(AN: Okay, so after my rant about geography, I found out something rather unfortunate in my reading: the Museum of Freedom doesn't actually exist in our world...obviously. I mean, the church that you see in Concord could very well be the First or Holy Family Parish, but the main building where we meet our favorite Settlement monger is pure fiction. Worse still, the direction that I've got Nathan going on, based on real-life roads, doesn't terminate in a T-intersection, so I've had to move the Museum of Freedom to the intersection of Walden and Main to keep the general layout from the game still present.)

(As you may have noticed, I periodically use "atomic" as a replacer for "nuclear"; this is in keeping with the 50s "atomic scifi punk" aesthetic of the Fallout universe; but they're essentially the same thing.)

The Minutemen

The road from Red Rocket to Concord was decidedly shorter than Nathan had calculated. There wasn't any traffic on Monument Street, nor any other cockroaches, flies, or mole-rats of unusual size to encounter. But the silence wasn't any better than a horde of such monsters. For in the silence, it seemed that everyone or everything could be watching them. Nathan tried to tell himself that there couldn't be anything else out there: but then again, Codsworth had mentioned people, and he had encountered some rather bizarre creatures. His canine companion walked along at his side, wagging his tail and panting, as yet unaware of anything that might attack them.

By and by, the dilapidated shapes of buildings began to appear through the naked trees before them. Then a loud report sounded: people were shooting. He drew his pistol and the dog's fur bristled on alert. Before going in guns blazing, Nathan made his way towards a two-story house whose roof had been blown off. In its cover, he turned a knob on his Pip-Boy and found a menu entitled 'V.A.T.S. Settings'. At the top of the menu was the acronym fully spelled out: Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. Below were several options to adjust V.A.T.S. according to his liking. There was an option to show more information on targets, less information, to activate the Navigational System, and to reduce the volume of the alert noises for V.A.T.S. He turned the noise all the way down, then activated V.A.T.S. as he made his way down the street, following the sound of gunfire.

As he entered downtown Concord, Nathan's military training went back into play. True, it had been months - years, to be truthful - since he was in the Northern Theater for the liberation of Anchorage. But there had been several urban engagements, and he began assessing the downtown area as he went. The houses around here were in poor condition: roofs caved in, windows broken, doors hanging open or snapped in two. But so far, no sign of snipers on the upper levels. Just the same, he kept to the road, hiding behind the rusted remains of some old Corvegas as he made his way towards the tallest still standing building in the area. Behind him walked the dog, stiff and alert as he crept after him.

To his left he saw the spire of the Holy Family Parish, still standing with its white paint half-faded in spots. Nathan made his way into the chapel quickly; so far no one had fired on him from it, so he could use this to his advantage. As he entered the sanctuary, he thought about the irony of this church still intact after two hundred years. He paused for a moment and looked across the aisle of pews towards the alter: any gold or ornamentation of any possible value had long since been plundered, but he knew that usually a cross of some kind sat on the wall on the far side of these churches. Although raised a Christian, Nathan hadn't been quite as diligent with his religious duties upon coming to manhood: something always seemed to get in the way of things. Most people believed that, as advancements in the fields of science and technology were made, the old religious rites and traditions would be thrown to the wayside, completely abandoned.

They were wrong. Religious fervor increased in the United States Commonwealth up to those last few days before it all ended. Among the faithful, some people believed that the endless shortages of food and major resources, not to mention the constant warfare abroad and civil unrest at home, were sure-fire signs of Armageddon: the end of the world as foretold in the Bible. In some ways, they were right. Into Nathan's mind came the seeds of doubt: the bombs, Nora's murder, Shaun's kidnapping, where was God in all of this? Maybe it was just a matter of luck, blind chance, but for some reason, seeing the Holy Family Parish still standing amid all the other ruined buildings gave Nathan some kind of simple hope. Maybe, just maybe, He hadn't left after all.

Nathan said nothing, but turned left and made his way up the stairs to the top of the steeple. Once he gained the top, he had a look around. Up here he could see most of downtown Concord. Banners and streamers of red, white, and blue were still hanging from the buildings on either side of Main Street, directly southwest of the church: from there the sounds of gunfire were loudest. Looking around, he saw some five figures with guns shooting up at the Museum of Freedom at the intersection of Main Street and Walden. The museum itself seemed to be in bad shape, with a black Vertibird crashed on the ceiling, caving most of it in. Periodically, there would be a flash of red light followed by a low thwomp. Someone was inside the museum, outnumbered against the ones on the ground.

"Rough indeed," he whispered to the dog, waiting patiently for him on the landing at the top of the steeple. "What do you say, boy? Do you think we can take them?" The dog nodded his head.

Even with 60 shots, the little 10mm handgun didn't have the range to start shooting at the guys on the ground from up here: Nathan would have to surrender the high ground. Down the stairs he went, then out the church and across Monument Square to Main Street. Once he hit Main, he crouched low behind the parked cars to make sure he was unseen. Flitting between rusted wreck to rusted wreck wasn't very sporting, but he needed the cover in order to get the drop on the outnumbering assailants. The closer he came, the louder the sound of gunfire rang in the morning air.

As he came near, he saw five figures dressed in rags firing up at the Museum of Freedom at the intersection of Main and Walden Street. From the building, flashes of red light and deep thwomps were heard; someone with a laser weapon was firing back at those outside. The museum itself seemed to be in poor state: aside from the many bullet holes being peppered onto the front walls with each volley, a black Vertibird, a VTOL aircraft used during the Sino-American War, had crashed on the roof and caved it in. Nathan's heart quickened: was the military still around even after two centuries? Only they could own a Vertibird like that. Was a company down? He had to find out: if they were military, as he was certain they were, they could help him find Shaun.

He turned back to the ones attacking the Museum. Aside from their ragged clothing, they bore no distinctive uniforms or badges to tell who they were. They were making quite a bit of noise, however, and none of it sounded remotely like Chinese. Aiming his Pip-Boy at them from behind cover, the details he got were intriguing. Five humans, none of them farther than a hundred feet away. Above average levels of gamma radiation on their bodies and clothes. Taking out his pistol, Nathan lined up the sights with the green dot on his V.A.T.S. and opened fire. One of the assailants dropped dead.

"Shit! They're shooting at us from the street!" one of them shouted.

"Then keep your head down, dumbass!" came the retort from another one.

Nathan moved from his place of cover, took aim again, and took out one who was wearing a burlap sack on his head.

"Shit shit shit! They got reinforcements!" the first one returned, his voice full of fear.

"Relax, dipshit!" the one who had chided him first replied. "Ain't nobody coming for those assh..."

A bullet sank into his head and he collapsed.

"Fuck! I'm getting outta here!" the scared one exclaimed. "I'll call for back-up!"

"Sit your ass own! I'm finding this son of a bitch!" the other one shouted. He fired off a few rounds at the museum, then ducked behind a barrier of sandbags and started reloading. "Only a fucking coward hides! Come out and play, tough guy!"

"You first!" Nathan retorted.

"Oh, a wise-ass, uh?" returned the assailant. "Well, see how wise you are when I put a bullet in your head and fuck the hole!"

Nathan rose up to fire at the loud-mouth, but saw that he was still under cover. He went down just in time as a hail of bullets came over his head, rattling the car frame around him.

"Watch out, he's got a grenade!" a voice came from behind Nathan. Immediately he ran out of cover as a blast of heat exploded behind him.

"Hah! Found you! Eat lead, cock-su..."

There was a flash of red light, then the thwomp sound, and the assailant dropped to the pavement with a nasty burn mark on his bare chest. Nathan turned around and saw a slouch hat with the right side up peaking out from the balcony of the second story of the museum.

"Up here!" the voice called out. "I got a group of settlers in here, we're pinned down. Grab that laser musket; we could use the help!"

Nathan called after the voice, but the slouch hat vanished and several more thwomps were heard coming from inside the house. Nathan took a look up and down Main Street, and then down Walden; no one there save for the fifth assailant, who was too far away for his handgun. He then turned to the museum and saw, slouched against the open door, a man in a navy blue duster: the sidewalk and stairs leading up to the museum door were stained with his blood, recently shed. He was still clutching in his hands a strange weapon such as Nathan hadn't seen before. It looked as though someone had tried to make a weapon with only a laser rifle's receiver and whatever they had on-hand. Just above the stock was a hand-crank, which he assumed was used to give it juice since it didn't have its own power unit. Taking this and putting it in his duffle bag, Nathan also saw several yellow cylinders on the ground next to the dead man: he pocketed these, instantly recognizing them as fusion cells, and, stepping around the dead man, entered the Museum of Freedom.

Inside was a mess. Apart from the overall ceiling, a great portion of the second and first story floors had collapsed as well. Louder than outside came the shots inside, and voices hooting and hollering and shouting similar violent sexual threats as those outside had done: none of those voices belonged to the one who had saved him from the molotov cocktail outside. The main gate into the museum was locked, but to the right down the Exhibit Hall was open. With his pistol in hand, Nathan plugged one who went out to check on the commotion; this also wasn't the man who had rescued him, and he certainly wasn't military. Into the Exhibit Hall went Nathan, amid the still-playing pre-recorded sounds of the various exhibits. Men with exaggerated Irish accents exclaimed 'Take back your tea, you jack-o-napes!' and 'No taxation without representation!', hiding his footsteps from his foes. Inside the first exhibit room, the Boston Tea Party of 1773, were still-standing replicas of the HMS Dartsmouth with mannequins dressed haphazardly as 18th century colonials in Mohawk garb, the remnants of their barrels lying broken on the ground around them.

The next room was the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere of 1775 and the Battle of Lexington and Concord; tales which all the lads of Boston in the 2040s knew by heart. Mannequins of the British redcoats still stood at attention, though their opponents, the colonial militia and Revere himself, were missing: only the sounds playing over the speakers, including snippets of the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, could be heard. Just then Nathan halted as he saw someone coming into the '75 exhibit hall.

"I heard you take out Sniff, asshole," the man replied; not the one from the balcony. "You ain't getting past me."

'The British regulars are on the move! Rise up, good people of Lexington, the British are coming!'

The man let out a nervous cry and shot at the corner of the wall. Nathan took that as his cue and sent two shots into the man's chest: the first one took him down, but the second one was an empty click. He was out. Pausing by a redcoat mannequin, he opened his duffle bag and fished out some bullets for his 10mm. After he was fully loaded, Nathan took his duffle-bag back onto his shoulders, reloaded gun in hand, motioned for the dog to stay back, and left the 18th century.

Gunshots were coming from the main room as two of these ragged thugs were firing at a room on the far-side of the second story. A flash from the laser musket would appear, they'd take cover, and reload and shout threats at those in the other room.

"Once we get inside, we're gonna fucking murder every last one of you do-gooding shit-heads!"

The V.A.T.S. on Nathan's arm was beeping quietly as his wrist pointed to the stairs. One of the two men on the upper level was registering a rather significant limp on his right knee. Using the green dot to guide his aim, Nathan squeezed the trigger and let off a shot at the man's leg. He collapsed with a loud, pathetic whimper.

"My leg!"

"Walk it off, bitch!" the other one returned. "Once we're done, you can shoot up some Jet..."

But he never finished his sentence. Another bullet from Nathan's 10mm tore through his jaw and went straight up into his head. He fell from the second story all the way head-first onto the concrete floor of the basement. For the moment there was quiet, broken only by the sounds from the exhibits, still droning on endlessly. Nathan wondered if there was an atomic battery, a fusion core, somewhere around here, keeping the lights on and the sounds running. Across the broken floor Nathan picked his way, careful not to trip on the many cracked floor-boards. Behind him, the dog deftly leaped over the sharper pieces and on to firmer ground, then halted and looked up the stairs.

The stairs to the right split off in two directions; one of the two had collapsed, while the other wound around to an overhead walkway over which one of the Vertibird's engines was poking through the roof. Nathan didn't see anything up there, but heard sound coming from across the stairs and down the hall to another exhibit: the 20th century. As he was going there, his Pip-Boy was beeping; he had left V.A.T.S. on and it was shutting down. Nathan internally chided himself for not keeping track of his Pip-Boy and crept along in the direction of the sounds.

Just before him the 20th century exhibit opened up with a great mural of the American troops storming Omaha Beach at D-Day, June 6th 1944. Nathan halted. His great-great-grandfather Alan Hall Jr. had been part of the landing party in that particular engagement. The Hall family had a history of faithful service to their country: even if they hadn't seen a day of combat service, at least one member of every generation of Halls were in the US Armed Forces. To most people, even in 2077, this was ancient history, as the War of 1812, where the "Star-Spangled Banner" was written, was to "Big Al" in the 40s. But for Nathan, this was family history.

He heard the voices again. Two others were in this room, chatting in hushed, furtive voices; neither of them had been his rescuer either. Apparently there were others coming for them, even before that one outside got away. Things were about to get hairy soon. Nathan made his way to sneak around the corner and take them by surprise. Peering out from behind the wall that led to the U-shaped room of the Second World War, he caught a glimpse of the two; ragged, unhealthily thin, and covered in dirt and tattoos. He aimed for one...and winced when he heard a loud creak as the floorboard beneath his feet gave him away.

"What the fuck was that?" one of them asked.

"Come on out!" the other shouted. "We promise it'll be quick!" Him and his friend shared a sinister, knowing chuckle: it would be anything but quick, despite their word.

Nathan peered around again and fired at one of the men. A direct hit, but he ducked aside in time and the bullet grazed his shoulder.

"Ah, shit! That stings!"

"What am I, your mother? Stop bitching and kill hi...ah, fuck! My arm!" While the second one was bickering, Nathan shot him in the arm, causing him to drop the weapon he was carrying.

"Oh, what am I, your mother?" mocked the first one.

"Fuck you! All you got was a scratch!" The second one turned around just in time to get pistol-whipped in the face. The grazed one, still in better condition, reached for a baseball bat and took a swing at Nathan. He ducked in time and sent the oaken bat ringing against the wooden frame of the wall. Nathan butted his head with the butt of his gun, then gave him a straight-shot to the head.

Just then, from nearby, he heard the voice of the one who had rescued him calling for him and a contented yap from the dog. Nathan made his way there and came to a room on the second story of the museum, just above the main entrance. There were five people inside the room. An Asian couple were at one side, her standing with her arms crossed and a sour expression on her face, and him sitting down, head hung, and a look of defeat on his face. There was an old woman in a blue sweater jacket sitting on a couch, with some kind of light blue turban wrapped around her head: the dog had sat next to her, and she was gently petting his head. Nearby there was a man who resembled Nathan himself: dark hair, clean-shaven, rough calloused hands busy typing away at a computer terminal, wearing a set of denim overalls and a pair of welding goggles around his neck.

The fifth person was his rescuer: a young black man almost as tall as he was, wearing a beige duster coat, the slouch hat he had seen from the balcony, leather gloves, and an olive green scarf around his neck. In his hands was the same kind of makeshift laser weapon that Nathan had found on the steps of the museum. As Nathan walked in, he gave the newcomer a grim smile.

"Man, I don't know who you are, but your timing is impeccable," his rescuer replied. "Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen."

"Minutemen?" Nathan chuckled. "So now I'm traveling backwards in time?"

"'Protect the people at a minute's notice,'" replied Preston; there was something reassuringly sincere about his response. "That was the idea. Joined up, wanted to make a difference..." He sighed, and turned his head to his right: Nathan saw a scar running down the left side of his face. "...but things fell apart, and now it looks like I'm the last Minuteman left standing."

"And who are these people?" Nathan gestured.

"Just some folks looking for a new home, a fresh start," Preston answered. "I've been with 'em since Quincy. Lexington looked good for a while, but the ghouls drove us outta there." He sighed heavily, lowering his rifle. "A month ago there were twenty of us; yesterday there were eight. Now it's just us." He went around and introduced everyone in the room: the Asian couple were Jun and Marcy Long, Sturges was the fellow engineer, and the old woman Preston called Mama Murphy.

"Is the dog yours, Mama Murphy?" Nathan asked.

"No, Dogmeat is his own man," the old woman replied; her words were slow and drawn out, and there was something off-putting about her beady blue eyes. "He comes and goes wherever he wants. But he has a good nose about stuff like this; he brought us to you...just as I saw."

"You...saw?" Nathan asked.

"Don't listen to her!" Marcy interjected. "She's probably still baked out of her gourd."

"It's the Sight, kid!" the old woman replied. "I can see things; it's been that way ever since. And I saw your coming."

"You saw me?" Nathan asked incredulously. "Me especially?"

"Look, kid, it ain't always clear," Mama Murphy mumbled. "I saw...something coming, or someone."

"Probably just more Raiders, or ghouls!" Marcy snarled.

"What are ghouls?" Nathan asked.

"Irradiated humans," Preston interjected. "Poor folks who've had too much radiation but haven't had the good fortune to die. Most of them are no different than you and me: but some of them go feral, and they're very dangerous. They chased us out of Lexington."

"Wow," Nathan remarked. "Sorry to hear that. Must have been rough."

"Thanks, man," Preston replied. "It's...good to meet someone who really cares." There was something hopeful about the way he said those words. "Anyway, we came here, thinking it might be a safe place to settle: but those raiders proved us wrong. There's one other idea we have..."

"What is it?"

"Sturges, tell him."

The engineer turned around. "We heard them raiders talkin' 'bout bringin' reinforcements back here to polish us off. Lucky for us, there's a crashed Vertibird sittin' on top o'th'roof: old school, pre-war, you might'a seen it. Looks like one o'its passengers left behind a seriously sweet goodie: we're talkin' a full suit o'cherry T-45 Power Armor. Military issue."

Nathan's lips curled into a cocky grin. He had seen the work of T-45s firsthand during the liberation of Alaska: suits of armor that could rip the gun from a Chinese Chimera Tank and make numbers in manpower count for next to nothing. Even though they burned through their atomic fusion cores like a teenager through a cigarette carton, they turned the tide in favor of the USC.

"Now we're talkin'," Nathan said with a smile.

"Protection with the added bonus o' whoop-ass," Sturges replied. "Get the suit and you can rip the minigun off'the Vertibird: do that, and those raiders get an express ticket t'hell. Ya dig? Trouble is, it's outta juice: probably has been for a hundred years. It can be powered up again, but we're a bit stuck."

"What can I do to help?"

"If you've got a pre-war FC on hand, that'll do the trick," Preston said.

"FC?"

"A fusion core? Your high-grade, long-term, nuclear battery used by the military and some companies way back when. We know where to find one..."

"...but, trouble is, we can't get to the damn thing," Sturges interjected. "It's down in the basement, locked behind a security gate."

"Can't you get to it, though?" Nathan asked. "I saw you working on that terminal just a moment ago."

"Look, I fix stuff, I tinker," Sturges explained. "Bypassin' security ain't exactly my forte. You could give it a shot, though."

Nathan chuckled inside. What made this guy think some stranger could do what they couldn't? After all, he was more himself like Sturges here. Before entering the USC Military, Nathan had finished trade school as an engineer. The one in the family with the computer know-how was lying in a cryo-pod in Vault 111. Just the same, Nathan agreed to help them out: maybe it was the renewed hope of seeing other humans still alive, and more put-together than Codsworth had made him fear to believe. Maybe it was Sturges, the kindred spirit, or maybe it was Preston's sincerity.

With the dog named Dogmeat resting upstairs with Mama Murphy, Nathan went alone down into the basement. True enough, he found the power generator still running after all these years: the source of the lights and sounds in the exhibit rooms. The gate was locked tight, and he still hadn't found any bobby pins. To the right of the door was a security terminal, which he decided to access. From what little he knew about computers, he knew that most of them had a fail-safe to prevent hacking: a user was allowed four attempts to input the correct password before the terminal was reset for ten minutes. Looking around at the keyboard, he tried to notice anything that might help him with the password. There were no hints written down on the case for the screen, or the keyboard. The only thing that was anywhere remotely helpful was that certain keys, through overuse, had finger-smudges on them that centuries of dust couldn't erase. The keys with the clearest smudges, which Nathan guessed were used for inputting the password, were these: E-R-V-1-5-7.

But that was maddeningly unhelpful. Six characters could give any number of combinations, any one of them more absurd than the last. He tried 51E7RV: incorrect. Three more tries. REV517 and VER175 also proved to be incorrect: only one chance left. Nathan wracked his brains over and over to come up with some kind of combination for the password. Then, from upstairs, came the hint from the man himself on the exhibit speaker: 'Awake, men of Middlesex! The King's regulars are coming out!'

REVERE1775. Correct password. Nathan unlocked the door from the terminal, then opened the door up and approached the power generator. Warily he reached over and pulled out the fusion core: a small cylindrical thing, about the size of a can of food, but lead-lined to prevent radiation damage. He then made his way back up to the room where Preston and the others were, and they directed him to a door on the far side of the room that had stairway access to the roof.

On the roof, a chill wind blew Nathan's dark brown hair as he came upon the collapsed roof and the Vertibird in the middle. Sure enough, standing there was the T-45 Power Armor suit: Nathan grinned cockily as he saw it. The leg-plates seemed to have been damaged the most, and there was some wear and tear on the left arm, but the chest-piece and helmet were intact. Thankfully the hydraulics on the exo-skeleton were still functioning, which meant that it could still swing tank cannons like a baseball bat and drop from a hundred feet without damaging the passenger. On the back of the chest piece was a hole for the fusion core; Nathan shoved the atomic battery inside, a snug fit, then gave it one last push with his fist to get it connected. The onboard computer began beeping and whirring with power, and Nathan grabbed the wheel that sat over the fusion core and turned it roughly to the right. The back part of the chest piece opened up and allowed him to step inside the exo-skeleton. Once inside, the armor closed in around him.

"Nice!" Nathan smiled.

"Incoming!" came Preston's voice from below.

"They're inside!" came the voice of the raider who had gotten away, echoing from down the street. "They took out Phil, Sniff, and the others!"

"Light those fuckers up!"

But now Nathan was prepared for them. Awkwardly he moved forward and felt the heavy machine move according to his body. He walked over to the bay of the crashed Vertibird, whose doors had been permanently jammed open, and ripped the minigun from its swivel with the ease of tearing open a box of Sugar Bombs cereal. Now he turned his attention to those below: a group of these ragged-looking "raiders" were coming down Walden Street toward the museum. He aimed the minigun towards the street, squeezed the trigger, and waited as the barrels started to spin.

"Holy fucking shit!" one of the raiders cried out. "They got a fucking minigun!"

"Fuck that! I ain't dyin' for this shit!"

"Get back here or I'll fucking ra..."

At that moment, a hail of bullets rained down on Walden Street. Like cockroaches scurrying from the light, the raiders ran for cover behind cars, piles of rubble, and the walls and doors of the nearby buildings. Some made it, but others weren't quick enough and got a round of bullets in their legs, sending them down to the ground. They tried to crawl back into cover, or call out to their fellows for help; but these types were each man for themselves when the fight turned against them. Nathan brought the stream of bullets back around, picking off those who had been crippled in the initial sweep. The minigun's fail-safe clicked the trigger back into place, slowing down the barrels that were starting to glow red at the tips, acrid smoke pouring out of them.

"We're coming for you, asshole!" shouted one of the raiders from below, as the bullet barrage came to an end.

Nathan examined the minigun; half of the bullet belt was still available for the next round, and there were still two more belts in the massive ammo cartridge for more rounds. All it needed was some time to cool off. But now the raiders were entrenched in their hiding places, haphazardly aiming their weapons to fire from cover and expose themselves as little as possible. Nathan decided that, in order to reach them, it would be best to lose the height advantage and face them on the street. After all, the chest-piece was still intact and could take straight-shots from the .38 caliber weapons they were using. Heaving the hefty M134 with both of his hands, Nathan lumbered over to the edge of the museum, reminding himself over and over that all would be well, and leaped off the building.

He landed with a heavy crash; the hydraulic supports and concussion dampeners on the exo-skeleton prevented any damage of limbs or disorientation from hitting solid ground. Once he landed and the raiders got a good look at him: they knew it was all over.

"Holy shit! They've got Power Armor! Run for it!"

Nathan started up the firing mechanism and held on for dear life as another round of bullets sprayed out of the barrels. They never had a chance, but were cut down like grass before the lawnmower. There was a sudden tremor as Nathan was aiming for the last three running for their lives, and the gun went off-target. By the time the shaking stopped, the bullet belt was empty. Nathan unclipped it from the loader and fished into the ammo cartridge for the next belt. A few bullets came his way from the fleeing raiders, but they ricocheted off the armor's metal surface.

The tremor came again. A third time it rang, shaking the ground, and then a fourth time. Something was banging on something very hard and very loudly. Nathan's heart froze and his mouth went dry. He had seen cockroaches the size of cats, flies the size of watermelons, mole-rats the size of dogs, and heard of many other nasty things: but these were still of manageable sizes. What could be making such a racket that would shake the ground? He quickened his pace in clipping the bullet belt into the loader and gripping the handles of his minigun, when suddenly a large slab of dirt and asphalt came flying up out of the ground.

"Oh my god!" one of the raiders cried in abject horror.

Out of the ground came something unlike Nathan had ever imagined in his darkest nightmares. What it was or what it had been he could not rightly tell. It stood some nine feet tall, and was covered from head to tail in scales like an alligator. From the top of its shoulders down to its tail were many horned protrusions, like the two crowning its head, its mouth was full of pointed teeth, and its hands and feet were filled with sharp, curved, deadly claws that looked as though they could tear through the T-45's chest-plate like a can-opener. It let out a deadly roar as it charged towards the raiders. The nearest one was snatched up in one hand and bitten off from the right shoulder to just below the left breast in one swift bite, leaving his left arm to fall to the ground in a bloody mess. The furthest of the other two was already running for his life, not even bothering to shoot at the beast.

Nathan was squeezing the life out of the trigger as the monster now came for the third raider. With a swipe of its giant clawed hands, the raider went flying into a building and hit the brick wall with a sickening squelch as his skull shattered against the bricks. Now a hail of bullets came from the minigun directly at the monster; the beast's thick hide seemed to be keeping them out just fine, for not a single drop of blood was being shed, even though Nathan kept himself dead-locked onto the beast.

"Holy crap, a deathclaw!" Preston cried out.

From overhead, as Nathan poured round after round of 5mm bullets into the beast, flashes from Preston's laser musket lanced overhead. But the beast's scaly hide was as impervious to laser blasts as the T-45 was to the raiders' weapons. It was fast closing the distance between the two of them, and Nathan had to make a decision immediately or be ripped to shreds by the monster's claws. Too late! The monster took a swing at him with its massive clawed hand; Nathan held his left arm up instinctively, and the hand came down. There was a horrible rending sound of claws against steel, and Nathan gaped in horror as the metal plates on the left arm were being torn apart, revealing the exo-skeleton beneath. From above, Preston continued to fire at the beast, to little effect.

A stray blast struck the beast in the eye, and now its attention was turned toward the museum and away from Nathan. Pushing himself up onto his feet, and ignoring the scraps of steel shedding sparks and falling off his left arm, he heaved the minigun back up and took aim at the beast, who was now lumbering toward a Corvega. With both hands, it seized the rustling vehicle and was now attempting to lift it up. Nathan squeezed the trigger and held on for dear life as another round of bullets tore at the monster. So great was the recoil that his aim was being pushed steadily upward. A stray bullet penetrated the metal frame and pierced the lead-casing around the fusion-powered engine. There was a bright flash and a sudden burst of heat: the worst of it absorbed by the chest-piece of the Power Armor. In his shock and horror, Nathan released the trigger and covered his face with his hands.

The monster was stumbling back from the explosion. Nathan grit his teeth and squeezed the trigger again, unloading the rest of the bullet belt into the beast. It crouched as a shot struck its left leg, and then stumbled back as it took to all fours and received another blow through a weak-point in its armor around the right arm. Nathan's adrenaline was pumping and, fueled by that, did something he would never have done under normal circumstances. Striding toward the stumbling beast, he held the minigun inches away from its face, squeezed the trigger, and emptied the last of the belt into its face. At last the monster was stilled, unmoving.

Nathan was heaving from exhaustion. He let the minigun down, reached over across his back and pressed the manual release button; the back of the suit opened up and allowed him to step out. He was just Nathan Hall again. But his chest was still heaving in exhaustion. The bright flash from the Corvega's explosion had brought back horrifying memories of that final moment; the day humanity nearly destroyed itself. Though he hadn't been looking at the blast when it happened, the sudden flash of light, like the birth of a sun or the Second Coming, was seared into his memory. And then there was the monster, the thing Preston called a deathclaw: aptly named, if nothing else. He could feel his hands trembling as he leaned against the entrance to the museum and made his way back inside.

In the main room, on the lower level, sitting on some benches, standing on watch, or pacing the floor, were the folks from the second story. The old woman, Mama Murphy, had something in her hands that looked like a rescue inhaler; she held it up to her lips and pressed the top, then leaned back on the bench, her eyes rolling back into her skull. Preston shook his head, then turned to see Nathan arrive.

"Man, I'm glad you're on our side!" he exclaimed. "That was amazing!"

"I...I couldn't have done it without your help," Nathan stammered.

"That's what we do," Preston replied. "We help out our friends."

Nathan took a moment to catch his breath. "Are you guys gonna be okay?"

"For a while, anyway," Preston answered, resuming his stoic demeanor. "We can at least move someplace safe."

"Sanctuary..." muttered Mama Murphy beneath her breath.

"What's she saying?" Nathan asked.

"She's having another one of her stoned-out visions," Marcy chided bitterly from where she paced the floor.

"It's not the first time she's had this one in particular," Preston said. "When there were more of us, I asked around. They said that Sanctuary was some old neighborhood to the northwest. Maybe it's a new start for us."

"And you're trusting her...visions or whatever?" Nathan asked.

"Just what I said!" exclaimed Marcy.

"It's not like we're spoiled for options," Preston returned. His lips curled into a hopeful smile. "Why don't you come with us? You're pretty good in a fight. You might be able to help us out."

Nathan turned to Preston. He wondered if they would be able to help him find Shaun if he helped them back. It seemed absurd that five people - one of them clearly still shell-shocked, and the other too old to wield a gun - could be of any help to him. But they would likely know the area more than he did, and right now they were his only allies besides Codsworth.

"You know what? I'll help you get there," he replied.

"That's great news!" Preston grinned. "Maybe our luck is finally turning around." He turned to the others and told them to move out. Dogmeat was the first one onto his feet - or paws as the case may be - and cocked his head hopefully towards the right side, looking at Nathan. Jun was still shivering on the ground where he sat. It took Marcy's persistent nagging for him to finally get back up onto his feet. It took both Sturges and Preston to help Mama Murphy off of the couch. It began to dawn on Nathan that there had been something else inside that inhaler.

"Come on, ol' gal, up you get," Sturges said.

"You know you shouldn't take that junk," Preston told her. "It's killing you!"

"We're all dying, kid," she slurred. "Might as well...go out with a smile...and help others...wait! Wait!" She told them to stop as they passed Nathan. Her eyes opened up, blood-shot and drifting as if not focused on one thing in particular.

"I know your pain," she said to him. "But all's not lost. I can feel...your son's energy. He's alive!"

"What the hell?" Nathan exclaimed, his heart quickening and his throat tightening. Was Shaun alive?

"Don't listen to her," Marcy snapped. "She's stoned out of her gourd. She's just talking shit."

But Nathan was desperate. "Mama Murphy, what can you tell me? Where is he?"

"I...I don't know for sure," the old woman drawled. "But...I can feel his energy...his life force. He's out there...and even I don't need the Sight to tell you where you should start lookin'..." She lowered her voice to almost an awe-filled, barely audible whisper.

"The great green jewel of the Commonwealth. Diamond City. The biggest settlement around."

"Where's that?" Nathan asked. "I've never heard of it."

"Really?" Preston asked. "You've never heard of Diamond City?"

"It's...complicated," Nathan replied. "How do I get there?"

"Follow the road east until you reach Lexington, then turn south," Preston began. "Once you hit the river, just follow that east and you'll reach Diamond City soon enough. I gotta tell you, though, it's not easy. It's a half day's journey from here, and it's more dangerous now that the Minutemen are all but gone. Ferals will be the worst thing you'll encounter, but there'll likely be more raiders. I know you're tough, but they've got numbers on their hands. And don't take the overpasses either; that's Gunner territory."

"Gunners?"

"Mercenaries. They're organized, highly trained, and heavily armed. They make raiders look like a bunch of kids playing with sticks. Of course, there are other threats."

"What other threats?"

"Nothing as bad as a deathclaw, I hope," Preston said. "Rumor has it most of the big monsters are further south."

"Except this one."

"Our battle with the raiders must have driven it out of hiding somewhere. But there are other things that prowl around up here. Super mutants: green brutes as big as these deathclaws, but...well, a little bit smarter than animals. And they have guns too." He sighed. "Look, it's too late to go to Diamond City now. Close to midday: it'll be night before you get there. And once the sun goes down, things get even worse. If you'd like, you could follow us to Sanctuary; we don't have much, but we'll give you whatever we have to help you on your way."

Nathan nodded. "Sure."

(AN: I have so much to say about the lore of Fallout and how that relates to my writing process, but the author's notes feel like too little space for it. Hit me up in a PM if you want the full rant [and trust me, there's a lot to go through]. Some of the changes involve potential spoilers, so I won't delve into that either.)