The General sat on a bench. The place she was in was a park...well, back then. It was surrounded by a circle of houses. It should have been what was now considered a thriving settlement: the circle would make a defensive perimeter easier to construct, the park's dirt a simple farm, so many of the houses standing sturdily enough to ward off the rai...well, maybe not those rains. Why did every thought have to end with a sigh nowadays?

Due to her rank, she was not exactly allowed to be alone. She could still order it. In fact, the General had ordered the two crews beyond what would have been this would have been settlement's perimeter. But with more and more council members pinning their hopes for the war, survival, even their own popularity and therefore authority on her, she had become a much more heavily guarded woman. For her to go anywhere unescorted without causing an uproar demanded either her assertion that it was necessary for the war effort (which, more often than not, implied she was surrounded by her Minutemen) or a community with a council member to blame if anything happened (like when she was with Piper in Diamond City, or when she the public 'knew' she was busy keeping the Institute in line). It turned out that she had invited Cabot to the Institute just in time.

"You're getting better at this.", the General told the man behind her.

The Silver Shroud walked around her to join her on the bench. The man did appear stealthily dark and a shining beacon of justice at the same time. Niel's face had taken a much more weathered tone that he had in the vault. But his scarf and hat band gleamed just like the SILVER SUBMACHINE GUN did.

"I'd like to think so.", Niel replied. "And honestly, not out of any desire for more adventure or even pride. Not even the fear of being less sneaky would kill me. It's just that if I wasn't able to live up to the idea of the Silver Shroud...there are people counting on him, you know?"

"I know.", the General agreed. "Speaking of which - congradulations on the Pint Size Slasher."

Niel nodded. "You're welcome. It's why you made me, isn't it?"

"It is.", the woman acknowledged. "And I hope to keep using you."

"So it's time for the Shroud to/"

The General scoffed with a genuine smile. "Do not take that tone with me, Niel."

"Fine.", he said in his natural voice. "But you are unleashing me on the troublemaker in the Capital Wastes. right?"

The red head turned to him. "That's why I was summoned to meet with you? Because you want a shot at, what does Bridget call her, Little Miss Badass?"

Niel frowned. "I thought it would be only natural. I've dried up the symptom of the raiders even if the causes of becoming raiders are going to remain. And since I'm actually taking out supervillains like the Pickman instead of just taking credit for the ones you've defeated, I thought you could count on me now."

"I can count on you.", she told him.

"Then let me do this for you.", the man plead. "I can take her. I'm more than willing to bet on the SILVER SUBMACHINE GUN over her blade."

The General turned to him. "That's irrelevant."

He huffed. "Then why not? The Silver Shroud is supposed to be turned on criminals. People are saying that she kidnapped Detective Valentine. People are saying that she's the one that told the Brotherhood of Steel to accuse you/"

"I have seen Nick kidnapped, Mr. Freund. By the Triggermen.", the General stated very carefully. "Our detective walking away from his office with someone is not that. And I am not going to start sending the Silver Shroud after people because you've heard a rumor about what they may have said. Roxxy even had our constiution include addressing it, and if Little Miss Badass has slandered or done something else that is a crime, then the Commonwealth's way of handling crime will handle that.

"What you are going to do is what you agreed to when took up that costume: Shroud. I am moving an army to the Capital Wastes. And I am going to start killing. People in this destroyed world think that life is cheap. Because a few times a year someone can go missing from a town or someone becomes a criminal and they're shot in the street or a settlement goes silent. I'm going to show them that they are wrong. Life is scarce. And I am going to show them that by killing at a rate that has not been seen by human kind since the war that turned my globe of a world, filled with hospitals and universities and for children television, into a mixture of super irradiated dirt and ruined testament to a lost age. And the Silver Shroud is only going to help contain the criminal element in the Commonwealth while I do.

"You want another adventure? Go up to Far Harbor. See if there's a 'supervillain' there. Spread the legend. Become important.

"Because that is the only threat Little Miss Badass poses. Heroes are heroes because of what they do - Michael Faraday, Louis Pasteur, Thaddeus Stevens. Villains are only villains because they were important to people who could be moved to evil in their name - Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Pol Pot. Every time I convinced a foreign territory to join us because I could prove that accepting the Commonwealth would save lives in the face of her emotional pleas and reliance on past relationships shows what she is. Not. Important. She could be the spitting reflection of Miyamoto Musashi on one side and Sir Galahad on the other. It still would not matter."

The General stood. "Do you understand, Niel? Do you understand the Shroud's place in the Commonwealth? And what you must do and not do?"

The Shroud nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"So in the future...", the General began. "Do not contact me unless it is a threat that only the Minutemen and not the Silver Shroud can take care of, not the reverse. Because there are very few opportunities like this where I can convince my men that I am surveying the site of a new settlement, in order to have an excuse to be out in the open alone like this."

She took in the expression on Niel's face. "I suppose if I am assassinated, the assassin would attain enough supervillain status for you to go after."