War. War never changes.

In the late 21st century, nuclear fire almost scoured the Earth clean of all life in a battle for diminishing resources. To survive the apocalypse the floundering US government commissioned hundreds of vast underground shelters, called Vaults. In Vault 15, even before the nuclear fires had stopped burning, history repeated itself as the overcrowded Vault divided and fought against itself, staining their small world with the blood of fresh conflict.

As a result, different groups were exiled from the Vault at times, forming raider bands; the Jackals, the Vipers, and the Khans. In time these groups would be forced out of California by the burgeoning power of the NCR, and forced to settle in the Mojave Wasteland. While the great powers of this new world battled for control of Hoover Dam, these petty tribes continued to snap and bite, raiding caravans, homesteads, and each other alike.

Having won the first battle of Hoover Dam, the NCR took a moment to consolidate their power and prepare for future conflict with Caesar's Legion. No longer willing to tolerate the raiders at their back, an operation was prepared to end the Khans at Bitter Springs. Women and children fleeing the battle were mistaken for enemy combatants, and cut down as collateral damage. Among them, an unremarkable member of the tribe, who would rise to create her own legend.

Because war never changes.

Something wet ran past my lips, and reflexively I tried to lick it off, only to taste something warm, metallic and familiar. I opened my eyes, reaching up to find the source of the wound only to hiss in pain when my fingers bumped ragged flesh. My flesh. Head ringing, I sat up, wincing and peering around.

Had I gone blind? It was darkness in all directions, but then I was relieved to see the light of campfires in the distance. I tried to blink, but only one eyelid was working. I could feel my heart beating through it, each pulse causing my head to throb and burn anew.

There was the feeling of grit and sand underneath my thigh. My fingers probed until I found the edge of my pants, and realized that I was wearing shorts for some bizarre reason. In the distance I heard the crack of gunfire and immediately rolled onto my belly, muttering a prayer to the damned false god as I did. But no shield appeared to protect me. At first I assumed my mana reserves were spent, I certainly had the kind of headache for that.

I grasped for the computation orb at my neck, only to find nothing. All I had was a tied rag, and my heart leapt in my chest as I searched around for the Type 97. The middle of a battlefield was the worst place to lose equipment! Desperately pawing at the sand around me, I skittered around on hands and knees before giving up. It was okay, I kept a backup computation orb in my pocket. Only that wasn't there either. Stranger still, my cotton officer's uniform had morphed into a wool lined leather jacket. All I had in my pockets were a few bottle caps, which I scattered to the ground as I kept searching.

The only useful thing I had was the rag around my neck which I rolled up and tied around my head with a muttered curse. It might at least slow the bleeding. It seemed like my entire left eye was missing.

I must have been caught up in a night raid. The enemy had crept up under cover of dark, and I was caught unaware. Without an orb to protect me, a piece of shrapnel or maybe a ricochet had knocked me out, and I'd been left behind in the retreat. Now I was bleeding out in the middle of combat and totally unarmed.

Carefully, I stood up, peering through the shadows to try and see where my men were, or even just to find the enemy. There were stars above, but no moon in the sky. The fires burning in the distance were hundreds of meters away and over a ridge, too distant to cast their light up here. I almost tripped on something, and knelt down to find a shredded corpse. I began searching, hoping for a rifle or anything of use, when I found a small stuffed animal in its hands.

There were children on the battlefield? I couldn't remember exactly what happened before my injury, but had I been quartered with civilians before the explosion? The last I remember, I was in Berun, miserating over some crazy plan the brass had cooked up.

This definitely wasn't anywhere in the Empire, let alone Berun. There was sand everywhere, and the air was cold. Or maybe I only felt cold because I was losing blood, but all the sand made me think I might be back in Africa.

In the distance, there was a loud shout and the dull thunk of a compressed air launcher, and I threw myself to the ground again, sheltering my head. I'd moved without having to think, recognising the cough of a mortar. Suddenly there was light. A white fire, burning so brightly that it hurt my remaining eye to look at it, now hung over the battlefield, and I finally got a clear look at where I was.

This wasn't a battlefield at all. It was a slaughterhouse.

Women and children, some dressed in protective leathers, were strewn about with missing limbs and scattered intestines. The air was filled with the smell of blood and offal, and the wheezing of an old man whose legs had been blown off. None of them were combatants, and the ones who were armed had only small handguns. The terrain was rocky and sandy, with only a few small dry shrubs anywhere in sight. To my left and right were high hills, and in front of me was a gentle slope heading down. Only when I saw them did I notice the smell, not just of my own fresh blood, but the fecal stench of opened guts.

Where was I? What was going on?

Up ahead there was movement as men in uniform pressed forward into the light, rifles lowered and horrified expressions on their faces. They wore dull red berets and tan armor -rare in this war- and their weapons looked surprisingly worn down.

"Shit, they're all civilians!" One of them spat out.

When they spoke, it took me a moment to identify the language, given how strange their accent was. They were speaking Anglish. They weren't from Albion, though. They must have been some kind of volunteer division from the Unified States.

With no computation orb, and no weapon, what choice was left but to surrender? I could hardly run away through the dark when my head was spinning from lost blood. All I could do was raise my hands, and fall down on my backside as I waited to be taken into custody.

Slick warmth ran down the front of my shirt, as I watched the advancing soldiers approach.

"I need a medic." I told them, though my Anglish had a terrible accent.

"Alright, just lay down." An older man with dark skin told me. He had the kind of mustache and gray hair that made him look like a grandfather, and a badge on his cap. "I'm going to put pressure on the wound, I need you to lay still." He turned his head, and said to another fellow who had the same rank insignia, "Varga, go get a medic."

"We're here to intercept any retreating Khans."

"We already did, son. Go."

The fellow leant forwards, putting his weight on my head, which pressed the cloth into the wound and made me hiss in pain. Annoyed by the pitying look in his eye, I couldn't help but try to distract myself from the pain. "It was collateral damage, wasn't it?"

He didn't seem to want to discuss that. All around them, other wounded were being helped, though I didn't see much hope for anyone in view surviving. They were all suffering from much larger wounds than me, and many of them were even younger than I was.

"A rifle round would have gone out the back, I must have been struck by a ricochet."

"Don't speak." The man warned me. "Save your energy, the medic will be here soon."

"You should congratulate your men. They've killed the Devil of the Rhine, after all."

He looked down at me, frowning. "Stay with me now, stay awake."

"Your medics will have to be much better provisioned than ours, to save me from this kind of injury. Have we discovered Penicillin in this timeline?" My smile dropped at the thought. "Why did I volunteer for the army? I should have become a pharmacist instead." Now I was going to die of an infection, even if this man was able to stop the bleeding. Or lead poisoning, the bullet that struck me should still be inside.

"She's losing it!" He shouted over his shoulder. "Where's that medkit?!" He looked back down at me. "Come on now girl, don't give up now. Stay here, focus on me. What's your name? Can you tell me your name?"

I couldn't help but giggle, the sound high and desperate even to my own ears. "You know, it's been so long I don't even remember anymore. I've even forgotten how miso tastes." I was kind of pleased with myself, for not praying to Being X even in my dying moments.

Someone ran up, not with the armband of a medic, but he was carrying a white box with a red cross. I scoffed at it, wondering why they'd bother to waste medicine on me when I was clearly doomed. Better to die now than to linger through a septic infection.

They pulled out some kind of cross shaped syringe and jabbed it into my neck and I gasped at the burning pain that spread across my face. Almost immediately the bleeding stopped. I blinked, shocked to find that I was already feeling better. Confused, I put a hand up, reaching under my improvised bandage to find smooth flesh, mere scar tissue and an empty socket.

"Zum Teufel! What was that?"

"Stimpack." The man answered. "Now roll over."

I was so shocked that I did so without thinking. "I was supposed to die."

"Not if I have any say." The man replied, somewhat coldly. Now I felt cord around my wrists, as he bound my arms together. "Little Miss, 'Devil,' you're my prisoner now."

In retrospect, that stimpack should have been the first clue that I had no idea where I was. The idea that I was fighting the Albish in the Middle East was banished the moment I saw their camp.

Pieces of scrap and tin, crudely nailed together, interspersed with a handful of tents and not a single transport vehicle. There was a large fire in the middle, and a few scattered empty tins of rations strewn around it. That was all normal if a bit disorganized. What really had me questioning my own senses was the herd of hairless two headed cows, meandering about a pen nearby and occasionally making a strained mooing sound. Above it all was a red and white flag, with a two headed bear and text that read, 'New California Republic.'

"Where am I?" I asked my captor, and he gave me a concerned look.

I wasn't the only prisoner here. A handful of the other civilians in that valley killzone had been saved with stimpacks, and some of them even had a slack jawed look of bliss after being injected with painkillers. One of them was clearly no civilian at all, a giant of a man with a blonde mane of hair and huge, calloused hands. Unlike me, he had two of the soldiers watching over him, though he seemed to be in a state of shock as he stumbled to his knees between them.

Both of us were grouped together, tied and watched over as someone that I assumed was a medic came over to examine our wounds. Unlike the traditional red cross armband, this woman had an encircled cross with fleur de lis at the tips.

"He's not wounded." Varga explained. "I think he's just in shock."

The medic dismissed the two of them, focusing on me whose jacket was stained with drying blood.

The man who captured me said, "She's taken a head injury, and the bullet's still in there. I used a stimpack to stop the bleeding, but she's talking crazy. Tried to tell me she was the Devil."

The Medic wrote something down, before crouching down in front of me with a penlight? That was the kind of tool I'd expect a modern doctor to have. "Is Devil a Khan name?"

...A Khan? Instead I cautiously answered. "I am Colonel Tanya Degurechaff."

The doctor and the Corporal exchanged a look, and I instantly knew I had said something I shouldn't have. I suppose I didn't look like a colonel at all, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket. I blinked as I looked down, noticing my body was different than it had been, now that my head had stopped spinning. I had larger breasts now, and was much taller, with skin that was several shades darker, and what looked like lean muscles along my bare arms. For some unfathomable reason, my jacket was unzipped, exposing cleavage that it took me a moment to realize was really mine.

The doctor turned and crouched next to the giant man. "Excuse me. Can you tell me this woman's name?"

The giant man didn't even look up at her, his eyes still fixed on the ground in front of him.

After a few moments, the doctor turned back towards me. She stared at me for a few moments, clearly hesitant to write my name down. "Tanya, can you tell me where we are right now?"

They thought I was brain damaged. It seemed I had been transfigured to another body by Being X, despite his promises to destroy me once and for all. I had to give them an answer that wouldn't make them think I was being too strange. Glancing around for any clues, I noticed the flag waving above the camp. "...California."

"Definitely brain damaged." The medic decided, writing more down. Scheisse. "We're going to need to do additional observation on this one, probably surgery."

"She's a combatant captured in a war zone." Corporal Varga interrupted. "If you say she's stable, then for now that's going to have to do, doc."

She looked upset, but nodded. She ripped the sheet off her chart, before folding it up and tucking it into my dry front pocket. "Tanya, I need you to give this to any doctor who sees you from now on, okay?"

"I'll make sure they get it." The Corporal answered for me.

"Don't worry. I'll do my best to make sure you get the treatment you need." The Doctor replied, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes… Eye? They were being sincere, and it must seem to them I was being strange, with my sudden Germanian accent and complete lack of knowledge about the events leading up to this point.

"Look, Doctor, uh- what was your name?"

"My name is Doctor Usanagi, I'm with the Followers."

Usanagi? I hesitated, before trying some Japanese. "Nihongo we hanase masu ka?" At the woman's blank look, I swapped back to Anglish. "Look, you're right. I've had a head injury. I don't know where I am, but I'm perfectly rational, and clearly not a danger to anyone right now, so spare me the reassurances I don't need. Now, if someone could just explain to me where I am? My memory of recent events is… hazy."

For some reason they didn't seem to change their minds at all after hearing my reasonable words.

It was a moment until I heard someone murmur, "Was that a real language, or just babeling?"

Mein Gotte.

It took some time for me to piece together what happened. It seemed I wasn't in California, but in a place called the Mojave. Nobody seemed to think much about my questions of where inside the vast area of the Unified States it was, but apparently we were, 'Across the Rockies from California.' My American geography knowledge was limited, but even I knew that California was on the Pacific, and there was a large mountain range that ran North to South separating the West Coast from the rest of the Unified States.

As the sun started to come up, I confirmed that I was in a desert, and deduced that the Mojave must mean the large desert in America's southwest. At least this new body was well acclimated to the heat, even as the sun began to bake the ground.

From listening to the conversations about others, I learned that the NCR was the lawful government, and had deployed its army to do battle with some kind of criminal gang, called the Khans. For a bunch of outlaws, the Khans seemed to be damn well armed, because despite military forces being brought to bear, there were still hundreds of Khans up in the hills, fighting from caves and ridges that were well provisioned. The big blonde fellow and I had been chosen to protect the gang's wives, children, and elderly as they escaped through a secret valley pass that only they knew about.

Only it seemed that the pass had been scouted out beforehand by the NCR, and a blocking force was placed there to prevent flanking attacks from the Khans. Rushing headlong into the dark, the fleeing woman and children had been cut to pieces by disciplined fire from soldiers who didn't realize they were slaughtering civilians in the dark.

For me, there were two questions. Why had Being X placed me in this body? Previously, he had sworn that when I died my soul would be destroyed. Maybe he simply half-heartedly erased my memories, only for those memories to come back when I received my head wounds. Or maybe he just wasn't done tormenting me, yet.

In either case, despite having only just woken up in this body, I was too exhausted to be really upset. Being X was a liar and a cheat, and I already knew that. All I could do was feel exhausted contempt for him and his tricks, and hold my outrage for later.

Eventually, Dr Usanagi found time for me again, and paused at the conditions I was being kept in.

"She has a head wound." She said to one of the guards. "I need to take her for further examination."

"She's all yours, doc." One of the men agreed, and I was left alone with the woman.

Dr Usanagi helped me to my feet, leading me away into one of the tents. There were many other Khans inside, women and children outnumbering the men, and more than a few injured NCR troopers, though they were the minority. There were other doctors inside, helping who they could, though not all of them had the same strange armband that Usanagi wore.

"Now, stimpaks can help stop the bleeding." Usanagi explained, unraveling the improvised bandage from my face, and dabbing with a wet sponge to remove the blood. "So it was likely a life saving measure for you, but it has unfortunately closed the wound with the bullet still inside. There might also be some sand and gravel in there, if it was a ricochet. We're going to need to perform additional surgery to prevent the wound from festering. Depending on how much of your eyeball is intact, we should be able to regenerate it."

I blinked. Well, winked. "You can regenerate eyeballs?"

"Yes, we can." Usanagi continued. "Stimpacks stimulate cell growth. With a series of procedures, we can do something very similar at a much smaller, localized scale using micro injections. If we're careful and lucky, we can rebuild your eyeball inside the socket."

"Incredible." I said, and meant it. It was the kind of thing I wouldn't have been able to believe if I wasn't also a mage. Or had been. "Who will be paying for this?"

"The Followers will likely bill the NCR. As an enemy Prisoner of War, they might refuse to pay for you, though. In which case, we'll try to arrange something with the rest of your tribe."

War? Tribe?! Whoever the previous occupant of this body was, she certainly seemed to have a strange place in the Unified States.

"Tell me about my… tribe." I said. "Are they all outlaws?"

"Only if you accept the NCR as the law." Usanagi murmured, sounding like she didn't accept that at all. "Though the Khans aren't friends with anyone, including my people, the Followers. The Khans have two businesses, raiding and selling chems."

My eyebrows shut up at that. "I see. That seems quite unfortunate."

Usanagi leaned back, looking for a second like she was deciding if I was being sincere or not, before agreeing. "Yes. It is unfortunate. Now, I'm going to sedate you for the operation, and then I'm going to move you to a more sterile environment."

"Oh, please go ahead." I told her, and again she looked at me strangely. She settled an oxygen mask over my face, before she helped me lay down in the bed.

The gas took effect almost immediately, and within seconds I was unconscious again.

Thankfully the sedative was a strong one, and the entire time I was under I had not even a single dream. Wherever the operation had happened, afterwards I was moved back to where the other prisoners were being kept. I stirred, looking around to see a couple more Khans had been captured, alongside myself and the large man from earlier.

"Hey, look who's up!" One of them smiled at seeing me, a young man with red hair and a scruffy beard. "I ain't ever heard of anyone surviving a shot to the head, before. How are you doing, Cyclops?"

"Cyclops?" I asked, looking at him confused.

"We figured that bullet was good enough for a beatdown." He said, as if that explained anything. "So, yeah. We already started calling you that."

"...Right." I didn't even know where to begin questioning that. "Sorry, who-"

Off in the distance there was the sound of a loud explosion, and I turned to see one of the nearby hill tops hidden by a plume of dust. There was a lot of it in the air, and a formation of men seemed to be pushing a rack of missiles towards the fighting on some kind of wheeled cart.

"What's going on?" I turned to ask the red haired man, whose name I still didn't know.

"Papa's still up there, fighting." The red haired man replied, though his mirth was gone. "We've got food, water, and plenty of ammo. They know we'll take five of them for any one of us, so they don't want to rush us. Now NCR's bringing up the big guns." He spat. "Rich bastards."

"Your dad leads the tribe?" I guessed.

He looked at me like I was crazy. "No, Papa. Like, Papa Khan." Then he looked sad for me for a minute. "Jeeze, that bullet must have taken half your brain with it. He's our leader, but he's your Grandpa."

The moment he said that, another man of african descent slapped him upside the head even with his fists bound together. "Jessup, you moron!" He hissed. "Shut it!"

"Too late." A man's voice replied.

I turned around to find a large Indian man with a thick scruffy beard looming over me. He was wearing a red beret, though I didn't recognise the rank insignia on it, and he was scrutinizing me intently.

"Cyclops, was it? Your Papa Khan's granddaughter?" He reached down, grabbing my shoulder and pulling me to my feet. "I'm Captain Dhatri, and you better come with me."

I looked back to see more of the Khan prisoners kicking Regis and throwing handfuls of dirt at him, before I was whisked off through the crowd. The NCR soldiers were still in the middle of a battle, and none of them even spared me a glance. Some men rode around on horseback, which caused me to stare in shock. What were horses doing anywhere near a battlefield in such an advanced country?

Captain Dhatri ducked into a tent, pulling me in behind him. "Major Bullah, sir, I've got something you should know."

Inside the tent, standing next to a desk with a radio was a man who also looked Indian, but despite Dhatri's energetic entrance, he barely even glanced up at his subordinate. He held up a finger, to silence Dhatri, while the radio in front of him crackled to life.

"Major, I don't give a damn about some collateral damage. You've got them trapped in the hills, you have the numbers. I don't need you wasting my heavy munitions on a pack of backwards fucking tribals! Storm the cliffs, Major. That's an order."

Major Bullah pinched his brow, staring down at the desk in front of him, looking tired and defeated.

"Sir!" Dhatri pushed forward. "This is Papa Khan's granddaughter. We have a hostage."

Bullah looked at him, then at me.

"Did you hear me Bullah?" The radio demanded from the desk. "Confirm my last orders, damn it!"

Bullah considered for a minute, before replying. "Ah, sorry General Oliver. I just received word that the Khans are surrendering." Then he switched it off. He considered me, before turning to a soldier who was standing nearby. "Private, I need you to carry an order for me. Cease fire, understand? I want all forward units to cease fire right away."

Captain Dhatri looked relieved. "We're not storming the caves?"

"Not if Papa Khan wants his granddaughter back." Bullah growled, then he seized me by the arm and dragged me towards the frontlines. So now I was a hostage. Yatta.

The sounds of gunfire slowly petered off, and the battlefield fell silent as we approached the NCR barricades. Even up at the hilltop, the khans stopped shooting as they waited to hear what might come next.

Major Bullah commandeered a megaphone from one of his men, and called out through it. "Papa Khan, we have your granddaughter." He pushed me forward, so I was standing up on a box, exposed above the ridgeline. "You see her? We have your granddaughter. Surrender."

There was a long pause. Everyone waited with baited breath for the response from the hills, before a powerful voice boomed down towards them, audible from the distance even without technology to augment it. "You touch her again, and I'll take the head from your shoulders, you goddamn dog!"

Bullah answered, "She's been injured, but she's received treatment. Now you can come down here with me and talk terms, and no one else has to die!"

There was a long pause. Seconds ticked by, the men behind the barricades shifting nervously, before finally the voice replied. "I'm coming down."

An absolute bear of a man emerged from behind a distant ridge. As he approached, I saw he stood head and shoulders over even the tallest man present, and his thick dark beard grew to his chest. Aside from his size and bearing, the only thing to mark out his rank was a horned metal helmet. He strode down the hill with agility, never putting his foot where the ground was unstable and arrived at the bottom in moments.

He looked at me, and his teeth grit with rage and frustration, and for a second it looked like he was going to rush over.

Then Dhatri stepped between us.

Bullah said, "Now, are you ready to talk terms?"

Papa regarded him for a moment, before spitting. "...Yeah. Let's talk."