It
It was happening again. When he was a child, the spasms came and went, and the headaches weren't so bad. They scared his mother, but they'd honestly never bothered him too much. The Followers who treated him were always nice, and the way they talked about it to him never made it seem like a big deal. It was just A Thing That Happened, and as long as he never swallowed his own tongue it'd pass and everything would be alright again. When he was eight he was given Lorazepam to treat it, and by the time he was sixteen he stopped having episodes. Until now.
The timing couldn't have been worse. At first he'd ignored the resurgence of the headaches, and it had been easy. All he did was grit his teeth and stay focused on the plan, on his plan. It drove him to lash out, and act more violently than he perhaps would have otherwise, but the pain passed and no one was the wiser. In fact, it only made him more feared. But each time it came he desperately begged no one in particular that it would be the last time, but it only seemed to be getting worse.
And now, when he needed his wits and his cunning more than ever, the headaches and the seizures were in full force. For the past several months he'd been lucky, and the attacks only cropped up when he could conveniently excuse himself from the world at large, and leave his duties to a Centurion or Graham. Nothing important; dispensing Legion justice or entertaining the slightly-less powerful with a performance he'd arranged. Thus far, his infirmity hadn't plagued him during battle or at a war council, but the attacks were becoming more frequent, as were battles and war councils. At least once a month he was unable to function for several hours due to the pain, and the odds of a seizure gripping him while he was engaged in something important were increasing at a prodigious rate.
"Everywhere we meet them the bears either run in fear or die like brahmin," Centurion Licinius reported, as a bloom of gray fog accompanied by a roil of unimaginable pain obscured his face, "Rather than confront us at Fort Aradesh, they fled like women and allowed us to occupy the structure.
"The men have taken to calling it Fort Abandon, in honor of our enemies' inglorious defeat," he added through a viper's smile, which his glorious master could not see for the pain like a thunderstorm in his skull. Licinius's smug smile slipped away in fear of his master's pained grimace, as Caesar clenched his eyes shut and caressed his aching temple with his hand. Licinius nervously glanced around the war council, but no other man would meet his terrified gaze, opting to instead examine their own hands or the walls or the table. Anything to escape what they assumed was the Son of Mar's infamous temper, while Caesar personally struggled to compose himself in the face of inescapable torment.
"It's well and good to take more territory from the NCR," it was the Malpais Legate who spoke. The last free man in the Legion, he had no fear of Caesar's reprisals. After the things he'd seen and done for the man he once called Edward, it was unclear if he was afraid of anything anymore. Under his SLCPD vest was a thick layer of bandages, covering the hole that went straight through his torso, a shot that would've killed any other man. He was fresh from the front lines. Unlike Licinius and the centurions who assaulted Aradesh Graham had deliberately cut off an NCR battalion's retreat, then crucified them when they surrendered. He'd made sure they were visible on the front lines, but the exposure had afforded a ranger the opportunity to snipe him. The NCR veteran on the other side of the scope pissed himself in terror when the Legate stood back up and returned fire. He jammed his own thumb in the hole to stem the bleeding. The ranger was absolutely positive he'd hit him in the heart.
"But men who flee from battle are still alive to continue the war," Graham chastised, "And they'll join the contingent at the Dam, which will only make it that more difficult to claim the real prize."
"They've merely delayed their deaths," Thoros, among the centurions to claim Aradesh, sneered, "Cowards now and cowards then."
There was no hint of emotion in Graham's cold blue eyes when he said, "Perhaps."
Like most of the centurions at the war council, Thoros loathed and feared the Legate. Even among the Legion he was seen as extreme, the stories of his cruelty and brutality giving pause to some of the most hardened and cruel men in the southwest. The name Joshua Graham was synonymous with savagery. Thoros, as mean as he was, had no hope of matching Graham on the field, and personally, he didn't really want to. There were some lines even he wouldn't cross.
"In any case, we can count on all the men we aren't killing on this side of the Colorado to be present at the Dam," the Legate continued in his stentorian tone, "Whether they're cowards or not it'll be a fight unlike anything we've seen before. It will be the first true test of the Legion, and we should commit our largest force yet to break the bear."
"I agree with the Legate," Centurion Janus, known as the Death-Dealer for his propensity to strike deals with tribes and then betray them, spoke up. He was an older centurion, a former Blackfoot, and he carried a cane made of bone. His centuriae wasn't on the front lines against the New California Republic, instead he was patrolling the Legion's southern border near what used to be Mexico, but he was close enough that it would've been an insult not to invite him to the war council. He continued, "This is a pivotal moment in history. What happens at the Hoover Dam will shape the destiny of the wasteland for years to come."
"Easy for you to say," Licinius, a younger man less secure in his position, sneered at Janus, "When was the last time you even fought a battle?"
"When did you? Certainly not at Aradesh, from the sound of it," Janus snapped back.
"ENOUGH!" Caesar bellowed and slammed his fist down on the table. He felt like a railroad spike was being driven into his temple. He didn't want to make any rash decisions, but he couldn't take the pain anymore, and he couldn't show any weakness before the war council. Before it consumed him completely he had to excuse himself, and, blinded by suffering, he saw only one option, "Legate Graham is in charge of the assault on Hoover Dam! I have full faith in him, he has my permission to use whatever resources he deems necessary, this war council is dismissed!"
He rose before any centurion could react and stalked out of the room. He barely made it to his private quarters, where he collapsed on his four-post bed and sobbed. It was so intense he screamed into a pillow, and then mercifully passed out.
Back in the boardroom of the former Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, the war council struggled to process what had just happened. Licinius still wasn't entirely sure he wasn't going to be crucified, Janus thumbed the small skull carved into the top of his cane, Thoros could only stare in slack-jawed silence at the empty doorway, while centurions Manderlay, Franklin, Jones, Baoltai, Pompey, Theseus, Crastus, Arlen, and all the others leading the war against the NCR looked expectantly to Graham, unaware that the New Canaanite would be leading them to their deaths in Boulder City.