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From The Personal Recollection Of Leanne Walker

After questions about my first 'emergance' from Vault 101, that's the OTHER question I get asked most often.  What was it like, The Battle For The Purifier?

Others tell that story far better than me.  A couple of people I know are even writing books about it.  Truth be told, I only have bits of memories of that time.

My main memory is of the immense noise.  Gunfire, yells, screams, explosions, V-Birds howling past and, over all that, Liberty Prime roaring his messages to the world.  Not just on audio, he flooded most radio frequencies in the area as well, which was more than disconcerting to all sides.  Especially to the Enclave - they had expected and prepared for an attack, but absolutely nothing could have prepared them for what emerged from the Citadel.

In our case, we knew exactly where we were going, and all we had to do was follow the robot, right?

As said, I remember only bits of the attack but the formation of BoS troops and allies thereof (us) broke up very quickly, as Liberty Prime made most communications almost impossible and Enclavers seemed to be EVERYWHERE during our advance.  For me, it was like chasing after a storm - pure destruction ahead, and pure chaos in its wake.

It was crazy.

I DO remember ...

... Liberty Prime moving inexorably onwards.  He would only stop for those force-field barriers, and then only for a half-minute or less for each ...

... A wounded BoS Paladin, hunkered down on the bridge with someone else's minigun, shooting it out with an Enclaver squad on the pedestrian overpass ...

... Verti-Bird wreckage raining from the sky ...

... Chiaki suddenly bouncing out of stealth, sword bloodied and her grinning at me like a Deathclaw, before disappearing again ...

... Sarah leading a flying wedge of her 'Lyon's Pride' at an Enclave position that had escaped Liberty Prime's notice ....

... Fawkes, on fire but not caring, tossing around two Enclave Hellfire troopers like toys ...

... Enclavers, so many of them.  Many dead.  Others still fighting, as bravely as any of us ...

... Sarge in full drill-sergeant mode, alternately shepherding and hovering protectively over a gaggle of Initiates struggling to keep up ...

... Vickie Reign running up beside me, rapid-firing her Plasma Rifle around a corner, and asking me something.  Whatever I said back must have been right - she nodded and was gone ...

The strongest fortifications and the greatest concentration of Enclave troops were, no surprise,
around the Jefferson.  Liberty Prime was still going strong but, by that time, the army following him was scattered and spread out all the way back to the bridge, many of them engaged with remnants of the Enclave force.  There was no question of our stopping, but it would have gone very very hard for us.

Except that the Alliance militia gathered at Rivet City finally made their move.  TecVault weaponry picked off Enclave troops from afar, and the Rivet City Marines led the charge.

For several critical minutes, 'Reilly Force' became the hammer, with Liberty Prime and the rest of us being the anvil.  The Enclavers dug in around the Jefferson broke completely.  We were no longer battling a cohesive army but several isolated groups - each of which was struggling to decide whether to fight, flee or surrender.

************

It was a wonderful sense of relief as I came back to myself near the entry to Project Purity, at the base of the Jefferson.  It took a couple of tries to realize that Liberty Prime had stopped his bellowing.  Amazing.  Still plenty of gunfire happening though, and smoke from a couple of burning V-Birds reduced visibility.  I looked around for any of my people, only spotting Sarah Lyons as she jogged up beside me, looking almost as tired as I felt.

"Their command post is inside,"  she said, indicating the Jefferson.  "How about you and I finish this?"

An intense beam that had to have come from Liberty Prime arced across the sky and blew up something in midflight.  Somewhere, people cheered at that.  The wise thing for us to do would have been to wait for reinforcements before making a move, and Sarah surely knew this too.  But I think we both just wanted the madness to end.

That and, for me, a chance to face Colonel Autumn again.

********

Inside, Project Purity was much as I remembered it.  Had expected the Enclave to tidy up, but I saw little evidence of that.  Likewise, very few troops remained in the complex.  By that time, most had either fled or otherwise joined the carnage outside, I guess.

Colonel Autumn had established his command post in the Jefferson's Rotunda.  Presumably, the heavy shielding and easy power access for his equipment had something to do with this decision.  He had two soldiers left at that point, and was obviously in no mood to parlay or surrender, opening fire as we entered the area.

His face was a mask of pure fury, what I saw of it before my first shot with Starblazer blew off most of his head and flipped his body backwards over the railing behind him.  He was dead before he hit the water, where the rad count would have surely completed the job if necessary.  I recall thinking that fishing what was left of him out of Project Purity's filters would be a grim task for someone ...

Meanwhile, Sarah finished off Autumn's two guards without raising a sweat, and went straught to the commgear.  I realized that the door to the inner Control Room was shut, and felt a sudden chill.  Hadn't been here since Dad had -

Dr Li's voice burst through on the comm, loud and clear, "Lyons!  Can you hear me?  Listen, we're monitoring the rad readings, and there was just a major spike.  Project Purity must have been damaged in the battle, it's in overload right now.  Detonation in ... about six minutes!"

Oh, geez.  Oh, damnation all to hell.  I moved in.  "How bad, Doctor?"

"Leanne?  You're THERE?!? ..."  She took a deep breath.  "... Total destruction of the facility.  Massive contamination up to a mile away, probably uninhabitable for ... I don't know how long.  Major effects throughout most of the DC area.  Someone has to go into the Control Room and activate the auxiliaries.  That 'll abort the overload and restore-"

"We're looking at the Control Room!", Sarah snapped.  "The interior rad count is off the scale!"

""Ill go in," I said.  Didn't know where that came from but, once the words were out, I felt at peace.  First Dad, and now me.

"WH-AT?!?!?" was Sarah's response.  In the background,, I could hear Doctor Li yelling , but Sarah must have cut the volume.  "NO!  This is my-"

"I know the systems," which was only slightly dishonest.  Certainly I knew the control layouts better than Sarah.

She started to argue, then stopped herself, obviously counting the seconds.  "You're right - but I wish you weren't."  She turned back to the comm.  "This is Sentinel Lyons.  Emergency Priority Code Alpha-Six.  All units evacuate the Jefferson area NOW!  Repeating-"

I stepped to the airlock door.  "Four of my people are Radproof, for one reason or another .... but expecting ANY to show up here in the next two minutes ... "  I keyed the sequence to enter the airlock.  " ... So, it has to be me, Sarah."  A look back.  "Please look after the Ghosts, would you?"

Sarah didn't say anything, just gave me a quick strong nod.  Her eyes were wet.

I stood in the airlock, waiting as it cycled.  Had a thought, that made me grab a fistful of Rad-X tablets out of a belt pouch and scoff them all down.  Couldn't hurt.  Maybe I'd last longer.  Heck, with my weird FEV-warped DNA, maybe-  I shut that crazy hope down.  No time.  The inner door opened.

It was like a sunburn.

A really bad sunburn that just grew and grew as I stepped into the Control Room.  Found myself actually leaning into my walk, as if into a strong wind or up a steep hill.  The keyboard and, behind it, the statue of Jefferson, both slowly loomed up and my mind was getting fuzzy.  Not in a BAD way, just as if it was all getting further away.

Took an effort to remember the numbered sequence that Dad had always used, from the Bible quote that Mom had loved.  Two.  One.  Six.  Found myself actually speaking the numbers aloud over and over as I reached out and began keying.  Steady, girl.

Then, I felt a tremor through my feet as the pumps down in the guts of Project Purity finally kicked into gear.  There was a surge of bubbles around Jefferson's head, almost like a halo, and then -

*********************

Yep, we all know what happens.

Liberty Prime outside You-Know-Where.  Main mod in effect here is Greenerworld.

BTW, that Autumn-backflips-over-the-rail-without-his-head thing really did happen for one of my playthroughs.