Pov of Mari Törni
"Well… intelligence finally decided to deliver the report," I said with dry sarcasm, eyes fixed on the flood of data pouring into my terminal. It was nearly overloading the system.
"There was a lot to process, Elder Mari," replied the paladin in charge of analysis. The bags under his eyes were deep. "And the Legion doesn't make it easy. Many of our operatives have gone dark. We assume they were captured… or killed by those techno-barbarians."
Techno-barbarians. The term was starting to feel insufficient.
What I had in front of me wasn't a standard field report. It was a chronicle of collapse. A brutal summary of what had happened in the Mojave… and what was coming for California if no one stepped in to stop this tribal war machine.
The NCR's forces hadn't just been overwhelmed —they were annihilated. According to the data, the Legion threw endless waves at the Republic's lines, which were undersupplied, demoralized, and clearly being sabotaged from within. But that wasn't even the most disturbing part.
It stood in grotesque contrast to the image the NCR had originally sold us: that the Legion was just a cult, led by a narcissist in emperor's garb. A horde of fanatics with rusty machetes and junk rifles. Easy prey.
Lies.
The footage in front of me told a different story.
Their tribal armor now incorporated ballistic vests. Helmets were reinforced. Their deployments followed recognizable patterns of command and control, with proper use of cover, indirect fire, flexible formations, and coordinated maneuvers.
They had artillery. Mortars. Entire fields were turned into kill zones.
But what chilled my blood was the last part: power armor.
Hundreds. Possibly thousands. Not the half-functional suits or servo-less frames the NCR limps around in —but real suits. Operational. Active. Servos humming. One of our spies had captured footage: entire columns advancing in formation, shielding assault units, coordinated with light infantry and transport vehicles. Even the occasional tank.
"How did they get so many?" I muttered, more to myself than the paladin.
"So how did it happen, then?" I asked, arms crossed, as the last of the data loaded onto the screen. The sarcasm was gone. I wanted answers. "How was the NCR defeated so completely by the Legion?"
The paladin swallowed hard.
"They have a new general. According to reports, he's unlike anything they've seen before. He took the NCR by surprise with a level of tactical pressure and operational violence they weren't ready for. He led mass assaults supported by power armor, used heavy artillery barrages, tanks, and… vertibirds. Multiple. To drop troops behind NCR lines, right on weak points."
I slowly turned to him, narrowing my eyes.
"Vertibirds?" I repeated, incredulous.
"Yes, Elder."
"Are you joking?" I asked, cold and measured. I moved closer to the terminal, scrolling through the visual logs until I found the footage. There they were. Not one, not two. Several.
"Do you have any idea what it takes to fabricate even one of those?" I asked, my anger starting to rise. "The materials? The tools? The training? Components that haven't existed in working condition for decades?"
The paladin said nothing. He couldn't.
"A tribe with imperial delusions," I muttered. "Operating a pre-war war machine. Someone —or something— is giving them access to tech they shouldn't even know exists."
I stepped back from the console, pulse pounding in my temples.
"Either they stumbled onto an intact military cache from the old U.S. Army… or from the Enclave."
That last word hung in the air like a curse no one wanted to say aloud.
"No expedition has reported any new Enclave bunkers…" I murmured, still staring at the aerial images —each worse than the last. "So it has to be the first. They got lucky. Found a major pre-war weapons stockpile. That's the only way this makes sense."
I sighed. Slow. Long. The kind of breath that does nothing to calm you, but gives you a moment to hold your composure.
"What happened to our brothers in the Mojave?" I asked bluntly, already dreading the answer.
The paladin didn't hesitate.
"Dead… or enslaved."
His voice was cold. Professional. But not hollow.
"The bunker where the Mojave chapter was stationed was sealed. Concrete poured into every air vent, access point, and auxiliary exit. All of it." He paused. "There are no signs of external fighting. They were buried alive. Suffocated."
"And the Legion?" I asked again, now with genuine interest. "Do you believe they have the capacity to launch a campaign into California?"
The paladin nodded slowly before replying.
"The Legion's main camp is massive, Elder. We're talking kilometers of organized tents. Their numbers must be overwhelming." He paused again, inhaling. "Fortunately, the NCR secured a ceasefire. Since then, they've focused on fortifying the border. NCR engineers are working non-stop —fortifications, trenches, anti-air systems… heavy machine gun nests lining the southern perimeter."
He checked his datapad before continuing.
"There's also constant activity in Vegas. They're demolishing large sections of the old city and rebuilding from the ground up. Tall towers. Wide streets. What looks like an industrial district. It seems the Legion, for now, is more interested in consolidating its gains than pushing further. At least… for now. Which is lucky for the NCR."
I nodded slowly, but not out of relief.
"It's good the Republic is weak —for our interests," I said. "But not too weak… not when an expansionist power is at their doorstep."
The paladin looked at me, uncertain.
"We lost a conflict to the NCR," I said, turning toward the holographic map of California —its fractured zones, the chaos on the roads, the shifting control lines. "But not the war. If the Legion chooses to march west… if they truly launch a formal campaign against the Republic… how likely is collapse?"
The silence that followed was suffocating.
The kind of silence no paladin wants to break —because he knows the answer isn't going to be good.
But then something hit me.
"Wait a second." I raised a hand, stopping him before he could speak. I mentally retraced his words, each one falling into place like pieces of a puzzle I didn't want to complete.
"Rebuilding… industrial zones…" I repeated softly, almost hoping I'd misheard.
I turned toward him, eyes wide with a rare mix of disbelief and fear.
"But… they're tribals."
"We have to do something…" I said it almost like a plea. As if speaking it aloud might shatter the weight of the truth hanging over us.
"They're tribals. How the hell do they know how to build factories… what kind of factories?"
The paladin didn't answer immediately. He lowered his gaze slightly.
"We don't know," he admitted cautiously. "But according to the latest reports… they're organized. Very organized. They have civil divisions, engineers, administrative structures. Even officials keeping population and production records. They're using technology that doesn't match their cultural origins."
I felt ice slide down my spine.
They hadn't just won the war.
They were evolving.
"This is bad… very bad." My voice came out more shaken than I'd have liked. I rubbed my face, trying to gather my thoughts. "What's the situation inside the NCR?"
The paladin straightened, as if he'd been waiting for that question.
"Dire." He didn't sugarcoat it.
"They're in the middle of internal purges. Severe food rationing. Uncontrolled inflation —most of the gold reserves are being paid to the Legion as part of the reparation treaty. The population is angry. There's political instability and growing fragmentation in the Senate."
He paused, choosing his next words carefully.
"Still… under the new president, they've begun to stabilize. Slowly, yes, but with direction. And more troubling…" His face hardened. "Their counterintelligence has improved. Much more than we expected."
I turned sharply to face him.
"How bad?"
"We've lost three of our best operatives in California. One in Shady Sands, another in Redding, the last was embedded with Maxson's garrison." His gaze dropped. "Since they formed a formal division focused entirely on rooting out infiltrators, our network inside the NCR has started to collapse."
I said nothing. Staring at the terminal, but no longer reading.
As much as I tried to justify it —as much as we all tried— it was no longer holding together. Our old purpose, to guard the world from uncontrolled technology, felt like an idealistic relic compared to what we were now facing.
We had wanted to see the NCR fall for years. We'd conspired, sabotaged, spied, resisted. For their corruption. For their hypocrisy. For their greed with technology. A republic rotting from within.
And yet…
The Legion was worse.
Much worse.
They weren't just slavers, fanatics, and brutes anymore. Now they had tech. Now they had industry. They were building something far more dangerous than a horde —they were building a civilization. An empire forged in obedience, iron, and absolute control. Tyrants.
If they have the numbers… and the equipment…
It's just a matter of time.
The NCR will collapse. Maybe not tomorrow. But it will. The Legion has the numbers to overwhelm them, and nothing suggests they aren't expanding on other fronts too.
And when that happens… there'll be no one left between us and the Legion.
I tasted bitterness in my mouth before I even said it —like the words were burning their way out of my throat.
"We have to do something…" I muttered, clenching my fists like I could hold back the coming collapse with force of will alone.
"We have to start supporting the NCR again."
The silence that followed was thick. Even the hum of the ventilation systems seemed to hold its breath. The paladin stood motionless, holding his response back, as if needing a moment to be sure he heard me right.
"We need to know what the Legion is doing," I continued, firmer now. "When will our spies report back?"
Another pause. He looked me in the eye. And when he finally spoke, his tone was lower, heavier than before.
"Most of our communications have gone dark, Elder," he said. "We received fragments from Vegas… that was days ago. The teams that pushed deeper… haven't reported back. No signal."
Something inside me tightened, like a wire pulled to its breaking point.
"The Legion is skilled at identifying infiltrators," he added. "They don't rely on tech to coordinate. Their communications are mostly oral, their hierarchy rigid, their internal discipline unforgiving."
He took a breath before saying it:
"Our operatives don't blend. They speak differently, walk differently, think differently. They stand out. And when that happens… they disappear."
His words struck deep, like nails in the conscience.
"With all due respect," the paladin added, "the remaining agents we have in the Mojave should be pulled out. They're not gathering intel anymore. They're playing with death. It's only a matter of time before we lose them all."
I nodded silently, jaw clenched.
We were blind. And if we didn't act soon, we'd still be blind when the storm broke over us.
"I need to meet with the NCR's new president… and with a representative of the Shi."
My voice came out steady, but full of the heavy certainty that comes when there's no turning back.
"If we want to survive… if we really want to stop that madman, we're going to have to unite. There's no other way."
I turned back to the map projected before me, where Legion symbols crept slowly, relentlessly, across what used to be neutral ground. The shadow was spreading. And no one seemed able to stop it.
"Just like we did against the Master… just like we did against the Enclave. Divided, we don't stand a chance."
I looked to the paladin, who still watched me in silence. I knew my words wouldn't sit well with everyone at Lost Hills. Some still clung to isolationism. Others still believed the Republic was the enemy.
But I'd seen what was coming. And I knew how to read history when it began to repeat itself.