The Steel Plague

Black Prince

Black Prince

The Fool on the Hill
latest

THE STEEL PLAGUE
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This is a work that I created on another website and I'll be cross-posting its initial posts here, and updating as I go along. That website isn't exactly geared towards Fallout, and it hasn't gotten much reception. But to preface it, it essentially follows the Lone Wanderer after he flees D.C. following the events implied in Fallout 4, where the Elder Lyons dies and his daughter is murdered in a coup. I realize Fallout 3 or 4 aren't exactly well-liked, but I'll elaborate on why I chose to cross-post this over others.

This story is a spin-off of another work I was doing on the same website, which followed the Courier's State following the events of New Vegas, wherein he forms an Independent Mojave. It went on pretty long and it would be a hassle to try to cross-post it, but if anyone is interested I can certainly link it here. But the main arc of this started from a throwaway post about the Lone Wanderer ending up in Wyoming as the Great Khans make their way to the north, implied in their ending slides of New Vegas when the Courier convinces them to leave Red Rock Canyon and forge a great empire elsewhere. He comes across the Khans and, in the process, Veronica, who on the advice of the Courier joined the Followers of the Apocalypse and - after learning of the Courier's destruction of the Brotherhood Bunker on orders of Mister House and his subsequent betrayal of Mister House - leaves the Mojave with the Khans.

Basically the story follows these two on their way towards the Washington Brotherhood, which formed from a contingent of Midwestern Brotherhood Paladins, Knights, and Scribes who went west in search of technology that could break the stalemate at Chicago and ended up losing contact with their mother chapter. It makes a bit more sense in the context of the story, I suppose, though I realize if this was a game NMA would probably hate it.

I'll cross-post, in addition to the actual contents of the Steel Plague, the two posts which spawned it in the original story. Some of the earlier stuff, if anyone comes across it on the other website, has been edited here after consideration that it didn't quite make a lot of sense. Hopefully you guys don't hate it too much :smug:
 
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March 11th, 2282
Ruins of Rawlins
The Wastelands of Wyoming

The old girl finally gave out.

Damned Brotherhood conmen. They said this battery core would last 'til I got to Las Vegas. Fuckin' liars.

The man in heavily modified Vault jumpsuit slammed down the hood of the Highwayman with such a fright that his dog companion barked into the air. Defeated, he sat against the tire well and stared up into the blue sky. To have come all this way, so far from home, to be stopped dead in the middle of some burnt out ruins of a town long abandoned. There was something eerily familiar about the scene, so much that it almost felt like home. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, flicking the lighter to life as he lit the end, taking a smooth drag as he watched the birds fly overhead. There wasn't a soul for miles in each direction, and he wondered if it was even worth it to try to find someone. His food had ran out two days ago, and now, as he drank out of his canteen, he finished the last of his water.

The trip West hadn't been his choice, but the Brotherhood of the East left him no option. When Elder Lyons passed, it seemed natural that it would fall to Sarah - who would continue the mission he had worked so hard to set out: to bring peace and stability to the Capital Wasteland and to provide for its people. They had been doing a good job of it, with trade routes flowing, finally peaceful now that the Super Mutant threat had been extinguished. The Vault from whence they came had been exterminated, so thoroughly cleansed of the menace that all that were left was small holdouts. The raiders and slavers had been extinguished too, forever on the backfoot. Things seemed bright, as though the World would be forever changed.

But then something happened, something so strange and downright suspicious that the Brotherhood never told him the full story.

It all happened so quickly, his head spinning from the speed of it all. He returned from a trip to Megaton, helping the locals set up new buildings in the old ruins of Springvale outside the walls, to find out that the unthinkable happened: Sarah Lyons was dead. The Pride was nowhere to be seen, and everywhere he turned the Knights and Paladins refused to say anything other than a cryptic 'she died in battle.' But that was impossible! She had fought against the Enclave, against the Muties, cleansed Evergreen Mills of the Raiders with him and the Pride! She couldn't have. He stayed in the Citadel, trying to find any proof of what happened. But he found his terminal access codes had cancelled - locked out of the internal system. Then Doctor Li left, heading northwards to some place called the Commonwealth, advising him not to follow her, and to leave the Brotherhood behind.

Then the whole conspiracy was laid before him. The Scribes and the Paladins declared Arthur Maxson, the snot-nosed squire whose soul was supposedly forged with steel, as the provisional Elder. With the backing of the Western Elders, no less! He asked around with some of the Knights who he knew had been loyal to the Lyons', and they told him no such thing happened, that contact had been lost with the Western Chapters for years, and that the whole thing was so rotten that he ought to leave it be. "Don't rock the boat," they said, "or else you'll fall in and drown."

So he left, leaving behind his Brotherhood power armor. It was a typical response, he thought, always running from my problems. Always running and leaving. He went back to Megaton and gathered what little belongings he could, and paid one last visit to Vault 101. In the two and a half years since he left for the last time, Amata becoming the Overseer in the wake of him convincing her father to step down, the Vault had been opening more and more. They were openly trading with Megaton, some of the dwellers even moving into the redeveloped Springvale. They had even started being more receptive to his presence, as they began to find out more of what he had done for the Wasteland. He returned to Vault 101 to pay his respects to the only girl he ever loved, and to the only home he had ever really known. She was busy with the Overseer work, as they always are, but she stopped everything for him. If only things had worked out differently...

"Where do you plan to go, then? Are you going to this Commonwealth?"
"No, Doctor Li told me not to follow her there. Apparently it's even more dangerous than here, if you can believe that...I don't know where I'm going to go....Maybe I'll head West, go to where the Brotherhood came from."
"But they left for a reason, didn't they? I only know what the Megaton people, and what you tell me, but it sounds like they had a good reason to leave."
"Maybe, but who knows? There has to be something out there. I just know I can't stay here."
"Would you change your mind if I said you could stay here?"
"No, I'm sorry. There's too much at risk if I stay here. What if the Brotherhood comes for me, and I'm here? I don't want to know what they'll do. I can't do that to you."
"Will you ever come back?"
"I don't know."

It was a lie. He knew he wasn't ever going to come back. But he couldn't face the truth. Not then, and not now.

"I don't want to lose you again. Everything was finally working up. People were even getting used to the idea of you coming back, you know, after finding out everything you've done."
"I don't have a choice, Amata. If they find out that I know what really happened...I can't risk that."
They stood at the edge of the Vault door, standing where they had stood all those years ago when the Vault alarms were blaring and the Security Officers were pounding on the exit door. That parting seemed so much easier, because then there had been a small glimmer of hope that they would see each other again.
"I love you, Amata."
"I love you too, Al."
The kiss seemed to last forever, stretching out into eternity and beyond and wrapping itself in the coils of time. They both hoped that moment would last forever, that Time would freeze in that moment forevermore.

He rose from his feet and kicked the Highwayman's fender in anger. Why did I leave? Why didn't I stay? Why couldn't I have pretended like everything was alright? God damn those bastards. Damn them to hell... He wandered, as he always did, further West, passing through Appalachia without much incident - the rumors always said it was a hostile land - and into the beyond of the Midwest. Following the trade caravans on their routes, acting as a guard to accumulate some caps and supplies on his route west, he ended up in the territory of the mythical Midwestern Brotherhood. Passing by the ruins of Chicago, the only thing he could see in that dead city were the scars of a hard-fought war, evidence of the Brotherhood and the Enclave scattered throughout the city. But there was no sign of either.

Informed by locals that the central Plains were a radioactive sea, reduced to a region of permanent rad-storms from ten thousand nuclear detonations dropped upon Old World missile silos, he moved northward. Still no sign of this Midwestern Brotherhood, if they even existed, he continued walking west. Walking until he couldn't go any further, he collapsed somewhere in Iowa, feeling the life fading from him in the harsh winter wind cutting through his bones. As his consciousness left his body, he saw three figures walk towards him, wearing T-45 Power Armor with a familiar decal on the breast.

"Vault 101? Isn't that in the East somewhere?"
"Shit. Sentinel Rexford is going to want to see this..."
"Patrol Team Sigma to Home Base, uh...we've got a Vault Dweller here...uh....requesting permission to return to base."

He returned to consciousness in a clean and sanitized medical bay of the Midwestern Brotherhood, in the ruins of Omaha, Nebraska. They had nursed him back to health, a scene so reminiscent of the incident in the Purifier years ago. The nurses seem to be far more pleasant than the Scribes of the East, that was for sure, and then he met Sentinel Rexford. The man was a tank, a chiseled chin upon his ghostly white face, with shaggy long hair descending from his skull. The most intense eyes he had ever seen laid upon him as he walked up and took a seat at his bedside.

"Okay, well, I'm gonna make this pretty simple. Where did you come from? Why are you here? And how did you know that we're here? Keep in mind, we've already got a good idea of what's going on here, so there's no use lying to us."
"I'm...I'm from the Capital...DC...I had to leave, they didn't give me a choice. The Brotherhood there...they're...they're not the Brotherhood I know. I heard rumors of a Chapter in the Midwest...and I just left..."
"Well, I guess your story checks out. We were wondering how you got these holotags. They match your blood sample, anyway. But Lyons? The man lives and breathes Brotherhood. I can't imagine..."
"He's dead, Sentinel...they took out him and his daughter. They put Arthur Maxson in charge."
"The boy? Christ, no wonder you left. Good God...well, Knight, I can't say that I'm happy to see someone from Lyons' Chapter here, but you are free to regain your strength. We'll help you on your journey, wherever you're going, but we cannot allow you to stay with our ranks."
"I understand...could you answer me one question?"
"Yeah, sure. What is it?"
"Are you in contact with the Western Elders?"
"As far as I know, kid, the Western Elders got blown up in the Lost Hill Bunkers by the Californians years ago."

He stayed with the Brotherhood in Omaha for a time, learning what little he could from them. Apparently they had been bled dry in battles with tribals and the Enclave in Illinois, and had been forced westward towards Iowa and Nebraska. They had incorporating the tribals in their system, and even had whole settlements in a fiefdom system, with the Brotherhood acting like Lords of a manor. It was such an abrupt change from Lyons' Chapter that it didn't even feel like the Brotherhood. But they were, in some ways, stronger and in some ways weaker than the East. They had more numbers, for sure, but they were beset on all sides, and no way out. The tribals had grown restless, and the Knights had lost control.

They offered him an old Highwayman, lying in their armory that had been untouched for years. They didn't have much use for it, since it couldn't be repurposed for war like most other vehicles. Giving him a map, and instructing him to stick to the I-80 - avoiding the radioactive ruins of the old missile silos sprinkled in the Great Plains, he took it readily and drove Westward, Dogmeat in the backseat, until the battery gave out here in Wyoming. And now, here he was, ready to die of exposure in a land so far from home. I wish I just took her offer and stayed in the Vault. I shouldn't have ever let myself think that I could go it alone out here...Oh, God, I'm gonna die here, and I'm gonna die alone...

Then, he heard the chattering of engines, and the rumbling of ten thousand feet marching in the distance. Rising to his feet, holding his rifle at the ready, he saw a massive convoy - stretching into the horizon as far as he could see - heading right for him. Fear gripped his heart, and he reached into his backpack to fetch his binoculars. Pulling them out, he looked upon this caravan with growing curiosity. No, this isn't a war party. There's women, and children! And doctors, too! He threw the binoculars back into his backpack and slung it on his back, and began to walk towards the convoy, "come on, boy! Maybe they'll know where the hell we're at." Dogmeat barked suspiciously, but followed his master all the same. His walking became a light jog, which soon turned into a full sprint as he ran towards the convoy. There were horses, brahmin, and even a few trucks in the mix. He could see it clearly now. They had banners flying with a strange skull, wearing some kind of viking-like helmet. It was odd, to be sure, but he had seen stranger things.

"Hey! Hey!" He called out, losing reason in the frantic search for food and water. His stomach bit like a rabid dog at him as he began to grow nearer to the convoy. After ten minutes of alternating between a full sprint, and heaving over his knees to catch his breath, he was stopped before a man sitting upon a white horse, a bearded man with fearsome eyes and a countenance that said 'stay the hell away.'

"A Vault Dweller?" The man upon the horse spoke, "have you come to pay your respects to the Great Khans?"

"Uh, who?" The Lone Wanderer had no words. Fuck, more historical re-enactors, "I'm...I'm a little lost. My food and water ran out, and I've got no where to go."

"Ah, so you've come to join us on the Great Migration, then?" The man smiled a little devilishly, "I am Papa Khan, Chief of the Great Khans, and you stand before our journey into the Promised Land of the Northern Plains. Do you know what's there?"

"The Brotherhood, but they're in Nebraska," he spoke, and as he was about to continue, a girl stopped dead in her tracks. She was a pretty little thing, with robes covering most of her body. The girl pulled herself out of the moving tidal wave of man and beast and stood beside the Khan's horse.

"You said the Brotherhood's in Nebraska?" She asked him, quite intensely.

"Yeah, but that's not important. Do you have food? Water?" He was practically begging at this point, "I'll help you guys. I'll be a hired gun. I'll shovel Brahmin shit. I really don't care. I need water."

"Great Khan," the girl turned towards the man on the horse, "we should take this man along with us. He'll be able to help us find a good place in the Plains."

What? I'm not even from here, lady.

"Yes, I think so too," he nodded, and pulled his horse forward, back into the moving herd, "he'll be under your charge, Veronica. You'll be responsible for him." The two watched as he rejoined the moving convoy at its head, and they stepped outside to the side of the road, standing feet from each other in the shallow ditch. She stood slightly over him, on account of the ditch he was in. There's a metaphor here, but I can't place it.

"Okay, so, now that the 'Great Khan' is gone," she put air quotes around Great Khan. What kind of caravan is this? "I need you to tell me everything you know about the Brotherhood. And then you can eat."

"Listen, lady, that's not how this is going to work. I've been through too much goddamn horseshit to get here to get told by some chick wearing a carpet to dispense to her the fucking history of the Brotherhood-of-fucking-Steel on a highway in the middle of nowhere," he was angry. I don't even care if she shoots me dead. Fuck this shit, "give me a fucking droplet of water, a crumb of food, and I'll tell you everything about them."

She took a seat on the ground in front of him, and from her side pack, she pulled out some strange jerky and a bottle of clear, pure water. He practically snatched it out of her hands and forced it down his throat. Like a savage, but I don't give a damn. When he was finished eating, he took a seat beside her, feeling some of his strength come back to him, "okay, so, where do you want me to begin? The Brotherhood in DC, that's killed their own Elder? Or the Midwestern Brotherhood, that's overrun by tribals? Or do you wanna hear my life story, about how I got kicked out of my Vault and nearly died trying to purify water of an entire Wasteland?" He smiled, laughing a little bit at his own ego.

"You're not the first person I've met whose almost died and went on to change the world," she looked, quite bitterly, towards the West, and then turned back to him. They sat there, examining each other's features. He could see the wear on her eyes, not noticeable at first but clearly there when one looked closely. I was always good with that kinda thing. Tear-stained eyes, and a broken expression upon her face told more than words ever could, "maybe we got off on the wrong foot. I'm Veronica, and I was in the Brotherhood."

"Look at that, we've got so much in common. I'm Albert, and I was in the Brotherhood too," they shared a laugh, "now, where was I? So do you wanna hear it from the beginning? Or do you just wanna hear about the Brotherhood?"

"I think..." she paused, and the smiled. He wasn't sure if it was a genuine smile, or if it was just a way to get into his head. But he didn't care. Paranoia will get you nowhere, Al, "...I'll hear the whole story."

"Alright, well, so, I'm from a Vault, where no one ever enters, and no one ever leaves, or at least, that's what they told us...."
 
Much better than my first fan fiction. Keep up the good work.
 
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June 20th, 2282
The Shores of Lack McConaughy
The Great Wastes

Albert Freeman watched from the as the Great Khans' forces descended upon the enemy on the shores of the Lake McConaughy. Along the stream, the last of the Feather-Walker Nation fought a losing battle against the forces of the Mighty Khan. He couldn't help but feel a distinct sense of pride, for the wandering tribe that he had stumbled across in Wyoming had forged itself a mighty empire out of the radioactive steppes and was moving eastward, striking deep into the depraved hearts of the tribal chiefdoms barely eeking by in the unforgiving land. The Great Migration found its end in the shadow of Sugarloaf Mountain, beset on all sides by hostile neighbors. In return for aid, the natives allowed the Khans to become their protectors, and to settle down in the land. And, so, the Great Khaganate was formed. From their humble dwellings underneath a great mountain, they set out in all directions, striking as far north as Casper, before being turned back by radioactive dust and storms. Blocked from the West by the Yellowstone and the Rockies, and nothing worthwhile in the South, they struck East, absorbing the towns and tribes wherever they went. Most of Wyoming was de jure part of the Great Khaganate, though life remained mostly unchanged for the people of the land - the roads being a little safer with the rest of the raiding tribes slaughtered and their bodies placed on spikes lining the roadways.

All in less than six months.

The locals had been exhausted for centuries of unending warfare, the great trucks and tenacity of the Khans proving the locals' undoing as they were rolled over in Papa Khan's quest for power and for prestige. He had fought under many banners in his life: as a simple Vault Dweller, as a Brotherhood of Steel Knight, an uneasy ally of the Raider Lord of the Pitt, and as a mercenary-for-hire on his voyage westward, but never would he have imagined being a Khan. After crushing the Thunder-Talkers at Billings, Papa Khan awarded the Lone Wanderer with a salvaged suit of T-51b Power Armor, painted in the red-and-yellow of the Khans. None of the men in the Khaganate had the training to use it, except himself and the former Brotherhood Scribe Veronica Santangelo. The two had become fast friends, and more than that, co-conspirators in a plot to bring the Khaganate and the Brotherhood together - somehow.

The push eastward was not something that had come from the Papa Khan himself. No, that would be giving him too much credit. Spurned on by the pair's insistence, and encouraged by the support that Regis and the other Khan leaders showed the two, Papa made the order to march eastward. Acting as advanced scouts, Albert and Veronica moved ahead of the marching army, coming into contact with the Midwestern Brotherhood at a small town called Sidney. The Chapter had been forced from Omaha in the months since Albert had seen them, their Elder killed and what little survivors fleeing to the town where they now made their last stand. They had lost all hope of salvation.

Until, the pair made an offer they simply couldn't refuse.

"It's real simple, Elder Rexford. The Great Khan offers his army to help you lay waste to the tribals that have besieged you and destroyed your chapter. He will help you reclaim your lands, reclaim your honor, and put right what was made wrong. The Army of the Khaganate will strike out of Montana and bring you and your Chapter back to Omaha."
"And in return?"
"And in return, Elder, you will help the Great Khan in the creation of the greatest empire the world has ever known! The Brotherhood of Steel in the East and the West have lost sight, they have lost courage, and they have lost the will to live. You have a choice here, Elder, to live on your feet or to die on your knees. What worth is the Codex, if there is no one to read it? What worth is the Power Armor, if there is no one who knows how to use it? What worth is the Brotherhood of Steel, if there is no one willing to fight for it?"
"What Albert said is right. The other Chapters failed to adapt. NCR sent the Western Chapters into hiding, scared of the light that burned them. And Albert has told me that the East has turned on itself, killing their own to avoid facing the reality of the changing world. The world is changing, Elder, and you cannot make the same mistakes that the Elders of the past did."

Truth be told, Albert was surprised the Elder agreed so readily. Desperation and impending death makes men do strange things. But in the end, the Midwestern Brotherhood - or what was left of them - agreed. The Elder told them of their largest enemy, the Feather-Walkers, storming out of the interior. They had snatched away their fiefdoms, laid waste to their farmland, and had turned them out of Omaha. When the pair returned to the Great Khan, they gave him the target for the next conquest, and the offer of a glorious alliance.

Old man will believe anything, as long as you put it eloquently enough.

A war party, under the command of Regis, Papa's second-in-command and presumed successor, set out from Sugarloaf and moved along the highway, linking up with the survivors of the Midwestern Brotherhood at Sidney before turning northward. There, they laid waste just as the tribals had done. The Lone Wanderer felt pangs of conscience as the army he was marching with turned farmland into burning wasteland, but he consoled himself that it had to be done, that it was war, and that he wasn't personally participating in any of it anyway. In only a few days, the rumbling war engines of the Great Khaganate were unleashed upon the homeland of the Feather-Walkers, and burned everything in their sight.

Man, woman, and child were not spared. The burning of the tribal villages and the crops were done unceremoniously, the bodies cast aside as the engines moved forward to their final object. And, here, the Lone Wanderer stood, in his Khaganate-styled Power Armor, with Veronica in her robes by his side on the hills, watching as the Khans and the Brotherhood descended upon the last stand of the Three-Tribes. He could see it well, and they fought bravely to the end, but it was hopeless. A few ran into the steppes, fleeing into the deep long grass and escaping the vengeance unleashed upon the survivors and those who could be captured, but they were scant few.

The Feather-Walkers was rendered extinct, brought down by the Pact of Steel.

"This is it, you know. The dawn of a new age. I can feel it," Veronica spoke, for the first time the entire day. They had been silent, watching the battle unfold from their vantage point. Regis refused to allow them to take part - not that either of them particularly wanted to anyway, "the Brotherhood will be strong again. It won't be destroyed again. We'll make sure of that."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," the Lone Wanderer removed his helmet and cast down his gaze upon her, "but how long until the Brotherhood here realize the Khans just want to build a massive empire? Or how long until the Khans realize the Brotherhood are just using them as an instrument of war to bring their tribals back in line, huh?" He sighed, "this is a temporary fix. A band-aid on a sucking chest wound. They'll stay together because we can hold them together, because the Elder and the Khan trust us, but what happens when they stop trusting us? Or when Regis takes over? Or when the Elder dies?"

"I...." Veronica looked at him dumbfounded, "I...I didn't think about that."

As they stood in silence, they heard the crunching of ground behind them. Both turned around to see the figure of Elder Rexford, standing with his helmet removed in his T-45 Power Armor, who looked as though he had aged twenty years since Albert had first saw him in Omaha. There was a weariness in his steely eyes, that betrayed the exhaustion of responsibility, "our men have won the first of many great victories, and we have you and your friends to thank for it," the Elder nodded his head in respect, "I would offer the Khans a place in our Realm, but I suppose we're a part of their Realm now," he looked wistfully over the carnage below, as the Khan troopers began to set fire to the tribal encampment, tearing apart and burning the bodies of the fallen enemy, "it's better than our other plan."

"And what was that? To die in Sidney?" Albert smirked.

"That was one of them, but there were rumors of another Chapter in Washington State. When we were more powerful, when the Enclave was still in Chicago, there was a detachment of our Chapter that we sent to the old naval base in Bremerton. We were getting desperate, the Enclave were wearing us down, the tribals in Illinois were putting us through the ringer, and all of the military bases here in the interior were craters from the War..." his voice trailed off a little bit, "...and we wanted to end it. Decisively. Some records we recovered from the Great Lakes Naval Base said that there were submarines with nuclear missiles over there. It was...it was a fools' errand. The detachment left for Washington, and we never heard from them again. But some of us haven't given up hope that they managed to get over there, set up their own chapter." He sighed, "they probably all died in the Rockies."

Veronica and Albert exchanged looks, and at once the Wanderer could see a fire in the girl's eyes. I swear, if this bitch wants me to ruck it over the Rockies looking for this fucking lost chapter....
 
Note: The above two entries should be considered the "prologue" and were from the original story. The real action begins here.
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February 14th, 2283
The Rockies

Fuck this. Fuck this broad. Fuck this mountain. Ah! Fuck! I'm so cold...

The two figures, shrouded in heavy winter coats and trudging forward in the deep and thick snow, climbed through the mountain passes of the Rocky Mountains of Idaho. Harsh winds of February cut through their fur-lined gear like a knife, stabbing into their veins with every whip that descended from the mountain tops. Their lips were frozen, and the man's facial hair - stubbly and patchy - had already been frozen at the tips, even through the scarf that he wore. He consoled himself thinking - hoping - that the worst was already over with, and that the mountains were now sloping downward, rather than upward. The journey had been a long one, and he would be glad to see the mountains put behind him.

To confirm his thoughts, he flicked his left hand up and scanned his Pip-Boy. No shit, I'm showing signs of hypothermia. No shit, I need to find warmth immediately. No fucking shit, I'm showing signs of mild starvation. Tell me something I don't know, like where the fuck are we...In the middle of walking, he toggled through the screens until he cycled through to the Map portion. He had to zoom in a few layers, starting from a view of the American Continent all the way down to Idaho and the Rockies. Vault-Tec had used old topographic and road maps from 2077 in its Pip-Boy, and only through his own collection of data was he able to rectify it. But he was going blind here. The map said that they had put the worst of the mountains behind them. If this map was correct, and to a certain extent they always were, there was a road somewhere near here. And it led to a place called 'Spokane.'

Fuckin' strange name for a town. But I've seen weirder.

For the past few months, the pair had been assisting the Midwestern Brotherhood and the Great Khaganate in a joint-conquest of the Northern Plains. Their armies had reached as far north as a place called Rapid City, but turned back due to the inhospitable climate beyond it. The two factions lived in a strange symbiosis, the Khaganate straying in Wyoming and the Brotherhood remaining in Nebraska. It was a favorable situation - for the moment. But the man knew, deep in his heart, that something would have to give. One side would want a bigger slice of the pie, and they would come to blows.

In fact, it was part of the reason why he agreed so readily to her plan. To venture over these godforsaken mountains in search of a golden goose gone free from the pasture. He felt a sudden chill in his bones, and shivered intensely. We need to find somewhere to lay now. The wind's picking up. He looked up from his device and could see a blackened hole in the side of one of the mountain ridges they were walking beside.

"Hey, let's go there!" He shouted over the howling wind, pointing towards the cavern entrance, "I'm freezing my balls off here!"

The girl offered no response, except to shift her direction towards the cave. They trudged, the man moving a little faster as he pushed through the snow, into the cave. The entrance was a little blocked up with snow, but the force of their bodies pushed it away as they ducked into its bowels. The wind howled loud, echoing against the rocky walls, but it was safe. And more importantly, it was warm. He paused for a moment to pull his scarf down, cupping his hands over his mouth, and blowing hot air. Rubbing his hands together, he felt degrees more alive.

"Let's get a fuckin' fire started, then. You still got the kindling? Don't tell me it got fucking wet," The man shot a sideways glance as he checked his Pip-Boy for the time. 8:45PM huh? Good timing. The girl slung off her backpack and dug through it, pulling out the medical supplies, some books, and - most strangely to the man - a dress. She then produced three logs, wrapped in plastic. Without any words, she ripped the plastic and laid the logs out in a fashion, stuffing the accompanying straw and kindling inside. The man, having already set his gear and rifle down, unholstered his AEP-7 Laser Pistol and sent one shot towards the logs, immediately sparking up into a fire. The girl jumped back, not expecting the shot and the accompanying blast of fire.

"Was that necessary?"

"Yeah, it was," The man sat down against the cave's walls, smiling to himself as he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a lighter and cigarettes. Flicking open the worn pack, he grimaced. Last cig. Fuck. Shrugging, he pulled it out and lit it anyway, tossing the pack into the fire, "tell you what, I don't know about you, but I could go the rest of my fucking life without seeing a snowflake."

"I agree," she smiled. The first smile since they started this journey. Leaning back on her side on the wall, she looked up at the cave's ceiling and then back down at him, "you've never told me why you really left home."

"Which home? The Brotherhood? Or my actual home?" The man removed the cigarette from his mouth, rubbing his chin. He could feel the stubble from the week or so of no shaving, and didn't quite like it at all, "we've been over the Brotherhood thing like...a dozen times. I don't feel like going into it again."

"No, no, your Vault," You're treading on thin ice, girly, "why leave your Vault? I don't understand that."

The man scratched the inside of his coat, and could feel the worn leather of his old jumpsuit through the scratching. Damn nervous tic, "how much did I tell you again?" He asked, not wanting to relive the past unless he had to.

"That you left to find your Dad, and that you fell in with the Brotherhood to restart some...water purification project?" She raised her eyebrow, uncertain of it all. But she had the rough outlines, he had to give her that, "I just don't understand...why leave?"

"They didn't give me a goddamn choice, that's why," he spat back, bitterness in his voice, "all Dad could think about was his goddamn vanity project, and all the Overseer could think about is how much he hated my dad, and how much he hated me by extension." He sighed, taking another drag of the cigarette, "no one's ever given me a goddamn choice. I've never done something in my life that wasn't told to me, that didn't scream in my fucking face to do it," he took another drag. Here we go, "you think I wanted to leave my home? Go into the Wasteland? Pick up the pieces of the trail of broken lives that my selfish asshole of a father left behind? Fix his fucking mistakes because he was too much of a self-obsessed egomaniac to do it himself? Deal with petty politics of an organization that only wanted to exploit the project my father worked on so they could control the Wasteland themselves?" He stood up and began pacing, "and then, the only time I find a place where I fucking belong, where I feel wanted, they go ahead and kill the two people that fuckin' gave me purpose. That gave me options in my life. They murder them like fucking criminals, and then cast us all out into the darkness," he sat back down, sighing as he flicked the burnt cigarette into the fire, "I've never had a choice to leave, or to stay. Never in my life."

"I...I didn't know..." She sighed, looking down the cave. They fell into silence, contemplative silence, as they thought upon their words. He pressed his head against the rocky walls and, closing his eyes, thought back to Amata. Amata Almodovar. I bet she's sittin' pretty in that office of hers. Shit, by now, she's probably got a husband. Maybe even a kid on the way. Goddamn...I need to stop thinking about this...I'm feelin' my blood pressure spike. He opened his eyes to see Veronica standing, looking at something scribbled on the cave wall, "hey...Albert...come look at this."

He sighed and kicked his feet up, sighing as he walked over to her. She stood only up to his shoulders, casting a permanent shadow on her wherever he went. She's cute too, too bad she swings for the other team. Walking up beside her, he squinted through the flickering light of the flame, and could make out something marked upon the wall in red paint. Or what looked like red paint:

THE MASTER LIVES!​

"What the fuck is this supposed to mean?" He scoffed and walked back to the fire, leaving Veronica to stand by herself, who was engrossed in the graffiti, "the Master? What a fucking stupid name. Some kinda sex cult or something?"

"No..no..." Her voice trembled with ill-hidden fear, before she uprighted herself with a jolt of the spine, and walked back over to the fire, "it's...it's probably nothing."

"Yeah, yeah, some sexual deviants talkin' about their dicks or something," he smirked. She didn't give any response, but formulated a half-hearted smile. He pursed his lips and gestured towards her bag, "pull out that salted meat. I'm fucking starving. You look like you need to eat."

She reached into the bag and threw him the pack of meat, and he carefully opened the bag and pulled out one stick of Brahmin meat. He offered her the bag, but she refused it with a wave of the hand. The fuck's gotten into her? Some strange fuckin' scribbling on a wall in the middle of nowhere and she's locked up tight? He smirked. More for me, then.
 
Looks good. Now write an original story and go make some money!
 
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February 14th, 2283
Fort Kitsap
The Washington Brotherhood Territory

"I call this meeting of the Paladins and High Scribes to order, on this day, February 14th, in the year 2283. I won't drone on too much - I know all of you can get real tired of hearin' this old man go on and on - so I'll cut it short. Last year was great, but we need to do better. A hell of a lot better. And we're doing it, but we're not doing enough. As far as we know, we're the last vestige of the Brotherhood of Steel left in the world, the last men and women who uphold the Codex and everything Roger Maxson laid out for his brothers and sisters in Steel to follow. Therefore, we must act like it! We must be the upholders of this sacred Truth, and to carry on the banner to keep the people of this land free from the tyranny of mutation and the ignorance that caused the Bombs to descend upon the World....I've said my peace. Ah! Don't go looking all relieved now, Sentinel, you're supposed to look glum that I didn't talk for another hour! Ah, well, Hwyel, take it away."

"Thank you, Elder Lamorat," Sentinel Tristan Hywel nodded towards the aging Elder, sitting at the end of the circular table which was directly in front of the large banner of the Brotherhood of Steel that hung upon the wall of the old meeting room. The Sentinel rose to his feet and looked at the assembled Paladins and Scribes, the leadership of the Washington Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel. Men and women forged in fire, their souls made pure by sacrifice and bloodshed. No greater friends, and no worse enemies, "recruitment numbers are up 10% from this time last year, which is always a good sign. I give my thanks and commendations to Paladin Meyers and Field Scribe Porter, because you two were the ones leading the recent drive in Everett and Tacoma, correct?" The two mentioned nodded, "good, I got my facts right. Well, yes, it's good that we can get more field troopers. And to go along with this, Scribe Wilkerson has reported here that he and his team have managed to repurpose some of the old industrial plants in Seattle proper for producing firearms and uniforms for these recruits, and for the rest of our soldiers. Once again, congratulations are in order. Scribe, have you figured out how to rework the factories to produce Power Armor? Or even spare parts?"

"At the moment, Sentinel, no," Scribe Wilkerson, his eyes blocked by glasses, replied, "we'd have to change the production lines...it would just cause too much hassle, and we wouldn't know the first thing about really making Power Armor. I mean, we know the theoreticals, but that's all they are.... and, besides, the locals aren't being trained in Power Armor usage anyway, so we just didn't think it was necessary."

"Fair enough," The Sentinel nodded. Weasely little man. Always has an answer for everything, "moving on, uh, Paladin Xavier, I hear you have a report on the situation developing along our eastern frontier?"

"Yes, Sentinel," The Paladin, a dark-skinned man with a brilliant burn spread across half of his face, spoke up next, "Hannibal's army has been harassing Spokane lately. They've been taking captives recently, according to the tribal elders, in hit-and-run attacks. There's not much we can do except bolster our patrols and hope we flush him out. Aerial reconnaissance seems to indicate they're hidden away...somewhere...in the Rockies, but tracking them in the snow is hard enough. In the mountains, it's impossible." Xavier sighed, rubbing his hands together, "if only we could mount an expedition into the Rockies, we could flush them all out."

"We can't afford to take resources away from the north!" Paladin Harter butted in furiously, "the pirates of Victoria are giving us a hard time as is. If we take men away, they could break into the Puget Sound! They could overwhelm us all!"

"Enough hysterics," The Sentinel interjected before it turned into a shouting match. Not again. "We'll send some units from Seattle eastward to be attached to your command there, Paladin. Hopefully it will be enough," Paladin Xavier bowed his head in acknowledgement, "there's nothing else really on the agenda, so, unless if anyone has any questions or comments, we can adjourn this meeting."

"Just one, Sentinel," Head Scribe Murray, whose long hair had now grown grey with age, raised his hand, "my scribes have been monitoring radio chatter from the East. It appears our Mother Chapter has recovered. They're now under Sentinel, well, Elder Rexford's control."

"Rexford? I remember when he was but a Initiate," Elder Lamorat reminisced from his chair, thinking wistfully on the old days. And I was but a Squire. I can't even remember his face, "we should get into contact with them at first opportunity. We must join together, as we were always meant to."

"Elder, I fear it may be impossible, at least for the time being," The Head Scribe bowed his head sorrowfully. To be so close to the reunion of Chapters, and then be stolen away in the same moment, "there's a lot of interference that blocks most of our transmissions from going over the Rockies. In fact, the origin of the radio chatter isn't even Brotherhood radio signals. It's...well...it's foreign. And we don't know what it is. I think our best course of action is to continue radio silence."

"I see...I understand, then," Lamorat nodded, saddened but understanding in his voice, "have we managed to regain contact with the Lost Hills Elders?"

"No," The Head Scribe shook his head. Does this man have any good news? "We suspect the NCR has all but destroyed them. If not, they are under orders of radio silence. Either way, the result for us is the same."

"I see, well, we ought to continue to act as though we are alone, for the time being anyway," The Elder nodded, and stood up from his seat. At this, the rest of the Paladins and Scribes rose to their feet, watching as Head Scribe Murray helped the Elder out of the room. There was silence as they watched them leave, the door sliding shut behind them. The gathered Brothers and Sisters began to disperse, except for Paladin Xavier and Sentinel Hywel.

"He isn't long for this world, I take it?" Xavier spoke rather bluntly. No one here but us, so why should I care? "Sorry for my manners. The Frontier does that to you."

"It's fine, and...no...I don't think so," Hywel shook his head. And I'm supposed to be his successor, "he's led us so faithfully, so valiantly. I can't imagine another Elder."

"Well, they'll be callin' you Elder Hywel soon," Xavier joked, laughing rather loudly. Hywel shook his head. No, I'm too young. I'm only thirty-five. I'm not even greying yet! "Don't look like that, eh? There's not a single person here worth their salt who could take the position. No one who's got the balls, or the willpower to do it, anyway." He walked over to the Sentinel, and rest his hand upon his shoulder. The hand was gloved, and underneath was a cybernetic hand - a constant reminder to the Paladin of Hannibal and his 'army,' "you'll have to start thinking as the number one. You won't be Number Two for very long," with that, the Paladin began to walk out of the room, but as he opened the door, he turned around and looked the Sentinel dead in the yes, "you'd be wise to remember that."

"I will," The Sentinel nodded, and the Paladin left the room. I'll be Elder, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I...I have to do my duty. I must do my duty.
 
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February 14th, 2283
Near Spokane
The Northern Wastes

Go forth, and destroy any who resist the Unity. All those who fight back, will be ground under your heels. All those who will listen, are to be taken back to the Camp. Is that understood?

"Yes, Master. Your will be done."

The psychic connection detached from Hannibal's mind. He felt an indescribable amount of joy wash over him as he felt the piercing mental eyes break from his brain, the chains that tied him free - for now. He could think, freely and on whatever he wanted, but he knew that at any moment, the Master could re-initiate contact. He could force his way into his brain, and read everything in his mind. Too many times over the decades had he caught Hannibal unaware, and assaulted his brain with furious images that haunted him to this day. Hannibal had learned, gradually, when to anticipate the psychic link. He could feel it some days, and he was sure to empty his mind whenever he felt it coming on.

He looked to his side and could see his soldiers, the last survivors of the greatest Army the Wasteland had ever seen. A century ago, he and the rest of his comrades were on the cusp of the golden age. They could've changed the world, brought strength and order to the Wasteland. But they were thwarted by a prime normal, of all people. The Army was scattered, its link to the Master severed, and various units moved throughout the wastes. Some tried to settle down, some moved further West, but Hannibal and his unit moved northward. While they were passing through the Yosemite, he felt a pulling in his brain. The same chain-tug of the Master. It yanked and yanked and pulled him onward.

What are you doing? You will follow my orders.

A sharp dagger-like pain shot through Hannibal's brain, and he winced at it. "Yes, Master." Hannibal unhooked the horn from his belt and let out a terrific blast, echoing throughout the forests that surrounded this tiny little village. He did not know why he was being ordered to attack it, nor did he care. But the decades of war had made him cynical, questioning the merits of what they were doing. Ostensibly, they were looking for more FEV-2, but more than a century, they hadn't found a single drop. They had been forced to change the message of the Unity, to allow the Children of the Unity to serve in the Army, to allow them to breed. The inferior race! Allowed to breed! There was nothing in Hannibal's mind that could justify this. But the old ways of total compliance, and the new threat of a dagger stabbing into his brain, made him blind to it. Numb to it. There was nothing else he could do, except submit to it. Except follow its every order.

He could see the green masses moving out of the twilight, out of the blizzard, and converging towards the lights assembled below. The Master said that anyone who listened would be spared, but they never listened. Hannibal wondered, in silent, unformed thoughts, if the Master truly believed that his brothers - who were not as gifted with intelligence as he was - were capable of that kind of negotiation. Even if these people offered to surrender, his brothers would not understand and kill them anyway. A century of failure and hardship had dulled their minds, and it was only through his own rage and anger that Hannibal had not succumbed to the same. But he could feel the tug some days, the pull towards madness and chaos and total mental degeneration. But the rage and anger at the World kept it at bay - for now.

He stood on the rocky edge of the forest, watching as his brothers descended upon the camp, their green masses growing more distant as they neared the wooden pallisades. They took the human guards by surprise, before they could even attack. The snowy winds covered their advance until it was too late. Vain attempts at firing upon them went unfulfilled, as the Super Mutants tore them limb from limb. Hannibal wondered, again, what the point of it all was. These people...they had nothing worthwhile to gain. The Master had been growing...unsteady...in the last decade. He fluctuated between months of "peaceful" integration with the Unity, and then periods of total darkness where any town that stood against them was destroyed mercilessly. They were now in one of those periods, where his brothers were thrown hopelessly against the villages and the Brotherhood and whoever else that could resist them.

His brothers tore apart the camp, burning whatever they could lay their hands on. Screams of the normals were silenced, and he felt a twinge of unrealized sorrow. The campfires were turned into bonfires as the whole village went up like a torch. There would be no survivors, no "additions to the Unity" tonight. Hannibal knew this before they even came here. But he never voiced these doubts. Never spoke them aloud.

But, as of recent, there were times, and these times grew more common as of recent, that he could see himself in the reflection. He could see himself as he was, all those years ago. Who I am...? I am not Hannibal...I am....a man, a normal, and unscathed by the FEV. It had made him strong, long-lived, and had - in some ways - heightened his intelligence. But at what cost? At what..?

Has it been done? Is the village under Unity control and protection?

"They resisted. They are no more, Master."

Very well. Return to Camp.

"Yes, Master."

He unhooked his horn and blew it again, this time shifting his tone. His brothers knew the meaning. They would return home, trudging through the snow back up to their camp in the mountains. Hannibal smothered the thoughts of all his doubts and anger, and returned to the single-minded devotion to his duty. There was nothing else left in this life for him, except that. To obey the Master, and to fulfill his dream of the Unity. Hannibal looked up into the sky, and could see a break in the clouds. An impenetrable full moon shone down upon him, casting its gaze upon the Super Mutant like the eye of a God.

In truth, there was a God watching him. But he was a living God, forever in his mind. The survivors of the Master's Army turned back for home, leaving behind them another burning village. How many like these dotted the wastes? How many died in vain? How many..?

Silence your thoughts, or I will teach you another lesson.

"Yes, Master."
 
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February 17th, 2283
Lake Pend Oreille
The Northern Wastes

"Uh....hold up a second. I think we took a wrong turn....uh....yeah, we did. We shoulda gone due west at that burnt out silo, not gone north. I told you we shoulda gone west..."

Albert looked at his Pip-Boy as they trudged through the heavy snow accumulated on the old roadway. Wiping away the frost that had collected on his Pip-Boy, he could see that they were on some sort of peninsula, and that right past the bend and up the road a little, there would be a town. Or, at least, there had been a town there, before the Bombs. But it would be better than nothing. If only to kick my feet up. My legs are burning. Veronica moved off of the road, not responding to him, and walked towards three signs stuck into the ground, covered by a heavy layer of snow that fell upon them.

"Hey, uh, not to be that guy, but I'm freezing! Can we get a move on?" He pleaded with her, which went completely unanswered and ignored, "goddamn it, Veronica." Thank God it's not fucking snowing. Or I'd be really mad. She stood in front of the signs, reading them carefully. Albert could feel the chill climbing up his legs and he fidgeted in the knee-deep snow. The view was pretty good, he had to admit that, with the snow-covered mountains they had just climbed from in the distance. A massive pit of whiteness covered what was, on his Pip-Boy, marked as a lake.

"They called this place Blackwell Point, back before the War," she observed, walking back towards the road and continuing on, "and that was a lake out there. At one time, anyway."

"That's cool, but if I wanted a history lesson, I'd have fucking asked for one," he grunted, as he pushed aside her, "I'm leading us now, since you've gotten us fuckin' lost. There's a town up the road here, we'll see if there's anyone alive, or if the whole place is dead," and this ain't a suggestion. This is what's going down, "if there's some people, we'll buy some provisions, and if there's not, then we'll loot the place and make camp until tomorrow."

"But it's only midday. We can make more ground," Veronica rebutted, and Albert grimaced at the very thought of going any further, "we could easily make it to Spokane."

"Yeah, if it we weren't trudging through knee-deep snow," He grunted, "no, we're going to make camp up ahead, and move on in the morning. I'm wet, I'm tired, and I'm fucking hungry, and that's what we're going to do," snapping back to her, he felt a certain wave of relaxing energy pass over him. I needed that, "got a problem with that?"

"I have a problem with your attitude," she hissed back. God, she's so feisty. If only...if only... "but I get it, I do. We'll set up camp there, then."

They continued on in silence, trudging ever onward through the snow and the dead trees all around. There wasn't even a sign of life, save for a few evergreens that grew up in the dreary wood that surrounded them. Through the treeline, they could see - to their right - a marina stuck in the ice. Boats frozen in perpetuity, locked in icy embrace by the chill of Nuclear Winter. But it looked desolate, and they kept marching on. Albert tried - as he did many times before - to tune to a radio station on the Pip-Boy, but all he could pick up was vain static. There were flashes of music, but only briefly. It must becoming from Spokane. Or maybe Seattle. It has to. It fluctuated in strength, and he was sure that it was his Pip-Boy. The damn thing had taken a beating on the road to the West, and while it still ran like a charm, it couldn't pick up music like it once did.

He was so busy trying to tune to the music that he didn't notice the heavy snow give way to a cleared out zone, and he almost didn't notice the wreckage of the town of Bayview. Walking right into a broken palisade, he stopped short of himself and looked up, and could see, clear as day, burn marks and signs of battle. Looking back to a weary Veronica, he unslung his Laser Rifle and she drew hers out as well, and pressed in through the breach in the wall. There were multiple throughout the line, he could see this, and the scene inside was not much better. There had been life here - once - but not anymore. Bodies lay strewn in the frosty streets, ripped apart and butchered in endless ways. Halves of bodies lay yards from their accompanying other half. Houses and shacks had scorch marks all over them, smothered embers of fires that had burned brightly in recent days. Half-burned bodies lay inside, as if they had been thrown into the fires.

"Jesus Christ, what the fuck happened here...?" He whispered to himself, as they walked slowly and carefully down the streets. Flicking his wrist up, his Pip-Boy showed no life - save for them. It was haunting, miserable, and the only thing that could've made it worse was what they found next. As they walked towards another marina, this one right off the main road, they saw it. It was unmistakable. It had been years - nearly a decade - since he had seen one. This one looked a little different, far less wretched, less degenerated. But it was the same thing, alright. He could see it in its teeth, in its muscle mass, in its cold and lifeless eyes - even in death.

A Super Mutant.

"God damn," was all he could say, like he had been punched in the gut. The Brotherhood's purge on Vault 87 had left him feeling nauseous just thinking about it. The horrors of that twisted place, the inhuman creations born there, the poor miserable people whose lives were forever changed by the green vats. And to think that they had come here too? That they were here, terrorizing the people? It was a nightmare come alive. Veronica stood speechless beside him, biting her lip, "so what the hell is going on here?"

"A long time ago, a very long time ago, there was...a thing...and it created an Army of Super Mutants," she tried to explain, as they walked away from the Super Mutants' body, walking towards the only intact building in the town, "it captured people from Vaults, from caravans, from everywhere. It tried...to make everyone into Mutants. But then a Vault Dweller stopped him. The Vault Dweller, actually," she flashed a smirk, "that's how he's remembered anyway. Every town in California tries to say that he came there, or he did this there, or he killed this guy there. If you believe the NCR, he helped save Tandi from the Khans. That was when they were just the Khans."

"Okay, but, what does this have to do with Super Mutants?" He asked her, as they pushed open the door of a red shack, clearly constructed post-War. It was a comfy, two room, connected by an arch covered only by some beads. There were dead candles all throughout the room, and he could see even through the shrouded darkness that it would be a good place to stay. There were, thankfully, no dead bodies here. But there was food, water, beds, and most importantly, a firepit. There was wood, and kindling, and dear god! Is that gas? Fuck! It might as well have been a castle. As the Wanderer set about lighting a fire, he listened to Veronica tell the story.

"Well, when the Vault Dweller killed the Master, that is, the leader of this Army, he destroyed their source of FEV too. At a place called Mariposa," She explained, lighting candles throughout the house and scouring for food. She came back from a side room with bags of Pre-War packaged food. It'll have to do, he thought as she tossed him a box of Salisbury Steak. It'll be fine if I cook it, he stood up and grabbed a pan from the wall, and emptied the box's contents onto it as the fire began to come alive, "but he didn't destroy the Army, he just cut its head off. And its balls off too, I guess. So they fled. Some were rumored to have gone into the Rockies, but we never had proof. Most of the survivors either settled down, or were hunted down by the NCR and the Brotherhood," she sighed, opening her box of Pork and Beans and eating it straight from the can, "I never thought the rumors were true."

"Well, looks like they are," Albert shook his head as he held the pan over the fire, watching the old - and probably expired - meat cook. Resting the pan on the ledge, he stood up and began to look around the shack. As he went into the side room, he almost jumped for joy. In between the two beds, was a side table with a radio on it. Finally! Finally! He picked it up, and like a kid with his favorite toy, ran into the other room, "look what I got! Damn it! Finally!"

"A radio?" Veronica raised her eyebrow, doubting him and his sensibilities.

"Ah, fuck you," he dismissed her as he sat down beside the fire, turning the radio on and beginning to tune through the frequencies, "I've been dying to hear a song - just one damn song - since we left Bozeman! Just let me have it!"

The radio crackled, hissed, spit out static and garbled words and mixed up music until it finally settled. For Albert, at that moment of soundwave clarity, it was orgasmic. Blissful. Like there had been someone cracking his back of every tightly-bound nerve all at once. There was the soothing jazz saxophone, and the trumpets, and the whole Big Band playing in tune. Then the vocals kicked in:

He couldn't help but think back to Amata. For some reason, he had been thinking of her more and more lately. Maybe I'm getting regretful. Maybe I'm wishing I stayed. Albert laid down on the cushions sprawled out in front of the fire, staring up at the ceiling and watching as the fire danced on the red roof. He could feel Veronica's inquisitive stare, wondering of him as she did in her way. Ah, fuck it, let her stare.

Once again your face comes back to me
Just like the theme of some forgotten melody
In the album of my memory
Serenade in blue​

He closed his eyes, in blissful remembrance. Remember when we cut class, and then used her dad's passcodes to change our attendances in the system? And we only got caught because Mr. Brotch mentioned something about it to him in passing? Or how she'd come over to my quarters to hide from her dad, when mine was too busy working on that damned water purification system, and we'd "study?" Or when we'd sit together in the cafeteria, not saying a single word except what was said in our eyes?

It seems like only yesterday
The small cafe, a crowded floor
And as we danced the night away
I hear you say forever more
And then the song became a sigh
Forever more became goodbye
Cause you remained in my heart​

A vision fluttered in his mind, of the two of them - separated by the mists of time and space - in that Vault atrium. As they where when their lives were forever changed, on that day that everything changed. They danced to the beat of the song, him leading her in the swaying up. Her face flashed in his, her tear-stained eyes that he could never forget - that he never wished to forget. But then the scene changed, and it was him leaving for the final time. And then the song reached its crescendo.

Tell me darling in there still a spark?
Or only lonely ashes of the flame we knew
Should I go on whistling in the dark,
Serenade in blue...​

He opened his eyes, and could only see the flickering red roof, foggy and blurry by the tears that had formed in his eyes. Then he felt Veronica's stare, that impenetrable gaze that betrayed more emotion than anything else. They made eye contact, and he could see it. Is that amusement? No...is it pity, then? No...no, it's...it's sympathy. Empathy. She broke the contact first, and looked back down at her meal, and Albert closed his eyes again. But as the song shifted, to a more instrumental jazz song, it failed to invoke the same emotion, and he grew tired of it all, and pushed himself up to take the pan off of the fire. Burnt. Damn it. I'm not hungry anymore anyway.... He dumped the contents of the pan into the fire, and laid back down, closing his eyes and hoping to bring it back.

But all he found was sleep. A dreamless, black sleep.
 
90
February 18th, 2283
Outskirts of Spokane
The Northern Wastes

The pair trudged through the thickened snow along the old Route 53, passing by cars that were so buried by snow that only their roofs were visible. The snow had grown thicker here, and it made their journey all the more slower. There's no chance we'll make it to Spokane before night fall. Veronica watched as Albert hastened his pace ahead of her, making tracks in the thick snow that she simply filled in. He had a bigger footprint than her, but it didn't matter much at all. If anything, it made things easier. She followed behind him a few yards, the East Coast Wanderer pushing through the snow with his rifle in hand and a commitment to the destination that she had only seen once before. In a man that she could never think of again, for the very thought brought pain, and pain brought anger.

But she couldn't shake it.

There was something about Albert that reminded her of Kurt Livingston, the Mojave Courier-King. When the Khans passed out of the Utah, they lost all contact with the Mojave, and no news had come about New Vegas or anything from the "Free State of the Mojave." I hope he drowns on his own blood. She couldn't believe that she was thinking thoughts like that, but...he betrayed me. Betrayed us all. Her focus returned to Albert, her eyes fixed on the moving figure on the road. Veronica couldn't quite pinpoint exactly what about his character made him so familiar to that man she had known, but he carried with himself that same weight of the world upon his shoulders, the same weary look in his eyes, that the Courier bore. But, yet, it was different. The Courier's was almost always unreadable, his mind seemingly miles in the clouds above them all. But Albert bore a look of perpetual sadness - of exhaustion in his very soul - in his eyes. Those green eyes could sing the blues, if they could talk.

"Hey! Keep up!" Albert shouted back, as if they were children playing in the snow, "you're falling behind!"

He's a paradox. On one hand, he could be intensely childish - almost the point of ridiculousness - but then he would transition in stone-cold seriousness, almost depressive. She had learned, over the course of their time together, to avoid talking about his home. But sometimes curiosity got the best of her, and then he would transition into his worst periods. But, as emotional as Albert could be, it was preferable to the Courier. The stone-cold man with no passion except anger. She wondered if her memories were being clouded by the rage she felt against Kurt, or if he really truly was that cold and unfeeling. But Albert, as abrasive as he was, she could tell that his heart was in the right place. And he had been a Brotherhood Knight, fought alongside her distant brothers and sister in the Old World Capital. All of it had been stolen from him, just as it had been stolen from her. We're alike, more than Kurt..

She wondered what had happened to him, all the way back in the sands of the Mojave. She'd never admit it - not even to herself - but she hoped that the Free State would succeed. The ideal of an independent nation, not a part of the Californian Empire or beholden to anyone, was a dream worth fighting for. But she couldn't help but feel bitter about the Courier, and his ways, and everything the man was. And she couldn't help but wonder why her thoughts returned to that man, and that wretched city of sin in the middle of a dead and desolate wasteland in the Southwest.

The stretches off on either side of the road were almost totally desolate. Snow covered old farmhouses, collapsed silos stuck out their ruins from the ground, and evergreen trees clung to life in the inhospitable land. How do people survive here? I can't imagine...the life of the people of this land was surely hard, harder than any life she had ever known. And she wondered if this would be all worth it. Would it be? To have come all this way, looking for a Chapter that might not even exist? What if they got there, and they all died? Or they never made it over the Rockies to begin with? What would they do then? Tuck tail and go back to the Khans? Fuck no. She sighed, pushing the thoughts from her mind. No, I have to believe. They're here. I know they are.

"Hey, hold up...!" Albert whispered, ducking behind a buried truck container and ushering Veronica up to him. She rushed, as fast as she could through the snow, towards him and crouched down into the snow, feeling the cold and wetness creep into her clothes, "there's movement, up along the road...I can't see 'em, but my Pip-Boy's got 'em marked..." he held up his device and waved it towards her. He had pulled up a sonar-like screen, showing four contacts moving closer to them, "unfortunately this doesn't color-code them. Won't let me know if they're friend or foe."

"Maybe they're just travelers, like us," Veronica opined, but she knew it was naivety when she spoke it.

"Yeah, and maybe they'll give us sweet rolls too, if we ask nicely," he snapped back, a little cross in his voice, and edged his head out from the metal container. He held it out for a few seconds, and then pulled it back in, "yeah, I see 'em now. One of them is wearing power armor, I think. I don't...they can't be..."

"They have to be! They have to be the Brotherhood!" Veronica's voice went up an octave, but she realized she was getting louder as Albert's eyes seemed to say "shut up!" "sorry, it's just we finally did it. We found them."

"No, we've found a guy in a suit of power armor," he hissed back, readying his rifle for action, "it could be some raiders who got their hands on a suit. Or it could be some tribals who worship this shit. Or, it could be the damn Enclave! I mean, we've seen Super Mutants!"

"The Enclave?" Veronica snickered, "they were destroyed at Navarro."

"Navarro? What the fuck is-?" As the words left his mouth, Veronica saw a flash of steel as a power-armored soldier , wearing a white-colored T-45b suit, rounded the truck, and held a plasma rifle up to the both of them. Behind, she heard footfalls and looked over her shoulder to see three men, wearing heavy winter gear that seemed to be Pre-War in origin. Their coats were snow-white, but underneath she could see a green tunic, and their helmets were clearly green hastily painted white. Albert and Veronica exchanged uncertain looks, and then he turned towards the soldier in power armor, "ah, okay, let's keep this smooth, no need to uh..." his eyes darted from the plasma rifle being held inches away from him, and back up to the soldier, "...get hasty..."

"You're in no position to negotiate," the soldier replied, his voice turned tinny from the helmet, "where did you get laser weaponry?"

"Uh, well, this was issued to me, same as her actually," he looked down and jokingly admired the rifle, "I won't tell you from who, though, until you tell me who the fuck you are."

"I could just shoot you right now, and be done with it," the soldier didn't move from his position, "you're lucky we have rules of engagement, or else I'd have already ended you, wastrel. Now, I'll ask again, where did you get those rifles?"

"We got them from the Brotherhood!" Veronica spoke up before Albert could. I won't let him sabotage this, "we came from the Midwestern Chapter, over the Rockies, looking for the Chapter in Seattle."

"Well, damn..." The soldier held his rifle steady, "that's a fine story, but you got any proof?"

"Yes! Yes!" She reached into her coat and pulled her Brotherhood holotags from out underneath her clothing, still dangling from her neck. The holotags had a member's name, blood type, home chapter, and an internal ID number. And, due to Albert's being almost identical except with the home chapter, it was sure to be a universal thing in the Brotherhood. Albert did the same thing, pulling out his and holding it before him, "are you the Washington Brotherhood?"

"Just hold up a damn minute, how do I know that you didn't shoot some scribes and steal their tags? No, I'm not a fool, but I'm willing to indulge you..." He looked up at the soldiers standing behind them, "confiscate their weapons, and we'll take them back to the Industrial Park."

"What? No!" Albert protested as the soldiers moved in to take their rifles, "like hell you're gonna disarm me."

"You're not in a position to be bargaining, like I said earlier," the power armored man shrugged, "we'll figure out your story when we get back to base. If it checks out, you'll get back your weapons and you can be on your way, or you can stay if you like, I don't really care. But if it doesn't...well...your lost firearms will be the least of your concern."

"Goddamn it," Albert swore as one of the soldiers took the rifle from his hands. Veronica had willingly given hers up, and she stood up on her on while the soldiers had to pull Albert up and force him to his feet. They pushed them onto the road and directed them to walk with them, ahead of the rest of the group, back towards their base of operations. We've come so far. This is going to be worth it. They're just cautious, all Brotherhood are. That's just how it is, right? "you'd better have not walked us right into a goddamn trap. I swear, Veronica..."

"It won't be, just...trust me..." Veronica tried to assure him, but she had learned by now that once he started on a thought it was hard to shake him. Reminds me of someone else too, "we'll be fine."

"Wastrels, quit talking, you're pissin' me off," the power-armored suited man barked up, and the two of them fell into silence as they trudged through the snow. She tried to assuage her fears, that everything would work out, that they would learn the truth, that they were Brotherhood, and they could help them. And then they could help her. This will all work out. I know it will.
 
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February 19th, 2282
Spokane
The Northern Wastes

"Fuck you."

Another power-armored fist crashed into his abdomen, perfectly delivered to ensure maximum pain with minimum permanent damage. Albert winced in pain as the Brotherhood Knight pulled back. There were two of them standing before him, in a small claustrophobic cell with a single dangling light above him. The other man was black man dressed in a dark robe, a great burn mark across his face, and a metallic hand resting on his chin as if he were in thought. The Knight with the power armor was unable to be read under his heavy T-51b helmet, standing powerfully over Albert, who was only now recovering from the blow, each breathe as laborious as the last.

"What you don't seem to realize, Wanderer, is that I am a man of patience," the man in the robe spoke, with the same sinister inflection he had since the beginning. Has it been an hour? A day? A week? "I have all day, all week, all month, all year to wait for you to answer us properly. We can make this easy and fast, or we can continue with this game. It's up to you."

"Go to hell," Albert spat, spit mixed with blood, on the robe of the metallic-hand-man, with anger and hatred in his voice. I hate these bastards. I hate the Brotherhood. I shoulda never let her talk me into this. "I've told you everything already."

"Oh? That you're from the Old World Capital? That you're a Vault Dweller? That you, by some sheer chance, were a Brotherhood Knight under an Elder Lyons, who by some strange turn of events had his own chapter in the Capital's ruins? That you fled from the Capital after he, and his appointed successor - his daughter no less - were murdered in a conspiracy to overthrow the leaders of the Chapter?" The robed man grimaced at the very words, twisting his mouth from that into a sick smirk, as he leaned closer to Albert, "do you want to know what I think you actually are?"

"I don't fucking care," Albert retorted to the rhetorical question.

"I think..." The man leaned back, and began pacing from the door up to the chair that Albert was strapped in, "that you murdered a Vault Dweller for that Pip-Boy, then took part in one of the attacks on our patrols. You stole a Brotherhood Knight's holotags, forged them to make them your own, and now are trying to infiltrate your Chapter for the Unity," he stopped pacing and turned back towards Albert, looking him dead in the eyes. The man's gaze pierced into Albert with intensity that he had only seen a handful of times in his life, "don't worry, our scribal team is working to confirm my suspicions that you and that girl of yours forged those holotags. And once we have that proof, I'll see you shot."

"You'll be real fucking disappointed then," Albert shot back. The man then turned to the Knight, and nodded his head. Go ahead, take your best fucking shot. And the Knight sure did, his fist crashing into his stomach harder than the last one. He followed it up with an armor-enhanced backhand, which Albert felt break the skin through the initial searing pain. Blood flowed onto his Vault Jumpsuit - the Brotherhood having stripped him of his cold weather gear when they arrived in this warehouse. Another punch crashed into the other side of his head, and the Wanderer felt his vision begin to fade. It fizzled into a red cloudy mist, as pain overtook his body and shut it down, one by one. As he faded away, he could hear the robed man speak once more.

"We'll let him recover," he spoke to the Knight, as he began to lose consciousness, "we'll try again in an hour."

"Wake up! Come on! Wake up! Come on, you've got to wake up!"
His vision was hazy. The bright white lights of the overhead in his quarters almost blinded him. What time is it? Why is she here? What...? Am I still dreaming...? He struggled to push himself to a sitting position, awoken from the deepest sleep he had gotten in a while. The hours working in the lower levels, grinding away with Stanley maintaining the water purifier and keeping the hydroponics bay going. But...maybe...if she's here....
"How weird...I was just dreaming about you..." He forced a grin, as he took possession of his sense. And it had been a nice dream, too. They were in her father's office, and one thing led to another, and...
"Don't be a smart-mouth! This is serious!" Her face, as he rubbed his eyes to clear the fogginess, betrayed it all. Fear. Dread. Despair. "My father's men are looking for you. They've already killed Jonas! You've got to get out of here!"
"Wait, what? Jonas is dead? What the hell is going on?" There was no way...how could they kill him? He had served the Vault well as long as he had known him! He ran the reactor, for Christ's sake!
"It's your dad! He's left the Vault! My father thinks Jonas helped him escape. So he had his men...my God...they killed him! They just beat him and beat him and wouldn't stop!" Tears formed in her eyes, and he reached out a hand to touch her. And he suddenly became self-conscious, wearing nothing but his underwear.
"Oh my god...are you okay?"
"Yeah...don't worry about me. I'm just sorry you had to find out like this. I know Jonas was your friend. But we've got to go! My father's men will be here any minute!"
He stood up and suddenly the scene changed. He was in Project Purity, the old Jefferson Memorial, watching as Doctor Li and his father poured through their old notes. They had just fought through Super Mutants just to get here, and he could feel weariness and exhaustion take hold over him. They lugged it all the way to Rivet City from Vault 112, and barely had time to get a drink of water before they headed back over to Project Purity. They had just told him to clear out the lower levels of more mutants, but he wanted answers first. Dad was standing there, explaining to him why the project was so important - and why he had to leave Vault 101.
"Helping people? What about helping your own son?" Resentment and anger poured from Albert's lips. How could he do this to me? And try to stand here and justify it?
"Perhaps the choice I made wasn't the right one. I thought I was doing what was best for you. I wanted you to be safe." Safe?! Safe?! Leave me in a Vault with a maniac for an Overseer, leaving the place in chaos in your wake, and you thought it was the best for me?
"How could you leave me like that? What the hell were you thinking?" If Amata hadn't come and got him, Vault Security would've dragged him to the Overseer. Or they would've beat him to death in his sleep.
"I wanted you to be safe. I didn't want this for you -- a life out here in this godforsaken warzone. I couldn't tell you what I was doing because I didn't want you following me. A plan which clearly was not as successful as I imagined it would be." If he was trying to prevent that, then he failed spectacularly. What did he think was going to happen? Dad's voice seemed so...certain of himself. But the words he spoke didn't seem genuine. Not to Albert. As though he was trying to justify this actions as much to himself as he was to his son.
"So you just disappear without saying a word?" Albert was incredulous. Here he was, trying to justify everything he did. As if he really did think Overseer Almodovar would just let things slide with him and his wastelander son?
"I had thought that after my escape, the Overseer would seal the vault. You'd have no choice to stay behind. I suppose I underestimated how resourceful you are." And you underestimated the fury of the Overseer.
"You know what? Fuck you, Dad." The words flowed out effortlessly. Weeks of pent-up anger, huffing it around the Wasteland doing favors for people so they would help him find his father, all pouring out in those three words. If only I knew that these would be the last words I said to him...
"I'm sorry you feel that way," his eyes closed. The only time Albert could see genuine sorrow on his face, "let's just get back to work. We'll talk later."
The scene changed, this time he could not here anything - only white noise. He could only see himself standing there, on the platform of Project Purity, watching in vain as his own father died from the radiation. The Enclave officer plunged something into his veins as he collapsed to the floor beside his father, who summoned the last of his strength as he climbed up to the door. And he heard his last words echo as the scene changed once more, "..run! Run!"
"You knew my father?" He was standing there, shaken and disturbed, with Doctor Li in the Citadel's laboratory. A vast robotic machine sat in the middle, as scribes tinkered all around. He was taken up in a blur, that he had slipped off into a side room, and come to the work center of a Star Paladin Cross. She said that she had known him - in another life, a time long gone from now.
"I did, and you as well!" She said with a chipper tone, which immediately grated upon him. Exhaustion bore heavy on his eyes, and his nerves, "long ago, I helped guard the water purifier against the Super Mutant horde. When your father left, I escorted the two of you to Megaton. He was... a noble man. I was saddened to hear of his passing. But from what I've heard, he died with honor. He died for you. I only pray that my own death has such meaning." A noble man? A death with meaning? Saddened by his passing? His temper flared up like a solar storm. Even in his memory, he could feel himself growing angry. I wonder if her death at the hands of the Paladins was the meaning she hoped for.
"He lived as he died: A selfish asshole," irradiating beyond repair the only hope of the Capital Wasteland to have clean water, just because he couldn't take credit for his work and run it himself? Destroy his own son's life in pursuit of a vanity project that his own team said that there was little hope of ever making it work? A. Selfish. Asshole.
"Then you did not know the man. I knew your father, I knew his goodness, and I will not have you sully the memory of a noble man," he snorted, a disgusted grunt towards a woman who he had known for less than five minutes lecturing him on his own father, "go now. I have nothing more to say to you."
The scene shifted. He was back in Vault 101, standing in the Atrium with Amata in front of him. Barricades were erected, and the lights above them flickered. A sign above her wrote 'Fuck you, Overseer.' He had just convinced her father to step down, so she could take control. Just as she had asked.
"It's time for our dusty old Vault to have a new beginning. And it'll start by opening up again, this time for good. It's a bright new day for the Vault...but I'm afraid there's one thing that has to change," her voice seemed so optimistic, so full of hope for their future. But then here tone changed, it grew somber.
"Whatever it is, I'm glad to help," how could I be so blind? Why didn't I see where she was going with it?
"I know you are, and on behalf of the Vault, I thank you for all you've done. But there are still many who blame you for everything that happened. So I have to ask you to leave. I'm sorry, but the situation is just too delicate for you to stay. Please, if you really want to help the Vault, you have to go," the words dug into him like daggers. And it was made worse by the fact that it was her - of all people - speaking them. Emotions churned inside of him: Anger, resentment, sadness, depression. It swirled into a whirlwind of chaos within him, but his face remained stone cold.
"I...I understand..." he sighed, after what seemed like an eternity of all of it whirling around in his mind, "goodbye, Amata..."
"We can never really thank you enough for everything you've done. It's not much, but take this with you, to remember us by..." she handed him a new Vault 101 Jumpsuit. He was wearing his old one, worn and battered from the time in the Wasteland, "...It'll be a while before we're actually ready to go outside. But once the Vault is stable again, maybe we'll see you out there. So I guess this is goodbye for now. But with luck, we'll meet again." He turned around to walk towards the exit - for what seemed to be the last time - and then stopped and turned around, setting the jumpsuit aside.
"Amata..." He hesitated, emotions boiling inside worse than before. It was the only chance he'd ever get to say it, the only chance left, "...I love you."
She walked up to him, and they locked in a kiss. And as she pulled back, she opened her mouth and began to speak - but in an unfamiliar, gravely voice, "wake up, wastrel. I said wake up!"

"Wake up!" A bare hand slapped him, and he opened his eyes to a well-lit room, with a young woman leaning over him. She wore an unfamiliar garb, a fur jacket with a red shirt underneath. She doesn't look like the Knight or the robed man from before. The walls were clearly not the original configuration - more like constructed shack walls - as he took in the sights. Looking around, he could see that there were beds lined up along the walls on either side, with men and women laying in them in various states of injury. Behind the woman leaning over him, as his vision returned to normal, he could see the robed man, flanked by two men in the same style of fatigues that the soldiers who ambushed him earlier wore. The woman turned behind, and with her smoker's voice, spoke to the robed man, "he's awake, Paladin."

"I can see that. Thank you, Elise," he bowed his head in appreciation, and walked forward to the bed. He pulled a chair from beside it, and sat down next to the Wanderer. There he sat in silence for a few moments, both of the men staring at each other. Albert finally got a good look at the man: his eyes were the color of steel, and the burn mark seemed to be still melting on his face. The scars seemed to contort like canyons on the skin, and his metallic hand was shrouded by a dark glove, that he was now clenching on his thigh. Finally, after some silence, he was the first to speak, "my scribes returned with their report."

"I take it, since I'm not in front of a firing squad, you realized I was tellin' the truth, huh?" Albert smirked, and looked around the room, "where's Veronica?"

"She was more cooperative than you," he said, oozing venom, "she's with our scribes right now, as a matter of fact, going over some of the data that we've collected here in the Great White North," he paused for a moment, thinking, and then continued, "what still confuses me, is why come all the way here? Why cross the Rockies? Why come after us? After all this time...so many years...our brothers finally reached out?"

"Well, uh, that's not exactly it..." Albert bit his lip, trying to find a way to explain it diplomatically, "...well, the Midwestern Brotherhood told us that you guys vanished in the Rockies. Veronica, well, she's a crazy girl...she wanted to find you guys, for some reason. And I tagged along because, well, why not?" He sighed, feeling some pain return to his body, morphine must be wearing off, "I don't have a home. I'm just a wanderer."

"You're a Brotherhood Knight, and you'll have a home as long as you live," the robed man seemed to be offering some kind of apology. Maybe that's the best I'll get, but I'll take it, "in any case, we weren't properly introduced..." he extended his gloved hand to Albert, "...I am Paladin Christian Xavier, Washington Brotherhood."

"Albert Freeman..." He shook the man's hand, feeling the unbendable and hard-as-steel metal below the leather glove, "...uh...I don't know who I belong to anymore."

"Paladin, sir, we have to get to the briefing..." one of the men in the undersuits spoke up, who up until that point had been standing quite awkwardly in the aisle.

"Yes, yes, of course," Paladin Xavier rose to his feet, dusting off his knees. He walked to the edge of the bed and turned around, "when you are feeling better, come find me. We have much to talk about, and there is much work to be done," he raised his fist up to his chest, oh brother, not this shit, "ad victoriam, Knight."

"Yeah, ad victoriam, Paladin," He winced as he said it. Jesus, they all say this shit? But as the Paladin left the room, the words stayed with him. There is much work to be done...what have I gotten myself into?
 
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February 19th, 2283
Spokane
The Northern Wastes

Four six-man teams moved unseen through the snowy ruins, their rag-tag robes - heavy to protect from winter's cold embrace - blended well with the devastated urban environment. The blizzard had, for the time being, subsided, and now would a good time as any to launch a raid on the hostile checkpoints along the roadway. With the wintery winds ended, and the snow settling heavy on the ground, it would be time to strike at their enemies. But all of them knew that time was not on their side, and that at any moment, the winds might shift and bring the Eternal Blizzard back upon them, and no one knew this better than Achlys. In another life, under another name, he had braved these winters with his family, suffering under its fickle mood with every day of life. They were forced to live like rats, forever under the thumb of Nature. And even as a Liberated Child, a Gifted One, he had not yet overthrown the cursed Earth. The Liberated Children were forced to move under cover, just as their Unenlightened former kinsmen did and still do, but they moved with a purpose, a single-minded possession to an Ideal.

The Unity.

The Emissaries of the Master had come to Achlys' village, some ways east of Spokane, many years ago. The Chosen Ones, the great Green Giants of the Army, came to them in numbers that would've overwhelmed the paltry defenses of the village. As the Chosen Ones surrounded the palisades, one with a Bear Head upon his head walked through the crowded army and right up to the gates. There, he issued his proclamation. The village was chosen for incorporation into the Unity, and would be guaranteed eternal protection by the Master's Army. If they refused, they would be destroyed as enemies of the Unity. They had no choice, and submitted. Over time, the Chosen Ones faded from sight, moving on to other pastures, and they were replaced by the Children of the Unity - Gifted Ones who had not yet taken the Evolutionary Advancement that the Chosen Ones had - who took over administration of the village, and the teaching of its youth. Achlys, who barely scrapped by as a scavenger, joined the Children - and soon became one of their most adept scouts, leading teams into the wastes. He had earned the favor of the Appointed One, Erebus, and he tasked Achlys with the mission of taking all of Spokane for the Unity.

Easier said than done.

They had been trying to crack this nut for nearly three years, all without effort. They didn't even receive much help from the Chosen Ones - and relations between them and the Children had grown strained as of late. They think they are better than us, for being allowed the opportunity to Evolve centuries ago. We were not so fortunate...in fact, Achlys resented them greatly. And none of them more than Hannibal. The leader of the Chosen Ones, he had been acting irrational. The Master was calling upon the Children to bring Spokane to its knees, but yet the Army of the Chosen Ones seemed to be moving around in the forests, striking at useless targets. And he wondered, free in his thoughts as he was free from the Master's psychic interference - unlike the Chosen Ones or the Appointed One, if the Master was the one ordering this. And if it was, then... no. We must focus on the Unity. We must focus on the Goal.

The teams came to a halt as Achlys raised his hand, leaning up against the wall of an old apartment block. They were in a snow-covered alley, with flakes falling down to them from the wind sweeping the roof tops. He leaned out from the wall and looked down the street. There he saw them, a team of the Defilers standing at an intersection, a roughshod shack with snow piled in a thick wall around it, a checkpoint to secure this block. They were easily identifiable, wearing winterized Old World fatigues. But this team was a perfect target: there was no Power Armored guardian to protect them today.

Achlys pointed to Jameson, the leader of the First Team, and gestured towards the alleyway directly across from them, "take your team over there, and loop around to the other side of the Defilers so we can flank them. George, you'll go with them," he then pointed to Jordan, "you'll come with me. Our teams will attack first, and then the flankers will cut them off. There will be no survivors. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Strike Leader," the team leaders affirmed, and Jameson and George - with their teams in tow - crept their way across the road. It was perilous, risky, but it all paid off. The men moved slowly, cautiously, ducking behind cover when they could, until all of them were safely across. Achlys waited, for what seemed like an eternity. He did not want to attack until he felt as though they were in position. The minutes counted down in his head, and he felt compelled to act. It doesn't matter if they aren't in position yet, we'll take them anyway.

"On me! Let's go!" He spoke to his men, and was the first to round the corner. Holding his R91 Rifle in his hand, he fired blindly, throwing out suppressing fire onto the Defilers. They scattered into their defensive positions, while the men behind him charged forward in his wake. They too fired, some striking their targets, while others serving only to keep the Defilers' heads down. Achlys saw, as he reached the intersection, the flankers moving in - charging across the open ground towards the checkpoint. He jumped up onto the snow defenses, and fired wildly into the Defilers in cover. None were spared. The door of the shack opened and he then directed fire into it, filling the devil who opened the door with a hail of gunfire. The body fell backwards, collapsing into the shack.

Just as he said, there were no survivors. The whole attack took less than five minutes, but they had achieved their goals - no matter how limited.

"Search the shack. Gather anything useful we can use to plot our next move. Collect their weapons and ammunition, their medical supplies, and whatever else that looks valuable," Achlys directed to his men, who were already picking through the pockets and bags of the dead, "we can't stay here too long. I feel the Wind blowing in my bones."

He looked up into the murky grey sky. The sun seemed to only rarely show its face in this land, and even then it was only a brief glimmer. But through it all, Achlys felt confident. But we must plan our next move to be greater. We cannot keep hitting checkpoints. We must tear them from this city, and send them back across the wastes.

Easier said than done.
 
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February 21st, 2283
Spokane
The Northern Wastes

"No, Junior Scribe, we have been unable to actually find out where their base of operations are at. Our patrols into the Rockies have come up with nothing. Naturally, of course, that doesn't mean they aren't there, but we haven't seen them yet. But my belief is that they are either operating out of the mountains, or are coming from the Colville Forests to the north of us. It's hard to say exactly where, but the Unity has not yet struck Seattle. The farthest they've gotten was Yakima, and that was years ago."

Veronica pondered on Senior Field Scribe Yeager's words. She was about ten years older than her, with red hair pulled tight back in a bun. Yeager's proud chin stuck out any time she looked up, and a powerfully intense look was always in her eyes. Maybe...in another world...another time....Veronica almost smirked, but banished all the thoughts as he looked down at the papers and maps assembled all around the Field Scribe's office. They detailed every single known Unity strike in the area, and a pattern was forming in recent months. They were encircling Spokane, moving to cut off the Brotherhood from exit routes so they could strike. And the worst part to her, was that it wasn't just Super Mutants striking them. No, they had a massive army of humans at their beck and call, convinced of the religious supremacy of the Master's doctrine and the ideals of the Unity. If only they knew what was in store for them, but, then again, the Children of the Cathedral did exist.

She looked at the map hanging on the wall, beside a Brotherhood flag, and looked at the attached strings on the pins. Yes, it was clear that the hypothesis was correct. They're fitting a noose on this city, and when they tie it, they'll hang us all. The only part that was still holding against the onslaught were outposts along Route 2, near the Airport. The Brotherhood had be utilizing the airport as a center for troop movement and transport. They have functioning aircraft! More than can be said for any other Chapter... "I think they'll try to close the noose here, at the Airport." She pointed to the map, and Senior Scribe Yeager scoffed.

"I didn't need a Junior Scribe to tell me that," she laughed mockingly, "it's pretty obvious that it's their goal. If they take out the airport, then not only are we cut off from any land-based retreat, but we won't be able to be airlifted out of the City should it fall. I suspect Paladin Xavier would rather lose the entire city than be trapped by losing the airport. And I don't blame him, I agree with it completely."

"What about the people of the city?"

"We're at war, sister," Yeager pursed her lips, putting her hand on her hip as she walked up to the board, standing beside her. Is it hot in here? Or just me? "we have to make sacrifices to ensure we can triumph in the end. The end result for them would be the same as if we were killed to a man fighting a pointless last stand, except the Brotherhood would be weaker for it, and we wouldn't as easily mount a counter attack," she moved a little closer to Veronica, and she felt the temperature in the room soar, "believe me when I say I care for these people, I really do, but continuing the Brotherhood's ability to wage war is paramount. The best way we can help them - in the long run - is to continue to have the operational advantage. And, so far, we have. The Unity does hit and run strikes on outposts, and mostly have in recent months. They strike in the city and take out our outposts, we go in and take them back. Minimal loss of life, for all things concerned. I think both of us, us and the enemy I mean, are concerned about casualties. Which is interesting, because I was always under the impression Super Mutants didn't care about that sort of thing."

"When they were under the Master, they held California is a vice grip. They outplayed the Brotherhood and every settlement in the Region, cunning and ruthless. The mistake is to underestimate them," she reminded Yeager, feeling a little proud of herself that the Senior Scribe grinned at her young subordinate, "but I've never heard of them using humans as foot soldiers. They had a collection of...psychic...individuals in their headquarters, but they all died when the Vault Dweller destroyed the Cathedral."

"Yes, I'm aware of that. I suspect that whoever is running this army - we believe it to be a Super Mutant named Hannibal - has shifted tactics. Perhaps they're in a sorrier state than we are led to believe. Very rarely do they send their Super Mutant cohorts in to the fray, unless the situation necessitates it - or if they want to scare someone. Usually, they just send in the Children of the Unity, that's the name they've given the humans who serve in their ranks," the Senior Scribe rubbed her nose, feeling the exhaustion take over her. You need a day off...I wish I could help..."I think we've done enough for the night. You can take off, if you want. I'm just going to finish signing off on reclamation reports and head off to bed."

"Ah, alright, no, that's fine. I'm fine with that," Veronica replied, trying to hide her disappointment of not being able to spend more time with the Junoesque Scribe, "I'll just take the paperwork you gave me earlier and study it in my room. I might have some theory for all of this in the morning."

"If you do, you'd be the first," Yeager smiled as she walked back to her desk and turned on the terminal sitting upon it, "have a goodnight, Veronica."

"You too, Linda," Veronica beat her retreat from the room before the Senior Scribe noticed her face turning an awful shade of crimson, almost forgetting to grab the folder that she had given her to study. It's like I'm a young girl again, good God, I need to get a hang of myself...I can't mess this up... She left the room, a repurposed Pre-War office in the warehouse that had been utilized as the main headquarters building for the Brotherhood in Spokane. The entire warehouse had been almost reconstructed, with the inside being gutted and replaced with metal-shack-wall-type walls and floors. There were fabricated connectors that led to other buildings, utilized for storage, living spaces, and training grounds to avoid the biting winter of the outside. She walked down the stairs and into the shanty hallways, moving on her own towards the adjacent building where her room was.

She had been so consumed with all of the work - and consumed with Senior Scribe Yeager - that she had not thought about Albert at all. It had been two days since he woke up, and a day or so since they discharged him from the clinic. They had given in quarters directly adjacent to her own, but in her quest to uncover all that she could about the mission here - and to get Yeager's favor - she had not even thought about it. I wonder what he's been doing. She thought to herself she passed through the connector, heading towards the living quarters. He's probably training with the Knights, getting acclimated to their tactics here. Maybe they're preparing him for a mission. I should put in a request to join them. But maybe he's being briefed on the same thing I am, just in a different way. A way far more militaristic than my own. Hm, I should go and pay him a visit...she resolved herself as she walked through the halls of the living space, passing by scribes, knights, and soldiers going every which way. It was, if her time was right, around the time for watch turnover.

She reached his room and could hear the blasting of a music from the radio. It was some groovy guitar-driven song, echoing off of the steel frames of the living space quarter. Veronica leaned in to hear it, before she knocked on the door:

Well she wouldn't see me
She didn't have time
Cause she found a new man
With better lovin' than mine
I couldn't get her ta see me
She closed her front door
She told me it was over
I was free once more
What would you do
If I did that to you? Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
What would you do
If I did that to you? Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
What would you do
If I did that to you?

As she knocked, she heard his voice whisper "ah, shit, what now?" and the shuffling sounds of movement. The radio dial spun down, and then she heard him say again ,"probably just another damn noise complaint. scribes with nothin' better to do than to bitch. nah, nah, I'm just messin' with you," what the fuck? She knocked again, and she heard him audibly groan, and then speak towards the door, "hey, listen, it's not my duty day, and I'm kinda busy right now," busy, huh?

"It's Veronica."

"Ah, fuck!" She heard him say, and then more shuffling. You dirty dog....she thought to herself as the shuffling continued until the door open. He stood at the threshold, holding the door, shirtless and wearing black long john pants, his face almost entirely red as a brunette girl behind him -a tanned-skin girl with attractive features, one of the junior scribes that she had seen working in the Technological Reclamation teams - hastily put on her uniform. The girl finished buttoning up her green fatigues and slid towards the door, before stopping at Albert. They shared a kiss, and she looked up at him with wistful eyes, "same time tomorrow, yeah?"

"Definitely, wouldn't miss it for the world," she said to him, and they kissed again. She slid her way outside of the door, and nodded to Veronica - who simply nodded back - before her attention went back to Albert.

"Okay, so, what do you want? You just totally fucking blueballed me," Albert sighed with exasperation in his voice as he walked back towards his bed, taking a seat on the shaken up linens. His room was much like hers, she gathered as she walked in, closing the door behind him. It was small, only enough room for a bed, a trunk for gear and personal effects, and a desk table, but at least it was a place to sleep.

"Sorry for ruining the moment," she said, and she was genuine about it, as she sat down at his desk chair and spun it around to face him. He laid back down in the bed and looked up at the ceiling, "I just wanted to see how you were doing."

"I was the King of the World, for a moment there," he flashed back at her, but then let out a small smirk, "but other than that, I've been pretty good. Wounds recovered pretty nicely. Not sure what it is with me, but I don't really stay injured for long."

Funny, Kurt always used to say the same thing. "Have they got you on patrols yet?"

"Oh? Patrols? No, no. Paladin Xavier has me attached to his personal command. Can you believe that? I'm the envy of the other Knights. I guess marching over the mountains with a crazy scribe from California makes people respect you or something," he laughed, and then noticed her cross expression, "I'm just fuckin' with you, calm down. How about you?"

"The scribes are briefing me on the situation here. Apparently the mutants have conscripted a massive human army, and are set on besieging Spokane and forcing us out of the city so they can take it for their own," Veronica explained, regurgitating everything that Yeager had told her, "the Brotherhood's goal is to hold out as long as possible, but to not fall into a hopeless last stand."

"Good, because I'm tired of them," Albert chuckled, and then sat up on the bed. They stared at each other for some time, looking at each other in the eyes. He's like Kurt, but different. He's....he's human, and whatever Kurt was, certainly wasn't human, "is this everything you imagined it to be?"

"A technologically advanced Brotherhood, using advanced military equipment, fighting for the preservation of the life of wastelanders?" She smirked, "yes, yes it was, and more than you could imagine."

"Good, because I'm tired of being disappointed," he smirked, "besides all my bullshitting, I'm glad we came out here. I think...we may have found our place in the world. We can help these motherfuckers, help them turn back the tide. We can win this war, I know we can."

"I'm glad one of us believes it!" She laughed, and so did he. They fell back into silence, simply staring at each other, "anyway, I've got to get back to my room. Senior Scribe Yeager-"

"The hot redhead that looks like she could break my balls in her grip?" Albert interrupted, and Veronica almost blushed.

"Yes, that one," she composed herself, and continued on, "she gave me some data to study about the Unity attacks in recent months. Everything the Brotherhood knows about them is in this," she flashed the folder to him.

"Damn, well, let me know if you find out anything. I've got the Paladin's ear, so maybe we can seriously change things," he said as she rose to her feet and walked to the door, "have a good night, Veronica."

"You too," she said as she closed the door behind her, and went about five feet over to her room. Pushing it open, her thoughts were swirling about the Unity. There was so much to figure out, so much to think about. So much that she didn't know, that the Brotherhood didn't know. Where were they coming from? How are they able to convince humans to side with them? How many Super Mutants do they have? Where do they get their weapons? And, most importantly, who is the Master? She sighed as she laid the folder down on her desk, and walked over to her bed.

Only just gonna close my eyes, and then I'll read it... she thought to herself, as she fell into the bed - her uniform still on. She was out like a light, faster than even she anticipated, and she didn't awake until morning.
 
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February 23rd, 2283
The Skies over Spokane
The Northern Wastes

"Where'dja get these things, anyway?"

Albert sat in the transport compartment of a Brotherhood-marked UH-43 'Nakota,' a Pre-War attack/transport helicopter, flying at a relatively high altitude above the ruins of Spokane. Through the snowy wind, Albert could see the destruction that had been wrought upon the city. The bombs had not spared it, and he could see two massive craters - and the accompany flattened rubble piles - around the city. And the buildings that survived the bombardment had not faired well over the years, most of them rotting away and on the verge of collapse. In various sections of the city there were still buildings that, from the air, looked habitable, but he had been informed by the Paladin that in those places, most of the fighting took place. It was an urban warfare nightmare, but it was oddly comforting to the Wanderer. Reminds me of home.

"We found a stockpile of them at the old Naval Base in Seattle," Paladin Xavier explained as he shut the door to the outside, the cold air growing increasingly uncomfortable even if both of the men were wearing T-51b Power Armor, "it took the scribes nearly five years to figure out how to reverse engineer them, but we've been able to produce a limited amount from the factories still left intact in Seattle. We've been trying for years to get into Fort Lewis, which was an airbase south of the City, but the automated defenses have proved...challenging...and our attention has been drawn elsewhere. Perhaps, when we slaughter the Mutants once and for all, we can break in and see what secrets that old base contains."

"The Brotherhood back east had in their possession an airship, do you have any of those?" Albert asked, remembering the rotting hulk that they had found at Adams Air Force Base in the hangar, "they also had some Vertibirds as well, but they...uh...reappropriated them from the Enclave."

"Vertibirds? I haven't seen one of them in...by...I must have been a young squire then..." Xavier thought back, wistfully. Albert was confused for a moment, but them remembered that this whole Chapter had come from the Midwest. They had been fighting with the Enclave in Chicago for years. Maybe it was there, "but, no, we don't have either. We destroyed the Enclave's Vertibirds at the Great Lakes, and our airships were all lost when they crashed in St. Louis," the Paladin looked over to Albert, and grinned, "but that was before my time," the helicopter continued cruising over the City, but Albert had seen all he needed to see. Xavier insisted that Albert get a full view of the landscape, to better appreciate the position the Brotherhood was in. Urban close-quarters-combat against Super Mutants? My kind of town... "tell me, Knight, about our Eastern brothers. How have they fared in the Capital?"

"Until I showed up? Pretty damn bad," the two men laughed at the misfortune of Lyons' Chapter. They had well and truly been in stagnation, barely holding back the Mutant hordes. If it wasn't for me, the Enclave would've cleaned house... "but I don't know how they're doing now. They put the young Maxson in charge, the son of Jonathan Maxson, but they purged the lot of us - all the people that supported Lyons."

"A terrible tragedy," Xavier lamented, "the Maxson name carries great weight, and to hear that it has been sullied..." his voice trailed off. A true believer, huh? I can respect that, "...it makes me sick to my stomach."

"Ah, well, at least you guys are doing alright, yeah?" Albert tried to lighten the mood as he felt the helicopter shift back towards the airbase. He was impressed - to say the least - of the advancements the Washington Brotherhood had made. They had done things that they had heard the Midwestern Brotherhood had once been able to, draft in mass amounts of the locals into their army and get their loyalty, and things the Capital Brotherhood only dreamed of, building aircraft and manufacturing weapons. And this was just on the frontier! Imagine what Seattle is like! "We'll have the Mutants routing before long. And what's this about pirates in the North?"

"Those bastards," the Paladin swore, disgust on his face, "they've been a nuisance since we first arrived here. They used to rule all the way up that coast, from Juneau to Portland, ransacking and pillaging and raping and stealing. We managed to break their back in the south, cripple their ability to push south of Vancouver, but they've been growing restless. They've been striking fishermen more often these days. You'd have to talk to Paladin Harter more, he's the commander of our units up there. Perhaps, when we return to Seattle victorious, you'll get the chance."

"I'd like that, Paladin," he smirked, feeling a little warmth from the otherwise cold Paladin. They had spent the last few days together, mostly him briefing Albert on the situation in Spokane. But in those otherwise dry and boring briefings - fucking hate those so damn much. Just let me at 'em - he could feel the soul of Paladin Xavier. A passionate man, dedicated entirely to the Brotherhood ideal, frustrated constantly by the Mutants and the locals who did not see what the Brotherhood could bring them. He was a man with a purpose in life, which was more than Albert could say for himself. How long until I wander away from here? Walk away from all these people?

The helicopter ride continued in silence as Albert bounced around in his own mind, consumed by his plaugeish thoughts. Maybe walking away when things get hard is a family trait. Maybe I'm more like Dad than I'd like to admit. Just as when things became impossible in Vault 101, Dad left and went out into the Wasteland, he left the Capital when things got hard. All those people I left behind...Sydney, Sally, Moira...Amata... He cursed himself for even thinking of her name, knowing all too well the thoughts that would accompany it. God, if only I could see her again...feel her face...kiss those lips...hear her voice...But she had probably given him up for dead (Hah! Why wouldn't she, you dumb fool? You left, and never came back!) and moved on with her life. If she hadn't absorbed herself entirely in overseeing the Vault, supervising the settlement of Springvale and the expeditions outside, she probably married. At least Butch left the Capital before I did...why would I even think she'd get with him!? He swore at himself again, and sighed audibly. The Paladin looked over to the stewing Knight, and Albert could see Xavier weighing on whether or not to interrupt his thoughts.

He decided against it. Probably for the best.

He turned his thoughts to Veronica, that scribe girl from California. She had become his mind's stand-in for Amata, a point of obsession in his mind that bordered on fantasy. But what else can I do? I can't be alone...why did I even let Dogmeat run away? God...what's wrong with me? He remembered it well. When they were about to cross into the Rockies, ascend the first mountain passes, the dog stopped at the pass's entrance. He barked and barked for Albert's attention, and the Wanderer turned around to meet him.

"What's up, boy?" He knelt down, scratching the dog's chin, just as he liked it. In Dogmeat's eyes, he could see a glimmer of the intelligence that he had seen only occasionally before alight into a fire. There's something wrong here, boy...
"What's up with your dog?" Veronica asked behind him, but Albert paid her no mind. Dogmeat barked again and spun in a circle, and then nuzzled into Albert's hand as he met his chin, scratching it in his fashion. The dog turned his head around, and barked towards the east.
"Yeah, we have to leave, boy. There's nothing for us left back there."
The dog barked again, and then whimpered. That's not what he meant, Albert, you should know this by now.
"What? Do you want to go back east, Dogmeat?" The dog barked in response, and almost nodded. Jesus...am I losing my mind? No... "But, Dogmeat, you can't leave! What the hell am I gonna do without you?" The dog whimpered again, whining as he rested his head on Albert's thigh. His eyes met Albert's, mixed between sadness (can a dog feel this?) and an all-too-human look of resoluteness (a dog definitely can't feel this.) "Come on, boy, we've come this far..."
The dog barked again, and then whimpered. No, he wants to leave. It's time for him to leave.
"But..." Albert said, as he leaned down to Dogmeat, resting head upon head. He whispered his next words, making sure Veronica couldn't hear him, or see the tears forming in his eyes, "I need you, boy." But the dog whimpered again, with more intensity in his eyes. He had to leave. Whatever God that commanded him was telling him to, and nothing I could say could stop it, "I'm gonna miss you, Dogmeat..." the dog whimpered again, and then licked his face in a kiss. Albert kissed Dogmeat's snout and then stood back up, "go on, Dogmeat, make me fucking proud. If you don't find someone whose a certified badass, a gun-toting son of a bitch, I'm gonna come back east...and I'm gonna turn you into dog chow, you hear me?"
Dogmeat barked excitedly, and set off walking back in the direction that he came from. Albert stood there, watching his faithful canine walking back in the direction they had come from, watching as Dogmeat made his way back down the road. But, before he was out of sight, Dogmeat turned around and howled as loud as Albert had ever heard him do so, and then barked again, and continued on his way. A best friend's goodbye.

I wonder where he is now...Albert sighed, wishing that he could see his face again. Wishing he could just feel his fur. Hear his whine, or his powerful bark, he's a resourceful dog. He's probably back at the Capital by now. All I did was slow him down! Imagine if he could talk...what stories he could tell...I hope he's alright. Beneath all the doubt and uncertainty, Albert knew that Dogmeat was alright. He was a smart dog, smarter than most humans he had met, and he'd find his way to wherever he was going. Wherever he was going. Maybe that's why I liked that dog so much, and that's why he liked me. Because we're both wanderers, with no home, no connection. We just drift with the tide...blow with the wind...we're just two lost souls...God...I miss him so much...

Albert only came back to his senses when he felt the helicopter touch down on the landing pad in the airport. The Paladin slid open the door and the two walked out side-by-side, walking through the busy station and heading towards the jeep that they had taken from the main headquarters to here. As they headed towards the vehicle, the Paladin briefed him on their next move, "we'll be making an advance on the north of the city tomorrow. We'll need all of our forces on this, and I want you there with them. You'll be under the command of Senior Knight Alexander, he's a good man so I think you'll get along. He'll brief you more in the morning when we assemble the officers, but I have a special task in mind for you..." the Paladin said as they hopped into the jeep, and the driver started the engine - quickly stuffing the magazine he was reading into the glovebox and crushing out his cigarette "...I want you to take a recon team into the woods. Take your girlfriend with you, and I'll assign my best scouts with you as well. Alexander's forces are going to smash at the Unity, and I want you to follow them."

"Follow them?!" Albert stuttered as the jeep started driving out of the airport, following the flow of traffic of trucks and other jeeps, "I don't understand."

"You will tomorrow, I'll give you the full rundown them," Paladin Xavier replied, rubbing his chin with his gloved hand, "but I can tell you right now, if your mission succeeds, we can end this war by the end of the month."

Damn, way to kick up the heat and put the pressure on me. Oh, if you do this right, we'll stop a war and put an end to the greatest Super Mutant threat since Vault 87. And we're gonna do it before March. No biggie...
 
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February 24th, 2283
North of Spokane
The Northern Wastes

Hannibal brought down a sledgehammer, fashioned with barbed wire at its hammer end and electrified with a charge strapped to the end of the handle, on the unfortunate skull of a Brotherhood soldier. The Cohort of the Chosen Ones, as the Master had dubbed his unit of remaining Super Mutants, was not expecting resistance on their attempt to outflank the Brotherhood's positions in Spokane. Far from it, Hannibal had expected - and been told by the Master as much as well - that they would be walking out of their base at Mount Spokane and straight into the center city with ease. But on their way out of the woods, they encountered a vast network of trenches from the industrial park to their south, snaking up and going back down to the river. Erebus and his lackey Achlys have failed the Master again. I must fix their mistakes. Again. He had just sent word, telepathically, for the Master to bring up the reserves of the Gifted Ones, but he did not receive a reply. Only deafening silence, made ever more dreadful by the constant intrusions into the Super Mutant's mind.

"Let's go, brothers! To victory!" He bellowed over the chaos of the battle. The Cohort, seven-hundred strong, let out a bone-shaking roar as they charged forward, out of the snowy woods, falling upon the Brotherhood trenches. Hannibal was the first one in, with his brothers not far behind him. Fear gripped the Brotherhood troopers as the Super Mutant general, wearing a bear upon his head and the skulls of his enemies around his waist, struck them down with ease. He shrugged off the bullets, his superior genetics enhanced the FEV he was dipped in more than a century ago ensuring that he would overcome it, and continued his rampage down their line. As he cut his way through, he heard a radio buzz in a room adorned with maps and paperwork.

"-repeat. All units on the First Line, withdraw to the Second Defensive Line! They've breached the First Line!"

With a smug smile, he struck his hammer against the radio and shattered it into ten thousand sparking, hissing pieces. Wrapping his green arm against the frost-covered wooden supports, he pulled himself up out of the trench and turned to his brothers in the trenches, holding his blood-covered hammer high in his hand, "onward, brothers! We have caught them, and now they will suffer and die!"

The Cohort roared again as they rose from the trenches, following Hannibal into the snowy fray. A blizzard was beginning, Hannibal could see it in the winds and the clouds. All the better for us! The weakened humans cannot stand the cold, but we have no such quarrels! He thought with superior smugness as he reached the second trench line, machine guns ripping and blasting away at his brothers, the weaker among them falling to their deaths in the snow. Jumping in it as the first, he brought his hammer down upon the skull of another Brotherhood soldier, his brothers assailing in not far behind him. This fight was all the more tougher, and he could see, further down the line of the cannon-fodder troopers, the Power-Armored devils of the elite Knights.

And it set in fire an anger within the Super Mutant. A primal anger, that could remember back all the decades when a Power-Armored Vault Dweller entered into the Master's Cathedral and killed him, and destroyed the vats at Mariposa. His brothers jumped at him before he could reach them, pushing aside the weakly-armed and armored troopers with a brush of his arms, but they were too weak. They were crushed under a hail of laser fire, taking down two of them before they were slain. Hannibal, possessed with the fury of the ages, struck at the Power-Armored Soldiers, pushing into one so hard he fell into the others, knocking them all down. He brought his hammer down on the first, smashing his helmet in but failing to break it. He battered it until it finally broke, and then as he was about to smash it, he realized that it was pointless. The men could not stand, and their weapons knocked clear from their bodies. Instead of wasting his time with trying to kill them, he brought his hammer down upon their arms and legs, immobilizing them completely, before moving further down the line.

He found a similar room as the first trench line, surely a command post as the last one. Another radio chattered on, the voice on it growing more frantic.

"They're breaking through! We're getting reports that the Industrial Park is under attack from the Unity as well! Pull back to the Main Line! Pull back!"

"Hah! They run!" Hannibal laughed as he smashed this radio, just as the last. Victory was at hand. Soon, they would destroy the Brotherhood here, and claim the city for the Unity. They would take those worthy of fighting into the ranks of Erebus, and then push onward to Seattle. There, they would find Fort Lewis. The Master had fought all this way, so hard, and so many of his brothers had died, for the promises of Fort Lewis. Where the FEV is...where we will grow strong again...where we will right the wrongs. But a part of him couldn't help but feel doubt. The human side, which brought itself up in moments of self-doubt and consciousness. We will get to Fort Lewis, and find no FEV...and we will be weaker...and our race will die out...A part of him tried to smother this, to deny it in the face of the Master's all-too-real power, but another part - a part fighting viciously for independence - told him that it was the truth, and he was too stubborn to admit it. He knew it to be true, deep down, and both parts of his mind - the Super Mutant Hannibal, and the Human... - could agree on it, no matter how distasteful it might be to realize it. No matter how treasonous it was to deny the Master's infallibility. But we must win here...we must fight them, and kill them...

That, both parts of his mind, also agreed upon, for nothing more than sheer self-preservation.

His brothers had already begun climbing up over the trenches, and he could see them getting cut down in droves by automatic laser fire. Artillery shells blasted away at the no-man's-land between the two lines, and overhead he could hear the rotors of their helicopters, making attack runs on them, "brothers! Pick up their arms! Turn them against their previous masters!" He shouted as he laid his hammer down, and tore from the hands of a dead man his laser rifle, and aimed it downrange. His brothers were now opening fire on their attackers from a distance, laser shots being thrown from either side. Plasma grenades blasted in no-man's-land. Bullets flew freely in the air between the two trench lines. It was chaos, but the organized chaos of a battlefield. It was an artform that Hannibal could not only appreciate, but one that he could create, one that he could enjoy thoroughly. He lost himself in the madness of battle, blasting with his claimed rifle at the heads of the soldiers peeking out of their trenchline, as the bullets whizzed by him and the blasts of explosions rocked the ground.

Then his rifle ran dry, and with a grimace he threw it aside. And then he felt it. The piercing daggers into his mind. The intrusion of the Master. He tried to fight it, to ignore it. Not now! Not now! Not while I am leading! No! He fell back into the trench, holding his head with his massive green hands, trying to summon the willpower to fight the psychic intrusion. But every defense he erected in his mind, every wall he built in his consciousness, was torn down with the ease of the superior mind-bending powers of the Master, until he found his way into the chamber of his mind. There, the Master transmitted his orders...

Withdraw.

"What? We are so close! We have them on the run! I can see their fortress! No!" Hannibal protested. Victory was within his grasp. He could see it, almost taste it. No, this was impossible. The Master could not be telling them to run! But he felt daggers drive deep into his mind, more vicious and more painful than any he had experienced before. They were like real daggers, driving into his brain by the thousands. Punishment. Pain. He could feel, beyond all of the pain inflicted in him, the Master's emotions - for the first time. He could feel....anxiety....fear.

You walked into a trap. A distraction. Withdraw. Now!

"Impossible! We have them defeated!" Another round of mind-daggers shot into his brain, more painful than the last. But, also, through the pain he could feel them to be more frantic. More urgent. More fearful.

They are advancing on the Base! Withdraw!

"The Base!? How?!" The Super Mutant was speechless, unable to comprehend it. How could they have been thwarted? Unless they had been baited...and then the realization dawned on him. They had been spurned on by a patrol sent to the edge of the woods. The Master had sensed them, and sent the Cohort in after them, and then they pressed the attack towards the trenches...we've been had...we've been duped...his human side fought back against the Master and the Mutant Mind.

Pull back! We are in danger!

No daggers came this time, no psychic whippings to hide the Master's emotions. He could feel it now. Dread, anguish, and over it all a growing fear of the impending death. The fear of everything he had worked for, all the Unity had fought over the decades to accomplish, being torn down and burnt by the Brotherhood of Steel.

"Yes, Master," came the reply, not by the human side, but by the Mutant mind. He cleared his throat and shouted over the chaos, "gather, brothers! We must return to the Base! The enemy is striking at the Master!" He shouted, as he led his men in a retreat. But his human side yapped and gnawed at him, digging into his mind as vicious as the Master did. Run while you can. You will not survive the day if you return to the Base. You know this to be true....

But the Mutant mind merely silenced the human side with a vicious mental whipping. But, both sides could come to terms with it. Hannibal knew that if the Master was in danger, then whatever faced them ahead was going to be all the worse. But without the Master, without the Unity, we are nothing. We will either fight for it and see it victorious, or we will die trying.

And the human side did not argue. It could not. It fell back into silence, as Hannibal and the Cohort retreated into the snowy woods as the Blizzard began again, shrouding their retreat in the blowing winds of snow and ice.
 
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February 24th, 2283
North of Spokane
The Northern Wastes

"The survival of the Brotherhood of Steel and of the bastion of the human race that persists in this frozen wasteland hinges on your success or your failure today. If you succeed, you will forever cripple the Super Mutant Menace that wreaks havoc on the people here, and forever confounds us with their raids and their hit-and-run attacks. You will bring order and stability to this chaotic land, and you will live on as heroes forevermore. If you fail, there will not be a living soul left in Washington to speak ill of your name. We will drown in a mutated sea of cursed flesh, a tidal wave of delusion bred from a bygone age, and you will be the first of many casualties of this plague unleashed upon the world for a second time since the Bombs fell upon it. Ad victoriam, and may victory stay with us forever and ever."

The words of Senior Knight Alexander rung in Veronica's ears even now, as she and the rest of the Strike Team 'Rhombus' moved their way through the snow forests that led up to Mount Spokane. There, tucked somewhere hidden in the trees and the snow, was a Pre-War bunker complex, not quite a Vault but close enough to one, repurposed as the base of operations for the Mutant threat. And it would be there where they would strike the decapitating blow that would forever send the 'Unity' into the pages of history where it belonged. It'll be there, today, that we kill the Master once and for all, and finish the fight that the Vault Dweller started. Veronica found it hard to believe that she would be walking down the path of history for a second time in her life, and she wondered how Albert was fairing. Her eyes fell upon him, leading the ten-man team in a winterized T-51b suit of Power Armor. Raising his open palm up, he called for a halt in the line as he knelt down to check his Pip-Boy.

"Veronica!" He whisper-shouted over towards her, motioning for her to come up to him. She left her spot in the middle of the line and rushed through the snow to kneel beside him, "you think we're close? These are the coordinates that Alexander put in...but I don't see anything..." she looked down onto the frost covered screen and could make out their approximate position in relation to the objective. The map indicated that they were only a few meters away, but through the growing blizzard, it was hard to say what was in front of them at all. On the screen, he could see the thin line of dots, denoting the Strike Team, but as she moved away, she saw flashes around them on either side, "hold on, what's that?"

"A fucking ambush, that's what," he shouted out, unhooking a plasma grenade from his belt, "come get some, you fucking mutie sons of bitches!" Coordinating with his Pip-Boy, he threw the grenade into a concentration of the masses moving towards them, and through the frosty wind he saw the green flash of the plasma explosion illuminate the moving Super Mutants, dissolving the worst hit of them and wounding the rest. Veronica drew her rifle up and began firing into the haze, targets reduced to ash under the hail of laser arms fire that came from the Strike Team. Plasma and white phosphorous grenades exploded in the mist, burning their way through the advancing Super Mutants. She fired and fired, until her finger grew numb under the pressure, but they kept coming. She could see their figures moving in the flashing whiteness, illuminated by the beams from their rifles and their grenades and the burning wood from the explosions.

"Let's go! Let's go! We need to press on! Fuck 'em! They're trying to delay us!" Albert shouted, determination and defiance in his voice as he rallied the men forward, pressing into the thick blowing wind towards the objective. Veronica followed behind him, taking shots at the Super Mutants that dared to reveal themselves. Small arms fire began to lay over their position, but it was hopelessly inaccurate, the blizzard ensuring that any shots were lost in the haze of the white. Moving upward on a hill-line, the team came across a steel door, only lightly covered in frost, enclosed in an outcropping of concrete on the mountain side. This is it! It has to be! It's...it has to be... Albert looked back to her, and even though he was wearing a helmet, she was sure he was grinning like a madman, "let's kill this motherfucker!" He shouted, and then blasted the lock on the door. The hydraulics gave way and the door slid away to either side of the concrete, and he turned to the men, "let's finish this!"

The men had set up a defensive position and were firing at the approaching hordes. I've never seen so many in my life...is this what California was like a hundred years ago? Was it worse? As she cut down the Super Mutants with ease, slowing backing their way into the passageway created by Albert and covered by exploding grenades and hails of laser fire, she had a pang of consciousness. These...mutants...were humans once. They didn't ask for this...they were forced into it...brainwashed into obeying...killing them is a mercy. She resolved herself as the mutants grew closer and closer, "what the fuck are you doing? Trying to fucking die? Get inside! We'll get them in a killing field!" Albert cried out, and the Strike Team funneled into the mountain.

The passageway was dark, unlit, and damp from years of disuse. The Power-Armored soldiers, consisting of half of the team, flicked on their helmets bright lamps to illuminate the way for the Scribes, who were wearing the heavy-duty winter coats and helmets. The Mutants tried, in vain, to pour in to attack them, but succeeded in only blocking the entryway with their bodies and the remainder of their ash. The entire entrance was piled high with the green bodies of the dead Super Mutants, burn holes struck through them with precision, dead before they knew what hit them.

The Strike Team, with their only exit blocked off by the piled-high bodies of their enemies, had no choice but to press forward, Albert leading them with his rifle in hand and Veronica following closely behind him. The corridors were lined with concrete walls, piping going over their heads and leaking their rusty contents upon the team members heading down the halls. She could still feel the chill, but it was noticeably warmer in here. It has to have a central heating unit. And that means power. There has to be a generator room. "Keep your eyes open, I don't fucking like this..." Albert spoke, a little uncertainty in his voice, as they continued to head into the labyrinth. Veronica couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched, like there were eyes growing on the walls. Like they were following her, watching her in her own mind.

They reached the first door that spread off from the main corridor, and Albert and Veronica were the first to enter into it. Her nose was immediately overtaken with the smell of gore and blood, before they even entered. When Albert's headlamp illuminated the room, they saw a grizzly sight: A Super Mutant strapped to a stretcher, with wires and cables and IV Bags all around it, wounds showing the sights of first degree burns that consumed most of its body, its body also cut open as if an autopsy had been performed. All throughout the room was surgical supplies thrown in every direction, bloody bandages all around, smashed syringes, and the sights of a clear struggle. A terminal was sitting idly on a table beside the stretcher, and Veronica moved forward to look at it. It was open to a page, and she began to read it:

Welcome to ROBCO Industries (TM) Termlink
Medical Archive, Doctor Eupheme
For the glory of the Master and the Unity

Case File: Chosen One 'Samuel'

Chosen One, designation 'Samuel,' was brought into the Base at approximately 0455 on Thursday, February 22nd, in the 181st Year of the Unity. Suffered extensive white phosphorous burns from a Defiler attack in Spokane. Subject was conscious but not responding well to treatment until approximately 1341 the following day, when subject succumbed to its wounds. An autopsy was performed which showed that the internal organs had just about cooked under the heat, and that there was nothing we could do. The Appointed One arrived into office shortly thereafter, instructing my staff and I to begin to withdraw the remaining blood from the subject. When pressed on the issue, the Appointed One said that the Master wished to see if any FEV-2 had survived in replicatable quantities within the Chosen One.

I told him this was preposterous, and impossible, he insisted that it was the Master's orders. I am compelled to follow them, and will begin the procedure.

UPDATE: Hannibal, the Leader of the Chosen Ones, arrived in my office during the procedure and demanded to know why I was "desecrating his brother's body." I told him the Master ordered it. He grew angry and began to destroy my office, and then was summoned to the mustering deck by the Appointed One. When he returns, I will see about bringing with up with the Appointed One.

FILE LAST UPDATED: 24FEB83 at 0947

"They just left here," Veronica explained as she turned away from the terminal, unable to access any other other files without a passcode, "they're still here."

"They won't make it out of here alive, I'm gonna kill 'em all," Albert resolved as he led the team back out of the room. He doesn't mean that, does he? Veronica grew conflicted. On one hand, it was clear the Unity was a threat - the biggest threat Humanity had ever faced - but these humans they brainwashed to serve the mutants? They could be saved...they were misled...confused...brought up wrong...but she knew it was pointless to argue with Albert. They continued down the snaking corridors, finding more doors that were locked, and unable to be breached by the laser rifles, "we're being funneled somewhere. I can fucking feel it..." he whispered to Veronica, treading carefully as his boots slapped the metal ground, "...do you feel like you're being watched?"

"Ever since we got here," Veronica pursed her lips, uncomfortable that he was feeling the same thing she was, "do you think they feel it too?"

"Oh, I'm sure," Albert nodded, "but we ought to not say anything. Keep the morale up, you know?" He shrugged as they continued onward. They soon reached a fork in the tunnels, one side stretching out the left and the other to the right. Both looked completely the same, but split off irrevocably. Which way to the Master? How can we win this war? "Alright, should we flip a coin?"

As the words left Albert's mouth, Veronica felt her mind come under attack. What the hell is happening?! Her word began spinning, floating, turning bloodred in her vision as she let out a cry of anguish, falling to the ground and clutching her head. She could, vaguely, hear the others shouting and screaming as well, but her pain was too unbearable to even register it. To even notice it. It was as if someone had taken a flamethrower and set fire to her brain, and then began to stomp on it with spiked-sole boots. It's....it's....it's....

THE MASTER.

The thought flashed into her mind, a foreign intrusion that she could recognize through the growing pain and agony. It was not her that made the thought, but it was as if another consciousness was inhabiting her psyche, tearing it apart like a raider ransacking someone's home. She could feel...it...pouring through her brain, uncovering the deepest parts of her memory that she had locked away from even herself. She opened her eyes, and through the blood red cloudy vision, she could see faces in the walls. Faces of people she knew. Elijah...McNamara...Ramos...Christine...Kurt...around the instantly familiar ones were the faces of the Mojave Chapter, every single one of them as she knew them, their faces locked in a look of agony and shock.

"Veronica..." The voices cried out in unison, overwhelming her senses, "Veronica..."
"You're not real! You're not real! You're all dead! You're not real!" She cried out, frantically, banging her head against the concrete wall.
"Veronica..." Christine's face appeared before her on the concrete wall, and then an appendage formed. An arm. It reached out to her through the wall, "you must join us..."
"You're not here! You're not really here! You're...you're...the Master!"
"Veronica..." The voices shouted, now reaching a fever pitch as they seemed to chant it, "Veronica..."
"Get out of my head!"

She fell down to the metal ground, curling up in a ball and banging her head against the metal floor, trying to dislodge the psychic interference in vain. The last thing she could remember, before being totally overwhelmed by the psychic attack, was the feeling of being grabbed by a pair of massive hands by her arms, and being dragged down the corridors.
 
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February 25th, 2283
North of Spokane
The Northern Wastes

God damn it, my fucking head...where the fuck am I...?

Albert opened his eyes slowly as his senses returned to him, and immediately realized that most of his gear had been seized from him. His helmet was missing, his rifle gone, and all of his ammunition and sidearms as well. Looking around, he realized he was not in the same room that he had lost his senses in. This was a long and empty hallway, extending in both directions that looked like they curved around at both ends, with half-circle white walls with indentations where pipes ran through them. Florescent lights flickered overhead, unnerving him greatly. His head cried out in agony and pain, but he pushed through it as he stood up, gathering himself. Looks like those mutie bastards tried to take this off of me...he looked down to his dented power armor, seeing the tell-tale signs of someone who was too stupid to realize all they had to do was spin the wheel on his back to take it off having tried to - quite literally - rip it off of him.

Looking down the hall to his left, and then to his right, and then back to the left, Albert could feel the weight of the choice on him. Wish I had a fucking coin now....left or right? He raised his finger up, humming an old rhyme that never failed him, he shook it between the two paths until the rhyme ended, and he was pointing left. Well, the method never fails...shouldn't fail me now...he began walking down the hall, his metal boots clanging against the concrete floor. Every footstep echoed off of the walls and bounced around the halls, unnerving the Wanderer as he moved towards an uncertain destination.

And all the while, he could feel unseen eyes staring at him. As if in every crack of the walls there was something watching him, studying him, learning him. Albert clenched his fists with anxious energy as he continued onward, growing increasingly uncomfortable with every footstep. He could feel it growing now, the sensation of being watched - followed with eyes from the cracks. And then he felt it, as the hallway began to curve, an intrusion. The same kind of intrusion as before, but more powerful. He tried to fight it off, to center his mind on the task at hand, to try to lose the being in the depths of his brain, but every attempt failed. It's like I'm fifteen again, playing chess against Dad, beating me every time...why am I remembering that?

He could feel the entity - whatever it was - digging through his mind. Pulling it apart like a scavenger searching through filing cabinets, throwing the files of his memories to the winds as it poured through, looking for something. The concrete walls began to morph - like a chemical hallucination - into shapes and sizes and colors. It's like that crazy fucking Vault in DC...but no purple tint....goddamn it, get the fuck out of my head! The morphing fluid patterns, mixing like a mandala, began to take shape as he continued onward, fighting with every ounce of willpower to resist the psychic attack. But it was in vain - he knew it to be true - and the final defenses that his mind could muster were torn asunder, and the scene he had found so hard to stop finally took its complete form.

Vault 101...he looked around in the all-too-familiar metal corridors of his home. Looking down at himself, he was not wearing his Power Armor anymore, but a clean and pressed jumpsuit, with polished boots on his feet. The hallway stretched endlessly, devoid of life, with doors every few feet on either side. Albert approached the closest door to his left, with some degree of trepidation, and pressed the 'open' button on the control console beside it. The door slid upwards, opening to the Overseer's office. The great circular window was pitch black, as if nothing existed outside of the room. Dead monitors displayed only static behind the circular desk, where Amata Almodovar sat, looking as beauty as she always did in Albert's mind's eye. Defying all logic and reason, he was able to enter the room, and she rose to her feet to meet him.

"Why did you leave? Why did you leave me?" The specter demanded, replicating her voice as clear as day itself.

"I had no choice! What was I going to do? Let the Brotherhood kill you all looking for me?" Albert yelled back at the ghostly image, the phantom of Amata moving closer towards him, "what the fuck kind of game is this? You're not her! Get the fuck away from me!" He shouted and stepped backwards out of the room, just as Amata moved to touch him. He closed the door and, with haste, kept walking down the hall. He skipped by the doors, ignoring them and trying to put it all out of his mind. But it was impossible, and he knew it, try as hard as he might to keep the psychic attack at bay.

A door on his left opened without his prompting, and as he stopped to look inside of it, he saw the Citadel, with Sarah Lyons standing before the great metal gate that led inside to the Brotherhood's headquarters. He walked inside, and could smell the familiar scent of gunpowder and burning flesh of the Capital. Sarah was wearing blood-stained Power Armor, and he could see daggers protruding out of her back, and a defiant look in her eyes.

"Why weren't you there to stop this? Why didn't you help me?" She yelled at him, with the fury of ten thousand suns exploding in the night sky.

"You're not fucking real! None of this is fucking real! Get the fuck out of my head!" Albert screamed back, at the specter of Sarah, at the demon now infesting his brain. He stormed out of the room and continued down the hallway, hastening his pace. The scene began to change as he picked up into a full run, the once solid shapes of the Vault 101 hallways contorting into a psychedelic-like mass of colors and liquids, pouring in and around him. For a moment, reality seemed to shift back in, and he could see that he had now entered into a side hallway, leading down towards an open doorway with light pouring out of it. But just as quick as that moment came, it flew away from him. The hallway phased back into the hallucinations, taking the shape once more as Vault 101's hallways. There were no more doors now, but it was now thick with people.

People he knew. People he loved.

Amata...Dad...the Overseer...the Lyons'...everyone...and as he passed them, they all had something to say to the Wanderer...

"Your mother would be so disappointed in you..." Dad said, shaking his head in shame as Albert stormed past them.
"I hate you! You never loved me! You just left me!" Amata cried out as he pushed her aside into the arms of the Overseer.
"I always knew you'd come to no good in the end...if I had my way, we would've beat you into shape!" The Overseer shouted after him.
"You failed us when we needed you the most," Both the Elder and Sarah Lyons spoke in unison, their heads bowed low.
"Stupid punk! We shoulda kicked your ass more!" The Tunnel Snakes were leaning against the wall, laughing at him as he rushed towards the door at the end of the hall.
"You left us, and now we're fucked! Good goin', kid," Three Dog shook his head and spat towards Albert.
At the end of the hallway, just before the door, Dogmeat took up a fighting stance and growled at Albert, before being kicked aside by the Wanderer's boot.

Albert reached the door, pushing past the familiar faces of his past, and banged on the control console trying to open in. But it opened on its own, the scene suddenly flicking over to the final stand of the Enclave at Project Purity. There was Colonel Autumn, standing there as he did on that day, holding a knife right up to the Wanderer's chest.

"End of the line, kid."

Before the image could thrust the dagger, Albert knocked the knife clear out of Autumn's grasp and wrapped his hands around the Colonel's throat, throttling him to the ground. As the Enclave officer fell to the ground, struggling against the Wanderer, reality flickered back. He wasn't choking out the Colonel, but a robed woman, her eyes locked in terror as life slipped out of her, dead at Albert's hands. He rose to his feet, but before he could get a grasp of where he was at, the scene changed again. He was in Project Purity, with Colonel Autumn lying dead at his feet.

"What have you done!?" Amata shouted out, and rushed towards Albert with a knife. Without even thinking, Albert's reflexes kicked in and turned the situation around. With one swift move, he snatched the knife from her hands and thrust it into her throat.

Reality kicked back in. A robed man bled out, his last words nothing but bloody garbling, as Albert held the blood-stained knife in his hands. Turning his head, he saw that he was in some kind of circular room. There were computer terminals everywhere, maps on the walls, papers everywhere. Robed individuals cowered in fear behind their desks, but that was the least of his concern or attention. In the center of the room was a chair, on an elevated platform, and sitting in the center, with some kind of headgear with protruding wires and cables running every which way, was a rotting Ghoul, wearing a torn and tattered purple robe with gold lining. He could feel its eyes lock onto his own, and bombard the Wanderer with a renewed psychic attack. There would be no more games, no more hallucinations. The Master unleashed an atomic bomb of a psychic assault on the Wanderer's mind, bombs going off in his brain.

You will not destroy the Unity. The Unity cannot be destroyed.

A man's voice, snake-like and venomous, entered his mind. Suddenly images flashed into his head. A massive Cathedral exploding from a nuclear detonation. A man being thrown clear from the blast, his skin rotting off with every second as he watched a figure in Power Armor walk away from the blast radius. Pain. Agony. Anger. Rage.

"Get the fuck out of my head!" Albert roared, as he summoned up whatever willpower he still had left to step forward towards the chair. But with every step came a renewed bombardment, volleys of gunfire bursting his brain open like a watermelon being stepped on.

The work will go on. The Knights cannot stop the Unity. We will grind all who oppose us into the dust, and the world will finally see peace.

"Like fuckin' hell! I'll kill you myself!" Albert screamed back at the psychic intrusions, each assault worse than the last.

You are weak, and you will fail.

"Oh...y...yeah?" Albert clenched his teeth, holding the knife tight in his hands as he walked up the steps towards the chair, "fuck....ing.....try...me..." Every step was like stepping on lava, burning his body as he moved closer to the Master, but the Wanderer pushed through, his mind focusing intensely on the one goal to destroy the man in the chair - no matter the cost. He could see, from the sides of his vision, the cowering figures hiding in the corners, waiting to see the outcome of this titanic struggle. Between human will and....whatever the fuck you are...

Albert stepped up onto the platform and rose his knife up to the rotting ghoul. He felt as though a nuclear bomb went off inside his head, nearly wiping his mind in the process, but he fought onward. The pain grew unbearable, burning his mind and his body from the inside out, but he rose the knife up - slowly and agonizingly - and as he brought it close to the Master, he felt foreign emotions. Fear. Dread. Anguish. Desperation, "time to die, you mutant freak!"

No!

Albert brought the dagger into the Ghoul's neck, thrusting in and out furiously as the mutated and irradiated blood seeped out from the wound. He kept going. And going. Stabbing furiously and losing himself in the process. The face began to take ten thousand shapes in his mind, of every person he had ever known locked in a look of pure agony, until it finally settle don the true image: the rotting ghoul's face, contorted in its final look of utter fear in death. With the last stab, he fell to the floor, weakened and drained of all energy.

"This can't be happening! No!" He heard a woman shout out, "The Master is dead! The Appointed One is dead! What are we going to do?"

"Fuck this! I'm getting the fuck out of here!" A man retorted, and Albert heard the shuffling of feet as they ran out of the room, rushing towards an unseen exit. But he couldn't move, he could barely summon the strength to push himself up. His mind filtered in and out of a blank slate, and what little energy he had, he was trying to remember. I'm Albert Freeman, I'm from Vault 101, I'm with the Brotherhood of Steel, I love Amata....I'm Albert Freeman, I'm from Vault 101, I'm with the Brotherhood of Steel, I love Amata....I'm Albert Freeman...

He felt exhaustion come over him like a tidal wave, and just before weakness overtook him, he heard clanging metal boots rushing down the corridor. Power-Armored troopers wielding their rifles bursting into the room, led by a girl with the prettiest eyes he had ever seen...

"Get him, and let's get out of here! Now!" A man in the Power Armor shouted, "take the fucking suit off! We can salvage it later! We need to move!"
 
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March 14th, 2283
The Northern Wastes

HANNIBAL​
The Super Mutant walked alone through the snowy forest of the North, the cold wind striking against his exposed green skin. His body was filled with bandages, wrapped around hastily to repair the wounds he had sustained in the great fight against the Brotherhood of Steel, and he could feel the pain in his body. But on his face, his battered and green face underneath a bear's head, he bore a smile. A wide-tooth smile that betrayed the joy that he felt inside, feeling the emotion the first time since he had been dipped in the FEV Vats of the Master. His rifle, pilfered from one of his dead brothers, hung around his back, but he had no reason to draw it today - or anymore.

The Master was dead. And he was free.

When the Mutants finally breached and made their way inside the Base, they found the state that the Brotherhood had left it. They had butchered every single one of the Gifted Ones, and as they descended deeper towards the Master's Chamber, he saw it first. The corpse of the Master. It had been many years - decades, even - since he had seen his body. He had changed, his ghoulish condition had gotten worse. And he felt a twinge of sadness, having worked to hard to save him. And it was at that moment when the reality dawned upon Hannibal, free from the Master's mind games. Hannibal had found him, writhing in the ruins outside of the Cathedral's blast radius, raving about the Vault Dweller.

Was he ever truly the Master? Or was this all a charade?

He shook his head and tried to banish the thought. The young teenager he had found, half-dead from radiation, the flowers around his belt burned away from the heat on an atomic blast, could not have been the Master - even if Hannibal had never seen him before. He had seen the teenager before, but always dismissed him as another one of the Children's fools. Perhaps the Master hid in plain sight... but he shrugged his shoulders. When he returned to consciousness, halfway to Mariposa, the boy did not speak from his mouth - but from his mind. And thus he became more than the Master - he became the Mutant's Jailor. And there were times, many times on the way up North, that Hannibal wished he had left the boy to die in the Boneyard.

The past is the past...and with that, he pushed the thoughts of the Master away. There was no use anymore in speculating. Whatever the truth was, whoever the man who called himself the Master was, now lies dead in the center of a mountain. His army of Super Mutants routed, destroyed, and Hannibal the only survivor. The stronger of his brothers, infuriated by the sight, charged to their deaths at the hands of Brotherhood laser rifle. The weaker simply sat down and died, waiting for the Brotherhood to return to end their suffering. As far as he knew, he was the last of the Super Mutants. The final survivor of the Great Experiment of the Unity. He alone survived the destruction of the Cathedral, the loss of Mariposa, the furious hunting of the Desert Rangers and the Brotherhood Knights, and the final defeat of the Unity at Spokane.

He struggled onwards, as he felt his human side arising - no longer constrained by the traps and the threats of the Master. It pulled at him, reminding him of his unknown past. Hannibal saw flutters of half-remembered days in the snow, of a Vault somewhere in California, of a youth born in the Pre-War sun, of loving parents and a...wife? He saw visions of great and large Mutants - just as he was now - storming the Vault, and taking everyone. And transforming them into...what he was today...they destroyed you. Changed you. Ruined humanity...and the Mutant side found it hard to disagree. How much devastation they had wrought...how many people died for nothing...it was madness...if I never raise my rifle against another, I will die happy...

And so the Mutant marched north, into the uncertain stretches of the Broken Coast and beyond. To escape the shadow of the Master and the Unity, and everything his brothers had done in the name of the madness. To begin again.

VERONICA​
"Do you have the report on the Master's base yet, Junior Scribe?"

Veronica stood in Senior Scribe Yeager's office, holding a thick report she had typed up on everything the scribal teams had discovered in the vast computer networks and paper records of the base. She had not been able to join the teams - as she was now permanently assigned to Strike Team Rhombus - but had received every update, every communique, every treasure trove of loot recovered from the gigantic mountain complex. The information would take years to fully decode, to fully understand - the work of ten thousand scribes wouldn't be enough - but she had managed to digest most of it, pulling overnights and working long into the early morning hours, and condense it into a report that she could hand to her superior. The redheaded scribe sat behind her desk, an iron-like expression on her face, and Veronica almost hesitated to hand it to her.

"Here you go, ma'am," she placed the report on her desk, and then launched into an explanation of it all as the Senior Scribe began to flick through it, "we believe that this 'Master' has no relation to the original Master that the Vault Dweller destroyed in the 2160s, but the presence of Mariposa Super Mutants remains an unanswered question. There's no doubt that this Master, the Spokane Master, was a psyker with tremendous mental abilities. I...I saw...people I knew..." Veronica faltered as she remembered what happened before she blacked out in the base. She remembered reawakening, after tremendous pain, to find that she and the Strike Team had been moved to a separate part of the facility, stripped of their weapons. They fought off their captors, got their gear back, and then... "...and Albert...well...I'm sure you know by now, ma'am."

"Yes...yes..." she nodded, a frown forming on her face, "the scribes tell me it will be some time before he recovers."

"Anyway..." Veronica, trying to shift her mind to something else - anything else - began to talk more of the Unity, "we managed to recover most of their outpost locations, and Strike Teams have been successful in routing their human forces. Most of them are either in hiding underground, or on the run. Also, and this is mostly speculation, but we believe that all of the Mariposa Super Mutants have been destroyed. The final chapter of...such a dark age...has finally closed."

"Well, we'll have to see about that, I'm sure there were scribes when the Mariposa Base was destroyed who said much the same thing," Yeager laid the report down on her desk and folded her hands over it, "how are you feeling?"

"Uh?" She stammered, a little taken aback. Okay, breathe. Breathe... "I'm...I'm doing alright, I guess..."

"You've been working nonstop on this since you returned from the mission," the Scribe spoke, so matter-of-factly, so objectively, "I'm going to authorize some time off for you. If Paladin Brewster has an issue with it, you can have him take it up with me. Get some sleep, take a break, and come back to work on Monday ready to go, how does that sound?"

"Uh...th-thank you, ma'am!" Veronica replied, trying to hide a little bit of a schoolgirl giddiness in her voice. 'Oh, and, how about you join me, Senior Scribe!?' Get a grip of yourself, Veronica, "if you need anythi-"

"I won't," Yeager cut her off, and pointed towards the door, "get some rest."

Veronica bowed her head in a salute and left the room, wandering through the halls of the forward headquarters of the Brotherhood, debating on what she should do with her time. She could feel the weight of exhaustion lying heavy on her eyes and her shoulders. That report kicked the hell out of me! She wasn't even sure how much good it would do - since the Unity was all in rout anyway. But the Brotherhood had thought the same thing before, her mind protested, and maybe something worthwhile will be found in all of the records. Something that can help people out here, change things...she thought wistfully as she found herself inadvertently walking towards the infirmary.

And she stopped in her tracks at the hallway intersection, biting her lower lip. I don't know if I want to see him...she hadn't seen Albert since a few days after they brought him in, and it had reduced her to tears. He...he didn't...he didn't recognize me...she sighed. He kept thinking she was some girl, a girl that she had heard about before, in his many stories. If there's anything left...please...let it come back...she dreaded the thought of losing him too, as she had lost everyone else. I can't leave him...she resolved, after much internal pulling, and began to walk towards the infirmary, feeling her heart race at the very thought of it all.

ACHLYS​
Achlys laid in a ditch, feeling the pulsing pain in his abdomen, staring up at the bright-white clouds as they sent down their snowflake gifts upon the world. The surging agony that coursed through his body was nothing compared to the mental anguish, as his dying eyes watched the triumphant Brotherhood soldiers march down the ruined streets of the city he had tried to take. They had failed in their mission, and now his friends and comrades lie scattered around him - dead or dying - or had fled in the sight of total defeat. His eyes went down to his wound.

I'm going to die...was the only thing he could think, as he saw the great burn mark that had stripped away skin and scalded his internal organs. He felt the blood literally being pumped out of him, his vision growing fuzzy and his body becoming weaker by the minute. They had been so close to victory, so close to total triumph, and it had all been stolen away from them in a moment. The Knights turned against them with such fury, hell unleashed like never before. They never fought as hard as this...how could we have fought them? Fatigues and robes against combat armor and Power Armor. He shook his head as he felt the life beginning to fade from him.

Why did I ever join...? Why did I do this to myself? He sighed, wistfully remembering his family. He hoped that they could forgive him, that if there was a God besides the Master, He could forgive him too. Everything I did...for nothing...why did I believe it? But no answer came from the void, only deafening silence - with the exception of the jubilant cheering of the Brotherhood and their local soldiers, and the volleys of fire executing his captured brethren. He couldn't believe it. Everything he had ever known was falling apart around him.

He watched as a Brotherhood soldier marched up to the edge of his ditch, and looked down upon the wounded Achlys. He raised his arms up to try in vain to block whatever happened, but it was fruitless. He didn't feel the laser blast that disintegrated him, his ash mixing with the snow as it blew away into the daylight.

ALBERT​
April 22nd, 2278
I've decided to leave. I told Amata this morning. She took it...well...she didn't take it well. But I guess I should've expected that I don't know what I thought was going to happen. I guess I just wanted closure, to give her closure. She asked me to stay, practically begged me, but I don't think that would be right. Or safe. If they killed Sarah...if they killed the rest of the Pride...then what's a fucking Vault going to do? I can't stay here. Doctor Li has already left for the Commonwealth, taken that steamer that brought me to Point Lookout, but she told me the place is dangerous - too dangerous for someone like me. I don't know what the fuck that meant, but she left before I could figure out how to get there anyway. I know it's in Boston, but what's the point if I get there and the place is a fucking ruins?

I figure that I'm going to head West. I know it's delusional. I know it's foolish. I know I'll probably die, but I'm going to try to get to the other chapters of the Brotherhood. Maybe they can help me, or at the very least, I can find somewhere safe. I know that there was a chapter in Chicago fighting the Enclave, so I'll head there first. I already found a caravan company heading towards the Pitt, so I'll sign on with them and work as a guard to pay my way to the West. Maybe catch another caravan out there into the Ohio, and from there it shouldn't be too hard to get to Chicago.

If the Brotherhood isn't there, or if the Enclave won there...I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't want to think about it. I'll write more tomorrow. Stay safe, dude...
Yours truly,
You

Albert read from the journal entry on his Pip-Boy, lying in bed of a clinic, and silently thanked his younger self for bothering to write so much about himself. Damn fool doesn't know when to shut up, but I'm glad he didn't.

When he had awoken in the strange infirmary, he had no idea where he was. Only that he was Albert Freeman, and that he loved a girl named Amata. For the first two days of his time, he managed to confuse some girl...Veronica, that's her name...for Amata, but as he read the journals that he had written years back, the memory returned slowly. But it was still fragmentary, and it felt distant. Like another person had done everything he had did, walked across the Continent, restarted a Purifier, fought the Enclave...it seemed like a distant memory, like a half-forgotten movie. And he wondered how much had been truly forgotten, wiped away by whatever took his memory.

While some of it had returned in one way or another, either through the journals or a steady reintroduction into his atmosphere, he couldn't remember what had caused the memory loss to begin with. That whole day had been scrubbed from his brain, washed away completely by whatever stole the rest of his mind. Any time he tried to remember it all, he felt a searing pain in his head. The doctors told him that there'd be no way to retrieve it, they had no idea how to even do that, outside of some sort of extensive therapy - but they weren't skilled on that. They'd have to send him to Seattle - wherever that was - and have him dealt with there. A black guy with a gloved hand regularly paid visits to him, chatting about everything under the sun. His name was...what's his name...Xavier?! That's it!

Xavier had done a lot to recover some of the more recent memories, and managed to give him an update on the situation. Apparently, he was a Knight in the Brotherhood of Steel - he had a faint idea that he was part of the Brotherhood, but he wasn't sure until the Paladin confirmed it - and he had been tasked with a special mission to bring down someone called the Master. He got separated from the rest of his group, and managed to find the Master and kill him. Whatever happened in between him getting separated and being found by his team was lost, shrouded by whatever destroyed his memories.

Albert sighed and laid his arm across his bare chest, exhaling deeply as he stared up at the ceiling. Why can't I remember!? What happened there? He couldn't remember, and it made him increasingly angry - but he sighed again, knowing that there'd be no point. He had cried and cried about it, grew depressed over it, tried to find some way to recover it through trickery, but nothing worked. He'd have to stitch it back together with what little he had written down, and hoped more came back to him as time went on.

Veronica walked in through the door of the infirmary, wearing the robes that she had worn days before when she had come to see him - and left in tears when he could barely recognize her. She had become more familiar in his mind, as it settled back down from the chaotic height it was at when he first awoke. But she remained like the rest -a distant afterimage, a memory from another life that seemed to be not his own - and he eyed her with some degree of trepidation as she walked towards him, taking a seat silently beside him.

"Hey, Veronica..." he spoke first, after they sat in silence staring at each other for some time, "...how are you doing?"

"You remember me?!" She exclaimed, the weary exhaustion and dread in her eyes banished by the mere mention of her name, "I'm...I'm doing great, Al."

"Well...it's..." it's like I remember being another person, remembering you! "...it's still a bit fuzzy, but hopefully it'll all come back."

"I was..." She pursed her lips, and started to bite one of their nails nervously, "I was afraid you'd not remember me. Or remember anything. I...I don't know what I would've done without you."

"So...don't take this the wrong way..." Albert's eyes locked with hers, as he tried to fit another piece of the puzzle in place, "but what were we? Were we...like...together? Or what?"

"Oh..." Veronica's expression dropped, as if she had been gut-punched, "no. We...we were friends. You helped me come here, don't you remember?"

"No, not really..." he shook his head sorrowfully, then looked back up to her, "but maybe...you can help me..."
 
Okay I am impressed by all the effort you have put into it as well as you knowledge about America (I envy you for that).
But there already a couple of reasons why this doesn't work for me.

-I don't see the BOS and the Khans coming together though I admit you gave a good reason why they should.
-Personally not a big fan of the inclusion of Bethesda's Fallout 3 and 4 stuff but that is my own personal taste.

I do find it interesting that the Unity has become even more of a cult, having many human followers to supplement the hundreds or so Super Mutants who continue the movement.
I have not read the story completely (that would just take a lot of time) but I do hope that it is made clear that there is no more FEV, at least not in quantities found in laboratories and the Vats.
That Vault in the Capital Wasteland and the Institute making their own was purely a Bethesda creation. (and you now know how I feel about them).
 
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