Beams of light pierced through the gaps in between the leafy jungle canopy, touching down upon the jungle floor below, despite that, the verdant trees provide shade to the bushy undergrowth that made traversing through the jungle a constant chore.

Tough, reinforced leather boots made squelching noise as they left noticeable indents on the soft, muddy jungle ground.

The spurs that were fixed to the heels of the boots did not jingle as it often do; it being muddled with the mud and whatever jungle debris that had been caught on it.

Trailing upwards, the boots were used to tuck in a pair of aged combat pants with green armored knee guards.

Two heavy-duty leather belts with rusted metal fittings kept the pants secure. One of the belts had a canteen pouch attached to it that housed, obviously, a trusty Vault 13 canteen.

While the other one acted as a holster for a sidearm, as well as a house to the various trinkets the owner had acquired from past conquests.

A string of blue star bottlecaps was looped around the second belt, followed by the talon of a large alpha Deathclaw that was kept in place with a length of metal chain.

A particular trinket that outright stood out would be the gleaming gold wreath brooch; a piece of accessory that had once belonged to a cruel yet efficient warlord who had conquered rivaling tribal families and assimilating them under one oppressive flag.

Now? It had been fashioned as a belt buckle, a piece of accessory – albeit a fancy one – and nothing more.

Greenish padded leather duster with shoulder pads sheltered its wearer from the weather, be it rain or shine. Beneath the duster, the wearer was protected by a green-tinted metal carapace the finest their society had ever produced.

Over the chest piece itself was a leather bandoleer that spanned across the chest plate with visible large caliber cartridges looped into place, along with a strap of utility pouches.

The gorget, a piece of the armor designed to protect the throat, had a white – yet faded – numerical value of '100' printed on it.

A dark metallic gas mask with green tubes attached to its gas filters covered the face of its wearer. Furthermore, a similarly colored combat helmet covered the individual's head as a means of protection.

Battle scars and scratched-in tally marks marred the helmet, proving its use in combat. A white star in a white circle was the only detail that was intended to be there on the first place.

An antenna was also attached to the side of the helmet, connected to the flashlight mounted on the right side. Two panes of red tinted glass were in place where its wearer's eyes are, completing its overall terrifying visage.

The person trudging the jungle expertly navigated through dense foliage and rough uneven terrain. A large burlap sack was tied and suspended on a thick hardwood stick was effortlessly carried, resting on the person's left shoulder.

The person showed no trouble or difficulty with carrying the makeshift storage, even with the rather bulky piece of hardware also known as a Pip-Boy weighing their left arm.

The eerie green glow emanating from the wrist-mounted instrument illuminated the wearer's immediate surroundings, but from the way the figure was moving without any difficulty, it seemed like it was unnecessary.

Soon enough, the wooded trail began to thin out, giving way to a more flat and open surrounding. In the far distance, the faint traces of smoke could be seen rising up into the sky, aided in visibility by contrasting with the clear blue sky.

The source of said smoke came from behind a tall stone wall further reinforced by thick and equally tall wooden palisades, no doubt sourced from the trees surrounding the area, and people posted along the battlements to watch as sentry.

The figure made the trek towards the structure. Now their footfalls made contact with sturdier surface, as opposed to the muddy soil of the jungle floors they were at moments ago.

As they draw closer towards the structure, movements began happening among the sentries posted on the battlements. Noticing the commotion, the leather garbed stranger raised their free hand in a waving gesture. Eventually, their walk took them to a large, reinforced gate.

"Halt!" A voice from the top of the battlement shouted. A man wearing what was essentially patchwork armor built from several different pieces of leather could be seen standing on the battlement, his face was exposed but he had a helmet made up of several metal plates layered on top of one another, the flared design protecting the rest of his head. "Is that you, stranger? Have you finished what you were tasked to do?"

A hand with a fingerless glove covering it gestured a two fingered salute. The guard frowned, not expecting a non-verbal respond. He repressed the sudden chilling sensation that crawled down his spine when his gaze landed on the person below. If the situation had developed differently, he would be hesitant to let them through his gates.

Regardless of what he was feeling, the message was clear.

"Stand back and wait while we open the gates for you." He then turned his attention to his fellow guards, giving them each knowing looks.

With the help of exactly five men, mechanisms were tinkered that would eventually resulted in the opening of the gates. He, flanked by two of his friends – the both of them garbed in a similar patchwork leather armor – made their way down the battlements to greet the person standing outside of their gates.

"He returned sooner than I expected…" One guard muttered, holding his spear close to his side, almost cradling it obsessively out of fear.

"Sooner than any of us expected." The other guard said wearily, sharing his friend's low spirits.

The leading guard could not help but sympathize with his fellow guards. He, too, share their worry. After a long period of constant Kindred raid, they had finally gotten a much needed break in the form of an unexpected stranger.

It was three days ago since the last raid. They still lost men – both from the militia and civilian population – to the raid, but that number was not as high as their previous ones in the past. They lost a few of their female population too, unfortunately.

Like all of the raids the Kindred acted upon them, he remembered the day clearly. The events were still fresh in his mind, like an open wound that had yet to heal.

Thankfully, due to the interference of a certain stranger, that wound was not as big as it should've been.

The sound of their gates being dragged open would normally grate the ears, but they had gotten used to it due to how often they were exposed to it.

It was designed to do its job of being sturdy and darn near impenetrable; along with the walls that surrounded them, they all owe it to the architects and builders that it had managed to keep them safe for so long.

The opening of the gates kicked up the dust from the ground, making it necessary for them to shield their eyes so as to not let any debris in them.

From within the dust, they could just about make up the shape of a looming figure cutting through the particulates and unbothered by it.

The lead guard, along with his two friends, couldn't help but tense up when a shadow settled upon them.

The stranger who they had opened their gates to had taken several steps through the gates, finally entering their settlement proper, and they did so while blocking the sunlight from their eyes with sheer height alone.

The lead guard took a moment to not let whatever was bothering him affect him that much. "Were you able to track them and deal with them?" He asked the burlap sack carrying stranger.

"Yes."

The voice that came out from the tall stranger sounded alien to him and his fellow guards, despite being able to understood the word said. It was distorted, it didn't sit well with them to hear such a voice. Not even the howls of monsters made them this uneasy.

"Do you have any proof to back it up?"

"Here."

The stranger then dropped the sack that they had been carrying on the ground before them, right at their feet.

From the smell alone, he knew what was coming. Morbid anticipation welled up within him, the lead guard crouched down to open the sack. He finally opened it and, despite knowing full well what the content was, he still had to hold himself from expelling what remained of the lunch he had earlier today.

The other guards who were nearby had, pretty much, similar reactions. When the contents of the sack was eventually dumped on to the ground, it was only then when the sound of people retching began.

Seven heads of various hair length, color, and tattoo markings rolled after being dumped out of the sack that had been housing them. The expression on their lifeless face would forever haunt the guards nearby, tainting their dreams for days to come.

Despite being clearly separated from their bodies, the heads had little to no damage on them, allowing for easier identification. Some still had their eyes wide open, as if they never died in the first place. Some had their mouths wide agape, their purplish tongue lolling out the corner.

Out of the seven heads that were present, only one was of interest to the lead guard. It was the head of an olive skinned Amazoness with tribal tattoos inked on multiple sections of her face, but what made it different was the large diagonal scar that spanned across the face.

Its normally silky long silver hair was now messy and disheveled, dirty beyond belief as it had been caked with dirt and blood. The distinctive pointed ears of its kind had visible holes punched through it, no doubt a testament to the amount of force needed in order to separate the head from the rest of its body in the first place.

There was certainly a time when this particular Kindred would be able to crush the will of a human man by sight alone, freezing him on the spot with her lustful gaze before rushing in with the intent to ravage him until naught a single shred of his humanity was intact.

But now? She had been reduced to nothing more than a proof of bounty; not even her corpse was here.

"Right…" the lead guard started with difficulty, almost losing his footing as he made to stand back on his feet. "It's the Savage Queen herself alright… and you brought along some of her best fighters too, I see."

"They were in the way, figured I bring them here for further proof."

"…" The lead guard had no way to respond to that statement.

The fact that someone had managed to track and enter an Amazoness village ran by the Savage Queen, a notorious Amazoness tribe leader – one of the more aggressive and active Kindred that had been terrorizing their town ever since its inception – alone and made it back alive was surprising enough.

But to do that AND kill the Savage Queen herself and her best fighters at the same time?

That should be straight up impossible.

Yet, here he was, with seven pieces of evidence proving otherwise.

"Do you need anything else?"

The distorted voice of the one who had done and did just what he thought was impossible snapped the lead guard from his morbid reverie.

"N-No, nothing else." The lead guard said, trying his best to sound normal. "The elder will want to speak with you. If it's possible, please head on to her house."

"I will." The tall stranger said before pausing. "A suggestion,"

"What is it?"

"Mount them on a pike and place them along the road leading here. Should make monsters think twice before trying to raid again."

After dropping him and his men with that piece of advice, the tall darkly armored stranger turned and left, without even sparing them a single glance and leaving them to deal with the… mess.

"Uh… sir?"

"...yes?"

"Should we do as he told?"

He didn't answer the question. Slowly, memories of what happened three days ago began playing in his mind; of horrified screams filling the streets, of dreadful lust-filled laughter echoing the night, and of families crying as they could do nothing but watch while their brothers, fathers, and husbands get dragged away before their very eyes.

It took him a while before he could say yes.

"So, this is it then? You're just leaving?"

"...yes."

A companion, an ally… but most importantly, a friend. Rose of Sharon Cassidy – also known as Cass to those close to her – could still remember the day she met the Courier who cheated death like it was yesterday.

She had been trapped at the Mojave Outpost, stuck there because she was not cleared to leave my the old timey Ranger who was in charge of the place.

Granted, the roads were dangerous, but NCR had a habit of ordering people around, something she had a little bit of problem with.

She was also busy emptying the outpost of their supply of whiskey, much to their annoyance, she recalled.

Either way, she wasn't exactly at her best, doubly so when she was still dealing with what happened to her caravan.

It was also the same time when a certain Courier stopped by and decided it was a good idea to talk with the trigger happy cowgirl with a drinking problem. They talked for a while and then she challenged the Courier to a drinking contest.

She didn't remember much of what happened during the contest, but she did remember losing.

After that, being friends was pretty much quick. She could respect a fella who could handle their booze.

One thing led to another, she then found herself a traveling companion in the Courier and the Courier in her.

The two of them then started wandering the wasteland, visiting places she otherwise wouldn't dare visit by herself.

"You sure that's a smart choice? After everything we did—you did, you still think you want to walk away from all of this?"

"...only choice I have now."

"Bullshit. Sure it ain't perfect, but you can't deny we did a lot of good for Vegas. We drove out the Legion and showed the NCR that we ain't just gonna bend over and let them take advantage of us. The Mojave's actually a place worth living now!"

"Not saying what we did was a waste, just saying I've done all I can. Dealt with the Madre, faced my past in the Divide, made a compromise with the Think Tank over at Big MT… nothing left for me to do here."

It had been five years – almost six – ever since they accomplished all of what the Courier just said. It wasn't always them, there were other interesting and colorful folks they met along the way to make it all possible.

They even had a nickname; The Vegas Seven. Nine if you include the dog and eye-bot.

Individual opinions about them varied. Some had taken to calling them saviors and liberators, their cumulative efforts responsible for truly making the Mojave a free and independent place.

On the other hand, there were a handful of folks out there calling them bloody mercenaries, anti-democracy anarchists who would eventually doomed the entire wasteland to hell again.

The overall perception, however, seemed to settle on them being morally ambiguous people who influenced the current state of the Mojave for better or worse.

They stuck around after the battle at the dam, but they pretty much went on their own separate ways now.

Some of them still choose to have Vegas as their home, like herself and, honestly, she thought it was going to be that way for the Courier too.

"You can't tell me that you're just going to up and leave after putting everything into all of this, Jack."

She called him by his preferred nickname, named after a brand of Old World whiskey and – as far as she knew – a nickname that only she used.

Not that she's implying they had 'that' kind of relationship going on; the others had their own nickname for the Courier, hers just happened to be Jack.

"Where will you go? Why should you go in the first place?"

"…"

She knew she wasn't getting to him. She had six years of experience of being with him to know that he could be stubborn, even more than she could ever be.

"What if Yes Man decided to go rouge and make the Securitron army wreak havoc all across Vegas and the Mojave? You know I trust those rust buckets as far as I can throw them."

"Julie Farkas."

"What? What does she have to-"

"She and the Followers are about the only people I trust with running Vegas. You're right. Yes Man is… unpredictable, his programming makes it… difficult to trust him completely. Should anything ever comes to that, Julie and her people will know what to do. I gave her my blessings."

She did not know what to say. She agreed that, out of all the factions in Vegas, the Followers was the only one who was doing any real good work.

Even the things she did could only be considered morally ambiguous at best.

"...is this it then? This is all you have to say?"

"Cassidy, I-"

"What about Sunny, Jack?"

She had never wanted to punch herself in the face as much as she did now before. It was cheap shot, a low blow delivered to strike at another person's vulnerability.

"...that's unfair, Cass."

"I know, god damn it, but you think springing this up suddenly isn't? Who else know, Jack? Boone? Raul? Arcade? If Vee's here, she would've been pissed!"

"None of them knows. Only you, Cass. Not even Sunny."

That was what did it for her.

"That's cruel, Jack… did your time with those mentats addicted eggheads over at Big MT messed with your brain that much?"

"I'm not being cruel, Cass. It's never my intention."

"It's bullshit is what it is."

"It's necessary."

She was about to call him out for the third or fourth time that day but she was interrupted before she could even do that.

"I've made my mark and, for the first time, it can be considered to be for the better. I've angered the Bear and wounded the Bull too much that it's guaranteed I'm due a visit either by an NCR assassin or a Legion frumentarii. They have had six years to recuperate. Six long years to learn from their mistakes."

"If that's what you're worried about, then let them come! You won't have to deal with any of them on your own, hell, you're the strongest motherfucker in Vegas and that's not including the Securitron army at your disposal!"

"And how long will that last, Cass? NCR might back away with diplomacy, but the men and women of the Bear hold grudges just as well – if not more – as the those of the Bull."

She hated arguing with him because she knew she wasn't going to win most of them.

She'd said it multiple times before, but he's too smart for his own good. Even that geek Arcade agreed with her.

"Like the Bear, the Bull will eventually learn to be better at doing what they do. I might've killed Lanius, but there is no shortage of ambitious men in the Legion."

Even if she wanted to argue with him, she could not come up with a good-enough reason that isn't that of outright retaliation.

She wasn't a thinking gal, she'll admit it; that job belonged to him and their smarter friends. Like Boone, she's more than happy with dishing out the pain.

"The technological advancements of Vegas may help keep us leaps above everyone else on the continent, but what about five years from now? Ten? Twenty?"

"But Big MT-"

"Big MT isn't infallible. Beings of logic and reason they may be, they can still fall victim to words and promises made to entice them. I should know, it's how I made them help with improving Vegas in the first place."

She could feel her shoulders going slack, her motivation to keep him from leaving being drained with every word he spoke.

"Jack…"

"...you know Cass, I still don't know what to feel whenever I hear people refer to me as a hero. Never seen the things I did as particularly heroic, I just do what I think is right. Sometimes… this led to unnecessarily cruel acts, but I've convinced myself that I'm doing the right thing. From Utah to the Divide… the things I've done were far from heroic. If being a hero means doing what should have been done in the first place, then there are better people out there who deserved that title more than me. Yet most people have taken to calling me one anyway."

Like everyone in their circle of friends, she knew that the Courier had some real baggage he's carrying with him.

Even all those years ago back when they first met, it was hard not to notice a person who looked so lost and weary as he was.

Between getting shot in the head and losing all of his memories because of that snake Benny, it was an understatement that the Courier was going through some matters of his own. It's also why he would often go on these journeys all by himself with none of them to accompany him.

First it was that casino which was straight up the stuff of nightmares if his stories were to be believed.

Then it was with that caravan to Utah which resulted in him being the only one returning back home.

Next was Big MT and this one was more accidental than the previous ones if she recalled.

And lastly, it was the only journey that the Courier himself very much insisted in doing alone, even when offered company.

There was this deep rooted conflict between him and this other courier, so deep was this issue that he had to traverse through one of the worst places in the Mojave called The Divide just to settle whatever score he had with this other courier.

And she thought she had it rough.

"I cannot bear the thought of being the cause of Vegas's downfall should NCR or Legion come knocking. Although it is more than prepared to repel and deal with any invading forces man could ever muster, under my leadership, Vegas and its surroundings will always be on their crosshairs no matter how shiny or modern I made it become."

"Jack, even with you gone, what's stopping the NCR or Legion from sinking their claws and horns into Vegas anyway?"

"That's where our work came in, Cass. You asked me whether or not our efforts meant nothing to me. No. Our efforts have net us multiple insurance to keep Vegas independent and free of the Old World's harmful mindset."

"Oh yeah, what are those, then?"

"With the Followers, we have a constant stream of fresh and innovative minds forward thinking enough to ultimately work for the betterment of society. The people of Freeside, as rough and crooked as they are, will keep anyone in position of power in check should they prove to be getting too big for their station. The Securitrons will keep the peace within and outside of Vegas, just as they were intended to do. But, most importantly, the technological advancements supplied by Big MT will keep the people of Vegas fed and sheltered for years to come."

It was here when she finally realized that she wasn't going to stop him from leaving. She also realized that he didn't mention them or himself at any point of his reasoning.

"The people, Cass. It is them who, ultimately, will secure their own future. They do not need a hero to do it for them."

She was speechless; not many folks could say they managed to do that to her. But, then again, the Courier was known to make the impossible possible.

"I'm their hero, Cassidy. And that is precisely why I have to leave."

After what was essentially a long conversation in an empty penthouse on the Lucky 38, they exchanged one last moment over a few drinks.

The next day, with the telltale sign of hangover brewing in her head, she woke up, after having fallen asleep on the bar, alone.

That was also the last time anyone had ever seen the Courier.

So… it's been a while, huh?

Well, I can't say anything other than the fact that I've been busy and didn't have a lot of time to write. I've finally found time and this is the result of me making use of that free time. So far, I haven't planned a lot. I'll see how well this goes and maybe I'll go back to the drawing board.

It's going to be challenging to write these two series together into one story, but to my surprise, there are actually a few Fallout/MGE crossover already on Fanfiction, so I've been turning to those for inspiration. If any of you are familiar with MGE lore, please, don't hesitate to PM me.

Don't forget to review and tell me what you think of the story.