League of Legends: FALLOUT

by FakeDaVinci

Three Wasteland Legends will meet each other, either by faith or destiny, and travel together on a new road to the unknown where they somehow end up in a new world within a new realm. The new world of RuneTerra. Its inhabitants will meet and learn from the three Wanderers about these famous words. War, War Never Changes.

3. Runeterra Awaits

Chapter 3 Runeterra Awaits

...

October 23, 2290

Adams Air Force Base, Washington D.C.

Two TSC Air officers were working inside the base's air traffic control tower occasionally checking their computers, radar screens, and communications to check on any scheduled flights of TSC Valkyries and TSC re-built jet planes, passenger planes, and cargo planes that are all powered by Zeta-fusion reactors. There were only a few of these planes built for air travel and commercial but they have helped to bring additional prestige to the United States after making agreements with the new rising nations around the continents of North and South America.

Right now the officers wanted the day off to celebrate the Great War Memorial, but the TSC Council and High Command wanted to make sure the security around the capital was tight and secured with no repeat of another Brotherhood assassination attempt on their Supreme Commander like what happened at Rivet City 12 years ago. As one of the officer got a fresh cup of coffee for himself and for the other, the computers and radar screens began to beep repeatedly signifying of two incoming Valkyrie aircrafts with one coming from the West and the other from the North.

The first officer already sitting next to the communication radio immediately responded, "Valkyrie V-21 and Valkyrie V-111, you are entering the TSC-secured airspace over Washington D.C. Please input your security codes."

"This is V-21, code Alpha-Harpy-2-1-7-8-0-4," replied the pilot of the Valkyrie coming from the West.

"This is V-111, code Delta-Griffin-3-5-0-4-6-1," replied the Valkyrie pilot coming in from the North.

The second officer scanning the Valkyries of their flight numbers checked their security codes and gave the first officer a thumbs up. "Codes received and match. Your both cleared to land in Adams Air Force Base," said the first officer.

…

The Valkyries designated V-21 and V-111 decreased their speeds and slowly flew towards their designated landing zones in Adams Air Force Base. The two Valkyries hovered over their landing zones and slowly descended as they released their landing gears to safely and gently land. The base members pushed two rolling stairways to each Valkyrie side doors that opened to reveal their passengers.

Mr. House and the Courier along with Rex, ED-E, and 4 Mk V Securitrons came out of Valkyrie V-21 while the Sole Survivor along with Shaun, Codsworth, Dogmeat, and 4 Blue Guards came out of Valkyrie V-111. Both groups walked down the stair ramps and then towards each other to greet each other.

"Mr. House, Commander West, it's great to see you two again," said Nate with a smile as he saluted Theo and shook Mr. House's hand.

"Yes, General O'Connor. It is indeed wonderful to see you, including your family as well," replied Mr. House with a respectful smile. Theo just returned Nate's salute and nodded at Shaun with a smile as his way of greeting. Shaun smiled and gave a small wave to Mr. House and Theo. Both Rex and Cooper barked as their way of saying hello while ED-E beeped his own way of greeting that made Shaun laugh at the floating eyebot.

A TSC Black Guard officer with a red beret walked towards them and stood at attention with a salute.

"Sirs. We have the convoy ready to take you to the Capitol Building for your scheduled meeting. Is there anything you need before we go?"

Nate saw Shaun had an excitement look on his face as the boy looked at the hangers, warehouses, and the runway filled with TSC M2 Mammoth tanks, M60 Patton tanks, M56 Chimera Tanks, M1126 Stryker APCs, M4 Bradley IFVs, Valkyries, Stingray Deluxe fighters, VB-02 Vertibird Gunships, UVB-04 Utility Vertibirds, Humvees, and M975 Utility Trucks that are lined up in order and are being maintained by TSC engineers. He knew his son is a fan of the TSC and Minutemen due to their heroic deeds in defeating Raiders and Slavers, slaying hostile Mutants, rescuing Settlers, and bringing civilization back to the Wasteland. Taking advantage of his position and influence, Nate decided to give his son a special fun time while he is with very important people.

"Yes, could you have some TSC Black Guards to watch over my son with my Blue Guards. I would like for you to give him a tour around the base before you take him to the Mall and drop him off. I plan to meet with him there after the meeting and the speech."

The Blackguard officer nodded and radioed two Blackguards to watch over the boy. Nate turned to look at his son.

"Shaun, since the meeting might take a long time and I know you will get bored easily I have arranged some guards to watch over you so that you can have some fun at the Mall. Codsworth will be with you as well. Also, you might find your girlfriend, Marie, with her friends having fun whom you can join with," said Nate with a smirk as he saw Shaun blushed with embarrassment.

"Daadd! She's just my friend! Besides we live in different cities and we are only able to talk to each other by e-mails and online chatting," protested Shaun as he glared at his father while hearing him chuckled.

"Alright, Shaun. You know I was just kidding. Just go and have fun. I will join with you soon. Codsworth, watch over my boy for me will you?"

The Mr. Handy saluted, "Don't worry, sir. I will make sure he has all the fun as I look after him."

Nate nodded before looking back at Shaun, "See you later, son. Have fun!"

"I will Dad!" shouted Shaun as he walked alongside the TSC Blackguard officer with two of the Blue Guards and two more Blackguards following behind along with Codsworth. Nate watched with a smile as the officer started to show one of the Mammoth tanks to Shaun as he looked at it with fascination with the officer explaining the vehicle's technology and campaign service.

Nate then frowned as he started to think of his son's future since he is aware that the boy that is supposed to be his son is not actually the real Shaun. The Shaun he is currently raising is a first Synth child created by the former Director of the Institute whom was a 60-year-old man known as Father. However, the man's real name is Shaun O'Connor and is the real son of Nate and Nora O'Connor.

What happened was that in 2227 the Institute had sent their mercenary, Kellogg, with two scientists to locate and enter Vault 111 to find a perfect, non-radiated human subject in one of the cryo-pods for their Third Generation Synth project by using the uncorrupted genetic material of that certain subject. Shaun was the chosen subject and he was still a baby cradled within his mother's arms while still frozen. Nate watched the entire scene when they unfroze the pods but kept them shut as they only opened Nora's pod. He watched with shock and rage as they forcibly took Shaun out of her arms after Kellogg shot her in the head for resisting to let go of the boy. As they left the Vault with his son, Kellog re-froze the pods again along with Nate until he was finally released 60 years later in the year 2287. After grieving over his wife's death, Nate left Vault 111 with a resolve to find his son.

After about a year of helping the people of the Commonwealth, rebuilding the Minutemen, and forming an alliance with the TSC, Nate was able to infiltrate the Institute by using a teleportation platform called the Molecular Relay. A rogue Institute scientist named Brian Vergil helped Nate to provide the blueprints for the Relay in exchange to bring back a serum to cure his FEV Super Mutant mutation from the Institute FEV Lab. With the assistants of Minuteman Engineer Sturges, Railroad Technician Tinker Tom, and TSC Engineer Ingram, they were able to construct the teleportation device for Nate to teleport into the Institute. Once he was inside the Institute, he thought he found his son when he saw an 11-year-old boy inside a glass room whom look just like Nate when he was young. But the truth came forward when the old man appeared, shut off the Synth Shaun by voice command, and introduced himself as "Father" and the Institute's Director while revealing himself as his real son. Nate never felt so shocked, angry, depressed, and heartbroken all at the same time in his life. Fate proved to be so cruel to Nate.

What was worse than meeting your 60-year-old son was that you have missed of being a part of your son's life in being a father. However, what happened next was the discovery that Shaun is nearing his deathbed due to cancer. This wasn't what Nate wanted and he was unprepared to let Shaun go since he just found him.

Although, with whatever time they had left Nate and Shaun manage to rebuild a little of their father and son relationship by bonding through conversations. Nate told Shaun about his pre-war life and Nora with Shaun telling Nate about his life in the Institute. Nate also showed the SPECIAL book to Shaun that he wanted to read to him while he was still a baby in which became a treasured artifact to Shaun. Eventually the time came on November 8, 2288 as Nate sat next to Shaun's bedside knowing his son was nearing his death. Before his death, Nate made a promise to Shaun that the Institute will be able to redeem their actions by being a part of the TSC's efforts to restore Earth's civilizations, pre-war vegetation, and the old wildlife. He claimed that the Institute can start their redemption by helping the people of the Commonwealth while under the protection of the Minutemen, the Railroad, and the TSC.

Shaun smiled at his father knowing that the Institute will be in safe hands and humanity's future is already secured. With his mind at ease, Shaun closed his eyes and drifted to sleep accepting his death. Once he saw his chest stopped moving, Nate cried over his son's body for hours before the Synths came in and place the body in a crafted coffin to be buried next his wife at a newly built Sanctuary Cemetery with a white wooden church.

Nate lost Shaun again and he knew he couldn't bring him back, not even time. But Shaun made sure to leave a parting gift for his father, the Synth boy named Shaun. Nate's son left a holotape explaining the reason he created a Synth replica of himself as a child in order for Nate to have a second chance in raising a child and becoming a father that he was supposed to be. Nate couldn't help but feel happy and honored for this one chance to be a father when he listened to Shaun's voice in the holotape. With his new resolve, he took the Synth Shaun back home to Sanctuary and began to raise him in their old home creating a new future for themselves.

As Nate was in his thoughts he felt a something grabbed onto his right shoulder. He turned to see Theo standing right next to him with his left hand on his shoulder.

"Thinking about your son's future, Nate?" Theo asked aware about the Synth boy and Nate's history.

Nate looked back at Shaun whom is now looking at one of the Valkyries excitedly with the Blackguard officer telling the boy of the space fighter's technology and history.

"Yeah, I worry about it. He is making friends at school in Concord, but I don't know how they will react when they learn he is a Synth. Plus, I don't know how he will be able to find love since Synths can't reproduce with ordinary humans and have children of their own," said Nate with worry and concern.

Nate always had a battle with his conscious whenever it concerns about his adopted Synth son. His own mind was filled with voices that keep telling him that the Synth Shaun is a not his real son, the Synth Shaun can't have any kids, the Synth Shaun would face prejudice eventually, and the Synth Shaun will soon experience depression and emotional suffering in the future. He didn't know what future would hold for Shaun and fears that the boy may have to face his own challenges to have the next generation of humans of Shaun's age to accept for who he is. Nate is also concerned for the still fear and prejudice of Synths among the Commonwealth society since the Institute had terrorized the people for decades by kidnapping and replacing the original person with a 3rd Gen Synth along with horrified events still remembered such as the Commonwealth Provisional Government Massacre and the Broken Mask Incident of 2229.

Although, the Railroad has helped to try to ease the prejudice and paranoia by having some of the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st Generation Synths live among some of the settlements outside of Boston, including Sanctuary, to interact and communicate with the settlers to gain trust peacefully and learn to co-exist. So far the progress has shown signs of successful results in a slow pace with some forming friendships or in rare occasions a loving relationship that may lead to marriage.

The TSC has helped the Railroad with this strategy for the people of the Commonwealth to co-exist with the new race of sentient humanoid robots since they recognize the Synths as equals among humankind. Plus, the TSC saw the Synths as an opportunity as extra help to increase the speed pace of rebuilding the pre-war cities, increase American citizen population, and gaining the technology to build and recruit the 1st and 2nd Generation Synths into their Armed Forces while the 3rd Generations are granted the freewill to join or decline.

There have been occasions of violent gangs or hate groups whom have a hard grudge on the Synths that they resort to mass murder, rape, and torture the 3rd Generation Synths that the TSC, Minutemen, and the Railroad had to place armed guards to protect the Synths while their soldiers tracked and put down the Anti-Synth extremists. But for now, the Synths have been accepted by about 75% of the Commonwealth citizens while the rest of the U.S. welcomed the Synths into their towns and cities since they have no bad history with the Synths to fear or prejudice them.

As for Nate, he can only hope that he and Shaun can stand together, along with Codsworth and Dogmeat, to face any challenges in the future that might affect Shaun's right to exist as a Synth among the humans. Nate knows he has friends to back him up such as Piper Wright, Preston Garvey, Curie, Strong, Deacon, John Hancock, Cait, Colonel Danse, Robert Joseph MacCready, and Nick Valentine. He could also count on Dante Abram and Theo West to stand by his side to support him when that time comes. Just as they say, "True friends stick together".

"Don't worry Nate. You and Shaun are strong. If you can take on whatever the Wasteland threw at you, then facing against prejudice should be simple. Besides you are the famous Sole Survivor and the General of the Minutemen. No one in the Commonwealth would dare make trouble with your boy since you claim he is your son no matter what. And if there is any trouble, you can count on me and Dante to back you up, including Mr. House," said Theo with confidence and spirit in his eyes.

Nate smiled knowing he is right. He sighed as he took one last look at Shaun before he turned around.

"Alright, we wasted enough time. Let's go on and head for the meeting," he said with his mind cleared.

Both Theo and Mr. House nodded as they walked alongside Nate with their respective guards towards the awaiting convoy near the runway. This convoy consisted of two D.C. Police motorcycles in the front, a TSC Bradley IFV filled with TSC Marines in the second front, a modified pre-war limousine in the middle with small U.S. flags above the front wheels, a TSC Stryker APC in the rear filled with TSC Hammerhead and X-01 power armored troops, and finally two more D.C. Police motorcycles to guard the convoy's rear behind the Stryker.

Once the VIPs entered the vehicle including the Blue Guards and the Securitrons took their positions on each side of the limo, the convoy began to move out of the base and head towards the capital city of the United States.

...

The ride was smooth as the police motorcycles kept their sirens on to notify all citizens on sidewalks to stay clear of the convoy. The convoy was taking a planned route that is cleared from any traffics of brahmin caravans and civilian vehicles due to planned road blocks by the TSC and police to redirect all civilian traffic away from the convoy's route. Even some nearby TSC Vertibirds and Valkyries are patrolling the skies while keeping an eye on the convoy to ensure its safe travel. The planned route was to enter the rebuilt I-495 that surrounds the city of D.C., head east on the highway, enter the rebuilt I-295 and travel north, travel across the John Phillip Sousa Bridge over the Anacostia River, and enter the Pennsylvania Ave in which will take them directly towards Capitol Hill.

As the convoy entered the city, Theo looked out the window to see many people on the sidewalks waving and cheering at them. He looked up to see many TSC Marines, Razorback soldiers, and Erebus Stealth Snipers overwatching on the rooftops showing the tight security in the city.

"The TSC really want to make sure that their leaders are safe during this holiday. Can't blame them since their war with the Brotherhood Iron Chapter has almost cost them their Supreme Commander before claiming their victory and securing their status as a major power," thought Theo as he relaxed in his seat before looking at his Pipboy to check his speech on the screen to see what he will be saying in front of the crowd.

Both Mr. House and Nate also noticed the tight security through the windows and have made the same thoughts as Theo. For Mr. House, he just relaxed in his seat and enjoyed the ride while looking at his wrist watch to check the time to see that it is 8:10 a.m. giving them plenty of time to arrive at the meeting. For Nate, he just made deep breaths and mentally prepared himself for the huge crowd and cameras that he will soon be facing since he was never comfortable facing thousands of faces looking at him while saying his speech like the pre-war politicians even though he has been a leader for 3 years now. He has experience of saying charismatic speeches to his Minutemen soldiers in the past to lift up their morale and patriotic spirits before going into a major battle, but he was going to face people whom will be looking up to him along with Dante and Theo as they listen to hear their words to know how they can lead them to create a better future.

…

October 23, 2290

Capitol Hill, Washington D.C.

Once the convoy reached and stopped at the East side of the Capitol Building, the VIPs and the Blue Guards exited the limo and started walking up the steps towards the East entrance. As they walked up the steps they waved and smiled at the crowds whom are kept back behind security rails with the TSC soldiers and police standing guard in front of the crowd.

Theo, Nate, and Mr. House immediately headed for the Old Senate Chamber where the two TSC Marines guarding the door stood at attention and opened the double doors for the VIPs. The Blue Guards and Securitrons remained outside with Dante's Black Guards as they wait for the meeting to be done. Theo's and Nate's dogs, Rex and Dogmeat, remained outside with Dante's dog, Cooper, to wait for their masters' meeting to end. However, ED-E wanted to follow Theo inside but the Courier ordered the eyebot to remain outside until the meeting is over. The eyebot reluctantly complied with disappointing beeps.

The murmuring inside the room quieted when the doors opened and they stood up to bow and greet Theo, Nate, and Mr. House with smiles and handshakes. Dante, with his peaked cap off and on the table, got up and shook their hands with a smile to greet his friends.

"Theo, Nate, Mr. House. It's nice to see you all. It's been about 7 months since we last talked to each other face to face," said Dante.

"Yes, it has been a long time, Commander Abram. I still remember how you manage to finally beat me in a game of cards back when we got together at the Lucky 38 for the victory celebration and played poker and billiards together," smirked Mr. House with respect for Dante.

Theo smirked as well while Nate grumbled remembering how much he lost a lot of dollars and caps during that victory party when they played poker and billiards together on March 3, 2290.

It was a night to celebrate the anniversary of the TSC, Vegas, and Minutemen's victory of their war against the mercenary raider organization known as the Gunners. Even after the Institute's surrender, the Gunners were always hostile with the Minutemen and the TSC that the two military organizations considered them a threat and have to be put down immediately.

…

The Gunners War

October 10, 2288 – March 3, 2289

The Gunners were mostly mercenaries whom would take any jobs no matter how dangerous or dirty it is as long as they get paid. However, they are also hostile as Raiders since they like to intimidate and attack settlements for their own self-interests whether it is capturing settlers for slavery, rape, man hunts, gaining supplies, or just destroying and pillaging the settlements for "fun".

What made these Gunners different from Raiders is that they were equipped with pre-war combat armor, army uniforms with ballistic fiber, army helmets, dog tags, military weapons, robots, and communication equipment. They even have their own ranks similar to the U.S. military meaning that they are organized and follow the chain of command. They also have marks on their foreheads indicating their blood type.

The Gunners were just like the Talon Company, a mercenary organization based in the Capital Wasteland whom were under the command of Commander Jabsco. Talon Company have been enemies of Dante Abram when he deactivated the nuclear bomb in Megaton that Allistair Tenpenny of Tenpenny Tower placed a bounty on his head for 1,000 caps. Dante's first encounter with them was their attempts to kill him for the bounty. They thought it would be easy to take out a Vault Dweller with no Wasteland experience, but somehow their over-confidence proved them wrong when Dante managed to kill them all without receiving any injuries or wounds. Frustrated and angry, Jabsco sent every squad of hitmen soldiers to take out Dante, but all of the hitmen met the same fate that lead Talon Company to lose a lot of soldiers, weapons, and equipment worth thousands of caps to the Lone Wanderer. Eventually, the mercernary organization was wiped out by Lyon's Brotherhood of Steel at Fort Bannon with Dante fighting alongside when Talon Company ambushed and stole crates and barrels of Aqua Pura from a guarded caravan and held a Brotherhood Paladin hostage.

The Gunners War started in October 10, 2288, 2 months after the Institute's surrender to the TSC and the Minutemen. Word spread of the Institute's defeat in which lead to celebration throughout the settlements in the Commonwealth. Mostly in Diamond City, Goodneighbor, and Sanctuary Hills. However, reports came in through radio of multiple attacks on settlements in which are being involved by the Gunners. The Gunners were trying to launch an all out war in attempts to occupy military strategic points within the Boston ruins and settlements for control over food, water, and resources. This led the TSC and the Minutemen to form a military alliance and begin launching counter offenses to restore law and order with attempts to put down the Gunners and punish them harshly but fairly.

For months, Nate O'Connor had managed to deal with the Gunners by attacking their outposts and bases around the Commonwealth whether by himself or with companions such as Dogmeat, Robert MacCready, and Preston Garvey. The Gunner's bases that Nate took over include Vault 75, Vault 95, the elevated highways, HalluciGen Inc., Hub City Auto Wreckers, Mass Bay Medical Center, Mass Fusion building, Mass Pike Interchange, Quincy, and Nuka World Bradberton overpass. With their bases and key points under control by the Minutemen with the TSC providing security and soldiers, the two allied organizations made their final assault on the Gunner's HQ in a pre-war GNR radio building renamed Gunners Plaza on January 6, 2289.

However, what was really surprising was that the faction's real headquarters was based outside of the Commonwealth located in the old State of Rhode Island in the town of Newport near the capital city of Providence in an old pre-war U.S. Army base known as Fort Adams.

Plus, the real leader of the Gunners is a large, muscled man with buzz cut brown hair and short facial hair named General Martin Cross. He also has a short, combed blond-haired man with an average built body named Colonel James Casey as his second-in-command.

This meant that the Gunners Plaza at the GNR radio station in the Commonwealth was actually an FOB base for their campaign to take control of the Commonwealth, Diamond City, Goodneighbor, and all of Boston to expand their territory. The TSC and the Minutemen learned about this when they studied the intel and maps that they found inside the GNR station's terminals after annihilating all of the Gunners and their commander Colonel Cypress and his officers, Captain Wess, 1st Lieutenant Cruz, and 2nd Lieutenant Ryder. With the approval by vote from the delegates of the Third Continental Congress and permission granted by President Truman, Supreme Commander Dante Abram and General Nate O'Connor immediately made plans and preparations for a campaign to take out the Gunners once and for all.

Dante gathered his forces of TSC Marines, Army, Thunderfists, Sentient Super Mutants, Robots, Hammerheads, and his own squad unit of Black Guards along with 3 Valkyries, 3 Stingrays, 5 Vertibirds, 2 Mammoth Tanks, 5 Patton Tanks, 5 Bradley IFVs, and 5 Stryker APCs for support. TSC Transport Trucks with a machine gun turret mounted on the truck's roof were brought in to transport the soldiers of the TSC and the Minutemen without the need to march. Dante even brought some Securitrons from New Vegas that are equipped with Zeta shields and hologram projectors to deploy the nearly indestructible hologram soldiers that shoot lasers from their foreheads.

For Nate, he gathered as many Minutemen as he could rally along with Colonel Preston Garvey with his Blue Guards and Colonel Ronnie Shaw with her new fusion-powered armored train, the Iron Equus, with a huge X-377 electromagnetic railgun, the Obliterator, mounted on the middle flatbed.

The Iron Equus was built with the help of TSC Engineers working alongside with Sturges' Minutemen Engineers by repairing an abandoned pre-war fusion-powered locomotive and modifying nearly intact train cars at the Bedford Station to transform the train into a railway mobile fortress to help mobilize or transfer their Minutemen soldiers in different locations. The train has a total of seven modified cars being pulled by the locomotive. The locomotive was modified to replace its old reactor with a Zeta fusion reactor and have armored titanium plates installed to protect its long body and wheels from enemy fire with two Zeta energy turret on each side and two on the front on both sides of the titanium cow catcher. The first car served as a command car with a war table and communication with the second and third serving as mobile barracks for their officers and soldiers.

For the X-377 electromagnetic railgun on the fourth car flatbed, it was founded by the TSC at a Naval Research facility in Dahlgren, Virginia during their campaign to control the I-95 highway to liberate and occupy the old States in the South. The railgun was developed during the Sino-American War by West Tek in attempts to re-arm their naval destroyers with the powerful weapon, but it was abandoned due to test results for the naval ships to handle the powerful recoil in which will cause their vessels to capsize. But the TSC scientists and engineers decided to have the cannon mounted on a mobile platform instead of a ship to handle the mobility and able to lock down on the ground to absorb the cannon's recoil without capsizing. The solution was the old WWII German strategy by using a modified flatbed in which can be locked down before firing the cannon and pulled by a train on a railway for mobilization like the Dora railgun.

For the last three cars behind the Obliterator railgun flatbed they are used as the railgun's ammunition storage, the armory car, and the logistics car. All of the cars are modified with exterior searchlights, titanium plated armor, Zeta shields, ports and slits on the sides to defend the train inside with firearms, three Zeta energy turrets on each side, and two Mammoth tank turrets on top of the armory car with one on the front and the other at the rear. There were also hatches on the roof of each car for the soldiers to defend the train on top of the cars with a Gatling Laser nest on each side of the roof.

Nate even brought some robots from the Robotics Technology Facility RB-2851 which is also known as the Mechanist's Lair. Isabel Cruz, the former Mechanist, gladly offered Nate to use nearly all of her robots to take out the Gunners since she knows that this course will help bring peace to the Commonwealth and wanted to offer her service to the TSC once she heard about their goals. The robots that Nate deployed were Quantum Swarmbots, Quantum Tankbots, Duelbot Assaultrons, and Quantum Junkbots to help as extra firepower and armor on their offensive campaign.

On February 5, 2289, the true war against the Gunners began. The TSC soldiers were already experienced in battles that lasted for months or a year due to their wars against large factions of Raiders, Slavery organizations, hostile Mutant armies, and the Iron Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel. But the battles that the Minutemen were in was something that they have never experienced in their lives despite facing Deathclaws, giant Mirelurk Queens, huge Super Mutant Behemoths, hordes of feral Ghouls, and tough Raider factions. It was like they went back in time and entered the deadly battlefields of the pre-war era with sounds of gunfire and energy weapons discharging, bullets and energy beams flying everywhere, the earth ground bursting up due to artillery shells impacting, fiery explosions appeared occasionally, and the endless screams of the dying enemy and their allied soldiers.

Despite the chaos that would shell-shock the militia-level Minutemen, Nate was able to use his developed leadership skills and charisma to keep the morale of his troops high enough to keep on fighting until victory. He even goes far to stand in the front to lead his men into battle to inspire the troops that they can be a strong fighting force than the Gunners despite Colonel Preston Garvey's and Colonel Ronnie Shaw's objections due to their concerns for his safety.

The TSC and Minutemen battle plan was to have the Erebus Stealth scouts and the Railroad agents to infiltrate the Gunners' territories around and within the old city of Providence and around Narragansett Bay to gather intel on the Gunners' positions, troop numbers, officers, military hardware, and possible salvaged vehicles. They also marked down outposts, buildings, and surrounding towns around the bay that are under the Gunners' control along with settlements that are filled with slaves whom are used for labor or forcibly recruited, mostly children or teens, by using methods such as putting them into harsh training, force the recruits to brutally kill their prisoners, and have them take chems to insert addictions into their bodies in order to ensure their absolute loyalty.

What surprised the TSC and the Minutemen was that these Gunners not only have power armor but also have working pre-war heavy tanks, Patton tanks, APCs, IFVs, and some Humvees guarding their bases or patrolling their controlled highway routes with most providing heavy defense around Fort Adams. They were never seen using these vehicles in the Commonwealth and wondered why they never did. They can only conclude that the distance was too far for their vehicles to travel without running out of coolants for their fusion-powered engines and the Commonwealth doesn't have any in their Red Rocket coolant stations.

With the gathered intel, Dante and Nate, along with their officers, made their battle strategy to have the TSC and the Minutemen together to travel down the I-95 highway in their vehicles while the Iron Equus follows by railway and capture the city of Providence. Their first objective was to take the Rhode Island State House and set it up as their FOB.

After taking the State House, they began to send out their units of infantry and armor to take out any Gunners controlling other strategic buildings and areas within and around Providence with the Erebus Stealth scouts and Railroad agents providing intel on the enemy's positions through secured communication. With the Iron Equus to provide artillery support to clear out huge numbers of Gunners and their armor with the TSC Valkyries and Vertibirds providing transport, ammo and supply replenishment, and air support, the capital city of Providence fell to the coalition within two months.

Once the city was under the coalition's control, Dante will have his TSC forces travel along Rhode Island's Route 1 on the west side of the bay while Nate leads his Minutemen forces along Route 114 on the east side in which will directly take him to the town of Newport and Fort Adams.

However, despite the coalition's numbers and technological advantages, the Gunners have proven to be a resilient and dangerous enemy whom have been able to slow down the coalition's advances and inflict serious casualties among the Minutemen and the TSC. They even learn to be able to adapt despite being caught off guard by the TSC and the Minutemen's surprise attack on the city of Providence. The Gunners showed this by setting up traps and ambushes along the planned routes and towns by placing frag mines, plasma mines, pulse mines, and even the spiderbot mines in which took out many of the TSC vehicles, robots, Super Mutants, power armor units, and soldiers of the marines, regular, and special forces.

But the TSC and Minutemen kept pushing forward despite the casualties on their allies hoping to see it to the end. They also made sure to focus their efforts to rescue the slaves and settlers under the Gunners' dictator rule and transported them by Transport Trucks or Vertibirds to the refugee zones within the Johnson and Wales University and the Brown University. There the volunteered doctors from Followers of the Apocalypse set up medical and resting tents within the campus areas and converted the buildings into emergency surgery rooms, patient cares bedrooms, and additional residential.

As the TSC and the Minutemen continued to break through the Gunners' defenses they made sure to occupy every outposts and towns surrounding Narragansett Bay forcing the Gunners into a final stand at Fort Adams.

On March 3, 2290, the coalition finally managed to reach Fort Adams with the TSC taking and occupying an island town called Jamestown in the west and crossing the intact 138 Route Bridge across the bay to link with the Minutemen whom are just finished taking the town of Newport. The coalition positioned their forces in the south of the fort since it was built as a coastal fortification surrounded by the bay's water. The Iron Equus remained safely within Providence as it's Obliterator railgun still has the long range advantage to bombard around the fort.

However, the coalition had suffered casualties during their push towards Fort Adams. The TSC forces have lost most of their Securitrons, Super Mutants, and robots with the Minutemen losing all of their Mechanists' robots and half their Synths since the Gunners focused their attack on these soldiers that they considered the greater threats than the regular soldiers and special forces. Therefore, the coalition is forced to attack whatever they have that are still combat efficient in order to finish the fight.

When the night fell, the battle began with artillery bombardment from the Iron Equus to cause the Gunners to take cover and destroy as much of their outer defenses as much as possible including their tanks, APCs, IFVs, and other vehicles. When the bombardment ended, the TSC power armor, robots, Mammoth tanks, and Patton tanks moved forward slowly while firing their heavy weapons as the TSC and Minutemen soldiers moved behind the vehicles in cover.

But the Gunners were prepared for the coalition's arrival by already placing a hidden spiderbot minefield around their fort with anti-tank teeth and rubbles to block or immobilize the tanks from moving closer. The Gunners then countered by firing their missile launchers and Fatmans onto the tanks and power armor units annihilating the armored units in explosions and small nuclear blasts in which also took out most of the soldiers using the armored vehicles as cover.

The Gunners thought they had finally had the upper hand until the Valkyries and Stingrays came in from the north and bombarded the areas where the Gunner Fatmans and missile launchers were located with plasma bombs and missiles. With enemy heavy weapon units destroyed, the coalition forces began to suppress fire on the surviving Gunners before Dante signaled the medics to immediately rescue the first wave survivors. The Doss Brigade, volunteered Followers of Apocalypse doctors serving as combat medics but refused to use any weapons except Zeta shields for protection, rushed forward and began to rescue any survivors of the first wave while under fire and pull them out to safety to treat them in the safe zones in Newport filled with medical tents.

Once the first wave survivors were rescued, the commanders decided to lead the second wave and finish the battle once and for all.

The second wave consisted of Blackguards, Hammer Heads, Thunderfists, and Marines led by Dante Abram with the Blue Guards, Mechanist's robots, Institute Synths, and power armored Minutemen led by Nate O'Connor and Preston Garvey. With the remaining vehicles and robots providing covering fire and support, the coalition forces immediately charged moving cover to cover behind rubbles, wrecked vehicles, and craters. Once they reached the walls and the final gate to enter the fort's plaza, the demolition team set up a pack of C4 explosions and blew down the gate before the power armor units charged in firing their heavy weapons while taking the brunt of the enemy's weapons.

Dante stayed with the TSC and Minutemen soldiers in the plaza to finish off the remaining Gunners and secure the fort while Nate and Preston rushed into the burning Central HQ building with their Blue Guards to face off against General Cross and Colonel Casey.

When they entered the torn building's large foyer with small flames and rubble everywhere due to the artillery and air bombardment, the Gunners' leaders were standing at the top of the large stairs on the second floor.

Cross was wearing his Heavy Combat Armor underneath his ballistic weaved U.S. Army General dark green overcoat with the Gunners white skull insignia on the back. He was wielding a Gatling laser in his right hand with a Red Glare rocket launcher in his left hand showing his inhuman strength. His second-in-command, Casey, was in his green-painted X-01 power armor with the Gunner insignia on the chest. He is also wielding his modified automatic plasma rifle. They had their own personal guards, the Death Skulls, whom are wearing dark green painted Marine Armor wielding their own weapons to fight with them in their last stand.

The General and the Colonel knew that the war is lost, but they would rather fight to their deaths than surrender and face the humiliation of being "put on trial" and "executed for war crimes".

The bloody fight lasted for 2 hours with the four commanders unwilling to give up the fight despite the serious wounds and injuries on their bodies since they ran out of stimpacks to heal themselves. All of the Blue Guards and the Death Skulls were dead leaving only the commanders to finish the battle on their own.

Eventually, Nate and Preston finally managed to defeat their opponents by outsmarting them. Nate fired his assault rifle at Cross's right knee causing him to fall on his right leg and accidently twitch the trigger of his Red Glare while it was pointing up at the ceiling. This caused his rocket launcher to fire red rockets at the ceiling that the explosions caused it to collapse with its rubbles falling onto the General crushing him to death. Preston managed to outsmart Colonel Casey by acting like he was dying due to blood loss in order for Casey to think he has defeated him and have the arrogance to hoist Preston by the neck to mock at the Minuteman Colonel before killing him. What Casey didn't know is that Preston had a hidden combat knife in his right sleeve that is made with Saturnite alloy to pierce through armor with a powerful pulse mod installed to damage robots and power armor users when stabbing them. Preston slid it out and stabbed the knife onto Casey's arm creating a strong electrical pulse that caused his hand to release Preston before his power armor short circuited from the pulse and shut down. Preston then quickly opened the fusion core in armor's back and shoved a plasma grenade into the slot before placing the core back in. Preston ran and pulled Nate out of the building leaving Casey in a panic to try to get the plasma grenade out of his armor, but it exploded with the fusion core still inside the slot creating a secondary mini nuclear explosion that completely engulfed Casey and destroyed the entire Central HQ into a complete burning rubble.

With the Gunners' leaders dead, their fort captured, and 75% of their forces annihilated, the remaining Gunners surrendered and were sentenced to 20 years of hard labor in the Appalachian Mountain iron mines. They were also given the choice to be re-educated to be installed as citizens to the United States or set free outside the nation's borders into the Wasteland.

The TSC suffered a total of 35% losses of their forces with the Minutemen losing 40% since most were mostly militia than a fully trained military like the TSC. The coalitions then completed their victory with a salute to their fallen soldiers and raised the new U.S. flag over Fort Adams.

This victory secured the future for the people in the Commonwealth and the surrounding States of the New England Commonwealth.

…

October 23, 2290

Capitol Building, Washington D.C.

"If I remember correctly, you always win nearly every game we played. Poker, blackjack, roulette, chess, billiards, and even checkers without even cheating. The only one whom can go against you is your fellow employee, Theo West," said Dante with a smirk of his own.

Robert House just kept his smirk knowing what Dante is saying. Mr. House has always easily beaten Nate and Dante in every games based on probability, guessing, and luck. But Mr. House never relied on luck, only his brilliant mind calculating his own mathematical simulation of probability in his head brought him the higher chances of winning. Even though Dante is more intelligent than Nate and Theo as according to his Pip-Boy and his brilliant military strategies and tactics that brought victory to the TSC in the battles he partook, he still couldn't beat Mr. House in a game of luck.

The only person that could stand against Mr. House and managed to beat him time to time is Theo West due to his incredible SPECIAL perk called Luck in which is ranked 12, 2 points over the limit 10. Dante and Nate have always wondered how Theo managed to survive every death situation he was in and couldn't believe that he is still alive to tell the tales, but they just accepted his special perk with no questions since "Luck" is a mysterious perk that is nearly impossible to explain scientifically. For Mr. House, he is actually proud to have a special right-hand man with such a powerful perk and only plays cards with Theo just to make sure that "Lady Luck" is still with the Courier to protect him from death and grant him victories in battles.

A noise of a throat clearing and coughing was heard and everyone turned to President Truman whom has his clenched hand in front of his mouth.

"Everyone, I believe now that we are all here we can start the meeting as scheduled. Shall we get down to business?" replied Truman with a serious tone.

Everyone nodded as Nate, Theo, and Mr. House took their respective seats in the front row right next to Dante and Autumn's desks. Theo took off his hat and sunglasses with Nate taking his hat off as well before they placed their headwear on their desks.

President Truman tapped his curved table with a wooden gavel, "I hereby call this meeting to order."

Truman grabbed some papers next to him and looked through the list of discussion before replying, "Now our first discussion is the stability level of law and order of our nation and our relations with the neighboring nations. Let's review."

Truman typed a keyboard on his table and a large holographic screen appeared with the map of North America in front of the delegates and the VIPs.

The map revealed the territories of the United States claiming all of the old States in the East Coast including Florida with their territories stretching towards west until they reach the western borders of Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan where the Wall was built. The U.S. territories also includes the southern half of Alaska, the Hawaiian Islands, and Puerto Rico.

There are also territories that are under the control of the neighboring major factions such as the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel, Caesar's Legion, NCR, the New State of Ronto, the Free Economic Zone of New Vegas, the Holy Kingdom of Mexico, and the Maple Confederacy of Montreal and Quebec.

The rest of the map that are left in color gray indicate that the territories are not under any of the factions' control and are regarded by many as the Wasteland Frontiers of North America. The unlawful lands are still deadly and hostile due to extreme weather conditions caused by the radiation or the bombs with unique mutated faunas and predators in certain areas. Although, despite the dangerous conditions some settlements and tribals have been discovered in the areas due to the TSC using their cloaked Valkyries to fly over the area to map the terrains, city ruins, destroyed towns, and pre-war landmarks.

"As you can see, not much has change with territorial expansion with the other major factions. Even our nation has halted its expansion after securing the entire New England States in the East Coast after the Gunners War," said Truman in a business tone.

"I will now give the floor to Penny Brusby, representative of the TSC Department of Civil Affairs," Truman stated before sitting down.

A short brown haired woman stood up and walked up to the holo-map before turning to face the delegates.

"Thank you, Mr. President. According to our gathered reports, the current level of public order in each city and town in the U.S. is at a normal level. Crime rates are nearly non-existent thanks to the establishment of police forces and SWAT teams within each city and town to make sure public order is stable. All Raiders, Slavers, and hostile Super Mutants are either eliminated, placed into rebuilt prisons, sentenced to hard labor, or have escaped into the Wasteland frontiers outside of our territories. However, areas and districts around New York City, Miami, and New Orleans are still occupied by remaining Raider factions whom are still fighting against our forces," replied Penny as she tapped the holo-map to show audience the public order stability in each city and town with the only level of hostility around New York City, Miami, and New Orleans marked red.

A male delegate of the New York State raised his hand, "How long until the TSC and the Minutemen can put these criminals and anarchists down and occupy those zones? The New York City mayor and I really want to get the Bronx and Brooklyn boroughs of the 'Big Apple' rebuild and running fully after 213 years of neglect."

"I'm afraid it will take a lot more longer. Possibly…uh…about another year or two for our forces to completely clear and occupy the hot and dark zones…as stated from the reports sent by the c-commanders," replied Penny nervously while checking her reports in her hands.

"Two more years?! Why?! What is the cause of the delay?! I thought the TSC has the technology to annihilate these anarchic barbarians!" yelled the female ghoul delegate of the Louisiana State.

Even the male delegate of the Florida State agrees with the ghoul since he wants the Miami Beach city island near Miami liberated as fast as possible to begin rebuilding that city sector.

The reason the delegates want these cities rebuild is because of their strategic and value importance of commerce, entertainments, and resources in which could bring large revenues and prestige to their respective States.

New Orleans is a pre-war city known as the "Big Easy" in the Old State of Louisiana that once held vast carnival costume parades, round-the-clock nightlife, street parties, and vibrant-live music scenes. The old city is vast of famous old world historical sites that brought tourism with multiples cafes, bars, and restaurants that served its spicy, singular old world cuisine. There are also many fabulous old hotels still intact that survived the nuclear bombs. It is also home to legends of Voodoo magic and practices with multiple mansions within the city and near the bayou swamps that made the area famous for haunting legends. Most importantly, the city is also a strategic entrepot (port city) that is next to along the Mississippi River that connects to the Gulf of Mexico which is perfect for commercial trading with the towns and settlements along the Mississippi up north until reaching Fort Defiance and including settlements along the eastern shores of Mexico and Central America. The TSC has occupied the entire central areas and half of New Orleans East Area with the New Orleans Lakefront Airport as their HQ to provide enough security to rebuild, settle, and run the city. However, Raider factions still occupy nearby ruined neighborhoods of Algiers and Chalmette and are ambushing rebuilt boats that are now used by trade merchants as sea caravans. There is also a hostile faction of fanatic Voodoo cults that occupy the nearby bayou swamps whom kidnap and sacrifice settlers in their rituals to their "gods".

Miami is another pre-war city in Florida in which is famous for its white sandy beaches, surfside hotels, trendsetting nightclubs, and colorful art deco buildings during the pre-war days. The city is also a major port city for commerce that the Port of Miami is filled with dockyards, shipyards, and ports that have sunken or intact cargo ships and mostly cruise liners with the bays filled with sunken or intact fishing boats or yachts. A perfect city for trade commerce to the post-war settlements in the Bahamas and the northern Caribbean Islands, mostly Cuba, for their survived plantations of sugar canes, coffee beans, and Cuban cigars. The TSC had made sure to occupy the ports of Dodge Island while securing the entire city with the Miami International Airport as their main base. But the Miami Beach barrier islands is still occupied by a hostile band of Smugglers, Mercenaries, and Pirates.

These Pirate-type Raiders have managed to salvage the yachts and fishing boats in the bays and ports and rebuilt and modify them into scrap armored battle ships mounted with miniguns, rocket launchers, and harpoon launchers. Their admirals and commodores also have managed to restore some of the pre-war cruise liners and cargo ships as their personal flagships modified with heavy armor and mounted with hundreds of heavy weapons and salvaged battleship cannons, making them a greater threat to the United States' sea trade routes to the Caribbean. The TSC Marines and Hammerhead units have battled the pirates for years when they arrived and took over Miami but it became a stalemate due to the pirates' island territorial advantage and their salvaged anti-air weapons keeping the TSC Vertibirds and Valkyries from bombing the islands. Plus, the TSC is still trying to rebuild the U.S. Naval Fleets by salvaging beached and sunken U.S. naval vessels. They have managed to rebuild a navy with only one aircraft carrier, five destroyers, two cruisers, six frigates, and two submarines in which is enough to patrol the entire East Coast but not strong enough for major naval battles. For now, the frontlines have been mostly focused all over the Biscayne Bay and islands that are connected to the intact highways of MacArthur Causeway and Venetian Way in which are the only gateways to enter Miami Beach.

New York City is the largest city in the world during the pre-war days and is considered the most valuable prized city for the TSC and the Third Continental Congress to claim in the Old State of New York. The "Big Apple" city has been known during the pre-war times as the capital world center of financial, commerce, economy, entertainment, and culture. The one city in which can bring large revenues to the new federal and New York State government bringing prosperity and new life for the people immigrating to the new U.S. During the Great War, the city was hit hard by 10 Chinese nuclear warheads. Two of the warheads hit Staten Island, 2 in Brooklyn, 1 in Queens, 1 in Bronx, and 5 were aimed at Manhattan. But by sheer luck, 3 of the 5 warheads targeting Manhattan were misguided and ended up landing into the Hudson River and the Upper Bay without exploding while the last two hit Upper Manhattan. This left Lower Manhattan, Midtown, Upper West Side, Central Park, and Upper East Side mostly intact with some of the smaller buildings in rumble, but what the TSC is mostly glad to see still standing are the skyscrapers, such as the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center's two towers, and the Chrysler Building despite having large holes on the sides and corners from the nuclear explosions. The TSC, under the command of TSC Brigadier General Roy Benitez with Colonel Faye Lau leading the 5th Thunderfist Regiment and Major Paul Bullman commanding the 3rd Minuteman Infantry Company, have been trying to take the entire city for 6 years before the Minutemen sent Major Paul Bullman and his 3rd Minuteman Army Battalion in 2289 to assist, but have difficulties due to four major factions that control the city.

The first are the multiple Raider gangs called Rioters whom roam the old streets of New York preying on settlers scavenging the city ruins and raiding settlements for survival or entertainment. The Rioters usually set up bases in old apartment buildings, warehouses, skyscrapers, subways, or sometimes the sewers where they stash their loot and imprison captured settlers for torture, ransom, or rape. Just like all Raiders around the American Wasteland, their leaders are elected due to their intimidating strength and sadistic brutality and the gangs are occasionally fighting each other since they are unorganized.

The second faction are pyromaniac psychopaths whom are known as the Cleaners. They are descendants of New York's sanitation workers (garbage men, janitors, and custodians) and are recognized due to their outfits consisting of armored HAZMAT suits with reflector vests and full gas masks with their main weapons mostly incinerators, flamers, and automatic rifles attached to flamethrowers. The Cleaners was formed after surviving the nuclear attack by taking cover in New York's labyrinth sewers as they witnessed the horrifying aftermath when the radiation began mutating the human survivors into ghouls and creating new mutated faunas that roam the area. They are convinced that they are the only pure humans in existence and gave themselves the mission to exterminate the mutants to save the remains of humanity by burning everything exposed to the radiation, including exposed humans despite showing no signs of mutation. The Cleaners are led by a man name Joe Ferro and their main base is a pre-war construction site in the Upper West Side district where they produce napalm to supply their flamethrowers. They are also armed with salvaged firetrucks and trash trucks that are armored and armed with heavy weapons and flamethrowers.

The third faction are descendants of the old-world convicts and prisoners of New York City's Rikers Island Prison and took the name as their identity, calling themselves the Rikers. Their main base is the Rikers Island Prison itself. Unlike the Rioters whom are just a loose multiple gangs of raiders, the Rikers are more organized and have a hierarchy structure based on strength and brutality with their belief of "survival of the fittest". They are under the harsh leadership of Larae Barrett who rose to power by killing the previous leader in a brutal duel and know rules her faction with intimidation and ruthlessness to keep her Rikers in line. Despite her brutality, she is still smart enough to take over settlements inside the NYC ruins instead of pillaging and burning them like the Rioters. Therefore, the Rikers have sources of food and water along with settlers as slaves for farming, crafting, and building. They also take some of the settlers into their bases as sex slaves or torture for their sadistic entertainment. Not only are they armed with old police Kevlar vests, SWAT armor, and military weapons, they even managed to salvage and modify police cars and SWAT vans into armored vehicles with mounted weapons along with some semi-trucks rigged to trailers modifying them into moving fortresses.

The fourth and final faction are the descendants and remains of the pre-war U.S. military division and their families whom were stationed at Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn before the bombs fell. After the Great War, they made Fort Hamilton their HQ and formed the Last Man Battalion. They are now under the command of Supreme General Charles Bliss who continues his great grandfather's vision to continue the fight to establish a new world order under fascism and restore civilization within the remains of New York City. This faction is the strongest and the most dangerous threat to the TSC and the Minutemen. The LMB are equipped with advance technologies, robots, and weapons equivalent to the Enclave, including power armor and energy weapons. They also have managed to preserve or salvage vehicles such as the pre-war M1 Abram heavy tanks, M60 Patton tanks, Bradley IFVs, Stryker APCs, Hummers, and VB-02 Vertibirds. They are also armed with artillery such as the 60 mm mortars, 105 mm howitzers, and M270 MLRS. Settlements that are under their rule are used as sources of food, water, materials, and manpower with the settlers supporting the LMB fanatically due to the LMB's propagandas and the Supreme General's speeches.

Right now the TSC holds Jersey City, 80% of Staten Island borough from west to east, Lower Manhattan, Midtown, and north half of Bronx borough with Newark Liberty International Airport, James A. Farley Post Office Building, and the former United Nations Building as their HQs. Even Ellis Island, Liberty Island, and Governor's Island are under TSC occupation serving as refugee safe zones with Fort Jay on Governor's Island used as another TSC HQ. For the Minutemen, they have managed to occupy and hold the eastern half of Queens borough with the JFK International Airport as their own HQ.

Dante sighed as he heard the three delegates frustrating complaints as he raised his hand up.

"May I speak in place of Ms. Brusby on this matter, Mr. President. I believe I can make it clear for the reasons of our delays of solving these domestic threats."

Truman nodded while he kept his hands folded and rested on his table.

Dante stood up and Penny Brusby stepped aside for him to take her place.

"Now, the reason we are delaying our offensive on the hostile territories around New Orleans, Miami, and New York is because the enemies are well fortified and supplied in their main bases. We have managed to liberate the settlements from their control and take over their outposts but this just only weakened their hold on their territories. Constant fighting and pinning them in their main bases will weaken their strength and starve them out since we cut off their supply lines of food, water, meds, and materials for their ammo replenishment and equipment, but it will last for only about a year or two until they either run out of supplies and surrender or try to break through our encirclement. Plus, due to New York being the largest city in the world it has an underground labyrinth of sewers, subways, and tunnels that are possibly being used by the four factions as escape routes or hideouts despite feral ghouls, giant rats, radroaches, and other hostile mutants living in there in which is our second priority to clean out in order to secure the entire city," explained Dante.

He moved his right hand over the map to display the enemy positions around the three cities with pictures of their HQ fortifications, defenses, firepower, vehicles, and amount of manpower. He even showed the map of New York's underground sewers and tunnels that are under control TSC or Minutemen control with areas marked mutant or enemy territory.

The New York delegate raised his hand, "Can't we just launch an offense on their main bases and eliminate them once and for all? Surely the TSC's technology should give the coalition the advantage to outgun them and clean out the sewers and tunnels."

Dante shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Their main bases have been modified to be built as actual fortresses and are heavily defended with heavy turrets, robots, artillery, anti-air guns, Fatmans, and minefields that can still effectively kill our soldiers even in advance gear. Even with the technology from the Olympus, we can only outfit the advance weapons and equipment to TSC soldiers since they were trained to use the tech and the Minutemen in New York are still learning how to use them. Plus, most of the tunnels and sewers have collapsed from the nuclear bombs and are contaminated with radiation that need to be cleared by our engineers and our soldiers still risk of being ambushed in the underground labyrinth. Therefore, our armies will take heavy casualties if we try to go offensive and we can't risk losing our manpower if we are to completely occupy the cities."

The three delegates frowned and grumbled as they know that they can't risk losing any more men and women since it will weaken the military strength of the TSC and the Minutemen. They have lost too many during the bloody battles against the Detroit Motor Raiders and the Gunners. Lose more and the public will lose faith of their new government and order will fall apart even though the police and SWAT teams have been formed. Plus, they need to preserve their numbers while replenishing with new recruits in order to keep their borders secured from their neighboring nations whom might take advantage of their losses by invasion.

"However, the brass and our allies are making plans and preparations for a highly classified strategy with multiple operations in which will bring us a total victory on our enemies," explained Dante in which brought every delegates' attention on the subject. Dante continued to move his hands on the holo-screen to show parts of the operations for the coalition's strategy to defeat the hostile factions and occupy the enemy territories.

"I cannot give you the full details of our operations due to security, but I can reveal the idea of the strategy to assure you that it will be successful. What we will do is that we will send the Thunderfists to infiltrate the enemy's base to cause as much damage as possible to weaken their defenses and create chaos among their ranks. Once their defenses are down or weakened, our main forces will move in with our armor, artillery, and air units to provide support. Also, we will use this opportunity to unleash the TSC's new secret weapons in which we will unveil during the speech. They will no doubt de-moralize the enemies once they witness their ultimate defense and firepower. After wiping out most of the enemy soldiers and taking out their leaders, we will be able to secure strategic points to occupy the cities before sending some Thunderfists, robots, marines, and Minutemen to clear out the sewer and tunnels. If everything goes according to plan, then you can expect our cities to be within under our occupation within less than a year instead of 2 years," Dante explained with confidence in his voice.

"When will this plan be put into action?" asked the male ghoul delegate of Pennsylvania State with an anticipating tone.

"It will be expected to be launched at exactly 11:00 p.m. on November 5. About 2 weeks after the memorial celebration."

With their concerns uplifted by Dante's explanation, the Lone Wanderer bowed by nodding his head to the clapping delegates before returning to his seat.

The meeting then continued on discussing the United States' relations with their neighboring nations and other post-apocalyptic countries on different continents as the holo-map switched back to reveal the current factions of North America and their territories.

The Midwestern Brotherhood still controls the city of Chicago and the surrounding cities, towns, and tribal villages around the remains of the I-55 and the I-70 freeway including Rock Falls, Quincy, Freeport, Macomb, Peoria, Brahmin Wood, Bloomington, and Springfield in Illinois; St. Louis, Jefferson City, Mardin, Osceolla, and Gravestone (Kansas City) in Missouri; Topeka, Junction City, Scott City, Coldwater, Junk City (Newton), Great Bend, and Canyon City in Kansas; Buena Vista, Colorado Springs, and Vault 0 (Cheyenne Mountain Complex) which serves as their headquarters in Colorado. They have not expanded their borders after their victory against the Calculator and its robot army and have kept their armies in their usual occupation of their territories and patrolling the old freeways. They have showed no signs of hostility with the TSC and the United States but attempts by the TSC to make contact to establish diplomacy with this splintered Brotherhood have been met with no replies since the Wall's completion.

The New California Republic is a neo-democratic federation with its government structure similar to the pre-war U.S. and its territories controlling nearly the entire old State of California and Baja California with Shady Sands serving as their capital. Since its founding, the NCR is known to emphasize it claim to support old world values such as democracy, personal liberty, and the rule of law. However, the NCR has become to be known as "sniveling snakes" due to their questionable actions of controlling the lands it claims to protect, the fidelity of those living under their rule, and widespread corruption within their political system. They are considered rivals and opposite to the new United States of America. For example, their laws prohibit the open carriage of firearms, prostitution, gambling, and slavery with arrests on any person under the influence of alcohol or drugs regardless of age, done in their homes, or in public. In the new U.S., citizens are granted rights to openly carry only pistol firearms while carrying a license, can practice prostitution as long as there are equal rights to all their "workers", and can legally gamble in certain areas but slavery is completely abolished. They even allow consumption, purchase, selling, and possession of alcohol and drugs at the age of 21 or older but cannot be under influence of either addiction while driving a caravan or vehicle. This led most Wastelanders to immigrate to the United States than the NCR along with some NCR citizens moving from their country origin to the U.S. for better living and opportunities with less restrictions to their freedom and rights. For years the NCR haven't expanded farther north into Oregon nor west into Nevada, even though they have New Reno, since they are focusing most of their armed forces along the Colorado River that borders between California and Arizona which is Legion territory. The NCR focuses on the Colorado River Front since they consider Caesar's Legion the most dangerous threat that needs to be completely annihilated to ensure their nation's security. Another reason they can't expand north is because the northern lands of Oregon and the entire State of Washington have become a harsh, frozen wasteland due to the aftereffects of the Great War with no possibilities of growing crops or raising mutant livestock like Brahmin since NCR is mostly a farming nation. Plus, the NCR Senators and NCR military brass in Shady Sands don't want to risk sending a military expedition towards east by taking the old I-80 freeway since it is under control of the hostile raider tribe known as the 80s whom control the northern lands of Nevada and the northwestern parts of Utah along the I-80. Therefore, the NCR can only focus their expansion by trying to move east into Arizona but their war with the Legion continues to be a stalemate along the Colorado River halting their expansion. Their relations with the United States and the TSC is at a friendly level (for now) due to trade agreements and the TSC granting the NCR some advance terraforming technology and construction equipment to restore the California vegetation, rebuild their old world cities, improve farming, and improve their infrastructure. The TSC also granted the NCR some gold from the intact Fort Knox Bullion Depository and New York's Federal Reserve Bank to bring back the value of their currency and improve their economy. But the TSC and the Third Continental Congress are still wary of the NCR's government and their military due to their reputation of being "slithering snakes" whom act out of kindness for their own personal interests. The TSC and the U.S. delegates are always suspicious with the NCR due to confirmed Seraph reports that the NCR politicians are jealous of the U.S.'s strong economy and luxury with the NCR military envious of the TSC's military tech and vehicles even though NCR public opinion on the U.S. is friendly due to popular TSC products being traded. The products include revived comics, printed newspapers, copied pre-war books, copied pre-war holotape movies, copied pre-war computer games, advance television set, advance computer terminals, condoms, pregnancy pills, porn (magazines and holo-movies both pre-war and new), hygiene products, cosmetics, candy (mostly chocolate), coffee beans, cotton, fruits, vegetables, wheat, fresh cigars, fresh cigarettes, brewed alcohol, tea leaves, Nuka-Cola, Galaxy Sarsaparilla, salt, spices, sugar, sauces, honey (cloned bees), maple syrup, cheese, milk, meat (cloned cows, fish, chicken, turkey, and pigs; including fresh laid chicken eggs), and flour.

Caesar's Legion still holds their territories in the Old States of Arizona and New Mexico with the ruins of Flagstaff still serving as their capital. Their territories also include the southeastern wastelands of Utah and the western parts of Colorado with control of the old Route 191, I-70, and Route 285 that all lead to the ruins of Denver (Dogtown) where they acquire their war hounds. Ever since their defeat at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, Caesar's Legion have been hostile with the U.S. and the TSC, including New Vegas, with no attempts of negotiations. They are still at total war with the NCR with most of their forces focused on the Colorado River frontline with the rest of their forces commencing skirmishes and proxy battles with the TSC on the Wall and the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel near Colorado Springs. However, their population of the 86 tribes had been decreasing rapidly throughout the last 9 years due to extreme losses against the TSC and the NCR with shortages of resources when they decided to move their slave laborers from the farms and mines to become militia to replenish their numbers. Even most of their new legionaries are young teenagers with harsh training and fanatical loyalty but no combat experiences that many end up killed in their first battle. With their losses increasing rapidly, resources shortening, and their economy declining, it is a matter of time before the NCR and the TSC make their move to counterattack and invade their territories.

The Free Economic Zone of New Vegas is an independent, autocrat state within the terraformed Mojave Desert in the Old State of Nevada with New Vegas serving as its capital under Mr. House's rule with the Three Families of the Strip still operating their casino hotels bringing unlimited wealth to the city from their slots and card tables. Their second source of revenue is the tariff on the trade routes connected from the McCarren Airport and Nellis AFB to the NCR Mojave Outpost as agreed between the NCR, the TSC, and Vegas to deliver their products, including Vegas's Sunset Sarsaparilla after Mr. House restored the Sunset Sarsaparilla HQ-factory to monopolize the beverage. The zone is another example of old-world resurrection since the entire city of New Vegas and its surrounding pre-war towns have been rebuilt by the TSC as though the Great War never happened, including Hoover Dam and its infrastructure. Even the Vaults in the Mojave have been reclaimed and restored by the TSC to be used as new underground settlements with an underground subway built to connect all the Vaults together with a route leading towards New Vegas Vault 21 as the Mojave Union Station. Since the zone is protected by Mr. House's army of Securitrons, the Courier, and the TSC, immigration has increased over the years in which helped to occupy the settlements and Vaults, increase industry productions, proper maintenance to infrastructure, increase crop productions, and source of TSC military recruitment. There are also factions whom are accepted to the New Vegas society such as the Kings with their King's School of Impersonation building rebuild into the new Elvis Presley casino hotel; the Garrett Twins with their Atomic Wrangler casino hotel connected with the lined up buildings to increase space for bedrooms and add more entertainment (a larger luxurious brothel with fancy suite rooms, more casino tables and slots, dining area with large bar, and a strip dance floor with a walkway and dance poles); and the Boomers with their Nellis AFB restored and are under TSC Air Force command since they desired piloting the TSC Valkyries to fly into the stars. Even the Great Khans are still living in Red Rock Canyon but with new wooden buildings built along the canyon ledges and walls with a large 4-story Saloon Casino Hotel at the end serving as their HQ while overlooking the fight pit in the town center making the area look like a western cowboy town with neon signs and bright lamp posts. The Great Khans were even granted factory-fresh motorcycles that they fell in love once they rode them making them into a post-apocalyptic biker gang. The new town and the motorcycles were all gifts from the Courier and the TSC as allies while permitting them to make and sell their chems and alcohol around the Mojave but with some restrictions and the requirement to produce and sell Addictol and Fixers. They were also required in return to pay New Vegas 25% of their profits as taxes and help patrol the highways to protect caravans. As for the Mojave Brotherhood of Steel, they were escorted out of the Mojave towards north letting them take all of their technology while unaware they were followed by a cloaked Valkyrie as the Mojave Chapter marched back to Lost Hills in New California to regroup with the surviving Western Brotherhood of Steel while avoiding detection from NCR patrols.

The New State of Ronto is a military state nation under a dictator with their capital in the remains of the old Canadian city of Toronto. Their territories consist of the ruined cities of Mississauga and Hamilton and the old towns of Oakville, Burlington, Milton, Brampton, and Vaughan. Ronto has a strong military force consisting of mostly infantry using pre-war Canadian and American military weapons and armor with Sentry Bots and Mr. Gutsies to provide extra firepower. They also have managed to salvage pre-war military and civilian vehicles including salvaged tanks, transport trucks, Humvees, Highwayman cars, and Corvega cars. They also have a small air force consisting of 10 salvaged Vertibirds and 5 Stingray Deluxe fighters. Right now they are a bit hostile with the United States due to the TSC and the Minutemen controlling the Niagara Falls power and water plants along with the cities of Niagara Falls on both sides of the Niagara River. Ronto wanted to control the Niagara Falls power and water plants to supply their nation with water and energy but were unable to due to the area occupied by an army of Super Mutants. That is until the TSC came in and annihilated the mutants before taking over Niagara Falls and repairing the plants to start supplying the United States with power and water. Negotiations are being conducted by TSC ambassadors to supply Ronto with Niagara energy and water by trade agreements, but everyone in the Third Continental Congress and the TSC Council are suspicious that Ronto will prepare for war to take Niagara by force.

The Maple Confederacy of Montreal and Quebec is a republic federation with Montreal as their capital where Vault 55 was built with Vault 62 in Quebec. Although Ottawa is the original capital of Canada, it was destroyed by 6 Chinese nukes that created large craters within the capital with radioactive fogs poisoning the city ruins and surrounding areas for 213 years since the Great War. Both Vaults have used their own GECK to clean out the radiation in their cities and terraform the surrounding region 90 years ago before starting to rebuilt their cities. Both cities met each other by scouting parties that led their leaders to negotiate trade and form an alliance to clear out their territories of hostile Raiders, Slavers, and Super Mutants. Once the threats were neutralized, they formed their own government with a new constitution and a new nation was born in 2212. Their territories consist of the cities Montreal and Quebec with some settlements and pre-war towns around the cities supplying their nation with crops, mutant livestock meat, water, manpower, electrical power, industry, and mineral resources. Their lands border next to the States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New York in which form exactly the same pre-war borderline between Canada and the U.S. in the Northeastern States. The Maple Confederacy is focused on rebuilding civilization by establishing a new nation based on the government structure of Old Canada with its own parliament and a prime minister with his/her own cabinet leading the country. They are aware of their hostile history with the old U.S. due to being forcibly annexed under the American flag by military occupation during the Sino-American War to gain Canada's natural resources and protect the Alaskan Oil Pipeline. However, they are completely neutral with the new U.S. and have made diplomatic negotiations with the ambassadors of the TSC and the Continental Congress to establish trade agreements, sovereign recognition, requests of terraforming their lands, and form a military alliance in case relations with Ronto erupts in hostility.

Finally, the Holy Kingdom of Mexico is a neo-absolute monarchy nation with the ruins of Monterey serving as their capital since the original capital, Mexico City, was hit hard by the Chinese nukes leaving the city in ruins and polluted with radiation. During the aftermath of the Great War, the Mexican survivors of Monterey with refugees pouring in from Mexico City were led by a human name El Dios Rey, "the God King" in Spanish. According to the TSC's Seraph spies, he used his powerful skill of charisma to convince the survivors that he was their "savior" and an immortal diet chosen by God himself to lead them to salvation from humanity's self-made destruction. Rey demonstrated his "immortality" by walking and staying inside a highly radioactive crater for a week before walking out remaining unscathed and no signs of ghoulification or mutation. He then revealed his "miracle healing" when he shot and cut himself all over his body with the wounds and injuries healing instantly with no uses of stimpacks. This led the survivors to bow on their knees and began to worship him that it granted Rey enough power and control to crown himself as their god king. For 210 years, King El Dios Rey managed to get the people to rebuilt the city of Monterey now renamed as his holy capital of Santa Tierra, built up his Holy Imperial Army, and began his crusade to rebuilt the world by conquering the neighboring settlements, ruined cities, and regions. In 2286, Rey's army finally reached the Rio Grande River that borders Texas, but he was shocked to learn that a huge wall was built on the north side of the river in which was armed with energy shields and energy turrets with guards armed with advance equipment and power armor. There were also signs placed on the walls stating "Keep Out/State of Texas/United States of America" in both English and Spanish. King Rey couldn't believe that the U.S. has somehow returned and feared that they are going to invade to forcibly remove him from power due to not recognizing his sovereignty rights and consider him a "raider king". So El Dios Rey used his charisma skills to convince his people that the U.S. is a land of heretics and demons in their black armors (X-01 power armor colored black) whom are holding innocents as slaves for their entertainment and pleasure while poisoning the holy lands with their blasphemed nuclear energy that destroyed the world. As of now, the Kingdom of Mexico and the U.S. are at war with each other with the TSC military managing to repel all of the attacks and wipe out most of King Rey's armies in which led to large piles of Mexican corpses near the Walls with blood pouring into the Rio Grande. Regardless of the increased losses, King Rey continues to send his soldiers to the "meat grinder" as his fear and paranoia of losing his power and control of his kingdom keeps on growing. King Rey only believes that as long as he sends young men to fight the TSC on the river border, the U.S. will be kept occupied from invading his nation. But to the TSC and the U.S., they consider the Mexicans a non-threat to the U.S. due to not having any artillery or heavy firepower to take down the Wall along with no aircrafts and ships to bypass the Wall while labeled to be annoyances. However, TSC diplomats are still trying to contact their god-king in hopes to negotiate a cease-fire, establish a peace treaty, and possibly make trade agreements.

The delegates accepted the usual reports of their relationships with the other countries in North America with no worries with the RCSN or the new countries in Europe and Asia since they are already friendly or neutral with the TSC. The meeting continued discussing different topics in which contained reports of successes and excellent results.

…

The trade routes between the States of the U.S. and with the Maple Confederacy and the NCR have improved over the years thanks to the reconstruction of the railways and highways along with the use of rebuilt cargo planes powered by Zeta-fusion. Tariffs are not placed on the States since their needs to be an agreement of tax rate between the State delegates and the new federal government, but there is tariffs on trades between the TSC, NCR, and the Confederacy in order to increase their own revenues. The TSC hopes that the non-taxing strategy on the settlements would help them prosper and grow into towns while under their protection from Raiders and Mutants.

Relationships between humans and mutants have improved due to the TSC convincing some of the human settlers to live amongst the Ghouls, Super Mutants, and, surprisingly, Intelligent Deathclaws within rebuilt towns or cities. The interaction between the humans and mutants was a bit harsh and rocky at first, but they didn't lead to any riots or violence since the TSC soldiers were placed to watch over the settlers with the police. Over time, the humans began to interact with acceptable behavior and manage to socialize with the mutants that friendship began to boom. This is something that Dante, Theo, and Nate hope to accomplish to erase fear and prejudice in order for humanity to accept the mutants as equals among their society.

The population of the United States has grown over the years due to land expansion, immigration, annexing settlements under TSC protection, and advanced medical services due to the doctors from the Followers of the Apocalypse and the medical technology from the TSC and the Institute. The TSC's and the Institute's medical technology not only improved the population's immunity to radiation and mutation but also produced serums to cure from the FEV mutation and ghoulification, advance genetic cosmetics to provide natural beauty, develop immunity to nearly all known diseases, and increase birth rates of healthy babies. With numbers of immigrating Wastelanders entering the U.S. increasing, the TSC and the Minutemen had to establish facilities near the borders to photo and input information on each immigrating individual with background checks to create passports to mark them as citizens or non-citizens and ensure no spies are entering the U.S. As of now, the U.S. population has reached up to a total of about 3,750,000, far larger than the populations of the NCR (750,000), Midwest Brotherhood (32,000), Caesar's Legion (350,000), Maple Confederacy (25,000), Ronto (20,000), New Vegas (35,000), and Mexico Kingdom (55,000).

The advancement of technology was not only done by the TSC Science Department in the Olympus and their capital city, Poseidon. It was also done with the assistants of the Think Tanks in Big MT, the scientists in the Institute, and researchers from the Followers of the Apocalypse. So many pre-war technologies were uncovered and preserved by the TSC during their military expansion with power armor and energy weapons not only were the TSC's main focus. The TSC also searched for advance farming for agriculture, medical technologies like the Auto-Docs, advance robots like the Synths and Zeta Drones, matter transformers like the Sierra Madre vending machines, space-age alloys with properties similar or greater than Big MT's Saturnite, pre-war orbital satellites to restore international communication, new energy sources as powerful or greater than the Mass Fusion's beryllium agitator, and advance construction equipment to rebuild the cities and infrastructure. After years of studying the techs from the pre-war era, the Olympus, Big MT, and the Institute, the scientists from the TSC and the Followers have made so many successful development of new technologies that are installed and are being used by every person within every cities and towns in the United States. New "Houses of Tomorrow" were built, Mr. Handy robots are seen in nearly every household, Zeta-fusion powered vehicles are moving along the highways for civilian transportation or delivering cargo, monorail metros glide smoothly through the city structures and out into the country side, billboards and ads are replaced with hologram ad screens that also provide news and weather reports, and holo-screen Pipboys with a built-in smartphone that consists of a detachable earbud with microphone are being carried by nearly every citizen in the U.S.

The education progress was a matter that was difficult for the TSC to handle since most of their scientists were busy with their research and projects with no time to spare to educate the Wasteland people. But this was solved when Dante met Julie Farkas and the Followers of the Apocalypse at the Old Mormon Fort in New Vegas. He offered them the opportunity to gain the resources and assistance to make their organization grow and in return they help to provide more than just humanitarian work but also doctors for medical services, researchers for technological advancement, engineers to rebuild the cities and infrastructure, and above all teachers to begin educating the Wasteland people. They accepted Dante's proposition and began their work as soon as they relocated to Washington D.C. They helped to restore elementary, middle, and high school buildings to ensure that the children and teens have a place to receive their education. University buildings like the CIT ruins and the intact remains of Princeton University were also restored to provide college education for the citizens to receive their degrees on a major they chose to study. For 8 years since the Followers' relocation in 2282, the U.S. education progress has become successful with numbers of young graduated students increasing each year along with college students receiving their diplomas and starting their careers in the TSC or within the U.S. as doctors, scientists, engineers, accountants, politicians, lawyers, writers, teachers, etc. All thanks to the Followers of the Apocalypse for their dedication with some graduates becoming volunteered members to their organization.

The next discussion was the terraforming progress in which was the first focus after the TSC-Iron Brotherhood War ended. Dante wanted to quickly have the TSC scientists to develop new terraforming technologies to help purify the rivers and lakes while also restoring the original pre-war vegetation in the East Coast. To do this, Dante had some of the scientists set up a research station at the Oasis settlement where a unique FEV mutant name Harold has a tree growing out of his head named Bob and they have been rooted down to the ground for the last 49 years since 2241. What is unique of this mutant is that the seeds from the tree, Bob, began to spread around the area that fresh trees and other vegetation began to grow despite the waters being irradiated. Faunas that have not been seen since the Great War are now living in the settlement in which includes different species of birds, squirrels, and rabbits with no signs of physical mutation. By taking samples of Bob, the vegetation, and the seeds, the scientists were able to research and experiment to develop a unique way to terraform the Wasteland to turn back into the pre-war's natural green life with purified, clean water. They solved this problem by reverse engineering a GECK device they found in the abandoned Vault 69 in North Carolina and constructed their own GECK with Zeta technology and attached it to a Valkyrie to have it spread the seeds similar to Bob's all over the East Coast. They named the device the GECK-Z3 (Zeta Mk III). The seeds are created using the Zeta cloning technology and genetic manipulation devices to ensure that the seeds are different species of vegetation originally grown in the U.S. When the first seed spread test was done near Big Town, the residents, even Dante and the TSC, were shocked to see green vegetation growing out of the revived, fresh soil. It was a great success, but it was only the beginning. TSC also constructed larger versions of the Purifier to be place in constructed dams to purify the rivers like the ones at Fort Defiance to purify the Mississippi River and at Pittsburgh to purify the Ohio River, the Monongahela River, and the Allegheny River. Thanks to the terraforming technologies, soils became fresh enough for vegetation to grow and for farmers to grow pre-war crops. It was also the perfect time to use the embryos, blood cells, and reproduction cells of every American fauna for cloning in which were collected, along with other faunas from the seas and different continents, by the Zeta Aliens during their centuries of observations that made the Olympus an orbiting ark. For about a decade, most of the States are terraformed with their original vegetation and their natural faunas cloned to restore the natural life in the American continent with only the States bordering the Wall and north of Massachusetts still ongoing their terraforming process. This technology was also used within the TSC's allied and neutral countries such as the RCSN, the NCR, the Maple Confederacy, the United Kingdom of Britannia, the Parisian League, Kingdom of Lyon France, the Novus Imperium Romanum and their vassals, the Iberian Union, the Confederated Emirates of Arabia, the Teutonic Knights of Germany, the Empire of Japan, the Reborn Indian Republic, and the New Korean Republic in efforts to restore the Earth's blue-green glory.

After the discussion of terraforming progress, the next topic was the reconstruction progress of the United States' cities and infrastructure. As of now, all of the cities, towns, and infrastructure of the States within the Commonwealths of Columbia, Eastern, South East, Gulf, East Central, and Texas are completely rebuilt and restored back to their pre-war states. However, cities within the New England Commonwealth and the southeastern borders of Texas are still under reconstruction with their lands already terraformed back to their pre-war state with vegetation and faunas appearing. This also includes the cities of New York, Miami, and New Orleans since the TSC is still fighting the battles to liberate the cities. The reason that the cities in Texas' southeastern borders and the New England Commonwealth are still under construction is because the Texas border cities such as El Paso and Laredo are constantly attacked by Caesar's Legion and the Holy Kingdom of Mexico even though the Wall has kept the invaders out from taking the cities while the New England cities, including Boston, are still under reconstruction since the TSC arrived at the Commonwealth in 2287 by their prototype spaceship cruiser/carrier, the Prometheus, until the States were finally pacified and secured in 2290. Though it would have been impossible since it would take years to rebuild one city with a population of only 300 like the D.C. ruins in the Capital Wasteland in 2278, but the reconstruction for each city depending on their sizes took only about 1 to 2 years each since the TSC manage to salvage and rebuilt pre-war construction equipment with Zeta technology, use matter transformation devices to create materials and parts, produce construction drones to speed up construction, and use anti-gravity and tractor beam technology to lift up heavy objects instead of cranes. Although, even though the reconstruction is nearly completed it is expected that there will be ongoing constructions of new houses and city apartments due to population increase from immigration along with maintenance of the nation's infrastructure.

…

With the reconstruction reports all discussed and happy to hear the excellent results, the Third Continental Congress began to discuss the military reports from the TSC, Minutemen, and Mr. House's Mojave Commander.

"Now then. I believe we have some interesting reports from our military organizations," said President Truman as he looked through his paperwork before typing his holo-keyboard.

The holo-screen changed to show the map of the North American Continent again with the major factions controlling their respective territories including the U.S.

"We will start with the reports from the Minutemen. General O'Connor, you have the floor."

"Thank you, Mr. President," replied Nate as he stood up with his own reports in his hands and walked to the front to stand next to the holo-screen and face the delegates.

"As you all know; the Minutemen was an army of volunteer settlers that make up into a militia-level army. The organization is enough to defend settlements but was hardly a real military even though it is under my leadership due to my experiences from the Sino-American War. It lacked proper resources and training in which led to many casualties from the Raiders, Super Mutants, and Gunners," said Nate as he tapped the screen to move to the States in the New England Commonwealth and started showing pictures of Minutemen in ragged clothing and militia outfits while armed with pipe guns or musket lasers.

"But thanks to the TSC's support, the Minutemen is now an organized, military armed force with advance equipment and proper gear. The trainings done by the TSC drill sergeants has put better discipline, coordination, and survival among the soldiers. We even got new officers filling up the ranks to command fireteams, platoons, squads, companies, battalions, regiments, and divisions. We are still training the Minutemen to use the TSC vehicles, but we are getting great results from their instructors that the Minutemen will soon form their own units of tanks, mechanized infantries, and Vertibird squads."

Nate tapped the holo-screen to show new pictures of Minutemen soldiers now wearing dark blue BDUs with advance TSC combat armor colored grey. The armor consists of leg greaves, kneepads, thigh plates, chest armor, shoulder pads, elbow greaves, utility waist belt with pouches and a canteen, and armor protecting the groin and buttocks. There was also the Minutemen symbol colored white on the chest and left shoulder armor with the Betsy Ross American flag on the right shoulder and underneath the Minutemen symbol on the chest armor. They also wore different headwear such as the standard grey combat helmet that has an advance computer visor, a grey helmet with a headlight and full gas mask like the Elite Riot Gear Helmet, the traditional Minuteman hat, a TSC grey officer hat, or a grey beret with the Minuteman symbol. Some were using the new T-60 or X-01 power armor in Minuteman blue color while others wore the Marine Armor that is still black but with the Minuteman symbol on the chest.

The holo-screen also showed recordings of the Minutemen training in their new armor and new weapons in which replaced the traditional laser musket and pipe guns. Their weapons consist of TSC energy weapons and regular firearms, including heavy weapons and melee weapons such as the proton combat knives and the Red Glare rocket launcher. There are also recordings of Minutemen driving tanks, IFVs, APCs, and Vertibirds in nearly perfect formation before attacking their targets as part of their exercises.

"As you can see, the Minutemen have come a long way and are growing into a strong military force in the Commonwealth. Soon the States of the New England Commonwealth will be under protection of another military organization that is nearly equal in strength with the TSC ground forces. Our total forces right now is around 25,000 infantries with only a quarter of them becoming units for Vertibrids, tanks, ground vehicles, and artillery," replied Nate with confidence of his improved military armed force.

"Furthermore, we will have fresh trained Minutemen soldiers of 10,000 this year on the third week of November after Thanksgiving. They will be deployed to help reinforce the TSC forces at Niagara Falls and assist in the Battle of New York City against the Rikers and the LMB. That is all for my report. Thank you," said Nate as he bowed his head before the clapping audience before sitting down.

"The next report is from Mr. House and General West on the current situation concerning the NCR and Caesar's Legion. Commander West, Mr. House, you both have the floor."

Mr. House and Theo both stood up from their seats on stood next to the holoscreen, Nate on the left and Mr. House on the right.

"Ladies. Gentlemen. What we are about to report is considered top secrecy and what you will hear shall not leave this room. Commander West has made an important discovery a few months ago during the Gunners War within the Old State of Oregon," said Mr. House with a serious tone in which brought the attention of all the delegates with the eyes President Truman, General Autumn, and Nate narrowing as they leaned forward to listen. Dante remained quiet and relaxed in his seat knowing what their report is since they informed him and the TSC Council first.

Theo moved his hand over the holo-screen to move the map towards a northwestern location in the North American continent near the borders of Washington and Oregon where it had the geographic lands colored white indicating the area is frozen with winter climates. Pictures appeared to show a ruined pre-war metropolis with ruined skyscrapers still standing in a frozen tundra with endless blizzards.

"This is the pre-war city ruins of Portland in the Old State of Oregon. Back in the Pre-War times, it was the largest city in Oregon that thrived in art, theater, and music scenes. It was also known for its parks, bridges, bicycle paths, microbreweries, and coffeehouses for social activities among the pre-war citizens."

The delegates, Truman, Nate, and Augustus became confused on Mr. House's report since it seems like the city is hardly any important since it is within a frozen wasteland with no value. But Dante knew better.

"So what is so concerned about Portland, Mr. House? It looks like a frozen, ruined city with no strategic value to our country," replied the Super Mutant delegate of the Vermont State with every other delegates agreeing with the FEV mutant.

"We have been listening to rumors among the NCR soldiers near the Vegas Embassy about an NCR division unit leaving the Mojave and heading north during the NCR occupation of the Mojave. What is interesting about this rumor is that the NCR military brass has marked this entire NCR division unit as AWOL, or to be more precise, gone rogue. I had Commander West to track down this unit by going solo and his search has led him north towards this exact city in that frozen wasteland," replied Mr. House as he pointed at the pictures of Portland.

"What could they be doing over there? The place looks like nothing but frozen ruins with hardly any military facilities or corporation research tech buildings in the area. Also, the area is obviously unsuitable for agriculture or domesticating animals that the only way to live in that frozen abyss is hunting the mutated wildlife or scavenging the ruins. Why should Portland be of any of our concern?" asked the confused male synth delegate of the Maine State.

Theo stepped forward.

"I will explain this part since I went to the ruins of Portland."

Theo West then explained to everyone about his discovery of the large division of exiled NCR forces under the command of General Blackthorne whom are stationed in an old military base they call Phoenix Camp outside the ruins of Portland. NCR have not annexed this territory and the NCR public have called the harsh, frozen wasteland the Frontier since it is outside NCR rule and considered lawless. The reason the NCR never ventured into the Frontier was due to the harsh weather conditions caused by the nuclear bombs making the area unsuitable to grow crops and raise their Brahmin with no real profits to increase revenue to their coffers. Theo also confirmed the rumors of the area inhabited by scavengers, slavers, and a tribal of scavengers and hunters called the Snowblinders whom are now new members of Caesar's Legion under the command of Marcus Valerius.

According to Dante's Seraph spies in the NCR, General Blackthorne is a veteran battlefield commander during the NCR-Brotherhood War whom fought in 3 tours during the conflict and is a patriot of the NCR's justification of their expansion to bring law and order to the Wasteland. But the veteran commander became disillusioned when he witnessed the NCR's strategies and tactics of using overwhelming numbers and firepower to overwhelm the Brotherhood Paladins and Knights over their technological advantage that has led to so many high casualties and downfall of morale. It is said that the General cares for his soldiers, including certain battalions of NCR soldiers whom are actually conscripts from NCR civilian families due to a law stating the requirement of all their citizens to serve the NCR military for 5 years. An interesting report on the man was when the NCR made hostile contacts and engaged proxy battles with Caesar's Legion in Arizona, Blackthorne made public of the NCR brass's lackadaisical efforts in their war against the Legion in which brought concern to the citizens that rose into a panic in fear of the impending doom of the Legion. When the public majority cried out for his proposals, Blackthorne took advantage of his popularity and called out Kimball's resignation. However, Kimball took the coward's way by "exiling" Blackthorne and his NCR units of conscripts to the Mojave in hopes that he would be killed during the Battle of Helios One or the First Battle of Hoover Dam. What finally broke the General to oppose the military brass and Kimball's office staff was during the Mojave campaign when after defeating the Mojave Brotherhood Chapter at Helios One, Blackthorne arrived at Camp McCarren expecting to receive discharge papers for his men to return home. But what he got was new orders from General Lee Oliver to defend Hoover Dam of an impending Legion assault in which will become known as the First Battle of Hoover Dam. Hell, it wouldn't be a surprise if General Oliver and President Kimball have conspired together to cancel the discharge papers for Blackthorne's men in order to ensure that Blackthorne never returns to the NCR. Knowing his men will become cannon fodder during the battle, General Blackthorne decided to abandon the NCR and flee to the Frontier with his army.

What Theo learned when he visited Camp Phoenix and spoke with the exiled general (including sneaking into his office to find intel in his terminal, desk, and safe) was that he plans to uncover the secrets and technologies of the Frontier, rebuild his army, annihilate Marcus Valerius and his Snowblind Legion, and return to New California to overthrow Kimball and his war mongers. Then Blackthorne will launch a total war against Caesar's Legion with confidence of a total victory for the NCR.

This report of Blackthorne's goals caused murmers of concerns among the delegates, even to President Truman, General Autumn, and Nate O'Connor.

"Sooo….this General Blackthorne is going to launch a coup de' tat in the NCR and make himself the new President? It sounds like he is making himself into a dictator," replied President Truman with worry.

Theo looked at Truman before returning his sight towards the worried delegates.

He knew that they are worried since the NCR, despite being "sniveling snakes", is an important trade partner to the U.S.'s economy bringing wealth to their coffers from the tariffs. A dictator is the last thing they need to worry since a man with absolute power can cancel the trade and began another war front. This is something the U.S. and the TSC cannot afford since they are now at a total of 5 fronts: Texas/New Mexico, Rio Grande, New Orleans, Miami, and New York City.

"Not exactly, Mr. President. Blackthorne hates the Kimball administration but he loves the NCR and its democracy that he would rather shoot himself than become a dictator. He just wants to remove Kimball and his staff members from power so that the NCR citizens can re-elect a new President whom can back up Blackthorne. What Blackthorne truly wants is command over the entire NCR army so that he can use his strategic proposals to completely defeat the Legion and ensure that the NCR's future is secured. Right now, he is still at the Frontier and won't be returning to New California for years since the Legion is keeping him occupied up there. Plus, he is unaware that the NCR is no longer occupying the Mojave and Hoover Dam," replied Theo with a calm, assuring tone.

This seem to calm and ease the delegates' worries as they nodded in accepting Theo's reports.

"What else is there to know about the Frontier, General West?" said the delegate of New York State.

Theo turned to the holo-screen and tapped it to show the map of Portland and the surrounding lands. More taps on the screen showed pictures of the Exiled NCR Phoenix Camp, Snowblinder Legions HQ in the Buckman Stadium, and locations of secret pre-war military and government facilities along with the hidden location of a Vault.

"As you are aware, the Exiled NCR forces and the Snowblind Legionnaires are constantly engaging each other for control over the Frontier with intentions to uncover and claim its 'secrets'. I obtained as much information as I could among the scavengers through bribery and sweet talks to uncover what those 'secrets' are. The scavengers claimed that there are secret pre-war bunkers or facilities that were used by the Old Government and military to develop advance technology for their war against China with treasure troves of advance weapons, armor, and vehicles but none have been found or located. I searched for weeks through every ruins and frozen landscapes to locate these hidden facilities but found nothing. That is until, by sheer luck, my Pip-Boy intercepted an SOS signal coming from a pre-war military satellite com facility," said Theo as he revealed a picture of the facility on the holo-screen along with its location in the south east of Portland of a thick forest.

"The radio broadcast was one of those 220-year-old signals that led me to this ruined satellite com facility hidden in the forest where I found some intact computer mainframes containing military encoded data. Among the data there were 5 secret locations of each military facility hidden around the Frontier. What's interesting about these locations is that they are hidden within Portland's underground subway systems with rail lines that travel underneath the city ruins and to the outskirts, including mentions of a Vault-Tec Vault known as Vault 6 hidden within the subways or sewers but its location is unknown. Among the 5 secret facilities, two were destroyed and are completely buried in rubble leaving nothing to scavenge for any tech. The first one is a research and development facility for new advanced Vertibird gunships and Utility Vertibirds located at the same military base taken over by the Exiled NCR, Phoenix Camp," explained Theo.

The delegates were now worried again concerned on what kind of Vertibird technology General Blackthorne has got his hands on.

"The Vertibirds are using some type of new engines for the for the rotating helicopter blades with VTOL thrusters installed. This engine helps to easily maneuver the Vertibirds through tough weather climates with no worries of the blizzard affecting its performance while also increasing the speed of the Vertibird far greater than the Enclave Vertibirds. The Vertibirds are also armored with a unique titanium alloy in which is durable, lightweight, and densile with their armaments consisting of gattling lasers, mini-nuke warhead missiles, and decoy flares to counter against enemy rocket launchers. However, comparing their Vertibirds with the TSC's, our Vertibirds are outfitted with Zeta technology so we still outmaneuver and outgun them for air dominace, including our Valkyries," stated Theo with confidence. This eased the delegates to settle down since they were reminded of the TSC's advance fighters that made them the rulers of the skies and stars.

"The second facility was located east underneath Portland almost near an underground subway settlement called the Junk Flea. I had to sneak my way through some sentries whom were guarding a subway tunnel that led to the secret facility since the tunnel was filled with Giant Rats, Ghouls, and a still functioning security system of laser turrets. Once I managed to get through these obstacles, I discovered that the facility is an old research and development lab for new energy weapons and armor. What I found were blueprints, computer data, an advanced automatic laser rifle prototype that fires a blue laser beam more powerful than the standard laser rifle, and a prototype advance combat armor that is somehow modified to work as a spacesuit." Theo explained as he tapped on the screen showing the Junk Flea settlement, the facility, the rifle, and the combat armor spacesuit. Everyone in the room were fascinated with the new technology discovered by Theo, except Dante as he kept up with his poker face.

"Not only I found this treasure trove of pre-war experimental technology, but I also discovered some notes and computer logs from highly secured terminals detailing about the final facility in which houses some unique Vertibirds and mentioning about a space station known as ARCHIMEDES II. I followed the subway tunnels on my Pip-Boy map leading me through a secret subway that cuts off from the civilian subway heading further east towards some frozen mountain known as Mt. Hood. After a long trek through the ancient subway I finally found the secret government underground complex underneath Mt. Hood. The complex had an underground hanger that was filled with Vertibirds that have their helicopter propellers and engines replaced with rockets and designed like space shuttles. There was also a command center in which connects to the ARCHIMEDES II space station where I discovered by hacking into the terminals that the space station is actually an orbiting weapons platform armed with two death rays," said Theo.

Now hearing about a secret government complex housing experimental Vertibirds that can fly into space was astonishing, but hearing about an orbital weapons platform that can fire a super energy weapon from space with a destructive power similar to a nuke was something to be feared. And this brought many of the delegates into a panic with some spitting out their snack food they were eating or coughing out water that they were just drinking from a glass.

"AN ORBITAL WEAPONS PLATFORM?! AND IT IS ARMED WITH TWO DEATH RAYS?!" screamed the female delegate of the Kentucky State.

"General Autumn! You use to be an Enclave officer. How come you never knew about this?!" cried the male synth delegate of the Rhode Island State. Augustus Autumn had a stunned face when he heard what Theo said before he turned to look at the delegate with a stern face.

"I was only a Colonel at Raven Rock under the command of President Eden. A lot of the old U.S. secret files and records were destroyed during the Great War, including when the West Coast Enclave Oil Rig was destroyed in 2241. I was only a young child back during the time when the Enclave's Oil Rig was destroyed and I had no authority to be disclosed of any government secrets even though I was highest ranking officer in Raven Rock under the command of President Eden," said General Autumn.

A sound of banging was heard and it was loud enough for everyone to quiet down. Everyone turned to look at President Truman whom was banging his gavel on his desk.

"Order! Order! There will be order in this meeting!" yelled Truman as he put down the gavel. "General West, please continue your report," he said sternly. Theo nodded.

"Now as I was saying, I used one of the Vertibird space shuttles to travel from the Mt. Hood facility towards the space station. When I saw ARCHIMEDES II, it was very impressive. The space station is actually still functioning even after 210 years since the Great War." Theo then tapped the screen to show the Vertibird space shuttle and the ARCHIMEDES II space station.

The Vertibird space shuttle looked just any standard Vertibird design except it had its rotors and engines replaced with rockets and it had porthole windows on the sides. But the space station was a more impressive display. It was design to have large rectangular complexes with blue lights glowing through the windows and are put together to connect on both sides of a moving wheel-shaped station in which is creating artificial gravity. There are docking hangers on both sides of the station with large neon signs ARCHIMEDES II on top of the docking holes and large solar panels are placed around the station. But the most familiar and obvious structures beneath the space station are two blue glowing satellite dish-shaped death rays that are pointing at the Earth.

"When I entered the space station, I discovered that there were still people occupying the station. However, the people living inside the station have mutated into a more horrifying version of the feral ghouls. I fought through the station to search for answers until I managed find the commander's office with the commander's terminal still intact. I search through the terminal's logs and learned that these space ghouls are remnants of the military and scientists whom were trying to escape the Great War with their families by flying in the Vertibird shuttles to find sanctuary on ARCHIMEDES II. But fighting broke out due to scarcity of resources in which led to a leakage of radiation from the station's nuclear reactor that mutated the refugees and soldiers. Since the station was too big for me to take control, I fought my way to the station's command center to radio the Olympus for reinforcements and have ARCHIMEDES II under TSC control." Theo continued to tap the holo-screen as he told his report to the delegates showing screens of Valkyries flying through space towards the space station and videos of TSC soldiers and power armor units fighting against the space ghouls with Theo fighting alongside and commanding the soldiers.

"Once ARCHIMEDES II was cleared of all the space ghouls, I had the TSC send out a company sized unit of TSC Marines and power armor in cloaked Valkyries to secretly occupy the Mt. Hood complex and the weapon research facility. With these facilities under our control, we are now able to use the subway tunnels to move our scouts around the Frontier to keep an eye on the war between the Exiled NCR army and the Snowblind Legions while uncovering anymore technical documents, computer data, or technology from the Portland ruins. As of right now, the Mt. Hood complex is our new HQ in the Frontier codenamed HOOD NEST with the mountain's ski resorts and village towns as our outposts. We now control the weapon's research facility and the ARCHIMEDES II space station with none of the factions aware of this. However, we are still searching the subways and underground sewers for Vault 6 but have no such luck yet. So there is nothing to worry my fellow delegates. Our nation's security is still secured with possible threats under control. That is all for our reports, Ladies and Gentlemen," stated Theo. The delegates applauded with their worries relieved thanks to Theo and the TSC taking care of the problem. Theo and Mr. House bowed their heads before sitting back in their seats.

President Truman looked at his papers. "Now our next military report is from the TSC Supreme Commander, Grand Admiral Dante Abram. His report states of future plans for a new military campaign into the Wasteland Frontier. Admiral Abram, you have the floor."

Dante got up from his chair and walked up to stand next to the holo-screen. "Thank you Mr. President," he said before looking at the audience.

"Fellow delegates of this Third Continental Congress. For a year since the completion of the Wall, we have sped up the reconstruction and terraforming efforts of our new nation, the United States of America. Many have viewed this impossible. An impossible task to make this nation reborn, the land terraformed, and the people living tranquility once more in only about a decade. But thanks to the miracle technology from the Olympus, we have done the impossible and the States of the New England Commonwealth reconstruction and terraforming progress are nearly completed," he said as he moved his hands over the holo-screen to show the pictures of the Wall, the rebuild cities, the restored beautiful landscapes, and the reconstruction of the cities in the New England Commonwealth.

All the delegates and military leaders in the Old Senate Room listened eagerly to hear what Dante is proposing as he reminded them what they have accomplished for the last 13 years. Dante touched the holo-screen again to show the map of North America again with territories of different factions including the United States.

"Therefore, I am pleased to announce of our future plans to launch our military expansion towards the North Western States in the Midwest in the next 4 to 5 years once we settle our battles in New York, Miami, and New Orleans." Now this brought worry and concerns among the delegates. They were thinking the same thought, "Has he just become a war hawk?"

"Uhhh…..Admiral Abram. Isn't the Midwest under the Midwestern Brotherhood control? Won't this be an invasion and an act of war?" asked a nervous Super Mutant delegate of the Alabama State.

"Hah. Hah. Hah. No. No. Not exactly. I don't mean we are going to invade the territories of the Midwest Brotherhood." Dante touched the holo-screen to zoom the map closer to the Michigan's mitten shaped land bordering the Great Lakes and the states bordering Canada with arrow lines representing the TSC's military movements. "What we are going to do is send a military expedition up north through the State of Michigan, cross the Mackinac Bridge over the Great Lakes, and follow some roads that are built along Lake Michigan and enter the Old State of Wisconsin. We will then head south and occupy the ruined city of Milwaukee and use it as a staging area and main HQ for our expansion to occupy the 6 States that were once known as the Breadbaskets during the Pre-War era. The states include Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota."

The delegates were relieved that Dante was not planning a war with the Midwestern Brotherhood since they have no desire to attack a neutral faction. Although, they are interested in what these states within the Wasteland Frontier can provide to the U.S.

The male delegate of the Texas State asked in his Southern accent. "You said that these states were once known as the Breadbaskets during the Pre-War days? Are you saying these states use to be huge farmlands?"

Dante nodded as he tapped the holo-screen to show the map area north from the Midwestern Brotherhood's territories in which consists of the mentioned states within the gray areas on the map that are marked as the Wasteland Frontier. Dante tapped the holo-screen a few more times to show pre-war pictures of fields of golden wheat crops, dairy farms with cows, fresh cornfields, rolling plains, Great Plains, the Badlands National Park, Mt. Rushmore, and the cities of Milwaukee and Minneapolis. However, other pictures next to the pre-war pictures showed the current state of the land's environment. The pictures showed a dead, desert-like Wasteland that replaced the beautiful farmlands, crop fields, and plains with the cities of Milwaukee and Minneapolis in ruins. Despite the Badland National Park left intact, Mt. Rushmore took the worst with the four carved sculpture heads of the four Presidents nearly destroyed by a Chinese nuclear warhead. Washington's left face was blown off, Jefferson's top head was destroyed leaving only the face intact, Roosevelt's head was completely destroyed but leaving only the mouth intact, and Lincoln's face has a huge hole that destroyed the eyes, nose, and mouth.

"As you can see, the lands of the designated states are a complete Wasteland but the radiation levels have decreased to normal levels. The soils are dead and dry, dead weeds and burnt trees are everywhere, only vegetation are mutated plants, and the remaining sources of water irradiated, including the two Great Lakes bordering Wisconsin and the 10,000 lakes in Minnesota. But this shouldn't be a problem since we have the new GECK Mk IV to quickly terraform the lands with pre-war vegetation and purify the rivers and lakes. These new states will open a frontier of opportunities to our citizens and increase food productions, water distribution, energy production, and revenues to the United States," said Dante with confidence.

"As I said before, we will first occupy the city of Milwaukee and the capital city, Madison, along with the pre-war military bases and airports to establish a foothold and an HQ. To completely occupy the State of Wisconsin, we will began pacifying the lands of all Raiders, Slavers, Drug Dealers, and hostile Mutants while contacting the settlements in the area to establish diplomacy and agreements. Then we will construct a border wall along the borders between Illinois and Wisconsin with a radio broadcast announcing our occupation and protection of the Breadbasket States," explained Dante as he tapped and moved his hands across the holo-screen to show the plans.

"Once Wisconsin is completely occupied and under order, we will expand towards Minnesota taking the city of Minneapolis and Des Moines in Iowa. We will use the same strategy to take North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska and their capitals before beginning to pacify the lands and establish diplomacy with the settlements. Once our borders are secured, we will begin the operations to terraform the States and reconstruction of the cities and towns. Within about a year or two, we will have six more states joining the new United States. Plus, we will have control of the I-94 from Wisconsin to North Dakota, the I-90 in which leads directly towards Seattle, and the I-80 from Iowa to Nebraska in which passes the ruins of Salt Lake City until it reaches San Francisco in the NCR."

The delegates and representatives were impressed as they listened to Dante's plan to send an expedition to add more states to the U.S. Even Mr. House, President Truman, Theo, are showing expressions of interests to the plan since it will bring more money to the country. For Nate and General Autumn, they are mostly excited, even though they kept their poker face, since they see this as a great opportunity to reclaim more of the Old States to restore the United States power and influence in North America.

However, there are some with concerns with the plan.

"Um…excuse me?" said the male delegate of the North Carolina State with an anxious tone. "Wouldn't this movement of a huge coalition forces of the TSC and the Minutemen attract the attention of the Midwestern Brotherhood? Won't they react negatively with this and start tensions in which might lead to war?"

"Do not worry. I still have Seraphs spying on the Midwestern Brotherhood disguised as caravan merchants and they reported that they have not made any moves to send any scouts or forces to the Breadbasket states. Remember, the Brotherhood is only interested in exterminating 'threats of humanity' such as Super Mutant factions or finding any advance technologies relating to the military or the Old Government. Based on the pre-war history, there are mostly no military facilities in the northern Midwest and the Northwest States but only former farmlands and abandoned mines. Also, the Seraphs will make sure that the Brotherhood is unaware of our plans and movement by attracting nearby Deathclaws and other mutant faunas to drive away any Brotherhood scouts that go near the borders while remaining inconspicuous," said Dante.

This eased the delegate and the others whom were concerned with the plan. Nobody wants to start a war with the Brotherhood. Even though the TSC have the numbers and the technology, the Midwestern Brotherhood is still equal in strength, numbers, and technology and this includes the Brotherhood of Steel in Lost Hills, New California. A war with the Brotherhood will serve no benefits to the United States economically and politically. Just massive casualties on both sides.

However, Dante, Theo, Nate, Mr. House, President Truman, General Autumn, and the TSC Council members believe that a major conflict with the Brotherhood of Steel is inevitable. They do not know how, when, or why, but they know it will soon happen despite their relations still neutral. It was kept secret from the delegates to prevent a panic in which could spread among the nation's populace. Dante explained to his most trusted friends in secret that the reason that a war with the Brotherhood is inevitable is because the world has changed fast when the new civilizations began to rise out of the ashes of the Great War. The New California Republic, the Reborn Coalition of Soviet Nations, and the United States are examples of resurrection of civilization. When civilization is resurrected, a government has been formed which means law and order is returning to put down the anarchy in the Wastelands around the world with its own military and police. When law and order has returned, the threats of Raiders and hostile mutants decrease rapidly. This means that there are no more "threats to humanity" in which could lead to humanity's extinction. Therefore, this has led the Brotherhood to decline due to losing its purpose.

The Brotherhood of Steel was formed to protect humanity's existence, destroy all threats to humanity, collect and preserve pre-war technology, and above all rebuild civilization at all cost. They had the chances to build their own nation in the West Coast. But all they did was spent more than 200 years hiding in their bunkers in Lost Hills to protect their secrets, preserve and catalog technology instead of researching and developing new technology, isolate themselves from Wastelanders whom they view as "outsiders", and eradicate Super Mutant factions. Their attempts to wage a pointless war with the NCR and the TSC to monopolize all advance technologies destroyed their image as "humanity's protectors". With all "threats to humanity" nearly becoming extinct and the world re-terraforming back to its pre-war state, the Age of Fallout is nearing its end. A Golden Age of a Restored Earth is soon to begin, along with the Age of Space due to the TSC's existence and their alien technology.

Like the knights of the Middle Ages whom are no longer needed due to the kingdoms forming their own professional armies with loyal soldiers; the Brotherhood of Steel will soon no longer be needed to help humanity since new civilizations around the world have access to advance technology, able to form their own military, and are living peacefully without any worries of survival. The Brotherhood now has only two options: wage war to destroy and conquer the nearby nations to restore their power or disband their organization and integrate into one of the nations in North America.

For now, the TSC Intelligence Division has made sure to keep an eye out for the Circle of Steel, the Brotherhood's unofficial spy organization formed by hardliners within the ranks, and all the movements of the Brotherhood of Steel. Even the head of the TSC Intelligence, Archangel Schmidt, believes that a war with the Brotherhood is inevitable even though he has no proof of it yet. Dante hopes he is wrong and that they could use diplomacy to possibly integrate the Midwestern Brotherhood into the United States Armed Forces and annex the Old States of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and western Colorado into the United States before tensions suddenly spike unexpectedly. All they could do now is wait until they could make contact.

Right now Dante has finished his report on the future plans to annex the Breadbasket states with everyone in the room standing up from their seats and applauding the Lone Wanderer. Dante bowed his head to the applauding audience.

"Thank you. Thank you, everyone. I assure you all that this plan will lead to a great future for all of our people with lots of opportunities in the Breadbasket Frontier. A future for the next generation of Americans to live in peace and happiness before they will soon take over our positions to lead this country to a new golden age," said Dante as everyone clapped more and loudly.

"Alright! Alright! Order! Order! Settle down everyone! Let's finish up our meeting so we can join the Memorial festivities," replied President Truman as he banged his gavel until the room became quiet once more. Dante returned to his seat as they continued with the meeting.

…

(2 hours later)

October 23, 2290

Capitol Building, Washington D.C.

It was now past noon. The door to the Old Senate Chamber opened up as the delegates and representatives began to file out and leave the room once President Truman declared the meeting adjourned. They had just finished discussing about uniting the armed forces of the Minutemen and TSC into a United States military armed force and how the new U.S. government is to be formed based under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights with the elections for Presidency, State Governors, Senators, Representatives, Mayors, and Judges coming up next year.

For the United States Armed Forces, it will be made up of most of the TSC forces in the Army, Marines, Power Armor, Air Force, and Navy with the Minutemen serving as the new National Guard. The TSC space forces however will remain separate as an independent organization involving peace keeping missions. This includes having the space ship, Olympus, and the TSC capital, Poseidonis, to also remain independent from the United States sovereignty. The reason is to ensure that no nations of Earth will have the advantage over the other in use of space technology in attempts of military aggression in which could lead to a Second Great War. Also, Dante wants to make the TSC as the new "United Nations" when Earth is fully re-terraformed and make the former U.N. Building in New York City as the new headquarters of the new intergovernmental organization. The TSC will be tasked to promote international cooperation, create and maintain international order, and lead humanity to explore, colonize, and establish Earth's power among the stars.

As for the new United States Government, it will be the same democratic structure as the Old U.S. Government during the pre-war days but with the 13 Commonwealth Division of the States removed to re-establish the original state sovereignty among the 30 States, including Puerto Rico, that have been reclaimed by the new U.S. As stated from the Followers' research in pre-war history, the 13 Commonwealth administration was formed in 1969 to help create a legislation broad enough to benefit the states with common regional concerns which would help the nation better meet the challenges posed by the Communist threat to U.S. democracy. But it only created even more political strife in the U.S. government, as commonwealths typically did everything they could to promote their own interests at the expense of other commonwealths. Many of the Followers believed that this is one of the events of history in which led to the Great War. Therefore, it was decided that the Commonwealths shall be re-divided back into States with each State having their own state government with their sovereignty shared with the federal government to properly govern their lands while promoting their interests without the expense of other states.

As the delegates left the Old Senate Chamber, Dante, Theo, Mr. House, Nate, General Autumn, and President Truman are the last people to exit the room. Cooper, Rex, Dogmeat and ED-E followed their respective masters as the Black Guards, Blue Guards, and Securitrons returned to their guard formation around their leaders to escort them to their next agenda. The leaders headed to the western doors in which will lead them to the Mall.

Outside on the first lower balcony between the two of the eastern marble stairways of the Capitol Building, wooden chairs with cushions have been set up behind a podium with a microphone for the leaders to speak to the citizens whom come to hear their speeches to celebrate the Great War Memorial. Three flags were hanging on the marble wall behind the seats with the TSC black flag on the left, the Betsy Ross U.S. flag in the middle, and the Minutemen flag on the right.

…

There was cheering. Loud cheering everywhere. The sun was still bright despite the air being a bit cold from the winds. The sunlight reflected off the white granite and marble buildings of the Mall and the pure, blue water in the Reflector Pool. From the Capitol Building's point of view at the top of the steps, the Mall's grassy fields were covered with masses of humans, ghouls, synths, and super mutants with their faces showing expressions of excitement and eagerness. Flashes of white light kept appearing among the masses of people with sounds of camera clicking as Eyebots mounted with cameras hovered and flew around the area with most focusing on the eastern double doors of the Capitol Building awaiting for the delegates, leaders, and heroes to appear.

TSC Army soldiers and Marines provided extra security with the Washington D.C. police forces as they stood in front of the masses of people behind security rails. Other policemen and women patrolled around the Mall and inside the surrounding buildings with some TSC soldiers walking along the Mall's road as they scanned the crowds. Unaware among the crowds and the patrolling police units, there are Blackguards, Razorback soldiers, and Erebus Stealth Snipers patrolling the rooftops around the Mall as they scanned the building windows, alleyways, and the crowd with their advance scanners built into their helmets.

Giant holo-screens hovered next to the buildings on each side of the Mall while two giant holo-screens hovered at the front of the east side Capitol Building on the left and right side of the lower balcony to provide the far away masses a clear view and able to hear the speaker. Flags of the United States, the TSC, and the Minutemen are hung all over the buildings in the Mall including the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol Building.

The crowd cheered loudly as they saw the delegates coming out first. The delegates waved as they walked down the left and right marble stairways to take their seats behind the podium. Next came out the leaders Dante, Theo, Nate, Mr. House, General Autumn, and President Truman with their escorting guards. The crowd cheered wildly as they waved at the famous leaders and heroes as they waved back with smiles. Although in reality, Dante, Theo, Nate, and General Autumn are actually uncomfortable with all the attention focused on them but they kept the smile on their faces and suppressed the irritating twitch of their lips and eyebrows. It was all to boost the public morale and gain the trust of the people after all.

As they took their respected seats in the first row, the bodyguards walked to the sides and stood at attention. Cooper, Rex, and Dogmeat sat on their haunches next to their masters while ED-E remained floating next to Theo. Dante looked around the seat rows and spotted many familiar people. There was Dr. Madison Li the Institute Director, Desdemona the Railroad Chairman, Julie Farkas the Chief Executive of the Followers of the Apocalypse, TSC Vice Admiral William "Bill" Harkin Sr, Washington D.C. Mayor Bannon with his wife Cindy Cantelli, D.C. Police Chief Harkness, and Vault Overseers of the Vaults around Washington D.C.

However, Dante was looking around the seats for his adopted niece, Maria. He managed to spot her on his right sitting in the second row next to Nate's son, Shaun, whom are chatting excitedly with each other. He could see Nate's Mr. Handy robot, Codsworth, floating next to Shaun as Maria's friend, whom were sitting with their parents behind Shaun and Maria, kept asking questions to the robot butler with fascination about the Minutemen General. Sitting next to the children was a familiar face he had known throughout his life. Vault 101 Overseer, Amata Almodovar, still has her young, beautiful face and attractive figure as Dante remembered despite her age now being 32 years old. Right now, she was married to a blond-haired average man named Joseph Filmore and has a 6-year-old son named Rick Filmore whom are sitting next to her along with her 68-year-old father, Alphonse Alvadovar.

Amata met Joseph on 2281 when the Vault started to accept immigrants to live in their Vault to hire labor workers to dig more tunnels and expand the Vault. Joseph was hired as her new secretary and they somehow started dating when they communicated with each as friends until their relationship started to blossom into love. Dante approved their relationship and was able to attend their wedding on 2283 as Amata's best man with little Maria as the flower girl. 3 years later, she gave birth to a healthy, cute boy now named Rick whom had Amata's eyes and Joseph's hair.

Dante was happy for her even though he had some romantic feelings for her in the past and was honored to accept her request to be little Ricky's uncle and godfather. In return, Amata and Joseph became Maria's adopted aunt and uncle with Ricky becoming her cousin. He always made sure to visit Amata and her family to catch up as friends and make time to play with Rick and Maria. Even though he isn't married to her, he is happy that he is part of Amata's family in which gave him the resolve to continue his duty as the TSC Supreme Commander.

Amata felt someone was looking at her and she turned her head to the left to see her childhood friend, Dante, looking at her with a friendly smile. Amata smiled as she quickly informed her husband and son. "Hey honey and Ricky. Look who's over there in the front row."

Ricky and Joseph turned to see Dante and Ricky brought out a cute smile as he waved at his favorite uncle and godfather while Joseph gave a smile and a friendly nod to Dante. Dante waved back at Ricky and nodded respectively to both Joseph and Amata to greet them. He then turned back towards the crowd just as Mayor Bannon stood up and walked towards the podium. Once all of the holo-screens were showing the podium, Mayor Bannon began to speak. His voice boomed over the crowd as he spoke through the microphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Meta-humans and Synths. Fellow Americans. First, we like to thank everyone of you for coming here today to celebrate the 213th annual anniversary of the Great War. Your presence here shows how much you are willing to honor and remember our ancestors whom have suffered the tragic event so that they will never be forgotten."

The crowd cheered and applauded with some waving the small flags of the U.S., TSC, and the Minutemen.

"And now we have a few people whom would like to say their words before you all. You will recognize them as our trustful and faithful leaders of this country and the famous heroes whom gave us hope. Our first speaker, President Truman of the Third Continental Congress."

The crowd and the VIP members seated behind the podium applauded as President Truman got up and walked towards the podium. Mayor Bannon stood aside and sat back down next to his wife. President Truman then began his speech.

…

(1 hour, 30 minutes later)

After President Truman finished his speech, Mr. House came next. Then the next speakers were Theo West and Nate O'Connor. The people cheered for each words spoken by each speaker when they paused their speech before continuing. But most of the loudly cheers were directed towards Theo and Nate since they were the famous heroes whom brought hope and the future for the American citizens.

After Nate finished his speech with the crowd cheering and the VIPs applauding, Mayor Bannon walked up to the podium while clapping. Dante knew it was his turn and he breathed out a sigh as he waited for his que to stand up to the podium and begin his speech.

"Thank you General O'Connor. And now our final speaker, the one whom everyone has been waiting for…the Lone Wanderer and the Supreme Commander of the Terran Starship Command, Grand Admiral Dante Abram."

Everyone in the crowd cheered so loudly that it sounded more like a scream. All of the VIPs stood up from their seats to loudly applaud as Dante stood up, waved, and bowed his head as he walked up to the podium.

"Thank you. Thank you everyone."

Dante waited until the cheering and clapping were silenced. He then gently grabbed the two sides of the podium with his gloved hands before facing the crowd and beginning his speech.

"My fellow Americans. We mark today as the 213th annual anniversary of the Great War. A Memorial Day of our own to honor and remember those whom perish during the tragic nuclear Armageddon. A day in which shall be a constant reminder to not only this country's generations but to other generations of other nations around the world of what the cost of war can lead to. It is within my hope that this Memorial Day shall be the barrier to prevent any use of weapons of mass destruction during a time of aggression in which can lead to a second worldwide destruction.

We do not have the knowledge on which country fired the first nuclear warhead into the skies nor can we determine why every country decided to fire their nukes in hopes to annihilate their enemies despite the consequences. But those do not matter anymore today. What matters is that we are still working to heal and restore our world to its blue-green glory. And our country's terraformed lands are an example of our progress. We must also restore world peace by re-establishing communications with every country around the world. Our communications with countries such as Russia and China will be tough due to old history of rivalry and conflicts, but if we persevere and learn about each other we can establish a possible long-lasting friendship despite our social differences.

A friendship in which I believe is possible because of all those whom stand before me are proof of this. All of you. Ghouls, Super Mutants, Synths, and Humans. All standing side by side accepting each other as equals, seeing each other as fellow Americans born on the same soil, and as friends and families whom you love and respect. You are what makes this country great. You are the people whom value freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And above all, you are the people whom value equality and opportunity greatly that were granted to you to make the life you want to carve and shape out of your own hands. And that is what makes America great!"

Dante paused his speech as the crowd cheered and applauded. He can hear the VIPs behind him applaud loudly as they listened to his words. Dante nodded his head to the crowd as he waited for the applause and the cheers to quiet down before continuing.

"Citizens. 25 scores and 14 years ago, our Founding Fathers brought forth a new nation on this very continent. A nation dedicated to the values of equality, liberty, and freedom. But as this nation grew to become a superpower to challenge the world, it's arrogance and pride blinded to reality as well. Our ancestors from the pre-war era believed that this country was powerful, invisible, and impossible for it to perish from the earth. They made no effort to preserve world peace by bringing the nations together to solve the crisis of resource shortages and energy consumptions. Instead, they abandoned their European allies, left the Middle East to destroy itself, let the United Nations collapse, and broke all relations with the world to fend for itself. This led from fear and paranoia to hatred and prejudice among the American people. And in the end, the world was at war for survival known as the Resource War. And during that war, the war between China and America erupted known as the Sino-American War. And the only outcome in the end was nuclear Armageddon in which we all come to know as the Great War.

For about 200 years, we all have suffered the aftermath of the Great War. The cities were destroyed, law and order fell apart, radiation poisoned the world, raiders and slavers terrorized the Wastelands, mutant faunas hunted all life, and we fought amongst ourselves for survival.

But that all changed on 2078 when the TSC was born. An organization dedicated to restore not only America but the entire world. They offered their services to protect the people of the Wasteland, rebuilt the cities, terraform the pre-war vegetation, restore the Earth's faunas, and restore law and order. But they did more than restore life and order, they resurrected a new nation from the ashes of the Great War that we are now living in today. Hope was given to you all. Faith rose within your hearts in belief that we can live with no worries of survival. And your witness of the TSC's efforts is what gave you the resolve to dedicate yourself to lend them your strength, skills, and talents to help restore this nation and heal our world to ensure we can all live a greater tomorrow. And towards a future for all of our generations to live in happiness."

The crowd cheered again. Applauses were also heard among the VIPs as Dante held his head high to listen to the cheers and applauses. Dante could feel his heart swell with pride as he listened to their cheers, but he made sure to stay focused on his speech. Once the clapping hands and loud cheers died down, Dante continued to speak.

"And now I would like to announce and unveil the TSC's finished project for this Great War Memorial Day. This project is dedicated to the task of worldwide peace keeping, form a joint task force with other nations to strengthen our relations, and achieve exploration among the stars in space. Behold, fellow Americans! The Terran Starship Command's new starships! The Hercules, the Orion, the Odyssey, the Eagle, and the Retribution" said Dante with a prideful voice as he turned around and pointed his right hand towards the skies above the Capitol Building.

Everyone in the Mall turned to follow Dante's view at the blue sky and everyone gasped with surprised faces as they saw 5 large objects appearing in the sky as their cloaking field powered down. What they are seeing are 5 floating rectangular shaped ships in a wedge formation with the middle ship the largest among them. Underneath the ships they can see multiple blue glowing propulsion drives indicating that the ships are kept up with the Zeta antigravity propulsion system. Each of the ships are powered by a Zeta-fusion (or Z-fusion) reactor with 6 generators to transfer power to different parts of the ship with 2 additional smaller versions of the generator to serve as emergency power. For faster transport, they are equipped with teleportation beam transporters thanks to the combination of technologies from Big Mountain's Transportalponder, the Zeta Teleportation Platforms, and the Institute's Molecular Relay. Finally, the ships are equipped with Zeta artificial gravity systems and subspace communications. Flying around the ships in escort formations were Valkyrie fighters and Stingray Deluxe fighters.

The two ships floating behind the middle three are the destroyers in which serve as escorts to the larger ships and additional firepower to fleets like the navy in the sea. The destroyers, the Hercules and the Orion, were light in armor made from Saturnite and Zeta alloys but are equipped with the Zeta energy shields. Their length is 385 meters with their height at 65 meters. What they make up for their light armor is their firepower. They are equipped with three main turrets each placed along the top of the ship's body behind the bow with each armed with 3 railgun cannons. Additional armaments include multiple missile launchers and 12 CIWS turrets on the sides and rear. They also include a turret equipped with a powerful SIC-Mk4 (Super Ion Cannon) gun that is placed underneath the command bridge but high above the three main turrets on the bow in order for it to fire its death ray at the front and both sides. On the rear are two large thrusters on both sides with four smaller thrusters in the middle in which are glowing blue.

The two middle larger ships, the Odyssey and the Eagle, on both sides of the largest ship are the battlecruisers. A similar ship was built with the same battlecruiser design and was named the Prometheus in which was experimental and was sent to the Commonwealth carrying a TSC division force to assist the Sole Survivor and the Minutemen in their war against the Institute. They are longer with a length of 543 meters and a bit larger with a height of 75 meters than the destroyers with medium armor made with the combination of Saturnite and Zeta alloys as protection. They are also equipped with the same Zeta energy shield as additional protection. Their armaments include 4 main turrets, two on each side of the command bridge, armed with 2 ion cannons, two turrets armed with 2 railgun cannons are placed behind the ships' bow on both sides, a super railgun is placed inside the ship's bow, 10 VLS missile launchers are behind the two railgun turrets and in the rear, and 4 nuclear missile pods are placed underneath the ships'. Additionally, two rectangular hangers filled with Valkyrie interceptor fighters are attached to both sides of the cruisers for additional firepower and protection. There are four large thrusters placed horizontally in the ships' rear with two small thrusters at the top and bottom of the large thrusters in the middle.

Finally, the largest ship in the center of the floating fleet is the carrier, the Retribution. This ship is longer with a length of 852 meters and larger with a height of 105 meters than any of the ships in its formation with its body shaped like a large sword. The carrier was protected with heavy armor in which is also made with Saturnite and Zeta alloys and also with a Zeta energy shield. The carrier's armaments include multiple missile pods on top of the ship's hull, two main turrets on both sides of the command bridge armed with two ion cannons, and multiple anti-air guns on the sides and rear. On the both sides of the hull are two hanger bays filled with Valkyries, Vertibird Gunships, Utility Vertibirds, and Stingray Deluxe fighters. Underneath the hanger bays was the storage area filled with Mammoth tanks, Patton tanks, Chimera Tanks, Stryker APCs, Bradley IFVs, Humvees, and Utility Trucks. There is a loading elevator platform to transport the vehicles and cargo containers to the hanger bays for the Valkyries and Utility Vertibirds to transport the vehicles to the ground or unload by ramp through the hangar bay doors. Additional storages also include foldable defense walls, defense turrets, construction equipment and vehicles, construction drones, military robots, and material storages. There is also a small factory next to the storage that can produce replenish ammunition, robots, equipment, armor, and weapons thanks to the technology from the Sierra Madre's matter transformation vending machines. The factory can also produce parts for the spaceships, vehicles, and construction. But what made this ship more unique than the rest is that it is equipped with an experimental Z-3 Hyperdrive Engine that is developed by TSC scientists, the Think Tanks, and Mr. House through their research and study of the Olympus' Hyperdrive Engine in hopes to begin interstellar travel within the solar system to colonize the planets. A ship that will transport humanity into the stars.

Once the shocked died down, cheers erupted once more as they gazed in wonder and awe of the technology that would be considered science fiction. But what they are seeing is real and an opportunity for humanity to be able to explore outer space.

Dante raised his arms up to and nodded his head to the cheering crowd with a proud smile. He can even hear the VIPs behind him clapping along with the sounds of cheering. Once silence returned, Dante begin to finish his speech.

"With these ships we will not only bring peace to the world, but to finally grant humanity the chance to explore the stars beyond our world. As a sign of peace and to strengthen our relations, the TSC wishes to invite our allied nations to form a joint task force to command these ships and lead humanity to a greater future. A future that was thought to be lost when the Great War destroyed the world, but now we are granted that second chance. Let us all joined together and explore what is out there.

May God Bless the fallen. May God bless the Earth. May God bless to all nations. And May God bless these United States of America."

The crowd cheered as all the VIPs stood up from their chairs and clapped loudly for Dante's speech. Flashes of light kept appearing rapidly in front of the crowd as newspaper photographers kept taking pictures of Dante. Dante waved at the cheering audience with a bright smile on his face as he felt happiness and pride swell within his chest. He stepped backwards and continued to stand with the other VIPs as Mayor Bannon took the podium while clapping.

"Wonderful! Beautiful speech as always. Let us give another cheer and applause to Supreme Commander Dante Abram," said Mayor Bannon as everyone clapped and cheered once more.

"And now to finish our celebration. Let us begin the parade to salute and cheer for the soldiers whom fought bravely in many battles to bring law, order, freedom, and equality to our world."

The band music began to play with confetti's and streamers colored in red, white, and blue raining down from confetti cannons on the rooftops. The music first to play was the famous American national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. When each song ended, a new one played in order. Yankee Doodle, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, The Marine Hymn, Semper Fidelis, America the Beautiful, and When Johnny Comes Marching Home. As the band music played Dante, Theo, Nate, President Truman, TSC Vice Admiral Harkin, Mayor Bannon, Railroad President Desdemona, Institute Director Madison Li, and all of the other VIPs saluted to the parade band and to each TSC units, Minutemen units, and Ghouls whom are 213-year-old veterans of the Great War. The parade was to start marching from the south and march up close to the east side of the Capitol Building, then they parade will turn and march east towards the Lincoln Memorial before turning south and march between the Memorial and the Reflector Pool, then the parade will turn west and march all the way to the Capitol Building and turn south at the end of the parade.

The first to march was music band similar to the pre-war marching band. The band players were all dressed in blue coats with white pants and black shoes along with black shako hats on their heads as they played their respective instruments. Leading the band was the drum major whom was using the long ceremonial baton to direct the musicians in the band. On each side of the drum major were flag bearers, the left carried the TSC flag while the right carried the Betsy Ross American flag.

Coming up behind the band were the 213 veteran soldiers of the Old United States whom fought during the Resource Wars and the Sino-American War. The soldiers were mostly Ghouls with some turned back into their human form thanks to the TSC's cure to ghoulification. They were marching in order in their respective uniforms of each U.S. military branch such as the Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard. Each soldier had a Medal of Honor over their necks to honor their service for their country and carrying out their duties despite the world's destruction.

Following up the veterans was the TSC Army whom took part in battles in East Coast, the Dixie States, Detroit, and the Commonwealth. Next were the TSC Marines whom also participated in battles alongside with the TSC Army. Behind the Marines were the TSC Hammerhead Power Armored units whom were known to have turned the tide in the Iron Brotherhood-TSC War and brought many victories. The TSC Thunderfists came next as they were known as special forces to operate in infiltration, sabotage, raids, intel gathering, and assassinate enemy commanders. The next units were the Black Guards, the famous veteran elite units whom are hand-picked among the Thunderfists by the TSC commanders to commence top-secret/suicidal missions and guard the TSC Supreme Commander and Council members. Through order after the Black Guards, the units whom marched in the parade were the TSC Razorback heavy troopers, the TSC Rangers, the TSC Valkyrie pilots, TSC Vertibird pilots, Stingray pilots, the TSC Super Mutant units lead by Master Sergeant Fawkes, the TSC X-01s, and the TSC T-60 Power Armored units.

After the TSC units, the Minutemen units came marching down next. The units consist of the Minutemen Laser Musket Militia, the Minutemen Regulars, the Minutemen Mariners, the Minutemen X-01s, T-60s, T-51s, and T-45 Power Armored Units. Next were the robots in which consists of TSC Zeta Drones, New Vegas Securitrons, Institute 2nd Generation Battle Synths, Mr. Gutsies, Sentry Bots, Eyebots, Quantum Swarmbots, Quantum Tankbots, Duelbot Assaultrons, and Quantum Junkbots.

Finally came the military ground vehicle in which are Mammoth Tanks, Patton Tanks, Chimera Tanks, Bradley APCs, Stryker IFVs, and Humvees. The tank commanders kept themselves standing through the tank's hatch as they saluted to the Supreme Commander, the military leaders, and the rest of the VIPs on the Capitol Building's stairway balcony.

…

October 23, 2290

Unknown location, Somewhere in the Midwest

The room was partly dark with the only lights glowing are on the ceilings in which kept dimming and hardly brighten up the room. The room consists of a large circular metal table with a pre-war holographic projector in the middle facing the wall to show images. Sitting around the table were thirteen dark figures wearing leather robes consisting of colors gray, blue, or red with their faces darken by the shadows with the lights hardly revealing their identities. They were all looking at the moving images shown from the projector in which is showing Dante Abram at the podium speaking to the crowd and the 5 floating spaceships hovering over the Capitol Building. The figures listened to Dante's speech before one of them began to speak.

"So, the TSC has managed to build five new spaceships and are planning to create a joint task force with the other major nations in the world," said a female voice from a figure in a red robe.

"We cannot ignore this any longer! The TSC and the Minutemen are getting more powerful everyday as we sit within our bunkers with no results of our own progress!" yelled a hard tone male voice from a figure in a gray robe.

"Not only have they grown into powerful military organizations, but they managed to bring back the United States from the ashes. And they did it in only about a decade," stated a calm calculated tone male voice from a figure in a red robe.

"They even rebuild the old world cities, re-terraformed the pre-war vegetation, and resurrected the old world faunas. What achievements have we made besides eliminating Super Mutants and finding lost old world tech. Nothing. They make us look like war mongers and tech bandits," said an old cracked voice of an old man wearing gray robes.

"What disgusts me is that they accept those Synth abominations as equals as humans whom can think for themselves. Ghouls, Super Mutants, and sentient Deathclaws I can accept living among us as long they have their uses. But machines that can think for itself as though it is sentient is a blasphemy to technology!" growled a male voice from a figure wearing red robes.

Others murmured and nodded their heads in agreement.

"We need to do something fast. Our organization is declining because of the existence of the TSC, the Minutemen, and the United States. That damn traitor, former Star Paladin Dante Abram, is responsible for putting us in the situation we are in. He needs to be eliminated along with the Courier, Theo West, and that Minuteman General, Nate O'Connor, if we are to restore ourselves," said the calm voice with a hard tone of the middle figure whom is obviously the leader among the group and is wearing gray robes.

All of the shadowy heads quickly turned towards the main head after hearing what he just said. Some of the members gasped and others murmured in concern.

"Sir. Are you suggesting we go to war with the TSC, the Minutemen, and the United States? Have you forgotten what happened when we went to war with the NCR? We were nearly destroyed due to being outnumbered despite inflicting heavy casualties on the NCR military. You, the last leader of Lost Hills, were forced to gather all of your brothers and sisters and all of the tech to escape after self-destructing the Lost Hill bunker when the NCR planned to finish your chapter off once and for all. You had to move the entire Lost Hill Chapter towards east in hopes to contact us. You are very lucky your people were saved when our scouts encountered your chapter before bringing them here. Besides, these three factions in the east have allies around the world whom might not hesitate to assist!" yelled a female voice of a figure with a blue robe.

"Not only they have those Zeta Alien technology to give the TSC, the Minutemen, and the United States the edge to outgun us, but they also outnumber us by population numbers! They can do far worse damage to us than what the NCR did to us when we went to war with them!" cried one of males.

"I know that already! But what choice do we have?! We are in a state of decline because the Wastelanders do not want us anymore. In fact, our Inquisitors have reported that many of the tribals from the occupied villages and settlements are planning or trying to desert to the U.S. in attempts to integrate into their society for a better life. They have grown tired of paying tribute in return for our protection services by supplying us with food, water, materials, and recruits. Plus, our spies in the U.S. have reported rumors that the TSC plans to expand into the Midwest," said the same middle figure in gray robes.

Murmurs increased among the dark figures. They know without the tribals they will lose their source of supplies and manpower. But what they are mostly concerned about is what the middle figure just said.

"Sir, are you saying the TSC plans to invade our territories?" asked one of the figures.

"No, not our territories. The ones in the north close to the Canadian borders and the Great Lakes. The TSC calls these lands the Breadbasket States since they were once fertilized farmlands during the pre-war days. Now they are a Wasteland of dust and sand with dead trees, brown weeds, and mutated faunas. But that won't be a problem for the TSC since they created the advanced GECK-Z3 technology that they can use to terraform the lands in less than a year resurrecting the Breadbasket States in which will grant them more access to food and natural resources. It will no doubt boost their economy and revenues at an alarming rate. If that happens, then we are finished. The TSC will be too powerful economically, military, and technology and we will be surrounded by the space organization on all sides. The north, the east, and the south while Caesar's Legion lies in the west and south west. We can either move our organization into a different territory such as Canada or Mexico or fight to preserve our existence and take what should be right fully ours as true inheritors of technology. Disbanding our organization is the one thing I shall never do, even if we all are doomed to die."

Everyone around the table were silent. They all share the same feeling with the head figure. Disbanding the organization in which has lived for over 200 years was something they would never do. It would shame their ancestors and their founder. They would rather fight to the death or commit suicide. The middle figure stood up from his seat as everyone looked up at him with full understanding of what path they must take.

"Brothers and sisters. It has come to this. Will you stand and fight beside me once more to see that we live on. We either win this or perish from the face of the earth," said the head figure.

Slowly every figure around the table stood up in accepting the head figure's proposal. They will stand and fight to the end. Whether they rise up again through victory or be wiped out in utter defeat.

"So be it. We go to war."

The head figure raised his right fist into the air and shouted.

"AD VICTORIUM!"

Everyone joined in.

"AD VICTORIUM!"

"FOR THE BROTHERHOOD!"

…

October 23, 2290

The Mall, Washington D.C.

It was close to being 3:00 pm. Dante, Theo, and Nate were enjoying a great time of their lives. They managed to slip away from their bodyguards at the end of parade with Maria and Shaun giggling as they joined in the fun of sneaking away as well.

Dante had his left arm around Maria's shoulders while walking alongside with his niece. Shaun was walking alongside with his father as they talked and laughed together. Theo enjoyed his fun of playing some of the game stalls and winning some prizes for Maria and Shaun and their friends since they couldn't win any of the games on their own when they tried. Dante and Nate knew Theo could win easily due to his insane "Lady Luck". Plus, Dante, Theo, and Nate had suspicion that the games were rigged by the hosts to squeeze every customer of their hard worked money from their pockets like in the pre-war times.

Maria held a large white teddy bear with a red bowtie as she ate some pink cotton candy while Shaun held a large, inflatable baseball bat as he ate a hot dog. Dante ate a warm pretzel and Nate was drinking a bottle of Nuka Cola as they walked alongside with their kids with Cooper, Rex, and Codsworth following them through the crowded Mall. Theo, with ED-E floating next to him, was with Maria's friends and their parents as he enjoyed his churro while they followed behind Dante and Nate. Theo entertained the kids by telling them stories of his adventures while making sure to leave out the blood, gore, and horrors.

"Hee-Hee-Hee! Uncle Dante! This is so much fun! Thank you for spending time with me!" said Maria excitedly with a giggle. Dante smiled at his niece as he continued to walk alongside her with attempts to have as much fun with his little girl as possible.

"Anything for you, honey. Besides, you are my little princess after all," said Dante while eating his pretzel.

"Thanks a lot, Dad. I hope we can do this more often," said Shaun as he ate his hot dog with a smile. Nate smiled at his boy as he enjoyed having a great time with his son.

"No Problem Shaun. You are young and you should have much fun and adventures to enjoy," said Nate as he sipped his Nuka Cola.

The group manage to reach the base area around the Washington Monument where multiple tables with chairs were placed for the people to rest and relax. Among the tables, Dante spotted his childhood friend, Amata, with her family sitting at a large table enjoying their afternoon lunch.

"Hey Amata, Joseph, Ricky!" yelled Dante.

"Auntie Amata! Uncle Joseph! Ricky!" yelled Maria who joined in Dante's calling.

Amata and her family heard their names called and they spotted Dante with Maria next to him as they waved at them.

"Dante! Maria! Come join us along with your friends!" yelled Amata with a smile as she waved them over. The group managed to sit around three tables while making sure they are close to each other to chat. Everyone where chatting, laughing, and having a good time on this Great War Memorial Day. But the day isn't over yet. Everyone in the Mall are waiting for the night to fall in order for the firework show to begin at 9:00 pm. A perfect finale for everyone to enjoy before the day ends with memories that will live on among their hearts.

As everyone were chatting while enjoying their lunch, Theo spotted 4 Black Guards rushing towards their position through the crowds.

"Hey Dante. Your body guards have found you," said Theo as he pointed at the approaching Black Guards. Dante looked at where Theo was pointing and sighed. He knew that he would be found eventually but he hoped that they would leave him alone so he can enjoy his fun with his family. Being the Supreme Commander is very tough since it affects his time to be with his adopted niece and friends. The Black Guards finally approached Dante and quickly saluted him in which rose an eyebrow since usually whenever he slips away his guards would lecture him of his safety and how important he is.

"Sir! An emergency has come up that requires your attention. Please follow us to a secure location. General West and General O'Connor are needed as well," said the officer Black Guard, Captain Thompson.

Dante, Theo, and Nate held confused looks along with everyone in the group. However, if it was important that requires his attention along with the other commanders than they should comply and see through it. Dante nodded as he got up along with Theo and Nate.

"Everyone. It seems something has come up. But don't worry. We will be back before the fireworks start. Maria, you stay with Auntie Amata and her family and behave yourself. Is that understood?" said Dante.

"Don't worry Uncle. You know I will behave. Now go hurry up and do your boring commander's job so I ride your shoulders while we watch the fireworks together," said Maria as Dante, Amata, and Joseph laughed at her comment while Rick giggled.

"That goes for you as well Shaun. Behave yourself since you will be under Mr. and Mrs. Filmore's care while I am gone," said Nate as he held a fatherly tone to his son. Shaun rolled his eyes.

"Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry Dad. You know I don't go around making trouble."

Theo began to stand up from his seat. "Sorry, kids. Duty calls. We will have to pick the story some other time," said Theo as Maria's friends held disappointed faces. They wanted to hear what happens next after Theo tricked the "evil" Elder Elisah to lock himself in the Sierra Madre Vault while escaping with the 37 gold bars and the treasures from the Vault.

"AAAAWWWWWW!" they cried.

"Now. Now. Now. You know this is important since I am a General you know. But don't look so down. The fireworks will soon start and that is something we are all excited to see. Isn't that right?!" said Theo as he managed to cheer up the kids and put back the smiles on their faces. He gave them all a smile before he tipped his Desperado Hat to their parents to excuse himself.

"ED-E. Rex. Come along boys," Theo called to his companions as they followed him.

"You too Cooper. Let's go," called out Dante to his cattle dog and Cooper ruffed before following him.

"Codsworth, I want you to accompany me. You Dogmeat. You stay and watch over Shaun for me okay," Nate said as he petted Dogmeat's head while the German shepherd ruffed in acknowledgement.

"Umm…Sir? Why me?" asked the Mr. Handy.

"Because I believe you deserve a break for watching over my boy. Besides, I would like for you to come with me as my extra body guard. Just like the times when we wandered the Wasteland together," said Nate with a smile. Codsworth moved his three retinal eyes to the ground as the robot thought over what his master said in his CPU brain.

"Oh, very well. Just like old times. Let us be off then, Sir!" said Codsworth as he followed Nate.

"Return as fast as you can, Dad. I want to watch the fireworks with you," said Shaun as he petted Dogmeat's head whom is sitting next to him. Nate nodded as he left with the group with Codsworth following him.

The family group continued with their chatting as the four Black Guards escorted the three famous Wasteland heroes and their companions into a separate location on the northern side of the Capitol Building. The area was blocked by foldable defense metal walls to keep crowds and traffic from going near the area with the TSC Bradley APCs and soldiers guarding the area. The group halted once they arrived in the center of the area.

"We will be beamed up to the Retribution, Sirs. Please stand by," said Captain Thompson. The officer opened his radio in his helmet and contacted the command bridge on the carrier.

"We have gathered our commanders. Beam us up…..Roger that. We are about to beamed up. Prepare yourselves," said Captain Thompson. After a few seconds there were multiple flashes of light as the group was teleported up to the Retribution.

…

The large platform in the middle of the teleportation sector within the starship carrier, Retribution, flashed in a bright blue light as Dante, Theo, and Nate appeared along with their companions and the Black Guards. The commanders stepped off the platform with the rest of the group following. They walked towards an African American man standing at attention wearing his TSC black uniform with his rank on his officer cap revealing himself as the XO of the ship. The XO saluted to the approaching leaders.

"Commanders, it's good that you have arrived in time. I am executive officer Lieutenant Ned William. Please follow me to bridge immediately. The captain will explain the situation," said officer Yaver as he began to guide the group to the bridge. They passed through hallways of the carrier as they passed through crew members and officers of the ship whom stood on the side saluting their leaders with respect before continuing with their duties. After a few minutes, the group reached the main elevator and boarded it to ride up towards the bridge.

The elevator reached the bridge floor before the slide doors opened sideways to let the group enter the bridge. The bridge wasn't designed as similar as the command bridge on the Olympus, but the the holo-screen terminals, the holographic table in the center of the bridge, and the holo-screens placed on the ceiling near the bridge window screens showed that this ship is using Zeta technology. The design was similar to the bridge of a sea navy carrier but larger with more space.

"Attention! Commanders on deck!" yelled XO William as the officers in the bridge stood up from their seats at an attention and saluted their leaders. Including the captain, whom is a Caucasian with a buzzed cut blond hair, stood up from his command chair to salute his leaders.

"Supreme Commander Abram. General West and General O'Connor. Welcome to the Retribution. I am Captain Henry Gibson, commander of this ship," said the captain as he remained saluted. Dante, Theo, and Nate returned the salute.

"At ease everyone. Captain, give us the sit-rep," replied Dante as he stood next to the captain's chair with his hands held behind his back. All the officers resumed their duties while Theo folded his arms over his chest and Nate placed his hands on his hips. Their companions and guards remained near the elevator door.

Once the captain sat back in his command chair, he pushed some buttons on his armrest. A holo-screen with a holographic keyboard appeared in front of him. He began to type. A 3-D holomap of the U.S. appeared above the holographic table showing 5 blips moving from Kentucky heading at a straight line pointing north west towards Washington D.C.

"Commander," said Captain Gibson. "Our patrols and sensors at the Kentucky border section of the Wall detected some fast moving objects invading our air space coming in from the west. We don't know where they came from but the nearby bases are sending their Valkyries and Stingrays into the air to try to intercept the objects. They are moving fast at Mach 3 and slowly climbing up. Our radar officers pinpointed their destination to be heading towards here since they are moving at a straight line with no changes of direction."

Dante gazed at the 3-D holographic map watching the blips moving towards the capital city. He was calculating in his mind of the objects' point of origin and which faction in the North American continent is sending them. Theo and Nate are thinking of the situation as well. "Caesar doesn't use any pre-war technology. And the NCR is not capable of spending resources on jets nor have a reason to start a war. Could this be the Brotherhood of Steel's attempt to finally strike first as I have predicted?" thought Dante as he narrowed his eyes with a single sweat dripping down slowly on his left side of his face.

"Have we tried contacting the unidentified objects?" asked Theo as he pulled out his cigar pocket container from his coat in which contained 7 Sunset San Francisco cigars. He pulled one out and put it in his mouth until Nate slapped him on the chest when he noticed what Theo is doing. Theo looked at Nate whom was shaking his head sideways before putting away his cigar back into his container while groaning in irritation.

"Yes, Sir," said the Captain. "Some of our Valkyries closing in on the objects have tried to contact the objects with demands to power down and be escorted to a nearby Air Base as part of our protocol. But no response from the objects and they haven't slowed down. Commander Abram, the Valkyries are asking permission to shoot down the objects. They fear they may be missiles."

Dante stared at the blips as they got closer to Washington D.C. on the holographic map. He was silent for a bit before he turned to the Retribution's captain. "Captain Gibson. Order all of the starships, including the Retribution, to go to battle stations. Raise their shields and arm up their weapons but remain standby. Order the Valkyries pursuing the objects to attempt contact and identify the objects. If the objects open fire, then return fire. Also, contact the commander on the ground. Tell him to start evacuating the civilians in D.C. into the Metro tunnels and bunkers. Get as many Black Guards to evacuate the delegates, President Truman, and other VIPs. Make sure to get my niece, Amata Filmore and her family, and General O'Connor's son along with their friends and parents evacuated as well. They are located near the Washington Monument. As for Mr. House, the Securitrons will be able to evacuate him to a safe location," said Dante as Captain Gibson nodded before carrying out his orders.

The three Wasteland heroes continued to look at the 3-D holographic map as the blips are almost at Washington D.C. Theo and Nate hope Dante was wrong about his prediction of the Brotherhood starting a war. Even Dante himself hoped that he was wrong as well.

…

It was just only a sudden change of atmosphere. The Mall was filled with patriotic music from the floating large holo-screens with the crowd adding thrills, cheers, and laughter into the air of fun and excitement for the Memorial Day. The people were just enjoying the time of their lives until the music suddenly died down with a sudden new voice in which made everyone to stop what they were just doing. Everyone stared at the holo-screens as they changed from colorful red, white, and blue backgrounds with musical notes into a red screen flashing large, yellow letter words "EMERGENCY EVACUATION!".

"Attention. All citizens within Washington D.C. Please evacuate to the nearest Metro or emergency bunker immediately. This is an emergency evacuation. This is not a drill. Repeat. This is not a drill," replied the automated emergency announcement in a female computer tone through the Mall's holo-screen speakers.

The people were confused and worried of what is happening. Then the crowd became more worried when TSC Bradley APCs and Stryker IFVs began to appear around the Mall and started offload TSC soldiers, marines, and power armored units from X-01 to Hammerheads. Police sirens were heard all over the city as police cruisers and SWAT vans drove into the Mall. The D.C. Policemen and TSC officers began to pull out their megaphones and order the civillians to gather their families, friends, and loved ones together and follow their instructions as they guided them to the Metro stations, cross over the Potomac, or to different parts of the city where emergency bunkers are located.

Near the Washington Monument, the family group where the three heroes left looked around in worry and confused. Maria clutched her giant white teddy bear as she hugged close to Aunt Amata whom was standing up and trying to call her Vault Chief Security in Vault 101 with her Pipboy smartphone. Joseph was also standing while he kept his son Ricky in his right arm while holding Shaun's hand in his left hand. Dogmeat was standing next to Shaun like a good guard dog. Maria's scared friends where held in their parents' arms as they are concerned of what is going on. Then they noticed a squad of Black Guards and Blue Guards rushing towards their position but are different since they are wearing green berets while being led by one wearing a red beret.

Once the Black Guards and Blue Guards reached the family group, the red beret officer spoke to Amata. "Madam Overseer of Vault 101. The Supreme Commander has ordered an evacuation of the city. Please follow us with your family members and friends to the Lincoln Memorial emergency bunker," he said and Shaun recognized the voice as the same Black Guard officer who gave him a tour back at Adams Air Force Base. He even recognized Blue Guard Captain Brown whom escorted him and his family to the capital city.

The family group were quickly being escorted through crowds of moving people. Everywhere, people moved at an orderly fashion with steady pace while police and soldiers use their microphones to keep the people calm and moving. There was fear in everyone's eyes but they followed as they were told since they have faith in the TSC to keep them safe.

Suddenly, an air screeching noise was suddenly being picked up by everyone in the city. It started low before it began to steadily grow louder. Even as the people kept moving to be evacuated, all of the heads were moving around with their eyes looking at every direction in the sky to try to pin point the location of the strange noise.

…

Inside the Retribution bridge, alarms started to go off when the radars finally detected the 5 unknown objects moving fast from the west. Officers on the terminals quickly try to identify the objects as fast as possible.

"Lieutenant William! Report!" called out Captain Gibson. Despite the alarms going off, the three commanders and their companions and bodyguards remained at attention with no signs of flinching or change of expression. They remained calm and collective.

"Sir! The objects have been detected and identified! They are some kind of jet fighters with unfamiliar designs! Pulling up the main screen now!" shouted the XO as the main holo-screen appeared in front of the bridge's windows in the middle. It showed 5 planes shaped like jet fighters and are now moving at Mach 4.5. The fighters were designed like the pre-war Stingray Deluxe fighters but there were small rockets installed on each wings giving them an extra boost in speed. What was more curious of the fighters is that each had a large rocket shaped missiles underneath each wing. They seem to stray the fighters' wings due to their weight but they kept pushing towards the capital at climbing speed.

Dante glared at the fighters as he calmly extended his right hand to Captain Gibson. "Captain. Give the headset. Connect me to those fighters," he said as the captain obliged and handed Dante an earpiece with an attached microphone before ordering the communication officer to patch through the incoming fighters.

"Sir! Your connected!" shouted the comms officer. Dante responded, "Attention un-identified aircrafts. This is Supreme Commander Dante Abram of the Terran Starship Command. You are violating the sovereign airspace of the United States of America. Identify yourselves or I will order my ships and fighters to shoot you down." Dante waited for an answer until a nearby officer next a terminal responded.

"Sir! The fighters have boosted their speed up to Mach 5! They are arming those large missiles on their wings!" shouted the female officer. Dante glared at the now enemy fighter fiercely with Theo and Nate doing the same as he ordered the female comm officer to switch his connection to all channel frequencies. "All ships and fighters! You are clear to engage!" shouted Dante.

…

With that only response they need from their Supreme Commander, the starships floating above the Capitol Building at a height of 12,000 meters unleashed their ion beams, CIWS tracers, and missiles at the incoming enemy fighters in front of them. It was easy to target the fighters since their ships are facing west and directly at the incoming fighters. The pursuing TSC Valkyries and Stingrays opened up their Zeta-beams and 55 mm cannons as they tried to take out the five enemy fighters.

But to the shock of the pilots and crew members on the bridges of each starship, the fighter jets released their flares to divert the missiles, angle their fighters to the sideways to dodge the incoming bullets and energy beams, and increased their speed up to Mach 6. The fighters were nearing the Mall and are about to pass over the Potomac River and the Lincoln Memorial when two of the fighters launched their missiles. The two of the missiles were heading straight towards the destroyer, Hercules, with the other heading for the battlecruiser, Eagle.

The evacuating civilians on the ground heard the sounds of the starships firing their weapons and are looking up with curiosity and concerns. Then they noticed the jet fighters coming in from west in which they can see are being fired upon. The civilians began to shout and scream once they can see what is happening and knew that it is an attack on the city. Their fears grew when they noticed the incoming fighters launching their missiles at the starships. The civilians' first instinct was to get away from battlefield and seek shelter in fear that the fighters will dive down and try to shoot them with their guns and missiles. The crowd started to panic and rush faster into the Metro stations and emergency bunkers while the policemen and soldiers were doing their best to keep the civilians calm and maintain order.

…

"Incoming missiles! Wait!...My God! Radiation detected! They're nukes Sir!" yelled a nearby tactical officer. Now this caused the calm expression of the three Wasteland heroes to drop and change into expressions of shock and horror. Including the captain and XO of the Retribution.

"WHAT?! Order all of our ships and fighters to intercept those missiles and then destroy those fighters! Quickly!" yelled Captain Gibson as he gripped the armrests of his command chair while leaning forward.

Everyone in the world believed that there are no nuclear missiles left in the world since they were all launched during the Great War. But that was proven wrong since there were some nuclear missiles that were never launched due to either malfunction during launching or were kept in stockpile facilities and were never loaded into the silos or submarines. Dante, Theo, and Nate proved this when Dante found nuclear warheads at Fort Constantine, Theo discovered nuclear missiles not fired at the Hopeville base in the Divide, and Nate located the Chinese submarine, the Yangtze, carrying four nuclear missiles within the bay near Boston and the American submarine, the USS Democracy, still carrying four nuclear missiles docked within a secret submarine base in Far Harbor.

…

All of the ships, Valkyries, and Stingrays fired all of their guns, missiles, and energy beams fiercely in determination to take out the nuclear missiles and enemy jet fighters. The skies above the Mall were filled glowing lines of energy beams, heated ammunitions fired from defense guns, and missiles exploding in mid-air after hitting one of the flares. It was as though there is a dogfight above the city.

Eventually, three of the nuclear missiles were intercepted but one got through and hit the battlecruiser, the Eagle, at the front. A nuclear explosion burst from the impact, but the energy shields of the Eagle and the nearby Hercules withstood the force and held. Finally, the jet fighters that launched the missiles were taken out by an energy beam and a Stingray's missile.

Regardless of their comrades' death, the last three enemy fighters continued to push their rockets and jet engines past their limit that they began to heat up dangerously glowing red. It was obvious that the pilots are attempting to launch their missiles before ramming their planes against the ships in a kamikaze style hoping to put enough damage to bring down the starships. However, the third jet fighter launched its missiles at different targets. One missile headed for the Odyssey and the Orion while the other missile targeted the Eagle and the Hercules. This forced the four ships to target the incoming nuclear missiles heading towards their position while the last two jet fighters still carrying their nuclear payload pushed on for the Retribution with the third jet fighter followed behind deploying its last flares to divert any missiles from the pursuing TSC Valkyries and Stingrays.

…

Dante was gritting his teeth in frustration as he watched the last three jet fighters still able to dodge the advance weapons of his starships. It was like trying to shoot down a squad of legendary Ace pilots whom are able to outmaneuver and strike fast without getting hit.

"What's going on, Captain?! Why are we not able to destroy those fighters and missiles with our advance targeting systems?! They are designed from the reverse-engineering of the Zeta technology!" shouted Dante as he gripped the railings of the command balcony. Even Theo and Nate are doing the same to keep themselves balanced after the first nuclear explosion created a shockwave that shook the carrier.

"I know, Sir! But the Zetas relied on powerful energy weapons and shields, not tactical missiles or nukes! They never made any technologies involving anti-air weapons so we had to use some pre-war military technology to build our own targeting system with Zeta tech installed to boost its efficiency!" explained Captain Gibson as he was growing frustrated in taking out the jet fighters as well.

"Ugh! Goddammit! Better have a word with the Science Department after this!" thought Dante.

"Captain! Enemy fighters have launched all of their nukes! My God! They are closing in fast! We won't shoot them down on time!" screamed the same tactical officer.

Captain Gibson grabbed his earpiece and screamed into the earpiece, "All personals! Incoming nuclear missiles! Brace for impact!"

Everyone in the ship grabbed nearby handles or railings preparing themselves for the impact. Dante held Cooper in his arms while holding onto the command railing with Theo doing the same with Rex. ED-E just hovered beeping that he will be fine. Nate just held onto the command railing with both hands with the Black Guards doing the same.

…

As soon as the third jet fighter was finally destroyed by a Valkyrie energy beam, the two last jet fighters fired their nuclear missiles directly at the Retribution. The two fighters followed the nuclear missiles hoping that their quick tactic move will prove effective. Their hopes were answered when the three nuclear missiles hit the carrier's shield in which caused the energy shield to glow bright trying to withstand against three nuclear explosions before it finally overloaded by shattering. With the shield down, the fourth passed the front by turning right and flew along the left side of the carrier before it rammed into the left rear engine thruster.

The nuclear explosion caused multiple explosions along the left engine that it shuttered trying to stay online before it was forced to shut down to prevent anymore explosions along with the rest of the engine thrusters. Multiple breaches were on fire with black smoke pouring out into the air. The anti-gravity system was still online keeping the carrier aloft, but that was not going to last long.

Because the last two enemy jet fighters are still flying towards the Retribution and are redirecting their aircrafts to go underneath the carrier and fly towards the anti-gravity drives.

…

The command bridge shooked violently and swayed harshly from the nuclear explosion as small explosives erupted from some of the terminals, the ceiling, and the walls. Sparks flew out as large wires dangled out from the damage with some catching fire. The sparks from the terminals caused many officers to receive burnt injuries that many cried out in pain in their seats or fell off onto the floor. The bridge was being filled with smoke from the fires and explosions as many bridge personals were coughing and choking from the black smoke. The fire extinguishing system started to put out the flames with white smoke from the ceiling nozzles. Then ventilation systems activated to ventilate the smoke out of the bridge.

"Cough. Cough. Ehrm. Damage Report!" ordered Dante as he released Cooper from his arm and looked around the bridge once the smoke was cleared. He saw many officers injured from the explosions and fires while others were okay and are still focusing on their duties despite their comrades' injuries.

"Commander! The shields are down and the final nuclear missile hit the left rear engine! We've taken heavy damage with breaches from the impact and multiple explosions! There are also casualties among the engineer crew!" shouted a nearby officer whom was checking the ship's condition. "But luckily the anti-gravity system is keeping the ship up, but the damage has forced half of our generators to power down that took our guns offline."

Dante nodded but was unhappy with the situation they are in. He looked at his left and right to see that Theo, Nate, Rex, ED-E, and his Black Guards are alright as well. They were just getting up from the floor after being tossed around from the shaking. Theo released Rex from his hold before moving around to help tend the injured bridge crew members with Nate assisting.

"Black Guards! Move the injured to the sides and patch them up with your Stimpacks and Biogels as best as you can!" ordered Dante. The Black Guards got up from the floor and did as they were ordered.

Dante then checked the command chair to see Captain Gibson sitting unconscious with blood flowing down the left side of his head from a large gash. He checked his pulse on his neck and was relieved that he was still alive. He motioned a nearby Black Guard to take the Captain to the side and patch him up before he took over the command chair. He was now the acting captain of the Retribution. He checked for XO Lieutenant William, but found him among the injured with the others and was unconscious as well.

"Give me status on the two enemy fighters!" Dante said as he tried to get the main holo-screens back up but just got mostly flashes due to the damages from the explosions.

"Sir, we're trying to track them bu-"said the radar officer before the bridge shook again with violent force as explosions were heard. The lights and terminals began to flash as the screens showed the new damages.

"What happened?!" demanded Dante.

"Sir! The enemy fighters rammed their planes underneath our ship! They took out two of our anti-gravity drives and the system is failing to keep the Retribution in the air! She's about to go down!" screamed the same officer in horror as she stared at her terminal on what is happening.

"So they intend to not only destroy the Retribution, but crash her down onto the Mall in attempts to destroy as much of the government as possible. This is no doubt the Brotherhood's doing! Another act of war!" thought Dante as anger and rage began to grow inside him. He can still remember the day when the Iron Brotherhood crashed their Vertibird at the Rivet City aircraft carrier in attempts to kill him during his speech rally while gunning down any nearby civilians, even the children were not spared. This was almost similar, but at a larger scale. All because of the TSC's existence and the Brotherhood's obsession to be the "True Masters of Technology". But now, he needs to try to save the carrier and the capital city at all costs.

"Can we divert power from the remaining generators to the intact engine thrusters and move the ship to land or crash into the Potomac?" asked Dante with some hope in his eyes. However, the officer in charge of the ship's status shook his head, "I'm sorry sir. But the engines are offline due to the fires spread all over ship's engine sectors from the nuclear explosion. I can't divert any power to the thrusters."

Then they felt it. The ship was starting to lose the anti-gravity system and the bow started to slowly point down towards the Mall. Then the ship slowly started to get pulled by the Earth's gravity before slowly picking up speed. Then Nate immediately responded with an idea, "Wait a minute! Dante! Isn't this ship equipped with the experimental hyperdrive engine?! We can use that to jump into space or an ocean to safely crash land the ship!"

Everyone looked at the Minutemen General after hearing what he just said.

"General O'Connor! The hyperdrive engine is a prototype since it was developed by our scientists and engineers after studying the Olympus's hyperdrive engine! It hasn't been tested for an Earth-built space ship yet!" yelled a nearby officer whom view's Nate's suggestion ludicrous.

"But we can still try! And besides we don't have any other options to save the carrier and our capital. Well Dante, it is your decision. What should we do?" asked Nate as everyone looked at Dante for an order. Theo was silent but he completely agrees with Nate's proposal since they don't have any other alternative suggestions.

Dante was silent as he thought what they should do. Then his mind started to show images of his family and friends. Amata, Butch, Harkness, Joseph, Ricky, his father, and finally his adopted niece Maria and her beautiful smile. He finally made up his mind.

"Officers. Divert power to the Z-3 Hyperdrive Engine and plot coordinates for the Atlantic Ocean. We will crash land into the ocean and radio the Olympus for rescue and salvage," ordered Dante with a calm tone. Everyone was quiet before complying with his command as they prepared the Hyperdrive Engine to jump the Retribution.

"Once this is all over, I need to get the TSC Council together to prepare for another war. This is no doubt an attempt of a first strike," thought Dante.

"After this, I need to return to New Vegas with Mr. House. We may need to send some Securitrons to help the U.S. with the upcoming war with the Brotherhood," thought Theo.

"Another War. Dammit. The Minutemen will be in a hell of a lifetime when they are sent to the frontlines. I hope they are ready to face the horrors and death of the battlefield that is about to come," thought Nate.

The ship was gaining speed as it was about to reach an altitude of 6,000 meters. The hyperdrive was nearly completing its charging sequence before the coordinates can be inputted and activate the jump.

Dante grabbed the earpiece headset and spoke through the ship's speakers, "Attention all personals. This is Supreme Commander Abram. The captain is incapacitated for the moment and I am taking command for now. We are preparing to activate the Hyperdrive Engine for an emergency jump over the Atlantic Ocean to safely land the Retribution and save the capital city from destruction. Prepare yourselves."

…

At the Lincoln Memorial, the family group had finally reached the historical building and were being escorted to a nearby door where it would take them to the emergency bunker. But they stopped near the steps when they heard loud explosions in the sky. They looked up in horror to see the large carrier starship heavily damaged with fire and smoke coming out of the rear engines.

Then it became worse when they saw the jet fighters ram underneath the carrier creating more explosions. They screamed and pointed their fingers at the tilting carrier in shock as it began to descend with the bow pointing downwards.

"Colonel, what is the situation?…WHAT?! The Commander is inside the carrier?! Including the other generals?!" shouted the Black Guard officer when he was trying to contact the commander of Adams Air Force Base on what is going on. Unfortunately, the family group heard him, especially Maria and Shaun.

"What?! Uncle is on that falling ship?!" screamed Maria with tears in her eyes.

"My Dad is on that carrier?! How are they going to get out?!" yelled Shaun as his fear grew as he watched the ship descended faster getting closer to the ground.

Both kids were demanding answers but are held back by two adults. Amata held Maria back by pulling her hands from the officer's sleeve and hugging her while Blue Guard Captain Brown held onto Shaun to prevent him from confronting physically with the Black Guard officer.

Suddenly, they saw the carrier starting to glow blue with energy. They didn't know what was happening.

…

"Sir! Hyperdrive Engine is fully charged! Coordinates inputted for the jump over the Atlantic Ocean!" yelled the officer in charge of the Hyperdrive Engine.

Dante nodded, "Alright, then. Jump at your command." Then Dante quickly made a quick silent prayer to the Lord and made a quick cross over his head, torso, and across his shoulders. He sat straight up in the command chair preparing himself.

Theo and Nate held onto the balcony railing as Cooper and Rex laid down on their bellies with ED-E just floating in the air. The Black Guards did the same by holding onto nearby handles or railings.

"Jumping in 3…2…1…Now!" yelled the same officer.

Everyone gazed out at the bridge windows as the blue glow of energy surrounding the ship shot towards the front of the ship and burst open a blue glowing tunnel-like hole. Then the window began to glow pure white as it blinded everyone's eyes.

…

Everyone in the Mall watched as the Retribution went into the blue portal that appeared about a few feet above the Washington Monument. Once the carrier dove into the hole completely and disappeared, the portal closed with a burst of a harmless blue blast. This knocked nearby soldiers, policemen, and civilians off their feet but without injuries, including the family group and their guards near the Lincoln Monument stone steps. Everything became quiet as everyone began to recover from their stun condition and stand up from the ground.

Maria and Shaun quickly stood up with worry. They looked around trying to find the carrier ship to see if it crashed or if it managed to fly back up. But the Retribution was nowhere in sight.

The kids started to spill tears before they fell on their knees and started to cry in grief. Shaun pounded his fist onto the ground while Maria held her clenched hands over her crying eyes. Amata quickly held the children into her arms to comfort them. Both Joseph and Amata tried to convince them that their parents are okay since they are known to be hard to kill to cease their tears. But Ricky was crying in Joseph's arm while Dogmeat whimpered and howled in grief for his missing master. The children heard their cries and couldn't bear it any longer.

"UNCLE DANTE!" screamed Maria.

"DAAAADD!" yelled Shaun.

But even though the Olympus in space got the word of this, they will not be able to find the three Wasteland heroes in the Atlantic Ocean or any part of their world. Not even in any part of the Solar System.

For the Hyperdrive Engine has opened a portal to a new direction. A new road. A new realm. And a new world.

Runeterra awaits them.

---

Finally Chapter 3 is here. Long research just to shape the Fallout world and the current situation of the United States. Just to let you all know, I used the Tom Clancy's Division 4 enemy factions for the New York City. I also used General Cross and Colonel Casey from the game called Rage as the Gunners leaders. I also added the Fallout New Vegas mod The Frontier during Theo's report of Portland. Just to let you know, the UVB-04 (Utility Vertibird) is the Vertibird transport with 4 helicopter engines from the New Vegas mod The Frontier. The Mammoth tank is the tank from Fallout 4, Patton tank is based on the real Patton tank, Chimera tank from Fallout 3, Bradley APC from the APC in Fallout 4, and the Stryker is based on the real Stryker. I used the Retribution from Call of Duty Infinite War but with hangars on the side with no runway going diagonal underneath the bridge. The destroyers are the same design as the Tigris in Call of Duty Infinite War with the battlecruisers in similar design as the BC-304s from Stargate SG-1. I will soon reveal how Lyons Brotherhood no longer exists and how Arthur Maxson died before Dante can achieve possible peace and alliance between the Brotherhood and the TSC. For now, they are finally off to Runeterra. Chapter 4 may take time to upload since I have college studies and a report to type by the end of April. Stay cool everyone.