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Brandis' eyes narrowed further, though he stayed silent. Danse's jaw tightened, the muscle twitching at the edge, but he didn't lash out — not yet. Haylen shifted her weight, glancing at her commander as though trying to measure how far this conversation was from breaking.
The tension in the hall didn't soften after Sico's mocking words — if anything, it sharpened, pulling tighter like a bowstring stretched to its limit. The lanterns flickered faintly, shadows trembling across stone walls, and every breath seemed to echo as though the building itself was listening, waiting to see which way the tide would break.
Paladin Danse's reply came measured, though the gravel in his voice betrayed the pressure behind it.
"It's none of your concern," he said, each syllable clipped with military precision. His posture was rigid, the embodiment of Brotherhood discipline, yet his eyes were alive with the fire of conviction. "What the Brotherhood needs is the truth. And credibility. If the Freemasons Republic is what you claim it to be — a force of stability, a bulwark against chaos — then prove it. Show us that you aren't meddling in things that could tear this Commonwealth apart. Dangerous experiments cannot be hidden. They must be accounted for. We have to see it."
His words landed with weight, not shouted but hammered down like iron struck against an anvil. For a moment, silence followed — the kind of silence where no one wanted to breathe too loudly for fear of setting off sparks.
Sico's jaw tightened. The tendons in his neck stood out as his teeth clenched hard, the sound faint but audible in the hush of the hall. He leaned forward just slightly, his hands pressed flat against the table as though holding himself in check. When he spoke, his voice carried a raw, cutting edge that made the nearby soldiers shift uneasily.
"You think you can demand answers from us?" Sico said, his tone low but burning. "We have no obligation to the Brotherhood. None. Don't mistake our willingness to talk as subservience. Are you trying to provoke us? To drag us into a war we never sought? You're already knee-deep in your crusade against the Institute. Is that not enough blood for you? Do you want to see the Freemasons Republic in those flames too?"
The hall shivered with his fury, the lantern light catching sharp in his eyes. His words weren't shouted, but the force behind them left no room for misinterpretation.
Robert shifted on his feet behind Sico, his rifle still within easy reach. His gaze was like flint striking steel — hard, steady, dangerous. MacCready crossed his arms with a deliberate slowness, his jaw working beneath the shadow of his hat brim. Even the usually unflappable Preston looked taut as a drawn bowstring, his eyes flicking between Danse and Sico as though calculating how fast this could spiral out of control.
Across the table, Danse's shoulders squared. The disciplined restraint he carried seemed to tremble under the weight of Sico's accusation, like a soldier bracing under artillery fire. For a heartbeat, the old war-drum silence beat again, louder this time, vibrating in the bones of everyone in the chamber.
Brandis finally shifted, his scarred face leaning into the lantern glow. His gravel voice came rough, but steadier than expected. "Careful, both of you," he muttered, though his tone lacked softness. "The Commonwealth has seen too many flames already. Throwing more oil on it serves no one."
But Brandis' warning did little to soothe the raw tension coiling between the leaders.
Danse's hand, flat against the table, curled slowly into a fist. His voice when he spoke carried the same unyielding steel it always did, but now it came laced with something heavier — the gravity of a man bearing not just his own will but the weight of the order he served.
"You mistake conviction for provocation," Danse said. "We don't seek unnecessary war. But we will not sit idle while another faction — one that claims to serve the people — tinkers with weapons or forces they cannot control. The Institute hides in shadows, twisting science into horror. If the Freemasons are truly different, then transparency should not be your enemy. Refuse it, and you sound less like an ally and more like a rival playing the same dangerous game."
The words didn't come with the heated snap of Rhys' outburst, nor the biting sarcasm of Sico's retorts. They came with the cold, hammering certainty of someone laying down law.
Sico's breath left him in a sharp exhale through his nose. His eyes locked with Danse's across the table, and for a long, crackling moment it was like two tectonic plates grinding against each other — immense, unstoppable forces pressing together, the air itself caught in the crush.
"Transparency," Sico spat the word as though it tasted foul. "We've bled to keep this Commonwealth alive. My people have given their lives — not for banners, not for ideology, but for homes, for children, for a tomorrow worth living in. And you dare sit there and tell me we owe you something? That we must bare ourselves for your approval, as though the Brotherhood of Steel is judge, jury, and executioner for all humanity?"
His voice rose, not into a shout, but into something deeper — a resonance that rolled through the chamber and rattled the very air. "No. You don't hold that power here. Not over us."
MacCready muttered under his breath, a sharp, humorless chuckle. "He's got a point," he said, just loud enough for the Brotherhood knights to hear. "Pretty rich for the Brotherhood to demand answers when half the time they don't bother giving any."
Rhys bristled, his hand tightening again around his rifle, but Danse's sharp glance cut him down before he could speak.
"Enough," Danse snapped, the command lashing out like a whip.
But Sico wasn't finished. He leaned forward, his voice carrying across the table like the crack of a gunshot.
"You already have your war, Paladin. With the Institute. With the same monsters that stalk these wastes and carve people apart for parts. You fight that war because you chose it, because you believe your cause is righteous. Fine. That's your crusade. But don't think for a second you can drag us into it under the guise of credibility."
His teeth bared slightly as he spat the last word, a snarl woven into the syllables.
The soldiers in the room shifted again, a wave of unease rolling through them. The Brotherhood escorts adjusted their stance, knuckles whitening on grips, while the Freemasons' guards mirrored them, eyes sharp and fingers resting near triggers. One wrong word, one wrong twitch, and blood would paint the stone.
Brandis finally raised a scarred hand, palm outward. His voice, though still rough, came steadier now — the kind of steadiness that comes from an old soldier too familiar with watching friends die for nothing.
"If you boys want to rip each other's throats out, fine. But not here. Not now." His eyes flicked between Sico and Danse, hard as granite. "We've got bigger monsters out there than either of you, and if you can't see that, then maybe you're both blind."
For a brief, fragile heartbeat, the words seemed to cut through the storm.
Danse's glare held steady on Sico, but his chest rose and fell with the slow, deliberate rhythm of a man forcing discipline back into himself. His fist loosened, fraction by fraction, until it rested open on the table again. He didn't apologize, but the raw edge of escalation dulled just slightly.
Sico's nostrils flared, his shoulders taut, but at last he leaned back in his chair, though his eyes never left the Brotherhood leader.
The air was still tense, brittle as glass on the verge of shattering. Every face in the room was hard, every soldier standing at the ready, eyes darting between their leaders and their enemies. One misstep, one wrong flick of a finger, and the hall would drown in blood.
Sico leaned back in his chair, but his posture was still tight, the energy in his frame coiled like a spring that had not yet unbound. He stared across the table at Danse, then at Brandis, and then at the Brotherhood soldiers waiting in stiff silence behind them. For a long moment, he didn't speak, letting the silence stretch. The lanterns hissed faintly with the burn of their wicks, the only sound in the chamber besides the shallow, wary breathing of men and women ready for war.
Finally, he spoke — slow, deliberate, with every word landing like stone on steel.
"Then hear this, and mark it well." His voice cut through the silence like a blade. "I will ensure you that capturing those super mutants was for the good of the Freemasons. We need to know their weaknesses. We need to study what they are, what makes them strong, and how they can be undone. That knowledge is for survival — for the safety of our people. That is the end of it."
His gaze swept across the table, daring either Danse or Brandis to argue. "And make no mistake — that is all you'll hear of it. You want more? You won't get it. We'll bleed for our Republic, not to satisfy your suspicion."
The words struck the room like the echo of a door slamming shut.
Danse didn't flinch, but his jaw tightened. Brandis' scarred face turned slightly, shadows cutting deeper across his weathered features. Neither man looked convinced — that much was clear. Their eyes told a story of deep mistrust, of unease that no amount of words could scrub away.
But they also told another truth: they had no choice.
The Brotherhood didn't trust Sico. Not his words, not his tone, not the veiled threat beneath his refusal. But the Republic had shut its doors on the matter, and pressing further would only light the fuse. For now, they would have to accept it. Even if the acceptance sat in their throats like ash.
Danse sat straighter, his armor catching the lantern light as he turned his head slightly toward the young woman standing just behind him.
"Scribe Haylen," he said, his tone clipped but steady. "You'll write the report. Every word spoken here today. Every demand, every refusal. It will go to the Elder for review."
Haylen straightened sharply, her stylus hovering over her worn holotablet as she nodded. "Yes, Paladin." Her eyes darted once toward Sico, a flicker of sympathy flashing there before she returned her focus to the screen, her fingers moving quickly to record what she had witnessed.
Danse's gaze shifted back to Sico, his face still carved from stone, though the tension in the set of his shoulders betrayed the weight he carried. His voice came steady, but it carried more than a command — it carried warning, perhaps even the faintest trace of plea.
"I hope this matter doesn't destroy what we've built." He let the words settle for a beat before continuing. "The Freemasons sending purified water and crops to the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood sending spare parts and scrap to the Freemasons Republic. That exchange is the lifeline between our people — one of the only bridges of trust we have left. I would hate to see it burn because of shadows and secrets."
The words rippled through the hall. Behind Danse, some of the Brotherhood soldiers shifted uneasily, no doubt wondering if their leader had just yielded ground. On Sico's side, Robert's jaw twitched, as though he had to restrain the urge to spit at the word "trust." MacCready, for his part, cocked his head with a lopsided smirk, the kind of smirk that said he'd seen too many "bridges of trust" blown to pieces to believe in them. Preston, however, stood straighter, his gaze moving between the leaders with the quiet hope of a man who still believed cooperation was possible, however fragile.
Sico didn't reply immediately. Instead, he sat still, studying Danse with an expression caught somewhere between disdain and calculation. He let the silence stretch long enough that the soldiers on both sides shifted their weight, some casting nervous glances at their rifles as if to reassure themselves they were still ready.
Finally, Sico leaned forward once more, his hands pressed flat against the table, his voice low but carrying.
"Trade stands," he said. "Not because of threats, not because of your suspicion. It stands because it must. Our people need food and clean water. Yours need spare parts and scrap to keep those flying coffins of yours in the air. That much we agree on. That much we'll honor."
His eyes narrowed, the fire in them undimmed. "But don't mistake that trade for leash or chain. The Freemasons Republic isn't beholden to the Brotherhood. We are allies of necessity, not subordinates. Remember that."
Danse's eyes narrowed in turn, but he gave no immediate retort. He simply inclined his head slightly, a soldier's acknowledgment that the line had been drawn and the boundaries set.
The scratch of Haylen's stylus slowed, then stopped. Her fingers hovered over the holotablet a moment longer, as though she were debating whether to add something not spoken aloud — some unrecorded impression, some private note of what the air in the room felt like. But she caught herself. Her duty was clear, and duty in the Brotherhood left no room for sentiment.
She tapped the screen, the soft chime of a saved report breaking the silence. "It's finished, Paladin," she said quietly.
Danse gave her a curt nod. Brandis, silent as ever, shifted his weight back, his scarred face unreadable. Without another word, both men rose from their seats. The sound of servos hummed and clicked as their attendants stepped forward to help them into their waiting suits of Power Armor. The steel frames loomed like titans in the flickering lantern light, catching reflections in the plates and joints that turned them into hulking silhouettes more machine than man.
The hiss of hydraulics filled the hall as chest plates sealed shut and helmets clicked into place. Danse flexed his gauntlets, the whine of servomotors accompanying the motion, while Brandis rolled his armored shoulders with a low metallic groan. In seconds, the men who had sat across the table as flesh and blood were gone, replaced by armored giants who seemed less negotiators than avatars of war.
Sico stood slowly, Sarah at his side, Robert just behind him, and MacCready leaning against a beam with his rifle slung casually over his shoulder. The tension hadn't left the room; it had simply shifted. If there had been a fragile peace when words alone were exchanged, now the sight of Brotherhood leaders sealed in their steel shells made every Freemason hand itch closer to their weapons.
Sico's voice was calm, measured. "We'll see you to the yard."
The escort formed up quickly, boots thudding against the Institute's polished concrete floor. The hallways seemed narrower now, the sheer bulk of the Power Armor filling the space. Every echo of hydraulics and servos clattering against stone walls reminded the Freemasons what the Brotherhood brought with them — not trust, not friendship, but strength. It was a presence designed to intimidate, though Sico's stride never wavered.
Sarah kept pace beside him, her face impassive, though her hand never strayed far from her sidearm. Robert's jaw was set tight, his glare locked on the back of Brandis' armor as though daring the old paladin to look back at him. MacCready walked with a smirk, humming under his breath, the kind of tune that mocked the stiffness of the moment.
The doors to the training yard opened wide, spilling them all into the night.
The vertibirds squatted on the tarmac like great armored insects, their blades still, their cockpits glowing faintly. Around them, scribes, initiates, and knights milled about in nervous clusters, their chatter falling into silence the moment they spotted the armored silhouettes of their leaders stepping into the open.
Danse's amplified voice crackled from his helmet speaker. "Mount up."
The order rang across the yard, and the Brotherhood's ranks moved with crisp obedience. Scribes clutched their satchels close, initiates scrambled to their positions, and knights moved with practiced discipline. The air filled with the sound of boots on tarmac and the clatter of gear being stowed.
Danse turned then, the whir of his armor punctuating each motion as he faced Sico once more. The lanterns strung along the yard caught on the steel ridges of his helmet, throwing sharp lines of light across his visor.
"What we discussed today," he said, his voice carrying a metallic edge through the helmet's speakers, "Elder Maxson will not like. He will not like the Freemasons Republic's attitude, your defiance, your secrecy. You've put yourselves at odds with the Brotherhood."
The night air hung heavy with the words. The rotors of the vertibirds hadn't yet spun up, so the silence that followed was stark and absolute, the whole yard watching, listening, waiting.
Sico didn't flinch. A smile — not warm, but mocking, sharp as broken glass — curved across his face. He stepped closer, just enough that the lamplight carved his expression into something that carried across the tarmac.
"So what?" His voice was steady, unshaken, a quiet defiance that somehow cut sharper than shouting. "Does the world revolve around the Brotherhood?"
He tilted his head, eyes narrowing with the weight of the moment. "You think Elder Maxson's anger frightens us? Let him rage in his Prydwen, let him send reports filled with warnings and threats. We're not trembling behind walls, waiting for your approval. The Freemasons Republic doesn't answer to the Brotherhood. We never have, and we never will."
His voice rose, not in volume but in presence, commanding the attention of everyone in earshot — Freemason and Brotherhood alike. "You should know this, Paladin. You should carry it back to your Elder with every step of your steel boots: the Freemasons Republic is stronger than you think. Stronger than you want to believe. And no amount of suspicion or disapproval will change that."
For a heartbeat, the only sound was the low hum of the vertibirds' engines beginning to warm, their blades twitching as they readied for flight.
Danse didn't move. Neither did Brandis. The visors of their helmets hid their eyes, but their silence spoke enough — a silence that wasn't agreement, but recognition. The words had been said. The lines had been drawn.
Robert smirked faintly at Sico's side, a sharp exhale through his nose that was half laugh, half challenge. Sarah's gaze stayed locked on Danse, her posture tight, her hand hovering near her holster. MacCready muttered low under his breath, something about "Elder Maxson's face when he reads that report," but the smirk on his lips said he relished the thought.
Danse finally inclined his helmet, the faintest of nods, though whether it was acknowledgment or warning, no one could tell. He turned sharply, his armor whirring with the motion, and strode toward the nearest vertibird. Brandis followed, silent as ever.
The Brotherhood troops filed in behind them, the sound of clanging boots and shifting gear swallowed by the growing roar of spinning blades. One by one, the vertibirds lit up, engines growling, lights cutting across the yard.
The Freemasons stood in their place, unmoving, as the steel beasts lifted from the ground, their downdraft whipping dust and grit into the night air. The roar filled the yard, drowning out thought, drowning out everything except the sight of the Brotherhood rising into the dark sky, carrying their mistrust and their warnings with them.
Sico stood tall, the smirk fading into something harder, something colder. His eyes followed the machines until they were nothing more than red pinpricks fading into the distance. Only then did he speak, his voice pitched low enough for Sarah, Robert, and MacCready alone.
"They'll tell Maxson. They'll try to make us bend." He let the words hang, then added, "But we don't bend."
Sarah's voice was quiet, but steady. "No. We don't."
Robert cracked his knuckles, his grin edged and sharp. "Let 'em try. Let 'em come knocking. They'll find out quick enough what we're made of."
MacCready spat into the dust, his smirk crooked. "Yeah. Stronger than they think."
The four of them stood together in the whipping wind of the now-empty yard, the night pressing close around them, the echoes of the Brotherhood's engines fading into silence.
The dust still swirled across the yard, stinging the eyes, clinging to the sweat on their brows. The night air carried the metallic tang of fuel and hot engines, though the vertibirds themselves had vanished into black sky. Their roar lingered only in memory, like thunder after a storm.
For a moment, the four of them stood in silence, their outlines lit in the faint orange glow of the training yard lamps. The Brotherhood had left, but their presence — the weight of their threat — still pressed down, a heaviness in the chest that no absence could lift.
It was Sarah who broke it.
Her voice came suddenly, quietly at first, almost as if she were speaking to herself. "Do you know why Albert and I left the Citadel?"
Sico turned his head toward her, brows narrowing. Robert shifted, puzzled. Even MacCready stopped his half-smirk, glancing sideways at her with genuine curiosity. Sarah's eyes weren't on them, though. They were on the sky, where the last red blink of the vertibirds had just disappeared.
She inhaled slowly, the cool night air shuddering into her lungs before she let it out again. "I left shortly after I became Elder," she said, her tone steady but carrying the weight of a truth carried too long. "After my father died." Her jaw tightened, her hand curling unconsciously into a fist at her side. "Back then… I thought I could lead them. I thought I could carry on what he started. Protecting the people. Making the Brotherhood something more than just scavengers with guns."
Her voice sharpened, each word deliberate. "But it didn't take long for me to see it. The Brotherhood… it wasn't what my father believed anymore. It wasn't what I believed. They talk about honor, about protecting humanity, but underneath it all, they only cared about one thing — their ideology. Their technology. Their damned dogma."
Robert frowned, his brow furrowed, as if unsure how to respond. MacCready let out a low whistle, the kind that wasn't mocking this time, but something closer to respect.
Sarah pressed on, her voice growing stronger, more certain. "They started to look at me differently. Not as Elder Lyons, not as the daughter of Owyn Lyons, but as an obstacle. A distraction from their 'true mission.' They thought I was too soft because I cared more about the people outside our walls than about hoarding every piece of tech we could find."
Her eyes flashed, catching the lantern light, and for a heartbeat she looked every bit the leader she had once been — a commander standing in defiance of the machine she had once led. "So Albert and I… we made a choice. We walked away. We left the Citadel behind, took our daughter, and never looked back."
The silence that followed was thick, heavier even than the moment before.
Sico studied her, his dark eyes unreadable, but there was no mockery in them now, no sharp edge. Just the weight of consideration, of trying to measure what it meant that Sarah Lyons — the woman who had once led the Brotherhood's Eastern forces — now stood here, denouncing them openly.
Robert scratched at the back of his neck, glancing between her and Sico. "Damn," he muttered, his voice quieter than usual. "That's… that's not a small thing to walk away from. Most people would kill to sit in the Elder's chair."
Sarah shook her head, her braid brushing against her shoulder with the motion. "It wasn't power I wanted, Robert. It was purpose. And I realized their purpose wasn't mine anymore. The Brotherhood had become something else. Something I couldn't follow."
MacCready spat into the dirt again, but this time it wasn't casual. It was sharp, decisive. "Yeah, sounds about right. Always knew those tin-cans were a bunch of hypocrites. All 'humanity first' until it means actually helping someone who isn't wearing one of their uniforms. Figures they'd turn their backs on someone like you."
Sarah's lips quirked into the faintest of smiles at that, but it was bitter, fleeting. "They think they're saviors," she said softly. "But they're tyrants. They believe their ideology is number one. Above compassion. Above unity. Above everything. And that…" She trailed off, her voice catching for just a moment before she steadied it again. "…that's why I left. That's why we built something new with you, Sico. Because the Brotherhood doesn't know how to be anything but a fist. And the world needs more than that."
The night wind tugged at their clothes, carrying her words into the dark.
Sico finally moved, his gaze lifting from her to the horizon where the Brotherhood had disappeared. His expression was calm, but there was a sharpness to it now, a clarity born of her admission. "Then you already know what we face," he said quietly. "You know what Maxson will bring when he hears we won't bow."
Sarah's eyes didn't waver. "I know."
Robert stepped forward, his hand flexing against the stock of his rifle. "So what do we do? Sit here and wait for the Prydwen to start circling overhead?"
MacCready snorted, though there was no humor in it. "Wouldn't be the first time those bastards dropped in uninvited."
Sico's voice cut through them, steady, unflinching. "We don't wait. We prepare." His eyes locked on Sarah's, holding her gaze. "The Brotherhood thinks they know strength. They think their ideology makes them invincible. But they've forgotten something — people. People who won't be chained. People who won't bend. That's where our strength comes from."
Sarah nodded slowly, her lips pressing into a thin line. "Then we show them. When the time comes, we show them exactly what the Republic stands for."
The four of them stood in silence again, but it was no longer the brittle silence of unease. It was heavier, yes — but heavier with resolve. With shared understanding. With the quiet knowledge that war with the Brotherhood was no longer a question of if, but when.
________________________________________________
• Name: Sico
• Stats :
S: 8,44
P: 7,44
E: 8,44
C: 8,44
I: 9,44
A: 7,45
L: 7
• Skills: advance Mechanic, Science, and Shooting skills, intermediate Medical, Hand to Hand Combat, Lockpicking, Hacking, Persuasion, and Drawing Skills
• Inventory: 53.280 caps, 10mm Pistol, 1500 10mm rounds, 22 mole rats meat, 17 mole rats teeth, 1 fragmentation grenade, 6 stimpak, 1 rad x, 6 fusion core, computer blueprint, modern TV blueprint, camera recorder blueprint, 1 set of combat armor, Automatic Assault Rifle, 1.500 5.56mm rounds, power armor T51 blueprint, Electric Motorcycle blueprint, T-45 power armor, Minigun, 1.000 5mm rounds, Cryolator, 200 cryo cell, Machine Gun Turret Mk1 blueprint, electric car blueprint, Kellogg gun, Righteous Authority, Ashmaker, Furious Power Fist, Full set combat armor blueprint, M240 7.62mm machine guns blueprint, Automatic Assault Rifle blueprint, and Humvee blueprint.
• Active Quest:-