Red Rock Canyon was as beautiful as it was dry.

"Welcome to the Red Rock Commune!"

"Christ on a stick, I'll be damned... You're them 'Vegas Wonder Kids', aren't'cha!?"

"Is it true that you got superpowers from all that radiation?"

And, as teams RWBY-V and JNPR-S learned from the rather excitable NCR settlers residing there, the whole area had previously been the home of one of the most aggressive yet well-organized tribal societies that existed in the Mojave up until the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. Said group still haunted the people living here with their murals and effigies dotting the walls of the canyon.

"How 'bout a deal. We won't tell anyone you're here if you can get rid of them statues up there on them hills."

"And put down some goddamn wasteland beasts while you're at it."

"Don't worry too much about the graffiti. We'll scrape 'em off ourselves eventually."

Blake hummed deep in thought. After spending an hour cleaning the clifftops with Yang, she found herself resting her legs on an outcrop where an old mural towered over her. Beside her were piled the dismantled totems that had been cobbled together from sticks, bones, and plastic and metal junk.

"It's like a cave painting, don't you think?" Yang mused.

"Hard to believe that an entire society thrived here for so many years and then suddenly vanishing in a single day," Blake remarked distantly.

"Great Khans," the blonde worded, tilting her head at the crude painting of a supposed Great Khan gutting three men in black suits with a spear. Her thighs and knees still ached from the hike all the way up here. "I don't know what a 'khan' is but they sounded pretty badass."

"They were raiders, Yang," retorted her partner. "They stole from other people just to get by. Did you not see the effigies we just had to take apart? Not very friendly."

She sighed. "Still badass though. Wouldn't mind having a few badass-looking ghost statues looming over the valley, y'know. Besides, I heard they were supposed to be really tough. Like stonewall tough."

"To their credit, they did try to live off the land," Weiss remarked, coming up beside them with Ruby and Velvet. "Good work on taking apart these dreadful icons. They were rather disturbing."

Yang raised a doubtful brow. "You really think these people won't rat us out to the NCR? Y'know, considering that they are NCR?"

The heiress folded her arms. "They have their reasons for helping us. Besides, we've helped them more than their own government did so we are in their good graces."

Blake shrugged. "I mean...look at this place. Where was the government support they were promised when they headed out to found their own town?"

Ruby twiddled her fingers. "They're self-sufficient, though."

"True," Weiss sighed. "Amazing how much you can grow out here with such arid soil and a single mountain stream, let alone scramble enough scrap to make these images to plant on these precarious perches."

"Six did say that desperation breeds creativity," intoned the reaper. She shuffled her boot against the junk that Blake and Yang piled on the ground. "The settlers said that we could keep whatever scrap we could get from all these Great Khan stuff so that's a plus, too."

"Useful goods we could barter away for extra supplies if need be," added the rabbit faunus. She handed her juniors their field packs, now laden with hardened bread, slices of cheese, heads of preserved corn, and strips of jerky. "The logistics are running smoothly around here. Most of the produce is from California but it's better than, well, bugs and the wildlife."

Yang swiped a piece, already gorging herself with her new rations. "Cheese...sweet, filling cheese..."

"Remember they came from a brahmin udder," Ruby teased.

"Don't care. Hungry. Cheese good."

"Ammunition?" Blake asked.

"Should be delivered to our new sleeping areas," Weiss replied.

"Dibs on top bunk," chirped the reaper.

"We can't be picky, you dolt."

"I still get dibs on top bunk."

"Ugh. Fine. Sleep in a hammock over my head, why don't you."

"Speaking of sleeping areas, how's team JNPR-S on that front?" wondered their team blonde.

Velvet shrugged. "They should be setting up our beds for the night. Something about getting rid of some stuff from the last tenants but I'm sure it's just leftover junk."

Yang pumped her fist. "Fifty-fifty we're sleeping in one room together."

Blake groaned. "I've had enough of Nora's snoring, thank you."

The blonde poked her partner playfully in the ribs. "Aww, don't you worry, kitty cat. Mama'll make sure you get a goodnight sleep tonight, eh?"

"I've had enough of your snoring, too."

"Excuse me. I do not snore."

The other four girls eyed her warily.

"Okay. Maybe a little."

"As long as I have a solid roof over my head, I'm satisfied," Weiss groused.

"But I thought you liked seeing the stars," Ruby raised.

"I wouldn't enjoy them because your sister rasps louder than her own motorbike—"

"Hey!"

"—and our sleeping bags don't offer full body protection against flies, mosquitoes, ants—"

The reaper rolled her eyes. "Alright, alright, I get it. Not like we can find some kind of face cream repellant or whatever."

"Point is," reined in Velvet. "We have solid shelter that we can rest in. Hopefully one that isn't an abandoned military bunker or a moldy building that's about to fall on top of our heads at any moment."

"I suppose we could see the positive side in all this," Weiss acquiesced.

The five of them glanced back down on the rest of the canyon where many a hovel had been put together on top of lots where the Great Khans had once pegged their tents. Between them were gardens that were being cultivated to the best of the settlers' abilities, relying solely on the single mineral pond kept alive by a stream flowing out of a tight crevasse wedged into the mountain. Coupled with the total absence of any NCR military presence to protect their open flanks and a single vulnerable land route from which vital supplies could be brought in, it seemed almost impossible to survive in a place like this.

And yet these people somehow made it through, carving out a new settlement that they re-christened the Red Rock Commune. Crops, though scarce, still thrived on desert soil. Commerce, though weak, kept flowing into the commune. Camaraderie and cooperation helped to put this place on the map, even if it seemed they were invisible to the war machine that was amassing on the banks of the Colorado River.

"I'm amazed they haven't given up," Weiss remarked softly. "This valley appears rather desolate."

"Giving up was a choice they had and they chose not to," Blake replied evenly. "They're making the best of what they have."

"The Great Khans had survived in this very same spot but they...they're not here. Not anymore." The heiress turned to her erstwhile opposite. "Blake, do you recall anything in the NCR reports that mention what happened them?"

"Six...dealt with them."

"Oh. I suppose the details are either vague or have been redacted?"

"Both."

Yang raised her brow. "You two onto something?"

"The Great Khans were a long-time enemy of the NCR. General Moore, who was a colonel at the time, ordered Six to..." Blake averted her gaze to the 'cave art' that had attracted her to the top of this shelf on the side of the canyon. "... Six made sure the Great Khans wouldn't support the Imperium Americana when they were going to attack Hoover Dam."

Given that Red Rock Canyon was a resettled NCR village, the insinuations made them uneasy.

"Do we want to know how he did that?" croaked Ruby.

The cat faunus stared at the cracks in the dirt before looking up at her curious teammates. "Honestly, right now I'm really not sure if what we read in those documents are true."

Weiss sighed. "Even I'm starting to disbelieve everything we've learned so far."

Yang, Ruby, and Velvet eyed each other warily. Out of their whole group, Blake, Weiss, and Pyrrha had been the most meticulous in combing through Courier Six's NCR records.

"Did people die?" the reaper asked hesitantly.

Blake and Weiss slowly nodded.

"Let's leave it at that then," Velvet concluded. "How about we all find team JNPR-S? I'm sure they're lounging in their hammocks right now."

"So this used to be a drug den," Pyrrha remarked uneasily.

Team RWBY-V gawked in mild disbelief at the ransacked trailer park festering under the Mojave heat at the end of a wide crevasse often forgotten by the rest of the Red Rock Commune. The smell of something dead and rotting had been balanced out by the metallic odor of chemical waste. Thankfully, none of the air they were breathing in was toxic since most of the lethal components had either been buried deep underground or salvaged by the settlers.

"Eh...I've been in worse," shrugged Nora from one of the trailers. She stood nonchalantly over a decaying wooden porch hammered in front of the doorway. "This is our spot, by the way. Can't fit everyone in here so you're going to have to find your own."

"This whole dumpsite is our spot," Yang groaned.

"Please tell me they actually cleaned this place up," Weiss begged.

Before Pyrrha could reply, Jaune and Ren emerged out of one of the trailers with handfuls of used syringes, broken glassware, and other decaying narcotics paraphernalia that they unceremoniously heaped into the compost pit dug at the far end of the plot. Syrup followed after them with what appeared to be a dirty elastic...something...hanging from its maw.

"Might as well make the best of what we have, right?" Ruby quipped.

Weiss opened her mouth to retort. Only to snap it back shut. Then sighing as she defeatedly dragged herself to one of the vacant trailers.

"Weiss?"

The heiress peeked in and nearly heaved. A few deep breathes later and she used her glyphs to empty out the garbage decaying in the back.

"You know," Jaune remarked. "I'm kinda surprised all the bloatflies, the geckos, and the cazadores skittering way up there didn't just swarm this whole place with all the crap piled up in here."

Everyone's heads creaked towards him.

"What?"

Ruby gave him the flattest look. "Jaune?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't jinx us, please."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

Later that day, the whole lot of them hastily sardined themselves in their trailers trying to hide from the four uniformed NCR troops that had suddenly arrived in the commune. They could hear their footsteps and their idle chatter reverberate against the canyon walls.

"Goddamn," gruffly drawled one of them, "and I thought the Khans buried this shit-hole 'fore things went to shit."

"So you've actually been here before," remarked another, a lady.

In trailer number one, Ruby did her best to keep from making a sound. Blake was naturally silent and, together with Weiss and Velvet, sat conveniently on top of Yang who, in the scramble, ended up face first on the dirty metal floor. Over in trailer number two, Jaune did his very best to ignore the mosquito that landed on his nose. With how cramped they were in here, he was surprised he was able to hold his rather painful and awkward position—tightly sandwiched between rusty shelves and metal boxes with Pyrrha made it difficult to breathe. Across from them, Ren was pinned under Nora and Syrup, the former clamping her hands down on the latter's maw.

"Campfire looks fresh," reported a nasal third.

"Guess we're staying here then," concluded the fourth.

Both teams felt their insides twist.

"Damn. Still smells like a shit-hole. Fuckin' A."

"Hey, Sarge. How long do we have to stay here again?"

"Not too long, I hope."

"I hate to complain but...this isn't really a nice spot to set up camp."

The mosquito was getting really plump on Jaune's nose. Not to mention, the itch was driving him nuts. Meanwhile, Yang was starting to get very agitated by the weight of three people pressing down on her spine and the fact that she was starting to taste something other than rust, tin, or copper from the floor.

"Man, this place brings back memories."

"So you ran with not just the Fiends but with the Khans, too?"

"As if I could make the cut to be a Khan. Listen, sometimes Khan couriers would get whacked on the roads so smarter guys in the herd like yours truly got sent topside to fetch the drugs."

"And this is where they made the drugs, correct?"

"Hell, yeah. Jack and Diane cooked up all the good stuff right here. Hell, I'm surprised the trailers are still around. If things haven't changed that much, then I think I can show you where they used to brew the meth. They had a really cool set-up in here—"

Pitter-patter, gasp, and growl. Ruby's eyes went wide as did everyone else.

"Whoa! What the fuck!?"

"Hands in the air!"

"Wait! Don't shoot! Let us explain!"

"Syrup! Down, boy!"

And that was how the Vegas Wonder Kids ended up engaged in an awkward standoff with four dazed and confused NCR troops.

The standoff lasted for thirty seconds. Ruby was as slack-jawed as her friends when the sergeant's eyes went wide and her face changed from authoritative concern to giddy jubilee. Aggression quickly turned into confusion.

For both sides.

"Oh. My. God. Boys, stand down! Oh-my-God-oh-my-God-oh-my-God!"

The little reaper glanced around to see everyone else equally perplexed. Conversely, the other three NCR soldiers were suddenly vexed by their own squad leader, the tips of their rifles already arcing to the ground.

"Oh, shit," sighed the mohawk guy.

"For fuck's sake, sarge," growled the one with the glasses.

"Don't mind her, she gets like this," apologized the tallest.

Jaune shrugged. "Um, it's fine?"

"Oh my God!" shrieked the sergeant. "You're the Vegas Wonder Kids! You're his kids! You're the real deal! Oh my God, I didn't think I'd ever meet you all in person! This is all so much for me, oh my God!"

Perturbed, Ruby nonetheless reciprocated by turning the muzzle end of Crescent Rose away from the soldiers. "Um, that's, uh, appreciated? Nice to meet you, uh—"

The uniformed woman extended her hand. Or rather, grabbed hers in a vigorous handshake. "Master Sergeant Maggie Stonham, Ninth Platoon, First Infantry Battalion, NCR Army! But you can just call me Mags. It's an honor to finally meet you, Miss Ruby Rose!"

"L-likewise, s-sergeant!"

"So," drawled Nora. "Are we, like, we're friends, now?"

"And you must be teams RWBY and JNPR!" prattled Mags. "Did I get that right? You're always on the news! Doing these awesome things like clearing out deathclaw dens and rebuilding Freeside and exposing a scandal on the Strip!"

Ruby nervously scratched the back of her head, glancing back at her teammates with a silent cry for help. "Y-yeah, err, that one. Pretty wild, h-huh, r-right?"

Pyrrha, with her characteristic smile, stepped forward. "Excuse me, Sergeant Stonham—"

"Just Mags is fine. And you must be Pyrrha, right? Pyrrha Nikos? The Super Spartan?"

"Super...Spar-tan?"

Mags, apparently, had drifted into her own world at this point. "Oh! And you must be her partner, Jaune Arc, the White Knight!"

"Um, I guess I am?"

"Ooh! And you two! You're Nora the Little Valkyrie!"

"Hey! Who're you calling little!?"

"And you're her sidekick, the Shaolin Master, and their pet—wow!—you really tamed a baby deathclaw. Awesome!"

"Uh, thank you for the compliment, sergeant?"

Mags, for some strange reason, cooed at the confused growl of the tethered infant deathclaw before jumping onto to team RWBY-V, excitably jumping from person to person with a pointed finger matching her manic groupie face.

"And you! Rowdy Red Ruby Rose!"

"Better than 'Little Red,' I guess."

"And you're Buckshot Bimbo—"

"What the fuck, seriously!?"

"—and you're the Kitty Caper—"

"Caper? Really?"

"—and you're the Ice Queen—"

"Of course, the monicker stays."

"—and you're the oldest of the bunch, the big sister, the Bad Bunny!"

"Oldest sibling of the bunch, huh," Velvet drawled, eyeing her 'family members.' "Yes. We are very much...siblings...in a way, I guess."

"Okay, this is getting out of hand," barked one of the soldiers. "Sarge! Get a fucking grip. Who the fuck are these people?"

Mags instantly turned around and paced to her subordinate with righteous fury. "Corporal Razz! You will address a national hero's offspring here with utmost respect and dignity!"

"'National hero's offspring'? What the flying fu—"

The trooper with the glasses sighed into his hand. "It's the Vegas Wonder Kids, dip-shit. The 'superhero' kids of Courier Six. Y'know, the teenagers with the weird radioactive superpowers or some shit. Like super speed and super strength and—ah, I don't fuckin' know—telekinesis?"

The tallest one, who towered over them all by a full two feet, approached the confused Remnant teens with a warm smile and his hands clasped before his chest. "I'm really sorry for my squad-mates. They can get a little rowdy sometimes."

"This is an oddly familiar scene," Weiss replied slowly. "So it's not that surprising, sir."

"Oh, that's a relief. Don't mind Mags. She can get really excited when she sees celebrities in person."

"Celebrities, huh," Yang remarked doubtfully. "I know we're famous and all but are we going to have worry about your chief going rabid over us?"

"I do hope so for your sakes." The man unclasped his helmet and dipped his head in a gentleman's bow. "By the way, I'm Corporal Jonah O'Hanrahan. Those two over there are Corporal Razor Tibits and Specialist Timothy Poindexter."

"Right," Ruby nodded, cautiously shaking O'Hanrahan's hand. "Nice to meet you all, sirs and ma'am."

As though she herself had a speed Semblance, Mags was already standing next to her subordinate with her hands on her waist and an even wider grin on her face. "I am so glad to be finally able to meet and talk with New Vegas's most famous defenders! Not like I get to meet with other famous and important people all the time, y'know, as part of being a soldier and all that but—"

"So you're supposed to be some superhero freak shows, eh?" snorted Corporal Tibits who had slinked over with Corporal Poindexter.

"I'm inclined to believe that you...cannot possibly be capable of such feats defying the laws of physics," the latter added condescendingly.

"So," Jaune started. "Does this mean that you're not going to report us to General Hsu?"

Heads quickly swiveled to him, some with eyes that glowed like ominous headlights in a dark train tunnel.

"What?"

Mags, for her part, expressed the confusion of her squad-mates. "Report you to the General? Why? Is there something going on? Maybe we could help! Not like we have anything else more important to do other than, y'know, 'chasing ghosts' as they say."

"It's...complicated," sighed Velvet.

"Hold up, hold up!" Yang interjected. "How can we be sure that we can trust you not to turn us in?"

"Turn you in?" Poindexter snorted with a raised brow. "What the fuck are you going on about? You got something to hide, bimbo?"

"You wanna go, four-eyes?"

Blake vexedly stepped between them. "Be civil, you two!"

"So you're here on a separate mission, then," Weiss quipped.

Razz folded his arms. "That's classified information, missy. In fact, why don't you give us information. Specifically, what the fuck is the brass thinking that they're having a bunch of kids with 'superpowers' run around New Vegas doing God knows what."

"You mean," Pyrrha said. "You don't know?"

O'Hanrahan humbly shrugged. "To be frank, ma'am, we don't really have clearance to know the specifics. Even if we did, we're not allowed to share it with you. Sorry."

Mags raised her hand. "What my squad-mates are trying to say is that we don't really know what's going on with relation to what the brass is having you do. We have our own purpose for coming all the way out here...even if it seems a little pointless."

Teams RWBY-V and JNPR-S exchanged glances between themselves.

"Pointless?" Ren raised.

Mags bit her lip as the color drained from her face. It seemed she had said too much. "Forget it. Nothing to concern yourselves with."

"Technically," Ruby remarked. "We're just coming back from a mission ourselves. It's an NCR mission so we're all on the same side. There really isn't not much to hide."

"Is there?" Razz snorted. "So you're telling us that you're working as contractors for the NCR."

Poindexter raised his chin. "How 'bout you tell us why you're out here in the first place. Seems fair, don't you think?"

Weiss put her foot forward. "Fair enough. We had just concluded dealing with some...complications in the wilds. The usual riff-raff, you could say. And you?"

"Uh-huh, alright then." Corporal Tibits smirked. "Well, we're here to investigate some...complications in the wilds. The usual riff-raff, as you like to call it."

Sergeant Stonham ultimately raised her voice, puffing out her britches and glaring at her two smug subordinates. "Okay, so we're all working for the NCR. Let's leave at that, shall we?"

"Sarge—"

"Shall we?"

Ruby nodded. "We can agree to that, sergeant."

"Good!" Mags sat on the wooden bench in front of the fire pit. "Now that that's out of the way...how 'bout getting to know each other more? First off, where are you all staying?"

Fingers pointed to the ground.

"Funny," drawled Poindexter. "We were about to set up camp here, too."

"I'm sure there's enough space for everyone," O'Hanrahan chirped.

Nora quickly thumbed the trailers. "Already called dibs on that one and that one."

Jaune chortled. "Don't worry, sirs and ma'am. We just got done clearing up the junk in the other trailers."

Razz raised his brow. "So you got rid of all the needles and condoms? Neat. Did you scrub the floors, too?"

Yang froze at the mention of the floor.

"We've got sleeping bags."

Corporal Tibits sighed and shook his head. "Uh-huh. Make sure you stay in those sleeping bags. Word of advice: make sure that you're skin doesn't make contact with any of the bare surfaces of those trailers. If you're going to sleep on the floor, best to either really cover it up or mop it clean."

Yang slowly creaked her head at the mohawk soldier.

"Why's that, sir?" Jaune inquired.

"This place has seen it all. Trust me. Orgies, overdoses, and the occasional piss- and shit-stain. Not just on the floor but on the walls and the ceiling too. Don't ask me how it got up there, though."

This time, Yang was not the only one who froze where they stood. Blake, Weiss, Pyrrha, and Ren each creaked their necks towards Razz.

Jaune gulped. "B-but that was a long time ago, r-right?"

The man shrugged. "Eh, you never know. Hell, I wouldn't trust the folks who just moved in. Who knows what freaky stuff they pulled off in here. What I'm saying is that you better watch where you lay your head 'cause if your skin makes contact with that metal, you're guaranteed a rash worse than a cazador sting."

"R-really?"

"Really," winked the former Fiend. "I've been here back when this place was an actual drug den. Not a very clean place."

Several minutes later, the Misfits had to stand guard while the Vegas Wonder Kids lined up for a bath at the only known accessible source of water in Red Rock Canyon. It was an amusing sight to the settlers.

It was also a very concerning picture for the Courier who had been watching them through his binoculars from across the valley.

Well, well. Been awhile since I last had a run-in with these numb skulls.

The lack of any sort of military presence in Red Rock Canyon was laughable but Six did not laugh. The only thing that had been keeping an eye on him when he entered the commune was that lone black bird that had been following him for the past couple days. Said bird had perched itself on an outcrop several feet above him.

I swear, there's something about that little fucker... Can't be natural for a lone corvid to be tracking something as big and troublesome as me.

Caw, caw!

"So you can read minds, too, birdie?" he joked to himself.

The crow tilted its head at him before fluttering away...across the valley...towards the kids and the soldiers.

You trying to tell me something or you found something else to poke your beak at?

Whatever the case, the Courier was done loitering up here. He had seen everything, reconnoitered everything, and was going to head down there and make his presence known. He felt conflicted on the way down, though. He really did not want to harm the Misfits—for all their stupidity, they were good kids.

Just like Ruby and company...

"Oh! Hello, s-sir!"

Six waved away the startled teenaged sentries guarding the only road into Red Rock. It was chaffed him that deeper he went, the quieter the place became. The settlers clammed up so much that by the time he passed the arena-turned-depot, the only noise he could hear was the banter between the kids and the soldiers.

And when he finally got up there, the last person to stop talking was Ruby who stared at him from the middle of the pond half-naked with silver eyes going wider than the curious red orbs of the bird that had perched itself on the rocks behind her.

"Hello, kids."

Major General James Hsu read through the dossiers again.

On his desk in his office at McCarran Headquarters were piled the recently printed profiles of every single Remnant refugee sheltered at Fort Mead. The statistics office had finally come around after a painfully long processing period, yielding additional details about the Remnant refugees that he had been sheltering in Fort Mead for weeks now.

Twenty-one people. Thirteen of them were 'faunus' or, in layman's terms, half-animal.

Hsu pored through the names, the details, the noted oddities, and the photographs for the third time, paying careful attention to the comments about their relations between them. Then he cross-checked some of those details with the other dossiers he had on file. When he was done, he leaned back on his chair.

He now had solid confirmation that Winter Schnee and Glynda Goodwitch were not the only refugees in his custody who had special ties to the Vegas Wonder Kids.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: March 17, 2020

LAST EDITED: June 10, 2020

INITIALLY UPLOADED: June 10, 2020

NOTE: So we now have the Misfits involved. I actually had fun with the quest involving these guys. Made me wish there was more to do with them after that. I admit that I have a fondness for expanding on side characters and I hope I made the Misfits interesting enough.

Also, I myself am concerned with how I'm expanding the cast. At first, I wouldn't involve any more characters other than the main 8 yet I ended up writing Velvet in because I got carried away. Now, I'm trying to limit how many more I could throw in because goodness knows it's hard to maintain a large cast.

Well, I hope you're all still enjoying this fic. And yes, I have plans for the cast to encounter those vault creepers later down the line.