“You there! Caravan or raider?” The middle-aged blonde woman guarding the front gate of Bunker Hill asked; she wasn’t pointing her shotgun at Nora, but her finger was on the trigger just in case.

“I’m here on my own.” Nora replied.

“Freelance, huh? All right, come on in, but no gunfire. Market’s open. You can do as much trading as you like.” She walked to the side, waited for Nora to walk through the gate and closed it as soon as she was inside.

Nora had barely taken five steps forward before a ginger little girl wearing jeans and a striped black and white t-shirt blocked her path.

“Hi, sweetie.” She greeted the youngster.

“Hi, I’m Meg. You new to the Hill?”

“More or less, it’s complicated.”

“For 10 caps I can give you the tour. Nobody knows the place like me.”

“Sure, I’ll take the tour.”

“Caps up front, thank you.”

Nora reached into one of the pockets of her leather belt where she kept a couple of caps handy and retrieved 10 of them. She handed them to Meg, surprised that someone so young was already interested in starting a business.

“Here you go.”

“The market’s in the back, bar’s in the corner, and the outhouse is over the wall.” Meg spoke while counting the caps. She pocketed them and left before Nora had time to process what just happened. “Bye.”

“That’s not what a tour is!” Nora complained, but Meg was already gone. She crossed her arms as she cocked an eyebrow. “Swindled by a 12-year-old. You have a degree in international law, goddammit.” She uncrossed her arms and walked in the direction where Meg said the market was, mumbling along the way. “Pre-teen con-artists. The world is fucked.”

“Yoohoo! Over here, darling!”

She turned around and spotted a young woman leaning over a counter at the very end of the market area, waving at her with a smile on her face; her skin was as white as the obelisk erected right in the middle of Bunker Hill, long curls of well-maintained purple hair, eyes as blue as sapphire and wearing an elegant, sparkling grayish purple sequin dress.

“So sorry to be a bother darling, but I see that you are new to our settlement and I am in dire need of assistance, so allow me to ask: do you have a Geiger counter?”

Nora blinked. That question she had been asked was the first half of the password used by Railroad agents that Deacon had explained to her, meaning that this person was the field agent she was sent to meet. She was supposed to reply with the second half:

“Mine is in the shop.”

The marble-skinned girl gave a very subtle nod, still maintaining her cheerful and inviting smile. “Oh, that’s a shame. I guess I’ll have to make do. My name is Rarity, local seamstress – although with the scarcity of materials, nowadays I mostly fix tears and bullet holes. Say, you wouldn’t be interested in helping me with an assignment, would you?”

“Always happy to help those in need.”

“Splendid! There is this package” Rarity winked at Nora after saying the word “that needs to be delivered, but the roads aren’t safe anymore, what with raider activity going through the roof these days.”

“I miss the days when having a gun handy wasn’t a requirement when going grocery shopping.” Nora commented.

“Don’t I know it, darling! Bunker Hill is a major trading hub in the Commonwealth, with caravans coming and going all day, every day. This place being what it is means that high-profile packages pass through here very often – maintaining the roads to prevent delays is crucial. A matter of life or death, even.”

“A trader always has to move her merchandise efficiently.” Nora replied. “No one likes delays.”

“My thoughts exactly. My boss, Old Man Stockton, needs to make a delivery that’s been long overdue. The client is starting to get worried, but as long as there is a raider outpost right in the middle of our trade route, there is not much that can be done. And that’s where you come in! If you could, you know…”

“Facilitate delivery.” Nora finished her sentence. “I can do that.”

Rarity clapped her hands. “Marvelous, darling! Simply marvelous! Follow the road northwest and wait by the old truck; when Old Man Stockton comes back he’ll send someone to give you the details. It won’t take long, I promise you.”

Nora followed the seamstress’s directions, locating said truck in front of what was once the BADTFL (Bureau of Alcohol, Drugs, Tobacco, Firearms and Laser) regional office for the Boston region. She leaned against the side of the vehicle and waited.

What was supposed to be a few minutes of quiet waiting turned into a firefight pretty quickly, as a pair of raiders guarding the entrance of the building soon spotted the vault dweller and opened fire on her. Fortunately for Nora they were armed with crudely made pipe guns, which had poor accuracy and stopping power, so she managed to run for cover mostly unharmed, save for a few grazes and one bullet wound to the leg – nothing that a stimpak couldn’t heal. From the relative safety of the inside of the cargo of the truck, Nora shot at the raiders with her pistol.

The sound of something heavy landing on top of her hiding spot startled her, causing her to stop firing. The raiders stopped shooting immediately after two gunshots that didn’t come from their homemade firearms rang out, followed by the sound of two bodies hitting the pavement.

“Do you have a Geiger counter?” The person above Nora asked.

“Mine is in the shop.” She replied.

“I’m coming down now. Don’t shoot me.” The person peeked inside the cargo from above with a smile on their lips as warm as the mid-afternoon sunlight shining outside. “Hello, darling! You look exactly like Sunrise described you.”

“You?” Nora lowered her gun as Rarity jumped down – she was no longer wearing the revealing sequin dress, which had been replaced by a trenchcoat. Her hair was concealed under a cowl and she hid her eyes behind sunglasses. “I was expecting someone a bit more… armed.”

“What were you expecting, a Fat Man?” Rarity asked while spinning her snubnosed .44 pistol before concealing it on the inside of her coat. “Darling, please. Our operations are meant to be conducted, as they say, on the ‘down low’. Bringing attention to ourselves is so very counterproductive. It’s why I’m dressed like this.” Rarity did a quick twirl. “If someone spotted a beauty like me with a skin tone so… unusual, my cover would be blown immediately.”

“You look like a female Nick Valentine. Except human.”

The young woman let out a chuckle. “I’ll admit, we worked a few cases together and his sense of post-war fashion may have inspired me a teensy bit.” Rarity cleared her throat. “But enough dilly-dallying, we have a job to do.”

“Is this the raider outpost we’re supposed to clear out?” Nora moved her head in the general direction of the regional office.

“No, actually.” Rarity poked her head out of the cargo to take quick look at the building. “This place is supposed to be empty, meaning that they moved in recently. They were also guarding the entrance, meaning that there are more inside. That’s a problem.”

“Do we clear that one out too?”

Rarity bit the tip of her thumb in thought until she reached a decision. “No, time is of the essence. H2 has to be moved tonight, we’ll just have to double-time it. Someone will come outside eventually, either to investigate the gunshots or relieve those two from guard duty. Let’s hope it’s the latter and that they take their time.” Rarity adjusted her sunglasses and pointed down the road. “Our targets are holed up in the ruins of a church not far from here; they don’t have doors or windows, so they patrol the area regularly.”

“What’s the plan?”

“We both approach from opposite sides. I’ll drop the person on patrol with my first shot and run for cover. I’ll keep firing in their general direction from there, and while they’re busy firing at me you spring the trap and get them from behind. Since you have a silenced weapon you’ll most likely get a couple of them before they realize what’s going on. If they turn their attention to you, run for cover and give me a signal. I’ll come out of hiding and fire at them with intent to kill instead of just as a diversion.”

“What kind of signal?”

“Anything that doesn’t make it obvious that you’re signaling someone, like ‘now’, ‘they’re distracted’ or ‘your turn’. They’ll likely run back inside once enough of them are dead. If that happens, we shoot at them through the windows; their only option will be to hide behind the seats, if it comes to that I’ll fire at them through the windows closer to the entrance and you through the windows near the back – they can’t hide from both of us. Mission accomplished, we win!”

“Sounds great. So, let’s get started.”

After patching herself up, Nora stood up and walked back outside, following Rarity to their destination. She led her to the ruins of Cambridge church, where sure enough a single raider was patrolling the area, moving back and forth around the front and right side of the building. They both crouched down in front of a building next to the church but out of the raider’s sight.

“When he turns around, run left. Jump over a white picket fence and keep going until you reach the small graveyard to the right of the church.” Rarity whispered. “Hide behind the fence wall. I’ll give you 30 seconds, then I’ll go over there,” Rarity pointed at the bus stop not far from their location, to the right of the church – it was mostly made of metal, serving as good shelter “wait for the guard to get close and fire. I’ll empty my cylinder to get their attention, so wait for my 6th shot before moving.”

Nora nodded. Rarity grabbed a mirror from one of the inner pockets of her trenchcoat and used it to spy around the corner. She motioned for the former Vault 111 denizen to move as soon as the raider was out of view. Nora ran behind the church as quickly and as quietly as she could, immediately jumping over the picket fence and moving along the back wall of the church with her back pressed against it until she reached the graveyard; she crossed it and crouched down behind the fence wall her companion told her about. With Deliverer in hand, Nora waited.

The raider screamed after Rarity fired the first shot; she aimed at a non-vital area on purpose, to make sure the others inside would hear him and come investigate. She silenced him with a second shot and moved back to her hiding spot.

“Get some, motherfucker!” One of the raiders shouted while firing at the bus stop. She did her best to aim at them while still hiding and opened fire. One, two, three, four gunshots.

“Agh! Lucky hit!” A different raider said after being hit by one of the Railroad agent’s bullets on the left thigh.

With the raiders from the church successfully distracted and focused in one direction, Nora moved out of cover and took aim at the raider closest to her – he was kneeling on the floor, bleeding from a bullet wound on his leg. With a single well-aimed shot, she killed him with a bullet to the back of the head. The others didn’t notice one of their own getting killed, but they noticed when the second died because she was standing up and bumped on one of the living as she fell.

“What the…?” Another raider was killed with three bullets to the back. “She’s behind us! Behind!”

As soon as the four remaining raiders turned around to fire at Nora, she ran back to cover.

“My bad, thought you were somebody else!” She yelled, signaling Rarity to get back in the fight.

The Railroad field agent came out of hiding with her gun already aimed at the group, firing at them. She killed one with two bullets to the back and hit the apparent leader on the arm.

“Fall back! We’re getting hit from both sides!” He yelled as he ran back, clutching the wounded arm. The armed seamstress fired another bullet at him, but missed.

The remaining raiders followed suit, but one of them didn’t make it as Rarity managed to shoot her, causing her to fall to the ground.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!”

The marble-skinned lady fired the last bullet in the cylinder at the fallen raider, finishing her off as Nora moved towards the back of the building as planned; she peered through one of the broken windows and saw them taking cover behind a bench, just as Rarity predicted.

“We’re sitting ducks here, we need to—” The raider boss never managed to finish that sentence as Nora killed him with two bullets to the chest.

“This is fucking crazy!” The last living raider yelled as he ran back towards the entrance, coming face to face with the woman in a trenchcoat, aiming her .44 pistol at his forehead. Admitting defeat, he let go of his pipe pistol. “Well, what the fuck you waitin’ for?”

She fired one last gunshot and placed her gun back on the holster inside her coat. “Great work, Agent Whisper.”

Nora whistled. “I’ll admit, I was a little skeptical at first, didn’t think you could handle yourself in a firefight. You seemed so harmless back in Bunker Hill.”

“The dress makes the woman, darling.” Rarity replied with a smile. “You dress like a waitress, people will think you are a waitress. You dress like a soldier, people will think you are a soldier. And a lady has a dress for every occasion!” She sighed. “But you’re sort of right, I wasn’t even supposed to take part in firefights at all.

“My job is to keep an eye on Bunker Hill, welcome the new arrivals and guard the safehouse when Old Man Stockton isn’t there; I was one grade above your regular tourist. But after we lost our previous headquarters, our numbers took a hit and most of the agents now have to multitask. Thankfully Deacon stopped by and gave me a few lessons, I would be completely lost otherwise.”

“So we cleared the raider outpost, now what?”

“This is our rendezvous point. Old Man Stockton will bring H2-22 after dark and an agent from one of our safehouses will escort him away. Our job is to guard this place until they get here, but those raiders holed up down the road are a problem. One of us should go back, meet them halfway and warn them about it.”

“You better go, then. If more raiders drop by, I’ll handle them.”

“Thank you. I will be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” Rarity ran back the way they came and disappeared around the corner.

Nora looked at the sky and then at the clock displayed on her Pip-Boy – not long until nighttime. With Deliverer in hand, she sat on one of the benches and quietly watched the entrance.

Rarity returned after sunset with an oil lamp in hand and an unknown man in tow, looking through the windows with her pistol in hand to make sure they weren’t followed.

“Alright, we’re clear.” Rarity said. “Whisper, this is H2-22. H2, this is Agent Whisper.”

“Nice to meet you, H2.” Nora greeted, waving at him.

“Another person actually happy to meet me.” The man muttered. “This’ll take some getting used to.”

“I warned Old Man Stockton about the other raiders, he’ll contact HQ and get them to send over a couple of heavies to clean house. I’ll fire up the signal.” Rarity placed the lamp on one of the windows and lit it up. “There. Shouldn’t take long.”

Ten minutes passed.

“Or it wasn't supposed to.” She looked through the windows once again, gun in hand just in case. “They should have sent someone already. Where are they?”

As if on cue, one person running with a limp turned the corner and ran straight toward the church.

“We’ve got trouble.” The dark-skinned man wearing a leather jacket said before Rarity pressed the barrel of her gun to his chest. “Whoa whoa whoa!”

“Easy there, mister. Why don’t you take a deep breath and then tell me: do you have a Geiger counter?”

“Right, right, of course. Mine is in the shop. All good?”

Rarity nodded and lowered her gun. “What took you so long?”

“Raiders, right in the middle of the route. Small number, but caught me off-guard. Probably on high alert after seeing me. I managed to shake them off, but they got me on the leg. I can’t take the package back – at least not on my own.”

“Here, use this.” Rarity offered the other agent a stimpak, which he gladly took. “Not just one, but two raider outfits along the route that we didn’t know about. The Commonwealth gets more dangerous with each passing day, and without people to keep constant watch…”

“Now what?” Nora asked. Rarity bit the tip of her thumb for another moment, thinking.

“Change of plans. Agent Whisper, you and I will escort…” She turned to look at the agent. “Your name is…?”

“High Rise.”

“High Rise, right. You and I will escort High Rise and H2 back to the safehouse. We stick to the shadows and only fire if absolutely necessary – your gun may be silenced but we will be compromised if they find a body. If we’re lucky we will get past them without being spotted, but don’t count on it. Can you walk, High Rise?”

“Sure. Still stings a bit, but your stim did the trick.”

“You take point. Whisper, keep H2 safe at all costs. I’ll watch our backs. Keep your eyes open, if any one of us spot a raider we warn the others immediately. Move out.”

With High Rise leading the group, they left the rendezvous point in an orderly fashion. With guns in hand and eyes wide open, they snuck into enemy territory in complete silence. Everything was quiet, not a single raider in sight, to the point where Nora began to question High Rise’s testimony. Suddenly a pair of spotlights turned on, both focused on the four of them.

“Dibs on the loot!” a raider shouted from the roof of a building, pointing his rifle at them. Three other raiders emerged from the roof of different buildings, all pointing their guns at them. “Open fire, boys!”

All four raiders started shooting. Nora closed her eyes, expecting pain to follow, but it never came. When she opened her eyes she saw a glowing blue dome surrounding them and Rarity standing with her arms open and palms facing outward – upon closer inspection she noticed that the dome was composed of large hexagon-shaped shields made of pure energy. Cracks appeared on the shields as bullets struck them, but none of them managed to penetrate it. The group of raiders ceased fire out of shock.

“What the f—”

Quick as a flash Rarity crossed her arms, causing the dome to be separated into individual hexagons that started spinning like saw blades as they flew towards all four of their assailants. The spinning shields reached them before they could run for cover, sawing off limbs, cutting them in half or decapitating them. They also destroyed the spotlights before completely vanishing into thin air.

Breathing heavily, Rarity wiped her sweaty forehead with her sleeve. “I… hate… the Commonwealth…”

“Wow, how did you—” High Rise began, but was immediately silenced by an alabaster hand covering his mouth.

“Don’t you dare tell anyone about what you just saw, Mr. High Rise. Are we understood?” He nodded. She moved her hand away.

With the raiders taken care of, they continued their journey without any more problems until they managed to drop High Rise and H2-22 off at Ticonderoga safehouse. On their way back to Bunker Hill, Nora asked a question:

“So, aren’t you going to ask me to keep quiet about your powers?”

“Sunset— I mean, Sunrise already told me about you. You already know a lot about us, if you were going to tell anybody about our powers you would have done so already.”

“Applejack doesn’t seem afraid to show off her powers, why do you hide yours?”

“Like I said, darling, it’s best to not bring attention to ourselves – even if it’s just us and a bunch of raiders that are not going to walk away from the encounter alive, you never know who might be watching us from the shadows. Besides, unlike Applejack’s, my power takes a lot of effort and concentration to keep up, not to mention the strain – doubly so if I’m conjuring shields resistant enough to stop bullets; did you see how much I was sweating afterwards? And I conjured them for just couple of seconds! It’s not something I can rely on frequently, so I save it for emergencies only.”

“I see… Well, what happens now?”

“H2 will get a new face, a new voice and a new life out of the Commonwealth, away from the Institute. Now it’s time for us to split up. It was a pleasure working with you, Agent Whisper, I hope we can meet again in the future.”

“Until then, Agent Rarity.”

“Just Rarity is fine, darling. Ta-ta!”

After saying the goodbyes, the two of them parted ways. Rarity returned to Bunker Hill to report back to Old Man Stockton while Nora went straight to Railroad HQ. After that she returned to her home in Sanctuary, where her second-in-command Preston Garvey came up with a plan to strengthen the Minutemen: take back Fort Independence.

Author's Note

Fun fact: Rarity's cowl is the only piece of clothing shown throughout this fanfic that doesn't exist in the original game. It was inspired by the less-popular-but-inifinitely-better look she is sometimes given when depicted as a Spy in Team Fortress 2 crossover stuff.

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