"Travis Lonely Miles here, and boy the Heterodine Tubes are Humming today! Just got word from a merchant who came up from South today saying we came in booming loud and crystal clear as far as Providence! Howdy Neighbors to our South! If that's the case, then that must mean the weather's clearing up! Usually it's all static past Quincy, the Glowing Sea does a number on radio transmissions too, but the wind must be blowing in our favor. I'll take it, Diamond City. Clear airwaves is a good day in my book. Always gotta look at the positives. DCR is always on the Air for you!"

"Dear Hearts, and Gentle People. Bing Crosby for our Neighbors down South. This one's for you."

With Nate, Deacon, Princess Nightmare Moon, Hancock, and Meathead all arriving at Park Street station, descending into Vault 114 beneath the station, home to the new Railroad headquarters, the group shared what happened to them over the last two days, while coming up with a plan on what to do next.

As Deacon relayed information to Desdemona, Hancock offered the name of a gang running a protection scheme he remembered hearing about close to Boston's Freight Yard Depot, that would be able to get all of them close to Rage and the Super Mutants in West Roxbury.

Desdemona didn't know why Nate and his companion Meathead were so intent on wiping out these mutants in particular, but she saw it as an opportunity for the Railroad to finally have their safe-route South out of Boston proper. For months, with the loss of South Boston University to the Institute, Roxford to the mutants, South Boston to Triggermen and raider gangs, ferals, and mutants all waring for territory down to the block, and the way East through Boston and then down being rife with Mutants in the Fens and raider gangs in the East, there was no easy way for the Railroad to punch through down South without being spotted and easily moving their cargo.

She supported Deacon's push for weapons, power armor, and any ordinance they would need for this mission in West Roxbury, with the promise that this gang would understand that the Railroad would be taking over their route. Plain and simple, kill the raiders if they wanted to run their protection scams, and give them nothing until after West Roxbury was secure and a route had been mapped out.

They needed more than safehouses, but proper routes that they could move freely without being monitored, with the streets and skies being watched, Desdemona latched onto the idea of taking the town and route for the Railroad as a top priority.

When Deacon approached Desdemona, relaying all the information he dug up, burned safehouses, Institute movements, and taking stock of their own dismal numbers, the conversation rested at a recruitment drive to boost how many people were in the Railroad.

Meathead and Nate embraced with a short hug, welcoming each other back. Nate was cautious with his arm, letting Meathead see and get a closer look before they both went into details of what happened over the last two days.

In front of them was the Courser Chip, and talk of getting into the Institute, but how it would take weeks to build a proposed Relay Interceptor around the Chip to break past the Institute's anti-teleportation barrier. Nate procured a map of all the train lines in and around Boston. Pointing to one route in particular, from Trinity Plaza to the West Roxbury Station, it was entirely underground an access points above the Freight Depot Hancock had his own storage sheds for Goodneighbor.

"If we can't approach from any direction without getting spotted, can't fly, then we go lower. This tunnel leads all the way from Malden to the heart of Boston. From here, if we expand the tunnel network, we could have underground passages leading all the way from Malden to Roxbury, passing through the heart of Boston, with offshoots to Bunker Hill, Goodneighbor, Diamond City, and through Cambridge to College Square. Aside from how loud it would be clearing the metro lines, we would be invisible below ground. That gives the Railroad a whole network to move through safely. Quickly, point to point."

"<I've got a guy in mind who can help clear tunnels. Mel in Diamond City. He's still waiting for me to get back to him, I just haven't had the time to drop by there and put him to work.>"

"Then send him a message when we're done. We need him."

"<What are we going to do about Nuka-World?>"

"Athena was pushing for the both of us to go, pull a fast one on him using your magic and shapeshifting skills to hide the fact you're using magic to help me whack him."

"Do you know where Athena is now?" Deacon asked, wondering where the raging Unicorn disappeared.

"Nope, but she is close and probably got her eye on us or ME in particular, wondering when we're going to get back at it. The less I have to think about her the better, she's got fire in her blood." Nate said, but the anecdote was lost in translation.

"<Thunderstruck said a similar thing about Nuka-World. That if either of us were to go, I could use magic to cheat in this rigged death-match they've set up against us.>"

"I'll have the Railroad agents we have over in the Northpoint Valley update us on the current situation over there." Desdemona said, "Until then, the Railroad needs a secure route South out of Boston, and we're willing to provide the power-armor to get it."

\111/

With the Railroad providing suits of Power Armor, Hancock was the front man who introduced the rest of them to Helter Skelter and his gang.

The whole time Hancock and Meathead were in Jamaica Plain, the old ghoul was combing through every possible way to get to the town without drawing attention. When he remembered the raider gang running a thin strip of highway and tunnels on the South edge of Boston proper, he piped up and told Nate and Meathead.

The Changeling nodded, "<I wasn't thinking about where the Metro tunnels came out at, and considered them blocked. You're right. I didn't know how to get close and was wracking my brains trying to think of how to get to them.>"

\111/

Helter Skelter knew he was a lucky savant when it came to the metro lines running through Boston and into the urban sprawl. With the help of Utility Robotrons, and working maintenance droids combing the tunnels, his gang ran a tight corridor of lanes that ran underground. The Mass Pike Tunnel, a stretch of highway starting in the Fens, and ending in the Theater district two blocks to the South of Trinity Plaza, his East to West road was intersected right in the center with a utility access point leading deeper underground to the metro lines that spanned from the North Massachusetts Freight Yard, all the way to West Roxbury Metro Station, three stories underground. These corridors were safe passages he discovered and mapped, controlled and protected, easily capable of sealing off exits and entrances. It was no small wonder as to why the Super Mutants in Shaw never discovered a gang of human raiders hiding directly beneath them.

The West Roxbury station was three stories underground, with every floor having a different purpose. The first sublevel was ticketing, market stalls, bathrooms, and the main staircases and elevators meant to lead to the second floor down with maintenance access to employees tucked away in the corners.

The Second sublevel were the first two platforms, One branched off to the West, but was blocked, leading towards Andrew Station in South Boston, the blocked tunnels south lead to Franklin and the Glowing Sea, with a but the third sublevel below the first platform lead North to South. If the tunnels were caved-in, Helter Skelter would be able to walk all the way from Roxbury to the Fenway Park Station twenty meters away from the South entrance to Diamond City.

The crossroads he controlled made it easy to regulate people moving through his territory, but made it difficult to expand without everyone knowing what they were doing. While the plan was to eventually dig underground, restore the tunnels, and claim the Fenway Park Station, it would've tipped Diamond City to another gang in the area, along with anyone else who thought they could rid the area of raiders camped right outside their front doors. They were trying to build up their people and work quietly without attracting attention before Rage and his mutants made it all but impossible to focus on expanding North with all the fighting happening in the South.

Five months of keeping the mutants out, and shifting focus towards trying to stage hit-and-runs through West Roxbury, Helter Skelter's gang could hit the town every single day for a week straight and still wake up to more Mutants coming down from the city.

They were outnumbered and outgunned. What they needed was power armor, and frames they could get their hands on weren't nearly as reliable as they didn't have any mechanics in their gang to fix, build, or maintain them either.

The issue had been set aside for nearly half a year, far too long without any sort of action, but every time they poked their heads out to check the surface or the metro station above them, they only saw a growing Super Mutant population that got more and more entrenched with every passing day. Helter's gang used to operate out of the West Roxbury Hospital, getting free checkups and treatment from the Mr. Handy's and nurse-bots, but Super Mutants coming down South from Boston over the road, at all times of the day and night forced them to reposition and come up with new defenses.

After locking down the hospital, moving their people back to the metro station and Fallons, the Super Mutants kept pushing and appearing, an endless stream of mutants arriving daily that broke through gaps and charging in recklessly without regard for their own lives that was too much for Helter's gang. Losing people and ground, they were forced underground where the tight corridors made it hard for the Mutants to move tactically, but instead opt for using themselves as meatshields and strapping explosives to themselves to blow out Helter Skelter's gang.

Where before the gang could charge protection for anyone using the tunnels to get from East to West Boston, then funnel guns, ammo, people South to West Roxbury, the route was too hot and Helter found himself dumping resources into fighting a war he didn't even realize he was in until Rage and his Mutants took over Shaw High School. Three weeks after the mutants moved in, they couldn't push the mutants out and Rage was leaving traps and baiting the exits all around West Roxbury.

This back and forth fighting never went the full distance to wipe the other side out completely, and only turned into a building up of defenses and mounting opposition. Until Helter finally decided that West Roxbury was too dangerous to keep hold of altogether and they focused on sealing off all access points the mutants could find. The only way into the station now was up utility ladders sealed with latches and manhole covers the mutants would never hope to fit through. Turning the substory into a dead-end, Helter knew that it was still a viable base, even the metro cars themselves still had power and the platform was a large underground area that they could easily convert into a shelter. It was a secure location, except for the mutants above them, so the choice was to stay and seek out a different solution to break the stalemate between the two groups, with them coming out on top.

Helter Skelter never expected to see or hear The Goodneighbor Ghoul, Hancock arrive with a team of men in power armor, with Nate's armor in particular was missing the left arm armor completely, it was so he could fit his arm and hand through the port and still have mobility. The Railroad insignia's were painted on, and the weapons they referred to as hardware was abundant. His lookouts nearly started a firefight but Hancock was walking towards the lookout with arms overhead, carrying two brown bottles of whiskey, approaching slowly and clearly ready to talk.

When Helter got word from his runners that The Goodneighbor Ghoul wanted to send a crew through the metro tunnels to West Roxbury station, Hancock was the one to facilitate and pay. It was beneficial Hancock had been around long enough to know where most gang's territories started and ended, and people like Hancock went where ever he pleased. It was more of a professional courtesy that Hancock directed Nate, Deacon, and Meathead through the tunnels, while Hancock went above ground to corral the ghouls in Jamaica Plain.

Since they knew timing was important to the takeover of the town, they agreed that the fighting would have to start first in the Metro station, with the deal being Helter Skelter and his gang would take over everything up to the street level as the trio cleared it. Locking the station down first while Hancock's herd of ghouls moved towards West Roxbury from the West, it would hopefully flush out the streets and spread disorder among the Super Mutants while the trio moved again towards Fallons Department Store, where the majority hub of the Super Mutants were gathered.

The Railroad was able to provide power armor, explosives, and the weapons they needed to clear the town and locate Rage. The second part of the deal was that the Railroad would be using Helter Skelter's tunnels and providing them with an influx of business to and from Boston to the South.

Desdemona and the Railroad had been looking for a secure route South for months, either by coast, water, beaches, overland routes, the connection between Helter Skelter and the Railroad never would've existed if it weren't for Hancock mentioning that he knew that a gang ran the tunnels that cut across town.

Hancock arrived leading Nate and Deacon in Power Armor to the entrance of the Mass Pike Tunnel West. Bearing the Railroad's mark and carrying enough caps and weapons to buy their way all the way into Helter Skelter's presence. Hancock knew about the tunnel leading from the Freight station, down South, since he was using one of the rail houses as a storage room, and prison for Goodneighbor. He didn't know the state of Helter Skelter's gang until arriving loaded with caps, guns, alcohol, and meat, everything a gang could want needed to sway their opinion towards listening to a few people passing through.

Hancock pointed Deacon, Nate, and Meathead down the tunnel while he took off over the road towards Jamaica Plain.

"So, you let us use the tunnel, we clear out the mutants, you keep both ends open and clear for the Railroad to use. If this relationship stays mutual, and shows that everything is running well and good, the Railroad gives you access to more weapons and eventually power armor." Nate and Deacon brokered the deal, and made Helter Skelter offers too good to pass up. All he had to do was sit back and collect, to which Nate, Deacon, and the rest of the Railroad agreed, that when the time came, either Helter Skelter would join the Railroad or the Railroad would muscle Helter Skelter out.

Members of the Railroad voiced concern about the potential threat of Helter Skelter or one of his gang members doing something stupid such as revealing the Railroad's business to curious individuals, people fishing for information, and if that ever came, then they would wipe them out. Deacon promised if the threat ever came that Helter Skelter sold them out, he would seal the tunnels himself with Helter Skelter's gang inside.

The threats remained out of the conversation with Helter Skelter, since they hadn't yet even started a new relationship of trust yet, but the assurances from Helter came in the form of him saying 'Fuck the Institute,' and how traveler business was up because of Nate hanging Kellogg. Ever since he died, more people were moving through Boston, and needing safe routes through the city. With three of the most influential groups representing their goals infront of Helter, he knew only good things would come if he could make a deal with the Railroad and Goodneighbor Ghouls.

The sight of Nate nearly terrified his gang on the way in, and after hearing about Mr. 111 himself arriving, the tidbits of information getting thrown around, putting faces to names, he was caught off guard and surprised at the show of force arriving on his doorstep.

With Meathead covered head-to-toe in power armor, he let the silence of being in the presence of the other three speak for itself.

Hancock knew how the gang's operated, and was carrying a dufflebag of what he called 'Catch alls', drugs, seven liters of booze, cigarettes, old nudie mags, clean handguns, boxes of bullets, a few thousand bottle caps, with Hancock leaving it all in their hands saying "Play nice, would ya?"

Like a gift dropping out of the sky right into their lap, Helter Skelter personally guided them back through, nodding and shining the light for them and talking details about what they would expect to see in the future.

\111/

Unsealing the staircases and maintenance access points, manhole covers, they all entered the second sublevel of the West Roxbury station. Before Nate gave the signal, he said, "Alright; Let's go meet the neighbors."

Nate found he no issue racking a pump-action shotgun with his Deathclaw hand, and in the tight confines of the tunnels, one man with a short barrel shotgun was devestating. With Deacon carrying a plasma rifle, the bright green bolts of energy bored burning holes instantly into whatever it connected with. Meathead bringing up the rear with an assault-rifle and the plasma grenades, the Super Mutants barely had time to react. One second they hear dirt and rubble shifting, the next the echos and confines of the tunnel are deafening with the blasts of guns going off.

It took five minutes wearing bulky power armor to walk from the third sublevel up to the first, and killing mutants along the way who weren't expecting an attack from below only added on a few seconds to the walk.

In the first two minutes alone, from the moment they popped their heads up, Nate, Deacon, and Meathead killed twelve Super Mutants, blasting away like it was a firing range. Helter Skelter's gang didn't even fire a single round since there was nothing left to shoot at except dead bodies.

Seeing the heavy hitters in action was a thrilling and terrifying prospect for Helter Skelter's gang to wrap their heads around. They wanted that level of power and control for themselves, but it was the cohesion between Nate, Deacon, and Meathead that made them so efficient.

Three mutants on the first sublevel and ticket area, hearing the gunfire from below they were drawn down and into the waiting ironsites as they rushed headfirst into a hail of bullets.

It took several minutes to reach the surface, and most of them was spent slowly walking up, making sure they weren't getting flanked or surrounded.

Helter Skelter's gang rushed up behind them, sealing off gates and locking down everything behind them as they advanced upwards. With the station under their control, they waited for Hancock to arrive with the ghouls.

\111/

"Hi-yaaaah!" Hancock shouted, cracking a whip over the horde of ghouls, "An-delay! Come on! Move it! Get going! Come on you lazy, skinny bastards!"

The crowd of two hundred ghouls was nearly impossible to keep together, as plenty were shambling off the road in different directions, but the scent of fresh meat and the sounds of Hancock firing off bullets every hundred meters to keep the shambling ghouls dragging themselves towards the noise.

"Get back here! Hup-two three four! Hup-two three four!" Some ghouls actually started jogging, raising their knees and legs, pumping them forward.

Putting rounds through ghouls who strayed too far off the road was enough to spark life and recoil into the ferals and keep them marching towards West Roxbury. With the poor light working to their advantage, Hancock could see the silhouettes of Super Mutants in the distance since he was actively looking for them. There was a trade-off, since he couldn't keep firing off rounds and draw the mutant's attention before they got too close, so he could only use the whip-crack to keep the ghouls plodding forward until he reached the shadows of the first buildings. Switching back to a his pistol, he fired bursts into the air to whip up the crowd of ghouls and draw the attention of the Super Mutants.

The plan worked for the most part as over a hundred ghouls were drawn into mainstreet as Hancock hung back, letting the crowd move around and past him.

The chaos unfolding after that was the Super Mutants on patrol thinking that it was only a small group, but then they quickly ran out of bullets and saw the whole group of ferals. With the patrols ripped apart, shouting and running for the high-school or the department store, they split the horde in three.

With ghouls swarming and tearing apart the mutants on the street, others chasing the mutants into either building, some tried to get down into the metro station but were locked out by gate shutters keeping them out.

Super Mutants held positions, blasting apart the front doors and entryways to keep the wall of ghouls from spreading through and getting into their buildings. Moving heavy machinery, the mutants inside faired much better than the ones on the streets as the mutants organized a counter-strike to wipe out the ghouls trickling into their town and clear the streets.

Hancock took to the highest perch he could find, dipping back towards the Milton General Hospital and following Helter Skelter's instructions on how to navigate through the building and deactivate the security system they left in place.

Taking a shooters nest on the walkway between the hospital and the parking garage that extended over Main Street, he could see the entrance to Fallons and the subway station. There were a sparse amount of shuttered businesses, collapsed buildings, or spaces that didn't have any tactical cover whatsoever and were left ignored by both raiders and mutants, but the ghouls spread out in all directions now.

Now came the lull, the ghouls were scattered, having served their purpose. The mutants within the department store blocking and now pushing out into the street, it was this moment they were waiting for.

After the shooting picked up again, spreading the mutants out again, the second wave of fighting happened in the streets, pulling the scattered ferals again back towards the noise. Some even coming in from the direction of Jamaica Plain, the mutants own heavy weapon holders, large machine guns, explosives, they all shot their way through the streets.

When it looked like the tide was turning against the feral ghouls, Hancock signaled Nate's group waiting to emerge and join in the fight. Firing down the road from his perch, he wasn't picked out or spotted at first as mutants dropped dead.

With Nate, Deacon, and Meathead taking to the street level, they were able to exhaust the super mutants ammo and separate them from getting back quickly. As the mutants screamed and shouted, causing more mutants to rush out of Fallons, they ran straight into the crosshairs of Hancock, or into three power-armor covered shooters blasting holes in anything that moved.

The shouting and confusion, where they initially thought they were being swarmed with ghouls, now with only the clear indication they were being attacked lead them to rush out with clubs or anything they could swing, right into the path of a bullet.

Gunning down fifty Super Mutants, tearing them apart, separating them, tricking and confusing them took over a hundred ghouls and coordination that relied on the natural response of once the mutants thought they could go out and sweep up the rest of the ferals roaming around, meant that there were still pockets moving around. It took nearly ten minutes for the mutants to brave the outside and take the fighting into the open.

With all their focus on the super mutants, the Railroad, Helter's gang, and everyone agreeing that clearing out feral ghouls was beginning to be a past-time in the post-apocalypse, and leagues easier than dealing with mutants.

\111/

The mutants in Shaw high school were pinned inside. After dealing with a wall of feral ghouls, a handful of mutants were quickly trying to find more garbage or tables to block the doors again, pieces of metal, anything to keep more out before Nate, Meathead, and Deacon were spotted by the remaining eight mutants.

Moving forward, the bullets fired by the mutants were only divots and unable to knock them down as Meathead moved forward, heaving plasma grenades supplied by the Railroad. These miniature suns burst in ferocious balls of plasma warping and burning through entire rooms, melting holes through tile and metal.

Rage had never seen humans act like this, in the twenty minutes from when they started, to the entire firefight, Nate, Meathead, Deacon, and Hancock were a force that blew down their doors and cut them down to the shins.

The whole time, they all wondered which one Rage was, what made him stand out, any subtle changes, or markings, any amount of ego that would point them to seeing other mutants rally around.

Only when they reached the corridors of Shaw high school did they notice these mutants were turning to look for signals from another.

Their overwhelming strength didn't account for the four shooters taking no prisoners and leaving no room to negotiate. They were there to kill and execute every super mutant, and the mutants felled before reaching Rage only offered challenges. One shouting that humans were weak and inferior, that the tin cans they were walking in would be easy to pop open. Another challenged in the form of trying to get close with a sledgehammer and bash them down, but between the cover fire on the streets and the three of them cycling through and taking turns as point-man leading the charge, the super mutant's cries and word died in their throat.

Gunned down with laser blasts boring through his skull, shotgun pellets ripping through his chest and arms, they didn't know this mutant in particular was Rage. In the middle of the fight, no amount of gathered smarts or intelligence could guide Rage into coming up with a way to beat Nate, Deacon, and Meathead, except to shoot back and rely on what he knew.

Once Rage was dead, the other super mutants seemed to sense that their numbers were thinning, and now down into single digits. Sweeping through the school, they killed all fifty mutants in a half-hour time span. Once Deacon went outside again and gave Hancock another signal, they started picking off the last of the straggling feral ghouls as Nate and Meathead started checking bodies.

Making their way back to Roxbury Station, Deacon rapped his covered knuckles on the gates, shouting to get the raiders attention. They opened the gates and lowered their weapons, moving up and out towards the surface.

"We're doing a final sweep through now, watch for stragglers and any ghouls milling about. We're done."

The whole Main Street was a warzone, and a massacre of super mutants and ghoul corpses littering the streets. Blood and spent bullet casings were more numerous than the bodies, Deacon kicking a few out of his way with his big armored boots.

\111/

"<I could barely feel you this whole time,>" Meathead said to Nate.

"Why's that?"

"<Mona. She's...feeding off your emotions. Jacked me out of the loop. I can see you know that I'm practically touching you, but...she's done something. Either I'm leagues out of my depth in terms of magical strength, or she's just that strong, I can't take her on in a fight. Not like the one in the Glowing Sea...we've got to nuke Mona from orbit if we want a chance of sneaking up on her. There's no way I see that happening, especially since she threated to unravel your arm from your body. I don't know if you caught any of that, but she and Athena are pressing us toward Nuka-World to take care of a bigger issue.>"

"Just stick with me, and I'll make sure we set something up to make sure when the time comes, Mona and Athena are going to be removed from our lives and the grand equation no matter what."

Meathead didn't know what Nate understand phrase the Grand Equation at first, but divided on both sides, Meathead figured out what he meant to say. The remainer would be Nate and himself being whole.

After Killing Rage, the team spread out through Shaw High School. Unlike most mutants, Rage knew how to operate doors with a keycard. Wearing one on a lanyard with books and apple pins decorating the necklace, it was a keycard to the high school's library.

Taking the lanyard and making their way into the library, it was a mold-eaten mess, fungus crawling up and across most books, fouling the air, but from all the piles and garbage lining the floors, a clear path that looked like a giant came stomping through was easy to follow to the Library's back room where office supplies, and books were kept, a temporary storage room, breakroom, and study hall all in one, the multipurpose room was littered and blasted with hundreds and hundreds of Mentat containers.

Everywhere Nate and Meathead looked, all around the floor, the halls, the walls too, still dozens of untouched Mentat packages still in their original containers, still shrink-wrapped were sitting on the shelves.

"Crimony." Nate said, kicking one Mentat box over with the tip of his boot. Reaching down to pick a stepped on box up off the floor, he compared it to the ones still sitting on the shelves, and then to the messy disregardful destruction around them.

"Drugs." Nate said, as if it were the answer to the big mystery of the Super Mutant's intelligence. "Lots and lots..and lots of drugs."

Nate took a shrink-wrapped container and tore the plastic off, flipping open the lid and finding individually packaged pills. Popping one into his mouth, he sucked on the citric-lemon flavor, feeling a slight fizzy sensation in his mouth.

"Still good." Nate said, "These...would explain some things. Fuck me why they're all stashed in a school...probably cramming for finals and the school trying to get good marks and a bigger budget from the State."

"What makes you say that?" Deacon asked.

"It's what I would do, running an underfunded school, all the states in the U.S. would give money to better performing schools, so when it comes to finals and tests, they always tried to either remove the students that would tank the average, or make the tests impossibly easy to try and raise the average, but overall make the students dumber because they wouldn't teach the students anything comprehensive. Terrible money-grabbing schemes all around. It comes from lazy, greedy, slothful, and vain dumbasses who were responsible for why our country the way it is. Irradiated to hell...you notice the raiders around here aren't too bright?"

"Except for the rads glowing through their skin...yeah. I noticed."

"<Mentats. I saw handfuls of packages just like these in Quincy, in Big Mack's area, he had a few containers of Mentats, but I didn't think they could make a person actually smarter. I never ate one, so I wasn't thinking about that connection.>"

"This has got to be how Rage...Big Mack...and the others are all getting smarter and able to ignore Mona's influence."

Nate flipped the package over, looking at the small letters. On the back of the Mentats tin, in tiny letters. Nate read aloud, "Med-Tek. Made in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I guess I'm going there next."

"<Okay.>"

"I''ll check out the drugs situation up there at Med-Tek, see if any other Mutants figured out this as well. Are you still going south to grab Brian Virgil after we're done here, right?"

"<Yeah. I'll grab him, take him back to the Railroad, put him to work with Tinker Tom and get plans for the Relay started. After that I'll come track you down. What are we going to do about Fist in Trinity Tower?>"

"I'll bag these up. I'll find a use for them somewhere, or sell them. They're worth some trade value. As for Fist...He must realize by now that everyone's dead. And as far as I know...he's still there along with Mona. But... " Nate considered the options and routes. "Bringing down the house would be the loud option..Heh." Nate exhaled a short-strangled laugh.

"<What'd you think of?>"

"We could send You and Thunderstruck up with a rifle and a stick of dynamite...That'd be the real simple solution. Think she'd be up for getting her hooves dirty? How is everyone anyways?"

"<I've been trying to keep tabs on her and Sanctuary Hills...I thought I was feeling Athena...that's how I was trying to track you, but this was over in East Boston. It's hard to look towards Downtown without feeling like I'm looking into a fun-house mirror. All the emotions are bent around Mona, with her at the top sucking it all in...I have a pretty good idea of where people are, but intentional or not, she's screwing with my senses. I sent a lot of people towards Sanctuary Hills, group of ponies, a woman named Cait, and a gryphon named Leighla, Deacon and I quote-unquote, 'saved' from the Combat Zone. The two of them are tough and strong, so I asked them to be security for Sanctuary Hills. As for flying up there...>" Meathead felt his own wings flutter and shift. "<That would be the easiest way to do it. Fly up at night, pow-pow right through the glass, then bogey-out. We saved her, fed her, gave her a place to stay, I suppose now would be the time to ask for a favor from her.>"

"My sentiments as well. Sounds Good. I feel that the Colonial Taphouse would be a good spot to load up and prep. I'm pulling every favor I have. I'll bring all the guns, ammo, armor, everything we need. It's the closest spot to Trinity Tower we can use as a launching point for taking on the Mutants around Trinity Plaza. While you and Thunderstruck go up around the outside, I'll draw mutants down and out. You and Thunderstruck take the lift up to the top of Mass Fusion, save yourself the hassle of getting spotted while flying up, and then just glide over."

"<Sounds good.>

"Grab a few boxes of Mentats for yourself, there's dozens. No more for the mutants around here either... If Big Mack was on Mentats...and Hammer was on Mentats...all these Mutants...Athena must've known. She's too observant not to have figured this out already."

"<So where is she now? I doubt I could pick her out right now even if I tried.>"

"If I had to guess. On her way to Nuka-World. Where we need to be before she gets too entrenched and makes it even more difficult for us to work around her. Athena doesn't have a lot of patience, and doesn't mind making it harder on us to make sure she gets what she wants. I don't know how big her circle of friends and allies are, but she said she's going to try and make things more difficult for raiders around Nuka-World to get their hands on certain supplies going in. All to undermine slavery that's happening over there."

Meathead blew air out through his lips, "<Well. A rolling stone gathers no moss.>"

"Yeah, and she's a two-ton boulder. I don't know how she's got it in her head that we're supposed to take on Nuka-World's Overboss, but she said something interesting...that she's put faith in people like us before. That this wasn't the first time."

"<I'll ask Deacon if he knows anything about Athena's former protégés, but aside from Pickman, I...couldn't even begin to tell you where to start with her.>"

"They're probably all dead anyway, she insinuated as much. Ahye, This fucking Unicorn. She's already played the bystander and let me fight it out alone. Nearly lost my head twice now."

"<So what are we going to do about her?>"

"Only one thing we can do with a person like that. Wind them up, point them at something else, and let'er rip." Nate sighed, "I'm still figuring that part out. She wants a guy named Sola and a pony named Firelance hard though, she's got a bloody look in her eye whenever she has to think about those two."

"<Well, knowing we can go from here all the way to Goodneighbor underground without being spotted makes this place a lot more valuable.>"

"Yep," Packing things away, Nate and Meathead didn't see much else worth of value in the school except for the bricks and mortar making up the building itself. The Mutants left a trail of trash and destruction through every room, making the whole building reek of atrophy and decay. "As for the school...Fallons...even the hospital, this whole town's gotta come down."

"<Put it on the list.>"

\111/

As Deacon, Nate, Meathead, and Hancock reconviened, planning their routes back, the Boston skyline to the North of them was rocked by explosions coming from Trinity Tower. The showers of glass raining down from the building were plain to see, but even from a great distance, five miles from the center of town, they could see the flashes of bombs going off. If they waited quietly, they could hear the gunfire echoing out over the whole Commonwealth.

"Did we do that?" Nate asked.

Deacon shook his head, Meathead was stunned since he could only take in the sight with his eyes, and staring at an emotionally black void. "<What the hell?...Oh no.>"

Hancock tilted his head back and forth, trying to think of who he might know who would be bold, brave, and stupid enough to attack the Mutants in Trinity Tower.

Nate heard Meathead mutter, "What is it?" he asked.

"<The Brotherhood of Steel. If that's who I think it is...We won't have to worry about Fist or Strong here in the near future.>"

"Fine by me, let someone else do the heavy lifting for once around here, any more and I'm going to wind up looking worse than Hancock's date. Meat, take off. Get Virgil, drop him off here, then find Thunderstruck. The signal relay needs to be built in a place the Railroad's never touched before, here and between Jamaica Plain is where we build it. I want to talk to her if what we're seeing doesn't pan out."

"<Are we still meeting at the Taphouse?>"

Nate nodded, "I'll swing by there, up to Med-Tek, then over to Vault 111."

"Well, we might as well get moving, it'll take us about an hour from here just to walk it." Deacon said.

"<Alright, I'll see you soon. Everyone, take care and good hunting.>"

"See you around the bend, Meathead." Nate said, waving as he watched his friend depart.