Some Things Never Change

by The Great Wizzard

Courier Six has had enough. His companions have abandoned him, assassins hunt him wherever he travels, and despite everything he has done for the Mojave and it's people he has received no thanks and was even demonized for his actions. Alone in the Big Empty while trying to drown his worries in alcohol and chems, Six abandons his world only to find himself stuck in another.

2. 2 Outgunned, Outnumbered, and SOL

Chapter 2: Outnumbered, Outgunned, and SOL

A lone figure was sprinting through the alleyways of Vacuo with little regard for the beggars and trash cans he toppled over in his efforts to run for his life. He was dressed in a green leather long coat that was stained brown, either from dirt or bloodstains that had left their marks on it long before he started running through the streets with reckless abandon. He left behind a faint trail of sand and dust as he wandered through the maze of alleys he found himself in, both a marker of where he had come from and how long it had been since anyone else had taken the same path he did. His boots were caked with dried mud, bright tan pants covered in a mess of colored patches where they had torn over years of use, and the battered metal plates that poked out from underneath his worn long coat spoke of the many battles he survived and narrow victories that brought him to this point. Even the man's helmet had something to say about him, as the words "Forgive Me Mama" were written for all who could withstand the gaze behind the green tinted glass of his gas mask.

His tattered apparel matched well with the tall, muscular frame concealed underneath and made for a terrifying sight as he ran through backlit alleys. The few drunks and squatters he came across all made an effort to get out of his way the moment they saw him barreling towards him as if he were death incarnate. Even if they didn't know who he was, one thing about him was certain; he was a man on a mission and anyone who stopped him from going through with it was nothing more than a problem waiting to be dealt with. The occasional thug who was too oblivious to see that soon found themselves trampled if they were lucky or with a large gash in their chest for those unfortunate enough to be struck by a rusty hatchet gripped tightly in his black gloved hands. The man had yet to deem anyone worthy of receiving a bullet from the pistol clutched in his other and no one was keen on finding out what it would take to make him use it.

High above the rooftops above him another figure trailed his aimless flight from the dumpster he crawled out of moments earlier, carefully observing him from the shadows that separated them. She followed him closely, watching him as he fled from foes he couldn't remember, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Unlike the man who was barreling through the streets like his life depended on it, she did not garner the same attention as him as she leapt from rooftop to rooftop while pursuing her target. With few people willing to look away from the man she was tailing, it was not difficult to remain unnoticed whenever she needed to leap across the gaps between streets and alleys. Even so, she continued to make an effort in remaining undetected to both her quarry and anyone else who might have a similar goal in mind.

Find and follow the target until you can either make contact in private or convince him that both parties can benefit from working together through other means. That was the mission that she had been tasked with ever since the man now known as The Grimm Wanderer of Vacuo first made himself known as a force to be reckoned with and the days of bloodshed that followed. Although she herself had doubts as to whether or not the man was worth recruiting if he truly wasn't as evil as his namesake. If it was up to her, then she would have gladly put a bullet in between his eyes the moment she heard the screams that led her to him.

While she had been the first one to suggest recruiting The Grimm Wanderer after seeing how their goals aligned after the first day of his rampage across the city, seeing the corpses that he left behind quickly changed that. Killing people was one thing, but tearing them apart and leaving behind nothing larger than a pile of gore and a splatter of blood was another matter entirely. As much as she felt that his ire could not be directed to a more deserving group of people, there was no telling how much longer things would stay that way. An unknown wild card with no attachments to anyone and no indication of what was driving them forward was something that everyone would be better without if it could not be controlled.

Even if the others leading the resistance against the foreign kingdom that was already preparing to force their own into submission thought he could be controlled, she still felt that it would be better to get rid of him entirely. There was no telling how someone that was willing to loot and ravage the dead for nothing more than their own personal satisfaction would react to them, but even so the decision had been made to send one of their most dangerous and valuable agents after him in the hopes of acquiring an equally powerful ally. While it was true that they did need all of the help that they could get given their current situation there had to be a line that they would never cross. Even if she herself had yet to find that line, she certainly knew that the man she followed had crossed it long ago and never looked back afterwards.

She could only scoff at how useless she and a few dozen others had been at turning the tide of a war that was looming over the horizon and the dire condition of Vacuo unless their request for aid went unanswered. The very idea that a single man could not only stand against an army by himself but also through the entire fate of the world into uncertainty made everything that had happened right now look like a cruel joke. Too many people had died preparing to lead an attack on one of Mantle's strongholds within the city for months, and yet it only took a few days for The Grimm Wanderer to throw an entire army into complete disarray by using their own resources against them.

Perhaps her superiors were right and the man she followed could be an asset to them that rivaled herself, or perhaps they were wrong and he would destroy them without a second thought. Regardless of what she thought about him, she had a task to do and she would see it through until the end.

All she could do was watch the man below her slowly make his way back to where he made his first appearance in the city and wonder if he truly was the person they were looking for, or one of the ones looking for her instead. Time would only tell as she now had the perfect opportunity to see what her target was capable of with her own eyes and whether or not he could ever prove to be useful to her people and everyone else on Remnant as a result.

---

"Move out of the way people! I have an axe to hide and I ain't afraid to bury it in your skulls!" I shouted as I forced my way through another crowd as I ran in between alleyways while making my great escape.

Ever since I came to the realization that I somehow managed to drunkenly blow up the moon and blacked out to forget about what happened 'till now, I've been running for my life. There is no way that somebody isn't looking for me after a stunt like that and since I don't know who they would be sending my way I do not want to stick around and find out. If I am as vilified here as I am in some parts of the Mojave then I damn well want a half decent weapon on me if, yeah "if", when shit hits the fan. I can handle myself well enough against a handful of schmucks when push comes to shove no matter what is in or on my hands, but then again I've been floundering around ever since I crawled out of that dumpster and don't have any chems to keep me going if I get hit hard enough. Throw in the fact my only ranged weapon is a dinky 10mm pistol and yeah... not happening.

Fuck going out in a blaze of glory. I'd rather be the guy watching one of those go down at sniping range than the guy that everyone remembers for an epic last stand. I mean, going out like that is a pretty badass way to die, but then again I really don't like getting shot… or losing. Oh yeah, and dying. Dying is pretty bad too.

Thankfully, this crowd parted away from me the moment they saw me running through the street. Guess I can hold off on worrying about dying for a little while longer, not that I am worried about something like that. I guess blowing up the moon makes one hell of an impression on people. Either that or axe wielding maniacs covered in blood from the dipshits that try mugging them with a lead pipe and running at them full bore are not a regular sight around here. Europeans are weird and soft like that if memory serves me correctly, so who knows at this point. Definitely not anywhere close to home if I can part a crowd without trying to kill somebody.

Wherever the hell I am didn't matter either way. The crowd left me a straight shot to the next alley the moment they realized who I was so I didn't have to distract myself thinking about how the hell I might have ended up on the other side of the planet. Instead, I could think about what I should do so I don't find myself getting strung up by whatever passes as law enforcement around these parts. Ordinarily I'd have to worry about that from just about everyone I came across, but thankfully wherever the hell I am has people who aren't nearly as trigger happy as the idiots back home. One more reason to believe that I'm exploring the lost lands and people covered in all those Meeting People magazines scattered about everywhere. Everything looking like it wasn't an earthquake away from crumbling into rubble gave even more proof to that theory now that I think about it.

The place looks civilized with its freshly paved roads, sleek sandstone buildings that weren't a stray grenade away from being knocked down, and only a few murderous thugs prowling the back alleys. New Vegas could learn a thing or two after seeing some of this shit. Maybe if I make it back home, manage to get the Garretts to convince people that some ol' RobCo device Mr. House only told me about blew up the moon when some chem fiend activated it. With a few thousand caps to get the story rolling and carry a few more Jackal head's home on my belt I could stop them from lynching me before I tell them about how great this place is. Hell, why go back at all if I can find some place nearby where the people don't recognize me. Europe is like, what? Half the size of the Mojave? I can probably find a town or some other place to lay low in until this whole thing blows over. I only had three people try to stab me with a knife instead of a whole gang trying to shoot me to pieces, so this place was already looking better than it did back home on day one.

That can be a decision for later though, right now I just need to figure out what to do about this other thing that's been on my mind for a while. Imminent death at the hands of the law was one thing, getting assassinated the moment I let my guard down is something else entirely. Some little shit thinks that they're clever leaping on the rooftops trying to follow me. If I had Medicine Stick on me I would've given them a crippled leg for their troubles and been done with it. Since I am painfully under equipped in the firearm department that ain't a real option at the moment. Best I can do for now is not let them realize that I caught on to my little tail. Just need to keep the act up until I skip town and either lose them or they lose the high ground and add another body to my very own Murder Mountain.

Hopefully it'll end up being the latter, less loose ends that can come back to bite me in the ass that way. Graham's God certainly knows I've had plenty enough of those make my life into the hell it is today...

"Hey, watch it buddy!" Shouted some homeless looking guy when I knocked him over after he failed to move out of my way. That was… surprisingly polite compared to what I was used to.

"Blow it out your ass!" I said back, giving the man the typical Vegas style hello that most people gave me these days. It was hard to break an old habit like that, but I did only flip him off with one hand instead of two. Gotta stay classy when you're in a classy place, right? When in Rome as the saying goes…

Actually, you know what? Fuck Rome. If it had people like Caesar running it then it deserves to be history. My point still stands though.

The guy simply returned to rooting around in the trash can after I passed him which reminded me of one of the things I've noticed here. There are lots and lots of homeless people in the alleyways. At least, I think they're homeless or something like that. Nobody that knows whether or not they're going to be able to eat today or survive a radstorm thanks to having a roof to sleep under would ever wear something with a tail still attached to whatever animal they skinned for clothes or a bone helmet with horns on them. Not unless they were as high as the Fiends, but since none of them were threatening to eat my spleen yet I doubted that was the case. Could be another one of those European things though, and now that I think about it, none of the people that I saw wearing all of those things seemed to have any other clothes attached to those parts. Weird…

I set that thought aside as I came across a wire fence that had a few nasty looking barbs on top of it and braced myself to leap over it. My leap did not go as planned on account of my body rebelling against the chems that made me blackout until recently, so rather than gracefully climbing on the fence and mantling my way over to the other side I just sorta… you know… headbutted it after losing my footing. -6 agility is a real bitch, am I right? Still, the end result was still the same though since I was on the other side of it now. Only difference was that I did so a whole lot quicker and had to pull the big 'NO TRESPASSING' sign off of my head after ramming my head through it. Don't know what kind of schmuck thought a sign like that would work, but I hardly had time to think about why it looked so official or the little logo underneath it either. Everyone knew that the less inviting a place looked meant that there was more shit to loot there.

That fence left me looking at a street that… well, let's just put it like this. If what I was wandering through was something like The Strip back in the Mojave then that meant I just set foot into now was right outside of Vault 3. Get the picture? Trash everywhere, people looking like they had never taken a bath in their lives before let alone know what the word means, and just about every building looked like it had been smashed up recently. Kinda made me feel like home for a second. The only thing that was missing between here and there was a few half eaten corpses hanging from the rafters or impaled out by the front and this would be looking no different than Fiend territory. Although, if my eyes did not deceive me a few of the regulars here wouldn't say anything against being used for similar decoration purposes... or anything else for that matter.

"What the fuck did I just walk into?" I muttered while gawking at the scenery. Just when I started giving praises to this… country? Yeah, let's go with that. The moment I start praising Europe for being a nice country I walk straight into their slums. Lady luck must be getting ready with Mr. Fisto on standby at this rate.

Sure enough, the moment I took a good look at the shit show around me turned out to be one too many. Someone too cocky for their own good shouted at me as if they were Ambassador Crocker, although considering they weren't sitting behind their desk with a portrait only half as big as their ego on the wall behind them I doubt he was anything special. Still, this shithead at least had some balls and was willing to show them off, even if you needed a microscope and tweezers to see them.

"Hey, animal, where the hell did you come from?" He shouted, sounding like almost every hothead I've met right before I killed them for being such a smug son of a bitch. I just about turned around to look at him because of how shocked I was that he had a different voice compared to most people I've met. I swear, it was like there were only a dozen or so people in the Mojave who could speak and they all took turns being everybody else's voice. Kinda wonder why that is too, come to think of it...

"Your mother's house right after I finished fucking her raw." I shouted back at him, earning the cocking of a shotgun that sounded like music to my ears thanks to my current arsenal. As much as I would have liked to have held a genuine conversation with a European brave enough to talk to me or dumb enough to not realize who he was talking to. Unfortunately, I needed some new guns and he seemed like someone who wouldn't be missed. It was unfortunate for him, not me. This might very well be the highlight of my day with the way things have been going so far.

His shotgun was small, less than four bullets loaded but definitely capable of holding more, probably well maintained too if the asshat holding it cares as much about his appearance as he does his ego. Probably capable of having it's recoil managed with one hand and fired that way too with a bit of TLC if I tried hard enough. Ahh, I love the sound of a sucker in the morning. "Don't you move a fucking muscle unless I tell you to animal. Put your hands in the air where I can see them and let me tell you that you are in a whole world of hurt thinking you can bark at me like you're some sort of alpha male when your betters are asking you a question." He said, and I of course tucked the pistol in my hand into my sleeve and gave my hatchet a quick glance to make sure it was still usable for what I had planned.

Animal was not quite the insult I would have chosen to compensate for a shrimp dick when trying to dwarf it with my massive ego, but whatever. Guess calling someone that must be a European thing or something. Certainly sounded like that was the case with the way he said it as if it was the worst thing he could call me. The man was trying to blatantly flaunt his authority against me, as if I care about that shit. Might not be the easiest mark I could find but I could still work with what I was given.

"Oh shit, I thought you were Benny. I still owe that guy for that knife I bought off of him last week." I said while listening to the steady pattering of footsteps beside me. Why did I choose to use Benny as my fake knife seller? Why did I need a fake knife seller to begin with? Well the answer to the last question is because I doubt the guy talking to me would take kindly to me saying that if I understand things properly and the former because I won't feel sorry about shit talking that guy any if I have to. Hell, I'd do that just to shoot the breeze anyways.

Whoever is walking towards me… no, marching towards me is lightly armored if wearing any at all. So, shithead thinks he's a sergeant eh? Well guess what Sergeant Shithead? YOU'RE NOT MY GENERAL! Welcome to the party called 'I don't give a fuck' and KISS MY ASS!

...why is that siren going off again? That should only go off when I find something or somebody strange. Ah well, that's not important right now...

There's not a lot of weight behind Sergeant Shithead's footsteps either so he's not carrying much that I'll be able to take from his corpse other than the gun and a few shells unless it's all light enough to digitize with my Pipboy and not weigh me down any. Pace is still the same though, he obviously doesn't think I'll be able to fight back against him. That'll make this even easier.

"Oh, carrying weapons on you in addition to talking back to me huh? You and I are going to have a nice long chat in The Camp, maybe a real short one if the clothes you are wearing right now are stolen, animal." He growled at me from about… roughly 40 feet I'd say. Thank goodness my perception is still alright… for the most part anyways. Sounds like he is trying to be a bad cop. Throw me a curve ball already man, this is getting too easy!

That aside, this does present an interesting bit of information to work with. Weapons aren't something that animals are supposed to be carrying on them? Does that mean animal isn't just a general insult or is it slang for something? Europe is freaking weird man, how the hell are people supposed to not get shot at or stabbed if no one but the people willing to do that shit are carrying weapons on them? That's like letting a busload of cannibals loose in an orphanage!

I mean, unless that is what you're going for in which case I might have some business to take care of before leaving. Consequences be damned, I am not letting some orphans get turned into din-din. Metaphorical or otherwise.

"Uh… what kind of short talk would I be having with you if it was stolen?" I asked, drawing out the question just to play the part of the scared victim as well as I could. 30 feet left until I get a new toy.

The guy let out a laugh that did nothing to hide the sadism fueling it. Whoever Sergeant Shithead was working for was, they definitely enjoy doing shit like this to animals and the sort. Some of them at least. Definitely the important ones if a guy like this is roaming the streets and not publicly executed or sleeping with the lakelurks. This guy probably gets off on it too since nobody ever loved mama's boy. "Let's just say that I doubt your life sentence in The Camp would be a short one and leave it at that." He said, meeting my expectations to the letter so far.

Huh, so when he said "The Camp" earlier that was supposed to be written with caps like it was an important place that everyone knew about. Sorta like "The Fort" if the feeling in my gut ain't wrong about the mess I think I just walked into.

"Any chance I can get a lighter sentence if I rat out the guy I still owe money too? Hell I'd do that for free, the prick deserves it." I said as I could smell the fresh, clean air coming from his breath. Wasn't nearly as filthy as the locals around here so wherever he came from ain't from around here. 15 feet away.

"Keep on talking and we'll see." He said, coming to a stop when he was just out of range to make a lunge at him. Guess the idiot wasn't completely brain dead after all if he was smart enough to keep his distance away from someone potentially armed and definitely armored. "Now how about you turn around so I can get a good look at you before anything… unfortunate happens."

Oh yes, the stereotypical ultimatum before both of us throw down. Guess I should have given Sergeant Shithead for sussing me out like I had done to him this whole time. Looks I should have given him some credit after all.

Anyways, since this was the first thing he said that I could agree with I did exactly what he told me to and turned to my left to face him. The man's eyes just about bulged out of his head once he realized he was talking to the guy who blew up the goddamn moon and I wished I could have taken a picture of that priceless look on his face. I was right in assuming he was another soldier with how his white uniform looked identical that I saw the wimp from earlier was wearing. Okay, maybe he wasn't a wimp considering he passed out after getting picked up off of his feet by someone capable of nuking the moon worse than anyone in the Great War ever could. Still, the same "I just shat my pants" look was on this guy's face the moment he saw me and since he had what looked like a sanded down single barrel shotgun pointed straight at me I braced for a world of hurt as I palmed the pistol I tucked away earlier and drew it in front of me.

I got the first three shots in the mag off before Sergeant Shithead could respond. Now, I am not calling bullshit on him just because his clothes blocked those three shots without so much as wrinkling when mine did the same to most knives but then again I wasn't wearing a white outfit so thin I could almost see right through it so… yeah, I'll say it anyways. That's bullshit. That wasn't the worst part either, because what came out of his gun weren't pellets, coins, or a 'fuck you' sized wall of dragon's breath but a bunch of goddamn icicles. What the… how in the hell did anyone manage to do that in what feels like a DESERT? I expect that shit from the Big Empty, not you Europe. Leave the world ending science to the people who already ended it once, okay?

Thankfully ice is about as useful as soggy toilet paper up against the steel plates lining my chest, so aside from feeling like someone dumped a bottle of ice cold Nuka-Cola down my shirt that did jack shit to me. Sergeant Shithead seemed to realize this too as he was managing the nasty kick his weapon had and since I never stopped tapping the trigger on my pistol he never had a chance to blast another burst of dagger sized icicles at me. The next two rounds were shot straight at his head and once again my mind was blown seeing how he somehow managed to deflect the first one with his mind before the second one went straight through it and made him a lot more open minded, hah hah. If me just being a Bloody Mess wouldn't have done that then I would've made sure he wasn't getting up with the heel of my boot instead.

So yeah… what the hell was that shit? Was that guy some sort of psyker that kept himself from getting shot until he fucked up and that last one hit home? That would certainly be a better explanation than having some sort of invisible energy shield generator shoved up his hard ass. Damn, that guy looked like your run of the mill dickbag too. Might need to pick my fights a bit more carefully just in case there are a lot more people like him in Europe than there were in the Mojave. Never can be too careful when dealing with SCIENCE! bullshit, not after seeing some of the Think Tank's projects in the wild at any rate.

With that in mind, I kept my ears open for anyone else approaching me as I looted the fresh corpse I just made. I took the shotgun which turned out to be a five shot pump action, not a four shot like I assumed it to be earlier and went to load in the last shot when I found something that disgusted me to my very core. Whatever shell he was using wasn't your standard kind of ammo, and no I don't mean that just because it shot out fucking icicles at me. I'm stupid but I'm not that stupid.

What I really meant is that the shells in the bag weren't of a size that I was familiar with or have any identifying marks on them other than the snowflake on the bottom which probably meant it made the gun shoot icicles. This sick fucker was using custom made ammunition, not the good kind of custom but the 'hopelessly screwed if I ever run out if I don't have a mold to make more cases if I ever run out' custom. It could be just a local commodity too since Europeans seem advanced enough to create a few more types and sizes of bullets. It has been over 200 years since the bombs turned the wastes into what they are today so who knows what a whole country could do if they didn't nuke themselves into oblivion in that time.

Still, this… this is not good. Either the ammo I have on me is going to be useless to me unless I get lucky and find a gun that uses the same stuff I've got stored in my Pipboy that just so happens to be a standard in the Mojave or I can hope this was a one off deal and this idiot just so happened to use some sort of novelty weapon while deployed in the field. Knowing my luck, it had to be former since that was just how my life worked. Worst case scenario was that everyone had custom weapons and standardized rounds were a rarity, but only an absolute idiot would do that. Kinda surprising that never caught on in the Mojave if that's the case but mini nukes are still a thing.

The only other thing of note was the guy's wallet. Instead of holding precious metals, caps, or paper money he had brightly covered plastic cards in them with really simple designs on them. Pretty sure that's this place's currency but if that is the case then what they use is less secure than the NCR's monopoly money. I could be a very rich man if given a bucket of paint and a fire hot enough to melt plastic, and if it really was that easy to make a passable counterfeit here then the Mojave and everyone in it can get their wish and be rid of me. Why live like a leper there when I can be the richest man alive here? Needless to say, but those cards obviously were digitized by my Pipboy and didn't add to my weight load like every other currency I found. That would've really sucked if that wasn't the case.

My efforts at taking what the dead no longer needed did not go unnoticed. A group of those freaky looking homeless people with the animal parts came around me to see who I killed. They almost looked happy and I swear I saw a few tails swishing around like… they were… real…

Wait a minute. My skill check sense is tingling.

Animal. The guy who's brains I just blew called me an animal like it was an insult. The people around me have tails, horns… and I think I just saw a pair of cat ears there in the distance. Kinky. *Ahem* All of those things belong to animals. Everyone looks like they've gone through hell too and… oh, I get it now. Animal must be slang for poor people around here. Crazy European lingo, I swear.

Guess I sorta do look the part compared to Sergeant Shithead, even with the bits of brain sticking to his bloody uniform. Looking like I'm getting ready to box against a pack of geckos probably isn't going to help me make any friends when they are all wearing bright and clean colored clothes that the White Gloves would go crazy trying to buy for themselves. Rich snobs, every single one of them. Christ, even these beggars gathering around me are all better dressed than I am. Lots of strange hair colors too, must be a European thing.

"Alright, move along people. Nothing to see here unless you want the next idiot who tries to shoot me accidentally hitting one of you lot." I said as I tried shooing them away, causing quite a few thoughtful looks to echo throughout the crowd that gathered around me.

Ordinarily I would have skipped the talking and gone straight to the shooting, but then again most people that tried to gang up on me didn't look like they were about to drop dead from starvation or thirst any day now. These people looked like I could push my hand right through them without even trying to, and considering my strength I could probably do just that… not that I intended to, but you know… it's nice to know that you have options. Just because they aren't good or nice ones don't mean they aren't still there you know.

Someone seemed to have a brain on them though and shouted something about "Mantle coming" which motivated everyone around me to find cover by the time I realized that they weren't talking about a necrophile. Considering how everyone seemed to have dispersed in the same way that most riots did the moment a couple of well armed guys and gals went to see what all the fuss was about, I knew I was in for some trouble. Whatever a 'Mantle' was, it was terrifying enough to get everyone to hunker down from behind whatever cover they could find regardless of how useful the trash can or cardboard box in front of them was. I didn't do jack shit because I at least wanted to get a good look at what was coming my way so I knew exactly what to avoid in the future. Just because I couldn't think things through as well as I usually did thanks to the chems in my system didn't mean I couldn't have an amazing idea like this. What could possibly go wrong?

Besides, I still had my little friend on the rooftop that watched me paint the ground red when Sergeant Shithead decided to mouth off against the wrong person. Whoever they were, they didn't like soldier boy or Mantle too much since they hadn't come down off of the rooftops yet to gut me like a fish… whatever that is. I'm going to have to ask Cass about that whenever I get the chance, if neither she nor Boone shoots me before then. Or, you know, I take them out of their shared misery instead.

The slightly out of sync clomping of boots that only a hastily trained army could make told me all I needed to know about what was coming around the corner in front of me. Guess Mantle must be a part of the soldiers around these parts if they ain't the one who owns them. I don't really give a damn either way. Putting a name to the face would help me identify them the next time we meet. Putting them me feet under makes it so that there won't be a next time to worry about.

With the start of a plan rolling through my head, I snuck to the edge of a building closest to where the clomping of boots was coming from. Of course, by snuck I mean crouched down, fell over, and crawled to where I wanted to go with plenty of eyes watching my failure to hold a squat and move at the same time. I did not fuck up at all. No one would be able to tell otherwise with how well I owned that crawl in the end. I intentionally did that to lower the guard of anyone who might have been watching me so that way it would be far easier to kill whoever was now overestimating themselves.

There were… well, there were A LOT more feet stepping out of rhythm than when I made the incredibly intelligent decision to ambush an unknown amount of armed soldiers. It was too late to bitch out now unless I wanted to make myself easy pickings for a full firing squad, so reconsidering things was out of the question. With no other options looking too good at the moment, I hooked my recently acquired shotgun to my belt so I could grab a hold of it if and when things got ugly and readied my hatchet as my targets drew near. Five shots wouldn't last me through everyone that was coming, but my other pair of guns could certainly knock 'em all down and out just as well.

By the time one of the soldiers in white noticed me, I was already on her faster than a cazador on an injured brahmin. I had her held out in front of me with my axe ready to slit her throat in case any of her comrades thought they could get a few pot shots on me while I surveyed the absolute mess I tried to ambush. There were at least twenty soldiers in front of me… five rows of five makes twenty, right? Yeah… why would I ever ask something that obvious, twenty soldiers were in front of me, twenty one including the trembling lass who had the head of my hatchet digging into her throat just enough to allow her some room to breathe while making her all too aware of how a sudden jerk on either of our parts would put an end to that problem real quick.

A collection of pistols and rifles were all aimed in our direction, and none of them looked alike as far as I could tell proving one of my earlier fears true. Not a single weapon I looks close enough to be the same make and model which more than likely meant that none of them used the same ammo as the others. So much for putting the thousands of bullets I had on me to good use once I acquire a gun from one of these fools. At least they weren't letting me confirm my fears by opening fire. If a shotgun could shoot icicles, then I didn't want to know what else the guns here in crazy land could do. At least, not when I was the guy getting shot at. Anyone else and I would be hoping to see all sorts of crazy shit like I always did, but it's amazing how a change of perspective could turn you into a pacifist thanks to an unfortunate change of perspective on the matter. I wonder if that's why Europe was made out to be such a friendly place?

"He's got Bree! Put her down, animal, and we'll try not to kill you before we reach the nearest outpost." One of the soldiers said in an attempt to negotiate.

What a great thing to bargain with, eventual death instead of immediate death! That was SO much better than putting my human shield to good use and trying my lu… my Finesse against all of you. Not 'The L Word' though, I know better than to use that. At least he wasn't lying to my face like some people did though. Have to give credit where credit is due for being more honest than Sergeant Shithead.

A look of realization dawned on another soldier who found the presence of mind to speak instead of watching the hostage situation I created unfold in front of him. "Oh Monty save us, IT'S HIM!" He shouted in a mad frenzy.

"Yeah, it's me. Big fucking deal." I growled now that I had some fear to work with one of those soldiers giving me free publicity. Just need to play up my reputation to get some more info about where the hell I am before closing in for the slaughter and I will be all set. "Now, if you value the life of your friend here and your own then I wou-"

"SHOOT HIM, SHOOT THE MANIAC BEFORE HE KILLS US ALL!" The frenzied soldier said as the gun he and everyone else had been pointing my way instantly pelted me with all sorts of crazy shit.

This… is not what was supposed to happen this way. Back in the Mojave, the NCR and Legion at least made an attempt to hear me out first before shooting at me. These guys apparently had no reservations about spewing a torrent of ice, rocks, fire, and freaking lightning at me and my hostage after realizing who they were dealing with. What the hell? I'm the one that's supposed to do that, not you fucks!

The woman, or I should rather say girl judging by her screams, wailed like a banshee as the wall of death coming our way slammed up against her without somehow killing her or drawing blood, for a short while anyway. Whatever psyker bullshit she was using to keep herself from dying obviously did nothing to hold back the pain from being shot if I was any judge. I had no intentions to put her out of her misery though as the bitch probably would have fired at me if she was not in her current position and I had no intention of executing my meat shield when she still had some use left in her. I did at least feel a little sorry for her as I pushed us closer towards the shots coming our way and forced her to move forwards making it even easier to shoot her as I hid behind her as best as I could. Getting pelted with all sorts of bullshit you would expect from a robot rather than a flesh and blood army was about as pleasant as getting shot with real bullets, but I'd take a few flesh wounds and glancing blows over whatever had finally made my shield fall silent after her screaming and flailing stopped.

Not long after something that I'm fairly sure was an arm oozed off of her broken body, the hail of elemental gunfire came to a halt and I cackled like a madman knowing that they made a rookie mistake. You could always trust on a panicked army to blow their load the moment things go to shit and leave themselves open to whatever their enemies had saved up for them while they reloaded. The Legion learned that long ago and had plenty of recruits to use as cannon fodder while the real army followed behind their disposable troops. Unfortunately for these idiots, I was feeling a lot like Caesar's Legion right now with an axe to grind and plenty of skulls to sharpen it with.

I ditched the body I had been clinging to and leapt at the nearest soldier with my hatchet raised as he stared at me in horror while clinging on to the empty rifle in his hands. Hah, as if that could somehow protect him. There was no psyker bullshit of his that stopped me from taking his head clean off in a single blow and thank goodness for that. I guess whatever had protected the other two soldiers against bullets didn't do jack shit against someone with who could tear through power armor like it was paper... or that guy simply wasn't a psyker to begin with.

In hopes of testing my new theory I drew my pistol with my left hand and watched as the single shot I fired ricocheted off a soldier who was frozen in terror and then swung my hatchet into his chest, burying the weapon's head deep all the way to the shaft. The blow caused the man to explode in a shower of guts and gore the moment my weapon came to a rest. Why? Couldn't tell you. Shit like that just sometimes happens whenever I kill people for whatever reason. Regardless, I now knew that Piercing Strike trumps psyker powers thanks to my volunteer's contributions to SCIENCE!... uh, I mean, science. Guess I know what I'm using to mop up the rest of these guys.

The shell shocked look of everyone around me was enough to know that they figured out that much as well, and those closest to me abandoned their firearms and pulled out massive looking knives so they wouldn't end up like the two I dropped in an instant while the others debated whether to stand their ground or run for their lives.

These people had obviously never been in a brawl before. The fact that the whole group I was surrounded by didn't instantly jump me when they had a numbers advantage was proof enough of that, and the first guy to take a swing at me proved exactly why you never try to fight fair when your life's on the line. The only thing that matters in a fight is winning, and I had no intent on losing a fair fight when I could win it easily by fighting like I always did.

The first guy could have tried to plant his knife right in the middle of my back with me being none the wiser, but instead the idiot thought it would be an intelligent idea to yell as he tried to swing his knife like it was a sword instead of thrusting in between my ribs like a dagger. Even though I am chemed out of my mind for the most part, even I'm not that stupid. I thanked his kind little outburst by grabbing his arm mid swing and then bringing down my hatchet right below the elbow. The limb came off without any trouble and the large knife he dropped was free for the taking. I of course helped myself to another freebie since it would have been a shame to leave something so nice behind. It wasn't like One Armed Joe who was screaming his head off while gripping the stump that was the reason behind the nickname I gave him was going to use it anytime soon.

I have to admit that as far as knives go, it was pretty damn good. Far better than anything I had seen in the Mojave or Zion. Guess that's just European craftsmanship right there. Eight inches of serrated metal that would hurt a lot more coming out than it would going in, this thing wasn't from ma or pa's kitchen cabinet. No, this thing was meant to kill and do it as effectively as possible. Maybe even as painfully as possible if you were into that sort of thing. Strange how it never caught on in the wastes, but whatever.

The moment I took to inspect my newly acquired weapon was all it took for me to get tired of One Armed Joe's screams so I did what felt right and held the knife in a hammer grip and slashed at his neck. A fresh spray of blood doused me as the man's screams turned to gurgles leaving me free to kick him into his pals so I didn't end up tripping on his corpse once the real fight started. The body took down the two unfortunate troops behind him leaving the ones on either side to charge me before they ended up just like their recently disarmed friend.

The three that rushed me looked far more competent than the idiot from earlier, and I responded to their willingness to use their numbers against me as my cue to stop playing with them. The first soldier to take a literal stab at me found her blade caught by my axe leaving her face completely defenseless to the headbutt I followed it up with. She didn't even hit the floor by the time the next two were on me and forced me to duck underneath their wild thrusts which I in turn followed with a knife to the gut and an axe to the crotch. Their screams didn't last long, as I pulled my knife up through the victim on my left before twirling it around and plunging it through the dickless wonder's ears on my right.

Another one tried rushing me from behind with both of my weapons stuck in my newest victim thinking that I was sitting duck without them. Unfortunately for him, I was better with my fists than I was with any simple melee weapon so rather than try to free my weapons I abandoned them and stopped his charge by grabbing his arm, stopping his charge much to his surprise. Not one to let a good turn go without another, I punched the arm I held above the elbow leaving two chunks of bone popping out from where I broke it before driving an elbow into his nose which dropped him like a sack of xander roots. I had to let go of the broken arm I was still holding on to after it decided that it didn't want to fall down with the rest of him. Always weird when shit like that happened, but at least little things like that helped me know that people were dead and not just faking it like they did with Orris in Freeside.

Three more idiots thought they had a better chance of killing me now that I was disarmed and the lass at my feet was stirring awake after having knocked her lights out earlier. A quick stomp ensured that she was never going to be getting back up which left only the three stooges in front of me. The one leading the charge got taken for a ride thanks to him not expecting me to lower myself down and heft him over my shoulder leaving the man behind him unable to react to the throat punch that dropped without too much of a fight. The last one still standing did manage to land a hit on me as she dug her knife in between the metal plates of my armor, but thankfully the blade didn't go in too deep and the serrated edge prevented her from pulling it free. She tried to say something the moment she realized she was within grappling distance but I did not give her the chance to beg for her life as I snapped her neck in one swift motion. I let her body drop before ripping the knife out of my chest and wiping the bloody tip on my long coat as I made my way to the guy I flipped who just laid there on the ground trying to figure out what just happened. I don't know what was going through his mind by the time I reached him, but I can guarantee that the last thing that went through it was definitely the heel of my boot leaving him looking no better than the other one I stomped out. Couldn't tell you why his legs popped off even though I never touched them. Guess I really am just a Bloody Mess no matter what I do.

With that, ten soldiers were dead in only a couple of seconds and ten more were about to end up the same way with the way things were going for them. At least, that I what I thought until I finally got a good look at them. These ones were a lot smarter than the others, as they had all taken the time to reload their weapons and reorganize themselves into a firing squad while I was taking out the trash that tried stabbing me. Well, the two that had just pulled themselves out from under One Armed Joe hardly counted, but the rest were making me regret the previous comment about fighting fair since these few obviously either never heard of such a thing or didn't care. Watching me shred a few of their friends probably what did it if this still wasn't about blowing up the moon.

Naturally, there was only one thing to do when the odds are stacked so heavily against you like they were for me right now. So I did just that, and with all the energy I could muster I let out a mighty roar and charged… in the exact opposite direction of certain death.

What, did you think I was going to charge in there and get fucked harder than Mr. Fisto's clients? HELL NO! Don't you dare say I was a coward for running either. I was merely… repositioning myself to regain the advantage I had earlier. Yeah, definitely that.

There was a boarded up building a ways behind me which looked like it was sturdy enough to survive whatever grenades they might have had on them if they felt like flushing me out. Door didn't look like it would be that much of a problem to deal with either, certainly wouldn't be worse than surviving a couple hundred rounds of whatever magical bullshit these soldiers were using.

Whatever these Europeans were using was leagues more painful than what we had back home. Every shot that connected left me either tender from being tazed by their electric rounds or the alternating pain from the icy-hot sensation that their ice and flame rounds had on me. If I wasn't used to being shot up so often there was no way I would have been able to continue running after the first volley felt like I was getting skinned alive by a Shishkebab. Woulda just dropped down on my knees and that would have been the end of it like what happened to most people in the Mojave. Guess all those times of getting beaten within an inch of my life paid off again.

What was only a couple of feet felt like a mile thanks to these idiots finally wizening up and constantly spraying me with bullets instead of all firing and reloading at once. I was nursing my left leg by the time I was close enough to tear down the door to salvation and with how wonderful of a mood I was in I just charged through the damn thing instead of tearing off the boards in front of the door like a civilized person. Thankfully I had the strength and a hard enough shoulder to punch right through the doorway where I was finally able to lay down on the ground as a colorful light show danced right above of me.

My curiosity was greater than whatever reason I had left and sure enough, the moment I stuck out a hand into the pretty lights left me immediately came to regret that decision. A bolt of yellow hit it and I could see the electricity surge through my arm after getting hit. Whatever type of bullet hit me came complete with the pain of getting hit with an overclocked cattle prod without any of the seared flesh. Not my brightest moment, but I'd like to think I get a pass for not being in the right state of mind right now.

"DUMBASS!" I shouted at myself. Yelling that didn't help soothe the pain or wave of numbness that was starting to flow through me, but it did feel relaxing to curse like that.

Now that I could safely watch the bullets whirring over me while I laid down on the ground in pain, I took stock of the building I just entered. It must have been a garage or some sort of repair shop as I could see a few tanks of gasoline, oil, wrenches, and other tools that looked cleaner even those that Raul squirreled away for himself over the centuries he had been wandering the wastes. The old man would have had a field day raiding this place, but unfortunately I didn't have the ghoulish gunslinger with me anymore. If I had him with me then it would be those soldiers lying on the ground and bleeding all over the place instead of me.

A quick look at my Pipboy told me my injuries were not nearly as bad as I thought they were, although the pain that came with them had been doing that for quite some time now. Sure more dead than alive was not good but it beat out being completely dead any day of the week, even if it hurt like Mean Sonofabitch. Pain was good, meant you were still alive even if you weren't going to stay that way much longer without getting your shit together real quick. It's when everything starts going numb and the pain, light, warmth, and whatever else you are feeling starts to fade away that you should start feeling concerned. Sorta like what I was starting to feel right now. Believe me, I would know...

Whatever rocks they were firing at me hurt but aside from that there wasn't much of anything else to them compared to normal bullets. Well, aside from being filled with whatever European magic they got going on that is. They are not nearly as lethal as actual bullets and the only places where they did manage to wound me was where the flame rounds burned away most of my protection. With as many places that I could feel the dusty floor instead of thick leather or jury rigged metal armor my duster probably looked more like swiss cheese than actual clothes. That would certainly explain why it felt so breezy all of a sudden. My body probably wasn't looking much better after being frozen and reheated a couple dozen times, but thankfully I still had a pouch full of stimpaks to get me back into fighting condition. After I had a fistful of stimpaks injected in me, and I was finally able to crawl out from in front of the door I charged through in case the soldiers wisened up and started trying to shoot me out from the wood underneath. Elemental ammo or whatever magical bullshit those psykers were using was effective at tearing through armor but they did fuck all against anything else given how few shots I saw tearing through the wooden barricades and the few pieces of door that still stood upright. Might be best to think of them as hollow point rounds with stronger benefits and drawbacks until I can properly analyze them later.

Regardless of what they were or weren't capable of, the bullets that had done a number on me earlier had finally stopped flying into the store after I laid myself spread eagle on the ground. Now that I could actually think straight I was finally able to realize how lucky I was that they stopped firing indiscriminately through the doorway. A stray round probably could have made this whole place go up in flames if even a quarter of the old gasoline cans stored away here had anything left in 'em. I don't know why there were so many of them, but with what little I know about Europe I wouldn't be surprised if they had enough farms and maize to make ethanol worth using over nuclear power. Definitely would explain why what I had seen so far hadn't been nuked into oblivion.

Damn, I'm getting distracted again. Anyways, if they want to get rid of me then the smart thing for them to do would be to flush me out with some heavy artillery or grenades. It took a bit of effort but I did eventually manage to crawl away from the walls, boarded up windows, and door I broke through just in case they were trying to get eyes on me from the outside. As I was quite averse to getting shot, I made sure to make that a nonissue real quick.

If they didn't have anyone brave enough to risk their lives by peeking through the window within strangling range they could try and siege me in here until they could overwhelm me once reinforcements arrived. Considering how easily I mopped them up and how easy it was to find and devastate a wandering squadron of theirs, it was only a matter of time until even more showed up. Throwing enough people at me to overwhelm me with sheer numbers would definitely work, but only if I didn't punch my way through their weakest link before help arrived. The amount of noise all of that shooting made definitely wasn't going to keep attention away from me unless an even greater threat popped up somewhere, but odds are they probably thought twenty or more people would be enough to take down a single man for now. I know that would be the case if I didn't know who exactly I was dealing with, so unless one of those soldiers had a Pipboy shoved up their ass then I had some time to work with. Not a lot, but probably enough to get things settled once I heal up.

The last smart thing they could do was also the one that relied the most on a handy bit of 'advanced' reconnaissance by poking their heads through the door and hoping for the best. It would only work if they were willing to sacrifice one of their own but it would pay off huge if their gamble worked. Considering how every one of them tried blowing apart that girl I held hostage before my negotiations fell apart before they even started, they probably aren't the type to gamble with their own lives. Someone else's though? That was probably fair game if what I've already seen is proof enough. You don't clear an entire street with only an army's name if the locals think they're the type of people to hold back from 'accidentally' killing a few civies from time to time. I know The Legion certainly didn't make too many friends in the Mojave for what they did to Nipton, that's for sure.

Well shit. I can either hope lady luck doesn't decide to give me the bird while I rest up a bit or hope I can make it to the roof and make a run for it after getting a couple seconds head start on them. That of course depends on whether or not my little sneak up there is willing to help me out too instead of trying to kill me. Probable imminent death or certain eventual death? Decisions, decisions…

Oh… fuck it. If I'm outnumbered, outgunned, and shit outta luck either way, at least I'm going to take as many of these bastards with me. The fact that I have a small chance instead of no chance made standing my ground for a short while all the more appealing. Best thing to do now though would be to fight in a place where I can take away the advantages that they have over me in case things go to hell real quick. I can't do shit to them with bullets, so staying in a wide open area with plenty of windows is a definite no go. Now that I think about it, there is a stairwell on the back wall. Not exactly sure what is on the other end, but it might lead to something more defendable upstairs. At the very least it would limit the areas that those soldiers could rush me from and since beggars can't be choosers that's exactly what I'm going to do.

My body felt stiff with as many meds as I had flowing through me right now but even so I had to keep on pushing forwards. Couldn't feel much pain coming from my back either so that was definitely a problem too. Pain is good, means things can still get better or worse depending on how things play out. Everything starting to feel a little lighter definitely wasn't good, especially now that I see all the blood I leaked out on the floor just now. Still feet like I;m oozing a bit instead of painting the ground red back when I was thinking things through. My brief walk to the other end of the room left behind a trail of bloody footprints instead of the river of blood you would expect from a critical hit, so at least I wasn't doing that bad.

Walking to the stairs took more out of me than killing ten of those troopers, and the sight of about two dozen steps on the steep climb in front of me felt like a slap on the face. Wasn't sure if the shudder that went down my spine was from the stimpaks slowly fixing me up or if it was from the thought of torturing myself by climbing up a flight of stairs but either way it was just something I needed to deal with. No amount of moping was going to change that or make it any easier to deal with. If it did, then my life would have been all sunshine and rainbows by now. Gotta take this step by step, little by little until I get this done and over with or until those Stimpaks finally finish patching me up.

Just need to keep focused. One foot in front of the other. Ignore the burning pain going from your neck to your knees. Stay awake, don't fall down the stairs and fuck up your face even worse than what a few bullets could do to it. Stay awake until you reach the top, just... stay... awa-

*Ka-thump*

---

FEAR.

IT could smell the FEAR coming from the nearby city. That sweet, delicious scent that led it and the OTHERS to feeble prey that could hardly defend themselves most of the time.

This FEAR though… this one was different. There was something else piercing beyond the oddity drifting outside of the nearby city. HATE, ANGER, REGRET. These were also coming from the city now that IT paid close enough to the collective stench of the city. Whereas the FEAR that it had sensed earlier, led IT and so many OTHERS to the city days ago, and suddenly vanished was coming from the city once more those three emotions instead came from a single individual.

IT was confused. It was rare for any prey to have such a strong stench coming from it and yet… it could still somehow be detected through the FEAR of an entire city.

IT was confused, but also intrigued. SHE would want to know about this new prey, and SHE would certainly know how best to use it in HER favor.

IT sent out a call. All of THEM did.

SHE answered.

SHE was confused… but also intrigued. Very, very intrigued.

---

"Hey Jed, we ought to be finding a place to camp out for the night. The map says we're about to be entering Yao Guai territory and I do not want to be dealing with those things tonight." Stella called out after noticing how low the sun was getting now that we finally set foot into Zion Valley.

The journey there was largely uneventful. Aside from only one run in with the 80's that I volunteered to clear out myself so long as I got half of the profits from selling their loot, we hadn't run into any real issues. Sure, Ricky damn near overdosed on the extra Psycho I sold him but a cocktail of ground up Fixer that I dumped into some Wasteland Tequila fixed him up before anybody died. This was looking to be perhaps the easiest 300 caps I had ever made in addition to having a well needed vacation paying me for enjoying it. After escaping the Sierra Madre, offing Caesar, and dealing with Benny I needed a bit of 'me time', especially after putting down three hit squads in one day.

That was why I finally decided to check out the Happy Trails Caravan broadcast I picked up in the beginning of March. Turns out that they were hours away from setting off when I approached them with the offer to both bodyguard and map the area out for them after they started having second thoughts about Ricky. Luckily, I managed to talk him into hiring the both of us after pointing out how useful it would be to have two people mapping out the area should something happen to one of us.

I would've run Ricky off if push came to shove or if he mouthed off to me but I honestly pitied the guy too much to do that. He was just about as down on his luck as I was and we really hit it off once I started having the Psycho addict start bragging about his fake accomplishments. The guy was like Raul but he actually bought the brahmin shit he was trying to sell. Of course, after hooking the guy up with a dozen hits of the good stuff he probably would have sucked me off if I told him to instead of just asking him to keep the bragging down until we needed something to laugh at each night. I wasn't anything more than an alcoholic that enjoyed the occasional relief that came with a dose of Med-X every now and then, so I still had plenty I was willing to part with at the time. I couldn't imagine when I would ever find myself in need of the few hundred chems I kept on me in case of emergencies back then.

Stella was another one of the guards that I came to know during the trip. The lass was a cute little thing but looked a couple years too young for me to think of her as anything more than a friend. Besides, she did seem to have a little thing for Jed and the two would always flirt or head off away from the camp at night when they thought no one else was paying attention to them. She was a real nice, stand up person that reminded me of Sunny Smiles back in Goodspring in a way. Nice, kind-hearted to a fault, and willing to raise hell against anyone who threatened those she wanted to protect if what she was telling me about her time in New Reno was true. I didn't doubt it, but you never could be too careful with people sometimes and the only things I really trusted at this time were my companions, myself, and cold hard caps.

Lastly was the big man himself, Jed Masterson. I could see why Stella took a liking to him after the first day with how much personality oozed off of him. I swear that sexy voice of his could've made straight men gay for a night after listening to him talk long enough. The man was as smart as a whip to boot, apparently traveling across the wasteland and talking to a couple dozen tribes lets you learn a thing or two. I obviously wouldn't know what that was like after taking two to the head and forgetting a lot about everything, but seeing as how I found myself able to live off the land after only a couple days back on my feet I can only wonder how well traveled I was compared to Jed. The only thing that wasn't to like about him was that he was damn good at Caravan, so good that I struggled to break even with a deck that I had stacked in my favor against his run of the mill one. Course, I did seem to have that problem with just about everyone no matter what game I played.

There were a few others with us that tended to the brahmin and were only coming along to negotiate with the New Canaanites we were supposed to visit after crossing through Zion. I never really bothered much with them folk for all sorts of reasons. Few of them just rubbed me the wrong way, most were some of life's NPCs with how interesting they were, and the others knew enough about me to stay as far away as possible in case we happened upon any of Caesar's men and they caught a few stray bullets that were meant for me. I would've done the same thing if I were them, but that sure as hell didn't mean I enjoyed being the odd man out whenever I didn't have another guard to buddy around with.

Thankfully, I could always count on the three friends I had there to keep me company. Tonight was looking to be one of those nights, and although I didn't know what a Yao Guai was at the time I was kinda hoping to add a couple of what they were to my kill list now that I knew that they existed and even created a section to keep track of them in my Pipboy. Once I learned what they were a while later, I would have shot myself for even thinking about something as stupid as that.

Woulda shot White Cloud too because damn was that weapon he gave me NOT worth the effort it took to get it. 'Punch a bear' he said, 'It'll be fun' he said. BULLSHIT!

The sun at this point was just about to go completely below the horizon and we wouldn't have had more than an hour to set up camp and get a fire going before any geckos or cazadors started poking around looking for an easy meal. We'd be the ones taking bites out of them so long as I was around, but even then we could only eat so much and no one was willing to fight off a few dozen of them should we decide to forgo a fire tonight for whatever reason.

One of the negotiators volunteered to gather some firewood and rushed out in front of us, and in retrospect I should have been real damn suspicious as to why one of those suit types finally decided to start pulling his weight all of a sudden. No, instead of thinking with my head I was taking in the valley around me and how alive the land seemed to be when compared to everywhere else I travelled. The trees, bushes, and grass here were a much healthier color compared to those you could rarely find throughout the Mojave and they were everywhere instead of around the few oases dotted around New Vegas. Green was not a common sight unless it came with a radioactive glow, but it painted one hell of a breathtaking picture when you set it beside flowing blue rivers and winding orange canyons. Dusk was never this beautiful in the Mojave.

What was more impressive than the valley itself was just how clear the sunset was from beyond the canyon in front of us. Reds, yellows, blues, and purples painted one hell of a picture compared to the dull skies above the Mojave or the frantic lights found on The Strip whenever night finally showed its ugly head. I couldn't help but to just take a moment to savor the sight in front of me and regret not taking that camera Michael Angelo gave me. That would have been a picture worth a whole year's worth of inspiration for the both of us. It was a shame that I didn't have enough room to bring it with me along with a few other guns of mine, but I was sure that once things were settled between the NCR, Legion, and House that I'd have plenty of time to come here on my own.

"Hey there big guy, whatcha looking at?" Stella asked me, pulling me out of my thoughts and back to the world around me.

"Nothing much." I told her. "Just can't remember the last time I saw something like this."

"Really? I thought you Couriers were supposed to get around to all sorts of places." She said. Great, I hate having to ruin the moment like this.

"Yeah, well… let's just say that I've been having troubles remembering things thanks to some special circumstances of mine and leave it at that." I said to shut down her attempt to coax more out of me than I felt comfortable sharing right now.

It wasn't that I didn't feel comfortable about talking about it anymore or that I didn't trust her to keep her mouth shut. I'd have been a fool to trust her to keep me alive during her shifts on night watch and not keep some personal between us, and although Julia Farkas diagnosed me as 'slow' after the first few times I met with her, I was by no means foolish. I just… hadn't quite come to terms with how different I must have been now from before I woke without a damn clue who I was back in Goodsprings. The fact that most people weren't satisfied with my story without seeing the scar I earned from it was the final nail in that coffin because I was never going out in public without a helmet after the Sierra Madre.

"Okay. Just… don't let whatever is bothering you eat away at you too much. I've seen plenty of good people go bad because they couldn't get something off of their chest." She said after noticing the sudden change in the atmosphere around us.

"I'm fine, and believe me I would rather die than let myself turn into one of my usual targets." I said hoping I could brush off whatever unwanted concerns she had for me.

I appreciated that she was somewhat concerned for me, but right now I wanted to put as much distance between and my problems as I could. Therapy could come after I managed to return to the Mojave and found a few more horrors buried in the sands there.

"Anyways, Jed and I were wondering if you might consider joining us full time seeing as how you won't be doing any more jobs for the Crimson Caravan in the future. You are one of the best guns either of us have ever seen and we would all feel a lot more safer knowing you were with us on future trips." She said, changing subjects rather than letting things get any more awkward than they already were.

"Really? I might have to take you up on that offer someday then. After I settle some unfinished business back in the Mojave I'd be down for whatever you lovebirds have planned." I said, enjoying how flustered she looked at my insinuation.

"Don't act so surprised, the roads get awfully cold and lonely at night and I know I would be doing the same thing as you two if I were in your shoes. Besides, you two seem to get along well together." I said while she wiped the faint blush that sprouted on her cheeks away.

"Sort of like you and that girl you are telling us you adopted?" Stella asked me as she tried to get a reaction out of me. Thing is, I played this game too many times before and knew better than to crack a smirk from beneath my bandana.

"You know it. Although I gotta tell ya, things might start getting really creepy if you two start acting like father and daughter in between the sheets." I said. I could not help but to chuckle at the grimace she made after putting that thought in her head.

I was about to say a bit more when the rustling of nearby leaves caught my attention. The sound itself wasn't anything noteworthy as anything from a stiff breeze to a harmless bloatfly larva could have been behind it. The thing was, it definitely wasn't a breeze that made that sound. After lugging around as much shit as I could carry all day while wearing heavily reinforced combat armor I definitely would have noticed and appreciated a gentle breeze right about then. If I wasn't about to have a heat stroke in the next few seconds, then that noise wasn't coming from no damn breeze blowing around the pass we just set foot into.

No, whatever did that was certainly a living, breathing creature. Most creatures would have had one hell of a time getting to the little slice of land on the canyon overlook we just reached. The tight caves we just travelled through on one side made it impossible for anything larger than a baby gecko to get up here without help and the rope bridge on the other side separating us from the rest of Zion wasn't something a wild animal would have had the know how to use. Throw in the fact that most animals aren't smart enough to set up an ambush and it was painfully obvious what was going on. Even taking the few that are smart enough to think that far ahead into account, they would have picked someone off long once they left the main group to set up camp. Something else had made that noise and stopped the moment it realized I was on to it. Something smart enough to keep quiet enough to sneak up on us and not so much as breathe while it watched. No, not watched. Waited. Something… human.

I pulled out the hunting rifle I had managed to turn into a force to be reckoned with, the very same one that I carried with me to most places when I wasn't feeling too confident in my supply of .45-70, and held my breath while paying close attention to my surroundings. I didn't even bother to say anything to Stella in case I forced whatever was lurking nearby into attacking us. Everything was deathly still now, although some parts were noticeably quieter than their surroundings. Far too quiet for my liking.

"Everyone, grab a gun and find some cover! Six found something!" Stella shouted as she ran back to the caravan behind us.

"Wait! Don't move, it's a trap!" I tried to call out after her, but it was already too late. Her attempt to warn the others might as well have been her pointing a gun at one of our ambushers with the response it got from them.

From the densely packed foliage in front of me a dirty savage with white, chalk covered legs burst out from the bushes screaming at the top of her lungs with a tomahawk raised above her head as she closed in on Stella for the kill. She never had time to so much as scream as when I redirected my aim towards her and blew out her brains from behind with a single shot to the back of her head. If the others hadn't heard Stella's warning, then they sure as hell heard my gun shot before all hell broke loose and other savages poured from the nearby cover and opened fire on us.

Some of them had your typical clubs, poorly maintained pistols, and the occasional rusty rifle that you would expect some uncivilized mongrels like them to have. The rest were decisively not as uncivilized or poorly unarmed as the rest, as I could clearly pick up the sounds of machine guns, shotguns, and even a damn anti-material rifle filling the air now that their cover was blown.

Most of the caravan didn't have time to pull out their weapons and instead painted the ground around them red by the time their bullet riddled corpses hit the ground. Neither man nor brahmin was spared from the assault, and only a few of us hadn't been dropped in the first volley. The only ones still standing from Happy Trails were me, Stella, Jed, Ricky, and a few others that hadn't been nearby those that were setting up camp with everyone else. Everyone else was missing a few chunks or limbs while they bled out on the ground.

At this point, I was seeing nothing but red after those savages butchered the people I had been traveling with for the past two weeks and I was in no mood to let a single one of them get away without paying for what they had done. With a hand steadied by rage and the remainder of my hollow point rounds that I had loaded in my hunting rifle, I fired nine shots and dropped the nine closest savages that were around the few of us that had survived. The rest of those mongrels did not even bother to pay attention to me beyond those who realized they were the next targets I could line up. They had a plan to deal with us and were obviously sticking to it until everything was said and done.

"RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" I shouted as I holstered my empty hunting rifle and swapped it out for my 12.7mm pistol rather than waste time standing still and reloading it. Next thing I did was slip on my ballistic fist and take my own advice for once as I hauled ass with everyone else.

I know a lost cause when I see it and you better believe that I wasn't sticking around to be proven right with this one. Staying behind to fight against who knows how many white legged savages was a death sentence at the best, or a life of slavery at the worst. There was no chance I could rally everyone together and survive until morning, even if everyone else was able and willing to do exactly as I said. Previous disagreements with my companions already told me how great of a leader I am and how much better I am at killing than everyone else, so rather than fight a doomed battle I made the call to book it before it I was completely surrounded. I had spent enough time with Boone, Hsu, Dhatri, and others in the NCR who had seen the end results of the people who had seen what was left of people who made the mistake of fighting back against overwhelming odds. I had no intention of being another corpse in the background of someone else's story, doing that once for Benny was one time too many.

The others seemed to have had the same idea, especially since there was no way to get whatever cargo was being carried on our dead brahmin now that more white legged savages were starting to walk out of the shadows between them and us. It hurt to leave behind my super sledge and the other loot I picked up on the journey here, but then again I could just take all of it back once I turned the tables on these savages in the future. My life, and those of the people I tailed behind as we sprinted across the dirt path laid out for us were far more important than a few thousands caps worth of stuff.

Ricky did not have the same opinion as the rest of us though, as instead of running away from the savages he was sprinting right towards them and missing every shot as he approached them. Being the calm, level headed leader that I always am, I decided to grab his arm and did my best to cooly convince him to run with the rest of us.

"What the fuck are you thinking? What the hell is back there that is worth dying over?" I shouted at him hoping that threatening to tear his arm off with my grip would help him see reason.

"But my chems! I can't live without my chems!" He shouted back, doing his best to drag me with him but failing to so much as budge me or the ballistic fist that held him tightly.

"To hell with them! I can cook you up some new ones as soon as we get out of here so get your ass moving befo-"

I never had time to finish that thought, as having a tomahawk hit home square in your back tends to distract you from most everything else that isn't the weapon that just left a large gash in your back. The cluster of pain was just below the center of my left shoulder blade left my arm feeling numb from the shoulder down and made me lose my grip on Ricky who was all too eager to get a little bit closer to his precious Psycho. The man didn't even make it a full ten steps before his head exploded like an overripe mutfruit in a shower of gore once an anti-material round found its mark leaving me next in line to get killed with the way things were going.

Cursing my luck and Ricky's stupidity I turned around to see a very surprised, very empty handed savage staring at me in complete disbelief at how I was not only standing but also had nothing in his hands that would stop me from having my way with him. I punched that savage in the chest with enough force to send him flying into the canyon below, his screams giving me some satisfaction as they faded out into nothingness while I was once again running for my life. My back felt like it was on fire as the pain from where I had hit spread out from where I could feel a faint pull every now and then too. I did not bother to check if one of my backpack's shoulder straps had been cut as I could feel lead raining down behind me and the occasional flash of white hot pain when the occasional bullet pierced through my armor. Not dying was the only thing on my mind as I did my best to catch up to the people in front of me as I had no time to waste on focusing on anything else. Reclaiming whatever stuff I was dropping could happen later when I wasn't on my way to being filled with more holes than a ghost person.

As if trying to prove my point, a few more savages leapt out of the foliage in front of the caravaneers I was following. The two other guards whose names I never bothered remembering each took a tomahawk to the chest from the savages while Jed and Stella somehow made it around the corner that the second ambush had been waiting at. The white legged mongrels that failed to kill anyone gave up on chasing the other survivors and instead charged at me in the hopes of either adding another sick trophy to their collection or stalling me long enough for the others to do it for them.

Thankfully only one of them had a firearm, but the fact that it was a riot shotgun shooting out more than enough lead to make up for his fellow savages' lack of guns didn't make me feel any better about it. He was the first one that had to go, as while he wasn't quite at a distance that would make his shells a problem I had no intentions of letting him get close enough to make that a reality. Three shots to the chest were all it took to drop him, and with the remainder of the shots I 'disarmed' the primitive axe wielding savage that was the closest in between me and the shotgunner before using the last remaining shot to knock the tomahawk out of another one's hands. That left two savages from the ambush who were not tearing apart the men who were too busy to do anything but bleed all over the place making my job much easier. Those savages that were still looking to kill me would have learned that out of ammo was not the same as unarmed, but after punch to one's chest left a fist sized hole where her heart should be and a quick scribe counter left the other a head shorter I doubt that they would have been doing much of anything from then on.

The other savages that had been preoccupied with what I could only hope were slain guards learned something else too. I taught them that they should never celebrate too early and that anything could be used as a weapon if you were brave enough upon claiming the riot shotgun that had been peppering me earlier. Luckily the thing still had a mostly full magazine because I had a hell of a time aiming the damn thing with a single hand on account of the ballistic fist covering it. They didn't get to think long and hard about my lesson either once I held down the trigger and cleared out another five savages, even if those mongrels could learn anything to begin with. I did at least avenge a few of the people that I had been travelling with which allowed me some satisfaction at a job well done before I discarded the emptied firearm.

The moment didn't last though, as my petty act of vengeance was rewarded with an anti-material round that tore through my right calf. It was hardly surprising, considering a shot like that was supposed to punch through tanks and vertibirds as well as they did flesh. I fell face first into the ground as my entire right leg lit up in pain and I howled like a deathclaw matron from how much it hurt. The savages behind me joined in the yelling too as they did not so much as stop to swap out their tomahawks for a weapon that could put me down nice and quickly now that it was impossible for me to move away from whatever they had in store for me. They were mocking me, thinking I was a dead man because of my wound.

They were just about right too, which is why instead of trying to stand up and fight through the pain I reached into my 'medicine' pouch and quickly fished out a red inhaler that had been duct taped to a can of spray paint. I had been saving some Turbo for when I might have needed a bit of emergency speed for whatever reason, and now that it looked I wasn't going to be able to run away without it I felt like I finally had a good enough time to use it. Now or never becomes a very compelling argument when the 'never' involves getting torn to pieces by axe wielding savages hell bent on making you suffer as much as possible before they finally kill you.

One quick puff was all it took to make time slow down around me and allow me to get back up to my feet as the savages only just came close enough to strike me. Downing what was left was… well, that was the best chem trip I have ever been on. Period. Imagine all the beauty of Zion when you first see it but getting lit up Vegas style and you can imagine what the most boring part of it looked like. I could feel my brain rotting away from inhaling that brahmin shit but I somehow had enough presence of mind to remember which direction the bridge to safety was in and sprint in that general direction. I only say that because the world was less about shapes and colors, and more just a blur of AWESOME until the high wore off and I was limping a few feet ahead of Jed and Stella.

"Where the hell- how did you get in front of us? We just saw you get shot a moment ago!" Jed yelled at me as he looked at me with something resembling admiration and pure terror. Stella had the same look on her face, but was at least kind enough to not voice what she was feeling out loud.

"Turbo is a hell of a drug." Was the only thing I could stammer out as I returned to the reality of running away from an entire army of savages and a gaping hole in my leg that leaked blood far more than it should.

Rather than give any more of an explanation than that or wonder why that weird siren noise was playing again, even though nothing too strange just happened, I just turned away from them and started limping towards the bridge of freedom and not dying. It was only then that I noticed I had a few extra strands of something dangling off of me and I decided to check what they were. Turns out I was covered in a whole lot of blood sausage and other more important bits despite not having them on me when I went down. The garland strand of guts I was wearing would definitely explain why they looked at me the same way the powder gangers in Vault 19 did once they realized who got rid of their fire gecko problem, but that still didn't explain where I got them from. There were a couple savages in between me and them that I could have killed after taking more Turbo than anyone alive probably has done in one go, but I swear I would have remembered doing something like that. There was that one moment where all the pretty lights just turned into a whole lot of red while I was running but…

I didn't… I didn't do that to someone? Did I? I mean, it would have been absolutely badass if I did but then again absolutely terrifying too...

I filed that question away under "things I'll ask the first savage I capture when tracking down my stolen stuff" and continued limping forwards rather than looking back to either answer my question or find another savage ready to bury something else in my back. Jed and Stella passed me for a moment and just about left me for dead, but thankfully they were both kind hearted enough to offer me a shoulder to wrap my arms around and help me limp a little faster to the bridge. I don't know how we did it with my sorry ass slowing us down, but we somehow made it without so much as getting shot at with me slowing us down.

No one questioned why the savages stopped shooting at us as we all found our footing on the old rickety bridge and did our best to run across it without sending the whole thing crashing down into the dark chasm below. Under any other circumstances, I would have rather climbed my way down step by step over trusting a bridge that threatened to turn itself upside down with every step one of us took. A tribe of savages thirsting for blood proved to be the perfect distraction to not think about how likely we were going to be falling down there and the perfect reason to take the risk to begin with. Well, it wasn't perfect per se but it was far better than death by dismemberment.

It only took us a few moments for us to reach the center of the bridge, Jed leading our charge and me holding up the rear after using a stimpak to at least stop myself from bleeding out in the next few minutes. The man just stopped a little after the halfway point and was cursing up a storm along with Stella which was a startling change as neither of them cursed a single bit until now. I craned my neck a little to see what they were looking at and soon found myself joining them upon seeing what looked like a great many pairs of white, chalky legs standing out like a sore thumb in faint moonlight that just revealed itself. There had to be dozens, if not hundreds of them waiting for us on the other side of the bridge and just as many behind us too.

All of a sudden, it made a whole lot more sense how we managed to escape the previous ambushes. We never did make it to safety. We just ran right into another group of savages that were waiting for us.

"Dammit! They're coming across the bridge!" Jed shouted as the swaying of the bridge under our feet grew with every pair of white legs on it.

"Well, if this is how it's going to end then we might as well give them a fight they'll be talking about for years!" Stella shouted as she abandoned her grip on the handrails and pulled out her laser rifle.

As for me, I didn't get angry, sad, or defiant. Either I had lost too much blood to feel anything, was too shocked at being played for being played like the fool I was, or reached that perfect little stretch of clarity between ballistic rage and apeshit crazy. I don't quite know what was running through my head other than one question that just wouldn't leave my mind.

"What's beneath this bridge?" I quietly asked.

"What the hell kind of question is…" Stella apparently heard me and knew exactly what else I was thinking of and soon went from thinking I was about to pass out to using the same tone that she usually only saved for Ricky. "You wouldn't dare."

"Six, if you are thinking about doing something stupid that could save all of our lives then stop messing around and do it already!" Jed shouted as more white legged savages came onto the bridge from either side.

"You guys better know how to swim!" I yelled as I pulled out the two knives I kept sheathed on my belt and braced myself for a whole lot of pain.

Before either Stella or Jed could fully voice their opinion of my less than stellar plan, I quickly brought both blades down through the worn ropes of the bridge. Time had not done them any favors, as the couple of worn combat knives I had been saving for a rainy day cut through the rope like butter. Without the extra support to keep the wooden planks suspended, the bridge snapped in two underneath us leaving me, Jed, Stella, and about a dozen savages to fall down into the hidden depths below us.

I couldn't tell whose screams were whose as we plummeted nor did I have time to figure out who landed where. I was completely focused on the murky water below me instead of everything and everyone falling around me. All I did, all I could do was close my eyes and hope that lady luck was on my side for once since there was nothing more that could change what would happen to me now. Never did have good luck on my hands, so knowing that I wasn't going to survive the fall and-

---

She could hardly believe it. The stories, rumors, whispered tales that had come from the occasional drunk and shell shocked soldier upon waking up in the hospital these past few days were undeniably true. Not only was this man capable of tearing through people like the creatures he was named after, but also lacked an aura just like them. Her desire to leave the Grimm Wanderer to his fate only grew after seeing him tear through the middle of twenty five armed men and women and leaving ten of them a broken, bloody mess.

Leaving him to die was not her decision to make however, for if it was she would have left long ago after seeing him loot the corpse of his first victim and scare off the people she fought for not long afterwards. She knew what she was here to do… just as she knew that it was up to her to decide when and where to make contact with her target. Should the Grimm Wanderer not survive the next few hours then it would hardly be her fault for letting a psychotic killer get what he so clearly deserved. Although his current targets were a people she felt no sympathy for, there was no telling if he would ever start looking for others to fight against.

If he survived then perhaps it would be best to ensure his allegiance before he decides the Faunus were a threat too. As much as she hated to admit it, she liked the idea of fighting with him far more than fighting against him and whoever he decided to align himself with. If he didn't have some sort of power that allowed him to negate someone's aura entirely, then that meant he was somehow strong enough to tear through it just as easily as he could cut his way through a person too. Either possibility was not something that would make him a nightmare to fight against, so perhaps fighting with him would be better if he did manage to survive until sunrise.

All of that hardly mattered now though, as there was nothing she could do to help him now without exposing herself. All that she could do was watch and wait to see what he did next. She couldn't help but to wonder exactly how the Grimm Wanderer of Vacuo would manage to get his way out of this mess, but even she found herself waiting in anticipation of the slaughter to come.

---

I jolted awake as the feeling of the wind biting at my legs became far too real for me to handle. Waking up face down on the ground for the second time today, I placed a hand on my back to look and see how well my wounds were healing now that I recalled what was going on. A combination of blood loss, chem withdrawal, and my flesh slowly knitting itself back together obviously was too much for me to handle and made me blackout once again. The wounds on my back were no longer crawling like they were when I went up the stairs and seeing as how I wasn't a crumpled mess of broken limbs laying at the bottom of a flight of stairs, I at least was able to make it a little way farther before losing a grip on things. For all the things that they were great at, stimpaks didn't do a damn thing for blood loss. Luckily for me, blood wasn't too much of a problem for someone as heartless as me. I let out a little chuckle at my pathetic little joke but cut it off before I started cackling like a madman again. There were things to do, places to be, and no time to waste laughing out how shit everything was right now.

I could hear shouting underneath me that told me all that I needed to know about my current situation. All though things were bad, they were not nearly as bad as my first night in Zion. Sure, I was shot to hell and back all the same but now that I had a moment to clear my head and rest up a bit I was feeling better. Still felt like shit on account of not having my usual chems on me, but as much as I want them I don't' need them. I do. Not. NEED. CHEMS! DO NOT NEED THEM! NOOOO CHEEEEEEEEMMMSS!

Calm down Six, calm down. This ain't nothing. You're surrounded with enough wreckage and other supplies to live out the rest of your days so long as you can find a trader for food right now. You've got a decent supply of pipes, nails, and scrap metal to use against at least ten people with better guns than you and are immune to bullets. Big deal. You've been through worse and odds are there is still worse to come after getting rid of these psyker schmucks. Although you could use a few chems to even the playing field, you don't need to use 'em right now. Chems can come after you pop a few more heads today, maybe even before then if it looks like you're getting your ass handed to you and a little 'pick me up' is what you need to make it until dawn. Yeah, that's exactly it. Nothing too crazy can possibly happen. This is nothing like Zion, no matter how much you think it is. Hardly anything can compare to that shit show...

Still, passing out in the middle of a firefight ain't something that I can have happen. Luckily, I still have some chems on me that would at least stave off a bit of my current withdrawal and get me back into fighting shape all the same. I mean, if I'm already addicted to this one then what's the drawback? I didn't bother to find a vein to jab a needle into once I got a thing of Rebound ready to go and injected it inside of me for the relief I was in desperate need of. By the time I was tossing the useless strap that allowed weaker willed people use it, I could already feel myself getting a whole lot lighter on my feet. This was not me giving into weakness, I was just... making sure that I didn't pass out again and wake up in an even worse situation than the one I'm already in right now. Yeah, totally that.

With energy flooding through my body as the chem did its work, I wasted no time getting to work with the supplies I dragged with me to the upper floors. I had a whole scrap yard's worth of ammunition and enough duct tape and Wonderglue to last me for a few weeks. If I can jury rig a mini-nuke into a landmine then I can definitely craft something to get me out of this mess, hopefully without blowing myself up this time. Hell, I'd settle for blowing up half the city so long as I can limp away in peace right now.

Ah well, beggars can't be choosers. At least I think that's how that old saying goes… eh, doesn't matter either way. Guess we'll see who is going to come, see, and conquer who soon enough...

---

Life had not been going well for the man overseeing Mantle's interests in Vacuo. The first reason for his woes was the unstoppable killer known only as the 'Grimm Wanderer' that appeared in the city three days ago. The commanding officer of Mante's forces in Vacuo, a man known to most simply as The Major, had been doing his best to bring them to justice when it seemed like a simple enough task. At first that simply meant killing the Grimm impersonator after they assaulted several of Mantle and Mistral's assets and bases in and around the city. Once the monster of a man managed to add over a hundred kills to their name, all pretenses of justice were abandoned. People were brought to justice, monsters were put down and the Grimm Wanderer was well on his way to becoming one of the greatest monsters Mantle had ever seen.

Then, there were his superiors in Mantle who were demanding answers for the previous three days of chaos that they were receiving reports about. Appeasing these powerful individuals forced The Major to redirect his efforts away from finding the one man army slaughtering his troops to protect several important sites that they might attack. Once the kingdom's forces were diverted away from the city wide manhunt, it took less than a day to lose track of the Grimm Wanderer adding even more problems for him to worry about.

His own subordinate officers were only making it more difficult to maintain order in the city. When the first reports of the Grimm Wanderer's targets were all determined to be connected to the collective interest of Mantle and her allies, most of them did everything in their power to ensure their own survival and enlist as many troops to their defense as The Major typically allowed them. As many of them had direct command over the majority of his veteran forces, that had left only the troops that had been drafted and shipped out to Vacuo with minimal training to fight a ruthless murderer. The number of casualties that had come from attempts to overwhelm the Grimm Wanderer with sheer numbers was absurd, and fear had been growing within Mantle's ranks thanks to the broken bodies left behind after each massacre.

To make matters worse, the always remarkable 'Spirit of Vacuo' had to show up at the worst possible time and make itself known. The locals had decided now was the best time to start rebelling against the army occupying their city and several smaller outposts had been reporting skirmishes with what appeared to be highly trained individuals. While it wasn't anything new, the sudden increase of these reports only added to the mess that The Major had been dealing with. Their presence only made the threat the Grimm Wanderer posed even worse if they were already aligned with these rebels or if an alliance was currently being created between them. All of this and more had turned a once proud, intimidating figure into echo of his former self.

On a better day, he would have made for an intimidating figure. Neatly trimmed brown hair, clean shaven face, and holding whatever had caught his attention captive in the glare of his icy blue eyes is what one would typically expect when meeting with The Major. This was how The Major looked on a normal day, but after two sleepless nights dealing with the fallout caused by the Grimm Wanderer had left him looking as haggard as the Faunus that had been displaced by Mantle's occupation of the city and paler than a ghost. He might have been taller and more muscular than a ghost ought to be, but he did appear to be drained of life like any other one.

Then there was his attire, a well worn uniform of the Mantle army that was a dull dusty white that contrasted to the cleaner and more decorated suits used by most of Mantle's high ranking officers these days. The Major was a man who wore his uniform with pride. He was a soldier of Mantle to his very core, not a politician or bureaucrat that had decided it would be better to send other men to die on his behalf. Every stain was a treasured memory, every scar that he wore underneath his clothes an experience that turned him into the man he was today. Although he was no longer personally overseeing his troops in the field, he still kept himself prepared to join them should he ever need to.

The pistol that stayed attached to him at his hip was even more proof of this. It was a large, six shot revolver that fired custom ordered dust rounds that could punch a fist size hole through a Grimm's head and it served him had been at his side ever since his first mission. From then on it became one of the few friends that he could always trust, a big iron for a big man with the big willpower required to wield it. Many of Mantle's enemies found their last sight being of The Major pointing that gun at them, enemies from both the inside and out.

He longed to be able to be out there in the city looking for the Grimm Wanderer himself, but unfortunately his duty was no longer found on the frontlines. Being able to join his troops in the hunt for the monster terrorizing his kingdom and slaughtering his men like they were animals was the only thing that he wished for right now. Instead, he was making sure that the kingdom's operations wouldn't be revealed to the world at large or be brought down to its knees thanks to the incompetence of most other officers that he had the displeasure of working with.

A sudden knocking came from the lone entrance to his office, bringing The Major out of the world of bread and circuses that his superiors demanded and into the nightmare that had descended upon the city of Vacuo. He quickly set aside the reports he had been reviewing and buzzed the visitor to his office. All he did, all he could do was sit up straight from behind the desk he was sitting behind and do his best to maintain the image that he had acquired after years of service for his kingdom. Although it was only for another soldier underneath his command, he would always strive to make himself as presentable as possible for whoever he was meeting with. His guest was someone he had been expecting to meet in private for quite some time, albeit in far less dire circumstances. The impression that he made now would more than likely be the one he would have to maintain for years afterwards if everything went as planned.

"Ah, Specialist Frost, please come in." The Major said, abandoning all pretenses of hierarchy after having dealt with its drawbacks for far too long. He never even bothered to ask who was outside his door. No one dared to disrupt his work if they could help it, not after what happened to the last officer that had barged in unannounced had to be dragged out in a body bag.

"Specialist Celia Frost reporting for duty, sir!" Shouted the woman before him as she gave her superior a salute.

Frost was a promising addition to his army that had seen enough action before being deployed in Vacuo to earn his respect yet not enough to find herself growing complacent with all the benefits that came with years of service and vices that others usually drowned themselves in. Standing at attention would have left her staring him in the eye, quite a noticeable feat when The Major stood at an imposing six and a half feet tall. She held the same steely glare that he was being sent her way, although with her long blonde hair that was still well groomed unlike his unkempt mess she looked much more professional. Her uniform was clean, as it was only natural for that to be the case given how much importance the kingdom put on their armies appearances regardless of how ironic it was. Even so, he could see a few loose threads and stains that showed that their similarities went far beyond looks alone.

"Please, forget the formalities. With the absolute mess the past few days have been, it will be better for the both of us if we finish our business today quickly. Take a seat and I'll try to keep this as brief as possible." The Major said as he leaned forward in his seat and waited for her to do as he asked.

She was hesitant to lower her guard against him, but soon found herself doing as he asked. Something about him seemed off from every other time she had seen him, and that was even after ignoring his current appearance. That only made his more relaxed nature seem much more unnatural to her.

"Celia, I know what you have been doing behind my back. I am not nearly as blind as you believe me to be." He flatly stated to Frost who looked as if she just heard him order her death instead.

"I-I don't understand what you're talking about." She stuttered, but unfortunately for her there was no escaping the predatory gaze she found herself trapped in.

"Then so be it." The Major said as he opened a drawer in the desk he was sitting at and placed a folder in between them before continuing. "Fourteen patrols rerouted, extra resources being diverted to your men, and several classified reports. I know this is not everything that you have been doing Frost, and although I cannot prove what else you have been doing I am sure that enough digging will come up with more evidence to use against you."

The life slowly drained away from Frost's face as she realized she had been caught defying his orders. Other troops that outranked her had been shot by The Major not long after he presented less definitive evidence that whatever was held within that folder. She didn't even bother to look to see what was inside was proof of her wrongdoings, as she knew that whatever was in there would not change her fate now. The only thing that she could do now was-

"The Grimm Wanderer has come out of hiding fifteen minutes ago. I want you to organize a strike team to bring him in, alive." The Major said, completely denying her expectations of him.

"Sir?" She muttered in shock.

It wasn't that she was happy not being the next person to require 'assistance' when leaving his office, but the concern at how he seemed to have completely ignored the actions he was levying against her. She had been expecting to be executed as a traitor on the spot, not the job she could only have dreamed of moments ago. Being told to continue her work left her speechless for a moment as The Major studied her intensely.

"Speak, Specialist Frost. I cannot afford to waste anymore time answering pointless questions with half of Mantle and Mistral breathing down my neck while they are waiting for me to put that psychopath's head on a pike so... please, tell me what is so important that you cannot do the one thing you have been focused on for the last few days now that I am giving you full control of the operation you have been trying to organize behind my back?" He growled at her.

What started as a simple reprimand soon turned into a savage growl as the topic of their enemy and the general incompetence that both attributed to his reign of terror was brought up. Frost flinched at the sheer amount of hate coming from the usually emotionless man, but soon recovered enough to ask him enough questions to satisfy her curiosity about the task he had given her.

"Why me, and why do you want that animal brought in alive?" She asked, her contempt towards the thing terrorizing her fellow soldiers finally revealing itself for the first time.

"This, this is one of many reasons I have chosen you for this." The Major said before easing back in his chair to address her. "So far, you are the only person who has proven themselves capable of getting results after a building full of overpaid, incompetent idiots somehow managed to lose a man that leaves behind a trail of bodies wherever he goes. You and you alone have managed to actually do something other than cover your own ass in case the Grimm Wanderer decided to try assassinating them instead of disrupting our operations."

"As for keeping him alive instead of killing him, believe me when I say that I would very much prefer that you throw his severed head on my desk than capture him alive. Unfortunately, there are many people who have taken an interest in some of the technologies and drugs the Grimm Wanderer brought with him and have made it very clear that we need whatever medicines and technology he is carrying more than we need him to die." The Major explained to her.

"What could that savage possibly have brought with him that our kingdom hasn't already invented?" Frost asked, curious as to why anyone would want that menace brought in alive instead of being put down like the animal that she believed him to be.

"For starters, the toaster he dropped managed to kill three people yesterday. It wasn't even plugged in." The Major said as his eyes turned glassy for a moment and his gaze went far beyond the specialist in front of him. Whatever he was thinking about clearly left an impact on the usually unshakable man who appeared to be in complete denial of what he was talking about.

"A… toaster?" She asked, not believing that a toaster was capable of killing someone and hoped it was code for something more sinister than a simple appliance for making toast.

"Yes, a toaster. I wouldn't have believed it either if I didn't see the bodies for myself, and that's not even the worst part. He was also carrying several drugs of unidentified origins that our scientists are still analyzing after using a few Faunus to test them on. One of the drugs let us reattach a woman's arm after it had been severed, another gave one of the other test subjects something akin to a speed based semblance until his heart exploded a few seconds after inhaling the contents of one particular drug." The Major continued as he hastily moved onto the next reason for capturing the Grimm Wanderer.

"That… you mean the only reason he is able to slaughter us by the dozens is because he is high?" Frost asked him incredulously

"Possibly. We have not been able to recover much of his discarded supplies yet or analyze them in full. In fact, we only know what two of the fourteen types he brought with him do as the other twelve have either had no effect on the subjects we tested them on or outright killed them. The only thing that we know beyond their apparent ability to replicate semblances is that the supplies used to make them are readily attainable in an urban environment and can be mass produced given the amount of drugs we have recovered." He explained as Frost processed what she was being told.

"I see. So that's why you want me to capture him instead of kill him." She said as she slowly began to piece together how a single man could cause so much destruction by himself. If he was able to recover from almost any wound and activate several different semblances at once, then it made his rampage all the more believable if he had a large supply of these drugs and others.

"No, that's why my superiors are telling me that the Grimm Wanderer should be captured instead of put down like the monster he is. That is also why you're the one who is going to capture him, as not only are you the most competent person I can assign to oversee this operation, but if you refuse to do so then I will have you tried for treason and executed by morning." The Major calmly explained, once again holding Frost hostage with only his eyes.

This is what she had been expecting when she was told that she would be going after the Grimm Wanderer. In fact, having her life on the line made everything seem much more believable as The Major had always given anyone who disappointed him a chance to make amends before ending them. Whether or not they ever did do so after being given the opportunity is something only they would know, and as Frost had no intentions of dying before she brought in the monster that was terrorizing Vacuo she did her best to keep the threat out of her mind.

"Now stop wasting my time and get out of my office. I have not slept in two days thanks to the mess he has created with all the work that has come up thanks to this menace and I would rather not have to shoot someone else for not doing their damn job!" He shouted as she sat there trapped within her own thoughts as she plotted how best to capture the Grimm Wanderer.

"What are you waiting for? GET OUT OF HERE!" He roared, causing the trembling woman in front of her to jump up out of her seat and flee towards the door before anything else could come from The Major's current temper.

Once she left his room, he eased back into his chair to relax for a moment until he felt something vibrate inside of his desk. The Major cursed as he opened a hidden compartment in his desk and pulled out the Scroll that was tucked away inside of it. There was only one person that had the number for that Scroll and he made no attempt to calm himself down knowing who that person was.

"What do you want now?" He asked as he braced himself for yet another headache to be sent his way.

"Has there been any more information regarding this so-called 'Grimm Wanderer', Major?" Asked his caller.

The sultry voice that purred towards him disgusted him just as much as the woman it belonged to. If he had a choice, he would have made sure that she disappeared. Unfortunately, she was the representative of a powerful ally that he had personally allied himself with so as to ensure Mantle's plans in the future.

"Yes, but you already know that, don't you?" The Major growled, earning a laugh from the agent he was talking with

"Perhaps."

"I am not in the mood to play this game of yours, so unless you want to tell your Queen that our deal is off because you felt like playing me for fool then you had better have something important to tell me."

"Indeed, I do. Do you know that the-"

"Yes, I just sent someone out to arrest the Grimm Wanderer just now." The Major interrupted.

"Oh." She said. The disappointment in her voice was obvious and The Major took great pride in being the person who finally managed to get her to shut up for a moment.

"Was there anything else you want to tell me or can I finally do something important now?" He continued as he prepared to resume inspecting the reports he had set aside for far too long.

"So you know that our common enemy has also taken an interest in him?" She asked him.

"Impossible. We have kept all information regarding the current state of Vacuo from reaching the outside." He said. There was only one enemy that she could be referring to, and there was no way that he could know about the Grimm Wanderer when similar news reached Mantle on the second day of their rampage.

"And yet, what was it you said earlier? Half of Mantle and Mistral is breathing down my neck right?" She asked him before laughing at The Major without even being able to see the dumbfounded look on his face.

"What the f… how did you-"

"I have my ways, just as you have yours. So, what can I do to help you kill the Grimm Wanderer without anyone able to pin his death on you, Major Ironwood?"

---

Author's Corner:

This chapter was over 22k words. NEVER AGAIN WILL I DO A CHAPTER THIS LARGE… unless I hit another snag where I can't seem to find a good point to drop things. The only reason I let things get this long is because I believed the final segment here did not belong with the next chapter and was too important to discard. The only reason that happened is because this was originally the first half of another chapter that evolved into something greater.

In case I haven't made it obvious enough, Courier Six has been quite active since landing in Vacuo and even if he doesn't know who the powerful players are in the city, they already know he is a force to be reckoned with. Who these players are and how they relate to one another is something I will definitely enjoy revealing as time marches on. I have left behind plenty of 'oddities' that I know some people will pick up on, and all I have to say is that they are not mistakes. For those of you that have already cottoned on to what I am cooking up, good luck putting the pieces together and finding the larger picture hidden behind the smaller ones.

Be expecting some general nonsense in the future too since Six is as burnt out as a chem fiend and even if he wasn't, there are quite a few things someone with a bit more intelligence or skill in certain areas would pick up on that he wouldn't. Completely believing he somehow teleported to Europe after blowing up the moon seems outrageous until you compare it with arguing with your own brain and half of the other stuff in the Big Empty that every PC does without batting an eye, and that's before taking other traits and Mojave shenanigans into account.

I also cannot believe the support this story is receiving. Seeing how much attention this got in such a short amount of time left me speechless and I have no intentions of gearing things down anytime soon. Personally speaking, I'm kinda surprised there are so few 'borderline' unhinged protagonists you can find considering how crazy things are in the Fallout universe as well as how some parts of Remnant seem like the perfect environment for one to thrive in. I'm not sure I am doing anything truly unique yet, but then again I have not looked too hard either. Suppose only time will tell, eh?

Well, that's enough rambling from me. I'll try to keep things at the end here shorter next time too, but once again I am not making any promises I know I can't keep. Thank you all for checking this story out and I hope to see you all in the future as well!