636Weiss, ever the early bird, was usually the first to use the showers. However, with the case of her missing undergarments, she found herself unenviably reliant on her friends to provide for her temporarily. And at the moment, she needed to borrow some of Ruby's silks.
But Ruby was still asleep. And Yang was a nightmare to wake up. Blake was the next to crawl out of bed; annoyingly, the cat faunus vehemently refused to let the heiress so much as touch her underwear. Velvet, on the other hand, apologized that hers wasn't to Weiss's size. The latter quietly reminded the former to best keep that fact discreet.
Meanwhile, Winter checked in on them. As did Miss Goodwitch. Weiss was about to ask if she could humbly borrow from her sister but caught herself from speaking after realizing how ridiculous that was given the obvious differences in apparel accommodations. Winter was reasonably endowed for her age. As was Miss Goodwitch. And, of course, Pyrrha and Nora were both out of the question.
That left her with Ruby.
Who she was trying to wake up.
Because she was still in a towel and needed to get changed quick because their shift at the Tops was at seven in the morning and it was getting close to six. Blake sniped that Weiss should just go ahead and raid their shared wardrobe but the heiress was a lady of manners and respect and it was both rude and shameful to rifle through one's belongings without permission (immensely tempting as it was to do so).
Eventually, Ruby gargled awake, tumbled off the side of her bed, apologized loudly for almost forgetting about their agreement to let her borrow her bra and panties (seriously, did she have to yell that out?), before opening up their closets and showing her which ones would fit her the best.
Later, after barely arriving on time at the Tops with the rest of her teammates, Weiss had to privately ask some of the less endowed back-up dancers for spare undergarments. She would hate to tell Ruby that her bras were a mite too...spacious...for the heiress.
"Have you tried drinking milk?" one of the dancers sincerely asked, offering her an old set that was just about her size. "Like, lots of milk?"
"No," Weiss replied dryly. "And I don't plan to."
"Not like chugging it. Wait, you're not lactose intolerant, right? 'Cause if you're not and if you're wanting to fill up some to fill up some cups—"
"Thank you for your help, Claire! See you later at rehearsal!"
With that, Weiss sped into her dressing room and locked the door.
Raul knelt down over Señor Birdman and casually slapped him on the cheeks over and over again until he groaned awake.
"¡Buenos dias, Señor Cuervo! How's the hangover?"
"Go...fuck yourself...asshat..."
He resumed slapping him. Harder this time. "Sorry, I didn't quite catch that."
"Agh! Stop that! Fuck... I'm awake... I'm awake, you damn...zombie asshole repairman."
"I'm actually a ghoul mechanic and technician. Also a vaquero on the side. And now a chaperone but that's temporary. At least, I hope it is."
Señor Birdman rolled onto his side, coughing and laughing and rubbing at his stomach where the rips in his clothes exposed the many layers of dirtied gauze. "No shit? How's the babysitting, Mister Fix-it?"
"Could be better. Boss takes care of the little diablos, I take care of you bigger diablos. Can't really complain all that much though." Raul helped him up. "Now what's all this hubbub about the NCR cleaning house?"
"How'd you know about that?"
"One Pip-Boy, four sets of eyes, and any sense of secrecy thrown out the window." The ghoul led the way back inside, settling in the welcome lounge of what had once been a premiere restaurant on the twentieth floor of the Lucky Thirty-Eight. "By the way, most of the windows here in New Vegas are sealed shut. You can't open them. Old World occupational safety standards, you see."
"Hell of a bunch of safety standards to have to make glass that still holds up after...what? Two hundred years?"
He tossed Señor Birdman the ice pack he prepared for him. "You're going to need a thicker skull to break that glass."
The veteran Huntsman pressed the ice on the bulge on his forehead while he unbuttoned his shirt to reveal blood-soaked layers of gauze and cloth strips wrapped all around his upper body including his arms. "How 'bout you get me a drink 'cause I'm starting to hurt all over again."
"How about you tell me first why the hell you got too drunk to read instead of reporting back immediately after going through whatever hell you went through."
"Well, I'm here reporting back now, ain't I? Just get me a cold one and I'll fill you in."
Raul defiantly folded his arms. "Talk first. Booze later."
"Bastard. Fine. Shit got thrown at the fan, alright?" grunted Señor Birdman. "Couldn't risk walking through the front door so I needed to get in another way. Preferably without witnesses. Especially NCR."
"What's NCR up to now?"
"Like I said in my message: cleaning house. Except...well, Courier Six is the new Robert House, right? Or did I get the names mixed up?"
"No, you're right. Boss just doesn't want to admit he's wearing Houses's shoes now." The ghoul then poured a glass of water from one of the fridges and served it on a tray next to a pen and notepad. "Start writing down everything you learned."
"Hold up. Where's Papa Sixer?"
"Not feeling really good right now."
"Why? What happened?"
"Well, shortly after you dropped off the ledge trying to give yourself a concussion, your two colleagues and I pried open Pandora's box."
The confused silence that followed made the ghoul almost want to throw an Old World book about ancient Greek mythology at this otherworld idiot.
"... It's a reference. What I'm saying is that Boss...has some pretty big skeletons in his closet."
"Well, damn. How big were those skeletons?"
The ghoul tapped the notepad. "Write."
Qrow would rather just report back verbally and in person like he did with Ozpin but he was still hungover and he was not in a position to argue against a two-hundred-year-old gunslinger who could admittedly shoot faster and better than him (and the Courier, too).
"Sorry if my handwriting's a bit sloppy," he grunted.
"As long as you write in the same language we're speaking," the ghoul returned. "So, anyway, Boss got jumped yesterday...by someone from the same place as you..."
The veteran Huntsman struggled to keep his cool but ended up constantly pausing his writing with increasing incredulity as Raul relayed what they had learned about an errant Remnant rogue named Neopolitan who had somehow known people in the life of Courier Six who were long dead. Later on, Qrow struggled not to guzzle down an entire bottle of beer he was given when the ghoul pointed out that Neopolitan apparently had a very disturbing resemblance to a child on a handful of old photographs taken of Major Theodore Vickers when he was still a captain in the Desert Rangers.
Well, shit, maybe it was about time he should tell these folks about how he tried running an op with her to get this close to Papa Sixer. And maybe reword it so it wouldn't sound like it was his idea to bring the troublemaker here to New Vegas to begin with—
"Excuse me, what?" Raul barked indignantly.
Shit. Maybe Qrow should stop thinking out loud, too.
"What do you think?" Winter raised, ruminating on the faces on the photographs from last night. "It has to be them."
Glynda sighed. "I was trying not to think of the matter. But I admit that I can't help but entertain the theory."
The lieutenant gazed back out through the window of one of the many parlors of the Lucky Thirty-Eight, glazing over the bustle of life on the Strip down below. It was nearly ten in the morning and, with not much else to do after doing whatever chores that could be done, they had been busying themselves with some exercise...by sparring with each other using mops. It was either that or risk atrophy by idling in the recreational hall. As part of their arrangement, they were supposed to be handling the paperwork involved in the affairs of New Vegas but the Courier had been consumed by the doldrums after the bitter emotional outpouring the previous evening.
Earlier at dawn, Team RWBY-V had rushed to work as quick as their drowsy bodies could manage while Team JNPR-S sluggishly mustered out to assist an NCR squadron find one of their missing men. Neither of the two women could divulge what they had learned the previous night. It was all far too sensitive for younger minds to competently comprehend, no matter how noble their hearts were.
"But consider the possibility," Winter insisted. "If those three are who we think are, then that would explain so much."
"All we have to go off of are physical appearances," the blonde argued, "and a wide age gap."
"And you can tell. The same eyes, the same cheeks—"
"Similar height, similar expressions. Brothers, the Courier is already unstable—how much more if he starts believing that our enemies on Remnant are..." Glynda trailed off and shook her head.
That one damning picture was dated with the colors starting to fade but the people on them were clear as day. Major Theodore Vickers had once been a smiling captain with a loyal squadron and a beautiful wife. And posing in front of Team Echo of the Desert Rangers were three children—all of whom made the two women shiver at the striking resemblances.
'Alex DeLarge' with orange hair, 'Ellie Belle' in a red dress, and 'Nia Polis Vickers' with mismatched eyes.
"Do you still think they're worthy of redemption?" the lieutenant asked quietly.
The blonde scoffed. "After what they had done to Beacon? To Vale? Not to mention the utter humiliating decimation of Atlas's security brigades? Even if they could be the same persons, it will take more than a change of heart to make up for what those three have done."
Winter wallowed in her thoughts for a moment. "... Do you think our people would have found Torchwick's remains by now?"
"Do you honestly think Torchwick survived and ended up here? Or rather, ended up back here?"
"The reports were unconfirmed the last I checked. But consider the possibilities. If Torchwick were to ever return to this Wasteland, would he still be alive?"
"What would it matter if he is? He may have some familiarity with the world of his childhood but even then, he was living on providence. There's only so much Aura and a Semblance can do. Look at us, Winter." Glynda pointed to the damnable collars chaffing their necks. And the less said about the scars on their bodies from their Imperium enslavement, the better. "There was only so much we could do before the Legion overwhelmed us."
"Only the Legion can pridefully march over their own dead," the lieutenant recalled bitterly. "Regardless, not just Torchwick, what about Neopolitan? Or, by the gods, Cinder Fall? Those two...those two women...have to be the same two girls...raised in this torturous, unforgiving world..."
"And we are at the mercy of a man who may very well have raised them, cherished them, still agonizes over them, and is most likely willing to kill over the sanctity of his memory of them. The notion is too bothersome."
Which would only serve to reinforce their suspicions that they were all related, Winter did not say. Instead, she shifted gears. "Well, it bothers me that someone we know still hasn't used the front door yet."
The former Beacon staffer shook her head. "Among Qrow's faults, this would be one of his greatest if he willingly associated with Neopolitan."
"I still suspect she was the Ranger who stood in during the negotiations with General Hsu in Freeside."
"All the more reason to rake that drunkard over burning coals as soon as he gets here."
"Oh, he's already here," interjected a very peevish Mister Tejada, stomping into the parlor with the veteran Huntsman in question ruefully trailing after, a hand holding a dripping ice pack against his forehead and the other tugging on freshly wrapped bandages over wounds that his Aura was still mending.
"Hey, ladies," Qrow greeted sheepishly. "Uh, let me explain?"
And explain he did...after Glynda beat Winter to the punch and tore into him for being an intoxicated buffoon and making them worry. Then, even before he finished explaining himself, Glynda let Winter rip into him some more for actually working with Neopolitan. If it weren't for their damned collars, they would have painted the walls with their alcoholic professional associate.
The Misfits were curious.
Splitting up to comb through the northern half of Freeside while half the Vegas Wonder Kids went through the southern half, the three troopers inevitably found themselves unsubtly tracking a pair of Kings gang members who were supposed to be helping refurbish the abandoned train station up from the Atomic Wrangler. For the moment, they were across the street, huddled inside the old apartment where the NCR supply corps used to hand out freebies to the locals.
"Something's definitely weird," Razz insisted. "I'm telling you, Sarge. There's something going up in that train station."
"You think that's where Jonah is?" Mags asked, peering between the boards nailed against the windows.
"Fifty percent chance he might be," Poindexter replied.
Corporal Tibits nodded, loading in a fresh magazine and racking the slide on his weathered carbine. "Good enough reason to kick down the doors and get him."
Sergeant Stonham pushed the barrel of his gun down to the floor. "And what if he isn't?"
"Well, shit, Sarge. We've been in much deeper shit."
She sighed. "Goddamn it, I hate hearing that excuse."
The other two snickered, Specialist Poindexter in particular stringing together a bouquet of grenades just in case things would go tits up. "It's the only excuse that works on you when you're this strung up."
"I'm strung up because if we fuck this up—"
"Jonah's our boy," Razz returned coolly, all manner of jest and flippancy gone. "He's our good Christian boy and we're getting him back no matter what."
Mags threw her hands up and loosed a string of curses before putting on her helmet, loading up, and unlocking the front door. The Kings immediately saw them and hurried back inside the train station. Which made the Misfits run after them.
O'Hanrahan savored his freedom despite the fact that he was locked arm in arm with his kidnapper who, admittedly, was quite pretty in her bonnet, sundress, and boots. To everyone else who passed them by, they were a tourist couple on the way to the Strip for some fun. But deep down, he was convinced that Miss Neo had the capability to carve through the entire Kings gang with only a pencil. After all, she claimed that she was the biological daughter of Courier Six and that man literally tore through the Legion.
"That's a fine girly you got there, buddy," quipped a Kings gang member.
The corporal politely smiled back. "Thank you, mister."
His kidnapper smirked and winked at the townies who whistled back.
"Keep your wits about you," another local remarked. "Lot of rats hiding in the cracks might want to take a chomp off your lady."
"I'll be sure to keep 'em at bay. Thank you very much, mister."
Oh, he wouldn't really need to do that. Sure, he was tall and imposing and he had taken on many tall and imposing legionaries in countless skirmishes since the Second Battle of Hoover Dam. However, Miss Neo could do so much more and she was barely half his height. A few others, on the other hand, mistook them for siblings. Probably because Miss Neo had transformed into a ginger like him except thankfully her hair was more tangerine than orange and she put on a face that was far from what his sisters looked like.
"Where again are we supposed to be going?" he whispered.
She only gestured ahead and subtly tugged on his arm as they went, guiding him along like a horse. Eventually, they reached the seedier parts of Freeside and, after scaring off some would-be muggers, arrived in front of Mick-And-Ralph's. O'Hanrahan dug into his pockets, feeling for whatever cash he had on him: a handful of NCR twenties and some dented bottle caps.
"Are we gonna buy something?"
She shrugged. And pushed open the door, dragging him inside.
"Welcome to Mick-And-Ralph's," greeted Ralph who scrunched his eyes at him and then grinned. "Oh hey, it's you! Jonah, was it? Hope I remembered your name right."
O'Hanrahan tried not to sweat harder than he already was. "Yep. That's me. Been awhile since I was last here, huh."
"Been months, man. How're you doing? Thought you got rotated back to California after all the hubbub. And who's the lucky lady?"
"Uh, just a"—the NCR corporal gulped hard at the demented smile from Miss Neo—"friend is all. She, uh, I mean, it's her first time here in New Vegas and, uh, she needed a...tour guide?"
The storeowner sniggered. "Sure, buddy. What about your squad-mates?"
"They, uh, they...they're kinda busy? Uh, had to leave 'em behind at the, uh, the Strip, y'know."
"Got drunk and puking their guts out, got it. Be waiting for a news report then on you guys. Wouldn't be surprised if you tried breaking the bank."
"Yeah. Sure. That's...that's us, hah, the Misfits! Ha-ha, we're pretty...crazy sometimes. Lord forgive us."
"Uh-huh, Jesus and all that." Ralph pulled up a magazine and leaned back on his chair behind the counter. "Well, I'll just be here. Holler if you need something, alright?"
"Will do."
With that, Miss Neo pulled him into the aisles near the back of the store where she turned to fully regard him with a raised brow and a smirk.
"Perks of being a war hero," the corporal whispered. "And being friendly to the locals too."
His kidnapper chuckled soundlessly into her palm. Then she dug into her satchel and showed a piece of that accursed silken fabric with the snowflake embroidery. Then, with a couple bumps of her brow, she nudged her thumb towards Ralph and rubbed two fingers together.
O'Hanrahan gulped. "We can't do that, Miss Neo. That's...that's just wrong."
Miss Neo gave him a flat stare.
"Okay, I get it, we're both guilty of a lot of sins. But I can't do this to Miss Schnee. She's a really sweet girl and—"
She suddenly glared at him, those green irises flashing to pink and brown for a moment long enough to remind him that she could gut him like a fish in an instant.
"... I just don't think we should sell her stuff like that," he continued slowly. "Maybe...maybe if we gave it back to her, she'll pay us handsomely? Way more than any vendor could? I mean, I'm the one who pro'lly stole it, Lord forgive me, but you could be the one to return it. You can, uh, you can disguise yourself pretty well too and...uh..."
Miss Neo blinked several times, studying him like an ape that spoke something silly (which Razz usually said, minus the profanity, whenever the ex-Fiend was drunk and angry).
"And it gets you closer to, uh, Courier Six, too."
Her eyes bulged and literally flashed the full rainbow spectrum before settling back into green. Then she nodded vigorously. And pulled hard on his arm that he softly squealed in pain. Miss Neo really had the strength to go toe to toe with those nasty legionary centurions, he had to admit.
That was when the front doors creaked open and a little deathclaw looked up from sniffing the ground. Its head snapped towards the pair when they were coming out of the aisles and immediately growled at them. Or rather at Miss Neo.
Ralph jumped out of his chair. "Whoa, whoa! Hey, what the—"
"Syrup!" someone familiar called from outside. "Don't go running off like tha...oh."
O'Hanrahan now found himself in a standoff between half of the Vegas Wonder Kids and a very antsy Miss Neo who hid like a terrified tourist while discreetly pressing that knife of hers into his back.
Instead of finding their missing squad-mate, the Misfits stumbled upon a recently-covered grave behind the station with a small concrete slab as a marker. The two Kings were finicky but understanding of the gravity of the situation although they were still aiming their pistols at the three better-equipped soldiers in front of them.
Mags tried not to think of the worst but the more she looked at the freshly heaped pile of dirt, the more she was starting to see red.
"What did you do," she hissed slowly, her finger itching to squeeze the trigger on her personalized service rifle.
"Look, ma'am," pleaded the taller of the pair whose pompadour was starting to dip in the Mojave heat. "We didn't do anything. Honest to God!"
"Then who fuck's pushing up daisies now?" Razz snorted back, his carbine trailing between tandem gang members.
"I don't know."
"Liar," Poindexter snorted. "Who is it?"
"I said I don't know. We don't know."
Sergeant Stonham calmly paced closer to the grave. "What are you trying to hide?"
"Believe me, ma'am, if we know we would have already told you."
"You people don't even tell us anything," grunted Corproal Tibits. "You don't trust us."
The Kings were about to argue, stopped to eye each other, and then nodded at the fact that they really didn't trust them. Afterwards, the shorter one spoke up, "But we didn't do this. This here...wasn't us! We just...we were just told to...dig and keep this all hush-hush."
"Really now," Mags retorted, finally lowering her weapon. "Alright, Pompadour Two. What's so hush-hush about this?"
The shorter Pompadour Two opened his mouth but clammed up at the glare from the taller Pompadour One.
"Oh for the love of—I don't have time for these games," the sergeant growled. "Pompadour One, we'll keep this off the record. How 'bout that?"
"Fuck you," Pompadour One barked. "Like we'd believe that."
"Oh you better believe it because you're talking to the Misfits and we're not like the rest of the NCR army."
"I don't care who you are. You're wearing the same uniform."
"But we're not all the same, aren't we?"
"Hah! You can't get all philosophicological with me. I've read some books, too, you know."
"Can't seem to read the atmosphere."
"Now that's where your wrong, lady! You don't read atmosphere! You breathe it 'cause it's air," orated Pompadour One with a smug upward tilt of his chin, even gesticulating with his pistol. "Oxygen and carbon monoxide. That's science, y'know!"
"Actually," Poindexter mechanically interjected, "when we say 'read the atmosphere,' it means—"
"Fuck's sake, shut up, Tim," groaned Mags. "And as for you two smart-asses, just tell us what we need to know, alright? Then we'll leave you alone."
"We're not telling you a thing!" spat Pompadour One. "We're not supposed to."
"Fine. If you're not going to tell me who's buried under all that, can you tell me that it's not Coproral Jonah O'Hanrahan?"
The two Kings reacted...in confusion. They stared at them and then at each other.
"Who?" Pompadour Two asked.
"Jonah O'Hanrahan," Sergeant Stonham repeated. "Corporal, Ninth Platoon, First Infantry Battalion, Third NCR Army. Big guy, orange hair, always looks like he's going to apologize for something."
"We don't know a Jonah O-ran-ran."
"You sure?" Mags returned with a calculated raise of her brow. "Sounds like you might know him."
"Lady, if he caused trouble here in Freeside, we'd know. But we don't! Nobody in the Kings knows every fucking name in your fucking army."
"That so?" She pointed to the grave. "So it's not him under there?"
Pompadour Two shook his head, incredulous. "No! Fuck, no! It's just some NCR Ranger who got whacked when that big-shot general of yours rode into town—"
"Dude!" hollered Pompadour One far too late.
But the Misfits now had them. Unfortunately, the good news that Jonah was probably still alive somewhere was overshadowed by the bad news that an NCR ranger was murdered recently and hastily buried here in Freeside. And three troopers, much to their consternation, quickly understood that they had stumbled into something bigger than a missing squad-mate.
"Hiya, Ralphie!" Nora greeted even as she kept her automatic shotgun leveled at the suspicious-looking woman hiding behind their missing person.
"Sorry, Ralph," hastily apologized Jaune who was likewise holding up his carbine. "But we got a situation right now and you might want to duck and cover."
Ralph was not amused. "Oh hell no, not in our store!"
Pyrrha lowered her Garand. "Please, Ralph, we—"
The storeowner cut her off by whipping out a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun from under the cashier desk and leveling it at the entire room. "Mick! We got a situation down here!"
From the back of the store, Mick marched out, working the lever on his more polished shotgun and aiming it the others. "Everyone, stand down!"
"Mick, Ralph, please listen to us," Ren pleaded, his grip steady on his dual Browning pistols. "That man right there is someone we're looking for."
Ralph scrunched his brow. "Jonah? What did he do?"
"More like the woman who took him away from his friends," Nora said, nudging the barrel of her gun at the lady frowning behind Corporal Jonah O'Hanrahan. "You alright, buddy? Blink twice if you're in danger."
The corporal blinked three times then opened his mouth to talk when a knife suddenly appeared over his neck and he was dragged into a corner by the strange woman. Team JNPR-S now surrounded the pair with Ralph locking the front doors and flipping the sign on the window to 'closed' while Mick put himself in front of the aisles that led to the back exit.
"Let him go!" Jaune barked.
"Let him go, Neopolitan," Pyrrha demanded.
The strange woman bore her teeth.
"We know it's you," Ren worded sternly. "Release him now."
"Or else," Nora seethed, balancing her shotgun in her grip while the other wrapped around the leash that held back a very antsy and excited Syrup.
"Oh Lord Jesus," the soldier squeaked, "help us all..."
Neo had to take her chances. It was cramped in here with all this junk piled up all around them but there was enough room to maneuver. She just didn't want to cut up her new plushy.
"Neo," the blond Arc noodle called. "We can work something out here."
She pressed her knife deeper against O'Hanrahan's neck. He coughed and something warm trickled down to her fingers.
Arc scrunched up his face in frustration. "Damn it. I have to pull this card now."
"Jaune, don't," argued the redhead Nikos.
"She's going to kill him."
Neo rolled her eyes; she was not going to kill her toy. Not yet, at least. Or maybe just not at all. Because O'Hanrahan was fun and she felt like she really didn't want to kill the schmuck. He was sweet and squishy. Like a dirty teddy bear or a mushy toy soldier.
"Jaune-Jaune, you better know what you're doing," barked the ginger with the pet monster.
Arc nodded to the other kid—the one with the pink strand on his black hair—who promptly dug his free hand into his back pocket.
"Neo, listen," the blond said slowly. "We know that you know who the Desert Rangers are. In fact, you know more than anyone here knows. Because it was personal. You were with them when they fell apart. You were there with the Desert Rangers up until the end. Weren't you?"
Her eyes went wide and she snapped her head at him. Even the storeowners were gawking at the kid like they were guppies out of a fish tank.
"Otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to mimic one of them completely. To the detail. Hat, star, jacket, everything."
No! Shut up! Stop saying that shit! Neo found it harder and harder to be aggressive as this stupid Arc noodle kept huddling closer and closer, every stupid step for every stupid phrase that came out of his stupid mouth.
"You turned into a Desert Ranger named Tatiana—"
That name made Neo move before she could think. She shoved O'Hanrahan forward and tossed the knife towards the blond, forcing the kid to duck and the others to move in, shrinking the perimeter around her. She needed to get out of here, she didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to think about the past, about—
"Damn it! Ren, do it!"
ZAP!
Neo's heart skipped a beat when she felt a powerful sting in her left arm followed immediately by a surge of overwhelming electrical energy that bypassed her Aura and effectively neutralized her central nervous system. She had seen too late the blue beam of energy in her peripheries, leaping out of the tip of a boxy laser pistol. By now, her body had become rigid like a statue and she tumbled like a mannequin against the doors, pushing against it and resulting in her unmoving on the threshold of the store.
With her entire body completely locked down, all she could do was glare at the concrete and scream profanities in her head.
"Well, that was easy," remarked Jaune as they huddled around a paralyzed and possibly furious Neopolitan sprawled halfway across the entrance to Mick-And-Ralph's.
"I honestly didn't think it would work," Pyrrha said. "That was a good shot, Ren. You must have hit her in a vulnerable spot."
"Thank you, Pyrrha," Ren replied, inspecting with trepidation the boxy laser pistol he had used to incapacitate their culprit, the dosage meter locked into maximum. "We are learning more and more about our limitations...or more likely, what Aura cannot completely protect us from."
"Aww, and I was hoping we could get a bit more action in," Nora cooed playfully as she kneeled in front of their suspect as Syrup waddled over, maw agape and drooling on top of Neopolitan's head.
"Where exactly did you find that again?" the blond asked.
"In one of the safes in the cashier at the casino floor. It was unlocked so~o..."
The redhead nervously cleared her throat. "Nora, does Six know that we pilfered this particular weapon from his, ah, spare armory?"
The hammer-wielder blew raspberries. "It was unlocked. If he didn't want us to touch it, then he would've sealed it up in a vault like all the other cool guns he has. Besides, it's non-lethal! The note next to it said so."
"But did you tell him?"
Nora chuckled nervously. "... I was going to but he's not around much and we've been kinda busy with work and all that. But hey! We used it for good and no one got, y'know...killed."
"More importantly, we now have our suspect," her partner said before leaning back into the store to check up on Corporal O'Hanrahan who was being tended to by both Mick and Ralph. "And our missing trooper appears fine. Not injured in anyway, though a little shaken."
Jaune clapped his hands together. "Okay, now we bring them both back to the Strip. Nora, Ren, you carry Neo. The paralysis might last less than the ten minutes it says on the note so just keep zapping her until we get her cuffed up by the MPs. Pyrrha and I will stick to Corporal O'Hanrahan. Everybody stay close together, alright? Uh, anybody got a radio so we could contact the Misfits?"
"What about your Pip-Boys?" queried Nora. "Y'know, the ones from Vault Twenty-One?"
"They're for work," Pyrrha replied. "We turn them in at the end of our shift."
"Um, excuse me?" O'Hanrahan shakily intoned from behind them, a hand pressing a strip of cloth over the laceration on his neck. "Mighty thanks to y'all for getting me out of that predicament. You'd think after fightin' the Legion for so long, you'd be used to something like this but Miss Neo was really, uh, she really was somethin' else."
The blond beamed. "Hey, just watching out for our friends. How're you feeling?"
"Still rattled but ain't got no serious scratches on me. I mean, other than this little new itch under my chin but I don't think Miss Neo meant too much harm."
Nora waved. "Nah, she totally was going to cut your throat, buddy."
The corporal made a complicated face. "Right, you're right. But I don't think she's that bad, you know?"
The teens eyed each other and the two shopkeepers watching from inside the store.
"I know, I know! It sounds weird and stuff but...y'see, Miss Neo here is, uh, she's going through something or—I mean—she's not doin' this 'cause she's a bein' a bad person. Y'all get me, right?"
The teens slowly nodded while the shopkeepers shook their heads.
"Oh, Lord Jesus, how do I say this..." He dragged his palms down his cheeks until he felt secure enough in the arrangement of words that his brain came up with. "... Miss Neo is...she's got something, um, she... It's something involving her...bloodline?"
"What do you mean?" Ren nudged.
O'Hanrahan scratched the back of his head. He stuttered and kept glancing down at Neo until he stooped to a knee and turned her over so that she was facing up at them. Despite the paralysis, her mismatched eyes burned with fury. Then that fury suddenly evaporated in the quick few seconds that she met the corporal's eyes—replaced with panic and trepidation.
"I'm sorry, Miss Neo," he said softly. "But I think these folks need to know what you told me. They might help you, y'know? So you wouldn't be goin' off and findin' that friend o' yours on your lonesome. I mean...they're your family too, right?"
To this, everyone around—including Mick and Ralph idling by the doorway—glanced at each other with furrowed brows.
"What do you mean by 'family'?" slowly queried Pyrrha.
O'Hanrahan cleared his throat. "She told me...that she's one of you. Like, y'all are the big man's kids, right? Y'all share the same mutations like regeneration and heightened resistance to damage, right?"
Team JNPR-S hesitantly nodded.
"So...that makes Miss Neo here...your sister. Like you're long-lost sister. 'Cause she said that Courier Six was her pop, too. Biological pop—she used the word 'biological.' And I don't think she was lying."
Eyes went wide, jaws went slack, and there were lots of blinks. Also, the street suddenly fell oddly quiet with the two kids dragging along a haul of freshly-killed mutated rats across the street pausing mid-step to see why the whole world suddenly stopped.
"Bullshit," Nora gasped, bewildered.
"Horseshit," Ralph echoed, disbelieving.
"Holy shit," grunted the ghoul beggar, staring wide-eyed at them all from his quiet little corner next to the store.
The corporal looked around sheepishly. "Huh. Maybe I should'a been more discreet with that information?"
To which Jaune, comprehending the wide ramifications if such a claim was true, gawked down at Neo who, come to think of it, did have some interesting cheeks as well as an interesting distance between the eyes set over an interesting height of the nose. "... Oh, no... Oh, shit."
The Courier could barely concentrate, constantly pacing back and forth along the main floor of X-4. So many side-projects in the works, so many rackets to keep an eye on, so much bullshit that needed his attention and yet his brain was always bringing up that person...
Neopolitan, Nia Polis, Neopolitan, Nia Polis...
He looked up at main terminal screen that showcased the photograph of Team Echo.
She can't be. It's impossible! She's dead. They're all dead!
Ever since this morning, in the wake of the waterworks from last night, he had been reviewing the scan results from those old pictures. As expected, his face matched that of the smiling little girl in the middle of the photograph—Nia was his daughter, after all. Alex and Ellie were not related in any way but they had taken to each other as close siblings and they were as much his own. Then there was Tatiana beaming next to him, her frailty hidden by her attire, her signature marksman rifle cradled in her lithe arms.
How did she know what you looked like? How did she know everything about you? How did she even know?
That blasphemous voice in the back of his mind began speaking up again.
No! Neopolitan is NOT her! She's...she's...she's a damn dirty magician who...who knows Tia is and whose face and cheeks are so much like Nia and...
His heart rate spiked again and the veins in his temples started to throb. Every time he thought about that possibility—that maybe Neopolitan could be her—his body would respond with irregularities that, at worst, would necessitate a doctor. And the closest doctor he could trust was down in Goodsprings.
That's enough! Major Vickers smashed his fist against the edge of the console for the dozenth time and tried to get his breathing under control. She's dead. They're all dead. Alex is gone, Ellie is gone. Nia is... Neopolitan is NOT her because...because...
Are you sure 'bout that, Theo, ole pal?
Shut up, Old Green Eyes!
He noticed a discarded bolt on the floor, one of many forgotten pieces of junk scattered around that he never bothered to sweep into a bin. Holding it up against the bright white screen that showed Yes Man's ever-smiling avatar, he traced his fingers along its ridges. He continued toying with the bolt, juggling it between his hands, and scraping some of the dirt off the threads. It was mindless action but it helped keep his brain grounded so he could focus on what mattered in the moment. Neopolitan was a problem for tomorrow; today, it was Kansas and Snowstorm and their damn slave collars.
Okay, so the collars are made of some kind of metal that's extremely resistant. Some chips and tiny dents but that's all there is. Minimal to no sign of any corrosion either. He flipped the bolt around and rubbed his thumb on the generic markings engraved on the head. Unless...
He scraped his nail on the threads and came away with dirt instead of rust.
...they're not made of metal. He heard the elevator doors grate open and closed followed by footfalls that echoed closer and closer but he was too astonished by his own revelation. They're made with polymers... Polymers that couldn't be made anywhere else in the Mojave...
Six leaned back on his chair and rubbed his old green eyes dry.
Then he crossed the hall towards the armory. There were levers lining a control board and he pulled down one, causing a drawer to extend outward. In it, was an old weapon. But it was more of a souvenir at this point as it was made from the very same place he had been trying to access for over a year now. He carefully reached into the drawer and withdrew the partially mangled power-fist, holding it by the base, and caring to avoid the malformed pneumatic ram that still retained its reddish hue and still radiating an intense heat.
He placed it a gurney, keeping the ram facing upwards. Then he scraped his nails against the base ring. Nothing came off. For a while, he thought of whipping out one of his revolvers and shooting at it. But at this point, he had more confirmation for his working theory on those special slave collars.
"They've got to be made out of saturnite," he breathed, staring out across the cavern. "... How the hell did the Legion start forging saturnite?"
The Courier's gaze soon settled on the teleportation pods that he had been working on for months and his jaw hung slack at a more terrifying possibility given that, as far as he was aware of, there was only one place in the Mojave Wasteland that produced pure saturnite in droves.
"Oh Dear God..." The Legion is at the Big MT!
Omake
The previous night...
Neither Glynda nor Winter expected to bear witness to the formidable Courier Six falling apart in front of them. Raul as well was beside himself, clearly not used to this vulnerability from the man who ruled New Vegas from the shadows, fought in wars that shaped the Wasteland, and allegedly wielded an arsenal that cowed both the NCR and the Imperium Americana.
He sobbed bitterly and they let him mourn for about a minute.
Then he turned to the ghoul and said, "I'm falling apart. I can't keep doing this."
"Doing what, Boss?"
"The kids needed my help and I shut down. A magician shut me down. I don't think I can...I'm running out of juice...but the kids, they need me—"
"Amigo," Raul interrupted, the tone of rebuke seeping through his gravelly voice, "why are doing too much?"
The Courier stared. His lips quivered and he dropped his head into his hands and choked back more sobs.
"Why are you doing too much?" the ghoul repeated more sternly.
"I wasn't there to protect 'em," weakly replied Major Vickers. "I wasn't there and they came in...and killed 'em all. They killed 'em all slow and painful and I wasn't there to stop any of it."
"And you think it's all your fault?"
The Courier shook his head. "I can't stop believing that. I've tried again and again...like you said, like I said to you... I just can't...stop myself from...trying so hard not to make those same mistakes again."
Raul fell quiet and turned to the two women, his attention lingering longer on Glynda. And the blonde realized that he had read her like a book. When Ozpin took her as his deputy at Beacon, it was because of a certain tender quality that was hidden under a draconian shell. It seemed that longevity provided for powerful discernment and this ghoul discerned that same tenderness within her.
So she spoke up. "You love them dearly, don't you, sir?"
Major Vickers ceased his sniffling. He regarded her with all the anguish on his tear-stricken, unkempt face. "... Wouldn't you?"
Glynda shuffled closer, knelt in front of him, and took his trembling hands in hers. "As a teacher, I tend to be harsh and uncompromising. Because if I'm not, my fear is that my students...will suffer consequences they could have avoided."
He pulled away. "... The Wasteland's going to get 'em eventually. And I ain't gon' be there. 'Cause I can't be around for long."
"You're not dying yet."
"I'm falling apart, woman. My body's running on spare parts made by ghosts of the Old World, I'm talking to my goddamn reflection, and I can't stop...the fucking shaking...in my hands."
She took his hands again and held firm, staring back resolutely at those tired eyes greener than hers. "Help may hurt but it'll heal so much more in time."
"I can't believe you're lecturing me on shit like this."
"We're here to help. You brought us here to help. What else is there for us to do?"
He dipped his head and sighed. "... What do you want to know?"
Glynda glanced over her shoulder to Winter who made the request, "Can you tell us what is bothering you so much? So we can be of assistance to you in exchange for your assistance to us."
Major Vickers grunted and pulled away from the blonde. He brushed aside the severed deathclaw hand and pulled open the drawer that contained the relics of his own past.
"... When Nia was four years old, I was handpicked to lead a special squad. We—the Desert Rangers—had been fighting a losing war against the Legion. Then we got a lead...a possible weakness that we could exploit... We thought that if we...struck at that weak spot...at a time when we thought the Legion was vulnerable... We could turn the tide...and win the war. We were wrong."
Glynda stood up as he arrayed a set of old photographs and trinkets—a handful of tin stars, a bracelet, and a pair of cracked shades—across the varnished desk. Winter and Raul stepped closer so they could pore over them.
"We were lied to," the Courier recounted. "We obsessed over the Legion's weaknesses that we forgot to cover our own. And they exploited it. They gave us lies; they faked weakness long enough for us to bite. They lured us—me and so many of us who could still fight—out of our headquarters in Flagstaff..."
"... And?"
He breathed deep, anger taking over his features. "They struck. In force. Led by the best frumentarii in their ranks, they broke through and ripped us all apart."
Thankfully, he spared them the details but the tragedy did not end there. He withdrew an empty tin box from a pocket inside one of his pouches.
"We wisened up too late," he continued, lifting the lid and putting away trinkets and the pictures save for one. "When we got back, Flagstaff was on fire...and there were crosses everywhere. But it wasn't the folks we lost that hurt the most... It was the survivors who blamed us and called us traitors...because those frumentarii...planted false evidence on the ruins...that painted us—me and all of the men and women who were sent out prior—as insiders...who were tired of the war...and wanted it to end already."
The quiet passed with the two women stunned by the conclusion of the tale. The ghoul was stone-faced, his arms folded as he leaned against the edge of the desk.
"That's how the Desert Rangers lost Arizona to the Legion." Major Vickers put away the box and rubbed his fingers over the single remaining photograph. "Team Echo died that day. And the children here..."
They were then shown the picture. And Glynda felt her breath hitch in her throat at the faces of the three children posing in front of a squadron of Desert Rangers, especially at the anxious-looking black-haired girl in a red dress.
"... We couldn't find their bodies in the rubble. And I don't want to think of why we couldn't."
The blonde noticed Winter gaping incredulously at the orange-haired boy with the bowler hat posing with a trimmed tree branch as though it was a cane.
"Those Remnant kids...were just like my little girl and her two best friends." His solemn gaze morphed into an incandescent sneer. "Then that magician comes...and makes a blasphemy of the memories I have of them."
"She turned into your wife," Raul piped coolly. "How did she know who she was?"
"That's what I'm going to find out."
"She's still out there, Boss. How're you going to find her?"
"Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next week. But when I do find her..." Major Vickers shook his head and stood up. "No. There's more important things to do. And I need to focus."
"Boss—"
The Courier held up a hand to silence him. Then he brought up his Pip-Boy; he had just received a message. He grimaced, clicked his tongue, and mumbled a curse. Seeing their curious stares, he showed them the message: it was from Qrow. Misspellings aside, he claimed that the NCR was up to something. How timely.
"One fucking problem at a time," Major Vickers snarled, taking the deathclaw hand, and rapidly marched back up the stairs to the mezzanine.
"Where are you going?" asked Glynda.
"I'm going to work on your breaking your collars," he answered gruffly, hastening into the elevator which closed before they could press further.
Winter slumped onto a chair. The Courier was a complicated figure but at least they were enlightened as to why albeit the story of how the Imperium Americana destroyed the Desert Rangers in their very own heartland was taking time to digest.
"I knew Tia," Raul suddenly remarked, staring out the glass panes. "Team Echo and I crossed paths a few times. We didn't know each other that much but I remember faces."
The lieutenant felt compelled to ask the ghoul for more details only to be met by a frown.
"I remember seeing those kids myself once."
"We don't—"
He cut Glynda off, sounding galled. "Boss believes those kids died to the Legion. So tell me why you two look like you've met them before. And I'd rather neither of you lie. I'm as much an open book as the next guy but you two don't realize how many of your pages were on display."
Winter looked to the blonde who seemed to be struggling to compose a response. So she instead replied for the both of them, "It's complicated."
"Complicated how?"
"They resemble people we know on Remnant," the lieutenant answered carefully. "Adults. With criminal records. And responsible for...heinous crimes. And perhaps may be responsible or involved in how we ended up here...in the Wasteland."
Raul blinked, exhaled tiredly, and ran his flayed fingers over his flayed scalp. "Ay, Dios mío..."
ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 11, 2024
LAST EDITED: June 16, 2024
INITIALLY UPLOADED: June 16, 2024
NOTE: So I took longer than I thought. I apologize. Some personal matters came up and I had to deal with them which left me drained for months. I've slowly been building up my muses again but even then, the difficult part was finishing the chapter that I had already started. Rewrites happened, of course.
The hardest part about this chapter was figuring out how a Volume 2 team JNPR would deal with a post-Volume 3 Neo. Another challenge for this one was Six opening up to the adults and navigating the emotions involved in that.
But I managed and we now have team JNPR and the Misfits finding out too much information while the Courier and his contemporaries come to grips with some pretty serious realizations.
On a side-note, I appreciate the guest reviewer who has been putting in a lot of effort into bringing more eyes to this story. I did feel encouraged to continue working on this story - thank you for that - as, for months, I had been running on a burnt fuse. I was also surprised to discover that my other crossover story Her Majesty's Herald has a TV Tropes page - thank you to those who set that up. I am inching that story forward whenever I can. :)
Additionally, while I don't have as much time for fan fiction as I did years ago, I was able to read many of the other RWBY/Fallout crossover stories though not in their entirety as I usually check the latest chapters and back-read whenever I can. I really enjoyed a lot of them and I do recommend checking those other stories on this site or on Ao3 (or wherever else you get your fan fiction).