects had never looked so glum.
For several reports of losses and disappearances had later informed Hecate that the Flesh Maiden's people had been obliterated almost in their entirety, whereas news from the few remnants placed them running further North, awaiting at key points instructions to emerge from the labyrinthine network of hallways below Utah's ground.
Awaiting that Hecate's people would contact them from beyond the Long Dark so the second part of the plan to riddle Legion forces that were moving into the West could begin. Starting with Salt Lake City.
Although hours after the tunnel collapse tonight's battle was celebrated as a victory among her people at Vault 9's cafeteria and communal atrium, Amelia's thoughts turned persistently to her confrontation with the Butcher, leaving a twinge of bitterness on her tongue.
This one had been a formidable adversary, ruthless and unyielding in battle as the Flesh Maiden had depicted him, too focused on his wounded pride to see the recklessness in his actions.
He reminded Amelia of a caged animal, battling with nail and tooth to break free from its prison, even biting nearby companions of its own species that were caged like him, regarding everything and everyone as enemies.
He reminded her of her past self, ten years ago when she had, once again, escaped from the Legion. This time for good, given that the guard in charge of disposing bodies of dead slaves had been already too old, too fragile to fill a legionary's armor.
Feigning her death had required previous days of persuasion to fellow slaves, most prominently the Medicae.
Her health had been already precarious, so it hadn't taken much acting to feign a convincing rapid deterioration.
She had always been sickly pale and a fairly persuasive actor, so her performance had bought a few sympathies that had earned her a makeshift bone knife that she had concealed under her rags.
Then, once she had been transported among bloated, stinky corpses in a precarious caravan toward the pyres, she had awaited her opportunity once the old legionary had picked her from among the corpses to haul her over the cremating pile.
She had stabbed him in the throat, sectioning his jugular within an instant to prevent him from raising the alarm.
Then, she had kept stabbing him, relishing the blood staining her hands, tasting triumph for the first time in years until he had ceased to move. And so, she had shaved her hair with his machete, bringing rivulets of blood down her face, and she had donned his uniform, thanking her blessed skeletal, though fibered constitution and height as not sporting any feminine traits that could betray her.
She already knew how they moved and how they saluted each other, so she had signaled the gate guards that she was going to relieve herself outside.
Being a precarious encampment, they hadn't installed latrines yet, so they had bought it and she had simply disappeared deep into the desert night.
The armor had been too heavy for her under the unyielding sun of the Utah, so she had discarded it, burying it under a rock when she had been sure that there hadn't been a single scouting group in miles around.
She had kept the spear, though, but it had been of very little help once the geckos and coyotes had kept appearing, probably attracted by the odor of her unwashed perspiration.
Instead of searching for banana yucca plants and the like to feed herself, she had cried whenever she had found a minute of respite from dodging the wildlife. She had cried day and night.
She had cried until she had run out of tears. Then, only rage had remained.
A rage she hadn't been able to quench but rather had kept growing the more tribes she had tried to enlist for war and they, in turn, had spurned her, making holy signs with their hands to chase her away, throwing filthy water and stones at her as if she were a leprose.
They had told her that she was cursed, that the Legion had marked her, and that she would bring death to any who provided her help.
That an insignificant, weak woman would never be able to stop the Bull.
That she should give up. Let go.
But she had let go of way too many things already. Too many people. And all of them, Caesar had been the one to take them from her.
There's only so much grief the soul can take without snapping.
And Amelia Dubrovhsky had finally snapped after fourteen years of loss after loss.
Despite the Twin Mothers' well-meaning warnings, she had been unable to find peace in forgiveness, allowing wrath to dominate every aspect of her life, turning her feral to the point that many roaming ghouls she had found lost in the desert like her had kept their distance, perhaps consumed by the same kind of madness that was slowly but surely getting ahold of her soul.
Perhaps knowing that a feral woman can be ten times worse than any mutant.
Vengeful and disenchanted with the cowardice of all of the Utah tribes, she had set her steps back to the East, to Colorado, seeking the home she had left behind fourteen years ago when the Legion had arrived.
Instead, maddened and famished as she already had been, her steps had strayed from their path and she had ended up unconscious at the very entrance of The Nursery.
Southwest of Denver, near the Black Canyon National Park, barely two days from the frontier town of La Sal on the eastern part of the Utah, The Nursery was a miracle of pre-War engineering.
A self-contained balanced ecological system set within a deep canyon, its valley floor was rife with the flora and fauna of times past. At the head of the valley, there was a lake of crystal blue water that fed a river, which flowed from one end of the valley to the other, disappearing into the canyon wall. And bordering the lake, there were several buildings that housed the maintenance equipment that kept The Nursery functioning.
Its location was so difficult to navigate that not even, to this day, the Legion had set foot within its confines despite owning practically all of the Old State of Colorado.
Plus, there were Diana's security systems preventing Legion scout parties from leaving the canyon alive.
Once a human being, Diana was the cybernetic core of The Nursery and its sole human inhabitant since the bombs hit America.
For she, the same as her little Paradise, stemmed from that distant, almost mythical Old World that used to achieve scientific wonders the likes not a single post-War mind could even begin to comprehend.
A former scientist from Greenway Hydroponics - a pre-War company focused on pacifist applications for technology - Diana had once been Doctor Diana Stone, a brilliant woman with a career path that would gain her a place of recognition among some of the greatest scientific minds in the United States. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and given little time to live.
But then, the marvels of the Old World had effectively made her immortal, preserving her mind and giving her a more… apt body for her capabilities.
"I see that you are awake at last. I am Diana. Can you tell me your name?"
The day Amelia Dubrovhsky had spoken with Diana for the first time, she had done so from a medical stretcher. Her emaciated, malnourished body cleaned and freshened, fed through needles and tubes with saline and other nutrients that the machine with a woman's soul had later explained to her in great detail. Her voice immensely patient and benign.
She had been her mentor, her teacher. Of all the things she hadn't been aware she needed to know before confronting Caesar.
"I... I don't..." – still reeling from her near-death experience and unbearably confused, Amelia had momentarily forgotten who she was and what she had been running from, struggling with the blackness that was her mind. The only memories she still kept had been from a more recent past, where Amelia Dubrovhsky had lived in anonymity before the Legion had arrived once again – "Dark Mother." - she had blurted at last – "They called me the Dark Mother."
"Did they, now?" – the entity had said with genuine curiosity, voice disembodied and coming from everywhere, as if the whole room breathed with her presence – "Well, I shall call you Hecate then. Do you mind?"
"Hecate..."
"Yes. Forgive me, I know you don't understand, but I find it amusing." – the feminine, invisible entity had explained – "You see, I am Diana, and she was the goddess of the full, or bright moon. Hecate was her opposite, the goddess of the new, or dark moon. She was also known as the Dark Mother. So, I thought I would christen you Hecate."
"Goddesses…?" – Amelia had asked unconsciously, still dazed.
"Yes. Both were goddesses of the moon... Forgive me; I must be confusing you to no end. I've been alone for centuries and I find myself babbling now that I have someone to talk to." – the entity had spoken once more to, finally, come true before a still delirious Amelia, who had lived through the whole experience as if it had been a sort of religious awakening. Her epiphany – "Come." – the green, binary, apparently holographic female representation that appeared before her extended her hand to the bedridden woman and she, extending her hand as well, had grasped something she couldn't even begin to describe. Full of vibrant, changing textures against her skin, but solid nonetheless – "Let me show you my world, and we will talk and get to know one another. There is much that we can learn from each other."
Diana had spent the next several months teaching Hecate about herbs, plants, and their uses in treating ailments. She also spoke of breeding among animals, what to look for to ensure strong future stock, and how to recognize congenital traits that could be eliminated by proper breeding.
When the woman that she had christened as Hecate had asked about her security routines, Diana hadn't suspected that her new pupil's interest, instead of stemming from genuine worry that The Nursery could end up exposed to those dangerous tribals from that "Legion" that Diana had dealt with in the past, it came more from a place of belligerency against the aforementioned tribe.
From security routines, they moved on to lasers, then Stealth Boys, and, finally, Power Armors.
By the time Diana had realized the kind of knowledge she had imparted to her avid student, it had been too late.
"War only breeds more war, Hecate." – she had told Amelia when she had departed from the Nursery in search of the first Vault on her list she had managed to dig from The Nursery's databases, willing to explore and exploit her discoveries to the last drop – "The same as hatred, instead of healing a broken heart, only helps in fragmenting it more, devouring its pieces until nothing is left to save."
"So let it be that way, as long as I obtain retribution." – had been her reply before turning her back to the only friend she had known in many years, when her heart had been younger and freer.
When she hadn't wanted to set the whole world on fire.
Her bravado had lasted very little for, before arriving at Vault 68, near Westwater, by the I-70 in Utah, she had fallen prey to a pack of hungry coyotes.
Seeking immediate refuge, she had crawled her way into a small cave on all fours.
The coyotes hadn't followed her inside.
She later had discovered why.
The cavern, besides being extraordinarily gelid, had hosted a huge Nightstalker nest.
She had tried to keep the creatures at bay by swinging her spear – the only weapon she still had left, for Diana had denied her any means of warring, even if it was for self-protection - from side to side, only able to see their eyes in the dark and listen to their hissing.
She had spent hours doing so and, at some point, she had simply given up out of exhaustion, her breath and arms trembling uncontrollably as the tallest pair of eyes had neared her.
She had been bracing herself for all sorts of things… but she hadn't been prepared for the loving, protective behavior that the den mother had shown her when it had rubbed its canine body all over Amelia, marking her with its scent, licking tears of terror from her face as the rest of its progeny had approached the apparent new family member, bumping their scaly noses against her arms and legs, piling up around her to give her their warmth as they slept throughout the daylight.
Scared of making a wrong move that could turn the creatures hostile, she had remained with them a whole week they had spent giving her their warmth, rubbing their scent on her, and bringing prey so she could partake in their meals.
The night she had mustered up the courage to go outside the cave, the whole Nightstalker pack had followed her. Or, more specifically, they had followed the den mother, which seemed intent on protecting her new pack member. And she had kept doing so to this very day. Dear, dear Shadis.
And when she had braved the cogwheel door of the Vault, they had followed inside.
Armed with new, better weapons and armor from the deceased Vault's security staff, Amelia had confronted her first Speculator almost by chance.
He had seen her; she had seen him. He had tried to enslave her; her new family had torn him to pieces.
The same had happened with the next two contubernia. With Amelia's finger growing confident around the trigger.
After the second Vault on the list, she had managed to spot a slave encampment with her brand-new binoculars.
There had been around twenty legionaries and roughly thirty-five slaves. The majority women or children.
Aided with the invisibility of a Stealth Boy, she had infiltrated the camp by night, unbound the slaves, and then she had kept slicing the throats of the sleeping legionaries, a pre-War assassination technique she later discovered was undergone by special stealth units of 'Sandmen'.
When the rest of the soldiers had noticed something going amiss, Shadis and her progeny had launched an attack.
The grateful slaves had knelt before her, venerating her in a weird, unsettling manner, as if they didn't recognize the cursed woman from a year ago.
That had given Amelia an idea.
An idea not so different from how Edward Sallow had started all this madness.
"I am Hecate, goddess of the dark moon, the night, and witchcraft." – she had declared as grandiosely as she could muster – "A mere mortal before, I am now a vessel of the Dark Goddess and her will is my command." – pausing to watch the effect her words had operated over the likely ignorant, superstitious tribals, she had added – "And her will demands that the imposter Caesar, who dares call himself the Son of Mars, shall be beheaded for his blasphemy!"
Apparently, her story hadn't fallen on deaf ears, and then the grateful slaves, now fervent followers, had brought her to their village.
Once there, the only remaining Wise Woman had painted her face and braided her short hair with locks she had cut from every single village woman, presumably chasing Amelia's former spirit away to give room only to the Goddess.
That tribe had been the remnants of the Twin Mothers, survivors from Legion raids, and they had seen her rebirth into the Goddess, the moon, as a divine gift that they should treasure and follow Her guidance until Her will be fulfilled.
And, since then, she had been Hecate for everyone, leaving the scared girl who had been terrified of the Legion for the most part of her life behind.
At least… until now.
"Aren't you going to rejoice and celebrate with your subjects this victory, my chieftess?"
Stopping in her tracks, she didn't turn around as the voice came closer.
"After all, it is not every day that not only two family members are reunited, but the Monster of the East is humiliated and beaten in battle not just by the woman who dared talk back to Joshua Graham, but by a lowly legionary and one of the agents of his most bitter enemy as well."
"You presume way too much, child." – she replied icily, still not turning around, Shadis hissing a warning near her hip to the intruder – "I see that years under the Bull's regime had done very little to temper your arrogance."
The voice sniggered.
"Ah, always the ice queen. It seems that the years might have changed our appearances… but not our hearts, chieftess."
"You cling to the memory of a dead woman. One that doesn't happen to hold much patience to deal with your antics should you keep treating me with such familiarity. We were never close, to begin with. Your family wasn't my family."
"Oh, but I don't think the 'divine' persona has simply eclipsed the human beneath, unlike what seems to happen with Caesar these days, my chieftess. After all, if you're still fighting this battle without faltering, it's all because of him."
"Silence!" – she ordered, turning around brusquely, fixing the daring worm with a thundering glare and a furious index finger, as if her mere wrath could command the heavens to strike him dead right there – "Don't you dare invoke his memory in front of me. Never. You lack the right to do so." – she added before turning heel again rigidly, followed by her creature to the chiaroscuro of the Vault's corridors.
However, the defector Frumentarius who had tipped the tempestuous lady on the Butcher's light signals for this night's attack simply smiled, signing himself in the ways of his tribe.
His original tribe.
"As you wish, my chieftess. As you wish."
LATIN:
(1) - "Wedge Formation" - In Ancient Roman warfare, this was used to charge and break enemy lines. This formation was used as a shock tactic.
(2) - "Tortoise Formation" - In Ancient Roman warfare, this was a type of shield wall formation commonly used by the Roman legions during battles, particularly sieges.
(3) - The scutum (plural scuta) was a type of shield used by the army of ancient Rome starting about the fourth century BC.
(4) - In Republican and Imperial Rome, the paludamentum was a cloak or cape fastened at one shoulder, worn by military commanders.
GOURMETS' CREOLE LANGUAGE:
(A) - "You are all damned, you dogs! Vodja has promised us a feast!"
A/N: yo, this is the longest chapter to date, so it deserves a long-ass Author's Note.
First of all, I want to clarify that I don't believe in any sort of religion, so apologies to those of you who are Muslims just in case you find something you don't like in this chapter. I've tried to get into the shoes of a true believer, so I'm sorry if I don't sound very convincing. I just liked to toy with the idea that Mormons aren't the only religious community that survived the bombs (we'll see when I get to Joshua LOL).
Second, yes, I've borrowed the Long Dark from Fallout: D.U.S.T. Why? Because it suits my narrative down to a tee. I have a soft spot for exploration; the more if said exploration occurs underground (missed so much F3 Subway lines T_T), and the Long Dark happens to be mostly beneath Utah, so...
Third: fuck Lanius. Yes, this chapter is made to spit on his legend and make him just another human being that can bleed and can be defeated. No, he's not dead, but this defeat serves a purpose.
Plus, there are quite a few Easter Eggs that I've distributed throughout the chapter, such as Hecate quoting the Bible by adapting the tale of Abraham; then my take on how Old Lady Gibson's hubby died and their abandoned shack with a skeleton and a Legion machete in there; Hecate's tale taken from Van Buren documents... and my nerdism about Roman stuff.
Cheers to everyone, and I hope you've enjoyed this chapter. And thank you so, so, SO much to those readers who Faved/Followed ❤❤❤❤
PD: since I have two pending Certification exams in June, I won't be able to write until then. I'll be updating old chapters to revised, bettered versions, though, because it doesn't consume as much time as writing does.
