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Fandom Fallout New Vegas: Omne initium difficile est [Closed]

Vulpes merely gives a dissatisfied grunt at the fact that the doctor would be slowing down his pace, but truthfully he had expected as much. In any case, he doesn’t say anything- simply crossing his arms and waiting for Arcade to collect the things he will need for the trip. Still, it would be useful to keep the doctor around. Eventually he does speak. “I will accommodate your limitations for the venture, then.” He acquiesced. Any irritation he may have felt did not show on his face. He needed the doctor alive to be useful, after all. The man wouldn’t be useful dead from over exertion of dehydration.

He also did not believe the courier would be all too inclined to listen to Lord Caesar should she find her beloved doctor friend ended up dead in a shallow ditch in such a manner.

Once they left Gomorrah as a pair, he dropped the act once the streets were too crowded to keep an eye on their movements. With not so much as a word he vanished into the crowd, slipping into the throngs of gamblers and whores as if he was a mere apparition.

He gathered his own things at the Ultra-Luxe. He had a few disguises he always kept on him to use, and as such had something useful for being so close to ranger station Foxtrot. Vulpes planned on going there to collect information that might be relevant, not to the current mission but in general. Two birds with one stone, so to speak. As such he’d need to carry a specific disguise. He folded up the fabric of a duster and slid the armor and helmet inside of a pack meant to go on his back. Along with an NCR radio. Food and water were necessary- and despite wanting to pack light he needed to make sure he had these things on hand.

Peeling off his current disguise as if he was some creature shedding it’s skin- he got dressed in his true affiliation. The armor was red, the color of Mars.

The wolf had removed its sheep’s clothing at last.

However, he would still need to conceal himself for a while yet, and as such threw on a long dark coat over and tied it shut. Slipping on some authority glasses and a straw hat, he shrugged his bag onto his shoulders and left the Ultra-Luxe.

As he walks through the crowd, he sees Arcade standing where they had decided to meet one another. Vulpes, despite his outfit concealing his armor- was not playing any particular role. As such, he walked through the mass of people with predator’s grace, not bothering to try and conceal it. He comes to Arcade’s side suddenly without preamble or introduction. “Let’s start our journey. If we are to let you rest and make suitable time, we will need to be swift in our departure.” Without so much as another word, he heads through the gates.

~***~

War sings in his bones and speaks like a tender whisper in his flesh. This is what he was made for, and what he will die doing. There is not other option, no retreat.

Sibilus’ heart thunders in his ears as Aemilia manages to make the slip outside. One of the other false rangers who were already in the opening of the door was in the process of lighting dynamite- though the frumentarius’ reaction was instant as he put three rounds into the man’s chest. Before the dynamite’s detonation cord could catch fire. The bullets weren’t trick shots, nothing fancy- but they were aimed to kill. Primarily towards the heart. He wasn’t confident enough in his abilities like Aemilia to get a guaranteed headshot every time, so he focused to the center of mass. Their ranger clothing wasn’t congruent with the desire to protect them from damage, and as such the bullets tore through the fabric and pierced the man’s chest.

“Move.” He ordered Benny in a voice unlike his usual tone. His voice was not feathery, but like the hard strike of a fist. It was firm and confident despite how on the inside he felt like a gust of wind would cause him to crumble. He pulled up his coyote cowl and tugged upwards his goggles to sit over his eyes and to hide them behind darkly tinted glass, he then strode towards the door quickly. With his strides there was purpose as he did not want to be caught inside and cornered.

Benny meekly following along after, not wanting to cause trouble. Maybe, just maybe- he realized that Aemilia wasn’t the only one that could decide to pump him full of lead if he didn’t comply. Maybe he realized the fact that despite being tamed and chained by Aemilia, Sibilus was still Legion- and those schmucks were always bad news, like the grim reaper knocking on your door.

So with Maria in hand, he swallowed back any quips he might have said as he followed Sibilus back outside. A few more ‘rangers’ came running to the gunshots to investigate- a few of them rounding a corner and not having noticed them, as if they were chasing something around the corner like a hound dog chasing a rabbit. Benny with Maria in hand clipped one of them in the shoulder, and the man let out sound of a pain and whirled around to them and was aiming his own weapon. The next shot from Maria hit him in the throat and the man gurgled in pain and dropped to the ground before he could fire.

Sibilus and Benny would have to get through the two other men that had been intent on rounding the corner-who had been chasing Aemilia- if they wanted to get to a spot of ample cover. Maria shot through one of the false ranger’s thighs, making him nearly buckle in agony. The other one went to go and return fire to make up for his friend’s brief moment of hesitation- but he caught two bullets in the chest curtesy of Sibilus.
 
It does not take Vulpes long, and Arcade sees the approach through the crowd. It is impossible to miss – Vulpes is himself, and people seem to instinctively clear away from him when he moves. Arcade straightens up, and though frowning, nods as the directive is given to get moving. He didn’t intend to wait long when they reunited, and so they both exit civilization together.

‘You know it’s not healthy to travel the way you do.’

Then again, legionnaires probably weren’t too concerned with living past 40. That was reserved for the likes of Caesar. Men like Vulpes expected to die while they were useful, rather than rot away into uselessness and struggle under the pressure to keep up and maintain. End up executed for uselessness, no matter their years of service.

What a terrible fate.

‘Fitting.’ Arcade can’t help the bitter thought as they continue their trek, silent for a while. The silence does not bother him, in truth, he is quite capable of keeping himself entertained with his own thoughts and theories, but the thoughts keep cycling into questions about the man he is traveling with.

A man who also does not seem to mind silence while on the move.

A boon and a bane.

“So,” Arcade decides to speak, because he can’t help it, and the bitterness at traveling with a legionnaire can’t help but bubble up in the silence between them. It makes his tongue sharp, “Tell me, Vulpes. If Caesar decides to disregard your judgment on Martina when you finally stop being a coward and present it to him, will you just accept that? He’s probably not going to be too happy about what she’s been doing, you know. I’m kind of worried she might end up executed when she reports to him.”

He was fishing a bit, wondering if Martina had ever made a report to Caesar herself, or if Vulpes was usually the one to do it for her. If Vulpes covered her work, as if it were his own.

The truth was, he did worry.

Despite her being a legion informant, she was being lied to. Misled. And her death, or torture, would come from the ignorance that Vulpes had allowed her to believe in. Her stupid trust in the man who was a born liar.

~***~

One.

Two.

Aemilia hears the uncoordinated steps and moves from the wall to strike one just before the corner is rounded, and sets her sights on the second. Benny and Sibilus are visible, but she does not regard them. She does not regard the gunshot that chars leather and peels flesh, it does not disrupt the second shot that ends the shooter. It is only in that brief moment of respite she feels the pain, but it is an alert. Just under her shoulder, the wound sings, but it is a graze. It did not penetrate flesh or armor, just cut some of it aside, and so Aemilia disregards it as she turns, and runs.

The path is open, with a few buildings to duck behind.

Distance will make the shots less likely to hit, and she doubts the powder gangers will seek revenge the same way a Ranger would.

‘Or you.’

Although one might question that desire for revenge with Benny alive and following.

Aemilia reloads on the run, but she does not fire a shot back once she gets running, once she has the path. She disregards additional shots, powder ganger and ally alike. None strike her again, and eventually – they stop.

Eventually, in a dip between hills, she can pause and look back for Sibilus and Benny, while moving a hand to cover the wound. It is not worthy of wasting a stimpack on, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. It’s a small comfort as she keeps Roland in one hand, waiting to assess the survival of the others, and that none had followed them so far from Ranger Station Charlie.

Seeing them, she gives a nod. “We’ll put more distance between them and cross into Legion territory before we rest. We’re not far, are we?” That, of course, to Sibilus, as he would know better when they reached the territory and could consider themselves somewhat safe. Not entirely, that was an impossibility with the creatures that roamed the wastes, but safer than they currently were, at any rate.

Aemilia hoped they were safe. The adrenaline would run out soon, and she knew her second wind would go right with it. She wasn’t looking forward to the hit of that exhaustion.

What a sight they had to be – a legionnaire, a Chairman, and her. The suit and the legion armor really didn’t match each other, and screamed at the oddity the three of them were together, but Aemilia didn’t care.
 
Vulpes expected that they would travel in silence, or rather- had hoped in any case. Though, a part of him knew that the doctor would not be able to curb his tongue. If his impetuous actions back in the Ultra-Luxe proved anything, it was that the Follower of the Apocolypse loved to try and make digs. Loved to try and prove a point and to argue. Surprisingly, Vulpes quite respected it. For Arcade was either brave or foolish to speak in such a way to the greatest of Caesar’s frumentarii.

Despite how naïve his ideals were, Arcade did not strike Vulpes as a foolish man.

Though eventually he spoke, like Vulpes had assumed would eventually happen. What Arcade’s words were did not make Vulpes happy, and he curbed the immediate want to twitch his eyelid in frustration. Instead, he tempered his facial features into an unyielding inscrutable countenance.

His words were like that of a threat, despite sounding pleasant on the surface. “I do not believe that is any of your concern, dear doctor.” It was the first time since Arcade has asked him to call him his name in the Ultra-Luxe, that Vulpes has not called him by either his last or first name verbally. A not-so-subtle warning that he was walking a dangerous line. Cold and sharp like the bite of shrapnel. “Though, if you must insist, I must trust Lord Caesar’s to make an appropriate choice. It is not my place to question the word of the Son of Mars. Though, I have no doubts that Caesar will see Martina’s use.”

He pauses, Vulpes looks bored and disinterested and does not look at Arcade at all-instead focusing on the horizon. “She is as much a frumentarius as Sibilus, at least in my eyes. If it was my choice, she would have gotten combat training to make her more effective. In any case, as it is- Martina is an invaluable resource. I have spoken to Lord Caesar on her behalf- he knows exactly what information she obtained for us. Lord Caesar will not be so hasty as to execute her, for he was the one that allowed me to use her on our mission in the Strip in the first place.”

It seems like Arcade’s words had struck a nerve with Vulpes, despite all of his attempts to sound reasonable and calm- there was still an underlying edge of aggression to his words. “I am one of Lord Caesar’s closest and most trusted, he values my input.” Vulpes was obviously steadfast in that belief. That perhaps his words might be enough to convince Caesar of Martina’s value. As if his counsel was worth something to the warlord. “He sees the potential in others. It was why he spared me from death- twice. If he was able to see my worth, he will Martina’s. He knows talent when he sees it.” It was an admission, but one that Vulpes did not seem all too bothered in admitting.

~***~

The two men once taking out their own deterrents, also sprint for the exit. Benny is surprisingly fast despite his body obviously being used to the luxuries of the Strip. Though he manages to keep pace with Sibilus. The Chairman is wheezing, though by the time they manage to duck behind one of the buildings as shots fly wide. The frumentarius leans out of cover to return fire, his teeth bared like some sort of animal. Like a snake flashing their fangs.

Benny keeps his head ducked, not minding allowing the legionnaire to take the heat. Instead when it seems Sibilus is busy giving them covering fire, Benny tries to slink away.

Only to get a machete pressed against the skin of his neck. Underneath the dark goggles, Sibilus’ eyes are wild. Like some sort of crazy lurks underneath. “Going somewhere, pal?” He asks, and venom drips from his voice. Benny doesn’t like the Legion’s particular brand of crazy, he decides then and there.

Once the bullets die down, Sibilus kicks him in the back of the legs to keep moving. The chairman stumbles and continues to run, his muscles aching as they manage to bolt out of the exit. They run, and run, and run. They run until Benny feels like his heart is going to explode in his head and there is an uncomfortable feeling of sweat practically melting his checkered suit into his skin. Like some sort of demon, Snakey-Boy doesn’t even seem to be tired.

If Benny didn’t think it might piss of Aemilia, he would have put a bullet in the back of the legionnaire’s coyote head clad skull.

Sibilus meanwhile, was doing nothing but playing another persona. That of the rabid animal, the feral beast, the wild snake. He wanted Benny to fear him, because that meant that he could use it to manipulate Benny later- to fix his mistake.

He could make everything go how it was supposed to go, make everything turn out like it should. He just had to make a plan, he had to sabotage things somehow.

Finally, they end up far enough that the bullets stop, the false rangers not bothering to keep giving chase. They weren’t inclined to go beyond the bare minimum, they hadn’t cared about their ‘friends’. The Legion would have, not because anyone genuinely cared what happened to faceless soldiers- but because it was expected. Retribution was given to anyone that crossed the Legion, because it was an insult to Caesar’s will.

They caught up to Aemilia, Sibilus far sooner than Benny who was gasping and panting by the time they had arrived. Sliding Maria back in it’s place, the chairman bent over and rested his hands on his knees in order to take deep breaths in order to calm his pounding heartbeat. “Well….” A cough. “That was something.”

Sibilus turned as Aemilia spoke of their plan, and his brain rapidly turned over the possibilities… yes, yes.

He had a plan.

“Yes, we’re close. Once we enter the lands of Caesar, I will be able to lead you better than that-“ He gestures faintly to the Pip-Boy on her wrist. “I can find us somewhere safe to rest.”

Take the bait. Sibilus hoped she would.
 
‘Well, at least it’s not Medicus.’ Arcade recognizes the warning in Vulpes’ tone, but chooses to ignore it. Not that he intends to press more on Martina directly, but there are other openings in the way Vulpes speaks of the trust that Caesar has in him. There are things he is curious about in the Legion, and things he is now curious about with Vulpes.

“Right, I don’t think he listens to you that much. I don’t know of any Vulpes in history – if you were someone of influence, you’d be Augustus, Octavius, Antony, or – or maybe Pompey Magnus if he didn’t know the full history.” How Caesar wept at his death! And the death of Cato, but there would be no Cato for this Caesar.

No Cicero, either, and of course, no Brutus or Cassius. “Is there an Augustus?” he can’t help but ask, wondering if there was, and if it had such meaning among the Legion as it ought to. “I suppose Caesar might not know, though I find that hard to believe….” He shakes it off, though, realizing something else Vulpes said.

Two times he’d been spared.

Two times he’d upset Caesar.

So he could rebel. He could act, and think, on his own. ‘And Martina might be a third.’ He does not say that aloud. He does not mention he doesn’t believe that Vulpes will accept Martina being disregarded.

“I suppose those two incidents where you were spared could be why Caesar hasn’t named you Augustus, though. What did you do – skin his favorite dog for a hood?” It’s a joke. He doubts Caesar likes dogs enough to have a favorite. They’d just be another tool to him, too – like everything else in his army.

~***~

It is difficult not to laugh at Benny as he shows up, sweating through his suit, exhausted. Aemilia manages it, but she can’t hide the glitter of amusement in her eyes, nor the twitch of a smile. If she wasn’t going to be killing Benny, she’d get her joy where she could. “That shouldn’t happen too much,” Aemilia noted, not only for Benny’s sake. She really didn’t make a point of these things.

Sibilus seems to know a good hiding spot for the evening, so Aemilia lets out a relieved sigh and defers, “Lead the way,” the sooner they arrived, the sooner she could repair the leather and rest. She was pretty sure she still had enough leather for this.

She would let Sibilus lead, and she’d keep pace with Benny, rather than let him take up the rear – or take it up herself. He looked too exhausted to be able to handle himself alone right then. ‘Soft.’ But of course, that was why he hired the Great Khans. “I think you’ve spent too much time on the Strip, Ben-Ben. This trip might actually be good for you.”

Maybe not immediately, but it could be – if he let it be.

She didn’t leave it there, though. She had another curiosity, “Sibilus doesn’t name his weapons,” most didn’t. That wasn’t the point, “How’d you come about Maria?” She was genuinely curious, but added, “Are you Christian?” She asked it with that curiosity, not judgment.

Plenty knew about Christianity. It had been the most popular religion before the bombs dropped. It wasn’t as popular anymore. No religion really was – Aemilia couldn’t claim any faith. Oh, there was something, but it hadn’t revealed its name to her, so she hardly knew how to appease it. She assumed she was doing a pretty good job, though. It hadn’t let her die yet, after all.

Benny didn’t strike her as Christian, but then again, the few she’d known who claimed to be – her mother included – didn’t seem very…Christ-like. The old Ghoul who prayed the rosary outside the corner market had a sharp tongue for gossip and cruelty, and her mother had loved the drink more than the good Lord above.
 
Vulpes narrows his eyes a bit, finally taking his naturally intense gaze off of the bleak wasteland landscape to settle on Arcade. There is a calculated weight there that seems to come to Vulpes as instinctually as breathing, as if he was considering weak points, as if Arcade was a target. Though, the fox seemed to treat everyone like that. “There is already an Antony, he trains the dogs. Agustus is a role that is promised to be his potential successor for when Lord Caesar’s mortal body fails, and his godly spirit is sent off the mortal coil. He has not picked one that is worthy of the role yet. I am not right for such a role, in any case.” Vulpes was surprisingly honest. “I am the cloak and dagger, not the man that sits upon a throne. I am the right hand, it may beckon, it may hold burdens, it may turn into a fist to strike down whatever stands in his way. That is what I am. That is not the kind of person it would take to run the Legion.” Vulpes didn’t want it, he liked where he stood currently. It was a role best suited to his talents. He truly believed he was not the right fit for such a burden.

Though, neither was that brute Lanius. He doesn’t mention those words though, he tried hard to remain respectful at least verbally of the Monster of the East. For Vulpes knows of Lanius’ own distaste for Vulpes and his work, and finds it remarkably amusing to be cordial with the oaf and watch as he hisses and spits. Vulpes is better than such inane and petty squabbling anyways.

The fox ignores Arcade’s mention of ‘history’ for he is not sure what he is referencing. Vulpes will not be seen as someone who doesn’t know something, instead he will act like he does and slowly gain his own knowledge of the subject later. Vulpes can’t deny it intrigues him, however.

Vulpes face darkens as Arcade makes light of Caesar’s mercy upon him. Thunderous, ominous- there is something dancing behind his eyes, and it is something predatory and sharp. He smiles, it is just as sharp. Again it is less a smile and more like an animal baring it’s teeth as if he is about to tear out Arcade’s throat. “Do not joke about such things, Medicus.” He hisses. All too suddenly the entire look drops from his face, and again it is calm and placid, as if Vulpes had turned off his emotions like one turned off a terminal. “The first time I was spared was when the Legion razed the godless barbaric tribe I used to belong to. They were foolish cowards who believed in superstitions and rituals, who tried to appease ‘spirits’ by heinous means even the Legion would not apply to worst of profligate whores.” He spat, hatred and vitriol dripping from his words. Whatever hate was there, it was personal. It was similar to the way he spoke about such tribal cultures in the Ultra-Luxe.

He shrugs idly, as if completely unbothered. “The second time- I went against orders after seeing an obvious weakness in an enemy line that my Centurion was too stupid to see. He wanted me crucified, and indeed I was, beaten and strung to a cross- for two days. Caesar came to me then, like a vision in my dehydrated state- he ordered me to be taken from the cross. He bestowed on me the honor to fight his current leader of the frumentarii in a battle to the death, either I would die honorably- or I would earn the rank myself…” There is amusement glimmering in his eyes. “Sciebam te non confundas me. Grata domum, Vulpes Inculta. That is what he said to me after I returned.” He was proud of this, very obviously so.

He allows Arcade to see that pride.

~***~

Benny narrows his eyes, seeing the amusement playing behind Aemilia’s. Though he doesn’t have any energy to give a quip, and instead tries not to drop down into the sand- as exhausted as his body is. He wants to be laying down in his room at the Tops right about now, he missed the cool air-conditioning and soft sheets- even if the chatterbox of a securitron got on his nerves.

Once Benny gets his breath back, he stands upright as if he hadn’t been puffing for air just a moment ago. Maybe he should cut back on the smoking. In any case, he smoothed his hair back into place which had gotten slightly rustled from the events. “Well, doll- I am pretty glad about that. Gotta admit. I’m not exactly achin’ for a breakin’ myself- and I imagine if we keep getting into situations like that it’s gonna happen. Best to avoid them, when possible, ya dig?” Benny abruptly leans back as Sibilus walks silently past him at Aemilia’s orders. Benny liked it better when that one was tied up.

Then again, despite being such a charmer, the gal was just as terrifying- maybe more so. He’d actually wronged her. It was only from whatever misguided mercy she had that he was still alive. Maybe he should kiss Maria for the fact he’s not dead, or maybe he should upgrade to something with more power that will actually get the job done next time.

They begin to walk, and Benny tries to hide how bad his legs are wobbling by slowly sauntering. He notices Aemilia not giving him a chance to lag behind, and he wonders if it is from her not trusting him not to walk behind her. That is what Benny would do, anyways. “Sweetheart, you’ll find I’m made of sterner stuff than I look. I was able to keep pace with the snake, at least for a while anyways.” ‘And he acts like he’s not even human’ he bites back the idea of saying it as soon as he things it. Doesn’t want to start a fuss, after all.

“Oh, Maria?” He asks, slightly interested in why he’s asking such a question. He laughs when she asks if he is Christian. “Oh, baby- do I look like one of them hoity-toity New Canaanite types? No, but I do know that she’s the woman of the apocalypse, or at least that’s one of her names, I think. What better gun to have on your side than a holy mother with that sort of title?” He shrugs some. “Truth be told, she’s a beauty, but she isn’t the toughest gun out there.” Or else I wouldn’t be in this mess right now, he wants to say but doesn’t. “She can’t turn heads into a find powder like yours can, but she’s served me well. Besides, as a Chairman you need something to distinguish yourself from the rest. The suit, the gun- it’s airs your putting on. That’s what business is, baby. It’s putting on your best and making sure everyone remembers you.”

Though he supposed that in Aemilia’s case- that turned out to be about the worst thing that Benny could have done.

“Hell, I don’t even know if there is anything up there- I live for the now. Though, who knows- maybe with the miracles that happened lately, maybe Maria was looking out for you.” He shrugged.

During the entire conversation, Sibilus had been silently scouting and leading the way. He was deep in his own head. The silence wasn’t unnatural from him, but this silence seemed…eerie. At least to Benny, anyways.
 
‘Antony trains the dogs?’

The mere thought of that baffles Arcade. That isn’t a role for a general. That isn’t a role for Caesar’s best friend. Is training dogs something more than Arcade realizes? Not by the tone in which Vulpes said it in. ‘What?’ His confusion is soothed only a little when he learns the title Augustus exists – but has been given to none.

Of course not.

That would be…foolish.

He also finds some doubt for Vulpes declaring he wouldn’t be good at holding the position, but not entirely. Vulpes had not left himself out as a wretched being, unworthy of grace, before. He does not seem to do so now, and he bemoans all his origins were, in telling of the first time he was spared. ‘And what is worse than child murder?’ Arcade bites the inside of his cheek, wondering at that.

Vulpes seemed so against child sacrifice, but Arcade knows what he’s done.

He doesn’t know what could be worse.

The Latin is easy for Arcade to understand. ‘Welcome home.’ He sighs aloud at that story, wondering why Caesar would let him be crucified, wondering what happened to that Centurion who failed in his duty, in a way, by not listening to Vulpes. The pride Vulpes exuded was strong.

Too strong to allow to persist with his holier-than-thou attitude.

“You claim your origins are so atrocious,” Arcade points out, “but I can’t think of anything worse than murdering children, like you did at Nipton. So why don’t you enlighten me as to what is so much more horrendous than that, Vulpes. Why did your tribe in particular deserve none of Caesar’s so-called mercy?”

~***~

Benny was willing to talk about Maria.

It doesn’t surprise Aemilia in the least, and she listens as he speaks of Maria being a woman of the Apocalypse. That is new to her – the name she has for that is Kali, not Maria, but who said gods or goddesses needed just one name? She and Sibilus had already discussed Zeus-Jupiter, after all. Kali-Maria was as much the same to her as any other deity.

“Maria suits you,” easily said with the description. Benny wasn’t a man of violence, Maria not really a gun of violence, but defense. Perhaps that is why it did not work so well when he turned it on her as pure violence, not defense. “She certainly makes you stand out,” not to his benefit in all cases, but that was ever the risk of fame, of being in the spotlight.

Benny would need to get used to that.

“But if she’s the one who made sure the shots weren’t fatal, I may have to convert myself,” Aemilia chuckled at the thought, and shook her head, “I haven’t figured out quite what’s up there, what name it prefers, but if it’s Maria, I’ll happily call it Maria.” She didn’t think it was Mars or Jupiter, of course.

Not like Sibilus likely did. “There’s so many names up there, it’s hard to know. Maybe there’s just a lot of them, and sometimes, we get lucky and one of them takes an interest,” she shrugged the thought off, though. “Don’t worry – I’m not a Christian, either.” That wasn’t where her mercy came from. “Just know the name and iconography a bit, so I had to ask.” That, and of course, the rarity of another who named their gun.

Shame he tried to kill her with it. Maybe they would have been friends, otherwise.

Maybe not.

“Would you tell me a bit more about the Strip and the Tops?” It was more to pass the time than anything with Sibilus leading. Aemilia was aware he wasn’t in the mood to talk – less than usual. He had that same odd vibe coming off of him when he’d grown too tired to talk about the constellations, but…more. She didn’t see any injuries, or a reason for it. A part of her thought he might just be upset about Benny’s presence, but that didn’t seem right.

He'd been in favor of bringing Benny along, as a distraction if nothing else.

Talking though was going to help her keep walking. The adrenaline was fading. Her own steps were starting to sway and wobble, the desire to just fall hitting harder and harder. Talking was a distraction from that. She had to hope it was for Benny, too, so they’d both make it to this safe spot.
 
Vulpes whips around suddenly, the anger is tangible, it is burning like hot lava. His icy eyes are ablaze at the absolute gall that Arcade would have to tell him that he would murder children. He gets in the other man’s face, not caring that the other man is far taller than him. His words if they sounded like thinly veiled hostilities before, these words had no feigned interested in attempting to conceal any wrath. “As if I would stoop so low. I did not allow children to participate in the lottery. There were only men and women, whores among their kind.” He was angry, seething. Arcade had touched a nerve, had stomped on it and ground it into dust. “There was one and I repeat one death at Nipton that was a child. One of the men under my command decided to cut him down when he attempted to flee back to his mother.”

There is a sudden and poignant pause, his lips twitching to show his disgust. “I will tell you exactly what I had done in Nipton. In great and terrible detail. It was a wretched place, an abomination. Mayor Steyn was burned on a pile of tires alive, he screamed for exactly thirty seconds until the fire was hot enough to consume the air from his lungs. His flesh charred and peeled away until blackened, the flames were so hot he was cremated. Some were beaten to death; others were ripped apart by the hounds and fed to them. A few were cut down by the blades of machetes. Multiple were strewn to crosses to die under the heat of the Mojave sun. Three men and all but one of the children were taken back. The Powder Gangers as slaves, and the children being raised under the Legion banner. One man had his legs broken, and exactly one was set free.”

He gets closer, his eyes deadly. “The man that killed that child was given a lottery ticket too. I personally castrated him with my ripper, cut out his tongue- and hung him to a cross. I do not tolerate harming children, nor do I tolerate such acts of violence as raping while under my command. While some acts of a barbaric nature are necessary to break morale- I will not allow the men under my command to become animals like from the uncouth tribes from whence they came.”

“If you ever suggest to me again that I would do such a thing, I do not care what punishment would be bestowed upon me by almighty Caesar. For I would make you suffer for such a grievous insult. I freely admit what I must do in the name of Lord Caesar, but I will not take such words lightly from your mouth- Arcade Gannon.” He hisses his name, as if it is an insult. His words are no idle threat, they were a promise. The slander against his name that he would go against even Lord Caesar’s Mark?

Quite a nerve that Arcade had struck indeed.

Vulpes turns back on his heel and continues walking, as if nothing happened at all.

~***~

“I agree, she’s just as beautiful as I am handsome.” He grins in amusement and laughs slightly. The chairman can’t help what’s her game. Everyone has an angle; had a card they want to play. Well, he supposed he already knew. He had no clue why he was being brought on the ride- though he was thankful not to be killed. Or potentially worse given the vindictive threats the woman had made earlier against his person. He very much likes having all of his body parts how they were. Though the idea of debt was a familiar and uncomfortable concept. Debt to the Khans, debt to Aemilia, debt to House.

He didn’t want the debts, he didn’t want to live as a man in chains. So he made his own luck, who would be able to tell if the game was rigged?

The survivors, that’s who.

“I dunno, doll. Hell if I know what sort of things are up there, knowing our luck it’ll be a doozy when we find out there is nothing else.” He says, because maybe that’s what he believes. Maybe. He really isn’t lying when he says he doesn’t know. Benny never really thought about the big questions, not when there was more important goals to chase. “If you do convert, though- I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to steal Maria for whatever shrine you might put up.” He jokes, bantering easily despite knowing that Aemilia likely still wants him dead.

It's not the first time that he’s laughed and joked with people who would stab a knife in his back as soon as he turned away. The casino families were vicious in cut throat politics- and so he felt right at hope in the paranoia that at any moment they’d decide to gut him.

“That’s exactly what the gun is to me- sweet-cheeks. An icon. A calling card, like every good businessman needs. For better of for worse, I suppose.”

When she asks about the Strip and the Tops, Benny immediately springs into weaving tales of the glamor and charm- as well as the seedy underbelly underneath. He of course likely omits details that makes him look like a fink, but all of the other casino families are fair game. Benny is enthusiastic, and moves his hands while he talks- sprinkling in those strange phrases and pet names often. He tells about the Omerta’s and the gossip surrounding Clanden, he talks about the White Glove and the possibility they might be reverting back to cannibalism.

It's like he’s a tour guide, almost.

Sibilus hears exactly none of it, instead biting his tongue inside his mouth hard enough for it to bleed.

Eventually, they found themselves at the base of a steep cliff that acted as a natural barrier, there was a small area concealed and nestled underneath an overhang and between boulders. A camp hidden away. Sibilus knew this place intimately.

He knew what lingered nearby, as well. “This is where we can stop.” He said, gesturing to the small niche in the rocks just in case the others didn’t see it. “Frumentarii have their own caches and camps across the wasteland, this is mine.”
 
Vulpes stops their march to round on Arcade, and the nerve is raw. Arcade is surprised. He knows what the Legion does with children, so to hear Vulpes condemn such things? He can’t help but lift his brows, but he finds he is not afraid under the other man’s ire. He is fascinated by it, more than he is afraid.

Otherwise, the details seem in line with what Aemilia had said. ‘So which of you is lying? Or who misunderstood?’ Aemilia didn’t give numbers as precise as Vulpes, but Arcade knew that being overly revealing was a tactic of a good liar. If you sounded like you knew precisely what happened, people didn’t question it.

Aemilia hadn’t been as certain, but her horror had been real.

‘She could have seen one and assumed.’

Who wouldn’t, given the rest of the horrors?

Vulpes turns off when he is done, ‘Why, is my opinion so important to you?’ He took slander from the rest of the Wastes, unless he hadn’t heard it. That seemed…unlikely.

Arcade almost considers apologizing, but he doesn’t. He explains, his voice a touch softer, since despite Vulpes claiming not to be an animal, he clearly still shares the hostility of a wounded one, “I didn’t see Nipton. I know what Aemilia told me – and it’s possible she got that wrong. No surprise she hates you for it, if she assumes you’d make the children play in the lottery, though.” Something he could correct with her, or not, depending on how much he cared about such a thing as his reputation with her.

If he cared as much as he cared with Arcade.

“But you have to be aware that the Legion is killing children in horrible ways, Vulpes. It’s natural people are going to think that of you, and that the men under your command are just going to go back and serve under less stringent leaders, and happily rape and murder whoever they want. That’s how the Legion is seen outside of your ranks. A band of murderous, raping, and pillaging lunatics.”

It isn’t said as an accusation to Vulpes.

It’s not even an accusation of the Legion. It’s not as casual as commenting on the weather, his voice is too soft for that, but it is still said like a fact.

“You’re still a part of this, Vulpes. Caesar is still making this happen.” Not just allowing – he was the actor who was making it happen, encouraging it in his men, and letting them go forth into the world to sow fear so it was easier to take over.

~***~

Benny talked, and talked, and talked. Aemilia didn’t have to interject much at all once he got on a roll about the Strip itself, which was good, because she didn’t have the mind power to do so. She did listen, and she did feel a bit sick with the thought of cannibalism, considering she had eaten meat there. ‘Won’t tell Arcade.’ It probably wasn’t human flesh, but…well, just in case. They would be a group to deal with.

So would Clanden if half of what Benny said was true. ‘No deep, dark secrets for the Tops?’ well, he wouldn’t reveal that. She’d have to speak to others to get those, of course.

They come to a stop near a cliff, and Aemilia notes the area with a small nod, before realization hits her of what she left behind: her bedroll. Her bag. She has some supplies in the packs along her armor and within pockets, but not nearly as much. Her caps are gone. The leather to repair her armor, gone. A simple pillow to put her head on – gone. Healing powder for the wound? Gone. She has stimpacks in a pack at her hip, but that doesn’t help now. Antivenom and other, more specific, items are all gone.

At least she still has her leather sewing needle.

It sours her mood immediately that she hadn’t recognized that, but she hadn’t found her bag before the rush to escape hit. ‘There was a merchant from Goodsprings who still owes me…should be back with the Crimson Caravan now.’ It’s a small thing, and it doesn’t help right then except to make her sigh as she goes over to one of the rocks and strips the leather top off to fold into a pillow.

It's hardly the time for modesty, though she does have an undershirt on, navy blue. Like so much else, it needs cleaned and repaired. “Sibilus, you can wake me for a second shift, but I’m taking the first nap.” Likely no surprise since she forsook one at their other camp. “Benny, you’re not in rotation,” for obvious reasons.

Perhaps she could have asked Sibilus about a spare bedroll in the cache, or even healing powder, or food, but she is tired. All that matters is sleep. The pain in her side had already subsided. The pain of loss would follow into sweet oblivion, which wasn’t long after she put her head down on the very uncomfortable pillow.

Caesar’s Mark wasn’t exactly kind about not jamming into her head, but it went ignored, unadjusted.
 
The fox wanted to bristle inside, but these emotions were of no use to him- they were not a resource to be used here. So, he crushed them down, strangled them, stomped them out like the ashes of a fire. Outwardly he did not show this- he did not show anything in fact. He had shown far too much already. Optimis optimus the best of the best. That is what the title of Vulpes Inculta was essentially at it’s core. The best of the frumentarii. Yet here he was losing his temper like some of the burgeoning recruits. He had no excuse.

He would be lashed, should be. Vulpes would willingly take the punishment for allowing the researcher to…what- get under his skin? No, frumentarii did not get so easily bothered, no matter what nerve a wretched profligate managed to strike. Vulpes had shown weakness.

Disgusting.

He severs that knot of emotion inside him, lets it fall into the abyss. They weren’t useful to him anyhow. Vulpes only saved his time for that of worthy things.

“The children serve a purpose. Tactically they are a resource, it would be unwise to simply let them burn or hang with the rest of the profligates.” He responded in a detached manner.

At the response of Legion killing children, he does not deny it. Vulpes already knows. Some men would play even more underhanded tricks than Vulpes himself would be willing to stoop to, having children deliver bombs to NCR soldiers- they often died in the occurring blast.

None of the information is new to him. Yet it infuriates him that all the profligates see is the worst of their kind. “You are lucky that Caesar has brought the tribes under his control, for should they not have been erased and brought under the Legion- they would do much worse. Lord Caesar has his reasons for allowing such behavior to exist, to be tolerated. I will not presume to know what they are, nor will I agree to such acts myself. Though I know that his judgement is sound. The Son of Mars does not make mistakes. If he thinks there is a purpose, there is one.”

It's not justification, it’s not an excuse- to Vulpes this is simply the truth. He believes in Lord Caesar’s plan enough that he can ignore things he doesn’t like.

“If you’d like to label me as heinous, I do not care. For I would sully my hands with profligate blood as many times over as there is stars in the sky. All so that the Son of Mars would not have to dirty his own hands with filthy degenerate blood himself.” Cold, aloof, emotionally detached. He doesn’t say any more on the topic.

He wonders if the doctor will let the conversation die, or if he will try valiantly and uselessly to keep it alive like those addicts that come through the Old Mormon Fort.

~***~

Benny went to go sit down, to drop. He was exhausted and in pain, and very much wanted to fall asleep, even sitting up- even without all the pillows and the soft sheets at his bed in the Ultra-Luxe. It’s a shame he couldn’t go back, not with the fact that House knows and Aemilia likely told Swank. Swank would pop holes in Benny himself, he’d always wanted to be head chairman of the Tops.

He was half-asleep by the time Sibilus struck.

Hauling him up and dragging Benny out of the small alcove and away from where they might wake up Aemilia, Benny tried nearly went to grab Maria but the blade at his throat stopped him from doings such a thing.

Maria was taken from him, and the lovely gun and it’s cool metal barrel was pressed against his forehead. “Come on, Snakey-Boy. I know I was a bit rude about your Legion pals but hey, that ain’t something to get in a tizzy over- is it? I mean, Aemilia’s not going to be all too happy with you killing me.”

Sibilus, stone faced- kneed him in the groin and Benny doubled over in agonizing pain. The knife point was flipped to threaten to be jabbed through his eye as he was slammed up against the cliff. “I won’t kill you.” He growled, and he sounded less like a man and more like a demon from hell. “No, you’re too worthwhile to me to be dead. What you’re going to do for me, is you’re going to take the Platinum Chip and head to Fortification Hill.”

Benny grimaced. “Hello, bozo- you think I’d be in this mess if I could? Plus, I’m not crossing the feisty red-head, I’m a lot more afraid of her than I am of you. She came back from the dead, you? You just run around in a skirt and a dog head playing pretend. What kind of name is ‘Snake’ anyways?”

The knife nicks him, and it is a small scratch. Barely there, though after a moment- Benny feels terrible. As they stand there for god knows how long with Benny’s back pressed against the cliff wall, he feels his under his jaw start to swell. It’s hot, and the mark starts to bubble up like a blister. It’s agony, and he feels like he’s going to throw up. Benny’s heart pounds in his chest so hard it feel like it will break his own ribcage- and his vision swims in front of him.

Sibilus lets Benny drop to the ground, just as he vomits. His bile is acid, and each cough and splutter makes the small pinprick of a wound flare up in agonizing pain. It’s swollen to the size of a golf ball now, and feels hot like an iron brand in his skin. When he is done, he glances up with terrified eyes. The vision of Sibilus cloaked in darkness above as his vision disorients around him- it terrifies him. It triggers something deep and primal inside of him. “What did you- what did you do?” He asks, he would shout if he could. He can’t as it is, his voice is barely a hoarse whisper.

The Legionnaire walks over to Benny, crouches down in front of him and points Maria at his head. He wouldn’t shoot, obviously. That would wake up Aemilia. Though, Benny was still terrified- the idea of his own gun turned on him. Sibilus smiled, exposing his teeth. It was the first time that Benny noticed how sharp the snake’s fangs were.

They- they were sharpened. The canines were at least. There was no way that they were naturally that dangerous looking. “I pricked you with my knife. It had Nightstalker venom on it. It causes muscle and tissue death primarily since it’s mostly a hemotoxin. Around the sight of your neck, it will turn black with rot. It will fester and pus and infection will seep from the wound. It will continue to spread, and it will be agonizing all the while. It is excruciating.”

“How can you tell, if you don’t try it yourself?” Benny couldn’t help but wheeze out the jab.

Abruptly, the legionnaire takes off his gauntlets, though never lowers Maria for a second in case Benny tries to run off. Unlike ordinary Legion armor, Sibilus’ tends to cover his arms. Like most in the Legion he has many scars, some bullet wounds- other knife wounds. Though among them, there is the unmistakable shape of two pinpricks on his bicep of fangs, it was the oldest looking scar among the bunch of them. There is also the newer though still faint lines of methodically placed wounds- thin pinpricks, much like Benny’s wound in his neck. Though also faint lines. They are on the flesh of his inner wrists, and Benny’s eyes can’t but be helped to be drawn to them as Sibilus explains them. “I survived a Nightstalker as a child. When I became Legion, I decided to learn to survive them better. Whenever I killed them, I would milk them for their venom. I would slowly introduce myself to it, over and over again. I know this pain, Benny.” He took the knife and pricked himself with the venom tipped blade as well, a pinprick of blood welled up at the spot. “I have become accustomed to it. I bathe in it as I do the blood of my enemies.”

He leans closer, and Benny can see Sibilus’ eyes- since the goggles are down around his neck. They are clear, unlike his own- which are incoherent and glazed over from the venom. The heat from his wound spreads through his throat and up into his face. He feels sick again. “You’re going to let me die? I thought I already told you- Aemilia-“

“I didn’t give you enough to kill you. I have antivenom. If you want it, you need to comply with what I say. If you don’t, I’ll give you the antivenom anyways. I’ll do this again, though. Once we get to Fortification Hill, I will have you bound in chains. I will let your body rot from the venom, your flesh will be nothing more than putrefied flesh held together by bones. There will be no escape, as your mind lives but your body continues to die while you are inside of it, an unwilling passenger. She’ll never know, I’ll tell her you ran. Who do you think she’ll believe if you try to tell, the man that tried to kill her twice?” He laughs, and it’s a cold little thing. “I think not. Besides, even if she caught us right now- she hates you so much she might find your suffering funny- as long as you don’t perish.” Sibilus wasn’t sure about the last part, but said it anyways. Sibilus didn’t have to tell the truth, only make Benny believe it was.

Benny is horrified, truly beyond any comprehension. After some thought, he finally nods weakly. “I’ll do it. I’ll… give me the antivenom, please.”

“Swear.”

Benny bites back the urge to try and scream at him that he swears. “I swear.” A bottle is shoved in his face, and he uncorks the remedy. He chugs it, and a few minutes later he feels the swelling start to go down. “What do I do?” He asks, and he seems resigned to the fact that he has to do this to save his own skin.

“Go near the alcove, light the bramble I had gathered near there on fire with your lighter. It will draw out Nightstalkers from the cave above, they’ll be drawn to the heat. You won’t have long before that happens, so you will need to run and take the Chip from Aemilia, then leave as fast as you can.” He flips Maria around to hand Benny the weapon back, and as Benny takes it he debates on shooting Sibilus in the face.

He's scared to, he knows what happened the last time he tried killing someone with a headshot. Benny was more frightened of Sibilus rising out of the grave with revenge on his mind, because if the legionnaire could think of such concepts of torture without the personal vendetta, he didn’t want to give the snake more of a reason to bite. So, with a shaking hand he tucks it back into his suit.

“Why?” He asks as Sibilus stands.

Sibilus narrows his eyes. “Get to work.” He growls, and Benny clambers up to his own feet in an unsteady manner. Far less graceful than the snake.

Benny swallows, hoping that Aemilia would be too knocked out to realize he was stealing from her. In any case, he’d hold Maria up to dissuade her if she did wake up.

Lighting the fire, it wasn’t long before it caught to the rest of the dry bramble. It had been covered in a type of accelerant to make it burn faster. Not very long after that did he hear the sounds above, they rung through the night ominously- and panic set in as he realized the Nightstalkers were coming down the mountain.

He goes to go steal the chip at gunpoint. If Aemilia woke up, she’d see Maria in her face for the second time.
 
There was no denial from Vulpes. He knows who he serves, and Arcade wants to yell at him, to grab his shoulders and shake him over it. How could he support Caesar, when he is so against so much of what Caesar does? How can he trust Caesar will improve things, if he claims not to know Caesar’s mind? Arcade knows it will do no good, but that helpless rage is there, that frustration that Vulpes didn’t need to be with Caesar, and shouldn’t be with Caesar, no matter how bloody his own hands.

Caesar’s were bloodier by default.

“You know, you keep saying that about the Tribes and I admit, I’ve heard some horror stories, but I’ve seen plenty that just aren’t that bad,” Arcade doesn’t drop the subject, but he shifts it outside of Caesar, to something that Vulpes can more freely rage about. “The Great Khans, as far as I know, aren’t that terrible. No child sacrifice, at least,” and mostly known for chems nowadays, but not using, mostly selling. He wasn’t sure if that was the majority of them, or just the ones that became known.

The Great Khans could mingle with civilization easily enough, though.

“What was so bad about the people who brought you into the world, that you think the Legion is so much better than literally every other option that exists?” Because it wasn’t better, and maybe Vulpes could see that.

Maybe, but unlikely, and yet…yet Arcade found he wanted him to. There was spite in there. Seeing a legionnaire break would be fantastic. There was also that genuine need to help, and the thought that if someone like Vulpes could learn, then the rest of Caesar’s army could come crashing down without violence.

Unlikely, though. The rest of them were fine with all the heinous shit that went on. Vulpes was an outlier. That much was becoming very clear.

‘That’s what knowledge does.’

And that’s why Caesar banned it.

~***~

There are some sounds that a sleeping mind must learn to react to, in order to survive in the Wastes. A cazadore’s buzzing, a deathclaw’s roar, that strange vibrating tremble of a radscorpion, and of course the rattle of a nightstalker. Aemilia was keen to all such sounds, but it wasn’t those that alerted her. It was that presence one learned to sense in their sleep of someone close, and Aemilia didn’t travel with company often enough to be used to it.

So, she woke, and a few moments later felt her pillow being moved. Her eyes shot open as other sounds began to register, such as the nightstalker howls, but none of the mattered quite as much as the muzzle of a gun in her face – dear Maria.

It is rage that moves her, not fear. She abandons the leather top which would no doubt make Benny’s life easier, but it also allows her to pick up Roland laying nearby and aim it, without asking why, because the answer seems obvious if Benny wasn’t going to wake her up.

‘Where the hell is Sibilus?’

She can hear fire crackling. She can see it against the darkness, and as her finger finds the trigger, she thinks perhaps there is a very good reason he is gone, but her waking mind is not fast enough to recognize the shadow that rushes her side, not fast enough to realize the danger wasn’t Benny.

The sound of the rattle pierced her senses too late. Benny's salvation arrived.

Fangs bit through her uncovered upper arm and the shot went wild – and drew more angry attention from the nightstalkers as she was knocked off balance and hit the ground with teeth still in her arm, and claws digging into her side. The fiend tries to find purchase when she falls, scraping up her torso.

There is no time to think, only to react, and Aemilia bashes the head of the nightstalker with Roland as she scrambles backwards. The nightstalker lets go and her hand finds Cuthbert as she gets to her feet and puts Roland away, pressing her back to the wall for balance as she tries to figure out what’s going on.

Benny will wait, but next time….

‘You have to live to next time.’

A valid point as an unstruck nightstalker tries it luck by dashing for her leg. They fail, rewarded with a blade plunged through their head, and they fall over, limp.

Then the pain hits, and Cuthbert falls from her grip - the burning agony is too much to hold the blade in, her hand can’t decide if it wants to be opened or closed, and she has only enough reaction when the second one, the one she bashed, lunges to feed it the same arm so it doesn’t get to her face or neck, before leaning into the cliff so it holds her up as she manages to fish Roland out and shoot the nightstalker.

It’s enough for a respite, but there is no respite to be had in the agony that courses down her arm to her wrist, and up her shoulder, up her neck. The poison is flowing with every beat of her heart, and already Aemilia knows she won’t stop it with a tourniquet or sacrificing her arm.

She had antivenom in her pack.

‘Sibilus….’

But she can’t worry about him or going through the cache as more fiends are drawn to the sound of Roland. She leaves Cuthbert and keeps Roland in her off-hand as she holds up against the wall, but she is sweating, blood is running down her arm and torso, and her vision is blurring on the edges, moving towards the center, bit by bit. The gun feels too hot in her hand but she holds it anyways and tries to aim it at another.

It misses, though it makes the fiend jump aside – and then take its chance with a lunge.
 
Vulpes clenched his fist, it happened of its own accord. He flexes it, forces it to relax. The man cannot give any signs of how much the questions dug into his flesh like knives. A great and terrible wrath bubbled up inside at memories, that were triggered from the questions.

“You know nothing.” He can’t help but keep the hiss out of his voice. He could not conceal the edge that his words take. “De rebus quid non intelligis judices.” Vulpes takes an inhale through his nose. His nostrils flare slightly, and he tries to smother any reactions. Weak, pathetic.

The memories held no power over him, nor did this foolish doctor. He was Legion. He was the leader of Caesar’s frumentarii.

He was not weak.

He smoothed out his features, again. This time for good. If the doctor wanted to know, then Vulpes would tell. He had no reason to lie, for it would serve no purpose here. There was nothing +to be gained from it.

“If you would like to know, there is no reason for me to hide any truths from you, Doctor Gannon.” He spoke calmly, as if he hadn’t been hissing out his responses not even a moment ago. “The tribe I was brought into this world by was an unremarkable tribe from Utah. I do not speak their name, for it was a great service they were wiped from this earth and remade under the Legion banner.”

His tone is like how reading a particularly dry textbook sounds in one’s head when read. As if he was simply giving a report, no emotional attachment whatsoever. “Child sacrifices as you mentioned were common. Though it is not the only crime against nature they have committed. Usually, a child was sacrificed every year, the weakest of them. Though also the chieftain was meant to sacrifice their first-born child in order to appease the ‘supernatural spirits’ and keep their tribe strong. In any case the reason for sacrifice did not matter, as the rituals were relatively the same. They would raise the child until they were strong enough to be considered to earn their name, as in such societies they tend not to name the child unless certain it would survive. Five years of age was generally the naming day for children. For the child meant to be sacrificed, they would not be given a name on the day of their fifth year. Instead, they would have their genitals mutilated, as well as their faces- their organs harvested and eaten. All manner of unspeakable evil were done to them before they died, as the ‘spirits’ liked these savage acts and would give them strength in return for entertainment.”

He narrows his eyes slightly, though that is the only way his expression changes. “Raised as sheep to the slaughter, the children chosen watched the sacrifices every year. They had seen what will happen to them once they get older.” He turns to Arcade then, a serene look on his face. “The last chieftain had many wives, you know. He had a child with his favorite one, but he was rather fond of both his wife and his first-born child. So, he hid the child, and made another of his wives fall pregnant. When the second child was born, it was claimed to be the first.” Vulpes shrugs slightly as if unconcerned. “There was no loyalty to their beliefs and rituals, no loyalty to kin, they were vile backwards creatures. There was nothing to be lost from their destruction.”

~***~

Benny felt terror in the fact that Roland was pointed at him, and briefly he thought of his own head splattering light that one Powder Ganger’s head back at Ranger Station Charlie. Though, thankfully, or unfortunately- that is when the beast from hell appears itself. Benny feels guilty, he thinks. He knew exactly what that venom felt like, and he almost felt empathetic in a way that Aemilia would have to die to such a fate.

Though Benny puts himself first, his own hide. He’d prefer Aemilia getting ripped apart than the alternative Sibilus had offered him.

So he does what he always does when he is presented with a conflict.

He bolts.

Benny tries not to think too hard on it, but the Platinum Chip feels heavy in his pocket.

Sibilus slides down an embankement, Nightstalkers chasing at his heels. He turns just as he draws his blade, hacking at one that lunges at him with fangs as long as his forearm. In two hefty swings the head comes off from its neck. He kicks away another that got close.

He had gone up to the Nightstalker den, to make certain they would be lured by the flames and chaos. It would also be an alibi, the scratches on his skin and armor would be a reason he would have not seen Benny’s ‘treason’ coming.

He heard the distant sounds of a gunshot as he leaned backwards, sliding further down the slope- a cascading plume of dirt and dust following his descent. He sees distantly Benny running to the hills. He focused on returning to the alcove, he needed to make sure that Aemilia survived this attack.

Or else perhaps even a worse wrath would be waiting for him, should she perish.

He bursts into the area, Nightstalkers have Aemilia cornered against the boulders that form a natural barrier. As well as blocking her from being able to escape, her safety turned into a trap.

One of the Nightstalkers lunges.

So does Sibilus.

He offers up his left arm, the fangs sinking into flesh deep enough that it isn’t immediately able to withdraw. The machete cuts though it’s mix of scales and fur with spurts of blood and gore. Ripping it’s jaws off his arm, he drops the limp body as another leaps at his back, trying to get his throat. Another for his ribs. They swarm.

His machete goes through its body, and out it’s spine of the one aiming for his throat. The one going for his ribs bite into his armor, and he feels their pinpricks as they slip managed to partially slip through. He slings the one on his machete away- and he kicks the other one back. There are two more. Briefly, they eye him with- and he bares his own fangs as they bare theirs. They circle the two of them and they hiss and rattle at them.

One is bigger than the other, with a scar over one eye. It is a beast that Sibilus knows well. For he had left that scar.

He thinks there is recognition in it’s gaze. It’s rattle clatters during their standoff. The mutated creature breathing heavily, it’s snake eyes regarding him.

In the hand not holding his machete, he pulls out one of his hidden throwing knives.

Did they regard him as their own, he wondered? Or did they see him as a foreign threat?

Though he never takes his eyes fully off the predators sharing their space, Sibilus glances through his peripheral vision to see how Aemilia is holding up, and he feels a pinprick of guilt and fear at her condition. He needs to get the antivenom in her body quickly.

She must live.
 
Vulpes’s history cuts him deeply. It’s obvious, not only in the way he hisses a response, but in the build-up, in the fact it was child sacrifice he saw as the worst of all things. It did not come from the Legion. That was, decidedly, Pre-Legion. ‘Were you one of those nameless children meant to be sacrificed?’ Arcade finds he believes it is true, and that is how Caesar saved him, and why he sees Caesar as a godlike figure.

He swept in and delivered justice against a chieftain who did not follow his own rituals, and so saved children who were now, no longer, deserving to die.

The horrors were indeed, horrors. Arcade despised it, despised what he heard of the Tribe. He couldn’t argue that they deserved to stay, nor would he concede that Caesar’s Legion had done a good thing in bringing them under the banner. One wrong did not justify another. He would continue to believe that, for it was the only way he could keep from sullying his hands too much.

He’d done wrong things.

He would do more, but he had lines.

As Vulpes had lines.

“Were you one of the nameless children selected for sacrifice before Caesar arrived?” He did not speak as if he’d seen the rituals, and yet…Arcade felt that the detached tone was his only way of guarding against the emotions that would rise otherwise. At not being good enough for his own tribe, and possibly, possibly, not being good enough for Caesar. That insecurity was only too obvious.

It was why the title of Vulpes Inculta would mean so much, too. It was proof against those terrible thoughts.

~***~

‘You are dying.’

It is not the first time Aemilia has had the thought run through her head, or the variants of ‘You are going to die.’ Dying, however, was not dead, and when Aemilia sees Sibilus tackle the nightstalker that had been aiming for her, that spark of hope that dying is not certain returns through the haze of pain and darkness at the edge of her vision.

There is enough venom in her veins to kill her, she has no doubt of that when she steps away from Sibilus and his mob of nightstalkers, hesitating to help – partially unable to think of how, but also knowing she is in no state to raise the gun again, and be certain the shot won’t hit Sibilus. The best thing, sometimes, is inaction.

Two nightstalkers remain when Sibilus reclaims his feet, though Aemilia is not sure of that count. Two are clear, but they have blurry friends. Friends at a distance, or doubled-up vision? Hard to say as the pain makes her nauseous and her restraint goes towards not spilling the contents of her stomach onto the ground. If she does that, she will fall, and if she falls, she will not get back up.

She wants to tell Sibilus to run. His body is marked with wounds, the poison must be there, too. She does not consider he is not impacted.

Self-sacrifice isn’t really her nature, but when you are dying, you face it with dignity or you don’t.

Or you take a stupid, stupid chance, and lift a too heavy gun one more time as the nightstalkers have their eye on someone else. You steady your off-hand with your good one, even though that arm is already swelling and the pain threatens to knock you out, and when you are certain – you fire.

The shot doesn’t go wild, though it is not good. It strikes the unscarred nightstalker just below the neck on the left side. The recoil is brutal, the gun slamming back against Aemilia’s chest. Dual pain from her arm being subjected to it, as well as her chest no doubt being bruised, is what causes her to finally slide down the cliff’s wall and black out for a couple of seconds.

Only a couple, though she rather wished it was longer when existence is pain and her vision no longer makes sense, a mess of the darkness, the poison’s impact on her vision, as well as its impact on sensation making it hard for her to even be certain of her orientation with everything, causing that atrocious confusion.
 
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“Would it matter if I was?” Vulpes responds, a question with a question. His gaze is artfully curated to remain completely and utterly inscrutable. Attempting to identify his true thoughts behind that unyielding countenance would be an effort in futility, like drawing blood from a stone. “Would it change anything if I was one of those miserable wretches destined to die?”

He doesn’t deny it.

“I don’t think it does.” He murmurs. “It does not change the tribe’s failings; it does not change the impact of its fall. The chieftain was crucified as he deserved, and Caesar brought protection over that area from savages. The past does not change.”

He turns to the horizon, his profile not flickering with any expression, his movements smooth and steady. “There is wisdom in all things, as I have said before. Everything can be a lesson should one accept it. If those children destined for sacrifice were intelligent, they would realize that they were unworthy to be drawn under Caesar’s banner in the first place. Weak, pathetic, and unimportant things they were even to their own kin- to their mothers and fathers, and yet the mighty Lord Caesar extended his mercy anyways. There was potential in each of them to serve. If they were wise, they would recognize the chance for what it was. They should have devoted themselves and allowed the Legion to sharpen their edges into a proper tool for their Lord in appreciation.”

He says it, as if he is not talking about himself. Yet underlying the bored tone is the fervor and dogmatic belief of a man that feels it with his whole heart, mind, and soul.

“If they do not prove themselves valuable with their second chance, then they did not deserve one at all.”

Loyalty was valuable to Vulpes.

Information was valuable to Vulpes.

Caesar’s faith in him was priceless to Vulpes.

These were core parts of him pillars at the corners of the foundation of the man that was behind the title of Vulpes Inculta III.

Perhaps despite the inscrutable countenance, perhaps the man was far easier to understand. Perhaps the mystery almost unraveled. Maybe that was everything there was to know.

Or maybe there was more, there always seemed like more. In any case, he was tightlipped about anything else. He had answered the doctor with nothing but truth, had given him the respect of answering the man in the first place instead of remaining silent when he could have. Vulpes had thought that was enough.

“Hoccine satis est ut curiositati tuae satisfaciamus?” He asks the doctor, perhaps pointed in a way to get him to stop while he was ahead. Or perhaps simply the idle question he posed it as. There was no heat behind his words, if the edge was there like a blade underneath them- they were hidden far too well to hear.

~***~

The Nightstalker dies in a gurgle when the bullet hits it’s mark, not a headshot. The fact is discomforting to Sibilus.

The last one, it looks with slitted eyes. Rabid ferocious animals that they are, the scarred one sees the death of all its kin. Most creatures would fight to the death, despite the futility of the situation. For mere animals did not have the sense to gauge when a battle was well and truly lost.

Yet the scarred beast looked at Sibilus for hours, at least it felt that way- when in reality it couldn’t have been one or two seconds.

The Nightstalker flees.

It does not choose to fight, and yet…it must die anyways.

(Oh how Sibilus weeps internally. For how unfair and cruel it was. Just like everything else he does.)

For the creature cannot be allowed to return when they are vulnerable, so his knife sails from his hand and lands in the back of the creature’s skull. It is an end to the rivalry they had shared for so long, it is swift in it’s tone of finality as the knife makes a soft wet ‘thunk’ into it’s skull. It collapses into a heap, and it moves no more. All the life immediately snuffed out. A small mercy.

Sibilus does not allow himself to think on it for long, instead he sprints to Aemilia’s side, reaching into a small pouch on his hip. “Vivere debes, Aemilia.” He speaks to her deceptively softly. For he is the one that caused this.

He can fix it.

“Vivere debes.” He says again as he uncorks a bottle of antivenom. “Hoc figam.” He says his mantra out loud as scarred and calloused hands come up to her jaw to try and open her lips. He would ask, but she seems so disoriented from the venom flooding her systems he doubts she would even be able to have the energy to decline or accept his help. “Drink, you must. It will save you.”

‘Save you from what I’ve done.’

There is a fear beyond the potential and horrible pain and death he would suffer should Caesar find out his foolish plan killed Courier Six. It is rooted deeply in his heart, and it makes his mind race. He does not know why he fears Aemilia’s death so much, beyond what may happen to him because of it. Though at the same time deep down he does know.

She has a name…

She matters far more than some nameless little snake.

“Vivere debes. Hoc figam.” He says again, without even realizing he had been repeating them under his breath.

He pours the antivenom, and hopes her stomach does not immediately dispel what he is trying to give her. Sibilus has two more bottles of it, and enough materials to make more- but if she does not take the initial drink- she will not live long enough for him to open a second bottle.
 
‘Yes, it would matter.’ The past informed the present, and guided the future. Arcade is aware that Vulpes is no idiot. He does not need this explained. Vulpes is, however, dealing with the agony of reciting his history in a way. How terrible it must have felt, to be so worthless, and to continue that belief in his own worthlessness, throughout his life.

It makes sense.

It gives Arcade more insight, though he is no fool to think that is all there is to it. There is more to both the monster, and the terribly human, Vulpes Inculta. “You know, there’s actually a funny thing about the past – it doesn’t change, but our knowledge of it does. And that changes everything. You might like this book, 1984, if you can ever find a copy of it.”

He shouldn’t be offering book recommendations, and after mentioning it, he does somber a bit. Enough, to seriously answer the question. “Non.” No, he wasn’t satisfied, he had plenty more questions, but he would leave them be, “Desinabo.” He made that clear in the Legion’s own tongue.

His pronunciation was not the Legion’s. It was Ecclesiastical, Church Latin. He’d learned to say Caesar the correct way thanks to the Legion, but he didn’t go beyond that. They understood each other well enough, even if the Legion pronounced ‘v’ significantly differently, and were harder on their C’s.

It wasn’t much – but it was enough.

He would speak no more, and let them continue their journey in silence, if Vulpes decided he had no follow-up questions of his own.

~***~

Hands, hands, hands.

Aemilia cannot fight, and wouldn’t fight. Despite all that has happened, she trusts the voice she knows, even though it is speaking Latin, and the outline tells her one name against another. ‘Duke?’ not Duke but his real name escapes her in favor of the nickname. Her lips part and she tastes the familiar bitter liquid as it goes down her throat.

She fights against retching, pulling away and bowing her head, covering her lips. Placebo, more than anything, but the power of the mind is strong and Aemilia holds it down. The arm that holds her up quivers, fingers wrapped around Roland, but all weight pressing the gun into the ground.

Thoughts begin to fire again that start to make sense.

Pain makes sense.

‘Live. Live. Live.’ It was what he kept saying and she lowers her hand to fumble at a pack on her side, the one with the stimpacks. It won’t fix the poison, but it will fix the pain, and that will help. Her fingers wrap around one, and she clumsily removes the lid containing the needle before she jams it into her side and presses down on the plunger, letting it run through her.

There are more than enough wounds to heal that have nothing to do with poison.

There is respite, for a moment.

A breath.

Aemilia is still not well, the poison still stinging in her veins. The antivenom is working, but there is more poison than antivenom. She uses the cliff to straighten up and look at the shadow looming over her, vision not quite clear, but clear enough to cock a smile, to murmur, “Memento vivere, Spark,” because it is always nicknames that come quicker than their real names, and it was Spark that was her salvation, not Duke -- why did she think she saw Duke?

“Memento vivere….” The words are not native on her tongue, they are accented by the Wastes, but it is a mantra she has known for a while, all the same, her poor attempt to let him know she understood, in a way, what was being said.

‘Remember to live.’
 
Vulpes continues their travel in silence, the roads were empty- the only sounds was of their boots against the asphalt and the winds fluttering across the sands. The fox had nothing he had wanted to say to the Follower, and as such only spoke if he heard an enemy in the distance. Though with the route they were taking it only happened twice.

They ended up taking Highway 95 up to Nevada State Route 157. Vulpes was aware that it would be easier to take a more direct path off the road directly to the west of the Monte Carlo Suites, as it would be a far quicker of a travel to Vault 22- though he didn’t for two reasons. One, he wanted to stop by Ranger Station Foxtrot first, knowing he likely wouldn’t bother to do so after returning from their task- as he needed to be swift to take out the Omertas once they destroyed the Omertas’ operation near Vault 22. Vulpes also doubted that the doctor would be well versed in hiking off the roads.

Eventually greenery took began to dominate the landscape, the verdant forest a spot of contrast against the pale Mojave landscape. The sun had since been fading from the sky.

While the frumentarius had taken short pauses to accommodate Arcade, they were short and only enough to catch one’s breath and rehydrate. Though when the sun’s light completely disappeared from the sky, Vulpes stopped off the side of the road and crouched down to scrutinize it with a critical eye. “This is the start of the mountain path that leads to Vault 22. I had imagined that if the facility was nearby Vault 22, it would likely be near this path to have a reliable way to travel for resupply lines. I believe I was right.” He gestures to the faded path with a pointed finger. “It’s wider since the last time I’ve been here, and it’s more well-worn from an increase in foot traffic down the trail. Tracks are faint, but I wouldn’t expect them to be fresh. Nero’s terminal didn’t have information on a recent shipment arriving.” He rises to his full height.

“We’ll make camp.” He decided. “I have some business to attend to nearby, beforehand. I imagine that you might desire to take this time to rest. It likely wouldn’t do well to start a large fire, as I myself am not inclined to announce our arrival with the presence of smoke. Perhaps a small fire if you are desperate for one, I assume you are capable of making one yourself, Doctor Gannon?” He asks, finally turning to the other man.

“When I return it would likely be best to strike in the darkness of night. I will not be long.”

With that, Vulpes turned on his heel. Leaving Arcade without so much as a parting word.

Deep into the forest Vulpes went, heading towards the NCR ranger station. Pausing to switch into his disguise when he was certain he was well and truly alone.

He pulls out the NCR radio and turns it on. He presses the button and begins to speak in a very lazy southern drawl. “Desert Ranger Redding to Ranger Station Foxtrot, come in. Are you receiving me?” He spoke slowly and clearly into the radio. He removed his thumb from the button and waited for the crackle in response.

“5 by 5 I can hear you loud and clear, Ranger. How can I assist?” A woman’s voice comes over the radio.

‘Ranger Redding’ speaks into the receiver again. “I am approaching Ranger Station Foxtrot, requesting resupply.”

“Roger that, Ranger.”

He ends the short conversation with an ‘over and out’. He then hooks the radio onto his hip.

His other armor he leaves in a cache before he continues his journey to Ranger Station Foxtrot. He then pulled on the helmet to finish the disguise, and he pressed a button on the side to make the red lenses light up. The forest once clad in darkness now a bit brighter thanks to low light optics.

‘Resupplying’, he also takes some time to discuss with the local rangers currently on night watch. He learns some rather interesting information. Apparently Ranger Station Charlie had been wiped out (that much he’d already known, he had been there when Ranger Stella was brought to the Fort to be put in the arena.) Though what was more interesting, was the fact that there had been word of Powder Gangers posing as rangers and taking captives along the road, though with the lack of manpower to take it back they could do nothing but watch over the situation with scouts.

There had also been reports of a shootout, a recent report from earlier during the day. “One of them was in Legion armor, too bad the ranger that saw the scene wasn’t ordered to put a bullet through the bastard’s head.” One of the women he had been talking to snarled.

“Would have done it myself, if I’d been there.” He remarked lowly behind the helmet.

With the reports matching the likeness of Courier Six, Sibilus and a third person leaving the scene- he assumed that the unfortunate reality of Aemilia catching up with Benny had happened. Though, Vulpes had trust his frumentarius would be able to keep the Platinum Chip from her hands and keep everything happening as planned. If not…

Vulpes did not enjoy crucifying his men, but for such an offense it would have to be done.

Ranger Khristopher ‘Kit’ Redding left after half an hour or so of information gathering. A very informative trip indeed.

Picking up his Legion armor from the cache on the way back, he packed it into his bag and made his way back to where he’d left Arcade. Vulpes did not bother to announce his approach, slightly curious what Doctor Gannon’s reaction would be.

Suddenly from the darkness would appear the visage of a ranger.

“Arcade Gannon.”

~***~

She kept it down. Sibilus whispered a small hushed thanks to Mars, though he wondered if it was Mars’ doing at all. Why would a God of War take mercy on a dying woman, and a dying man should the woman die? No, perhaps it was another god taking pity on his wretched soul.

Her words makes him stiffen, she had spoken in the language of Mars. He wonders just how much of his inane muttering she had truly understood. Sibilus also does not understand why she seems to call him ‘spark’. Perhaps she has mistaken him for someone else in her venom induced stupor. He does not the heart to tell her she was wrong, and instead he pulls out another bottle off of the pouch on his hip. “More, when you are ready.” He speaks and uncorks it, knowing she will likely need more. The bites had been deep, and despite her size, her veins were likely nearly swimming in venom.

“I have one more after this, if you still need it.” He looks at the bite mark, it is greatly inflamed.

Crying doesn’t help, the fever takes hold, and everything hurts. The memories roil in his mind like that of a churning storm. He sets down the vial of antivenom nearby, in case she is coherent enough to reach for it. He opens his pack again for some agave, with a clean knife free of venom he cuts the leave open and scrapes the soft inside of the plant on his fingers. He slowly reaches forwards. “This will help with inflammation, and pain to a very small degree.” If she was willing to allow him to apply it, he would. His fingers carefully gliding over the injection site of the venom.

The memories of language not of Mars, not common English either- but something wholly unique fill his mind. He remembers their meaning. They were meant to be soothing, meant to bring him small comfort as he was taken care of while his body shook with agonizing pain. He thought that surely, he would die, and all of their soft words would be in vain.

Maybe a small part of Sibilus wants to speak them, to hear his own voice say them out loud. Though he remembers the beatings that occur whenever he spoke those words. They were dead words, from a dead tribe, from a dead boy who doesn’t exist anymore. An identity that was erased and rewritten.

He offers the antivenom once she is done with the stimpack, and he wonders if she would be capable of holding down some bitter drink. Though, he doesn’t know- many legionaries used to chugging the tribal remedy even fail on occasion to keep it down. “Here, more antivenom. We will see if you need more, after this one.”

His own wounds burn, he can feel the venom pumping through his veins- but his body does not get effected by it any longer. His forearm sluggishly drips blood, and he knows he needs to take care of it- the fangs had gone deep. Though he is more busy worrying for Aemilia’s welfare. Sibilus can suffer the pain, he has done so with worse before.

There is a time and place for everything.
 
Vulpes was merciless in the trek. Oh sure, they took a few rests, but with Arcade not used to this, it didn’t feel like nearly enough. Of course, it was – he made it, after all. He couldn’t help but wonder if travel with Aemilia would also be like this. ‘Certainly…she takes more rests…right?’ Arcade was beginning to doubt his life decisions by the time Vulpes finally insisted on a more permanent rest.

Arcade was happy to agree no matter the stipulations at that point.

He could do a small fire, but he also saw no need to do so. When Vulpes left, he didn’t rest, though he did wonder about this striking in the night. ‘You don’t have a persona to let us get in, walk around, and talk to people?’ Somehow, that was surprising, though Arcade supposed he was a difficulty.

He didn’t have a disguise.

The merchant’s appearance would likely be reported to Nero. ‘I’m not the best at sneaking about.’ Well, there was plenty he was going to be learning, it seemed, as he opened up a bottle of purified water and sipped at it, staring into the darkness, and reflecting on the many other fireless campsites he’d been at.

All of them a necessity.

He could almost see the Remnants as they’d been when he was a child on the run, with Judah delegating, and Johnson starting to argue with those delegations. Henry would try to break them, and his mother just…being so silent in her panic. Wide eyes, ever alert, and urging him to rest with that look.

She is not there to give him that look as he stares out into the night now.

She is not there to see that he is working with a member of the Legion. ‘You would not be proud of me.’ He almost wishes the water was vodka as he takes another sip of it down and considers, again, what he is doing. ‘It is for the best.’ How often had that logic been used to justify atrocities? Too often.

Vulpes uses it.

Another sip.

‘Will I?’

No.

It is not weak insistence in his own mind. It remains stable, without a waver.

And yet, there is a flood of panic when he sees a Ranger on the horizon. He stiffens, and fights back the instinct to rise, and to run. ‘They know nothing.’ And yet his hand slips to rest closer to his plasma defender, until the ranger is closer, and he hears the voice.

It is not Vulpes voice – or rather, it is not his accent.

Arcade groans his complaint when recognition strikes him, and he rises, “A Ranger? Is that really the disguise you think is going to get us into the broc flower operation?” he can’t help but be annoyed by it, because there is no way an NCR Ranger is getting on there. The Legion outfit had better odds.

~***~

More.

The thought of more of the bitter drink almost makes Aemilia gag. The smell that wafts up doesn’t make that easier, and again, she covers her lips, the stimpack falling to the ground with its job done. ‘Breathe. Not that deeply. Breathe.’

Hands, again.

Something put on the wounds. It does not do much at all, not nearly as much as the stimpack was doing. The familiar tingling of fast healing rolls through her, making breathing easier, even if she’d rather stop. Even if she’d rather just curl into a ball and let the pain take her deep into unconsciousness. It’d be fine when she woke….

‘No, no, no.’

Memento vivere.

‘You must drink.’

Aemilia takes a deep breath, and holds it, before she reaches for the bitter drink and shoots it back, as if it were tequila or rum. She is careful in putting the container down, although she wants to slam it as hard as one would slam a shot glass. There is no demanding another, although the liquid seems to burn her tongue and throat.

Imagination.

It just tastes terrible, but if she doesn’t breathe, she doesn’t notice it nearly as much.

If she focuses on the application of some sort of salve, it isn’t as bad.

If she focuses on her tight grip around Roland, she can make it through.

Exhale.

“You need…you need to see to yourself,” not all the blood is hers. Looking at him, a bit straighter on, she remembers him tackling a nightstalker. “Idiot…use your own antivenom…if you only have…one more…I can…water….” No that probably wouldn’t help as much, but he couldn’t die either! “I have more stimpacks.” As if he would use them.

As if he wasn’t Legion.

She flinched away from the touch then, as if it will convince him to help himself as she tries to sit up properly, and not as if the cliff is holding most of her.
 
Behind the lenses Vulpes watches the instinctual response that jolts through the other man as he approaches. When he gets close enough, he can see the tension is there in his body, and his hand seems to gravitate towards his weapon. Though once Vulpes speaks, that tension seems to disappear.

What an interesting reaction indeed.

This disguise was rather useful for obtaining information.

He takes off the helmet. “I had no intention of attempting to use this for our infiltration. I told you I had other business to attend to, didn’t I?” When he takes off the helmet he also drops all pretenses of a false accent. “An alias strictly to deal with the NCR swine.” He sets down the helmet onto the ground, and shrugs off his pack. “There has been some rather interesting information I have learned, your friend has certainly been causing some trouble.” He wouldn’t give all the information he’d learned. Though, perhaps another test to see Arcade’s reaction.

Vulpes wondered if he knew of the Platinum Chip.

He drops the armored duster onto the ground, and then goes for the latches to undo the riot armor underneath. “As far as I know, she’s still alive.” No mention of Sibilus. He drops the riot armor with a small ‘thwump’ onto the ground. He continues with the gloves, stripping them from his hands. “Apparently got into some sort of conflict with some Powder Gangers.” His tone is as casual as talking about the weather as he kicks off the boots and begins to undo the buckle of his pants. “I believe based on description that the man she was chasing had also been there.”

He strips completely before turning away to grab his armor from his pack. For a brief moment with his back turned to Arcade, the full extent of his scars on his back are on display- perhaps even more so back in the tent when Arcade had stitched his side up. There his back hadn’t been fully turned to the man, and now it was. The dim lighting does nothing to soften the many thin raised lines on the back of his body, they crisscrossed each other both old and new. There was so much scar tissue there, that there was hardly a patch of skin free of it.

Vulpes leans and grabs his red tunica and pulls it over his head. It isn’t long before the rest of his armor follows. Including the notorious coyote cowl. The goggles are left in the bag, due to the darkness the reason was obvious. Packing up his other disguise in his pack, he pulled it back on and turned back to Arcade. “Now, we may go.” He said, turning to walk down the trail without so much as another word. His pale eyes on alert, looking for any separation in the path.

~***~

“I am fine.” He insists, and he is, truly. His eyes are clear and coherent, and Sibilus offers the third one when it is clear she needs more antivenom to combat the venom still in her veins. “A snake does succumb to it’s own venom.” He states and uncorks the next vial. He does not respond to her mention of stimpacks, instead he swallows thickly.

How pathetic, he was the one that orchestrated this, and she is the one critically injured. She still tried to help him, even knowing what he was. Though she did not understand the true breadth of his treachery, perhaps if she had known- perhaps she would be spitting in his face and telling him that she hopes he dies.

He bites his mouth again, reopens old wounds from chewing his mouth before. It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. This is what he had to do, for the Legion. To make sure he was not punished. There was no other option. Either he swam or he drowned.

The justifications were getting weaker by the moment. Though he ignores any internal objections because to object the will of Caesar is treason. At least committing treason against Aemilia, at least she would not kill him. Though treason against the Legion?

He took a shaky breath, and everything felt like it was crushing him.

Sibilus swallowed the metallic taste of his own blood in his mouth, his blood was venom- he was venom. He wasn’t good for anyone, Sibilus thought. He was too deadly, hurt others because the snake was afraid to get stepped on.

“When I was a small child, before the Legion- Nightstalkers plagued our nearby area. My mother told me never to wander too far from our camps, for fear that one would snatch me up and I would never return.” He suddenly says, it’s not a memory he realizes he even has until it is flowing from his mouth. He needs to talk to keep her awake…

Another weak justification.

If anyone knew he spoke of times before he had been assimilated into the Legion, he would be punished.

They didn’t allow them to speak of their old lives.

“I was curious though, a passenger to it at times. So, at one point I went against her wishes. It was night, and I crept away from the light of the fire until I could no longer see the orange glow of it. Though, it was at this point that I realized without a way back- I was lost. I tried to go back where I had come from, though the darkness left me unaware that I was actually heading further from camp.”

He takes a deep breath, wondering why he is even telling the story. It is not interesting like old mythology. He kept going, as if there had been a shackle on his tongue that had suddenly been broken. “Eventually, I fell into a ravine. I broke my leg; it splintered out the side of my skin. Being such a young child, I was sheltered to the feeling of pain, it was the most intense pain I had felt in my young life until then. So, I cried, loud and obnoxious cries. Eventually, it drew the attention of a Nightstalker, it’s rattle heralded its approach. It went for my throat, but I managed to twist- it’s bite sinking into my shoulder. A part of me did not want to die, and reaching out for anything that my save me- I found a sharp rock. I stabbed it into the creature repeatedly. It had to die for me to live.”

The memory of the first time he spilled any kind of blood, he had been horrified.

He had never really gotten over that horror, he thinks. Never had internalized apathy like he feels he should have. Sibilus wishes he had; everything would have been so much easier if he had.

“I should have died. I lay at the bottom of the ravine feeling fever wash over me. I do not know how long passed, all I remember is the agony. Eventually, my mother found me. She was determined, in her heart she knew I wasn’t dead. With the help of a healer, I eventually got better.”

Then the Legion came.

He doesn’t tell that part.

Sibilus doesn’t tell her how his mother was brutalized before she was murdered. He doesn’t tell her of what he had witnessed on the night of that massacre. Sibilus doesn’t say anything about that at all- for he should be thankful the Legion decided to spare him.

Hate and fear had a war in his mind, the fear won out every time.

Sibilus never grew from being that child that was too scared to die alone and in agony. So, he took the lives of others to make sure he could live. Selfish.

“I did not want to ever be in such a situation like that again. So, I began training my body to understand the venom, to repel it.” He did not describe the methods for which he did, not like he had done to Benny. “I will live through this, as I had before. Now- drink.” He offers the last bottle of antivenom.

It is irony, perhaps… that he had such an encounter with a Nightstalker when he was young. Or perhaps it was destiny.

Perhaps he was fated to become Sibilus Anguis.
 
Arcade rolls his eyes at Vulpes’s reminder of other business. ‘Yeah, wasn’t like you said it was with the NCR.’ Although it makes perfect sense. Arcade would expect the bulk of the frumentarii to have dealings with the NCR, given they are the major enemy of the Legion. He can’t help but wonder how many are in far more stable positions within the NCR.

Most can’t just check in at their leisure. A wandering Ranger is an exception to that rule, of course.

And Vulpes found interesting information.

And was stripping.

It dons on Arcade once the duster falls, and he turns all the way around before the riot gear drops. Vulpes hadn’t requested it, and it was always stupid to turn away from a legionnaire, but Arcade has some sense of both modesty and dignity. He doesn’t want to watch Vulpes remove his attire, so he glares out into the darkness, annoyed he wasn’t given a warning about this.

At least he can still hear where Vulpes is by the sounds of each article falling to the ground. “She doesn’t die very easily,” so Arcade couldn’t say he was surprised that she was alive, or that she had caught up with Benny. Benny likely wouldn’t be alive for much longer, if he still was, when Aemilia actually got her hands on him.

He is still worried about her wandering into Legion territory on her own.

Worried, she may somehow be swayed to see their view because of a pretty gold trinket and some freedoms not afforded to others. ‘Stop it. She won’t.’ He sighs when he hears Vulpes announce they can go, and turns around to see him not in a guise, but back in Legion armor.

Arcade frowns a bit, and gestures at the outfit, “Not that I’m upset you’re dressed,” he wasn’t, “but what’s the plan? We’re not really going to be able to talk to anyone about what’s going on with you dressed like this, and expect it be…you know, unremarkable.”

If he was just planning to run in there and burn everything to the ground, then he didn’t need Arcade present. Of course, Arcade would have called that idea stupid, and he didn’t think that was Vulpes’s intention from the beginning.

~***~

‘You’re not a snake, you’re human, and this can kill you!’ Aemilia wants to protest it, but she also recognizes that he does not appear to be succumbing. It is more than bravado, he seems to have a resistance to it she does not have. After he uncorks the third, the last, antivenom, he also seems to explain, in a story before the Legion.

Any protest falls silent, because even in this state, she understands the significance of anything pre-Legion. Before the Legion, before he was Sibilus, he must have had a name, because he had a mother who cared, a mother who would have gifted him a name – especially after the nightstalkers, if it hadn’t existed before.

Aemilia is as jealous as she is sad, forgetting the antivenom, even if the poison still sings pain into her veins. There is a deeper pain in that jealous ache, a distracting sorrow in knowing what became of his mother without him saying it. She was enslaved, or she was killed. Perhaps, both.

He also challenged that poison which had nearly killed him, something Aemilia could not do with the poison that took her own mother. Avoidance was better, because she had always been frail where it came to substances that poisoned. Alcohol, chems, cazadore venom – there wasn’t enough antivenom or fixer in the world for her to think of challenging any of them.

She’d tasted addiction on her tongue and recognized it for what it was. Early enough to put a stop to it, early enough that she didn’t end up like those two wretches in Freeside – but that hadn’t meant it was easy dealing with the withdrawal, only that she was stubborn.

She wanted to be stubborn when the antivenom was brought back to mind, but she hadn’t resisted fixer when it was offered. She wouldn’t resist this again, “So long as you’re sure,” although it was obvious, it was, “I won’t be happy if you drop dead in the night,” if he was lying for bravado, for some stupid bit of pride.

That stupid bit of pride doesn’t exist for her as she takes down the last bottle. It is easier to deal with, this time. She is more lucid, and better able to handle it. Able to relax, a bit, as she sits it down, “I’m glad you had such a caring mother,” perhaps she should have pretended not to hear the story. “I didn’t.” The mother she saw at 2am might have cared if she was poisoned by a nightstalker, but even then…what would she have done other than sob and say it was all her fault?

It was always, all her fault.

That didn’t convince the woman she had to do anything about it. She held guilt, but no sense of responsibility.

The poison is fading. The aches. The swelling won’t go down immediately, but it will. The heat is still there, the redness, but gradually, it becomes a lower heat. A milder ache. Aemilia is still tired. She’d barely slept at all, and now, she is exhausted from the fight her body had to enact to live even this long against the impact.

“Did you know her name? Your mom?”

‘Do you remember your own?’ That is what she wants to ask, but that, she knows, she will not get.
 
The frumentarius doesn’t acknowledge verbally if he has made the other man uncomfortable. Instead he scoffs slightly when Arcade speaks. “Doctor Gannon, I agreed that I would not simply just burn this place down. I agreed that we must destroy the research here so that any future attempts may not be salvaged from the wreckage. However, that does not mean that I disregarded the intention to light a fire at all. The Omertas will burn for their treachery.” He pauses, and finds a fork in the trail that wasn’t there the last time Vulpes had been in the area. He glanced back over his shoulder to Arcade, his eyes narrowing. “Do you not have anything besides a bright white lab coat, Doctor?” He shakes his head with a small long suffering sigh. He walks off the beaten trail, into the forest next to the trail. In the darkness he nearly disappears, if not for the fact that he was waiting for Arcade to follow.

“I was planning on scouting the area using stealth, there are other ways to remain hidden besides disguise.” He says lowly, as if it like it should be obvious. “Once understanding guard routes, security and the basic layout of the outside facility- that is when we will plot our next course of action. One cannot go into an infiltration mission completely blind. That is a fool’s errand, and I am no fool. Besides, I have no disguises adequately suited for such a mission. I have only built up enough of a rapport with the Omertas through Vincent Thebes, and it would not make much sense for him to be sent here. I also do not intend to talk in order to obtain information, I intend to demand. Most do not hide secrets from the Legion.”

They walk parallel to the new path through the landscape for some time- though Vulpes makes sure to remain far enough in the foliage that their approach up the path might not be seen by patrolling guards. He pauses, allowing Arcade to catch up to him. “Remain low, if possible. Bend your knees slightly at the very least. Watch where your feet step, though do not forget to keep mindful of your other limbs or what is in front of you. Try to limit how much noise your clothing makes. Distribute your weight among your feet evenly, and walk heel-to-toe, do not tiptoe unless you would like to fall on uneven terrain. The ball of your foot makes the most noise, so lean into each footstep slowly to limit the sounds of your footsteps.” The words are listed like a checklist and are spoken neutrally without mockery. Instead intending to be an actual lesson in making sure Arcade didn’t expose them before they were prepared.

Vulpes crouched down himself, and continued to their approach through the forest in a stealthy manner.

~***~

Aemilia, she speaks in return. Acknowledges his story, a dangerous thing. He wonders if he should ask her to keep the secret, so that way he isn’t punished. Sibilus… he is too tired to ask.

A part of him is saddened upon the reveal that Aemilia gave of her own mother. It was small, but it told a story without many words. Sibilus wonders if it would have been better if they had switched mothers, his own caring one would have taken care of her. Like she had done with Sibilus. She had rested near him, cooling him down with a wet cloth as his fever ravaged his body. She hadn’t left his side during that blurry time, not even to eat. She would have wasted away herself, like the books that Sibilus had read of a pre-war animal known as an ‘octopus’. They too wasted away in order to take of their children, to make sure the area of their eggs was properly temperature controlled and oxygenated. According to the old faded textbook, they were usually destined to die, having starved themselves for so long they didn’t recover. Sibilus thinks if his mother had deemed it necessary, she too would have done the same.

Sibilus thinks that maybe it would have been better if he had a callous mother who hadn’t cared, because then perhaps- he would have succumbed in that ravine. He wouldn’t have become a monster, but instead died a lonely fearful child.

His mother would hate him if she could see him now, he thinks.

She should.

Sibilus had thrown in allegiance with the same people that had killed her.

Snake. A vile treacherous backstabbing snake indeed.

He blinks out of his reverie when Aemilia asks him her question. There is a great sort of somberness that fills his face for a brief moment, before he manages to cover it. He answers, and he doesn’t know why he bothers. “Back in my old tribe, unlike many others we were given a name at birth. It was only a name the family would know, and your wife or husband would learn once married. There was then an occupational or trait based name one earned later in life that they would go by. My mother went by Seeking-Spirit for one of her names she’d earned later in life. She was a scout for our hunting parties, her eyes and ears never missed a thing.” He does not say her true name, the one only shared between family members. He knows it, of course he does. Though Sibilus does not share it, for it is his. The last thing he has of hers besides her memory is this secret of her name. It’s his.

He swallowed thickly, and he wondered if his own mouth felt so dry from blood loss- from the sticky red blood that seeped from his forearm. Or maybe it was because he was spilling secrets like water through a sieve. ‘Please don’t tell anyone I told you these things.’ He wants to say, but he smothers it, because a legionnaire never begs for anything. Instead, he asks: “Do you need me to make another antivenom?”

Once he is certain she is stable, will he work on his own wounds.

He deserves to wear them for as long as possible, Sibilus thinks.

Rotten snake, not even one a mother could love.
 
“No, I don’t,” Arcade answers the pointed question about his coat, following after Vulpes as he continues to outline his plan. Obviously, Arcade could take the coat off, but its many pockets hold his supplies, and he doesn’t want to be far from those supplies at any time. Sure, most are replaceable, and anything not he tends to keep closer to his person than the coat, but he is still not that willing to take it off for a stealth mission.

Although, he listens.

Not just to the plans of no conversation with anyone – which he thinks is a poor idea. ‘People don’t tell the truth under torture or interrogation.’ There is a problem with the method, although Arcade is aware anyone can lie under any circumstances. He stays silent on that thought, though not to disregard it. He will bring it up if he feels it is relevant, if he sees an alternative that looks more promising. He isn’t sure either of them will.

He isn’t sure how much can be gathered from written notes and terminals, or even recordings, although he believes much of it is likely within the heads of the main researchers.

He follows Vulpes’s instructions as they move, familiar with some. Certainly, familiar with the clothing, although the heels is a new one. He was always on his tiptoes when he snuck around as a child, so the positioning takes some time, but they are further from the base. He has time to practice, and time for Vulpes to interject commentary about any problems, before they reach the farm.

It is just that, from the outside.

Xander root, broc flower, and other native plants grow outside. ‘A cover?’ possibly; an entire field of broc flower would be questionable, though not suspicious, given the medicinal value. Selling healing powder was profitable, after all, and they had both ingredients here, along with other items.

There are three buildings, and there are dogs that roam the grounds, but people seem scarce on the outside. No doubt, they don’t want to bring attention to it by having it visibly, heavily guarded. ‘If it is heavily guarded at all.’ With how little Nero liked to be parted from his caps, it wouldn’t surprise Arcade if he didn’t pony up the caps to get better security, trusting instead in the illusion that this was a simple farmstead in the mojave desert.

He dares not speak to question what to do next; this is not where he has expertise, so he will leave those instructions to Vulpes, and wonder how the dogs may impact his decisions, given dogs tend to work off scent more than sight – and their ears were much better.

Arcade recalls too many times trying to use a river to mask their passage from dogs, including trekking within a river for what felt like miles, until finally getting onto dry land.

Crossing straight over one was too obvious, apparently. Walking within the river, swimming within it, was not something the NCR saw as much of.

~***~

Seeking-Spirit is the name offered, apparently the occupational name. It brings a smile to Aemilia’s lips as she hears it, and wonders at what Little Sibilus had been called, before he had an occupation. Did they have a name for people before an occupation, that wasn’t secret? What was the name of their tribe? What was the structure? The thousands of questions buzz in her head, but more a soothing sound against the pain and exhaustion. Questions to wonder on while falling asleep, which is still all that she wants to do.

Water will wait. Cleaning up will wait.

Antivenom could wait. If she is still feverish when she wakes, she could have some then, but for now, she shakes her head, thinking, hoping, she is out of the woods. “No, no, I’m just…going to sleep,” a dangerous thing, but the lack of rest at this point would be just as dangerous.

At least, she can imagine Arcade saying so, despite not knowing him long enough. She’s known him long enough to get him involved with the Legion, though, and she feels terrible for that.

Sibilus is not Arcade, but he understands the poison, “Just make sure I don’t die in my sleep,” that was something of a guarantee, though it being out of fear is not something that has truly registered with her, or truly been understood, despite knowing he spoke of the Legion differently than Vulpes.

It is that thought which pulls the second request from her, as she lets her heavy lids fall over her eyes, “And sell the Legion to me, Sibilus,” she has at least remembered what she is supposed to call him, that she even mentioned her own secret name for him is forgotten, or that he looked like Duke, “The fate of New Vegas isn’t decided…Vulpes did a poor job,” Vulpes couldn’t sell it to her.

She’d never listen to him.

“There must be a dream you have for your future…five years from now. Something good you see ahead…to serve the Legion so faithfully…I want to know what that dream you all share is because I can’t see it.”

But maybe he could at least make it make sense. If she helped, what did he see? What dream did the Legion have for peace?
 
Dogs. Vulpes was familiar with them of course, he used them often for his own missions. They were useful beasts when trained right. Antony the Houndmaster, skilled if a bit over affectionate towards the creatures- though he trained them well. Being familiar with them, Vulpes knew when he caught sight of them to pause. He lifted his hand to the man behind him in a motion to also halt.

The wind was in their favor, and so the dogs hadn’t yet caught their scent. That was not to say if they got closer that their keen hearing or sense of smell wouldn’t still pick them up anyways, despite the dogs being upwind of their location.

Quietly and agonizingly slowly as to not rustle the branch of a nearby outstretched pine tree- he plucked its needles like one would pluck the feathers from a bird. When he had a handful, he broke them to release the odor of the pine and began to rub it on his skin and outfit. It worked with a few other plants as well with a pungent smell, though being that pine was in abundance in the higher elevations- Vulpes didn’t bother to take out his pack and sift through it for his jar of scent masking paste made from those other plants. The less movement was better, as less movement equaled less noise.Picking pine needles relatively slowly was better than sliding off his pack.

Once he was done with the pine needles, he picked another batch- broke them and handed them to Arcade with a sharp look. As if saying ‘do as I did’.

The frumentarius slid a throwing knife from the hidden spot in his armor. He wasn’t planning on aiming for the dogs, as they were at such a range where any thrown object would lose its momentum and cease to do much damage. With the darkness it was also difficult to hit a vulnerable target on the canines’ body. If he had brought his rifle with him it still would have been too loud and distinctive a sound.

Vulpes also wasn’t planning on allowing the dogs to potentially alert their masters inside the ‘farm’. So, he needed to get closer. Take them out silently. Though with the way they were currently positioned, they would likely see them as there was no cover to block their line of sight.

He tossed the knife off into the forest, it bounced off a large grey stone he’d been aiming for and clattered loudly. It made the dogs jerk their heads to the source of the noise, growling menacingly into the dark. One shot off towards the noise, and Vulpes followed it swiftly but silently- intent on killing the beast as it was lured away from the others.

A blade was quieter sinking into flesh than snapping the mutt’s neck, though the blood would likely draw the dogs to where Vulpes was.

The mutt couldn’t make even a small whine as another hidden blade was stuck through its skull. Vulpes having ambushed it from behind, the pine scent had worked.

Like the frumentarius had known, it didn’t cover up the smell of fresh blood. He prepared himself for the other two mongrels, knowing they wouldn’t be far behind.

~***~

The frumentarius frowns deeply. “You shouldn’t.” Is all he says, though he doesn’t argue too vehemently. Sleeping ran the risk of never waking up again, it happened sometimes with the venom. Sometimes the person affected would be drained of their energy, slip silently into slumber- and never wake up from it’s cold grasp. He wonders if it’s peaceful that way, simply slipping off as easily as going to sleep.

He wonders if the dead dream too. Or if that was a lie, and there was nothing. It was a dark thought, it scared him deeply. All he could do was shove it away, because he couldn’t know. All Sibilus knew is that Aemilia shouldn’t be falling asleep- but he also knew it would likely be just as damaging to keep her awake. She hadn’t slept long, and had run herself ragged trying to get to Benny.

All that effort and for what? So Sibilus could sabotage everything she worked for?

‘I did what I had to do’ he tried to justify in his mind.

‘You did what you were told. More like a dog than a snake.’ A voice in the back of his mind hissed bitterly.

‘I can’t say no to orders.’

‘You could, if you weren’t a coward.’

Coward.

He could make sure she wouldn’t die in her sleep, he could give her that much.

Then, she speaks to him again, and tells him to sell her the idea of the Legion.

He can’t.

The Legion wasn’t an idea to be sold, it was an idea to be forced upon the unwilling. Beaten into someone until they yielded or until they perished.

“Tosa mis trames ind myrtvin.” He says in a language that is not the tongue the Legion uses. Not common English that has been adopted by many in the wasteland either. In his words there is a mismatch of languages melded together into something different, made from isolation- it is the words of his tribe. He does not explain the meaning of the words, in fact he says them so quietly as if they had never slipped from his lips at all. They are poignant though, tinged with genuine sorrow.

A moment of weakness.

He takes a deep breath, and allows his calm facade to cover him- despite the fact he wants to tremble so hard he falls apart.

His hands are deceptively steady.

He moves to sit beside her, instead of remaining crouched in front of Aemilia. He leans back against the cave wall. “I can’t sell you anything, I’m not the one equipped to do that. You… will talk to Caesar soon enough, yes?” He asks as if wondering if she had shifted plans. As if there was any doubt in his mind that she would be heading straight to Benny, and Benny was going to Fortification Hill. “He will say all the things I can’t, show you the Legion’s perspective. Who better to get information from our goals than the mouth of a god?”

He unwraps his gauntlet, his wound will be another scar of many. His hand reaches into his pouch again for his healing powder. To pack it in the wound. It felt like shoving a handful of sand into it. Sibilus welcomed it, it took his mind out of his spiral.

Outwardly, he looks calm. Inwardly, he is a raging torrential storm.
 
Arcade understood the silent offering of pine needles and he took them, doing as he saw Vulpes doing. Masking scent was important and they didn’t have a body of water. They weren’t running, either – they were going into the danger, and much as Arcade didn’t like this, he didn’t have a choice. ‘Why couldn’t you have a persona for this one?’ He wishes he could complain more about that, but then, he didn’t have an ‘in’, either.

He's not sure he could spin a convincing lie for why a Follower of the Apocalypse happened upon the farm. He didn’t know for a fact they sold healing powder for profit, so marching in with that lie would have been tricky.

Vulpes moves, and throws a knife. The sound distracts the dogs, but rather let that be all – Vulpes goes after them. “Hey!” It is a hissed-whisper, because Arcade can’t help but think it is a stupid idea. He doesn’t follow; he’s not prepared to kill anything silently and so he lets out an irritated huff and watches the other dogs, wondering if Vulpes intends to do that with all of them.

He doesn’t have to wonder when the dogs respond to something, and begin to bark their heads off. ‘Oh fuck.’ Arcade retreats deeper into the cover of the trees, staying low, keeping a tree between himself and the farm, as he watched lights appear in the farm, held by humans, following the sound of the dogs.

Arcade stays still, though he wonders if he ought to try and do anything.

Wonders if Vulpes has already found a way to escape as the barking subsides.

Dead?

Confused?

Arcade isn’t sure, but he moves a bit, slowly, carefully, so he can wrap around and try and see where the humans are heading, try to see if Vulpes is there – or if he ends up caught. ‘And do what?’ Arcade isn’t sure what he could do if Vulpes gets caught. He could shoot – but he is pretty sure they don’t want to risk involving too many others.

Would they keep a legionnaire alive?

Arcade’s hand still goes towards his gun, despite the thought he won’t use it, and takes it out. He doesn’t aim at a person, but at a tree near their direction – and he fires.

The weapon isn’t as loud as a typical gun, and with their distance, it doesn’t draw their attention immediately until the sight of it, and the splatter on a tree, make the shot known. He can tell there’s confusion about the direction for a moment, and he uses that to slink further from the spot he fired from, hoping it is enough for Vulpes to get free from their sights, as well, so they can regroup.

The group splits, rather than all head in the direction Arcade had been.

~***~

Aemilia did not open her eyes at Sibilus’s suggestion that she shouldn’t.

She was too tired, and when her eyes shut, she didn’t think she could open them if she wanted to. And she did want to, when she heard him talk in some language she didn’t know. Or perhaps he was speaking perfect Latin, or perfect English, but her mind was already swimming too close to the abyss.

How nicely it greeted her, too!

Little by little sensation ran away from, the first being the sense of touch that just…left. She didn’t recognize it as her body relaxed more, slid down the cliff a bit. She heard what Sibilus said, although it didn’t register, at first. The words had meaning, but they wouldn’t translate until later, when her sleeping mind filed everything into its place, and filed away the fact that Sibilus could not sell her the Legion.

It wasn’t a wouldn’t.

It was a couldn’t.

But she didn’t tell him that she didn’t want to hear from a God. By the time it was thought of, she was already deep in sleep, far deeper than most she’d ever enjoyed before. Not since Benny shot her, really.

Benny, and Maria.

The fact he never fired Maria only partially registered as a question that popped when sunlight fell upon her and woke her.

Everything ached.

Everything was sore.

A groan was her response to the morning, before she moved, stretched up, and felt the dried blood pull from her skin, adding another level of minor pain and irritation. Much of the swelling had gone down, as had much of the heat, but in the light of day she could see what a mess she was all the same, and with no water to clean off with, no change of a tank top, nothing at all to prepare herself for meeting a so-called God.

Hopefully, Caesar wouldn’t be upset with that.

‘I lived, Benny.’

Again.

She uses the cliff to stand, noting where Sibilus is, and then stumbles over to where her leather top was, checking the pocket.

Caesar’s Mark.

Lottery ticket.

No platinum chip.

No lighter – though of course, she gave that back.

She sighs, unable to help herself from sitting back down, not wanting to put the leather on, but knowing she needs to. It’s hot. She’s bloody. It’ll be sticky and miserable and although she is familiar with that, she doesn’t like it. Those were supposed to be days of the past, when she was new to travel, and stupid.

Not to mention she is hungry, dehydrated, and just…not happy. The reminder her pack is gone is not a good one to wake up to, after everything else. She wants to curl up and cry for a solid hour before picking up and trekking on, but she does not have a solid hour to cry – and even if she did, she still had no purified water for after the tears.

“I’m going to fucking kill him next time.” Words she fervently hopes are not in vain, before she finally puts the top on, intent to suffer with anger over the other moods – although the consideration of balling up the tanktop first and throwing it aside in a fit of anger did strike her, she manages to push that aside. Bloody and ripped cloth is better than none between herself and the leather. “Please tell me the Legion will let me clean my armor and repair it. Even if it’s a lie,” its all she can do not to sigh again as she tries to deal with her hair, matted with a bit of blood, and probably venom. She’s not sure, and she doesn’t want to find out. She just wants to walk straight into a lake and not come up for five minutes.
 
Vulpes knew the dogs alerting others was a very high probability, but the risk was necessary in his opinion. The dogs were trained well. Unfortunately for them. One was alert enough to have gone after the disturbance of Vulpes’ distraction and to investigate, while the others had remained steady at their area, they were assigned to guard… Vulpes knew they wouldn’t be pulled away from the door and they wouldn’t be able to slip in until they were disposed of. So, he took the chance.

Annoyance welled up inside him the moment he heard the dogs began to bark and charge forwards through the bramble.

A throwing knife sails and lands in one’s orbital socket, causing it to crumple. The other one lunges and he narrowly rolls out of the way, avoiding the teeth primed for his throat. Vulpes had fought NCR mutts before, he was used to fighting dogs. Though, the problem was that he saw in his peripheral vision- the glow of artificial lights. Human guards were coming to investigate the noise, and he needed to retreat if he didn’t want to be seen.

The dog lunges again, and this time Vulpes jabs a combat knife through the bottom of its skull and leans to the side to let the body drop to the ground. Quickly he pulls the knife out, and collects his throwing knives in passing as he darts to climb up one of the nearby trees. Most didn’t think to look up. An adequate if rushed place for a potential ambush if necessary.

He pauses on one of the branches, keeping deadly still as to not cause the wood underneath him to creak. The lights get closer, though suddenly there is a green flash in the distance. Vulpes can tell what it is immediately, it was the blast of Doctor Arcade’s weapon. It made a few of the men separate off of the group, leaving him with two tromping around underneath him with rough footsteps.

Vulpes could let them live, he supposed. It likely wouldn’t be too useful if they started dropping too many bodies- though they would come across the bodies of the dogs. Vulpes hadn’t enough time to hide them in the foliage, and so they lay strewn out.

One of the men holding a battery powered lantern knelt next to one of the dogs. “What the hell is going on? This doesn’t look like the work of mantises or even those green things from the vault. Besides, unless it was a swarm of mantises I doubt it could have taken out the dogs.” The man looked around, but of course neglected to look up.

The other man he had been speaking to gave a small shrug of his shoulders. “It looks like the work of a knife, if I had to guess. Though- whoever did it couldn’t have just disappeared, they have to be close by.” He holds his own lantern up and peers into the bushes.

To kill? Or not to kill? There were more, guards nearby- if he was quiet he might be able to kill them and drag the bodies to cover where they wouldn’t be found by the rest. Though, having enough time to do that would pose a problem.

“Let’s keep moving, see if we find anything deeper in the woods.” The two guards continued, not having even noticed the guillotine that was Vulpes Inculta that had been hanging over their necks.

He would let them go, it would prove to be the safest option if they were to attempt to salvage the stealth mission.

When they are out of ear shot, he drops down quietly and retreats into the bushes to go find his ‘partner’. With the door now not blocked by dogs, they could always attempt to head inside before the guards returned.

~***~

Sibilus had remained poised over Aemilia through the entire night to make sure she did not pass away in her sleep. His gaze had only been pulled away whenever they would be drawn to the corpse of the Nightstalker with the knife still sticking out of the back of it’s skull. The one that had tried to run.

‘See where running gets you? Dead.’ A voice in the back of his head remarks snidely. It sounds more venom than thought.

‘At least it actually tried.’ A smaller part of himself argued.

It was useless, as if a snake was eating itself. Sibilus kept spiraling, wondering if Aemilia would die. Wondering how he would die. He wished the venom still burned sometimes, like in this moment- because at least if it did- at least Sibilus might have something to distract himself from his thoughts.

‘Isn’t drowning supposed to be peaceful?’

Eventually light began to reach across the land, Sibilus might think sunrise would be pretty- if it didn’t just highlight the carnage of the night before. The burned bramble that had been gathered by his hands, the fire lit by Benny’s only due to Sibilus compelling him to do so. He is perched crouched down near the mouth of the small, enclosed area that was their makeshift shelter. He had his knees brought close to him; his arms wrapped loosely around them. His fingers on his left hand idly prodded harshly at the aching wound on his right forearm.

Hearing Aemilia’s groan, he lets out a small sigh in relief and shame, but otherwise doesn’t turn to her. Sibilus does not look at her, as she begins to shift underneath the light of morning. The frumentarius does not twitch from his spot as she goes to check her armor. Instead, his eyes focus on the body of the Nightstalker that had tried and failed to run away. He hadn’t taken the knife out of it’s skull yet- almost debated leaving it there as a testament to the fact that running only serves to get you killed. Maybe if he could sear into his mind the blade stuck deep into the creature’s skull- maybe it might be a potent enough reminder of why he did everything. Maybe then he can stop feeling as if his stomach was roiling unpleasantly.

The frumentarius could stop imagining his mother, and remind himself of what danger it posed to not fall in line.

He hadn’t given the creature a name despite them having a rivalry with one another, he had only known it as the scarred one, or the one a bit bigger than the rest. If a weapon could have a name, surely a dead creature could have a name too- yes?

“Daphne, or maybe Daphnis…” He suddenly murmurs softly to himself. As Sibilus hadn’t known it’s gender. He supposed it didn’t matter- it was a stupid idea anyways. It didn’t need a name, for one, it was an animal, two- it was dead. The frumentarius stands finally, forcing his expression into a neutral one. He turns towards Aemilia as she speaks to him. “I am certain Lord Caesar will order to have you accommodated with utmost hospitality, I imagine if you asked he might gift you clothing and have smiths repair your armor for you.” That much wasn’t a lie, at least Sibilus didn’t think. Even if it was, Sibilus was so good at lying he’s started to fool even himself. Silently, he unhooks his waterskin off his side, which is nearly half filled with water. He offers that and reaches into his pouch for a chunk of gecko jerky. “Here, to keep your strength up. You will need it to help your body replenish itself after losing so much blood.”
 
Three guards move to where Arcade had been. He cannot make out much of what they are saying from where he hides himself, low, behind a tree, in as much foliage as possible, but he catches some words as they seem to debate.

Splitting-up.

Green things.

There seems to be an argument, the word ‘green’ coming up frequently, and Arcade knows it must be in reference to his blast, but he doesn’t quite grasp the concept as they seem to debate the threat. ‘Don’t they realize it’s human?’ No, they seem not to realize it’s a human threat, although what they think it is, Arcade isn’t sure.

It’s curious, and it’s enough for the three to split up in three different directions, all moving away from the farm, to seek out this ‘Green thing’ from the sound of. Arcade doesn’t move as one passes close by, but doesn’t notice him. The guard moves on, casting her light about, and Arcade manages not to even give a sigh of relief.

When he cannot hear her, or the others, he creeps back towards his original spot, noticing how the pinpricks of light fade away. He didn’t hear a fight, so he hopes that Vulpes is all right – and indeed, it seems the other man is, as he came that way to where Arcade was.

Arcade keeps his voice a low whisper, “I’m not sure how long we have with those guards gone – I guess they thought my blast came from some aberration.” He shakes his head, it didn’t matter much right then, it helped their cause, after all. They’d be able to move forward with less guards on-site. “I doubt they were in barracks, so we should go to the building they were in. I saw them exit from there,” he points not to the center building, but the one on the left.

There might be more guards within, but it’s a risk they have to take.

~***~

Sibilus murmurs something, and Aemilia looks back and sees for a moment his gaze is on one of the dead nightstalkers. It is not long, but it is long enough for her to grasp at the feeling there. ‘Ah….’ This was his cache. These were his nightstalkers, where he got his venom, for antivenom and for weapons. He knew them.

He knew that one, among the others.

His knife was still in it.

Aemilia lets herself be distracted by his words, her nose wrinkling at the idea of Legion hands on her armor. She doesn’t mind others helping with repairing, the leather is a mismatch of browns and reds from her own hand and others, but the thought of the Legion doing it doesn’t sit right with her. ‘Material will be enough.’ Water, enough. Jerky, enough.

Aemilia can always live with enough, and she takes what is offered, “Thank you,” she eats the jerky quickly, before washing it down. She is ravenous, but hands the flask back after draining a little more than half of what remained. Whatever guilt she felt for it, she masked as she gestured towards the nightstalker.

“Should we bury it? Or…well, them. This was your cache so you knew them, didn’t you?” How unfortunate it would turn this way, “I’m sorry Benny turned them against you.” Aemilia sighs, “The child said there would be a rattle as his salvation – I didn’t even think of nightstalkers,” nor did it seem that Sibilus thought of it, or perhaps he would have thought to avoid the area.

If he even believed the prophesizing child.

“I guess if we don’t have a shovel, we could just burn them….” Aemilia probably should carry a shovel with how many times she’d nearly been killed.
 
Creeping through the undergrowth, he eventually sees the eyesore that is the Doctor’s terrible coat. (Terrible in the fact that it is such a stark contrast against the darkness of night.) Vulpes is slightly curious of how he managed not to get caught, though he reminds himself that Arcade does seem intelligent enough to keep out of the line of sight. The frumentarii leader keeps his eyes and ears focused on making sure the guards do not return, and nods at the other man’s words. He surprisingly doesn’t even seem to argue with the idea. “The main building might be a front. Curious how the smaller building would be so well guarded, yes?” He mused quietly out loud before beginning the approach to the side building that Arcade had noted.

“The guards that passed near my location seemed to discuss some ‘things’ coming from the vault.” He supplied, as if it might be of use. An observation, though Vulpes wasn’t sure if it was correlation or causation just yet. Maybe there was no association at all.

Perhaps the information might be useful, perhaps not. As a frumentarius it was the goal to treat all information as valuable initially and then prove it’s worth by connecting it to other strands of information.

Opening the door, Vulpes pauses when the hinges creak and he slides inside sideways as to not force the door open farther and cause more noise. While the dogs had very much been a setback, he would treat the mission with utmost caution and care as to not gain any more unwanted attention.

The hallway was lit by a single bulb suspended from the ceiling by a wire and its dim glow flickered ever so slightly. There was no décor in the narrow hall to break up the monotonous patchwork of steel sheets that made up the walls, floors and roof. Upon seeing no initial danger in the hall, he moved slowly so that the doctor could also enter the building. Vulpes was careful, his eyes narrowing and his boot clad feet avoiding rickety parts of the floor that looked like they might creak.

Vulpes’ nose twitched as he smelled the air, there was the scent of something strong nearby. Chemicals of a sort? He wonders if this was the area where the lab might be housed. He continues walking, combat knife at the ready. There was no cover to be had in the hall, so he simply tried to keep his footsteps as light as possible.

~***~

Sibilus doesn’t reply when she thanks him, because he doesn’t feel the thanks was earned or justified. He knew if she was aware of the truth, that she would likely attempt to kill him, if not for the need to get the Platinum Chip back. Given that the Platinum Chip was heading to Fortification Hill with Benny, she would either need to be willing to stay in Caesar’s good graces- or manage to gather enough of a military force to be able to raze Fortification Hill to the ground.

He does twitch when she regards the Nightstalkers, and he takes back the waterskin as it is returned to him. The legionnaire hooks it back onto his belt and fights not to glance over at the Nightstalker.

This was his fault, not Benny’s. He used these creatures as a pawn in his plot. Their lives had been nothing to him. He knew they would likely be wiped out in the skirmish, but he made that choice. Had decided to do it, despite the reputation he had built with the creatures.

He wonders if the Nightstalkers had enough intelligence to feel betrayed when he had killed them.

Sibilus supposed it didn’t matter now.

“I do not have anything to burn the bodies. Besides, they were useful, but they were just…a resource. The crows will feed on them, something else might take over their vacated den in time. It is the way of the world.” He turns then begins to walk over to the exit. “Are you strong enough to make the journey still? Or do we need to stop and set up a more suitable camp somewhere for you to regain your composure?” He questioned, for Sibilus did not want to travel if it meant putting the Courier in further harm. When he reported what happened to Lord Caesar, there was no doubt in Sibilus’ mind that he would likely be punished for his recklessness.

Aemilia had nearly died, and Caesar wanted Courier Six. The man always got what he wished.

As he came to the body of the Nightstalker with his blade still sticking from it’s skull- he crouched down next to the creature and reached for the hilt of the small dagger. His other hand pressed onto the creature’s forehead, and ever so gently he removed the weapon.

It looked like the rest of his hidden blades, and yet this one felt different when he held it in his hand. Heavier, almost. Though logically he knew that it wasn’t an accurate assessment, as all of his throwing knives were weighted and balanced the same.

Daphne…like the woman who had tried and failed to run from Apollo.

He slid it into it’s spot, and he rose to his full height. He stepped over the creature, as if trying not to disturb the body any more than he already had.

Naming a weapon? It was foolish…

Though, maybe it would serve as a reminder.
 
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