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October 23rd, 2281, 4:24 a.m.
"What is it, Frumentarius?"
"Caesar is dead."
"Who else knows?"
"Only Lucius."
"No one else will be told until our victory is achieved, am I clear?
"Completely. Lucius has ordered the remainder of the Praetorians to your side."
"They will prove useful. You may go."
"A moment, Legate."
"You have it. Speak quickly."
"I have your word you will use the outsider's weapons?"
"I will not depend on this technology. It is a crutch and-"
"The outsiders gave us more than their weapons; they gave us knowledge. The Courier is more than a man; he is of the old world. We will use this knowledge."
"Ursus has his weapon, I have mine, and the cannon is ready for his mechanical slaves. I give you no word, Inculta, beyond that either the Courier will fall, or I will."
"If you would at lea-"
"You forget yourself, Frumentarii, and you forget who I am – what I now am. This Legion is mine. Serve me… or I will end you."
"My apologies, Caesar."
"Leave. Scout to your liking… play your games… but stay out of my way."
"Of course, Caesar."
9:30 a.m.
Cass stabbed her knife down, finally finding a seam in her opponent's armor, and embedded the weapon into the Legate's flesh. Lanius turned in response and slammed his fist against her chest, causing the breath to be forced from her lungs as she flew backwards. Clutching her torso, the red-haired woman rose to her knees, wheezing as she tried to recover from the impossibly brutal strike.
As Lanius turned back towards his other opponent, the Courier sliced his curved machete against the Legate's faceplate, staggering him and causing a cascade of sparks to ignite where the two metals met. Using the sparks as a visual barrier, Denn spun to stand directly before the monster of a man and stabbed his blade up, trying to impale his opponent through the space between his helmet and chestplate.
Reacting faster than a man of his stature should've been capable of, Lanius caught the blade and before Denn could disengage, smashed his other fist directly into the Courier's faceplate. Denn's visor cracked and he reeled from the heavy blow. With his opponent disoriented, Lanius tossed aside the machete and latched onto the Courier's riot armor with both hands. Lifting Denn as if he were a child, Lanius slammed him against a skeletal building before turning the Courier upside down and preparing to bring him crashing to the ground – the maneuver intended to break the man's neck.
Twisting desperately, the Courier wrapped his legs around Lanius' arms and flexed, changing the momentum of his fall and causing his opponent to stagger forward. Denn landed on his back while the Legate fell over him, his faceplate thudding against the ground.
Trying to take advantage of his momentarily stunned opponent, the Courier rolled out from under the man. Before he could clear the Legate's range, Lanius' hand lanced out and seized Denn's leg. Rising furiously, the Legate spun, smashing the Courier's body through nearby structures before releasing him to sail through the air and slam against a steel flagpole.
Denn shook his head in a daze, trying to recover from being tossed about like an old doll, and felt the Legate's hands close around his throat like a vice. Lanius once again lifted the Courier from the ground.
Pulling his leg up, Denn drew a knife from its sheath in his boot and slammed it against the Legate's bicep. For the first time, Lanius' armor was punctured as the mirrored blade pierced through the metal and embedded itself into the flesh beneath.
Lanius grunted in surprise, but refused to relinquish his hold on the Courier. Running out of options, Denn pulled a small tin can from a bandoleer and flicked a makeshift switch on its side. The Courier held the homemade explosive before the Legtae's faceplate, and when the man slapped it away, slammed his left foot against the inside of Lanius' right thigh.
The distortion emitter on Denn's heel erupted and a blast of force caused the Legate's leg to fly out from under him. Pulling his unbalanced opponent forward, the Courier brought Lanius once more crashing down on top of him as the two of them fell to the ground. Instead of trying to escape as he had earlier, the Courier locked his arms around the Legate, keeping the juggernaut in place.
The Courier's proximity to the Legate's body slightly muffled the sound of the tin can's detonation, but Denn clearly heard the plasma that splashed against his opponent's armored back. A moment later, Lanius roared in agony and flexed, breaking the Courier's hold. The Legion commander rose to his knees and began to viciously bombard his lithe adversary. Continuing to bellow as the plasma burned through his armor and the skin beneath, the Legate's strength seemed to have doubled as he battered through Denn's defenses.
Ripping off one of the Courier's shoulder-guards, Lanius yanked on the man's arm, pulling it violently free of its socket with a gut-wrenching pop. Holding Denn's other arm to the side, the Legate ignored the man's weakened limb and pounded away at the Courier's head, causing cracks to appear across the man's combat helmet.
Suddenly, Lanius fell forward, his continuous roar faltering as Cass stabbed Denn's machete through his melting chestplate and into his back. Pulling the blade free, she yelled hoarsely as she prepared another strike.
Lanius' leg lashed out and struck Cass' knee, causing the woman to stumble. The Legate's hand lanced out and seized Cass by the throat as she fell. Rising, the juggernaut held both the red-haired woman and the Courier in the air at arms length. Cass's eyes bulged as the Legate's hand began to close, crushing her throat. The world shimmered and darkened, the Legate's faceplate becoming an unfocused blur.
Denn whistled sharply, and as Lanius turned his attention towards him, snapped his body like a compressed spring to slam his heel against his opponent's helmet. The explosion of sound and force caused a clasp holding the Legate's headpiece together to snap and the helmet twisted awkwardly, blinding him completely. Dropping Cass, Lanius returned both hands to the Courier and flung him into a nearby structure, causing it to collapse loudly.
Faltering after the heavy throw, the Legate raised his hands to try and readjust the twisted metal of his helmet. Finding this impossible, the Legion commander grunted and ripped it from his body, tossing it carelessly to the ground.
Lanius ran a hand through his hair, pulling it out of his eyes as he turned towards the fallen woman behind him. Cass was crawling across the wreckage of the Legion camp; coughing weakly as she tried to reach the riot shotgun the Legate had disarmed her of earlier in the fight. Eyes hard, the juggernaut began to stalk after her.
"Lanius," a voice called out from behind him. The Legate half turned, looking back at the Courier as the man pulled himself out of the gutted building. One of Denn's rebreather's tubes had broken off during the fight and hissed quietly, but the Courier ignored it and stared across the battlefield at his opponent. "We're not done."
The Legate held his gaze for a moment, before turning back to his crawling prey. Denn started to move after him, reaching his uninjured arm behind his head to the back of his rebreather as he did.
Lanius spun, pulling a completely smooth sphere out of a pouch at his side and sending it flying through the air. As it flew unerringly towards the Courier, the sphere snapped open and erupted with pulsing, dark-blue energy. The weapon crackled loudly as it impacted against Denn, enveloping him in waves of arching electricity.
The pulsating energy caused Denn to seize violent – every muscle in his body tensing simultaneously – and sent him sprawling forward to land heavily on the ash covered ground. The Courier's body twitched for a few seconds, before lying completely still.
Silence settled over the scorched camp, broken intermittently by Cass' ragged breathing. The Legate turned away from the Courier and walked towards the woman, passing by her as she stared at her fallen companion. Picking up the discarded shotgun, Lanius broke it over his knee and dropped it at Cass's side as he moved back towards Denn's unmoving form. As he passed, the redhead reached out weakly and tried to latch onto his armored boot, but was easily shaken off.
Reaching his adversary, Lanius leaned down and rolled the Courier over. Denn's chest rose and fell weakly, but beyond his shallow breathing he was lost to the world. Kneeling, the Legate ripped the damaged rebreather and combat helmet off of the Courier.
Lanius sat back on his heels and stared at the man below him, shaking his head angrily. Suddenly, the Legate slammed his fist against Denn's face. Pulling his arm back, he repeated the motion. Blow after blow thudded into the Courier, the sound of Lanius' fists striking his victim's skull growing muffled and wet as the assault continued.
Relentlessly, the Legate bombarded his target. The Legion commander's hair fell into his eyes but he refused to wipe it away – refused to stop smashing his opponent into the dirt. Refused to relent as the Courier's skull refused to break.
"Coward."
It was spoken quietly, by a voice with little strength behind it, but still the word carried across the scorched encampment. Lanius froze, his eyes widening as he stared down at his bleeding opponent. Looking up slowly, the Legate fixed his gaze on the woman who was the source of the insult.
Cass had propped herself up with her back against a burned structure. She smiled as the Legate turned to her, a ragged laugh pulling itself out of her lungs and turning into a weak cough. "You heard me," she said, her voice rough and her eyes blazing defiantly as the Legate rose. "You're a coward – a spineless commander who lost the entirety of his army and couldn't even defeat a single man without using old world tech. For a self-righteous cunt, you certainly do have a way of depending on everything but your own strength."
Lanius stared hatefully at the crimson-haired woman – his arms shaking as his fists clenched and unclenched.
"What? Don't have any response?" Cass continued. "You know it's true. You know his defeat isn't your victory. You didn't win anything today."
Lanius eyes stayed hard for an instant longer, before his shoulders slumped and his rage seemed to vanish. "He will die," he said, his voice emotionless, "as will you. The part I play is meaningless." The Legate began to stalk over to Cass, reaching down and picking up the Courier's machete as he did so.
An unearthly inhalation suddenly echoed from behind him. Lanius turned, raising his opponent's weapon defensively. Exhaling just as loudly, the Courier rose, his head hanging slack on his shoulders. Clenching his dislocated shoulder with his uninjured arm, Denn forced the joint back into place with a resounding pop.
The Courier's face was beaten to a pulp. Extensive bruising forced one eye closed while the undamaged eye stared down unseeingly at the ashen earth. A wide cut on his forehead covered his face with blood and Denn's mouth hung open loosely, his lip torn apart and most of his teeth chipped or broken off entirely. Another hollow breath forced its way through the Courier's throat, its resonance macabre as it reverberated through the air. Denn turned, and began to walk purposelessly through the camp, stumbling over charred rubble, his arms hanging limply at his sides.
Lanius shifted his stance, following his opponent's awkward movements, and the sound of his armor caused Denn to freeze. Turning to face the Legate, Denn's un-bruised eye flicked erratically across the camp, but was apparently unable to see the Legate. Another breath erupted from the Courier's throat – a sound that seemed impossible for a human being to make – and he stumbled back towards Lanius, his pace much faster than before as he staggered across the uneven ground.
The Legate charged. Bringing the curved machete to bear, he swung down at the Courier's head, but Denn's uncoordinated movements suddenly turned into a fluid sprint as he dove under the heavy swing. Rising inside the Legate's arms, the Courier latched onto his opponent's head. Clawing wildly at Lanius' face, another unearthly dirge exploded from his lungs as his opponent screamed in pain.
Forcing two of his fingers into the Legate's mouth, the Courier ripped his hand to the side with unnatural strength, tearing Lanius' cheek apart and sending gore flying through the air. Dropping the machete, Lanius tried desperately to pull the Courier away from him, but Denn 's hands moved to grip the Legate's wild hair, refusing to be excised from his position. Finally, Lanius won the grapple as the Courier ripped two chunks of hair from his head. Tossing his writhing adversary to the side, Lanius turned and started to run towards the fallen Remnant, frantic to retrieve his weapon from the armored corpse.
Before he could reach the embedded blade, the Courier slammed against his back and the force of the blow drove the Legate to the ground. As he lifted his head wearily, a heavy piece of metal thudded against the back of it, leaving him dazed. Denn had landed on the Legate's discarded helmet when he had been tossed away, and now used it as a bludgeon to bash against his opponent's skull.
Lanius crawled the last few feet to his discarded weapon, despite the Courier's continuous barrage. As he reached his arm up to grasp the shaft of his weapon, Denn stabbed the ornamental spike at the top of the Legate's helmet into the unprotected seam under his opponent's shoulder. Lanius roared once as the strength left his arm entirely and again as the Courier seized that arm and began to pull it back towards him.
Denn braced against his opponent and yanked the Legate's limb behind the man's back, causing Lanius to cry out as the tendons in his shoulder began to rip apart. A loud pop indicated the arm had slipped free of its socket, but still the Courier pulled. Finally, the sound of tearing flesh was overshadowed by the Legate's scream of agony as Denn tore the man's arm from his body. Falling limp as his lifeblood began to spill to the ashen earth, Lanius could barely feel the blows as the Courier used the detached arm as a club, smashing it against his opponent's head.
Denn, or whatever entity now controlled him, tirelessly attacked the corpse. The assault continued long after the Legate's skull had been decimated beyond recognition.
Suddenly, the Courier stopped, dropping the limb and stepping off the fallen juggernaut. Letting out another hollow breath, he began to once again wander across the burned encampment.
A muffled cough interrupted his random journey. The Courier froze, frantically casting his gaze once more across the landscape. Cass held as still as she could – her hand covering her mouth as she desperately tried to suppress her ragged breathing. She was unsuccessful, and another cough forced its way through her.
The Courier turned, his eye locked directly onto the woman, and he began to half-stumble half-run across the battlefield. His target desperately crawled backwards, forgetting her efforts to remain quiet and coughing frantically as she struggled to draw air through her damaged throat. When Denn made it within five yards of his target, he leaped into the air, pouncing towards Cass like a great cat. The red-haired woman raised her hands out towards the Courier – one final act to keep the creature at bay.
A sharp hiss of electricity echoed through the encampment and a giant grey arm seemed to materialize from thin air in a burst of white energy. The heavily muscled limb reached out to seize the flying Courier, stopping him dead. As the wave of static traveled up the arm, it revealed a hulking super mutant, dressed in brown overalls with a straw hat secured tightly to its head. Pulling Denn to its chest, the super mutant wrapped its arms around the Courier and fell to a sitting position, its gigantic frame almost completely enveloping the smaller man.
Denn writhed and twisted, his unearthly breathing rattling continuously from his lungs as he desperately tried to free himself. The super mutant gritted its teeth and held the Courier, ignoring his frantic movements. Cass' world began to darken, her heavy breathing overwhelming her damaged throat. Her head fell back, and as the sky turned black, she heard the Courier's unholy breaths go silent.
Denn pulled a syringe out of a pouch in his coat and pressed it into the side of his neck, emptying its contents. He shook quietly as the medicine immediately had an effect. Jerking the syringe out, he quickly broke off the top and pulled the stopper from the bottom of it.
Leaning down, he drew a knife out of his boot and carefully cut a small incision across Cass' neck, just below her larynx. Cautiously, he pushed the empty syringe into the opening and reached into his pack to pull out small cylinder. Holding the container to the wound, he sprayed its foam contents around the plastic to help keep the syringe in place.
"She'll be able to breath now," he said quietly, his voice broken and rough as he stood. "As long as she isn't jostled too much and the airway stays clear, an auto-doc should be able to fix her trachea easily. Hopefully she doesn't mind the residual med-x from the syringe, but in light of recent events she'll probably be more worried about-" his voice broke off and he took a step back, his gaze falling to the Legate's corpse lying on the ground thirty yards away.
A huge grey hand fell on his shoulder. "It wasn't you, dearie," the grey super mutant behind him said, squeezing his shoulder tightly before turning him to face her. "You knew this could happen, which is why you had me follow you. You did everything you could to protect your friends from that part of you, just like I do everything I can to protect my friends from that part of me. Leo doesn't bother me anymore, and someday that part of you won't bother you either."
"What if you had been hurt in the battle?" the Courier asked, his voice tired. "What if you had been unable to stop me? I'm putting everyone at risk, and every minute I spend with other people increases the likelihood that I'll-"
The super mutant pulled the Courier to her chest, lifting him in the air with an impossibly tight bear hug. Denn dangled awkwardly – his arms held tight to his sides and his face pressed into the super mutant's muscular bosom. "You did what you had to, dearie," she said comfortingly as she swayed the Courier from side to side.
Denn's muffled response was lost in the super mutant's chest, and the hulking creature set him down carefully. Collecting himself after the sinewy, grandmotherly embrace, the Courier smiled up at his grey companion. "Lily, I really can't thank you enough for… everything."
"Oh poppycock," Lily said contentedly, bringing her hand up to pinch Denn's cheek lightly, but still painfully with the Courier's face damaged as it was. "I'd do anything for my family."
Denn smile lingered for a moment after she released him before falling as he looked back towards Cass. "Can the Stealth Boy prototype conceal two people?" he asked, moving to kneel beside the woman.
"Of course, dearie," the super mutant answered.
"Then take her to Caesar's camp. Have Henry take a look at her to make sure she'll be ok. We'll get her back to the Lucky 38 as soon as we can."
Lily nodded, kneeling down to lift the injured woman, careful not to disrupt her triaged throat. Smiling at the Courier, she and her human parcel disappeared in a burst of white electricity and the hiss of static. Denn could only just hear the practiced footsteps of the former nightkin assassin as she walked across the scorched earth.
The Courier stared at the exit to the camp before turning back to the Legate's corpse. His shoulder's slumped forward and he reached up to rub his face gingerly, eyes closed tightly.
He could recall the final chapter of his fight with Lanius as if it were a dream; darkness, an impossible sense of the world around him, the echoing sounds of metal and flesh – one smashing into the other. Most of all, he remembered the rage that had burned through his entire body. His eyes snapped open as the final image of the fight flashed before him – Cass staring up at him in terror.
Pulling up his pip-boy, he ran diagnostics of his internal systems. The uplink to ED-E had been fried by Lanius' weapon, and as he tried to access it, a jolt of electricity sparked from the base of his skull, causing him to twitch. Stretching uncomfortably, he made sure his other systems were stable before dropping his arms and scanning the camp for his discarded helmet and rebreather.
He found them, and spat out as much blood as he could from his devastated mouth while he moved over to where they lay. Picking up his helmet, he examined it for a moment before tossing it to the side and retrieving his rebreather. Pulling off its damaged tube, the Courier modified the device to compensate and tied it to his head, it's clasp having been destroyed by the Legate. Denn inhaled deeply, but the breath caused him to cough and he pulled the device away from him, spitting out more of the blood from his mouth.
Wearily, the Courier retrieved his machete and walked over to the Legate's corpse and the Remnant beside it. Reaching down, he picked up Lanius' damaged helmet and pulled his mirrored knife from the body's bicep, returning it to its sheath in his boot.
Denn moved over to Johnson's body and reached inside the armor, flicking a switch and causing a light on its side to ping methodically on and off. Moving his hand to the shaft of the massive blade embedded in the body, he pulled, but the weapon refused to give and the movement caused Denn to wince in pain.
The Courier's gaze returned to the Legate's corpse and the detached arm that lay beside it. He could still feel the weight of the limb as it sailed though the air – could still feel the impact as it smashed against a man's skull – could still feel the rush of adrenaline, satisfaction and… amusement.
Denn closed his eyes, arms shaking. You didn't do this, he told himself internally. This isn't you.
He didn't believe it.
Turning away, the Courier made his way out of the camp. As he reached the outer entrance, he paused, surveying the land before him.
NCR Troopers littered the dam. It appeared that the soldiers were moving sandbags back into place to rebuild the fortifications. The Securitron army faced them, cold and emotionless in the mid-morning sunlight. "About time you showed up, Oliver," Denn said under his breath.
"So glad you agree," a voice hissed from behind him, and the Courier felt the barrel of a gun press against his back.