A/N: Lord forgive me, for I have sinned. I couldn't wait anymore. I'll be updating this between wrapping up Rocket. Welcome to Settling the score! Where Preston Garvey is not one of the last surviving Minutemen out there after the Quincy massacre, he's fallen into a lifestyle more akin to a raider. We're going to casually follow the Minutemen quest outline and more than a few odd little sidequests the Sole Survivor would encounter. One or two companions too. Sole Survivor in this case being my main Survivor Althea Shapiro - the occasionally alcoholic, shotgun toting lawyer. Lets get right to it!
Chapter 1: Liberty or death.
Of all the ways Preston Garvey thought he would die - it wasn't this way. Trapped in the historical museum of Concord with just his old Laser Musket and facing down Jared's hunting party. The others with him were all dead - everyone except Sturges who glanced at him with a fearful look from behind their cover, willing him to have some sort of plan.
He did not.
Stupid, it was a stupid idea to come onto Jared's patch and it had gotten the others killed. Now it would get them killed too. Jared was touchy about his territory and there was no way that some ex-Minuteman raider was going to take an inch of it from him.
Maybe - maybe in some other dimension, Preston Garvey - Garv now, Garv was more of a raider name than Preston - and Sturges hadn't decided to go with Wire and they hadn't settled in Libertalia and maybe - just maybe he hadn't made all the stupid decisions that had led right here to this point - Like becoming something he hated to survive - like watching people tortured or killed for food, ammunition, medical supplies. Like turning his back on everything the Minutemen stood for then maybe if he hadn't, he wouldn't have ended up pinned into a room of the old Concord Museum of Freedom, waiting for death.
He'd have really liked his life to turn out differently but what could you do? Other than survive?
'Garv,' Sturges murmured, his voice was harsh 'What do we do?'
He honestly had no idea. They'd been taking pot-shots at the raiders still outside the museum, trying to thin the herd really, but Garv knew that some of them had branched off and were now making their way slowly up the floors towards the door they'd barricaded. Trapped up here, they didn't stand a chance.
He opened his mouth - but was cut off by a shot that was not aimed at them for once. It was aimed at a half-rusted car further up the road. By squinting, he could just barely see a blue-clad figure huddled behind the rusted metal.
Was that a person?
Concord was a compendium of ways to fuck up and die. Garv knew that. If he and Sturges were in a better situation, he'd have let the intruder take the brunt of the rival's attentions and shooting and slunk off with Sturges into the sunset - but with enemies in the museum itself - that wasn't about to happen.
'Hey! Hey a little help?' He called from the balcony. He could see Sturges giving him a look that clearly demanded to know what he was doing. No self-respecting wastelander would ever help a raider. They'd shoot them. But Garv was out of ideas and out of options at this point. 'There's a laser musket down there, help us! Please?'
He cringed. Asking for help was one thing, begging was something completely alien - but he really needed help, he didn't want to die here.
A dark-haired head appeared over the roof of the car, glanced up at him and then down at the battered doors. There were still three or so raiders between the stranger and the doors. If he were a betting man, he would have bet that she was calculating the most direct way to get to those doors without getting shot. He already knew her marksmanship was beyond subpar - her missed shots were what had alerted the party to her presence in the first place and that flash of bright blue and yellow was doing nothing for her stealth. It looked like something out of a vault.
Great - he had an intellect on his hands. They were doomed.
She surprised him on all accounts. There was a muffled shattering sound as a molotov bounced and then smashed on the tarmac of the road, scattering the three easily - but the molotov hadn't been aimed at any one of them - it seemed a distractionary tactic. From his vantage point, Garv watched the stranger inch her way around the rusted cars and sneak up behind an unwise raider that had stumbled back against a Corvette.
With one swift movement, she'd pulled the tiny pistol up, balanced on the roof of the car and blown his brains out before ducking down and using the debris for cover as the other two finally noticed their friend was down.
Maybe he wasn't completely screwed.
The second raider went down the same way as the first, which left the last one confused, angry and stumbling back towards the doors. The blue-clad figure moved carefully from behind the cars - the gun held in front of her warningly. She seemed to be trying to talk to the shirtless maniac.
'I don't want to kill you.'
'This ain't none of your concern! This is a territory dispute-' The raider spat back, all bravado. Garv noticed that his hand was straying for a blade strapped to his trousers.
'Seems like a little more than a dispute.' She replied. Though the tone was light-hearted and easygoing, he noticed that her gun never wavered. She didn't seem to notice his straying hand. He had his back to the balcony. Garv lined up the shot easily.
'If you know what's good for you - you'll-'
He didn't get much further than that before Garv put a round in the back of his head. The stranger looked up at the balcony sharply as the headless raider fell to the ground and he could see through the curtain of thick hair and blood splattered across her face that she did not look happy. Those blue/green eyes sparkled with a kind of anger he'd seen time and again - and, maybe if he survived this, hoped to see in various guises in the future. He didn't care she was angry at him, he'd done what he'd had to do. He'd done worse things for survival than put a raider down.
One less asshole shooting at him.
'I'd get in here if I were you!' He warned her. 'More'll be here any minute.'
She spent another second glaring at him before she accepted the wisdom of that and ran to the steps to scoop up something a little more powerful than the tiny 10mm she seemed to be carrying.
Garv released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding when he heard her kick the doors in, venting her frustrations. He caught the eye of Sturges who was staring at him again. 'What?' He demanded.
'You sure this is such a good idea?' The man asked.
'No.' Garv replied. 'But we don't have a lot of choices right now, if she can make it up to us, she could be useful.'
'If she's hostile?' Sturges asked.
'Then we'll put her down.'
