''We hold our breath when we saw Legate Lanius and Courier fighting near the dam among the red toxic cloud. We knew who was going to win. We knew that fight was rigged before it even started. But we still were rooting for Lanius, still hoped that Courier could be stopped, still thought that nightmare could be over. But... during the fight of Monster of the East versus Devil of the West. Legate did not have a chance. No one had. The Courier won the battle for Hoover Dam before it started. Mojave now was her's. She won... And everyone else lost."

- Journal of a NCR soldier.

Allied Armies slowly marched towards the Gate, without knowing they were walking to their doom. Though they were unnerved due to lack of imperial forces in the area and disturbed by those metal golems, red cloud and metal buildings with blue light shields powered by strange sorcery, they still marched towards. Confident with their superior numbers would bring them victory. Each of them eager for glory, honor and riches this battle would bring.

As they moved towards the Gate, a few hundred men suddenly exploded and reduced to their atoms, anyone nearby were thrown back screaming as their flesh is rotted due to radiation. While a mysterios mushroom cloud rose as if like it was a missing wing of an angel of death. Others stopped in confusion, then dozens of explosions happened all over the army, everytime an explosion happened, hundreds died,their bodies were completely vaporized, as if like they never existed at all. They were the lucky ones, while others died in slow painful death as radiation rotted their mortal bodies. It did not matter whether they were demi-human or human. Explosions just claimed them all the same. Army desperately tried to organize, but radiation released from the mini nukes ruined them. Even the wynerns have fallen as they suddenly dropped dead in the sky. With a huge wound on their head.

Unbeknownst to anyone, Wareharun, the godess of trees and nature wept like willow, as she felt the all the pain of plants and trees. Radiation and cloud ruining them beyond repair. Or mutating them to their twisted former selves.

Flare god of the sun was furious that these heretics had dared to harness the power of the sun for their benefit. The power of the sun belonged to him, and him alone!

Elange and Miritta were confused and angry too. Former did not know what was making their mortals sick while latter was furious that radiation made anything it touched sterile.

They could no longer allow this, Mortals were their puppets, not to those soulless heretics.

Duran quickly rode his horse to towards the Cliff to check vassal armies, he did not know what he was thinking, perhaps he was thinking to warn fellow vassal kings that Imperial army was not in sight, or perhaps he rode his horse to assist them instead. Even he did not know the answer.

Then Ground suddenly shaked and he heard very loud sounds.

He stopped his horse to check what the hell was happening, his soldiers did the same as they looked around in worry, was this an earthquake?

He then saw some sort of smoke rising from beyond the cliff. In the form of a mushroom...

Ground shaked again, and dozens more of those mushroom cloud rose, he then rode his horse toward the cliff to find find out more about those clouds, everytime ground shook and he saw those clouds, his insticts screamed him to get away from it as much as possible. But he managed to take control of his insticts with iron will and moved towards the hill, his soldiers following him behind.

And what they found...horrified them, even his soldiers, most of them were most battle-hardened veterans.

Human, wyvern and demi-human remains completely blackened and rotted beyond identification, once green lands burned to completely black ash. All the while some of those terrifying clouds still active, and looking at them hurted their eyes.

The enemy had the power of the sun in their palms...

He watched with grim satisfaction as the invading army fell like dominos to the mini-nukes, now all he had to do simply watch as the radiation would kill the rest of the army stayed behind. Normally such minimal radiation from a mini-nuke would be mostly harmless for the wastelanders. But people of this world never interacted with radiation. So their immunity system never builty any some sort of defense for it. It was also perfect opportunity to watch the effects of radiation on a pure organism, while killing the enemy. Two birds with one stone

Looking at he nuke explosions. He almost wished ARCHIMEDES II would work in here too. Of course that was not possible, to do that he had to build another solar plant like HELIOS to harness the power of the star of this planet. Which he actually planned to do in time, like he built similar technological facilities and factories in Mojave with robots over the years after covering the whole region with cloud. He estimated construction would only take few years or a decade, It was astonishing how effective you could be when you didn't devote resources to entertainment, to pointless wars,to petty meaningless politics, to nonsense outdated ideologies, to fighting crime and corruption like the goverments of the old-world. No wonder they all perished in nuclear fire... they deserved to be destroyed. Unlike most people, Elijah geniuely believed Great War was not a tragedy, but rather a cleansing, cleansing of the filth.

He looked to the fallen army, his mechanical eyes analyzed their life status and he examined the data gained from the eyebots. Approximately there was 25.000 or 30.000 dead on the Alnus Hill. There was not even a single survivor, even the ones who didn't reduced to their atoms in nuclear fire were rotted and blackened. Just like he expected. He was a bit dissapointed though, he wanted to use his holograms or at catch few specimens to watch the slow effects of radiation on a pure human body. Oh well he would do that eventually. They still had an army after all. Of course he also preferred to capture their rulers alive. Think Tank was going to need a docile population with puppet rulers and nobles. And what was the best way to keep those puppets on check in feudal rule? Bomb collars were going to be very useful in his nation for this world.

Man is a beast and it is good that he feels fear...

Courier teleported back to the Think Tank as she clicked the transportalponder after returning to Mojave through Gate. She felt dizzy and just could only see blue during her teleportation. Unsurprisingly the device did not worked in the new world as it had a limited range. Elijah advised her that she should return to Think Tank to get her vaccine to renew her temporary protection against the red cloud. The cloud... it truly had no master, at least if you had flesh on your body; it destroyed all types of organism, even her augmented flesh. Thanks to her long-term exposure she gained a small immunity to the cloud. But concentrated areas are still deadly as ever. It was almost like radiation really, expect cloud did not have something like rad-away, only Think Tank could develop a vaccine. And even then it was temporary and it was not very easy to make.

She almost felt out of place here, due to spending some time virgin forest in a whole new world, strangely she preferred this place to the forest. After she opened the door she walked in the sink, then saw a robobrain.

''So you have gone to adventures in a clean new world, one that is untouched by the horrors of the great war and less than an hour later you decided to massacre people and unleash the cloud, you truly are hearhless aren't you? Both figuratively and literally'' Robobrain accused her with it's digital genderless synthetic tone.

Oh right, her brain was bored of it's skull in it's tank after she left her, so it put itself on a robobrain. Why she should have put it back in her skull? her new brain was better. And it wanted to stay behind anyway. It was ironic, her own organic brain had a metal vessel, while her synthetic brain had a flesh vessel. She sometimes wondered, or at least everytime she talked with her own brain(even thinking this was so weird), if she actually had died and born again after her brain extraction in here. What if her brain was her old-self? Dala and her brain told her that they were still connected somehow. But was that really the case? what if she was just some sort of copy of the old Courier Six's consciousness and her organic brain was the true Courier six? was there even a difference? At these thoughts, Ulysses's words suddenly ringed in her head.

"Know what you are, half-woman. I can see what the Old Gods did to you, in the Empty. They tried to do it to me. Think you're still the human you were, with your carved-out skull? Guess you'll never really know. How can you know yourself when you aren't even yourself?"

She did not know the answer.

''Well they attacked us so I did not want to die'' she defended herself, she did not know why she was so defensive against her brain really. And was getting tired with it's ''holier-than-thou'' attitude. Was this really her brain?

''Sure you just keep telling yourself that, you do realize I am your brain right? so trying to fool me is like trying to fool yourself, which is stupid... well maybe you are stupid, since you don't have me'' Her brain chastised her.

''...What do you mean by that exactly?'' she almost growled.

''Come on,I know what you are, you just want to watch the world burn... again, ''advancement of the science'' or ''preserving technologies'' or any type of nonsense you create is just an excuse''

''YES BURN THE WORLD! AGAIN! BURN IT UNTIL ALL BREADS ARE TOASTED!'' Toaster suddeny screamed in kitchen, if her brain was annoyed it did not show any sign.

Courier frowned, she did not like her own brain talked to her like that ''Whatever, I don't have time for you... go and do whatever you do..'' She walked past the robobrain.

''Sure just try to ignore the truth, go you waste of flesh! and... metal too I suppose...'' Robobrain screamed behind her as she walked in the elevator and closed the doors.

It was not the first time they bickered like this, she really did not understand why did they not get along, did she done something wrong? sure it probably did not enjoyed when Benny shot her head, or when she crippled her head, or when it was extracted from her head, or... that moment once she took so much jet enough to kill a deathclaw. According to Arcade and Raul, she was screaming and running around around the presidental suite in Lucky 38, and saying nonsense like ''The Frontier'', ''fighting against enclave in space to stop them gassing the planet'' ''to stop the evil NCR taxmen with General Blackthorne'' or revealing that this ''Tiberius Rancor'' was a legion spy despite the obvious name. And many more embarrassing and nonsencial things.

Yeah... it really was not her proudest moment, suddenly she could no longer blame her brain.

She reached the laboratory of the Think Tank, Dala was the only one here, others were too busy with studying the Gate. While Dala preferred to study the specimens beyond the Gate in here.

Dala... she and Dala had a weird relationship even by Think Tank standarts... she wasn't naive or stupid enough to call it ''love''. She once heard Dala saying how Courier Six was her ''masterpiece''. Since she was the one who made the lobotomization on her and putting more cybernetics later. She supposed Dala wasn't exactly wrong. Of all the Think Tank, Dala was the one most interested with her, even asking her well being and how she was feeling sometimes. Of course Couier was perfectly aware it wasn't geniune. Or at least not like a human. It was more like the type you would feel towards a favorite pet. And that exactly what she was to Dala, a favorite pet, a good specimen who obeyed, who did what she was told. Which was fine with her, Dala could feel anything she wanted. As long as both of them knew their place.

''So you return my favorite lobotomite, like a curious Teddy Bear, do you carve for my attention?'' Dala asked as she focused all of her attention towads her. Her tank glowing purple

Courier looked at her ''I... suppose you could say that, I need more of anti-toxic vaccine''

Dala let out a chuckle '' Of course my dear lobotomite... please just go to my persobal lab, lay down, wait for me, and make yourself comfortable, I will provide your... much needed vaccine.'' Dala answered with a seductive voice.

Well she could have just let an auto-doc do it, or even let her to do it herself, but it seems... Dala wanted to spend some with her. To check how her favorite lab-rat was doing.

She shrugged ''Well if that's how you want to do it I suppose...'' She walked to the Dala's lab, and she laid to orthodontic chair as she patiently waited. A minute later out of nowhere a purple hologram at the shape of a woman appeared, hologram woman wore scientist scrubs, had glowing purple eyes without pupils. with a long hair on her head.

''Did I ever thanked you for bringing our lost hologram technology from Sierra Madre? This humanoid from... may be primitive, but it has it's uses'' She said as grabbed the vaccine from a freezer.

''You did, many times in fact'' Six answered, Dala's hologram body took a seat near her, Dala moved red-glowing stimpak-like vaccine to her arm, as she prepared to inject it.

''Well, let me thank you again then, this is why you are my favorite, among other reasons...'' Dala injected the vaccine into her arm, She felt like she was on fire, nano-bots inside the vaccine reinforced her flesh, then the numbness has passed. She took it much easier this time.

''You know'' Dala said as gazed upon her with glowing purple eyes ''This whole time I never asked your real name, I mean I don't know much about lobotomites, but surely your name can't be 'Courier Six' right? isn't that, I don't know just a job among lobotomites?'' Dala asked, as she waited for an answer eagerly.

Right...It seems it was the time for an ''interrogation'' again.

''I'm not sure...'' she admitted ''I had many names, I don't know what my parents called me nor do I remember them, my memory is... messy. Regardless my name or my past is irrelevant. What matters is the future'' Unlike Ulysses, She didn't see any point with the past. ''I'm Courier Six now that is what mojave name me and I will stay as Courier Six unless if the world changes it again''

''Interesting...'' Dala answered with a calculated look, her hologram face looked thoughtful.

''Anyway, I need to go back'' Courier said as she stood up from the chair. Almost instantly, Dala stopped her thinking and got up from her chair.

''You're leaving so soon?'' Dala looked and sounded dissapointed.

''Well, those ''mages'' won't capture themselves now do they?'' Courier answered back ''I promise when this is over, you can do another dissection on me''

Dala actually looked delighted at the idea ''Very well my lobotomite... Oh and before you go back I think I found a possible hint with this 'magic'''

Now that sounds interesting... ''What did you found?''

''It seems this 'magic' has a connection with psykers, a special mutation due to radiation or FEV, or it might be something else entirely, do you know what psykers are?'' Dala asked.

She did... but they were very rare, she only met one in her life, and it was only that boy in 188 trading post, he had some interesting things say about her future. Like how she was a wind of change, how she had many possible futures and how odds are just numbers againt her future.

''I do, but aren't psykers are just about mind? like telepathy or precognition, can you tell me about them in detail?'' Courier asked back to Dala

''Their strange powers have many causes: Forced Evolutionary Virus, mutations from radiation, natural mutations and centuries of seclusion are among the conditions that can foster these psionic abilities. These abilities include, but are not limited to: control over electricity, fire and light, short and long-range telepathy, premonition and the ability to foretell future events.'' Dala reported mechanically ''But we never managed to find a specimen, even the empire mage corpses turned to ash so we can't examine them, they are extremely rare, so we dont' even have a corpse... until now it seems, if we can crack them open...''

Dala did not have to tell the Courier what this implied, If they could open their secrets, the possibilites... would be interesting to say the least.

''I have to go now, thank you Dala''

2 DAYS LATER AFTER THE FIRST DEFEAT OF THE ALLIED ARMIES

Remanining Allied armies marched in the darkness of the night to take the fight against the honorless cowardly monsters who attacked them with ranged magic. This time their foul sun magic would be useless in the night as there would be no sun plus they won't be able to see anything in the dark. After the first defeat. King Duran advised that they should sneak against the enemy in the darkness of the night. For these reasons

So they marched again slowly, right in the same spot where their comrades were killed two days before, most of the army were afraid and caitous due to blackened land and rotted corpses. Not to mention that some of them witnessed the death of their comrades. But they still marched, if nothing else it was to avenge their fallen brothers in arms. And eradicate the threat of those monstrous golems

''Do anyone else have... metallic taste in their mouth?'' one soldier asked and looked around nervously. Looking someone to answer his question and hoping that someone has answers for his condition.

Most of the men near him nodded.