Do It Again

by Shasilison

Eris liked to play the philosopher, the jester, the degenerate, but she knew very little about who she really was or what her purpose was supposed to be. What begins as an opportunity to play with something larger than herself quickly unfolds into a journey of self-discovery and maturity.

49. Part 7, Chapter 49

A/N: So, this is the end of Do It Again's storyline proper. Eris' development has finally fully blossomed, and is now done. This is not the last chapter, however. I will be writing a few epilogues to upload.

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Now they lay his body down, sad old men who run this town

I still recall the way he led the charge and saved the day,

Blue blood and rain,

I can hear the bugle playing.

We've seen the last of Good King Richard,

Ring out the past, his name lives on

Roll out the bones and raise up your pitcher,

Raise up your glass to Good King John.

- "Kings", Steely Dan

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The end of any era is marked by one last, violent struggle. On the surface, it may look random, a thing of chance, but it rarely ever is. Men begin as savage animals, and in the throes of their death, they return to this savage, animal state. An era is their creation, and men will their creations into their likeness. It then happens that their creations follow their cycles.

Eris lights one more cigarette as her plane nears the Dam, its gigantic walls visible in the horizon from outer Vegas. She's never before set foot in a plane or even a vertibird, this is obvious by the way her stomach rolls and she holds onto the handle above her head like it's a button of life and death.

Her pilot was the same old man she'd fetched supplies for at Nellis, excited by the promise of playing with prewar tools of death. His performance is an inspiring one, but as inspiring as it is, she can't shake the nerves threatening to spill that omelet and fruit out of her stomach.

The assault rifle resting on her person is a convincing symbol of the end of the old order, something she's using out of necessity and not ornament. For so long, she's favored the handhelds, peashooters that could be smuggled into casinos and bypass security checks, but she's no longer pretending to be an innocent bystander playing a game for her own entertainment.

To consider that she is a villain in two peoples' narrative is a strange and antithetical concept to consider before she lands, for she doubts that many contemplate their purpose by finding it in another's. But that is how she navigates the world, and especially herself – by other's perceptions.

Even from a mile away, smoke rises from the Dam and billows hundreds of feet in the air, and the only tangible noises are those of explosions, explosions that drown out the predictable, human cries for help. Rolling tires – dressed in pitch and set aflame – pursued men on the overlook of the Dam, a gargantuan construct even from the air.

Vulpes. He liked flaming tires, he'd set many of them on fire at Nipton, after he tied town officials to them. Every interaction they'd had before now was a dance of not-friendliness, a not un-playful rivalry similar to two over-achieving schoolchildren. To condense all of those instances into one category, to classify them not as disconnected sequences but as a series of chronological buildups to being each other's ultimate nemeses, seemed blasphemous. Eris wasn't one to call someone else her enemy, rival suited her better, its connotations were less severe and more mutable. Surely, he wasn't her enemy, but she has learned nothing if she continues to labor under the delusion that others have the same approach to the world as she does.

However, she likes to think a touch of naivete was a service to the world. Without it, there'd be no structural progression or innovation anywhere.

As her plane prepares to land, her body is jerked forward and she clings even harder to the bar next to her head. The pilot chuckles at her plight, predatory in that way old men can be when they tease younger generations for their weaknesses. Eris takes one last hit from her cigarette, and casts it out of the open window, watching it as it falls to the ground, until it's small enough that her imagination convinces her that she can still see it.

Despite the mischief her pilot is enjoying, his landing is careful enough that it doesn't jostle her too much. Perhaps he knew he was playing with fire – an anxious Eris is an unfamiliar one, which nobody has protocols on how to handle, including herself.

Still, it's nothing short of a relief when the cabin door opens and she's once again walking on the ground. Welcoming her were the brutal sounds of men at war. In the distance, large fires crackled, and finally, she could hear the screams of men, begging for mercy where there'd most assuredly be none.

She's got a map of Hoover Dam in her head, it's something she's been studying for days now. Another is on her Pip-Boy, with miles of accuracy over her own.

The sky above is gray and overcast, mixing with the clouds of smoke billowing toward it. Foul hisses emanate from distant piles of things wherein pitch and fire rekindle their close acquaintance. Fearful of an ambush, Eris turns the safety off of her rifle, and brandishes it while she makes her way to the Dam proper.

Many of the fortifications have been broken into by legionaries, and it's apparent that the battle had begun there by the gaping holes left behind by crude explosives. If she had to guess by the smoke that still rose from those holes, their battle had begun around thirty minutes prior, and had escalated behind the walls.

The bodies of legionaries, low-ranking and fresh-faced, lined the entrance, and on the other side, her feet are met by a sickening crunch as she stepped on the dismembered, charred arm of an NCR lookout. Around him are bodies piled upon bodies, both Legion and NCR. Their parallels are acknowledged by death, she thinks wryly.

As soon as she entered the compound, she heard the rumble of vertibirds, one crashing on the other side of the dam, and before she could think to investigate, a knife was sent in her direction, landing on the wall right behind her head before she'd moved it. A decorated legionary was charging toward her with a spear as tall her body, and she ducked sideways to avoid him before raising her rifle, and firing at his flank, joined by a securitron that had seemed to appear from nowhere.

His descent was done efficiently, the kind of efficiency the machines were programmed with. Eris hadn't noticed her heart rate skyrocketing, still in shock from the utter devastation occurring before her eyes. Hastily drawn walls made of rubble lined her path to the control tower, rigged with grenades that she avoided, just as she avoided the roaming contubernia of legionaries and senior officers that had been separated from their leader.

But they did not avoid her. Her name was prestigious enough that it made Caesar's list, and she wonders what description of her had been given to the legionaries. Blond, thin, blue-eyed, smug – that sounded about right, she thought as she deftly avoided gunshots from their direction, shot by the same men who were creating a blockade around one of the control towers.

A grenade whizzed through the air, forcing her to collapse on the ground behind a pile of rubble. The impact shook her to her core, thrown with a determined accuracy that no Fiend ever had. Her accompanying securitron fired a missile in their direction, its algorithm set to dumb confidence rather than preservation.

If she wasn't so perpetually trapped in her own head, she'd be experiencing serious sensory overload right now. As it was, her hearing was compromised by the grenade. The braid she wore tickled her ear, a queer sensation given that she could feel its touch, but could not hear it as it touched. The tension headache she'd had on the way here was joined by the cluster headache forming from the ringing eardrum on her left side.

Recalling that she had to keep moving, Eris carefully sneaked out from her position, and got one of the officers in her line of sight, and applied pressure to the trigger of her rifle, sending a rain of ammo at he and his brothers, caught between the line of fire from rangers on the other side of the dam, and she and her trigger-happy securitron.

She checked either direction before she jogged over to the control tower, content that the area was clear, that most of the fighting had evolved to the facility within. Even from the thick doors separating it from the outside, she could hear gunfire and general catastrophe, the likes of which she's only ever read about.

For a moment she hesitated, envisioning thousands of bodies inside, chasing one another and caught in a deadly tango, with weapons. But a rock thrown in her general direction made her rethink her very familiar hesitation, and she practically kicked the door inside for cover.

If the outer reaches of the dam was a traumatizing vision of humanity's worst (or finest), inside was a veritable bloodbath, ongoing and showing no sign of stopping. None of the NCR fired at her, still unaware that she was working against them, which served to work in her favor. Indeed they protected her, attacking legionaries that were confused over whether they should pursue her, or them.

Thankfully, the average legionary was unaware of how detrimental her presence here could be for him, and so she was ignored in favor of the Californians, who made excellent targets in their enraged state, forgoing stealth entirely. It reminded her of a bear, a creature that was only dangerous in its defense, otherwise slow and complaisant.

"Send it now. Now!" A ranking NCR officer shouted from the foyer, one of his troopers throwing a molotov at the other end. Screams erupted from that long, concrete foyer, both in Latin and in whatever tribal language they came from.

A long time ago, she'd riddled out that she was at her best while under pressure from the outside. Otherwise, she tended to meander and wander, something she would've done here if her life wasn't being threatened, and his success wasn't on the line. The control tower was small relative to the rest of the dam, but its navigation was nearly impossible with fire on either side, and around every corner, were groups of two or three legionaries battling with Californians.

"Curre! Eam nece!" Came the crude Latin of a frumentarius, masked and hooded, with a pair of goggles hiding his eyes.

Only, he'd not ordered the death of the troopers building rubble forts down the hall, he was pointing in her direction. Eris' eyes grew comically wide as her pupils dilated, instincts taking over as she darted down the foyer and into an office, where two NCR troopers lay prostrated, bleeding from deep abdominal wounds.

When she heard their footsteps close behind in the hall, skidding on the shiny tiles, she fell to the floor next to the groaning men, pocketing an intact grenade as she crawled behind a desk with a freshly blown out terminal.

To say she was unfamiliar with grenades, would be the understatement of the year, and there were many of those that it could compete with. However, like many things, she knew the theory of grenades, and at the Latin command that came from outside of the office, she knew it was perhaps the only thing she could do to remove herself from a sticky situation. The glue was combustible.

Unlatching the grenade, she threw it over the desk, praying that gravity would be merciful to her and land at the foot of the door frame where the small group of frumentarii were filing in. An explosion sounded, shaking the desk and sending hundreds of papers flying over the room, landing in front of and behind the desk she hid under. They spiraled through the air until they fell over her head, but she could barely feel them through her suit, or indeed anything else.

Silence.

She peeked around the desk, and found only the dismembered bodies of the frumentarii, blood and guts everywhere, sickening if her stomach wasn't made of titanium like it was. The smell of human flesh was thick as it drifted past her as she crept to the metal doorway, and she was reminded of Aurelius' office at Cottonwood Cove. The smell of oxidized blood was as sharp and heavy as the iron it resembled.

Her blonde head poked out from the doorway, checking either direction for danger. Above, the emergency lights flickered menacingly. Someone was screwing with the power grid, a frumentarius if she had to guess. She took one gulp of air before she ran down the hall, looking for directions on the wall, directions to the control room.

Something crashed behind her – a pipe, blown out by the brawl that was occurring between two Californians and a big brute of a legionary. She spared one glance back at them, before clinging to the shadows cast by the walls, and keeping a look out for the control room. The module sat heavy in her coat's deep pocket, and she fingered it for reassurance.

While she made her way further down the cavernous, labyrinthine halls, the lights suddenly flickered off. Their hum had been unnoticeable before, and now were sensed only by their absence. Inside of the control tower, there was absolute silence for a total of seconds, before she once again heard fighting recommence above, around, and behind her, but she could not see any of them.

Everything was pitch black in the building, and she panicked while she lifted her Pip-Boy and clicked for the flashlight, hoping a legionary wouldn't pick her out while they were in their own element. She felt her way around the sleek device on her wrist, managing to find and activate the flashlight in a matter of seconds. Its light didn't extend more than five feet in front of her, and she was desperately shining it on every square inch of the concrete-metal walls, with the only sound around her being her own breath, and the distant cries of dying men, and the machinery beneath her feet. Otherwise, without the ambient hum of the lights, it was totally silent and still.

Between keeping her rifle ready and flashing the walls, she had put a flashing sign over her head, an invitation to be attacked. If she had time to poke fun at her own poor idea, she would, but she unfortunately didn't have that luxury. In fact, she was convinced out of everyone currently at the dam, she had the least luxuries. With no allies behind her, and no brothers to take a bullet for her, she was completely, and utterly, alone.

That thought only now dawned on her. She really, truly, was surrounded by enemies, knee-deep in enemy territory, with no one watching out for her, not even him. It wasn't the first time she's been in enemy territory before, she'd been in Fortification Hill for months, but it hadn't been an active war zone at the time. It had smelt of all the things one associates with lost hopes, dreams, and the assumption of aimlessness. In other words, a land ruled by a utilitarian dictator.

This was different, though. At the Fort, she was under Caesar's protection either by his Mark on her first visit, or her utility as a prisoner of war and source of labor on her second. Presently, she was afforded no such mercies, her death had likely been ordered, and it gave her cause to wonder if there were squads searching for her as those frumentarii behind had done.

Probably not. The chain of command on either side looked scattered, inevitable in so large a compound, and Caesar and his officers had been smart enough to attack on all sides, rather than just the one, as Joshua Graham had done many years before, eventually leading to his defeat at Boulder City.

On the wall, she saw control room, with an arrow next to it that pointed to the right. Down the dark hall came the sound of two Californians whispering in English to one another, one groaning while the other reassured him and rummaged around the ground, for a stimpak she reckoned. Past them was the comforting glow of a lab, where she assumed housed the control terminal.

Wisely, she clicked her flashlight off, and traversed the hall with only the glow of the terminals as her compass. Neither wounded trooper noticed her, or they were smart enough to ignore her in any event.

The control room glowed a familiar green, the interface of RobCo devices. She surmised that the light controls were on a different grid than the terminal network, for the RobCo logo greeted her as she tapped on the keyboard. Above the terminal station was a wide-set monitor, surrounded by ten or more smaller ones, each bearing a digitalized, strategic map of Hoover Dam.

Eris took the override module out of her pocket, and fumbled with it underneath the terminal, using the light it emanated to find the slot she needed to place it inside of. Just as the install had taken less than a minute at El Dorado, this one was just as quick. She'd had this irrational fear that the chip would've somehow fallen out of her pocket, even though they'd specifically chosen this coat for its zipper. For this reason, she was glad to have unburdened it.

As quickly as the bar reached completion, every terminal's map of Hoover Dam was replaced with his handsome countenance, smug and victorious.

"I knew that you'd make it. So resourceful, as always.." His voice was quieter than it was in his home, coming entirely from the terminal's speakers. "The override module is functioning properly. I'm rerouting power to the securitron vault at Fortification Hill as we speak. Oh, and I see that the lights have malfunctioned. One of Caesar's must have shut it off, I'll have it up and running shortly.." He told her, and she felt safer once more, and far less alone.

Her head turned sharply at the sound of broken glass that came from the foyer, and the rush of footsteps that ran purposefully down the passage.

"They're everywhere, Robert. Frumentarii are looking for me, I don't know what to do." She gushes out, the first words she's said in over an hour.

"Stay close to the shadows as you usually do. I have sights on nearly all the wings now, their confrontations are growing bloodier, I doubt that they'll have time to look your way." While what he said was reassuring, she wanted to snap that he was not being pursued. "You will need to head to the east power plant now, and manually activate the switch. When you return topside, I think you'll find that my securitrons were a little more than the Legion was prepared to handle."

There was something infinitely surreal about this conversation – held while she could hear and smell gunfire and combat.

"Oh, and before you go, grab that print-out spooling from the console here. Those are the papers that set the terms for the NCR's unconditional surrender, which I think you'll thoroughly enjoy giving to General Oliver." He was quivering with anticipation, if indeed he could quiver. It made her feel like she'd accomplished something good, and though she felt far from safe, she offered a weak smile. "Be careful navigating the east plant, and take extreme caution in your confrontation with the Legion."

Her jaw tightened at that, recalling that part of her work here would be ensuring that both the NCR and the Legion went on their way, preferably through diplomatic means, which meant that she'd be having peace talks with Caesar, someone who's ordered her death twice now, a man of little mercy aside from the cold understanding of logistics and utility. But someone tactical and big-pictured like him would understand the need for a surrender, she reasoned. He was not the type to shoot the messenger. Only, Eris is not just a messenger, but an agent, a mover, and a fugitive.

"Them? Oh no, I was thinking I might just walk up to them like I did the first time. It should work out splendidly." She snarked, watching the monitors signal a lost connection, meaning that he was flitting between surveillance of many different terminals throughout the dam.

Just as she took the treaty papers from the console, the sound of machinery coming to life boomed in her ears, and the lights flickered back on, accompanied by the ambient hum of before.

The carnage that welcomed her in the passage outside made her pause. Every inch of it was covered in blood or gore, and in that moment, she decided that war was comprised also of the sum of its harrowing battles, a word with several very real associations. She'd not seen the floor while she wandered in the pitch-dark corridor, but what she was greeted by was a massacre. She realized that she'd been stepping over the parts of people as she'd been navigating with her Pip-Boy's flashlight.

Now the hum of the light grid drowned out her stunned breaths. Before she abandoned the doorway to the control room, she unzipped her coat and slid the treaty papers in its inner lining, as her only bag was filled with ammo on her back.

Something moved out of the corner of her eye, a tall silhouette. Eris noticed it for half a second, and when she turned her head to investigate, the silhouette was gone, and there was only a fresh corpse there, still trickling blood onto the floor. Truly, it could be anyone, but it was probably a legionary, considering they had just killed NCR.

Whatever it was, it was like a ghost, and she felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand up. That feeling probably meant she was being stalked, but she had no time to give chase, much to the displeasure of her inborn curiosity.

She looked behind her one more time, and checked with her Pip-Boy's map once more, to get an idea of where she was, and where she needed to go.

Her feet began pacing before her mind could decide where she should go. The map was confusing, and she was almost certain there were hundreds of meandering corridors that were in the way between her and the east side. While her map neglected to mention it, she had it on good authority that there were miles of twists and turns and dead-ends. After all, its prewar builders never intended for it to be a battleground.

Just around the corner, seven legionaries were rushing at a small battalion of troopers that had managed to eek out a defense of the control tower. Eris took aim, and watched as two of them fell to their knees before even nearing the blockade, stacked with desks, cabinets, and other miscellaneous office furniture. She wanted to ensure that she kept the bear on her good side – at least until that switch was pulled.

Meanwhile, she wandered the bewilderingly long corridor, puzzled as to which direction she should go. Had she missed a turn? Would she be late? What did being 'late' entail here? Surely, it wouldn't be a stern reprimand from him, it would be total failure, ending in her death and the slow decline of the Mojave, as all sides would be too weakened to take power with anything but name. Simply, the weight on her shoulders was heavy, and that was disregarding the heavy assault rifle she carried and the ammo bag she had slung over her back. If she screwed this up, there would be no second chances, no alternatives that she could follow.

She was beginning to understand, for the first time, how authoritative figures must feel when they know for certain that there is only one path to walk down. She thinks she understands now just why men like General Oliver panic when their one course gets threatened to fall down like a house of cards. It isn't purely because they shut their mind to alternatives, but it's because they often get themselves into scenarios where there is, truly, only one option. It frightens her, and she's surprised that she feels a sliver of empathy for them.

In a quiet corridor, minutes from the control terminals, she shrugs to herself and gestures wildly at the walls, baffled and searching for an answer from them. Perhaps she's that far gone.

A few more steps leads her to yet another doorway, with a sign next to it that indicated that the east plant was behind. As with all the other doors, she had to twist the heavy handle and wait for the rusted metal to part from either side. She loathes these kinds of prewar doors.

Inside is a large office that had apparently been repurposed as sleeping quarters by the NCR, outfitted with a restroom, a kitchen, and a dining area. Before her, footsteps sounded on the hard floor outside, and her breathing quickened before she froze, knowing intuitively that something was in the corridor leading to the east plant.

Her curiosity won over her self-preservation, and she neared the door frame before the tall silhouette of a man jumped her, causing her to collapse and spill her bag on the ground. The sound of bullets scattering inside was all she heard as the man grabbed madly at her.

He was an NCR officer, tall and lean, and probably the shadowy figure who stalked her earlier, but such a theory made no sense, because in his wake, he'd left one of his kinsmen behind.

She managed to slide her bag off of her just in time to dart to the restroom, whose lights flickered as ominously as the facility's had half an hour before. From there, she fired her rifle, but missed every shot as the mysterious man deftly maneuvered his body, somehow knowing that she'd need to reload, and soon.

Deciding to conserve her bullets, she eyed the ammo bag on the ground, unsure if she should even risk changing her position. She was not a strategic mastermind! In moments like these, her instinct warred with reason, leading to detrimental indecision. Anyone else – wiser people – would be able to set aside reason for that primy part of theirs, but she was thinking of every possible thing that could go right or wrong if she ducked for the bag for more ammo.

Firstly, he'd tackle her. He had size over her, and definitely strength. She watched him knock over a file cabinet, mystified by his bizarre tactic, but soon learned why he'd done it, because as soon as she fired a shot – confident she'd hit him that time – she was out of ammo, and panicking. Who was he? No NCR had ever brandished a weapon at her, and certainly not today while they were occupied with Legion.

Eris swallowed as he reappeared, rushing her with such force that she could only sidestep and flit around for a hiding place in the restroom, within a back stall, which she locked with shaky hands. She peeked through the cracks, and saw dark, dilated pupils staring back at her, filled with a sense of malicious purpose, the most potent kind.

He pushed at the door, but only once, for her pursuer was a clever one, and soon found another, more effective way to break the door down. His grunts filled the stagnant air between them, separated only by a flimsy little stall door. Shocked by his persistence, she began searching for another way out, and stepped on top of the toilet seat, taking her weight off of the door. Her hands sought support on the shaky walls of the bathroom stall, and quickly, she hoisted herself up, managing to pull one arm and then one leg over.

Eye contact was unavoidable – his eyes darted over and over her face, and unlike baser predators, he didn't goad her with a smarmy grin. No, he had obviously been following her for some time, and it was his duty. For a split second, her gaze wandered down to the tag on his fatigues, and saw the name Cpt. Ronald Curtis, a name that meant absolutely nothing to her aside from overhearing him mentioned at McCarran weeks before.

But why had he killed another of his kin earlier? Had that been him? She breaks eye contact with him as soon as she makes it, withered by the baleful intention there, and utterly confused by it. Eris was under the impression that she knew everyone out here at this point – an entirely new person declaring her an enemy was news to her.

A searing pain moves down her legs as she falls backward, the captain having launched himself on the stall outside, shaking its hinges and threatening to break the door down. She cries out, and lets out an agonized hiss, the pain so great that she replays the events of her life and is convinced that her death was imminent.

Even from this deep within the facility, she can hear the impact of the Boomers, showering the topside with artillery that no one had prepared for. Her pursuer paused for a moment, and both of them seemed to be doing the same thing – listening to the artillery raining down, explosions that shook the ceiling and threatened to knock the lights out.

"Vulpes warned you would be here today." He began as an introduction, and she felt a cold chill roll down her spine at the mention of Vulpes' name. It stirred her to move, and she decided to crawl underneath her second stall rather than climb.

A frumentarius, the only stripe of legionary that was cunning enough to know that House wanted the slice that their people were dying to have, literally. When he took out their accomplices – the Families – he indirectly declared war on Caesar, it was a message that could be interpreted any number of ways, but the cleverest was to assume a power play for Hoover Dam, which was exactly what it was and many more.

How exactly a sleeper had managed to climb the ranks as a captain, working beside Hsu, was information that only confirmed two things – the incompetence of the infiltrated, and the cunning of the infiltrator.

His strong, large hand pulled at her ankles as she made her way beneath the stalls, and she kicked hard in his direction out of pure instinct. The muscles in her legs pulled, and reignited the pain of her fall, tears clouded her vision, yet she clawed at the stall nonetheless, and managed to pull herself away from him, and sneaked away until she could crawl under the lone sink. She held onto the trash can for leverage, and pushed herself up, aware that he was nearly on her.

"What's your name? Your real name?" She questioned conversationally, searching wildly for her gun, which was abandoned in the corner, seemingly so very far away.

"Picus, and I will do what that bastard Chairman couldn't do." He's on her then, tugging at her braid, and pulling her against his lean chest.

"C'mon.. you're just a nameless agent like me.." She mouthed in between heavy breaths, unable to feel his arms squeezing around her midsection. "No one will care that you killed me. You'll get no.. no special awards, Caesar will never acknowledge you while he's got Vulpes so far up his backside. You'll remain.. an agent in the bear's stomach, too fucking.. degenerate to be allowed around good little legionaries. You're a bad influence, constantly exposed to degenerates like Hsu.." She chuckles after finishing her convincing speech, wrapping her arm around his, while his hand trails up to her neck and holds her there.

Eris coughs, and wriggles in his arms like a fish trying to get back to water. She can feel every sharp bone in his body slotted against her back, one might think that they were in a lover's embrace if they didn't know who she was.

Having air denied to her is not a new experience, but that lightheaded fog that always comes is the stuff of delirium, and it's like being welcomed to the afterlife. She wonders if that heavy presence was anthropomorphized as the Grim Reaper, that legendary totem that seemed to exist in the minds of every people, both tribal and civil.

Her breaths became more ragged, and she thinks of the man she's failing. She wonders if she'll ever see him again, wonders if he'll figure out a way to supremacy without her. Every inch of her body is screaming, every nerve on fire with Picus threatening to snuff them out.

The only thing she can do is kick, and she does – wraps her ankle around his, and causes him to plunge forward, allowing her to break free from his tight grip. They collapse on the ground together, and Eris rushes to pick up her discarded gun while he recovers. Breathing has never felt better.

The frumentarius curses, and lunges at her, but she's quicker, and leagues more desperate, it gives her a distinct advantage. Eris realizes then, that she has more to lose than him. If he fails, he can rest in the knowledge that his many brothers will fill in the void he left behind. Truthfully, it is a rather sad thing, viewed from that specific angle. But the belief instilled within him is that his life and purpose is meaningful insofar as it culminates into the state – the Legion – and is otherwise meaningless.

Instead of sending him on a chase, she chooses the element of surprise, and tackles him to the ground from behind, it's something she's done before, to another legionary in another time. Using the sling of her rifle, she forms a tight wrap around his neck, and begins pulling with a strength she wasn't aware she had. His gag is visceral, a sound that reverberates off of the restroom tiles and metal stalls.

"You're very, very silly. Don't you know I Houdini'd out of the Fort? I swam across the Colorado!" Her chuckle is derisive, half-delirious from fatigue. "Did you really think I wouldn't be able to slither myself out of this? And now, I just have to kill you because you insulted Benny. Try to suffocate me if you want…" She spoke through her teeth, watching his eyes bulge and his cheeks turn purple. "But that's going a bit too far!"

He responded by bucking his hips, almost sending her off of him, but she responded with equally greater force, pulling the sling tighter around his neck until her arms throbbed from the strain.

A snap caught her attention, and she looked down to find his head lolling to the side. When she lightened her grip on the sling, she watches in gross fixation as his head falls slack, meeting the tiles with a smack.

For a long moment, she could only hang her head, resting it on the butt of her rifle. The air she breathes into her lungs is sweet, more liberating than any civil freedom she's ever had. She takes one last look at the dead frumentarius, and uses the wall to pull herself up. In the mirror, she finds a new cut across her cheek, caused by one of the buttons on his sleeve no doubt.

No switch was worth this, she thinks to herself with the lightness of one who just won a battle.

Eris steps out of the restroom with aching legs, feeling like they were just slammed between the Lucky 38's thick doors. She bends down to pick up her bag, placing a hand on her lower back as she does so, rubbing the skin there.

She reloads her gun with the little precision her shaking hands allow, and slides the bag back over her shoulder. The sling of her rifle smells of human saliva, a stench that she can't seem to ignore as she makes her way through the door from where he'd originally ambushed her.

This corridor is straight and narrow, much like how she's read Jesus' description of the path to heaven, but this place is most assuredly not it. She's absolutely certain she'll never want to step foot in here ever again after today, if she makes it through.

A booming mechanical sound grows as she walks nearer to it , not unlike the kind she heard in the 38's basement only hours ago. The cursed corridor leads to an overlook of what she assumes to be the central operations of the dam. This is where the battle had escalated while she and Picus had dished it out in the restroom. There were hundreds – both NCR and Legion – taking position and firing at the other. Spears were being hurled from the eastern side, claimed by Caesar's.

It's this one, single switch that will make their battle a vain one. Like anything else, she hesitates before she presses the proverbial red button. This is the beginning of the end, and she so covets the journey.

She looks down at the hundreds of men, wondering what lives they might lead after she pulls this switch. Some of their lots will improve, but many of the Legion boys will be like captive animals released into the wild, their existence will be a cruel and aimless one. That's assuming they don't commit suicide as soon as their defeat is evident, and it also assumes that Caesar won't try to withdraw with his forces behind him.

He was old, and sick, without any prewar medical supplies or surgeries to treat him. Really, how long could the Legion hold out? It would be carried by its past infamies when Caesar died, and dissolve into nothing more than a highly organized raider gang without him.

As for the NCR, they might slowly decline and devour themselves as their predecessors had. Eris predicts a civil war in the upcoming years, which could lead to the fracturing of their nation as separatists gain power with the people. Undoubtedly, House would find a way to make this benefit him and his territory.

The final layer of the onion is that she's been in the throes of a gambling addiction for a year and a half. Everything she had done was a gamble, throwing her lot in with him had seemed the most novel course, and she'd been so deep in her skepticism that she'd truly convinced herself that it wasn't he or his vision she believed in. Back then, they were simply bets she made, and they were the winning ones apparently, because she had found something she could believe in. But did her own belief in him justify everyone else having to live under him? When had she been imbued with enough moral soundness to decide on behalf of people?

In a fashion typical of her, she contemplates for a few more moments before her shaking hand finally finds the switch, and it takes either hand to pull it down, completely turning the tide of thousands of lives in the matter of a second.

Nothing grand happens, it's slow to take effect, she surmises. All it has done is allow for him to empty the bunker of thousands of securitrons and other military grade robots. No one below bats an eye at her as she turns away to look for an exit.

Every corridor she passes by is lonely save for the dead men, and even a few women, that are strewn about the floor.

Outside, the sky is hidden by smoke and ash, and Eris reacts by pulling her suit over her nose. A securitron joins her once more, looking a bit worse for wear – it's the same one from earlier, still with a dent in its side from the grenade it took for her.

It follows behind while she shuffles through rubble, searching for someone actually living. A cacophony of screams grabs her attention only a minute into her walk, and she turns to see the Fort, incinerating to its very foundations.

She blinked once, then twice, disbelief giving her pause.

"Mr. House has ordered me to escort you to the Legate's camp, ma'am." So, within a matter of minutes, he and the Boomers had brought the Fort to its knees?

More pertinently, where was Caesar?

So she asks just that from the securitron, "where is Caesar?"

"Caesar is currently in the custody of the New California Republic." She closed her eyes at that information. Despite knowing how it was supposed to end, she was still rather shocked. At present, all was far too surreal. She had no doubt it would click in a little while, she's dreadful at living in the moment.

Lanius awaits. He is less of a man, and more of a myth, so mythical that it's been rumored that his mask is the persona, which any great man of the Legion can wear. However, Eris retains much of her skepticism, it is a quintessential part of her, and she doesn't believe that any man or woman is greater than the humanity they've been blessed, or cursed with.

Even still, she hesitates to follow the securitron, and opts to watch the Fort from a comfortable distance. Eris anticipates that this will be unlike any other diplomatic affair she's encountered, and she refuses to go in with the shakes. Part of her success was in winning over people with the performance of nonchalance and ease. She knew that she made people simultaneously comfortable and unsettled, that part of her shtick was unconscious, something she only knew from having it expressed to her.

The solution to her problem is a cigarette, a break that was almost as rewarding as her first after serving time under Caesar. One thing she will probably regret, is not seeking out Aurelius. That will be someone who lives in her psyche, rent-free, probably for forever. What's more, is that he's probably never thought about her again ever since she was transferred across the river. That made her hatred invalidated, it was almost as formidable as the insecurity she felt toward House.

When the smoke enters her lungs, she leans her head back and stares upward at the sky, still bearing criss-crosses from the Boomers' aircraft. While this wasn't her most rewarding smoke break, it's definitely her most irresponsible, and she quickens it by taking harder and deeper inhales, before crushing it on the ground underneath her rubber heel.

"Alright.. I've refueled.. now let us commence!" She exclaims, with chutzpah she doesn't feel, because the truth was that she was terrified by Lanius. He presented an unpredictable variable, shrouded entirely behind exploits of mythical proportions wherein truth and reality could not be ascertained. Usually, this would offer her an interesting problem to solve, but this problem was far too critical to indulge. "If you let me get raped and dismembered, I'll come back and disassemble you."

The unit doesn't respond, likely under direct control of House, whose control had just surpassed the greater Vegas area and encompassed most of the Mojave.

She follows closely behind, her gaze occasionally fixing on the ruins of the Fort on the hill. It was so much larger than it looked from here, she remembered. From here, it looks like a collection of tents and slave pens, but only someone who has been there would know that it expanded far down the hill it was situated on, capable of housing thousands of legionaries and slaves. The Legion always had the advantage of secrecy over the NCR, a point that allowed them to last so long against a military with superior weapons, transportation, and trade networks.

They encounter only tiny pockets of resistance on the way to Lanius' camp, high-ranking officers that have outlasted their younger counterparts.

Cunningly, she raises her arm at them, and tells her securitron, "Quickly now, Mr. House has probably already had an aneurysm at this rate."

It responds by reloading its artillery, and taking aim at the officers ahead, silencing any attempts to guard the pathway to the Legion's last hope. She smirks at that epithet, finding sanctuary away from her impending diplomacy with the least diplomatic man in the wasteland. Of course, that was only an assumption, but most assumptions are based off of stereotypes or rumors, and either of those two are nearly always grounded in reality, no matter how misleading they may become when they get whispered and spoken about from one mouth to the next.

Her pattern recognition has no data to supply her with reassurance about this walk. She has no memory, neither muscle nor conscious, of ever making a walk as significant as this one. There's a probability that she's now walking to her death, but she has done something virtuous today, she just feels it, knows it even without him being her value compass. Therefore, she should be resigned in her uncertain death, but she finds in its stead, that she's looking forward to helping rebuild the world, with whatever skills she retains.

Again, she surprises herself with the earnest desire to live. Maybe she's finally recovering from the Incident, or maybe she is simply settling in.

The securitron leads her across the dam, taking out any resistance with ease. When finally their path leads them to a winding dirt road up a small hill, she swallows, and hesitates, staring at the wide, fortified gate that waits there.

Anything could be waiting behind those gates, and if she loses her life, there's only a few people who would mourn her, and more people that would just mourn the legend. Keeping a legend alive has never been her prerogative – she's not a state-funded propagandist, after all, but she finds herself considering the people's opinions. Many of them looked up to her, much to her bewilderment. She should act responsibly in that case, considering she's not only leading her own life, but leading a life that apparently sets an example for others.

Despite the weather being cool, she takes one step into the camp and is greeted by suffocating, stifling air, Eris was unsure if it was a physiological reaction to nerves, or if it truly was hot here. Either way, she felt a few drops of sweat roll down her neck and back.

She swiped a gloved hand over her cheeks and eyes, wiping the drying blood off. The smell of Picus still lingered in the air between her nose and collarbone, where the sling was still fastened. It was a good reminder that she was not powerless, something she'd never needed to be reassured of before now.

Further up the hill were tall figures, as still as statues, and all of their gazes were fastened on her. Even from here, she picked out the tallest one and assumed it was Lanius, though they were a good distance away yet. There were more than a hundred men here, and probably thousands outside of the central camp. She predicts this will be the most finicky audience she's ever performed for.

At least the securitron remained at her side, it meant that he was watching, which meant she really needed to sell her performance. Smoke billowed from a massive fire in the central camp, where she could see crosses had been erected, holding either failed officers or NCR prisoners.

Eris stopped, her jaw threatened to drop – Aurelius stood nearest to the tallest of the men, who she could see more clearly now. Her heart pumped quicker and she felt her insides twist at the sight of him, the reminder of every bad choice she ever made. The memory of the Weathers boy comes back to her, overwhelming all her senses and choking her with their weight.

How he eviscerated him, dug his eyes out of his sockets, a boy that couldn't be older than thirteen or fourteen, still with pubescent fuzz on his weak chin. How his mother cradled him against her up that canyon rather than escape with her other children. The taste of an innocent on ever sensitive taste bud on her tongue, and the lump it formed in her throat when he held her chin and made her swallow. Nothing was the same after that, her life had ceased to be a game, and she'd become aware that there were, despite her intellectual hubris, good and bad choices.

Beside him stood Lanius, a great beast of a man, taller than anyone she'd ever seen. He easily had two or more heads over her. His shoulders were broad and armored with fine, polished bronze. Like another legionary she knew, he preferred to cover his face with a mask of the same polished make as his armor. The holes where his eyes would've been were hollow, empty black sockets, it reminded her of the Weathers boy, perhaps because his murderer stood right there on the side.

She knew better than to dive in with the same mischief she approached anyone else. She prided herself on few things, and one of those things happened to be getting a 'feel' for people, analyzing and checking every detail of how they held themselves, the way they angled their body, and even the pitch they spoke with – and all of its little fluctuations.

Lanius held himself differently than any she'd seen. There was intent in the way he flexed his muscled, broad shoulders, and she knew immediately that he was not a man to be trifled with, and certainly not a man who gave second chances. There would be no going back and redoing any discussion with him, he would be delighted to resist any attempt to do so. She wondered if he saw himself as a corrector of others, a shepherd dog of Caesar's who bit at the ankles of sheep and willed them to do that which his master believed to be good and right.

Regardless of her reservations, she managed to hide any physical sign of her nerves, and willed herself to adapt to the unfamiliar circumstance she found herself in. Unfamiliar, and downright discomforting, with Aurelius there, watching her every movement. She hates the possibility that he's smug in having broken her, watching her with an intimate secret between the two of them.

It would be a man of his stature that thought it impotent and weak to wait for another, in that way, he is unlike any leader she's met. He meets her halfway as though his virility is dependent on it, and she finds herself standing underneath a dark shadow when he's less than two feet away from her, maintaining proximity if only to eek as much discomfort from her as possible. It pleased him, she could tell, and he'd not even spoken one word to her yet. His officers circle him like stray dogs, looking between either of them for an order. She recognizes some, besides Aurelius. None of them carry a voice of reason, not like Caesar or his closest circle had. All of them pored over books, and understood the greater purpose of their Legion. There is no Vulpes here to vouch for her and scheme with Caesar over a way to make use of her, in the process letting her keep her life.

She is too entrenched in the power bids for anyone to vouch for her, even if these men had the mind for it. She could no longer be a prisoner of war, she was too volatile.

"And, who are you to come before me.. you, who does not even bear the insignia of the Bear, but represents their ends all the same?" Comes his first question, and for a moment, she was too moved by his voice to consider how well-spoken he actually was.

This time, she wouldn't lie to herself, she had expected him to be a brute, a brute with a rudimentary understanding of the symbolic, but a brute nonetheless. However, a brute did not speak as he was speaking. No, he was not a brute, but a man who'd surrendered himself completely and willingly to the symbol, the myth.

He is someone who's impressed by the kind of symbolical language people like House and Caesar could weave and wrap around themselves, addicted to the way it permeated his psyche and filled him with an inspiration previously unknown to a primitive tribal. He was both addicted, and hostile, toward those he perceived to be more thoughtful than him. She fleshes out a better chart of Lanius in the few moments she searches for words to say, taking into account rumor and myth, and reasoning against it with the actual man standing over her.

Invariably, he was a man. And though his voice sounded more myth than reality, she reasoned that the echo came from bronze, an ancient material, so old and commonplace that an entire era of antiquity was named after it. Neither of them were special, least of all her. She refused to fall in the trap that others did, in placing big men and women on a pedestal to be worshiped and kowtowed to. One of the biggest deceptions people fell for was believing their enemies were larger than life, and it was utterly detrimental.

"I thought that maybe.." She pauses for effect, taking a moment to breathe and meet those lifeless pits where his eyes were. "You would be willing to listen to reason, and I'll be disappointed if you prove me wrong as everyone else has."

A grunt sounded from behind his mask, and he crossed his arms thoughtfully, or in a show of it. The clanking sound of his armor disturbed her, but she was careful to give no indication.

"I see you fight with words, like all who live beneath the flags of the West.. let us hope your skill with weapons proves greater." Her heartbeat picked up at that, blood rushed to her ears and flushed her skin.

Eris chooses her next words carefully, like she was soothing a particularly nasty deathclaw, a creature she's had the benefit of only hearing about.

She scoffs good-naturedly, as if the two of them have known each other before. All the while, she's careful to cultivate some measure of formal respect between them, because she's of the mind that it's something he yearns for – a weakness.

Two of his officers, namely Aurelius and a man whom she thinks is his recitator, unsheathe their weapons, and close in on her, waiting for a command that Lanius had yet to give. Bravely, or boldly rather, she puts up a hand and gestures for them to stop, trying to maintain a pretense of superiority and self-righteousness, something she believed Lanius admired.

"Every action we take should be taken with a good deal of conviction." It's ironic, coming from her, but she continues. "But not every conviction is valid, I'd even argue that most aren't. We become aimless when we lose the ability to ascertain the virtuous ones, from the unfavorable ones. Raising a weapon to me is an unfavorable one, derived only out of secondhand offense for your Caesar. I so loathe being the bearer of bad news, I really do, but I haven't come here to do battle with you, only to remind you that the battle has been decided. It is over, Lanius." She gives him a pointed look then, not even bothering to look at the others, for she knows meeting Aurelius' eyes would be a deciding factor in the failure of her diplomacy here.

An audible breath leaves the Legate then, reminding her of a great bull preparing to charge. Although she looks at his eyes, she notices the tenseness in his shoulders, and the flexing of his pectorals below them.

"Kill me, if you would like. All it will do is prove that you are unfit to lead the Legion in Caesar's wake, such a mistake will have disastrous consequences, for we both know it isn't necessarily true."

"Watch your tongue, profligate!" His recitator commands. Another legionary declares one of her many faults in Latin, unsheathing his weapon just as the officers had.

For all his foreboding words, he holds a hand to silence all of them, and they fall in line immediately, performing the motions she'd seen a million times in Fortification Hill. Perhaps, Lanius is more reasonable than she originally thought. Perhaps, it's that impressionable quality that belongs to all tribals, the need to prove themselves as capable of processing all the stuff of higher civilization.

"So, you seek quarter? Terms of surrender?" She is surprised that he simplified her verbose explanation, condensing it down to the simplest of terms rather than getting stuck on its twisting, serpentine tangents. "Our roads into NCR are hung with the bodies of those who attempted to.. negotiate with us. Save your speeches, Woman of the West, for we will take Hoover Dam and move forward until our feet crush the setting sun beneath them."

Never before has she heard a tribal wax poetical like that. Eris suspects that he's probably half-illiterate, and wants to read but either cannot, or cannot find the time to, considering his life's work contradicts it. He lives in the thousands of pages that mark the duality of Caesar – a strategic mastermind who learned purely from philosophical theory, but who procured a society that shuns the theoretical for the practical. Lanius is a victim of Caesar, forced against his will to be something of a perfect soldier, while she suspects he once had, and may still have, a yearning for other things. He was a failed visionary, who was insightful enough to stand out, but just unsophisticated enough to be beaten by someone who could more effectively bring their insight to fruition.

"Move forward?", she begins by quoting what he had said, "You and I both know that Caesar spent years trying to take Hoover Dam. Both of us had probably never heard of Hoover Dam when he first set his sights on it years ago, when Joshua Graham was standing where you are, right now."

The Legate straightened at that, and she imagined he was sneering behind his mask.

"You dare to summon Graham's name in this hour? Very well.." He hummed at that, seeming to ponder her closely, checking for the same weaknesses as she had before, only he had the advantage of a mask. "Hoover Dam has never seen the massed strength of the East, only Legates such as Graham, as you say. Legates such as Graham… who deserved the fire Caesar blessed him with. Now, I am here, and make markers of your people as the Legion carves its way West."

Her ears perked at the intoxicating pride he spoke with, and she knew now how best to approach him, having only been open to suggestions thus far, trying to flesh out the skeleton that Lanius was before she was here.

He does, in fact, long to be capable, but she suspected that he was at constant war with expectations and his own reason. So, she chooses to capitalize on it.

"And what of the East? You speak only of the West, but it isn't the only direction." She points out.

"You speak in circles – what of the East? I am the East, and I will prove it this day." As with countless others before him, she can see the walls crumbling. It's the same thing she does to everyone, invoking panic and forcing them to cover up their own shortcomings.

"I think.. there is something to be said, if you need all of the East to crush the West.." Before she could finish, he interrupted, the first time he'd done such a thing.

"Our victory here shall be swift. Our forces shall take the Dam, secure it, then build a road west atop the bodies of the NCR. The East will hold. Once across the Colorado, nothing to rival Hoover Dam remains."

Her eyes narrow at that, and she's eager to prove him wrong, as eager as she ever is. That is when she jumps, and secures her advantage over him, tightening the noose, as it were.

"That is where you are wrong." She begins, supplying him with a characteristically dubious look. Like him, she too crosses her arms, a habit of hers. "Beyond the Colorado, Vegas awaits you, Lanius."

Lanius is quick to reply to that, snapping his head at the mention of the city.

"Vegas shall fall." Was his terse response, only saved from sounding prosaic by the resonance and originality of his deep timbre.

But his stubborn support of Caesar's crumbling ambition gave her all the ammo she needed to press him harder until he acquiesced and realized the error of his ways, even if it was only showmanship and nothing else.

"I'm afraid that your Legion will encounter some difficulties trying to make it so, for you have no allies there that you can count on, Mr. House made sure of that when he and I foiled Operation Racket. Aside from that, its walls are virtually impenetrable." She shrugs at him, a risky move, but a risk she's willing to take, because Lanius is beginning to be overwhelmed by her relentless attempt to negotiate.

"A plan by Vulpes…" The familiar name tickles at her subconscious. Where was he? "Treachery is a weapon that one should never rely on. I can only hope that the Omertas died when their treachery was exposed, to have the plan succeed would have only sullied the Legion."

Was she as bad as Caesar for trying to take advantage of his desire to be respectable and eloquent?

When she opened her mouth, he only continued, sounding more like he was trying to reassure himself than her. She remembers now, reading about the primitive fixation with voicing and naming fears aloud, in an effort to subdue the fear. Primitive name projection, or something like that, when primitive men name an evil force to imprison it within the confines of language.

"It does not matter." He reassures himself, "Victory shall be ours, it shall be swift, and it shall be honest, purchased with blood."

Just yesterday, she had spoken with House about how the NCR and the Legion ironically paralleled each other, something either were unaware of. Both were civilizations that would follow a very predictable decline, both with unique weaknesses that could be found in inklings of the other's. Both worshiped at the foot of the old world.

Furthermore, just like the East, the West was too large a territory, owing to its leaders' expansionism. Any invading army would stretch itself thin between trying to establish supply lines and hold strategic landmarks. Besides, she didn't see Vulpes or any other strategist nearby – she was still wondering if it was the infighting between he and Lanius, or if Vulpes truly was gone – Lanius and his eastern troops weren't prepared for the unique challenges of the West, which they had never faced when they conquered and assimilated barbarian tribesmen.

She wondered if he even knew what a supply line was, and found herself sympathizing with the lost visionary, groomed to be a fixture and left to his own devices when his maker was gone, like a wild animal forced to act docile.

"No, you misunderstand. It isn't the strength of the westerners that will slow you, it is their weakness." Before she can elaborate, he again interrupts.

"Your weakness?" He lumps her in with the west, she's reminded of the slogan blood and soil. It's his time under Caesar that honed that primitive belief in blood being tied to the land. "You seek to thwart me by claiming the Legion is too strong for you?" He was so eager to search for an excuse to meet his expectations, that he misunderstood her point.

Eris shook her head, and felt herself pitying the man in front of her, rather than fearing him as she had before. Now, it seemed like only the two of them were there, and she was better able to ignore Aurelius' gaze wandering over her.

"The West's weakness has always been its size, you know. It will take your entire army to hold the West."

"That does not mean we would not succeed." He says mulishly.

"Perhaps eventually. Although, moving your whole army West leaves the East open for being taken. There is a reason why the NCR fails even as we speak, they can't hope to maintain order in their lands west of the Mojave, while their forces are stationed here."

He thinks on that for a moment, and the movement of his head lets her know that he's dropped eye contact and focused elsewhere.

When finally he speaks again, it is in the same kind of resignation she felt on her way up here. "The East was a hard-fought campaign. Even now, Caesar drew too much of the Legion's blood needed there for… this."

He spoke of Caesar as if he was still here, as if the NCR was not executing him at this very moment. With the atrocities he ordered, she doubted he'd be allowed to live as an advisor or prisoner of war.

"Hoover Dam is but a place. I will not have it be the gravestone of the Legion – where quickly, or as you describe, slowly, by attrition." Finally, he had succumbed to reason, a failed thinker was still a thinker.

She takes a breath then, relieved by his willingness to be challenged as Caesar could not. It isn't just a sounder future she imagines now, but a settee in the 38, surrounded by the things she has finally, painstakingly earned.

Then, she decides that she likes Lanius, respects him in a way she respects few. She welcomes being proven wrong about anything or anyone, and she concedes to the fact that he was not a witless brute, nor a mad dog of Caesar, but a casualty of the tidal wave that was a continuously expanding totalitarian state, heralded as a myth of Herculean proportions to keep the tidal wave rolling.

"Then you are wiser than he ever was. Even in all of my accumulated failures, there's always a victory in the wisdom I've gained, if it is truly wisdom I've gained." She tells him, and she thinks they have an understanding now, an understanding she never quite had with his predecessor. After all, they are both young, and neither of them are inborn leaders.

"As for wisdom…" He trails off, sounding more unsure of himself as he begrudgingly admires her, "Yes, there is wisdom in your words, Woman of the West. Know that I shall return East. I shall not remain there forever. On that day, the strength of the Bear shall be tested. If the West is one day filled with ones such as you, perhaps it shall be a worthy fight indeed."

Once more, she feels his eyes piercing hers behind the menacing bronze, and she feels a small quirk at the corner of her lip, pleased with herself, and impressed by his ability to surprise her. Eris was unsure whether it was her gift of gab, or his unexpected and understated humility. He was the veritable opposite of Caesar.

"During your time in the East, you'll have plenty of time to reflect, won't you? Maybe you'll find that the Legion has needs that are beyond warfare." She suggests, looking between either hole in his mask.

He grunts at that, apparently disagreeing with what she'd just said. "My coming would have saved you, set your people free in ways they cannot see. War would have tested them. Broken the weak with its violence, yet allowing the strong to arise. Violence gave you that strength, awakened you – I can see it upon your face even now, near to where I know a bullet to have left its mark.

"Perhaps it is unfortunate Vulpes was not here to hear your words… something tells me you would prove more than his match."

Eris smirked at that, saying, "Vulpes wishes he was as good as me."

There comes a scoff from him, almost amiable. She wonders if this is karmic compensation for all the times she's gotten her ass beat by overstepping boundaries with the wrong people.

"Wished. There has been no sign of Vulpes since Caesar gave his first orders today. Whether he is dead or alive does not matter – he is dead to me, for his work served only to sully the honor of the Legion." That stung somewhat. Even if his frumentarii had nearly killed her today, she held a strange, sentimental value for him. Just the same, his being alive was likely, and that was almost as much cause for concern. "Until the day when our armies meet again, Woman of the West – I shall wait for you on the battlefield."

His officers twitch when she steps nearer to their new Caesar, and holds out a hand, an old world symbol of peace. At first, he doesn't take it, whether he is confused or insulted, she's unsure.

Finally, he does take it, wrapping her entire hand in a hard fist, nearly crushing the bones there without even applying much force. Eris manages to pull herself closer, and leans up to whisper to him, still not even able to look over his broad shoulders.

"Be better than Caesar was. Consider your people's needs before you rush for the bounties of others'. Prove to everyone that the Legion can survive without him at its head, yeah?" The dissolution of the Legion would be as catastrophic for the East as their victory would've been for the West. The East would once more become a nest of raiders and cannibals, where traders feared to traverse its roads.

Eris wasn't interested in saving the world from 'tyrants', she had no such savior complex as some did, and honestly, she couldn't care less about the tyranny in the East, people should be able to decide for themselves what sort of life they'd like to live. It is one of the opinions she's always been very consistent in holding.

Before her, Lanius says nothing, his silence is unreadable, but one can only hope he takes her advice sincerely. He pulls away from her, letting her hand fall from his, and glances one last time before summoning his officers, and turning away. She watches Aurelius, who senses her gaze, and sneers before following after Lanius.

She restrains herself from saying something nasty, but even if she opened her mouth, she doubts the words would pour out as smoothly as she'd like. In that moment, she comes to terms with the idea that he will serve as a reminder to act more carefully, to think better before she speaks, and to try to consider the lives of other people.

Thus, she watches his back and remains still, conflicted in the knowledge that she'll never see him again, and may never make peace with what he'd done all those months ago. Perhaps his withdrawal to the East would make it less real, but she's unsure if she wants that either. It had been, unfortunately, very real.

Down the hill, she hears the sound of the gate being kicked open, and her securitron follows her as she makes her way down, hearing the shuffling of people below.

The closer she gets, the more humored she becomes. She's unsure if she's delirious, or high off of her most successful diplomatic mission ever. She is humored, because it's General Lee fucking Oliver, guarded by four rangers. She's never seen him before, but she immediately hones in on the swagger he assumes, and mimics it herself.

They meet each other in the middle, the hill giving her the natural advantage of height over him, a truly comical thing. He strolls nearer with self-importance and bravado, unaware of the securitrons that were behind him – she could see their bright screens through the smoke.

The General is taller than her, but that isn't an achievement, he has only a fraction more on the average man, she surmises. It isn't his height that makes him tall, however, it's his attitude, something she sees well before he opens his mouth.

"Caesar on the cross, been a long time since I've seen the kind of work you've laid down today… a damn long time." He exclaims, raising his thick brows comically. But he wasn't through yet, she knows a tirade when she sees one. "And the screams of those Legion bastards as they kicked dirt running East… like a choir of angels to my ears.. speaking of that – that crazy lightshow over the Fort, what the fuck was that, some kind of thumb of God you called down? Amazing, fucking amazing."

Humored, she smiles a whimsical smile down at him, innocent if not for the circumstance. Inside her coat, the treaty papers are just waiting to be pulled out, and she puts a hand near her heart, over where they rest, slowly pulling down the zipper.

"Could use a hundred of you, just scatter you over the East like jacks, give those plumed fucks the what-for." His smile was toothy, cocky, she bit her lip to keep from laughing, the floodgates threatening to be released even now as she looked behind him to find the securitrons making their way over.

"No sir-re, couldn't do that! He'd miss me too much.." His bushy brows skewed at that, confused and dissonant, "There are some who might say that today, the Dam wasn't claimed for you, but for New Vegas.."

A moment of realization struck Oliver then, and it's something she swore from here on out, she'd never forget. People should make posters of it, she thinks. It's legendary enough.

"Vegas? What- the casinos? Or.. House?" His smile faded, and diminished until it was little more than a straight line. "You're talking about House."

Just then, hundreds of securitrons make their appearance behind Oliver, crowding he and his rangers in, trapping them between her and House. He looks between them, his breath growing harder, his confusion turning to betrayal. That was rich, she thought.

"What the fuck is this brahmin shit? I'm not getting the feeling we're all about to sing koombahyah here."

Eris throws her head back and laughs, addressing her audience of five men and a thousand or more securitrons.

"Does anyone have a pen? Do you have a pen, General?" She unzips her coat, and takes the papers out, waving them around in the air teasingly. "Because you'll need something to sign this special paper I have for you. I hope you have steady handwriting, General, since it's your terms of surrender."

The treaty papers were ripped out of her hand, any false congeniality he had before was replaced with disbelieving rage.

"What the hell are you talking about? What is this?" He brandishes the papers like it's a weapon, and she gestured toward them, suggesting him to read it.

Oliver hesitates, but looks behind at House's robotic army before deciding that hesitancy was most certainly not on the menu today. Begrudgingly, he gives a cursory glance over the papers, reading words to himself under his breath.

"The Free Economic Zone of New Vegas? What the hell does that mean? Oh wait.. here we go." His cheeks are fast turning red, either out of humiliation or anger, she's unsure.

"Keep going…" She prods, because there's nothing he can really do to her that Lanius couldn't have, and didn't, do.

"Demands NCR's immediate withdrawal.. withdrawal? Like fucking hell we're withdrawing, we just held the Dam, we didn't do it to let it go!" He points one thick finger at her, "This paper of yours? Isn't fit to wipe my ass with! If you think after all that's happened, I'm going to grab my ankles and take it like the Legion…"

"That's actually.. exactly what I think you're going to do, but I'm not judging if that's what you like to do in your private time. And anyways, you didn't do a damn thing. I took the Dam with Mr. House's backing. That river water's got my blood, sweat, and tears in it.. figuratively, of course."

But Oliver shook his head at that, as pig-headed as Lanius had been, but old enough that he was set in his ways, unwilling to have his mind changed, or accept wisdom from other people. Maybe she provides so much wisdom to others, that she has none left for herself?

No, probably not.

"You know I won't surrender the Dam, and certainly not to the ghost-man of Vegas and his new right-hand-of-the-week." She cocked a brow at that, faking offense.

"More like right-hand-of-the-year. Have you been living under a rock this whole time, or do you just let Hsu sign the papers that you won't read? Well, if so, we can change that today. You will sign it, because the alternative is so much worse. But don't take it from me, keep reading the paper, you'll find that clause somewhere." She waved her hand, suddenly hit with a massive wave of exhaustion.

Every throbbing part of her was begging for bed rest.

When next he opened his mouth, she longed to roll her eyes but maintained a straight face. "We held this place for years." Came his stubborn segue, "Kicked one Legate out of here so hard Caesar burned him to a crisp. It's our post, we've fought for it. I'll fight for it again today, because this paper?" He held it clenched between his fists, "It ain't enough to convince me to leave this post."

Eris scoffed at that, looking at the bots behind him then back. True, she was in no danger if he wanted to fight for 'his post', as he'd said, and contrary to all evidence, she really doesn't enjoy killing people.

"You know, the fact that you're talking with me says a lot about your willingness to fight. But I don't blame you, look around."

There's this relief in failure, unrivaled by many others. When every possible alternative somehow leads to the same outcome, it can be relieving to give up. Eris likes to think she's given up too many times to count, but this opinion is constantly challenged by how many times she's beaten her very, very bad odds.

He cocks his head at her, pursing his lips, and she knows then that she's won.

"True, guess I'm a little too used to seeing securitrons in Vegas to think they'd turn and be bad news – and I know how bad they can get." Of course, in a man like him, he'll always give one last hurrah. His chuckle is patronizing, befitting the way he swaggered up to her. "Look, House, Vegas… it's pretty, got you blinded a bit maybe, but NCR's got perks, too. Think about it before you sign on with them."

One blonde, dubious brow raises at that.

"And if you say 'no', keep in mind what that means. NCR may have its problems, but when we're riled, watch out."

Her lips stretch into an insolent little grin, and she licks her lips before saying, "No, I don't think so. I think you should keep it in mind, Oliver."

Maybe what he said was true, that she was blinded by House, but this time, she doesn't take what someone says into account. After all she's endured, she can't accept that she keeps returning to House because she was blinded by him. If anything, she thinks her vision has never been clearer than it is now.

The rangers behind him are looking at their General for directive, and she wonders if anyone in all of history has ever been as confused as the NCR were on this day.

"Well, at least I can talk to you unlike that bastard Caesar and that plate-faced general. It'll do. Guess sometimes you get the bull, other times you get the horns. Still, at least some lives got saved today."

Unlike when she had to initiate a handshake with Lanius, Oliver better understood the conduct of losing a war. The mollification of the enraged General will be something she dreams about for years to come, if she doesn't get assassinated, that is.

His hand is softer than the Legate's, but no less firm when she takes it. The democratic process will likely not correct a decade of errors from the NCR, and if it does, it will take a very long time.

Normally, she might say that such an experience was surreal, but not today. The touch of his hand is warm and real, and its movements are flawed and human. To have shaken hands with Lanius and then Oliver, well, it ironically felt realer than most other things she'd done previously.

An awkward nostalgia crept up on her then, as she watched Oliver and his men turn and leave through the gate. Somehow, she felt as if a very significant part of her life had just ended.

One lone securitron strolled up to her then, bearing the digital image of House, that victorious look was now truer than ever, she expects.

"As you know, I've had thousands of employees in my lifetime, and countless associates. Very few met my expectations, but you have managed to surpass all of them today, Eris." The joy in his voice, it astounded her, it made her feel like all was right, that finally, she'd done the right thing, possibly for everyone, but she never dwells too long on saving people. "Back to Vegas then, shall we?"

"Are you escorting me back? My legs are jelly, Robert. A former soccer coach must've built this place." She complains, the first of many complaints of the day. Oddly enough, she now thinks she deserves to be able to complain. "But enough about me, what about Oliver? He never did sign those papers I kept stuffed next to my bra."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about the General if I were you. Upon his return, he'll be held responsible, publicly disgraced.. 36.5% chance of suicide by my estimate. He'll not be returning here at any rate. Kimball won't be able to save him, either. He'll be too busy getting thrown out of office for the countless lives and resources wasted here. But, less than a 3% chance of suicide, mind you." Her lips twitched into a lopsided grin at his suicide percentiles, something she knows he got worked up enough to spend minutes of his life calculating. "With all this in mind, Vegas might see a dip in revenue for a few months, half a year – but soon enough the tourists, and their money, will be pouring in.

"Vegas will be a shining jewel in the middle of the desert, an oasis of light, a beacon to show mankind the way to the stars. This is just the start, you see. This is where it all begins. Together, we will jumpstart mankind's quest for greatness from our home in Vegas."

"No more jumping, until I get a chance to sit down. My back is.. well, it's out of commission, to be frank and clear, which I never truly am." She follows him out of the gate, beginning to relay the details of her day's exploits. "I call it, the 'Fiasco at Hoover Dam's East Plant Restroom'."

"I'm sure there were many of those before you visited today, but do go on." He quipped. Eris tossed her head and laughed at the very human pun he made, proof that a weight had been lifted over his usually graver moods.

"You're probably right, but I have my doubts over whether they ever strangled a man with a rifle sling. I'll have to show you what happened sometime soon. This frumentarius named Picus, had actually managed to infiltrate the NCR at McCarran, and made it to captain. He followed me from the control room, to the east plant. To make a long story short, we fought in the restroom, it's one of those things where seeing is believing."

Together, they made their way to Vegas. Many of the securitrons lingered behind at Hoover Dam, guarding their post with greater efficiency than either the NCR or the Legion.

A part of her life had ended today. She's always gotten that feeling that she's in a perpetual, liminal area between two doors, and the walkway just gets longer as she walks forward, never able to make it to the end. However, she can't shake the feeling that she's made it to a door, and it has finally closed.

It's in the journey that she has always found enjoyment, careful not to think of the destination too much. Before the new, metaphorical room she now finds herself in, was yet another path with no foreseeable end in sight – another opportunity comes where others have been closed.