Under a Blood Moon: New Vegas Prologue.

War.

War never changes.

When atomic fire consumed the earth, those who survived did so in great, underground vaults. When they opened, their inhabitants set out across ruins of the old world to build new societies, establish new villages, form new tribes.

As decades passed, what had been the American southwest united beneath the flag of the New California Republic, dedicated to old-world values of democracy and the rule of law. As the Republic grew, so did its needs. Scouts spread east, seeking territory and wealth, in the dry and merciless expanse of the Mojave Desert. They returned with tales of a city untouched by the warheads that had scorched the rest of the world, and a great wall spanning the Colorado River.

The NCR mobilized its army and set it east to occupy the Hoover Dam, and restore it to working condition. But across the Colorado, another society had arisen under a different flag. A vast army of slaves, forged in the conquest of 86 tribes: Caesar’s Legion.

Four years have passed since the Republic held the Dam - just barely - against the Legion’s onslaught. The Legion did not retreat. Across the river, they gathered strength. Campfires burned, training drums beat..

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Clink!

The vague machinations of what he might have once called a New Reno funeral buzzed in his half coherent brain, the sounds muffled by what he assumed was a burlap sack that’d been fashioned around his head like he was a stupid mark The soreness that reverberated through his skull already informed him of what he needed to know long before the question could even form in his hazy thought process: some son of a bitch ganked him on the job. Did they think he was dead? It sounded like a shovel was hitting the ground, like it was cutting up through loose dirt and rubble, like they were digging a ho– No, it wasn’t a hole, was it? A grave? Why even bother. Then again, why bother throwing a bag over his head. The clearer things got, the angrier he got. He’d let some cunt get the drop on him, he let some backwater tribal raider get the drop on him.. Except, backwater tribal raiders didn’t black bag you and dig graves, did they?

“Got what you were after, so pay up!”

“You’re cryin’ in the rain, Pally..”

The cockiness in that tone, the self-assuredness in it. The first one might have been a tribal, a raider, but that second voice? No, it wasn’t a raider. He shifted, just slightly, just enough leverage to try test the restraints he couldn’t even see. His head throbbed somethin’ awful, maybe, just maybe if he managed to do it quietly enough, they wouldn’t even think to check on him; not that it’d matter, he couldn’t see them even if they were distracted, but it was better than laying there limp with his cock metaphorically in his hand like some cuckolded mark would be. He tested his bonds, but it wasn’t some zip tie or old world tech restraints, they hit him with old fashioned wire around his wrists, or at least he warranted a guess that they did from how it cut through the material of his gloves and bit into his skin like it did, drawing the tiniest tremor of a growl from his chest as he pulled against it.

“Guess who’s wakin’ up ova’ here.”

Shit. They heard him.

He felt the bag over his head get jerked off of him, felt the coarse material wash over his face and for the first time, in a long time, the light of the full moon, the blue moon, was almost too bright for him. Still, it wasn’t so bright that the checkered jacket of that zippo flickin’ asshole positioned between his flunkies didn’t stand out like a bad NCR penny. Yeah, he knew that type; he just figured that he left'em behind in New Reno, along with a bunch of other bad debts that never paid up for. He figured it might as well go this way, and yet, he wasn’t belly aching or crying about it. He shifted up and pushed to his knees, forcing his weight to his legs, pushing his knees up and under his body as he tightened up the muscles of his abdomen to try and work the leverage he had into sitting up mostly straight. That ache in his damned head felt like a weight attached to it, made the dim light feel almost florescent to his still sensitive eyes. Those same eyes that saw the glint of the engraved zippo as the man pushed it into his pocket, stamping out his own cigarette.

“Time to cash out.”

Yeah, he knew this type of asshole all too well.

“Will you get it over with?”

Heh, that gussied up Tribal had the right of it, he might’ve said the same damn thing if his head wasn’t thundering from the shovel blow to it.

“Maybe Khans kill people without lookin’ ‘em in the face, but I ain’t a fink, dig?”

Khans? Explained the clothes they wore, explained their posturing. The way he worded what he said though, that had Tobi’s brows furrowing and those cobalt blue eyes of his starting to narrow in scrutiny? A fink? What’d this gaje think he was? A made man? W– Oh. He was, wasn’t he? Outsourcing the dirty work, dressing like that? The mannerisms, the way this guy carried himself like he was untouchable. Yea, he was a made man and it made sense in a way that it shouldn’t have. So, when the man stared down Tobi, holdin’ his index finger out for emphasis to the Khan on his right side? Tobi stared back at him. If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to sit there and start to blubber. No, that wasn’t his style, it never was.

The moment that the man in the checkered suit reached into his jacket with his right hand, Tobi’s eyes followed it, waiting for the glint of blued steel, waiting for the gun he’d inevitably pull out. Though, when he brought out the platinum chip, the supposedly innocuous trinket he was taking to Vegas, he could feel his own molars clash against eachother as he gritted his fuckin’ teeth.

It was a goddamned set up.

“You made your last delivery, Kid. Sorry you got twisted up in this scene.”

Was he? Didn’t make a damn either way, Tobi supposed. He saw ol’ Checkered-Suit’s hand shift into his jacket, only this time that hand went lower, and Tobi could only guess as to what was coming out of it. The glint of chrome hit him first, then the hint of the scroll engraving along that barrel, with a lady swathed in robes depicted on what looked to be an ivory grip peeked up and over Checkered-Suit’s hand, looking the most serene that Tobi had ever seen a woman look. He recognized her, albeit just barely, she was the woman in the pictures in the New Reno chapel, and for the life of him Tobi couldn’t help but to feel an overwhelming sense of peace, mixed with a hint of irony at seeing here right now, with him on his knees, hands bound, with a group of armed men, one of whom was pointing a gun straight at his face.

Yeah, of all people, Tobi’d feel peace at seeing some strange broad right before he bit it, wouldn’t he?

“From where you’re kneeling, this must seem like an eighteen karat run of bad luck.”

Tobi didn’t say a damn word to him, but if he had, he might have just laughed through his own words. What could he say to that? The man was right, it did seem like that, but he knew better; men like him didn’t find men like Tobi on coincidences and luck, they never did, and as he leveled that pistol, as he rolled back the trigger of his semi-automatic nine millimeter, Tobi just straightened his back and watched him. If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to do it with tears in his eyes or some dramatic, half-assed speech that no one gave two shits about. He’d die like his old man taught him, with his balls and his pride still halfway intact.

“Truth is, the game was rigged from the start.”

For a second, Checkered-Suit might have hesitated, hell, he might have even flinched, but between the way that Tobi didn’t even blink at the pistol, and the way that his chapped lips were starting to curl up into a 'Fuck You’ grin instead of wavering, well. There were some men that you knew you had to kill, before they killed you. The men that you just knew carried a bullet with your name on it. Tobi already being a courier, well, you didn’t want to leave a man who carried messages alive when you got that vibe off of them.

Fuck it, Karma was coming for them both eventually anyways.

Checkered-Suit squeezed that trigger and from the black mouth of the barrel came a ear-ringing lullaby that seemed to just blow our courier’s mind as it sent him reeling into the dark

Sometimes though, sometimes what we throw into the dark comes back to us, and for every hundred devils we raise up, there’s always one that we can’t lay back down.