Chapter I - It's All Over But The Crying

And we're back. This is Mr. New Vegas here, and it's about time to get you some news.

He preferred pistols over all other types of weaponry. They were small enough to smuggle into the casinos on the Strip, as well as that one time he had had to go to Caesar's main camp in order to upgrade the Securitrons for Yes Man. Not only that, but they were fast as well - they didn't quite have the rate of fire of his Assault Carbine or any of his sub-machine guns, but they were far more accurate. But even among his Li'l Devil, Maria, and A Light Shining in the Darkness, there was a certain type of pistol that held his heart above all else. The revolver, as far as Courier Six was concerned, was the perfect weapon. Five or six shots, each one packing enough power to blow a Gecko's head clean off it's neck, and send a good sized section of a raider's brain a few yards into the wastes. He had collected several over his journey - Old Scratch, his .357, Sweet Revenge, his .44, and his pride and joy, the Ranger Sequoia, using 45-70 Gov't rounds. He had taken the thing off Chief Hanlon's body in a fit of rage over the discovered treachery of the Ranger, figuring that he didn't deserve the distinguished weapon after nearly getting his men killed. He had almost begun to regret it, too, until a group of Legionnaires had ambushed him and Cass, and a few well aimed shots with the revolver had sent the bastards sprawling, dying, into the sands. The thing had only left his hip once since - when Elijah had kidnapped him.

Pre-War singer and ghoul Dean Domino begins his show at the Tops tonight, and will be performing alongside the Lonesome Drifter and Bruce Isaac. That combination is looking to be a deadly one for the women of New Vegas.

Six was still faintly confused about his feelings towards Dean. On one hand, he and the ghoul had gotten along quite well at the Sierra Madre despite their… less than favorable introduction. They had worked together efficiently to save both of their asses while in the Villa and the Casino itself, and while a slip on Dean's part would have cost Six his life had the Courier not caught the error in time (his left my ass), in the end, they had both survived what that fuck Elijah had put them through. On the other hand though, he had been blackmailing Vera over a life-threatening illness and had spent a good amount of time pre-War and the 200 years since then pursuing the shadow of Sinclair. However, in the end, Six just couldn't bring himself to hate the suave singer. He had loved Vera in his own way, and had seemed genuinely sad over the fates of Vera and Sinclair. Casting his mind back to the Sierra Madre, he thought of Christine and the consciousness that had once been Dog and God. Hoping that no harm had coming to either seemed like a largely hopeless exercise to him, but he did it nonetheless. Christine could take care of herself, even guarding that fucking casino and it's treasure. Well. It's treasure minus the 5 gold bars he had managed to steal before trapping Elijah in the detonating vault. Those still financed his wanderings, even now. He had more ammo than he knew what to do with. After all, there were a finite amount of Fiends and Legionnaires in the world.

NCR troops begin to withdraw from the Mojave today, after weeks of negotiations between the NCR and the Board of the IMC. Only Ranger Stations Alpha, Bravo, Echo, and Golf are staying active, to watch for any attacks from the remnants of the Legion.

The IMC. The Independent Mojave Coalition, the greatest thing the Courier had ever achieved - and considering he had talked a schizophrenic Nightkin into reconciling the two halves of his personality into an entirely new consciousness, that was impressive. Hell, he felt like talking to the mentally unstable mutant while in a room slowly filling with flammable gas, trying to convince him that, no, it was not a good idea to blow everyone up, was easier than trying to get the disparate factions of the Mojave to stop fighting over resources and start banding together to repel the Legion, and tell the NCR politely but firmly, that no, they did not need their help and if they could pull the troops out of Freeside, it would be very much appreciated before some Securitron thought the troops were intruders and opened fire. Of course, the Mk II Securitrons did help a great deal with the negotiations - having an entire army of robots, each capable of taking on a few NCR troops each, immune to the demoralizing effects of seeing their companions torn apart by sub-machine gun fire, and loyal to your every command was one of the pluses of getting involved in this mess.

Speaking of the remnants of the Legion, the Mojave is still on edge after the nuclear strike that devastated the army. It appears that no one knows who or what caused this attack - and why.

No one except the Courier and Ulysses, there in the twisted canyons under a cracked sky. Six absentmindedly touched the duster he wore as he walked, the coat with the flag of the Old World on his back that had once belonged to the other courier. Ulysses had given it to him, alongside his mask, and had strode off into the east, in search of someplace to call his own, someplace he could recreate what the Divide had once been, before Six himself had brought it's destruction. It wasn't your fault, he told himself, and almost believed it.

Here in New Vegas, we know the pain that numbers can bring. Well, so does Guy Mitchell, who has Heartaches by the Number.

The song started playing in his ears, giving the Courier a soundtrack as he walked through the narrow canyons of the Divide. There were no companions by his side, as there had often been. Cass was probably in New Vegas, trying to get Cassidy Caravans started up again. Boone had begun working as a temporary caravan guard and guide around Novac, trying to get his life back in shape. Gannon and Veronica were in Freeside, still working to bring safety to the people of the city. Lily was in Jacobstown, staying with Dr. Henry and Marcus, trying to cure the schizophrenia of the Nightkin. Raul was in Freeside, acting as the vaquero and defender of the innocent that he was always mean to be (though the old ghoul must have been pushing 235 by now). All had offered to come with him. He had turned them all down. He needed the time alone, time he had not had since returning from the Divide for the first time. Capitalizing on the nuclear strike he had launched against the Legion took top priority, and for a few blissful weeks, there was no room for anything in his mind but the Legion, the NCR, and trying to unite the factions of the Mojave, and create the IMC. But now, the IMC had almost finished it's growing pains, the Board was running things well - and Courier Six could no longer sleep at night.

He had stopped by the Mormon Fort to get some sleeping medicine from Gannon, when the older man had pulled him aside on the way out.

"Six."

The doctor's voice cut through the air, and the young courier had turned automatically to face him, a question on his face.
Gannon sighed.

"No, it's not a job. Look, Six - that's the third time we've upped the dosage of sleeping pills in the past two weeks. You cannot keep drugging yourself to sleep like this, and expect to come out fine."

"I have for the past six months," the Courier murmured.

"No," the doctor rebutted, "for the past six months you've been too damn tired to stay awake. Now, the hard part is pretty much over with, and you cannot work yourself to sleep anymore. Drugging yourself until you can't stay awake is not a solution," he warned, forestalling the sentence about to come out of the young man's mouth.

Gannon hesitated, looking at Six. He couldn't be older than 18, the doctor suddenly realized, feeling very old himself. But his eyes - by God, Gannon had seen men in their sixties who had more innocence than the Courier. Rubbing his face, Gannon looked at Six, who was waiting silently and patiently for the former Enclave member to finish.

"Look," began the doctor again, "I'm no expert in psychology, but it's beyond clear that something is eating at you. I make no claims to know what it is, or why it's affecting you this way. However, if you don't do something about it…"

Gannon trailed off, which was good because he honestly had no idea what to say. That Six would regret it? There were a good many things Six regretted already - and those were just what he knew about, the doctor hadn't accompanied him for all of his travels, and he heard rumors like everyone else. Six wasn't wearing what he considered his work uniform right now, opting for the duster with the stars of the Old World on his back, but Gannon could just as easily see the tall and thin young man in the jet black overcoat and body armor of the Elite Ranger that he had worn during the Second Battle of Hoover Dam - and just as easily imagine the rumors being true, a single man in black armor and a black coat entering a Fiend camp and gunning down every one, taking wounds before slamming a Stimpak and some Med-X in the general vicinity of his injuries and moving on to the next camp.

Thankfully, Six seemed to have understood what he was trying to say, and nodded.
"Yeah," came the soft voice of the young man. "Yeah, you're right. Fuck, you're right."

Exhaustion, the likes of which Gannon had never heard, permeated every word of the courier's sentence. Nodding, Six looked back at his companion, and answered decisively. "Tell everyone that I'm taking off for a while. I'll be… a couple of weeks at the latest. Gotta go somewhere."

Gannon's brows crinkled in worry, before he made to take a small step forward. Six raised his hand, forestalling the action of the doctor. "Don't worry, alright? I'll be fine on my own."
"I know, but it would still make me - all of us, I think - feel better if one or two of us went with you."

A spike of anger and annoyance shot through Six (damn Psycho, he had to pay a visit to Usanagi before he left) even though he knew Gannon meant well. "I don't need your help," he snapped, before sighing and muttering a brief apology. "I'm sorry, Gannon. This… is something I need to do on my own."

And so here he was, a week later, on his own, walking through the Divide to Guy Mitchell agonizing over how he can't stop loving the girl who's breaking his heart, trying to reconcile what he remembers from before that fuck Benny pumped two bullets into his skull outside Goodsprings with the man who launched a nuclear strike on the Legion to give him the best advantage possible, without even thinking about the slaves and prisoners in Legion territory (bowed, hunched women under the watchful [and leering] gazes of Legionnaires as his right hand desperately aches to pull out Lucky and pump lead through their fucking skulls), condemning all of them to death.

"Someday, you're gonna wish you had some bad in you… cause good is gonna let you down."

"Fuck you, Marko."

The whispered words fell empty from his lips into the winds of the DIvide. He had said them so many times they seemed meaningless.

He had been staying in Ulysses' Temple for a week. Six had figured that if there was any better place to try to deal with his psychological problems than the place where he had single-handedly racked up the largest kill count by a single human since the Great War, he didn't fucking know about it. Though now that he was actually thinking about it, he could have gone to see Joshua in Zion. The Courier had the distinct impression that the former Malphis Legate wouldn't give him the answers he was looking for, however. Joshua would just give him a speech about he had done what was necessary to protect his people, and how no one could ever judge him for it, not even if there was a God in Heaven. Daniel wouldn't be much help either, just shake his head and ask him again to pray for forgiveness. Six tended to come down with Joshua - if there was a God (and that was a pretty fucking big if, he thought bitterly, looking at the ruins of the Divide), that fuck had no right to judge him, especially after some of the shit he had pulled.

"This Jesus guy seemed to know what he was talking about, though," muttered the Courier, weighing the Scripture Joshua had given him before he left Zion in his hand. "Too bad the Wasteland ain't exactly a live and let live type of shithole." He had questioned why the New Canaanite had given him what had seemed to be a great gift by the standards of his people, and was surprised when Joshua had laughed. "I don't have any need for it anymore," the man had said. "I've learned all I can from it, and found the Scripture lacking. However, my answers and yours are not the same. I give this to you in hopes that you can find your answers in it."

He hadn't. Not yet, anyways. Jesus hadn't said anything about the morality of performing a preemptive nuclear strike on an advancing army that sought to turn you and everyone you knew into slaves or crucifixions. It probably would have been a bit easier to deal with the crippling emotional trauma that was caused by such a mass killing otherwise.

However, that emotional trauma would have to wait.

Because that thing was was coming down from the sky was not a fucking vertibird. With narrowed eyes, Six slipped on Ulysses' mask, materialized his Ranger Sequoia from the Pimp-Boy (Mick and his sense of humor) on his left forearm, and activated a Stealth Boy, becoming a mirage sliding into the wastes.

"Dust," whispered the young man. That was really the only proper reaction for the twisted, annihilated landscape before them. His teammates, Redding and Tala, were silent, but nodded grimly in agreement with him. Wrecked buildings and debris spilled into the cracked and ruined earth, and destroyed cars buried in the ground stood as rusted tombstones to a people killed by a world that had no idea what it was doing. His partner was frozen alongside him, her eyes staring blankly into the destroyed city. He reached over, and nudged her. "Venus, you alright?"

The team leader jumped in a start, looking panicked at him. Davis frowned, tapping her forehead. "Remnant to Venus. You ok? You started just staring…"

The slight, purple haired girl smiled (a little faintly, Davis fretted internally), and shook her head. "I'm fine, Davis. Just… a bit overwhelmed by it all. It's one thing to read about it in the history textbooks or to hear about it in Oobleck's class. But to see it like this…"

The entire team of VRDT looked into the wastes.

"It's suddenly real."

Redding spoke up, a rarity, and his teammates found themselves nodding along, as they often did whenever the bear faunus offered some of his insightful wisdom (which was stupid, 'cause they were all twenty, which is nowhere near old enough to have wisdom). But Redding was right - up until now, the bombing of America was almost mythological, something that had never happened. But now, they saw the buildings, the cars, the wastelands, and knew that a little over 200 years ago, a kingdom had been completely annihilated, down to the last, with weapons that had been immediately destroyed, in horror over what they had done. Atomic research had been banned, and Dust technology filled the void.

The soon to be fourth-year team stepped out of the bullhead, into the dust of the remnants of the fifth kingdom of America, and with no pomp or ceremony, were the first to set foot in the destroyed kingdom since the Great War 200 years ago.

"It's a good thing all the radiation has faded away by now, otherwise, we'd have to wear huge, bulky suits, and who knows how that would affect us," commented Tala, shuddering a bit. Not from vanity, however, from practicality - they would be severely hampered in terms of mobility if they had to wear such massive radiation proof suits. Nodding in agreement, the group took a standard formation before advancing - Redding in the front, massive battle-axe drawn and ready, Tala in the back, ready with her sniper rifle, the massive blade coming from the barrel like a bayonet speaking to her skill with close combat as well as her aim with the gun. Davis and Venus were on the flanks, his sub-machine gun ready to become a mace at any moment, while his partner readied a semi-automatic rifle to target mid ranged enemies, the gun transforming from a longsword by her side.

They advanced steadily down the pathway formed by the ruined and toppled buildings, scanning the sides of the fissure in the earth, although they were not sure what they were checking for. Human and faunus alike had both been killed off nearly two centuries ago now, and the landscape seemed quite inhospitable for other animals. The Grimm had more than likely been wiped out in the atomic hellfire, and without the negative thoughts of humans enticing them, would not spawn in the wastes. At least, that's what Port theorized, proving even the windbag professor could come up with a thought in his head from time to time. Tala checked her scroll as they advanced, watching as the blip that represented their position came ever closer to the blip that represented the spot from which a nuclear warhead had been launched for the first time in over 200 years. That was the mission of the Beacon team VRDT - to determine the cause of the launch, and, if any nuclear warheads remained, destroy them to erase all trace of atomic weapons from the world. The annihilation of America could never happen again.

Venus uttered a short yelp, and VRDT reacted with perfect harmony, Tala tucking and rolling to the back, raising her sniper to her shoulder, as Davis and Redding pivoted on their heels to face the way Venus was. They examined what had caused Venus to react with such alarm, and all had to turn away for a moment at the sight in front of them, Davis' face vaguely turning green at the spectacle. It was a small, humanoid figure - but that was where the resemblance to humanity ended. The skin of the creature was green and scaly, and it's white eyes were disproportionately large for it's face. It resembled nothing so much as the stereotypical depiction of aliens - and it was dead, having been slashed to death by some other creature, large rents in it's flesh leaking trickles of blood, the rest having dried long ago.

"What the hell?" swore Redding, hefting his axe. "What is this?"

Davis, though green, looked to the side at Venus. "Hey, you alright? It looks dead, but…"

Venus shook her head, making a visible effort to stand up straight and not cower any longer. "No, it's dead. And I'm fine, it's just that…"

The four stood around the corpse of the creature, examining the tiny frame, which would most likely give the thing incredible speed. It's arms were tipped with sharp claws, and it's mouth was filled with ivory teeth, pointed and fierce.

"That thing can't be natural," muttered Redding.

"You're probably actually right," answered Tala, bending down to get a closer look at the thing. "One major side effect of the atomic bombs was radiation, which was known for causing mutations in cells. With enough exposure to radiation over enough time… Something like this thing could be produced." The statement was punctuated with a kick from a combat boot into the dead creature, which caused her teammates to flinch slightly, as if expecting the thing to jump at them.

"My god," Venus whispered, the soft statement catching the attention of her team. "Do you think - that's what happened to the Americans?"

A new, horrified silence fell over VRDT as they pondered what Venus had brought up.

"Venus," said Davis, motioning to reassure her, "I'm sure that's not what happened…"

"Yeah," added Tala, with a slightly shaky voice. "I'm sure too. I think I just found them."

VRDT turned to Tala, questions in their eyes, before their gaze followed the barrel of Tala's rifle, and they immediately readied their weapons. Emerging from various broken windows and toppled buildings were humans. However, they resembled a figure one would see in an anatomy textbook more than an actual person, as all their skin had been stripped off. The exposed muscle pulsed and flexed as they advanced, causing Venus to gulp, her breathing accelerating as she tried to suppress her gag reflex at the frankly horrifying sight before them. Some had guns, wielding all sorts of weaponry, while others opted to just carry melee weapons, chainsaws, knives, and even slabs of metal sharpened into large swords. Many were armored in what looked to be street signs folded into protective armor, while others were dressed in combat fatigues, and the last had clothing that resembled the armor of ancient civilizations. A growl echoed from the horde surrounding the Beacon students, as the team turned in place, desperately seeking a way out.

The closest skinless man, who was armored with a street sign that declared "STOP" in white letters on red (funny what you noticed when your life was in danger, thought Redding in an almost detached manner) lifted his pistol towards the bear faunus - and a gunshot rang out through the fissure.

The horde froze, then quickly retreated, scurrying back into the holes from which they came. Redding looked down at himself, quickly assessing his current health, and came to the reasonable conclusion that he had not, in fact, been shot.

"Turn," Tala ordered, and Redding did so, knowing that trying to defy the sniper-medic was a terrible idea. Once the young woman had confirmed to her satisfaction that her partner had not, in fact, been shot, the team looked back outward again.

"W-why did they run?" Venus asked rhetorically.

"Because they know better."

The voice, soft but firm, caused the four of them to have such a start not so much because the rhetorical question posed by their team leader was answered, but because none of them had answered it. Following the source of the voice, they craned upward to see a figure some hundred feet above them, silhouetted by the sun against the cliffs.

"Bear or Bull?" called the figure.

VRDT paused, looking at each other, and mutually decided to shelve the question of who the hell this man was living in the middle of the fissure in the earth, and how he had survived in a nuclear hellfire scorched wasteland. Turning back to each other, Davis turned to Redding in particular.

"Bear or bull? Is he talking about you?"

Before Redding could answer, the voice cut in once more.

"It doesn't take four of you to answer. You. The one with the impractically large gun and ridiculous bayonet attached to it."

Tala positively bristled at the stranger's casual insults to her Rose Thorn, but didn't get a chance to unload her full rant of scorn onto the wastelander (Redding had counted once, it reached almost three minutes of pure rage of a weapon nut), as he continued on.

"Bear or Bull?"

Giving a helpless glance to her team, who gave equally helpless glances back, the sniper-medic turned to the figure on the cliff, and took a deep breath.

"Neither."

The proud statement actually twisted more into a question near the end, but Tala could be excused for that. The voice was silent for a few moments, before the figure pointed behind them.

"Climb that hill, over the pipes. Once you reach the top, face me, then head right over the collapsed building. When you reach the end, follow the platforms to me."

With that, the silhouette made to move back into the shadows of the cliff.
"Wait!" Venus impulsively shouted. "What would have happened if we answered wrong?"

The figure paused.
"Look to your right."

VRDT obeyed, and froze in their tracks again. A white cone with a rounded, blunt tip sat against the wall of the fissure, with what was unmistakably several packs of C-4 pressed firmly against it.

"Is that…" Davis trailed off, but all of the students knew what he meant.

Venus gulped.

"Please, everyone, be careful around the nuclear warhead."

A/N: Don't get too attached to VRDT, they're just a plot device to get Six to Vale, cause it makes no goddamn sense to ask a first year team to go to a nuclear wasteland. I've read a lot of fics with the Transportalponder sending Courier Six to Remnant, but I don't think I've ever seen a fic with this premise. So, am I breaking new ground? Maybe.

So, if it wasn't clear - America was a fifth kingdom. In the Great War, which has been moved to 200 years before RWBY starts, Atlas launched a nuclear strike on America, which completely annihilated it. Horrified, all four kingdoms outlawed nuclear power and weapons, and focused on Dust instead. They did not know about Vault-Tec and the Vaults, and think that all Americans are dead.

Another note - as far as this fan fiction is concerned, the following set of mods are canon, given how fantastic they are.

New Vegas Bounties I, II, III
The Inheritance
King of the Ring
Blood by the Dollar

THOUGHTS ON RWBY

RWBY is weird. It's one of those things that I like reading fanfiction of more than I like watching the actual show. Though mostly that might because in the show, we don't get to see the internal thought processes of the characters, so if they act out of what their personality has been established to be, we may not get a justification for a while. In fanfiction, a lot of that is cleared up. Also Monty - may he rest in peace - was fantastic at character design and world building, but was god-awful at character development and internal consistency. All I want is some explanation that's not ripped from Dragonball, man! I'm not asking for some Patrick Rothfuss, Brandon Sanderson, or Nasu Kinoko level of magic system here - just a Jim Butcher level at the very least, instead of the Rule of Cool. All that being said, I don't think I ever watched past season 1, so I will be relying on shit I've learned from fanfiction, the wiki, and TvTropes after the dance.

In any case, if I continue this side thing, I'll see you again. If not, ah well, here's the start of what could be. Go ahead and leave questions, comments, concerns, critiques and testimony if you so wish.