I have to let anger fuel me. I have to let rage warm me.

I don't have enough of anything else left to keep me going. I recommit myself to the path of destroyer, for it is only from ashes that the phoenix may arise.

If it stands in my way, I will burn it down.

If it opposes me, I will steal its breath.

Cambridge is a dead town. Overrun by feral ghouls, it is what the world will look like if we, as a species, fail. For the most part, the only humans we found were dead raiders and a few dead settlers. Scattered throughout the square, it was obvious they were simply out numbered and overrun. Spent casings were all over the place, as well as the bodies of ferals. The damn things were all over the place. If you took one down from a distance, the sound of your weapon would bring out ones that were closer to you, crouched in buildings. This was learned the hard way when we spotted a couple just wandering the street as we entered town. They were about a block away, so I figured it would be a good chance to check the new toy. I put that beast to my shoulder, took aim, and opened the gates of hell. The roar of the round was deafening and made windows rattle nearby. It kicked like a mule and hurt like a bitch, but it also blew the ghoul in half. We didn't really have time to comment on it, though. Almost immediately after the shot, ghouls started to come out of the buildings on either side of us.

"Cain?" Heather was scanning the gathering crowd nervously. "Any suggestions?"

"Silenced or melee..." It was all I had. "We don't want to attract any more of their friends... Xao, use your..."

A gurgling sound made me look over my shoulder at Xao. I didn't need to tell him anything. He was already hacking at the ferals with the sword he picked up from Arturo. They seemed confused and not quite sure how to react to a ghoul hacking them to bits.

I emptied my pistol into them. It was, after all, silenced. Rather than reloading though, I pulled the combat knife and started slashing throats and stabbing eye sockets. After a few minutes, Heather and I got into a good system where she would punch one in the face and move forward, and I would follow-up just slashing their throats as I came to them. The three of us took down somewhere around a dozen and a half ferals in under 5 minutes. When I looked over at Xao, I saw him clean of his blade with a cloth scrap he had pulled off one of the ferals. He saw me looking, smiled and just shrugged his shoulders.

I looked around us. There were literally bodies stacked on bodies.

"What are you smiling about?" Heather laughed when she asked the question. "You look almost happy."

"The three of us make a hell of a team." It was the truth. We cut through 15 raiders at Parsons, killed our way to and from DC on a now regular basis, and just obliterated 18+ feral ghouls while hardly breaking a sweat.

"Yeah, we do." Now it was here turn to smile as she looked at Xao and then me. She paused and cocked her head. "Do you hear that?"

Xao and I stopped all motion and listened. It was the sound of laser fire.

"How did you hear that?" Time to goad a little. "What are you, part golden retriever?"

"Oh, fuck you.." She started to walk towards the laser fire. I saw Xao laugh as we fell in step behind her. The sounds grew louder as we walked. We started to see ferals coming out of buildings and heading towards the sound as well. Coming up from behind them, we took out another five or six ferals as we kept moving. We found a semi-barricaded compound with the word "Police" posted above the entrances. The sound was coming from within the walls.

"Last stand." I thought out loud. "Well, not today." I loaded the revolver and stepped into the compound.

Two wounded and a severely overwhelmed individual in power armor that was covered in blood. Though he seemed calm, it was an act. I saw his eyes. This was do or die. A second glance. One of the wounded was tending to the other one. Picking up his, no, her, laser pistol and firing it between applying a dressing and grabbing medic tools. Dedicated to her work under stress. I saw two ghouls coming at the PA wearer from behind and dusted them with the RSh, their heads literally blowing apart. Heather and Xao opened up, balls to the wall. I dropped three more and then went at them with the knife. I am getting to the point that I just didn't want to waste rounds on something as easy to kill as a feral ghoul.

I noticed the change in disposition of our host immediately, he was out of the crouch and using fire and maneuver tactics. Most likely military training of some kind was evident. he recognized the turning tide immediately and was no longer just buying time for his team mates, he was on the offensive again. Though he had no clue who we were, he recognized that reinforcements had just arrived. He looked straight at me, nodded and the two of us moved forward in tandem, I was clearing close quarter trash and he was starting to drop them as they entered through one of the openings in the barricade. Within 10 minutes the four of us had completely stopped the onslaught and there had to have been close to two dozen ferals dead at our feet.

"Thank you civilian. We are appreciative of your assistance. What is your purpose here?" Was he fucking serious? First of all, "civilian"? How a bout a big "Fuck you, buddy?" Second - our purpose? Appreciate? Who the fuck did this guy think he was? I was half tempted to yank him out of his power armor and beat the shit out of him. Appreciate. Fuck you. Those were my thoughts... I bit my tongue. I was struggling not to be sarcastic. I had to eyeball Heather and give her the stink eye to just not say anything for a moment.

"We were checking out the area for settlement suitability... I'd give it a "Not Suitable" on the checklist." Let's try for the humor angle.

"Agreed. The area is overrun with ferals and would not be a secure place to attempt to set up a settlement. Wise choice." Ok... humor failed. "Are you from a local settlement?" Ok... Enough.

"Before I answer any more of your questions, I think you need to answer a few of mine. After all, we changed the landscape from last stand to victory."

"Ad victorium." He had an odd smile when he repeated my last words back to me in Latin.

"Semper victorium." I responded. Always victory. I can play to... My wife was a lawyer - go for it.

His smile broadened even more at my recitation of Latin.

"Who are you and why are you here?" Something in him changed when the whole Latin thing went down. I glanced over at the other two members of his group. I noticed matching insignias on all three of them.

"Fair enough." He seemed to lower his guard a little. "I am Paladin Danse and these are the remaining members of my team - Knight Rhys and Scribe Haylen. We are a recon patrol with the Brotherhood of Steel."

"Fuck yeah!" Heather let it slip. I glared at her. She looked at the ground embarrassed. Danse raised an eyebrow at her response.

"Remaining members? How many did you start with?" Intel is intel, after all. It would help me assess their capabilities.

"We arrived with six, civilian. Will you answer my questions now?"

"We are out of a settlement called Diamond City. My name is Cain, that is Heather and that is Xao." I noticed Danse's attention on Xao for longer than I felt comfortable with. "Xao is a ghoul and a very old friend. He is at least as capable and loyal to me as any member of your team are to you." Bam - there it was. I could tell my directness caught him a little off guard. I pressed. "In plain English, he is my brother and if you harbor any thoughts of ill-will or harm towards him, it will end poorly for you."

"You misunderstand. It was curiosity that caused my gaze to linger. There is, well, a certain amount of prejudice towards ghouls where we come from. I have never actually met one that wasn't feral. They mainly keep to themselves."

"Fair enough." Door opened, entering it. "Where do you come from?" I saw a slight smile form when I asked the question, indicating that he dropped the bait for me.

"We hail from the Capital Wasteland."

"Capital Wasteland... There were survivors in Washington?" I hadn't even considered the possibility. I figured that the entire area had been glazed by bombs. I winced at my letting the name Washington slip my lips.

"Yes, enough to start rebuilding. We are headquartered there." He didn't catch on, and there was the shift again... I think it had to do with his rank and the fact that his team was watching his every move, much as Heather and Xao were watching mine. "Now, civilian, unless you plan on assisting us further, I will need to ask you to please leave our compound."

"Can I talk to you..." I motioned towards the barricade, "In private?"

"If necessary, yes."

"I feel it is necessary." I started to walk to the edge of the barricade. This "civilian" shit was stopping now. It was a military method of setting themselves apart and above non-military. He followed me to where I waited.

"Paladin Danse." It was time for a "come to Jesus" talk. "A few things that need to get straight between us right the fuck now." The look of surprise on his face was priceless. "You are military, I get that, but I don't give two shits. Number one - you are visitors here in the Commonwealth, tourists, and this is as much my compound as it is yours. Number two - My team has always consisted of three people which means I have a zero percent attrition rate and it also means that in your current state, you are nowhere near a match for us. That is not a threat, it is a statement of fact. Had we not arrived, you and your team would be either worse off or ghoul chow by now. Number three - you obviously have work to do and, by the looks of things could use a little help. Just fucking ask. Are we clear so far?"

"Yes, civilian." He looked a bit irritated. Ask me if I cared.

"Great. Last - Drop the "civilian" thing. I was a fucking soldier long before you were even a sparkle in you mother's eye. If you use it again in reference to me, I will shove that laser rifle of your so far up your ass that the next time you cough you will blow your balls off. My name is Cain. Are we still clear?" He looked as if I had just gut punched him. He was, however, smart enough to bite his tongue and acknowledge what I had said. "Now," I smiled at him and raised my voice so the 4 pairs of eyes focused on us could hear with their associated ears, "what was it we can help you with?"

We both turned and walked back to our people. I could tell he was seething, but I also knew part of that was because he knew I was right. What I said about his team was accurate. Overwhelmed and out gunned by the Commonwealth and her residents.

"Paladin Danse, sir, if I may?" Scribe Haylen spoke up. "Even though I am able to squeeze a little more power from the comms unit, we really need that deep range transmitter from ArcJet."

"That is our target, civ... Cain. We are going to need to locate and retrieve it if you are ready to give the Brotherhood a hand."

"Let's do it Paladin." I turned to Heather and Xao and told them that they were to stay and guard Rhys and Haylen because both were wounded and might need the assist. I also knew that if all three of us were going, Haylen and Rhys would be insistent to be taken a long as well, to at least make sure we didn't kill Danse and steal his power armor... as tempting as that was... "Lead the way." I could at least let him feel like he was actually in charge...

We walked in silence for a little until it was finally broken by a question from Danse.

"What should I call you? Just calling you Cain feels odd. Once you have been in the Brotherhood for a while all interactions are preceded by rank or position... If there isn't any, we default to civilian."

"Well.." oh why the hell not, no one had used my rank for over two hundred years... "Call me Colonel."

"Colonel? Like the old military rank?"

"Old military rank?" I started to chuckle. "Old military rank? Paladin, Knight, Scribe... Mother fucker, your shit is Medieval!"

He stopped in his tracks and turned to face me, helmet still off. I was moving my hand towards my gun when his face changed into something I had not expected... at all. He started to laugh... I big fucking hearty laugh.

"That is hilarious... I never even thought about it like that!" Paladin Danse has a sense of humor after all. "Thank you... I needed that." He sat down on a good sized boulder. "Can I be honest with you?"

"I insist, it'll help keep you alive."

"I haven't eaten or slept in about a week. Things went to shit almost as soon as we got here. First Knight Davies stepped on a damn landmine, which is something we hadn't even considered. Then, three days later, Knight Anderson had his throat torn out by a fucking bear... a bear! The last loss was Initiate Dowling... I am going to need to get his body down off the barricade for burial when we get back... If..." He stared off into the river. "I just haven't been able to... I need to get those two home... I give them credit... They are both still very mission centered, but all I can think about is getting them the hell out of here... getting them safe again. Have you ever lost anyone close, Colonel?"

I pulled out a flask of Bourbon from an interior pocket and took a drink, then handed it to Danse. He looked at me, shrugged, and took a hit, coughed, and took another.

I told him about some of my time in the army. I told him about Xao and how we met and what he did for me. I told him about Nora and Shaun. I told him about what I witnessed in the cryo-tube. When I finished talking, Danse was silent. He looked at me and took a deep drink on the flask. Danse was "lubricated" at the very least.

"Two hundred and 10 years... Fuck..." An hour ago, I didn't think he even knew the word "fuck." "Special Ops in China... I mean, who does that?! That takes balls, Colonel. The training involved... We've got some old pre-war manuals that we work out of.. There are even a few that Elder Maxxon uses to train his special projects people.. but damn... to actually experience what you have..."

"I never had much use for manuals... Hands on is what works best." The sun was starting on its westward journey... it was getting to be time to get this thing going. "Let's get moving Paladin.. Daylight is burning..."

"Agreed." Military bearing was coming back into the picture. Good. It meant Danse had discipline. "Colonel, what? Just Colonel? It seems inappropriate.."

"Lovecraft. Colonel Cain Lovecraft." Danse stopped moving and stared at me.

"Bullshit." There went the bearing... "Bullshit!"

"Excuse me? I am pretty damn sure I know who I am..." My turn to be off guard.

"The manuals that Elder Maxxon has.. the author was Colonel Cain Lovecraft."

"Bullshit.. I never wrote any manuals..." I was suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious and maybe even a little defensive. Was he mocking me?

"They were not originally manuals... They were found in what used to be the Pentagon in a well protected and hidden office in the subsurface areas. They were a series of situation reports received from Colonel Cain Lovecraft... Elder Maxxon had them bound into a book that he calls "The Operators Bible"."

"Bullshit... Anything I wrote was supposed to be destroyed after reading. I don't believe..."

"Mogui."

Well slap my face and call me Sally...

"So feared by the enemy that they named you "Devil"... I am hitting anything familiar?"

My turn to sit down.

"So vicious and brutal in his methodology that the Chinese had to hold lotteries to get officers to go into your area of operations because no one would ever volunteer."

"No shit?" I didn't know about that tidbit of info.

"It just dawned on me who Xao is as well... the scars on your face... Holy shit... You really are Colonel Lovecraft..."

"Well... yeah..." I pondered this new development. "I need you to sit on this as long as possible. Can you do that Paladin?"

"Yes, sir!" He snapped back.

"Oh for fuck sake..." I hated that shit. "Don't do that... Just call me Cain or Colonel... I don't want Haylen or Rhys to know anything for as long as possible."

"Roger that, Colonel." I handed him the flask again.

"Drink... relax... I am the same ornery son of a bitch I was before you knew who I was..." That seemed to relax him a bit.

We spent a few more minutes talking about nothing important and drinking Bourbon... Now this was going to be interesting. ArcJet was about an additional 40 minutes of walking and it went quickly. I could tell that we were both a bit tipsy when we got there. I let Danse brief me and told him that he was lead. He seemed to appreciate that for some reason.

The mission was a nice straight forward snatch and grab that was slowed down only minimally by the fact that the place was crawling with Gen1 synths. It was while clearing out the place that I found the first sticking point in the Brotherhood's ideology. They considered all synthetic life to be abominations. Well, I have worked pretty damn close with a couple of them now, and I would have to disagree, strongly. While there are bad ones and enslaved ones out there, I would say that the ones that I have met that were independent of the institute were just fine.

That is an issue that will be dealt with at a later time.

There was nothing remarkable about getting the transmitter. We took down a crap-load of synths and found it on one of their bodies. When we got back to the station, Danse did as I had requested and told Haylen and Rhys that I had helped and that we were to be made to feel welcome. Rhys bitched about it, but, in the end, gave a less than enthusiastic "Yes, sir." and wandered off to sulk. I let Danse know that we needed to be on the road at the crack of dawn to make a previous engagement, but that we would swing back by on the way back to DC to check on he and his crew. He seemed a little upset that we weren't sticking around, but I just assured him that he had not seen the last of us. We had a common enemy, and the enemy of my enemy is my friend, after all.

At least until I don't need them any more.