Of The Past We Use To Advance Chapter 7 – Step One Part I.
One of the upsides to being a Knight of the Brotherhood, and practically considered family by the Elder, was that Falcon had his own room which he considered his home in the Citadel. It was about the same size as the lower level of his house in Megaton but with an extra feature. He had his own armoury space in an adjacent room.
After unlocking the door to his home Falcon walked in with Tyler behind him and said, "Welcome to my humble abode."
The layout and size of the room reminded Tyler of his home Vault; small with the bare essentials to survive. The door to the home was in the right hander corner of the room, with a red and white striped painted door directly opposite it with the name 'Armoury' imprinted across it.
Tyler followed Con who went to the Armoury door and accessed a terminal with a very hard encryption. The metal door opened up and they walked in.
Tyler was in awe at everything he could see.
The left wall of the room had a series of racks with all of Falcon's various forms of apparel such as modified combat armours, suits of power armour and lighter armour or clothing Con had modified in some way.
The wall opposite the door displayed all handguns, assault, bolt action, laser and plasma rifles, and the right wall was of heavy weapons like his Fatman or a few different looking flamethrowers.
On the wall where the door to the room was, held an array of mines and grenades while in the centre of the room around a set of spiralling stairs there were large containers and drawers reaching as high as the ceiling full of all the different types of ammo for his weapons.
While Tyler was still roaming around the room looking at all the various weapons, some which he had never seen before, Falcon walked to the left wall of the room and went searching amongst the armour to find something appropriate for Tyler to wear.
He contemplated letting him wear one of his two T-51b Power Armour's that were being held in a security field upstairs but decided against it.
Instead he went to the racks that held several types of combat armour he had modified and picked one of his newer versions. It was originally a Talon Combat Amour but he reinforced it and built holsters onto the armour to hold a combat knife on the back of its waist, a handgun on the left and right legs and a sniper rifle on the back. Also clips to hold grenades on the belt around the waist.
"Hey kid, come over here and try this on. You look like a size or two smaller than me so this should fit you."
Tyler placed a dart gun he picked up back on its holster on the wall and walked towards him, seeing Con pull out the black combat armour from the rack it was hanging off.
He took it from Con and started to strip off the white jumpsuit the Brotherhood gave him to wear and put on the grey under shirt and pants of the armour while Con grabbed his brown overcoat from a hanger near the door and started to collect the weapons he thought they may need.
A3's Plasma Rifle, his Lincoln's Repeater and Blackhawk, like always, were the first weapons he collected, along with five plasma grenades.
"Uhh Falcon. Could you come here please," Tyler asked of him.
Con walked to him, finding him dressed in the grey undershirt and black pants the armour had with his boots and armoured shin pads on already.
"What's up kid?"
"Could you help me tighten the torso piece 'cause I umm... well I've never really worn combat armour before."
Falcon just laughed as he moved in to help him, "I can't believe an Enclave soldier who is trained to wear Power Armour, which itself is a pain in the ass to put on; can't figure out how to wear combat armour."
Falcon helped Tyler put the torso piece on and showed him where to tighten the straps under the shoulder and at his sides until it fit him perfectly, then the two of them then began collecting weapons for Tyler.
Falcon moved over to a corner of the room where a rack of two sniper rifles and his Gauss rifle were.
"Hmm, I think maybe... Yup, this rifle should be best for you. Its aim is a little bit accurate than the others and has more ammo per magazine. Here you go," Falcon passed the rifle to him and continued talking, "Now pick up one of the bandoliers by the staircase there and find the two drawers that say .308 and .44. Take as much ammo from it as you can carry while I get you some other weapons."
Tyler looked down at the faded green coloured weapon and noticed the name Victory etched in the side of it. Then he moved towards the staircase, picking up the bandolier and searched for the drawers that said .308 and .44.
"Alright, here's a combat knife and a Magnum for you. Now take care of this. This gun is from a friend of mine name Paulson. I'll tell you now that if you lose it he's going to be mighty pissed at you."
Tyler placed the Victory rifle on his back and took the knife and magnum, placing them in their holsters.
"Okay time to go. Elder Lyons has offered to drop us near the HQ by Vertibird since they're already heading into D.C."
The two of them walked out of the room, Falcon making sure the door was locked and headed towards the Vertipad in front of the Citadel.
The Vertibird got as close to the uneven ground as it could without having to land in front of the Vault-Tech building.
Falcon and Tyler jumped out after the pilot told them they most likely will have to walk back to the Citadel because they'll be too busy flying everywhere else in the Wasteland.
The Vertibird lifted off up past the centuries old surrounding buildings and took off towards the Museum of history to collect Charon and Fawkes.
"Alright Tyler, there's something you should know. Last time I was here it was infested with security robots. I managed to get in and alter their programming to allow me and whoever I have with me complete access to the building and control over them. But there could be mutants there now so I suggest you load your weapons and keep them ready to fire."
Tyler took a breath and pulled Victory off his back, making sure the rifle was loaded.
"Alright, time to head in. Do your best to stay quiet okay."
The two of them walked towards the building's doors and opened them, walking inside cautiously, smelling the stale stench of the air that the old buildings had.
It was the middle of the day so the light from the sun was making its way through the shattered windows into the room. Falcon looked up at the Vault Door hanging from the ceiling noticing that it said '101' and noticed a few posters like someone playing Baseball in the vault. It brought memories to the surface of his mind, like three years ago when he was seventeen years old, playing baseball. It was his and Amata's team versus Butch's team. They had won and the party afterwards had been quite fun, with very unexpected occurrences happening between him and Butch...
Falcon shook the memories away as the two of them walked to the other side of the room and up the stairs. They began walking through the door that said Corporate Offices and down the hallway.
Their aim was to get to the central computer of Vault-Tec's HQ and everything had been fine, until the two of them heard a low grumbling sound ahead of them.
Falcon looked behind him to Tyler who looked frozen on the spot, his hands shaking while he was holding Victory.
"Are you alright kid?" Falcon whispered to him. Tyler looked at him and nodded his head.
The two of them continued on walking past several rooms until coming to the metal gate leading to the central computer when a loud voice came from behind, "There you are!"
By the time they had turned around and saw a super mutant, it had already picked up Tyler and threw him against the wall. Falcon pulled out his plasma rifle and aimed at the yellow mutants head firing three shots before it was illuminated in a fluorescent green colour and turned into a large puddle of goo. Falcon turned around to Tyler leaning against the wall and said, "I love seeing them turn to gloop. You okay kid?"
Tyler nodded his head and picked up Victory which he dropped before he hit the wall.
Before he could say anything they heard a growl from where the mutant came from; Falcon turned fast and raised his weapon. He moved forward slowly and made his Pip-Boy light flare up, pointing it in the dark hallway. There were two more mutants who were blinded by the Pip-Boy light so Falcon took the opportunity and started firing at them. He shot the first one in the chest a few times, burning a hole straight through it. Once it fell he aimed at the second but it had more protection over its body so Falcon focused on the limbs, shooting at its arms and head until the mutant turned into a pile of goo like the first one.
He turned around, hoping that was the last one but found another mutant holding a struggling Tyler up off the ground by his throat in one hand, in the other he had a Chinese assault rifle.
"Food shouldn't be shooting at us," it declared in a low voice.
"Put him down you fucking mutant or I swear I'll blow your head off!"
The mutant laughed hard and yelled, "I'M HUNGRY!" It started to move back slowly towards the door behind it, watching Falcon with its large eyes.
Falcon started to move forward but stopped when the mutant tightened its grip on Tyler's throat.
"Fuck this, you're going down," he aimed his rifle at the mutants head and fired as many shots as he could before the microfusion cell died out. In one swift motion he dropped his rifle and pulled Blackhawk from his holster, aiming at the mutants head through the scope and with deadly accuracy he fired three rounds before the mutant dropped to the ground letting go of Tyler.
Falcon reloaded and then returned Blackhawk to its holster and picked up his plasma rifle, loading a new microfusion cell into it. He walked to Tyler who picked up Victory again and stood up, rubbing his neck and shaking from what just happened.
"You okay Tyler?"
He looked up at him replied while coughing slightly, "Yeah, I'll be fine. I just, didn't think I'd be coming back from that is all."
"Well so long as I'm around, don't worry about. Now come on, the computer is through there.
The two of them walked through the metal gate and down through more hallways, coming to the computer core.
"I thought you said that there were some robotic defences in here?"
"Yeah, I can only guess the mutants got rid of them. Probably ate them too," Falcon replied, laughing in thought of a mutant cracking open a Robo-brains brain module like a tin of Pork N'Beans.
They arrived at the computer core and Falcon began to access its information, searching for listings of any military vaults in the area.
After an hour of searching through the records, and the continuous threat of Super Mutants walking in on them, Falcon gave up and simply took the hard drive of the core placing it in a satchel he brought with him hoping there was a way he and Rothchild could access the data when they got back to the Citadel.
After battling several more Mutants, Falcon and Tyler made it outside where he signalled the Vertibird to return. Luckily they were already on their way to the Citadel and could pick them up.
As the minutes rolled by while they waited for the Vertibird to return to them Con noticed a horde of Mutants coming from the nearest subway station, no doubt looking for their food.
"For fucksake, these things just won't piss off will they?!" Falcon whispered, the anger and annoyance present in his voice.
The two of them had taken cover in a bombed out building while they waited for the Vertibird.
"We could always fight them? Maybe we'll be able to take them out."
Falcon looked at Tyler, then back at the mutants thinking it over before he replied, "No, it's not worth it. There's too many of them in the area and I don't think we'd have enough ammo anyway. I'm down to my last three microfusion cells and I'm sure you've only got a few more .308's left."
"Yeah, I have nineteen rounds left. Though we could always use the weapons and ammo the muties have?"
Falcon began to reply but smiled instead as he heard the engine of the Vertibird.
"I think we won't have to. Make sure your weapon is loaded kid, we're going to have to fight our way to the bird before we can escape."
Falcon gave one last check at the microfusion cell in his rifle before he crept out of the building and aimed at a few of the mutants who were looking up in curiosity to what the sound of the Vertibird was.
The Vertibird came to a hovering stop above the ground, distracting the mutants, even more so when Fawkes jumped out and started to spray every mutant with the heated laser beam of his Gatling gun while Falcon and Tyler ran towards it, also shooting any mutants that got in their way. They reached the open door of the Vertibird, jumping in, followed by Fawkes and then signalled the pilot to take off as the other mutants now began to fire at the Vertibird.
"It is good to see you my friend," Fawkes declared in his deep voice, giving Falcon a bone-crushing hug.
"Heh, it's good to see you too. And you too Charon," Falcon replied, and looked to Charon who was sitting comfortably reading a book, only looking up momentarily to give Falcon a nod and say hello in his ghoulish voice.