"Ah, Courier, you're back. Ulysses came visiting while you were gone," the Courier took a few shaky steps out of the Forbidden Dome's Auto-Doc, created specifically to attach the various implants that the Courier had acquired over the years onto a new body, "He's still here," Mobius turned his body around to face Ulysses, who was sitting stiffly, conversing with the Courier's real brain, "We also have a problem, eh, I was… err…" Mobius slowly floated backwards, "I was tripping hard on Mentats and may have accidentally destroyed the plans for your sub-dermal implants, singular, yeah, definitely singular."

"The PHOENIX one?" the Courier raised an eyebrow, if that was the case then he'll have to look out in the future, "And you can't really trip on Mentats so be real with me right now."

"Err… no, it was the NEMEAN one, you won't have to worry about the PHOENIX implant, I only deleted the original blueprint, not the improved one," the Courier nodded, breathing out a sigh in relief, then he remembered that he lost his sub-dermal armor, and then he got frustrated again, "And about the Mentats, well, I ran out quite some time ago and you left your stash around so I decided to take those instead," Mobius shivered, his monitors rattling a bit as he floated over to the Courier's room, "Did you get them from those 'Fiends' you were talking about? If so, they didn't taste very good…"

He reached into the stash and pulled out a syringe, "Well that explains things," the Courier held it out to Mobius, "These are Psychotats, Mobius, no wonder you burned the original plans off of the servers," he dropped the syringe, rubbing his forehead, "Thankfully I can just get them again from Dr. Usanagi," the Courier grimaced when he felt a throbbing headache blasting through his artificial brain, which shouldn't happen normally, but then again, coming back from the dead wasn't normal to begin with, "I died again, didn't I?"

"Indeed," Mobius floated away as the Courier followed him to the server room, "Rather violently I might add, considering what's recorded in the servers."

The Courier walked to the restroom, with Mobius floating behind in tow, "I chose a particularly handsome Lobotomite this time," he stared at the mirror, pushing up his hair to see his forehead, "And the scar is there, as you requested… every time you came back."

Two bullet-hole shaped scars just above his eyes, exactly as he requested, every time he died and came back, "Hmm," he hummed, "Very nice, good jawline… and some facial hair," the Courier grinned, "How'd this hunk become a Lobotomite?"

"Bad luck, the Think Tank grabbed some male model off of the streets of New Vegas and scooped a part of their brain out," Mobius made a noise, he sounds frustrated, "I told them we should've taken the poor and homeless off of Freeside but they didn't listen..."

The Courier raised both of his arms, staring at his left wrist, "I lost my Pimp-Boy." he sighed, rubbing it, not used to have it missing for long periods of time.

"And everything on it as well," Mobius added, "You should probably stay here for a few hours before you go back to what you were doing," the brain ushered him out of the server room, "Go speak to Ulysses, I'll call you when I've recovered all the data."

"Don't boss me around old man," the Courier scoffed by complied anyways, sitting down next to Ulysses, "How long have you been waiting?"

"Long enough," Ulysses said, his deep voice sounding out through his breather, "Your… brain had some bold things to say," he motioned towards the jar, "Lots of things about me."

"Of course I had things to say about you, you ingrate!" the brain huffed, or made a sound similar to a huff through the speakers, "You and your stupid 'lonesome road', Hopeville was a nightmare!"

"That you made."

"No, no no no, we're not doing this," the brain scoffed, "He did it, I didn't," the Courier rolled his eyes, "I had no input in the matter!"

"Alright, that's enough from you," he kicked the base, causing the brain to shake a bit, "I didn't get you replaced until we were in the Big M.T.," the Courier sighed, "And I already apologized for the whole Hopeville thing like years ago."

"I forgive, I don't forget." Ulysses leaned back on the chair, looking up at the large domed roof.

"Courier! The memory transfer is starting in five!" Mobius yelled out from the intercom, "Uhh… seconds! Not minutes! Seconds!"

"Okay, okay, let's see what happened last ti-" He froze, the memories came rushing back, "Ah, I see now. I was a girl for a moment there."

Ulysses raised a brow, "It's been months, Courier, explain where you have been all this time."

"No time dilation, that's good…" the Courier mumbled, "I tried using a larger version of the Transportalponder to move a salvaged Auto-Doc back to the Followers' camp in Freeside, unfortunately for me, the teleporter shot me through space time and dropped me on another world – or maybe alternate Earth – with humans and human-animal hybrids and kids with guns-"

"I have heard enough," Ulysses sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose, "Whatever you are doing – or whatever you are on – leave me out of this."

"How's your Hopeville doing?" The brain snidely asked, "Seeing as how you're here, what about the Marked Men that you were so worried about? Don't tell me they kicked you out!" the brain cackled, "Ha! So ugly even the Ghoul-lookalikes didn't want you!"

"They're gone, moved North, never to return again," He furrowed his brows, "Hopeville's too far gone, nothing to salvage, nothing to save," Ulysses frowned under his breather, "The winds shred the skin of those who walk through, the radiation too thick for even the strongest of suits, and the Tunnelers…"

"That's enough doom and gloom for today!" The Courier kicked the base of jar again, causing the brain to shake, "Anyways, about that world I got transported to… No, Mobius, only I'm allowed to go there," Mobius sighed, slowly snaking away back into his room, to take more Mentats no doubt, "I have to go back there, and I'll need a new Pip-Boy too. Wondering if you can find someone with one or someone who can make one."

"Mick and Ralph may have something, they gave you your…" Ulysses hesitated, "Pimp… Boy…" He shook his head, "Or you could ask the brain to make you one. Other than that, compared to you, I'm just a Courier."

"Oh right, Mobius is smart, I forgot about that," The Courier stood up from his seat, walking towards the brain's room, "Mobius! Bring the Mentats! I need you to make me some Vault-Tec tech!" The brain quickly floated out with a manic look on his monitors – well, more manic than it usually looks like anyways – as he shook in excitement, or maybe its just the drugs, "Oh, and I'll need an over-engineered gun-blade thing, make it as stupid as possible."

Pyrrha left before any of them could've talked to her, Lavs' been acting a lot more distant lately, and Mint have gone off the deep end, "Atlas did this!" He addressed the crowd, Johan noticed that he's been scratching the side of his neck a lot, which – at the time – was annoying but now? "They don't want us to succeed! They came to our city, demand our things and belongings, and now assassinate our leader!" It's a nervous tic, Johan knows it as much as Lavs, Mint knows that he can't do this, that he can't lead these people like Courrier can, "The Republic have taken a loss today," he clenched his fist around the crest, "But we won't take this transgression lying down! Atlas will pay for what they did!"

"I have to stop him before he goes all crazy," Johan tried to approach Mint but Lavs stopped her before she could take a step, "What the hell?" She turned to look at Lavs.

Lavs just shook her head, a strange expression on her face while she stared at Mint, "Don't do this," she said, the sound of the crowd getting drowned out as Johan stared back at her, "Just let it happen."

Johan knows that Courrier can just come back, seeing as how he – or she or whatever the hell – can take over dead bodies with just a simple brain transplant, the problem is when, and how will he be able to explain that to the rest of the Vacuans that follows him? They weren't worried about Courrier being dead permanently – though that is a real possibility – but were more worried about the state of the Kingdom if he were to die, since the people cannot and must not know that he's this brain that just hops from body to body.

And he certainly cannot do the same sibling bullshit again, not to mention the fact that he was killed in a way that wasn't orchestrated by himself. The people here follow Courrier, they revere him, not whatever new identity he's going to return with. There are already doubts about Courrier when he did the whole female body thing, people suspecting that the new Courrier may have killed the old one in a power play of some sorts, and if it were to happen again… the Vacuans would've definitely caught up by then.

"I'm trying to stop him from causing another damn Great War!" Johan pushed Lavs' hand away, "I can't just let him do this, he'll lead hundreds… if not thousands of Vacuans to their deaths! We're not equipped to deal – let alone fight – with Atlas!"

"Courrier has a plan," Lavs sighed, "She always does."

Johan groaned, "Are we still calling him 'she'? I don't even know if Courrier was originally a guy or a girl."

"Me neither, but the people are more used to Courrier as a woman since she showed up in a lot more media compared to her previous body."

"Ah," Johan rubbed the bridge of her nose, "Damn it… this is so confusing…"

"You'll get used to it, I haven't either but I'm doing a pretty good job at hiding it aren't I?"

"Parcel delivery!" Qrow was roused from his midday slumber by a knock on the door, thankfully, all the kids were either dead asleep from exhaustion or just barely awake to turn their heads to the door. The most important thing being that they're all in his room, not the ones that he specifically rented out for them, no, HIS room.

"Keep your weapon on you, Qrow," Oscar said stiltedly, like he's reciting what Ozpin told him in his head, "That's uhhh… what Ozpin said to say to you."

Qrow walked to the door and opened it, keeping his weapon behind it as he peeked his head through the slit, "Package for…" the young man standing before him couldn't be any older than twenty-three that's for sure, he still kept his guard up of course, "Qrow Branwen? Is that you?" the worker handed the package to Qrow after he nodded, it had some heft to it, quite heavy, "I'll need you to sign this."

Qrow signed the paper on the clipboard before closing the door, he stepped over some sleeping children before depositing the package on the table, "I don't trust this at all," Qrow said to Oscar, who quickly ran over to the box to open it, "Whoa, hey, aren't you even a little suspicious of this?"

"I… it can't be," Oscar muttered, though with how shocked he sounded, it must be Ozpin in control right now, "How did this-" Qrow's eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw what was in the package, he quickly caught a note that was lodged in between the packaging beads and looked down to read it while Oscar admired the item.

"Qrow," the letter started, the handwriting was passable, "This is Courrier, found this underneath Haven while I was looting the place, the security was tight and it looked significant so I took it. The thing looked real nice, would've fetched a fortune if I sold it, but then I did some digging, read some children's books, you know the usual." Qrow flipped the letter over to the other side, "To clear up any confusion, I'm Corrina, not John, John's dead, obviously. After reading up on the thing, I decided that I want you to have it, do whatever you want with it, give it to Ozpin for all I care, but know this Qrow, you owe me a favor now, and tell Ozpin this, whatever he intends to do with that thing, keep Vacuo out of it."

Qrow placed the note back down to see Oscar holding it up, the Relic of Knowledge in all of its glory, delivered and shipped here via Remnant's mail system, with some small shipping pellets still stuck on it.

I'm getting back into the groove of things now, but no promises! Sometimes life can be a real bitch.

It's been a few weeks into 2025 and I just have to say WOW WHAT A GREAT START TO THE YEAR SO FAR!

Not only is California on fire but the Midwest is covered in snow? And all the other shit that just happened? It's going to be a long year that's for sure.

Tik Tok is getting banned apparently, that's interesting too, and we're getting a lot of new games in 2025 like Outer Worlds 2 and (maybe) Witcher 4.

Let's just hope - or cope - that this year will be better than the last.

Thanks for reading!