Vault Dweller

Indiscriminately rooting through houses, the Brotherhood of Steel were looking for and Danse in Bunker Hill, checking all closest settlements for any sign of them. Unconvinced by Mayor Kessler and the merchant's claims that neither of them came through, the Brotherhood decided to check around anyways. When two caravan guards called them out, told them to go weld themselves inside their suits, and jump in the Charles, a knight elevated the situation and fired a warning shot. The caravan guards thought they were being fired on and fought back, both were shot, one right through the skull, and as their knight captain came to examine the situation, and de-escalate the crowd of angry merchants and other caravan workers, the sight of synthetic components exposed by the gunshot wounds turned the whole situation to a bloodbath as the knight-captain ordered the other dead caravan guard's skull be forced open and examined as well. The chance that both of the caravan guards were synths was unbelievably small, but with the Railroad operating heavily out of Bunker Hill, and using the trading hub as a means to smuggle synths out of the Commonwealth away from the Institute, the odds were highly stacked against the two who were freshly given new memories and outfits, ready to head out into the wastes.

Once revealed infront of both the merchants and Brotherhood of Steel that these two dead guards were both synths, everything went from terrible to irredeemable.

As the knight spared no modesty exhuming the second skull, this only outraged the rest of Bunker Hill, as they were calling for the Brotherhood knight's blood. But, upon the discovery of a second synth, the knight-captain turned cold and dispassionate to the entire colony of Bunker Hill, and told them that all synths must be eliminated and rid from the surface of the Earth. The Brotherhood suspected them of hiding abominations was a dispicable act as well, and that for harboring them, the merchants and caravans would need to pay for their ill-intentions. Demanding food, water, scrap, seeds, reserves, ammo, and weapons, along with the entire stock to be assessed, the whole angry congregation were yelling and screaming at the Brotherhood to leave and never return.

Once one rock was thrown, the battle for Bunker Hill was fought from the inside-out.

In minutes twelve people trying to force the Brotherhood company to leave were suddenly gunned down, prompting everyone else to take up arms against the Brotherhood and pin them down. Word already spread back to the Prydwen and a vertibird was deployed to the scene, where it provided air support, firing down and circling Bunker Hill as the residents shot back. With twelve dead, nobody, or animal, or pony was spared as the whole surface of Bunker Hill was razed by a hailstorm of bullets and laser-fire. The Brotherhood knight-captain declared the settlement an infestation of Institute synths and Railroad sympathizers who refused to cooperate and collaborate with the Brotherhood, making them all enemies.

Once the shooting started, the grave situation forced those with much to lose into running, and those without much to lose into fighting. Old Man Stockton, and several other merchants fled once they heard the screams and bullets ring out. Joe and Tony Savaldi hid themselves in the outhouse, hiding neck-deep in shit to avoid being detected as the first wave of Brotherhood reinforcements tore Bunker Hill apart, then resorted to burning the settlement to the ground to force everyone else out of hiding. Within the two hours of Bunker Hill being destroyed, nearly every settlement with a radio knew what happened. Mayor Kessler was within the monument when the shooting started, and less than a meter away from the radio as she yelled over the pip-mic to the situation that was happening.

The rifle-man on lookout started shooting down, but wasn't equipped with weapons powerful enough to blast through power-armor, and was blown out of the lookout along with the top third of the Bunker Hill monument. As bricks rained down, Mayor Kessler shielded herself with her arms, but they were coming down too hard and clobbered her to the ground. Buried in rubble, it would take another six hours before she came to and saw Joe and Tony Savaldi digging her legs out and shaking her awake. The scent alone was enough to rouse the dead, and them being close enough for her to smell was what woke her up. Gagging as she was rescued, she was briefly aware of blood running down her face and how her arms and back were bruised.

The merchants and caravans hadn't returned yet, making their way to Diamond City or Goodneighbor where they were telling the second-hand account of what happened. Unable to recoup their losses yet, and with no other survivors in sight, the Brotherhood had razed the settlement and cleared out. Most of the buildings were still smoldering, wet wood, and mud had prevented fires from lasting too long, but all the buildings were now in cinders.

The Railroad's secret holding area under the monument was packed with survivors, half a dozen residents who were fully aware of the going-on's of the Railroad in the trading hub, and were now sharing space with three other synths who were sitting there quietly before the whole event started. They were only waiting for the next caravan to ship out with, but now that their whole base of operations was burnt to the ground, and not even the brahmin were spared-the animal corpses were missing, taken for food. Along with every single corpse was now headless, the Brotherhood spared nothing at all when checking for synths, no time was wasted, and the decapitation was done sloppily to get at the base of the skull to check for synthetic components.

"Allowed them in...and they took everything we had," Kessler stated. "Never again. Everyone who still believes I can lead people to safety, grab your gear. Now. We're going to the Railroad where they will take us in. I've done too much for them, covered for them too many times, and paid my debts in full to the cause, they owe everyone here a bed to sleep on tonight, and if you're angry and want revenge like I do, then they'll have the weapons to punch through power-armor as well. Food is there for those who've earned it, but right now, we're leaving. Immediately; Before they come back."

\111/

With the march from Bunker Hill to Old North Church, Institute Crows picked up on the fighting, and the mass-exodus of merchants and caravans, followed by Kessler and the survivors to the Railroad's headquarters where a still vengeful-looking Kessler was demanding to see Desdemona.

Liberty and Glory did what they could to mitigate the wait, directing people inside, but ultimately they had to wait for Desdemona to appear to hear the accounts in person, and for the stories to be told directly.

Once the word spread, and at the same time, Deacon was in Vault 111, making contact with Vault 114, the conductors of the Railroad all determined the best course of action. A plan of retaliation, a course of action to prevent the Brotherhood from getting any further into the wasteland, and to let everyone across the Commonwealth aware that only death and destruction awaited anyone who dared to assist the Brotherhood of Steel at the invaders hands themselves.

With the situation unfolding at Vault 111, and the Brotherhood wanting to claim the vault's resources for themselves as well as root out Nate and Danse, Deacon put forth the plan to take the Brotherhood's attention, and redirect it back towards the Institute. The invaders, he argued, were quickly losing sight of why they came here in the first place. When ultimately, they should be pitting the two against each other.

The solution was to invite them in under the guise of trading and sharing secrets, then blow all of the North End to pieces. While the Railroad didn't have much in terms of manpower, they had been amassing a growing supply of bombs and explosives. Of all the items and materials that the majority of the Railroad took when dispersing between Vaults 114 and 75, they left the most of the explosives in the Catacombs beneath the church. Knowing that it was dangerous to transport explosives back and forth across the Commonwealth, and ease of convenience for when it came time to move on the Institute, there were already plenty installed as boobytraps in the tunnels beneath the North End to collapse the whole quarter when invaders decided to storm their headquarters.

The ploy to lure them in, and leave them waiting was decided as cruel, but the loss of Bunker Hill and the supply lines was crippling to the Railroad's secondary purpose. With them having to completely rebuild and establish a new settlement in Bunker Hill when the time came, or rebase out of Goodneighbor or Diamond City, the chances and cost was already extremely demanding.

The Brotherhood already was attempting to make contact with the Railroad, attempting to learn of Railroad safehouses, gain supplies, weapons, and coordinate attacks on the Institute, but they were oblivious to the destruction of Railroad operations. The Railroad remained silent for the first day the Brotherhood arrived, watching as Fort Strong blew up, and then were attacked by a swarm of robots as their blimp was shot out of the sky. Now they had the opportunity to respond with an overwhelming resounding 'no', denying them of any attempts to bolster their forces by taking out even more of their troops.

The decision came down to kick the Brotherhood out. Even without their presence, the Railroad had plenty of other issues to deal with already, and now the massacring of civilians while claiming it was to root out Institute infiltration was abhorrent and detrimental to the Railroad's cause.

The survivors of Bunker Hill were told they would be relocating soon enough, and that the catacombs weren't safe for long.

As the remaining Railroad crew installed more explosives, wiring them in, secondary plans were being made.

They knew that by doing this the Brotherhood would go on a rampage through Boston and beyond. They wouldn't stop until the Railroad was wiped out, that's when Deacon told the rest of the Railroad Nate and Thunderstruck's plan to infiltrate Nuka-World. The Nuka-World marauders outnumbered the Brotherhood of Steel, Railroad, Goodneighbor, and Diamond City combined. With even a tenth of the fighting force brought here from Nuka-World, those willing to fight for caps, the mercenaries would be a distracting force that would keep the Brotherhood occupied long enough for the Mass Relay to be completed and for the Railroad to force their way into the Institute.

Leading members, after taking on the Nuka-World challenge to fight Overboss Colter for the reigns to the park, would need to take positions in the command structure and assist Nate in turning the marauders attention to the Commonwealth.

By the time Nora's surgery was complete, and the Brotherhood had been dealt with in Sanctuary Hills, the explosives were placed and wired around the catacombs, and all that was left was to lure the Brotherhood in with a sizeable piece of bait.

When Thunderstruck claimed she knew a place to stash the Byrillium Agitator, she was initially unaware of the radioactive signature it possessed. As Paladin Danse explained that it would be easily traceable with the Brotherhood's detection systems, her next thought was hiding in Tranquility Lane, but suddenly realized she didn't know how to return to the spell matrix. No one told her how to get back, and the first time she got there was a mystery to herself as well. The only way to hide it would be to seal it in a lead-lined container, then 'scrub' it of radioactive particles, and finally transport it to a second location without the Brotherhood knowing.

The high radiation of the inital transport would leave a trail of particles wherever the group took the Agitiator, meaning that once they left Mass Power, anyone with strong enough detection equipment would pick up on the sudden movement of radiation particles throughout the city.

One suggestion was to stash it in the Glowing Sea, another in a bunker, or even in a nuclear power plant, but Meathead knew that the only people who would be able to utilize it would be the Brotherhood, the Institute, or Nate.

While Thunderstruck, Meathead, and Paladin Danse were playing nuclear hot-potato with the Agitator, Meathead directed them to the Old North Church, knowing that they couldn't take it to the Railroad's new hidden location. Keeping an eye out for crows, the Institute, and the Brotherhood both picked up on the transfer of the agitator to the Railroad's headquarters, and were moving units to send out long before the Railroad called over the open airwaves to the Brotherhood of Steel. As the three were filled in on the plan, and asked to be bait, the whole North End slowly cleared out of all personnel that couldn't make a speedy exit.

\111/
An hour after Kessler and the survivors of Bunker Hill were relocated to Goodneighbor, and then Vault 114, a transmission over the open airwaves was heard by the Institute and Brotherhood. Collated with the sighting of the Agitator, and within twenty minutes, the first synths arrived on scene to attack the North End Church.

The Brotherhood didn't even need to spy, they could see and hear the fighting going on across the water, loading two vertibirds and launching them at Boston's North End with shoot-to-kill orders on the Institute's machines. Securing the Agitator was top-priority, and the elimination of the Railroad was only second to that. Without the Railroad, there wouldn't be any other factions capable to fully back a resistance against the Brotherhood once they started expanding across the Commonwealth. Racing to wipe them out early on in their occupation was a goal they had in mind long before ever landing in Boston. When the fighting started, it turned into a contest of who could wipe the Railroad out and claim the prize of the Agitator first.

Turrets, booby traps, pit-spikes, grenade-bouquets, collapsing floors, guns rigged to trip-wires, the Institute could barely get to the front door of the Church with a team of Railroad snipers all surrounding the building, firing on the Institute's backsides. Pinning them between a tunnel, and a ring of fire, the objective was to draw the Brotherhood in, and then retreat as a second wave of Institute synths were warped in.

Everyone could feel the electricity in the air through their teeth as a second wave appeared, the Brotherhood were less than two hundred meters away, ready to circle and come in for a landing before their door gunners open-fired on the synths moving on the Church. When ground was clear, the Railroad agents in the surrounding buildings backed off, as only two people emerged to quickly wave the Brotherhood inside, before running ahead and leaving them behind.

The Institute was relentless once they realized what was at stake, sending a third wave less than five minutes later after the second. More armor, larger laser weapons, more durability, the synths were all Gen. 2 and 3, the two Brotherhood teams fell into the trap of being lured into the Old North Church, and then called down into the catacomb tunnels through a voice they could hear, but not see.

Among the Brotherhood forces were scribes and scientists, capable of transporting the Agitator safely and under the sole purpose of examining the Railroad's capabilities and equipment as the knights blasted a way forward for them. Once the scribes came in, the second round of traps were deployed. Cages of ghouls let loose, radiation pits, shock-traps, in ten minutes the scribes were cut down from six to two, all because they thought it would be safer for the scribes to go in to a safe-zone first. When the cries came out that the path was rigged with traps and ghouls, two knights pulled away from the shooting on the street, and rushed down into the tunnels, letting their power armor soak up the damage as they bull-rushed their way through.

As the other two knights and Knight Captain were moving from the street into the church, trying to set a defensive perimeter as more synths kept arriving out of thin air, the vertibirds were circling the block, picking off synths from above as more robots swarmed the square.

"No confirmation of Railroad agents," the first knight said, "The whole place down here has been stripped down to the wires. Just like the Institute synths do with old sites- They take everything and strip the whole place out-."

\111/

With a visual confirmation that the majority of the Brotherhood of Steel was inside the Old North Church, and synths were plaguing the whole North End, the explosives lining the streets, the sewers, catacombs, and the walls of the Church were detonated.

The whole street was lifted up eight-feet before collapsing the entire tunnel complex, caving in twenty feet below the surface street-level as the building erupted in a blast of splinters,

Sixteen Brotherhood of Steel knights, soldiers, scribes, and a Knight Captain were all killed. The last words heard were interpreted as the Institute already being there, and that the billowing plume of dust and clouds rising from the North End was because of the Institute. That they would destroy everything to prevent the Brotherhood or the Railroad from possessing the Agitator was a belief that the Brotherhood followed as part of their own creed. If dangerous technology was in the hands of civilians who wouldn't turn it over, they and everyone who knew about the technology was to be destroyed.

The explosion caused damage to the surrounding buildings, the dozens of synths on the surface, and buckled most of the street all the way to the water's edge. This created a back-eddy where water came pouring into the streets, flooding the North End around the church.

Since the Brotherhood never properly made contact with anyone from the Railroad, only through transmissions and radio calls, the strategists were at a loss and disadvantage.

The only reasonable explanation they could come up with that the Railroad had already fallen to the Institute, and that they were lured in by false radio communications and fake assurances. That the Railroad was merely being puppeted by the Institute as a scarecrow force was the only explanation they could initially give before going in and properly examining the blast site themselves.

The radiation confirmed that something similar to the agitator came through the North End, but they were never able to visually confirm it. With the loss of over 15% of the Brotherhood's fighting force in 48 hours since arriving, the blow was the third-strike against them as they were out of options and at a massive disadvantage for securing the Commonwealth. From now on, their sole objective was to wage direct assaults against the Institute before being uprooted and losing their chance to claim the Commonwealth altogether.

Only aggressive expansion and securing the land through force was one of their only options they could currently rely on. Acquiring civilians and locals to fight in the name of the Brotherhood was only an option if they had time to wait, but seeing as how it started snowing over Boston after the bombs in the North End were detonated, and all that confusion and hate stemming from the Brotherhood was directed at the Institute.

Mona was rolling her head back and forth, lapping up all the misplaced rage and vengeful desires to stir things up even more among the Commonwealth's newest invaders.

She watched from her tower, seeing all the emotions scurry around like ants, plotting, trying to come up with plans, seeing who was attempting to get payback or retribution for slights against each other, but her plans were simple, sit back and watch people tear each other apart. So far, so good. Same as it had been for the last 200 years.

As the Brotherhood tried to salvage the mess in the North End, track down erronious messages they'd been detected being transmitted through phone-lines through the Commonwealth, all the ranking members of the Railroad all moved either South towards Shaw or West and North to Concord where they met with Nate and Meathead.

The following days, the Brotherhood blasted their way into Vault 114, occupying the Boston Common as a landing strip for vertibirds. They came across an empty vault devoid of any signs of life. The Railroad had all packed up and left, leaving behind no trace except for the dead Triggermen and synths. Painting the picture that it was the Institute's doing as well, the Brotherhood accepted that the Railroad was completely defunct, and if they were in operation, their numbers to be so small, that not even a fighting force was capable of being formed to address them directly.

As the Railroad pulled out, the Brotherhood banged away at their Prydwen, repairing the canvas and restoring it to flight worthy conditions. Pulling the reactor out, and making re-alignment would take weeks, but also gave them the solution for powering up Liberty Prime when the rest of the machine was operational. Until then, they could only grab for whatever bits of power and land that they could raid and get their hands on, otherwise, most of the Commonwealth was clamming-up to any of their attempts to reach out. Save for Diamond City, but even then, their caps and trade deals weren't getting them far. At highway-robbery prices, the Brotherhood couldn't afford to buy their way out of the bad reputation they built for themselves when it came to how Bunker Hill was treated.

\111/