'In the shadow of the valley…'

The radio churned on in the darkness. More than 200 years after its construction, the simple design kept on playing as its pre-war manufacturers had intended. Unlike the 'no expiration date' food fads of the 2070s aimed at good American survivalist duplicity. The radios had been built to provide government information come hell, high water, or lack of maintenance.

'I would like to settle down.'

Not only had the radio lost its government sponsor, giving way to its present use by a host of petty regimes and small-time DJs, but this specific example also suffered from a distinct lack of listeners. The chamber around the machine seemed bare, save for ruins and debris with only a flickering light left to stand vigil over the chaos. Apart from the music, all was silent.

'Wide open space, wind on my face.'

A few clicks from the chamber's ascending door gave way to a loud screeching opening sound. The last glimmer of daylight joined the failing lighting system, revealing several half-buried bodies scattered around the chamber. While a few of them wore power armour, most were clothed in recon suits and robes. All of them heading towards the now opening door.

'A distant horizon, the moon on the crest.'

A single figure entered the bunker, its features hooded and cloaked by a patchy brown robe. The otherwise unimpressive grab was only broken up by a large mechanical contraption mounted on the figure's right arm. It soon rose to meet several seemingly impassable metal debris, moving each aside with an ease well at odds with the figure's mass and muscle.

'In the shadow of the valley, that I love best.''

With the obstacles cleared, the figure removed the hood revealing a young brown-haired woman. Her face, while pretty by most human standards, was anything but happy. With a solum expression, she surveyed her surroundings, her attention broken only by the radio's music. The mechanical arm rose to meet the non-existent threat by sheer instinct.

'You have always waited for me, and you always…'

'

A single punch from the arm brought the song to a close. The woman's alarmed expression gave way to the realization she hadn't been in any danger. The power fist retracted back into place seething in compressed air. Looking around her, she took in the bodies, the ruins, and the shattered entrance to the lower levels and home. Veronica finally collapsed to her knees.

"They're really dead… all of them," she said, the shock giving voice to her thoughts.

Not all Hidden Valley's personnel had been inside the bunker when it was destroyed, but most of them were here. Those who'd remained outside on patrol or supply running duties were either eliminated in the days after the attack in carefully staged ambushes around the bunker's perimeter as they returned or had since left Nevada altogether in search of other chapters. Having left the brotherhood beforehand, it took a while for word to reach Veronica. The stench of death wasn't as bad as it would have been had she come any earlier, but it still lingered on.

"Who could've done this?! House? NCR? Legion? If our idiotic self-isolation policy had any good side to it, it was that nobody but us could enter. No exceptions. No exceptions but…"

A glitter of silver caught Veronica's eye. The power fist dived into the wreckage, slowly digging its way through the debris until she reached her query, a discarded energy weapon.

Veronica picked up the pistol and brought it up to her face, carefully inspecting it. The small projector dish was broken and the power coils were close to burnout, usually a sign of overuse. But this was defiantly the pulse gun she'd gotten out of Vault 34 with the Courier's help in her efforts to convince Elder Mcnamara of the Brotherhood's slow march towards extinction. In her hurry to get away when he refused her, the Courier hadn't been ordered to hand over the weapon. Even when she'd used it to eliminate the knights sent after the followers, Veronica did nothing.

Veronica's eyes darted towards the discarded pieces of power armour. All but one showed dark scorch marks with no point of entry as if they'd been hit from the inside out. The scribes and trainees had been gunned down by mini-gun fire and explosives. Against the growing sense of dread, Veronica's sharp mind made the quick calculation of numbers against the endurance of the unstable prototype finding only one answer.

"Lisa must've kept the gun and used it to quickly overwhelm the Knights and Paladins until it broke down. She betrayed them…betrayed me. If I hadn't given her clearance to get in here, if I'd taken that gun away, if I'd been here with my family when they needed me most…"

Long stifled tears finally broke through her eyes. She hadn't cried since Christine left her, and even then, she'd respected her decision. Christine at least hadn't died here because of her. All she'd ever done was to try to save the Brotherhood. Instead, she'd gotten them all killed.

As she cried, her unthinking hands moved to hug herself only for one finger to press against the Pulse Gun's trigger. The last load of energy cells quickly started to vibrate the weapon, finding no place to discharge. Lacking the failsafes of mass-produced weapons, the prototype continued to build up power as system after system built to contain and channel it failed. Finally, in the space of a millisecond, the power converged to form an impossible blue orb in place of the weapon's crystal oscillator. Smoke quickly started to emerge as the mechanism's interior burned away.

When all her efforts to disable the weapon failed, Veronica threw the gun away as it continued to crystalize even further and took cover. When it met the ground, a crack formed and quickly grew to encompass the entire crystal, letting loose a rapidly intensifying electric storm, but not before the broken wiring of the projector dish met for one last brief encounter. The discharge fired straight at the floor section under Veronica's feet and kept on going all around her. The ensuing explosion destroyed what little was left of Hidden Valley. But Veronica wasn't there to meet it.

'I ask of you a penny…'

The mist blended perfectly with the surrounding smoke and fire, presenting a menacing red smog. A lone enforcer emerged from the shroud blasting a fallen enemy at point-blank range.

'…my fortune it will be.'

The enforcer kept on advancing, filling in the rifle chamber with more explosive rounds. The expended casings flew away, reflecting the flames and the proverbial blood of their victims.

'We build no mighty towers…'

A breeze sent the smoke and mist away, leaving bare this small section of the bridge. But the countless bodies laid at the feet of the enforcer represented only a taste of today's carnage.

'Our homes are built of stone.'

Satisfied that his work was finished, the enforcer walked away in search of his comrades. In doing so, he narrowly missed the sight of the two children emerging from the mist.

'So come across the river, and find…'

The blue-haired child stopped singing, lifting her head to take in her surroundings. The wind continued to build up exposing more and more of the bridge as the smoke and mist receded. The unlucky enforcer never made it back to his comrades having met the fists of one of the rebels. But out of the hundreds who'd marched with him a scarce handful remained alive.

Below them, lay the bodies of their dead or dying. Two of the bodies quickly caught the attention of the children leaving a trail of tears as the surviving rebel carried them away. Above them, stood a city of shining white marble, gold, and steel, unblemished by their plight. One more explosion among many hardly seemed out of place as the one-sided battle winded down.

Had the unconscious body of an unknown measly dressed brown-haired woman suddenly appeared on the bridge out of nowhere alongside a small assortment of strange debris. Among the piles of bodies and ruins left over from the fighting, she was hardly out of place. '

Just another causeless rebel on the Bridge of Progress.

Notes:

Since watching Arcane this week, I've been suffering from an acute itch to write something in this universe. Easier said than done, for while Arcane has a rich story and a huge world-building potential both in series and from the wider LoL universe, there's still a limit to what can be done in terms of AU. Sure, I have a few ideas, but everything I came up with merely changed the game, not the stakes. None of them grabbed my attention.

Since many others have already created all sorts of interesting well written AUs, I figured I'd try something a little different. One idea I had was to transplant the factions of Fallout New Vegas into Zaun and see what happens as I tell short stories about the altered characters and conditions. A fun idea, but still a complex one I won't tackle without due thought. For the time being, I decided to transport one character and see what happens.

Veronica was chosen for several reasons:

1) She fits rather well into the Arcane character mould as both a puncher and a tinkerer

2) Her cheery personality sits rather comfortably mid-way between Vi and Jynx - crazy.

3) Her endings in New Vegas have a tragic bent to them consistent with Arcane's story.

4) Yes, I know she's also into girls, but I have no immediate plans on romance in mind.

No matter what she does, this bubbly character is forced to become a loner. Be it as a wandering scribe of a dying brotherhood or a wandering tinkerer too scared to form any meaningful connections with others least a brotherhood hit squad come again. If anyone deserves a chance to relocate to another world out of the New Vegas cast, it's Veronica.

It won't be easy for her. In this story, I've opted to give her the worse possible New Vegas ending I could think of, consisting of painful goodbyes, betrayal, and death. She'll have her inner demons to face, but this will be a story about conquering them and perhaps she'll be able to help other characters overcome similar experiences when the time comes.

Other than that, I'd like to use her eyes for technology to explore this curious setting from a critical SF eye as an opportunity to teach myself a bit more about science for future projects. I can't say the prologue was scientific in that sense though, so consider it my first magic if to make the story happen. I'll try to keep the rest as grounded as possible.

While I really have no idea where this is going, I hope you enjoy yourselves.

ALoN