A/N: This one took a little bit longer than I foresaw it taking. Seems I can't completely shake my "quality over quantity" approach, even for a fanfic concept as off-the-cuff as this one. To maintain chapter length consistency whilst still introducing my OC, I'm splitting Concord into two parts.

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All Hell broke out as soon as she kicked through the door; two raiders that had been previously firing at the room with the settlers immediately diverted their attention to her large frame. They were weakly armed with the ramshackle .38 caliber pipe guns, but they had a distinct height advantage over her. Fight or flight kicked in as she immediately dove for one of the columns to the left, avoiding stumbling up the very short flight of stairs in the process.

She broke sight of the raider on the third floor while getting a better angle on the raider hiding behind a crate on the second floor. She hissed a bit as the .38 rounds grazed her back, but the muscles of her legs gave her a lot of speed with which to evade incoming fire. The raiders had little to no training in leading their targets whatsoever – by the time they shot, she was narrowly out of their bullets' paths.

She grunted as her side hit the floor; the muzzle of her weapon was aimed square in the raider's direction. Her finger squeezed the trigger on the panicked raider. His face practically screamed "oh, shit"…before it and his body subsequently disintegrated into dust when the beam of energy hit him square in the gut.

There really must have been a good charge on that one – Nate had once said that disintegration with a laser weapon was an uncommon occurrence, and that it was more often like shooting with a normal gun rather than anything fancy. Hiccups occasionally happen if someone tinkers with the power cells, though. The way Nate told it, disintegration was a bug, rather than a feature of laser weaponry.

Thena didn't have time to muse as frantic footsteps sounded on the floors above, so she looked around. Nearby was a metal bar gate. Thena stalked on over and gave the latch a try. It was locked, and she had no way to pick it open, even if she was skilled enough to. The gate the lock was mounted on was quite flimsy and the hinges seemed loose, though. Time was a larger priority than avoiding a ruckus; Thena already figured out that she could probably bash the thing open with raw strength.

She backed up, got some distance, charged at the door, and dove right at it, shoulder-first. The hinges may have been strong enough to stand up to a normal human, but they weren't sturdy enough to hold back Thena. The latch held despite being bent, but the hinges holding the right side in place came right off the frame. The drop on the other side was not high, but the rubble dug hard into Thena's skin as she landed. One piece of broken concrete was dug in right into one of her ribs and she bit into her lip to hold back a scream – superhuman durability or not, it hurt like Hell.

Several .38 caliber rounds whizzed past her, with a single one hitting her shoulder. Her eyes were unfocused, but she pointed her weapon in the direction that the hit came from…except silence was her answer. Her weapon didn't fire.

Thena wanted to slap herself silly, but instead settled for banging her head against the wall as she pushed herself into cover.

Idiot. It's called a 'laser musket' for a reason…

She worked the crank on the left side a couple times, the pain of the bullet impact in her shoulder slowing her down. Again, the energy in the vacuum tube of the musket built up and she pushed herself up to get a good angle over the collapsed floor section she hid behind. Looking down the sights, she waited for the Raider who shot her to shot themselves again. In the northern door, a shadow moved, and the raider hiding behind the wall leaned out to finish Thena off, only for a scalding hole to be blown into her chest as Thena pulled the trigger on the laser musket. The raider fell to the floor, dead.

Having learned her lesson earlier, Thena immediately worked the crank on the laser musket and looked around. The gate she dove against was held up by only one set of hinges now, and below it must have been the basement. The floor section that was next to her must have collapsed when the bombs fell. She was staring right at the Museum's fusion generator, locked behind a security gate.

Fusion generators, like the name suggested, were miniaturized nuclear fusion reactors that used ultracompact fusion cells to produce energy in a somewhat portable manner. Generators like this were typically used as backup power supplies in case power grid to a dedicated reactor was cut in lieu of the louder gas-powered generators.

The generator was behind a security door hooked up to a nearby terminal. Thena briefly interned as software engineer's apprentice in between law school semesters while Nate was still serving in the Army, so she knew some basic coding. The security on the terminal was too tight for her to access, but the door had a surprisingly simple manual lock. If she had something she could use to pick the lock – and time to spare - the door just might open.

The problem? She had neither of those things. From the sounds of things, she didn't have much time before the raiders got through the door on the third floor – she'd need to come back for it later.

The dog was late to the action as he came through the door where the raider Thena just killed was.

"Trouble keeping up?" she asked rhetorically. "Let's go, boy."

She crouched and took it low and slow – the raiders were on edge as she stalked the halls clearly spooked by the idea of facing some large, green maniac that just barged in. Working her way up to the top floor was as simple as a shot in the chest of one raider, followed by a kick in the chest of the other. Surprisingly, it was easy under her level of stress – Thena briefly pondered if her reflexes had taken as much of a boost as her strength and toughness did.

She shelved the thought as she reached the third floor, hearing the raiders bang against the door where the settlers were supposed to be.

"I'm comin' in there, and I'm gonna skin every last one of ya," one yelled, clearly the one banging on the door.

"C'mon, man. They ain't going nowhere. We got other shit to deal with; like that Greenskin."

"Shit. Hear that?! Gotta take a walk! When I get back, you're dead!"

Thena gave her weapon a few cranks and hunkered against the wall for cover. Something deep within her hungered to give these animals what they deserved. It was like an urge to personally snap their limbs off and break every bone in their bodies – she was a protective, but not a violent person by nature. The urge to make sure these raiders were dead and humiliated was overwhelming, though, and that frightened her.

She risked a peek around the doorway; one raider passed her. She took no time to wait for the other to pass, taking aim and shooting the first raider in the back. The charge on this beam reduced him to dust. She didn't have time to crank the capacitor when the raider rushed into the doorway, so she settled with batting the laser musket's stock into his gut.

The bash was hard and sent the raider doubling over, and Thena swept her leg under his feet. The raider hit the floor hard, the pain being the only thing that motivated him now. As he struggled to stand, a mighty backhand met his face, sending him against the balcony rail. An audible crack was heard from his skull before Thena maneuvered under his center of mass and sent him tumbling over. The crash of him hitting the ground floor after falling from the third story met her ears, and she looked over to see the twitching body on the floor.

She gave capacitor a few cranks before hitting him with the beam from the laser musket to make sure he'd die. The creaking of a door opening met her ears as she cranked again, and she pointed her weapon at the noise. She held fire – who she saw was no raider, but the man she had seen on the balcony earlier.

"Inside, hurry up!" he called.

Thena complied and jogged over, the dog hot on her heels. Inside the room were at least four other people; at least three gave her looks of fear. Not that she could blame them.

"Man, I don't know who you are or why you're doing this," the man in the Continental Army garb said. "But your timing's impeccable – and I'll take whatever help I can get. Name's Preston Garvey, of the Commonwealth Minutemen."

"Wait…'Minutemen'? Now I'm traveling backwards in time?" Thena asked in amusement.

"Protect the people at a minute's notice – that was the idea, anyway," Preston said. "So, I joined up, wanted to make a difference. And I did…but things fell apart. Now it looks like I'm the last Minuteman left standing."

"I'm Athena Roberts, or 'Thena', for short," Thena said. "So, what about the others? They don't look like Minutemen."

"They're settlers, looking for a fresh start. I've been with them since Quincy," Preston said. "Lexington looked good for a while, until the ghouls drove us out. A month ago, there were twenty of us. Yesterday, there were eight. Now, we're down to five. Just me, the Longs – Marcy and Jun…" he gestured towards the Asian couple, a man sitting against a desk and a woman pacing back and forth.

"That's old Mama Murphy sitting on the couch," Preston continued, before gesturing to the man in mechanic's overalls and a prominent pompadour hairdo on his left seated in front of a computer. "And this here is Sturges".

"Huh? Ghouls? What are ghouls?" Thena asked.

"You…really must not travel much," Preston commented. "They are…irradiated people. Most are just like us. They look messed up, and live for a long time, but they're still just people. The ones I mentioned in Lexington are different – the radiation's rotted their brains, turned them feral. They attack on sight. Anyway, we came to Concord, figured it would be safe to settle…but the raiders proved us wrong. We had an idea."

"You 'had' an idea. What happened to it?"

"Well, we weren't expecting a Super Mutant to be our cavalry," Preston said.

"Not sure she's actually a Super Mutant," Sturges chimed in. "When have you ever come across a Super Mutant that can talk like a normal guy? Or one that has a…well, a set?"

"Look…" Thena sighed. "I woke up like this just a few hours ago. And we can discuss my figure and my condition when we're not in mortal danger. So…what was the idea?"

"Well…there's a crashed Vertibird on the roof. You may have seen it. Old School Pre-War military aircraft. One of its passengers left behind serious hardware – a full, cherry, suit of T-45 Power Armor. Military issue," Sturges said.

The T-45 had been the first mass-produced Power Armor in use by the United States Army. Nate served in the Army alongside Power Armored troops during his tours. While the T-45 was largely shelved in favor of the newer T-51s, it still saw action during the Battle of Anchorage when Nate served.

"That's serious protection – but there's a problem," Thena said. "Those things were designed for ordinary soldiers. There's no way I can fit in that thing. We're at a dead end."

"Eh. Maybe not-so-dead," Sturges said. "You may not be able to get in it, but you look strong enough to do the other part of the idea. On the Vertibird is a mounted minigun. Even without the Power Armor, you still look like you could tear it right off the Vertibird and walk around like it weighs nothing – and if your skin's anywhere near as tough as a Super Mutant's, you should be able to shrug off the smaller bullets these raiders are packin'."

"Well, that leaves the question of what we do with the T-45. Can't Preston use it?" Thena asked.

"Thing must have been out of juice for about 100 years now. If we had a Pre-War FC – a standardized Fusion Core – we could get that T-45 moving again," Sturges said. "Except the Fusion Core is down in the basement, locked behind a security gate. I fix stuff; I tinker. Bypassing computer security isn't my forte."

"I passed by it earlier," Thena said. "There's a manual lock on the gate, too – a pin-and-tumbler design, I think. I could probably get it open, but I don't have a lockpick."

"Got you covered," Sturges said before grabbing something out of his overalls, holding them out for Athena to take. "Bobby pins – almost as good. Get the bobby pin in the right spot, wait for the pins to jimmy loose, apply some torque with the screwdriver, and you may be able to get it open."

"Just like out of the first issue of Tumblers Today. It's a plan…" Thena said.

Backtracking to the collapsed floor leading to the basement, Thena encountered no resistance on the way. The fusion generator hummed lightly just beyond the security door. The bobby pin felt like it was ready to come apart in her fingers; her enlarged hands made it feel like she was holding a pebble. Still, she carefully bent the bobby pin out of its normal shape an into the shape of an "L", sliding it in to where it seemed like the pins are.

Lightly applying torque with the screwdriver, she focused her hearing as her makeshift lockpick brush across the surface of the pins. With a small nudge, she heard the faint tick of one of the tumblers coming loose and applied more torque to lock it in place. One pin down…

After some trial-and-error and a few more minutes, the lock came loose and keyhole moved. Thena moved the screwdriver in and gave it a sharp counterclockwise turn, with a satisfying click as the lock released. Giving the knob a try, the door creaked open, revealing the fusion core right there for the taking…

Two days earlier

Megaton, Capital Wasteland

"So, I'm hearing it through the grapevine that you're tracking Brotherhood of Steel movements," the young man, 29 years of age and clad in Combat Armor that identified him as a member of Reilly's Rangers, said.

"Sort of. I have orders to find a missing reconnaissance team that was in the region tracking them," the older man, late into his forties and clad in a duster, said. "Last report we got, the Brotherhood had gone native and was actually trying to help wastelanders here."

"That was correct; the report is about six years out of date," the Ranger kid clarified. "After Elder Owyn Lyons passed away, his daughter took leadership of the Brotherhood. Officially, she got caught in the crossfire with remnants of the Enclave in the region. Thing is, I read between the lines of the report – I think hardliners purposefully left her to die. Until I read the reports, I was an honorary member of the Brotherhood of Steel."

"Elder Lyon's daughter sounds like she was important to you," the old-timer said.

"Sarah Lyons and I, we were...close. Anyway, I left and been keeping busy raising my son, Samuel," the Ranger kid said. "I left and rejoined Reilly's Rangers. I do the odd job to keep the roof over our heads, and I scavenge to keep food on the table."

"So, where'd the Brotherhood go now?"

"Well, after picking out all the salvage from the crater I left behind at Adams Airforce Base, they went right back to their mission of hoarding…sorry, 'safekeeping' Pre-War technology, and took off northeast towards the Commonwealth," the Ranger kid said.

"You leveled the Enclave's mobile base? Single-handedly? Then you're…"

"Yes. I'm the one who Galaxy News Radio calls the 'Lone Wanderer'. The name is Kyle Madison. I have connections, GNR's host among them – caravanners let slip that a Ranger from the New California Republic was in the area," the young man said. "It's how I knew you were coming, mister…"

"Major Bradshaw," the older man said. "And you guessed right: I'm with the NCR Rangers – been serving since the Battle of HELIOS One. They pulled me out of retirement since I'm originally from this side of country – and because I have personal history with the Brotherhood of Steel. I'd ask that you don't pry about it. Now…do you have a route to the Commonwealth I can use?"

"Yes," Kyle said. "Though you're looking at a four-day trip on foot, and it will involve going through a region called the Glowing Sea – the radiation is nothing compared to the area around Vault 87, but you'll still want to stock up on Rad-X and RadAway before heading there. Also, I imagine your superiors will want a detailed story on what happened with the Enclave in the area."

Bradshaw pulled from his pack an old RobCo PIP-pad – an experimental tablet-sized offshoot of the widespread PIP-Boy series of wrist mounted devices. PIP-Pads were typically used for reading text and running high-resolution graphics, though they had some known bugs in the text processor, with users occasionally seeing some strange characters in place of letters. Bradshaw had a holotape loaded for recording use – the brass was going to be very interested in what happened in the Capital Wasteland.

"Please, go on. It should make for an intriguing debrief…"

A/N: There we go, here's our intro of our OC and a cameo from our former kid here, the Lone Wanderer.

Next time: The standoff at Concord, visions with the Sight, and the establishment of Sanctuary.