With every few steps traveled the Courier came closer to being choked and surrounded in the rush of logistical chaos and failure of redundancy of the NCR in the face of a brotherhood-legion attack. Those two words and the factions joined had led to palpable horror all around him. All communications both shouted and transmitted were lost in retreat from the broken NCR position atop the Hoover Dam. Young privates and sun baked sergeants pushed them out by force into the chaos of the hallway and carried them through the through fare. They were guns in the hands of even the officers now and everyone was panicking so loudly that the Courier couldn't understood any of the words.

He was shellshocked but was able to drag Veronica behind him hand to hand. They had lost their weapons but amongst the mess of the NCR they were just other obstacles in the way of every civilian turned soldiers movement towards safety. He thought about whether anyone would bother closing off the bomb proof doors behind them that they had all rushed through - or would that legion paladin chase them all down here to murder them in the hole.

Sergeants screamed murder and brittle bravery while ordering men behind chokepoints. Officer's paled behind them. They were just a few strides of some paladins servo-poured boots away from being turned to ash in their minds. It was terrifying. You could dodge a bullet - but lasers melted through everything around them save a few of the thick walls of the dams innards.

The Courier and Veronica travelled away from them in a steady stream of bodies. He might have heard calls to stop but he travelled on and trusted that the bodies around them were too panicked and shrill to recognise the calls. He only had his sidearm with Veronica likewise underarmed. Radios were static and they both thought - radiation scrambled the waves.

The deeper parts of the dam were no different. The walkways and humming equipment cast up around them as foreboding. Soldiers were being sick with fear. Unarmed legionary's had became piles of bodies against walls before they could escape and engage their enemies again, or just because they were legionary's. No positions felt maintained like before, everyone was moving and in transit.

"Where are we going?"

"We're going up top to link with Arcade's Enclave buddies." Alex told her over the shoulder, calm as a grave. "I'm going to send our securitron assault straight at the legion. We needed the NCR's nose bloodied anyway."

"What about the brotherhood?" He stopped and looked at her. Neither cared that there were NCR soldiers in earshot.

"We don't know if that was actually a member of the brotherhood. Even the NCR has power armor, and you heard that common legionary's were using lasers."

"What if it was the brotherhood though?" Something in Veronica's voice made him turn. She wasn't talking about McNamara and his shellshocked soldiers.

"You mean if some other brotherhood chapter teamed up to fight the NCR with the slave driving legion?"

"To fight the NCR. Any means necessary. Sure sounds right." The possibilities were terrifying. If he unleashed an army of robots against low-tech and to a certain degree no better or even worse than raider band level enemies; then the legion was finished...but what could even fifty fully armed paladins do if they were waiting somewhere at the mouth of the Fort.

"What if they have?"

"Don't think you think that changes things?"

"The only thing it'll change is the bodies lain across the dam once this is all settled." The Courier answered. "As far as I heard there were brotherhood out east. If they met the legion and allied with them then they had to be weak enough to consort with a slightly larger gang. Sorry; but I don't think Lost Hills sent five hundred paladins across the Boneyard to punch the NCR in the face. We could do without losing anymore securitrons though."

"Do we shoot them?" There was a question.

"If I meet someone in power armor that isn't a geriatric that Arcade grew up with I'm running the other way." Power armor was an awful ego check. The Courier didn't believe his hype, regardless of what House and others said in the face of 'anything'. The prep required to try and debilitate a paladin of the brotherhood was testing even to someone of House's means. "Let's go. We always had a fallback position. Cass and the rest should we near the systems room."

They found Cass above with four NCR soldiers and no Vegas soldiers to be seen. The NCR soldiers perked up when the Courier arrived he thought. Probably fame high he guessed. He needed rid of them however; what was Cass thinking and now what did they do? It didn't matter, he was as far away from any concerted response and safe from Caesar after his dam infiltration had been blunted.

"Where is Hughes and the rest?" He asked. His own NW soldiers were ordered to be here save death. "Unless they got kill-" Cass snapped him across the cheek with a crooked armed hook with her rifle butt that sent him across the face of the wide hallway onto his chest.

Veronica watched it happen, stumbled over him and was tossed down beside him. The Courier twisted and coiled to jump up before Cass's weapon was pressed against the hollow of his neck.

"That suit doesn't stop slugs at point blank range. Down boy."

"What is the fuck are you doing." He snarled. "-Yes, what the hell Cass!" Veronica followed up with. Around them the NCR soldiers held their weapons to their shoulders; their fingers were primed on the triggers.

"You stood by and let hundreds of good soldiers die." She idly fingered the trigger. "Hundreds of poor farm boys - and for what? So that House can gloat in his god damn coffin about how smart he is?"

"If this is true Courier..." The soldier who said it had lieutenant bars. He was young fit and strong looking. If the Courier was who he was before he'd had a yard of computers stitched into him he would have thought twice on trying shit, "You'll not even get a trial."

"Do you really want to do so this right now." He asked. He couldn't think of anything better to ask. He was paralysed by the barrel at the back of his neck.

"This being making your ass pay for what you did?" Cass asked. "Did you really think I'd go along with this?"

"Go along with unleashing a robot army that can annihilate Caesar and the entire legion?"

"So it's true?!" The lieutenant spat. "You Vegas scumbag. You're all the god damn same."

"You have no idea who I'm working with lieutenant. I know the people Crocker reports too. There is more going on here than you know." Cass used her second hand to slap him across the back of the head. He imagined that she thought it would enrage him. Maybe it was her latent anger at him always having a plan, always being on top of her and every other NCR shitkicker.

"Don't listen to this silver tongued son of a bitch," She hissed the words. "He will tell you that he was working alongside the NCR the whole time. Is that why you have a parallel army - your New Vegas army? What a fucking joke. Is that why you set up Crocker's agents in the tops? It's all bullshit. You're done. NCR wins and that asshole House loses!"

"Cass..." Veronica was turned on by Cass. She gave him fierce soon to tell every single NCR soldier there her intermost secrets.

"Don't. Just don't." Cass pulled out a pair of metal cuffs. "Put these on him. We will bring him to the systems room and we can see how House's army works. His men are already waiting behind the dam for him. Pity he won't come. The girl can come with us but she leaves; okay?"

"Okay." The Courier felt his pistol disappear from his holster and the first of the cuffs snap around his wrist. He saw himself in an NCR courtroom, dusty and decrepit. He was wearing rags and was shouted down by the common sun baked slubs of Shady Sands hollering behind the ten penny suit NCR bureaucrats with stray in their teeth. There was no ancient triumph with him dragged behind a golden chariot, and he wouldn't even get the glory of an execution of suitable recall. He'd be thrown in an NCR prison in some radiation storm stained holler while House cried as he was switched off at the mains. All of their ideas would be lost to a sea of feckless page pushers that could lather up the common masses of uneducated rock crackers, headed by Robert Moron Kimball.

It sent a shiver down his spin. He felt real fear. What a way to lose his golden flush.

He bent his neck up to see two NCR soldiers emerged upwards into the corridor and approached with their guns fast with their straps tight on their shoulders and their elbows bent, guns pointing just below waist level.

"What is the situation soldiers; is everything clear to the far-"

They both raised their guns. One was using a typical NCR rifle, the other had a weapon with a noticeably fat cylindrical magazine behind it's trigger.

Cass's shotgun pulled from the Courier's neck a hair of a moment after he flipped front to back with his weight pushed up from under his body with his left arm as the spring. It's messed up Cassidy's shot as it bowled her over. The rapid boom-snap of the larger weapon drowned out the ping of the rifle. Cassidy fell over and tumbled with the Courier as he dragged and threw himself behind the NCR soldiers. Blood painted the walls in strokes, his eardrums thundered and smoke filled the corridor. Everyone was down but he couldn't see Veronica. Cassidy's shotgun lay beside her as she lay stunned and no one from there side was standing.

His suit was designed to resist acoustic shock. He had the experience of near death and reaction to rapid fire weapons. He had the belief in his modified body. Still it took him a few seconds to feel the adrenaline and compulsion that compelled him to roll over Cassidy's body and wrap her shotgun under his arm. He raised up with the shotgun and pumped the remaining round into the right soldier who dropped in a spasm. The left was methodically re-loading his gun while the Courier lifted the weapon of a now pulped soldier and executed the second before he had finished clearing a jam.

He approached them and checked their necks and wrists. They had the mark of a skorpion. What about that for luck. It saved him having to cross the line on killing republic soldiers - for now at least - was his first and most cynical for quite awhile thought thought.

He turned and saw Cassidy go for her pistol. She was stunned but injured. He rushed to her in a few strides and slapped her unconscious as she mouthed "-mothe."

Veronica lay beside them all with her eyes wide open and breathing laboured. He checked her for wounds but found none.

"Are you alright?" He asked. She cried when she saw the remains of a young soldier beside her.

Cass moaned beside them. She'd be awake in a few minutes. The Courier wondered what she'd saw that finally snapped her over the edge and sent her for the MPs. It'd been a hell of a journey for them. She was just a brahim shit slinger who'd made it all the way to Zion at his side; helped save the entirety of the NCR from nuclear destruction. There was something noble in that.

What remained of their time revolved around locating Hughes and his men who'd been skulking around the lower levels bracing the systems rooms. They'd found their radio with them and contacted Arcade via a secondary channel prior established. The medic told The Courier that he 'couldn't leave the med station down in the dam. He couldn't see one more dead or dying person that wasn't already there bolted behind flood proof bolted doors.'

The Courier asked him to leverage it so that the doors could be opened for Veronica. The medic complied. She did not.

Beyond that it took very little before the systems room guards were tied up or unconscious. Soon enough Hughes and his gang of grey jacket'd Vegas soldiery were working the republic's radios for intelligence and laying out the weapons they'd brought.

"The republic are in full retreat. They're telling their soldiers to make for Boulder for directions. We need to hurry up here, the republic's guard division will be fanning out soon to check doors and bolts." Hughes handed the Courier a marksman carbine, well oiled polished and with a illuminated scope; others had brought laser rifles, a bozar, an always frightening looking M72 gauss rifle, but beyond that more rifles and shotguns and nothing heavier beyond. It would be enough for a very small section of the legion with the ammo they had. If they started firing back with laser rifles beside power armored soldier however...

"There's a single piece of simplistic machinery that holds the future." One of Hughes comrades had said, introducing Caesar's own imperial overtones to the simple act of flipping a switch, though he wouldn't know it. "The old world can grow entire armies and make them come alive with he flick of a switch. That's funny."

It was a nice thought. They were burying Edward Sallow under his own hatred just when his time was at hand. They'd do it with the technology that he was attempting to stamp out alongside. He'd snorted up the bait like a radroach even more than they'd expected after all. There was nothing in resevre for him now; his army had maintained it's cohesion after Graham's failed assault. This would finish them.

"Do it more everyone that those bastards ever hurt Courier." That came from Arcade over the radio. His channel must have been idle. It spoke of the fight within him always, the justice he wanted meted out against the call for restraint, under the Followers guise of a better world.

They flicked the switch without more preamble and disabled the door behind them as they left with a blowtorch.

When they arrived atop the dam into the open air via a maintenance shaft, they were well beyond the NCR's retreating forces and hundreds of men behind the legions advance; instead of legionary's they were overrun by smoke darker than the dust storm it travelled within. Their vision went as far as the maintenance trench they occupied.

Only a few dozen meters across, the Dam had been suffocated by hundreds upon hundreds of men from both sides of the captivating divide. Hughes wondered aloud 'how long would the piles of pre-festering bodies be a feature here and whether House would have his robots heap them over the side?'

The Courier used the boon of his cyclic visions granted by his suit to peak his head up through the partial disguise of the overflow of the ecological onslaught.

He cast his vision across both entry points to the Dam, firstly to the legions access point; there he saw the shattered barricades of republican wooden construction that had been entirely reduced to cinders and ash. Warm meat burnt there. Someone had taken the time to emplace the bull's head and swollen banners of Edward's bastardized versions from ancient Roman ilk. Nearby in a brief split of the sand and smoke even the non-augmented they could see that one totem had been set through the ruptured chest of a republic trooper who would have been one of the the first men to fall against the legion.

"The dam is empty." He said, watching far away as the sprawling heat of the legions mass of limbs and globs of bodies retreated further away in the direction of Boulder.

"Look at all those corpses…Oliver's plan has been thrown back in the soldiers faces. They must be attempting a regroup at Boulder, but between the NCR's entrenchment and the legions lasers...it'll destroy them both."

"You still don't want to take it into the legions flanks? We could annihilate the entire army that way. Even the legion discipline would break then. Caesar is sick, he couldn't build another one." Hughes asked.

The Courier turned to him, spoke without hesitation. "We're going for the throat, no more chopping at the limbs. Contact the enclave and get us a pickup, we're going after Lanius."

"What about the legion, if they get back inside the Dam lower-"

"Moore already has a doctrine in place, everything will be shut up now." Moore was the soldier within the republic that had been the most wary off. A ruthless bitch, but that didn't make her decisive or frightening; they had them aplenty. She was also incredibly effective and empowered with enough soldiers and money to cause him a problem. She'd tried with colonel Hargreaves of the Baha brigades help before to get the Courier in line. Another bastard rather than bitch. "Caesar's thrown everything he has now at the republic's army. The dam comes after."

Hughes used the radio to contact Daisy, asked them to come and sweep down again for wherever they were recharging their weapons and dated engines.

"Where's Gannon?" Came the chipper question.

"He's staying behind to help the wounded."

"The hell he is!" None of them knew the voice. "I'll contact that boy and tell him what's what. You just be ready."

"We're thirty far east of the pre-arranged coordinates. Rightside bay landing area if you're swimming up the Colorado."

"We're skimming the camps that we're going to assault. NCR has all their birds down retreating to the south. We have clear skies."

"You still don't want to go straight into the fort?" Hughes asked. Younger than him, the kid was impressionable. Tough as nails, thin as reeds, hard as rock and smart as a cazador; if he had the same venom in his veins he'd kill ten times as many as his brood as well.

The Courier shook his head, "It'll be too risky. Too many indoctrinated slaves under the eyes of their god. We need to deal with Lanius, and I expect he'll be marshaling up his men to burst through the final republican barriers to Vegas. He has whatever was left of the eastern surprises there. We'll head him off and destroy the legions leadership and successor in one night."

"So we're going into the belly of the beast eh?" Another Vegas man asked. "I thought it was a rumour."

"Think of the danger pay brother." Hughes returned. "How much do we get for Lanius's head on a spit?"

"A bad case of the shakes and a few thousand caps left after the tops is done with you." The Courier returned smoothly.

"I know how I'll spend em." Veronica added, and then the jovial backslapping talk of the males took over the brooding moments while they waited upon an exodus.

They air was caught up in the spin of the vertibird freedom's escape that settled just in front of them, precariously in the core of the Dam. It was hidden, but it's wings and carcass caught the grains across it's hulking dark frame.

"Let's get moving!" Krieger in his booming brass tone shouted as a shade; and then they were rushing across the tumultuous battleground free for the most of incitement by the one-way legion forces.

As they rushed forward there was a tearing sound behind. Some of them dropped to firing positions. Moments later they recognised the hulking shape of a Mark I enclave trooper power suit marching towards them.

Behind them was two Mark II suits of obsidian black suits that were better described as mobile firing platforms. Moreno and Krieger with multi-emitter & multi-barrel super heavy weapons that could annihilate a small host of new world soldiers. Untouchable save for few and extremely rare old world weapons. Their glowing orange eyes were menacing against the sloping curves of the deathmask helmets they wore.

"I didn't think you were making it." The Courier said to Arcade. They boarded the old world vehicle into it's tidy bay and clipped themselves to an overhanging rack.

"Family. Both of them needed me."

"House will have already unleashed his robots." The Courier told Arcade. "Don't worry, I made sure they were set to let more legionary's go than they were to slaughter everyone in the fort."

"Unless House lies to you again?" The Courier grimaced. Asshole.

Onboard the VTOL they were soon in the air again. The ride was swift and weightless and they felt like they were flying in a shopping trolley, with the thinness of the walls. But the bay was deceptively long and they had split ports for either Moreno and Krieger to wipe out what the rotary weapons left after a direct strafe.

The Courier looked down onto the dam as it wound away. There were a hundred tracers on the ground, thousands of muzzle flashes between a dead space, explosions sprouting up all in between the same dark pit. He saw laser fire stream flicker for a split second and then more in a concert.

All of this he could have stopped. He couldn't have thrown House's army against the legion and stopped the destruction of thousands of men, from across half the old world of America. Of those thousands, there were many dozens and hundreds who would seek out him and House for destruction after their dual betrayal. Just by that one switch, he had signed his fate. Before he had been a deadly man, but without anyone seeing him as anything more than one of the many ranging killers who could be paid for room and board. After that, he was a memorable but local agent for a local power holder. Now he would be public enemy number 2 across two splits of a far continent.

They moved on, twisting another way aways from the Fort. Rolling and lurching towards past the fort and it's hive of fire lights that they saw beneath them west. It was Caesar's moving opposite to Shady Sands. No hope therein however, all slaves and slavers. The flames that spread across the plateau amongst the thick wooden staked walls and towers where in the thousands in hand and more in bonfires. Thousands of slaves, thousands of slavers; the worst force with the worst civilisation that had vomited itself up on dying humanity. He had used House's libary. The man-robot himself had gave the Courier a book called 'the history of the decline and fall of the roman empire'. It read to him like a thousand year unending nightmare and rape of a span of the earth he couldn't have imagined in his wildest imagination. It was hundreds of times larger than the desolate roads he had trundled along; but filled with everyday of the worst horrors for more people than he imagined where alive today.

"This base we're going for is where the legions heir is going to be sharpening his sword. It's just off the old beaten track of the legion assault." The Courier didn't pinpoint with the near accuracy from his Pip-Boy's rendition, but rather pointed out the window a general direction in the distance. "I want everything you primed and ready for the second fly over."

"Not the first?" Daisy, wearing a simple-almost comical old wives collection of lemon yellow dress with white blends of farmyard animals.

"He'll have slaves and prisoners nearby. I don't want to riddle people who've just been put through hell. Prep your rockets and lasers, we'll deploy after your first volley."

"A routine run and gun with my boot in someones ass. I like it." Moreno was there, grinning under his deathmask.

"We will paint the targets with our fire-support grenades Daisy." Krieger said. "Once you get an green light you pepper the entire area."

They arrived towards the relative calm of the legate's base. It was a half a mile wide lump of wood and jagged iron that sprung up no higher than two floors and stank of shit and had the same tattered flags and banners of the Fort; save for the slight difference in the regalia on it's crimson face. Behind and around it was jagged ground with high steeples of burned rock that acted as a barrier to entry or escape. It started with a trench, continued past a staked wall with iron tips centered with a drawbridge tightened against a gate. The lower sprawl was ratten wood in the shape of tents, barracks and open air messhalls and armouries and smelters that led to the Legates upraised encampment. Throughout there were murder holes, cemented holdouts, towers of thick wood with metal struts, barbed wire, trap gates and embankments filled with sandbags and cloaked machinery they suspected were machine turrets and artillery. Arcade was attempting to peer out over Kireger's shoulder as he scanned the area with his hawkish eyes. He was looking where they couldn't or shouldn't shoot. It looked miserable. It was a camp for slaves to tend to their masters or a holdout of last resort to grind down a flesh army like the republics.

"Imagine a whole world of that if they were to win." Arcade muttered.

"It looks like they're keeping the slaves and that in the tents circled between the front and the command post-" Daisy banked hard suddenly and then powered on the engines, "Oh, they have fifty caliber's down there and two launchers, we've spooked them. Took some on the tail. Didn't imagine these yokels would have pre-war scopes."

"Not to mention losing the element of surprise." Krieger added from behind the co-pilots seat.

"Put us down on one of those slopes near the camp," The Courier ordered, and then turned to the Vegas grey jackets. "Take those very expensive high powered weapons and get down on that ledge. I want to see crimson on crimson."

"Glad to be of service sir." Hughes beamed.

"Daisy, roll us towards another entry vector afterwards, we'll let those guys soak up some attention."

"We're going hot?"

"Take out everything that is a threat to the boat instead with your guns outside and cross the camp entry." Alex said. "Then set us down after you have them scurrying like roaches."

"Shouldn't we be seeing the securitron strike on the Fort?" Arcade asked, unsettled.

"Soon enough," Alex promised. "When their rollers are fully utilized it'll be a hell of a light show." They were dropping off the men and then back in the air, spinning around another vector as Alex had called it – vector? And he was a simple tribal boy? Arcade had never believed it.

They heard the shots, returning heavy fire and then they were on the floor, everything was there to be picked off by the VTOL supreme violence. But she had to restrain whatever enclave murder instinct that had been built into her.

"They've got slaves around their heavies! Just like you guessed." Daisy shouted, leading Krieger and Alex to curse in unison.

Bullets slammed against their viewpoint leading their wavering pilot to pull off sharply up and away. She was so good she was jiggling the craft. "I won't be murdering those poor souls down there! But this alot to take!"

"Put us down near the entrance!" The Courier shouted in response, "We'll gut these bastards boot to face. I want you to swing by in a few minutes, no need to put us in risk though on the firing side."

They rolled down close to the base but around so much of a bend as to deter a direct strike when vulnerable, "Blow those doors for us when you get up!" It was The Courier's last order, and then they were off the VTOL. The elderly pilot kept them a few seconds behind the corrections of the gunners below. Another stuttering slack slack slack opened up as Daisy swerved lopsided away.

Boots on the ground, Moreno was first of course, cycling his gatling laser with the sort of glee that would have frightened any other follower in any other situation.

"They're holed up like ticks. They want us to bring it into their teeth." Alex sounded conversational to Arcade, looked meager against the power of the Enclave troopers around him, "Thank god we have some bona-fied American hero's for it." Moreno whistled with contempt.

"Hoorah," Johnston offered in response, himself wielding an extremely awkward multi grenade-launcher that were to be reloaded by three large racks hung across his back and huge black hip, "We'll send these sadistic son's-a-bitches straight back to hell."

"Take their men in bands were you can, every piece of cover you find that isn't holding an innocent is blown to pieces," Krieger ordered. "I'll take the first shots; you others deal with the ones brave enough to fight head on."

"And Mr funder of this enterprise? What about you, going to sit this one out eh?" Moreno asked.

The Courier chuckled, his camouflage system on his suit morphed his suit and face towards a pale blown sand shade.

"I'll be there, sure as this night's sky is going to be blood red and beautiful." The Courier turned off as the VTOL rose up to shatter the thickened gateway that barred them from the camp via a single missile salvo.

He disappeared, leaving the old remnants of the evil governments foot soldiers there to enact whatever perverse rightness they could manage.

"You okay Gannon." Krieger asked, formal but with that caring undertone that infected so much of the man's words.

"I'm ready." He returned, and then he managed to free his plasma defender that he'd been itching over since they'd been picked up.

Krieger gestured for them to move forward, and Arcade knew through his father's suit that the inbuilt 'bite and blink' controls should have been reduced to almost uselessness by time, save for their care and attention to his memory. It was a memory of a murderer.

"Moreno, Johnson, take the lead and the punishment. Clear sights for both of you, I don't want any of these poor sods buying something they didn't pay for."

"Affirmative." Johnson returned.

"Let's get this going." Moreno growled.

The vertibird swung by a then loosed a barrage of low intensity rockets onto the gateways edges, collapsing barricades and hardened wooden guard posts and then they were rushing forward at a half-step with the whine of the gatling laser and grenade launcher rolling towards devastation speed.

"Forward movements, tight links," Moreno growled, and then the light show began.

Arcade was on the left flank, pistol in hand and waiting for range, while Johnson Moreno and Krieger were in front as three stomping giants. In front of them were only smudges backlit by the moon; they fired bullets, they held guns that showed in muzzle flashes, and they were more than a hundred strong at least. Some of them stood perched in the towers with the heavy machine guns braced, others occupied perches and nooks, most others scuttled around their scavenged battlements and trenches in front. All appeared like skulking bent backed ghouls when you were a foot higher in the ground and had hundreds of pounds of pushing and stomping force in your hands and feet.

A hundred rifles fired at them almost in unison. The bullets that would shred three other men didn't even dent the Mark II's skin. They wouldn't even scuff it for the lower calibers. There were bolt actions rifles and even some higher caliber higher quality rifles that struck with accuracy for the most; but for all failed to pierce their ceramics. No one was close enough to throw grenades, but they tired. A laser glanced of Moreno's shoulder and the puff and ping of a mortar being launched caused the giants to skirt and rumble forward. The mortars fell wide and the laser was the first target of Moreno's wide arch of tangerine-shaded gatling laser fire.

"Looks like the boy was right! Go go go!" Johnson urged them on, but was then struck by one of the heavy weapons that they'd came into sight off by a glancing burst.

A missile was fired so close to slam Moreno back in his seat somewhere near off to Lanius's dais behind the thick steel boading.

"Krieger do it or I will!" Moreno screamed, and then their leader was using his high-powered minigun via burstfire to pick off or supess specific figures in the defenders popping up against them from their metaled barricades and dug in shelters.

Then they saw fire from another place, Hughes and his fellow soldiers were over the exposed ledge and picking off legionaries from a near flank, "Mix up their firing lines, good job boys!" They were urged on further.

A darkening sky was above, lit by Moreno's attentions that he saw cut through a trio of defending men too close for sense to be involved that had just bolted around a defilade with grenades in hand. He left three charred half corpses.

"Arcade, get in here!" He'd paused to reload his weapon; his shots had burnt through cover to pierce two men, the worst of the dreaded Lanius's decimation guard. Their masks had already been grimacing before their deaths. They had a bomb lugged between them and had been circling the onslaught.

They walked into more bullets than men should every be comfortable with. It was a constant slap bang slap against their faces. Their ceramics dented now as the heavy machine gunners were close enough not to overshoot. They'd would have had to learn after they got their first practise salvos across the enclave remnants heads.

Arcade broke through the first gateway, the firing in response intensified. His screen was very nearly cracking from one heavy caliber banging against it. Krieger finally dropped a grenade at the base of the heavy machine gun emplacement and thirty seconds laser the entire area around it slammed ground over ground down five foot under with enough force to send the debris around flying in all directions.

Arcade twisted to notice a watchtower that was desperately attempting to reload some long-range scattergun that had infected him with a panic a moment before.

Then he saw a flash of movement behind the man, a knife glint and then a corpse.

Arcade almost waved in thanks, and then there was something towards a rumble that rolled across their respective ground.

It was a full second of shaking, a rippling grumble that became a roar in the awareness of his mind.

"The fort is under attack! Caesar is attacked!" The call came from the innards of the camp, gongs and trumpets flared to add to the crescendo of madness.

"Wipe them out!" Moreno roared, and then they were pushing on, Alex skirting like a yao-guai at the limits of their vision, knife and revolver against their superb onslaught.

Arcade noticed a tent fence near them was bulging. He moved forward and snapped the doorway. Out rushed legion peasants who screamed at his appearance and scattered. He looked around and noticed the other huts held the same wood slots on their doors. One was completely levelled and smouldering. He turned off his noise cancelling and heard the screams of terror and cries of muted fear.

Arcade thought of how much momentum they held now, the knife had pierced Sallow's throat, and it was time to remake the world.

He couldn't go on with it though. He started to snap doorways. Other slaves and poor scrawny broken down people were rushing away behind them in a stream. It was hundreds it seemed.

Blasts and flaring incendiaries rolled along their lines, Johnson was clipped in a vital joint on his knee and stalled. "We're too committed!" He shouted, "Take them now or die." Mortar's began to drop around the base and a missile shot upwards into the sky as the launcher died and spilled himself.

In the heart of Lanius's power Arcade was almost transfixed by the precipice of death they danced across. His visor took a direct hit and the glass was dented from a heavy caliber round. So much fire and yet they could respond further in kind, slaves and weakened prisoners had already began to huddle around the fringes where they didn't run.

Krieger threw a grenade and Daisy passed overhead slamming a tower through the floor. Through his visor he saw the thermal paint that was naked to the human eye. A body humming with heat inside the tower was lifted into the air like a Gronak cartton and slammed somewhere far away with a bloody crunch. A second grenade was lobbed into the midst of a steel trench where a laser rifle glanced across their armor burning away their protection. The VTOL swung by sidewards faster near than the eye to see. The innards of the trench exploded in flames.

Danger heightened Arcade's awareness, we've taken them all, what else could they have to throw against us?

Fires danced around them: No Lanius, and a broken camp, decimated legionary ranks lay around them. Arcade noticed that a wide swathe of the lower tents wre burnt end to end through as lookholes by Moreno's laser.

They reached the foot of the Lanius's personnel tent, a piece of rich material that was struck out against the harsh reality of the camps other accommodations. Around it where bodies slumped and sectioned through their hand crafted armors. Arcade noted the torn up guts from the velocity of their slaughter was alarming, even for the battle he had just witnessed.

Then they were caught by something, a clink from the innards of the slit that came to drop around them.

Explosives? They'd already tried that, and they didn't have anything that would affect them-

Electromagnetic pulse grenades, they stiffened where they stood, weapons faltering to nothing. Their suits were encased with faraday cages and cut-points to stop terminal damage. They still needed manually released and their suits flushed with specialist gear however.

How? It was what infected them all he was sure, while he was rooted there before the dais of depravity.

Arcade saw a man escape the tent, two captains of the legion appeared in all the regalia of a victorious legionary, even full-faced masks that were a metaled version of Alex's own liquid form cipher.

Then it was Lanius, a full two heads taller than either already towering commander that braced his flanks. His armor thick golden and rich against the flowing crimson that swirled across his incredibly wide shoulders. His fists could fit Arcade's head in them he was sure.

Walking out behind him was a man in T51-b power armor. He had red and gold painted across his armor in sweeping slopes of paint and clay. He wasn't as impressive or intimidating as Moreno or Krieger, but he could move his arms. He would have enough strength to them free of their protective suits and reveal frail bodies underneath.

"Which one of you is the Courier?" Lanius's voice rumbled towards the still figures of old world construct. He would be a roving force that they feared, cut down their petty king and then strangle the man-machine they called ruler of New Vegas quickly after. His voice was gravely and terrifying.

They spoke not, perhaps they couldn't, or then fear probably encircled their weak minds, how they feared the predator when their vaunted technologies failed them.

"These are enclave." It was the brotherhood slave that spoke. Kaiser had sent him to protect Lanius from the machinations of the west. When the man had spoke the words 'protect' to Lanius he had told them that he would cut out his heart one day.

"That means nothing to me." Lanius stepped down amongst them and circled the nearest one. "So this is what the west would call a winning card? Their conquering assassins who'd managed to fell the great legion beast. Is this it? One old world electricbomb and they are defenceless."

He grabbed the face of the machine and asked it "-is this what has assaulted Kaiser? Tell me how many more of you there are at the fort?"

"If there are anymore of these at the fort we are in trouble." Brotherhood slave said. "I will assemble my rifle for our counterattack-

"Silence!" Lanius roared it. The man in the smaller armored snapped to attention like he'd seen other western style army slaves. "You will pull this machine open and I will feed this vermin his fingers until he tells what the truth of this attack is."

"Excuse me Legate, I meant no disrespect." The brotherhood soldier dipped his head and shoulders as much as possible, "But If I can speak - you must understand what these things are -"

"Your suits of metal didn't avail you once my host washed away your defences at the great steel horses stable. Do you remember how many of you we staked up after the rest ran? Did you run that day scribe slave?" Where were they from? How had the legion neaten the brotherhood, any brotherhood? Would they really submit rather than fight? Arcade wondered this in the low light helmet functions left to him alone.

"These men are encased in post war armor that has never been repaired with scraped materials sir...Legate. When you faced our paladins, even they had made significant repairs after years of wandering with metal and composites as best as could be found." He motioned to Krieger in front. "This armor is made from manufactured composites and space metals; I can pull them out if you wish with my tools and my own suits strength, but we couldn't have injured them without the EMP grenades."

Vermin, all of them!

"What is your point?"

"That the two rifles I have stocked in my bag are the only way to defeat anymore of these men. If you will allow me I will assemble them. If there are only a few of them I might have a chance of killing them."

His commander Greaves took a half step forward. "Legate, allow me to flag our advance to round ahead on us. We can ready our move for Kaiser while the dog readies his weapons."

"I don't think the Courier could be snared so easily." The voice spoke easily from just around them; Lanius stilled his face, no need to offer the man any sign of surprise.

"-But then I thought the same about the Brotherhood." The brotherhood slave swung around wildly. He was using his heat scanner to see anything and saw nothing. The Courier's suit was dead space in stealth.

His duo of commanders pulled free their profligate weapons, no need to stand on ceremony at the eve of their triumph.

Searching and searching, they found nothing under the scrutiny of their master. Fear – they thought that they would be punished if they filed, and rightly so. He would perhaps he'd take their eyes as he had before for this failure and those before.

The Courier watched the three of them, perched upon the tents roof and thankful for it's sturdy build.

A breath – a movement too much and the man would turn to level him, it reminded him of the days when he wandered the eastern edges of the legions northwestern corridor, picking off feral beasts and legion men alike. They were frightening times. A tribe of the legion could turn it's gaze on you and you where then hunted like a molerat.

The Divide had held the same appeal, filled with so many apex predators as to make it a constant annihilation battle between them all.

Here was one such predator.

"Do you fear to face me!" Lanius roared, and he snapped out for attention and then ordered the pair to come and bear his blade to him.

He watched the stilled figures look on him with deadened eyes, he imagined what they would be thinking when they faced his blade of the east, if they imagined the great blade could rend their heads from armored shoulders.

Behind him there was a scratching, a rent in the fabric of the tent. Lanius swept the slip back and peered inside.

Bodies, drained men. One of his captains and his choice slave.

"Do you still skulk coward!" Lanius pulled free his blade from where he'd had it polished and then hung. It was near the size of a man.

His two body slaves were where he'd left them, but they could not tell them what they saw-both had long been blinded for their transgressions against him.

Shocked by the event Lanius kicked off a burner and allowed the tent to catch fire, no refuge beyond the scraping rocks.

He exited the camp and was immediately a bolt of glittering green old world fire caught the brotherhood slave across the eyes of his mask. He turned to it's force and saw an axe swing for his face. Dumb and clumsy the blow landed across his mask, and through whatever might of sight beyond eyes that had been granted to him Lanius reached out and snapped the neck of the man who assaulted him in a throttle.

His captain was in his hands and he threw the body away.

He twisted his eyes around him. "Show yourself!" He snarled. There was the taste the power of the battle swirling around him.

The hands of the hidden weaklings were stilled.

A striking pain caught him against his supporting knee, driving him down into an awkward crouch, a swing of his unbreakable fist was met by a sailing momentum, a glint of steel flashed by his mask and was only dinted by the agile slip of his neck.

He roared upwards and was chopping his blade before swinging it in an overhand slash that should have truncated the miniscule would be warrior.

Too far, he'd managed a flip that had taken him away from blade range.

Lanius sensed the bullet before it came – the blare of the pistol before it struck into his shoulder just in the slip of his armor. Lunging he swung again, this time a thigh-to-shoulder slice that was met by a vertical twist, hack, punch, he caught with the last – a frightful strike that sent the profligate-hero rolling into the dirt.

There was a chance of a quick death, even if it toiled his skin to find this creature a threat. Blade raised he plunged forward to skewer the snake: an offbeat heave from his arms sent the Courier away from his blade however, it plunged into the sand and the Courier struck upwards again.

Lanius saw something in his hand – heard it as it's shrilly exploded for a half second – a blinding flash accompanied the roaring in his ears, then there was suffering the sliver of pain that accompanied a blade meeting skin.

He heard the hiss of the Courier, "Strength…a tough hide…all of it's useless against a good old flashbang and a sense cancelling mask." Lanius roared and threw himself about wildly, another bite met his unarm, disabling his flank. He couldn't see.

There was no other bite, silence met Lanius and then pressure escaped his body.

Looking up where Lanius could not, the Courier met the sight of the dreaded legion – crimson without crimson, but some fatigues as well, dusty tanned colors that betrayed the place of the poor republican troopers.

Alex stood there, pistol holstered, knife in hand with it poised to open Lanius under the mask and towards the man.

Facing him were around ten legion men, machetes in hand but lacking the overt crimsons, they looked like well-muscled slaves, but everything else about them screamed Caesarian sycophants.

What is this? He wondered, noting that the men seemed bare and useless save for the threat of holding two pairs of people between them; a duo of tear streaked people and two other drab and weary looking slave girls, just young daughters if anything else.

"You can wait your turn scum!" He shouted, his voice artificially holding a melody of playfulness.

He caught the smile of one in response, a fox among the less graceful beasts.

"Slaves and wretched profligates," The grinning wolf said, "Are these not your favorite things my dear Six?"

Alex imagined the man would have something of an idea towards his vices, the name was always apparent for those who'd faced the legion long enough: Vulpes Inculta. Spy – Murderer. He was addicted to the chaos that the legion inflicted on those that it saw as their inferiors, and the supposed supremacy of legion life.

"Release the legate and I will forgive these chattel for their baseness Courier. Or else you can take his life, and I will spend their blood, and never leave your cherished kingdom of sin!"

The Courier laughed, hollered in fact. "You think I'm afraid of you and your skulkers Vulpes? You had prey before me, how many times did I burn your pretty little hides after?"

"So you wish them to die?" Vulpes asked.

"How did you escape from the fort, I don't imagine you were allowed to waltz out the front gate?"

"I adjusted, I overcame your trap."

Six ahhhhed. "And yet no living god with you? Is he dead then?" Vulpes bristled.

"Do not push me too far Courier," Vulpes warned with his lower tones, "I have neither the time nor the inclination for your vile words. Allow me to take the legate and I shall have my frumentarii remove themselves from your lands…for a time. Otherwise you can spill the Legate and then I shall drive you to madness with my hidden blades and poisons."

He knew all about the man's wiles, and what he could do not just a fully formed nation, but also a flagging one.

The legate would destroy the legion in time, he'd known it himself if he did not have the words of many men who'd held the reins inside the cancer, only Sallow had held it in check.

The Courier nodded. "Send down half of your captives, I'll send up the Legate."

"Yes. A good businessman as your city would only breed. I suspect we shall see each other again. Enjoy your slaves Alex-" A roar spread from behind Alex, he saw the enclave craft and held up a hand to say no.

"Best hurry and go Legate." Alex witnessed the awe inspiring ferocity of the mans as he heaved to land a strike on him, but deceitful footwork and laughter drove the man insane until he was being dragged screaming away by six legionary's who used every ounce of strength they had to do so.

They would all be dead within the morning Alex knew, and so did Vulpes by the way he risked more of his men to secure his prize.

By the end of it they had found the tunnels where Vulpes had escaped, minus the two soldiers and two slaves that he had held with him.

There they remained for a little while, waiting while Daisy put down the VTOL and began breaking off the remnants frozen suits, something made easier on the laughably geriatric soldiers by the arrival of Hughes.

"Dough is watching the legion side. Sorry about before, we didn't want to shoot and give ourselves away. I was afraid that Lanius would come up and rip my arms off to beat with me with if I was honest."

"Wouldn't worry about it. I'd say on the balance that we won."

"Doesn't seem over yet to me though." Arcade met them outside of his suit. He was drenched in sweat beside Krieger who massaged an elbow. "Me neither." The elder added. "I thought we were going all the way to the fort at some point?"

"Don't worry about that. It's been an hour and whatever's happened has happened." The Courier shrugged. "If anyone wants to come with me while we figure out what that is, I'll be taking a stroll up that former legion highway behind us."

"Let's go see how Caesar was sent to hell." Arcade said. "Oh wait, what about the brotherhood guy?"

Six looked at the man unconscious moaning behind a melted helmet. Daisy had said she could saw him free eventually.

"I'll want to talk to him sometime soon. We need to figure out why the brotherhood are making such new bad friends."