"Take it slow. You still need another day's rest."

"I hear you, doc," Six replied, waving her off. "I can handle this." He made for the doors of the clinic, grimacing with every step, only to have both Pancake and Shaolin suddenly latch onto his arms like walking crutches. "The hell!?"

"Don't worry, doc," Knight-boy reiterated. "We'll make sure the old man won't push himself too hard."

The Courier growled under his breath. He wriggled and squirmed until he was free but Ren and Nora were adamant to be his unofficial orderlies, holding on even when he tried to shove them off. I can very well damn walk, kids. Fucking hell, I'm not a damn cripple! "I'm fine, kids. Get your goddamn hands off of me."

"It's for the best," Pyrrha said. "You might tear through all your stitches if we let you walk like that."

"She's right, Six," added Jaune. "This is for your own good. Besides, let us take care of you for once."

Alright, this is bullshit. Six once again wormed of their grasp and took point as soon as the doors closed behind them, standing straight and tall on both his legs with solid poise. He tightened the straps on his combat harness and slung his laden duffel over his shoulder. "See? I'm fine. Now come on. We can make it back to—"

Then he tripped on the gutter. Then landed on his face. And felt something stretch painfully over his freshly repaired sphincter. Like paper tearing against staples. Searing pain javelined into his rectum. Shit.

"You need help, daddy?" mused Nora.

Six grit his teeth and spat out the gravel in his mouth. Goddamn it.

They were almost there. Almost there. The massive reinforced walls of New Vegas stood on the horizon three streets away, the relative safety (and manageable thuggery) of Freeside only a half-hour of walking distance. The ever-blinking sanctuary of the Lucky Thirty-Eight was taunting in its display, its radiantly omniscient saucer towering above the skyline from within the luxury of the Strip. And yet, this happened. Somehow, by some stroke of sudden misfortune, this had to have happened.

Six stomped on the nightstalker twice, on the tail to immobilize it and on the head to kill it. But not after it sunk its envenomed teeth into the rear of a passing Jaune Arc. While team JNPR-S responded to their wailing leader, the Courier paced to the manhole in the middle of the street and shuffled the errant sewer grate into place to keep any more of mutated hybrids from clamoring out. Goddamn shits are infesting the underground again. Always slinking through from the desert...or someone at the Thorn got sloppy.

"I just got bit by a dog-snake!" howled Knight-boy as he clutched his bleeding derriere. "What the hell was that thing!? How did it climb up out of a manhole!?"

"It's the Wasteland. Be glad this was a lone wolf," Six droned, limping over. "These nightstalkers hunt in packs—"

"Packs!?"

"This one must've gotten past the fodder in the sewers." Going to have to dump some more bodies in there. Six made a mental note to have Red Lucy release some of their captive Fiends into the northeastern sewer networks to bottleneck the damn mutants. No one would miss any of those junkies. He nudged the tip of his boot against Knight-boy's rib. "Looks like we both got a stinger up the ass, eh, kid."

"Don't worry, Jaune!" soothed Pancake. "We'll fix your butt."

"Um, what exactly do you mean by that, Nora?" asked a worried (and flustered) Sparta who just so happened to be the appropriate snuggle pillow for their distraught team captain.

The Courier stepped (or rather painfully limped) into their circle, his hands digging through his field kit. "Survival one-oh-one, kids." Now where did I pack that tubing?

Shaolin looked up at him expectantly. "You have a remedy?"

Six frowned. He searched again. Nothing. Shit. Got the seeds but nothing else. I knew I should've stocked up on some anti-venom. "No tourniquets. Looks like we're doing this the old-fashioned way."

Jaune paled as he latched onto Pyrrha with a vice grip. "Am I going to die!?"

"Is Jaune going to die!?"

"He's not going to die, Nora."

"If we don't act now, he might," mulled Sparta, who reciprocated the iron embrace, her cheeks as red as her hair. "It'll be okay, Jaune. Hush now."

"I'm still going to die!"

The Courier groaned. "Shut up and spread your butt cheeks, boy!"

"... What?"

Six grimaced as he knelt down. His pelvis ached from the surgery that pulled out several pieces of shrapnel out of his posterior. But the stitches beside his nether regions were on the verge of ripping (again) if he so much as bent over. He hoped he had enough morphine to dull the pain while he recovered. That meant he had to stay on the sidelines and guide the kids on how to do this right. He began by gesturing for Jaune to kiss the asphalt and raise his posterior.

"You're not serious, are you?" prodded Ren.

Sparta appeared completely conflicted, wrapped around a petrified Knight-boy.

"Come on, kid. Pull down your pants and get your ass up." He produced a bundle of buffalo gourd seeds. "Rub these on the wound quick. Come on. Chop-chop! Any longer and the venom'll be too deep in your system for us to do anything."

"Are you..."

The Courier shook his head. My ass still hurts. "I just got surgery. Again. I can't risk ripping out the stitches now. Again. One of you'll have to do it." Besides, you kids need to damn well learn these basics.

"Oh." Ren looked around. "Pyrrha, are you okay?"

"Huh?" Sparta shook her head, her entire head glistening with sweat and a bright fluster. "Uh, I'm fine, Ren. I, uh, I'm totally fine, hah!"

Goddamn Sparta and her goddamn hormones. "Get your heads straight, kids. This is survival! You want Knight-boy to live? Well then one of you'll have to bend down, rub the seeds on his ass, and suck the damn venom out of it." He snapped his fingers impatiently. "I said put your ass up, boy!"

"That can't be the only alternative," Pyrrha protested shakily, the look on her face a mix of bug-eyed horror and drooling satisfaction.

"Shut up and suck it up, damn it!"

Team JNPR-S eyed each other (Syrup, meanwhile, was busy gobbling up the dead nightstalker). It was as though time had frozen and there before him were four divided teens, contemplating what to do while one of them held on for dear life, his arms literally holding onto his partner who was on the verge of passing out from embarrassment while the ginger and her best friend silently argued who would do it and how it would be done.

"Fuck's sake, kids! Hurry up before his Aura closes up the—"

And then the world snapped. Or at least, something triggered the response he saw played out before his very eyes.

In two seconds, Pancake pulled down Knight-boy's jeans only to be subdued by a mortified Shaolin leaving Sparta to frantically tear his boxers off, exposing the bulging snake-bite on a muscled butt cheek. All the while Jaune screamed and clawed at the concrete. Then...the expected happened.

Back again at Doctor Usanagi's clinic for the third time, the nurses wheeled in a cathartic Jaune for proper treatment while Six sat back at reception, haggling for spare surgical tubing. Across from him, Pancake chirpily consoled a feverish Sparta, the redhead clearly deprived of whatever sanity was left, her hands trembling, sweat dripping from every orifice, her porcelain skin reddened for good reason, her wide-eyed gaze cemented to the floor. Any uninformed person in the room would have mistaken her for either a junkie on withdrawal or an escaped mental patient.

All the while Shaolin shook his head and continued writing down Pyrrha's anti-venom intake schedule. Two doses of antibiotics for the next three days, enough to flush out every toxic drop and more. He sighed, having caught the bare hints of a satisfied (if not animalistic) grin on the edges of her lips. He wondered if his fellow Mistralian would actually bother to properly wash her mouth after that.

Fifty-fifty chance she might not.

He was sure she was savoring the taste. For crying out loud, she was all over the place and they had to pry her off and subdue her after she nearly poisoned herself. Ren leaned back on his seat as Nora took the catatonic Pyrrha in a warm hug with Syrup nuzzling its head against her legs. He wondered how team RWBY was doing.

The New Vegas Provincial Capitol of the New California Republic was an establishment that bore a deceptively unimpressive facade that concealed the hectic inner workings of the local government authorities. Once the NCR embassy to the former independent territory of New Vegas previously dominated by the maverick autocrat Robert Edwin House, the compound had since received significant renovations inclusive of improved security, an extra floor in the administration building, and a parking lot that accommodated the armored vehicles of the both the NCR military and NCR dignitaries.

Inside, there permeated an air of suffocating diplomacy that all of team RWBY immediately recognized. While politics was mostly out of their purview, the venomous atmosphere in here felt so toxic that it seemed noxious fumes were flowing out of the ventilator. For now, at least, politics was not really what they were here for. All the girls did was accept an invitation from Governor Dennis Crocker, once the former ambassador responsible for helping orchestrate the annexation of New Vegas by the Republic, for a special meeting in his office.

They expected a nondescript room with dry scentless walls, stuffed bookshelves, and a cluttered desk flanked by cushioned chairs. They did not expect Major General James Hsu pouring himself a glass of water in the corner as they squeezed into the recliner in the middle of the governor's office. Even to Ruby, this was a clear warning sign of a dangerous game they had woven themselves into.

Pleasantries were quick with the occasional elbow to Yang and glare from Weiss. General Hsu meandered to the edge of the table, sipping at his glass. "How are you today, ladies?"

"We are doing quite well, general," the heiress replied with the classic formality of a Schnee complete with a raised chin, straight back, and arms folded neatly over her lap. "Is there anything of the matter that needs to be discussed?"

"There is. It's best if I'll be frank with you today."

"By all means, general," Blake replied evenly.

The NCR commander had no visible discernible emotion on his face, his modest irises concealing whatever motives could be discerned. "Your investigation into the person that is Courier Six has not gone unnoticed. We won't deny it; he has been a stabilizing force in the Mojave for over three years now. However, recent events have...prompted a review of his activities."

The girls were silent with Weiss nodding along.

"We can neither confirm nor deny that he has accumulated the means to destabilize the region. Whether or not he intends to is a matter of speculation. Both are of great concern to us and contrary to what you may have heard of us, we do not always know everything."

"Hold up," Yang interjected, muscling her arm up much to Weiss's discomfort. The couch could only fit so many people, after all. "Are you asking us to do your dirty work? 'Cause, news flash! We're not taking any commissions right now!"

"We're not asking you to act directly against anyone, Miss Xiao Long. We're asking you to monitor someone important. Keep him from doing anything drastic."

"Or damaging," added Governor Crocker.

Blake narrowed her gaze, her fingers paling with how tight she was gripping the armrest. "What makes you think that Six is a threat, sir?"

"I'd rather not use that word," the governor corrected. "More of a potential concern."

General Hsu continued, "Courier Six helped us greatly before but things are different now. I'm going on the assumption that you are aware of the fresh changes that have been going on in the Mojave and the NCR, particularly here in Clark County."

"You mean the scandal around General Moore, your promotion in her place, and the Three Families scrambling to abuse the apparent power vacuum?" listed Ruby. Heads creaked and she had to address her amused teammates. "What? It's what happened, right?"

"You're not wrong there, Miss Rose" the general confirmed. "But let's leave it at that for now. What matters is that our discussion does not leave this room. I trust you will hold to this agreement of nondisclosure. As Huntresses."

Team RWBY stared back at him. No one outside of Six and his cadre of trusted associates (Raul) knew the true meaning of their designation as Huntresses. They weren't even official; they were still in training and barely out of their first year when they ended up here!

Stupefied, the girls tried to read the men in front of them. While Governor Dennis Crocker seated behind his desk had that pokerface of an experienced gambler, Major General James Hsu standing in front of them efficiently denied them any means of catching onto whatever ulterior motive there was. Ruby and Yang itched with fearful surprise in contrast to the wariness seeping from Weiss and Blake.

The reaper felt her voice hitch in her throat. "Alright, sir. What is that you want from us?"

Crocker handed them a dossier he withdrew from his drawer. "Good enough. No sense in neither confirming nor denying. Team RWBY, we have strong reason to believe that Courier Six is harboring a weapon of mass destruction."

"A weapon of mass destruction?" Weiss repeated as they pored through the file, finding details hard to believe and grainy photographs hinting at something that a madman would covet.

"The Samson Option," Hsu replied. "A potentially dangerous apparatus that only Six is capable of activating. That dossier you're holding has everything we know about it as of this time."

The girls felt the world condense. This was a sudden influx of information. Swank was very cooperative the previous night but they were wise enough to take everything with a grain of salt. Gossip was untrustworthy compared to this official report by the NCR, a government with a well-oiled and experienced intelligence division. And whether or not General Hsu was tossing them a bone, they were very tempted to sink their teeth into it.

It was difficult to believe. Six, the grumpy not-so-old man who begrudgingly took care of them, had actually done all this. And is suspected to be capable of doing even more. They had to be wrong, right? This can't all be true! This has to be... This can't be...

"... Why are you telling us this?" asked Ruby after going through the file, her mind still reeling, her emotions conflicted.

The way that the general folded his arms and raised his chin reminded them starkly of a certain Atlesian military commander. "Courier Six needs help. You can help him better than we—or anyone else at this point—can."

Blake cleared her throat. She did not like how this was going. But for the sake of their current predicament, she felt it best to play along. "How exactly are we supposed to 'help,' sir?"

"Find out what this Samson Option actually is and, if proven to be dangerous, shut it down."

"Six won't like that," mused Yang. She may be the best brawler in the Mojave, as most people would claim, but she still remembered the time Six snapped and easily put her out of commission with a solid straight. How he shut her down like that without Aura or a Semblance still stumped her since she was all fired up at the time.

"It's for the best interests of the Republic and the Mojave," Governor Crocker intoned. "That man has been a blessing to our nation, a war hero on many accounts and highly popular amongst the troops, but we have reason to believe that he's considered taking matters into his own hands as of late. If he decides to activate this Samson Option, there may be nothing we can do to stop it. Whatever it really is."

"After much consideration," the general continued. "We've deemed you to be the most capable of carrying out this contractual obligation. You would be the least susceptible."

"Let's clarify things first, sir," Weiss breathed. "You want us to disrupt this...secret weapon...before it gets activated by Courier Six and possibly cause mass havoc and destruction. Because Courier Six can't lift a finger against us? Because we're his, quote-unquote, kids?"

"Because Six, the guy who's literally taking care of us, lost a bolt in his noggin somewhere?" Yang pressed through clenched teeth. "Because you think this guy who practically saved your country has gone off the deep end?"

"If that's how you see it, then yes," General Hsu answered plainly.

"And what if we don't want to?" Blake retorted. "What if this is all just speculation? Faulty evidence? False leads? What if this Samson Option is not as belligerent as you believe it to be? What then, sir?"

For all she knew, they were being used to get at someone as widely influential and undeniably authoritative as Six. There was no denying the influence that he exuded over the Strip, a massive cash cow that was technically governed by the NCR but actually subservient to the heavily-armed alcoholic mailman who bled way too much for it. And the NCR itself was no different than a soulless government, that much she learned in her down time.

"Then you're free to walk out from this room and forget we ever had this meeting," Governor Crocker evenly replied. "We'll handle the fallout and run damage control like we always do. Operations like this are easy to sweep under the rug regardless of the outcome."

General Hsu cleared his throat in response to the girls tensing. "We're not threatening you. Dennis means that we clean up after our messes. We keep our word, you keep yours. If you turn this down, we never talked and never will talk about this again."

If anyone were to ask Ruby about politics, she would say as much as the next person on the street. Yang was more acute to it but preferred to let her fists handle the problems at hand. Weiss had a mindset sharpened by a lifetime growing up at the helm of a controversial business conglomerate. Blake, on the other hand, had been raised on the other end of the spectrum and from whose lenses she viewed and acted, the cloak-and-dagger approach being more natural to her. With these differing mentalities, team RWBY mulled over the proposal. Divided, confused, and now reasonably distrustful of the NCR. But also wary of the Courier based on what they had learned.

After a quiet minute, Ruby asked, "Why? Why are you doing this?"

The governor eased back onto his chair with a face that tried to be sympathetic. "Preserving the Republic is neither an easy nor a clean job."

"You will be helping to secure the lives of hundreds of thousands of people," eased the general. "Future generations depend on efforts like this."

The girls stewed quietly for another long moment.

"There has to be strings attached," piped Yang.

"What are you offering in exchange for our services?" Weiss asked diplomatically.

The answer was quick and predetermined. "Unrestricted access to Project Fragment."

Team RWBY were quick to understand the meaning behind the name.

"Project Fragment is a top secret scientific endeavor hosted by the Office of Science and Industry to either discover or create a gateway to your world of Remnant," Governor Crocker explained. "Again, I trust that you keep this information strictly confidential."

"We knew from the beginning," General Hsu continued. "The details fell into place shortly thereafter. Dust, Aura, Semblance, the Grimm. We've been picking up the pieces for months now. You were not the first articles of Remnant to end up here in the Mojave and believe me when I tell you that you won't be the last."

"Wait! Y-You know?" Ruby sputtered. "You knew!?"

The general nodded. "We can't overlook the details. Your antics at the casinos, the incident at Cottonwood, the pile-up along I-95, your vigilantism in Freeside and the surrounding Vegas communities. Not to mention your rather colorful attire that you almost always strut around in. And the list continues to grow."

"We have eyes and ears everywhere," the governor intoned. "Sometimes, all we have to do is turn on the radio and tune in to Radio New Vegas."

"It was not that hard to connect the dots," the general concluded.

"You knew this whole time..." Yang mumbled.

"Of course, you did," Blake muttered. "Six bought your silence. Ren and Nora made sure you kept that silence."

Governor Crocker shrugged. "We can keep secrets if the price is right. It is Vegas, after all. Things run differently here. The fact that we know carries strong implications. If it helps you sleep better tonight, know that this is a closely guarded secret. No one else other than myself, the general, and the people working on Fragment know about this. You can also thank Lieutenants Pappas and Boyd for the complacency of the military police."

General Hsu emptied his glass. "We don't have much time but I'll allow you the rest of the day to think it through."

The Huntresses-in-training gave them a minute of uneasy silence before Blake initiated the walk-out.

Dennis stretched against his chair and let out the breath he had been holding in.

"Well, James...we tried."

James hummed. "That doesn't mean they didn't refuse."

"They didn't agree, either."

"Give them a few hours. They'll come around."

The governor almost slapped his desk. "What makes you so sure? We took a gamble. We laid out all our cards on the table. Told them things no one else should know. These are kids with superpowers that we tried to turn. And we lost. They'd be telling Papa Six—"

"They won't." Hsu poured himself another glass of water. "They have their convictions to worry about. But if all else fails, then I have the manpower and the materiel to deal with any problem that would arise from this."

Dennis nearly scoffed. "Don't get carried away with all our assets. Sometimes, I wonder if we should put a price tag on each star an officer gets. The one you just got is worth at least ten or twenty thousand troops."

"That's twenty thousand more people ready to help the Republic stay on its feet out here."

The governor snorted, more unnerved than concerned for his old friend. "Oliver and Moore sure rubbed off on you, eh, James? Makes me think the position of general is a living curse. Turns all good men like you into something else."

"I'm just doing what needs to be done, Dennis."

Meanwhile, out in the corridor, Blake's faunus ears twitched underneath her bow.

NOTE (March 10, 2018): So...writing the interactions between Crocker, Hsu, and team RWBY was really difficult, mainly because I was switching perspectives before settling on RWBY's perspective for that part. I want to explore the girls' emotional roller-coaster that comes with learning more about Six but I also don't want to oversaturate things.

Anyway, things are going to get serious now. Hope you like it and let me know what you think.

~o~

(March 10, 2018)

Review dude: RWBY and JNPR reacting to and accepting Six's past is going to be a challenge to write. It's proving to be far more difficult than I anticipated. Executing story time between the cast (Six and co. swapping life stories with RWBY and JNPR) is a delicate procedure and I feel like it's been done many times before. If I were to ever write it in, I'd have to put it down differently, make it uniquely interesting.

Though the reputation thing is something workable. It'd be nice to write about how Daddy Six would castrate all the boys who'd dare touch his "little girls" (don't know how he'd deal with Jaune and Ren, though). :P

The Boone and Lily suggestions gave me something solid. While the Lily one would be fun to write, I'm afraid I'd have to exclude it (probably make it an omake, at best) because I have a story arc planned now. Boone, on the other hand, would definitely make an appearance far later in the story. Probably would show up around the same time as Qrow. Thank again, so much, for the chapter ideas. :)

~o~

Here's another omake.

"Okay, you got the venom."

Sparta's normally calm and collected demeanor quickly devolved the moment her face mirrored the color of her hair; her cheeks puffed as she struggled not to lose a single drop of the poison filling up the whole cavern of her mouth. Her breathing became frantic, her hands flailing wildly around her, squeaks loosed through her tightened lips and bits of dusty old metallic bits floating up from the concrete.

"You got it, Pyrrha!" cheered Nora as she and Syrup held Jaune down against the concrete (or more appropriately sat on him). By then, Knight-boy was nothing more than a young teen sapped of all his strength and sanity, akin to a man who had been violated.

"Take it easy," Ren advised, helping his teammate calm her flying arms. Only now, her legs started stomping erratically, threatening to kick him in his shins and gonads. "It's not that bad."

"Focus, Sparta," Six instructed. "Now spit it out—"

Gulp.

Eyes bugged out of their sockets.

Six blinked. Are you fucking kidding me? "... Sparta..."

"Pyrrha, did you...?"

Nora leaped around them, her boot still on top of their team leader. The ginger took a closer look at the now catatonic redhead, her mouth starting to creak open while the tiny floating metal pieces surrounding her fell back to the ground. "Uh, Pyrrha. You know, you weren't supposed to swallow."

The Courier felt his hand smack against the side of his face. Goddamn it.

"... Uh, guys? Is it over?" Jaune whinnied.

"I think so," Nora replied. Then she slapped his bare keister. "Nice butt, by the way."

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: March 8, 2018

LAST EDITED: April 30, 2023

INITIALLY UPLOADED: March 10, 2018