Steel Waste

They waited for thirty minutes until someone finally entered the room carrying a stack of papers... "Veronica?" he muttered louder than he intended.

She glances over to him and flashes a huge grin, "Hey wonderboy, I've got all your tests here." she says as she stands at the end of the room.​​

Afton gives her a confused look, "I thought the Elder was supposed to hand those out? Tradition or something?"

Veronica scoffs, "The Elder has and I quote, 'Better things to do than hand papers that detailed each students failures.'... I think he just woke up on the wrong side of the bed personally."

"Could we perhaps receive our papers then? Most of us are itching to see how we did." Sandra asks, getting enthusiastic nods from a few other students.

Veronica shrugs and starts calling out names, those called walking up and receiving their test papers before sitting back down again. She smiled as she handed Afton him, congratulating him before he even laid eyes on his results.

He sat down next to Miles as he and Melissa looked through their own results, both frowning at the bright red "Fail" written on the front.

Afton nodded to himself when he had a green "Pass" on his, he flipped it open and saw that he'd gotten an A+ on the theoretical test aswell as the physical. That was to be expected, and so he continued to look at the advanced subject results... Mechanics, Machinery, Engineering, and Science all received an A's, something that should be praised as he was still only ten years old and these subjects weren't taught until you became an Initiate. However, his Medicine and Biochemistry only received C's.

He was a bit put out by that, but he'd just mark it up to the limited amount of knowledge he had available to him. Some knowledge was actually blocked from them until they advanced from Initiate... This was due to the fact that you'd be given a choice at whether or not yo unwanted to stay within the Brotherhood of Steel when you're ready to promote.

The ranks of the Brotherhood were confusing to outsiders, but was relatively easy to understand... Initiates were the lowest ranking members of the Brotherhood, they were trainee's for all intents and purposes, but could be used as a makeshift militia should the situation call for it.

Initiates are taught about combat, how to properly use Power armour and other weaponry, aswell as basic tactics and other important military knowledge. Once they are seen to be competent enough, they will be given the opportunity to promote to either Scribe or Knight as apprentices. They are also given the option to simply leave, they were not heartless and wouldn't send you away without proper training, but they would still not risk integral knowledge of technology falling into the wrong hands, hence the restrictions.

Scribes were the scientists of the Brotherhood, holding and maintaining all knowledge they gathered. Some were tasked with research, upgrading weaponry, armour, or other technology that could help in the war effort. They also managed the integral machinery of the compound, such as air filtration, reactors, etc. Some were tasked with teaching the younger generation while others electing to spend their time in the medical facility.

Those who weren't specified into anything usually just tried to figure out how pre-war tech worked, the patrols were constantly bringing back old artifacts that weren't previously recorded, so they needed people to rediscover their uses.

Knights were in-charge of all weaponry and armour that the Brotherhood held, maintaining, repairing, and using it in combat. They were akin to footsoldiers, but unlike regular armies, every Knight had to be well versed in numerous subjects before they were considered competent. They were also taught advanced combat tactics and given more practical training than the Scribe would be.

Above both Scribe and Knight were the Paladins... This rank belonged to the men and women who'd exceeded the expectations of their ranking, usually it was a Knight who'd be promoted to Paladin due to their close proximity with extremely volatile situations. While dangerous, they also provided the opportunity to display your talents, much more so than the Scribes do.

Afton had asked his father about what he'd done to be promoted to Paladin, the man had immediately gone into a story about how his patrol leader had been injured by a random undetonated mine that'd been left since before the great war. His leg had been blown off and the patrol were doing their best to transport him back to headquarters to see if there was anything they could do for him.

The scent of the man's blood had apparently attracted a small group of Deathclaws though, and it was his father that stayed behind to hold them off and hopefully save his unit.

Apparently, he'd used the area that contained the undetonated mines to soften up the Deathclaws before he went in guns blazing with his Gatling laser... By the time reinforcements arrived they found six and a half Deathclaw corpses... The whole area was scorched to hell from laser fire and explosions, and his father had just been lying peacefully on a rock, still tightly gripping his empty weapon... He still had the armour he'd worn that day, Afton had seen it and was shocked by the huge claw marks on its chest. They'd not pierced through completely but the fact that they'd done that much damage was a testament to how dangerous those creatures were.

After listening to his father's story he'd asked around and got similar accounts, he hadn't thought that Zachary had lied, but it all seemed a bit too far fetched to be believe completely. He had gained a good deal of respect for his father after hearing that.