Humanity used to simply be able to live, without a care in the world, with their plastic smiles and plastic foods but now... Now a new chapter in humanity's history had opened and the key word was 'Survival'. It was the survival of the strongest, the most perceptive, the fittest, the most charismatic, the smartest, the most agile and the luckiest. If you didn't have any of these traits after the bombs dropped on October 23, 2077 then you were a walking corpse. The radioactive wasteland that the three greatest powers left in the wake of their conflict was almost completly inhospitable at first, only a handfull of sparsely populated areas and heavily reinforced vaults managed to escape the wrath of the renowned ICBMs.

Many a tale could be told of the wasteland but which is the one being told right now ? The one of the Vault Dweller ? No ? Perhapse the one of the Chosen One or the Lone Wanderer ? Neither ? Maybe the courier or the Sole Survivor ? Still not ?

No, for none of these tales are intertwined not with themselves and not with this one. Because this may be the United States and it may take place in Boston but this is the tale of rebirth not destruction.

And it all started with a single person, but i need not describe him because that would just spoil the surprise wouldn't it ?

Chapter I- The Birth Of The Reaper

The wind was howling like a thousand wolves and the rain was coming down like a hail of bullets. A large groupement of buildings stood in the middle of the green wasteland, overgrown by vegetation,with many having completly colapsed. This was Concord, home to the Museum of Freedom which had not only a crashed vertibird on the roof but something much bigger aswell. The collapsed spire of the church next to it was resting precariously upon the metal flying machine, amost pushing it through the roof.

Despite the exterior of the buildings being covered in lichen and vines, some of the interiors were still mostly intact. It was inside one of these intact buildings, a bar, that sat a silhouette. The only sound was that of the rain, steadily hitting against the mossy roof and leaking through it onto the rubble covered floor which was also beginning to concede defeat to the ever spreading vegetation.

The figure was sat on a steel barstool, his long white lab coat hanging almost down to his feet. Said coat was almost unblemished save for damp patches on the man's shoulders where the rain had caught him out, peculiar as it was the owner's hair was almost whiter than his piece of clothing.

If you were standing behind the man you could just about make out his semi-automatic assault rifle, equipped with a silencer, which was lying against the hardwood bar counter next to his dark leather backpack. The man's hand reached up infront of him, his hand brushing against a quater empty whiskey bottle then grabbing a cracked glass full of the bitter drink.

- To good health and prosperity.

With that the man emptied the full glass of whiskey onto the floor and then proceeded to toss the glass at a wall. He spun around on his seat, grabbing the bottle of alcohol and carefully putting it away in his backpack. He proceeded to sling the leather sack onto his back and grabbed the rifle, doing the same as with his bag, the leather strap of the weapon digging slightly into his shoulder. His bright red eyes carefully scanned the room from behind a pair of slick glasses, his legs already moving him towards the broken door of the bar. A break in the rainfall encouraged him to step out of the building. He pulled out a foldable piece of paper from his spotless black jeans and with a few hand movements the simple piece of paper had been unfolded into a large map of the surrounding area.

- Mhh... The robotics disposal ground was interesting but pretty much everything was too heavy to carry or useless for now... I really need to set up a base camp in this 'commonwealth' if i'm going to keep scavenging here... Man the guy who drew this map had crappy handwritting... He said Covenant was the closest settlements that still had people around... I sup-

The man's monologue was cut off as the sound of something exploding resonated from not that far away. Looking at his map the white clad traveler guessed that it came from the Museum of Freedom, caution bred by a healthy distrust of most things led the man to approach the street, where he now heard gunshots coming from, with great care. As he crept towards his target he spotted a rickety ladder which led onto a tall roof, deciding it would be a good vantage point the curious man started climbing.

A scene which he was all too familiar with greeted his eyes, a handful of raiders were firing up at a balcony, their weak and unprecise makeshift weapons rebounding off of a metal table which was being used as cover by some poor sap. The explosion had probably been the raiders blowing the doors of the museum open with an improvised explosive devise. Meaning that the six raiders currently outside were not all there was.

- Today seems like a good day to die.

And with that the stranger laid himself down upon the roof, his peculiar black rifle's muzzle resting upon the concrete ridge of the roof. He breathed steadily and closed his left eye as he looked down the unfamiliar scope, it's red chevron hovering steadily above several heads before settling for the one which was furthest back, the one which wouldn't be noticed if he suddenly went 'missing'.

Preston Garvey was not having a good day, heck he hadn't had a good month, first the gunners at Quincy, then Jamaica Plain, after that were the ghouls of Lexington and now a group of goddamn raiders who for some reason really didn't want to let them live. Despite the seemingly desprate situation he cranked his laser musket as he was used to doing and blindly fired back, not daring to peak his head up to aim, doing so would be suicide as the large amount of bullets being shot were constant and deadly. The last minute man couldn't help thinking how wastefull they were being, using their amunition so liberally. Gradualy however he noticed he could hear less and less noise, meaning less bullets were being fired. Preston peaked over his makeshift defence and saw a single raider looking to his right where another was clutching onto his neck.

- WHAT THE F-

And with that the white haired man finished off the last of the six raiders, thanks to the constant shooting and his silencer they hadn't noticed he had been picking them off one by one until the very last second. Spotting the man they had been trying to kill look around in confusion, his savior stood up, rifle pointing to the sky and resting on his shoulder, his white coat flapping in the wind, a sudden crack of lightning in the cloudy sky only made him seem even more incredible. Preston was almost certain he was seing some sort of apparition, perhapse the grim reaper himself, thought that idea was swiftly dismissed. A second blinding lightning strike and the man was gone, as if he had disapeared into thin air, but the minute man quickly caught sight of him again, running towards the museum of freedom from a little ways down the street.

- There are more inside, make sure they haven't reached you yet !

Those were the only words the man spoke before raising his weapon and stepping into the building. The raiders were dotted around the area but they hadn't noticed him yet so he discreetly passed to the right where he spotted a doorway, they weren't shooting, instead one of the raiders was banging on a door, shouting loudly.

- I'm comin' in there and i'm gonna skin every last one of you !

That wasn't going to happen on his watch. As the conspicuous white clad man entered the museum's display room he spotted a raider, only a room away of him. Carefull not to knock over the many mannequins of colonial soldiers that were dotted around, he crept up behind the raider, ignoring the woman's incoherent mumblings in favor of placing a hand over her mouth and sliding a combat knife inbetween her ribs, straight into her heart. Not even a stimpack was going to stop that internal bleeding.

The building was completly falling appart, the floor and the levels above had collapsed down, creating a pathway into the basement, noting the precense of a fusion generator locked up behind a password protected terminal for later the stranger snuck his way to the second level. The collapsed second story floor forced the man through another side passage, hearing the distinct voices of two men talking together the stranger raised his weapon, ready to fire at a moment's notice.

Both men were conversing but one was looking towards his position, meaning the white haired man had to focus on a way to get past the pair without alerting the other three above. He waited a little bit, hiding behind a display case whilst pushing his body up against it so that the raider a few meters away from him wouldn't see his white lab coat. The silent assassin noticed an innocent looking piece of wood on the floor and decided it would serve as a usefull distraction. He tossed the wood to the left and up in an arc so as to stay out of the men's field of vision, it then fell down and the animalistic men reacted almost instantly out of honed beast like instincs.

- 'The fuck was that ?

Before the other raider could anwser his 'friend' both were lying on the cold floor with a bullet to the back of the head. Quiet as a mouse the invader continued his journey making it up some stairs, past a fridge and to a door. Just as he got to it however he heard someone talking.

- Hey ! Just me or is it too quiet out there ?

- Mhh ? Now that you mention it... What happened to our boys ?

And with that the white haired bringer of death burst down the door, using the sounds of their voices as a way of locating them, he fired off two bullets quicker than you could blink. The result being the two men lying dead on the ground. The infiltrator turned to finnish the last one but all the raider killer saw was one of his burlap hood wearing prey limping for his life, having jumped down two flights and likely broken his ankle.

- Fuck this ! I'm getting the boss !

Resting his weapon on his shoulder proudly, the stranger stepped over the corpses of the two men who had been closest to the door where he guessed that minute man was hiding.

Preston softly placed his ear against the door, he had wedged a chair against the handle but the raiders hadn't stopped banging on it... Until a few seconds ago when he head some peculiar sounds. Preston jumped back away from the door slightly, surprised at the rather polite knock that came from the other side. Cautiously opening the door, Preston gazed incredulously at the man infront of him. There the stranger stood in all his glory, two corpses lying behind him, a tiny splotch of blood on his white coat, likely not his own and a slight grin on his face.

-Well, 'you going to invite me in or are you going to let me catch a cold ?

-W-what ? I mean... Right... Come in...

As the Stranger stepped in Preston studied him carefully, purely out of habit. Apart from the peculiar looking rifle resting on his shoulder he was only armed with a combat knife which rested in it's sheath on the man's hip. He wore an unbuttoned white lab coat over the top of a black padded cotton long sleeved shirt, his legs were covered by what at first looked like simple black jeans but in reality they were also padded like the man's shirt. Almost everything about this stranger was mysterious, Preston had never seen half of this person's gear, including his peculiar black backpack.

-We don't have much time, one of the raiders got away and is probably going to bring backup.

The stanger's gaze scanned the room, not too surprised to see that it hadn't only been the minute man on his own. He spotted a man to his right, tapping away at a computer, an old woman sat on a sofa, another man sat on the floor next to a desk rocking back and forth with his head in hands and finaly a woman pacing back and forth, angrily muttering to herself.

The white haired stranger turned towards the minute man and scanned him from head to toe, he was wearing an old fashioned colonial duster atop simmilarly old fashioned clothing, old even for pre-war stuff. He also wore a peculiar fedora that had one side pinned up on his head and carried a modified laser musket in his hands. A few bags hung from a leather belt tied above his waist probably containing ammo and other necessities. However the thing that caught the silent assassin's eye the most was the long scar that ran from the top of his left ear down to the left side of his chin.

- So you're the only able-bodied fighter...

- I suppose so... I'm Preston Garvey, commonwealth's minutemen, i'm glad you came along when you did...

- Don't start thanking me yet, we're not done here...

- R-right. Well we might be able to get the upper hand on the raiders... Sturges ?

The man who so far had been frustratedly tapping away at an old terminal which had all kinds of diffrent wires sticking out of it, turned towards the pair. He must have been Sturges.

- Well mister silent badass, this may not be to your liking but there's a crashed vertibird up on the roof. Old school, pre-war. You must have seen it... Well looks like one of it's passengers left behind a seriously sweet goodie. We're talking a full suit of cherry, T-45 Power armor. Millitary issue.

- An intact Pre-war power armor... Neet... So i'm guessing you want to power it up and steamroll those raiders right ?

- Well there's that and the minigun which is stuck on the vertibird'll serve as a nice addition don't you think ? However...

- Go on.

- Well, the suit needs to be reactivated, it's totaly out of juice. Probably has been for a hundred years. Of course it can be powered up again but we're a bit stuck.

- You mean that juicy standardized fusion core locked up behind the security gate in the basement ?

- Yeah... Look, I fix stuff, I tinker but bypassing security ain't exactly my forte. I've been trying for the best part of twenty minutes and no dice.

- Well, it's a good job you got me... Garvey, you're going to have to hold off the raiders outside until i can get the suit started up...

Preston should have simply said no and that they could just wait around until he got the suit started up, it was unlikely those raiders would get to them straight away... Right ? But instead with the stranger's words his resolve hardened. His inner turmoil settled, his eyes went from the floor towards where the white haired man had been but he was already jogging away, weapon in hand. And so he shouted out with a slight smile.

- By the way what's you're name ? I'd like to know who's sending me to my death.

The silent assassin had just gone through the doorway to Preston's left when the other man's voice reached him so he stuck his head back out of the doorframe.

- Mhh ? Oh right terribly sorry, I'm Lloyd Ashfelt, An absolute pleasure to meet you !