Jessica Lexington

Jessica Tymberleigh Lexington (most call her just "Lexington" or "Lex", later when she marries, she goes by Jessica Graham), born December 17th, 2260, is a spunky Mormon cowgirl-type and passionate freedom fighter, and one of the main characters in the RP, initiating the first RP's events after rescuing Jules from her crucifixion, and then later discovering and kidnapping her cousin, Arthur Young, who also happened to be Vulpes Inculta.

Lex and her family had a peaceful childhood until the Legion came, and she was thrust into the unforgiving world. After much hardship, she eventually founded the Latter Day Nephites branch in Utah of the resistance against the Legion, and would go on to be instrumental in the assassination of Caesar, the defeat of Legate Lanius and the last of the Legion army, and the subsequent formation of the nation of New Deseret.

Early Life
Lexington was born on December 17th, 2260, to her parents Jed and Emily Lexington (born 2232 and 2234 respectively), in the peaceful Mormon town of Marysvale, Utah. Lex was the middle child of six, with three older sisters (Annie, 2253, Dahlia, 2255, Laura, 2257) and two younger brothers (Jeb, 2263, Joseph, 2266), and enjoyed a stable and loving youth. Marysvale was a stop for trade up to New Canaan, and mostly consisted of brahmin and bighorner ranchers, with some minor maize farming, and so Lex and her family lived a very traditional and honest lifestyle, working the animals and the land for a living and doing their best to lead as godly lives as possible.

Her father Jed was the sheriff's deputy, and her mother stayed home to tend to the children and some brahmin. Despite being in such a typical Mormon household, Lex suffered greatly from middle child syndrome and was always rambunctious and quick to anger, but also cheerful and deeply curious. Having had her growth spurts early, she was usually taller and stronger than kids her age, and used that to her advantage, always getting into playground fights and other trouble, often in defense of her cousin, Arthur Young.

She and Arthur were very close, him also being the middle child of many, and they spent much time together, in ways being closer with each other than their own siblings due in large part to their similarity in age (he was only about a month younger than Lex). What Lex lacked in patience and booksmarts Arthur made up for in sheer wit and cleverness, while she used her size and strength to compensate for her cousin's smaller stature. They were almost inseparable, and loved playing pranks and getting in to all sorts of trouble together.

While times weren't always easy--there were the occasional raider attacks, bad harvests, illnesses amongst the brahmin, etc.--Lex's childhood gave her a firm start in life and a solid base of morals, along with her Mormon culture and deep sense of loyalty to her family.

However, this wasn't to last very long, changing drastically on April 16th, 2270...

The Destruction of Marysvale by the Legion
On that fateful spring day, everything changed for Lexington and her family. Unbeknownst to anyone in Marysvale, the town was next in line in the Legion's drive towards northern Utah, an ultimately failed attempt led by the Malpais Legate to further isolate the NCR. As a matter of fact, the town itself had been subject to frumentarii infiltrations, agents posing as traders, coming to scout the town and seek out its vulnerabilities for a swift crushing. These very same agents, who days prior on the 10th had even shared tables with the townsfolk at Easter dinner, would then go on to silently eliminate the town guard in the middle of the night, after having sabotaged the sheriff and deputy's armory. Quietly, several Legion contubernium gathered around the town, waiting for the perfect chance to strike.

The town was overtaken in a matter of minutes. With frumentarii intel, the lawmen and other leaders were killed first, leaving every of-age townsperson to fend for themselves, being easily routed and slaughtered as the Legion set alight their homes. According to Mormon tradition, children become of age for firearms at the age of 10, which left nine-year-old Lexington and Arthur and all their younger siblings and cousins helpless and only able to hide as the fires and blood spread.

As were common for the two cousins, they had been having a sleepover at Arthur's home when all chaos broke out. Arthur's mother Theresa hid them in her bedroom and locked the door while she and her husband attempted to defend the children. The two kids could only cower together as they heard the gunshots outside of the room, and then could only scream when the door was kicked down and several Legionaries stormed into the room, immediately finding them and taking them away with the rest of their captures.

In the end, just about everyone ten years old and above were slaughtered. The Malpais Legate knew his former tribe and knew how they would fight to the very end... the bodies were piled in the center of town and burned while Lexington, Arthur, and all the other children and a few others were penned up, collared, counted, and then parsed out to different Legion supply lines shipping them to various Legion camps. Lex and her cousin were the only ones from Marysvale sent to the same Legion camp, enduring a hard journey together to central Arizona, where Lex was then sorted with the slaves, while Arthur became a nameless Legionary recruit.

The Year In Slavery
This began the Hell that was to become of the two cousin's lives. It was as terrifying and dehumanizing as possible and more. As a slave girl, Lex was stripped of her name and identity, and forced into hard labor, a red X emblazoned on her ragged clothing. Only Legion culture could exist, and her and all other new captures had to have their pasts beaten out of them. Any act of defiance or failure was met with a fist or worse, the lash. They were used as examples in order to train the new Legionary recruits, on one occasion Lexington having to endure a demonstrative lashing from a veteran Legionary while her cousin watched on, in forced silence.

The small, dangerous acts of solace that Lex was able to find she found in her cousin alone--Arthur was clever, and quickly learned how to sneak out to her at night, and together they prayed to God in the dark, whispering desperately for salvation. Only when they were together did they have names, and a past. They clung to each other as the year progressed, attempting to maintain some sense of sanity amidst the horror that their lives had become. Yet, their acts of defiance were becoming increasingly risky as their conditioning progressed, closer eyes being kept on them, and Arthur could sneak out to Lex less and less, until one day he came to her, key in hand for her slave collar, and carrying a small bundle of clothes and meager supplies. He told her he couldn't save both of them, and so he was doing all he could--making sure she was /free/. He couldn't stand seeing her suffer like this, especially now that he knew what happened to the slave girls once they... matured. It would be better if /one/ of them could at least escape, and remember their family and their legacy. He would, if need be, sacrifice himself in this highly risky act, just to ensure her flight, he told her. With instructions on how to escape the camp and then to flee South, they said their tearful goodbyes, and Lexington escaped into the cool Arizona night of the late 2271 winter, completely alone in the world.

Life Before IASITM
Suddenly with nothing and no one in the world, Lex found herself wandering Legion territory, passing for an orphan boy and barely surviving on what she could find and steal. For about two months she lived like this, before one day fatefully pickpocketing what she thought was a man, who ended up being an undercover Navajo resistance agent. Taking pity on Lex and admiring her fighting spirit, she took Lex in and led her to the resistance, originally intending to help relocate her somewhere safe in Mexico with other war orphans. However, to her surprise and Lex's insistence, Lex stayed with the resistance, desiring some revenge and agency against the Legion for all the atrocities they had committed against her and her people.

While being an odd duck out amongst the main resistance, whose core groups consisted of Navajo, Paiute, and Mexican formations, Lex still sought out training and integration into their guerrilla tactics. She mainly stayed with the Navajo group, picking up Spanish through immersion in the southern region and then Latin through study, as pursued as much education as she could about what the Legion based themselves on. They originally intended to use her in as tame a capacity as they could--listening to Latin Legion radio communications for intel, acting as a sentry for the group when they moved, minor journeys into enemy territory for basic information.. but Lex again insisted on also being trained in deadlier arts.

It was in very early 2272 that she volunteered for her first real mission--infiltrating a Legion camp and posing as a tent boy, then poisoning a decanus's water. She performed her mission dutifully, and succeeded in her task. From then on out she was sent in for similar missions of assassination and sabotage, until around late 2274 when she could no longer pass for a boy, being now 14 years of age. Here her training shifts from covert ops to special ops, as she becomes versed in sharpshooting, more advanced poisoning tactics, as well as in explosives. By now she is fluent in Latin and Spanish and is fairly well-read in the Latin classics.

As she starts doing more dangerous missions, in 2275 she starts being assigned special ops, helping take out VIPs and disrupt other Legion chains of command, as well as starting her training in Navajo code talking, having earned that right through her years of service to the resistance. This is also when her first large downward spiral begins, as her trauma catches up to her in her teenage years, the pains of growing up confounded by war and loneliness. She drifts from chem to chem, mainly settling on med-x between various brief addictions and later bouts of alcoholism over the years.

By 2277, she is fluent in Navajo, and the Legion's expansion begins more aggressively southwards, greatly threatening the resistance. In response to this, she turns to scorched earth tactics, via mass arsenic poisoning to wipe out whole towns and successfully plays a major role in halting the advance. While successful, her increasingly brutal tactics (including a latent talent for interrogations) begin to distance her from the rest of the resistance. At the same time, a small number of Mormon refugees begin to trickle in to the resistance from up North as the resistance expands its outreach.

First Suicide Attempt and Founding the Latter Day Nephites
In early 2279, Lex reaches her lowest point. Having spent all of her teenage years fighting desperately only to alienate herself from the very people she's defending, losing her faith, and being alone in a culture she doesn't belong to, amidst various addictions and alcoholism, Lex finally resolves to end it all. Without an understanding to her life nor a sense of purpose, she resolves to return home to Marysvale to die, disappearing one day to navigate deep through Legion territory to make it back to her former home, eventually finding it nothing but overgrown and charred ruins. In the space that was once her childhood house, she attempts suicide by hemlock poisoning, a method she finds sufficiently dramatic with her classical education. However, what she doesn't take into account is her built-up resistance to toxins, formed over the years from her numerous addictions.

She survives, and during her painful recovery, in half-delirium and for reasons she herself can't explain, she is drawn to the ruins of her grandparents' house, where under the scorched floorboards she finds a metal lock box her grandfather used to keep valuables in. Easily picking the lock, she discovers the old family Book of Mormon, along with many old family photos, a decent amount of which are intact. Perceiving this as divine intervention, she spends the next two weeks in prayerful meditation, surviving off the land and enduring withdrawal symptoms as she kicks all her old chem and alcohol habits.

She exits this period clean, refreshed, and with a new resolve in life--she has found Jesus again, and with her faith renewed she once more has purpose. She's still alive, and it has to be for a reason--a reason she'll discover as she fights for her people. By mid 2279 she travels to the Mormon settlement of New Canaan to reunite with her people and to teach them her ways of resistance. With her guidance, expertise, and fervor, she helps found the Latter Day Nephites--a Mormon resistance group dedicated to protecting Utah from the Legion, named after the biblically persecuted Nephites. She establishes their organization, teaches them her brutal tactics, and then leaves them to operate fairly independently as she returns to the Mojave and Arizona to rejoin the main resistance and act as the Nephites' point person in the region, due to her familiarity with the area. She performs some high-risk ops and takes out some significant VIPs, until around late 2280 when dire news arrives...

During that time, New Canaan is sacked and destroyed by the White Legs tribe, scattering its populace amongst other settlements in Utah and destroying the main Mormon population center and seat of organization and authority for the Mormon church. The Nephites do their best to help organize and relocate the survivors, and as news of the atrocity spreads Nephite recruitment increases significantly.

Following this disaster, Lex is dispatched into the New Vegas region of the Mojave to investigate the growing Legion presence there, as well as to investigate rumors of a troublesome Courier causing problems for the NCR. Much to his chagrin, she replaces Spanish agent and family business caravaneer Javier Chavez as the main resistance point person in the New Vegas-Mojave region, as Chavez expands his operations and caravan deeper into Mexico and then Arizona. Thus begins the events of Fallout: New Vegas.

Events of Fallout: New Vegas
Lexington spends the last few months of 2281 in the Mojave, hunting down information on this miraculous Courier who supposedly came back to life with a vengeance. While she is successful in tracking her down and witnessing her Legion affiliations, for the first time in just about... ever... Lex's attempts at assassinations all fail, unbeknownst to the Courier. Frustrated after the Courier's trail runs dry in December mysteriously after the death of Mr. House, the enigmatic former ruler of New Vegas, Lex turns her attention instead to rooting out frumentarii operations heading into the NCR, unwittingly delaying the Legion at Hoover Dam /just/ long enough for the Courier to have her kicks at the Big MT and elsewhere lmao.

So anyway, in late December 2282, Things Go Extremely Bad Very Fast as President Kimball is assassinated by the Courier, who has miraculously again reappeared. Not long following this disaster is another, far, FAR worse one--the nuking of the NCR. From out of nowhere, nuclear Hellfire rains down on the New California Republic, reducing much of it to smoldering radioactive ashes and almost completely destroying their government. Faced with the terrifying prospect of the Legion controlling NUKES at will, Lex very quickly changes her focus to figuring out WHO launched them, and HOW, if the Legion can launch MORE, very rapidly hunting down and interrogating a series of frumentarii and other ranked Legionaries in some of her most skilled and brutal interrogations yet. Despite her best efforts, the only information she can truly ascertain is that the Legion DOESN'T know how the nukes happened either. She doesn't have much to mull this over, however...

In early March, 2282, the increasingly inevitable occurs--the NCR, or what's left of it, falls at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, and the absolute worst has unfolded as Legion expansion is now unfettered. Mere days later, the leaderless New Vegas falls to Caesar's might. With their ultimate nightmare having finally played out, Lex quickly scrambles to gather as much intel as possible before returning to the main Resistance in order to regroup and figure out a desperate measure for these desperate times. However, just past the Ides of March, Lexington receives some interesting news about the Courier--that she's been crucified for disloyalty and lying. Seeing an opportunity, Lex takes it, and thus begins the events of It's Always Sunny In The Mojave.

It's Always Sunny In The Mojave
Unsurprisingly, the Courier ended up a Legion pawn, and lashed to a cross. But where some might see a crucifixion of a war criminal, Lexington saw an ally ripe for the picking. She of all people knows how capable and unkillable the Courier is, and figures by now the Courier would have a bone or two to pick with Caesar. In the middle of the night, Lexington, in disguise with her hat, goggles, and bandanna covering her face, plucks a delirious Jules off the cross and carries her to a small cave just southwest of where she was crucified along I-15 in order to revive her, introducing herself as "a Good Samaritan".

To her immense surprise, when the Courier comes to, she is /not/ pleased to see her. Instead, this Jules McAllister brags of her Legion accomplishments and curses out the NCR and any profligates who would stand in her way (while she herself right now can barely stand up), and assures her mysterious rescuer that once Caesar realizes his mistake, they'll be Centurions to escort her back to New Vegas. While Jules regains her strength, she remains inconsolable except to the fact that were she to return now, she'd be killed immediately, and so agrees to let her mystery savior (who she's taken to calling "Sam") ferry her somewhere safe, at least until Caesar realizes what he's done, of course.

They travel south with Jules's pipboy tuned into Legion frequencies, where "Sam" hears in Latin that a Legion VIP--the one and only Vulpes Inculta, leader of the frumentarii--is nearby the town of Ivanpah, and not wishing to waste such an incredible opportunity to damage the Legion, "Sam" enlists Jules in helping her assassinate him, which Jules readily agrees to, harboring a deep hatred for the Legionary after her crucifixion.

The Recognition of Vulpes Inculta and the Saving of Ivanpah
Having lured Vulpes Inculta into her rifle's scope with the aid of Jules, "Sam" aims and prepares to take the kill shot, about to pull the trigger when the man in her sights absentmindedly removes his goggles to clean them, revealing a hauntingly familiar face--"Sam" is struck with the realization that it could only be one person, her long-lost cousin, Arthur Young, recognizing his features and seeing just how much he grew up to resemble his father.

Unable to take the shot, "Sam" recalls Jules, and has to explain to the frustrated Courier why she didn't kill their target. For the first time, "Sam" reveals her true identity, removing her hat, goggles, and bandanna, and telling Jules her real name: Jessica Lexington, then explaining how she recognized Vulpes Inculta to be her cousin, and how she needs to be absolutely sure about his identity. Visibly shaken, Lex further explains their history together--how incredibly close they were to one another, how the Legion destroyed their hometown when they were only nine years old, and how they spent a year together in Legion slavery before her cousin freed her, at great risk to himself.

Kidnapping Vulpes Inculta
Together Lex and Jules devise a plan to lure Vulpes into Ivanpah by spreading (true) rumors of the Courier alive and spotted in the small, desperate town. Their ruse works just as expected, managing to bait Vulpes somewhere isolated before Jules reveals herself as Definitely Quite Alive, Lex taking Vulpes's moment of shock as an opening, and knocking him out, then drugging him unconscious.

He comes to that night, tied up very thoroughly and bleeding profusely from his nose--Jules having been unable to resist a cheap shot while he was still waking up, to Lex's anger. Lex flits over and begins to tend to his injury, apologizing for everything they've done to him, while he gathers himself and issues some choice threats towards them. It's then that Lex realizes she's still wearing her disguise and removes it, explaining to him who she is and asking if he remembers her.

After an emotional hug, his cold facade breaks as he answers that yes, yes he does remember her, despite everything the Legion's done to erase his past. Against Jules's protestations, Lex continues to talk with her cousin, both of them recounting in vague terms the troubles they've been through since they last saw one another, ending with Vulpes accepting his cousin's offer to save him from the Legion and ferry him to freedom as well.

Rescuing Ivanpah
With the Legion looming down on Ivanpah, Lexington enlists the aid of Jules to ambush an oncoming Legion raiding party, leaving her cousin to watch, to his surprise successfully killing them all after a masterful strategy of Lex's is executed where she combines suppressive fire from Jules and a distraction created by some pre-war fireworks to group the Legionaries and sneak behind them to loose a well-placed grenade and pick off the rest with her repeater rifle.

With the party dead, Lex and Jules search for Vulpes, seeing smoke rising from the direction of the Legion camp, going there to find it razed, the remaining few Legionaries already taken out by him. With the contubernium and camp destroyed, the residents of Ivanpah are able to successfully evacuate and flee south, Lex considering the whole operation a great success, even moreso thanks to the help of her cousin.

Post-IASITM
With Caesar dead and the Legion almost certainly fated to unravel at its seams, Lexington feels vindicated in her many years of fighting in the Resistance and decides she's earned a peaceful life. While still deeply saddened by the betrayal of her cousin, she resolves to continue on, and to seek out the calm lifestyle that was denied from her by the Legion--a stable home, a loving family, and a warm community.

Lexington travels south to a small baja gulf coastal village in Mexico, where she sets up, earning a living hunting geckos and other critters. Life is great, the town is peaceful, the residents are friendly.

She lasts for about a month until she snaps, assaulting a male admirer thinking him to be a frumentarii spy in a bout of paranoia. Having never had a stationary lifestyle and always having been in constant movement with concern for her safety, settling down was incredibly unnatural to her and eventually resulted in acute anxiety and paranoia with no outlets. After realizing she beat an innocent man because of this, she flees the town, utterly devastated at the failure of her life plan. After stumbling into the next town and getting wildly drunk, she notices some wanted posters on the wall of the bar and gets the idea to bounty hunt to satisfy her bloodlust and make a living while she figures out what the Hell to do with herself.

After a few aimless months of drinking, falling back into her Med-X addiction, desperado wandering, getting into brawls, and dragging in criminals for caps, she reaches a critical juncture of pointlessness in her life and out of desperation, decides to return to her tribe for guidance, setting off north and reaching Dead Horse Point in October of 2282.

Second Suicide Attempt and Time At Dead Horse Point
At Dead Horse Point, Lexington meets Daniel, who takes her in and re-immerses her in her faith, welcoming her to the community. It's shaky at first, but she appreciates being surrounded by her own people and the civilian Dead Horse tribal population. However, her adjustment eventually ends up going just about as poorly as before. She becomes paranoid and unstable except now she feels much guiltier for any outbursts, not wishing to harm her own tribe.

Her breaking point comes when Joshua Graham and a small contingent of Dead Horse warriors (including Follows-Chalk, now having earned the name Chalk-Upon-Stones) comes to Dead Horse Point to meet with some Nephite leaders and church officials to discuss the state of the region and defending against the Legion under Lanius. By chance, Graham encounters Lex, and thinking she's returned to Utah to rejoin the Nephites, asks her about Nephite operations, forcing her to explain her civilian nature. Deeply uncomfortable at the discussion of war, Lex leaves abruptly and, desperate, heads to the local saloon, in her addled state relapsing into her old alcoholic habits. Despite her inebriation, her paranoia flares as the saloon becomes busier, and an errant glare quickly comes to resemble an assassination attempt. She enters a brief, drunken bar fight, before getting clocked hard enough to come to her senses for a brief moment, realizing what she had just done. In horror at her own behavior, she flees the saloon and returns to the room Daniel has been putting her up in, there having a critical breakdown.

Realizing she can never escape war, she finally accepts that war has become an inseparable part of herself, devastating her utterly. Even amongst her own tribe it haunts her and has driven her to harm the very people she's come to for solace, a much more agonizing repeat of her breakdown in Mexico. The last of her hope she had been harboring to achieve the idealized "normal" life she had craved so much is ultimately crushed, along with all hope for her future. Feeling little else to do, she writes a note informing Daniel of her utter failure to live a peaceful, Godly life, a failure both to him, her tribe, and herself, then thanking him for his help and kindness, and lastly requesting a proper burial and giving a vague idea of where her body will be. She locks her door, sneaks out through the window, and heads into the hills to die.

Meanwhile, the meeting Joshua had been attending is cut short as the town's sheriff leaves to deal with the reported altercation at the saloon. Hearing that a 'woman with pink hair went crazy and fought people, screaming about spies, then ran away', Daniel and Joshua also leave the meeting, heading off to search for Lex, starting with her room at the house she had been staying in. Finding it locked with no answer, Joshua breaks in and discovers the note, immediately leaving to search for her while Daniel organizes a search party.

Joshua manages to find her in time, sparing some bandages from his own arms for her bleeding wrists, and carries her back to Dead Horse Point for emergency care. The next day Lex spends in and out of consciousness, feeling utterly empty and lost, broken briefly out of her stupor when she overhears Joshua arguing outside her room with Daniel over her fate. Still tense, Joshua and Daniel soon after enter her room, where Joshua proposes a position to Lex in his army, valuing her guerrilla expertise and offering to take her back to his war camp in Zion Canyon as soon as she is physically well enough to travel.

Lex's time in Zion Canyon
At the canyon, Lex soon learns just how dire the situation with Lanius truly is. She had been out of the loop for a while now, but is quickly informed of the political tumult within the Legion in the mojave, and Lanius's pledge to march north and annihilate Joshua Graham, all his tribe, and all those who associate with them.