"This way, ma'am," ushered Lieutenant Gorobets.
Neo kept in pace with the First Recon squad, playing up her disguise as a traumatized Imperium refugee (as if she herself wasn't actually traumatized enough with all the shit she had been through up to this point).
"You're a really lucky girl, you know that?" quipped one of Gorobets' men, a sour-looking guy named Bitter-Root. "Escaping the Legion, wandering the wastes for weeks, and ending up in a deathclaw den with safety just across the Colorado right as we were spotting for Legion scouts."
Another marksman (or markswoman) slapped him across the shoulder. "Hah! Sarcasm ain't a way to a girl's heart, you know."
"I wasn't flirting with her, Betsy."
Betsy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Pretty young thing though, have to admit."
Neo rolled her own eyes. Professional jokers, these 'elite specialists.' Then again, none of them didn't go further than the catcalls.
"Load up, people," Gorobets hollered, opening the backplate of the covered military truck that would be ferrying them to Fort Mead on the other side of Hoover Dam.
"I-it's o-okay, ma'am," stuttered the bespectacled Ten Of Spades. "You'll b-b-be safe th-th-there."
Neo wondered how safe. Because she could still fight her way out if things would ever go south. It felt strange since she expected to be taken further inside the NCR's borders, like that shiny city New Vegas with all their brightly-lit casinos and high-class living. But, she was still being processed by the book so she guessed that the rest of the paperwork was being handled at Fort Mead. And she supposed it was more pragmatic to be in the company of other 'Imperium refugees,' than anyone else.
Halfway during the ride, Neo pretended to fall asleep. A few minutes later, she heard Bitter-Root confide to his colleagues about her not being 'collared like everyone else.'
"Relax, I don't think they'd slap one on her when we get there," Betsy dismissed.
"I wasn't saying they would. Would they?"
"High up our pay grade to be asking those questions," crowed the oldest of the bunch Sterling.
Bitter-Root groaned. "I'm still on the fence about it. Keeping all those people locked up and still having those things on their necks...pokin' 'em like animals in a cage."
Betsy huffed. "Well, we can't get their collars off. Besides, would you run the risk of their heads going off if we keep trying?"
"Point. Though I still think we should be pumping in resources into R-and-D to figure out how to at least get them off."
Ten Of Spades stammered. "I'm s-s-s-sure the brass is on the c-c-case."
Snort. "Wonder how long that'll take."
"Depends on who's in accounting," Sterling snickered. "Believe me, it's always accounting that slows things down."
Neo hoped things would speed up. Though it was pretty odd that some of the other Imperium refugees she had heard about were still collared and contained in their own little tent city. That and the rest of the conversation turned into a mild debate about whether or not Courier Six had turned on the Republic after a botched mission in a place called the Divide.
Qrow slumped down against the ramshackle door of the small cave he had been using as his personal storage closet. The fact that there were lots of these abandoned mountain hideouts spread across the Mojave made him wonder how many groups of people were living here before the NCR (or the Imperium) showed up. Still, he was glad he found a few that were largely forgotten and clearing them out wasn't too difficult. But running a racket like this was tiring. Moving around so many supplies in a desert worse than Vacuo on his own was painfully dehydrating, alcohol set aside. Besides, he couldn't always fly to Lake Mead to get a clean drink every single day.
And that was on top of the fucking isotopes that were nearly everywhere. What this world lacked in Dust, Aura, Semblances, and Grimm, it made up for in the unseen poison called 'radiation' and the leftovers of some thermonuclear war two hundred years back. Thank the Brothers, Remnant didn't have this...yet.
The veteran Huntsman lifted up his arm. This Pip-boy was a bit on the heavy side but it was so goddamn useful compared to his now dead scroll. At least Contreras wasn't bullshitting about this kind of technology, rare as it was out here; Courier Six himself had one and made the most out of it.
"Rads are down," Qrow muttered to himself. "Shit, I need a fucking drink."
Ridiculous as this S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system was, it simplified monitoring his vitals. A few minutes later, he trudged down the trail and hiked out of the ridge until he reached the perch that had a good view of Lake Mead all the way to the Strip and beyond.
He almost had everything he needed to help Winter and Glynda break those collars off (he hoped). But that was only the beginning. There were still over a dozen more people that needed their help and when they finally did break free, where the hell were they supposed to go? Because the NCR sure as hell hadn't been so hospitable and he doubted they would be so graceful when they would be rounding them up again.
The Strip was the riskiest because that whole paradise was effectively under the control of Courier Six and everyone from the locals to the NCR to the Legion to even the drugged-up junkies talking to the mutant geckos all knew it. Governor Dennis Crocker, whose office was literally inside the Strip's walls, was proving to be more of a showman than an actual administrator with nearly all of his subordinates being more loyal to the messenger.
On the other hand, Freeside, Westside, and all the other surrounding communes were crawling with NCR troops and informants. There were also the more autonomous towns of Goodsprings, Primm, and Novac. They were isolated enough and fairly inconsequential to the Republic's grand strategy that almost no NCR presence was there save for the occasional patrol or the gang of soldiers on furlough passing through.
At least, that was as much as he was aware of courtesy of Sergeant Daniel Contreras.
Speaking of whom, he needed to get back to the guy to cap off this leg of today's operation. So he jogged to the end of the outcrop and leapt off the edge, gliding down ten feet before flapping his wings and soaring over the skies with the warm Mojave winds brushing against his feathers. McCarran Headquarters was still a long flight away and he could use a pit stop just to get a breather.
So when he spotted the glint of steel below him, he swooped down and landed on the pitching set up near the old familiar shack belonging to this cranky old ghoul that he had recently been having fun messing with. Besides, Raul Tejada—the remaining member of the vaunted Vegas Nine other than Courier Six still active here in the Mojave—wasn't bad company...despite trying to fry him for dinner that one time.
That two-hundred-year-old mechanic was still working on this beautiful beast of a motorbike, growling its revolutions-per-minute at a melody that would have made Yang squeal with excitement. In fact, all that was needed was a yellow paint job and it would have been a fitting extension for his fiery niece.
"Oh. It's you again," grunted the ghoul. "Dios Mio, what do you want now?"
Qrow tilted his head.
"Hungry again, cabron? You can pick off some of the scraps from the garden but not my produce."
The corvid flew over to the small vegetable patch flourishing beside the shack. It was really nice to have something juicy to munch on. So with a beak full of barrel cacti, he flapped over to the chopper that Raul was cleaning up, much to the latter's chagrin.
"¡Vamos! This isn't for you."
He flew away for five seconds before planting himself again on the backseat.
"What is it this time? Aren't you full yet?"
Technically, he was still kind of starving but there was no way he was going to tell this ghoul that.
"Look. Can you just...scoot over? This is a special project."
Special project, eh? Qrow hopped off and perched himself back onto the nearby posting.
"Still sticking around?" The ghoul shrugged. "Eh, nothing to lose when talking to a bird. Not like you can tell this to anyone, anyway."
That depends.
"This here masterpiece you're standing on is a commission for someone special. A little chica de fuego who can fry you to a crisp if you mess with her, hah. Touch her hair though and she'll roast you with her bare hands. I'm serious. Literally turn into a little demon with the flames and the red eyes. Like magia, you know?"
That...hold on. Was this ghoul talking about Yang? Qrow edged a little closer.
"Interested, now?" The mechanic chuckled, gesturing at the polish glinting off the curves of the motorbike. "Beautiful machine this one. Paid in full by my best client. And probably the only one wouldn't shoot me in the back in this whole county. Then again, not everyday you get to be on the good side of a mailman who could shoot just as good as you, eh?"
So Courier Six commissioned this living, rotting guy shacked up smack dab in the middle of nowhere to build this roaring piece of work...for Yang? That...there had to be strings attached. What was this guy's game?
"Well, it's more like a surprise present, you know? To compensate for his temper, I guess. Or pride. Or stubbornness. That pendejo. He won't admit it but he'd rather die than see those kids of his taken away. And if you ask me, I wouldn't mind any more secret projects for the others. Though I don't know how I can build on that scythe-rifle little Señora Rosa swings around."
Interesting. So the guy really was looking out for the kids...
"He's a good man. Just flawed. Like the rest of us. He's made mistakes and, funny enough, this is his way of making it up to that little firecracker." Raul shook his head. "If only he'd swallow his damn pride and tell her straight that he simply cares. Ah, but you know how stubborn we old school gunslingers are, eh?"
Very stubborn, Qrow would imagine. He wouldn't consider himself old school by most standards (unorthodox, yes) yet he could discern what kind of a man his quarry was turning out to be. Nine kids from Beacon pampered in a golden cage by a bitter mailman with a hair trigger and over two dozen other Remnant refugees collared like animals in tents inside a military fort by a paranoid general. The Huntsman relocated to the gutter above the doorframe.
"You gonna go now, cabron?"
Not yet. He still wanted to milk a bit more info from this ghoul.
"Go do your business elsewhere. I'm not in the mood to clean up my front porch after today."
Qrow wanted to laugh.
The ghoul returned to tightening the bolts on the motorbike, grumbling loudly to himself. "Puta, what I'd do for an extra pair of hands."
An extra pair of hands, eh? The black crow flapped his wings and soared away with a mind to properly introduce himself to the ghoul later down the line. After all, he needed a safety net and building up his own network out of the same people that comprised the network of Courier Six was turning out to be a good strategy. Besides, that mailman did the same thing to the NCR since half the people helping to keep all this afloat were deep in the Californian war machine.
Weiss was not at all surprised given who her teammates were.
Obviously, Ruby was not one for cleaning. And, annoyingly, neither was Yang. Apparently, Blake would rather prefer reading in the supply closet rather than clearing it out and with Velvet helping out elsewhere, that left the Schnee heiress with the laundry list of mundane chores that she often delegated to her family's household staff back in Atlas. But they were not in Atlas and the only extra pair of hands present was a heavily-armed battle-robot specializing in security, cocktails, jovial cheer, and nothing else.
On top of that, the Courier was not in the mood for any excuses and expected all this work to be done by the time he was back from...wherever it was he had gone off to.
"I wonder how JNPR is faring," the heiress later mused out loud as the miniature Arma Gigas she conjured began harassing her lazy teammates into helping her out with cleaning up the Lucky Thirty-Eight penthouse suite.
Velvet may be a year ahead of her peers but she was still as green as they were when it came to the horrors of the wasteland. What she was not so green about was the oft understated tolls that came with the Huntsman career. Though they were not on Remnant, the Wasteland was just as bad (if not arguably worse in some aspects) and the rabbit faunus had been through enough training missions to recognize the signs of trauma.
Her junior Pyrrha Nikos may not be showing it (owing to the redhead's rigorous upbringing as a tournament fighter) but there was only so much self-control one could exercise before a minor tic would undo the entire facade. In this case, it was the girl's uncharacteristic silence that meant that something was wrong. And Velvet had known Pyrrha long enough to consider the latter's extended wordlessness as completely uncommon for someone so meek and occasionally stoic.
And the redhead was spacing out again.
The rabbit faunus tapped her on the shoulder. "Pyrrha? Are you alright?"
"Yes, yes. Of course. I'm fine, thank you," she replied unevenly.
That was a well-intentioned lie. "You've been spacing out a lot."
"I have? Oh my. Um, sorry."
"You don't have to be."
"Huh?"
Velvet pinched the bridge of her nose. "Have you been sleeping well?"
Pyrrha turned away. "I guess you could say that."
"Bad dreams?"
"... No?"
"... Is it about the fight?"
No response. That and the trolley of cleaning supplies they were pushing down the hallway of the Lucky Thirty-Eight hotel was moving on its own.
"Pyrrha, if you need to get something off your chest—"
"I don't think now is the right time," the freshman choked out.
The sophomore nodded and backed off. "Okay. That's okay. I understand. You know that we will always be here in case you need an ear to listen."
The smile that came back was tinged with a bit of pain and that was enough to prompt Velvet to switch gears. She was pushing her limits now and had stoked a bit of tension. Time to diffuse.
"Anyway, so..."
"...how are you and Jaune doing?"
Pyrrha nearly froze up at the inquiry and, in the process, almost tripped over the trolley. Then she remembered that her not-exactly-romantic-but-not-really-platonic-either relationship with her partner was an open secret now and that everybody had been expecting something to (finally) happen between them since the first month of Beacon so...
"We're on very good terms," she replied nervously. "Healthy and normal, ha-ha!"
Velvet gave her a disbelieving look, the feather duster resting on her hip. "Define normal."
Pyrrha had no idea. "... We hold hands every now and then."
"And?"
"... We hug each other sometimes."
"Is that it?"
"... Yes?"
The upperclassman sighed. "What do you really want from him?"
Good question. And one that the redhead had been struggling to answer for weeks now. "... I don't actually know. I only felt...something pulling me to him."
Velvet smirked. "Like a magnet?"
Pyrrha smiled back. "He stood out among the rest. Someone who saw me not for my image or my fame but for who I really am...as a normal person...like everyone else. And...and I guess you could say that I have always wanted that from the beginning."
The rabbit faunus beamed at her. "I can understand where you're coming from. But now that Jaune's already acknowledged what you feel towards him—"
She hid her face behind her hair. "Was I that obvious?"
She received a very flat look. "Very."
"I'm sorry!"
"Pyrrha. Are you going to be staying where you are with him or are you planning on going any further?"
"Wh-what ever d-do you m-mean?"
The rabbit faunus sighed into her palm. "If someone were to suddenly whisk your partner off his feet in a romantic getaway—"
Every piece of metal in the corridor, even those fastened to the décor and the furniture, loudly shifted by at least an inch.
Velvet nodded. "Okay. Before that possibility were to ever become a reality, what are you going to do?"
Pyrrha literally shied away. "I...don't know."
"Look, I'm not asking you to pursue him, um, aggressively. But you two are clearly dancing around each other and we all see it and frankly it's getting a little tedious."
"I-is it?"
"Syrup has been shoving you two into each other every chance he gets. Without Nora even pushing him."
"Oh."
Sigh. "Seriously, do you want Jaune to be your future husb—err, I mean—lifetime partner? And I know you know what I really mean by that."
Stutter, stammer, squeak.
The faunus upperclassman shook her head, set aside her feather duster, pushed the trolley aside, and sat her junior down on one of the settees in the corner lounges of the hotel. "Girl, we need to talk about your social skills...and everything else past that."
Jaune and Ren hefted the remains of the broken slot machine that they had cannibalized for usable parts (or what they thought were usable parts) and tossed it into the backroom of the bar where they had been disposing of all the machinery that Syrup had chewed through yesterday. While Six was peeved by the mess, it was not much of a loss to him. Though, he did sternly instruct them to salvage everything they could from what was essentially was now scrap metal and segregate the parts into the large metal boxes scattered across the casino floor of the Lucky Thirty-Eight.
That resulted in some serious back-breaking work...that could have gone smoother if Nora actually pitched in more than she babied Syrup. Still, she did help...keep the infant deathclaw from making things worse.
"Whew! That was a work-out, huh," she chirped hours later, the team mascot nuzzling itself against her thigh.
The two boys eyed her warily, their arms aching, their knees buckling, and their shoulders sagging from all the picking and the heavy lifting.
Snigger, whimper, snigger, whimper.
Nora bent down to pat Syrup on the back of his scaled head. "I know, I know. I'm hungry, too. But we don't have much left for chow. Unless you want to eat more nuts and bolts."
The infant deathclaw recoiled at that, mimicking the old hacking noises it made when it regurgitated a lot of mechanical parts...that Jaune and Ren had to scoop up by hand from the pools of slobber and bile.
"Hmm, are there any leftovers in the kitchen?"
Jaune and Ren shared a look before shrugging. Better than taking the infant deathclaw out for a walk and potentially getting into bigger trouble than they had already been through.
"Wow, you guys are really tuckered out."
Both boys shared a silent groan.
"You know what? How about you two head upstairs with Syrup and relax," Nora proposed, grabbing a broom from the corner. "I'll take care of the rest."
The two of them furrowed their brows before they were both shoved into the elevator by the smaller girl, along with Syurp whose leash somehow ended up tangled around Jaune's leg and wrapped around Ren's wrist. Nora waved them off with a wide smile as she began diligently sweeping away all the dirt and junk scattered over the floor.
"Huh," Jaune huffed. "Wasn't expecting that but I'm glad for a break."
"Seconded," Ren hummed.
Syrup made a noise akin to a snicker.
Minutes later, Weiss nearly choked on the glass of water that she cooled with her Semblance when the elevator doors opened and the two boys of team JNPR stumbled out onto the floor of the penthouse suite disheveled, sweaty, and tied tightly together with Syrup's leash...which had somehow come off of the mutant's collar with the mutant itself snuggling up to the heiress with those deceptively adorable black eyes that melted her heart.
Hundreds of meters below ground, in the cavernous level X-4, the Courier slumped against the chair before the main terminal console, his arms weighing heavier than rocks and his brain running on fumes. The brightly lit screens were beginning to compound a budding headache but he had a lot to finish before he could actually retire for the day...or night...whatever.
"Status report on Delilah," he commanded.
Yes Man beamed back on the massive screen with its unnerving smile. "She's sleeping like a baby!"
"No one been pokin' her lately?"
"Other than the routine diagnostic checks and the recent upgrades you and I have been instituting, no one has been bothering her. And I mean all of her!" the AI replied enthusiastically.
"No malfunctioning units?"
"Everything is optimal! All the minor bugs and system errors have been ironed out as usual. If anything, all she needs a facelift."
"Ain't got the time or caps for thousands o' paint jobs."
"Understood," Yes Man chirped. "Would you like to run any of the usual pre-programmed routines?"
Six waved tiredly. "Not today. But I do need to see how we're doin' with our other side-project."
"Ah, the prototype Model-III Tachyonic Molecular Displacement Unit! It's still got some of the same old bugs though but that's nothing a bit more diligence and hard work isn't going to fix, right?"
Yeah, sure. Easy for you to say 'cause you don't have a decaying flesh-bag forcefully infused with enough steel to build a fully-working robot. As if he still had the time and energy to keep working on the man-sized teleporter he spent two whole years rebuilding because the handheld version broke after the fourth use. And that was on top of everything else he had been keeping under wraps...before the kids showed up. But he couldn't really blame them for the delays now, could he?
Goddamnit, I'm getting a headache just thinking about this. And I'm all out of aspirin. "Estimated level of completion?"
"According to my calculations: ninety-seven percent!"
That's three percent of what-the-fuck-am-I-missing. "Please tell me I don't have keep digging up half of Clark County for any more missing parts."
"You could. But you don't seem to be eager to do so."
Really, it ain't obvious that I'm winded, you damn line of code?
Yes Man continued. "However, based on the recent data we've been gathering, I was able to collate a short list of alternative solutions. For one, I estimate a sixty-seven percent success chance—oh, sixty-eight percent success chance—from rewiring the cables."
Hold up, what? Six glared at the giant, glowing screen. "Wait. Are you telling me that I could'a just hot-wired the damn thing from the beginning?"
"Oh, if it would have been a one-hundred percent success chance, I would have told you right away. But you instructed me not to tell you of anything that, and I quote, 'wasn't a hundred-and-ten-percent fucking success rate' which, mathematically, was improbable but, metaphorically, understandable. And you were intoxicated at the time."
Jesus-fucking-Christ on a stick, you fucking simple-minded, creepy-ass, smiling-ass, complicated-ass, way-too-compliant AI! "All this time," he seethed. "I could've just reworked the goddamn wires!"
"If you mean all two-thousand, three-hundred, and eighty-five of them, your chances of success two years ago would have been between one and ten percent with a ninety to ninety-nine percent chance of abysmal failure and potential injury."
The Courier groaned into his hands. "How else did I fuck this up?"
"Well—"
"That was rhetorical. Don't answer that."
"Roger that!"
"What about funds? How're we doing on that front?"
"According to my calculations, your recent expenses are causing you a really big deficit. Wow, you're really burning through your net faster than a satellite launching into orbit."
That's cause I have nine mouths to feed, clothe, shelter, and keep out of trouble...not to mention the damages and bribes...on top of all the other stuff I need for these side projects. "High maintenance expenses."
"I guess that's one way of putting it."
Six rubbed his temples to stave off the impending migraine. He then checked his vitals on his Pip-boy and frowned even more. Been pushing myself too hard lately. I'm gonna be getting more than just the shakes if I don't let up. "Damn. I need some sleep."
"That you do," Yes Man agreed cheerily. "Oh! Standby. It seems we are receiving an incoming call from...Fort Mead."
NCR? "That so? Who is it?"
"Major General James Hsu."
So he's going to negotiate. Right as I'm about ready to hit the sack... Shit, I can't shut down just yet. Going to have to deal with this... Wonder how this is going to go. "Monitor the call," Six ordered, rubbing his eyes clear and sitting up straight in his chair as the transmission alert popped up on one of the many auxiliary terminals lining the walls.
Static.
"[Good evening, Six.]"
"[Can't say I missed hearing you talk, James.]"
Sigh. "[Yes, of course. We both know why we're having this call. To that, I should preface this by letting you know that I know you've intercepted our agents.]"
Grunt. "[You mean my kids.]"
"[They are still operating under our umbrella. We have their contracts signed by all parties and approved all the way up the chain to the president. Technically, they are sanctioned agents of the Republic.]"
"[Technicalities aside, you swindled my kids into doing your dirty work. You have thirty seconds to make your offer before I hang up.]"
"[Very well.]" Multiple footsteps, rustling, and noise from the receiver changing hands. "[Miss Schnee?]"
Inhale. Exhale. "[... Hello?]"
"[Who is this?]"
"[First Lieutenant Winter Schnee, First Specialist Division, Atlesian Army. From Remnant. I believe I am speaking with Courier Six?]"
"[And you expect me to believe you?]"
"[With all due respect, sir, you can ask me something that my sister only knows.]"
"[What happened on her tenth birthday?]"
Soft Inhale. Long, loud exhale. "[... Our father was late to the celebrations. He argued with our mother and fully admitted to having no love for us at all. He only married into the family for our wealth and name and has since used us as nothing more than reusable assets for the Schnee Dust Company.]"
Low, gravelly hum. "[... What do you want?]"
"[... My sister. How is she?]"
"[They're safe and sound. Is there anything else?]"
"[May I speak with her? Please?]"
"[No.]"
Sigh. "[I see. May I...may I ask for assurance that she's being—]"
"[She's fine, lieutenant. As healthy as can be. Well-fed, well-protected, well taken care of. Disbelieve me all you want but that's all you're going to get from me with that line of questioning.]"
"[... Very well. Could you perhaps grant me a request?]"
"[... That depends.]"
"[I don't have anything to my name to offer you but I hope I can appeal to your sympathy. I simply wish to personally see my sister...and her friends as well. As her direct family, I—]"
"[Soon.]"
"[Oh. I see. That's...wonderful to hear. How soon?]"
"[Again, that depends. Do you want me to pass on something to her?]"
"[Yes. Yes, please. Tell her I...]"
Scribble, scribble. Shuffle, shuffle.
"[... Is there anything else?]"
"[That is all. Thank you, sir.]"
"[You're welcome, lieutenant.]"
Rustling. The receiver on the other end of the line changed hands.
"[... Hello?]"
"[Who is this now?]"
"[My name is Glynda Goodwitch. I was the deputy directress and martial professor at Beacon Academy. I was responsible for some of those children's advanced combat training.]"
Deep humming. "[... Yeah, I've heard of you.]"
Relieved sigh. "[I understand that you are taking every precaution with regards to the safety and well-being my former students and with that, you have every right to be distrustful of strangers like me. To that end, allow me to inform you that Miss Rose was admitted into Beacon two years early as she was considered a prodigy after a personal appraisal conducted by my superior at the time Headmaster Ozpin.]"
Grunt. Exhale. Another grunt. "[I see. That ain't something anyone but my kids would know. What do you want?]"
"[Would you likewise grant me a request?]"
"[Fine. What is it?]"
"[Could you help us get free from our slave collars?]"
Silence. Very stiff silence.
"[... Hello? Mister Courier?]"
"[If the NCR can't do it, then I probably can't either.]"
"[Pardon me for asking but have you tried?]"
Unamused snicker. "[Pretty bold of you to throw that at me given your current circumstances.]"
"[Bold and desperate, Mister Courier. Where the Republic may fail, you might succeed. Your service record has made that clear. Your efforts in this regard are what I am asking. Not for my sake but for the sake of the many others like us and the many more who are suffering the same fate.]"
"[That spiel's gotten old, woman.]"
"[Then let me appeal to your sense of duty...and conviction. I know you're not amoral. If you were, none of those children you have in your custody would be alive.]"
"[Pretty cold from a deputy directress training child soldiers.]"
Shaky exhale. "[None of us hold any moral high ground to argue on this. At this point, I'm begging you. It's the only thing I can do. I know you still hold moral sensibilities. You're intelligent, pragmatic, skilled in so many fields, masterful of your specializations... There is no one else who I believe is capable of excelling past the limitations of our NCR friends here. So, please...even if it's a token effort... Your effort still is what I ask.]"
"[... Kissing ass ain't going to win you any brownie points from me, woman.]"
More silence.
"[... But I'll see what I can do...futile as it might turn out to be.]"
"[I-I see. Thank you, Mister Courier. I greatly appreciate it.]"
Rustling and eventually the voice of the commanding officer of all NCR forces in the Mojave area resonated back through the channel. "[Convinced?]"
Snort. "[In case you didn't know, James, 'refugee' isn't a synonym for 'hostage.']"
"[I've never had a better alternative since the outcome of our last meeting. There shouldn't be any more need for violence between us. There are greater threats out there that are more pressing than the various matters we disagree on. And we can't make any headway unless we settle the contracted obligations of teams RWBY and JNPR.]"
"[Uh-huh. Sure. I'm not going to hand my kids over.]"
"[Not without a price. I know you, Six. That's why I'm willing to make concessions. Hopefully peacefully.]"
"[And under sixteen layers of security. I know you, too, James. I was one of you for, what? Five years? Remember those reforms? The ones we kept pushing for because it was our goddamn job when we were 'absorbed' into the Republic? Because we wanted to help? Because as Desert Rangers, it was the least we could fucking do? Last I heard, they're still inchin' slower than an overloaded brahmin crawlin' on two legs.]"
"[Progress is still progress.]"
"[That's what everyone says, don't you think? I suppose you're going to propose neutral ground for this one-on-one you're plannin' between us.]"
"[The Old Mormon Fort in Freeside. No one but myself, my personal retinue, and two Imperium refugees.]"
"[And trucks o' soldiers sittin' right outside the walls. Then again, the Followers are your only real friends here in Clark County...though callin' 'em 'friends' is pushin' it a bit.]"
"[You have your robots and your proxies and I will admit that our influence in here in Vegas remains as dismal as ever. You'll agree that the Followers' camp is neutral ground then?]"
"[Who're you bringing?]"
"[Miss Schnee and Miss Goodwitch.]"
"[Of course.]"
"[I do not want an escalation of violence, Major. I know you had something to do with all the troubles we've been having along the Colorado River. We've lost good men and women civilizing the highways.]"
Scoff. "['Civilizing.' What a word. Like you said, I didn't have a better alternative.]"
"[We can end this petty conflict between us before it gets worse. No more should suffer and die because of this.]"
Snicker. "[Attrition hurts, dun' it?]"
Angry growl. "[Six.]"
Cold grunt. "[I'll see you at the Old Mormon Fort soon, James.]"
Click. Line end.
Qrow Branwen leaned back on his chair while Sergeant Daniel Contreras turned down the dial on the radio that the two had been using to eavesdrop on what was supposed to be a secure line of communication. The next few moments passed quietly with nothing but the creaks of the many layers of sheet metal comprising the supply warehouse at McCarran Headquarters.
"So you're heading to Freeside?" asked the NCR quartermaster, now cleared of all charges (again) due to some technicalities that had suddenly appeared in his case (again).
The latter took a long swig from his flask. "Been awhile since my last check-up."
"Heh. Getting that head of yours picked out by a licensed doctor would do you some good. You really need to get your head straight if you're still thinking about staging a breakout from Fort Mead."
The veteran Huntsman sniggered. "What breakout? I'm just giving the poor folks over there some extra help, you know?"
"By trying to break their collars off right under the NCR's nose." Contreras shook his head. "That place is beefed up to be a castle, didn't you know? Lot of hardened vets stationed there. Hell, Polatli is running the place and he's as sharp as they come. Gorobets, too, with First Recon. Besides, these high-powered tools? They haven't tested any of them on that kind of tech before! Who knows what could happen? The margin of error could be—"
Qrow waved him off. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. Winter doesn't like taking risks but even she knows when to start tossing the dice."
"... I'm starting to think you and those refugees have a long history."
He chuckled. "I'm getting tired of lying, too, Danny. You see, Winter's just fun to mess with, that's all. Glynda, though. Man, she always had a stick up her ass for some reason. Always wantin' to go by the book. Me? I'm more, ah, pragmatic."
The sergeant popped the cap off his own bottle of beer with a smug sarcasm. "Gee, I didn't you know you were one of them. How could I have guessed?"
"Not like you're going to tell anyone."
"Who's to tell?" Contreras chuckled. "Listen, if those Remnant people are coming here to stay, then they'd better get ready for some serious turf wars. Take it from us."
Shrug. "Hopefully it wouldn't get to that part. Most just want to go back home."
"Not with how things are going right now..." The NCR quartermaster handed over the newest supply manifest to grace his desk. "Here. A fresh batch and it's the biggest one to come out of the Hub in the last six months."
Qrow perused the list, clicking his tongue. "High caliber guns, automatic grenade launchers, plastic explosives, and hundreds of thousands of ammo."
"Top of the line. This is stuff that the Gun Runners keep for the highest bidder."
"Including Courier Six?"
Contreras shrugged. "Can't really say what he's got but, when it comes to his personal gear, he usually packs forty-five-seventy government rounds in addition to three-fifty-sevens and the occasional forty-fours and forty-fives."
Whistle. "That's some big game lead. What's he hunting?"
"Man, you name it."
"How many heads you think?"
The sergeant spun away in his chair while whistling at the ceiling. "NCR records say between one and ten thousand. I say they're not giving him enough credit."
The veteran Huntsman folded his arms. "Not enough credit?"
"Yeah. Our records only document what he did after the merger years ago."
"What merger?"
Contreras eyed his associate like a fish flying out of Lake Mead. Then shrugged. "I keep forgetting you're new here. Before I fill you in, I gotta ask: you ever heard of the Desert Rangers?"
"Once or twice," Qrow replied. They did sound like something that would come out of Vacuo though. "Usually the old geezers who talk about them and I don't get to meet a lot of them who don't have a hair trigger."
"Alright. What about Vegas. Know the history of the place?"
"Hey, I'm as much of a tourist as the next guy."
"The old world. You know; the time before the bombs fell."
"Oh." He scratched his head. "No clue, honestly. Sounds kinda stupid, I know. But you get raised out in the sticks and you stick what they teach you."
The quartermaster snickered. "And they didn't teach you about the old world? Man, everybody and their mother knows about the old world."
Qrow raised his hands. "Guess I was one of the guys who didn't get the memo."
"Even the raiders, the junkies, and the kooks snorting gecko shit can tell you a little bit of something from the old world." Contreras shook his head, laughing at himself. "Shit. And I thought you were one of the smarter ones out of those Remnant people. 'Cause those multi-colored folks know jack shit about the wasteland."
Shrug. "Can't know everything."
Snicker. "Better start reading up then. Because everyone here—from the NCR, to the locals, to the raiders, to the Legion, to even the crazy-ass hermits living under a rock—they all know about the Desert Rangers. Living legends dating back to the pre-war days. Small bunch compared to the NCR or the Imperium but smart enough, mean enough, and crazy enough to tame the wastes from Sonora to Wyoming. Technically, they're a dead group. Nearly exterminated by the Legion and the rest absorbed into our military. But their training, tactics, and everything else about them was passed on to us hence the new and improved NCR Ranger Corps. You could say we, ah, 'inherited' the Desert Ranger legacy."
"Alright. So what do these guys have to do with Courier Six?"
Sergeant Daniel Contreras suddenly grew solemn. "He was one of them..."
Blake knew Weiss had a tendency to behave in the manner she was raised: as a taskmaster to her peers. Today, she was reminded of the fact that on worse days, Weiss actually became a literal taskmaster—physically whipping them around with her armored summon (an evolution of her Semblance, apparently) until they finished their assigned 'tasks.'
In this case, the cat faunus was delegated to cataloguing the books on the shelves. All the books on all the shelves in the whole tower (or the parts of it they could access). And she was totally fine with that; she was a bookworm, after all. Ruby and Yang would handle the messier chores (like dusting, sweeping, mopping, latrine duty, all that stuff) while Blake would take care of articles that usually get misplaced every now and then. Weiss, on the other hand...well, she had her own list of things to do that were actually reasonable to a degree so there was no arguing against her.
Funny how she used to be so abhorrent to a Schnee bossing around a faunus. Anyway, back to sorting through all these hardcovers that littered the penthouse study.
Huh, what are these now?
'Nikola Tesla And You,' 'Tumblers Today,' 'D.C. Journal Of Internal Medicine,' 'Big Book Of Science...'
Blake flipped through the pages. Several minutes later, she found that a lot of them were actually useful guidebooks to anyone seeking specializing in a specific skill. Like the this one...
'Lying, Congressional Style.' What a title. Skimming through it, Blake almost laughed at the thought that came to her mind. While she despised the sliminess of politics, she had to admit that some of the stuff she was glossing over would really help someone with a speech impediment...or in Jaune's case, help a bit with his charisma and messy conversational skills.
'Duck And Cover!' Yeah. No brainer who this was perfect for. Nora may be a bit scatterbrained but if it involved explosions, she'd definitely read through a whole catalogue of publications on the topic. After all, she was a fan of that Patriot's Cookbook magazine...to the point that she memorized whole pages...which was kind of scary.
'Grognak The Barbarian' almost flew unnoticed under Blake's radar until she happened to land on a few pages that had some well-written fight scenes. She made a mental note to suggest this to Pyrrha if only to help her get her mind off of things.
'Wasteland Survival Guide.' Written tongue-and-cheek but filled with lots of valid points on survival out in the wasteland as well as a litany of survivalist recipes. Come to think of it, Ren did mention needing a guide to help distinguish all these desert fruits...
'Dean's Electronics' was straight up a technician's manual. It did have diagrams of some interesting devices including a camera that looked a lot like Velvet's.
'Tales Of A Junktown Jerky Vendor' did not seem like much until the cat faunus realized that most of the anecdotes here would be right up Weiss's alley. The heiress was basically raised by a massive business conglomerate and the heiress herself had often been the main negotiator when it came to transactions.
'Chinese Army: Spec-Ops Training Manual.' Interesting. Leafing through the pages convinced Blake that she would have to pull this off the shelf some time later for a more in-depth read. Half of it was written in a language that was beyond her comprehension but at least the other half was translated plus the visuals were clear and concise.
'Pugilism Illustrated.' Yang would definitely get into this. Her partner slept through walls of texts so all these detailed illustrations (including spreads of muscled men with toned muscles all oiled up and flexed to a delicious degree...oh dear) would definitely cement her attention long enough to actually finish the book.
'Guns And Bullets' had the markings of a devoted and studious reader: it had the most folds, the most written notes, coffee (or liquor?) stains, and even a few bookmarks left in some chapters. In fact, Blake had to guess that this was Six's personal copy based on the handwriting...which might annoy him if Ruby ever found about this being the gun nut that their team captain was.
Crash!
"Stop dallying, you dolt!"
"I'm sorry, bestie!"
Blake shook her head. Weiss was getting a bit overboard with her housekeeping that it was actually distracting. Her 'Arma Gigas' looked intimidating enough to actually hurt, Aura notwithstanding, and the heiress sounded like she was having fun taking out her stress on her teammates.
As she reached up the shelf to replace the last book, another crash—much louder—resonated from the corridor. This time, Blake felt the shockwave and she almost thought for a split second that there had been an explosion.
Though she realized, under a pile of more books that had fallen out of an ignorable box at the top of the shelf, that it was just Weiss smacking Ruby around with her Semblance. The cat faunus rose out of the stack and was about to give the heiress a piece of her mind when she noticed that the novel she had picked up from the pile to brain her teammate with had a very familiar title.
Her head snapped to the front cover and her eyes went wide.
'Ninjas Of Love.'
Was this... Was this real? Was this actually...?
Blake looked down to see the others that had spilled out of an unassuming cardboard box that had been knocked from the top of the shelf seconds ago.
'Fifty Spades A Day,' 'Cold Heart/Hot Love,' 'My Sweet Samurai,' 'The Sais Of Passion,' 'The Slutty Lizard Helper, Volume One,' 'The Slutty Lizard Helper, Volume Two.'
Jackpot.
She even recognized some of these titles; half of these masterpieces were from Remnant! Did that mean that Six had been collecting these from across the Wasteland? And was he...was he actually interested in such fine literature? A few of the hardcovers had some wear and tear on them but the rest were largely in immaculate condition! Such care for such opuses...
Blake was too catatonic to focus and it took her a long moment to gather her thoughts before she hastily shoved all these books back into the box. The label scrawled over it read 'for Beatrix/Garrets.'
Huh. She wondered who Beatrix was. Garrets though... The Garret twins in Freeside?
Names to follow up on at a later date. Right now, she needed to secure this treasure chest. The Lucky Thirty-Eight is a massive tower filled with so many other treasures that Six probably wouldn't notice these books going missing. After all, he seemed more a man who was very averse to these works of art. Though she wondered why he was hoarding a lot of them.
Blake slowly eased out of the room with the box in her hands. The corridors were empty—Weiss must have chased Ruby upstairs or downstairs. Oh, well. There were a lot of empty rooms here in the tower so it wouldn't be hard to find one and—
Pinch.
"Ow! Ow, ow, ow!"
"Where do you think you're slinkin' off to with all that?"
"Just decluttering!" she squealed back, her one cat ear throbbing with pain. "Ow! That hurts!"
Six pulled harder on her appendage. "Hand 'em over, Kit."
Why!? "I-it's just some old books!"
"Uh-huh. You ain't one to throw away any book even if the whole damn thing's burned to fucking ash."
"I'm cataloguing all the books here! I'm putting them back on the shelves—ow! Let go, please!"
He did. And he swiped the box off her hands as she massaged her ear.
"Was that necessary!?"
"Yeah," he deadpanned.
"You wanted us to do some housekeeping," Blake growled. "These books were literally scattered all over the place."
Six snorted, hefting up the box. "These weren't. These are some special books that a lot of people'd be willing to pay a fortune for."
Because they were rare masterpieces appreciated by the most refined of tastes, the cat faunus mentally screamed.
"Kit, you have no idea what kind of crazy folk are out there wantin' to get their hands on this stuff. Some of the craziest things I've ever read...but that don't mean I'm just gonna give 'em away for free. Have to make a living, after all."
Wait. Was he...was he planning to sell these off? "Wh-what?"
"It's good business sense, Kit. One thing you gotta learn about the markets is that there's always a demographic for anything under the sun. People pay good money for smut. Especially high quality smut. You'd be surprised where this stuff pops up."
"You're...you're actually going to sell them...?" To who? To who!?
"Of course. I don't read this shit. It ain't up my alley. But there are a lot of people out there who'd eat this up back to back and if they ain't tryin' to slit your throat to get to the caps in your pocket to pay for their fix, they''d be willing to sell the shirt off their backs for this stuff."
"And...you have a buyer?"
"A few...with really fat purses." He then turned on his heel and marched off with the haul. "It's like scavenging except instead of spare parts or workin' tech, it's books."
"Six, wait—"
Too late. The elevator doors closed, leaving a mortified Blake to claw against the metal in vain.
ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: June 22, 2020
LAST EDITED: August 10, 2021
INITIALLY UPLOADED: August 10, 2021
NOTE: Recently, I looked up stuff about Fallout 4 and I was pleasantly surprised that the Institute was really into teleportation technology...which made wonder if they were related somehow to the brains at the Big MT...because (SPOILER) they basically give you a handheld teleporter at the end of the DLC.
I've only played the first 3 hours of the game before my friend packed up his PC and moved back to the States years ago. Haven't had the chance to play the game since.
Also, to the reader who left a detailed critique of this story, thank you. I'm actually grateful that you were clear with your points and what you didn't like about it. I've since learned a lot since 2018 (and the 2020 edits) so I understand how difficult it was to read through the earlier chapters. In fact, looking back, I admit there's been a lot of missed opportunities and mistakes that were made. I try to improve my writing when I can so this was a nice lesson. And if someone can do better with the premise, go ahead. There's always a better author out there. :)