The skies of the Capital Wasteland echoed with the rumble of the twin-rotor craft, a silhouette against the dawning sun. The vertibird settled on a wide desolate plain strewn with debris and rubble, blasting dust in all directions while its cargo disembarked. After a minute, the large aircraft lifted back up into the air, circling the area twice before heading off back south. As the dust settled, the team of Brotherhood soldiers got their bearings.
"So, where are we going again?" asked Benny, eyes squinted against the sun while he brushed the dust off of his clothes.
Yuliya scoffed at the question, shaking her head while Anton unshouldered a sniper rifle and Gareth took a glancing look at the sun then pointed perpendicular to it, placing the sun on his right.
"Paradise Falls, to the north." he said.
Benny raised an eyebrow, looking unsure of himself all of a sudden.
"Isn't that-"
"The old slaver compound? Yeah it is." confirmed Gareth as he slid on his T-60 helmet.
There was several moments of silence before Juliya turned to him slowly, her face a jeering smirk.
"Are you afraid, Thornley?" she said, cocking her head slightly to the left.
The initiate fumbled and stammered, "what? N-no, of course not, just…" he sighed shakily, "uneasy."
Gareth took several heavy steps towards his friend and put a large mechanised hand on his shoulder.
"It's just a few raiders and synths, we'll be fine." said Gareth in a comforting tone.
Benny smiled a little and nodded. Gareth quickly looked around, casting his eyes in all directions. They were close to the edge of the city on the northern side of the Potomac river, the city extended for miles to the south while in all other directions the sights were the wasteland average; dusted and rocky lands covered with dead trees, irradiated water pools, rubble and scrap, with the long broken highways stretching across the skyline, elevated high above the barren world below. The knight looked forward to see that directly ahead, the highway had broken into several segments with whole swaths of concrete road hanging down by rusted steel cables. In the distance, past the highway and several demolished buildings, was a tall, painted statue in the likeness of a cartoon-like boy holding an ice cream.
"Anton," he called, pointing a finger towards the complex of buildings at the feet of the statue in the distance, "is that the place?"
Anton's eyes followed the direction of Gareth's finger, then he dropped to one knee and peered through the scope of his rifle. He stood back up and nodded.
Gareth looked to his new squad, each of them looking at him expectantly with Benny lighting a cigarette, Anton wiping his scope lens with a cloth and Yuliya quickly checking her hair, which was still a ponytail but now also shaved at the sides. He cleared his throat with a loud cough.
"Right then, so the target is several miles to the north and the order is to simply wipe everything out. Between here and the target is the highway and plenty of wasteland for something to go wrong, so I guess we should stick to a diamond formation and keep the chatter low."
"Is that an order or a suggestion, Gareth?" said Yuliya with a stone expression.
Gareth stared at her, suddenly feeling angry at the slight challenge.
"That's an order, initiate." he replied sternly.
"Move out."
Over the next hour, Gareth's squad traversed beneath the lumbering highway and across the wastes with a high degree of caution, eyes open for any possible threat. The small unit was passing by a small scrapyard and scaling a small rise when Yuliya raised a fist from the front of the formation. She held her fist up for several seconds, scanning ahead and quickly looking at the scrapyard to their left before signalling for everyone to get down. Yuliya looked back towards her team and made several other gestures, stretching a fisted hand at a seventy degree angle above her head before letting her expression drop to a dumb look while she spiralled a finger several times towards her head.
"What the fuck does that mean?" said Benny, casting a more than confused look at both Gareth and Anton.
Anton shrugged, "Beats me, my friend."
"What? You're her brother surely you know what-"
"Super mutants" interrupted Gareth.
Both Anton's and Benny's expressions turned serious and they readied their weapons. Gareth ordered Anton to find a place to shoot from while he and Benny moved around to the right to catch a better view of their foes. Yuliya turned back around and looked ahead. On the fractured road ahead of them were three very large men with sickly yellow-green skin, all hairless, standing at eight feet tall and far more bulky, muscular and brutish than any normal man. Any armour that the mutants wore was rusted pieces of scrap metal strapped to their bodies, leather and in some cases chains. The three before her carried makeshift weapons, two of them rifles made from piping and the other a large wooden board stamped with dozens of rusted nails. Yuliya watched as the super mutants roasted meat over a small campfire. Almost immediately, she caught sight of a small group of raiders running towards the super mutants from a distance. Yuliya looked behind her to see Anton, then to her right to spot Gareth and Benny. She whistled sharply and signalled once again for them to get down. Several cries and gunshots sounded as the raider gang attacked the super mutants by surprise. She observed with interest as a man and woman clad in rags, leather and scrap armour fired on the mutants while another ran forward with a lead pipe. The mutants tool several bullets and yelled in rage as they fired a hail of bullets back at them, taking no regard for their own safety. The raider with the lead pipe met the mutant with the nail board, which he quickly took into the side of his ribs as the mutant swung his weapon, knocking him several feet. The raider screamed in fear and then in pain as the super mutant walked over his body before ending his cries with a heavy stomp on the man's head, crushing his skull as if it were a grape and spewing blood and bone fragments across the road. Soon enough, the mutants returned to their campfire, dragging the three bodies with them. Yuliya stared in disgust as the mutants impaled one of the bodies on a spike which they stuck in the ground and then impaled the other two with thin metal poles before beginning to spit roast them, talking amongst themselves all the while. Yuliya trained her rifle on one of the super mutants, watching as they sat oblivious to their presence. Anton lay next to his sister and propped up his sniper rifle on his elbow by wrapping his around below it.
"I've got the one with the board." Yuliya said in a low voice. Anton shifted his rifle slightly, now aiming at a super mutant that was slowly turning the spit over the fire.
"If the other two aren't ready by now then they'll just have to watch…" said Anton, easing his breathing. He clicked off the safety and slowly calmed his mind. He took a slow, deep breath and exhaled just as slowly. He squeezed the trigger and the rifle kicked backwards, the blast kicking up dust as the bullet tore through the skull of a super mutant, ripping his head in half. Before the corpse could hit the ground, the mutant with the nail board was lit up by laser fire from both Yuliya and Benny, while the last super mutant took several hits from Gareth's gun. Within three seconds, three super mutants lay dead around the campfire, their corpses shredded and bloodied from gunfire.
Gareth approached the bodies, quickly inspecting each in turn to ensure that they were dead. Satisfied, he beckoned his team over so as to continue their mission. After the encounter, they moved towards Paradise Falls at a slower pace, maintaining a watchful eye on their surroundings at all times. Over the course of twenty minutes, Gareth's team made it through to the perimeter of the walled complex. Gareth looked with a keen eye at the set of buildings that surrounded the large statue of the boy holding an ice cream. The grey walls that surrounded the complex didn't appear to have any walkways for guard patrols or any other defenses as far as he could see. Slowly, Gareth and his team circled around the walls until they found an entrance in the western wall; a large set of double doors flanked by sandbags and cinderblock walls.
"There aren't any gate guards." stated Benny as his eyes flicked back and forth nervously.
"We should proceed with caution, my friend. They could be waiting for us inside." advised Anton.
Gareth nodded in acknowledgement, despite having already realising that possibility and moved out into the open in front of the gate. He walked forwards with heavy steps, his armour clanking and hydraulics working as his weight shifted continuously. The knight looked behind him to find his team sitting nervously behind the sandbags by the gate. He laughed at the sight and reached out to push open the large double doors. This was it, this was the point where he would truly test the limits of his armour. Gareth smiled as his confidence and faith in his suit grew. After taking a deep breath, he pushed the door wide open and entered with his laser rifle raised. Almost immediately, a torrent of bullets came at the knight. Gareth instinctively took a step back, but then stood his ground as the power armour bared the full force of the enemy. Gareth stood for a few seconds as bullet after bullet failed to harm him, looking at each of his foes individually. One of the raiders quickly fled from the steel terror then several others followed suit, disappearing into one of the buildings in the complex.
"Fight you fucking cowards! I'll kill you all for running!" roared one of the raiders, a large bearded man clad in thick scraps of iron plate.
Gareth finally took action and shot each of the raiders that hadn't fled, leaving the large man alive for the moment. As his comrades were shredded by Gareth's rifle, his face turned from chem fueled rage to a deathly fear. The man's eyes laid wide as he gazed upon the knight, eventually turning to run but stumbling as he did so, screaming. Gareth fired a quick shot at the man's leg, searing it clear off from his knee and sending the man flying forwards across the paved concrete. He approached the man as he cried in agony. The raider ceased his cries at his approach, instead shuffling away on his back as best he could.
"No no no, please don't kill me! Please don't-"
Gareth cut off the man's cries for mercy as planted a foot on his other leg, replacing them with ear splitting shrieks of excruciating agony. Gareth could feel his foot slowly sink down until his leg gave way, the bone and tissue being crushed as his foot struck concrete. The knight proceeded to plant the other foot onto the raider's stomach, the weight splitting into his gut, resulting in another incredible shriek of pain that was then cut off by the sickening sound of the man choking to death on his blood. After several seconds, the raider's limbs dropped, lifeless. Gareth came to his senses and removed his foot from the raider's stomach with a strong tug before wiping it against the floor. He turned see his team stood next to the gate.
"That was fucking awesome, man!" shouted Benny, blatantly awe-struck by the slaughter.
"It was both outright disgusting and foolhardy. This is NOT how a Brotherhood knight should act! Doing something like that again will get you killed, Gareth!" Yuliya spat and pushed past Benny, her eyes on Gareth like a hawk. Soon enough she stood just inches away from him, her face full of anger and disappointment.
"This sort of brutality is for the mutants and raiders, not the Brotherhood. We are above these scum, Gareth!" shouted Yuliya. She turned away and shook her head, "You're still just a child it seems. You don't deserve the rank of knight nor the right to lead!"
Gareth's heart weighed him down with feelings of guilt as he watched Yuliya storm out of Paradise Falls, pushing past Benny a second time. Gareth began to follow but held up his hand.
"Let her be for now, Gareth. Yuliya just...needs a little time to cool off in these situations," he walked past Gareth, patting his left pauldron as he did so, "she'll be back, don't worry."
Gareth looked at Benny who then approached him awkwardly.
"Look uh, let's just wrap this up and get out of here, yeah?" Benny said with a comforting smile.
"Yeah...sure." struggled Gareth, turning towards the other buildings. Paradise Falls appeared to be an old shopping strip, with two large buildings flanking the main road through, with a diner on the end of the road which housed the large ice cream boy statue. Gareth glanced to the building on the left and saw that the doors had been completely boarded over from the outside, leaving only the diner and building on the right to clear. Benny and Anton stood at either side of the double doors to the dilapidated structure while Gareth readied himself in the centre to open the doors and act as the shield of the team. He looked to each of his friends, who nodded in return. Reassured, Gareth kicked open the double doors and entered with his rifle raised yet again. As he charged in, he felt something strike him in the stomach and suddenly he couldn't move. The room they had entered was pitch black and now panic rose up in Gareth.
"Guys, my suit's locked!" he shouted into the darkness.
There was no answer.
"Benny? An-"
The knight was interrupted by the sudden turning on of all the lights, blinding him. As his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, Gareth began to see several raiders aiming improvised weapons directly at him. Gareth tried his utmost to move but the suit simply would not move. He was trapped.
"That was an impressive display out there, knight." said a calm and articulate voice to his left. A figure walked out from the edge of his sight to face him directly. The man was dark skinned, clean and his hair was cut very short. He was clad in a weathered black leather coat and he hid his eyes with a set of dark sunglasses. Of what Gareth could see of the man's face, he was totally expressionless.
"What have you done to me? Where are my friends?" demanded Gareth with a growl.
The man stared at him, making little movement.
"I have paralysed your suit by cutting the power from your fusion core. Your friends are still behind you, albeit unconscious." he said, his voice nearly monotonous.
Gareth continued to struggle inside his power armour, trapped.
"So who the hell are you anyway?" demanded Gareth.
"I am merely an associate to the organisation that ambushed your mentor," he pulled off Gareth's helmet, looking directly into his eyes.
"Your 'Sentinel' may remember me…"