The office door slammed open just as RPK-16 disappeared around the corner. Grizzly stepped in, her usually laid-back demeanor replaced by sharp urgency.
Grizzly: "Commander—situation developing. You're gonna want to hear this."
Sarah groaned. "If it's another supply caravan getting held up, I'm throwing someone into the ocean."
Grizzly: "Worse. Raiders. Calling themselves The Forged—but they've got a new boss. He's from New York. Brought in remnants of a pyro-cult gang known as the Cleaners."
Sarah went still.
Sarah: "…The Cleaners? You're telling me that curse survived two hundred damn years?"
Grizzly: "Matches everything. Flamers. Industrial torches. Chemical accelerants. They've seized Saugus Ironworks and are burning anything within reach."
Sarah hissed out an angry breath.
Sarah: "Joe Ferro's legacy. Of course the bastard would haunt the Commonwealth too."
Grizzly continued, pulling up a holotable projection.
Grizzly: "They hit The Slog and Finch Farm. Both survived—Minutemen and Brotherhood patrols reinforced them—but the damage is bad."
Sarah: "Minutemen can't advance, I assume?"
Grizzly: "Correct. Low manpower in that region, and the storm's slowing transport. They're barely holding the line."
Sarah: "And the Brotherhood?"
Grizzly snorted.
Grizzly: "BOS wants to purge those raiders, but they're tied down. Knight-Captain Reed and her squad are pinned. Gunners set up heavy launchers along the elevated highway near Finch Farm."
Sarah raised an eyebrow.
Sarah: "Knight-Captain Reed? She's competent. If she's stuck, then this situation's uglier than the reports say."
Grizzly: "She sent a formal request for outside assistance. Specifically… you."
Sarah rubbed her face.
Sarah: "Fantastic. Both Minutemen and BOS want the Division's babysitting services today."
She straightened, expression shifting into full mission mode.
Sarah: "Prep DEFY and AR Team. We're going to Saugus Ironworks. I want every detail on Cleaner tactics before I step foot near that furnace."
Grizzly nodded.
Grizzly: "Notify the Castle and Prywen too?"
Sarah: "Yeah. Tell them that i'll dealing with an old problem from New York that just won't stay dead."
The Z11 Vertibird sliced northward through the storm, rotors hammering against the frozen air as it passed over the blazing silhouette of Saugus Ironworks. Even through the snowfall, the distinct orange glow of burning slag pits punched through the haze.
From the co-pilot seat, Sarah scanned the battlefield below.
To the east, on the elevated highway near Hub City Auto Wreckers, a Gunner fireteam had entrenched themselves. Portable missile launchers flared again and again, hammering both Brotherhood positions and Forged patrols alike. The BOS forces—stubborn as always—were directing most of their fire upward at the Gunners, seeing them as the greater strategic threat.
Sarah (dry): "Great. Three-way snowball fight with flamers and rockets. Exactly how I wanted to spend my day."
The radio cracked.
Z11 Pilot: "Commander, update from Minutemen at Finch Farm. Abraham Finch reports his son—Jake Finch—joined the Forged. He gifted their leader Slag the family sword as… uh… 'proof.'"
Sarah's eye twitched so hard it nearly shook her headset loose.
Sarah: "…I leave the Commonwealth for one week and this is what happens."
She slumped back against the seat, rolling her eyes to the ceiling.
As the Vertibird slowed into a hover over The Slog, Sarah leaned out and watched the frontline. A group of Minutemen manned makeshift mortars cobbled together from scavenged piping—clearly inspired by the HOC's indirect fire systems—lobbing rounds toward the Ironworks entrance. The explosions were crude but effective, forcing the Forged to scatter and giving the BOS breathing room.
Behind her, AR Team and DEFY braced as the hatch opened to the icy wind.
Sarah turned—but her gaze landed squarely and intentionally on DEFY, not AR Team.
Her voice snapped crisp.
Sarah: "DEFY, rope rappel from here. Minutemen will fire smoke rounds to cover your route. I want a clean infiltration through the lower factory levels."
She pointed toward the distant glowing maw of the Ironworks.
Sarah: "Your objective is the blast furnace. Link with us there. No direct orders from me—you operate independently and prove your talent."
DEFY straightened.
AN-94: "Commander… you're trusting us with an unsupervised op?"
Before Sarah could answer, M4A1 stepped in beside her.
M4A1: "Then you're landing on the roof with us, pushing straight for the leader."
Sarah nodded once.
Not a word. Just intent.
The smoke rounds from Minutemen mortars burst across the battlefield, creating drifting curtains of cover.
Sarah: "DEFY—show me you're not just another relic frozen in the ice. Move."
One by one, DEFY rappelled out into the swirling smoke—AN-94 steady and precise, AK-12 and AK-15 competitive and eager, and RPK-16 gleefully humming as she vanished into the fog.
Once they were gone, Sarah turned to AR Team.
Sarah: "AR Team—prepare for rooftop insertion. We hit Slag's command center head-on."
M4A1, RO635, M4 SOPMOD II, and ST AR-15 tightened their grips.
SOPMOD grinned behind her mask
SOPMOD II: "Finally—something to shoot that isn't snow."
As the Z11 Vertibird roared toward Saugus Ironworks' rooftop, Sarah immediately noticed the problem.
There was no roof—not one usable for landing.
Just churning steam vents, hot iron pipes, and the skeletal remains of catwalks. Worse, Forged riflemen were trading wild gunfire with Gunners down on the highway, tracers cutting through the smoke.
Z11 Pilot:"Commander—no landing pad! Pipework only! If I hover too long, they'll swat us with a missile!"
He wasn't exaggerating. Several Forged flamers had already turned their helmets upward toward the incoming Vertibird.
Before Sarah could issue an order, sudden thunder erupted beneath them.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM.
Minutemen smoke mortars hammered the entire complex, spilling thick white clouds across the courtyard and rooftops.
But instead of slipping inside quietly like they were told—
DEFY DID THE COMPLETE EXACT OPPOSITE.
From the smoke below, flashes ignited—followed by gunfire, screams, and then a massive detonation at the Ironworks' front gate.
The entire front door blew off its hinges, spiraling through the air and smashing onto a catwalk.
SOPMOD II leaned out of the Vertibird hatch, laughing.
SOPMOD II:"Look at them gooooo~!"
M4A1 sighed, steadying her rifle.
M4A1:"Well… at least they didn't shout URA! like some World War II reenactment."
On the ground, the Forged immediately panicked. The blown-out entrance triggered an instinctive fallback.
Forged riflemen and flamers on the roof stopped firing at Gunners and spun back toward the building.
Forged Raider:"THE HELL WAS THAT?!""THE FRONT DOOR—SOMETHING BLEW IT WIDE OPEN!""GET INSIDE! IN-SIIIIDE! NOW!"
Perfect.
With many rooftop defenders abandoning their posts to stop DEFY's indoor assault, an opening finally formed.
Z11 Pilot:"Commander—window of opportunity! I can hover near that maintenance platform!"
Sarah didn't hesitate.
She rose from the seat, checked her weapon, then jerked her chin at AR Team.
Sarah:"Alright—jump down and clear the Forged. Leave the Gunners to the Brotherhood.They'll scramble a Vertibird to wipe that highway platform soon enough."
DEFY POV
The moment the front door detonated, DEFY surged in like a shockwave.
No hesitation.No formation calls.No waiting for Sarah's orders.
Just pure, synchronized lethality—burned into their cores since Anchorage.
The inside of Saugus Ironworks roared with heat. Rusted machinery towered overhead, molten pools hissed from open vents, and the entire factory stank of scorched oil and burning brahmin hide.
A squad of Forged heavy flamers charged from the furnace corridor, tanks sloshing, torches igniting with roaring FWOOOOOSH.
Heavy Forged:"Let's FUCKING GO! TURN THE FREAKS TO ASH—!"
They never finished the sentence.
AK-12 — White Wolf Precision
AK-12 stepped forward, firing controlled shots that shredded valves on flamer tanks.
CRACK—CRACK—CRACK.
Every bullet hit the weakest point by design.
The hallway erupted in a chain of explosions, bodies thrown like burning scarecrows.
Through the firestorm walked RPK-16, happily humming, massive LMG braced against her hip.
RPK-16:"Oooh~ crispy Forged smells way better than those Children of Atom lunatics! No radiation seasoning, but plenty of spice!"
She opened fire in a wild sweeping arc.
Hot brass rained like metallic confetti.
Forged raiders dove for cover—too slow.Her rounds punched through ducts, crates, bodies, walls.
One raider peeked out, terrified.
Raider:"H-HOLY—"
RPK-16 drop-kicked him into a molten waste chute without breaking stride.
RPK-16 giggle:"Oh look~ Ironwork fondue!"
AK-12 smacked RPK-16 head.
AK-12:"Focus! Commander Sarah said minimal collateral!"
RPK-16:"Collateral is such a subjective!"
From the left flank, AK-15 crashed shoulder-first into a barricade of scrap metal and armored raiders.
The entire structure collapsed under her raw force.
One raider swung a heated sledge at her head.She grabbed it mid-swing, ripped it from his hands, and used it to smash him into a control panel.
AK-15:"Obstacle removed."
At the heart of the assault, AN-94 moved like a surgeon.
She fired two-round hyperburst volleys with machine precision, each burst dropping a raider before his weapon lifted.
Slag's elite forged ambushers tried to flank her from the catwalks—
She didn't even look up.
BRR-BRR-BRRRT.
Three forged fell in perfect symmetry, tumbling off the railings into the fires below.
AN-94 reloaded smoothly.
AN-94:"Area secured. Progressing to blast furnace."
Slag's voice blasted through the factory PA.
Slag (over PA):"YOU THINK YOU CAN RUN MY FORGE?! YOU WANT THE HEAT?! COME—GET—SLA—"
Suddenly, a loud crash echo.
AK-15 threw a Forged lieutenant into the PA control tower causing static explosion.
AK-15:"He talks too much."
The interior of the blast furnace was a maze of rusted catwalks, molten light, and the lingering smell of burnt propellant. DEFY had carved a straight, bloody path through the Forged—bodies tossed aside, scorched armor plates still sizzling where RPK-16's LMG had spat white-hot rounds.
Sarah stepped over a collapsed metal barricade, AR Team fanning out behind her. She met up with DEFY at the central platform just as Slag swaggered out from behind a massive vat, heavy flamer resting on his shoulder like some twisted badge of honor.
SLAG:"You're really brave girls… stormin' my fortress, killin' my men like that."His voice echoed, half fury, half amusement. "Thought the Commonwealth had run outta idiots."
Sarah opened her mouth to answer—
—but RPK-16 casually walked past her, flipping her LMG's drum mag with a metallic clack.
RPK-16:"Oh? Those were your men?"She smiled sweetly, eyes cold as a targeting reticle."I assumed they were just throwing a BBQ party for us.All that fire… all that screaming… festive.*"
RO635 snorted and stepped to the side, rifle still smoking.
RO635:"If that was a party, their hospitality was terrible."
SOPMOD, perched on a railing above, added cheerfully:
SOPMOD II:"I even brought fireworks, but DEFY already beat me to the explosions…"
The blast furnace roared like a living beast.
Molten steel churned beneath grated platforms, casting the entire chamber in hellish orange light. Pipes screamed. Heat shimmered the air. The Forged banner burned half-melted on a gantry above.
Slag stepped forward.
Not just a raider boss now—but a walking inferno.
He wore heavy raider power armor, plates welded together from scavenged T-60 scraps and industrial furnace shielding. Fuel lines ran openly across his chest like veins. The heavy flamer mounted to his arm ignited with a thunderous WHOOMPF.
Without warning—
Slag grabbed two bound hostages and kicked them screaming into the molten furnace.
They didn't even hit the surface.
Just vaporized.
The scream cut off instantly.
Jake Finch, chained near a control console, collapsed into the corner, curling into himself, eyes locked on the floor.
Smart enough to stay still.Smart enough to survive.
SLAG:"THIS IS MY FORGE! SERVE ME or GET BURNED!"
The forge's heart thrummed like a caged beast, its molten glow casting jagged shadows across the catwalks and machinery.
The air was thick with the acrid tang of superheated metal and ozone, alarms blaring a frantic symphony overhead. Slag, the hulking raider in his powered armor, charged forward like an avalanche of steel and fury.
His heavy flamer ignited with a guttural roar, sweeping left to right in wide, devastating arcs. Flames licked across the platforms, transforming sturdy catwalks into rivers of liquid fire. Steel warped and buckled under the assault, the heat so intense it made the air shimmer and scream.
M4A1's voice cut through the chaos like a blade. "Heavy flamer—area denial! Keep moving!"
The AR Team fragmented with the precision of a well-oiled machine. M4A1 and RO635 peeled right, their rifles barking in unison, each shot a calculated strike at Slag's exposed joints and seams.
SOPMOD II launched herself upward in a graceful vault, her lithe form twisting mid-air as she slapped shaped charges onto the overhead pipework, timers ticking down silently.
From the high rail, ST AR-15 perched like a predator, her rifle snapping in surgical bursts, every round seeking a chink in the beast's armor.
But the bullets sparked harmlessly off Slag's frontal plating, scattering like fireflies into the gloom. His laughter boomed, a deep, mechanical rumble that shook the grated floors. "Peashooters!"
With a thunderous slam, he drove his flamer into the ground. Napalm erupted upward in a geyser of hellfire, a wall of flames that forced the AR Team to scatter, leaping back from the inferno's hungry grasp.
Before Slag could pivot and reclaim his dominance, AK-15 struck like a freight train derailed from the heavens.
She barreled into his flank with a shoulder charge that echoed through the chamber, crumpling his armor and fracturing the furnace wall behind him. Sparks flew from the impact, concrete dust clouding the air.
"Target mass excessive," AK-15 intoned coolly, her voice a steady hum amid the pandemonium. "Compensating."
She clamped onto his flamer arm and twisted it savagely, exposing the vulnerable underbelly as AN-94 unleashed a hyperburst volley into the fuel lines. CRACK-CRACK. The shots rang out like whipcracks, igniting leaks that sprayed volatile fluid in arcs.
Slag howled, a guttural snarl of pain and rage, and lashed out with a brutal kick. It caught AK-15 square, hurling her through a railing with a screech of rending metal. She crashed to the lower level, rolling to absorb the blow, but DEFY was undeterred— a relentless tide.
AK-12 shifted her focus, her eyes narrowing behind her visor. She fired not at the raider, but at the suppression pipes dangling overhead. POP—POP—HISSSSS. Steam billowed forth in a choking cloud, flooding the chamber and swallowing everything in a veil of white.
"Thermal visibility reduced," AK-12 murmured with a smirk. "He's blind."
RPK-16's laughter pealed through the haze, wild and unhinged, as she charged straight into the steam. "Tag~ you're~ it~!"
Her LMG erupted at point-blank range, a thunderous barrage that tore into Slag's back plating. Molten shards sprayed outward, hissing as they hit the damp floor. Slag whirled blindly, his flamer spewing flames in uncontrolled bursts—igniting his own reinforcements as they blundered in, turning the chamber into a pyre of screams and flailing shadows.
Slag staggered now, his massive frame listing like a toppled colossus. Fuel dribbled from ruptured tanks, pooling in slick, flammable trails. The air grew heavier, the heat oppressive, but in that moment of vulnerability, Sarah emerged from the periphery.
Her boots struck the metal platform with deliberate authority, each step echoing like a judgment. She raised her rifle with unhurried grace—not in a frantic spray, not in reckless haste. One precise burst. CRACK—CRACK—CRACK. The rounds found their mark: the power regulator nestled at the base of Slag's spine. His armor seized, servos whining in protest as he froze mid-stride, a statue of impending doom.
"WHAT—WHAT DID YOU DO—" His voice glitched, distorted by failing systems.
Sarah's gaze was steel, her voice ice. "Ended it." She nodded once, a curt affirmation of finality.
AK-15 surged forward, seizing Slag from behind in an iron grip. AN-94 followed suit, her shots severing the last fuel line with surgical precision, sparks dancing into the spill. RPK-16 sauntered up, crouching low with a grin that promised mischief. "Now this is a proper BBQ," she whispered, her tone laced with cheerful malice.
With a grunt of effort, AK-15 hoisted the immobilized raider aloft and hurled him into the blast furnace's maw. The powered armor plunged into the molten steel below—no scream escaped, only a violent flare of light as metal, flesh, and madness dissolved in the forge's insatiable hunger.
The furnace subsided to its rhythmic pulse, the alarms wailing on like distant echoes of the battle. Smoke hung thick in the air, acrid and victorious. In a shadowed corner, Jake Finch huddled, trembling but unbroken, his eyes wide with the remnants of terror.
Sarah passed him without breaking stride, pausing only long enough to issue a quiet command. "Stay down. Don't move."
He nodded frantically, a puppet on strings of fear.
DEFY regrouped amid the scorched ruins, their armor pitted and blackened but unbroken. AN-94's report was crisp, efficient: "Objective complete."
AK-12's tone carried a dry edge: "Forge neutralized."
RPK-16 beamed, her energy undimmed: "and~ this party officially over~!"
Hours dragged on in the smoldering ruins of the Saugus Ironworks, the air still thick with the metallic bite of cooled slag and lingering smoke. The Minutemen had secured the perimeter, their rifles glinting under the harsh floodlights they'd rigged up amid the wreckage. It was from this haze of aftermath that Jake Finch finally emerged—hands thrust high into the chill night air, his eyes hollow pits shadowed by exhaustion and regret. His face was a mask of soot-streaked grime, tears carving clean trails down his cheeks like rivers through ash.
The Minutemen's weapons tracked his every shuffling step, fingers hovering near triggers, but Jake offered no resistance. He didn't utter a word, didn't even meet their gazes. He simply walked, one foot in front of the other, until his trembling legs betrayed him. He collapsed to his knees right there in the muddied snow, directly before his father, Abraham Finch.
The old farmer stood like a weathered oak, his calloused hands clenched at his sides. No shout erupted from his lips, no fist swung in righteous fury. Instead, Abraham stepped forward and pulled his wayward son into a crushing embrace, his arms wrapping around Jake's shaking frame with the strength born of years toiling the earth.
"Oh...You damn fool," Abraham murmured, his voice rough with emotion, cracking like dry timber. "You almost burned everything we had—our home, our lives."
That was the breaking point. Jake shattered, his body wracked with sobs as he buried his face in his father's worn coat. Apologies spilled from him in a torrent, whispered over and over like a litany of penance: "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... I didn't know... I thought..."
The Minutemen stood by, recording the surrender with quiet efficiency—notes scribbled on clipboards, holotapes whirring softly. But there would be no cold jail cell for Jake, no grim march to the gallows. Justice in the Commonwealth was a pragmatic thing, tempered by survival's harsh lessons. Instead, he was sentenced to hard labor: rebuilding what his folly had endangered. Under watchful eyes, under the weight of judgment, but alive. He'd swing hammers, haul debris, mend fences—his hands turning from destruction to creation.
Sarah observed from the sidelines, her expression unreadable in the flickering light. She gave a single, approving nod. This was justice, not vengeance—a chance for redemption in a world that rarely offered second acts.
With Slag's charred remains fused into the furnace's depths and the Forged scattered like embers in the wind, the Ironworks fell under Minutemen control. The transition was swift and methodical. The massive blast furnace was shut down, its roaring heart cooled and stabilized under the supervision of engineers scavenged from nearby settlements. Twisted scrap was hauled away in carts, the clang of metal on metal echoing through the cavernous halls as crews cleared the debris.
Raider weapons—crude but deadly—were gathered in piles and fed back into the flames, melted down to harmless ingots. The air, once choked with the stink of napalm and blood, began to clear, replaced by the cleaner scent of snow-dampened earth seeping in through shattered windows.
For the immediate future, the Ironworks transformed into a forward outpost for the Minutemen. Sandbag barricades rose where raider sentries had once lounged, reinforced with scavenged plating. Watchtowers sprouted along the river's edge, vigilant eyes scanning the horizon for any lingering threats. Patrols paced the catwalks, their boots thudding rhythmically on the repaired grates.
But Sarah envisioned more. One quiet evening, as she stood amid the cooling forges, she spoke softly to a gathered knot of Minutemen. "One day, this place will produce steel again," she said, her voice carrying the weight of quiet conviction. "Not for weapons or war machines. For walls to protect our settlements, bridges to connect them, homes to shelter our people."
The Commonwealth would decide its fate, she added—a forge reborn not in fire and fury, but in the steady glow of progress.
HUB CITY AUTO WRECKERS
To the west, amid the skeletal husks of pre-war vehicles stacked like forgotten monuments, the Brotherhood of Steel claimed their prize. Hub City Auto Wreckers had fallen in a single, unrelenting sweep. The Gunners, those mercenary holdouts with their high-tech defenses, were purged without mercy. Power armor suits lay crumpled among the crushed cars, their servos silenced forever. Missile tubes were dismantled, their components stripped bare; targeting modules carefully extracted, boxed, and ferried south aboard vertibirds humming low over the wasteland.
Elder Maxson secured his coveted technology, the spoils of alliance gleaming in the Brotherhood's vaults. Sarah raised no objection. For once, their paths had converged without conflict—objectives aligned in the grim calculus of survival. The auto wreckers now flew Brotherhood banners, a steel-clad bastion against the encroaching chaos.
As the days shortened and the snow fell in heavier blankets, draping the Commonwealth in a muffled white shroud, the rhythm of war slowed to a crawl. Patrols grew infrequent, boots crunching less often through the drifts. Vertibirds, those mechanical birds of prey, took to the skies with diminishing frequency, their rotors slicing through the crisp air only when necessity demanded.
Guns, too, fell quieter—muzzles cooling in holsters, triggers untouched for longer stretches. At the Castle, the ancient fortress standing sentinel over the bay, Minutemen rotated off duty in waves. They huddled around braziers, sharing stories and stew, their laughter a rare warmth against the bite of winter. The AR Team tended to their weapons in the armory, fingers tracing familiar contours as they cleaned barrels and oiled mechanisms, the metallic clicks a soothing counterpoint to the wind's howl.
DEFY lingered near the shoreline, their forms silhouetted against the frozen waves. They watched the ice drift lazily in the current, silent sentinels still grappling with their purpose in this fractured world. No longer hunted, they found a tentative peace in the quiet— a space to reflect, to recalibrate.
Sarah stood atop the battlements as the year drew to its close, the wind tugging at her coat like insistent fingers. Flurries danced around her, settling on her shoulders like fragile crowns. For once, there was no immediate crisis clawing at the horizon—no blaring alarms, no pillars of fire staining the sky. Just the cold, invigorating air, the distant twinkle of settlement lights piercing the dusk, and the fragile, hard-won sense that the Commonwealth had endured another brutal chapter.
New Year was approaching, a whisper of renewal amid the frost. And for now, in this fleeting pause, everyone—soldier, survivor, synthetic—deserved the rest. The world would demand more soon enough, but tonight, the snow fell softly, blanketing old scars in gentle white for now.