Ad Victoriam ~ Elder Maxson x reader - Part 3

7 - Clouds

Uri doesn't wait until the vertibird has landed. As soon as the Lancer-Pilot has got them close enough to the ground, she pushes herself off the edge. The others are calling for her, but she can barely make out their words; the heartbeat in her ears is as deafening as the 'bird's thundering propellers.

She's at the edge of the road leading to Sanctuary when arms envelop her.

"GET OFF!" She bursts, lashing out at whoever dares to try and stop her now. Her home is burning. She has to get back. Needs to be sure that it's even real. But those arms tighten and, when her assailant speaks, he has Del's voice.

"It's too dangerous!" Even he sounds broken; the knight's usually upbeat, reassuring tone is gone. Replaced by the cracked baritone of a broken man. "Uri, please."

"THAT'S MY HOME!" Her own voice wobbles around the scream, and then she's wailing. The shock prevents her from breaking down on the spot. She continues her fight against Del's grip, but he's far stronger than she is. Someone else is speaking to her, now, but her focus is swallowed up by yet another, thunderous explosion from the settlement ahead.

This can't be happening. This isn't real. She's dreaming. She has to be dreaming, right? Any minute now, she'll wake up in the safe-albeit-suffocating compound that is Vault 81. She'll panic for a minute, then Alice will reassure her that it was just a damn bad dream. Birds. Of course it's not the birds. Her paranoia is clearly fucking with her subconscious. No one can attack Sanctuary. It's one of the safest places in the Commonwealth; her pre-war shrine. The place that took care of her whenever she needed it most. Besides, MacCready lives there.

MacCready lives there.

"Ow!" She barely whispers, turning when she feels a sudden prick in the side of her neck. Her vision begins to blur immediately; the last thing Uri sees is Alice apologising profusely.

--

When Kells breaks the news, something in Arthur snaps.

"You're in charge until I return," the Elder chokes. None of the Paladins he had been meeting with dare complain as he bolts for the door. Naturally, Danse is on his heel.

"Permission to join you, Elder?"

"Granted! Go on ahead. Prepare a vertibird yourself if no Lancer-Pilot is in sight."

Sanctuary is down.

Uri's home, gone. Arthur cannot begin to imagine... it must have been bad enough, waking up to find everything dead. But it was still there. A crude shell of the cul-de-sac it had once been, but Sanctuary had stood the test of time well. He thinks of all the hard work the Minutemen have put into rebuilding it. The innocent civilians who put in that effort - just wanting to make a life for themselves. To build something they could be proud of; something worth protecting.

With his own, modified laser pistol holstered under the battlecoat, Arthur leaps down to the lower deck and storms his way to Danse. He isn't trained to fly, but he has prepared a vertibird as fast as he could. Arthur takes the pilot's seat himself - only just giving himself enough time to fasten the headset in place before detaching the airbus from his ship.

His mind whirs as he sets them on a direct, north-westerly route. A raider attack nor gunners greed crosses his mind. No one is foolish enough to think that this was done by anyone other than the Institute. They have carried out such an atrocity before - on a settlement much larger than Sanctuary, no less. He has never been to University Point himself, but he remembers the expression Knight Henderson had worn as he recounted his experiences there. It was overrun by ferals and synths, and he was the last remaining survivor of the squadron sent to clear it. Half-rotten corpses and long-abandoned stalls, homes and turrets were all that remained of the once-thriving city.