Yang knew she had a temper problem. And she also knew the consequences of letting her temper get the best of her. She also knew that if she lost her head, Six was going to shove his boot so far up her ass that she'd be spitting out leather for weeks... Gods damn it, that was something he would have said.

Consequences aside, she was still mad at the Courier for forcing one of their friends into something that, while it was entertaining, really negatively affected the girl in particular. And while the blonde tried to call him out on it, she ended up having to admit that he had a pretty solid reason: New Vegas needed a secure foundation and Red Lucy's underground empire provided a big chunk of that. Literally and figuratively.

So, accepting the fact that she was in the wrong in this one and having to suck it up, Yang sat back in the corner of their temporary quarters in the Thorn, biting on her lip hard enough to nearly draw blood while glaring at the back of Six's head as he brandished the 'trophy' that, technically, belonged to Pyrrha. Unfortunately, the Invincible Girl was still so badly shaken by her fight with the biggest deathclaw anyone had ever seen (even by wasteland standards, apparently) to even acknowledge her reward, much less form coherent sentences.

"Seriously, anybody want it?" the Courier asked. "Last call 'fore I get rid of it."

Yang glanced around. Ruby kept staring at the holes on the grated floor while Weiss catalogued their supplies with Velvet. Blake, as usual, dug her nose into another book (something about science this time) while chancing glances at team JNPR-S who were busy consoling one of their own and keeping Syrup from gnawing at Six's leg.

"No takers?"

The trophy did look interesting but... "What are we supposed to do with a severed deathclaw hand?"

To which Six tossed the damn thing at her. "Don't ask me."

The first thing she noticed when she caught it was the smell. It reeked of turpentine and formaldehyde. But at least it wasn't slimy or moist and so far looked clean...or disinfected. Then again, this still organic material and Yang was sure the decay set in really quickly, especially in the searing Mojave heat. Still, beggars can't be choosers and she now had her own personal deathclaw hand, sharpened claws and all.

"Okay, this is pretty cool," she started slowly. "But...not to sound ungrateful here...what am I actually supposed to do with this?"

"Mantelpiece?" Blake suggested.

"What, like a stuffed gecko head or something?"

"Something like that," Ruby raised. "Maybe when we get back to the Lucky 38, you could hang it up on the wall in the rec room."

"Yeah," Nora chirped. "We'll hang it up next to my pickled horse di—"

Ren coughed hard into his palm. "Perhaps we could sell it as it seems to be of great value."

"Or you could use it as a weapon," Jaune remarked, his arm still hanging over the shoulder of a still catatonic Pyrrha. "Like recycle the claws into knives or, um, use it as a gauntlet or something?"

"You mean wear it like a boxing glove," the blonde brawler chirped. Come to think of it, a lot of weapons being sold around here were jury-rigged from mutant parts such as giant mantis hooks and mutant bear claws. "I guess it might work. I...think we could put a strap or something here and..."

"Save your upgrades for later," the Courier interjected, rasping his knuckles on the wall. "Pack up. We're moving."

Yang tucked the hand into her rucksack and, taking on her share of the group's supplies, filed out the door. Despite her disagreements with Six, she had to give him credit for conditioning them all so well that packing on extra weight didn't hurt so much anymore. She still wasn't used to horrible smells though and, like everyone else, she put on a gas mask when they waded back into all that irradiated shit-water.

Granted, the blonde would have taken extra care to keep her hair from getting sullied any more than it already was but by this point, Yang felt like they had been through so much shit (literally and figuratively) that it didn't matter much anymore. Besides, Weiss had longer hair and she had already given up on keeping that white waterfall from turning any grayer.

Ten minutes later, Yang and most of the other girls tied their hairs up into ponytails and tucked them into their jackets after Velvet felt a cockroach scurrying up the back of her neck.

Ruby could neither barely keep track of the time they spend underground nor comprehend the increasingly convoluted maze that was the New Vegas underground tunnel network but she was ecstatic when the Courier said they had already arrived at their destination. Covered in sewage water and smelling worse than the toilet on a weekend after dinner at McDwendy's, it was so relieving to finally be able to relax in a warm bath, rake three bars of soap over their skins, and have a strawberry smoothie on a recliner while listening to the radio.

Hiss, grate, clang.

The reaper saw the Courier walk into the darkness behind the massive steel pump doors that had been keeping this part of the underground sealed. And she could tell that this place was kept secret because they had to literally go through a maze of tunnels and squeeze through debris and mounds of...solid waste...to get here. Not to mention, other than a few giant mutated rats and disgusting radroaches, there was barely anyone else around.

But all that trekking was going to be worth it. That warm shower and strawberry smoothie...

"I knew there was a secret entrance!" Nora bellowed, pointing to another set of steel doors down the hall. This time, they bore the sigil of the Lucky Thirty-Eight complete with the roulette wheel and the stripes.

"Wait," Blake drawled. "Are we literally right under the Lucky Thirty-Eight?"

"Sharp kitty," the Courier quipped, dialing the code onto the keypad.

Yang whistled. "Wasn't expecting this but I'll take it."

Weiss sighed. "This is far more practical than climbing back out onto the street and having to torment those around us with our stench."

"Could be worse," Jaune said. "I mean, we could be—"

Ruby quickly tugged on the blond's sleeve to get his attention before flashing him the flattest look she had ever given someone, flatter than everyone else in the chamber.

"Jaune," Ren started.

"Don't jinx us, please," Pyrrha ended.

Ding.

"Get in, kids," Six ordered.

At least the elevator wasn't cramped. In fact, it felt so good to be back in a familiar space. The old pine scent that hung from the ceiling was a welcome relief to the Vegas Wonder Kids as they filed in, eager to enjoy the luxuries of the Lucky Thirty-Eight casino-hotel-restaurant-fortress. As soon as the doors hissed closed though, the actual smell hit them.

Hard.

And Ruby had to pinch herself to keep from gagging when they started moving up. She was not the only one, too. Nearly everyone else was trying not to heave. Save for Six who was probably used to this (and he still had his gas mask on) and Ren (because Ren was just good at being...Ren).

Though, the reaper did notice something during the ride. She kept her eyes on the button pad where they started from the bottom, labeled as 'U-3,' and then blinking up the basement levels until they passed the ground floor. But there was a tiny, almost insignificant, clip right below U-3. Just enough for her to squeeze her finger in and...

Plunk.

A whole new panel revealed itself to her right under the keypad. This time, with buttons labelled 'X-1' to 'X-4:' no doubt four additional 'secret' underground levels. Ruby suddenly had her hand slapped away before the Courier wordlessly slammed the cover, giving her that glare that made her freeze up and behave like she had been paddled with a metal bat.

Glancing behind her, though, she could tell that most everyone else had seen that too. No one talked about it though during the long elevator ride up a hundred floors.

"Say, Ren?"

"Yes, Jaune?"

"You think Pyrrha's going to be okay?"

"I don't have a professional opinion on that."

"Not what I was going for. I mean, what do you honestly think? Is she going to be alright? After, y'know, the whole Thorn business?"

"I'm sure, given time, she will recover. She has a strong, determined spirit and with our support, she will persevere. We only have to be there for her."

"Yeah, you're right. Guess there's only so much we can do, huh? The rest is on her?"

"That is the only assessment I could give."

"Fair enough."

Scratch, scratch. Scrape, scrape.

"Hey, Ren?"

"Yes, Jaune?"

"How long have we been down here?"

"... Thirty minutes."

"Huh. You got a timekeeper on you?"

"Educated guess."

"Okay."

Sniff, sniff. Scrape, scratch, snuffle.

"Um, Ren?"

"Yes, Jaune?"

"You sure we shouldn't, um, rein Syrup in?"

"... As much as I would love to, I don't think it would be possible at this point."

"I guess so. I mean, he looks really busy over there and he's gotten really ornery lately. You think he's not going to break anything again?"

"... Hopefully not."

"Alright, then."

Snap! Crash! Crunch, crunch. Silence.

"Ren?"

"Jaune?"

Scratching. "You think they're done by now?"

Sigh. "I don't think so. I think it will be a few more hours before we would be allowed back upstairs."

"No argument there. I'm getting really itchy all over and I seriously need a change of clothes."

"Likewise."

"Plumbing's still broken, right? I mean of all the hundred or so guests rooms here, the only working shower is the one up in the penthouse."

"This place has been sealed for over two hundred years. The damage caused by neglect could be irreparable."

"Yeah, that sucks. And we're not allowed to visit the other hotels, right? Like, ask if we could borrow their showers for a bit?"

"Assuming the Lucky Thirty-Eight has not been placed in a state of lockdown and we have extreme liberties to simply utilize the facilities of the other establishments on the Strip, I think we could."

"Bu~ut...we can't right now."

"Unfortunately."

Crash!

Jaune and Ren looked over their shoulders. Somewhere down below on the dimly lit casino floor of the Lucky Thirty-Eight, Syrup had knocked over a slot machine, ripped the cables out of another, and began chewing at the carpets and tearing at the wallpaper. The two Huntsmen-in-training were too tired and, frankly, too burned out to care at this point, opting instead to slump back onto the upstairs bar and nurse their glasses of diluted beers while team JNPR's mascot wreaked havoc because it was itching to go outside and no one was allowed outside. Not like Six was going to chew them out for it because the man himself had bigger things to worry about than a trashed casino that nobody ever visits.

"Hey, Ren?"

"Yes, Jaune?"

"You up for a game of Caravan?"

"Sure, why not?"

Yang couldn't sleep.

Even after a long, sweet shower and a nice dinner that Ren and Jaune whipped up from whatever was still left in the fridges, she still found herself restless. Tossing and turning in her bed to the point that she almost fell onto the floor. It was almost midnight and everyone else was asleep aside from her.

So she did what came natural.

She walked around...

...until she reached the elevator where Victor was standing guard.

"Howdy, young'un!"

She waved. "Hey, Vic."

"Pretty late to be wanderin' around, don't you think?"

Yang chuckled. This robot was too smart for its own good. Not like Remnant had any of those, right? Definitely not, even though Ruby gets weirdly finicky every time the topic gets brought up. "Eh, couldn't sleep. Counting sheep wasn't working so I thought I might need a drink from upstairs, you know?"

"Guess so." The Securitron rolled aside to trigger the elevator. "Might not want to spend too much time up there. Pretty young ladies like you need your beauty sleep after all."

She laughed. "I do, I do. But I'll give tonight a pass. Just one glass is all I need."

"That's what they all say," chuckled the cowboy AI.

As soon as the elevator doors hissed closed, Yang popped open the secret panel under the button pad and there they were: the four buttons that corresponded to four secret floors directly underneath the Lucky Thirty-Eight (and probably another secret underground network underneath the New Vegas underground). The fact that they only discovered this now showed how cleverly it was kept hidden in plain view. Painted the same color as the wall and the trigger was so small, it was almost invisible to the naked eye.

For a moment, her finger lingered over the button for X-1.

By then, Victor had remotely accessed the elevator controls, effectively locking out any human control, and sent her up to the cocktail lounge. Yang closed the panel and waited until the doors opened and she could whip herself up a Long Island Iced Tea. At least, that's what she remembered it was called; she had read about it in a pre-war magazine about cocktails and was enticed by the idea of mixing Nuka-Cola, vodka, and a bunch of other stuff that she was sure the Lucky Thirty-Eight had in droves (thanks to the automated restocking system in place).

So she was going to give it a shot.

Several wasted drinks and one messy bar later, Yang Xiao-Long was reclining on one of the lounges close to the windows where down below, the lights of New Vegas burned ever brightly. She was halfway through her somewhat successful attempt at Long Island Iced Tea (with less Nuka-Cola and extra vodka) when she heard the elevator doors ding open.

"Blondie?"

"Hey, Six," she waved.

Five seconds later, he groaned. "... What the hell happened to the bar?"

Yang scratched the back of her head. She was definitely going to clean that up later. Definitely. "Um, well, y'see...I, uh, experimented and, y'know, things get messy when experimenting so..."

"Half the bottles on the shelf are gone."

"I-I'll make it up to you!"

He gave her a flat look. "How?"

Good question. "I mean...I could do some jobs at the casinos. Y'know, like a bouncer or someone to check the cards at the tables?"

He folded his arms. "Blondie, are you drunk?"

"Funny you should say that," she half-chuckled, half-gargled. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

Six thudded over, his glare softening upon seeing her sprawled over a leather couch in nothing but her top and shorts. "... It's late. Go to sleep."

She shrugged nervously. "Yeah, that's another thing I should be telling you, y'know? Instead of the other way around..."

He pointed to her glass. "What the hell is that anyway?"

"This one?" Yang held it up with a little shake. "Tea with ice on a lonely island?"

Frown. "A'ight, get up. You're heading downstairs."

She sighed. She was admittedly a bit under the influence and mayhap a bit angry to do anything else at this point. So she stayed put, sinking back onto the lounge, sipping at the rest of her drink. "... No."

The Courier stomped over. "What?"

"I-I...I'm not f-feeling sleepy," she choked out, not at all really that kind of sort of maybe a little bit afraid of the big, scary, gun-toting mass murderer who could easily pummel her into the ground, Aura and Semblance notwithstanding.

"Blondie—"

"I can't sleep."

Silence.

Rustling.

Yang raised her head from her empty glass to see the former Desert Ranger sitting across from her with a much softer glare. Definitely what she was not expecting but still creepy because he was never often like this.

"Bad dream?" he asked softly.

She turned away. "... Just thinking. Over-thinking, I guess."

More silence.

Eventually, Yang (or her mildly intoxicated brain) decided to break the ice with the next thing that came to mind. "So what's with the secret basement?"

"What?"

"You know. The X-floors or something. I saw it. Ruby saw it. Everyone saw it. How we didn't find out about earlier though..."

Six pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's just something that came with the property."

The blonde thought he was lying until she remembered that the man 'inherited' New Vegas from his last boss, some technocratic genius named Robert Edwin House. That was a saga that she wanted to ask him about. So she did. "Hey, Six, how'd you end up being, like, the head honcho of New Vegas?"

"You already know the story," he dismissed.

She blew raspberries. "Yeah, but that's from the NCR and we know they're not really reliable as you said. And I think Swank was making some shit up when we asked him so that's that."

"Why're you kids so damn curious?"

The blonde lolled her head to the side while stretching haphazardly over the couch. "'Cause we like you. And we wanna know more stuff about you. 'Cause we like you."

The Courier was quiet for a long while.

"Six?"

"Long story," he grunted.

"I wanna hear it."

"Not tonight, Blondie."

"C'mon," Yang prodded with a playful pout. "Tell me that bedtime story."

"It ain't a bedtime story."

"Doesn't have to be a bedtime story."

"Jesus Christ," the Courier groaned. "Shit happened. I got shot. Went hunting. Got snagged into some bullshit. Did my job. Pulled some strings. Fought a battle. Won a war. And here I am. The end."

"Boo!" she rasped. "I wanna hear about how you got this swanky tower."

Long exhale. "I did my dues with House."

She scrunched her brow at him. "That's it?"

"That's it."

Yang puckered her lip. "You're no fun, y'know that?"

Six remained unamused. "And you've had one too many, young lady."

Young lady? "You're not my dad."

He scoffed. "Might as well be."

She frowned. "You're not acting like it."

"What? You expect sunflowers and roses?" he growled. "A treat for every fuck-up I have to clean up?"

"We don't always fuck up," Yang barked indignantly. Sure, they screwed up a ton but not everything they did was a bad thing. "We only wanted to help."

His eyes hardened. "Help with what?"

She opened her mouth argue...only to end up with a dry tongue. Because she couldn't really think of an end goal as to why they were doing what they were doing. What was it that Ruby said? About helping the people of the wasteland because it was their job as Huntsmen and Huntresses? That was their job on Remnant and even though they were displaced, the problems were still the same so their duties still carried over here. Right?

Six shook his head. "I feel like a broken record for having to tell you that not everybody's asking for a hero to solve all their problems."

Yang looked down on the floor. "... I know."

"Really now."

"I get it, okay? I get it." She huddled onto the couch with her knees folded up to her chin. "I know I don't have to like it but...damn it, I really don't like it."

"Keep getting used to it then."

The next minute passed wordlessly. The blonde could faintly hear the music blasting down on the Strip; lively, jovial, free of the burdens of the outside world. Maybe the cost of this prosperity was the occasional suffering of some poor bastard out in the wastes. Or maybe some people just had to suffer for others to get what they want.

"Why'd you do it?" she croaked. "Why'd you force Pyrrha to do that fight down there? You could've just, I don't know, negotiated something else. Like...wasn't there anything else on the table?"

Sigh. "There wasn't."

Snort. "Bullshit. There had to be another way."

He nodded. "There were other options. But throwing Sparta into the wringer was cheaper any of them."

Cheaper? Cheaper!? Yang nearly flared up at that but she was sober enough to recognize that she was talking to Courier Six so she tempered herself a bit more by downing the rest of her cocktail. "What the hell do you mean cheaper?"

He reached over and took the empty glass from her hand. "It's cheaper to get rid of one big sum'bitch than a hundred little fuckers just to get the same result. That's too many bodies clogging up the underground and that ain't good for everybody on the surface. Not to mention, that girl got a free lesson on the realities of that tournament life she grew up with."

She sunk into the lounge. "... You mean...if Pyrrha didn't take that match...you were going to have to kill more people."

He rose and thudded back to the bar. "Not something I like doing."

Yang couldn't argue with that. She recalled how he never once smiled during the whole ordeal with the Thorn. At best, it looked like he was itching to cleave Red Lucy's head off. "... I hate that you have to do stuff like that."

"Necessary evils, Blondie."

She curled upon the couch, not liking the bitterness in her stomach. This was it. This was really it. This was the reality of the world she jumped into without much thought...because she was in it for the thrill. The fun of the fight, the adrenaline rushing through her veins, the excitement from the adventures of being a Huntress...

...except she was a Huntress-in-training in a world where Grimm were replaced by the worst kinds of people to ever share the same air she breathed. Slowly, a familiar voice in her head starting taunting her. That same voice that she imagined from what little hazy memories she could recall. The voice of her mother...

...calling her a fool for leaping into the pool before learning how to swim.

Shut up, mom!

Her mother snickered and resumed the onslaught. Taunting her, denigrating her, taking pride in having left the family for reasons that were above her...

Shut the fuck up, mom!

"Yang."

She righted herself on the couch, gasping in front of Six holding two glasses of orange juice. Shakily, she took hers.

"Th-thanks," she muttered.

"Almost had a bad dream there," he remarked.

"Something crossed my mind, that's all." As Yang set down her glass, she saw something reflected against the window pane. She turned to Six. "... Your hands. They're shaking."

He cupped them. "It happens."

"You're...having withdrawals, aren't you?"

Six glowered at her. "Just the shakes, is all."

Yang nearly whistled. She had to give Weiss some serious credit. Her prissy teammate managed to actually knock Six's chronic alcoholism down a peg, if not out of his system. And that brought back warmer memories of an old home remedy for these types of jitters.

"Wait here," she said, jumping to her feet and rushing up to the bar, caring not to slip given how tipsy she was at this point.

Minutes of rummaging later, she returned with a large glass of water and an unopened bottle of Nuka-Cola. Both of which she set down in front of him.

"Drink these," the blonde instructed. "I would've preferred anything other than Nuka-Cola but Sunset Sarsaparilla was way too sweet and at least this one does the job better than anything else I could find so...yeah."

"Lots of fluids, here, Blondie."

She planted her hands on her hips. "That's because you need them. You're drying up and without all the booze you've been chugging, you're body's—"

"Reacting negatively, I know," he grunted. "Don't need to hear it from you."

"Well, there aren't any doctors around and that shaking of yours is..." It was bringing back memories of her own father slumped over the dinner table surrounded by a cemetery of bottles. "... Well, it's making me worry."

"You kids never stop worrying, do you."

Yang rolled her eyes. "We can't help it."

Six exhaled and for a quick moment, he let the ghost of a smile grace the corner of his lip. "I guess that's a good thing 'bout having you around."

The blonde snickered, bucking her hips. "What can I say? We're good company."

"Is that how you were raised back home?"

Back home. Yeah. Things were different back home. Wherever home is now. Yang slackened and sat back down, her eyes glossy while recalling the many fond summers spent with Ruby and her father back in Patch. "... Yeah. Good times."

"... Still homesick?"

Pretty much. Glancing back outside, she nearly imagined the city of Vale down below with the rest of the wasteland shrouded in vibrant greeneries. "Now that you mention it, I am...a bit."

"That why you can't sleep?"

She shook her head. "More like...a little peeved. Peeved at you for forcing Pyrrha into that match and...and peeved at a bunch of other things. But now? Now, I...I don't even know why I'm angry. I don't even know why I want to keep being angry. It's just...there's a lot of stuff on my mind and...and..."

Yang dropped onto the lounge with her head into her hands.

"... I needed a break from myself, I think. Fuck, what is wrong with me?"

"... You know, this one lanky noodle once told me not too long ago," the Courier started, "about two girls who lost their mothers."

She raised her head.

"Ruby's too busy running around to get it through to her head that some people just ain't ever coming back." He met her gaze with his own. "I wonder though if her sister's in the same boat."

"What are you—"

"Blake's got a hundred restraining orders on some stubborn psychotic prick with a chip on his shoulder and Weiss is far enough away from some frosty son of a bitch what calls himself a businessman. Which makes me wonder..."

Yang felt those green orbs dig into her soul.

"...if you're running away from something too."

She wasn't running away from anything.

She wasn't even the one running away.

In fact, as she slammed her hands on the table, she had a mind to correct him about who was running away from who.

"Raven left," she hissed, her tears spilling onto her knuckles. "I...I want to know why."

"Raven, huh. Your mother?"

Yang seethed. "She was the one running away. She ran away from family. She ran away from dad. She ran away from me. Left without a notice or anything. She...sh-she... If it wasn't for what she did, dad wouldn't have been the slumps so hard that...that..."

"That?"

She paused to calm herself. When she opened her eyes, she faced her own reflection in the window. Her hair was a mess, there were droplets of liquor on her top, and her lilac eyes were weighted by the streaks running down her cheek. All in all, she looked great...for a wreck.

"Dad was a wreck," she rasped. "How ironic that the big, strong dragon of the family's the one with the weakest heart. He confided in his team, first and foremost. Ended up with his best friend Summer Rose...Ruby's mom...the mom that Raven should have been."

Yang let out a bitter chuckle.

"Funny that cliché. You lose someone and you hook up with your support group." She sniffled. "I'm not saying I didn't like Summer for swooping in like that but if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have had an amazing baby sister and a...a really amazing mother who...filled that gap that Raven caused. To think we'd finally forget about her and move on with our lives. But, like you put it, some people just aren't coming back."

"What happened to that woman? Summer, right?"

"She went on a mission and...never returned. With our parents' line of work, it was a no-brainer what the records were going to say after months of...fruitless searching." The blonde wiped her cheeks dry. "Dad sunk back into his old habits quick. He didn't even realize he had two daughters who were watching him puke blood 'cause he kept chugging shot after shot after shot to forget..."

Six slowly sat straight. "How old were you?"

"I was four and Ruby was only two. The week after that, I decided to start my own search, to find Raven, a missing Huntress. Not something a four-year-old was supposed to do, huh, especially when said Huntress is good at popping in and out of the conflict zone like that. But being a kid, you'd even take the breadcrumbs, y'know? So I waited for Dad to leave the house, put Ruby in a wagon, and headed out. I must've walked for hours, I had cuts and bruises, I was totally exhausted, but I wasn't gonna let anything stop me. When I got there, I could barely stand, but I didn't care; I'd made it. And then I saw them. Those burning red eyes..."

Beside her visage in the window appeared the Courier, a friendly stranger in a dirty duster, six guns on his person, ugly scars marring his bearded face, and a pair of green eyes peering out into the horizon.

"There we were: a toddler sleeping in the back of a wagon and a stupid girl too exhausted to even cry for help. We might as well have been served on a silver platter. But then our uncle showed up just in time. Lucky us, huh."

"Luck," Six echoed. "More like he was a responsible adult."

"I know, right? It was a really dumb thing to do looking back on it now. We almost died if it weren't for...for Qrow."

Down below, New Vegas lit up even brighter, obscuring the part of the Courier's face that scrunched up in thought.

"Several years of my life spent searching for my own mom... I let it control me. And it got me into some sticky situations, got me in some nasty places, almost got me arrested more than a girl my age should've been. Then I realized...that I was only tearing myself apart piece by piece." Shrug. "What good am I if I end up destroying myself in the process?"

Six hummed in agreement.

"I knew she was still alive...she was still out there. And maybe when I get to her, I could finally ask why. Was it me? Was it dad? Or was it...her?"

The reflection beside her popped the cap off the bottle of Nuka-Cola.

"Maybe that's the real reason why I was such the troublemaker as they say," she chuckled mirthlessly. "Maybe it wasn't because of the action or all that stuff... Maybe I just really wanted an excuse to vent...an outlet for all this pent-up anger and frustration and, and, and..."

"... And your dad?"

"Fell apart, picked himself up again, and did his best to raise us." Her lips curled into a sad smile. "To think that I had to stomach watching my dad be so... I've...I-I'd never seen him so broken before."

Yang rubbed her arms for a long while until turning to the Courier looking past the city skyline, perhaps past the dry mountains and sandy hills of the Mojave Desert.

"Yeah," he choked out. "fallin' apart isn't usually something we do."

Blink, blink. "We?"

"Now that you're here...you still gonna look for her?"

She scoffed. "As if she'd end up in a place like this."

He shrugged. "You sure as hell did."

"Not like I wanted to."

"You've been liking it so far."

Yang walked away from the window. "I really sound like a hypocrite, huh. Here I was thinking how awesome the wasteland is...how badass and how crazy fun things could get...then we get into the killing and..."

"Grimm can't be the only thing you huntin' folk go after," Six echoed. "To get to the geckos and the bighorners, sometimes you'd have to clear out the raiders getting in your way."

"Wish they'd tell us that before sending us out on our first training missions," the blonde groused, recalling the fracas that was Mountain Glenn. Thank goodness they had a chaperone and Zwei, too. But out here?

"Some things you learn out in the field better than in a classroom." He paced over, taking quick swigs off of his cola. "One that I learned from eating sand for breakfast growing up: when someone does something, there's a reason. It ain't always pleasant but whatever it is that made your mom take a hike—"

"What good reason is there!?" she shrieked, nearly slamming her fists against his chest. "For my whole life, I've thought of every single reason that she could have possibly had that made her leave us!"

"I never said it'd be a good reason," the Courier repeated calmly.

Yang slumped against him, her shoulders shaking as she broke down completely.

He sighed, ruffling her hair. "Yang, some people do what they do because they have to. Others simply 'cause they could. And others, well...it's out of their hands."

"I just don't want to be left alone like that again," she whimpered, sobbing against his shoulder.

Six wrapped his arm around her. "... I know, sweetie. I know."

First Cat-girl, then Snowball, now Blondie. Huh, I wonder how long until Hyper's going to come crying to me about something I don't right fucking know. Christ, this ain't just babysitting; this is therapy! But he couldn't really complain because he was already carrying Yang in his arms towards the elevator. She finally tuckered herself out and it was time to tuck her in. Surprisingly, she was about as light as a sack of potatoes.

Eventually, the elevator doors hissed open and Victor was there to greet him. "Howdy, Major!"

Six returned with a nod.

"Need help with her?"

"Nah, I got this." She ain't that heavy. Besides, I don't want your rusty-ass pincers squeezing the life out of her.

Though the penthouse had a massive floor plan, the rooms were at least closer to each other. Six paused to close the door to the recreational parlor where Nora's pickled purchase sat on the shelf alongside Yang's severed souvenir. Raul's almost done with that chopper. May have to fiddle with that deathclaw hand, too. Rawr was a tough son of a bitch but I'm not mad about that fucker dying.

After all, it took him immense effort to lure Rawr out of the Divide and into the trap that Red Lucy's hunters spent weeks preparing. How fitting that the monster went down in a glorious bloodbath at the hands of one of his own. No. Pyrrha's not my bloodline. None of them are. But...they're still my kids... And I'm proud of her for that.

Sure, keep tellin' yourself that.

Had to be done.

She's pretty shook up 'bout it. That look in her eyes, that same look that'll kill a person from the inside. Sparta ain't gon' last if you keep throwin' her into more shit like that—

I know what I'm doing, me.

His own voice chuckled back. Ain't that the truth.

The Courier paused to clear his head. And for the next moment, he heard Yang's soft snoring against his chest. Looking down at her, he was struck by how fragile she was. A wild girl with fiery fists of fury was curled up like a defenseless baby in his arms. Like a firecracker that got soaked. God, what I'd do to your mother if I ever meet her.

Quietly, he eased inside team RWBY's quarters and navigated through the darkness until he reached the empty bed. He then gently laid her down, pulled the covers over her, and brushed a few stray strands off her face. No one's going to leave you this time, kid. Nobody's leaving anybody alone. Not anymore.

"Goodnight, Yang," he whispered. I'm not going to make that same mistake again.

After cleaning up the bar and disposing of the empty bottles, the Courier slinked back down to the lounge near the windows with a glass of water. It was two in the morning and his mind was thankfully free from any headaches tonight. New Vegas still beat its sinful heart down below, not caring for the storms brewing outside its fortified walls.

"What a view," he muttered.

Sure is. Look at all those ants down there carvin' out a living in this golden oasis o' yours.

He scowled at his reflection. I ain't the goddamn overlord of this city.

There ain't much of a difference between you an' House though.

Yeah, well, unlike that self-righteous son of a bitch, I ain't a rotting corpse in a time capsule playing God and giving orders to gullible fuckwits.

An' now that gullible fuckwit's at the top o' the food chain tryin' to keep his 'precious kids' from getting what's due 'em. The man in the window bared his teeth. If it ain't the NCR comin' for 'em, it'll be the Legion. And past that, there's a lot more folks out there itchin' for a piece o' the Vegas Wonder Kids.

Let them come.

Quit deludin' yourself, growled Old Green Eyes. You ain't no saint. Survival's the game here and those kids are just weighin' you down. You keep up with this illusion of bein' their daddy an' this'll be the last time you'll get this kind o' view.

Major Theodore Vickers shook his head and cupped his glass tightly to still the trembling in his hands. If that's how it's going to be, then at least I'm going down a happy man.

He looked back up at the window pane to see the demon gone.

Hell, these kids got a lot more baggage than I thought. Courier Six chuckled at his own image. I don't know why but I think my shit list just got longer.

Neo could not have been any luckier.

These NCR troopers showed up right on time, saving her hide, and finally bringing her to safety. Safety here being a ramshackle military outpost with a massive graveyard, strained logistics, and troops who were just in it for the money and eager for a ticket home. So this was the glorious republic she had heard about.

At least, they weren't all bastards.

Like this group of apparently 'elite' snipers who were touted as the 'last thing you would never see.' Neo almost rolled her eyes at that boast. They were competent though—in fact, she'd admit they were damn good at their job of taking out their marks at a thousand yards—and she was so far enjoying their company. Which was the least she could do for them since they did technically rescue her from the herd of deathclaws in the promontory.

They even covered her when she took a chance and leapt into the Colorado River, hell bent on swimming across, nausea and aching muscles be damned. Because she was downright terrified for her life at that point. And she was still rattled by it even though it was only yesterday.

Good thing the squad that picked her up were looking out for her, even arguing for her own tent separate from the others pitched here at Camp Forlorn Hope as well as giving her some proper medical treatment for her radiation sickness...which, to her horror, had progressed to a such a serious stage that the army medics looking her over claimed that it was a miracle she hadn't either dropped dead or started to 'ghoulify.'

Neo could only shrug when she was repeatedly asked how she was still alive. Like she could explain to these numbskulls what Auras and Semblances were and how she was probably one of the very few people in this whole universe that had those and then some. She was glad they went straight to business and patched her up as best they could.

So far, these NCR folks were really good people. Like Lieutenant Gorobets who greeted her first thing the following morning with a warm mug of coffee and some biscuits.

"Good morning, Miss Polis."

'Polis.' It had been a long time since Neo last resorted to that monicker. She couldn't really remember where it came from but it was one of the first aliases Roman had her use when they pulled their first scams over a decade ago.

"How are you feeling?"

Neo shuddered and wrapped the blanket tighter around herself, making sure her face told him everything he needed to know.

He nodded. "I see. Has your medication given you any problems?"

Other than making her woozier than she already was while constantly pissing out these fucking isotopes, she was dandy. She was still feeling dangerously frail, which was seriously affecting her Aura reserves and making it difficult to use her Semblance, but no one here needed to know any of that. So she jotted down a few words on the pad she was given and showed it to the officer.

"Good to know. Well, I have some good news for you, ma'am. You're going to be transferred to a better place. Much safer than here and where...you'll be taken care of."

That sounded less like good news and more like a rehearsed spiel to kill the jitters. Neo wrote down a question to which Gorobets did his best to look reassuring.

"You'll be fine, ma'am. That place is as solid as a fortress with better amenities and, heh, better food than what we got here."

She raised her brow; Lieutenant Gorobets was clearly pulling a good-cop shtick on her.

"You'd even get a good view of the lake. Largest, cleanest body of water for miles."

If she recalled correctly, that would be Lake Mead. So she was going to be transferred to a place with a good view of Lake Mead. That didn't sound too bad. Though it was still sketchy that she was being kept in the dark on this one.

"We'll be leaving later this afternoon," the lieutenant concluded. "We'll be your escorts."

She didn't dislike their company (yet) so she decided to play along. But that did not mean that she was as trusting of them as the Imperium refugee she was disguised as. So when he left her tent (and after she gobbled up her coffee and biscuits because holy shit she was dehydrated and dying for something other than raw mutant meat), she pulled out the pistol she pilfered from one of the patrolling soldiers last night and pulled back on the slide.

Nine millimeter. Decent stopping power. Had a bit of age to it but it looked well maintained. Nothing too dissimilar to the Legion's guns. Tucking the weapon back under her shirt, she made a mental note to grab herself some extra ammo and a bunch of other supplies just in case. And maybe snoop around and see if the Republic knew about Roman; he had to be here, at least. When the master thief of Vale vanished during the coordinated attack on Beacon, Neo refused to accept that he was well and truly gone. There was no body; just his hat that she still carried with her. If she ended up here, then he might have as well. There could be no other explanation.

Besides, if the NCR couldn't give her the answers she was looking for, she had recently learned about another group that could: the Vegas Wonder Kids. And to go after them meant having lots of cash, a whole armory, and some powerful friends to back her up. Because other than the Republic, the Imperium, the heat, the radiation, and the mutants, there was one more giant standing in her way.

And Neo doubted that she—an exhausted, irradiated, ill-equipped assassin with fluctuating Aura reserves and a versatile but limited Semblance—could stand up to the man who decapitated the Imperium and shook the Legion to their very core. This was the type of person that Roman would have wanted her to stay away from and definitely someone that Cinder would have wanted on her payroll.

But Neo wanted answers; she wanted her friend, her only family, back. No government, no army, no glorified Huntsmen, and certainly no overhyped mailman was going to stop her.

She didn't want to be left all alone anymore.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: November 20, 2020

LAST EDITED: June 25, 2021

INITIALLY UPLOADED: June 24, 2021

NOTE: (June 24, 2021) Back in the saddle, back in New Vegas.

-~oOo~-

(June 25, 2021) Thanks to some reviewers for bringing up an important detail regarding Yang's exposition here. I admit that was on me. I went and rectified it and hopefully I used the proper phrasing this time. Eagle-eyed readers, keep doing your thing and let me know if I may have made a mistake here or there. :)