> Fallout Girls
>  by Universal Librarian
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1 - The Geode Diviner
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset Shimmer strode purposefully through the halls of Canterlot High, making her way to the spare classroom where her friends were waiting. Her heart was pounding, and she was trembling with excitement. Today was the day they would finally activate the project they had been working on for the last few months. 

Stopping outside the room, Sunset took a deep breath to steady herself before she pushed the door open. Inside, Applejack and Rainbow Dash were both leaning against a window, not a trace of nerves showing on their faces. Rarity was occupying herself with her makeup, while Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were playing cards to pass the time. Lastly, there was Twilight Sparkle, hunched over as she inspected the machinery that dominated one end of the room.  

The machine was what Sunset and her friends had been working on for the last few months. A complicated system of electrodes, Tesla coils and power supplies had been constructed around a large, ornate mirror; a technological twin to the mirror portal in Equestria. A series of intertwined cables connected everything to a large console just off to the side, with lots of little screens and dials set into it.

“Hey, guys,” Sunset called out as she dumped her bag on an empty desk. “Is everything ready?” 

Applejack chuckled and shook her head. “It will be if you can get Twilight to stop re-checking everything over and over.” 

Twilight turned around, nervously adjusting her glasses. “Hey, Sunset, I was just checking this cable configuration again. Then once I’m done with that I’ve just got to re-calibrate the calibration equipment again and we’ll be ready for final checks!” 

Rainbow rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Chill out, Twilight. You've done all of that, like, three times already.” 

Sunset walked over and threw an arm around Twilight‘s shoulders, pulling her away from the machine. “Come on, Twi.” She grinned, guiding the nerd into a chair. “Sit down and try to relax until Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna get here.”

“Thanks, Sunset, I’m just a bit worried is all.” Twilight sighed, her shoulders slumping. “After all, this is the first magical machinery I’ve constructed since the Friendship Games, and look how that turned out!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms up in the air.

Rarity looked up from admiring her nails. “It’ll be fine, darling. You may have made some... boo-boos... in the past, but you were on your own back then. This time around you have us.”

“Rarity’s right,” Applejack said as she threw herself into a chair. “Heck, even Princess Twilight has been helping us out with this.”

Twilight nodded slowly. “I know, and I am grateful she took the time to look over the schematics for us.”

“It was awful nice of her to help us,” Fluttershy added as Pinkie packed their card game away.

Sunset couldn't help but smile at Twilight hunched in her chair. At least she wasn't the only one who was both excited and nervous about this. “It’ll be fine, Twilight, the preliminary tests have all gone perfectly.”

“True, and the results have all been promising so far,” Twilight agreed. “I’m just so excited, but I’m so nervous at the same time it feels like my head is going to explode!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air again.

“Ooooo you’re nervicited!!!” Pinkie Pie squealed.

The other girls all looked at each other in bemusement at Pinkie’s word-mashing, but before anyone could respond the door opened and Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna walked in. 

“Well, girls, I got your message saying you had completed the project you have been working on,” Celestia announced. “Perhaps now you could fill us in on what exactly this is all about.”

Twilight stood and walked over to the control console, preparing her well-rehearsed speech. “Well, as you know, Sunset Shimmer and I have been working on a way to detect magical anomalies such as those that we encountered at Camp Everfree, the Daring Do premiere, and our more recent encounters with the Memory Stone and Vignette. We now think we have a solution.”

Sunset joined Twilight at the console. “We call this machine the Geode Diviner. It’s a combination of the technology our Twilight used to track magic during the Friendship Games and the system Princess Twilight uses to keep the portal to Equestria open. When activated it scans an area for any magical energy and, once we’ve finished calibrating the GPS, will project a holographic map showing the location of any anomalies.” 

Celestia looked amazed, but Luna frowned at the machinery. “While this is indeed impressive, girls, are you sure it is safe? We all know how these things have gone wrong in the past.”

Sunset nodded. “Safety was our top priority when building this, which is why we have been working with Princess Twilight back in Equestria. We have been constantly re-checking our theory and running simulations to make sure we have everything under control.”

Celestia and Luna both sighed with relief. 

“Alright then, so how does it work?” Celestia asked.

Sunset fingered her Geode absently as she replied, “The Diviner works by radiating magical energy at a certain frequency. This energy resonates with the magical signature of our Geodes and the portal to Equestria outside. When it reads a signature that doesn't resonate with them it reacts to the disturbance and sends a signal to our Geodes so we can tell when something has been detected, even if we aren't in the room.”

“We actually got the idea from Princess Twilight,” Twilight added. 

Celestia walked up to the mirror, inspecting it closely. “So is the hologram projected from the mirror? Or onto it somehow?”

“Oh, no, Principal Celestia,” Sunset replied as she sidled up to her. “The mirror is actually for an additional feature we had the idea for while checking our theory.”

“What kind of feature?” Luna asked, joining her sister at the mirror.

Twilight stepped forward eagerly. “We realized that if we could send a signal to our Geodes, then we could send one to the Equestrian portal too! We’ve tested the system a few times already, on a low power setting just to be safe,” Twilight added quickly, seeing the look on Luna’s face. “If you are both ready, would you like us to activate it and show you?”

“Very well then, it seems you have taken all the necessary precautions. Please proceed,” Celestia said with a smile.

“Excellent!” Twilight exclaimed, grabbing the activation lever. “You may want to step back a bit, though,” she added nervously.

“I thought you said it was safe?” Celestia asked dubiously, taking a step back nonetheless. 

Sunset stepped in quickly, “It is, but whenever we switch it on with a Geode in the room the magic can react a little bit. It has a very short reaction range, and it hasn’t actually hurt anyone, but we don’t want to take any chances with people who don’t already have magic.”

Hearing this, Celestia and Luna quickly made their way to the back of the room, very close to the door. They shared a glance, then turned back to the girls. 

Celestia nodded to them. “Very well, girls, you may begin.”

Grinning with anticipation, Twilight cranked the activation lever. Instantly a low hum emanated from the machine and a pale light shone from the mirror. As the hum grew louder and the shine from the mirror intensified, Sunset felt the Geode hanging around her neck grow warm, emitting a bright glow of its own. Looking around, she could see the same thing happening to the Geodes around the necks of the other girls, the glow slowly growing to encompass their entire bodies. With a sudden popping sound, the humming stopped and the glow from the Geodes disappeared. Looking up at the mirror, Sunset saw that the light had faded, replaced with an image of a large crystalline room, and a familiar purple Alicorn.

“Princess Twilight!” The girls all called in unison. 

“Hey, girls,” Princess Twilight called back, waving one of her hooves. “Everything looks good from this end, any problems on your side?”

Twilight bent over the monitor on the control panel. “Nope, all energy levels are stable.”

Pinkie skipped over to the mirror. “Is everything staaable on your end, Twilight?” 

Princess Twilight just rolled her eyes and smiled.

“So this is what you really look like, Princess?” Celestia asked, moving closer to the machine again now that it seemed safe.

Princess Twilight nodded. “Yes, though I must say it is a little strange seeing you girls like this while still standing on four legs.”

“I have a question, Twilight,” Luna said as she walked over too.

“Yes?” both Twilight’s asked.

Luna blinked in sudden bemusement. “Er… I meant Princess Twilight.” 

Sunset folded her arms. “We really should come up with a way of differentiating you two when we’re talking to you both.”

“That’s easy darling,” Rarity chimed in, raising an eyebrow as if it were obvious. “Twilight and Princess Twilight.”

Princess Twilight smiled awkwardly. “Calling me Princess all the time is a bit too formal-sounding, to be honest. How about a nickname?” 

“You could always just call this one 'Her Royal Twi-ness'!” a voice called through the mirror. 

“Or 'Nerd Force One!” Another voice added.

Princess Twilight scowled at somepony out of view. "That wasn't funny the first time and it isn't funny now!"

Sunset grinned at the mirror. “Hey, Starlight!”  

Starlight Glimmer popped into view, waving at the girls. “Hey, girls. Sorry, I can’t really talk. I’ve got to monitor these readings just in case.”

“I recognize Starlight Glimmer...” Rarity said as Starlight ducked back out of view, “...but that other voice surely can’t… I mean, it sounded like-”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie!!!” Trixie shouted as she bounded into view, her hat and cloak flapping about wildly.

Princess Twilight turned to glare at the prancing unicorn again. “Trixie! I only agreed to let Starlight invite you to this if you stay quiet and stay put!” Trixie sat with a snort as Twilight turned back to the mirror, composing herself. “Vice-Principal Luna, you had a question?” She asked in a dignified voice.

Luna blinked for a moment, then gathered her thoughts. “Yes, I was wondering how exactly you would know if we are trying to contact you through th-”

“Hold on a second,” Starlight cut in suddenly. “Twilight, these readings don’t look good.” 

Sunset looked over to where their Twilight was bent over the monitor. “We see it too, it looks like something is interfering with the signal,” Twilight called out.

Princess Twilight frowned. “It’s not coming from here, I’ve put a shielding spell around this entire room. It must be something from your end.”

A low hum started coming from the machine again as the lights flickered in the room. 

Twilight typed some commands into the console, checking sensor readings. “The Diviner isn’t picking up any magical energy. It seems like there’s some sort of electrical pulse coming from somewhere.”

Sunset stepped back, worried. “Either way this isn’t good, we should switch it off until we figure out what’s wrong.” 

The image in the mirror suddenly flared and sent sparks running up and down it’s frame. The whole machine was vibrating loudly. 

“Shut it down, now!” Sunset yelled as the others shrieked and backed away from the machine. As Twilight grabbed at the activation lever electricity arced from the console, forcing her back. 

“Are you okay?!” Princess Twilight shouted. “Starlight, shut it down!” 

The image in the mirror vanished, but instead of the surface of the mirror, a swirling vortex of dark energy appeared. Sunset yelped as she felt her Geode get yanked towards the vortex. Falling to her hands and knees, she saw the same thing happening to the rest of the girls. Their Geodes glowed madly as they, and the girls, were dragged screaming towards the vortex. Celestia and Luna each rushed forwards and grabbed Fluttershy and Applejack, who had been closest to them.

A loud bang came from the Diviner and several cables were knocked free. As they came loose the vortex grew suddenly more powerful, sucking everything in the room towards it. Sunset saw Twilight, who was closest to the machine, get sucked right into the vortex and disappear. Desperately trying to claw her way away, Sunset grabbed hold of Pinkie who was sliding along the floor, unable to get a good grip. 

As another loud boom rocked the room Sunset felt herself and Pinkie lifted from the floor and hurtle towards the mirror, swiftly followed by Rarity and Rainbow Dash. The last thing she saw was Celestia and Luna finally losing their grip on Fluttershy and Applejack, before she hit the vortex and everything went dark.
> Chapter 2 - The Other Side
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset Shimmer was flung backwards through the air and landed hard on a metal floor. Dazed, she looked up just in time for Rarity to land on top of her with a thump. Glancing up through a mess of purple hair, she saw a great cloud of dark energy floating above some sort of generator that was smoking profusely. 

As Sunset watched, Fluttershy and Applejack came hurtling through the cloud and landed in a heap on top of Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, who were already in a tangled mess themselves. Once they were through, the dark mass started writhing madly until, with a rumble that shook the room, it disappeared, leaving only ruined machinery behind. 

"What in the heck was that?" Applejack asked, wincing as she tried to climb off Pinkie. 

"I have… no idea," Sunset huffed. All she could see, apart from the smoking machine, was that they seemed to be in a dark room with dirty metal walls. "Is everyone okay?" 

Rarity mumbled something inaudible, then lifted her face from Sunset’s chest. "I think so?"

"I will be when Flutters shifts her elbow from my ribs," Rainbow moaned.

"Oh! I-I’m so sorry!" Fluttershy spluttered.

"Uh… girls?" Twilight called tremulously. 

Rarity clambered off Sunset and helped her to her feet. Looking around, Sunset saw what had Twilight’s attention.

Four men were standing in front of the girls, all with looks of utter shock on their faces. Two of the men were wearing simple blue jumpsuits, one with brown skin and the other with skin almost as pale as Rarity’s. The third was wearing a lab coat and had light peach skin tones; probably a scientist. All three had iron-grey hair. The last, with black hair, darker peach skin and wearing some sort of riot gear, was standing protectively in front of the others. He was clutching a metal baton and looked like he wasn’t sure whether to attack or not.

"Er… hi?" Sunset ventured.

The brown-skinned man was the first to recover. "What in the world? What the hell is going on here!?" 

The pale-skinned man in the jumpsuit moaned fearfully, taking several steps back. "They must be some kind of mutants from outside! I mean, Jesus, look at their skin! And their hair!"

"Mutants?" Twilight asked quizzically.

Sunset glanced around at the others, puzzled. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with them aside from a bit of dirt and some scrapes. 

"And what exactly is wrong with our hair and skin?" Rarity asked testily. 

"Easy now, Rarity," Applejack said quietly.

Sunset was worried. Seven girls randomly appearing out of nowhere had understandably unnerved the men, and things could easily turn ugly if something wasn’t done to defuse the situation. She slowly raised her hands, trying to show she wasn’t a threat. "I think there’s been some sort of misunderstanding. We didn’t mean to come here, we were involved in an accident and-"

Sunset made to step forward, then flinched and stopped in her tracks as the man in the riot gear pointed his baton at her. "Don’t you come any closer! I’m warning you!"

Sunset obligingly stepped back. "Please. We don’t mean any harm."

The brown-skinned man in the jumpsuit snorted loudly. "No harm indeed! Where the hell did you… things come from?"

"I think we all need to calm down here before anyone gets hurt," The scientist said suddenly. He turned to the brown-skinned man. "These people don’t look dangerous, Overseer. Surely we can give them a chance to explain themselves?"

There was silence as the Overseer folded his arms, glaring at the girls. "Very well, James. You... girls... have one chance to explain yourselves. But be warned, if you do anything that seems even remotely like a threat I’ll have Officer Gomez put you all down in an instant."

"I’d love to see you t-mmphh!" Rainbow’s challenge was cut off as Applejack clamped a hand over her mouth. 

Sunset considered their options. She was confident that her friends could handle these men with their magic easily enough, but she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She had a sneaking suspicion that the vortex had dumped them in another world and wasn’t entirely sure their magic would work here, or if magic even existed here at all. 

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Sunset decided it would be best to just tell the truth, or, at least, some of it. "My name is Sunset Shimmer. Me and my friends were working on some experimental equipment when something went wrong." 

The men listened carefully. The scientist, James, seemed particularly intent on every word Sunset said. 

"I don’t know exactly what caused it, but a mass of energy like the one you just saw sucked us in and somehow transported us here," Sunset continued.

"Never seen a backup generator do anything like that before," the pale-skinned man cowering at the back muttered. 

"Quiet, Stanley!" the Overseer snapped, before turning back to the girls. "You expect me to believe that you seven were working on some sort of highly advanced technology that just happened to go wrong and randomly teleport you straight into our Vault?" 

"It’s the truth," Twilight said earnestly. "We picked up some strange electrical readings coming from somewhere we couldn’t figure out, but we didn’t have a chance to shut down the machinery before everything went wrong."

The Overseer looked over his shoulder at the cowering man. "Stanley! When was the last time you checked this backup generator?"

Stanley flinched as if he had been struck. "Day before yesterday, sir. I make sure to check it twice a week as per regulations."

"Did you find anything suspicious?" The Overseer asked.

"Looked the same as always," Stanley replied with a shake of his head. "A Radroach had chewed through one of the wires, but I cleaned it up and replaced the wire just like it said in my report."

The Overseer turned back to glare at Sunset. "Where exactly have you girls come from?"

"Canterlot High," she replied quickly.

The Overseer raised an eyebrow. "Canterlot High?"

"That’s the school we were at when all of this happened," Twilight supplied.

"A school?!" the Overseer spat incredulously. "You honestly expect me to believe that there is some decrepit school out there in the Wasteland with access to that kind of technology?!"

"I’ve heard of it," James cut in quickly. "I think it’s a part of the Institute, up north in the Commonwealth." He winked at the girls and put a finger to his lips, then whipped it away a heartbeat later as the Overseer turned to him.

"You’ve never mentioned this before," he said suspiciously, narrowing his eyes.

"You did ask me to avoid speaking of my time outside at all costs," James replied evenly. "There were rumors circulating that Canterlot High were a rogue element experimenting with dangerous teleportation technology. I never believed it might actually be real, though."

Looking more perturbed than ever, the Overseer turned to the girls again. "Is this true?"

"Er…" Sunset hesitated. James subtly nodded his head. She had no idea what he was talking about, but he seemed to be trying to help. "Yes, sir, it is. We thought the safety features we had implemented were adequate but... apparently we were wrong."

"Clearly," the Overseer sneered.

Sunset lowered her hands. "Please, we don’t want to cause any more trouble. We just want to find a way home." 

"And what’s to say there aren’t going to be more of you turning up out of thin air and causing even more havoc?" the Overseer asked.

Sunset indicated the still-smoking machinery behind her. "Frankly, the last I saw, the equipment on our end was in even worse shape than this." 

The Overseer mulled this over for a bit. "Alright, let’s say I believe you about this being an accident." He gestured vaguely at the girls. "It still doesn’t explain your grotesque mutations."

Rarity squawked indignantly. "Grotesque!?" 

"Easy, Rarity," Applejack said again, though she was frowning at the Overseer herself.

Twilight looked around at the others in confusion. "What do you mean by mutations?" 

Looking at the four men in front of her, it slowly dawned on Sunset what was wrong. It was just a hunch but, aside from the dark-skinned Overseer speaking at the front, the other three had varying shades of peachy-colored skin, whereas the skin tones of Sunset and her friends were all wildly different colors.

"Perhaps it’s a side effect of whatever energy is given off by the teleportation experiments?" James suggested quickly. 

"Radiation levels?" the Overseer asked instantly, nervously checking a device on his forearm.

"Nothing I can detect from here," James replied, frowning at a similar device on his own forearm. He stepped up to Sunset, ignoring a hissed warning from the man in riot gear. "May I?" he asked, holding out his arm.

Sunset simply nodded, staying perfectly still as James passed the device on his forearm over her body. Frowning, he turned to the Overseer. "It seems they aren’t giving off any radiation whatsoever."

Stanley let loose a sigh. "Well that’s one less thing to worry about, I suppose." 

"Might I suggest we keep them quarantined for the time being," James said as the Overseer glared at Stanley. "Let me run some tests to check for infections. If they are clean, then we can decide what to do with them from there."

Sunset didn’t like the thought of that, but then she supposed it was a sensible plan under the circumstances.

The Overseer didn’t seem to like it either, but at last he relented. "Very well. stand down, Officer Gomez." Officer Gomez relaxed slightly. Sunset was glad to see him lower his baton, but she’d feel a lot more comfortable if he put it away entirely. 

"I want these girls kept contained here on this level. Put them in storage room D for now," the Overseer ordered.

"Storage room C might be better sir," Stanley put in. "It’s got a toilet," he added quickly as the Overseer rounded on him.

"Fine," the Overseer huffed. "Stanley, you will lock these girls in room C, and then I want you to stay down on this level until James has given these girls a complete inspection."

James nodded in approval. "I’ll have Jonas handle the clinic while I run the tests I need. He can manage for a few days." 

"Good. I also want you to check for any genetic aberrations while you are at it," the Overseer instructed him. "Officer Gomez, I want you to make sure these girls do not leave the storage room until I say so. If they attempt to leave you are to treat them as hostile and deal with them accordingly."

"Yes, Sir," Gomez replied.

"I shall have Andy sent down to cover you for breaks, but I want you to stay on this level as well until we are sure that all is safe." The Overseer looked back to the girls. "I want you all to follow along quickly and quietly. Should you try to run, or do anything foolish, you will be dealt with immediately, and severely." 

Sunset nodded stiffly at him, biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from saying something defiant.

The Overseer nodded to Stanley. "Now then. Stanley, lead the way." 

The girls followed Stanley as he led them out of the room. Officer Gomez, James and the Overseer brought up the rear, making sure the girls didn’t dawdle or try to run. Sunset shivered as they were marched through a series of dark and dismal rooms. 

None of the girls dared to speak until Stanley stopped outside a heavy metal door. Twisting the handle, he hauled it open and stood aside, gesturing for the girls to enter. There were a few large  metal crates stacked against the one wall and several smaller boxes scattered around haphazardly. A toilet could be seen through an open door in the corner.

Sunset turned as James and the Overseer entered the room after them. "How long will we be in here for?" 

"Until I decide that it is safe to do otherwise with you," the Overseer responded imperiously.

James stepped forward, pulling a little notepad and pencil out of his pocket. "I’d like to take down your names, if that‘s alright?" He nodded to Sunset. "You said your name was… Sunset Shimmer, correct?"

"Yes, and this is Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie," Sunset replied, indicating each of the girls in turn.

"Interesting names," James muttered, smiling faintly.

The Overseer snorted and stepped over to the door. "You are to stay here in this room until I decide otherwise. James will be down periodically to perform whatever tests he deems necessary." He looked them all over one last time. "So long as you behave yourselves, I shall have someone sent down with food for you at appropriate times."  

"Are any of you girls allergic to anything?" James asked.

The girls all shook their heads. The men both left the room and closed the door behind them. There was a loud clang as it was locked. Sunset slumped down on a box, rubbing her sore arms as the others all collapsed on boxes or the floor around her. "Well that could have gone better," she muttered.

"Agreed," Rarity snorted. "Grotesque indeed!"

"Can someone please explain to me what just happened?" Applejack asked, massaging her temples.

"Something must have gone wrong with the machine, it’s the only thing I can think of," Sunset replied. 

Twilight wiped a smudge off her glasses. "Yes, but what? The Diviner wasn’t picking up any magical signals whatsoever apart from our own." She hung her head sadly. "I’m sorry, girls, this is all my fault."

"It’s not your fault, Sugarcube," Applejack said gently as Pinkie threw an arm around her.

"Of course it’s not. There was nothing any of us could do." Sunset frowned, thinking hard. "It must be something to do with those electrical signals we picked up. Whatever they were they must have affected this place too, or we never would have been pulled here."

Rainbow kicked at a box. "Speaking of here, just where the heck are we? And who were those jerks?" she growled.

"And why did they think we were mutants?" Twilight asked.

Sunset held out her arms. "It’s just a hunch, but apart from the Overseer the others all had similar skin colours. Maybe being different and brightly coloured isn’t exactly normal in this world?"

"This world?" Rarity asked, raising an eyebrow. "You think we’ve been brought to another world like Equestria?"

Sunset shrugged. "Not like Equestria, but that portal certainly dumped us somewhere." 

Twilight nodded. "That would make sense. The mirror was connected to the portal to Equestria. The interference we picked up could have been signals coming from this world."

Sunset thought back to what had happened with the Diviner. "So when Princess Twilight switched off the machine on her end we lost the connection to Equestria, but the mirror picked up the connection to this world instead?" 

"That seems likely," Twilight agreed. "James did say that there was a group here that was studying teleportation technology. We might have accidentally gotten caught up in one of their experiments."

"That’s if he was telling the truth about those experiments, I get the feeling he was making that up," Sunset told her.

Rarity frowned, picking dirt out of her hair. "He did seem to be covering for us for some reason."

"Maybe he just doesn’t like that big mean Overseer," Pinkie mumbled.

"James was much nicer than the others," Fluttershy added quietly.

They girls fell silent for a moment. Sunset was desperately trying to think of a way out of their situation, but nothing came to mind. Breaking out of captivity with their magic was probably possible, but she figured that it wasn’t worth the risk. Their captors were only trying to protect themselves, and hadn’t actually hurt any of the girls yet. For the moment, it seemed the best idea was to wait and hope that they were allowed out soon. 

While she was busy thinking, Applejack suddenly spoke up, "What do you suppose happened to Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna?" 

Twilight leaned back with a sigh. "They didn’t come through the portal with us, so they’re probably trying to figure out what happened." 

"But what can they do?" Fluttershy asked.

Sunset slumped, dejected. "Not much from their end, but hopefully Princess Twilight will work with them on a solution." 

"What if the portal to Equestria was damaged?" Rarity asked anxiously.

"Not likely," Twilight said, shaking her head. "It looked like Princess Twilight managed to switch their portal off before anything too bad happened. Hopefully she can come through the portal to Canterlot High and help repair the Diviner."

Sunset stood, placing her hands on her hips. "Either way, we’d best behave ourselves here, at least until these people let us out and we can start looking for a way home ourselves." 

Applejack looked up, rubbing her neck nervously. "Do you think Principal Celestia will have told our families by now?"

The others looked at each other anxiously. Sunset realized she had it easier than the other girls. Most of the people who cared about her were stuck in that storage room with her.

"They’ll be so worried about us." Fluttershy noted, her voice wavering.

"It‘s okay!" Pinkie shouted, jumping to her feet. "They may be worried, but I know they’ll never stop looking for a way to bring us back!" 

Sunset grinned. "Pinkie’s right. They won’t give up, and neither should we."

Rarity stood as well, striking a defiant pose. "Indeed. After all, we've been through worse and come out stronger than ever!" 

Twilight climbed to her feet too. "That’s right! As long as we’re together we can get through anything!"

The girls started to chatter excitedly, then fell quiet as they heard voices outside the door. There was a loud clang as the door was unlocked, and they watched nervously as it was hauled open. Officer Gomez stepped through the door. Sunset was relieved to see that he had at least put his baton away. 

James followed Gomez into the room, looking around at the girls. "Are you all alright?" 

Sunset ran a hand through her hair. "We’re okay, just a little overwhelmed by what’s happened."

James smiled slightly. "Understandable. You gave us all quite a fright too, to be honest."

Sunset sank back onto the box. "We’re sorry. We didn’t mean for any of this to happen."

"Well, you haven’t caused any real harm yet," Officer Gomez said bracingly, "I’m sorry I was a bit aggressive with you earlier. As long as you girls behave, I’m sure we’ll have you out of here just as soon as the doc gives the all clear."

"And I’d like to get started on that right away." James held up a small medical kit. "Would you mind waiting outside while I examine them, Herman?

"Alright, doc, if you insist. Just shout if you need anything." Gomez left the room, closing the door gently behind him.

James set down his medical kit and checked the door before turning back to the girls. "I’m sorry about this, I fear it may be my fault that you’ve been brought here," he said with a somber look.

The girls exchanged glances before looking back at James. "What do you mean?" Twilight asked.

James sighed heavily. "I’ve been doing experiments in secret down here with my assistant. One of the experiments I was working on involved a device I discovered before I gained entry to the Vault. I haven’t really had a chance to test it until recently."

"What sort of device?" Sunset asked.

"Honestly? I’m not sure," James replied. "I’ve never seen anything like it before. I’ve been setting it up, testing it and putting it away without anyone noticing for a little while now, hoping I could use it to help with my research."

"What does it do?" Twilight asked curiously.

"I thought at first it was some sort of energy converter, but when I switched it on today it started pouring out that dark cloud that you girls came out of." James shook his head in confusion. "Tell me, what kind of technology were you working on?" 

Sunset paused, not sure what to tell him. Seeing her hesitation, Twilight spoke up, "It was a machine designed to detect magic."

"Magic?" James asked, looking even more confused. "What do you mean, magic?"

Twilight touched the Geode around her neck and extended her arm. A purple glow surrounded one of the boxes as she used her magic to lift it several feet into the air. 

James stepped back, gazing at Twilight in shock. He quickly recovered himself, smiling and shaking his head again. "I see. Some sort of technology that manipulates magnetic fields, I assume? Very impressive. I hardly see any reason to call it magic, though."

"Oh really?" Sunset asked coyly, grinning at the other girls.

Applejack chuckled as she hefted one of the heavy crates and held it above her head one-handed, scraping it against the ceiling. James’ mouth dropped in amazement. Rarity held out her hands and a complex arrangement of gemstones materialized above them. There was a rainbow-colored blur as Rainbow Dash darted all the way around the room several times, finally stopping and leaning against the wall with a smug look on her face.

James stood slack-jawed in amazement. "Incredible," he breathed. "Simply astonishing," He looked in disbelief at Twilight. "I never believed magic existed."

"Perhaps it doesn’t in this world," Fluttershy put in quietly. "It didn’t in our world at first, either."

"Your world?" James raised an eyebrow at her.

"Yep. Our world used to be ordinary ‘til a connection got opened up to Equestria," Applejack replied.

"Equestria?" James was looking more and more baffled by the second.

"It’s the world I’m originally from, it‘s where all of our magic comes from," Sunset answered.

Twilight nodded. "Recently, we’ve been having trouble in our world with magical artefacts and creatures that came to our world from Equestria. That’s why we built a machine that could detect magical anomalies before they become a problem."

"It also allowed us to communicate with our friends in Equestria, which is what we were doing when everything went wrong and we were sucked through to here," Sunset said sadly.

James scratched his beard, looking thoughtful. "You say you were communicating with another world, Equestria, when you were brought here. Do you think that is what the tool I found was? Some sort of… magical transportation device?"

"I don’t think so, we didn’t detect any magical signatures other than our own." Twilight replied, frowning. "Perhaps it’s some kind of dimensional technology that interfered with our portal when you switched it on?" 

"Could we take a look at it?" Sunset asked.

James shook his head, his face grim. "I’m afraid not. It was completely destroyed when that dark cloud consumed it."

Sunset’s heart fell at that. Without it, she had no idea how they were going to get back home.

"I‘m glad you were quick on the uptake earlier, when I lied about the Commonwealth," James said. "I was trying to protect you and buy some extra time. The Overseer will go to extreme lengths to protect the safety of the Vault."

"Does this Commonwealth really exist?" Twilight asked hopefully

James nodded. "I think so, I’ve heard rumors about them over the years. Nothing about teleportation, though. They were simply the only group I could think of that the Overseer won’t know much about, so he wouldn’t be too suspicious."

"Do you think they could help us?" Pinkie asked.

"I doubt it, to be honest. Even if they could, getting there across the Wastes would be an almost impossible journey, even for girls with abilities such as yours. Incidentally I wouldn't let the Overseer or anyone else know about your powers, we don’t know how they may react." James started digging around in his kit. "First of all, let's get these tests done. If everything comes back clean, I’ll see if I can convince the Overseer to let you stay in the Vault. At least until we can find you a way back home."

"Thanks, James," Sunset said gratefully. "What tests do you need to do?"

"For the moment, just a cursory examination for any rashes or lesions. Nothing too severe or intrusive," James replied. "Plus a few blood samples from each of you, if that is alright?"

Sunset nodded with a sigh. "Whatever you need." The other girls all agreed too, allowing James to quickly examine and take a sample from each of them. He worked quickly and efficiently, treating them all gently and quietly reassuring Fluttershy when she was intimidated by the needle. He was clearly a skilled doctor, and a kind man. 

When James was finished he quickly turned to leave the room, but as he opened the door he turned back to the girls, smirking. "This is something I never thought I would find myself saying to anyone," he muttered, half to himself.

"What is it?" Sunset asked, expecting a comment about magic.

James smiled grimly. "Welcome to Vault 101."
> Chapter 3 - Out of Captivity
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Several days passed without much change in the girls’ circumstances. They had been provided with blankets, but there were no cleaning facilities, meaning they were stuck having to use the sink in the toilet and a dwindling supply of wet wipes from Rarity. The aspiring fashionista was having a particularly hard time, forced to stay in the same increasingly dirty clothes for days on end. 

Three times a day James would make the trip down to see the girls, usually bearing food and drink for them. He used these opportunities to speak to the girls about where they were from, as well as for performing detailed examinations to make sure they were healthy. In return, he told the girls everything they wanted to know about the world they were in.

During each of these visits, James had been intensely curious about their magic, though each time he reiterated that they should keep it a secret for now. He explained that such things were entirely unheard of in this world, and he believed the Overseer would attempt to purge what he would see as dangerous mutations.

After the most recent of these visits, Sunset was curled up in a ball on the floor, rocking slowly back and forth. Her monthly cycle had started that morning. Rarity had come to the rescue with spare sanitary towels but, between the cramps and the lack of real hygiene, Sunset was still feeling utterly like crap. "Ugh, I miss being a pony. I didn’t have to deal with this."

"You’re telling me ponies don’t get periods?" Rainbow asked enviously. "When can I move to Equestria?"

"Don’t be vulgar, Rainbow Dash," Rarity muttered, perched glumly on a crate in the corner.

"Equines don’t menstruate in the same way that humans do, they go into estrus instead," Twilight elaborated.

Applejack looked up from where she was resting on a blanket. "Wait a minute, you’re tellin' me you go into heat?"

Sunset glared at the two of them, then lowered her head onto her knees. "Used to," she grumbled.

"It actually happens to a lot of the animals I speak to," Fluttershy added.

"Are you saying Sunset’s an animal?" Pinkie asked.

Fluttershy’s eyes went wide as she tried to stammer out a denial, but Applejack cut over her. "When she was in heat? Ah’d say so. Ah’ve seen a mare in heat, Ah know how they behave."

"Can we drop this subject?" Sunset ground out through gritted teeth.

Rainbow grinned at her. "Aww, come on, Sunshim, tell us how you used to behave like a randy animal."

"I didn’t behave like a randy animal!" Sunset snapped, "You just have around a week of feeling restless and thinking about romance all the time. It makes you need to pee all the time, too."

"Don’t forget the winking!" Applejack called, winking suggestively at Sunset, who felt the heat rising in her face; a combination of embarrassment and fury. 

Rarity raised an eyebrow. "Winking?"

"Clitoral winking. Mares do it to… show that… they’re…" Twilight trailed off, wilting under the scorching look Sunset gave her.

An awkward silence followed, all of the girls blushing to some extent. The sudden clang of the door being unlocked startled the lot of them. Assuming it was James coming down for his latest visit, Sunset was surprised to see Officer Gomez step through the door, followed by the Overseer, with James himself trailing close behind. 

The Overseer motioned for the girls to stand and waited for them to do so before he spoke, "Well, girls, you will no doubt be pleased to know that James has discovered no evidence of infection or any other contagion during his tests."

"Well that’s good news." Applejack huffed.

"Hear hear." Rarity agreed.

"Indeed it is good news," the Overseer remarked. "I also hear that your behavior during your quarantine has been civilized and you have treated my personnel with respect. James tells me that you are not unintelligent, and that you are willing to work to make up for the damage you caused upon your arrival here." He paused, seemingly reluctant to continue. Finally he sighed. "In light of this, I have decided to permit you to join the population of the Vault on a probationary basis, while you attempt to find a way to get yourselves back wherever you came from." 

The Overseer crossed his arms as the girls all made noises of relief and excitement. "However, before we take you upstairs to your new quarters, there are certain things I would like to go over. James tells me he has already made you aware of the general situation regarding the sealing of our Vault."

Sunset looked at James, then back at the Overseer. James had indeed told them about the Vault, about how it had been constructed centuries ago to protect the population from a fierce nuclear war raging outside that had destroyed all civilization. Some lucky people had managed to survive outside, and build little communities, but they were dangerous. James himself was originally an immigrant from the Wasteland, but the current Overseer believed a policy of total isolation was safest for the Vault.

Sunset considered what to say if they were to keep up their charade of actually being from the outside, themselves. "He told us it was opened in the past, but has been sealed for almost two decades now to protect it from the outside." 

The Overseer nodded curtly. "Indeed. However, as far as anyone who was born after the doors were closed is aware, Vault 101 has never been opened before and never will be again. We encouraged this belief to prevent any more ill-advised expeditions into the Wasteland." 

"We are born in the vault, we live in the vault, and we die in the vault."  James intoned. "Unfortunately, this poses us a somewhat unusual problem." 

"How to explain us to the rest of the vault population?" Twilight asked.

"Precisely." the Overseer replied. "Luckily for you, I believe we have come up with a workable solution. We have told the other residents that you are from the old North block."

Sunset waited for someone to elaborate. "North block?" she prompted.

"It was a fairly small section of the vault that has been sealed since long before I even arrived here almost, twenty years ago." James explained.

"It was mostly residential quarters, with a cafeteria and a spare generator," Officer Gomez clarified. "The reactor section was prone to Radroach infestations and eventually one of them damaged the generator, causing that to start leaking radiation."

Nodding again, the Overseer continued. "Seeing that this would be an ongoing drain on our resources, the remaining residents of North block were moved to safer areas, and the whole section was closed off. Security are sent in periodically to ensure the radroach population is kept to manageable levels, and that the reactor hasn’t started leaking again." The Overseer gestured vaguely around at the girls. "The story we have given to the other vault residents is that you girls are the last descendants of a group that refused to leave, and have been living separately in North block ever since."

"This also allows us to explain your… coloration… as a side-effect of unusual radiation from the malfunctioning reactor," James added.

Applejack frowned and crossed her arms. "Surely there will be some residents who know this ain't true though. Won’t that cause problems?"

The Overseer shook his head. "I shouldn’t think so. There are a few senior members of the hierarchy who have been made aware of the true situation, and those others who may be able to connect the dots can be trusted to keep quiet. All of the residents have been ordered not to ask you about life in North block, and you are hereby forbidden to speak of life outside the Vault if you wish to remain here."

Sunset picked up on the unspoken threat. "We understand, right girls?" 

All of the girls quickly agreed. This seemed the quickest and easiest way to start working on a way home.

Seeing that they were all willing to toe the line, the Overseer clasped his hands behind his back and cleared his throat  "Good. Since that is settled then, Stanley?" 

Stanley came through the door at the Overseer’s summons, carrying a pile of neatly folded clothes which he set down on a box. 

"This is the standard attire of all Vault 101 residents and is to be worn at all times," the Overseer explained. "Your current clothes will be placed in storage for the time being."

Sunset fingered her Geode worriedly. "What about our necklaces?"

The Overseer frowned, considering. "I suppose you may keep your little decorations." he said, his lip curling with distaste.

"Let us know once you are done changing," James called out as he and the others left the room.

Once the door was closed, Sunset turned to the others. "Well, girls, at least this is an improvement."

Rarity grimaced. "Speak for yourself darling." She held out the clothes she had picked up, a simple blue jumpsuit with yellow trim around the zip and a yellow ‘101’ on the back. They were just like the ones the men were wearing. 

"They ain’t so bad," Applejack said cheerfully. "Kinda like work overalls."

The girls each stripped down and put on their new jumpsuits, Rarity with audible reluctance. Once they were all dressed, and had piled their old clothes neatly, Sunset knocked on the door. The Overseer came in with Stanley close behind, carrying a heavy looking box. 

The Overseer frowned for a moment at Applejack's Stetson, but decided to let it slide. "Now that you are suitably dressed, you will be given these, which are also required to be worn at all times, save for when you are sleeping."

Stanley pulled several devices out of the box that matched those the men all wore on their forearms. "They’re called Pip-Boys," he explained, holding one up. "These are the old 3000a model. It’s an older model, but very reliable."

Sunset allowed Stanley to slip one onto her forearm, examining it as he went around the others. It looked like a very old boxy computer system, with several knobs and a little screen. As she watched, it switched itself on, going through what looked like several loading and diagnostic screens covered in glowing green script before finally settling on a stylized image of a smiling boy wearing a Vault jumpsuit. 

The Overseer pointed at the screen on his own Pip-Boy. "These contain a general overview of your health, a map of the vault, and any work assignments you will be given. They can also be used for any notes you wish to remember, as well as for picking up radio transmissions such as the Vault 101 PA system. Mr Brotch will give you a more comprehensive lesson on their use tomorrow."

Sunset tried to smile at the Overseer. "Thanks, we really are grateful for the help you’re giving us."

The Overseer’s expression didn’t soften in the slightest. "So long as you follow the rules and perform the tasks expected of you as Vault 101 residents, I have no problem allowing you to remain here for the time being. You may use your free time to attempt to find a way back to your home, but remember that you are not to speak of it to any other than myself or, if he is not working himself, James."

James frowned, shaking his head. "I’m afraid I will be busy catching up on the work I’ve missed, so I won’t be able to help much, sorry,," he apologized. 

"It’s alright, you've helped us so much already," Twilight replied as the other girls all nodded in agreement.

He smiled warmly. "Well, if that’s settled, shall we show them to their quarters, Overseer?"

"Very well, follow me," the Overseer instructed. "Quietly, if you please." 

The girls followed the Overseer and James out of the storage room and through what James had told them was the Reactor level, with Officer Gomez bringing up the rear. Stanley split off from the rest of the group and headed off to the room where the girls had originally arrived, wondering aloud how far along Andy was with a review of the damage. 

Following the Overseer up a set of stairs the girls soon came to a cleaner, brighter series of corridors. 

Sunset looked around as they walked, making a mental note of everything they passed. One thing struck her as odd. "Where is everyone?"

The Overseer called over his shoulder. "Aside from security, all other residents have been asked to remain in their quarters until you are safely ensconced in yours. Please refrain from speaking any further until we are there." 

Sunset glowered at his back, but couldn’t suppress a smile as she saw James roll his eyes. Continuing on, they passed by a cafeteria area and into another corridor, this one with several doors leading off. The Overseer led them straight to the end of the corridor, to the very last room. Another security officer was standing outside. He stood to attention as the Overseer approached, snapping a crisp salute. "Everything is clear in this section, Overseer" 

The Overseer smiled for the first time since the girls had seen him. "Thank you, Chief Hannon, we can take over from here. I want you to check on the rest of your team and meet me back at my office with a full report once you are done."

"Yes, Overseer!" Chief Hannon snapped another salute and marched away, unable to help glancing at the girls as he walked past. He flinched as Pinkie waved enthusiastically at him.

James pressed a button next to the doorway and, instead of opening inwards, the door slid smoothly up into the ceiling. He and the Overseer stood aside to allow the girls into a living area with a couple of sofas and a dining table surrounded by chairs. 

"These will be your quarters for the duration of your stay," the Overseer informed them. He indicated a door in the corner. "Through there you will find your bedroom and cleaning facilities."  

"There are only two beds, so I’m afraid you will have to make do," James said apologetically. 

"We’ll manage, thank you." Sunset replied.

Pinkie Pie darted into the room and dove onto one of the sofas. "It’s going to be just like a big slumber party!!"

The Overseer threw a glare at Pinkie before turning to the others. "I don’t want any of you to leave this room for the rest of the night. I shall send someone along tomorrow morning to give you a quick tour of the Vault and introduce you to some of the residents. After that, you will be handed over to Mr Brotch, who will test your abilities and decide on suitable work placements. Depending on your behavior, you will receive your first assignments the following day." 

The Overseer narrowed his eyes, giving each of the girls a hard look. "While I may be allowing you to join the population of the Vault on a probationary basis, I want to make it clear that I will not tolerate any… fraternizing, with the other residents."  

Sunset felt her face warm as she realized what he was talking about. Twilight and Fluttershy both shifted uncomfortably, and Rarity muttered indignantly under her breath as she caught on too. Sunset opened her mouth to steer the conversation in another direction, but Applejack cut in first, "Frater- what now?" 

James replied absently, not looked up from his notes. "What the Overseer means is that, for the time being, we would like you all to refrain from any sexual interaction with the other Vault residents."

There was a moment of shocked, awkward silence.

"Sorry I asked," Applejack muttered, pulling her hat down low to hide her blush.

"Just what kind of girls do you take us for!?" Rarity spluttered angrily.

"Until James has finished analyzing your genetic makeup for any abnormalities, I don’t want some multi-coloured trollop threatening the genetic stability of this Vault," the Overseer countered.

"That‘s… not the kind of party we‘re looking for right now," Pinkie muttered awkwardly, tugging at the neck of her jumpsuit.

"Seriously. Not cool," Rainbow added, trying to hide a blush of her own.

"You won‘t have to worry about that from us," Twilight said, giggling nervously. "Besides, I kind of already have someone back home that I’m interested in. I mean, not in that way. I mean, not not in that way, but…" 

Sunset spoke up as Twilight buried her face in her hands, blushing furiously, "I think that’s the last thing on any of our minds at the moment." 

"It had better stay that way." The Overseer sniffed. "Now, I have other things I must attend to. I want you to stay in these rooms until someone comes to collect you in the morning. James, I leave them in your hands."

"Thank you Overseer," James replied quietly. 

Sunset let out a deep breath as the Overseer stalked away, helping herself to a chair. Something about that man made her nervous. The other girls settled themselves on the sofas, Rarity still muttering angrily, as James closed the door. "I’m sorry about that, girls, I could have put that a little more delicately," he said gently.

"It’s alright. It was just a little… unexpected," Sunset replied, smiling awkwardly to try and defuse the tension.

"You said it, sugarcube," Applejack added quietly, a pink tinge still on her cheeks. 

Fluttershy looked over at the bedroom door. "At least now we get an actual bed to sleep in."

"And a chance for a wash, at last," Rarity sighed.

"Take your time tonight to get yourselves settled, just make sure you are up early in the morning," James advised. "I highly doubt the Overseer will come to collect you himself, but whoever is sent to collect you will probably expect you to be up and dressed at least."

Twilight checked the time on her new Pip-Boy. "What time should we expect them by?" 

"I’d say probably around 9 o’clock. Most of the vault residents will be up and at their work assignments by then. And don’t forget, keep your magic a secret." James opened the door again. "Well, I shall leave you to it. There’s some sandwiches in your bedroom if you are hungry. My room is the next one on the left, so if you need anything desperately in the night just let me know. Just don’t let anyone catch you out of your room."

"We will. Thanks James," Sunset replied with a smile.

James nodded. "Goodnight then, girls"  

There was a chorus of goodnight's from the girls as he left, closing the door behind him. Feeling famished, Sunset and the others rushed into the bedroom to find the food and a jug of water laid out on a tray on a dresser unit. Two large beds had been made up, with several extra blankets folded on top of a chest of drawers. Curling up on the beds with sandwiches, the girls finally managed to relax somewhat.

"So, what do you think?" Sunset asked the group, taking a bite out of her sandwich.

"Well I think that the Overseer is an absolute brute!" Rarity replied tartly. 

"He’s got a mean streak all right," Applejack agreed. "Hopefully there’s some more decent folk like James here, too."

"Officer Gomez and Stanley seem like nice people," Fluttershy chimed in.

"James is a gentleman, though he does lack a certain amount of tact." Rarity finished her sandwich and got to her feet. "Right now though, the only thing I care about is a soak." She flicked her hair and sauntered off to the washroom.

Sunset leaned back on a pillow as the sound of running water filled the room. "We’ll find out what everyone else is like soon enough, I guess. We are getting a guided tour of the place tomorrow." 

Pinkie suddenly shot bolt-upright. "Do you think they’ll throw a party?!" 

"Why would they throw a party?" Twilight asked.

"It could be a 'Welcome To The Vault For Our New Friends' party!" Pinkie yelled, waving her arms madly.

"I doubt they will, somehow. Sorry, Pinkie," Sunset told her.

"Awwww" Pinkie slumped back onto the bed.

Rainbow grabbed another sandwich. "I hope we get to see what the outside looks like." 

"You mean the Wastelands? What the heck for?" Applejack asked.

"Hello? Post-apocalyptic wastelands? It sounds totally awesome!" Rainbow exclaimed.

"I bet they’re filled with all sorts of glowy mutants and creeeepy skeletons!" Pinkie added, perking right back up.

"I hope we don’t see them, they don’t sound very nice," Fluttershy muttered.

Twilight tilted her head, her brow furrowing as the thought. "Well, the Vault is sealed, so I don’t think we’ll really be able to see that much. I’m more concerned about the test the Overseer said we’ll be having tomorrow afternoon."

Sunset finished the last of her sandwiches and stood up, brushing crumbs off her lap. "First, we'd all best have a wash and get an early night. We want to make a good impression when we meet the other residents tomorrow."

Applejack tilted her hat back. "You say we should all get an early night tonight, right?"

"Yeah?" Sunset asked.

"So why in the heck did we let Rarity use the washroom first?" Applejack shot 

"I heard that!" Rarity called as the others fell about laughing. 
> Chapter 4 - Vault 101
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset Shimmer woke up early the next morning, Twilight sleeping peacefully beside her. Looking around groggily, she saw Pinkie, Rainbow, and Rarity were still asleep in the double bed. Taking care not to wake anyone, Sunset crept out of bed and made herself a drink. She wrinkled her nose at the laundry basket as she passed by, profoundly grateful that Pinkie had found fresh underwear in the drawers last night, and even more grateful that some of them actually fit. 

Poking her head into the living area, Sunset saw Applejack and Fluttershy still sleeping, each wrapped in blankets on a sofa. Shivering slightly, she decided she’d take a quick shower to warm herself up before getting dressed. 

The shower unit in the washroom was quite nicely sized. Sunset assumed the quarters they were in were originally intended for a family to use. As she had scrubbed herself thoroughly the night before, Sunset didn’t bother this time around, just taking care of the essentials then relaxing and enjoying the hot water. 

Once she was feeling warm and relatively cozy, Sunset got out and dried herself off, idly wondering what she was going to do until someone else woke up. She decided it wasn’t worth trying to think of a way home yet; they needed more information first. She quite fancied doing a little artwork, but didn’t have any of the materials she needed. Deciding she would fiddle with her Pip-Boy for a while, Sunset opened the door, then leapt back with a yelp as she nearly collided with Rarity.

Rarity barely seemed to have noticed. Mumbling incoherently, she waved absently at Sunset as she passed and started running a shower. Sunset quickly left and closed the door before the half-asleep Rarity started stripping herself down. The noise seemed to have woken the others, who were shifting under the covers.  

Twilight rolled over, groping for her glasses. "What’s going on?" 

"It’s just Rarity doing her morning zombie thing," Pinkie answered sleepily. 

"Sorry to wake you, girls," Sunset apologized as she rifled through the drawers.

Twilight yawned widely. "It’s fine, I was awake anyway. I just couldn’t be bothered to move." 

"Mornin’ y’all," Applejack called as she strolled into the room.

"Good morning, everyone," Fluttershy said softly as she came in too, still wrapped in a blanket.

"Morning," Pinkie mumbled, waving from under the covers. 

Sunset slipped into a clean jumpsuit before sitting at the dresser to sort out the tangled mess that was her hair. Applejack perched herself on the bed with Twilight and Fluttershy curled up on the floor with her blanket, bundled up so that all you could see was her face. 

"So, what’s the plan for this morning?" Applejack asked.

"It’s up to you guys," Sunset replied, wrestling with her hair. "If you’re all quick there should be just enough time for everyone to have another shower before someone comes to collect us."

"What time is it?" Rainbow groaned from the bed. 

"Time to get up," Applejack said, whipping the covers back. Rainbow and Pinkie both hissed at the sudden chill and yanked the blanket back over. 

At that moment, Rarity came back out of the washroom, looking refreshed and radiant. "Really, girls, whatever is all the fuss about?" she asked, sauntering over to the dresser where Sunset was still wrestling with her hair. "Allow me, darling," she said, taking the brush. 

"Thanks Rarity." Sunset sighed. The feel of practiced hands running through her hair was incredibly pleasant. 

"Ah guess Ah'll take the next one," Applejack said as she grabbed a towel from the drawers. 

"Too slow!" There was a blur as Rainbow darted into the washroom at top speed.

"Hey, no fair!" Applejack called, thumping on the door as the others laughed. 

Eventually, the girls were all showered and dressed, Rarity’s discovery of a hair dryer in the dresser speeding up the process somewhat. Once they were finished, Rarity sat at the dresser herself to finish off her makeup and style her hair using some cosmetics she’d had in her pockets when they first got dumped in Vault 101. Sunset was sitting at the dining table with Twilight, trying out their Pip-Boys. Between the two of them, Sunset thought they had it mostly figured out.

"How much longer do we have to wait here?" Rainbow asked again.

"It’s not quite nine yet," Sunset said, checking her Pip-Boy. "James said they’ll probably be here around then."

Rarity strolled into the room and dropped onto a sofa. "I do hope we stop off in the diner first. I’m positively famished."

"Me too. Ah hope they got something good to eat," Applejack agreed.

"I just hope the other residents are all nice people," Fluttershy added nervously. The girls all jumped when they heard a knock at the door. 

"Now remember, girls, no magic," Twilight whispered. 

Sunset went to the door, quietly wondering if the others were as nervous as she was. She paused before opening it and looked back at her friends. They all gave her a quick thumbs up. Her heart pounding, Sunset opened the door. 

A young woman was standing on the other side, her jet-black hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her eyes widened slightly as she saw Sunset, but she recovered quickly. "Good morning, my name is Amata Almodovar. I’ll be in charge of showing you around the Vault, and helping you get settled in today."

"Thanks, my name’s Sunset Shimmer," Sunset replied. She gestured at the other girls. "These are Rainbow Dash, Twilight 
Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy." Each of the girls waved as Sunset introduced them. 

Amata couldn’t hold her surprise this time, her eyes going wide and her mouth dropping. "Wow he really wasn’t kidding," she said quietly. Amata looked mortified as Sunset raised an eyebrow. "I-I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to offend you! It’s just that my father said you girls were a little different, but, honestly? I thought he was exaggerating." 

Sunset smiled awkwardly. "It’s alright. I suppose we are a bit out of place here."

Amata ducked her head, blushing slightly. "Do you mind if I come in? There’s some things I’d like to go over before we start the tour."

"Oh, of course. Er… come on in," Sunset said, stepping aside. Amata beamed as she entered the room. Sunset closed the door and sat back at the table. 

Amata stayed standing, looking around at everyone. "Okay, first of all I’d just like to say how exciting it is to have all of you join us here in the Vault. There aren’t really that many people around my age here, and I’m not great friends with the other girls, so when I heard we were getting seven new girls out of the blue I couldn’t believe it." 

Amata spoke very quickly, so excited she seemed fit to burst. "Honestly, I always thought the North wing was totally trashed, I had no idea people were still living in there!"

Sunset felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She had been more than a little worried about how the other Vault residents would react to her and her friends. If Amata could be so excited to meet them, perhaps the others would too.

"Well, it’s nice to finally meet someone who’s happy to see us," Applejack said with a chuckle, clearly thinking along the same lines.

"Hear hear!" Rarity exclaimed. "If we‘re being honest, I must say that being constantly treated like freaks is starting to wear a little thin."

"Oh, but James doesn’t treat us like that," Fluttershy said earnestly.

Rarity twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "True, but he does get a little too… clinical?"

"He’s an egghead, what do you expect?" Rainbow asked.

"Hey!" Twilight said sharply.

The girls all chuckled at that. Sunset was surprised to see Amata joining in. "James can get a little too much into doctor mode," she agreed.

Twilight wiped her glasses on her sleeve. "In his defense, it must be fascinating for him to meet people so different to those he would usually interact with."

"It’s amazing, I’ve never seen anything like your skin before," Amata said, looking curiously around at each of the girls. "James told me it’s caused by something in the air in the North wing. Something that alters the pigmentation in the skin and hair?"

Sunset averted her eyes. "Something like that. We aren't really supposed to talk about it."

"Ah, right, I‘m sorry. The Overseer told me he had forbidden anyone from asking you about the North wing." Amata cocked her head to the side. "I can’t think why, though."

"It was getting too dangerous in there for us to stay," Sunset said quickly. She felt bad about lying to Amata, who seemed genuinely friendly, but they had promised the Overseer.

"That makes sense. I suppose some of the more idiotic residents might get stupid ideas about trying to get in if they heard too much." Amata shrugged. "Still. We may not be able to talk about that, but I would love to get to know each of you better."

"Sounds good to me," Applejack said with a grin.

"First things first, though, let’s get on with the Vault 101 guided tour!" Amata got up and left the room, the others quickly following her. 

Officer Gomez was waiting in the corridor outside. "Morning, girls." He greeted them with a nod. "Sleep well?"

"We did. Thanks, Officer Gomez," Sunset replied. 

"Good to hear, and it’s nice to have you properly joining the Vault too, girls. Let me see, now..." Gomez pointed at each of the girls in turn. "Sunset… Twilight… Rarity… Pinkie… Rainbow… Fluttershy, and… Applejack?"

Twilight nodded and smiled. "Well remembered."

"Well, to be honest, with most of you I just matched the names to the hair." Gomez replied with a smirk. 

Amata turned to Sunset. "The Overseer was adamant that we be escorted by a security detail, and I thought Gomez would be the best choice since he’s already met you. A friendly face, you know?" 

"Where to first, Miss Amata?" Gomez asked.

She made a show of thinking, putting a finger on her chin. "I’m thinking breakfast first. What do you girls think?"

They all agreed enthusiastically to this as Gomez turned and led them through the corridors. 

Following along, Amata fell into step alongside Sunset. "There won’t be many people in the diner this morning. I figured it would be best if there aren’t too many new faces crowding around you at breakfast," she explained, talking loudly enough for all of the girls to hear.

Sunset smiled gratefully. "Thanks. We really appreciate everything you're doing for us." 

Amata waved a hand dismissively. "Don’t mention it. To be honest, this is the first time any of us have ever really met someone new, so this is a bit of a special day for us."

As Sunset opened her mouth to reply, a harsh voice shouted from in front. 

"Jesus! What the hell kind of freaks are you?!" A young man had come around the corner, wearing a leather jacket over his jumpsuit and carrying a tray full of food. He was looking at the girls in disgust.

Officer Gomez growled at him. "You watch your mouth with these girls, Butch. They’ve been through enough." 

"What the hell are you doing down here anyway?!" Amata snarled.

Butch just sneered. "Easy, alright, I’m just taking some food down to my mom. Didn’t expect to be walking into a circus right outside our quarters."

"Circus?! Where?!" Pinkie yelled, looking around excitedly.

"And just what in the heck is that supposed to mean?" Applejack growled.

"Calm down, girls," Gomez warned. "Just get to your quarters, Butch, and I’m warning you, one more harsh word out of your mouth and I’ll have you in confinement. You know what the Overseer said." 

"Alright, alright, I hear you," Butch grumbled as he disappeared down a side corridor. Sunset glared at him until he was out of sight. She had expected such reactions at some point, but not so brazen and not so soon.

Gomez turned to the group. "Sorry about that, girls. Butch is a bit of a rogue."

"A bit of an asshole you mean," Amata muttered darkly, though she softened as she saw the looks on the girl’s faces. "Look, don’t worry about Butch. There are a few thugs in here who think like him, but most of us are just excited to meet new people, whatever they look like."

"Thanks, I guess?" Sunset answered, trying hard to smile. 

"Come on, let’s get you some breakfast. You’ll all feel better after food," Officer Gomez said bracingly. 

As the group started walking again, Sunset glanced around at the others, seeing the worry she felt echoed on their faces. How many attacks like that were they going to have to endure before they got home? 

Humming tunelessly, Gomez led the girls through a doorway marked ‘Diner’ and around a corner, pausing before another door on the right. "Well, here we are. I‘ll be waiting outside here if that‘s alright, Miss Amata."

"Thanks, Officer Gomez. Come on then girls, breakfast time." Amata opened the door and led the way in. 

The girls followed Amata into a large room with a striking red-and-white chequered floor. An old-fashioned song crackled out of a battered jukebox tucked into a corner. There was a row of tables and benches along one wall, and a small counter next to a door in the far corner. Sunset was glad to see there were only three other people in the diner. A bald, bespectacled man was seated at one of the benches with an attractive young woman, and a wrinkled old lady was pottering about over at the counter. The three looked over as the girls entered the room 

Amata gestured to the people in the room. "Good morning, all! Girls, I would like you to meet Lucy Palmer, Floyd Lewis, and Christine Kendall. Everyone, please welcome Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash."

The girls nervously greeted the room as they were named, Sunset impressed that Amata had memorised their names so quickly. The seated man and woman, Floyd and Christine, both tried to quickly hide their surprise and reply, but were cut off as the old lady, Miss Palmer, came bustling over, grinning widely.

"Oh, hello, dears! So good to see new faces. It doesn’t happen anywhere near often enough." Miss Palmer beamed and shook each of the girls’ hands in turn, "Do you know, I honestly thought young James was pulling my leg when he told me about you girls, but here you are! Looking all colourful and exotic, I‘ve never seen anything so spectacular in all my life."

"Well, thank you kindly." Applejack replied, tipping her hat. 

"No need to thank me, dear, it’s just so good to meet new people again after all these years." Miss Palmer pressed a hand to her mouth. "Oh but look at me rambling on, you must be hungry. Come on in and take a seat, there‘s plenty of food on the counter, so just help yourselves, dears."

Thanking Miss Palmer profusely, the girls hastened to the counter where a buffet full of eggs, toast, cereals, and juices sat waiting for them. Grabbing plates and bowlfuls, they quickly found space on the benches and dug in.

Floyd turned in his seat, adjusting his glasses. "So you are the new girls we’ve heard about. We were just wondering when you’d be up and about. How are you finding the vault so far?" 

"So far so good," Sunset replied warily.

"Yeah, the folk we’ve met so far have been pretty nice. Or at least most of them have been," Applejack added.

"We had a little encounter with Butch on the way up here," Amata said in response to Floyd’s querulous look.

Floyd nodded knowingly. "Oh, that little ruffian. Him and his Tunnel Snakes are a pain in the ass down here." 

"Tunnel Snakes?" Twilight asked.

"It’s a gang he set up a few years ago with some of the other young lads in the vault, Floyd replied. "They‘re always harassing someone or other."  

"Oh, I hope we don’t run into them very much," Fluttershy moaned.

The young woman, Christine, looked up at that. "Don’t worry. My dad’s in security, and he says the Overseer wants you kept away from any trouble."

Miss Palmer waved her hand in exasperation. "Oh, enough about those young hooligans. This is your first time having a proper meal here, so let’s not have any miserable talk. Why don’t you tell us a little about yourselves?"

Sunset leaned back, thinking about how to answer. "I’m not sure how much we can say. The Overseer told us we aren’t allowed to speak about anything from before we were allowed into the main Vault."

Amata slumped her shoulders. "I’m sorry, he’s being really fierce on this. It was a nightmare convincing him that we could be trusted to eat breakfast without a security detail."

"You don’t need to apologize to me, my dear," Miss Palmer said with a huff. "I know better even than you what your father is like about his rules and secrets." 

Twilight looked over at Amata. "Your father… the Overseer?" 

"Yeah, though to be honest I’ve always seen him more as ‘The Overseer’, if you get what I mean," Amata replied.

Christine shifted in her seat. "So… I’ve got to ask… are those your real names? Or are they just nicknames?" 

Listening to the others as they continued chatting away, Sunset felt relieved. They were getting on far better with these new people than she had dared to hope. With any luck, the rest of the residents would be just as nice, and her and Twilight would be able to quickly find a safe way back home. 

Once the girls had finished eating, Amata stood up. "Alright then, girls, if you are all finished, it’s time for your guided tour of Vault 101," she said with a smile.

"Do you want us to help with the dishes first?" Fluttershy asked as the girls got to their feet.

Floyd huffed a laugh. "No, it’s alright, thank you. Now that we’re all done, I can test the dishwasher. See if Christine repaired it properly." He chuckled, earning a glare from Christine. The girls said their goodbyes and followed Amata out of the Diner to where Officer Gomez was leaning against a wall, chatting to James. 

"Good morning, James," Amata said as she saw him.

"Good morning to you too, and to all of you as well," he answered, smiling as each of the girls greeted him in return. "How are you finding the Vault so far?"

Rarity put her hands on her hips. "Well, the décor is a little drab, and frankly the fashion sense here seems a little… standard… but I suppose we’ll have to make do for now."

"I can’t deny that," James laughed. "Now if you will excuse me, I hear my breakfast calling." 

Officer Gomez stood away from the wall as James disappeared into the Diner. "Ready to carry on?"

"Absolutely. Lead on," Amata replied.

"Alright, follow me then, girls," Gomez said brightly.

"Aren’t you going to have anything?" Fluttershy asked.

Gomez shook his head. "No, I’ve already had my breakfast. Early mornings when you’re in Vault Security."

Turning down another corridor, Gomez and Amata led the girls through the maze-like corridors of the Vault. Amata described each section and what they were used for as they passed through each area. 

They saw several other residents of the Vault on their tour, many of whom stopped to chat with the new additions to their little community. Most of them seemed friendly enough, though a lot of them were wary of the girls. All of them were utterly shocked at the bright colors of the girls’ skin and hair, though very few were openly rude about it, and those that were quickly apologized under Gomez and Amata’s angry glares. 

Finally, they reached the Security Office, where Amata told the girls she had to leave them for a while. As Amata walked away, Sunset couldn’t help feeling a twinge of dismay. The Overseer’s daughter was the most friendly person she’d met in this strange new world. 

The security office was small, containing several large metal lockers and a little computer terminal sat on a table, with a single door leading to a cell in the back. The only other person in the office was a man Sunset recognised as Chief Hannon, the one who had been guarding their room the night before.

Officer Gomez snapped a salute as he entered the office. "Chief Hannon, we’ve completed the preliminary tour of the Vault."

"Did any of these girls cause any problems during the tour?" Hannon asked.

"No, sir, they’ve been good as gold," Gomez replied crisply.

"Were there any issues with the other residents?" Hannon pressed.

Gomez shook his head. "Nothing major. Had a bit of lip from Butch, but nothing to worry about."

Chief Hannon just grunted. "Typical. Very well, please report to the Overseer for further instructions." 

As Officer Gomez snapped another salute and left, Chief Hannon turned to the girls, clasping his hands behind his back and standing tall. 

"I am Security Chief Hannon. I command the Vault 101 Security Force, and it is my job to ensure that the Overseer’s rules are followed to the letter." Hannon cleared his throat before continuing. "The Overseer has ordered me and my team to keep you lot out of trouble. Having you follow the rules will make my job a lot easier, and if you make my job easier, I‘ll do what I can to make your lives here easier. If you do run into any problems with the other residents, do not go around picking fights. You report it straight to me, and I will deal with it. Is that understood?"

"We understand," Sunset replied. "Chief Hannon," she added quickly as he narrowed his eyes at her.

"Good. With that out of the way, the Overseer wants to see you before you go back downstairs." Hannon stepped past the girls and gestured for them to follow. "Follow me." The girls followed him back out of the Security Office and around a corner into a reception area. "Wait here. The Overseer will call you in when he’s ready." Chief Hannon said, then abruptly turned and walked away, leaving them alone.

"What was that about?" Rainbow asked as she flung herself into a chair. 

"He wanted us to know he was in charge, that’s what that was about," Applejack said, grabbing a seat herself. "Ah’m guessing he ain’t so fond of us."

Pinkie pranced around the room, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. "He did say if we make his job easier he’ll make our lives easier, so let’s try and make his job easier!" 

Sunset leaned against a wall, trying to ease the tension she felt. "Pinkie’s right, we just have to stay on his good side. Let’s just try and stay out of trouble while we’re here."

"I don’t know if you’ve noticed, darling, but trouble always seems to find us," Rarity put in.

"You’re right," Sunset sighed. "Still, we shouldn’t go looking for any more problems while we’re here."

"I agree, and if we do come across anything, we should do as he says and report it right away," Twilight added.

The girls stood quickly as a door opened and Officer Gomez stepped out with the Overseer. The Overseer looked them all over before speaking, "Well, girls, Officer Gomez informs me that your behavior so far has been impeccable, and your interactions with our residents have been courteous and kind. I hope you shall continue to hold yourself to this high standard."

Glad that the Overseer finally seemed to be warming to them, Sunset smiled. "We will, Overseer." 

"Excellent. While I am sure you remember, I would like to reiterate that under no circumstances are you to speak to anyone else about your time before you joined the Vault population," the Overseer reminded the group. "Should anyone attempt to pry, you are to report it immediately to either myself, or one of my security personnel. Is that clear?"

"Of course," Sunset replied.

The Overseer frowned slightly, crossing his arms. "I understand you have had a somewhat unpleasant meeting with Butch this morning. I have ordered Chief Hannon to personally ensure that he and his cronies do not cause you too much grief during your stay. Consider it a favor, in exchange for your cooperation in keeping our little secrets. Now, I believe that concludes our little chat. Officer Gomez, I leave them with you."

The girls followed Officer Gomez back out into the corridors as the Overseer went back into his office.

Sunset smiled as she turned to Gomez. Things were looking up. "Where to now, Officer?"

"Well, it’s just about lunchtime, so I’ll take you back down to the Diner," Gomez replied. "Amata should be waiting there, too. Once you’ve finished your food I’ll be taking you to the Classroom and leaving you with Mr Brotch."

Twilight seemed to curl inwards at that. "What kind of tests will he be giving us?" 

Gomez smiled softly. "Today I reckon he’ll just put you through the G.O.A.T to see what kind of work would best suit you."

The girls glanced around at each other in confusion. "Er…goat?" Applejack asked.

Officer Gomez just laughed brightly. "You’ll see soon enough." Heading through the Vault, Officer Gomez led them quickly back to the Diner. Stopping outside, he gestured to the door with a flourish. "After you, girls."

Giving him a quizzical look, Sunset pressed the button. As the door slid open she was greeted by a wave of sound. "Surprise!"

A whole crowd of people shouted and set off party poppers, showering the girls in confetti and glitter. A large paper sign saying ‘Welcome!’ had been hung from the ceiling, and the jukebox in the corner had been set to play a jaunty little tune.

Grinning widely, Sunset led the others into the room. "Wow, what is all this?" 

"It’s your welcoming party." Amata grinned back, moving to the front of the group. "We decided we’d hold it after you’d seen a little of the Vault and met a few people already. Less overwhelming and all that."

"WOOHOO!! BEST SURPRISE VAULT WELCOMING PARTY EVER!!" Pinkie screamed, bounding off into the room.

"This is amazing," Sunset said as the other girls followed Pinkie into the crowd. "You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble."

"It was nothing, we don’t have events like this very often. Having new people in the Vault is a once in a lifetime thing, so we figured we’d go all out." Amata gestured into the room. "Go ahead, have fun."

"Come on, Sunset, they have cake!" Pinkie called.

Grinning, Sunset wandered into the crowd. There were plenty of people there that she had met already, but all of them kept coming back to talk to the girls. They refrained from asking about life in the North Wing, Sunset was glad to notice, but everyone still had plenty to talk about. 

Pinkie was in her element, bouncing around exuberantly as she threw confetti and ate her way through more cake than Sunset could imagine. Rarity was eagerly discussing beauty products with a gaggle of women, while Applejack and Rainbow Dash took turns arm wrestling Gomez and several of the other men, including a few more security officers who had turned up. Fluttershy had safely ensconced herself in a corner between James and his young assistant, Jonas.

Determined to get herself some cake, Sunset made her way slowly through the crowd. She could barely walk a couple of feet without someone stopping her to welcome her excitedly. As she managed to peel herself away from Miss Palmer and her friend Grandma Taylor, Twilight suddenly appeared out of the crowd. "Looking for this?" she asked, holding out a plateful of cake.

Sunset took it gratefully. "You read my mind!"

"Should we find somewhere to sit?" Twilight asked, stuffing a piece into her mouth.

Looking through the crowd, Sunset spotted a place. "This way," she said, grabbing Twilight’s hand. Before anyone else could stop them for a chat, Sunset and Twilight slid onto an empty bench at one of the tables, opposite a young man and woman they hadn’t met before.

"Nice to meet you." The young man grinned as the girls sat down. "My name’s Tom Holden, and this is my wife, Mary." The young woman smiled shyly as her husband introduced them. 

Sunset smiled brightly at them. "Nice to meet you too, I’m Sunset Shimmer and this is Twilight Sparkle."

"Cool names," Tom said brightly.

"Thanks. So, what do you two do around here?" Sunset asked, helping herself to the cake.

Tom grimaced. "I’m a waste management specialist. I’m in charge of organizing all waste and recycling facilities."

"It could be worse, Tom," Mary said quietly, "I’m a beautician, though I also work as a masseuse." 

"What about you two? Tom asked.

Twilight shook her head. "Well, we aren’t really sure yet. We have to speak to Mr Brotch later. Apparently, he’ll be giving us our work placements." 

"Oh, cool." Tom looked around quickly then leaned forward, lowering his voice. "Look, I gotta ask. What was it like? You know, living in the North wing?"

"Tom!?" Mary moaned anxiously.

Sunset shared an anxious look with Twilight. "We aren’t really supposed to talk about it." 

"That’s right, the Overseer was very insistent," Twilight added. 

Something large and pink jumped out from under the table suddenly, startling the four of them. Pinkie straightened up and leaned in. "It’s a secret!" she whispered loudly. Looking around conspiratorially, she melted seamlessly back into the crowd. 

"Where the hell did she just come from?!" Tom spluttered.

Sunset giggled at the terrified look on his face. "That’s Pinkie Pie, it’s kind of what she does." 

"I’m amazed she managed to get under the table without any of us noticing," Mary said blankly.

"Yep, that’s Pinkie," Twilight said, laughing nervously. "I’m just going to get some more cake, do you want any, Sunset?" 

Sunset nodded. "Oh, yes please."

"I think I’ll join you in that," Tom said eagerly. 

"Definitely," Mary agreed.

The three of them got up and headed through the crowd. Almost as soon as they disappeared, Amata appeared and slipped onto the bench opposite Sunset. "So, what do you think?" she asked.

"This is amazing," Sunset told her sincerely. "Really, I can’t thank you enough." 

Amata grinned at her. "It was nothing. I’m amazed so many people turned up, to be honest. Though, I shouldn’t be surprised really, given the circumstances. None of us have ever met anyone new, let alone anyone so… out there!"

Sunset smiled awkwardly. She was slowly getting used to people commenting on her skin and hair by now, but it was still a strange feeling.

"So, I guess you’re kind of the group leader?" Amata asked suddenly.

"Who, me?" Sunset asked, surprised. "No, not really."

Amata raised her eyebrows. "Really? The others seem to look to you for guidance so I just assumed you were the one in charge."

"That’s because she is. Or at least she may as well be," Applejack said suddenly, leaning over the back of the bench.

"I agree, we really could use a group leader, and Sunset would be the most logical choice," Twilight added as she returned with cake, the other girls in tow.

"Indeed," Rarity put in as she slid next to Amata. "You’re the perfect person for the job."

"Absolutely, though Ah’m surprised you aren’t kicking up a fuss over it, Rainbow?" Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow.

Rainbow shook her head, grinning. "Nah, Sunset’s got this. Besides, leaders get all the responsibilities and stuff. If Sunset’s leader it just gives me more room to show off how awesome I am," Rainbow pointed out.

"Sunshim’s large and in charge," Pinkie quipped.

"I agree, Sunset’s definitely the leader," Fluttershy said with a smile.

"Wow, thanks, guys," Sunset said, touched by their words.

Fluttershy giggled softly. "I can’t believe how much things have changed since the Fall Formal."

"The Fall Formal?" Amata asked. The girls all looked at each other awkwardly, not sure how to explain without breaking the Overseer’s rules.

"It was a sort of… party… that we held in the, uh, North wing," Sunset said. 

Rarity nodded slowly. "Back then we weren’t exactly on the best of terms with each other."

"Thanks to Sunset!" Pinkie added with a smirk.

"Wait, what?" Amata looked even more confused.

Sunset ran a hand through her hair, trying to hide her embarrassment. "I was… well… not a very nice person back then."

"Meaning she was a devious, backstabbing, manipulative, raging she-demon determined to grab power at any cost," Applejack clarified. "No offence," she added with a wink. Sunset just smirked at her.

"Wow, sounds like you were a real bitch," Amata said flatly.

"Er, yeah." Sunset admitted, frowning at the language.

An awkward silence fell at her words. After a few excruciating seconds, Rarity cleared her throat. "Yes, well, it all worked out in the end, at least." 

"Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you," Amata said sheepishly.

"It’s alright, I got used to it a while ago," Sunset replied quickly. She brushed crumbs off her lap and stood up, "I‘m just going to go to the restroom. Is there one near here?"

"Oh, yes. Just head back through the apartment section to your quarters and you should see them on the right," Amata replied.

Sunset thought back, then nodded curtly. "Oh yeah, I remember now. Thanks." She left the table and made her way through the crowd as quickly as she could. She was surprised by the way the people here so casually spouted profanities. Sunset supposed that it must be some sort of cultural difference. Once out of the diner, she made her way swiftly through the corridors and into the ladies restrooms. 

Grateful for the peace and quiet, Sunset decided to wait a little while before she headed back. The air in the restroom was pleasantly cool, and the whole room was silent save for the gentle hum of the air conditioning unit, but Sunset knew she couldn’t enjoy it for too long. Someone was bound to come looking for her soon. Leaving the restroom, she was about to head back to the Diner before a voice called her back, "Hey! New girl!"

Sunset looked over her shoulder. Butch was leaning against the wall next to the restrooms. Seeing her stop, he straightened up and strutted over to her.

"So, you’re the leader of the new freaks from North wing?" Butch said with a sneer, "I’m Butch, leader of the Tunnel Snakes. Our gang rules this place down here, so you watch your step around us."

Sunset felt her temper rising. A typical bully tactic, ambushing someone while they’re alone she thought, remembering a time when she operated the same way. She took a deep breath, calming herself down. Sunset had changed, so maybe she could help him do the same. At the very least, she wanted to make as few enemies in this new world as she could. "Look, Butch, we don’t want any trouble down here, and the Overseer is going to come down hard on anyone who tries to cause problems with us."

"You think I’m scared of the Overseer? I’m the top dog, er, snake, around here!" Butch snapped

"If that was true you wouldn't have waited until I was alone down here to say something," Sunset countered with a smirk, then realized what she was doing. Probably not the best way to defuse the situation, she scolded herself. Sunset realized she was even more tense than she had thought. Taking another quick breath to cool her head, she continued before he had a chance to snap at her again, "Anyway, is this really worth the hassle? Look, I know me and my friends look different to the rest of you, and that we stand out a bit much, but that doesn’t mean we can‘t be friends." Sunset extended a hand. 

Butch hesitated for a moment, then smirked at her and crossed his arms. "You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that. What was your name again?"

Sunset slowly lowered her hand. "Sunset Shimmer."

Butch sneered. "Freaky name for a freaky chick." He suddenly leaned in closer. "You definitely look more normal than most of your weirdo buddies, how about you and me go somewhere and find out just how freaky you are?"

Sunset slapped away his hand as he went to stroke her face, throwing him a disgusted look. "I’m not interested in bullies, or anyone who insults my friends."

Butch stepped back with a frown. "If that’s the way you want it, but I’d be more polite if I were you. That little one with the yellow skin and pink hair? I’d say she looks like an easy mark."

Before Sunset could retort, she heard heavy footsteps behind her. Looking around, she saw a security officer stepping slowly towards them, tapping his baton against his leg. Something about him sent cold shivers running down Sunset’s spine. He grinned as he stalked closer, running a gloved hand over his close-cropped hair. 

"Fancy seeing one of the newbies down here all alone with Butch. Having a nice little chat?" The security officer's voice was gruff, and there was something oily about it that made Sunset cringe.

"None of your business, Mack," Butch replied haughtily, though Sunset noticed his hands were balled into fists.

Mack smiled, showing yellowed teeth. "I think you’ll find it is my business. The Overseer wants us Security boys to keep a close eye one the new girls. Keep them out of trouble." He pointed his baton at Butch. "Not talking about the North wing, I hope?"

"We weren’t," Sunset said quickly.

"Best not have been, or I’d have to punish you both for breaking the rules," Mack said, smacking his baton into the palm of his hand for emphasis. 

Sunset flinched. He was enjoying threatening them far too much. Butch surprised her, stepping up to Mack so they were almost nose to nose. "I’d love to see you try it." he snarled. Sunset was surprised. She had taken Butch for a cowardly bully, but she decided he must have some courage to stand up to an armed man like that.

Mack glared into Butch‘s eyes. "Oh? You think I’ll let you off easy ‘cos my bro’s in your pathetic little gang?"

Butch just smirked. "Nah, I think you don’t have the stones to try it. You know I’d kick your ass from one end of this Vault to the other." 

Sunset watched them both squaring off, not sure whether to shout for help or not. 

Finally Mack stepped back. "If I find out you have been asking questions about North wing, or causing trouble with the new girls, I’ll make sure the Chief lets me cave your skull in," he said menacingly.

Butch puffed himself up. "I couldn’t give a crap about the North wing. I bet all that‘s left in there is mutant shit and radroaches. I don’t have time for this." He stalked off around the corner to his quarters, making sure to shove Mack with his shoulder as he left. 

Sunset tensed, afraid Mack would lash out, but he simply stood and glared after Butch. "I should probably get back to the party," Sunset said quietly. 

As she made to leave, Mack slammed a hand into the wall, barring her path. "Before you go, just a friendly word of advice," he growled, bringing his face close to hers. Sunset tried to back away but he stepped around, forcing her against the wall. His breath reeked as it washed over Sunset’s face. 

"Like I said, the Overseer wants us security guys to keep an eye on you girls, and I intend to keep a very close eye on you. For your own… protection." Mack leered, running his eyes up and down Sunset’s body in a way that made her skin crawl. "You go getting yourself mixed up with Butch, and people are going to think you’re up to no good."

"It won‘t happen again," Sunset said defiantly.

"See that it doesn’t. The Chief says you lot are to be looked after for now, but if I do catch you causing problems, or trying to stir up trouble, I promise you, I will fuck you up. Is that clear?" Mack asked, pressing the tip of his baton under Sunset’s chin.

Sunset froze, unable to answer. This man was dangerous in a way she’d never dealt with before. She desperately hoped someone would come down looking for her. As if in answer to her thoughts, a voice belted out from down the corridor. 

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" Amata yelled as she stormed down the corridor, Officer Gomez and the rest of the girls close on her heels. 

Mack stepped away from Sunset and sheathed his baton. "Just making sure she remembers the rules." 

Amata shoved him aside, seething. Rarity took hold of Sunset’s arm and gently pulled her into the middle of the group as Applejack and Rainbow Dash stood protectively in front of her.

"What the hell was she doing?!" Officer Gomez snapped, glaring at Mack.

Sunset shook her head quickly. "Butch showed up when I came out of the restrooms. I tried to reason with him so he would leave us alone."

Mack sneered at her. "She decided she wanted a go at Butch instead of coming to find one of us security guys."

"You didn’t really give me a chance, did you?" Sunset spat.

Looking resigned, Officer Gomez turned to Amata. "You’d best take the girls back upstairs, you’re going to be late as it is. I’ll handle everything down here and hand in a report to Chief Hannon."

"Thanks, Gomez," Amata replied, still looking furious. "Come on, girls, let’s get the hell out of here." She led the girls back upstairs, muttering angrily under her breath. 

As they passed the diner, the party still going on inside, Applejack turned to Sunset. "You alright, sugarcube?" 

Sunset wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop herself from shaking. "I think so." 

Amata sighed heavily. "I’m sorry about that, Sunset. Mack’s a nasty piece of work."

"He’s an absolute brute!" Rarity snapped, "Are we really supposed to feel safe with monsters like that on the security team?"

"Believe me, I know how you feel," Amata said earnestly. "I’ll have a word with my father. I don’t care what his reasoning was, he went too far there. I’ll make sure he stays away from you from now on."

Sunset took a deep breath, steadying her nerves. She felt a lot better now that she was with her friends. "Thanks. Why were all of you coming downstairs, anyway?"

"We were coming to get you, it‘s time to go to the classroom," Fluttershy replied. "Amata said to wait in the diner while she fetched you, but we thought you might be feeling down and needing some company."

"Officer Gomez was supposed to be escorting us for the rest of the day, but he’ll be stuck dealing with Officer Mack for a while," Amata explained with a huff. "Don’t worry, Mack won’t do anything more to jeopardise his position on the security team. He enjoys it too much."

"I noticed," Sunset said with a shiver.

Amata smiled reassuringly. "Officer Gomez has more pull with both Chief Hannon and the Overseer at the moment. He’ll make sure Mack doesn’t give you any more grief."

The girls walked on in silence for a little way, Sunset desperately hoping she and her friends could avoid any more incidents like that. She decided not to mention what Butch had said about Fluttershy just yet. She’d wait until Flutters was in the shower or out of earshot before she brought it up with the others. They would have to come up with a way of keeping her safe from him and his cronies.

Sunset was still lost in her thoughts when she walked headlong into Rainbow Dash. Amata had stopped them outside a room marked ‘Classroom’. 

Amata turned, biting her lip. "I’m sorry, I had hoped your first real day here would go a little better than that."

Sunset shook her head. "It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault, and you’ve done more than enough to help us already."

Amata nodded. "Well, hopefully things go a bit better for you from here on out. I have to get back to work after this, but if you ever need anything, please don’t hesitate to let me know."

"Thank you, you’ve been a real help," Sunset said gratefully. The other girls all agreed with her, thanking Amata in turn. She smiled shyly and knocked on the door.

"Come on in," a voice called. 

Entering the room, the girls saw several rows of seats with small desks. A projector in the middle of the room pointed to a large blackboard on the wall. A middle-aged man with black hair and spectacles was waiting alongside a ginger-haired young woman. The young woman’s eyes went wide as the girls entered the room, but the man didn’t react at all. Sunset supposed he either had very good self control, or was just so jaded that nothing fazed him anymore. Perhaps a bit of both, she thought.  

"Good to see you‘ve finally remembered where the classroom is, Amata," the man said, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "I was beginning to wonder if I needed to send out a search party."

"Sorry, Mr Brotch, we had a bit of an incident downstairs," Amata replied.

Mr Brotch frowned slightly. "I see. Has it been resolved safely now?"

"Yes," Amata said confidently. "I thought I’d best bring the girls here to you before I report to the Overseer"

Mr Brotch nodded curtly. "In that case, I won’t keep you any longer. Thank you, Amata."

"No problem. See you later, girls," Amata said as she left the room.

Once she had left, Mr Brotch turned to the girls. "Good afternoon, girls. Please, take a seat."

The girls hurried to sit down. Mr Brotch waited patiently until they had stopped fidgeting before he spoke again, "My name is Edwin Brotch, and this is my assistant, Susie Mack." Sunset tried not to flinch as she heard the name, realizing Susie must be a relative of Officer Mack.

Mr Brotch continued, thankfully not noticing her discomfort, "I’m the Vault’s teacher, so I would prefer if you refer to me as Mr Brotch, at least to my face. I hope you’ve enjoyed the Vault so far because this is where it gets boring. Susie and I shall be assessing your current level of education, and deciding on the most suitable roles for each of you in our little community."

Once he finished speaking, Susie handed him a clipboard. He glanced at the notes on it, then looked back up at the girls as Susie started placing sheets of paper face down in front of each of them. 

"I am currently in the very unusual position of not having a clue who any of you are," Mr Brotch said cheerfully. "I have a list here of your names, but I would like to put those names to faces, if that’s alright. Just put your hand up and say ’here’ when I call your name, please. First up, we have Sunset Shimmer?"

"Here," Sunset said, raising her hand.

Mr Brotch nodded and made a note on the clipboard. "Very well, Twilight Sparkle?" He made his way quickly through most of the girls, getting Rarity, Fluttershy and Applejack out of the way. "That just leaves Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. I doubt I’ll win any prizes for guessing which of you is which." Mr Brotch smirked as he looked over at them. "Now that that is out of the way, it is time for you to be put through the G.O.A.T. Have any of you been told what that is?"

The girls all shook their heads. This time it was Susie who spoke to them, "G.O.A.T stands for Generalised Occupational Aptitude Test. We use it to decide what job would be most suitable for each member of the Vault."

Mr Brotch nodded. "Correct. The only problem is that the G.O.A.T is usually used in conjunction with previous test scores and other such criteria picked up in class. Obviously, I don’t have that kind of data with me, so we are just going to have to play it by ear and go by the notes I’ve been given on each of you."

Twilight threw her hand up in the air, looking worried. "But we haven’t had any chance to study, what happens if we fail the test?"

Mr Brotch smiled. "Well it’s a multi-choice questionnaire with no wrong answers, so I’m sure you’ll all be fine. Just make sure to answer each of the questions and hand it in to me when you are done. Once it’s over, we’ll go over the results and discuss what knowledge and training you will require to fit into your new roles. Are there any questions?"

The girls all looked at each other nervously, but no one raised their hand.

"In that case, please turn over your exams sheets and let’s get started." There was a flurry of sheets being turned over. "Question one. You are approached by a frenzied Vault scientist, who yells, ‘I'm going to put my quantum harmonizer in your photonic resonation chamber!’. What's your response?"

There was a moment's silence, then each of the girls cried in unison, "Huh?!"
> Chapter 5 - Time To Go
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ugh, I hate this stupid Vault," Sunset moaned as she trudged back towards her quarters. Her shoulders were slumped from exhaustion, and she was spattered with oil, dirt, and blood. Thankfully, none of it was her own. 

Twilight trudged along with her. The crisp white lab coat she had been given was covered in the same muck that now decorated Sunset. "He didn't take it well, then?"

"Nope," Sunset replied.

Twilight groaned. "Did he say how much trouble we're in?" 

Sunset shook her head. "Thankfully, none. He agrees it was Wally's own stupid fault for sticking his hand in there after we told him not to."

Twilight hung her head with a sigh. "That's a relief."

"Hey, you guys!" They both looked up as they heard a voice and spotted Fluttershy just returning from the clinic.

"So, how's Wally?" Sunset asked.

Fluttershy smiled, unrolling her sleeves. "It's just some minor burns and a few bruises. Jonas should have him all better in no time." 

Sunset nodded. "And Officer Armstrong?"

Fluttershy winced. "He‘s still sore, but his nose has stopped bleeding and he‘s feeling a lot better now."

"That‘s good," Twilight said quietly.

Sunset looked over at Fluttershy as they walked along. She and Twilight were the only ones who had been given lab coats to wear when working. After the G.O.A.T Sunset was being trained as an engineer. Twilight was now a Systems Programmer, Rarity had been made a Vault Stylist, Pinkie the new Vault Baker and Rainbow Dash a Physical Trainer. Poor Applejack had been stuck in the maintenance department. As for Fluttershy… "How're you finding being a nurse?"

"It's nice. James is teaching me all sorts of things and Jonas is being really kind to me," Fluttershy answered, smiling sweetly. 

"I'm amazed you can deal with the needles and blood and things," Twilight admitted.

Fluttershy shrugged, tucking her hair behind her ear. "It was a little scary at first, but I'm starting to get used to it. James has been teaching me how to just focus on what you have to do and put off worrying about it until later."

"So… doctor mode, followed by freak-out?" Twilight asked.

Fluttershy smiled serenely. "Yep."

The three of them laughed softly as they made their way slowly back to their quarters, Sunset and Twilight particularly looking forward to getting some sleep. Jabbing the door button, they saw Pinkie, Rainbow, Applejack and Rarity sitting around the table waiting for them. 

"We're back," Sunset called sleepily.

"Well it's about time," Applejack huffed, then did a double-take as she saw them. "Good gravy! What the heck happened to you two?"

Twilight collapsed onto a sofa. "We decided we'd try and fix the jukebox before we turned in for the night."

"Did you find out what was wrong with it?" Pinkie asked eagerly.

Sunset grimaced as she dropped down next to Twilight. "We found a dead radroach in there, it looked like it had gotten fried on the motherboard." 

"Cool." Rainbow grinned. "What happened then?"

Twilight groaned, shrugging off her lab coat. "We were taking a break and having a drink when Wally came in."

"Oh dear. I think I see where this is going," Rarity muttered darkly.

Sunset nodded. "Yep, he starts fiddling with it. We told him to leave it alone but he just ignored us as usual." 

"So of course he got electrocuted," Twilight waved her hands halfheartedly.

"Good riddance," Applejack mumbled under her breath.

Sunset huffed a laugh and curled up into a ball. "Yeah, but while he was flailing around he managed to smack Officer Armstrong in the face, so we ended up having to take both of them to the clinic then go and report it to the Overseer."

"Well, at least now you're back we can all get some sleep," Rarity said, stifling a yawn. "Whose turn is it on the sofas tonight?"

Sunset groaned. "Mine and Twilight's." 

Applejack chuckled. "Alright, we'll see you in the morning, then. G'night, you two."  

The girls all said goodnight to each other. Twilight and Sunset set up blankets on a sofa each as the others retreated to the bedroom. Sunset sighed as she heaved her utility jumpsuit off, her tools hitting the floor with a heavy thud. As she climbed under the blankets, she looked over at Twilight. "How did the experiment with James go?"

Twilight frowned as she placed her glasses on the arm of the sofa. "Not good. I don't think we can replicate the technology he was using when we got dragged here. I'm going to ask the Overseer tomorrow if I can check the old maps of the outside. Maybe we can find out where that tool he was using came from." 

"It's worth a shot. It's hard to believe we've been here over a month already." Sunset yawned widely, too tired to be upset about this most recent failure. "Goodnight Twilight."

"Goodnight Sunset," Twilight replied.

Sunset rolled over and tried to sleep. She hated sleeping on the sofa; she could never quite get comfortable. When she finally did manage to drift off, she slept fitfully, the sound of sirens filling her dreams. What felt like only moments after she had fallen asleep Sunset was shaken awake. As she came to, she saw a familiar figure standing over her.

"Well it's about darn time!" Applejack exclaimed. "How can you manage to sleep through that racket?!"

"Huh? What's wrong?" Sunset asked groggily. Hauling herself up, Sunset realized that the sirens hadn't been part of her dreams at all, but were blaring loud and insistently through the room. It was only because of how exhausted she had been that she had slept through them at all. All of the other girls were sitting at the table, fully dressed.

"A radroach infestation, I think," Twilight replied. "Those alarms have been going off for a while now, and the Overseer has been on the P.A system telling everyone to stay in their quarters." 

Sunset groaned and wrapped the blanket around herself. "Why did you bother waking me up?" 

Rarity patted her on the shoulder. "Just in case, darling. Come on now, you'd better get dressed."

Sunset groaned again and got to her feet, shrugging off the blanket. A sudden urgent knock at the door made her grab the blanket and throw it around herself again. Pinkie looked back to make sure Sunset had covered her underwear before she opened the door. The girls gasped as Officer Gomez lurched into the room, supporting another security officer whose leg was utterly drenched in blood. 

"Sweet molasses, what happened to him?!" Applejack exclaimed as she and Rainbow rushed forward to help. Between the three of them they managed to maneuver the injured officer onto the sofa Sunset had just vacated. 

"Radroaches, I think," Gomez panted, shifting out of the way so Fluttershy could get to the sofa. "I found him slumped outside the doc's quarters, figured it would be better to bring him straight to Fluttershy than try and drag him up to the clinic first." 

"Someone get my first aid kit!" Fluttershy snapped, pulling the officer's helmet off and anxiously checking his pulse. Sunset recognized him as Officer Kendall; a nice enough man, but strict and very no-nonsense. His skin was deathly pale and he was moaning in pain, barely even conscious. 

"Why didn't you take him straight to James?" Sunset asked, frowning at Officer Gomez as Rarity hurried over and thrust the first aid kit into Fluttershy's hands. 

Officer Gomez raised an eyebrow, still breathing hard. "You haven't heard? James is gone. He left the Vault."

The girls stared at him, all except Fluttershy who was busy tending to the vicious wound on Kendall's leg, stuck in ‘doctor mode' as she put it. 

"What do you mean he left the Vault?" Applejack asked incredulously. "Ah thought this place had been shut tight for darn near twenty years?"

"It has. Hell, the only reason it hasn't been shut for longer is because we let him in. We needed a doctor and he needed a safe place to raise his son, seemed like a fair deal." Gomez shook his head. His face was dripping with sweat, "I just wish I knew why he left now. As far as we can tell, he escaped during all the confusion of this latest radroach infestation."

"What about Adam?" Sunset asked. From all that James had told her about how dangerous the Wasteland was, she couldn't imagine him taking his son with him out there. Not after all the trouble he had gone through to bring him into the safety of the Vault in the first place.

"He's gone, too. As far as I can tell, James left without telling Adam anything. He just up and went during the chaos these radroaches have caused, must have been planning for Adam to stay here." Gomez shook his head sadly. "Of course, the moment Adam found out what his dad had done, he went charging off after him." 

"Good gracious," Rarity breathed. 

Sunset shared an anxious look with Twilight. James was their only real hope of getting back home. "How long ago did they leave?" 

"No idea how long James has been gone, but Adam? Maybe a few hours. I'm not really sure." Gomez sighed heavily. "To be honest, I spoke to Adam before he left. I was supposed to bring him in for questioning, but I let him go. He's a good kid, he didn't deserve this." Gomez suddenly looked shiftily around at each of the girls. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention this to the Overseer."

"Don't worry, Gomez, we won't rat you out." Rainbow smiled and gave him a friendly thump on the shoulder.

"Thanks, girls." He huffed a laugh, then frowned as he looked back at his fellow officer. "How is he?"

Fluttershy jerked her head noncommittally. She had cut away the leg of his jumpsuit and was just finishing applying a bandage. "He's lost an awful lot of blood, but I've disinfected the wound, stitched it up, and given him a stimpak to help with the clotting and lost fluids." She tied the bandage off and stood up, wiping her bloody hands on a towel. "I don't think his life is in immediate danger any more, but we should get him to the clinic so we can hook him up to an IV and get Jonas to take a good look at him." Fluttershy's hands started to shake slightly as she spoke. "Oh my goodness, that was so scary," she muttered to herself. 

Gomez' face fell when Fluttershy mentioned Jonas. "I'm afraid it's just you."

"What do you mean?" Fluttershy asked, perplexed. Her eyes widened as she dropped the bloody towel. "Oh no! Jonas isn't hurt is he?!"

Gomez looked sadly at her. "I didn't want to be the one to tell you this but… Jonas is dead."

There were cries of shock and grief from each of the girls. Fluttershy stared at Officer Gomez, as if hoping this were some sort of sick joke. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. 

Fluttershy shook her head, tears welling up. Sunset dropped the blanket and threw her arms around Fluttershy, not giving a damn that she was still in her underwear as her friend started to sob. 

"How did… how did it happen? The radroaches?" Applejack asked, pulling her Stetson off and holding it over her heart. 

"N-no." Gomez cleared his throat. "No, it was on the Overseer's orders. He thought Jonas knew where James had gone. He ordered Chief Hannon to beat the information out of him but Officer Mack… he…" Gomez sighed and shook his head again. "He was out of control."

Sunset's blood felt like ice in her veins as Fluttershy sobbed harder in her arms. The thought of Officer Mack beating poor Jonas to death, on the Overseer's orders no less, shook her to her core. Sunset and her friends had dealt with danger before, sometimes even putting their lives on the line, but they had never actually had to deal with a death like that. Magic, luck and friendship had always seen them through before the worst could happen. 

Clutching Fluttershy tightly, Sunset realized she only cared about one thing right now. She would get her friends home safely, no matter what it took. To do that she needed James, and to find him…

"We have to leave the Vault."

A moment of silence followed her little proclamation.

"You said it, sister," Applejack agreed firmly.

"That might actually be what the Overseer wants. He wants to speak to you as soon as possible. That's the only reason I was on my way down here in the first place, until I found Kendall," Gomez admitted.

Rarity nervously twirled a strand of hair around her finger. "I must admit, I heartily agree with leaving this wretched place… no offence darling-"

"None taken."

"-but where are we going to go?"

"We don't really have a choice, we have to try and find James," Twilight replied. "He's the only one who can help us get home."

"First we have to get Officer Kendall to the clinic." Fluttershy said thickly. She pulled slowly away from Sunset, accepted a tissue that Rarity held out, and blew her nose loudly. It wasn't until Rarity held out some tissues to her too that Sunset realized her shoulder was covered in tears and snot. 

As Sunset absently wiped the mess away, Rarity placed a hand on Fluttershy's shoulder. "Are you alright, sweetie?" 

"No… yes… I'll be okay." Fluttershy blew her nose again. "We need to get officer Kendall to the clinic, he really needs an IV."

Sunset nodded. "Alright, we'll carry him upstairs, then we'll go and see the Overseer."

Rarity coughed delicately. "You may want to put some clothes on first."

"Ah, right. Yeah." Sunset whipped her hands around herself as she remembered she was almost completely nude in front of a man, before realizing Officer Gomez had his back to her, his gaze fixed on the opposite wall to preserve her dignity. Relaxing slightly, Sunset was about to pick up her jumpsuit when an idea struck her.

Picking up the blanket instead and wrapping it around herself again, Sunset turned to the others. "Right, here's what we'll do. Applejack? If you and Officer Gomez carry Kendall up to the clinic with Fluttershy, the rest of us will meet you up there once I'm dressed. From there we‘ll go to the Overseer, find out what he wants, and tell him we‘re leaving."

"Sounds good to me," Applejack said, popping her Stetson back on her head.

Officer Gomez turned around. "Here, I'll carry him for you."

Applejack just chuckled as she slid her hands under Officer Kendall and hefted him easily. "Don't you worry none, Ah'm stronger than Ah look. You just keep his leg straight for me. Make sure we don't pop his stitches."

As soon as they were out of the room and on their way to the clinic, Sunset turned and headed into the bedroom. Rifling through the drawers, Sunset found her clothes neatly folded away; the ones she had been wearing when she first arrived in the Vault.

"Whatever are you doing, darling?" Rarity asked as Sunset started pulling them on. "You know we have to wear these ghastly jumpsuits as long as we're in the Vault, or believe me I wouldn't be caught anywhere near one."

"But we're leaving the Vault," Sunset reminded her. "I don't know about the rest of you, but if we have to go trekking through the wasteland I'm doing it in my own clothes."

"Count me in!" Rainbow grinned as she grabbed her clothes out of the drawer.

"Me too!" Pinkie cried as she skipped over.

Rarity didn't say a word. She just unzipped and slipped out of her jumpsuit in one smooth, elegant motion. 

"What about Applejack and Fluttershy?" Twilight asked, undoing her own jumpsuit.

"We'll take clothes for them up to the clinic, they can get changed there." Sunset dug around under the bed and pulled out several backpacks they had been provided with. "We should pack some spare underwear in these, plus any supplies we'll need like food, water, and stuff."

"I'm not sure the Overseer will like that. After all, these are Vault property," Twilight said worriedly.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at her. "So?"

"We've fixed that stupid generator we broke, not to mention kept his dirty little secrets for him. He owes us this much." Sunset frowned as she shoved bottles of water into her pack. "Besides, after what's happened with Jonas, there's no way I'm just going to roll over and do whatever he says anymore." Almost as an afterthought she grabbed her utility jumpsuit, detached the tool belt, and stuffed it into her pack as well, throwing the jumpsuit back on the bed.

"Wait a minute. Do you hear that?" Pinkie asked.

They all stopped and listened for a moment.

Rainbow scratched her head, puzzled. "Hear what?" 

Pinkie shrugged. "The alarms have stopped."

Sunset blinked, wondering how long it had been since that happened. "Huh, I didn't even notice."

"In our defense we have been somewhat… distracted?" Rarity said.

The girls quickly finished changing and packing their bags, including one each for Applejack and Fluttershy as well as their clothes. Making sure to grab Fluttershy's first aid kit, left behind in her rush to get to the clinic, the four left their quarters.

The corridors outside were dark. The lights were usually kept on permanently to discourage radroaches but something had switched them off. Sunset hoped it was merely a malfunction or electrical fault and not something more sinister. 

A trail of red droplets led from the girls' door around the corner to James's quarters, where they found several squashed radroaches and a disturbingly large pool of blood left behind by poor Officer Kendall. 

Leaving the grim scene behind, the girls hurried through the empty corridors. They heard muffled crying coming from the diner as they passed, but didn't encounter anyone until they arrived at the clinic. The corridor was littered with the charred, still-smoking remains of what Sunset assumed had been radroaches.

Inside, they found Officer Kendall lying unconscious on a bed, an IV drip poking out of his arm as Fluttershy solicitously checked him over. Applejack and Gomez, standing quietly out of her way, looked over as the girls entered the room. 

"There you are, we were wondering how long you were… what's with the clothes?" Gomez frowned as he noticed what they were wearing. 

"We figured, since we're leaving anyway, we wanted our own clothes back." Sunset handed Applejack her backpack. "Yours are in here along with some necessities and supplies."

Fluttershy looked around in surprise as Rarity handed her a pack too. Her eyes were red, but she had managed to compose herself. "Shouldn't we really speak to the Overseer before we get changed?"

Sunset shook her head. "No, I think we should leave as soon as we've spoken to him. The longer we wait, the further away James and Adam are going to get."

"Oh, okay." Fluttershy clutched her pack and hurried into the clinic's back office to change with Applejack.

Gomez shook his head helplessly. "I'm not sure this is a good idea. The Overseer won't be happy to have you girls wandering around dressed like that."

Sunset shrugged. "Most people are still going to be in their quarters until the Overseer announces the all-clear, so I don't really see it causing any problems as long as we‘re quick."

"You may be right about that, but are those clothes really going to be practical for exploring the Wasteland?" Gomez pressed.

Sunset had to admit that he had a point. The only one who wasn't going to be running around in a skirt or dress of some sort was Rainbow Dash. She was starting to second-guess herself when Rarity saved her the trouble of responding.

"Let us worry about the practicality, darling. Besides, if the Overseer is so desperate to keep the outside world, well, outside, then having us wandering around in a uniform that broadcasts exactly where we came from is probably not something he would appreciate."

Rainbow snorted. "Somehow, I don't think he'd let us keep the Vault's jumpsuits when we leave anyway."

"That's if he even lets us leave," Pinkie added darkly.

"Why wouldn't he let us leave?" Sunset asked, her thoughts about the clothes derailed for a moment, "He's wanted us gone since we first arrived."

Pinkie folded her arms with a frown. "I don't know, but I've got a bad feeling about today."

Sunset shared a concerned look with the others. Before they could comment on Pinkie's unusual negativity, Applejack and Fluttershy returned from the back room, Applejack back in her old skirt and t-shirt and Fluttershy in her light, fluttery dress.

"Now that feels better, these boots just ain't comfortable to wear over a jumpsuit." Applejack chuckled. She patted the tool belt secured around her waist, "The Overseer ain't going to let me keep these tools, is he?"

"Probably not, sorry," Sunset replied, deciding not to mention the tools she'd stowed away in her own pack.

Applejack just shrugged and threw her pack over her shoulder. "Well, it's worth asking, Ah suppose. We all set?"

"What about Officer Kendall?" Fluttershy asked. "He'll be alright for now, but we really should leave someone to keep an eye on him just in case."

"Stanley should be back here any minute, he's only gone to switch the emergency lights back on." Gomez stepped to the door and motioned for the girls to follow. "Come on, let's get you to the Overseer before anyone spots you dressed like that."

Stepping gingerly over the roasted radroaches outside the clinic, the group made their way through the now-familiar corridors. Small scenes of violence greeted them every few meters. Squashed radroaches and the odd splatter of blood dotted the way, the remains of miniature battles between the security team and the invading wildlife. Sunset sincerely hoped no-one else had been hurt, but she had an awful feeling that Jonas and Officer Kendall weren't the only casualties of the morning's events.

Two security officers were waiting when they arrived in the Overseer's reception area. Sunset recognized them as Richards and O'Brian, two of the less pleasant members of the security team. O'Brian in particular was a nasty piece of work along the same lines as Officer Mack. Thankfully, the girls had hardly interacted with them. They had stayed out of trouble and the officers had seen fit to leave the girls alone.

The two officers eyed the girls' clothes curiously as Gomez stepped up to the office door. Raised voices echoed from inside; it sounded like the Overseer and his daughter were having a screaming match. The shouting stopped abruptly when Gomez knocked smartly on the window. "Officer Gomez, reporting to the Overseer," he called.

"Enter," the Overseer replied curtly from within.

Gomez cracked the door open and poked his head in. "Overseer, I've brought the North Wing girls with me, sir."

"Finally," the Overseer huffed. "Bring them in."

Gomez peeked over his shoulder at the girls, then back into the office. "Er, do you want to speak to them privately, sir?"

"Just bring them in, Gomez!" The Overseer snapped. 

"Yes, sir." Gomez opened the door fully to let the girls in. The Overseer's office was spacious and brightly lit. The room was dominated by a huge round desk made of solid metal with a small space in the middle for the Overseer to sit. A large display covered most of one wall, displaying conditions and power levels from across the entirety of the Vault, while the opposite wall contained a round window that looked down on the Vault's Atrium. 

The Overseer himself stood at his desk, glaring furiously at Amata. The girls gasped as Amata turned to them. Her face was a mess of bruises. Blood trickled from a split in her lip, and her eyes were red-rimmed, one of them so puffy and swollen she was forced to squint. Before anyone had a chance to comment, the Overseer snapped angrily at them. "What the hell do you think you're doing wearing those clothes! Gomez! Why did you bring them up here dressed like that?!"

Gomez snapped to attention. "They insisted, sir. They wanted to speak to you, and almost everyone else is still confined to their quarters so I decided to let it slide for now, sir."

The Overseer glared at Gomez, but relented. "Fine. First, we shall discuss why I had you brought here, and I will listen to what you have to say. As soon as that is done you will go straight back to your quarters and get changed back into your jumpsuits or I will have you thrown in the brig for insubordination!"

"Where did you even get those clothes?" Amata asked quietly.

"That is none of your concern!" The Overseer snapped. He snatched up a sheet of paper from the desk and scanned it briefly. "As you have no doubt been made aware, there are no longer any fully trained medical staff in this Vault."

"Thanks to you," Amata mumbled.

"That's enough, Amata!" The Overseer barked. "As I was saying, there are no medical staff left. In light of this, I am appointing Fluttershy as the new Vault Doctor."

"Um, m-me?" Fluttershy spluttered, "But I-I'm not qualified. I'm only a trainee nurse, and besides-"

"You have at least basic medical training," the Overseer interrupted. "I am assigning Twilight Sparkle to be your new assistant. Between the two of you, I expect you to be able to reach at least a moderate level of competence."

Sunset folded her arms, frowning. "Don't the security all have basic first aid training? Not to mention Mr Brotch-"

"Secondly," the Overseer loudly interrupted again, "I am removing Applejack from the maintenance department and placing you in charge of all waste management and recycling facilities."

"Huh? But ain't that Tom's job? He ain't hurt too, is he?" Applejack asked worriedly. 

The Overseer dropped his notes back on the desk, averting his eyes. "Sadly, he and his wife were killed earlier this morning." 

"You mean those two meat-heads out there murdered them!" Amata snapped.

Sunset put a hand to her mouth. She wasn't sure how much more of this she could take. First Jonas,then Officer Kendall, and now the Holdens? How many more people were going to turn up dead or seriously hurt? 

Applejack put her head in her hands, moaning softly. "Oh this ain't happening. This is just a bad dream. Someone wake me up already. Ow! Hey, what gives?!" She glared at Pinkie, rubbing her arm where it had been pinched.

Pinkie shrugged sadly, "Worth a shot?"

"Officers O‘Brian and Richards were simply doing their duty," the Overseer remarked coldly. "Tom and Mary left their quarters despite strict orders to the contrary, and attempted to force their way out of the Vault."

Sunset couldn't believe the indifferent manner in which he was discussing the deaths of the Vault residents, the people he was supposed to protect and care for. She wondered morbidly who had caused the most damage to the Vault population; the radroaches, or the Overseer. The old fool couldn't hold a candle to Princess Celestia. Then again, Sunset supposed, there probably weren't many who could.

Either not noticing or not caring about the distinctly frosty looks he was getting from all of the girls, the Overseer continued talking, "There is one last thing I would like to speak to you girls about."

"What is it?" Sunset asked warily. She was starting to get concerned. They had expected the Overseer to order her and her friends out of the Vault. Instead, he seemed to be making plans for them to stay and take on more responsibility.

The Overseer looked them all over, almost appraising them. "The recent infestation and subsequent events have taken quite a toll on the Vault population."

Rarity scoffed. "Perhaps if you stopped having people murdered, then-"

"The next person to speak out of turn will be thrown in a cell with a beating to go with it!" The Overseer snapped, slamming a palm on the desk. When no-one replied, he drew himself up and folded his arms, evidently forcing himself to speak calmly, "Now, a few days ago I was provided with the results of your genetic screening. It appears that, aside from your pigmentation, you are genetically no different from ordinary humans."  

Sunset raised an eyebrow, wondering if that was true. It was possible, of course, but she wouldn't have been surprised if their magic had caused some unusual results. If so, perhaps James had covered it up. The real question was why the Overseer was bringing it up. Sunset had an idea of where he was going with this, and she did not like it one bit. "Your point being?"

The Overseer paused to consider his words. "My point being that given the… depletion… of the Vault's genetic reservoir, I am permitting, indeed encouraging, the seven of you to seriously consider procreation." 

Yup, I knew it, Sunset thought.

Twilight shot him a look of disgust. "That's why you want us to stay, to help the Vault remain genetically viable."

Applejack stuck her hands on her hips. "Are y'all trying to tell me this guy wants to use us as breeding stock?"

"Pretty much." Sunset sighed.

There was a brief, awkward silence at that. Sunset had managed to restrain herself from snapping at the Overseer only with great difficulty. Rarity was quivering with suppressed rage, while Fluttershy had blushed so deeply she was almost the same color as Sunset's hair. 

"I thought he didn't want us doing sexy things with the other people in the Vault?" Pinkie asked bluntly.

The Overseer nodded. "Indeed I didn't at the time, but now that I know you are genetically stable I see no reason to leave that particular resource untapped. Of course, out of all of you, Applejack is the only one who can really blend in with the Vault population, but Sunset, Rarity, and Fluttershy are not so utterly alien that it will be impossible for you to find partners. As for the rest of you…" He glanced at Pinkie, Twilight and Rainbow. "Well, there's no accounting for taste."

It took all of Sunset's self control not to slap him as hard as she could. All of the others seemed to be facing the same internal struggle, even Fluttershy was scowling at him.

"You, sir, are by far the most repugnant person I have ever had the misfortune of meeting," Rarity spat through gritted teeth.

"You're out of your gosh darn mind," Applejack growled.

"You said it, AJ," Rainbow added with a glare.

"You know what, that makes this next bit so much easier to say." Sunset stepped forward and looked the Overseer straight in the eye. "We're leaving the Vault."

The Overseer blinked, taken aback. Recovering swiftly, he leaned forward and rested his fists on the desk, his face a mask of fury. "There's no way in hell I‘m letting you out of this Vault."

"It's not up to you," Sunset said firmly, trying to keep her temper under control. "We're going to see if we can track down James. He's our only chance of finding our way back home."

"Home?" Amata asked.

Sunset whipped around, startled. She had completely forgotten that Amata was even there. 

"I knew it. The Vault has been opened before," Amata muttered quietly, "You aren't from the North Wing at all, you came from outside." She looked at her father. "It was all a lie, wasn't it? We're born in the Vault, we live in the Vault and we die in the Vault, it's all bullshit!"

"Enough, Amata!" The Overseer roared. "Officer Gomez!" 

Gomez snapped to attention. "Yes, sir?"

"I want you to take these girls, except Miss Shimmer, back to their quarters, and have them change back into their jumpsuits. Then I want you to gather everyone into the Atrium." The Overseer jabbed a finger in Sunset's face. "As for you, I am going to have you stripped down and beaten, in front of the whole Vault, as an example of how we deal with insubordinate scum." 

"That ain't happening," Applejack said darkly, stepping up alongside Sunset.

The Overseer snarled at her. "You'll go to your quarters this instant or you'll suffer the same punish-"

WHAM.

Applejack slammed her fist down on the desk, the metal crumpling like paper under her magical strength. She glared at the Overseer as she wrenched her hand out of the dented desk. "Ah said. That. Ain't. Happening."

"Nice one, Applejack!" Rainbow whooped as the Overseer cowered away, the blood draining from his face. 

Sunset couldn't resist smirking at the look on his face. "As I was saying," she said mockingly, "we're leaving the Vault." Sunset glanced meaningfully down at the crumpled dent in the desk. "Unless you want to try and stop us?"

The Overseer shook his head slowly. Shaking like a leaf, he looked over at Gomez. "Officer Gomez, I want you to escort these young ladies to the exit. Make sure they leave, and seal the Vault shut behind them."

"Y-yes, sir," Gomez replied, his voice quavering as he stared at Applejack. "R-right this way, girls."

The girls followed Gomez out of the office, Amata close behind. Officer's O'Brian and Richards were still waiting in the reception area, watching the group warily until the Overseer called them into the office. 

"I guess this is where we say goodbye then?" Amata said suddenly.

Sunset nodded sadly. "I guess so. What are you going to do now?"

Amata shrugged. "Honestly? I'm not sure. Now that I know the Vault has been opened before, I have a lot to think about."

Sunset shifted awkwardly. "Are you going to be alright here?"

Amata raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Sunset inclined her head to the Overseer's office. "Those bruises, that was him wasn't it?"

"It was on his orders, I helped Adam escape." Amata shook her head slowly. "Don't worry about me, I can handle myself."

Sunset sighed heavily. "I'm sorry it had to end like this." 

"Don't worry about it. You just worry about finding Adam and James. Try and find your way home, wherever that really is," Amata said with a smile, before turning to head to her quarters.

Smiling after her, Sunset followed Gomez and her friends out of the reception and back through the Vault. Truth be told, she felt somewhat bad about leaving, especially in such unpleasant circumstances. As much as Sunset hated the Vault, she had gotten used to life there. 

None of the girls spoke as they walked along, each lost in their own thoughts. The corridors were still deserted save for the dead radroaches, a fact Sunset was privately glad for. She'd barely been up for an hour or two and already the day had been almost more than she could take.

Entering the Atrium, Gomez led the girls down a corridor they had never ventured down before. Large splotches of blood marred the floor with a trail of red droplets leading back into the Vault proper, as if someone had carried a heavily bleeding body out of there. As she followed the others into the corridor, Sunset looked up and back. The Overseer was standing in his office, glaring down at the girls out of his window. Sunset threw him the filthiest look she could muster before she passed out of his line of sight. 

Gomez led the way up a set of steps and into a large dark room with grimy walls. It reminded Sunset of nothing so much as the Vault's Reactor Level. Set in the wall directly opposite them was a massive gear-shaped door. They were finally at the main entrance of Vault 101.

A set of railings lined a small path leading to the door itself. At the near end of those railings was a control panel. Gomez stepped up to it and yanked down the only lever sticking out of it, causing an alarm to immediately start blaring. Hydraulics hissed furiously as a huge piston descended from the ceiling, shifted forward, and slotted into a hole in the door. The piston retracted, dragging the gear-shaped door backwards with an almighty grinding sound, then rolling it aside to reveal a long rocky tunnel leading up and out of the vault. 

"So, this is it," Twilight said quietly.

"It sure is," Applejack put in.

Fluttershy looked sadly back down the stairs. "Will everyone be alright in there? They don't have a doctor anymore, what if they need me?"

Gomez patted her on the back gently. "Don't worry too much about it, all of the security officers have basic first aid training and so do a few of the others. We'll manage. We did before."

Rainbow grinned as she started down the path. "Come on, guys, this is going to be awesome!"

"Going by how the rest of this day has gone, I highly doubt it," Rarity grumbled as she followed Rainbow.

"Hey! Wait for me, guys!" Pinkie called, skipping down the path.

As Sunset made to follow the others, Gomez put a hand on her shoulder, holding her back. "Did James ever tell you anything about the Wasteland around here?" Sunset shook her head. "I probably shouldn't be telling you this but…" Gomez sighed. "They call it the Capital Wasteland. There's a settlement not far from here, I think they called it Megaton, at least, that's what I can remember from Old Lady Palmer's stories. That's probably the best place to start looking for James." 

Sunset smiled gratefully at him. "Thanks, Gomez."

"Don't mention it, you girls just take care of yourselves out there," Gomez replied.

As Sunset turned to leave, the door they had come through was slammed open and Officers O‘Brian and Richards stepped through, clutching pistols and grinning evilly.

"The Overseer says he wants you freaks properly... taken care of." O'Brian chuckled as he leveled his gun at Sunset. 

"Run!" Gomez yelled, diving at O'Brian and forcing the gun away. 

Not wasting another moment, Sunset vaulted over the railings and belted after the others as they fled out of the vault. Several gunshots rang out and bullets sparked off the floor and walls around her, making her flinch. Sprinting out of the door, Sunset tripped and almost fell over a skeleton lying outside. As she ran, she saw there were several of them tangled up in the tunnel, many of them still clutching dusty placards. She wondered if they had died trying to get into the Vault.

The other girls had gotten to the end of the tunnel and passed through a little wooden door already. Sunset kept running as she heard shouts and more gunshots behind her. Suddenly, the alarm rang out again, signalling that the door was closing. As she heard the horrific grinding of the Vault being sealed once more, Sunset charged through the wooden door and out into blinding sunlight.
> Chapter 6 - The Outside World
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset slowed to a halt, shielding her eyes against the sudden brightness. After the dimness of the Vault, the sunshine was blinding. As her eyes adjusted, she saw they were near the top of a large, rocky hill. Her friends were all catching their breath nearby. 

Twilight adjusted her glasses and looked up as Sunset approached. "Are they following us?"

Sunset shook her head, breathing hard. That had scared her more than she cared to admit. "No… they closed the Vault door behind us."

"That's a relief," Fluttershy panted. 

Twilight sighed as she slumped to the floor. "Well that just happened."

Rainbow angrily kicked at a pebble. "I can't believe the Overseer ordered those goons to shoot at us!"

"I'm just glad Gomez stepped in." Sunset shivered, shocked at how close she had come to getting shot.

Fluttershy looked anxiously back at the tunnel, "Um, you don't think they hurt him… do you?"

Pinkie smiled brightly. "Of course they wouldn't, silly. After all, he's a member of the security team, too." Her smile faded as she looked around uncertainly. "Right?" 

"We can only hope. With the Vault sealed there really isn't much we can do about it." Rarity groaned and perched herself on a nearby rock. "What an absolute nightmare today has been."

"Ain't that the truth," Applejack grumbled. "Ah suppose Ah could try and force the door open myself if we wanted to check on him, but wouldn' that kinda defeat the point of leavin'?"

Sunset nodded. "It would just make everything worse, and probably get one of us shot."

"Not to mention it would probably break the door, letting who knows what kind of mutated creatures and radiation into the Vault," Twilight added.

The reminder about the radiation gave Sunset a jolt. "Never mind the Vault, what are the radiation levels like out here?!" She whipped her arm up to check her Pip-Boy, only to realize she'd left it in their quarters.

Twilight grimaced as she checked her own Pip-Boy. "Higher than they should be. The background radiation isn't high enough to be dangerous in the short term but… we probably shouldn't spend too much time out here unprotected."

"Do you think our magic will help protect us against the radiation?" Fluttershy asked.

"I don't know… maybe?" Twilight shrugged, "Do we want to take the risk?"

Sunset sighed heavily, "No. No we do not."

"Oh, this is just awful! This wretched wasteland is going to wreak havoc on my skin!" Rarity whined.

Applejack rolled her eyes at the fashionista. "Somehow Ah think radiation is gonna cause bigger problems than just 'bad skin'."

Twilight raised an eyebrow, still fiddling with her Pip-Boy. "Personally, I'd be more concerned about the many forms of cancer. Of course, there's also the risk of radiation poisoning, radiation burns, a compromised immune system-"

"Alright we get it," Rainbow huffed, "If the Wasteland sucks so much, how about we get moving.l?"

"But where do we go?" Fluttershy asked. "What are we going to do?"

"We need to try and find James, and preferably Adam too," Sunset said shortly. "Gomez mentioned a settlement called Megaton. I guess we could start looking there."

Rarity sighed and got up, dusting herself off. "That's all very well and good, darling, but first we'll have to find Megaton itself." 

"Isn't that it right there?" Pinkie piped up, skipping away down the hill.

The girls followed her a short way down the hill and onto a rocky outcrop. A battered little sign at the end announced it was, somewhat ironically in Sunset's opinion, a 'scenic overlook'. 

The Capital Wasteland stretched away below them, dotted with boulders, blasted trees and rusty pylons. Towering over the landscape to their right, the girls could see the shattered remains of an overpass, while down the hill to their left were the charred remnants of an old town. The burnt-out shells of old-fashioned houses lined the streets leading to a larger concrete structure, still partially intact. More ruins lined the horizon as far as the eye could see. Sunset thought she could even make out the broken husk of an old monument in the distance.

Skipping to the very edge of the outcrop, Pinkie grinned and pointed ahead. In the near distance, past a broken water tower, rose huge walls made out of rusted scrap metal. They extended for quite a distance, surrounding what was clearly a settlement of some kind. 

Sunset raised an eyebrow as she took it all in. "Huh, I guess that must be Megaton."

Fluttershy stepped up next to them, her gaze roaming over the landscape. "It's so… desolate," she said quietly.

"Ah can see why they call it the Wasteland," Applejack agreed. She leaned over the edge and scanned the ground below. "There's a road down there, but it heads down into that old town. You reckon we can just climb over those rocks by the water tower? It's more of a straight route."

"I'll go check it out," Rainbow replied, darting off in a multi-colored blur. Barely two seconds later she was back. "Yeah, that's not happening. There's a cliff right there by the water tower, there's no way we can all climb down safely. The terrain off to the right is really rough, too, so I think we should just follow the road into town and try to find a long way around."

"Sounds like a plan. Lead the way Rainbow," Sunset said, glad to have something that at least resembled a plan.

Following Rainbow's lead, the girls backed off the promontory and headed further down the hill, soon coming to the road Applejack had pointed out. The tarmac was cracked and dotted with craters filled with foul green water. There were odd-looking cars scattered around, but none of them looked to be in good enough condition to try and drive. As the group traipsed down the road towards the ruined town, a loud growling sound suddenly drew everyone's attention. 

Sunset blushed furiously. "Heh, I guess I'm kinda hungry."

"Haven't you eaten anything yet?" Twilight asked as the others giggled.

Sunset shook her head and shrugged off her pack. "It's a good thing I thought to pack food," she mumbled, pulling out some sandwiches that she'd made the day before and just never gotten around to eating.

"What else did you pack?" Applejack asked, "Ah haven't actually looked in my backpack yet."

"Clean undergarments, socks, toiletries, several bottles of water each, and all of the food we had left in our quarters," Rarity replied, counting off on her fingers. "We also packed all of our spare first aid supplies into Fluttershy's kit."

"That explains why it's heavier than usual," Fluttershy muttered. 

"I packed my tool belt too," Sunset added between mouthfuls.

Applejack glanced down at her own tool belt, secure around her waist. "Shoot, Ah forgot about that. Ah'm so used to wearing it Ah forgot to ask the Overseer if Ah could keep it."

"Isn't… isn't it technically stealing? Bringing all of this with us without permission?" Fluttershy asked quietly.

"Considering the old coot just tried to have us all killed, I wouldn't worry about it." Rainbow called over her shoulder. "Besides, we all brought our Pip-Boys, too."  

"I didn't," Sunset grumbled, inwardly cursing herself for forgetting it.

"Oh, did you want it now?" Pinkie asked.

Sunset looked up curiously, then barely reacted in time to catch the Pip-Boy Pinkie tossed at her. 

"I picked it up for you when we left our quarters, just in case," Pinkie said in response to Sunset's incredulous look. 

"Wow, thanks Pinkie!" Sunset grinned as she slotted the Pip-Boy over her arm.

"Don't mention it!" Pinkie called, trotting over to inspect a ruined house. 

The girls looked around nervously as they entered the ruined town. What used to be large affluent-looking houses had been reduced to little more than skeletons of scorched timber. Sunset had heard about the terrible war that had raged in the past, but seeing the evidence of it up close was a sobering experience. She couldn't help but imagine what it must have been like; going about your daily life until, out of nowhere, a bomb was dropped and everything you knew and loved was scoured away by nuclear fire.

Fluttershy suddenly let out a yelp, startling everyone. 

"What is it?!" Applejack asked urgently.

Fluttershy pointed through one of the ruined buildings. "Look!" 

Weaving through the ruins was some sort of floating orb. The girls noticed a distinctive buzzing sound emanating from it as it wound its way closer. As it rounded a corner, Sunset realised it was a little hovering robot. A speaker took up most of its front and there were several aerials poking out all over it's ball-like body. The robot took no notice of the girls whatsoever as it bobbed right past them, a jaunty little tune crackling out of its speaker as it turned around and headed back into the ruins.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow, watching it float back out of sight. "Well, that was random."

"Ah'll say," Applejack agreed.

"Hey, look!" Sunset called out suddenly, rushing off in front of the others. A stylized metal sculpture of a rocket stood alone past the buildings, large red letters on it spelling out 'Red Rocket'. Under the sculpture was what had drawn Sunset's attention; A dirty old vending machine, its lights flickering intermittently, next to a corrugated iron sign with the word MEGATON and an arrow painted on it in big yellow letters.

"Looks like we're going the right way," Sunset said with relief. 

Pinkie skipped over to the vending machine and jabbed at a button, frowning when nothing happened. 

"Ah doubt there's anything in there, somehow," Applejack pointed out as Pinkie heaved the front of it open.

"There is!" Pinkie retorted, waving a pair of bottles in the air. Little labels proclaimed them to be 'Nuka-Cola'. 

Sunset stopped her as she pulled a bottle-opener out of her pocket. "Pinkie, you can't drink that!"

"Why not?" Pinkie blinked, puzzled. 

Sunset slapped a palm to her forehead in exasperation. "They're probably irradiated, Pinkie." 

"Let me take a look at that," Twilight said quickly. She grabbed one, eliciting a disappointed groan from Pinkie, and held her Pip-Boy over it.

"Are they safe?" Sunset asked.

"They are irradiated, but not much," Twilight replied, frowning at the bottle. "Frankly, it's not much worse than the background radiation."

"Is it really worth the risk just for some dodgy old soda?" Applejack asked incredulously.

Fluttershy shook her head vehemently. "I wouldn't say so. Not until we know what the rest of the food is like out here."

Twilight sighed, handing the bottle back to Pinkie. "Fluttershy's right. For all we know, all of the food and drink out here could be radioactive to some extent."

"Oh, I wish I'd thought to see if there was any Rad-X or radaway in the clinic." Fluttershy moaned.

"What are those?" Rainbow asked.

"They're medicines developed in this world to cleanse radiation from the body," Fluttershy replied.

Sunset frowned at the bottles. "We'll keep them for now. If people here have a way of clearing radiation from the body, then maybe they have a way of clearing it from food, too?" She shrugged and turned to follow the sign. "Come on, let's go and find Megaton."

"I hope the people there are friendly," Fluttershy said quietly as they started walking again.

Rarity patted her on the shoulder gently. "I do hope so too but, given the reception we faced when we first arrived in this dreadful world, I wouldn't get your hopes up too high."

"They might be less hostile to us than the Vault dwellers," Twilight put in, absently wiping dust from her glasses. "James wasn't really concerned by our coloration, and don't forget, he was originally from the Wasteland. It's possible that the people out here are used to things like that."

"Our skin maybe, but what about our magic?" Applejack reminded her. "We still keepin' that hidden?"

"We should probably avoid using it unless we absolutely have to," Sunset replied. "James may not have been bothered by us, but we don't know how everyone else out here will react. For all we know, things could turn violent."

Pinkie skipped ahead of the others and turned around, smiling back at them. "It can't be that bad. If the Wasteland is so dangerous, it wouldn't make sense for everyone to be mean to each other all the time for no reason. They have to stick together to survive."

Sunset thought about it. "That kinda makes sense but… I don't know."

"Just trust in Pinkie Pie!" Pinkie exclaimed confidently. "I bet the people in Megaton are all really super-duper friendly!"





"Super-duper friendly huh?" Sunset grumbled as she tried to ignore the rifle pointed directly at her face. 

Pinkie chuckled nervously next to her. 

As she and her friends had approached the gates of Megaton, a man had called down to them from his crow's nest high on the looming walls, demanding that they come no closer unless they wanted to get shot. He had kept his gun trained on them as he shouted something to someone down in the town behind him. Sunset wished he would point that rifle somewhere else, her arms were starting to ache from holding her hands above her head.

"Are we sure that we really want to be here?" Rarity whispered, flinching and holding her arms a little higher as the man took aim at her instead.

"We don't really have any choice," Sunset replied uneasily. "We need to find out if James or Adam came through this way."

"Look on the bright side, at least he hasn't actually shot at us yet," Pinkie chuckled nervously.

"Darn it, Pinkie, if you tempt fate like that one more time Ah swear Ah'll-" Applejack's threat died in her throat as Megaton's gates were heaved open. 

The man who stepped out to meet them looked like he had wandered straight out of an old western movie. He was dark-skinned and black-haired, wearing a heavy duster and a matching cowboy hat. A sheriff's badge pinned to his chest gleamed in the sunlight. The assault rifle he casually hefted did nothing to reassure Sunset about their current predicament.

The sheriff stopped dead as he saw the group. He muttered something under his breath before shaking his head and striding towards the girls. Sunset was just glad he didn't point his gun directly at any of them. She hoped that that was a good sign.

The sheriff halted again a few yards from Sunset. He gave the girls a good look over before speaking. "Just when I think there's nothing that can surprise me any more, the Wasteland pulls out something new. Name's Lucas Simms, town sheriff. What's your business in Megaton?"

Sunset wondered whether she was allowed to lower her hands yet. "Hello, sheriff, uh, my name's Sunset Shimmer, and these are my friends. We don't want to cause any trouble, we're just looking for someone." 

"Two people, actually," Twilight cut in.

"Is that a fact?" Simms raised an eyebrow. "And who exactly is it you're looking for?"

"A guy named James. He's a doctor, middle-aged with grey hair," Sunset replied quickly. "The other one's a young man named Adam. He's got black hair, and was probably wearing a-"

"Vault 101 jumpsuit?" Simms interrupted. He smirked at the surprised looks on the girls faces. "What, you think I've never seen one of those before? Honestly, I'm surprised you girls aren't wearing them."

"How'd you know we're from the Vault?" Applejack asked.

"Simple really. The fact that you know Adam is proof enough. That kid wouldn't know a raider from a yao guai, and I'm guessing you girls don't either." Simms chuckled darkly. "Besides, the nearest settlement is a few miles from here, and yet you barely have a speck of dirt on you. There's no way you could travel any real distance across the Wastes in those fancy clothes and still be all clean and polished like that." 

"Wonderful," Rarity huffed, eliciting another chuckle from the sheriff.

"So... have you seen James or Adam?" Sunset pressed.

Simms nodded curtly. "Sure have, James came through early this morning. I didn't really pay him much attention until Adam came through asking about him."

"Are they still here?" Sunset stepped forward eagerly, ignoring the rifle that swung back to point at her. She was glad to finally have some good news.

Her hopes crashed right back down again as Simms shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Adam went out on some sort of errand for Moriarty. He came back afterwards, but then he left again, hmm... must have been a few hours ago, now. He said he was going after his father."

"Which way did they go? I might be able to catch up!" Rainbow asked eagerly.

The sheriff just laughed at her. "You'd have to be pretty damned fast to catch up, they have a few hours head-start." He shook his head again, still smiling. "I'm sorry, but I don't know which way they went. Your best bet would be to speak to Moriarty, up at the saloon. He should know more."

Sunset glanced up at the man in the crow's nest. "Does this mean you're going to let us in?"

Simms eyed the girls carefully. "One more question first. Are you mutants of some kind, or is that some freaky Vault disease that I don't want to know about?"

"We were born like this," Sunset said with a resigned sigh.

Simms nodded grimly. "Sorry, but I had to ask. Keeping the people of this town safe is my top priority. Alright, you can put your hands down." He called up to the crow's nest. "It's okay, Stockholm, they can pass."

"I thought you would be used to mutants out here?" Twilight said, rubbing her wrists to get the blood flowing again. "I mean, I know the wildlife has been mutated to some extent, so I assume there are some people who have been, too?"

"To an extent. I've never seen anything like you girls, though," Simms said flatly.

"Well there goes that theory," Twilight muttered.

"I hate to say it, but you're going to have to get used to people looking at you funny. Even with the radiation, things don't usually get that colorful out here in the Wastes." Simms turned and gestured for the girls to follow. "Come on, let's get you acquainted with the town."
> Chapter 7 - Prophets and Profits
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The girls looked around as the gates clanged shut behind them. The entire settlement of Megaton was built around a huge crater. The buildings were all constructed on different levels, with walkways going between many of them high above the floor. At the very bottom of the crater, jutting out of a pool of filthy water, was a huge statue of a dropped bomb. A makeshift staircase led down the crater towards it. Everything, from the buildings to the walkways, was made out of the same rusty old scrap metal. 

“Well, this is Megaton,” Simms said. He pointed up to a large building near the rear of Megaton; a sign above the door identified it as Moriarty’s Saloon. “You’ll find Moriarty up there most of the time. If anyone in this town knows where your friends went, it‘ll be him. But be careful. Moriarty doesn’t give out anything for free, and he certainly isn’t someone you can trust, no matter what he says.”

Sunset smiled at him gratefully. “Thanks. We‘ll be careful.” 

Simms just nodded. “Is there anything else you want to know about the town?”

“There is one thing.” Sunset had been wondering about a certain problem at the back of her mind ever since they left the Vault, one she hadn’t had to deal with since she first left Equestria. “What sort of currency do you use out here?”

“I don’t know what you used in that Vault, but out here we use caps.” Simms fished one out of his pocket and held it up.

The girls just stared at it in bemusement. It was Rarity who finally said what they were all thinking. “Is… is that a bottle cap?” 

“Yep,” Simms replied simply.

“Seriously? You guys use bottle caps to buy stuff out here?” Rainbow asked.

Simms laughed softly and slipped the cap back into his pocket. “It’s all we can use, really. Paper’s too fragile, but caps are light, tough, and they’re too small to have any other use.”

Applejack gave Pinkie a playful nudge. “Well at least those colas you picked up aren’t completely useless, even if we can’t drink ‘em.”

“Actually, I had a question about that,” Twilight asked suddenly. “I understand there’s medicine that can purge radiation from our bodies, but do you have any technology that can scrub it from food, too?”

“I wish,” Simms grumbled, “We’ve got a water processor here that gives us clean water from rainfall, but food is a whole other story. Anything we can hunt, scavenge, or raise is going to be tainted with radiation in some way or another, and don’t even get me started on how hard it is to try and grow stuff.” 

Fluttershy shifted awkwardly. “So, um, what do we eat when our supplies run out?” 

“If you’re worried about rads from the food, your best bet would be to pick up some radaway or something from Doc Church down at the clinic, but for that you‘ll need caps,” Simms explained, pointing to a small hut near the bottom of the crater. “Same goes for the water, I’m afraid. We just don’t have the reserves to go handing out clean water to strangers for free.”

“Wonderful.” Rarity pouted. “Well, I suppose between the seven of us we can come up with some way of raising an income.”

“If and when we need to,” Sunset agreed. “Come on, girls, the sooner we find out where James and Adam went, the sooner we can catch up. Thanks again, sheriff.”

“Alright, you girls look after yourselves. Just make sure to mind your manners and don’t go causing any trouble. If you need anything else, just holler.” The sheriff turned to walk away, then stopped and called back over his shoulder. “Oh, almost forgot. Watch out for the Church of Atom.”

“The what of what now?” Rainbow asked.

Simms just chuckled darkly. “You’ll see.” With that cryptic comment, he left, strolling away around the edge of the settlement. Sharing a confused glance with her friends, Sunset led the way down the staircase and deeper into the crater. Several residents passed the girls by as they walked. None of them spoke, though all of them eyed the girls suspiciously, some of them muttering things that Sunset was privately glad she couldn’t quite hear. 

 “Well, ain’t that somethin’.” Sunset looked around to see what Applejack was talking about, pulling her attention away from a two-headed mutant cow being milked outside the clinic. The others stood nearby, gazing up at the huge statue of a bomb standing proud in its little lake. Stepping over to join them, Sunset was not at all reassured by the faint green glow that emanated from the surface of the pool.

They weren’t the only ones looking at the statue. A small group of residents was gathered near the edge of the water, all listening intently to the words of a man standing in front of them. Knee-deep in the glowing water, the man was delivering a sermon while facing the statue, his eyes closed and his arms held out to his sides as if bathing in its glory. He looked like a priest of some sort. “Let those who dwell here in his favored land attend now to the words of the prophet of Atom. Come forth, and drink the waters of the Glow, for this ancient weapon of war is our salvation, it is the very symbol of Atom’s glory. Let it serve as a reminder of the division that has occurred in the past, and the promise of the resplendence of our division, in the times to come. Give your bodies to Atom.”

Sunset listened with a mix of fascination and concern as the priest droned on. He clearly had a few screws loose.

“Do you think he’s alright?” Fluttershy asked suddenly, looking over as well. “Standing in that water can’t be good for him.”

Twilight frowned at the priest. “He’s probably going to get either radiation poisoning or some sort of cancer. Maybe both.” She raised an eyebrow as she surveyed the gathering. “Are they… worshipping the statue?” 

Applejack shook her head in disbelief. “Looks to me like they’re a few bushels short of a tree.”

“I suppose it makes sense, if you think about it’” Fluttershy put in. She blushed as the others turned to look at her. “Um, well, I mean, it was bombs like this that ended their civilization two hundred years ago. The face of the whole planet must have been changed.”  

Sunset thought about what Fluttershy was saying. “Remolding a planet, ending civilizations, that does sound like the power of a god.” Or perhaps Discord, she thought privately. The thought of what that must have been like, watching civilization burn as the bombs fell, flickered across her mind again. Sunset shivered. That was not something she wanted to picture, especially while standing next to a representation of one of those bombs.

“It appears his little congregation has noticed our attention,” Rarity said warily. 
Indeed, several members of the group were nudging their fellows and pointing at the girls. Their reactions couldn’t have been further from those of the other Megaton settlers. Their eyes widened in shock, many of them smiling at the girls or clapping their hands to their mouths in excitement.

“At least they look happy to see us!” Pinkie grinned. 

“Well duh, it’s about time someone around here realized how awesome we are!” Rainbow replied, sticking her hands on her hips and standing tall.

The priest frowned and opened his eyes slowly as he turned to see why his followers had stopped paying attention. Following their gazes, he soon spotted the little group of friends. Still blinking in the sunshine, it took him a moment to register what he was seeing, but when he managed to focus on the girls his eyes practically popped out of his skull. The priest clasped his hands together as he called out joyfully, “Oh my, but you are clearly blessed by Atom! Dear children, welcome! Welcome to Megaton!” He spun around to face his flock again and flung an arm out towards the girls. “Look, my dear brothers and sisters! Look upon these blessed daughters of Atom who stand before us and bask in their glorious presence!”

Rainbow slowly turned to look at her friends, confusion etched on her features. “Uh, what the heck is this guy talking about?” 

“Not a darn clue,” Applejack replied flatly, looking wide-eyed at the mad priest.

“I have no idea either, darling, but I could certainly get used to it,” Rarity purred. She flicked her hair over her shoulder and struck a dignified pose, clearly enjoying the positive attention.

The priest turned back to the girls, waving them over. “Please, come closer, honored sisters. Do not be afraid.”

Reluctantly, the girls approached the priest, being extra careful not to touch the water. The people around them shifted to give the girls plenty of room, their expressions ranging from awestruck to reverent.

The priest spread his arms wide and smiled widely as the girls stopped before him. “Welcome again, blessed children. I am Confessor Cromwell, prophet of Atom and humble shepherd of this faithful flock. It is truly an honor to meet such favored daughters of Atom.” 

“Er… thanks,” Sunset replied awkwardly, taken aback by the fervor of his welcome. “I’m Sunset Shimmer and these are my friends.” Each of the girls nodded or waved a little as Sunset introduced them in turn, Rarity flicking her hair again and flashing a dazzling smile while Fluttershy did her level best to hide behind Applejack.

Cromwell bowed deeply. “It is truly a blessing to meet you all.” He raised a hand to indicate the statue beside him. “I noticed you blessed sisters were interested in the bearer of our salvation.”

“Oh, er, yes.” Twilight smiled nervously. “It’s an impressive, uh, monument. A very accurate representation of an early nuclear bomb.”

Pinkie nodded vigorously. “Yep, it’s a really cool statue.” 

A look of confusion passed across Cromwell’s face. “Forgive me, did you say statue?” He grinned and shook his head, chuckling quietly, “My dear children, this great monument is no mere imitation or simulacrum. This holy idol is a relic of the ancient conflict, a reminder of the great division that has occurred in the past and a promise of further division yet to come.”   

Applejack just blinked in confusion. “Say what now?”

Sunset felt the blood drain from her face as she realized what the Confessor meant. “It’s a real bomb. A real… nuclear… bomb…”

There was a moment of horrified silence as each of the girls just stared at the bomb.

“Oh, sugar honey iced tea,” Applejack breathed. 

“So that’s seriously a real atomic bomb?” Rainbow asked quietly. “That… is… so… awesome!” She yelled, punching a fist in the air.

“Atom left us this instrument of his will that we may know of his glory and look forward to the great division to come,” Cromwell intoned. “It is proof of Atom’s will that one so blessed by his Glow would seek to understand the mechanism by which he brings forth new life. Please, feel free to enter the waters of the Glow and take a closer look.”

“You‘re kiddin’ me right? You’re not seriously sayin’ you built a town around a real live atomic bomb!?” Applejack blurted out.

Cromwell smiled sadly at her. “I understand your concern. It can be difficult to resist the natural fear inspired by the power of the great division, even for those who enjoy the blessing of Atom. It is only by overcoming this fear, and accepting the warm embrace of the Glow, that we can truly consider ourselves to be one with Atom.”

“Don’t worry Applejack, it’s probably safe,” Twilight said bracingly. “After all, if the bomb hasn’t gone off in the last two centuries, I can’t imagine why it would suddenly go off now for no reason.”

Rarity took a few paces backwards anyway. “Much as I trust your intellect darling, I would feel a lot safer if we were to go, oh, I don’t know, perhaps somewhere as far away from here as possible?”

“Come one, guys, this is awesome!” Rainbow exclaimed loudly, grinning up at the bomb. “How many people we know can say they’ve been this close to a real atomic bomb!”

“Technically, calling it an atomic bomb is a misnomer. After all, the energy only comes from the nucleus of the atom,” Twilight piped up.

Rainbow just rolled her eyes. “Sure thing, egghead.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow at her nerdy friend. “Okay, Rainbow I get, but why do you sound so happy about this?”

“Come on, Sunset, you have to admit it’s fascinating!” Twilight exclaimed. “I wonder why the bomb never went off originally?”

“Maybe the detonator was damaged?” Sunset wondered aloud, interested despite herself. “Or maybe it wasn’t primed properly before it was dropped?”

Cromwell looked delighted. “You are knowledgeable in the ways of Atom’s great instruments?”

Sunset shook her head. “Not really, I just read somewhere that nuclear bombs actually require a very complex and precise detonation process or they won’t go off.” 

“It depends on what type of bomb it is,” Twilight interjected. “This looks like an old implosion-type, which would require a very precise detonation sequence to cause a complete nuclear detonation. Though, I suppose an accident of some sort could still cause a partial detonation from the conventional explosives stored inside.”

Sunset folded her arms, considering Twilight’s words. 

“Anyone mind explainin’ what the heck she just said?” Applejack asked, clearly having trouble keeping up.

Surprisingly, it was Pinkie who answered, “She said the bomb won’t go off with a really, really, big boom, but there is a chance we could get a regular big boom.” 

Sunset grimaced at that. “The town would probably survive, but I still wouldn’t want to be standing anywhere near here if that happened.” 

Cromwell reached out and stroked the bomb, almost lovingly. “By Atom’s will, this wonderful relic has stood proudly here for over two hundred years. It shall only be by His will that the great division shall come again. Fear not, for when it does so it shall not be the pale imitation of mere accident, but the full might of Atom‘s glorious will.” 

Sunset stared blankly at him. “Uh, right. Well, as interesting as this has been, we really need to get going. There’s something important we have to do and we‘re running late as it is.” 

Cromwell turned back to face the girls, disappointment coloring his features. “Oh, of course. Forgive me, blessed children, I shall keep you no longer.” He pointed to a building on the far side of the bomb. “Should you ever find yourselves in need of guidance or succor, please do not hesitate to call upon us. The Church of Atom would be honored to welcome such distinguished guests.”

“We’ll bear that in mind, thanks again!” Sunset gave him a forced smile and turned to leave. Thankfully, Cromwell’s followers immediately parted to allow the girls to pass. Once they were away from the group, she looked around, trying to get her bearings. “Does anyone have any idea which way the saloon is?”

“Up this way!” Pinkie pointed to a little signpost nearby. The girls followed as she skipped up the indicated staircase, trying to put some distance between themselves and the bomb. Together, the seven friends made their way up and out of the crater and onto the walkways of Megaton, ignoring the stares and mutterings of the other residents that passed them by. 

While the others discussed the sheer lunacy that was the Church of Atom, Sunset was content to simply take in their surroundings. The view when they reached the upper walkways was particularly impressive. Looking down on the sprawl of Megaton, Sunset realized it had a sort of dilapidated, haphazard charm to it. She was still imagining how fun it would be to be let loose on the town with her paints when they finally arrived at the saloon.  

Inside, the saloon was made of the same grimy scrap metal as the rest of the town. Several small round tables and chairs were dotted around the place, and there was a long counter lined with stools for the patrons. There were a fair number of customers spread around, as well as two people standing behind the bar. One was sharing a laugh with a woman sitting in front of him while the other, the man serving drinks,made Sunset do a double-take as her gaye swept over him. The poor man, at least, Sunset assumed he was a man, looked like some sort of zombie out of an old horror flick. The whole place was filled with a hubbub of conversation, all of which stopped the moment the girls walked through the door. 

Sunset felt an unpleasant shiver down her spine as every single person in the room turned to stare at them. A small squeal and a nudge on her pack told her that Fluttershy had hidden behind her, right in the middle of the group. Sunset glanced nervously around the room. There were plenty of frowns, scowls, and looks of complete shock on the faces of the patrons but, unlike the Church of Atom, no-one looked happy to see them. Suddenly a man shouted from one end of the bar. “What the fuck? Moriarty, have you put fucking Jet in the booze or something?!”

Most of the other patrons laughed uproariously at him and turned back to their drinks. Grinning nervously, Sunset and the others stepped over to the counter, walking up to the man standing behind the bar. 

Sunset assumed this must be Moriarty. He was wearing a long, sleeveless leather coat over a clean white t-shirt, while his hair and scruffy little beard were both iron-grey. He looked far cleaner and more well-maintained than anyone the girls had met since leaving Vault 101. 

“Well now, this isn’t something you see every day. Colin Moriarty, at your service!” Moriarty gave an easy smile, running his eyes over the girls as he started polishing a glass. “And what brings such well-dressed and, dare I say, exotic looking ladies to my fine establishment?” Moriarty spoke with an interesting accent that Sunset couldn’t quite place, though it sounded like one of the islands off Trottingham. He certainly seemed friendly, though she remembered what Simms had said about trusting the man. 

Sunset wondered if he would be anywhere near as friendly if they had been dressed in Vault suits instead of their own clothes. “Hi, I’m Sunset Shimmer. We’re actually looking for a couple of people, and the sheriff said you might be able to help. Two Vault residents called James and Adam. We heard they passed through here?”

Moriarty raised an eyebrow. “News travels fast. I happen to know for a fact that this is the first time Adam has been out of that Vault since he was a babe, which begs the question, how do you girls know about him?” 

“We spent some time in the Vault ourselves,” Sunset replied, “Can you tell us where they went? It’s really important that we speak to James.” 

“Is that a fact?” Moriarty put the glass down and looked Sunset in the eye. “Alright, here‘s how it is. Yes, James was here, and then he left. Young Adam came in afterwards looking for James himself, and in exchange for the information he did me a little favor. You see, information is a commodity.” He smirked slightly, folding his arms. “Sadly, I don’t have any errands that I desperately need doing right now, so how about we say… three hundred caps, and I tell you exactly where James and Adam went.”

Sunset glanced uneasily around at her friends. “We don’t have any caps.”

“Technically we have two,” Twilight cut in brightly. Her smile faded quickly as the others turned to frown at her. “I guess that doesn’t really make a difference.”

Moriarty sighed theatrically and placed his hands on the counter. “Now you see, that right there is a problem.” He sucked his teeth loudly, “Hmmm, how about those pretty little necklaces? You give me those and I’ll call it even.”

Sunset grabbed her Geode protectively. “Our necklaces are not for sale.”

Rarity suddenly stepped forward, slipping one of her gold bracelets off and placing it on the counter. “How about this instead? I’m sure such a refined gentleman as yourself can see the value, and for such a simple piece of information, hmmm?” She smiled up at Moriarty, fluttering her eyelashes.

Moriarty just frowned at her. “Are you trying to swindle me with fake crap?”

Rarity’s eye twitched as her voice dropped dangerously. “Fake?”

“Listen here, girlie. Even if that little trinket is real, there’s no fucker out here who’d be stupid enough to buy it, meaning it’s completely fucking useless to me. You want information you bring me caps, not fucking paperweights.” 

Moriarty stepped back, folding his arms again. “I’ll tell you what, since you girls obviously have no fucking clue how things work out here in the wastes, I’ll help you out. Out of the kindness of my heart and all. What we’ll do is this; you girls work for me here at the bar, and I’ll pay you for the work you do. There’s seven of you, so each of you only has to work one day a week if that’s how you want it. Very reasonable.”

Sunset frowned at him. It certainly sounded reasonable, but there was no way Sunset wanted to wait around even a day, let alone a whole week. Not to mention that Moriarty hadn’t mentioned how much he would pay them, or exactly what their work would entail. As she considered, Sunset spotted something out of the corner of her eye. The zombie who had been serving drinks was glancing surreptitiously her way, subtly shaking his head. That was enough for her. “Sorry, Mr Moriarty, but I think we’ll find our own way of raising the money you want.”

Moriarty snorted and picked the glass back up. “You’re more than welcome to try. Now, if you don’t mind, this establishment is for paying customers only.”

Sunset threw him a glare and led her friends back out of the saloon.

“What a creep,” Rainbow said, leaning against the railings of the walkway.

“That’s a polite way of putting it,” Rarity scowled as she slid her bracelet back onto her wrist. “Fake indeed!”

Applejack sighed and leaned next to Rainbow. “Now what are we supposed to do?”

Sunset groaned and rubbed her temples. “I didn’t want to do this but… I think we should split up. We’ll go through this whole settlement and see if we can find any odd jobs that people need doing.”

Pinkie‘s hand shot into the air. “Oh oh! Like planning a party? Or babysitting? Or baking a cake?” 

“Anything that will get us the caps we need as quickly as possible,” Sunset replied.

“Sounds good to me, who’s going with who?” Applejack asked.

Sunset looked around at her friends. “Rarity, you go with Rainbow Dash. Applejack and Pinkie can go together. Twilight, Fluttershy, you come with me. We’ll meet back at the entrance to Megaton as soon as we can. Does that sound good?”

There was a chorus of agreement from the others, then they all went their separate ways. 

Sunset, Twilight and Fluttershy’s job hunt did not go well. First, they tracked down the sheriff to see if he had any ideas. He directed them to a restaurant down by the bomb, but they weren’t willing to hire any of the girls, nor did they or any of their patrons have any odd jobs that needed doing. From there, they tried asking people around the common house, but that went south quickly. Hardly any of the settlers were willing to even talk to the girls, let alone pay them for anything. 

“I hate this town,” Sunset moaned, folding her arms and slumping against a wall.

The three girls had given up for now and decided to have a little lunch out of their remaining Vault supplies. 

“The people here aren’t very friendly,” Fluttershy muttered, “It’s even worse out here than it was in the Vault.”

Twilight just nodded, quietly munching away on a slice of cake Pinkie had baked a few days before. How it hadn’t gone stale yet, Sunset couldn’t guess. She sighed heavily. “I guess we’ll just have to keep trying. Hopefully the others are having more luck.”

“I doubt it,” Twilight said miserably. “The people here really don’t seem to like us. I guess we’re just too different.”

“Perhaps I can be of some assistance.” The girls jumped as a voice called out from a nearby alleyway. A man was standing in the shadows, wearing a smart grey business suit along with a fedora and sunglasses. “Sunset Shimmer, I presume?” The man tilted his hat in greeting. “My name is Burke. I have a proposition for you.”
> Chapter 8 - A Deadly Proposition
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“How do you know her name?” Twilight asked quickly.

Mr Burke smiled at her and spoke in a smooth, oily voice. “Oh I know far more than just her name Miss Sparkle, Miss Shy.” His smile widened at the girls’ surprise at being recognized. “To answer your question, the local cultists have been spreading word of your little group as quickly as they possibly can.”

“Local cultists?” Fluttershy asked quietly.

“The Church of Atom.” Sunset replied, eyeing Burke warily. “You have a proposition for me?”

Burke nodded. “Indeed Miss Shimmer, one that I believe you and your friends are uniquely suited for. If you are interested I would appreciate you stepping over here so we can discuss our business more… privately.”

Twilight frowned at him. “You expect three young girls to follow a mysterious stranger into a secluded back alley?” 

“I would prefer not to be overheard.” Burke chuckled as Sunset raised her eyebrow. “The business I wish to discuss is of a… sensitive… nature. Normally the saloon would be a far more suitable choice for a private conversation. The bustle and noise would make us much more difficult to overhear, but you girls stand out too much. People would pay attention.” 

Sunset frowned, thinking hard. She was interested in hearing what Burke had to offer but her instincts were screaming at her not to trust him. On top of that, as much as she cared for them, Fluttershy and Twilight would not have been the first friends she would have chosen to go following an untrustworthy stranger into a dark alleyway. Especially not out here in the Wasteland where most of the people she had spoken to were armed in some way.

Eventually, she decided it was worth the risk. “Alright Mr Burke, we’ll hear your proposal.”

“Excellent. Please, follow me.” 

As the girls followed Burke into the alleyway, Fluttershy whispered quietly to Sunset. “Um, are you sure this is a good idea?” 

“Fluttershy’s right, we’d be safer out in the open where people can see us.” Twilight added.

Sunset nodded, smirking slightly. “I know. If he tries something there won’t be anyone around to help us. Which means if he does try something, no-one will be around to see you use your magic on him. You don’t have to hurt him.” Sunset said quickly at the look on Twilight’s face, “Just pick him up and hold him so he can’t hurt us while we escape.”

Twilight glanced ahead at Burke, then looked back at Sunset and nodded grimly. 

As Burke reached the end of the alleyway he glanced around. They were right under the Megaton’s outer wall, at a convergence of several narrow alleyways. Satisfied that no-one was around, he turned back to the three friends. “This will do nicely.”  

Sunset folded her arms, not letting her guard down for an instant. “So what exactly is this secret business of yours and why do you think we’d be so suited for it? I mean you don’t even know us.” 

Burke tilted his head, regarding the girls keenly. “I understand you girls have been looking for work, yet you have not gone seeking the charity of the Church of Atom despite their clear... infatuation... with you all.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow and that. She had considered going to the Church of Atom for help but decided against it. For whatever reason Cromwell and his followers had taken her and her friends to be blessed in some way by the strange deity they worshiped and it didn’t feel right to take advantage of them in that way.

“So what’s your point?”

“My point, Miss Shimmer, is that you seem to prefer doing your own dirty work. A work ethic I can admire. That and your lack of attachment to this decaying excuse for a settlement makes you a group of very valuable individuals indeed.” 

The three friends shared a glance. Sunset wasn’t sure where he was going with this and wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to find out. “What do you mean?” she asked slowly.

Burke glanced around again to make sure they were still alone, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I represent certain… interests who view this festering sinkhole as a blight on a burgeoning urban landscape. They have tasked me with recruiting someone who, for example, had been rejected by the local Neanderthals for no greater reason than a simple difference of color. Someone who wouldn’t care, who would in fact be interested in seeing this settlement simply… go away…”

Twilight just blinked in surprise. “Go away? What do you mean?” 

“Wait…” Sunset had seen what the man was getting at, and she did not like it one bit. “You want to destroy the town?” 

He smiled slightly. “Correct, and in a way that your associates at the Church of Atom would very much appreciate I assure you.” His smile widened further. “The un-detonated atomic bomb, the monument to the great ‘Atom’ they worship with such diligence is still very much alive. All it needs is a little motivation.”

Sunset gaped at him. She couldn’t believe what this lunatic was coming out with. In fact, she realized, she didn’t believe him at all. The girls were clearly from out of town whereas Burke himself was probably a resident. He was probably trying to pull some sort of sick prank on them, or give them some sort of test. No-one would seriously suggest something like that to anyone, let alone complete strangers. 

As these thoughts were running through Sunset’s head Burke pulled his coat to the side, revealing a small box tucked into an inside pocket. Sunset spotted something else under his coat that sent a cold shiver down her spine. 

Luckily, Burke didn’t notice her consternation. “This is a fusion pulse charge. All I require is someone to rig it to the bomb‘s control panel. Once that is done you will detonate it at a secure location far from here.”

Twilight cringed away from it, looking at Sunset. “Is… he being serious?” 

Sunset just smirked, trying not to give away the cold fear she felt flowing through her. “Nice looking toy, what’s really in there? Confetti?”

“I assure you this is no joke.” Burke said darkly. “Here. See for yourself.” He pulled the box out of his coat, pried open a small panel on the bottom and held it over Sunset’s Pip-Boy. Immediately her Geiger counter started crackling. Sunset yanked her hand back as Burke closed the panel again and smoothly slid the box back into his coat.

“That thing is real.” Twilight said slowly. “You really want the town gone.”

“Finally cottoned on have you?” Burke sneered.

“But what about the people? We can’t just force them out of their homes.” Fluttershy said quietly. 

“Not to mention how difficult it would be to get them to leave in the first place." Twilight added. "I suppose you could offer some sort of compensation, but even with that how would we convince them to evacuate?”

Burke raised an eyebrow at the two girls. 

Sunset caught his intention and it chilled her to the core. “We don’t.”

Burke snorted. “At least one of you can keep up.”

Sunset felt like there was ice in her veins. This man was talking about slaughtering an entire town as if it were nothing. Just an everyday business transaction. Walk away, flip a switch and subject an entire town to the same fate that had swallowed their civilization two hundred years ago. 

They had to get this to the sheriff, but first they had to get away from Mr Burke. Simply walking away wasn’t an option, not knowing what else he had under his coat. For now Sunset decided to simply play along, hoping Twilight and Fluttershy would realize what she was doing.

“Okay, let‘s say we’re interested.” Sunset tried very hard to ignore the shocked looks she got from the other two, “What’s in it for us?”

“Sunset… what are you doing?” Twilight breathed.

Burke gestured vaguely around at their surroundings. “You mean besides ridding the world of this feculent eyesore? How about repaying the brutish inhabitants for the absolute lack of common decency they have shown you so far? And as for the Church of Atom…” He chuckled maliciously, “Those zealots believe you to be some sort of blessed prophets of their ridiculous god. Having you unleash the full might of their holy relic would be a blessing beyond measure in their eyes.” 

Sunset leaned forward, giving what she hoped was a seductive smile. “That does sound interesting, but I was hoping for something a little more… tangible.” she purred.

Mr Burke smiled at her. “It seems I underestimated you Miss Shimmer, as did Moriarty. If you didn’t understand the way the wasteland works before, then you are certainly a very fast learner.”

Sunset stepped forward to lay a hand on his chest, keeping the smile plastered on her face even as her skin crawled. “I appreciate the flattery, but you didn’t answer my question.”

“Yes, of course.” Burke nervously reached up to straighten his tie, “My employer is a very, very wealthy man. Do this one small thing and you shall never again lack for caps or luxury.”

Twilight grabbed Sunset‘s arm. “Sunset you can’t do this! I know we’ve had trouble since we got here but this isn’t the answer!” she whispered desperately.

“I’m doing what I have to.” Sunset said roughly, turning to look Twilight in the eyes. They stayed that way for a moment, Sunset keeping a fierce look on her face but hoping desperately that Twilight would catch on. Eventually Twilight stepped back, her head drooping. Fluttershy placed an arm on her shoulder and nodded subtly to Sunset.

Well, at least one of them gets it Sunset thought as she turned back to Burke and gave her best attempt at a twisted smirk. “All right Mr Burke, I‘ll do it. You provide the charge, I‘ll provide the crater.” she said quietly, putting as much conviction as she could into her voice.

Burke gave her an oily grin as he pulled the charge out of his pocket and held it out. “Here’s the fusion pulse charge. There is a control panel that is suitably exposed, just pry it open and connect the charge on the inside of the casing. That will be enough to get the bomb primed.”

“Got it.” Sunset said, taking the charge and tucking under her arm.

“When it’s done meet me at the saloon and I shall escort you to Tenpenny Tower. Once we are there you will have the pleasure of wiping this cesspool from existence.” 

Sunset nodded “Alright, I‘ll get it done. You head out first, I guess you don’t want people to notice that we've been talking.” 

“You assume correctly.” Burke replied silkily. Without another word he strode back down the alley. As soon as he was out of sight Sunset let out a breath. Before she could say anything she felt the pulse charge yanked out from under her arm. Whipping around, she saw the charge floating in front of Twilight, grasped her magic’s purple aura.

“Alright Sunset, what the heck was all of that about!?”

Sunset just blinked. “What?”

Fluttershy spoke up in a very small voice. “Um, I think Sunset did the right-”

“What do you mean what?!” Twilight cried, ignoring Fluttershy’s quiet efforts. She pulled a vague imitation of Sunset’s voice, “You provide the charge, I’ll provide the crater. What WAS that?”

“Twilight, you need to calm down.” Fluttershy said firmly, placing a hand on Twilight’s shoulder.

Sunset felt a hollow pain in her chest as she looked at her purple friend. “You… you don’t actually think I was going to destroy the town, do you?”  

Twilight shook her head. “Of course I don’t, I just…” She took a deep breath to calm herself. “I… I’m sorry. I’ve just never seen you all, you know, ‘bad girl’ before. It freaked me out. But, why did you say all that?” 

“Ah‘d kinda like to hear that too.” Applejack drawled as she stepped out from around a corner, Rarity sauntering along behind her. 

“Yeah Sunshim, what gives?” Pinkie called down from where she and Rainbow were perched on the roof of the building above.

The three girls jumped at the sudden appearance of the rest of their friends. 

“Wait, you were all watching? Why didn’t you say anything!” Twilight snapped.

Rainbow shrugged, “That guy looked shifty so we followed you. Figured he‘d bolt if we all turned up so we decided to stay out of sight.”

“Of course, we were all terribly worried when we heard what he wanted, but it looked like you had it under control.” Rarity piped up, “It was obvious, to me at least, that you were using your feminine wiles to get that… whatever that thing is off that horrid man. We just can’t help wondering, well, why?”

“Yeah, why didn’t you just grab the creep and drag him over to the sheriff?” Rainbow asked.

Sunset sighed heavily, terrified at how close this could have come to ending in disaster. “He has a gun, I saw it when he opened his coat to show me the pulse charge. It’s got a silencer attached. I was worried that if we tried to say no or run away he could kill us and no-one would ever know what had happened.”

There was a brief, appalled silence as the others digested her words.

Applejack let out a slow whistle. “Good gravy girl, that was some mighty quick thinking you did back there.”

“You said it AJ.” Rainbow agreed.

“I, um, I saw it too.” Fluttershy said quietly, “That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

“Well it’s a good thing we didn’t try to force our way into the conversation.” Rarity muttered, “That could well have turned into a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.”

Sunset glanced over at the charge, still clutched in Twilight‘s magic. “Can that thing really do what he said it can?”

Twilight grabbed the box out of her aura, turning it over in her hands. “I think so?”  

“We need to get that thing to the sheriff.” Applejack said flatly.

“You’re right, we need to let him know what’s going on as fast as we can.” Sunset nodded, “Do any of you have any idea where he is?”

The others all shook their heads. 

“Alright, I guess we‘ll just have to go look for him.” Sunset sighed as Rainbow and Pinkie clambered down from the roof. “Come on girls.”





Finding Simms didn’t turn out to be as hard as Sunset had feared. Almost as soon as they exited the alleyway Pinkie spotted him at the restaurant down by the bomb, chatting to Confessor Cromwell and a young boy they didn’t recognize. 

As the girls hurried down to him they agreed on a plan. Sunset would speak to the sheriff while the others distracted Cromwell and his followers. They might be nice people, but Sunset still didn’t feel comfortable letting them know about the fusion pulse charge that was currently nestled within her pack.

The Confessor spotted them first as they approached. “Blessed children! It is a pleasure to see you all again so soon! Honored Rarity, Honored Rainbow Dash, it warms my heart to know that you brought this humble shepherd’s request to your most esteemed sisters.”

The others all turned to stare at Rarity and Rainbow. 

“We didn’t take advantage if that’s what you’re all wondering.” Rarity said tartly, though she blushed a little as she said it. “They offered us caps from their donations and we politely but firmly refused.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes at them suspiciously. “U-huh, so what was this request about?”

“They just asked if we could bring the rest of you along some time to have a chat with the acolytes and stuff. No biggie.” Rainbow answered. 

Twilight grinned at him, “We're all here, why don't we talk now?”

Cromwell glanced at the wide-eyed sheriff, then back at the girls. “Nothing would please me more but please, do not go out of your way for us. Your desire for self-sufficiency is truly inspiring and I would not wish to impose on your time while you are still getting yourselves settled.” 

“Actually, that would be perfect.” Sunset said quickly, “I just need a quick word with the sheriff, would you mind keeping my friends company while they wait?”

Simms raised his eyebrows at the obvious excuse, but the Confessor just beamed at her. “Nothing could please me more Honored Sunset Shimmer!”

Sunset tried not to let her relief show as Cromwell eagerly started chatting with the others. She turned to walk away and gestured for the sheriff to follow, glancing up towards the saloon to make sure Burke wasn’t watching. Satisfied, she wandered over to the far side of the bomb, out of sight of the saloon entirely, before she turned to the sheriff. Sunset blinked as she realized the young boy had followed them over too. 

Simms noticed her gaze. “This is my son Harden.” That explains the resemblance, Sunset thought. “Don’t worry, anything you want to say to me you can say in front of him. So what’s this about exactly, problem with the job hunt?”

“No. Well, yes. Sort of. We tried the restaurant like you suggested, but they didn’t have anything.” 

“Have you tried Craterside Supply? Moira’s always looking for assistants for her crazy experiments.”

“Sounds interesting, but we actually have a bigger problem at the moment.” Sunset glanced over to make sure Cromwell was still distracted. “While we were looking around, we were approached by someone, a Mr Burke?”

Simms suddenly groaned and shook his head. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like what you’re about to say?”

“Er, to be honest, it’s probably a lot worse than you’re thinking.” Sunset slipped her pack off. “Uh, you might want to stand over here, so Confessor Cromwell can‘t see this.”

The sheriff raised an eyebrow at that. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Sunset sighed and pulled the charge out of her pack, angling her body so Cromwell wouldn’t be able to see it from where he was standing. She wasn’t sure he would recognize it for what it was, but she didn’t want to take the chance. “Burke gave me this fusion pulse charge, he asked me to rig the bomb to explode.”

“Jesus! Gimme that thing!” Simms yelped. He reached his hands out for it but Sunset pulled it out of his reach.

“Careful, we don’t want them to see!”

“Want who to see?” the sheriff snapped.

Sunset just gave him a blank look. “Do you want the Church of Atom to know you have something like this?”

Simms glanced over his shoulder towards Cromwell. “Good point. Alright, come here.” 

They shifted so she could pass him the charge while keeping it out of sight of anyone else. He inspected the charge quickly before stuffing it into his coat and turning to his son. The poor boy looked terrified.

“Harden, I want you to go home and stay there until I come for you, and don’t breath a word of this to anyone, you hear me?” Harden nodded rapidly. “Alright, go on now.”

Harden turned and ran as fast as he could to a staircase and disappeared up it. As soon as his son was gone Simms squared his shoulder and jerked his chin towards Cromwell and the others. “Do your friends know about this?”

“Yes. That’s why they agreed to distract Cromwell while I spoke to you.”

“Good call. I don’t think Cromwell would do anything about it himself, but I still wouldn’t take the risk. Come with me.” They walked quickly back over to her friends. “Sorry Confessor, but I’m going to need these girls to come with me for now.”

Cromwell looked around, curious. “Is there a problem sheriff?”

“Don’t worry Cromwell, your new friends aren’t in any trouble, but I do need them to come with me. I’m sorry but it can’t wait.”

“Oh, of course sheriff. Until next time Honored ones.” Cromwell bowed deeply to the girls as they left.

The sheriff strode purposefully through the town, shrugging his assault rifle off his back. The girls hurried to keep up. The people they passed quickly got out of the way, looking curiously after the unusual group but not daring to ask questions. 

Sunset fell into step alongside Simms. “What are we going to do?” 

Simms glanced over his shoulder at the girls. “I want all of you to come with me to the saloon. Sunset, you’re with me, the rest of you just stay back and watch while I do the talking. You’re about to get an education in Wasteland justice.”

Sunset shivered and slowed down to let Simms go in front. Turning to the girls she spoke in an undertone so he wouldn’t hear. “Alright girls, I think the sheriff can handle this, but just in case I think we should be prepared to use our magic to help out.”

“What if Mr Burke tries to shoot someone?” Twilight asked worriedly.

Rainbow smacked a fist into her palm. “Then we take him out before he can.”

Sunset nodded. “But be careful everyone, we don’t want to take any chances.” 

“Darn right we don’t.” Applejack muttered. “It’s going to be awful cramped in there with all of us though. Maybe you should stay back with the rest of us.”

“Don’t worry about me.” Sunset said, sounding more confident than she felt. “I’ll go with the sheriff to confront Burke, the rest of you position yourselves around the saloon to jump in if you have to.”

“That puts you in an awful lot of danger darling.” Rarity warned.

Rainbow shook her head. “Don’t worry, if I see a gun I’ll dash in and grab it off him before he knows what hit him.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Applejack smiled, patting Sunset on the back. “Don’t worry sugarcube, we got your back.”

The girls fell silent as the saloon came into view. Not bothering to slow down, Simms shouldered the door open. The patrons all looked around as he barged his way in. The zombie behind the bar took one look at the group and disappeared into a back room. Moriarty was nowhere to be seen. Burke was sitting alone in a little alcove off to the side. 

The other girls spread themselves out around the saloon as Simms stormed over to Burke, Sunset close behind. A look of anger passed across Burke’s face as they approached but he quickly schooled his features into neutrality. The whole saloon fell silent as Simms stomped right up to his table. “You there, Burke! I’m placing you under arrest for endangering the town of Megaton.” 

Burke just leaned back in his chair, raising an eyebrow. “Under arrest? Why, whatever for sheriff?.” he asked calmly.

“Don’t play dumb with me!” Simms snarled. “I know all about your plan to blow up the bomb! Have you lost your goddamned mind!?” 

The other patrons started muttering at that but Burke just shook his head, feigning innocence. “I do apologize sheriff, but I simply have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Maybe this will jog your memory.” Simms pulled the fusion pulse charge out of his coat and slammed it on the table in front of Burke. “Try and explain your way out of that one.”

Burke stared at the charge for a moment, his face unreadable. Suddenly he stood smoothly and dusted off his suit. “Very well sheriff, it seems you wish to take the word of a mutated outsider over a man of impeccable conduct.” He glared over his glasses at Sunset. “But no matter, I‘m sure we can resolve this little dispute in time.” 

Simms glared at Burke for a moment longer. As the sheriff turned away Sunset let out the breath she had been holding, when something caught her eye. Burke had subtly slipped his hand under his coat and was pointing something at Simms’ back. 

Without thinking Sunset lunged forward, shoving Burke with as much force as she could muster. She heard a quiet ‘phut’ and saw Simms stagger as she collided with Burke. They both crashed into the wall, another muffled gunshot ricocheting off the floor. Sunset desperately grabbed for the gun but Burke rammed his elbow up and across her cheek, knocking her back. His fist crashed into her chin and Sunset fell backwards, slamming painfully into a wall and crumpling to the floor.

Before Burke could react there was a blur of color and he was yanked sideways. Rainbow was struggling to pull the gun out of his grip, but he was holding on too tight. Another low phut sounded and Rainbow let go, narrowly avoiding getting shot. Burke shoved her away before she could recover, sending her sprawling over a table. 

He straightened up and looked at Sunset, snarling as he pointed his gun directly at her face. “Treacherous bitch.” 

Several rapid gunshots rang out, bright flashes lighting the whole saloon. Sunset saw a small spark from the end of Burke’s gun and felt a blaze of heat across her temple as he staggered back against the wall. Crimson patches blossomed all over his suit as he slumped, barely standing. Simms lunged forward and jammed the barrel of his rifle into Burke’s throat, forcing his head back. He had time for one last look of shock before Simms fired. The back of Burke’s head exploded outwards, coating the alcove behind him in sticky gore. 

Sunset felt her gorge rising as Burke’s body crumpled to the floor. Forcing it down, she looked around to see if everyone was alright, then immediately regretted it as she saw Rarity being violently sick by the staircase. Fluttershy was standing near the counter, a look of abject terror on her face as she stared at Burke’s corpse. Sunset tried to stand but her legs wouldn’t co-operate. She was shaking violently, and realized vaguely that her head was throbbing. 

The other patrons started calling out to each other, making sure no-one else was hurt. It looked like they had all ducked for cover the moment the shooting started. A groan brought Sunset’s head whipping around, the sudden movement sending waves of nausea rolling through her. Rainbow hauled herself painfully to her feet, clutching her shoulder.

Pinkie appeared out of nowhere and crouched next to Sunset. “Are you okay?”

Sunset couldn’t muster the energy to respond as she saw Applejack hurry over to Rainbow. Pinkie offered Sunset a water bottle, which she took gratefully. Chugging down the cool liquid helped her focus. Or at least it reduced the spinning in her head.

“Is everyone okay?” she gasped as Pinkie helped her to her feet. 

“We‘re alright.” Pinkie said quietly. Her eyes widened as she spotted something on Sunset‘s face. “Oh no, Fluttershy! FLUTTERSHY GET OVER HERE!!!!”

Fluttershy jolted as if electrocuted. Sunset blinked blearily at her as she scurried over. “What’s wrong Pinkie?”

“You’re bleeding.”

Sunset reached up and touched the side of her head, where she had felt the heat. Her hand came away coated with sticky blood. Looking at the red stain on her hand, her vision started to blur. Sunset back slumped against the wall as pain, guilt and fear rose up, washing over her and sending the room spinning.  

She had brought them to this. It had been her idea to build the Diviner that had dragged her and her friends to this rotten world. Her lack of leadership had seen them thrown out of the vault and her subsequent stupidity had nearly led her friends to their deaths out here in the wasteland.

Sunset was almost grateful when the floor rushed to meet her, cool, dark oblivion claiming her in one last burst of pain.
> Chapter 9 - Peace and Quiet
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The clatter of hooves echoed off the streets of Canterlot as a young filly galloped for her life. She glanced back over her shoulder to see if the looming shadow was still chasing her. The moment of distraction cost her, a loose cobble tripping her and sending her crashing to the floor.

“My, my. Such a state you are in.” 

The young woman looked up. The cobbled streets had been replaced by the halls of Canterlot High, tiled floors stretching away in front of her. Her friends were slumped over, pools of blood slowly spreading underneath them. Mr Burke strolled towards her, stepping almost casually over her friends’ bodies. 

“You brought them to this.” he snarled. The young woman whimpered as he raised his gun to point at her face. “And now you‘ll pay the price.” There was a burst of light as he pulled the trigger.

Sunset Shimmer woke with a jolt. 

Drenched with sweat, she glanced around frantically, ignoring the flash of pain that lanced through her skull. Her friends were there. Perfectly safe, mostly unharmed and sleeping quite soundly. A nightmare, she realised. Just a stupid nightmare. 

Groaning at the throbbing in her head, Sunset hauled herself into a sitting position, grabbed a bottle of water from the bedside table and knocked back one of the pain lozenges Fluttershy had given her. She sat there for a while, waiting for her heart to stop pounding and the painkillers to kick in. After the events of the day before, Sunset really wasn’t surprised that she had had a nightmare like that. She shivered and shook her head, putting off those dark thoughts for the moment.

At least the sheriff had let the girls stay in the common house for the night, as thanks for saving his life. As much as Sunset begrudged the delay, the fact that neither her nor Rainbow were in any condition to travel far forced her to accept his offer. The beds were rickety and the blankets threadbare, but the girls were lucky enough to have the entire top floor to themselves. 

Squinting around the dark room, Sunset saw Rarity and Pinkie Pie were still asleep on one bed, Applejack and Twilight curled up together on another. Rainbow Dash was snoring gently on one of her own. The girls had agreed to let her and Sunset have a bed each to themselves for the night, so their injuries would have a chance to heal. 

It took a moment for Sunset to realize someone was missing. 

She looked around the room again, but there was no sign of Fluttershy. The bed she had been sleeping on was empty and her clothes were gone. The only things left behind were her pack and nursing kit.

Careful not to wake anyone, Sunset climbed shakily to her feet, pulled her clothes on and crept to the stairs. She made her way down as stealthily as she could, checking each floor for her friend as she passed until she got to the bottom and quietly pried open the door to the outside.

Fluttershy was leaning on the railings outside, singing softly to herself as she gazed up at the stars. Her head whipped around as Sunset gently pulled the door closed behind her.

“Sorry. Can’t sleep?” Sunset asked.

Flutters just shook her head, a slight blush coloring her cheeks.

Sunset sighed and joined her at the railings. “Yeah, me neither.”

“Is the pain keeping you awake? I can give you another stimpak if you want.”

“No it‘s not that, I just….” 

Fluttershy gave her a look of sad understanding, “You can’t stop thinking about what happened?” Sunset didn’t answer. Luckily Flutters didn’t seem to need one. “Me too.” 

Sunset absently reached up and felt the gauze around her temple. Through some spectacular stroke of luck Burke’s bullet had only grazed her. The bruises on her face were actually much more painful, but pain wasn’t what was interrupting her sleep. 

“I just, I keep thinking about what happened. What I could have done differently, what I should have done differently.” Sunset turned and slumped against the railings, trying to keep her rising emotions in check. There was a moment’s silence, then she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“It’s not your fault, Sunset.”

“That’s just it, it is all my fault!” Sunset burst out as she slid down until she was curled up on the floor, her back against the rail. “I’m supposed to be the group leader, but all I’ve done is get us into trouble. First we had to leave the Vault and I almost got us killed doing that, then we were held at gunpoint when we tried to get in this stupid town,” 

Try as she might, Sunset couldn’t stop the tears that started to trickle slowly down her face. “And then everything that happened with Burke yesterday! I knew he was dangerous, I knew he had a gun, and I still dragged all of you into that mess. It’s thanks to me the sheriff got shot and Rainbow got hurt and then Burke he… he tried to...” The images flashed through her mind again. The sheriff staggering. Rainbow crashing over the table. Burke raising his gun, pointing it right between her eyes. The moment of terror before he fired. The blood on her hand. Her blood.

That last image sent Sunset lurching to her feet. She managed to lean out over the railings just in time to avoid vomiting all over herself. 

Fluttershy waited patiently until she was done, kindly rubbing her back to help her feel better. Once Sunset was finished, moaning and resting her forehead on the cool metal of the rails, Fluttershy spoke quietly. 

“None of this is your fault Sunset.” Sunset didn’t answer, her little outburst had left her weak and shaking. “What happened in the Vault isn’t your fault, it’s the Overseer’s. And… I suppose… maybe James as well. A bit. I mean, he did leave without telling us anything so…” Flutters shook her head, “Anyway, it is not your fault and neither was what happened when we tried to get into Megaton. You know the only reason we were held up was because of how we look.” 

I suppose that’s true, Sunset thought, there wasn’t really anything she could do about the color of their skin.  

“As for what happened afterwards, a-at the saloon…” Fluttershy hesitated for a moment, her face pale, “Well, you heard what the sheriff said. Mr Burke he… he didn’t want to come quietly.” 

Sunset shivered. That was true too. No matter what anyone said or did, there was no way that confrontation could’ve ended well. “I suppose you’re right. Maybe there’s nothing much I could have done but…” She sighed heavily. “The Geode Diviner was my idea. I feel like I’m responsible for everything that’s happened since that went wrong.”

“I think, um, I think both Twilights would disagree with you there.” Flutters sighed softly, “To be honest… I think it’s only thanks to you that we’ve made it this far.” Sunset frowned but let Fluttershy continue, mostly because she didn’t think she could talk without throwing up again, “I mean, ever since we got here bad things have happened, very bad, very scary things…” Fluttershy trailed off for a moment, her gaze distant. She shook her head swiftly and continued, “But we’re all still okay, and I think that’s thanks to you.” Fluttershy‘s lips twitched, “Also, um, when we said you were group leader, we were expecting things like work assignments and group projects. Not, um, not things like-”

“Not gunfights and nuclear bombs.” Sunset huffed and smiled up at her friend. She had to admit, she was starting to feel a little better. “Thanks Fluttershy, you’re the best.”

Flutters gave an embarrassed grin. “Um, you‘re welcome. Are… are you okay?” 

“Not really,” Sunset admitted, “But I think I will be.”

The two girls stood in silence for a little while. Fluttershy was looking up at the stars again while Sunset gazed at the town, spreading out around and below them. At night, the town took on a completely different aspect. The dilapidated charm of the day was gone, replaced with a scene of melancholic beauty, an unkempt dream of survival against the odds. Or maybe, Sunset thought, I’m just in a funny mood thanks to everything that’s happened. And the painkillers. And the lack of sleep.

“Um…Sunset…?” Fluttershy’s quiet voice brought Sunset back to earth. “What’s up?”

A faint blush started to spread across Fluttershy’s cheeks. “I never did thank you, for down in the Vault.”

Sunset frowned. “What do you mean?”

Flutters twitched her hair, hiding her face slightly. “I know what you and the others did for me, about the Tunnel Snakes.”

Ah. That. Sunset had tried to make sure that Flutters didn’t find out about their efforts to keep Butch’s gang away from her, but apparently she’d noticed anyway. “How did you find out?”

Flutters put a finger to her lips and hummed, “I think I started to wonder the day after we took the G.O.A.T. You were all so careful not to let me go anywhere alone. She chuckled softly, “I finally asked Rainbow about it after what she did to Wally.”

Sunset groaned and slapped a hand to her forehead. Rainbow had been late to meet Fluttershy from the clinic and had stumbled upon Wally, Officer Mack’s younger brother, trying to give Flutters a hard time. Most of the girls would have done something sensible, like step in or call a security officer. Rainbow had not done something sensible. Instead she’d used her super speed to dart behind Wally, kick the poor fool as hard as she could between the legs, and run away before he ever realized she was there.  

“Poor Wally was terrified of me after that.” Fluttershy pouted. 

“Sorry about that, Rainbow panicked.” Sunset massaged her temples, remembering the grilling she’d given the cerulean twit when she heard about it. “Wait a minute, if you spotted Rainbow doing that, why didn’t you say anything to us?”

“I asked Rainbow about it when I saw her. All she told me was that she was looking out for me, making sure I didn’t get into any trouble.” An uncharacteristic frown marred Fluttershy’s features. “She‘s a terrible liar, I realized the Tunnel Snakes were targeting me. It‘s okay!” she said quickly, seeing the look on Sunset’s face, “I wasn’t scared. Well, um, not too scared anyway. I trusted the rest of you to keep me safe but… why? Why were they after me?”

“That’s… kinda my fault.” Sunset glanced sheepishly at her, “You remember the party they threw for us, when we were allowed into the Vault population?” Flutters nodded. “Well, before that trouble with Officer Mack I ran into Butch. He, um… he sort of… made a pass at me.” Sunset couldn’t help blushing slightly, as much as the memory disgusted her, “When I rejected him, he started threatening you.”

Fluttershy just gazed at her in horror. “So… so that’s why they went after me…”

“Yeah, uh, I‘m… sorry?”

Flutters shook her head. “Oh no, don’t be. I’m just sorry you had to go through that.” Sunset smiled slightly at the look of horror on her friends face. “So that’s when you and the others decided to protect me?” Sunset nodded slowly. “But, why didn’t you tell me?”

Sunset winced, but decided it was time to tell the truth. “I’m sorry. We didn’t want you to worry so we decided we would try and make the Tunnel Snakes think you were… kinda… haunted.” 

Fluttershy’s mouth dropped open. “Haunted!?”

Sunset grinned, “Yeah. We told them you were protected by the ghosts of the old North block and that bad things happened to people who tried to hurt you.” She let out a quiet laugh, “Rainbow used her super speed to hide their things and we had Twilight move stuff around using her magic to really sell it.”

“That’s really mean!” Fluttershy said, but couldn’t resist giggling herself. Her smile slowly dissolved into a frown, “I, um, I do think you went a little far though. With, um, with what Pinkie did.”

“That wasn’t planned, that was all Pinkie.” Sunset shivered as she remembered. 

She and Fluttershy had been strolling through the corridors when they’d ran into all four of the Tunnel Snakes. Apparently they’d decided to prove that they were big, strong men who weren’t afraid of Flutters or her ‘ghosts’. By ganging up on her. Sunset had been tensed for a confrontation when a storage cupboard opened and out stepped Pinkie, her hair flat and straight.

Sunset had never asked what Pinkie was doing in there with the lights off, let alone why she was utterly soaking wet. She didn’t ask what the rubber chicken was about, and she really didn’t want to know why Pinkie had been clutching a meat cleaver. All things considered, Sunset really didn’t blame Butch and his cronies for screaming and running away. Heck, she’d considered doing just that herself.

The sudden creak of the door behind them grabbed the girls attention. They turned to see Twilight poking her head out of the common house. 

“There you are, we wondered where you‘d got to. Is everything all right?” 

Sunset smiled at her. “Sorry Twilight, we just needed some fresh air.”

“It’s fine, I understand.” Twilight smiled back, “Also, Fluttershy? Rainbow’s woken up again. She wants to know if she can have some more painkillers, the bruising on her shoulder is starting to hurt again.”

“Oh, of course. I’ll be right up.” Fluttershy said quickly, pushing off the rails. 

Sunset stretched and yawned widely. “I should probably try and get some more sleep too. I just hope I don’t have any more nightmares.”

Fluttershy cringed. “Me too. That’s why I came out here.” A pale blush colored her cheeks again. “Well, I mean, that and I had to… let’s just say… I-I think both of us should apologize to whoever’s roof that is, um, down there.” 

Sunset raised an eyebrow and glanced over the railings at the house directly under where they were standing, grimacing at what was splattered down there. 

“Nice.”
> Chapter 10 - Rainbooms Delivery Service
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bright, morning light shone down upon the town of Megaton, bathing the settlement in a warm, golden glow. Sunset hated it. She especially hated one particular shaft of sunshine that had found it’s way through a hole in the roof and came to rest squarely on her face. With a grunt she rolled over and tried to get back to sleep.

Dimly, Sunset realized she could hear the sound of voices. Cracking her eyes open, she saw Twilight Sparkle, Applejack and Fluttershy were sat together on the floor, chatting quietly. They all looked around as Sunset slowly sat up.

“Morning Sunset.” Applejack said, speaking quietly so as not to wake the others. 

“Morning.” Sunset yawned, pulling her legs around to sit on the edge of the bed. 

“Didn’t wake you up did we?”

Sunset slowly shook her head as she yawned again.

Fluttershy came over to inspect Sunset’s face, checking her bandage and the bruises that Burke had left. “How are you feeling this morning?” she asked, gently running her fingers over Sunset’s cheek and chin. 

“A bit sore, but I’ll be fine.” Fluttershy nodded and toddled over to her pack, returning to perch next to Sunset with a bottle of water. Sunset accepted it gratefully, taking a swig then pressing the cold bottle against her cheek with a soft moan. “How long have you been awake?”

“Not long,” Twilight yawned. “Me and Applejack woke up about half an hour ago and Fluttershy got up a little while after that.” She rubbed her neck, looking awkwardly at Sunset. “Are you… y‘know… feeling alright after last night?”

Shuddering slightly, Sunset nodded. All of the girls had been awake when she and Flutters returned upstairs the night before, discussing everything that had happened. All of the girls had supported and reassured each other as they got everything out of their systems. 

At some point during the discussion Flutters had started crying again, followed swiftly by Sunset. It wasn’t long before all of the girls were huddled together in one big, sobbing group hug. Once they had cried themselves out and returned to bed, they had all agreed on one thing. They needed to find Adam and James, then find a way off this awful world. 

A light hiss sounded from Rainbow’s bed as she painfully hauled herself into a sitting position. Fluttershy was instantly up and checking Rainbow’s shoulder, a nasty bruise showing through the gaps in the sling.

“Easy Fluttershy.” Rainbow grumbled, wincing at her touch.

“Oh, sorry Rainbow.” Fluttershy said quietly, inspecting the bruise. “It’s not too badly swollen, I’d suggest keeping your arm in the sling for today to see how it heals.”

Rainbow nodded sleepily. “You’re the boss.”

“Ah guess now we’re just waiting on Pinkie and Rarity.” Applejack huffed.

“I’m awake.” Pinkie called drowsily, “Rarity’s just reaaally comfy.” 

The girls’ heads whipped around at that. Pinkie had her arms wrapped tightly around Rarity. Sunset gaped as Pinkie nuzzled into the young fashionista’s chest, humming quietly in her half-asleep state. Either the conversation or the contact roused Rarity. She blinked slowly, glanced down at Pinkie, then closed her eyes again. Suddenly her eyes shot back open, her gaze locked on the pink menace currently buried in her cleavage, drooling onto her brassiere.

“Gaaaah!”

Rarity clapped both of her hands to Pinkie’s face and shoved her away as hard as she could. They struggled for a moment until Pinkie slipped off the bed and thumped to the floor with a squawk, sparking a round of giggles from the other girls. 

“Talk about a rude awakening.” Twilight chuckled.

“Seriously, I was half expecting her to start motor-boating you!” Rainbow quipped, earning a slap upside the head from Applejack.

“I bet the readers would be into that.” Pinkie mumbled as she sat up, looking dazed.

Sunset raised an eyebrow at her. “Okay…?”

“Oh, you didn’t hit your head did you?” Fluttershy asked anxiously.

“Nope!” Pinkie cried, springing to her feet and pulling a cupcake out of her hair. 

“Oh, that reminds me. Me and Applejack were just going through our food supplies before the rest of you woke up.” Twilight used her magic to levitate a small selection of food to everyone. “Here you go, breakfast.” 

Sunset grabbed the sandwich that floated to her and dug in eagerly, too hungry to care how stale and dry it had gone. “How much of this do we have left?”

“Plenty, Pinkie packed enough to last us for a week. It may get a little stale, but we’ve already eaten everything that will perish too quickly. The problem is going to be clean water.” Twilight held up a bottle for emphasis, “Even if we’re careful, we only have enough to last for another day or so at most.”

Sunset sighed heavily. “So we either need to catch up with Adam and James somehow, or try and raise enough caps to pay Moriarty AND buy more supplies.” She looked around at the others, “Did any of you have any luck finding work yesterday?”

Rarity shook her head. “I’m afraid not darling. We hoped the Church of Atom would be able to point us in the right direction, but I’m afraid none of them had any ideas.”

“They offered to share some of their donations with us, but that just felt kinda wrong, y’know?” Rainbow added.

“That’s a shame, ah guess me and Pinkie were the only ones who got paid after all.” Applejack smirked and pulled a pouch out of her pocket, “Two hundred caps, right here.”

“Excellent!” Sunset grinned as the others all congratulated the two. “How did you manage that?”

“The water processing plant.” Pinkie replied, “Turns out they had a few leaks, so they paid us to help fix them.”

“So that means we only need, what, another hundred caps for the creep?” Rainbow asked.

Twilight nodded. “Plus however much the water costs.”

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about that.” Sunset shifted awkwardly on the bed. “This probably isn’t exactly ethical but… I’ve been thinking of using my magic on Moriarty, to find out where James went.”

“Instead of paying him?” Fluttershy asked.

Sunset just nodded.

“That, uh… that don’t feel right.” Applejack said quietly. 

“It does seem a little, dishonest.” Rarity admitted, “What if we offer him a hundred caps first? After all he is a businessman, he may be willing to haggle.”

“Sounds good to me.” Sunset agreed.

Applejack stuffed the pouch of caps back into her pocket. “Alright, now that that’s settled, what’s the plan for today?”

Sunset thought for a moment. “We should probably go and speak to Moriarty first, after that we can see about getting the supplies we need. Once we‘re ready we‘ll head out after Adam and James.” 

Most of the others nodded at that, but Rarity just grimaced. “That sounds all well and good, but first I think we need to visit the restroom and get ourselves clean.” 

Now that was a good idea, Sunset thought. One thing the common house lacked was any sort of cleaning facility, in fact the only way the girls could wash or use the toilet was to go to the communal women’s washroom around the corner. She and the others quickly finished their meager breakfast and hurried to get dressed.  

Clutching their packs, the girls made the short trip to the washroom. There were hardly any other residents around at the moment, just a couple of people enjoying a peaceful stroll in the crisp, morning air. Soft sunlight bathed the whole town, the rusted scrap metal glowing orange with tiny pricks of light reflecting off the few shiny surfaces remaining. Sunset had to admit, she was coming to enjoy the rugged charm of this little place.

The washroom was tiny, little more than a row of toilet cubicles with a couple of sinks and a bath tucked away in the corner. Luckily Rarity had thought to pack towels and toiletries when they left Vault 101, and all of the girls had plenty of spare underclothes. They took it in turns to use the bath, being careful to ration the hot water as Simms had advised them.  

Clean, dry, and wrapped up in a bath towel, Sunset opened her pack to retrieve clean panties and a bra then stopped, her eyes widening as she saw what had been placed in there.

Mr Burke’s gun, with the silencer still attached, was nestled on top of her clothes and tool belt. A small box of bullets lay next to it. 

Sunset panicked for a moment, wondering how the heck they got there.

“What’s up Sunshim?” Pinkie called from the bathtub. 

When Sunset didn’t answer Rarity looked up from berating Rainbow about not shaving her legs. “Are you alright darling? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Sunset held the bag out to her. Looking inside Rarity winced as she spotted the gun, lurking there ominously. “Ah, yes. I’d forgotten about that.” 

“What’s it doing in there?” Sunset asked shakily. 

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “The sheriff gave it to you dear, don’t you remember?”

“He what?” Sunset had a vague recollection of Simms giving her something, but the details were fuzzy. Most of what had happened after the incident with Burke was just a blur of shock and painkillers.

“Y’know, after Fluttershy woke you back up?” Rainbow reminded her. “He said we should keep it, in case we need protection out in the Wastes.”

Sunset just stared blankly at them. “But… why me? I couldn’t use one of these, there’s no way! Why do I have to have it? Why did we even keep it?!”

“Cause we figured it could do less damage with us than with someone like Moriarty.” Applejack replied as she came out of a cubicle, “And we left it with you cause none of the rest of us felt comfortable with it ‘cept for Rainbow, and there‘s no way we‘d trust her not to mess with it.” AJ walked over and clasped a hand to Sunset’s shoulder, ignoring Rainbow’s glare. “Listen sugarcube, if you really don’t want it, we can stash it under a pillow or give it back to the sheriff or something. You don’t have to take it.”

Sunset looked back and forth between her pack and her friends. Finally she sighed heavily, “I’ll take it. It’s like you said, it’ll do less damage with us.” She went to reach in for her spare underwear, then stopped as another thought occurred to her. “It… it’s not going to go off or something in there, is it?”

Applejack smiled and shook her head. “Nah, the sheriff made sure the safety was on before he gave it to you.”

“Okay, good.” Sunset sighed again, this time with relief. She gingerly moved the gun aside and rummaged around for her underwear as the other went back to getting ready. 

“Now then, where was I.” Rarity said quietly, “Ah yes, that was it!” She pulled a razor out of her pack and held it out to Rainbow. 

“Oh come on! I’m wearing pants aren’t I!?”

Sunset couldn’t help but smile as the two returned to their bickering. Once they were all clean and dressed, the dressing on Sunset’s wound changed and Rainbow‘s sling readjusted, the girls quickly repacked their toiletries before making their way up to Moriarty’s saloon. 

The saloon was surprisingly busy when they arrived. The patrons still looked around when the girls entered, but their reactions were far less negative than they had been the previous day. Several of them nodded or raised a glass to the girls as they passed. It seemed that saving the sheriff’s life had improved the girls standing among the residents. The zombie from before was scurrying around serving drinks, but even he spared the girls a quick smile when he saw them. 

Looking around, Sunset was glad to see that the bloody remains of yesterday‘s incident had been cleaned away. She was less glad to spot Moriarty behind the bar, raising an eyebrow at her in a way that was far from reassuring. Nevertheless he smiled as the girls approached. “And here you are again. So have you come back to cause some more fucking mess for Gob to clean up?”

Sunset shook her head quickly. “We aren’t looking for any more trouble. We've actually brought some caps.”

“Oh really? Now we’re talking my language.” At the mere mention of caps his expression suddenly turned a lot friendlier. “Are you looking to get something to drink or have you brought the five hundred caps for your friends‘ whereabouts?”

“Wha- five hundred!?” Rarity spat. “You said it was three hundred yesterday!”

“I did yes, then you tried to swindle me with one of your cheap bracelets and refused my generous offer of work.” Moriarty shrugged, ignoring the enraged spluttering coming from Rarity. “You ought to be glad I’m only asking for five hundred, after you came back here and fucked up my bar yesterday.”

One of the patrons sat near spoke up at that. “Aw come on Moriarty that ain’t fair man.” 

“Shut the fuck up Billy or you’re paying double for the rest of the week.”

Sunset glared at Moriarty, her temper starting to fray. “That monster was trying to destroy this whole town.”

“Which is why I’m being charitable and not charging you extra for shooting up the place.” Moriarty folded his arms and frowned at her. “Listen girlie, I ain't going to stand here and argue with you all fucking day. Do you have the caps or not?”

It took all of Sunset‘s willpower not to say something scathing. She’d had enough of Moriarty’s attitude and she wasn’t in the mood for haggling, now was the time for magic. The only problem was trying to do it without getting caught. Cringing inwardly, Sunset spoke in as sultry a voice as she could manage. “We don’t, but perhaps there is something else we could do for you?” She laid a hand over his, taking care to keep her eyes down. The moment her skin touched his a flood of images filled her mind.

Moriarty yanked his hand back, breaking the connection. “I ain’t into mutant sluts. You want the information you’re goin’ to have to pay for it.”

‘Oh thank Celestia’ Sunset thought, profoundly grateful he had turned her down, although one particular vision of him was going to haunt her for a while. She threw him a look of utter contempt. “You know what, I think we can find James on our own.” 

Moriarty snorted. “Is that a fact? Suit yourself. Come back and find me when you finally start seeing sense. Oh, and next time? You’d better bring me plenty of fucking caps.” Without another word he turned and stalked off into a back room, slamming the door behind him. Once she was sure he couldn’t hear, Sunset turned to the others. 

“What did you see?” Applejack asked.

Sunset frowned, thinking about what she had seen in Moriarty’s memories. “I saw James. He didn’t stay here long, he said he had important business to attend to. He said he was heading into the city, something about finding Galaxy News Radio. Adam‘s gone after him.”

“Great! How do we find it?” Rainbow asked.

Sunset blinked for a moment, then smacked a palm to her forehead as she realized their predicament. "I have no idea."

“Well at least it’s a start.” Applejack said with a shrug.

Rarity just flicked her hair and smiled. “Not to worry dears. Excuse me, Billy was it?” The patron who had spoken up for them looked around in surprise, “So sorry to bother you darling, but you wouldn’t happen to know where we could find Galaxy News Radio would you?”

Billy leaned back on his stool, rubbing at his eye patch as he thought. “It’s somewhere in the old downtown D.C ruins southeast of here. Not sure exactly where though, sorry.” 

“Don’t be darling, you’ve been a great help.”

“You’re looking for Galaxy News?” Sunset turned to see the zombie, Gob she assumed after seeing Moriarty‘s memories, looking worriedly at the girls. His skin was decayed and flaking and his nose had rotted away entirely. A faint smell of decay and sweat rose from under his filthy clothes. 

“Yeah, our friends went that way and we’re trying to catch up with them. Do you know where it is.” Sunset took great care to keep her expression neutral as she responded, she didn’t want to offend him accidentally.

“Yeah, I know where it is.” Gob’s voice was quiet and raspy, “I‘m, uh, not sure I should really tell you though.” 

“Why not?”

“The D.C ruins are seriously dangerous.” he said softly, “I don’t think you girls can handle it.”

“All the more reason for us to get there as quickly as we can, our friends have gone that way and they’ll need our help.” Applejack put in. “Especially Adam, he‘s fresh out of the Vault.” 

“The Vault boy who came in yesterday?” Gob asked. “He looked like he could handle himself, he had a couple of guns anyway.”

“Wait, really?” Sunset asked in surprise.

Gob just nodded. “Sure, he had a pistol and some sort of little rifle thing. Do you have any guns?”

Sunset shivered as she thought about the gun lurking in her pack at that very moment. “Nothing we can use, but don't worry, we can take care of ourselves.”

“Look, no offence but you girls are dressed like you belong up in Tenpenny Tower or down in a Vault, not scavving around the most dangerous parts of the Capital Wasteland.”

“Listen  sugarcube, I know we may not look like much but I promise you, we’re a lot stronger than we look. We’ve been through plenty of rough spots before and come out on top.” Applejack said firmly.

Gob just shook his head, frowning. “You don’t get it. The D.C ruins are on a whole other level. You got super mutants, ferals-” 

“Shit, I heard even Talon Company are trying to muscle their way in.” Billy interrupted.

Gob nodded sagely. “Going down there without any equipment is suicide.”

“That doesn’t sound very nice.” Fluttershy muttered.

“I’m just trying to keep you girls safe.” he said quietly, “You did this whole town a huge favor yesterday, and nearly got killed doing it. Hell, you’re some of the only people I’ve met that haven’t given me shit just because I’m a ghoul.”

“We wouldn’t dream of it darling!” Rarity said quickly. 

“Nu-uh.” Pinkie added with a shake of her head.

Sunset looked pleadingly at him. “Please, we have to find our friends.” 

Gob wavered for a moment. He shot Billy a glance, but got nothing more than a shrug in response. Finally he sighed and looked back up at Sunset. “Alright, fine. Prove you can handle it, and I’ll tell you how to get to Galaxy News.”

“Now that’s more like it!” Rainbow cried, “How can we prove it to you?”

Gob folded his arms and frowned, thinking. 

Suddenly Billy spoke up, “Hey, I got an idea!” He turned and shouted to someone in the corner. “Hey, Lucy! You still need someone to take that letter?”

“Sure do!” A young woman made her way over to the group. Sunset recognized her as one of the residents they had passed once or twice. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and her clothes were clean and well looked after. “Hey you girls are the ones that saved the sheriff’s life yesterday right?” 

“They sure are.” Billy answered, “They’re looking to get some experience out in the Wastes.”

Lucy’s face brightened at that, “Perfect! I need someone to drop a letter to my family in Arefu, think you’re up for it?”

Sunset hesitated. She hated the constant delays, but didn’t feel comfortable using her magic to invade Gob’s privacy either, he was only trying to look out for them after all. It took her a moment to realize all of the other girls were looking to her, waiting for a decision. She sighed in resignation.

“Alright, how far away is Arefu?” And why do I get the feeling I’m going to regret this?

Lucy grinned as she pulled a letter out of her pocket and handed it to Sunset. “Great! It‘s not that far away. Head Northwest from here until you find the Potomac, it’s on an old overpass. If you follow what’s left of the river you can’t miss it.” 

Twilight stepped forward suddenly, fiddling with her Pip-Boy, “Do you think you could point it out on this map?”

“Sure thing.”

Sunset just stared at Twilight. “Wait, you have a map?”

“Well, yeah? All of our Pip-Boys have pre-war maps of the surrounding area programmed into them. The problem is they’re all over two hundred years old and not annotated in any way.” Twilight nodded her thanks to Lucy and fiddled with the Pip-Boy some more. “But we can add markers to them, I've already added ones for Vault 101 and Megaton to mine, and now I've got one for the rough location of Arefu too!”

Sunset shook her head in bemusement as her nerdy friend moved around and entered the location into everyone else‘s Pip-Boys too. “Alright, I suppose we’d better get going. The sooner we go the sooner we can get back.” 

Lucy held a hand out to Sunset. “Thanks for doing this, just be careful. Evan might get a little suspicious what with your skin and all.”

“Evan?” Sunset asked as she shook her hand.

“He’s sort of the sheriff, or something. As long as you‘re friendly and tell him why you‘re there he shouldn’t give you any trouble.”

“I certainly hope so, I must admit I was expecting a little less hostility from the residents of the Wasteland.” Rarity huffed. 

Lucy’s eyebrows shot up, “Really? Out here? Wow, I hope you don’t run into a raiders or you’re going to have a shock.”

“Or a slaver party.” Billy added.

“Or any super mutants.” Gob muttered.

“Don’t forget Talon Company.”

“Or the landmines.”

“Hell the critters are bad enough.”

“Not to mention the odd crazy robot wandering around.”

Sunset just blinked. Slavers? Raiders? Landmines?! Robots?!? This was starting to sound like a really bad idea. 

Applejack placed a hand on Sunset‘s shoulder, cutting in quickly. “Don’t worry y‘all, we‘ll be extra careful. Come on sugarcube, let’s go deliver this letter.”

Lucy put a hand on Sunset’s arm as she turned to leave. “Hey, thanks again for doing this for me, it means a lot.” Sunset just smiled back as she was led out of the saloon. 

“We know what you’re thinking sugarcube, and you can stop worrying.” Applejack said suddenly as she led the way to the main gate.

“Wha-? I-I’m not-” Sunset spluttered.

“Not worrying about how dangerous this could turn out and thinking we shouldn’t do it?” Rainbow interrupted with a grin. 

Sunset sighed heavily. “It’s that obvious huh?” 

Rarity shook her head. “It’s written all over your face darling.” 

Twilight put a reassuring hand on Sunset‘s arm. “I know we nominated you as the group leader, but that doesn’t mean you have to take on all of the responsibility yourself.”

“Don’t worry Sunset, we’ve got this!” Pinkie cried.

“The more experience we get out there in the wastes the better.” Twilight said reasonably. “It’s the only way we’re going to be able to find James and Adam safely.”

Sunset understood what they were getting at, but she was still worried. “I agree with what you are saying, but this world is dangerous.” She shook her head sadly. “I just don’t want to see any more of my friends get hurt.”

Applejack smiled back at her. “We know what you mean, but look what we’ve been through so far.”

That’s exactly my point!” Sunset blurted out. “In just one day our lives have been at risk in a way we’ve never dealt with before.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “We’ve been through dangerous times before Sunset. I know it’s not the same as before.” she added as Sunset opened her mouth to retort. “But even with everything that’s happened since we got here we’re still alive, and we’re still together.”

Fluttershy nodded, her face set. “We’re willing to take the risk Sunset.”    

Sunset looked around at her friends smiling at her. They all looked nervous, but they also looked determined. She sighed and smiled back at them. “Okay, let’s deliver this letter.”

“That’s the spirit!” Applejack clapped her on the back as the others whooped and cheered. “

“Alright.” Sunset took a deep breath, steeling herself for the journey ahead. “Let’s do this.” She took the lead, heading towards the main gate. When they arrived at the gate they shouted up to the guard in the crow‘s nest, asking him to let them out. Simms had mentioned yesterday that a pair of protective panels were closed over the gate every night and had to be opened before anyone could leave.

The guard pressed a switch and the girls heard the roar of a huge turbine engine kicking into life. They winced at the terrific grinding noise that told them the protective panels were being moved out of the way. As the roar of the engine died away he waved them through, Sunset leading the way out of the gates and once more into the wastes beyond.

Sunset led the group towards the burnt-out town they had passed through yesterday, aiming for the ruined buildings she could make out over the tops of the boulders. Going in as straight a line as they could, they found the way wasn’t as difficult to pass as it had seemed when they had came the other way the day before. There were plenty of dirt paths that wound through the rocks and down into the town, and they came out of the boulders right next to the red rocket sculpture they had found yesterday.

Rainbow suddenly pointed into the ruins. “Hey look! That thing’s still going around!” The same strange little robot they had spotted yesterday was still hovering around, apparently patrolling the ruins. 

Applejack frowned at the little orb as it floated past. “What do you think it’s doing?”

“Ignoring us for the moment.” Sunset replied. As long as it left them alone, she was more than happy to ignore it and focus on the task at hand.

“Which way are we heading?” Rainbow asked as Sunset led the way through the streets and out the other side. A large ruined building loomed on their right, dwarfing the nearby houses. Not far off to their left a crumbling overpass towered over the landscape.

Sunset pointed. “I’m thinking we should go that way, under the overpass. That‘s Northwest, if we follow that way we should come to the Potomac.”

The girls turned off the road and left the ruins behind. As they neared the overpass Rainbow suddenly grabbed Sunset and pulled her into a crouch, motioning for the others to do the same. 

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Sunset whispered urgently. Rainbow just pointed up at the overpass. A makeshift shelter had been built on top. Sunset could just make out a couple of people moving about, carrying guns.

Applejack edged forward quietly. “You don’t think they’re friendly?”

Sunset shook her head slowly. “After what Lucy said about raiders and slavers it’s not worth the risk. Let’s keep quiet until we’re well past them.”

The others nodded in agreement, keeping low to the ground and being careful not to make any noise as they sneaked under. They could hear voices far above, but Sunset couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.

On the other side of the overpass the terrain was far more open. There were wide open spaces covered with yellowed grass and scrubby bushes. Blasted trees and damaged buildings dotted the rolling landscape, small hills and shallow craters breaking up the ground. It wasn’t until they were picking their way past a ruined barn that the girls encountered their first wasteland critter. 

Sunset recognized it as a naked mole rat, but grown to the size of a collie dog. Fortunately the little creature understood and was happy to talk to Fluttershy, who was ecstatic to find an animal that didn’t attack on sight. It had never heard the name Arefu, but it did recognize their description of the settlement and pointed them in the right direction. 

Following the mole rat’s directions, the girls climbed to the top of a small hill and looked out at the landscape sweeping away in front of them. Not too far off, nestled it’s own little valley, the Potomac river glistened in the sunlight. Another overpass sloped up and stopped halfway over the river, the other half of it lay ruined in the Potomac itself. A building made of scrap sat at the bottom of the ramp, while a few more sat atop the overpass.

“You reckon that’s Arefu?” Applejack asked, tilting her hat back to see better.

Sunset grinned as a gentle breeze tugged at her hair. “It certainly looks like it.” 

A sudden shout snapped her attention back to her surroundings. A metal fence jutted out of the ground a short way down the hill, the remains of an old baseball field. What looked disturbingly like a body was dangling from the top, suspended by chains. Two men nearby had spotted the girls and were charging up the hill. Both were carrying baseball bats and hurling threats at the group. 

“They don’t look friendly.” Pinkie said slowly.

Rainbow shifted awkwardly, tugging at her sling. “I know I’m awesome, but I’m not sure I’m up for a fight with my shoulder like this.”

“What are we going to do?” Fluttershy asked nervously. 

Sunset eyed the men as they belted up the hill, whooping and calling out vile threats. They were spattered with muck and what looked like dried blood. “It doesn’t look like they have any guns. Rarity, do you think you can knock them down with a gemstone when they get close?”

Rarity raised an eyebrow at her. “Of course I can dear… but aren't we hiding our magic?” 

“Not from random thugs trying to kill us... or whatever it is those guys want to do.”

Rarity glanced disdainfully down at the men. “I see your point.” As they neared the girls she thrust her arm out towards them. A huge gemstone appeared out of thin air and smacked into the men, knocking their bats out of their hands and sending them both tumbling back down the hill. 

“Nice work.” Applejack said appreciatively. 

“Oh it was nothing dear.” Rarity smirked.

Sunset stalked down after them, the others close on her heels. The two men were lying in a heap at the bottom of the hill, groaning and swearing feebly. One of them rolled onto his knees and looked up as the girls approached. His blonde hair was filthy and blood streamed from his crooked nose. “What the fuck was that?”

Sunset folded her arms and glared down at him as Applejack and Rainbow took up positions over his friend. “Why did you attack us?”

Blondie spat blood over Sunset’s shoes, glaring defiantly up at her. “Fuck you, you mutant slut.”

Rarity grimaced. “I must say the language in this world is utterly appalling.”

Applejack placed a foot on the other man’s back, forcing him to the ground as he tried to get up. “You reckon these are some of those raiders that Lucy told us about?”

“Probably.” Sunset replied, not taking her eyes from the face of the blonde one. “We’re going to let you get up, and you’re going to leave this place. Get out of our sight and don’t come back.”

The raider hauled himself to his feet, staggering slightly. Applejack stepped back so he could help his friend to his feet. Throwing the girls one last look of loathing, the two limped away as quickly as they could. Once they were out of sight Sunset heaved a sigh of relief.

Rainbow smirked and nudged her. “Told you we could handle the wastes.” 

“That was a little easier than I expected it to be.” Sunset admitted. “We’re lucky they didn’t have guns though. We should be more cautious when we’re walking around out here.” Sunset adjusted her pack and pointed ahead. “Come on, let’s get to Arefu before anything else happens.”

The girls set off again, crossing the dusty old baseball pitch and off towards the settlement. It didn’t take long for them to reach the building at the base of the overpass. Up close the girls could see it was built out of rusty old corrugated iron. It looked solid enough but for some reason the doors had been boarded up. 

Next to the building a paddock had been marked out with wooden fencing. Several large, brown cows were lying dead inside. Something bothered Sunset about their bodies, but she couldn’t work out what was wrong. On closer inspection she realized with a start that they were all mutants. Each of the bodies had two fully grown heads.

Leaving the poor creatures behind, the girls headed onto the overpass. An old freeway sign still hung above the road. Heavy weathering had left most of the writing illegible except for the remains of one word, ‘AREFU’. Burnt-out cars and piles of rubble littered one side of the road but the other side had been kept mostly clear. Wooden planks had been laid across large cracks in the road. Crossing these carefully the girls could see the river far below, the green-tinged water glistening in the sunlight.

The rest of the settlement came slowly into view as the ramp leveled off. Several sturdy buildings had been built out of scrap. A couple of sandbag walls had been erected in front of the settlement, but Sunset couldn’t see anyone around. The whole place looked deserted. 

As they got closer a man’s head suddenly popped up from behind the sandbags. He was wearing a battered old cap and had a set of flight goggles pulled down over his eyes. The man ducked down quickly then popped back up again, this time lobbing something small towards the girls. It fell far short of them and clattered noisily across the road. As it bounced closer Sunset realized what it was. “Get down!” she yelled, throwing herself to the ground just as the grenade exploded.
> Chapter 11 - Just A Simple Delivery
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bits of grit and tarmac were blasted all over the place, but thankfully none of it landed near the girls. Sunset looked up warily, wondering how they had been spared. A large ring of gemstone stood glittering around the girls. So much for hiding our magic.

Rarity shot Sunset an apologetic look. “Sorry darling, I panicked.” 

“It’s fine, you did the right thing.” Sunset replied, hauling herself to her feet and dusting herself off. She looked around at the others as they picked themselves up off the floor. Thankfully none of them had been hurt. Rarity let out a breath and lowered her arms, the gemstones fading into nothingness.

Their attacker was still crouched by the sandbags, a look of blank shock on his face. A battered old assault rifle dangled from his hands. “How….?”

“Twilight grab that gun, before he recovers!” Sunset hissed. 

“R-right!” 

The man yelped as a purple aura surrounded the gun and yanked it out of his hands. He tried to snatch it back but Twilight held it out of reach above his head. 

“Nice work.” Sunset said as she started towards the sandbags, leveling a glare at the stranger. As she got closer she noticed his face was heavily wrinkled and lined with dust, he must be older than she’d thought.

The man tried to back away as the girls approached, but tripped and landed sprawling on his back. He cowered as they advanced on him. “No… stay back… get away from me!”

“We hadn’t planned on it before but ah sure as sugar am now.” Applejack growled.

“Stupid shoulder…”  Rainbow muttered as she knocked back more painkillers, “As soon as these kick in he’s getting socked right in the mouth.”

“No… please… don’t hurt me…”

Fluttershy shifted awkwardly on her feet. “I think we should all calm down and, um, maybe stop threatening him?”

“You do realize he just tried to kill us, don’t you dear?” Rarity asked.

“Well… yes, but… maybe we should ask why?”

“Hey that’s a great idea!” Pinkie cried as she hopped over the sandbags. He flinched as she crouched next to him. “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie! Mind telling me and my friends why you tried to blow us all to smithereens?”

“I was protecting our town!” The man said quickly, his voice shaking. “Please, we don’t have anything of value, you’ve already killed all our Brahmin!” 

The girls shared a confused look at that.

Applejack tilted her hat back and raised an eyebrow, “Uh, beg pardon, but what’s a Brahmin?”

“I think he means those mutated cows we saw.” Twilight replied. 

“Whoa, hold on a second, those things were dead before we even got here!” Rainbow cried. 

The man slowly looked around at each of them. “You… you’re not with the Family?”

“Whose family?” Pinkie asked.

The old man reached up and pulled off his goggles, glancing warily at Pinkie. “If you’re not from them, then what do you want with us?”

Sunset frowned. “I’m guessing you’re Evan?” He nodded cautiously. “A girl named Lucy sent us, from Megaton.” Sunset pulled Lucy’s letter out of her pocket and held it up. “She asked us to give this to her family.” 

Evan just stared blankly at it. Sunset waited impatiently for him to say something as the seconds ticked by. 

“Uhhhh… I think you broke him.” Pinkie said as he just continued to stare at the letter. She tilted her head to the side as she watched him, then licked the tip of her finger and jammed it into his ear. 

Evan gave a disgusted yelp, rubbing his ear vigorously as Pinkie casually wiped her finger on his sleeve. “All right all right!”

“So? Can we deliver this now?” Sunset snapped, waving the letter for emphasis.  

Evan sighed and clambered to his feet. “All right, I’ll get someone to fetch Davis for you now.” He glanced up at his gun, still gripped by Twilight’s magic. His eyes flicked between it and Twilight.

Sunset folded her arms and glared at him. “No way.”

“I’m not stupid enough to try anything.” Evan said quickly. “Please, if the Family comes back how am I supposed to defend this place without a gun?”

Sunset glared at him for a moment longer. “Fine, but if you try to hurt us again it’ll be the last thing you do.”

“I won’t, I swear.” Evan reached out tentatively as Twilight floated the gun back down towards him. The girls tensed as he gingerly took it from the purple aura, but he simply slung it over his shoulder and turned away. “Wait here a moment.” He strode to the nearest building and hammered on the door. “Ken? It’s me, Evan. Get your ass out here a minute!”

The door creaked open and a young man poked his head out. His eyes widened as he saw the girls, “What’s going on? And who the fuck are they?”

“Charming.” Rarity muttered, folding her arms and glowering at him.

“It’s okay, they’re friendly… sort of.” Evan shot a wary glance back at the girls. “They’ve got a letter from Lucy, mind fetching Davis for me?”

Ken’s face twisted with anger. “A fucking letter? You‘re supposed to be doing something about the Family, not being a gopher for some fucking mutants!”

“Oh for crying out loud, ah‘ve had enough of all this gosh darn mutant nonsense!” Applejack snapped as she stomped over to the nearest car. 

Evan and Ken both gaped as Applejack bent down and gripped the car, lifting and maneuvering until she had it hefted above her head. With a grunt she launched the car over the side of the bridge. It sailed through the air and slammed down onto some rocks in the distance. The engine exploded with a colossal boom, the blast smashing the rocks underneath to dust as a great mushroom cloud bloomed overhead. 

Way to go overboard AJ. Still, if it gets the job done… 

Applejack turned slowly to Sunset, her eyes wide. “Ah’m, uh, ah’m mighty sorry about that. Didn’t think it would blow up like that.”

“If it ran off gasoline it wouldn’t have,” Twilight said quietly, “But in this world they use miniature nuclear reactors to power their cars.”

Applejack’s jaw dropped open. “Nuclear reactors. In cars?!” She shook her head in disbelief. “Land’s sake, the people in this world are nuttier than a porta potty at a peanut festival!”

Rarity put a hand to her mouth at that, retching slightly as her cheeks turned a pale green. 

“This world?” Evan asked. Sunset winced as she realized what Applejack had said. He looked fearfully around at each of the girls again. “You mean… you’re not mutants, you’re aliens?” 

Sunset shook her head vehemently. “No! No we’re not.”

“I suppose if you think about it, technically we are.” Twilight supplied.

Sunset smacked a palm to her face. “Look, can we please just deliver this letter?”

Ken was still gaping, his eyes darting between Applejack and the smoldering remains of the car in the distance. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, before he finally regained the capacity for speech. “Space aliens… letter for Davis… right. I‘ll got fetch him.”

Sunset massaged her temples as he marched away, trying to stave off the headache she could feel coming. 

Evan walked slowly back to the sandbags and looked out down the ramp. “So… you girls really are aliens?” he asked quietly.

Twilight glanced at Sunset, who just shrugged. “He’s already seen our magic, he may as well know the truth.”

“Magic? That was magic?!” he asked incredulously, his head whipping around to stare at Twilight.. “I thought you said you were aliens!”

“Not exactly.” Twilight replied, “I mean technically we are, in that we’re from another world, but we didn’t come down from another planet. It’s more like we’re from another… dimension? Reality?” She shook her head slowly, “Sorry, I’m not really sure how to explain this.” 

Sunset sighed and stepped forward. “The short version is, we got sucked into a portal in our world and dumped in a Vault in this world.” 

Evan frowned and scratched his head. “If that’s the case, what are you doing deliveri-”

“Evan!”

Everyone turned at Ken’s shout. His face was white with fear as he ran towards the group. As he skidded to a halt next to the sherif, he leaned over and planted his hands on his knees, breathing hard.

“Easy there sonny, what‘s wrong?” Evan asked quickly.

“It’s Davis and Matilda.” Ken gasped, “They’re dead!”

Evan’s mouth fell as the girls made noises of shock and horror. “The Family must have got to them in the last attack! Sons of bitches!” he spat. He thumped the top of the sandbags, shaking his head. “Damn it! If only we had more men we could stand up to them. I’m sick of them terrorizing this town. Wait a minute…” He bent and grabbed Ken‘s shoulders. “What about Ian, is Ian okay?”

Ken shook his head desperately, “He wasn’t there, I don’t know where he is!”

“The Family must have taken him! I’ve caught that weirdo leader of theirs talking to Ian down by the river.”

Sunset felt a familiar sinking feeling in her stomach. Nothing wanted to go right in this stupid wasteland. This had turned from being a simple delivery job into something much more sinister, and she suspected it was about to get a lot worse. “Who exactly are the Family?” she asked reluctantly. 

Evan straightened and heaved a sigh. “They’re a local gang. They’ve been around for a while, breaking stuff and making lots of noise, but recently things have started to get worse. First they killed all of our Brahmin, and now the West’s are dead too?!” He shook his head, slumping against the sandbags. "Damn it, I can't take much more of this!"

Fluttershy stepped over and placed a comforting hand on Evan’s shoulder. When he didn't throw it off, she nodded and turned to Sunset, “Isn’t there anything we can do to help?”

Sunset bit her lip. Much as she felt for this little community, there was no way she was going to lead her friends into another violent confrontation.

Rainbow nudged her elbow when she didn’t reply. “Come on Sunset, we can’t just leave them like this.”

Sunset shared an anxious look with the others. This was only supposed to be a delivery job, and Evan had tried to kill them all with a grenade. Still, Rainbow was right. Reluctant as she was to put her friends in such danger again, it didn’t feel right to just leave this settlement in trouble when they could do something to help. The looks on her friends faces told her they felt the same way. “Alright fine, but this time we play it safe.” she grumbled.

Evan looked hopefully at her. “You mean it, you’ll help us?”

Sunset nodded slowly. “We‘ll do what we can to reason with them. Hopefully we can convince them to leave the town alone. If things start to look dangerous though-”

“-Then we use our magic and hightail it out of there.” Applejack interrupted. “That sound about right?”

Sunset looked around at each of her friends. “Are you sure about this? This could turn out like Burke all over again?” 

She couldn’t help but smile a little as each of her friends nodded and agreed, despite the danger.

Evan sagged as he let out a breath. “Thank you. Really, I can’t thank you enough for this.”

Applejack nodded and tilted her hat back. “Alright, so where do we find the Family?” 

Evan shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure, I think they live somewhere east or northeast of here. Problem is, they always travel in the dark so I can’t see exactly where they go.”

“Surely you have an idea darling?” Rarity asked. 

Evan folded his arms as he thought. “Maybe the old Moonbeam Cinema? You might have seen it on your way here, it’s not far from that baseball pitch down there.” He pointed back down the ramp, along the way the girls had came. “Then there’s Hamilton‘s Hideaway, that’s a bit further north from there.” 

“Isn’t that the direction those mean raiders we scared off earlier went?” Pinkie asked, raising an eyebrow. “Were they part of the Family?”

Evan shook his head. “No, I would’ve recognized those dipshits if they turned up alongside the Family.” 

“Maybe they’ve got buddies over in that direction?” Applejack wondered aloud.

“Want me to go check it out?” Rainbow offered.

Sunset glanced at Rainbow‘s arm, still in its sling. “No. We don’t want to risk running into anymore raiders if we don’t have to.” 

Evan turned and looked off to the north, over the river. “In that case… you see those buildings over there?” The girls all looked in the direction he pointed. There were a few tall old buildings that didn’t seem to be very badly damaged. A covered subway entrance poked up out of the ground in the middle of them. “That’s Northwest Seneca Station right there. It would be a good place for them to hide out, and if you want to avoid any raiders hanging around this side of the river then that might be your safest place to start.” 

Sunset nodded. “Sounds like a plan, how do we cross the river?”

“The river has mostly dried up on the west side. Just head right at the bottom of the ramp and you’ll find a dry patch you can cross on. Just keep an eye out for any mirelurks roaming around.”

“Mirelurks?” Rarity asked.

Evan made a face. “Big crab-like things. Real dangerous bastards. Normally I‘d tell you to stay the hell out of sight if you see one, but I reckon you girls can handle it.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Sunset adjusted her pack on her shoulders. “Come on girls, let’s get this over with.”

Ken squatted back down by the sandbags as Evan snapped his goggles back into place. “You girls watch yourselves out there.” He squatted down next to Ken and pulled his assault rifle around. “Next time I see the Family there’s gonna be hell to pay.” he muttered darkly.

The girls left Evan to his mutterings and headed back down the ramp, turning right at the bottom as he had suggested. They didn’t have to walk far before they came to patch of dry riverbed. A rusted old boat was grounded on it, the one end of it submerged in what was left of the river. After climbing up the other side of the riverbed the ground dropped into a smaller tributary riverbed. This was dry too, but full of rubble from the broken overpass.

“Wouldn’t it be easier if I just searched using my super-speed?” Rainbow asked as the girls picked their way carefully across the debris. 

“Maybe, but I don’t think it’s worth the risk.” Sunset said frankly.

“Sunset has a point Rainbow.” Fluttershy piped up as Rainbow opened her mouth to respond. “You’re already injured and if anything else were to happen to you there wouldn’t be anything we could do to help. We wouldn’t even know you were in trouble.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Rainbow grumbled.

Hauling themselves up the other side of the tributary, the girls found themselves at the end of a crumbling road that led straight to the buildings Evan had pointed out. Up close they looked like old residential blocks, with a grocers standing at the end of one of the rows. There was a bus stop and an intact map board in front of the subway entrance, and even a motorcycle that looked in good working order. 

Once they were sure no-one was around, Sunset eagerly checked over the bike. It was covered in dirt and dust, but apart from that it was in fairly good condition. The tank even seemed to have fuel in it, but the keys were nowhere to be found. 

“Do you think we should check the grocers first?” Pinkie asked suddenly.

“Good idea Pinkie.” Twilight called, looking over from the map board. “There might still be some salvageable supplies in there. I just hope it doesn’t belong to anyone.”

Applejack peeked in through the window. “It looks deserted to me.”

Sunset nodded, giving up on the bike. “Just be careful, we don’t want to run into any more trouble than we have to.”

“Don’t worry.” Applejack smiled nastily, cracking her knuckles. “If anything tries to get the drop on us they’re getting more than they bargained for.”

Applejack nudged the door open gently. She peeked in, then suddenly lunged forward and stomped down on something. “It’s alright.” she chuckled as the girls all darted forward. “Just a darned radroach.”  

Sighing with relief, the group followed Applejack into the shop. The inside was dark and dingy. The store had clearly been ransacked before, empty bottles and tins littered the floor and shelves. A door at the back had been blocked by a ceiling collapse, preventing anyone from going upstairs. 

As the others spread out to search, Sunset and Fluttershy took a look behind the counter. Fluttershy immediately checked the first aid box hanging on the wall, while Sunset was drawn by a computer terminal that still apparently had power. She booted it up, but was stymied by a password screen popping up. 

Sunset had a go at trying to hack her way into the system, but after a couple of attempts was forced to admit defeat and call Twilight over. She tried not to feel too bad as Twilight breezed past the security measures, after all Twilight had had more practice with the computers of this world. 

Once they were logged in they found that the system controlled the lock on a safe. A safe that was still currently locked. “That could be interesting.” Sunset mused.

Twilight frowned, looking around. “But where is it? I don’t see a safe down here, it must be upstairs.”  

“If the safe was upstairs why would they put the system that controls the lock down here in such an easy to reach place?” Sunset countered. “Unlock it, maybe we’ll hear it.”

Twilight tapped a button and both of the girls started as they felt a clunk under their feet. Looking down, they realised the safe had been built into the floor. They had been standing on it’s door the whole time. Twilight stepped out of the way to let Sunset reach down and yank the door open. All that was inside was a handful of caps, some old dollar bills and an old flash camera.

“Well that was a let down.” Sunset grumbled as Twilight checked the camera over. She looked up as the others gathered around again. “Have you found anything useful?”

Fluttershy held up her medical kit with a smile. “There was a stimpak and some rad-x in here.”

Applejack was helping Pinkie stuff some things into her pack. “We found some food that looks edible and some more of that Nuka Cola.”

Pinkie held a bottle up to inspect it. “If this has been sat around for a couple of hundred years, how come it’s still fizzy?”

“Honestly I’m not sure I want to know.” Sunset stuffed the caps and bills from the safe into her pack. “Alright, I think that’s everything from in here. Let‘s get moving.”

The girls piled back out of the grocers. A chill had crept into the air and dark clouds were gathering overhead, the threat of rain looming over the wastes. The group hurried to the subway entrance. Concrete steps led down to a set of chain gates that were closed, but not locked. There was an odd, flickering light coming from somewhere inside. It was not an inviting sight. 

Looking up at the clouds, Twilight spoke softly. “I’ve made a note of the subway map on my Pip-Boy, so at least we shouldn’t get lost.”

“That’s one less thing to worry about I suppose.” Rarity replied, nervously looking up too.

Sunset laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Let’s just take this slowly. Hopefully we can straighten things out without any trouble.”

“Chill out guys, we got this.” Rainbow grinned.

Sunset breathed in deeply, then let it out again slowly. “You’re right. Come on, let’s do this.” She squared her shoulders and led the way down the steps, pushing the gate open at the bottom. 

Inside was dark and dusty, the light flickering off the walls didn’t illuminate much. The girls moved forward slowly, carefully treading past piles of dirt and debris that looked like it had been blown in from outside. Rounding a small corner the girls came to a ticket barrier. The tunnel beyond had caved in entirely, but just past the barrier was a side door flanked by two steel drums, fire blazing in each of them. 

Surprised by the sight of the burning drums, it took the girls a moment to notice the corpse lying on it’s side in front of the ticket barrier. Taking care not to make any noise, Fluttershy checked the body. Shaking her head sadly, she whispered that whoever it was had been dead for a while.  

A sudden skittering noise had the girls whirling around. A mole rat had wandered out of a door that the girls hadn’t noticed, distracted as they were. Fluttershy hurried over to speak to it. The other girls waited quietly as two more mole rats trotted out of the door to join the conversation.

“What’re they saying?” Rainbow whispered.

“They don’t know anything about the Family but…” Fluttershy looked around, her brow furrowed. “They say there are two dead things living in the room with the burning barrels?”

Pinkie raised an eyebrow at that. “Dead things? You mean like zombies?”

“Maybe they means ghouls, like Gob?” Twilight suggested. 

“You reckon they’re part of the Family?” Applejack asked.

Sunset shook her head. “I doubt it, Evan probably would have mentioned something if he thought the Family were ghouls.”

Fluttershy was listening to the mole rats as they started chattering again. “Oh that’s ever so kind of you.” The mole rats suddenly turned and scampered back through the door. Fluttershy called over her shoulder as she went in after them. “They say that poor fellow there left some things in here before he died. They’re going to show us where he hid everything.”

The girls quickly followed Fluttershy and the mole rats into a waiting room of sorts. A large portion of the ceiling had collapsed on one side of the room, a broken pipe poking through and dripping foul green liquid. An eerie glow suffused the air around the rubble, illuminating a blackened skeleton sprawled on top of the pile. 

The mole rats separated and headed through two different doors, a men’s toilet and a ladies’. Rainbow and Applejack followed one into the men’s room while Rarity and Fluttershy hurried after the other into the ladies. Sunset stayed behind with the others to keep watch. A couple of minutes later the girls all returned.

“What did you find?” Sunset asked.  

“Just some more medical supplies.” Rarity grimaced, brushing dust out of her hair as Fluttershy thanked the mole rats.

“Good to have. I just hope we won’t need them.” 

“You and me both darling.” Rarity gave up on the dirt and turned to the others. “What about you two?”

Applejack and Rainbow shared a look. AJ chuckled nervously. “Well… you see. We found… well…”

“We found some grenades.” Rainbow said bluntly.

Rainbow held her pack out as the others gasped and exclaimed in surprise. Nestled inside were five apple-sized hand grenades. “Also we found this in a toilet tank.” Rainbow held up another cylindrical object, about the same size as the grenades but with three little rods sticking out of each end. “Not really sure what it is.”

Sunset took it from her gently. “It reminds me of the plasma inductors they use in Vault 101. But it doesn’t have any sort of emitter…”

Pinkie peeked over Sunset’s shoulder. “Maybe it’s a plasma grenade?”

“Don’t be ridiculous it’s not a plasma…..” Sunset stiffened as she realized that was exactly what it was. “Rainbow? How about you keep this?” she said shakily.

“Awesome!” Rainbow gingerly took the grenade back from Sunset, slipping it carefully into one of her pack’s side pockets. 

“Do you really think we should be bringing those with us?” Rarity called as she backed slowly away.

Sunset flinched as Applejack helped Rainbow sling her pack back over her shoulder. “They might come in useful as a distraction or something. At the very least we could sell them when we get back to Megaton.” 

“The mole rats say that’s everything.” Fluttershy called as the mole rats scampered off. “What are we going to do now?”

Sunset folded her arms, thinking. “Right now I think we should try asking whoever lives back there-” She pointed through the door back towards the ticket barrier, “-if they know anything about the Family.”

“And hope that they’re friendly.” Applejack muttered.

Rarity tossed her hair over her shoulder and sauntered to the door. “Not to worry darling. If they do turn out to be uncivilized brutes I shall just have to block the doorway with a gemstone while we make our escape.”

Applejack shrugged and followed after her. “Works for me.” 

The others followed them back through the door and towards the door between the burning drums. As they passed the corpse Sunset privately wondered whether he had been killed by the mole rats or by the ghouls.

Shaking her head to clear the morbid thoughts, Sunset vaulted over the ticket barrier and followed Rarity to the door. The heat from the flames brought welcome relief from the chill air in the tunnel. Rarity clasped her Geode tightly and clenched her other fist, ready in case anything went wrong. She nodded tightly to Sunset, who reached up and knocked sharply on the door. 

Footsteps echoed behind the door before it was tugged open slowly. A ghoul was standing there, a pair of spectacles balanced precariously on his face. A second ghoul was seated at a table in the room, clad in heavy-looking combat armor and glaring at the girls. 

The bespectacled ghoul blinked in surprise as he took in the group. “What the… who are… you‘re not hallucinations are you?” 

Sunset raised an eyebrow quizzically. “Uh… no?”  

“Oh that’s good, thought I’d accidentally breathed in some of the Ultrajet, that stuff packs a…” His eyes widened and he glanced shiftily around at the girls. “I…uh… I mean, I don’t have any, it’s not like I’m making it or anything… uh…” 

Sunset raised a hand to stop him. “Don’t worry, we’re not here because of what you’re making, or not making. We’re looking for a group called the Family.” 

The ghoul sagged with relief. “Good. I was afraid I was gonna have to abandon my lab here. So what do you want with the Family?”

“You’ve heard of them?”

The ghoul nodded. “Sure I've heard of them, they live somewhere east of here. I stay away from them and they don’t bother me. It’s a good relationship. If you’re feeling foolish, I think there’s an underground way to their hideout just through my lab here.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. 

“And why exactly would taking that way be foolish?” Rarity asked warily.

“Mirelurks.” was the blunt reply.

“I think we can handle those.” Sunset glanced at Fluttershy, who nodded faintly. “Do you mind if we use the underground way?”

The ghoul just shrugged and opened the door wide. Sunset stepped through, closely followed by the other girls. “I didn’t catch your name, I’m Sunset.” 

“Murphy, and that’s Barrett.” Murphy indicated the ghoul sat at the table, who just nodded. “It’s through this way.” He led the girls through his lab, which consisted of little more than what used to be a small office space. “So what’s with the freaky colors? You some kind of new mutant?”

“We were born like it.” Sunset replied gruffly.

Murphy snorted. “Hey I ain’t judging, I’m a ghoul for Christ’s sake.” He stopped just before a door at the end of a side corridor. “I’d prefer it if you’d keep quiet about my lab here, since I’m doing you this little favour and all.” 

“Fair enough.” Sunset sighed. That explained why he was being so nice to them, she thought. Frankly she wasn’t sure who she would tell that would possibly care anyway.

Murphy shoved the door open and immediately the Geiger counter on each girl’s Pip-Boy started ticking gently. Inside was an old storage room. A manhole sat in the middle of the room, but right next to it were several steel drums leaking brightly glowing fluid. 

“Down there?” Sunset asked reluctantly, she didn’t want to get any closer to that fluid than she had to.

Murphy just nodded. “Yep, don’t worry the radiation dies down once you’re down the ladder.”

Applejack took one look at the drums and recoiled. “Do you reckon we should take some of that rad-x stuff first?”

Fluttershy shook her head slowly. “We’ve only got one dose, whoever took it would be going down there alone. We’d be better off just getting out of the radiation as quickly as possible.”

Sunset looked back at the manhole cover. She was about to step forward when Murphy pushed past. “Hold up, the rads spike like crazy when you get close to this gunk.” He wrenched the manhole cover off and stood aside. “Us ghouls are immune to radiation, I don’t know about you smoothskins though. Funny colors or not, I probably wouldn’t risk it too much. Good luck down there.”

Sunset nodded but didn’t reply. Gritting her teeth, she darted to the manhole, the ticking from her Pip-Boy getting louder and faster the closer she got. Crouching next to the manhole she could see a ladder descending a short distance into a rocky area. Luckily it didn’t seem that dark down there. 

Dropping onto the ladder, Sunset clambered down as quickly and carefully as she could, backing away as soon as she hit the bottom until the ticking from her Pip-Boy stopped entirely. As the others climbed down after her and Murphy resealed the cover, Sunset took the opportunity to get a good look at her surroundings. 

They were in a large cavern, a path of sorts winding its way between huge boulders and stalagmites. The floor was littered with bones and the rotting remains of unidentifiable animals. An awful reek of fish and decay filled the air.  

Applejack stepped up next to Sunset, wafting her face with her hat. “Well something smells bad enough to knock a dog off a gut wagon.”

“Indeed!” Rarity gagged. “Can we please find a way out of here quickly!”

“This way.” Sunset started off down the path, trying not to retch.

The path twisted and turned as it wound through the cave. Patches of spindly mushrooms glowed faintly in the dim light. Odd clicking sounds came at irregular intervals, echoing weirdly off the walls. Turning a corner the girls suddenly came across the source of the sounds. 

Two large creatures squatted in the middle of the path. Their bodies were covered by a thick, whitish-grey shell with only their crab-like faces unprotected. Segmented arms and legs poked out in some mockery of the human form, their arms ending in vicious crab-like pincers. The moment they saw the group the creatures lurched upright, easily as tall as any of the girls, and started lumbering towards them. 

“Those must be them mirelurks we’ve been hearing about.” Applejack muttered as she and the others backed away slowly. “They don’t look too friendly.”

Sunset took a step back as the mirelurks moved closer. “Alright Fluttershy, you’re up.”

Fluttershy nodded and stepped forwards, holding up her hands. “It’s okay! We aren’t here to hurt you!” The mirelurks stopped in their tracks. “Me and my friends here were just hoping we could pass through this tunnel, there’s something very important we have to do on the other side.”

The mirelurks stared blankly at her for a moment, then their mandibles started clicking furiously as they replied. 

“I’m very sorry, we didn’t know this was your territory.” Fluttershy said quickly, “We didn’t mean any harm. Um, maybe you could just let us past, and we’ll leave you in peace?” She backed away a step as the mirelurks started advancing again. “Okay well if you’re so against it I’m sure we can find another way around… no…  no you don’t have to… no… wait!”

Sunset grabbed the back of Fluttershy‘s dress and yanked her backwards as one of the mirelurks lunged forwards, it‘s pincer snapping shut where her neck had been a split-second before. Sunset dragged her back as the creature swiped at them again with a claw.

A purple glow suddenly surrounded the mirelurk, lifting it into the air as a large gemstone smacked into the other, shoving it backwards.

Rarity gritted her teeth as the mirelurk struggled to shove her gem aside. “Why are they attacking us?!”

“They won’t let us go, they want to eat us!” Fluttershy cried. 

“Well that ain’t happening!” Applejack snarled. 

Sunset looked around wildly, trying to think of something. They could leave and try another way,, but she wanted to be done with this as quickly as possible. A dark idea suddenly crossed her mind. 

Sunset threw down her backpack and wrenched it open. Burke’s pistol sat there, gleaming ominously in the dark. Her hands shook as she pulled it out, it was heavier than she expected. Sunset took and deep breath to calm herself, then carefully aimed at the Mirelurk clutched in Twilight‘s magic. Steadying herself, she pulled the trigger. 

Nothing happened. 

“Try taking the safety off!” Rainbow called.

“Oh, right.” Sunset spotted a little button on the side of the gun and pressed it. 

The magazine fell out and clattered to the floor.

“Please. Hurry.” Twilight said through gritted teeth as the Mirelurk thrashed in her magical grip.

Sunset grabbed the magazine and crammed it back into the gun. Taking another look, she noticed a little catch next to her thumb. Thumbing it, she prayed she was right and pulled the trigger again. 

The gun kicked as she heard a single, low, phut. 

The bullet missed the creature’s face as it flailed around and lodged in it’s shell instead, not doing any damage whatsoever. Sunset’s temper flared and she fired several more times, each shot as ineffective as the first. 

“Right! That does it! Stand back y‘all!” Applejack stepped forward and raised her fists. “Rarity, let it go!”  

The gemstone holding her mirelurk back disappeared and the creature stumbled forwards, off balance. Before it could regain its footing Applejack stepped forward and threw a mighty right hook. The force of the punch shattered the mirelurk’s shell and launched it back down the tunnel to slam into the far wall. 

As Applejack turned Twilight dropped the second mirelurk, sending it crashing to the floor. It didn’t have a chance to stand before Applejack was upon it. Her fist smashed down through the mirelurk’s shell like it was glass, burying her arm up to the elbow inside it’s body.

The others gaped as Applejack wrenched her arm out of the mirelurk. She was spattered with foul ichors and her arm dripped with reeking gore. The farm girl gagged and held her arm out away from her body. “Uh, can someone hand me a towel?”

As Rarity hurried forward to help Applejack clean up, Sunset clicked the gun’s safety on, stuffed it back into her pack and slung it over her shoulder. She looked around as she felt a hand on her back. 

“Um, are you okay?” Fluttershy asked.

Sunset nodded, sighing heavily. “I’m fine, just a little freaked out I guess. I didn’t exactly handle myself very well there.”
Rainbow thumped her playfully on the arm. “Don’t worry about it Sunshim, that was the first time any of us have ever used a gun. At least you didn’t shoot any of us with it.”

“Good point.” Sunset chuckled, “I think I should probably practice my aiming though. I can‘t believe the gun didn’t do anything to it.” 

“Those were some really angry crabs.” Pinkie said as she skipped over to the mirelurk’s corpse. “How come they didn’t listen to Fluttershy?”

Twilight grimaced as she peered down at it. “The radiation must have increased their aggression. They almost look like horseshoe crabs, which aren’t exactly known for their violent tendencies.” 

“Well they’re certainly violent now.” Applejack called, wiping the last of the gunk off her arm. She threw an apologetic look at Fluttershy. She opened her mouth to speak but Flutters raised a hand, cutting her off.

“I know what you’re going to say, and it’s okay. They weren’t going to let us leave. You did what you had to do.” she said sadly.

Applejack nodded. “Well, alright then, ah still feel kinda bad about it though. That’s the first time I’ve ever used my strength against a living creature before.” 

“Are you kidding me? That was awesome!” Rainbow cried. She smiled awkwardly at the looks on the others’ faces, “I mean yeah, it’s a shame it had to be done, and it was really gross, but come on! She totally whooped their sorry butts!”

“Ah did at that,” Applejack admitted, cracking a small smile. “Ah just hope ah don’t have to do something like that again.”

“You have been losing your temper quite a bit today darling, are you sure you’re all right?” Rarity asked, wrinkling her nose at the towel Applejack had used.

“Ah’m fine, just restless ah guess.” She sighed and fanned herself with her hat. “Ah think this world is starting to get to me.”

“You’re not the only one.” Sunset said with a shiver. “Come on, let’s get out of here, and hope we don’t run into any more of those things.”

The girls continued down the tunnel, treading carefully past the broken bodies of the mirelurks. Sunset listened carefully as they advanced, but there were no more clicking sounds. All she could hear were their own footsteps and the occasional drip of water.

Following a bend in the tunnel, the girls came to a steep incline. Looking up, Sunset could see the twisted end of what looked like train tracks, poking out over the lip of the rocky ramp. Not paying attention, Sunset yelped in surprise as something caught her leg.

“Whoa, you okay?!” Rainbow asked.

“Yeah, I just-” Sunset’s breath caught as she saw the broken tripwire at her feet. She whipped her head around at the sound of something clattering down the ramp, but was yanked backwards before she could see what it was.

Pinkie let go of Sunset and grabbed Rainbow, throwing her away from the ramp. “EVERYONE LOOK O-”

BOOM
> Chapter 12 - A Buttload of Traps
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset lay curled up in a ball, hands clamped over her ears in a futile attempt to block out the awful ringing in her head. At a touch on her shoulder, she looked up to see Twilight mouthing something.

“What?”

“Are you alright?”

Sunset nodded slowly as the ringing in her ears started to fade. 

“What was that?”

“A booby trap.” Sunset replied. She winced as she sat up. Her bare arms and legs were bleeding from dozens of little cuts, but thanks to Pinkie she’d been far enough from the blast to avoid any real damage. 

That thought brought her head whipping up. She spotted Pinkie kneeling a few feet away. Fluttershy was crouched next to her, checking her pupils with a little torch. Luckily Pinkie seemed fine, rummaging a finger through her ear and muttering ‘mawp’ under her breath repeatedly. Nearby, Applejack and Rarity were helping Rainbow to her feet. 

“Is everyone alright?” Sunset called anxiously.

Applejack looked round and nodded. “We’re fine sugarcube, it was only you three who caught the edge of the blast.” She turned back to Rainbow, helping her lean against the wall. "No harm done."

“Speak for yourself, my shoulder is killing me!” Rainbow hissed. She reached a hand around to rub at her backside, “And why does my butt hurt so m-” Rainbow’s eyes suddenly bulged. She turned jerkily to look at Flutters. “Uh, F-Fluttershy?”

“What’s wrong?” Fluttershy asked, looking around curiously.

Even in the dim light of the tunnel, Sunset could see the blush creeping across Rainbow’s face. “There‘s s-something in my b-butt.”

Sunset’s brain stalled for a moment. The girls all stared blankly at Rainbow as they tried to wrap their heads around what she’d just said.

“Uh, come again?” Applejack asked.

Fluttershy directed her torch at Rainbow’s posterior. A single, small piece of shrapnel poked out from her butt-cheek.

Sunset managed to suppress a snort with difficulty. Applejack, however, failed miserably. 

So did Rarity.

“I hate you both.” Rainbow grumbled.

“I’m sorry darling,” Rarity tittered as Applejack roared with laughter, “But you have to admit, if it had happened to one of us you would most certainly be laughing too.”

“Yeah yeah.”

“You really shouldn’t tease like that girls.” Fluttershy said reproachfully.

“It’s fine Flutters,” Rainbow muttered, “Heh, it is kinda funny.”

“If you say so.” Fluttershy scooted over to inspect the wound. “I’m going to need you to hold still for this, we don’t want to dislodge the shrapnel and damage any more nerves or blood vessels.”

“Butt vessels!” Pinkie cried suddenly, earning a chuckle from the others.

“Welcome back.” Sunset grinned. “Nice work dodging that blast, are you feeling okay?”

“I didn’t, but I’m okay anyway! Just a little heavy.”

“Heavy? What do you…”

Sunset trailed off as Pinkie sprang to her feet, grabbed her hair and, with an awful clattering sound, started shaking it madly. There was a deluge of shrapnel, grit and dust from the depths of the pink fluff, accompanied by an umbrella hat, three cans of whipped cream, a squeaky rubber chicken and a little box marked ‘alligator treats’.

Sunset just stared as Pinkie started stuffing the whipped cream back into her hair. “Somehow that explains absolutely everything and nothing whatsoever, and that concerns me.”

“I’m concerned that that sentence made sense to me.” Twilight responded.

“And I’m concerned about the piece of metal stuck in my butt.” Rainbow deadpanned. “Can we get rid of it now please?”

“Of course Rainbow. Twilight, could you assist me please?” Fluttershy asked.

“Sure!”

Flutters looked around at each of the others. “Um, maybe the rest of you should go on ahead for the moment.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Huh? Why’s that?”

Fluttershy blushed slightly, “Um, well, I can’t remove the shrapnel or treat the wound properly while it’s covered.”

“So? Oh.” Sunset’s eyes widened as she realized what Fluttershy meant.

“What? What do you mean?” Rainbow asked.

“It’s nothing!” Sunset said quickly, “Come on, we sho-”

“She means she needs you to drop your undies so she can fix you silly!” Pinkie interrupted.

Rainbow rolled her eyed. “Ha ha, real funny.” 

Fluttershy’s blush deepened. “Actually she’s, um, she’s right. I need to see how deep the wound is and make sure the surrounding tissue isn’t damaged. I can’t do that if your clothes are in the way.” She tapped a finger against her chin. “Although I suppose if you’re wearing a thong it won’t be as much of a problem.”

“I’m not wearing a thong!” Rainbow cried, her blush returning in full force. She shook her head and sighed heavily, “Alright fine, let‘s just get this over with. You girls mind going on ahead or something?” 

Applejack nodded, still smiling slightly. “Sure thing sugarcube.”

“Of course darling.” Rarity said, “Come along girls, let’s give them some privacy.”

“Okay, we’ll go scout out the tunnel ahead,” Sunset fiddled with a knob on her Pip-Boy as she headed back towards the ramp, “I’d suggest turning on our Pip-Boy lights, just in case there are any more traps.”

Applejack smacked a palm to her forehead. “Aw dang it, now why didn’t we think of that before.”

“Actually, I did.” Sunset admitted, “I just thought it would be better if we left them off in case we attracted the mirelurks.” 

“Fat lot of good that did us.” Applejack grumbled.

“In her defense darling, we really weren’t expecting traps like that.” Rarity added, switching her light on too. “Oh good grief that is disgusting!”

Standing at the top of the ramp, a subway track stretched away in front of them. Sprawled across the tracks was the sundered corpse of another mirelurk. Chunks of shell and entrails were scattered about, along with several of it’s limbs.

“Well at least we didn’t have to fight that one.” Applejack noted.

“I just hope we don’t get caught by whatever did that to it.” Sunset said quietly as she stepped around the corpse. Her eyes widened as she spotted something a little further ahead. “Everyone stop moving!”

The other three froze where they stood, Pinkie still with her foot in the air. Applejack turned to her slowly. 

“What is it? Did you spot another trap?”

Sunset nodded and pointed. A bear trap was placed in the middle of the tracks, just past the mirelurk’s corpse. The dark metal was well camouflaged against the concrete floor. Sunset shivered, if her light hadn’t been on she would’ve walked right into it. She stooped to pick up a chunk of debris and, aiming carefully, tossed it onto the trap’s switch. A loud snap echoed down the tunnel.

Applejack gave a low whistle. “Talk about a welcome mat, ah get the feeling the Family ain’t too keen on visitors.”

“I‘m inclined to agree darling.” Rarity replied, “Though these traps could be intended to keep those ghastly mirelurks at bay.”

“Good point.”

“Hey, do you girls see that?” Pinkie asked suddenly, pointing ahead.

Sunset peered into the darkness. She could just make out a little red light glowing eerily, near one of the walls. The girls edged carefully closer, illuminating a small, circular object. Sunset raised her Pip-Boy, angling the light for a better view. “Is… is that a landmine?”

“It certainly appears to be,” Rarity said quietly, “Might I suggest sticking to the other side of the tracks?”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Applejack stepped forward, then stopped abruptly. “Shoot, there’s another one over here.”

Sunset looked from one mine to the other. “There’s plenty of space down the middle. As long as we don’t step on them or knock anything onto them, we should be fine.”

“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie started strolling down the tracks, humming tunelessly and carefully placing each foot directly ion front of the other. As she made to pass the first landmine it suddenly started emitting a low, electronic beeping. Pinkie glanced in horror at the mine, then turned and belted back down the path. “Hot potato hot potato!” 

The girls all threw themselves away from the mine, Pinkie diving headfirst back over the mirelurk’s corpse.  A split second later a small explosion tore through the air. The girls were pelted by stones and specks of broken concrete, but luckily no-one was hurt. 

“What the heck was that!” Twilight cried as she crested the top of the ramp. 

“A landmine.” Sunset replied flatly.

“Seriously, more explosives?” Rainbow asked, limping along behind.

Applejack nodded as she rearranged her hat. “Yup. How’s the butt sugarcube?”

“Sore, but I‘ll live.”

“She’ll be okay, the wound wasn't very deep.” Flutters said, zipping up her nursing kit. “Are there any more mines around?” 

“Sadly yes.” Rarity sighed. “At least one more.”

“Oh come on!” Rainbow yelled, “How many times are we almost going to get blown up today!?” 

Pinkie popped up from behind the dead mirelurk. “Right? I love a loud bang as much as the next girl but this is starting to get ridiculous, even by my standards.” The others just stared at her. “What? What did I say?”

Rarity coughed delicately, “Yes, well, moving swiftly on. Do you think we can get safely past the other landmine now?”

“Shouldn’t we be fine as long as we don’t step on it?” Twilight asked. 

“That’s what we thought, but apparently they’re proximity mines.” Sunset grumbled, folding her arms.

Twilight’s face lit up at that. “Fascinating! How do you think they work? Oooh maybe it measures variations in air density? Or vibrations through the floor? Or maybe they have some kind of-”

“Hey, here’s an idea.” Applejack cut in, “Twilight, you reckon you can use your magic to toss that thing down the tunnel away from us?”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure that would set it off.” 

Applejack shrugged, “Well, yeah, but at least the blast would be way down there instead of up here next to us.”

Twilight just shook her head. “I’m don’t think that would be a good idea. We don’t know if there are any more landmines further down. We‘d risk setting off a chain reaction which, in a confined space like this, would probably be a very bad idea.” 

“Do you think we can walk around it?” Fluttershy asked. 

Sunset tilted her head, thinking hard. “Probably. The first one didn’t go off until Pinkie got fairly close to it, but I’d feel safer if we detonated it now, along with any more we come across, just in case we need to make a quick exit back down this way.”  She hummed softly as she turned to Twilight, “Throwing it wouldn’t be safe, but do you think you could just pick it up and move it along with us?”

Twilight frowned at the mine, it‘s little light glowing ominously. “I guess that would work, but what if my magic sets it off?”

“We’re far enough away that the first one didn’t cause any damage, so from this distance we should be fine if the second one detonates too.” 

“Just make sure you put it back down before it goes off.” Rainbow added.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “If it explodes in midair it’ll have a bigger blast, seriously you’ve never heard of a daisy cutter?” She scowled as the others all stared at her in shock. “What? I read about them in a Daring Do book and figured I’d look it up.”

“That explains it.” Sunset smirked.

“Uh, explains what exactly?” Applejack asked. 

“If an explosive is detonated above ground the shock-wave reflects off the floor, effectively increasing the blast radius.” Twilight rattled off, “I can’t believe I forgot about that, thanks Rainbow!”

Rainbow puffed herself up. “See, I’m awesome even when I‘m injured.”

“Yes yes, very well done darling, now can we please get this over with?” Rarity huffed. 

“Right, here we go.” Twilight gripped her geode and stretched out a hand. The moment the glow of her magic surrounded the mine it started to beep loudly, prompting her to release it instantly. Everyone quickly ducked as yet another explosion assaulted their ears. 

“Ah swear if ah find just one more bomb ah’m not going to be held responsible for what ah do to those darn Family folks.” Applejack muttered.

Sunset sighed heavily. “Well, at least the path is clear now.”

Sunset led the girls cautiously down the tracks. Aside from another bear trap, found and disarmed by Applejack, the girls didn’t encounter any more booby traps until they came to a turnoff. Another tunnel opened up on their left, a wrecked subway train left to rust on the tracks. Past the tunnel the tracks continued up a slight incline to a set of huge doors, dim sunlight streaming in through the windows. 

“Which way do you reckon?” Applejack asked.

Sunset stepped carefully over to the ruined train, taking a look past it. The way was narrow, but they’d fit if they all went single file. “I think we should go this way, there’s more shelter underground, especially if it’s a gang we’re looking for. Besides, look at that.” Sunset pointed up at a small sign. 

“Meresti Station.” Rarity read aloud.

“An old subway station.” Sunset grinned, “Sounds like a good place for a hideout.”

“I have a quick question, um, if that’s okay?” Fluttershy said quietly.

Sunset turned to the young nurse. “What’s up?”

Flutters hunched slightly, averting her eyes. “What do we do if the Family aren’t um, friendly?”

“Good question dear.” Rarity replied, “Honestly I would prefer if we could find a diplomatic solution, but, well, the Family might not be willing to negotiate.”

“We’ll just talk. As long as they’re willing to speak to us, I know we can sort things out peacefully.” Sunset said firmly.

“And, uh, what if they don’t want to talk?” Applejack asked. 

Sunset took a deep breath, her face set. “If things get dangerous, we escape. Simple as that.”

“Uh, I know I’m awesome and all, but I’m not really up to running much at the moment.” Rainbow admitted, rubbing her neck nervously. 

“Don’t sweat it sugarcube, ah got your back.” Applejack said, nodding to Rainbow. 

“One last thing.” Sunset looked around at each of the others, “Let’s try and remember not to use our magic on front of these people.”

“Why not? It totally worked back in Arefu!” Rainbow smirked.

“I wouldn’t really say it worked as such.” Rarity blushed slightly. 

“We terrified those poor people.” Fluttershy huffed.

Sunset nodded somberly, “Scaring people is bad enough, but we don’t want to accidentally provoke anyone either. The last thing we need is to end up being the targets of some sort of witch hunt.”

“Ah, yeah, that would suck.” Rainbow agreed.

Sunset sighed and straightened up. “Okay, let’s do this.” 

She started off down the tunnel, walking alongside the old train with the others falling into step behind. Sunset kept her Pip-Boy held high, scanning the floor ahead with her eyes. She stopped abruptly as she reached the end of the train. 

“What’s wrong Sunset?” Twilight asked.

“Tripwire.” Sunset replied, gesturing to the rope in front of her feet. She pointed ahead, “And look what it’s attached to.”
Twilight peeked past Sunset. Just ahead was another wrecked train. Something was tucked between the train and the tunnel wall, planted atop a small pile of rubble. Twilight squinted, struggling to make out what it was. She gasped as realized it was a gun, pointed directly at the group.

“Wait here.” Sunset whispered, gingerly stepping over the tripwire. Once she was clear she quickly moved to the gun, careful to stay out of the way of the barrel. Up close, she saw that it was some kind of shotgun, with a large drum magazine. It had been bolted to the stand, a wire was tied around the trigger and connected to several microfusion cells, acting as a battery. The moment someone nudged that tripwire, the shotgun would blast them right in the chest.

Sunset slipped off her pack and pulled out her Vault tool belt. “Applejack, can you come over here a second? And watch out for that tripwire!” she called.

“Sure thing sugarcube!” Applejack squeezed past the others, tiptoed over the tripwire and stepped up next to Sunset. “What do you need?”

Between the two of them the two girls managed to disarm the rigged shotgun and prise it off the stand. The microfusion cells were given to Twilight, in case she found a use for them. Applejack was adamant that she wanted to keep the shotgun, even if they did only find four shells in it. 

“Ah’m telling you, it just makes sense!” 

“Do you even know how to use that thing?” Sunset asked.

“Ah’ll just have to practice, same as you with that pistol.”

“I’ve got to admit, AJ does have a point.” Rainbow said, “A shotgun will come in handy if we run into any more mirelurks.”

Sunset glared at the two of the for a moment, but she saw the sense of what they were saying. “Fine, but be careful with it. And make sure you don’t point it at anyone, even accidentally. Just, keep it pointed at the floor.”

“Ah hear you.” Applejack said happily, flicking the shotgun’s safety on and obligingly pointing it at the floor. 

The girls made their way down past the second train, keeping an eye out for any more traps. Sunset spotted another tripwire near the end of the train, this one attached to a heavy weight, designed to swing down and smash into who or whatever disturbed the wire. A barrel full of flames and a low wall of sandbags sat just ahead of them. 

“Looks like we’ve found the Family’s hideout.” Sunset called over her shoulder, “Stand back a second.”

Sunset got down on her belly, making sure she was flat to the floor. Holding her breath, she reached out and flicked the tripwire. The weight swung down and over her, the breeze of it’s passing rustled her hair. Once it had stopped swinging she stood and motioned for the others to follow.

“Don’t move!”

Sunset whipped around, startled by the sudden shout. Past the sandbags the tracks dropped down a short ramp. A wrecked subway car blocked the way ahead. Someone had erected a barrier of sandbags in front of it, flanked by two burning oil drums. A man was stood behind the sandbags, pointing his gun at Sunset. 

“This area’s off limits to everyone but the Family, where the hell do you think you’re going?”
> Chapter 13 - Bound in Blood
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset raised her hands slowly, not taking her eyes off the man below. “We don’t want any trouble. We’ve been sent by the people of Arefu, to negotiate.” 

The man raised an eyebrow, but didn’t lower his gun. He had a bandanna around his head and was wearing some heavy duty combat armor. He was clearly a guard of some sort. “Yeah, Vance said we should be expecting someone soon.” He hesitated for a moment, then nodded and lowered the gun. “Alright, you can head on in. Speak to Vance, he’s usually on the mezzanine overlooking the common area.” 

“Thanks, come on girls.” 

As the rest of the group filed out from behind the train the guard raised his gun again. Now that she could get a good look at it, Sunset realized it was a compact sub-machine gun. “Whoa whoa, why are there so many of you?”

“They’re my friends.” Sunset replied warily. 

The guard shook his head, lowering his gun again. “We weren’t expecting this many of you.” 

“Is that a problem?” Applejack asked.

“That depends.” 

“On what?”

The guard gestured to Applejack’s pilfered shotgun, held loosely at her side. “On how heavily armed your group is. We may be a bad-ass gang, but we aren’t stupid.”

“Heavily armed?” Applejack glanced down at her gun and chuckled. “Shoot, this here shotgun and Sunset’s little pistol are the only darn guns we got and they’re a lot more than we’re used to handling. You can trust me on that one.”

Sunset had to restrain herself from face-palming. She had no intention of trying to threaten the Family (unless she really had to) but she would have preferred to keep their lack of guns and experience with them a secret, if only so the Family would be a little more wary of picking a fight. Well, at least she forgot to mention the grenades.

The guard just raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? How the hell have you girls managed to survive in the wastes without any guns?”

“Duh, we’re awesome.” Rainbow smirked, planting a hand on her hip and trying to puff herself up, though the effect was hampered somewhat by the tattered sling she still wore. 

The guard looked incredulously at her, then shook his head. “If you say so. Alright I’ll let you pass.” He turned to open a gate in a nearby mesh fence and gestured for them to follow. “Come with me, I‘ll show you the door.”

“Thanks, we appreciate it.” Sunset said brightly as they followed the guard through the gate. He locked it the moment they were through and led them through a short corridor. There were a few makeshift tables, covered with guns and various pieces of equipment, even a computer terminal and a small bed, everything a Wasteland guard post would need. Sunset realized the Family must be more organised than she’d given them credit for. 

“I must admit, I‘m a little surprised.” Twilight said suddenly, “You’re the first person we’ve met who hasn’t been concerned about how we look?”

Sunset‘s brow furrowed. Now that she thought about it, Twilight was right. He’d been more interested in why they were there than anything else.

The guard just grunted. “Everyone’s got their own problems.” Sunset's impression of the Family went up, if only slightly. At least they didn't seem to be bigots, not yet anyway. As the group turned a corner he indicated a metal side door. “Go through there and turn right. When you get to the end of the tunnel you’ll see the mezzanine above you. You’ll probably find Vance up there.”

“Thanks again.” Sunset stepped through first with the others close on her heels, closing the door behind them as the guard returned to his post. They were back in the subway tunnel, on the other side of the crashed train. The tracks continued on to their right, past another turnoff and opening up into what Sunset assumed must be the station. 

“So far so good.” Twilight said quietly as the group started making their way towards the station. “Do you think they’ll listen to us?”

“I certainly hope so darling.” Rarity replied. “Though after the way things have been going recently, I’ll be very surprised if our negotiations do go smoothly.”

“Me too.” Sunset admitted. “We have to try though. Let’s just try not to antagonize them while we’re at it.”

“Um, what if they don’t want to listen to us?” Fluttershy asked shakily.

Sunset put a hand to her chin as she thought. “Distract them with a grenade and run like heck?”

“Oh yeah, ah forgot we had some of them.” Applejack stopped in her tracks, eyes widening for a moment before she shrugged and continued walking. “Meh, works for me.”

Rarity groaned and raised her hands to her head, her purple locks swaying as she gently massaged her temples. “Two days ago I would have said you were crazy for even thinking such a thing. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but right now I think it might actually be a good idea.” 

“Yeah, I’d rather we avoided that if we could.” Rainbow muttered. “I’ve had enough of grenades for one day.”

“Fair enough.” Sunset said quickly, unable to resist a glance at Rainbow’s backside. A slight limp and the bandage visible through the small hole in her pants were the only outward signs of their sporty friend’s newest ‘injury’.  

The girls stopped talking as they came to the end of the tunnel and stepped into the station. It was a lot larger than Sunset had expected. The tracks between the platforms had been covered with wooden planks, forming a makeshift floor. There were benches and chairs everywhere, and the entire place was lit up by dozens of little portable lamps. Looming over the whole area was a large mezzanine, just as the guard had mentioned. A man and a woman were stood up there, surveying the area and it’s inhabitants from their lofty perch. 

That must be Vance, Sunset thought. She spotted a broken down escalator leading up to the mezzanine and, remembering what the guard had said about speaking to Vance first, made her way over to it, the others looking around warily as they followed. The various members of the Family paused in the middle of whatever tasks they were doing to stare as the girls walked past. Curiously, none of them looked hostile or intimidated, a first as far as Sunset was concerned. Several people looked wary, certainly, but most of them just seemed curious. 

Still, none of the girls dared to let their guard down, Vance’s eyes followed them as they ascended the escalator and made their way over to him. He had thick, dark hair and was wearing a heavy leather trench coat. He had some sort of makeshift sword sheathed at his side, a thick tube connected it's handle to what looked suspiciously like a gas tank strapped to his back. 

The woman at his side was scarcely less imposing. She had short blonde hair and was wearing heavy black pants and a small leather vest over a red short-sleeved undershirt, cut short to expose her midriff. A gleaming sub-machine gun was holstered at her waist. Sunset supposed it was a good sign that neither of them had drawn their weapons yet.

Vance threw his arms wide as they approached. “Welcome to our home.” His voice was deep and calm. "My people call me Vance, and this is my wife Holly.” Holly smiled and nodded as Vance gestured to her. “I lead this group of weary travelers and outcasts who need a home. And to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?” 

Sunset nodded politely, wondering vaguely what he meant by outcasts. “It's, er, nice to meet you. I'm Sunset Shimmer and these are my friends.” The others nodded, Rarity and Fluttershy each giving a small, shy wave. “We've been sent by the sheriff of Arefu to discuss the recent... incidents.” 

Vance blinked, apparently surprised for a moment, but quickly recovered and nodded. “I suspected that someone would be coming to see us soon, though I admit I wasn’t expecting such a large group. At least, not for negotiations...” He eyed the girls warily as he spoke. “Given your… general… lack of weaponry, am I to assume that you are looking for a peaceful resolution?”

“We certainly hope so!” Twilight laughed nervously.

“As do we.” Vance replied softly, relaxing visibly. He raised an eyebrow at the look on the girls' faces. “You seem surprised by this?”

Sunset and Twilight shared a look. “Well... Yeah.” Sunset rubbed at her neck, not sure how to go about this. “To be honest, after everything we’ve heard we weren't expecting you to be so...?”

“Reasonable?” Holly supplied.

“Understandable, of course.” Vance folded his arms and heaved a sigh. “Perhaps it would be best if you tell us what you have heard and what the people of Arefu are requesting. We can base our negotiations around that.” 

Sunset hesitated. “Well…”   

After a few moments of silence, Applejack huffed and stepped forward. “Alright look, there ain’t no pretty way of saying this, so ah’m just going to come out and say it.” She tilted her hat backwards and looked Vance dead in the eye. “We know y’all have been causing a ruckus for a while, but things are getting out of hand. We know you killed the town’s Brahmin. Now the Wests are dead too and Ian has gone missing, ah’m assuming he’s their son, and the sheriff reckons it all comes back to you. You want to know what the folk back at Arefu are requesting? They want to know what your problem is, they want to know what happened to Ian, and they want to be left alone.”

Awkward silence followed in the wake of the farmer’s tirade. Sunset tensed as Vance and Holly shared a look, worried that Applejack’s blunt honesty was about to escalate matters, but to her surprise they both just sighed, Holly in particular looking quite abashed. 

“What happened with the Brahmin was a most regrettable occurrence, for which I offer my most sincere apologies.” Vance shook his head slowly. “I was aware that certain members of our Family were making a nuisance of themselves but I never suspected they would go so far in tormenting the local populace.”

“It's a terrible thing. I wish we could give some sort of recompense for them, but we just don't have those kind of resources.” Holly said earnestly.

“It is indeed a shame, but I'm afraid that all I have to offer is my solemn word that such an incident will not occur again. As for Ian’s parents…” Vance's expression darkened. “I suppose the sheriff is correct, in a way.” 

“It is not your fault.” Holly said firmly. 

“My fault? Perhaps not, but it is my responsibility.” Vance sighed. “What happened to the Wests was a terrible tragedy, one that I was not quick enough to prevent. It was only through good fortune that I was able to reach Ian before he was truly lost.”  

“What do you mean?” Sunset asked quickly, “Is Ian here? Is he alright?”

Vance nodded. “Ian is here and unharmed I promise you, he came with me voluntarily.” 

“Can we see him?” Twilight asked.

“I’m afraid I cannot allow that right now.” Vance said as Holly shook her head. “Ian is currently in isolation while he comes to terms with what happened in Arefu, and decides what he wants to do next.”

“It sounds to me like you’re imprisoning the poor boy.” Rarity shot. 

“Nothing could be further from the truth.” Vance replied. “Ian is free to leave and seek his own path at any time should he wish it.”

“You said you managed to reach Ian before he was ‘lost completely’.” Sunset said quickly, before anyone else could retort. “What exactly happened up there?”

There was silence as Vance looked over the girls, an almost appraising look in his eyes. Finally he sighed. “Very well, but if you truly wish to understand what transpired then first I must tell you who and what we, the Family, really are. Perhaps then you will see why Ian belongs here with us.”

Sunset said nothing as Vance turned and flung out an arm, indicating the makeshift settlement spread out below. “What you see before you is the last bastion of hope for the downtrodden and misunderstood. It is a sanctuary for the oppressed and beacon of faith for the tyrannized.” 

The girls listened as he recited what seemed to be a well-rehearsed little speech. “We are the remnants of society, cast aside like the clean-picked bones of a hunter’s feast. I led my flock beneath the sun-baked sands of the Wasteland to keep them safe and teach them my ways.” 

“What exactly are your ways?” Applejack asked.

“And why are you outcasts?” Fluttershy added.

Vance glanced at the girls, his expression unreadable. “I provide these people with shelter, purpose and a sense of belonging. I help them to control their hunger, as I have with mine, that we may live with it without becoming the beasts that others perceive us to be. Society labels us as monsters, demons and the unclean. Men of science would call us cannibals, eaters of human flesh.”  

Oh shit. If she hadn’t been paralyzed by shock, Sunset would have chastised herself for the profanity that flashed in her mind. She wasn’t the only one, each of the girls simply stood and stared at Vance as if he had suddenly grown another head. It was Applejack who finally broke the silence. 

“Uh, come again?”

Vance sighed and shook his head slowly. “You need not be afraid. I have reined in my people’s cravings and taught them not to eat of the flesh but to drink of the blood.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow slowly. “Right… so… vampires?”

Holly chuckled at that. “In a manner of speaking. My husband has taught us the ways of the vampire, helping us to control our hunger by just drinking blood rather than actually eating people.”

“That’s… actually quite fascinating!” Twilight said brightly. She blushed as the others turned to stare at her in amazement. “I mean, I suspected that cannibalism would be an issue in the wasteland given the lack of reliable food production and distribution, but I never considered that people might use a substitute to help control their cannibalistic urges!” 

Sunset shook her head, smirking slightly despite the circumstances. Stuck in an underground subway station surrounded by heavily armed cannibals and the colossal nerd is thinking about a research project.

“I suppose… as long as no-one‘s getting hurt, then I guess it can‘t be too bad…right?” Fluttershy asked quietly.

Sunset felt a jolt in her gut as she realized why Vance was telling them all of this. “Someone did get hurt.”

The girls looked around at her curiously while Vance just nodded grimly. “Now you understand why Ian is better off with us.”

Looks of shock and horror passed over the girls faces as comprehension dawned on them. Fluttershy’s hands flew to her mouth and Pinkie’s hair deflated as her shoulders slumped. 

“You mean… Ian… he… I…” Rarity groaned and turned to brace her hands on the wall, taking deep breaths as her face rapidly turned green. 

“Good gravy.” Applejack breathed, plucking her hat off and holding it over her chest. 

Rainbow looked slowly around at the others, blank shock written all over her features. “You mean he… he killed-”

“Don’t say it!” Rarity snapped before moaning again, covering her mouth with a hand. “Please… just don’t say it.”

Vance turned away, gazing down at his people in the station below. “The hunger that drives us must be kept in check. It is one of the most difficult things to teach. Ian lost control because no-one was around to guide him. His own family was alien to him.” He shook his head sadly. “He had a moment of weakness, and it was fatal.”

Rarity sank to her knees, moaning weakly. Fluttershy tottered over and slumped on the ground next to her, staring vacantly ahead. 

“How in the heck are we going to explain this to Lucy?” Applejack muttered.

“Lucy?” Vance asked.

“His sister, I think.” Sunset replied quietly, pulling Lucy’s letter out of her pocket. “She asked us to deliver a letter to her family. That’s why we were in Arefu in the first place.”

Vance blinked at the letter she held. “Then a part of his human family still remains? Even more of a reason he needs to remain in isolation, lest she suffer the same fate as her parents.”

Sunset glanced around at her friends, then directed a pleading look at Vance. “This letter is all Ian has left of his old life. Will you at least let us give it to him?”

Vance stared in wonder at Sunset, muttering almost to himself. “Of all people you girls must surely understand the difficulties faced by outcasts in this day and age, and yet somehow you remain… altruistic.” His expression softened as he looked around at each of the girls. “Very well. You have earned my trust and my respect. If you wish to speak to Ian, you are free to do so.”

Sunset sighed and nodded. “Thank you.” 

“Would you like me to show you to his meditation room?” Holly asked. 

“Please.” Sunset glanced back at her friends, all of them still looking either horrified, stunned or distinctly queasy. “I… guess you all want to stay here?”

There were nods and murmurs of assent from all except Fluttershy, who just sat and stared at the wall opposite. Sunset’s shoulders slumped as she turned to follow Holly, desperately hoping that this trip hadn’t finally crushed the kind girl’s spirit. 

Holly led Sunset into a corridor off the mezzanine and through a battered old ticket barrier. Around the corner was a heavily boarded-up gate, one that Sunset assumed once led outside, with a little side door labelled ‘Restroom’. Holly stepped over to a bulky computer terminal just outside the door and entered a code. A moment later there was a loud thunk as the door unlocked. 

“That’s some heavy security for a toilet.” Sunset quipped, trying to perk herself back up and gather her confidence. 

“You’re telling me.” Holly chuckled. “It’s the only room with a functioning electric lock and a working toilet, so we use it as a meditation room for new Family members, or for older members who need some time alone.” She pushed the door open and gestured inside. “Here you go, I’ll be waiting outside so just knock when you’re done.”

Sunset nodded and stepped through, Holly closing the door behind her. The room inside was in a parlous state. It was some sort of waiting room, with doors leading off to the women’s and men’s toilet areas, but the ceiling at both ends had caved in, massive piles of rubble leaving very little floor space and blocking the entrance to the men’s restroom. 

A young man, Sunset assumed it was Ian, was seated at a small table that had been plonked in what little floor space remained. He looked up as the thunk of the door locking echoed through the room. His eyes widened as he spotted Sunset and he scrambled to his feet. 

“Wow, uh… um, hello?”

Sunset managed a small smile. “Hello, my name’s Sunset Shimmer. I’m guessing you’re Ian West?”

Ian just stared at her blankly. After a moment he seemed to realize what he was doing and gave himself a shake. “Oh, y-yeah. Sorry. Are you a new member of the Family too?”

Sunset shook her head. “Actually me and my friends came here to find you. Evan sent us, from Arefu?”

“Really? Oh, well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” Ian smiled sadly, “Evan would probably have the whole town out looking for me if he could. He’s worse than my parents.” His smile vanished the moment the words left his mouth, replaced with a look of absolute misery. 

“I’m sorry.” Sunset shifted uncomfortably as Ian looked up at her. “Vance told us, about what happened.” 

“Right…” Ian’s shoulders drooped as his gaze fell to the floor. His voice shook as he spoke. “I guess you think I’m some kind of monster.” 

Sunset hesitated. When she didn’t respond he sighed and turned away, slouching over to a bed tucked against one of the walls and dropping onto it. Silent tears streamed down his face.

Seeing that helped Sunset make up her mind. Despite what he had done Ian wasn’t another psychopath like Burke, just a scared young man no older than herself, stuck with a terrible affliction that he couldn’t do anything about. Sunset took a deep breath and strode across the room to sit on the bed next to him. 

“I don’t think you’re a monster Ian.” Sunset said slowly. “I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through right now but… I do know what it’s like to have a darkness inside of you.” 

“No you really don't.” Ian mumbled.

“Maybe not in the same way but… not long ago I was in a bad place. I was consumed with bitterness and jealousy, all I cared about was power and revenge against those who would keep me from it. I ended up going down a very dark path.” Sunset hesitated as she remembered the feeling of the magic searing through her mind and the corrupt, sadistic glee that had blossomed afterwards. “I… I tried to murder my friends.”

Ian looked slowly up at her. “What happened?” he asked quietly.

She smiled sadly. “They managed to stop me before anyone got hurt.” Except me… and I guess maybe Snips and Snails… “After that... they forgave me. Don’t get me wrong, it took a while to earn everyone’s trust again, but they stood by me.” Sunset placed a hand on Ian’s shoulder. “I know the circumstances are different, but you have people who care about you too. People who will support you, who won’t let you face the darkness alone.”

Ian shook his head slowly. “No I don’t, the only people who give a shit about me any more are the Family.”

“That’s not true Ian. What about Evan? You know he cares about you, and so does Lucy.” Ignoring his look of surprise, Sunset pulled out the letter and handed it to him. “She gave this to me. She wanted me and my friends to deliver it to her family.”

Ian hesitantly took the letter and opened it. Fresh tears started to fall as he read it through. “She asks about me a lot in here, says she really misses being home.” He sighed and folded the letter back up. “I had it all wrong. I never should have come here in the first place.”

“What are you going to do?” Sunset asked gently.

Ian just took a deep breath and stood up. Sunset followed as he strode over and rapped on the door. It was unlocked with another loud thunk and a moment later it was open, Holly standing in the doorway. 

“Ian? Are you alright?”

Ian nodded. “I’m alright, thanks Holly. Can I speak to Vance?”

“Of course dear, what about?”

Ian smiled sadly. “I… I want to go home.”
> Chapter 14 - Reality Check
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset sighed as she made her way back to where her friends were waiting. Ian and Holly were walking just ahead of her, discussing his current plans and getting ready to say his goodbyes to the rest of the Family. So far things had gone far better than Sunset had dared to hope. 

Admittedly the fact that Ian was a cannibal who had murdered his own parents had put a dampener on things, but the Family were proving to be reasonable people and was reasonably sure things weren’t going to descend into violence. After her first experiences of the Wasteland and despite the dark circumstances surrounding their current detour, Sunset was quietly hoping she would get to call this trip a win. 

As they turned the corner and passed the ticket barrier Sunset saw her friends, still standing atop the mezzanine talking to Vance. She felt a small wave of relief as she spotted Fluttershy standing and conversing with the others, hopefully her friend was starting to feel a little better. Even Rarity had stopped looking ill. 

“Hey sugarcube, you alright?” Applejack called as they approached.

“Better than I was.” Sunset said with a sigh, then gestured to Ian. “Girls, I’d like you to meet Ian.”

To their credit, none of the girls were horrified or disgusted at meeting the young man. Or at least they didn’t show it if they were. All of them either simply wore looks of mild surprise or casual curiosity. 

Applejack stepped forward and dipped her hat to him. “Well howdy there Ian, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

Ian didn’t answer. Sunset turned to see him standing slack-jawed, gawping at her friends. “Uh… Ian?”

He flinched as he was snapped back to reality. “Oh! Uh… yeah! Nice to meet you too!”

Vance took a step towards him, concern written all over his face. “Ian, are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m good. I just didn’t know Sunset and her friends were mutants.” Ian seemed to realize what he’d said before it finished leaving his mouth, shaking his head frantically and holding up his hands as the girls narrowed their eyes at him. “Not that I have anything against mutants! I was just surprised that‘s all!”

“Dude. Chill.” Rainbow huffed, blowing a lock of hair out of her face. “We’re used to it.” 

Ian’s shoulders slumped as he seemed to curl in on himself. “I’m sorry. I… er… I didn’t mean to offend any of you.”

“Water under the bridge dear.” Rarity replied firmly. “Though I am curious. Sunset stands out almost as much as the rest of us, weren’t you surprised by her?”

A faint blush spread across Ian’s cheeks at that, much to Sunset’s surprise. He tried to stammer out a response, but was saved the trouble by Vance. 

“Perhaps we should save this conversation for a more appropriate time. After all I believe we all have more pressing matters to discuss. Ian, is there something you would like to tell me?” 

Ian nodded and took a deep breath to collect himself. “There is. I really appreciate everything that you and the Family have done for me, but I think it’s best if I go back home. To Arefu.” 

Vance’s expression was inscrutable. “Are you sure that is what you desire?”

“I am.”

“Then there is little more to be said.” Vance smiled sadly. “Though it saddens me to lose one of my flock, I wish nothing less than the very best for you. I want you to know that, should you ever change your mind, you will always have a home here with us.”

“Thanks, Vance.” Ian replied quietly. 

“And speaking of Arefu.” Vance turned to Sunset. “Your friends and I believe we have come up with a solution to both the Family’s and Arefu’s problems.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” 

“While we have managed to control our urges through the consumption of blood, the fact remains that blood itself is not an easy thing to come by.” Vance answered. “Until now we have managed by preying on raiders and travelers as well as, admittedly, the people of Arefu when supplies were scarce.” He at least had the good grace to look somewhat embarrassed as he spoke. “However, your good friend Fluttershy came up with the idea of us using blood packs, instead of relying on unwilling… donors.”

“Wow, good thinking Flutters!” Sunset grinned at her shy little friend, getting a small smile in response. 

Vance nodded, smiling at Fluttershy too. “Indeed. I actually used to make do by doing just that, back when I was travelling the old D.C ruins on my own. The problem is that blood packs are quite hard to come by, at least in sufficient quantities to keep our whole Family satisfied.”

“That’s when we got to thinking.” Applejack piped up, “Blood packs may be hard for the Family to get a hold of, but ah bet they’re something that the folk back at Arefu would be able to trade for.”

Ian nodded. “Oh sure, the trade caravans stop off at Arefu all the time. Doc Hoff would probably be our best bet, he sells all sorts of medicine and stuff. But what would Arefu get out of it?”  

“Protection.” Vance said simply. “In exchange for a regular supply of blood packs, the Family will lend our strength in defending the people of Arefu against the threats of the Wasteland. That is, of course, if Evan King is willing to accept this proposal.”

Sunset just shrugged. “We’ll ask him, though to be honest I really can’t see him turning this down.” 

“He’ll agree to it.” Ian smirked. “He’ll agree to almost anything if it means having less stress on his plate.”

Vance hummed and folded his arms. “All the same I would prefer to have the offer put to him before we make any decisions, which brings me to my next question. I assume you are going to go with the girls back to Arefu?”

“I, uh, if that’s okay with them.” Ian said quietly. 

“Of course darling, we couldn’t possibly let you make the journey back there on your own.” Rarity replied.

Vance smiled warmly at her. “I’m glad to hear it. Then all that remains is for Ian to collect his belongings and say his goodbyes.” He glanced at Sunset and Rainbow. “Though if you would like to rest and give your injuries a chance to heal then you are more than welcome to stay the night.”

Pinkie let out a huge gasp at that. “Oh my gosh, VAMPIRE SLUMBER PARTY!!!!”

The girls all laughed as Vance, Holly and Ian just stared at her, utterly baffled.

Sunset shook her head, still smiling. “Thanks for the offer, but we really should get back to Megaton as soon as we can. Sorry Pinkie.” 

“Awwwwww….”

Sunset grinned as she reached up and touched the bandage on her head. It was still slightly sore, but felt a lot better than it had that morning. “Well my head feels fine, how about you Rainbow?”

“Nah I’m good to go. Ian?” 

Ian shifted awkwardly on his feet. “I’d… like to say goodbye to everyone before we go. If that’s alright?”

None of the girls had any objections, so the group made their way to the escalator and headed down to the lower level of the station.

As soon as he reached the bottom Vance threw his arms wide and called out to the others. “Brothers and sisters, gather round! I have some important news for you all.”

Ian fidgeted nervously as the various members of the Family approached, curious looks in their eyes.

“You go ahead and say what you need to say.” Applejack said suddenly. “We’ll wait down by the tunnel, give y’all some privacy.”

“Oh, okay then. Thanks.”

Sunset and the others followed as AJ led them tunnel entrance. As they reached the mouth of the tunnel she stopped in her tracks, letting out a mighty sigh.

“Well, this has been one heck of a trip.” 

“Yeah, no kidding.” Rainbow agreed.

“It certainly has been a rather unpleasant venture.” Rarity huffed. “Though I suppose things really have turned out quite well for us this time, all things considered.”

Applejack scowled at her. “You mean aside from Ian being a crazy cannibal who murdered his parents?”

“Keep it down will you!?” Sunset hissed, looking over her shoulder to make sure none of the Family had heard them.

“Ah’m sorry. Ah just… ah can’t imagine doing something like that. ’Specially not to your kin.”

“That’s not fair Applejack.” Fluttershy said reproachfully. “It’s not something he can control.”

“Ah guess. ” Applejack grumbled, but at least looked contrite. “Ah’ll still feel a whole lot better once we’ve put this whole mess behind us.”

“You’re not the only one.” Pinkie muttered darkly. 

Rarity patted her on the back reassuringly. “I can't honestly say I disagree with you. I suppose we should just be thankful that none of us were injured.”

“Uh, hello?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow and gestured to her backside.

“Oh… of course, I do apologize dear.” Rarity said awkwardly.

“Sorry Rainbow, I guess your butt just slipped her mind!” Twilight quipped, earning a giggle from the others.

“Speaking of that,” Fluttershy said, chuckling softly. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay and rest a bit longer, the Family did offer to let us spend the night?”

Rainbow shook her head violently. “Are you kidding me?! No way am I sleeping in the same room as a bunch of vampires when I’m bleeding! I’d probably wake up to find one of them gnawing on my butt-cheek!”

Applejack folded her arms and grinned at the athlete. “Awww what’s the matter? Don’t like the thought of waking up to someone licking your butt?” All of the girls slowly turned to stare at Applejack, incredulous looks on their faces. The farm girl turned bright scarlet as she realized what she’d just said. “That, uh… that sounded a whole lot better in my head.”

Sunset and Pinkie were the first to crack, followed swiftly by the others, the six of them snorting with laughter as Applejack pulled her hat down to try and hide her blush. 

“I wasn't aware that you were into that sort of thing darling.” Rarity giggled. 

“Ah ain’t, it was just a slip of the tongue.” 

“You certainly slipped it somewhere!” Pinkie quipped, earning a glare from Applejack and renewed cries of laughter from the others.

Rainbow threw her good arm around Applejack’s shoulders. “Sorry AJ, I think I’d rather just wake up to a good breakfast.”

“Some people would say that is a good breakfast!” Sunset shot.

That topped it, sending all of the girls, including Applejack, into fits of hysterics. Pinkie slumped to the floor, clutching her sides as she cackled. Tears streamed down Rainbow’s face as she howled, unable to stop laughing even as her injured shoulder protested.

Eventually the girls managed to get themselves under control. 

“Really darling, that was awful.” Rarity tittered, pulling out a compact mirror to check her make-up.

Applejack nodded, still chuckling. “Classy Sunset, real classy.”

“Like you can talk.” Sunset grinned, giggling again as Fluttershy helped Rainbow take some more painkillers. 

Twilight pulled her glasses off so she could dry her eyes. “We really should stop talking about anilingus girls.”

“I would greatly appreciate that.” 

Startled, Sunset whipped her head around at the sound of Vance’s voice as Fluttershy squeaked and dove behind Twilight. Vance and Ian were stood a few paces away, bemused looks on their faces. Sunset chuckled awkwardly, feeling a warm blush creeping over her face. “Hey… uh… all set?”

Ian nodded slowly, looking as if he was suddenly unsure about his escort. “Uh, yeah. I’m ready to go.”

“Before you leave, I would like to thank you.” Vance said suddenly. “You have given me hope that there are decent people out there in the Wasteland with open minds and good hearts. People with whom we can co-exist.” He pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Sunset. “We do not have much to offer, but I would like you to have this. Consider it an apology to you for all the hardships you had to endure finding this place.”

“Oh, um thanks.” Sunset raised an eyebrow as she examined the paper. It seemed to be a schematic for the unusual sword Vance bore. “What is it?”

In answer Vance unsheathed his sword and held it down to the side. He squeezed a lever on the hilt and there was a sharp smell of gasoline as a dark fluid started running down the blade, then there was a sudden click and the whole blade burst into flames.

Rainbow’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. “That. Is. So. AWESOME!!!!”

Vance just smirked, the flames hissing as he swipe the sword through the air. “It’s called a Shishkebab. Against an undisciplined or unprepared foe the sight alone can be a powerful weapon.”

“It certainly looks impressive.” Twilight said, the fire reflecting eerily off her glasses. “But the flames will make the blade brittle, I’d imagine it breaks very easily.”

“You are correct.” Vance admitted. “Fortunately the blade is easy enough to replace, and against an undisciplined opponent the sight alone can be a powerful weapon.”

“Seriously, you have got to make me one of these!” Rainbow cried.

“We’ll see.” Sunset replied, privately wondering whether or not she’d ever be able to trust Rainbow with something so dangerous, she already had a pack full of grenades after all. Given how she seemed to attract injuries in this world, perhaps it would be better to limit her access to explosives. “Anyway, I think it’s time we headed off.”

Vance nodded solemnly. “Very well. I thank you again for your visit, it has been most educational.” He turned to Ian and extended a hand. “And remember, you will always have a home here if you wish it.” 

Ian clasped his hand with a grin. “Thanks Vance, you’re the best.”

With that the group turned to leave, heading back down the tunnel. As they reached the door to the guard post Sunset looked back over her shoulder. Vance was still standing at the mouth of the tunnel. Sunset gave a small wave and he raised an arm in farewell.

Once they were through the door, Ian sighed as he beheld the guard post. “I’m going to miss this place.” he said quietly. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” Flutters asked. 

“Yeah. Yeah I’m sure.” Ian took a deep breath and strode through the post, the girls following until they came to the mesh fence at the end.

The guard looked up as the group approached. He blinked in surprise as he saw Ian, but said nothing until he’d unlocked the gate and let everyone out. “So… I guess you’re leaving?” Ian just nodded. “Alright then. Well I’m not one for mushy goodbyes so, you know, look after yourself kid.”

“Yeah, you too Robert.” Ian grinned. 

Sunset took the lead as the group made their way back the way they came, past the old subway trains. Edging their way down in single file, no-one spoke until they reached the fork in the tunnel.

Sunset sniffed as she stepped out into the open. She could still faintly smell the dead mirelurks from where she was standing. “Okay people, which way do you think we should go?”

“Shouldn’t we just go back the way we came?” Applejack asked. “Ah mean, at least we know there aren’t any more traps back that way.”

“True, but that means we have to go back through Murphy’s lab and that radioactive goop he had stored.”

Rarity grimaced as she remembered. “I think we should go outside.”

“That might not be a good idea.” Twilight supplied. “Don’t forget it looked like it was going to rain before we came down into the subway system.”

“Come on Twilight, you’re not afraid of a little rain are you?” Rainbow teased.

Twilight gave her a half-lidded stare. “Given that the rainwater here is probably acidic and heavily irradiated? Yes. Yes I am.”

“Fair enough.”

Sunset folded her arms, weighing their options. “Hey Ian, do you know the way back to Arefu if we take the outside route?”

“Sure.”

“Good, in that case we’ll see what the weather is like outside. If it’s clear we’ll carry on that way, if not we go back through Murphy’s lab.”

“Works for me.” Applejack said. “Lead the way, just keep your eyes peeled for any more of them traps.”

“You don’t need to worry about that.” Ian said confidently. “There’s hardly any this way and I remember where they all are.”

Ian fell into step alongside Sunset and together they led the group to the exit. Ian was as good as his word, pointing out the few traps they came across. The first they came across was, bizarrely, a tripwire-activated baseball pitching machine. Not particularly lethal, but certainly painful and more than enough to do some damage to any unprotected highschoolers. 

The only other traps they encountered were a bear trap, which they disarmed, a landmine they managed to skirt around, and a rather sinister-looking baby carriage down a side tunnel which Ian warned them to stay the hell away from.   

At the end of the tunnel was the huge set of metal doors they had spotted previously. They were sealed shut with no obvious way of opening them, but Ian pointed out a maintenance corridor that led past the gates and outside.

“Well, here we are. Meresti Trainyard.” Ian said as the girls followed him through the door. 

The place was cluttered with battered old subway trains. Most of them were still on the tracks but a couple had been blasted off and lay on their sides in the dirt. Sunset glanced up at the clouds as the others spread out. The clouds were still dark and heavy with the threat of rain, but it wasn’t raining yet.

“What do you think?” Twilight asked, sidling up to her.

“Honestly? I think we should risk it.” Sunset replied. “Okay Ian, which way do we go from here?”

Ian turned and pointed. “That way, Arefu is West of here. There’s a bridge across the river we can use then it’s a straight path back home.”

Sunset stepped over to the mesh fencing that lined the yard. Large sections of it had been torn down, giving them an easy way out. “Alright, let’s get moving. Just remember to keep your heads down, we don’t want to run into any more raiders.” 

Ian took the lead as the group headed back into the Wastes. The scenery was just as blasted and drab as before, blackened trees and chunks of debris dotting the landscape as it sloped down from where they stood. It didn’t take long for them to spot the bridge Ian had spoken of past a particularly large mound of rubble. As they cautiously rounded the rubble a rough shelter came into view, cobbled together out of scrap metal. 

Sunset skipped back behind the rubble as she spotted them, dragging Ian with her and motioning for the others to stay back. 

“What do you see?” Applejack whispered, cradling her shotgun. 

“Raiders.” Sunset hissed back. 

Two men were lounging in the shelter. One had filthy blonde hair, the other was wearing a cracked hockey mask over his face.

Applejack poked her head around for a moment, then ducked back quickly. “Hold up a second, ain’t that one of them thugs we dealt with before?”

Sunset nodded, recognizing the blonde man as one of the raiders who had attacked them on their way to Arefu the first time. “Something tells me he won’t be happy to see us.”

“Ah reckon you’re right.” Applejack huffed, “What do we do?”

“We don’t want a fight, let’s get back to the subways and go the long way around.” Sunset replied. “If we’re careful and retrace our steps properly they shouldn’t see us.” Her hopes were dashed the moment she finished speaking, as two more raiders appeared from behind the shelter and started strolling up the hill towards the train yard.

“Now what do we do?” Twilight asked nervously, “If we try and go back now they’ll spot us!”

Sunset scrutinized the two new arrivals carefully. One of them was clearly the other half of the duo that had accosted them previously, another baseball bat resting on his shoulder. The other was a woman, brown hair cropped short and wearing an assortment of torn fabrics and straps that left very little to the imagination. A heavy knife was tied at her hip, but apart from that she didn’t appear to be armed. 

“I don’t seem any guns.” Sunset muttered. She nodded as she came to a decision. “We’ll go this way. They should recognize us, so hopefully they’ll let us pass without any problems.”

Fluttershy edged forward, her face pale. “And, um, what if they don’t let us go?”

“Then Rarity here gives them a reminder of what happened last time.” Rainbow grinned.

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Wonderful, more violence. Well I suppose I can give them another lesson if it’s required of me.”

“Uh, w-what should I do?” Ian asked, raising his hand slowly. 

Sunset glanced at the young man quivering beside her. “Just get in the middle of the group and stay there. Fluttershy? You too.”

“Oh thank goodness.” the young nurse whispered gratefully.

“Ready Rarity?”

“Ready when you are darling.”

Sunset took a deep breath to steady herself, trying to ignore the nervous pounding in her chest. Straightening up, Sunset squared her shoulders and marched out from behind the rubble, Rarity at her side and the others close on her heels. 

The man and woman were the first to react, blank shock flashing across their faces. The woman recovered quickly, ripping out her knife as the man yelled over his shoulder. “Oh fuck, guys! Those mutant bitches are back!”

The men in the shelter whipped around at that. The blonde one took one look at the girls and snarled, his hands balling into fists. 

“Don’t even think about it, you know what happened last time.” Sunset folded her arms and glared down at the furious raider. “Unless you want the same thing to happen again you’ll let us go in peace.”

“Oh yeah? You know what I say to that?” Blondie grinned and snatched something from inside the shelter. Sunset’s heart leapt into her throat as he shouldered the rifle and pointed it at her and Rarity. “FUCK YOU!” 

Sunset didn’t have time to react as Rarity flung her arms out, trying to conjure a gemstone to protect everyone. 

Too late.

There was a sharp crack and a shriek of agony as a bloody mist puffed into being, crimson rivulets marring the fashionista's pristine white skin.
> Chapter 15 - First Blood
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“RARITY!” 

Sunset and Applejack both lunged for Rarity as she collapsed to the floor, screaming in agony. Blood cascaded down her arm from the ragged holes the bullet had left as it punched straight through her left bicep. 

“Get her back!” Sunset yelled, grabbing Rarity under the arms and trying to haul her out of sight behind the rubble. A loud clack snapped Sunset’s attention back to the raider as he prepared for another shot. Before he could draw a bead there was a multi-colored blur as something sped straight at him.

Sunset cried out, terrified that she was about to see Rainbow killed right in front of her eyes, but the athlete had learned from her encounter with Burke. Shouldering the gun out of the way, she slugged the raider as hard as she could with her good arm, knocking him clean off his feet and darting away before he or his masked companion could react. 

There were whoops and yells from the remaining two raiders as they charged towards the girls, the filth-covered man waving his bat and the woman brandishing her knife menacingly. They both skidded to a halt as Applejack leveled her shotgun at them. 

“You stay the heck away! Ah’m warning you!”

Sunset moved to drag Rarity further from danger while the raiders were distracted, when a purple aura surrounded the two and they found themselves floating back behind the rubble. As Twilight gently set them down Fluttershy was instantly at Rarity’s side, her nursing kit open and ready as she got to work.

“Are you alright?” Twilight gasped, her face ashen. 

Sunset nodded, but before she could reply a loud blast tore through the air. Poking her head out, Sunset saw that Applejack had fired at the ground between the man and woman, sending them scattering for cover.

“AJ get down!” Rainbow tackled Applejack to the ground as a pair of gunshots rang out. Blondie had gotten back to his feet and rejoined the fight, his masked friend nowhere to be seen. Before he could line up any more shots his gun was gripped in Twilight’s magic and given a firm yank.

As Twilight tried to wrestle the gun out of Blondie’s hands, Sunset took the opportunity to glance back at the others. Fluttershy was still working feverishly on Rarity, who was moaning feebly and seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness. Ian was cowering at the back of the group, Pinkie standing protectively over him.    

Satisfied that the raiders were occupied, at least for the moment, Sunset turned her attention back to the fight. Rainbow gritted her teeth as she helped Applejack to her feet, trying to favor her good leg. A dark blotch was slowly staining her pants around her injury. 

We can’t keep this up. 

Sunset shrugged off her pack, thinking quickly. They needed to finish this and get Rarity somewhere safe as soon as possible, which meant they needed to beat up or scare off these raiders, and fast. Luckily, Sunset had just the thing to help with that. She scowled as she pulled Burke’s pistol out of her pack, the stupid thing still had it’s silencer attached. Not exactly loud and intimidating, but it would have to do. 

Just as Sunset ditched her pack and stepped out from behind the rubble Rainbow suddenly yelped and grabbed Applejack, yanking her back by the shoulders. Not a moment too soon, as a baseball bat missed the back of the farmer’s skull by a hair’s breadth, swatting her hat off and knocking her ponytail around wildly. The man and woman had taken the opportunity while the girls were distracted to close the distance. Not giving AJ or Rainbow a chance to recover the male raider barreled forward, dropping his shoulder and slamming into the two as the woman lunged at Sunset, jabbing with her knife. 

Sunset twisted to the side and grabbed the raider’s wrist, barely managing to stop the blade before it buried itself in her guts. A sharp twist brought a gasp of pain from the raider and she dropped the knife. Sunset grinned as she lashed out with the gun, cracking the woman across the face with its butt. I guess those old self defence classes weren’t entirely useless.

A backhanded smack from the woman quickly wiped the smile off Sunset’s face. Another punch had pain exploding through her cheek, Burke’s gun slipping from her fingers as she staggered. Reacting on instinct, Sunset managed to bring her arm up in time to block the next blow, retaliating with a vicious uppercut that sent the raider reeling.

An animal snarl clawed it’s way out of Sunset’s throat as she hurled herself at the woman, all else forgotten in her desire to pummel this psychopath that was so bent on bringing harm to her and her friends. Fists flew as the two tore into each other, until finally the raider managed to snatch a handful of Sunset’s hair. The woman yanked hard, pulling Sunset off balance, them rammed a fist into her exposed side. Stumbling backwards, Sunset could do nothing to protect herself as the raider stepped forward, throwing her entire body into a brutal right hook that knocked the girl flat. 

Sunset desperately rolled to her knees, trying to regain her footing before the raider pressed her advantage. As she shakily clambered to her feet, Sunset saw the woman scoop up her blade, a twisted sneer plastered across her face. Her mirth was short-lived as a fist-sized gemstone smacked into her skull, sending her sprawling. Out of the corner of her eye Sunset spotted Rarity still laying next to Flutters, teeth gritted in agony with her good arm held out in front of her. 

Not wasting a moment, Sunset charged at the raider as she tried to rise, smashing her knee into the woman’s face with all the force she could muster. The raider dropped like a stone. There was a sickening crunch as her head hit the floor, but Sunset hardly even noticed. 

Seeing that her opponent was beaten and with adrenaline still thundering through her veins, Sunset whirled about, ready to face down the man attacking Applejack and Rainbow Dash, only to see him laying unconscious on the floor. Applejack stood over him, fury in her face and the snapped remnants of his baseball bat clenched in each hand. Rainbow was still sat on the ground, massaging her shoulder with a grimace, but at least she seemed alright. Sunset gave her a quick nod before turning to the others. 

Rarity had sagged back onto Fluttershy’s lap, quietly muttering something as the young nurse gently caressed her forehead. Ian was still cowering against the huge pile of rubble while Pinkie had moved closer to the battle, a heavy rock clasped tightly in her hands. Twilight’s face was screwed up in concentration, her tongue poking out of the side of her mouth as she continued wrestling with Blondie using her magic. Sunset’s eyes darted between each of them, a niggling feeling at the back of her mind telling her she’d forgotten something. 

A sudden scrabbling sound dragged her attention to the top of the rubble. Sunset’s eyes widened as the masked raider clambered up onto the pile, brandishing a small revolver. She whipped her head around, searching desperately for some way to stop him. Almost immediately her eyes landed on Burke’s pistol, laying where it had fallen a few feet away. Sunset dove for it without hesitation, snatching it up and rolling back to her feet in one smooth motion. Time seemed to slow down as she span, bringing the pistol up and thumbing off the safety just as the raider straightened out his arm, his revolver pointed squarely at Fluttershy. 

phut

The masked man grunted as the silenced round struck him in the gut. Swaying dangerously, the raider slowly turned to face Sunset, raising his gun defiantly. A red rage descended over Sunset as she fired again and again, emptying the magazine into him. The gun kicked with each shot, crimson splashes blossoming over the raider’s abdomen and chest as each bullet found it’s mark. 

The last shot struck him in the forehead, boring a neat little hole through his hockey mask. The man fell like a puppet with it’s strings cut, crashing down off the rubble to land in a crumpled heap next to Pinkie.

The silence that followed was deafening. 

Sunset just stared at the corpse. The anger that had filled her was gone, evaporated as if had never existed, replaced with a hollow shock that left her paralyzed. She couldn’t think, couldn’t even begin to comprehend what had just happened. It didn’t feel real, as if the events of mere seconds ago were some bizarre dream, as if she were a spectator in someone else’s life.

Sunset had no idea how long she was left standing like that, oblivious to everything that was happening around her. For all she knew it could have been seconds or it could have been hours. Her attention was focused solely on the broken body lying there, and the dark red pools slowly forming underneath it. 

Eventually Sunset felt a hand on her shoulder, and dimly realized that someone was trying to talk to her. She blinked and slowly turned her head, tearing her gaze away from the grisly spectacle. Rainbow was standing next to her, concern written all over her face. 

“Sunset, are… are you okay?”

Sunset’s senses suddenly snapped her back to reality, agony blazing from what felt like every part of her body. Worse than that was the feeling of horror and disgust that consumed her as she was hit by the full realization of what she had done. Sunset gasped and let out a strangled moan, slumping to her knees as everything came rushing back all at once, threatening to overwhelm her. 

In a heartbeat Rainbow was next to her, pulling her into a tight, one-armed hug. Sunset clamped her arms around her friend, choking sobs escaping her as she held on as if her life depended on it. “It’s okay Sunset. It’s gonna be okay.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t want…”

“Hey, come on. It’s not your fault.” Rainbow’s voice was soothing, though it shook as she spoke. 

“Ah… ah hate to say this, but we need to pull ourselves together and get out of here.” Applejack cut in suddenly. 

Rainbow glared over her shoulder. “Not cool AJ, how can you just shrug this off?!”

“Ah ain’t, but Rarity’s injured and we don’t know how many more of those ruffians are lurking around out here!” 
Sunset gasped and tried to look around wildly, but the motion sent waves of pain and nausea flowing through her. “The other raider! Where is he!?”

“He’s gone.” Twilight replied quietly. “He ran when you… uh… y’know.”

Sunset shivered and glanced over Rainbow’s shoulder to see Applejack kneeling next to Rarity, still slumped barely-conscious on Fluttershy’s lap. A blood-stained bandage was wrapped tightly around her arm.

“What do you reckon Fluttershy, are we okay to move her?” Applejack asked, caressing Rarity’s forehead gently.

Fluttershy didn’t answer. Her hands were clamped over her mouth and her eyes, irises as small as pinpricks, were locked on the crumpled corpse of the masked raider as silent tears streamed down her face. She flinched when Applejack reached up to give her a little shake. 

“Listen Fluttershy, look at me.” Applejack gently but firmly tugged Fluttershy’s face around, tearing her gaze away from the corpse. “Ah know this is messed up, okay? Ah mean really messed up.” Applejack’s voice cracked as she spoke. Evidently she wasn’t as unfazed by everything as she was pretending, but at least she was trying. “But right now Rarity needs you. We all do.”

“Doctor mode remember? Like you told us back in the vault.” Twilight added. “Doctor mode now, freak-out later.”

“I think I’ll join you in that freak-out.” Pinkie muttered.

Fluttershy’s eyes flicked from Applejack to Twilight and back again. “Okay…” she whispered. The young nurse took a shuddering breath and roughly wiped her eyes. “Okay. Doctor mode.” Fluttershy quickly checked Rarity’s bandage then placed two fingers on her neck, checking her pulse. “I’ve managed to staunch the bleeding so her life isn’t in any immediate danger for now, but I think we should get her to a real doctor as soon as possible.”

Applejack nodded. “The clinic in Megaton. That’ll be our best bet.” A moment later she had Rarity hefted in a bridal carry, taking extra care not to jostle the fashionista’s arm too much. “All right y’all, let’s get to Megaton.”

“No.” 

Everyone turned to stare at Sunset as she stood and nodded her thanks to Rainbow. She couldn’t afford to fall apart, not yet, not while everyone still depended on her. Sunset took a deep breath to steady herself before continuing. “I mean, not yet. We still have to get Ian back to Arefu first.”

The others blinked as they remembered their charge. 

“Oh yeah, ah can’t believe ah forgot about him. Where is he?”

The boy in question was still exactly where they left him. He squeaked as each of the girls turned to look at him, his eyes wide with terror. 

“Hey dude, uh… are you okay?” Rainbow asked.

“After what just happened I don’t think any of us are.” Sunset mumbled.

Ian’s eyes flicked from one girl to the next. “How… how did you do all of that? What kind of mutants are you?”

“Ah.” Sunset felt a shiver as she realized what he was talking about.

Twilight had evidently come to the same conclusion. “Oh, of course! You haven’t seen our magic before!”

“Your what?!”

“Oh for the love of…” Applejack huffed. “Look, we don’t have time to explain right now. Let’s just get you back to Arefu and the sheriff can explain everything to you then.”

“Oh, uh, alright.” 

Sunset huffed as the boy quickly got to his feet. “Okay, let’s get out of here before the other two wake up.”

“Other two?” Pinkie asked.  

Sunset raised an eyebrow and jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Uh, yeah? The two we were just fighting?” She frowned as the others cringed, unable to meet her eye. A strange sinking feeling in her stomach joined the throbs and aches from the rest of her body. “What am I missing?”

Applejack shifted awkwardly. “Ah don’t know how to tell you this sugarcube, but ah’m pretty sure only one of them is going to be waking back up from that.”

The sinking feeling rapidly got worse as Sunset slowly turned to look at their erstwhile enemies. Surely Applejack hadn’t killed the man she was facing? Sunset was sure she had seen him breathing. 

Yep, there he is. His chest is definitely still moving. But that means…

Sunset’s breath caught as she looked at the fallen woman. The raider’s face was a mess, her nose utterly smashed, but it was the jagged rock under her head that had grabbed Sunset’s attention, rivulets of blood carving trails through the dust.

Sunset felt her stomach drop. She probably would have fallen if Rainbow hadn’t grabbed her.

“Sunset! Sunset listen to me!” Sunset blinked as Rainbow stepped in front of her, an arm clamped on her shoulder. “This isn’t your fault, you hear me? This is not. Your. Fault. You totally just saved lives back there, don’t think about anything else okay? Just focus on that.”

Sunset just nodded. This was too much for her to deal with. She made to move, to lead the others back to Arefu, but she barely managed two steps before Sunset had to double over to puke.

Huh, twice in as many days? This wasteland sucks.
> Chapter 16 - Angels, Drugs and Churches
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset sighed heavily, wondering how her life had spiraled so dangerously out of control in such a short time. She was currently hunched over on a little metal bench, elbows on her knees and her eyes unfocused. Images kept flashing through her mind unbidden, filled with blood and violence and death. 

Sunset shook her head to try and clear it, but that just made the throbbing in her skull worse, so she gave up and tried to distract herself by sorting through the rest of her memories of the day so far. Shock, head injuries and an unhealthy dose of painkillers  had made the more recent details somewhat… hazy. Again.

None of the others were around for the moment. Applejack and Fluttershy had taken Rarity to the clinic the moment they had set foot back in Megaton, while Twilight and Pinkie had gone to look for Lucy, to break the news about what had happened to her family. Sunset had felt duty-bound to take up that task herself, but Rainbow had refused point-blank. Instead she’d found herself dragged here, to the Church of Atom. 

It was an odd building to say the least. From the outside it looked mostly the same as most of the other buildings in Megaton, that is, a multi-story conglomeration of scrap metal. But, for reasons known only to themselves, the Church of Atom decided to put the entrance on the second floor, with makeshift ramps winding around the building and connecting it to different levels of Megaton. 

At least the cultists had been decent about letting her in. After a few quiet words from Rainbow Dash Sunset had been ushered downstairs into some sort of congregation area, with a series of benches lined up in front of a little lectern.   

Sunset was dragged from her reverie by the sound of uneven footsteps, and a moment later a bottle of water was held out in front of her. 

“Here you go, something to take your painkillers with.” Rainbow said. “Don’t worry, it’s not radioactive. The Confessor said something about ‘not forcing Atom’s gifts on those who are not yet ready’.”

Sunset took the bottle gingerly, her sore fingers barely able to grip it. “Thanks. Is he okay with us staying here for a while?”

Rainbow snorted. “Are you kidding? He practically begged us to stay, said to take as much time as we need.” 

Sunset didn’t bother to respond as she knocked back some lozenges. She was fairly certain she’d taken more than the recommended dosage, but was entirely certain that she didn’t give a damn, even if her supply was starting to run out. 

Rainbow hissed as she eased herself onto the bench, pulling out a few more painkillers of her own. “Well, today has sucked.” 

“Yeah.”

“At least nothing else happened on the way back here.”

Sunset nodded slowly. “Do you think we made a mistake going to Arefu first?”

“Nah, it was definitely the safest option. At least we know the path between Arefu and Megaton is safe…ish. Who knows what kind of mess we would’ve gotten into if we tried to come straight back here from the train yard.” Rainbow replied. “Besides, we really needed to get rid of Ian before AJ smacked him one.”

Sunset had no argument for that. The poor fool had been in awe of the girls after their little ‘altercation’ with the raiders, but that hadn’t stopped him from sneaking hungry glances at Rarity’s wound whenever he thought the others weren‘t looking.   

Truth be told, Sunset probably would have punched him herself for it if she had been in any condition to. 

The sight of Rarity‘s blood-caked arm and dress flashed across Sunset‘s mind again. She tried not to groan as she stared down at her torn and bruised knuckles. Sunset swore she could still feel each punch she’d thrown as well as the ones she’d taken, not to mention the sickening impact of that last fatal strike with her knee, or the kick of the gun as she’d…

“Hey, look… are you okay?” Rainbow asked suddenly, dragging Sunset back out of her morbid mental replays.

“I’m ...” Sunset tried to say she was fine, that she was just tired, but the words wouldn’t come. Something had broken inside her, and she didn’t know how to fix it. “No… no I’m not.” she half-whispered, unable to hide the quiver in her voice.

“Yeah, I figured. I’d be kinda freaked out if you were y’know.” Rainbow chuckled awkwardly. There was a moment of silence before she cleared her throat.  “Yeah that wasn’t a great joke, my bad. So, uh, you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

There was a creak as Rainbow shifted on the bench. “Are you sure? I mean it’s cool if you just want some space, but usually whenever you have a problem or something the first thing you do is come and find one of us or go and write about it to Princess Twilight.” 

Sunset flinched at the name. “I don’t… I can’t… this isn’t something I could speak to her about.”

“Why not?”

“Isn’t it obvious?!” Sunset cried, shooting to her feet. “I just murdered two people! Do you know how rare murder is in Equestria?! Ending a life, taking away everything that someone was and were ever going to be, just ripping a hole in a community like that and leaving nothing, it’s one of the worst crimes you can commit! How can I face Princess Twilight after this!? How can I even speak to her!?” Sunset wrapped her arms around herself and turned away. “I don’t deserve to go back home.”

“Whoa whoa, slow down a second.” Rainbow stood too, throwing an arm around Sunset’s shoulders. “First of all you did not murder those raiders.” Sunset made to protest but was stopped by Rainbow poking a finger out of her sling and planting it over her lips. “Shut up and listen a sec.”

Sunset frowned for a moment, then just sighed and obediently waited for Rainbow to speak. 

“Okay so, yeah, you did kind of, sort of… technically… kill them.” she said slowly. “Which does sound kinda bad.”

“It sounds kinda-” 

“My point,” Rainbow continued, “is that it wasn’t murder. The first one was an accident, that crazy raider woman was trying pretty hard to kill you, you were just defending yourself. The only reason she’s dead is dumb luck, you didn’t put that rock there. Heck after that fight I’m impressed you were even able to stand, she beat the living daylights out of you.”

Sunset had no response for that. It had been an accident, not that that made her feel any better. The beating she had taken certainly hadn’t helped matters, though Sunset had given almost as good as she got.

“As for the other guy, well, what choice did you have? Rarity was out of it, Applejack was distracted and I… well…” Rainbow rubbed her neck, her eyes distant. “I didn’t notice in time. I got knocked down and I just, I couldn’t push through the pain quickly enough. That’s on me.”

Sunset looked up at her friend, appalled. “But… how can you… there’s absolutely no way this is your fault Rainbow!”  

“It’s not your fault either!” Rainbow said forcefully. “That lunatic was aiming right at Fluttershy, and you saved her life!” The young athlete stepped back and took a breath to calm herself. “Listen Sunset, you’re looking at this all the wrong way. Yeah, you killed someone, but only to save your friend’s life. I know you feel terrible about it, but I guess that’s a good thing.”

Sunset just blinked in confusion. “How can that be a good thing?”

Rainbow smirked at her. “It shows you’re still a good person.”

Sunset opened her mouth to respond, then closed it when no words came. Her throat bobbed as Rainbow pulled her in close for a hug. It was faint, but Sunset felt a little weight lift off her shoulders as she leaned into her friend, wrapping her arms around her. 

“So, you okay?” Rainbow asked quietly. 
“No, but... I think I will be.” Sunset sighed. “You’re a great friend, you know that?” 

“Duh it’s me, you should know how awesome I am by now. Just remember I’ve got your back, no matter what happens.” Rainbow huffed. “You’re not alone here Sunset. I don’t care what it takes, we’re all getting home alive, and that includes you. I’m bringing you back whether you think you deserve it or not, even if I have to drag your sorry butt across the wasteland myself!”

Sunset just snorted, too sore and emotional to notice the sudden ripple of magic that passed over her friend. She released her arms and stepped back, drying her eyes on her sleeve. She still felt awful, but if Rainbow believed that Sunset was a good person, then she could do her best to believe it herself too. “Thanks Rainbow, I needed that.”

“Hey, anytime.” Rainbow grinned and folded her arms, her wings flexing as she shifted. 

Wait… wings? WINGS!?

“Crap!” Sunset yelped.

“What!? What is it!?” 

“You’ve ponied up!”

“Really? Wait, what’s wrong with tha- oh. ” 

Rainbow’s eyes widened as she realized what Sunset was panicking about. They both slowly turned their heads to face the back of the room. 

Confessor Cromwell was standing at a respectful distance with a few of his acolytes. Their mouths were hanging open and their eyes were practically popping out of their heads. The girls and the cultists stood and stared at each other for a few moments.

“Oh, uh, hey guys!” Rainbow said innocently, finally breaking the awkward silence. “We can totally explain this. Right Sunset?”

Sunset just threw her a flat look.

“A divine blessing…” Cromwell said quietly.

“A what now?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow. 

Cromwell stepped forward eagerly, his features lit up with wonder and awe. “Atom has seen the devotion you show to your fellows and granted you a measure of his divine resplendence! You are truly the most blessed of all!”

“No no no, that’s not it!” Rainbow said quickly, though she did blush a little. “I don’t know about Atom or whatever, but this…” she flapped her wings for emphasis, “Just sort of happens every now and again. Seriously, Sunset and the others can all do it too.”

“Rainbow!” Sunset cut in a little too late. 

Rainbow just shrugged. “What? He’s already seen me pony up, we may as well tell him the truth.”

“You… you can all do this?” Cromwell breathed.

Sunset turned her gaze back to him, wondering exactly how much she would be safe telling him, and vaguely wishing she didn’t have to wrack her brain like this while it was still bruised and drugged. “Well… I mean… we don’t all manifest wings but… yeah?” She regretted her admission almost instantly as Cromwell and the other acolytes all turned expectant, almost pleading, gazes upon her. 

Sunset sighed with frustrated resignation, then closed her eyes and grasped her geode, focusing her thoughts on her friends and the bond they shared as she felt for the magic inside. A sudden feeling of panic jolted through her as she wondered if her recent transgressions would somehow cut her off from the magic of friendship, followed by sweet relief as she felt a warm frisson run through her body. Sunset took a deep breath and relaxed as she felt her new ears twitch, accompanied by the comfortable weight of her freshly extended hair. Cautiously she opened her eyes. 

Sparkly dress? Check. Huge boots? Check. Spiky headband? Check. About to get burnt at the stake like a witch by religious zealots...?

The cultists were all staring at Sunset, utterly gob-smacked. She managed to force a small smile, knowing that things were about to go either very well or very badly. She hoped things would go well but, considering how the wastes had treated them so far, Sunset fully expected things to go very, very badly. Her mind started to whirl as she desperately tried to figure out the best way to escape from the building and find the others.

“Angels…” Cromwell breathed. 

The cogs in Sunset’s brain suddenly ground to a halt. “Wait… what?”

“Angels!” he repeated, sinking to his knees and clasping his hands together. “Look, my followers! Atom has rewarded our faith and graced us with the presence of His own angels!”

Excited murmuring snapped Sunset’s attention to the upper floor. More acolytes were crowded around the railing, staring down with wide eyes at the two girls. One of them suddenly threw his hands up in the air and shouted. “The Angels of Atom! The Angels of Atom are here!” The young man darted from the room and out into the open air, yelling about how the ‘Angels of Atom’ had come to spread their glorious word. Meanwhile the chatter from the remaining acolytes was rapidly growing in volume and fervor. 

“Angels!”

“They’ve come to show us the way!”

“Our faith is being rewarded!”

“Do you see that light!?”

“It’s the Glow!”

“Please, grant us your blessings!”

“Show us the glory of Atom!”

“Aw horse-apples.” Sunset muttered. This was starting to get out of hand. She quickly let the magic drain out of her and returned to her normal form, Rainbow swiftly following suit.

Cromwell seemed to notice the look on her face. Panic twisted his features for a moment and he shot to his feet, spinning to face his followers and holding his arms out to them. “Everyone! Please, restrain yourselves!” It took a few minutes, but eventually he managed to calm the others down enough that they could hear him speak. “My brothers and sisters, believe me when I say I understand your elation.” 

He paused and placed a hand over his chest. “That same rapture pounds in my heart even now, but we must contain our euphoria at this most holy of blessings. These glorious messengers came to us today to seek rest and respite in our humble place of worship. Let us not disturb their tranquility they desire with our zealous praise, but grant them solitude, that they may hold divine council without interruption or worry.” 

The acolytes each nodded and bowed reverently. Several of them wept openly, crying with joy at the sight of what they believed to be the harbingers of their salvation. Sunset wanted desperately to tell them the truth, but she didn’t have any clue how to go about telling them without shattering their dreams entirely. 

As the cultists started to leave Confessor Cromwell slowly turned back to the girls. Tears of joy had carved streaks through the dust on his face. “Forgive us, your graces, we did not mean to offend you. Our only defense is that we were all overwhelmed by your heavenly resplendence.”

Sunset cringed inwardly, keenly aware of just how deep this hole was digging itself. “No, this is our fault. Look, the thing is-” she stepped forward, but the Confessor shrank away and bowed deeply. 

“This lowly shepherd is not worthy of such kindness. I shall go now and leave you in peace.” He straightened up and held a hand over his heart. “If it pleases you, I humbly ask that you consider this church to be your home, your bastion of serenity amid the chaos of the Wasteland. I shall arrange for your accommodation to be the finest we can possibly muster, this I swear to you. Farewell, your graces.”  

The Confessor turned and left, scurrying up the stairs and out of the door as quickly as he could, leaving the girls alone. 

“Uh, what just happened.” Rainbow asked.

Sunset just groaned and slumped her shoulders. The sound of the door opening again brought her attention back up. She smiled as she saw Twilight and Pinkie enter the church. 

“What the heck was THAT about?” Twilight gasped as Fluttershy scampered in after them, looking harassed. 

“That’s what ah’d like to know.” Applejack grumbled as she stepped inside, supporting a certain fashionista.

“Rarity!” Sunset and Rainbow called out together. 

The others looked down at their cries. 

“So that’s where you were.” Applejack huffed. “Hold on a second, we’ll come down to you.”

Sunset watched nervously as the group made their way downstairs, paying special attention to Rarity. Her arm was immobilized in a brace and Sunset could just make out a clean bandage underneath, but that seemed to be the worst of it. At least she was walking under her own power, with only a little help from the others. Her dress, on the other hand, was utterly ruined, soaked with blood as it was.

Rarity looked around as soon as she was off the stairs. As soon as she spotted Sunset she tried to make a beeline for her, only to be stopped by Applejack.

“Hold up sugarcube. Ah let you walk over here on your own, now it’s time for you to sit and take a break, alright?”

Rarity gave one of her characteristic scoffs. “Really darling, I’m perfectly fine.” she slurred.

“The heck you are.” Applejack growled. “The doc said you need to rest up as much as you can, now sit down before you hurt yourself.” 

Rarity rolled her eyes but did as she was told, perching herself daintily on one of the benches. 

“So what did the doc say, are you going to be okay?” Rainbow asked.

“She’ll be fine, eventually.” Applejack sighed. “Luckily the bullet didn’t hit any of her bones, tendons or major blood vessels.” 

Sunset slumped and let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “That’s a relief.” 
“It most certainly is.” Rarity crooned. “For now I just need to keep my arm immobilized for a few days. After that the brace shall be swapped for a sling and I have a few lovely little light exercises to go through.”

AJ nodded. “Nothing too rough, just some gentle movements to help her arm heal properly.” 

Sunset raised an eyebrow as she watched Rarity slowly swaying on the bench. Her eyes seemed to be drifting in and out of focus, and her pupils were huge. “What exactly did the doctor do to her?”

“Aside from pump her full of enough crazy painkillers to drop a wild boar? Heck if ah know.” Applejack chuckled softly. “Hey, Fluttershy? You’re better at this stuff than ah am, what did the doc do altogether?”

Sunset glanced over at Fluttershy, hunched in the shadows by the stairs with her face hidden behind her hair. A chill ran down Sunset’s spine at the sight of her dress, the frayed material still spattered with dirt and Rarity’s blood. Fluttershy peeked out from behind her hair, a red-rimmed eye visible for an instant before she ducked back behind her fringe.
Sunset and Applejack shared a worried look. 

“She hasn’t said a word since we got back to Megaton.” Applejack whispered. 

“After everything that’s happened, I don’t blame her.” Sunset admitted.

“Come on now sugarcube,” AJ gently cajoled, “It’s alright, we’re safe now. You’ve been on your feet for a while, why don’t you come on over here and have a sit down?”

Fluttershy peeked out from behind her hair, a red-rimmed eye visible for an instant before she ducked back behind her fringe.

“Maybe it’s freak-out time?” Twilight said quietly, “I mean, we had doctor mode earlier, so I guess maybe it’s time to let the emotions out?”

“I’m still up for joining in on that.” Pinkie muttered.

“Come on Flutters,” Rainbow called, “Get over here so we can all chill together while the crazy cultists are out.”

Fluttershy shifted on her feet, but didn’t look over again. 

Sunset took a deep breath and stepped forward. “Look, Fluttershy? I know things are hard right now, especially after what’s happened today, but we’re all here for you. Things are going to be tough, but I know we can all get through this if we just stick together.”

“Sunset’s right.” Applejack added. “We’ve got a much better idea of the dangers that are waiting for us out in the wasteland now, and we won’t let ourselves be caught unprepared again.”

Sunset nodded. “You don’t have to be afraid Fluttershy. We won’t let anything else happen to you, or to any of the rest of us, I promise.”

Finally, Fluttershy moved her hair away from her face. She looked slowly around at each of the girls, before settling her gaze on Sunset. Fluttershy held that look for a few moments, then her face crumpled and she turned her head away, her hair falling back over her face. “I’m sorry… I can’t do this.” 

Sunset felt an awful weight drop into her chest at those words. She’d clung to the desperate hope that her friends would stand by her despite the terrible acts she had committed, but now she was forced to confront the ugly truth. That her actions had pushed away the kindest friend she would ever know. 

“Wha- come on Fluttershy, we can talk about this!” Rainbow cried. 

“It’s okay Rainbow.” Sunset said quietly, slowly wrapping her arms around herself as she blinked back tears. “I… I think I should go.”

“You ain’t going nowhere.” Applejack growled. Her hands shook as she clenched them into fists. “Darn it, Fluttershy! Doc Church already spoke to you about this, Sunset only did what she had to! Heck, you wouldn’t still be here if Sunset hadn’t shot that guy, and ah can tell you for a fact that no-one is hurting more over him being dead than Sunset is!”

“I know.” Fluttershy whispered. 

“Then why in the heck are you…!” Applejack trailed off, her chest heaving as if she was running a marathon. Finally she turned and walked away, clapping her hands to the back of her head as she shook it. “Nope. Ah can’t, ah can’t deal with this. Not right now.”

Rainbow stepped over to Applejack, reaching out a hand. “AJ, you need to calm down.”

“How the heck am ah supposed to calm down!” she yelled, “This ain’t right! None of this is right! Ever since we left that darn vault everything has gone to Tartarus, and you can be sure as sugar things are going to get worse!”

“Girls, you have to stop fighting!” Twilight shouted. A pleading expression crossed her face as she spoke again, quieter this time, “Please, this world has taken so much away from us already, don’t let it destroy our friendship too!”

Silence reigned as her words slowly sank in. Sunset glanced around at the others, trying to think of something, anything, that she could say to try and help the others feel better. 

“You’ve got the wrong idea.” Fluttershy said softly, “I don’t blame Sunset.” The others all looked to her as she spoke. Her face was still hidden, but they could all see her shaking. Sunset could just make out fresh tears dripping silently to the floor. “It’s my fault.”

Rarity frowned, clearly struggling to stay focused through whatever drugs were still pumping through her system. “Er, what is darling?”

Fluttershy choked back a sob, clenching the skirt of her dress so tightly her knuckles had gone white. “I Sh-should have been p-paying more attention.” she stammered, “The r-raider he… he was aiming at me. If I had m-moved or… or done something then you wouldn’t have had to sh-shoot him.” Fluttershy looked up at Sunset, guilt etched in every line of her face. “You had t-to put yourself through that b-because of me. I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry.” 

Sunset crossed to Fluttershy in a flash, throwing her arms around the nurse as she sobbed uncontrollably. “It is not your fault Fluttershy.” she said, her voice firm even as tears streaked down her own face. “None of this is your fault. The only person who did anything wrong was that… that bastard!” Sunset didn’t give a damn about her language right then. As far as she was concerned the wasteland could throw whatever the hell it wanted at her, but she would not let it break her friends.

Out of the corner of her eye Sunset saw Rainbow shrug off her sling before she joined the hug, slipping her arms around the two and pressing her head against Fluttershy’s, “Come on Fluttershy, you know it’s not your fault. Hey, Sunset’s already given me a roasting for blaming myself, can’t let you get away with doing the same thing now can we?” Rainbow huffed a laugh, “Besides, if we let you get shot, then who’s going to patch me back up the next time I go and do something stupid?”

Fluttershy let out something that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. She tried to mumble something, but it was muffled by Sunset’s shirt as the rest of the girls pressed in, forming a huge group hug. 

The group stayed like that for a while, just holding each other in comfortable silence. 

Eventually Applejack peeled herself away, drying her eyes on her hat. “Well shoot, ah think we all needed that.” She plopped her hat back on her head and glanced over at Fluttershy. “Ah’m sorry Flutters, ah guess ah let my temper get the best of me there.”

“It’s okay.” Fluttershy replied thickly. Her eyes were red and puffy, but she sported a small smile nonetheless. 

“Today has been somewhat… difficult.” Rarity noted, sliding awkwardly back onto a bench. 

“You okay there Rarity?” Rainbow asked.

“Utterly fine darling.” Rarity half-mumbled, her head drooping. “I’m just going to watch the pretty colors for a tick.”

“Ooo…kayyy…?”

Twilight giggled softly. “Wow, she must be on some incredibly strong medication. But what about you Rainbow, how’s your arm feeling?”

Rainbow frowned and rolled her shoulder. “Huh, it’s still a little sore… but it actually feels pretty good. Guess it must’ve healed a bit when I ponied up earlier. Hey, I wonder if my butt healed too!” She suddenly shoved her hand down the back of her pants. A wince and a hiss of pain soon followed. “Ouch, maybe not.”

Applejack laughed as she dropped onto a bench. “Ah’m not surprised after you ran back to Meresti like that.”

“Well someone had to tell Vance that the sheriff accepted his offer.” Rainbow grumbled.

Sunset threw her a level glare. “And nearly get yourself killed by revealing that you had super speed to them?” 

Rainbow at least had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Yeah, that was my bad. But hey, you could have reminded me that they didn’t know about our magic before I left to speak to them.”

“She tried, but you’d already sped off like a road runner with a coyote on it’s tail.” Applejack retorted, “Ah told you, you should’ve just left it to the folks at Arefu.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Uh, I have a question.” Everyone turned to look at Twilight as she raised a hand. “When exactly did Rainbow pony up?”

The girls all turned to look at Rainbow who tried, and utterly failed, to look innocent. Sunset would have face-palmed if her face and hands didn’t still hurt so much.

Pinkie suddenly popped up from behind a bench, speaking incredibly quickly. “Oh, oh, oh, I know! Was it when you got back here and Sunset was feeling down so you tried to cheer her up and then you both ponied up and that’s why the crazy cult people are running around telling everyone about how we’re all angels sent by their radiation god to bring salvation to the world?”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Pinkie? We all know Rainbow’s that dumb-”

“Hey!?”

“- but there’s no way Sunset would do something so irresponsible in front of a whole bunch of religious fanatics.”

Sunset forced an awkward laugh, a blush creeping across her face.

“I told you sooo…” Pinkie sang, earning a giggle from Rarity and a face-palm from Applejack.

“In Sunset’s defense after everything that’s happened over the last two days I think it’s understandable that she wasn’t thinking clearly.” Twilight supplied. “I suppose we should just be grateful that they aren’t trying to burn us as witches.”

“Sure, instead they’re going to be worshiping us as if we’re divine beings from their freaky religion.” Applejack huffed. “And ah thought wasteland couldn’t get any weirder. The sooner we find James and get away from this crazy world the better.”

“Actually, we might have some good news on that front.” Twilight said with a smirk.

Sunset’s head whipped around at that. “What do you mean?!” she gasped, ignoring the wave of nausea caused by the sudden movement. 

“After me and Pinkie spoke to Lucy we went up to Moriarty’s, to speak to Gob.”

“Did he tell you where Galaxy News Radio is?” Applejack asked eagerly.

Twilight nodded. “He did, and what’s more, as we were talking Galaxy News Radio actually started playing one the, well, radio. The DJ is a man named Three-Dog. Apparently they’ve been having trouble with their signal, but someone came along and helped them fix it.” Twilight’s smile widened. “Three-Dog thanked the man who helped him, and then sent a message out for James, who it seems did visit him before leaving for parts unknown. The message told James to find the man who helped him.” Twilight’s smile became a huge, gleaming grin, “A certain Lone Wanderer, from Vault one-oh-one.”

“Adam!?” the others cried in unison.

“He made it!” Fluttershy beamed, her hands clasped tightly together, “Oh I do hope he’s alright. We need to hurry up and find him as quickly as we can.”

“Whoa now, let’s slow things down a little.” Applejack said. “Ah’m glad that we know where we’re going, but we can’t just go charging straight out of here right now.”

“Why ever not darling?” Rarity asked.

Applejack glared at her. “For starters, most of us aren’t in any condition to do any more travelling today.”

“A battered unicorn, a stoned fashionista, a traumatized nurse, a pervy farmer, a mad scientist, an athlete with an extra butt-hole and Pinkie Pie.” Rainbow deadpanned, “Yeah, going out into the wastes now is totally a great idea.”

“Ah am not a pervert.” Applejack huffed.

“Whatever you say butt-licker.” Rainbow shot back.

“Ah’m never going to live that down am ah?” 

“Nope!” Pinkie piped up.

Applejack grumbled and pulled herself to her feet, “Well anyway, speaking of battered unicorns ah think it’s time we got Sunset to the doc.”

Sunset blinked at that. “Me? But I’m fine. I mean, I’ll probably need some more painkillers and something for the bruises, but it’s not that bad.”

Applejack rubbed her neck awkwardly. “Uh, no offence sugarcube, but you look like Bulk Biceps has been using you as a piñata.”

“You did take a serious beating back there Sunset.” Rainbow added.

Sunset looked around at the others, but none of them would meet her eyes. Seeing no way out of it, she sighed. “Fine, but we should probably tell the Children of Atom the truth, we don’t want things to get any more complicated than they are.”

Applejack threw and arm around her shoulder. “Come on, let’s get you over there before the rain picks up. Then ah’ll go and find Confessor Cromwell, see if ah can’t straighten things out.”





Sunset sat on the edge of a bed in the Megaton clinic, casually swinging her legs and wishing she could put her clothes back on. The clouds had finally made good on their threat of rain during her examination and, while the pitter-patter of raindrops on the metal roof was actually quite soothing, it was still a little too chilly to be sat around in your underwear. The ice pack currently pressed to her ribs certainly didn’t help with that, though it did wonders for her bruises.

Sunset looked up as Doc Church came back into the room. He was dark-skinned and his hair almost as white as snow, with a mustache and neatly-trimmed beard to match. The doctor was cranky but professional, and clearly knew his job well. 

“Alright Sunset, let’s start the list.” Doc dropped into a chair next to her bed and held up a clipboard. “Two black eyes, multiple bruises across the face, arms, shoulders and abdomen, five bruised ribs and one cracked one, a mild kidney contusion and a mild concussion. That’s not including the gunshot injury you received yesterday. Not the worst result I’ve seen from dealing with your first raider, but it’s more than enough to be going on with.” 

Sunset nodded slowly. She hadn’t realized just how much of a beating she’d received from that raider, but between the ice pack and the two stimpaks Doc had given her she was feeling a lot better, “Will I be okay to go once the rain stops?”

“That depends on where you’re going.”

“The D.C ruins, we need to try and find Galaxy News Radio.”

“Then no, you won’t be okay.”

“What, why not?” Sunset asked. 

Doc threw the clipboard onto the bed and gave her a flat look, “If that kidney contusion gets any worse it could kill you.”

“Oh.” Sunset felt the blood drain from her face at that.

“Yep.” Doc shook his head and folded his arms. “What you need is rest and observation. Your kidney should heal on its own in a week or so, but even with bed rest the injury might progress into internal bleeding. If your kidney does heal fine you’re still looking at another month for your rib to fix itself.”

“But… we can’t afford to wait that long.” Sunset shot him a pleading look, “Please, isn’t there anything you can do?”
Doc just frowned, staring at her silently. Sunset found she couldn’t hold his gaze and looked away, shifting uncomfortably. He’s right. Leaving now would be way too risky.

Finally the doctor sighed and stood up, turning to leave. As he got to the door he stop and glanced over his shoulder. “Once the rain stops I want you to go and fetch your friend, Fluttershy was it?”

Sunset nodded.

Doc sighed again and shook his head. “Bring her back here, I’ll teach her what she needs to know about caring for your injuries. I want you to stay here for the night, so I can keep you under observation. If your condition doesn’t get any worse overnight, I’ll see about letting you go.”





Not far from the Meresti Trainyard, a certain blonde raider slung a hunting rifle over his shoulder as he strode over to the corpse of a young woman. His expression was unreadable as he stared down at the body. The raider didn’t bother to look up as another man stomped up next to him.

“Hey, Blades. I’m sorry about her, man. She was a good woman.”

Blades snorted. “For fuck's sake Crawler, you know she was a useless bitch.” He nodded to the other corpse lying at the base of a pile of rubble. “What about that dickhead?”

Crawler smirked and shook his head. “Nah that dumb fucker’s just as dead as he looks. I can’t believe he climbed on top of that pile, why the fuck didn’t he just flank ‘em and blow their fucking heads off from behind?”

“Like you said, he was a dumb fucker. Always had to show off.” Blades spat, “Did you get his stuff?”

“Most of it, looks like one of the girls grabbed his gun though.”

Blades nodded and turned to walk back to their makeshift shelter, “Yeah, looks like one of them took Gilda’s knife too.”

“Shit. Now what the fuck are we going to do?” Crawler asked, trudging along behind.

“Same thing we do every time Crawler, regroup and try again.”

“Are you fucking crazy!? Those witches have already beat the shit out of us twice!”

“Yeah, only this time they bled too.” Blades hefted the rifle for emphasis. “We just need more firepower, and a little bit of planning.” 

Crawler grinned lopsidedly, “Alright I’m in. I’ll leave the planning to you, but where are we going to get the firepower? Do we go back to the Red Flags?”

“Fuck no! Shí Yáng would rip our dicks off and choke us with ‘em. I don’t know about you, but the only person I want to see choking on my cock is that albino bitch with the purple hair.”

Crawler chuckled darkly, “Yeah… I want that little yellow one with the pink hair.”

An evil grin lit up Blades’ face, “Sounds good to me. Come on, let’s head to Evergreen Mills. Smiling Jack owes me a favor or two, it’s time to cash in.”
> Chapter 17 - Destination D.C.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset held a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun as she crested the top of the hill. They had barely gotten out of Megaton and she was already a little out of breath, partly from the climb, and partly from focusing all of her attention on where she was putting her feet. The ground was still damp from the previous day’s rain, not really enough to make the girls’ footing treacherous, but Sunset didn’t want to take any chances.   

“Are you alright?” Fluttershy asked, hurrying up after her. “We can slow down or go back if this is too much for you?”

Sunset scowled at her. Fluttershy and Twilight had been constantly fussing over her ever since she’d left the clinic this morning, “I’m fine, Flutters.” she grumbled. It wasn’t really a lie, after Doc Church’s ministrations Sunset had to admit that, despite her injuries, she felt better than she had since they’d left the vault. 

“You’re far from fine Sunset, you have a potentially life-threatening injury.” Twilight cut in, “I know the medication may be making you feel like nothing is wrong, but you still have to take it easy.”

“Shouldn’t you be paying more attention to Rarity? You know, given that she got shot yesterday and all?”

“Well, um, Rarity’s wound is a lot easier to stabilize, especially with the brace on.” Fluttershy replied, “Your kidney contusion is going to be a lot harder to keep an eye on.”

Twilight nodded, “Besides, Applejack threatened to dump Rarity in a shopping cart and wheel her around like that if she didn’t agree to take it easy.”

Sunset just sighed and decided to try and change the subject, anything to get their attention away from her. “How’s Micky?” 

Fluttershy cast a worried look over her shoulder at the unfortunate beggar huddled outside Megaton’s gate. Apparently he’d been lurking there for weeks, begging for water from travelers, but the poor fool had hidden himself every time he saw the girls coming, afraid of the new ‘mutants’ wandering around. The only reason the girls had spotted him this morning was because he’d somehow managed to sleep through the roar of the gate opening for the day. “I gave him a bottle of water, so, um, I think he’ll be alright for now." 

Rarity sighed heavily, "Oh, I do wish we could help him find a place to stay inside Megaton, but after paying for the supplies and the medical bills we have hardly any caps left.”

Twilight gently patted Rarity on the back. “He’ll be okay, don’t worry. I know it sounds cold, but right now we need to focus on ourselves, this is going to be a very dangerous journey.”

Sunset nodded grimly. Twilight had gone with Fluttershy to learn what she could from Doc Church yesterday, but even for her agile mind there was only so much you could really learn in one afternoon. The girls would have to be extra careful, and not just for Sunset and Rarity’s sake. If anyone else got injured out in the wasteland, the group would be in serious trouble.

“Hey, you guys coming or what?” Rainbow called from up ahead. 

The three girls rolled their eyes at each other, then giggled and moved to catch up with the others. Picking their way through the rocks, the girls found themselves at the top of a long slope. Ahead of them were the outlying buildings of the old D.C ruins, their huge, shattered husks packed tightly together. Sunset had to wonder why people were so scared of the ruins, surely if the buildings were sturdy enough then they would be much easier to fortify than random settlements out in the open. 

Pinkie was crouched on top of a large boulder nearby, the others hanging around it’s base. As the three approached she stood and pointed ahead, to the east. “That’s the way Gob told us to go. Straight past the Super Duper Mart, over the river and then keep going east until we find Farragut West Metro Station!”

“Ah still don’t get why we can’t just go straight through the city,” Applejack huffed, “It would be a heck of a lot faster.”

“I asked Gob about that, and he says this way is the safest.” Twilight replied. 

Rarity groaned, clutching her arm brace. “After everything that’s happened I vote for taking the safer path, even if it is a little slower.” 

“Definitely.” Rainbow agreed. 

Applejack nodded, “Ah hear you. Come on then, let’s get this over with.”

“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie called as she sprang down from the boulder. 

The other girls followed as Pinkie and Rainbow Dash took the lead, picking their way carefully across the ground and keeping their eyes open for any threats.

Keenly aware of Fluttershy and Twilight eyeing her carefully, Sunset fell into step alongside Rarity. “Hey… so, uh… how’s your arm?”

Rarity gave her a tired smile. “It’s quite alright thank you. A little sore perhaps, and I must admit the scars are going to take some getting used to, but I can always cover them with clothes or perhaps even a tasteful temporary tattoo, something that goes with my ensemble.” She gestured vaguely at her arm, “Given the alternative, this is nothing I can’t handle.”

“Good… that’s good.” Sunset said quietly.

They continued in silence for a few moments until Rarity spoke up again, “Do you know I’ve just realized I haven’t really had a chance to thank you properly yet.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow, “What for?”

“Why, for helping to keep me safe yesterday or course!” 

Sunset stared at her incredulously. “Safe?! You were shot!”

“I’m well aware darling,” Rarity replied brightly, “But at least you helped to get me out of harm’s way afterwards.”

“And you saved me from the raider, we’re even.”

“I suppose,” Rarity admitted, “But that doesn’t mean I can’t thank you anyway, so… thank you.” 

Sunset shook her head, but smiled all the same, “Yeah, you too.”

Rarity grinned smugly, “You’re more than welcome Miss Shimmer.” 

The girls lapsed back into a comfortable silence as they trudged closer to the Super Duper Mart. The supermarket was huge, towering over them as they drew closer to what Sunset assumed was the rear of the building.

“Looks pretty intact,” Applejack noted, “Reckon we’ll find another settlement or something in there?”

Twilight shook her head, “That doesn’t seem likely, according to Billy this place has been abandoned for years.”

“Maybe we should take it slowly and try to stay out of sight anyway, um, just in case.” Fluttershy said quietly.

Sunset nodded, “My thoughts exactly.”

“Sounds good to me.” Applejack added, “So how do we get across the river?”

Pinkie paused in her tracks and pointed ahead, “That’s easy! We just use that bridge right there!”

The girls looked where she was pointing. Sure enough there was a small bridge just to the side of the supermarket, crossing what was left of the Potomac in remarkably good condition.

As the group reached the rear of the Super Duper Mart, sudden shouts and gunshots ripped through the air, coming from the front of the supermarket. The girls all darted to the back wall of the building, taking cover behind a pair of large metal trash bins. 

“That’s not… aimed at us… is it?” Rarity gasped.

Applejack shook her head as more shots rang out, gripping her shotgun tightly, “Nah, sounds more like there’s some folk having a disagreement out front.” she whispered.

“That’s one heck of a disagreement.” Rainbow muttered.

The noise intensified for a moment then died away abruptly, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. Rough voices called out, checking on each other and making sure the threat was over.

Applejack glanced over her shoulder at the others. “What do you reckon, should we make a break for it while it’s quiet?” she asked, nodding in the direction of the bridge.

Sunset looked over at the bridge and huffed, “No, it’s too exposed. If someone spots us and starts shooting we won’t have any cover at all.”

“Should we wait until they go away?” Rarity asked.

“But we don’t know how long it’ll be before they go, or even if they’re going to leave at all, we could be waiting all day!” Twilight countered

“What if they’re just travelers like us?” Fluttershy asked, “Someone might be hurt and need our help.”

Applejack groaned and shook her head, “Darn it, this isn’t getting us anywhere. What do you think Sunset?”

Sunset ran through the options in her head, “Well we can’t use the bridge until we know it’s safe.” She slipped a hand under her jacket and smoothly slid her pistol out of it’s holster. Like her gun, the concealed holster had once belonged to the late Mr Burke. Sunset had dug it out of her pack during her stay at the clinic. “I say we sneak around and see if we can observe whoever it is without getting spotted. If they look friendly, good, if not…”

“Then we get the drop on them, try to take them out or scare them off before they know what’s happening.” Rainbow finished.

“That sounds awfully dangerous.” Rarity said quietly.

“It is,” Sunset admitted, “But it’s the only option I can think of right now.”

The girls looked around at each other uneasily. When no-one else said anything, Applejack sighed and rolled her shoulders, “Alright, if it’s the only plan we’ve got, then it’s the best plan we’ve got. Come on y’all, let’s get this done.”

Making as little noise as possible, the group crept carefully around the side of the building, Sunset making sure to unscrew her pistol’s silencer and slip it into a special pouch in the holster. Fluttershy opened her mouth to say something as Sunset took the lead, but a quick shake of the head from Applejack silenced whatever protest she had been about to make. 

Quiet, rasping voices reached the girls as they neared the front of the building, but still nothing came into view. Whoever was talking was right in front of the entrance. Grasping her pistol tightly, Sunset peeked around the corner.

A large parking lot spread out in front of the store, dotted with ruined cars and even an old bus. Four people were huddled together around a fire, talking quietly and occasionally glancing at something over on the far side of the lot. 
Ghouls.

Sunset quickly noted the guns that two of them carried, small pistols similar to her own, then ducked back out of sight. They didn’t look anything like the last raiders she had seen, their thick clothes were cleaner and much more practical, but Sunset wasn’t willing to take any chances. 

Sunset turned back to the girls and gestured for Applejack to come closer, then leaned in to whisper in her ear, “Four ghouls, they don’t look like raiders.”

“Okay, so what’s the plan?”

“Just follow my lead.” Sunset raised a finger to her lips and turned back to the corner. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she thumbed off the safety and strode around the corner, raising her pistol as she went. 

“Don’t move!”

The ghouls whipped around as Applejack stepped up next to her, leveling her shotgun at them. Blank shock flitted across their features at the sight of the girls. Realizing they were at gunpoint, the four slowly raised their hands.

“Easy now smoothskins, we don’t want any trouble,” the closest one said warily. 

Sunset didn’t dare let her aim drop, “We heard gunshots, what happened.”

“Raiders,” another said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder, “They attacked us as we were setting up camp.” 

Sunset looked over to where the ghoul indicated and spotted a pair of corpses, slumped against a car. Their filthy leather clothes were covered in spikes and hooks, with a multitude of vicious-looking knives strapped to their belts. Sunset shivered and turned her attention back to the ghouls.

The four were plainly terrified, their eyes darting between Applejack and Sunset. 

Sunset sighed and lowered her gun, keeping her eyes on them in case they made any move to attack. The ghouls visibly relaxed as Applejack followed suit, their shoulders slumping as they released the breaths they’d been holding. 

“Sorry about that y’all, can’t be too careful.” Applejack said softly.

The first ghoul nodded grimly, “Yeah, you’re telling me. Thanks for not shooting us.” 

“Don’t mention it,” Sunset replied, “I’m Sunset Shimmer and this is Applejack.”

“Harry, and these are James, my daughter Heather and Henry.” The other ghouls each raised a hand as Harry pointed them out.

Applejack tipped her hat in greeting, “Pleasure to meet you, so what are y’all doing out here anyway?”

“We’re on our way to Underworld, figured we’d rest here for a few hours before we headed into the city proper.” 

“Underworld? What’s that?” Sunset asked.

“It’s a ghoul settlement,” Heather said quickly, “It’s in the old Museum of History, in the middle of the city ruins.”

“Huh, we’re actually heading into D.C ourselves, you’re more than welcome to join us if you want?” Sunset offered. 

Harry shook his head, “Thanks, but we got chased by radscorpions all the way here, then the moment we take a break those two assholes tried to jump us.” He sighed heavily, “We could really use a rest right now.”

“Suit yourselves. Is there anything you can tell us about the ruins? Anything we should keep an eye out for?” Applejack asked.

The ghouls looked around at each other and shrugged, shaking their heads. 

“Sorry, but this is our first time in the Capital Wasteland. You probably know more about this place than us.” Harry replied. 

I very much doubt that. Sunset sighed and turned to leave, “It’s okay, thanks anyway. Look after yourselves out here.”

“Yeah, you too.” 

Sunset and Applejack trudged back to where the others were anxiously waiting. After briefly discussing what little they’d learned, the group turned and made their way back to the bridge, Sunset falling back to let Pinkie and Applejack lead the way. 

The rest of their journey to the metro went fairly smoothly. Pinkie spotted the entrance almost as soon as they crossed the bridge, and even with their injuries it was a simple matter for the girls to pick their way across the rubble towards it, a fact Sunset and Rainbow were both particularly grateful for. 

They were less pleased about finding several dead raiders strewn around the metro’s entrance. 

“That’s… not a good sign.” Sunset muttered.

“No it ain’t.” Applejack agreed. 

“I suppose… um… at least we didn’t have to fight them?” Fluttershy said quietly, her face ashen. 

“Yeah, silver linings I suppose,” Sunset gingerly stepped around the corpses to where Twilight was waiting at the top of the subway stairs. She was staring down them with a look of trepidation. “Hey, Twilight, you okay?”

Twilight threw a sidelong look at Sunset, “Am I the only one who’s getting a really bad feeling about this? I mean… we haven’t exactly had the best luck when it comes to tunnels.”

“Whatever do you mean darling?” Rarity asked.

“Think about it. We were shot at when we left the Vault, technically through a tunnel, then when we escaped we were shot at again and you were beaten up.” Twilight shivered, “And yesterday we were nearly blown up in a tunnel, then when we left we were shot at and you were beaten up again!”

Sunset cast a worried look down into the subway, “You know you’re really starting to put me off tunnels.”

The rest of the girls crowded around, staring into the dim light below.

“Well… I guess there’s no point in standing around,” Sunset huffed, “Come on, let’s go find Galaxy News.”
> Chapter 18 - Rot and Reminiscence
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The metro was in even more of a parlous a state than Northwest Seneca. Piles of shattered concrete and brick lay were it had fallen from the ceiling, leaving exposed rebar in it’s wake. At least it wasn’t as dark as Sunset had expected. The electric lighting was somehow still functioning, filling the tunnel interior with a warm glow. Sadly the smell was nowhere near as inviting, a cloying reek of damp and mold, with the faint scent of something rotting underlying it all.

“Here we go again.” Applejack muttered. 

“If we find any more landmines in here, I’m out.” Rainbow said flatly.

“Just keep your butt covered and you’ll be fine,” Sunset quipped, eyeing up the tunnel’s side doors, “I’m more concerned about getting lost at the moment, do we at least have a map of this place?”

Twilight shook her head, “There wasn’t a route map outside, but according to Gob there’s only really one way to go until you reach the tracks.”

“Good. In that case, let’s get moving.”

Sunset’s hopes that they could move from the station straight into the less claustrophobic subway tunnels were dashed the moment they turned the corner. Just like the last metro they’d entered, the tunnel had collapsed beyond the ticket barrier, leaving the side corridors as the only way through.

“Is anyone else getting a sense of déjà vu, or is it just me?” Twilight asked.

“Eh, the developers probably didn’t want the first couple of metros the newbies would encounter to be too confusing,” Pinkie piped up. Twilight simply stared at her in bewilderment, but before she could express her confusion Pinkie pointed through one of the side doors, “Hey, what’s that?”

The others turned to see what she had spotted, only to be greeted by the sight of a mole rat lying in the middle of a little office space. If the scorch marks and bullet-hole weren’t enough of a giveaway as to it’s current, deceased, state, the pool of congealed blood spread out underneath it certainly was. 

“Oh, the poor little dear!” Fluttershy cried, hurrying over and dropping to her knees next to the unfortunate creature. 

“Hey!” Applejack yelped as she darted after her, shotgun raised as she checked the room for threats. A moment later she sighed and turned to glare at the young nurse, “Darn it, Fluttershy, don’t go rushing off like that when we don’t know if it’s safe!”

“Oh, um, I’m sorry.” Flutters replied quietly. 

“It’s okay, just be careful.” Sunset said soothingly as she stepped past, the others falling into line behind her.

Two more mole rats lay dead next to a door further in the room that opened into another office space. Beyond that was yet another door that lead to what looked like a maintenance corridor. Bloody footprints led from the rats all around the room and into the corridor, as if whoever had left them had been intent on thoroughly ransacking the place.

“Ah guess it’s this way,” Applejack muttered. 

“Looks like it,” Careful to avoid the grisly markers, Sunset crept through the second office space and peeked through the door, keeping a loose grip on her pistol. The maintenance corridor extended for a short distance past two small alcoves, until it reached a small staircase. The footprints grew faint as the floor transitioned from dusty concrete to grimy metal, but Sunset could still make out a trail heading down the steps. 

“Um, do you think this is going to lead to another mirelurk cave?” Fluttershy asked worriedly.

“Oh, I certainly hope not, I’m not sure I could stand that awful stench again,” Rarity replied, “It smells bad enough down here as it is.”

“Yeah you said it,” Applejack agreed. “Kinda reminds me of the outhouse on burrito night.”

Rarity slowly turned to face Applejack with an expression of absolute disgust, “That is quite possibly the most revolting thing I have ever heard.”

Rainbow smirked and raised an eyebrow at her, “Even worse than when Butch asked if he could ‘trim your clam’?”

Rarity clapped a hand over her mouth as she retched, “Ugh, why you would remind me about that!”

“That’s awful!” Fluttershy gasped, her own cheeks taking on a greenish tinge, “I’m glad Adam is nothing like that.”

“Huh, I guess you’d know better than I would. I never really had a chance to talk to him.” Sunset admitted as she led the way slowly through the corridor and down the stairs. “Most of the boys I spoke to back in the vault were jerks.” She frowned as she reached the bottom of the stairs, “What’s a lawnmower doing down here?”

“Probably not much unless it’s switched on.” Pinkie quipped, earning a flat glare from Sunset.

“A lawnmower? Awesome!” Rainbow cried, darting over to it and flipping it upside down, “Yes! Hey, Applejack, hand me a wrench or something so I can get this blade off.”

“Uh, why?”

Twilight sighed, “It’s one of the components in those schematics that Vance gave us, for the shishkebab.” 

“You’re kidding me, right?” Applejack asked incredulously.

“Nope!” Rainbow grinned, “Come on, hurry up and give me a hand here!”

“Alright, alright, hold your horses,” Applejack huffed, pulling a ratchet wrench out of her tool belt, “Shift over so ah can take a look.”

Sunset rubbed her neck as she watched AJ get to work unscrewing the blade, “I’m not so sure this is a good idea.”

Rainbow blinked and glanced back at her, “Why not?”

Rarity arched an eyebrow, “Really Rainbow Dash, can you honestly say you’re surprised that we’re a little skeptical about letting you near a flaming sword?”

“Oh come on! It’ll be so, freaking, awesome!” Rainbow cried.

“If you say so,” Applejack tugged the lawnmower blade free and handed it to Rainbow, “Here you go. You want it, you can carry it.”

“Sweet!” Rainbow tried to shove the blade between the straps of her pack, but couldn’t find a place where it wouldn’t slice through either her or the pack. In the end Applejack rolled her eyes and grabbed the blade, tying it to her own pack with a length of metal cable fished from its depths, eliciting an embarrassed chuckle from Rainbow. “Thanks AJ.”

“Don’t mention it,” Applejack muttered as she turned to Sunset, “So you’ve never actually spoken to Adam?”

Sunset shrugged and turned to continue along the corridor, “Not really, I’ve said hi to him once or twice in passing but that’s about it. I spent most of my time either fixing stuff, working in Systems with Floyd or trying to figure out a way home with James and Twilight in the Reactor section, so our paths didn’t really cross that often.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. He’s a really nice person,” Fluttershy piped up eagerly.

Pinkie nodded vigorously, “Yep! Nothing like those mean Tunnel Snakes were!”

“He did seem like a decent fella,” Applejack agreed, “I only ever really saw him when he used to sneak down to the maintenance area to practice with his BB gun, apart from that time him and Butch had a bust-up in the cafeteria.”

“I remember that day, Butch had to stay in the clinic overnight. I think that was the only time he didn’t say anything mean to me.” Fluttershy blushed slightly and folded her arms over her chest protectively, “He did keep staring at my, um… chest though.”

“The whole lot of them were nothing but pervy losers,” Rainbow grumbled. Suddenly she snorted, glancing sidelong at Sunset, “I gotta admit though, it was kinda funny when Freddie asked if he could ride you like a pony.”

“Weird, they never said anything creepy to me.” Pinkie noted curiously as Sunset glared daggers at Rainbow.

“That’s because you terrified them darling,” Rarity said flatly, “I’m afraid the rest of us were forced to endure their unwanted attentions on more than one occasion.”

“Yeah, like that time Wally tried to pester me into trying a ‘bedroom rodeo’ with him,” Applejack glowered. “Ah made him regret that one,” she added darkly.

“Wasn’t that the time you and Sunset got into trouble for stuffing him into a locker?” Twilight asked.

Applejack shook her head, her lips slowly curving into a grin at the memory, “Nah, that was when we caught him trying to spy on us in the showers.”

Sunset couldn’t suppress a smirk as she remembered the look on his face when he got caught, though the grilling they’d gotten from the Overseer afterwards did somewhat sour the recollection, “I still don’t get why the Tunnel Snakes were stupid enough to keep pestering us after… what the…?”

The others crowded around as Sunset lurched to a halt. Peering past her, there were gasps of shock and disgust as they spotted what had grabbed her attention. The corridor had opened out into some sort of generator station, with a metal staircase winding its way up the walls. Laying crumpled and broken in the middle of the room, right at the base of the steps, was a rotting, skeletal corpse.  

The body might have been human once, but a heavy impact had left the limbs and even it’s spine twisted at awkward and unnatural angles. The poor soul was clad in little more than rags and, given it’s state of decomposition, was practically unidentifiable.

“That’s… that’s awful.” Rarity moaned. 

Sunset stepped slowly into the room and looked up. Just above was a walkway at the top of the room that connected to the stairs. One set of railings was buckled and bent out of shape, directly above the broken corpse. 

“You reckon he fell?” Applejack asked, gazing upwards as well.

Sunset nodded, “It looks like it, but if that’s the case then what happened to his clothes?”

Twilight shivered, “Maybe… someone looted them? Or… I don’t know… maybe the mole rats ate them?”

“And left the body alone?”

“Um… girls?” Fluttershy called shakily.

The girls turned to see her crouched by the corpse, examining it with her Pip-Boy light. 

“What’s wrong Flutters?” Rainbow asked.

“You mean aside from the month old corpse we just found?” Twilight deadpanned.

Fluttershy shook her head slowly, “This body hasn’t been here that long.”

The others shared uncomfortable looks. 

“What, uh… what do you mean Fluttershy?” Applejack asked quietly.

“The blood… it’s still a little wet,” Fluttershy looked up at the girls, her face pale as a sheet, “Whoever this is, I don’t think they died more than a day or so ago.”

Rarity covered her mouth as she stared down at the body, revulsion lining her features, “How is that even possible? I mean, he’s so…”

“Gooey?” Pinkie supplied.

Rarity’s gut heaved and she turned away quickly, barely managing to stumble to a corner before she vomited. Applejack hurried over to her, holding her hair out of the way and rubbing her back while whispering soft comforts. 

“Nice, Pinkie.” Rainbow grumbled.

Pinkie hunched her shoulders as she shot Rarity a sheepish look. “Sorry.”

Twilight peeked over Fluttershy’s shoulder, adjusting her glasses to get a better look at the body. “Huh, you’re right. I guess he or she must have been a ghoul.”

Sunset felt a surge of pity as she looked down at the body. The fact that they had endured the transformation into a ghoul only to suffer a horrible death in such a dank and dismal place, was heartbreaking to her. 

Shoving away those dark thoughts, Sunset stepped over to Fluttershy and laid a hand on her shoulder, “Come on, Fluttershy, there’s nothing more we can do for them. We should get out of here.”

Flutters nodded and stood, wiping her eyes, “Okay.”

Sunset glanced in Rarity’s direction as she stuffed a water bottle back into her pack. Catching her look, Applejack gave a quick nod and flashed a thumbs up. Nodding back, Sunset turned and gingerly stepped over the body onto the steps. 

The stench grew worse as the girls reached the upstairs walkway. An open door lay to their left, containing another office space and little more. To their right the walkway led across to another generator area of some kind. Just past the generators was another walkway leading to a door, with another staircase splitting off and heading downstairs.

Unlike the bigger generators downstairs the two up here were completely destroyed, the whole area blackened and scorched as if swept through by fire. The reek of burnt metal and singed flesh mixed with the cloying stench of rotten meat. Walking closer, the girls quickly discovered the reason.

Three more ghouls lay scattered around the area.

Two of the corpses were horrifically charred and mangled, while the third was strangely intact and untouched, sprawled face-down in a pool of blood.

“What the heck happened here?” Rainbow breathed.

Applejack switched on her Pip-Boy light and strode over to check on the generator. After giving it a quick once-over she called over her shoulder to the others, “Yep, just what ah thought. The emergency shut-off has been tripped on the gas line.” She sighed and straightened up, “Ah guess there must have been a leak in the relay, then something made a spark and… well… you can see what happened next.”

“That… doesn’t really make any sense.” Twilight said slowly.

The others turned to look at her curiously.

“What do you mean?” Pinkie asked.

Twilight indicated the two charred bodies, “Well, if it was an explosion that killed these ghouls, then why isn’t the third one burnt?”

“Maybe he was killed later?” Sunset suggested.

“That’s certainly a possibility, but something just feels off…” Twilight folded her arms, her brow furrowed, “Hey, Applejack? Is there any way we can find out when the explosion occurred?”

“Yesterday morning, about the same time the sheriff tried to blow us up in Arefu,” Applejack said briskly. In response to the surprised looks from the others she jabbed a thumb over her shoulder, “The emergency shut-off has a stop-clock on it, to let the technicians know how long the gas has been off for.”

“But the blood here is in the same state as that downstairs which, as Fluttershy pointed out, indicates that both ghouls were killed either around the time of the explosion or before.” Twilight rattled off, her voice taking on the quality of a born lecturer. 

Sunset looked from Twilight to the bodies, “You don’t think this was an accident.”

Twilight shook her head sharply, “I don’t. I could confirm my theory but…” She cringed as she pointed a hand at the intact body, “I’m really really sorry about this.”

A purple glow surrounded the body and lifted, gently turning it over and laying it on it’s back. Even in the wan light, the girls could clearly make out the bullet holes that riddled the ghoul’s chest.

“Sweet Celestia…” Sunset breathed, unable to hold back a shiver at the sight.

“There was a gunfight down here, that must have been what set off the gas explosion,” Twilight said quietly.

“That’s horrible, who would do something like this?” Rarity asked.

“Probably raiders,” Applejack sighed and swept off her hat to hold it over her heart.

Sunset shook her head, frowning at the corpse, “I don’t think it was raiders, not this time.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at her, “Why not?”

“Think about it. This is supposed to be the safest way into the D.C ruins, and we know someone who only entered the ruins either yesterday or the day before.”

Twilight frowned, then turned to face Sunset, her eyes wide, “Wait a second, you mean Adam did this?”

Fluttershy whipped around at that, her face twisted with anger, “There’s no way! Adam would never hurt defenseless ghouls!”

Sunset blinked, stunned by the shy girl’s sudden outburst. Before she could muster a response an animal snarl echoed through the area.

“What the heck was that?” Rainbow asked quietly.

“No idea.” Applejack replied, clutching her shotgun nervously.

A horrified gasp snapped the girls’ attention round. Fluttershy stood with her hands clamped over her mouth. Her eyes darted fearfully from the corpses to the far walkway, pupils small as pinpricks.

“What is it Fluttershy?” Sunset gripped her pistol tightly as more snarls reached their ears, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps on metal.

“They’re not ordinary ghouls,” Fluttershy whispered shakily, “They’re feral.”

“What do you mean?” Applejack hissed.

“Some ghouls… they lose their higher brain functions and reasoning and revert to their basest instincts.” Fluttershy wrapped her arms around herself and took several steps back, trembling like a leaf as a half-rotted creature slowly came into view, stumbling up the far staircase.

Rainbow’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, “No way… you’re telling me those things are… basically…”

The girls all backed away as the creature stepped onto the walkway. Torn rags and moldy old armor covered it’s skeletal form, it’s blotchy skin peeling and sagging off it’s bones. Worse was the creature’s face. A ragged hole was all that remained of it’s nose and it’s lips had half rotted away, bloody chunks of flesh dangling freely from it’s mouth. The feral ghoul stopped and tilted it’s head as it spotted them.

“Zombies,” Fluttershy whimpered.

A gurgling scream ripped its way out of the ghoul’s throat as it launched itself into a sprint, hurtling towards the girls.
> Chapter 19 - A Less Than Pleasant Commute
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset froze as the feral ghoul hurtled towards the group, much much faster than she had expected it to be capable of. With a jolt she realized she had to do something, but Rarity got there first, extending her good arm as a huge gemstone materialized out of thin air in front of the ghoul. The foul creature smacked into the sudden obstruction and rebounded, landing flat on its back. 

Rarity let her arm fall and the gem slowly faded from sight. Sunset nodded stiffly to her, ashamed that she had frozen up like that. A low growl had Sunset whipping her head back around. The ghoul was clambering back to it’s feet, saliva dripping from it’s open maw. Even more concerning was the sight of two more feral ghouls loping onto the walkway behind it. 

“Awww nuts.” Applejack muttered, moving away from the generators to stand next to Sunset, raising her shotgun as she did so.

Sunset gritted her teeth and fired several rounds at the first ghoul as it rose, but the bullets just sank into it’s moldy armor, not causing any obvious injuries. She tensed as the creature launched itself forward once again, trying to aim at the monster’s face, when a blast from Applejack’s shotgun nearly deafened her. The ghoul stumbled as it’s arm was blown away in a welter of gore, then toppled to the floor as Sunset managed to put a carefully aimed bullet through it’s forehead.

The girls weren’t given even a moment’s respite as the other two ghouls charged straight past their fallen kin.

Sunset barely managed to get a shot off as the next ghoul closed in. Fortunately this one lacked the body armor of it’s compatriots, and the creature twitched as the bullet dug into it’s chest. Sliding out of the way as the ghoul staggered past Sunset lashed out with the butt of her pistol, then put another bullet in it’s skull as it reeled from the blow.

The second ghoul dodged around it’s fallen partner and lunged at Applejack, claws reaching for her face. Unable to bring her shotgun to bear in time, Applejack ducked under the ghoul’s swipe and shoved, hurling it backwards with her magically enhanced strength. The hapless creature sailed through the air only to slam back onto the metal walkway, momentum rolling it over until it came to rest in a mangled heap. 

The girls stood still as silence descended, weapons raised and ready. 

Sunset had no idea how long they waited like that, eyes and ears straining to pick out any more hidden threats. It felt like hours, but it could just as easily have been seconds. 

“Ah think that’s the last of them,” Applejack whispered, finally breaking the silence, “Y’all okay?”

A series of quiet murmurs was her only reply, each of the girls still trying to process the sudden bout of extreme violence that had just unfolded.

Shaking like a leaf, Sunset tiptoed around the corpses littering the area and edged towards the walkway. Keeping her gun trained on it, she cautiously approached Applejack’s fallen foe and nudged it with her foot. She nudged it a little harder when there was no response, then finally gave it a solid kick. 

Nothing happened.

Sunset let out a breath and lowered her gun, her shoulders slumping as she relaxed. A chorus of sighs and quiet muttering let her know the others were feeling the same relief.

“That was a little… intense.” Pinkie said soberly.

“Yeah… intense,” Applejack mumbled as she surveyed the carnage. “They… they weren’t… people… right?”

Fluttershy shook her head slowly. Her eyes had a glazed look to them, and when she spoke it was in a flat voice devoid of any emotion, “Not anymore. There’s no known way to cure a ghoul who’s turned feral. The only thing we can do is euthanize them before they hurt anyone.”

Applejack hung her head at Fluttershy’s words, “That… that just ain’t right.”

“To be honest, I don’t think there’s anything right in this wasteland,” Twilight replied quietly, “We should keep moving, who knows how many more of these things there are down here.”

“Good idea.” Rainbow stepped over to Applejack and clapped her on the back, “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, ah think so, just… y’know. Ah’ve shot targets and stuff before, but ah’ve never pointed a gun at a living creature. Takes some getting used to, even if they are zombies.” AJ sighed and rolled her shoulders before making her way over to Sunset, “Best get behind me sugarcube. Ah’ll go first until we get out of the subway, then we’ll see if we can find someplace safe to take a breather.”

Sunset just nodded and stepped aside, sliding her pistol back into it’s holster. Between her strength and her shotgun, Applejack was definitely the right person to take the lead in such confined places. 

The rest of the girls followed as Applejack led them over the walkway, past the staircase the ghouls had come up, and over to a door on the far side of the room.

“Ah sure hope this is the right way, ah do not fancy going down those stairs,” she muttered as she nosed the door open with the barrel of her shotgun. 

They all let out a sigh of relief as they saw a short corridor ahead of them. After only a few steps it turned a corner to a staircase, which in turn led to another door. 

“Well it’s about darn time!” Applejack huffed as she pushed the door open, revealing the concrete walls of the subway tunnels. 

“Finally,” Sunset breathed as she glanced around, checking for any threats. Satisfied that they were safe for the moment, she shrugged off her pack and pulled out some painkillers and a water bottle, eager to get some relief from the throbbing that was slowly growing in her ribs. 

Rarity sighed as she stepped onto the tracks, “It may not be much, but I am glad these tunnels are a little more spacious.” She absently scratched her brace as she looked around, “I’m not usually one for claustrophobia but even I’ll admit that those corridors were a little… oppressive.”

“I’m just glad I’ve finally got some room to maneuver,” Rainbow said flatly, stretching her arms out and rolling her neck. 

Sunset couldn’t help but agree. While there was every possibility they were going to run into more feral ghouls, she would much rather face them in a wide subway tunnel than in a cramped maintenance corridor.

“And the best part is…” 

Everyone turned to watch as Pinkie skipped over to a nearby wall and pointed to it, a huge grin spreading across her face, “We’re going the right way!” 

Sunset looked up at the wall and felt her lips curve into a smile too as she saw what Pinkie had spotted. An odd symbol was painted on it, a winged sword whose blade passed through a circle full of gears. Underneath the symbol was the message ‘To GNR Outpost’ and an arrow pointing through a small corridor connecting two tunnels. 

“Well alright then, let’s get moving!” Suiting actions to words, Applejack took the lead once more, keeping her shotgun poised and ready just in case. 

The tunnels on the other side of the corridor were far less intact than any they had previously been through. Whole sections of the ceiling had caved in, forcing the girls to take extreme care when placing their feet for fear of tripping and breaking a leg or getting impaled on an exposed metal spar.

Sunset swiftly changed her mind about being in the subway tunnels. Trying to face down feral ghouls among all that debris would be near impossible. Fortunately the only creatures they encountered were radroaches which, unusually, seemed quite content to leave the girls alone.

“Ah never thought I’d be glad to see these little critters,” Applejack muttered, clearly thinking along the same lines.

“I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of them,” Sunset admitted.

Rainbow helped Rarity climb over a particularly awkward pile of masonry, then nodded at something up ahead, “Heads up, looks like we’re coming to the station.”

The station was just as trashed as the tunnel had been, the floor covered with huge mounds of rubble. At least the mezzanine and it’s attendant escalators appeared to be intact. The girls were less pleased to note several more dead feral ghouls scattered around, as well as the corpse of something a little… different.

‘It’ was humanoid, but nothing like any human Sunset had ever seen. Easily eight feet tall, it had dark yellow skin with thick, bulging veins and a musculature that put Bulk Biceps to shame. It’s head was completely hairless and it’s face was pulled taut in a tight, angry sneer. The few clothes it was wearing were made from heavy sackcloth, with odd bits of armor that seemed to cobbled together out of car parts, it even had half of a tire strapped over it’s shoulder to form a makeshift pauldron.

“What in the heck is that supposed to be?” Applejack asked, prodding it with her shotgun.

Twilight leaned over to get a closer peek, “I… have no idea. Maybe it’s one of those super mutants that Gob told us about?”

“Whatever it is, it’s hideous,” Rarity said flatly, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m glad we didn’t meet it while it was still alive.”

“You mean like that feral ghoul over there?” Pinkie asked.

Sunset nodded, “Yeah like that feral… wait WHAT!?” 

Spinning around and fumbling for her gun, Sunset spotted the ghoul as it trotted out from behind a wrecked train car. The horrid creature snarled as it spotted the girls and broke into a run, scrabbling over the debris in it’s hurry to close with them. Before Sunset could draw a bead on it there was a sudden blur and something tripped the ghoul, sending it tumbling to the floor. 

Rainbow stood behind the fallen wretch, a trail of disturbed dust swirling in her wake. As the ghoul lurched to it’s feet she span on the spot, giving Sunset a brief glimpse of an all-too-familiar combat knife before she used both hands to plunge it into the side of the ghoul’s skull. 

The others could only stand and stare, torn between shock and amazement as the ghoul slumped to the floor, the knife still sticking out of it’s temple like some sort of gory antenna.

“Sweet molasses…” Applejack breathed. 

No one else uttered a word as Rainbow struggled to pull her knife free. In the end she had to plant a foot on the ghoul’s head in order to tug the blade out. “Okay, that… was gross.” she said with a grimace.

“Gross? That was brutal!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“You said it Pinkie. What the heck were you thinking!?” Applejack growled, “Me and Sunset could’ve handled that perfectly well with the guns, there was no reason for you to go putting yourself in danger like that!”

“Chill out, Applejack, I can handle one stinking zombie by myself,” Rainbow smirked, planting one hand on her hip and twirling her knife with the other, “Besides you’ve only got, what, two shells left? May as well save the ammo for when we run into trouble.”

“Will the two of you please be quiet? Rarity hissed. “We don’t know if there are any more around here!”

“Hang on, let me check.” Before anyone could respond Rainbow disappeared in a colorful haze, and was back barely a second later, “Nope, nothing else in the station except us and the dead ones.”

Sunset sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers. Deciding against chiding Rainbow for her sheer recklessness, she instead settled for confirming a nagging suspicion, “Rainbow, where exactly did you get that knife?”

Rainbow at least had the good grace to look embarrassed, “I… may have picked it up after that fight we had with the raiders.”

“It’s the one she tried to kill me with isn’t it?”

There was a slight pause. “Yes.”

Sunset sighed again and shook her head, “You know what, whatever, it’s fine. Come on, let’s get out of here before something else tries to kill us.”

“As much as I’m sure we’d all love to, which way do we go? Do we carry on through the tunnels or shall we see if there’s an exit up there?” Rarity asked, pointing up at the mezzanine.

“Gob said we need to exit the metro at the station, so I’m guessing we go up.” Twilight supplied.

“There’s definitely a way out up there,” Rainbow added, “No ghouls or anything either.”

That was good enough for the others. With Applejack and Rainbow in the lead, the group made their way up to the mezzanine. Once they reached the top Sunset privately marveled that it was still standing at all, given that a huge chunk of the ceiling had collapsed on top of it, there was even a car that had somehow dropped in from somewhere above. The hole in the roof was too dark to make anything out, but Sunset guessed there was a parking lot or a garage of some sort up there.

Taking advantage of their relative safety, the girls decided to take a rest and eat something, taking it in turns to keep watch on the station below. Twilight took the opportunity to takes notes from an intact route map, while Fluttershy made sure to give Rarity and Sunset a quick check-up. Sunset was particularly glad to have the gauze on her head removed. The graze on her temple from Burke’s bullet had largely healed, though she was going to be left with an interesting scar.

Once everyone was fed and watered, the group packed their things away and headed out. Following a corridor that led off the mezzanine, the girls came across a gate almost immediately, natural light filtering through the gaps. They pushed through the gate and hurried up a small set of steps beyond, eager to get out of the subways.

Sunset blinked as she emerged. The light was almost blinding after the cold darkness of the metro. Squinting, she could see that they were in a small square, ruined buildings towering around them on all sides. Letting her eyes adjust slowly, Sunset let out a sigh of relief as she stood and basked in the warm sunshine.

Her relief was short-lived.

“Stop right there!”

Sunset started as a commanding voice called out to them. Looking around wildly, she saw five figures standing on the edge of the square, in the shadow of one of the buildings. Clad in fully enclosed suits of steel armor, they each carried a gun of a kind that Sunset had never seen before, guns that they were currently pointing at the girls.

“This is Knight-Sergeant Metzger of Squad Pilum. This area is under the protection of the Brotherhood of Steel. Identify yourselves!”
> Chapter 20 - Blood and Steel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset slowly raised her hands, gesturing for the others to do so too. She was glad that these people were at least willing to talk before they started shooting, but she didn’t want to push her luck, “My name’s Sunset Shimmer and these are my friends. We don’t want any trouble, we’re just looking for Galaxy News.”

One of the soldiers took a few steps forward, keeping his gun trained on Sunset. She assumed he was the Knight-Sergeant who had spoken. When he spoke again, the speakers in his helmet added an electric crackle to his voice.

“What’s your business with Galaxy News Radio?”

“We’re looking for two friends of ours, Adam and James, we heard they stopped there recently.” Sunset replied quickly.

The sergeant just stared at her for a moment, the blank features of his helmet making her uncomfortable, “That’s impossible, those two have been down in Vault eighty seven for the last ten years.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow at that, “Don’t you mean Vault one-oh-one? And it was twenty years, not ten.”

The sergeant nodded curtly, “So you do know them, good. The question is, how? And why are you chasing after them?”

“We spent some time in the vault ourselves. We were working on a project with James but he left before we could finish it and we still need his help. As for Adam…” Sunset shrugged, “I guess, we just want to make sure he’s okay, and that he finds his father safely.” She shifted her feet awkwardly, “So… would you mind pointing your guns somewhere else?”

The sergeant glanced over his shoulder and nodded to his squad mates, who lowered their weapons. Turning back to Sunset, the sergeant slung his gun over his shoulder and reached up to tug off his helmet, revealing sharp, angular features and vivid, swept-back ginger hair.

Sunset blinked in surprise as she realized the sergeant was a woman.

“Sorry about that, the super mutants have been pressing us hard and Talon Company are being even more of a pain in our asses than usual. Having a group of mutants of a kind we’ve never seen before turn up out of nowhere, well, can’t be too careful y’know.” 

“It’s fine, we understand.” Sunset sighed, relaxing slightly now that the guns were pointed away from her group, “Is there any chance you could tell us the way to Galaxy News, Sergeant… uh…?”

“Knight-Sergeant Metzger,” the sergeant huffed, shaking her head, “I’m sorry, but there’s no way we can let such a large group of unknowns wander around unauthorized. We’ll have to escort you to the outpost.”

“You sure about that Sarge? They don’t exactly look like much of a threat,” one of the other soldiers piped up, his gaze lingering on Rarity’s brace.

Metzger rolled her eyes, “Can it, Hill. I don’t care how dangerous they look, I’m not in the mood for taking any chances out here.”

“Actually, I think we’re all fine with being escorted at the moment,” Sunset admitted, as the others nodded and voiced their agreement, “Safety in numbers.”

“After the kinda stuff we saw on the way over here, ah’m just glad you didn’t decide to shoot first and ask questions later,” Applejack said flatly. 

“Honestly? I considered it,” Metzger said darkly, “I guess it’s your lucky day.”

“Gee, thanks,” Rainbow muttered.

“Just come with me. And no funny business, or else.” Cramming her helmet back on, Metzger turned and headed down a nearby bombed-out street, gesturing for the girls to follow. The other soldiers fell into step around the group, one on either side of the girls and two bringing up the rear, constantly peering around and keeping an eye out for danger. That such heavily armed and armored people were so wary did not reassure Sunset in the slightest.

As Metzger led them into a winding alleyway, Sunset took the opportunity to sidle up next to her, “So… if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly is the Brotherhood of Steel?”

“James didn’t tell you anything?” Metzger asked. Sunset just shook her head.

“The Overseer forbade anyone from talking about the outside world,” Twilight supplied.

Metzger sighed, “The Brotherhood of Steel is a military order, descended from the remnants of the old United States Armed Forces and members of the scientific community. We do what we can to protect the good people of the Capital Wasteland, and rediscover the lost technology of our forefathers.”

“Whoa, so you guys are like, actual soldiers!?” Rainbow cried, “That’s… so… awesome!” Her starry-eyed gaze flicked from one soldier to the next as she spoke rapidly, “Are you guys recruiting? Where can I get some of that armor? What kinds of guns are those? Do you get any-”

“Rainbow! Simmer down will you, we ain’t here to join an army.” Applejack interrupted.

“Besides, we should probably be quiet. We don’t want to attract any trouble.” Twilight said nervously. 

“You’re not wrong, but we should be fine here. This area was cleared out yesterday,” Metzger said as they stepped out of the alleyway. 

A small, open space lay in front of them. A trashed car was sat next to a pair of children’s climbing frames, one shaped like an old space rocket and the other a stereotypical UFO. Directly across from the girls was a heavily damaged school building. The shattered entrance doors were guarded by a pair of armored soldiers, the words ‘EARLY DAWN EL ME T RY’ visible on the wall above. 

Sunset flinched as she spotted a pile of corpses just a few paces away from the doors. Each of them resembled the huge body the girls had found down in the Metro system. As they watched, another pair of soldiers shoved the door open and dragged a hulking corpse out, dumping it on the pile before heading back into the school.

Seeing the girls’ disgusted looks one of their escorting soldiers, Sunset thought it was Hill, nodded and spoke up, “Yeah, those are super mutants. Tough bastards, but they aren’t too bright.”

“So kinda like Applejack?”

None of the other girls could resist a snort at that, despite the seething glare that Applejack leveled at Rainbow. 

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she growled.

“It means you’re dumb, duh.” Rainbow grinned, most unwisely in Sunset’s opinion. She swore she could almost hear Applejack’s blood pressure rising.

Suddenly Hill snorted with laughter, “Oh man, you’re just like Fleet and Misty.”

“Oh screw you, Hill.”

“The hell they are!”

“Cut the chatter you lot,” Metzger cut in, shouldering the door open and leading the group inside the school. The roof was completely gone and the building was in a  shambles, but the corridor at least was clear of any debris. There were a few intact doors left inside, but Metzger ignored all of them as she led the group further in, “And Hill, quit using nicknames when we’re on patrol or Sentinel Lyons is going to jam her foot up-”

The rest of her words were drowned out by an explosion that rocked the whole building.  

There were shouts and yells from further inside, followed by another blast and the distinctive clatter of gunfire. 

“I thought the school was supposed to be secure?” Hill snarled.

“Apparently not anymore!” Metzger snapped. Glancing over her shoulder, she gestured to the two guards, “You two! You’re with us, and keep it tight. Find the point of entry and secure it!”

“What should we do?” Sunset called as she ripped her pistol from it’s holster.

“Stay back and stay out of our way. We don’t want any friendly fire incidents,” Metzger scooted to the end of the corridor, then peeked around the corner. Poking her rifle around, there was a sharp, electric crack as a bright red beam lanced out from the end of it.

“Laser guns!?” Rainbow gazed longingly after the soldiers as they followed Metzger around the corner.

“Focus, Rainbow,” Sunset said firmly, warily checking their surroundings, “I think we should head back to that alleyway, just in case.”

“Won’t we be safer inside?” Twilight asked.

Applejack shook her head, “No, ah think Sunset’s right about this. Those super mutants are huge, ah don’t fancy getting up close and personal with a bunch of them in here.”

“Surely the alley will be just as cramped though?” Rarity asked. 

“True but it’s not as open,” Sunset replied, glancing up at the ledges and broken floors above their heads, “Plus, it means it’ll be easier to run back to the subway if we have to.” She flinched as the sounds of gunfire suddenly got much more intense, “Come on, let’s get out of here before we get caught up in that.”

The girls all turned to leave the building, but before they could take more than a few steps another explosion ripped through a nearby wall. Dust and smoke swept through the corridor as chunks of masonry whizzed lethally through the air. As the girls stumbled back coughing and spluttering, something huge loomed through the clouds of dust.

The super mutant chuckled as it stepped through the hole in the wall, clutching a solid wooden board tipped with rusted nails in one meaty fist. Sunset didn’t need the necklace of human fingers it wore to tell her that this creature was not friendly.

Before anyone else could react Rainbow darted in front of the mutant and jammed her knife into it’s chest. 

“Take THAT you… big… uh…” She stared in horror at the blade that had barely sank into the mutant’s ribs, then slowly looked up into it’s face, “Oh crap.”

There was a blur as Rainbow suddenly disappeared just before the mutant’s nailboard swept through where she’d been standing. The mutant blinked for a moment, wondering where it’s foe had gone, then absently reached up to tug the knife out of it’s rib and casually tossed it aside.

Taking advantage of it’s distraction, Sunset whipped her pistol up and fired several rounds into the creature. The super mutant just grunted in pain and looked over to it’s new attacker. She kept firing until the gun clicked empty, fear rising in her throat as the mutant charged at her, drawing it’s nailboard back for a strike. At the last second Sunset was shunted aside as Applejack lunged forward, bringing her shotgun to bear.

With an echoing blast the mutant’s skull was blown apart, blood and gore splattering everywhere as it’s corpse crashed to the floor, forcing the two girls to skip backwards to avoid getting crushed. 

“Look out!”

Both flinched as a huge gemstone appeared out of nowhere in front of them. A split-second later there was a sudden gunshot and a loud crack as a bullet ricocheted off the gem, a spider-web of small cracks spreading out from where it hit. 
Sunset blanched as she saw a second super mutant lumbering through the hole, this one clutching a rifle. 

“I’m going to break you!” the mutant cried in a deep guttural voice, racking the slide on its rifle. 

“The heck you are!” Applejack yelled back, ducking out from behind the gem and firing at it.

The super mutant reeled and dropped it’s rifle as the buckshot took it in the shoulder, but it did not fall. Roaring in pain and fury, the mutant charged straight at the group. 

Click.

Blank shock flitted across Applejack’s face as she realized she was out of ammunition. Sunset leapt forward to drag her out of harms way, but it was too late. 

The super mutant slammed into the gemstone like a freight train, smashing it to pieces and barreling into the girls behind. Sunset’s ribs exploded with agony as the mutant knocked both her and Applejack clean off their feet. Dazed and gasping for breath, Sunset could only watch as the super mutant thundered past and into the middle of the group.

There was a chorus of screams and yells as the girls scattered, desperately trying to avoid the roaring mutant, which in turn was grasping and throwing punches around wildly, thankfully not connecting with anyone. 

Clenching her teeth, Sunset tried to force herself to her feet, grasping for her gun as she did so. An agonized shriek brought her head snapping back up. 

The super mutant had Fluttershy by the hair. With a harsh yank it dragged her to her knees in front of it. 
Sunset managed to stagger to her feet just as the mutant raised its fist. There was no way she could intervene in time. 

“YOU LET HER GO!”

Sunset’s hair wafted in the breeze as something hurtled past at an impossible speed. 

Rainbow was little more than a blur as she kicked off a wall, launching herself through the air towards the super mutant. She reached out and struck the mutant with something as she sailed past then tucked and rolled smoothly to her feet as she landed on the other side, skidding slightly from the sheer momentum.

The mutant let go of Fluttershy as it stumbled back a step. Then another. Finally it slowly toppled backwards, landing flat on its back with a heavy thump. Sunset gasped as she spotted the knife sticking out of its eye socket.   

“Not so tough now are you?” Rainbow spat. Her voice softened as she looked over at Fluttershy, “You okay, Flutters?”
Fluttershy barely had time to nod before the air behind them erupted into a crescendo of cracks, pops and hisses. Sunset span around, terrified that more mutants had stormed out of the hole.

Some had certainly tried, but two of the Brotherhood soldiers had returned to the girls, slaughtering the mutants with their potent laser weaponry. Sunset shivered as she beheld the three slightly smoking corpses piled in the gap. 

“Heard the screams, are you girls alright?”

Sunset sighed as she recognized the voice as Metzger’s. She nodded and flashed a thumbs up, too out of breath for speech. 

Metzger didn’t respond. She was already turning to head back to the main fire-fight that could still be heard raging deeper in the building, when something small clattered around the corner and rolled to their feet.

Almost before it had stopped moving Rainbow was there, grabbing the grenade and hurling it through the hole in the wall. A second later there was a muffled explosion followed by a puff of grit and bloody chunks. 

“Enough with the grenades already!” she yelled.

Metzger looked back where the grenade had come from, then, satisfied that no more were incoming, glanced over her shoulder at Rainbow, “Nice save. Thanks.”

“Hey, what can I say, I’m awe-”

“UP HIGH!” Sunset screamed.

Another super mutant had stomped into view on a ledge above the group. This one was wearing crudely shaped metal plates all over it’s body, and lugged a weapon Sunset had only ever seen in cheesy action flicks. 

A minigun.

The mutant roared with laughter as it pointed the gun down at the girls, the barrels whirring as it warmed up.
Sunset dashed forward without thinking, tackling Applejack through the nearest door. Rarity and Pinkie dove through after them a second later. Sunset looked back in horror as a storm of bullets shredded the corridor. She desperately hoped that the others had managed to avoid that, but didn’t have long to worry as something huge dropped from above and landed with a crash in the middle of the four.

The new super mutant sent Sunset sprawling with a casual buffet from its forearm then lashed out at Pinkie with its nailboard, forcing her to leap out of the way. Before the mutant could strike again a gemstone smacked it in the face.

“Leave her alone you ugly brute!” Rarity snarled as she flung another gem. 

The mutant was ready for it. 

Batting the gemstone away with its free hand, the mutant turned and hurled its nailboard with a grunt. Rarity managed to dodge the flying wood, but barely had time to surround herself with a gemstone cocoon before the super mutant was on her. The glittering shield shuddered and cracked as the mutant rained blows down upon it, eager to rip apart the girl cowering within.

“RARITY!”

The super mutant turned at the shout, just in time for Applejack to swing her shotgun like a baseball bat, smashing it across the monster’s face. The gun fell to pieces as the mutant staggered, blood pouring from its forehead. 

Tossing aside the remnants of the shotgun, Applejack dropped into a crouch and drove her fist through the super mutant’s knee, snapping it like a twig. As the mutant toppled, howling in agony, Applejack surged upright and threw all of her strength into a mighty right hook.

Her fist shattered the mutant’s skull, blood, bone and brain matter exploding outwards from the force of her punch. 
Sunset felt her gorge rising as she watched the headless corpse hit the floor in a bloody mess. Rarity’s gems slowly faded from view revealing the fashionista herself, retching quietly on the floor. Applejack just stood and stared at her fist. Indescribable gore dripped silently from her arm.

Shoving all of her fear and disgust aside for the moment, Sunset hauled herself painfully to her feet, her ribs and gut both burning with agony. Short bursts from the minigun were still chewing up the corridor outside, but she could hear Rainbow taunting the super mutant in between, so she was sure that at least one of the others was safe. A touch on her arm made Sunset flinch, but she relaxed when she saw that it was just Pinkie. 

“What do we do now?” Pinkie asked quietly.

Sunset just shook her head, “I don’t know, but we have to try and get rid of that big gun somehow.” 

Glancing around, she spotted a staircase in the corner of the room. She trudged over and looked up. It seemed to go right up to the floor the super mutant was on. Bit by bit, a plan started to piece itself together in Sunset’s mind, but she’d need help to pull it off, “Hey, Rarity, Applejack, I’ve got an idea, do you think you’re up for it?”

Applejack turned and blinked at her dumbly, “Huh… wha…?” Pulled from her dark reverie, she shook herself and ran a clean hand over her face, “Ah… ah’m fine. Rarity?” 

“I… urgh… one second,” she said quietly. With a few deep breaths she stood and turned, determinedly not looking at the messy corpse lying a few feet from her, “Okay, I’m good.”

Applejack nodded and managed a small smile, “Alright sugarcube, what do you have in… uh, Pinkie? What the heck are you doing?”

Pinkie smiled nervously as the others turned to look at her, an open bottle of Nuka-Cola clutched in her hands, “I didn’t want to do this but… we have to stop that gun.” Before the others could stop her she took a small sip from the bottle, “Bleh! It’s flat.”

“Pinkie! That’s radioactive!” Sunset yelled.

“I know,” Pinkie replied grimly as a bright pink glow suffused the remaining cola. Without another word she turned and darted out into the corridor.

“Eat THIS you meanie!”

There was a searing pink flash as a colossal blast rocked the building. 

Sunset, Applejack and Rarity shared a shocked look, then hurried out of the door. Pinkie stood in the middle of the corridor, her hair deflated and a look of abject horror on her face as she stared up at where the super mutant had been. Heart pounding, Sunset turned to follow her gaze, then clapped a hand over her mouth at the sight that awaited her.

The super mutant’s corpse was slumped on the floor. The entire front of the mutant’s body had been vaporized, leaving the glistening remnants of its internal organs exposed. As the girls watched, several chunks of intestine uncoiled and slopped out, landing with wet splats on the floor below. 

That was too much for Sunset. She lurched over and planted her hands on her knees as she vomited, barely missing her own feet.

Gasping for breath, she vaguely realized that the sounds of gunfire had stopped. It seemed the battle was over. She glanced up as a hand was laid on her shoulder.

“Are, um… are you okay?” Fluttershy asked shakily. She looked ready to bolt or break down at any moment. 

Forcing a smile, Sunset straightened up, though she couldn’t stop her own voice from shaking as she replied, “I’m fine, don’t worry. Are you okay?”

“Oh, um, yes. Rainbow grabbed me and Twilight and… and got us back outside before we could get hurt.”

“And I’d like to know how she managed that.”

Metzger stepped out of a doorway, glancing up at the mangled mutant, “One second you were standing right next to me, then the next you were back outside with those two.” She tilted her head as she turned to Pinkie, “And what the hell did you throw at that thing?!”

Sunset sighed heavily, “It’s a long story. I’ll explain everything, but can we get somewhere safer first, please?”

Metzger gave her a long look. After a while she shrugged, “Hey, you killed some Frankensteins and saved some lives, that’s good enough for me. Come on, Galaxy News is just through here.”

Exhausted and in agony, Sunset paused just long enough to make sure the rest of the girls were alright before she fell into step behind the Knight-Sergeant. 

The girls followed Metzger in silence, each trying to come to terms with the hell they’d managed to wander into. Guilt weighed heavily on Sunset’s heart as she trudged through the corridors. As much as the others would deny it, Sunset couldn’t help but think that all of this was her fault. 

The abundance of mutant corpses did nothing to improve her mood.

Dozens of them lay where they fell. Most were intact, but a few were left in various states of dismemberment. The girls tried to avoid looking at them wherever they could. For Sunset, this meant she spent most of the journey watching the soldiers. 

The group passed several other Brotherhood of Steel soldiers going about their business on their way through the school. Some of them spared the girls a glance as they went past, but none of them spoke and their expressions were hidden beneath their helmets. Most quickly turned back to whatever they were doing, far more concerned with checking on each other and making sure the super mutants were all definitely dead or routed than whatever oddballs Metzger was escorting. 

Eventually the girls were led through an archway and out into an open plaza. 

A squat concrete building dominated the far side of the plaza. A stylized, brass representation of a radio mast under the letters GNR decorated the front of it. 

Finally. Now we can get some answers.

More mutant corpses were strewn around the plaza, but one in particular grabbed the girls’ attention, slumped over a brass monument in the shape of a planet. 

“Whoa…” Rainbow breathed

“What the heck is that thing!?” Applejack cried, “That’s got to be nearly twenty feet tall!”

Sunset’s eyes were wide as she stared at the massive corpse, “How did you manage to bring that thing down? And what happened to it’s head!?”

Metzger huffed a laugh at their reactions. “We call them Behemoth’s. Luckily they’re pretty damn rare, ” she explained as she stepped around a mutant corpse, “I wish I could say it was my squad that took it out, but that one was all your friend Adam.”
Rainbow gaped at her, “No way!” 

Sunset shared her amazement. Given that he was alone and had even less fighting experience than the girls, she’d been worried how he’d manage to survive in the wasteland. Apparently by turning into some sort of ultimate badass!

Tearing her gaze away from the behemoth, Sunset spotted two soldiers coming down the steps in front to GNR to greet them. The one in front was the only soldier Sunset had seen so far without a helmet in sight, her clean blonde hair pulled back into a messy bun. Metzger stopped and made an odd salute as the soldier approached, clenching a fist over her heart. 

“Sentinel Lyons!”

“At ease Knight-Sergeant,” Lyons responded, eyeing the girls with interest, “What’s the situation?”

“Ma’am, the school building has been re-secured and the route from here to Tenleytown Station is clear.”

“Great. Davis, send out two squads to perform a sweep of the immediate area, make sure the Uglies are routed.”

“Yes, Sentinel!” the soldier clenched a fist over his heart before jogging over to the school building. 

“And who exactly are these girls?” Lyons asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“I’m not entirely sure Ma’am, we found them crawling out of Tenleytown,” Metzger replied. “But they did help us drive off the super mutants, and this one saved my life,” she jabbed a thumb in Rainbow’s direction, “They know James and his son, and they're looking for them. They were hoping Three-Dog would be able to tell them where they went.”

Lyons ran an appraising eye over the group, “You’re sure they’re not a threat?”

“Positive Ma’am.”

“We don’t want any trouble,” Sunset said quietly, wincing at the mounting pain in her torso, “We just want to find James, and figure out a way back home.”

A sympathetic look crossed Lyons’ face, “You look rough, you got medical supplies?”

“Oh, um, yes miss,” Fluttershy replied softly. 

“Alright then. Metzger, gather your squad and resume patrols until our scheduled reinforcements arrive. The rest of you come with me, I’ll take you in to Three-Dog. You can explain everything to us while you patch yourselves up.”

“Thank you,” Sunset breathed gratefully.

As the rest of the girls followed Sentinel Lyons into the building, Metzger pulled off her helmet and held out a hand, holding Rainbow back.

“Hey, thanks for saving my ass back there.”

“Heh, no problem,” Rainbow grinned.

Metzger grinned back at her, “What’s your name, kid?”

“Rainbow Dash.”

“Bullshit.”

“What? That’s my name!”

Metzger chuckled at that, “Well your parents definitely picked the right fucking name.”

“Heh, yeah,” Rainbow extended a hand, “Take care out there, Knight-Sergeant.”

Metzger smirked and took the proffered hand, “Kelly, it’s Kelly Metzger. But my friends call me Spitfire.”
> Chapter 21 - The Legend Begins
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Galaxy News Radio was very well fortified. Walls of sandbags lined the outside giving the defending soldiers plenty of cover, and the doors were reinforced with steel plates and crossbars. Inside was even more impressive, with more sandbags and makeshift barricades defended by heavily armed Brotherhood of Steel soldiers, each of whom saluted Sentinel Lyons as she led the girls into the building.

Sunset shivered as she passed one particular barricade. She wasn’t really expecting the soldiers to attack, but she was still leery of having what were clearly military-grade flamethrowers pointed in her general direction.

The girls silently followed Sentinel Lyons past the soldiers and up a guarded staircase. Each was lost in their own thoughts, either mentally processing the hellish battle they’d just endured or, like Sunset, desperately trying to distract themselves from thinking about it. 

“Hey, Three Dog! You okay in here?” Lyons called out suddenly as she made her way up another short staircase.

“Sure am! How’s it looking out there?” 

The staircase came out into the middle of a large, messy room. Chairs, small tables and shelving units were dotted around randomly, with a small kitchenette in one corner. Looking around, Sunset spotted an alcove behind them filled with terminals and banks of computers and recording equipment, everything a functioning radio station and recording studio could need. A man was standing over one of the terminals with his back to the group, busily fiddling with the controls. Sunset assumed this must be the Three Dog that she’d heard about. 

“The area is secured, with no casualties so far this time,” Lyons called as she leaned against a pillar, “Mind coming over here a sec? I think you’ll want to be a part of this.”

“A part of what?” Three Dog glanced over his shoulder for a second, then did a double take, “What… the…” He rubbed his eyes and blinked at the girls, then turned to Sentinel Lyons, “Uh, Sarah? Are there seven multi-colored girls sat in my office, or am I on Jet again?”

“They’re real all right, I can see them just as well as you. No idea if you’re on Jet or not though,” Lyons chuckled, but her laughter died quickly, “They’re here to see you, apparently they’re friends of James and Adam.”

“Seriously?”

Sunset eyed Three Dog warily as he abandoned the terminal and wandered over to the girls. He had dark, brown skin and was wearing a long sleeveless leather coat over a clean white t-shirt and patchwork pants. His black hair was covered with a cloth wrap and he sported a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee. A pair of stylish, if unnecessary, shades covered his eyes. 

“Well this is something you don’t see every day,” Three Dog said flatly, “So how exactly do you all know our little Lone Wanderer and his father?”

“It’s… kind of a long story,” Sunset said slowly.

“And I bet it’s an interesting one,” Three Dog replied, “I’ve got time, why don’t you all take a seat and tell me how you know James.”

“I’d like to hear this too,” Lyons cut in.

Sunset glanced around at her friends, unsure how exactly to start. 

“May as well tell them the truth sugarcube,” Applejack said suddenly, “Ah’ve already explained things to the Children of Atom, it’s only a matter of time before the news spreads.”

“I know, I’m just trying to figure out how we can explain everything without sounding crazy,” Sunset sighed. She was done with lying, with hiding who they were from the world. It was a huge risk, but it was time to reveal the truth, and there was something about Lyons and Three Dog that made her want to trust them, even if she had only just met them. 

Sighing again, Sunset dropped onto the nearest chair, then hissed as pain lanced through her chest.

“Hey, you okay?” Lyons asked as Fluttershy gasped and darted to her side. 

“She really ain’t,” Applejack muttered.

Fluttershy gently pressed a hand to Sunset’s side and turned to glance at Three Dog, “Um, would you mind turning around for a moment please? I need to check under her top.”

“Oh, uh, sure,” Three Dog quickly complied, politely turning and putting his back to them.

With a little help from Fluttershy, Sunset shrugged her jacket off and peeled off her top. The others winced as they saw the full extent of her injuries. The bruising around her ribs and stomach had gotten noticeably worse, dark purple splotches spreading across most of her side.

“That looks nasty,” Lyons said quietly.

Fluttershy didn’t respond as she gingerly checked Sunset’s ribs, then pulled out a stethoscope and listened carefully to her chest. Once that was done she moved down to her abdomen.  

Eventually she sighed and stood back up, “Okay, it doesn’t look like you’ve broken any of your ribs, you’ve just made the bruising a little worse.”

“That’s good news,” Sunset said with a little smile.

Fluttershy didn’t smile back, “It is, but I’m more concerned about your kidney. There’s definitely some swelling there that I really don’t like.” She pressed the back of her hand to Sunset’s forehead, chewing her lip nervously, “And you’re clammy too. That’s not a good sign.”

“Well we did just come through one heck of a fight, are you sure it’s not just the sweat cooling off?” Sunset replied reasonably.

“It could be, but I’m not sure,” Fluttershy frowned as she rummaged through her nursing kit, “I’ll give you a stimpak anyway, just in case. If you feel faint or shivery at all you let me know, okay?”

“I will, I promise,” Sunset hissed and bit her lip as Flutters slipped the needle into her arm, then sighed with relief as the stimpak did its work, the pain ebbing away swiftly.

“Can I turn around now?” Three Dog asked.

“One sec,” Sunset quickly grabbed her top and fumbled it back on, followed by her jacket, “Okay, I’m good.”

“Cool,” Three Dog turned back and glanced around for a moment before spotting an empty chair, “Hey, Sarah, want a seat?”

“I’m good thanks,” Lyons replied, not taking her eyes off Sunset.

Three Dog just shrugged and dropped into the chair. 

Sunset rubbed her neck awkwardly, still unsure of how to start. Finally she sighed, “Okay. What I’m about to tell you is going to sound… well… crazy.”

“Completely insane would probably be a more accurate description,” Twilight supplied.

Sunset just nodded, “In light of that, I think it would be best if we prove to you that we aren’t crazy first.” Her eyes flicked from Three Dog to Lyons, “Just… don’t freak out on us, okay?”

Three Dog nodded eagerly, “I’ve seen some pretty weird stuff in the wastes, give me your best shot.”

Lyons eyed Sunset suspiciously for a moment, before finally nodding once.

The two of them flinched at a sudden blur. Three Dog reached up to feel his face as he realized something was missing. 

“Looking for these?” Dash called from where she stood in the recording area, tapping the shades she was now sporting and grinning smugly. 

Three Dog and Lyons stared at her for a moment, but before either of them could speak their attention was stolen by a shelving unit that floated past, gripped in the purple glow of Twilight’s magic. A second later a gemstone materialized around one of the lights in the ceiling, bathing the room in a kaleidoscope of refracted colors.

“Oh… my… God…” Three Dog muttered.

“It’s beautiful,” Lyons breathed, “How is this even possible?”

Sunset couldn’t resist grinning slightly, “Magic. You see, we’re not actually from this world, but from another one.” She smile turned a little sad as she said, “One more different from this one than you can possibly imagine.”

Three Dog and Lyons both turned to goggle at her.

“Explain, right from the beginning!” Lyons commanded.

Taking one last deep breath to steady herself, Sunset told them everything. She told them about Equestria, the mirror and her arrival in Canterlot High. Then she set about giving a rough outline of the various adventures they had all been through together, with occasional input from the other girls. Sunset was careful not to mention that their Geodes were the source of their magical abilities though. That was information she really didn’t want loose in the wasteland, the last thing they needed was some psychopath trying to steal their Geodes.

The girls got progressively more excitable as they relived their old escapades Bringing up old memories and reliving happier moments. Lyons and Three Dog were a good audience, hardly interrupting except to ask for clarification or to gasp in outright surprise. 

All too soon the story turned to the Geode Diviner.  

With a heavy heart, Sunset reluctantly spoke of their ill-fated attempt to turn it on, and their subsequent arrival in Vault one-oh-one. The other girls went silent as she explained how James had attempted to help them find a way back home, then suddenly vanished one day, leaving the Vault in disarray. Her voice shaking, Sunset gave an outline of their own departure from the Vault and their desperate attempt to catch up with James, right up to their arrival in D.C.

Three Dog let out a breath as Sunset finally fell silent, “Jesus. I don’t even know what to say.”

“Didn’t James tell you anything before he left?” Lyons asked. She frowned as the girls just shook their heads, “Asshole! What the hell was he thinking?”

“He did tell me there was something really important he had to do,” three Dog supplied, “But still… that was a dick move.”

“Now you understand why we came to see you,” Sunset said quietly.

“Yeah, I get it,” Three Dog sighed heavily, “Okay, I’ll tell you where James and Adam went. However-” he raised a hand as the girls hurriedly thanked him, “When Adam came here asking after James, I asked him to contribute in return for the information. To help fight the Good Fight.”

Sunset frowned at him, “Wait… you mean you want us to fight for you?”

“No, no! That’s no what I meant!” Three Dog held up his hands in a placating manner, “Fighting the Good Fight doesn’t just mean going out there and killing the bad stuff. It also means doing what you can to help out those people who are just trying to survive.”

Three Dog sighed again and shook his head, “Look, I already feel like a dick for even asking, after everything you girls have been through, but is there anything you can do to help? Even if it’s only something small, just something to make life a little easier for the good people out there who are struggling to live in a world that doesn’t give a shit.”

Sunset folded her arms as she thought. Much as she wanted to help out, she couldn’t really think of anything off the top of her head that didn’t involve putting her friends in danger somehow.

“What about music?”

Everyone turned to look at Twilight curiously. 

“Sure, music is good. It lifts peoples spirits, gives them a chance to forget their troubles for a while.” Three Dog replied with a nod, “Only problem is I’ve already got my hands on every single record I can find that’s in a playable condition, unless you think you know where I can find some more?”

“Not exactly, but… well… I believe we’ve already mentioned that we’re all in a band together.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes at that, “I hate to break it to you Twilight, but I don’t think there’s any instruments around here that we can play.”

“That’s not what I was getting at,” Twilight smiled sheepishly as she slipped her pack off, “Actually… I may have managed to get some data off my phone before its battery died. Back in Vault one-oh-one.”

All of the girls stared at her in amazement.

“How in the heck did you manage that?” Applejack asked.

“Simple. I borrowed one of the microwave detectors that Stanley used to use for monitoring the plasma generators,” Twilight replied with a smug smile as she rummaged around in her pack.

Most of the girls just looked back at her with blank stares. 

Applejack frowned as she tried to put it together, “Uh, and how exactly did that help?”

“Bluetooth!” Sunset cried suddenly. She grinned as the others looked at her in bewilderment, “Bluetooth uses microwave radiation to transmit data!”

Twilight beamed at her, “Precisely! All I had to do was modify the detector to receive the signals properly, then write the software that allowed the Vault terminals to be able to store the data that was transmitted. Once that was done all I had to do was transfer our songs from the terminal… to… these!”

The girls gaped as Twilight pulled a handful of holotapes out from the depths of her pack.

Rainbow was the first one to break the stunned silence, “You mean… those are…?”

“Every single one of the Rainbooms’ songs!” Twilight cried happily as the others whooped and cheered. Blushing a little at her friends’ praise, Twilight got up and stepped over to Three Dog.

Three Dog accepted the tapes wordlessly, staring at them as if transfixed. A moment later he swept out of the chair and strode over to his recording station. Placing the tapes on a clear spot, he grabbed the topmost one and slotted into the console. With practiced movements he flipped a few switches and pulled on a set of headphones. The rest of the group watched with bated breath as he checked the equipment and then, finally, pressed the ‘play’ button.

“One! Two! Three! Four!”

Sunset couldn’t help the huge grin that spread across her face as Pinkie’s voice cried out from speakers set into the walls, followed by the opening notes of ‘Shine Like Rainbows’. Her smile only grew wider as Applejack sang out the opening lines in time with the recording, Rarity picking up with her own lines next. Taking their cue from those two, the rest of the girls joined in with the chorus. Despite not having practiced for over a month, they slipped into the song as if born to it. 

Bobbing her head in time with the beat, Sunset felt her heart start to soar as she sang, the music wrapping itself around her soul and soothing all of the pain and worry that she felt. Her magic bubbled up in response, overflowing to mix and combine with that of her friends. At the touch of their magic a bittersweet joy surged up inside Sunset, swelling to an almost painful intensity and sending happy tears streaming down her face as she ponied up.

After what felt like an eternity, the song finally ended. Sunset let out a heartfelt sigh as silence fell, brushing away the tears that lined her cheeks. Glancing around, she smiled as she saw the others doing the same, each of them ponied up and decked out in their glamorous magical outfits. 

“I think I needed that,” Pinkie said softly. 

“I think we all did darling,” Rarity countered, fiddling with her newly sapphire-encrusted arm brace.

“Definitely,” Sunset agreed, “So what do you think, Three Dog? Is our music okay?”

Three Dog didn’t answer. He was still standing at the console with his headphones on, utterly oblivious to the magical light show that had just occurred behind him. Ever so slowly, he reached up and tugged the headphones off, placing them gently on the console. 

“Wow. That was… that was pure. That had soul,” he said thickly. Heaving a shuddering sigh, he spoke without turning around, “James went to Rivet City, to speak to Doctor Li. Adam’s gone down there after him. It’s in an old aircraft carrier south of here, it’s got a pretty well equipped clinic too. I can mark it’s location on your Pip-Boys if you-”

Three Dog turned to face the girls, then blinked as he took in their new appearances, “Whoa, you girls really aren’t from this world are you?” He chuckled and reached up to dry his eyes as the girls shook their heads, “Hey, Sarah, you okay there?”

Sunset jolted as she remembered about the Sentinel. Looking around, she spotted Lyons still standing next to the pillar, her mouth hanging open as she stared at the girls. 

Pinkie skipped over and vigorously waved a hand in front of her face, “I think we broke her.” An evil grin slowly split Pinkie’s face as she licked a finger and pointed it at Lyons’ ear. Before she could violate the Lyons’ hole though, the Sentinel seemed to come to her senses, blinking and shaking her head rapidly. 

“Awwww,” Pinkie whined, putting her finger down and shuffling away.

Lyons stared after Pinkie for a moment, then shivered and glanced at Sunset, “It’s… it’s all true, isn’t it? You actually used to be a unicorn?”

Sunset giggled, “Yeah, it’s true.”

“This… this is incredible! I have to tell my father!” Lyons clasped her hands to her head, “Oh my God, this is crazy! Magic is real! I mean you’ve got those… those ears… and the wings… I… you…”

“Whoa now, take it easy there sugarcube, before you bust a gasket,” Applejack said soothingly.

As Lyons bent over and started taking deep breaths to calm herself, Sunset turned back to Three Dog.

“So, Rivet City was it?”

Three Dog nodded, still looking a little bamboozled himself, “Yeah. It’s the biggest and most advanced settlement in the Capital Wasteland.” His face turned grave as he looked Sunset in the eyes, “I warn you though, getting there will not be easy. If anything getting there will be even more dangerous than it was getting here. You think you can manage?”

“It’s not like we really have a choice,” Sunset grumbled, “Isn’t there any safe way out of D.C?”

“Not really,” Three Dog admitted, “The safest way would probably be to go back the way you came and take the long route around the outskirts of D.C.”

“Which way did Adam go?” Fluttershy asked.

Three Dog sighed, “Through the Metro tunnels. It’s the quickest way, but it’s also the most dangerous.”

Sunset groaned.

“We’re going to have to follow him through, aren’t we?” Rarity deadpanned. 

“You reckon there’s any way we can sneak through without getting spotted?” Applejack asked.

“No way,” Lyons cut in, “The tunnels that lead to Rivet City are packed full of super mutants, feral ghouls and raider outposts.”

The girls shared a worried look at that. They had barely made it through their last few confrontations alive. 

“It probably isn’t going to be all that bad,” Rainbow piped up suddenly. She raised an eyebrow as everyone gave her incredulous looks, “I mean, think about it. Adam’s already taken out one of those behemoth things, do you really think there’s going to be much left down in those tunnels once he’s been through there?”

Rarity opened her mouth to retort, then closed it again, stumped.

“That’s… actually a pretty good point,” Applejack admitted.

“The kid definitely knows how to handle himself,” Lyons agreed.

Twilight frowned and folded her arms, “It’s still risky. Adam may be more dangerous than we expected, but I doubt he’s managed to completely clear the way from here to Rivet City.”

“Of course it’s risky, but we can do this!” Rainbow said firmly.

“I suppose the feral ghouls aren’t too much of an issue, as scary as they are,” Rarity added, “The problem is going to be dealing with any super mutants or raiders that are left down there.”

“You leave any of those rotten super mutants to me,” Applejack growled.

Fiddling with the folds on her dress, an idea slowly started to form in Sunset’s mind, “There’s something else that we haven’t considered that could work in our favor.”

“What is it?” Twilight asked curiously.

“Our magic. So far we’ve mostly been hiding it, but maybe we should be doing the opposite.” 

Rarity raised an eyebrow at that, “Whatever do you mean darling?”   

“I mean we should go all out! Really use our powers!” Sunset said eagerly.

“Heck yeah!” Rainbow cried, “Hit any bad guys we find as hard as we can before they have a chance to react!”

Applejack nodded slowly, “Yeah, ah guess that could work, I mean we all saw how the sheriff reacted to our magic back in Arefu.”

“You, um… you mean we should try and scare people?” Fluttershy asked softly.

Sunset grinned maliciously, “Well, we are already ponied up.”

“Shock and Awe tactics,” Lyons said quietly, “If you can use your magic offensively like that, any raiders you come across would probably be scared shitless.” She frowned as she inspected the girls, “Still, magic powers or not you’re going to need better equipment. Wait here while I go see if we can spare anything from our supplies. When I get back I want details on exactly what your magic is capable of.”

“Sure thing,” Sunset flopped into a chair as Lyons headed back down the stairs. 

The movement sent a small twinge through her ribs, but overall the combination of stimpak and magic had helped with the pain in her body immeasurably, though she was suddenly starting to feel extremely thirsty. Shrugging slightly, Sunset pulled her backpack off and dug around for a water bottle. 





What's up Wastelanders? This is Three Dog, bow-wow! And you're listening to GNR! That's Galaxy News Radio, in case you forgot!

News time, children!

I’m coming to you live with a special report, and believe me when I tell you they don’t get any crazier than this!

Okay children, you remember I told you about James, the guy who crawled out of Vault one-oh-one? And then I told you about his son, our very own Lone Wanderer, who dug his way out shortly afterwards? Well I’ve just had a visit from seven, you heard me, SEVEN girls who’ve dragged their asses out of there too!

If you think that’s crazy, wait until you hear the rest. 

The thing is, these girls are NOT ordinary girls. In fact, they are about as far as you can possibly get from being normal. 

You see, these girls aren’t originally from Vault one-oh-one. In fact, they aren’t from the Capital Wasteland. They aren’t even from this planet!

That’s right children, you heard me. These girls came from a completely, different, world! Even crazier, these girls have magic! Real. God-damned. MAGIC.

Now before you go wondering just how much Jet I’ve been taking, you wait until you see them around. These girls, they call themselves the Rainbooms, they come in a variety of kooky colors, and I ain’t talking about black or white here.

First you’ve got Sunset Shimmer. Yes, that’s her real name. She’s got amber skin, red and yellow hair, and an attitude you do NOT want to mess with. A classic case of bad girl gone good, apparently she used to be a real devil before the rest of the Rainbooms helped her see the light. 

Oh right, almost forgot. She also has the ability to see people’s memories. 

I’m not kidding you here, she knows how to READ YOUR GOD-DAMN MIND!

Next you’ve got Applejack, trust me these names get even weirder as we go along. She looks kinda like an ordinary white girl at first. A regular old country cowgirl, she’s even got the hat and the accent to match. 

She also has super strength. Seriously.

As in, I just saw her lift a fully armored Brotherhood knight over her head like it was nothing. Do NOT screw with this girl, she WILL break you.

Next is Pinkie Pie-

Hey that’s me!

AAHH! Where the HELL did you come from!?

From up here silly!

From up… what… where the heck did she go? What the HELL do you mean that’s just what Pinkie does!? WHAT THE F-

Ahem. 

Sorry about that children. As I was saying, next is Pinkie Pie, who apparently likes to tell the laws of physics to go screw themselves every now and again. 

Also she can make shit explode just by touching it. 

And in case you’re wondering, yes. She’s pink. 

Skin. Hair. All pink. 

VERY pink.

And speaking of pink, next is Fluttershy. Pink hair, yellow skin, and yellow feathers. Yes… feathers. Her magic lets her sprout wings, as well as letting her talk to animals. 

That’s right children. Fluttershy here has the power to hold full blown conversations with the funky mutated fauna of the wastes. 

I wonder if they like GNR?

Next you have Rainbow Dash, this is one who really lives up to her name. Her hair literally has every damn colour of the rainbow in it.  

And her magic?  Yep, you guessed it. Super speed. If you blink, you’ve already missed her. This crazy cat can grow wings too, great big blue ones that match her skin.

Who’s next? 

Ah yes, the lovely Rarity. Skin more clean and white than anything you’ve ever seen, and purple hair that just about screams glamorous. This delightful young lady can create gemstones out thin air. 

Don’t get you hopes up though children, the gems disappear after a while. No point in trying to steal any.

Lastly you have Twilight Sparkle, apparently the newest member of the group. Her skin and hair are all different shades of purple, and this one grows wings too! 

Oh, and she can also move stuff using her mind. Real live telekinesis. 

Freaky stuff. 

Now these girls, they’re looking for a way home. Back to their own world. When they first arrived here through a portal, they ended up in a very particular Vault. Vault one-oh-one.

You see where this is going yet?

That’s right children, James was helping these girls find a way back, before he up and disappeared. 

So if you see the Rainbooms out and about in the wasteland, come up and say hi, wish them well. 

And James, if you’re listening, these girls are out, they’re looking for you, and they need your help. You too Lone Wanderer. 

Ah yes, one last thing. 

These Rainbooms? They’re actually part of their own band, and guess who just a copy of each of their songs?

Coming up next we have ‘Shine Like Rainbows’, by the Rainbooms. 

Thanks for listening, chiiill-dren! This is Three Dog, AWOOOOO! And you're listening to Galaxy News Radio! We're Radio Free Wasteland! And we're here... for you





Confessor Cromwell and his followers listened intently as the news report ended and the music began. He mentally patted himself on the back for having the foresight to acquire a radio for the congregation area. Ever since the Angels of Atom had left he’d been certain that stories of their divinity would soon reach Galaxy News, and now his faith was being rewarded. 

Several of Cromwell’s fellow Children of Atom openly wept as they listened to the beautiful song of their salvation. He couldn’t blame them. Just hearing their holy voices was enough to dispel the worries that Cromwell had felt only moments before, as he argued points of belief with certain members of his flock. He surreptitiously glanced over at their ringleader as the song continued. 

Joshua’s eyes were closed, tears streaming down his face as he swayed in time with the music. He was a young man, barely out of his teens. His sleek black hair was currently tied back in a ponytail, something he’d only started doing since their Divine Grace’s the Angels Rarity and Rainbow Dash had first visited the Church of Atom looking for work. 

Cromwell sighed and bowed his head as the song came to an end. Much as he disagreed with Joshua on matters of faith he could not bring himself to hate the boy, it simply wasn’t in his nature. Certainly the lad and his beliefs were far less boorish and dangerous than those of Marie. 

Cries of shock and alarm from his flock brought Cromwell’s head snapping around, “What is it? What is wrong?”
His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets when he saw what had grasped his followers attention. 

Twin spirals of sparkling light were rising from the floor just in front of the benches, one red and one blue. With a jolt Cromwell realized the spirals were forming right where the Angels Rainbow Dash and Sunset Shimmer had shown their true, angelic natures. ‘Ponying up’ the Angel Applejack had called it. 

“The music! The holy song!” Joshua cried as he shot to his feet, clasping his hands together, “The power of the Glorious Ones is rising in response to the Holy Song!” 

Cromwell just stared as the loose magical spirals slowly entwined, forming a glowing, twirling double helix that stood taller than a man.  

“I see, Joshua,” Cromwell said softly as he stepped out from behind the lectern, never once taking his eyes off the magical display, “This is a sign from the Angels.” Joshua shook his head slowly, eyes still glued to the helix as well, but Cromwell cut him off before he could speak, “I know we disagree on that matter, but that is besides the point. I think we can both agree on what this blessing is telling us.”

“To work together,” Joshua said slowly.

Cromwell nodded, “I have spoken to Sheriff Simms about acquiring the building once owned by that poor lost soul,  in preparation for constructing a suitable dwelling place for their Divine Graces.” He finally tore his eyes away from the glowing spectacle, to look Joshua in the eyes, “I believe, in this matter, our aims are aligned.”

Joshua just nodded, his eyes still wet, “A shared aim, a shared purpose and a shared building.”

Cromwell smiled and held out a hand, which Joshua grasped firmly, “Come then my boy, we have a Temple to build.”





Deep underground, in the depths of a mountain fortress, two young women were busy poring over a set of blueprints. One had her long golden hair tied back into a tight ponytail, while the other let her shoulder-length blonde locks hang loose. Both were wearing long, white lab coats with a distinctive emblem on the shoulder, a circle of stars around a stylized E.

“What do you think, Becky?” the first asked softly. 

“I don’t know, Tara. Do you really think he’ll go for it?”

“Oooohhh, I sure hope so,” Tara replied nervously. 

Both women started as the door behind them opened with a sudden hiss, then snapped to salute as an older man stepped through.

“I’ve told you before you don’t have to salute me, girls,” the man chuckled as he closed the door behind him, “I’m not technically military.”

“Sorry, Doctor Turner.”

“Sorry Doc.”

Doctor Turner just waved away their apologies, “It’s fine, it’s fine. Have you finished the assignment you were given?”

“Oh! Yes sir!” Tara hurried over to a set of drawers and pulled out a set of papers and a small metal box, which she handed to the doctor, “Here, we’ve completed the designs for the Duraframe servos you asked for.” 

“Excellent work! I’ll send these over to the air base today. Hopefully the rest of the research teams will be done within the month and we can finally start production on the Hellfire models.”

“We’ve also got these,” Becky handed him another sheet of designs, “It’s a schematic for an improved and extensive plasma relay that lines the frame. I know it’s not something we can add to the design at such a late stage but-”

“But we might be able to create a prototype for Sigma to test out,” Turner interrupted, “Nice work girls, I’m impressed.”

The two girls shared an excited look.

Turner raised an eyebrow at them, “I know that look.” 

“What look?” Tara said, a little too innocently.

“That look. What else have you been up to?”

Tara couldn’t resist a grin as she gestured to the schematics she’d spent almost all of her spare time slaving over.

Turner sighed and rolled his eyes, but still meandered over to take a look. He studied the designs intently for a moment, before glancing up at Tara, “Is this… what I think it is?”

Tara could barely hold in her excitement, “It’s a design for a radiation scrubber! One that can scour any and all forms of ionizing radiation from the ground within a certain radius!” 

“Amazing…” Turner breathed, “But this design isn’t complete.”

“Well, no. Not yet,” Tara admitted, “I’m still having trouble working out the power requirements and-”

“What will it take to complete it?” Turner asked in a resigned tone. 

Tara smiled sheepishly at him, “Well… it would really help if I could take a look at a G.E.C.K?”

“As I thought,” Turner turned a pitying gaze on her, “I’m sorry, but we have neither a G.E.C.K module nor the resources to acquire one at this time.” He sighed as she slumped her shoulders in defeat, “Look, Tara. You’re a brilliant scientist and given time and resources I’m sure this is something you could achieve, but unfortunately those are just two of the things that we are severely lacking in.”

“I understand,” Tara said dejectedly as Becky gave her a consoling pat on the shoulder. 

Turner gave her a small smile, “Come on now, chin up. I’m not the only one who believes you are a genius. The President does too.”

“The President?!” Tara and Becky gasped in unison.

“Yes indeed,” Turner chuckled, “In fact, he has requested you both personally for a particularly important assignment.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s amazing!” Tara cried.

Turner raised a finger, silencing the women instantly, “Yes, it is. However I must warn you that this assignment has been classified as Top Secret. The only personnel you are allowed to speak to about this are myself and President Eden himself, as well as any further staff who are attached to the project at a later date.”

“That sounds serious,” Becky said quietly.

Turner nodded. With a quick glance at the door to make sure it was still closed, he leaned close to the women and lowered his voice, “As you know, we have been monitoring the situation in the wasteland using our survey Eyebots.” 

He waited for both women to nod before continuing, “A couple of days ago one of our Eyebots detected what we believed was a new strain of human mutation. However, less than an hour ago we intercepted a radio broadcast from a wastelander station which indicates that this may not be the case.”

“What do you mean?” Tara asked slowly. 

“I’m sorry Sparkles, Sunny, but I can’t give you any details here,” Turner grinned as the women blushed at his use of their pet names for each other, “You are to report to President Eden in person today at nineteen hundred hours sharp. The codename for this assignment is Project Exodus.”
> Chapter 22 - Hypovolemia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset sighed as she made her way down the stairs towards the rear exit of Galaxy News Radio. 

“You okay, sugarcube?” Applejack asked.

Sunset glanced at her and tried to smile, “Yeah, I’m just… not really looking forward to this part.” 

“Yeah, me neither,” Applejack agreed somberly. “But hey, at least Sentinel Lyons managed to scrounge this up for us!” she said brightly as she brandished her new bolt-action hunting rifle. It was the only weapon the girls had accepted from the Brotherhood’s stores, aside from a new pair of combat knives for Rainbow Dash. 

Rarity and Pinkie were more comfortable with their magic, Fluttershy adamantly refused a weapon of any kind, and giving Twilight a gun would frankly have endangered the Rainbooms more than any opponent they faced. Sunset had decided to stick with her pistol rather than risk aggravating her ribs with a heavier weapon, even if it was running low on ammunition. If push came to shove, she could always just pilfer any weapons she found along the way.

Sunset glowered as the thought of scavenging crossed her mind. That had been part of the survival lesson the girls had received from Lyons after they given her a rundown of their magical abilities; to always loot anything useful you can find, even off the corpses of your enemies, so long as you can safely carry it. Essential to their survival though it may be, Sunset still didn’t relish the prospect of rummaging through the pockets of dead people. 

“Ah, here it is!”

Sunset glanced up at the sound of Rarity’s voice. There, at the bottom of the stairs, waited the reinforced rear-exit of Galaxy News. 

“Well, this is it. Y’all ready?” Applejack asked.

A few moments passed with no response. 

Finally Sunset sighed and stepped forward, “Come on, let’s just get this over with.” 

“Just be careful,” Twilight warned, “Three-Dog said there’s a big drop on the other side of this.”

Sunset nodded as she turned the handle and shoved the heavy door open, then gasped as she saw the aforementioned drop. 

If the building had been intact, the girls would still be inside Galaxy News. As it was, the whole rear of the building had been blown away, leaving barely a meter of floor left on the other side of the door. Leaning over the edge, Sunset could see that each of the floors below had been destroyed as well, leaving a treacherous climb down several storeys until they reached the ground.  

“Well that’s not good,” Rainbow commented, “Want me to fly down and see if it’s clear?”

Sunset nodded, “Good idea, but be careful.”

“Sure thing.”

With a quick flap of her wings Rainbow leapt into the air and banked around, soaring in lazy arcs as she scouted the floors below. As soon as she reached the ground she did one last sweep then shot back up towards the rest of the group.

“We’re good, but the floors below are pretty messed up. Looks like there’s a few places where you’ll have to jump down to the next level.”

Rarity gave one of her characteristic scoffs, “Oh please, darling. You’re forgetting who you’re with.” Stepping up to the edge, she swept one arm out in an elegant gesture and a series of gemstones materialized, glittering stepping stones that spiraled down all the way to the bottom, “Ta da!”

“Nice work, Rarity!” Pinkie said appreciatively.

“Yup, that saves us a bit of trouble,” Applejack added. 

As Rainbow, Fluttershy and Twilight flew down under their own power, Sunset led the others down the makeshift stepping stones, keeping a hand on her pistol just in case. Sneaking a peek at the winged girls, Sunset was surprised to see that their pony-up transformation had even affected their backpacks, adjusting the straps and even altering the packs themselves so the girls could use their wings without difficulty.

Outside the remains of the building exterior, the path, or at least what passed for one, split in two. The left-hand way headed over a bridge to another metro entrance, while the right-hand way sloped steeply down and curved away out of sight behind piles of rubble. 

“So which way now?” Rainbow asked as the others caught up. 

“To the right,” Twilight replied, “That way should lead to an old car tunnel we need to go through.”

Making their way carefully down the hill, the girls rounded the corner and followed what was left of an ancient road strewn with the burnt out husks of cars and buses. It was lined on one side by a high wall and on the other by towering piles of debris. As they picked their way through the rubble Pinkie suddenly held a hand out, stopping them all. 

“Hold on a second,” she whispered, peeking over the top of a car.

“What is it?” Rarity asked.

“Feral ghoul, by the door over there.”

Peering ahead, Sunset saw that the road descended into a tunnel, but the entrance was entirely blocked by rubble save for a small pedestrian access door off to the side. Sure enough, a single feral ghoul was shambling around aimlessly next to it.

“Ah see it,” Applejack said quietly, raising her rifle.

A single gunshot rang out and the ghoul crumpled to the floor.

Rainbow nodded appreciatively, “Nice shot, AJ.”

Applejack didn’t respond as she lowered her rifle and led the way over to the fallen ghoul. The ghoul lay on it’s back, moaning feebly as blood dribbled from the neat little hole in its chest. Despite herself, Sunset couldn’t help but feel sorry for it. Another gunshot echoed off the walls as Applejack put the poor thing out of its misery, making each of the others flinch. 

“Well, that’s that out of the way,” Applejack muttered.

“Whoa AJ, that was cold,” Rainbow said, giving her a half-impressed, half-worried look. 

“It had to be done. You girls coming?”

Sunset nodded curtly, tearing her eyes away from the corpse, “Yeah. Rainbow? You and Applejack go in first, the rest of us will follow.”

“And remember girls, try and stay quiet. We want to see any trouble before it sees us,” Twilight added. 

“Got it,” Rainbow replied as she stepped over to the door. She grasped the handle and glanced over her shoulder at Applejack, who readied her rifle and gave a quick nod. Quickly and quietly, Rainbow opened the door and stepped aside to let the farm girl lead the way. 

The girls found themselves in a maintenance corridor lined with pipes. After only a few paces the corridor rounded a corner and abruptly opened up into a car tunnel.

The tunnel was devastated, shattered vehicles and mounds of rubble covering almost the entirety of the floor. Squinting in the dim light, Sunset could just make out the corridor on the other side of the tunnel that they needed to head for. Crouching low, the girls crept forward slowly, not willing to take any chances. Every now and again a low growl would echo through the tunnel and terrify the group, but, after what felt like an eternity, they reached the corridor without incident. 

Moving forward as quietly as they could, the Rainbooms made their way carefully through a series of corridors, offices and tunnels, each of them utterly deserted, save for a couple of dead super mutants. After wrestling with her squeamishness, Sunset was more than a little annoyed that neither of the bodies had anything even mildly useful on them. 

It wasn’t until the group finally entered the metro tunnels proper that they encountered something living.

Stepping out of a corridor and onto the tracks, the girls spotted a wall of sandbags and a wooden barricade in an adjacent tunnel, clearly an outpost or encampment of some kind. At first they thought it was just as abandoned as the rest of the metro so far, until they heard a gurgling cough from behind the barricade. 

Each of the girls tensed up, ready for battle. 

When nothing immediately jumped out and attacked, Rainbow silently drew her blades and crept forward. Sunset held her breath as the athlete peeked behind the barricade, then released it as she sheathed her blades again and straightened up, waving the others over.

“What is it?” Sunset whispered as she tip-toed over.

“See for yourself,” Rainbow whispered back.

Curious, Sunset poked her head behind the barricade, then gasped at what she saw. 

A girl was asleep on a bed set up in the middle of the tracks, clutching an assault rifle to her chest. Her head was entirely shaved, and she was wearing little more than a ripped pair of shorts and a threadbare tank top. Even in the darkness Sunset could clearly make out the bloodstained bandage wrapped around her gut.   

“Oh no, do you think she’s alright?” Fluttershy asked.

“Uh, you do know she’s probably a raider, right?” Rainbow hissed.

“That doesn’t mean we can just leave her like this!”

The two quickly shut their mouths as the girl moaned and shifted, her eyes opening slowly. She blinked stupidly at the Rainbooms for a second, then yelped as her gun was snatched out of her grip by a purple aura.

“Easy! Easy,” Applejack said quietly, slinging her own rifle over her shoulder as the girl looked around fearfully, “We ain’t going to hurt you. Ah’m Applejack, what’s your name?”

Eyeing the group warily, the girl sat up slowly. Looking at her, Sunset realized the poor girl couldn’t be more than fourteen or fifteen, “Maddy. Name’s Maddy. What the fuck are you people?”

“How charming,” Rarity muttered sarcastically.

“You didn’t hear the radio broadcast?” Sunset asked.

Pinkie raised an eyebrow at her, “Uh, I don’t see a radio down here Sunshim.”

“Yeah, this isn’t exactly a fucking penthouse.” Maddy said scathingly.

Sunset opened her mouth to retort, then closed it when she couldn’t think of anything to say. 

“Alright, that’s enough cussing missy,” Applejack cut in suddenly, “You okay Sunset? You’re looking mighty peaky.”

Sunset frowned, a little annoyed with herself for not coming up with a snappy comeback, “Yeah, I’m fine, just a little sore. I’m going to sit over here for minute.” Suiting actions to words, she plonked herself down on the edge of the tracks. Ignoring the stab of pain that shot through her stomach, she slipped her pack off and dug around for another water bottle. 

I can’t believe I need another drink already. Why am I so thirsty!?

Turning back to Maddy, Applejack gestured to the bandage around her gut, “So what happened to you?”

“And where’s the rest of your raider buddies?” Rainbow added with a frown.

Maddy threw Rainbow a filthy look, “This is just a scratch, nothing I can’t handle. And as for the rest of the crew, they…” her voice wavered as she stared defiantly at Rainbow. Finally she looked away, “They’re all dead.”

“Oh! You poor thing!” Fluttershy rushed forward and pulled the protesting young girl into a hug. Maddy struggled for a few moments, then gave in an just accepted the cuddle with a sigh.

“So what happened?” Rainbow asked.

“Rainbow don’t press the poor girl, she’s been through enough,” Rarity said chidingly.

“It’s fine,” Maddy huffed, glowering from under Fluttershy’s wings, “It’s all that vault asshole’s fault.”

Sunset glanced up at that, “You mean Adam?”

“How the fuck should I know his name?” Maddy shot, earning a reproachful look from Flutters. She rolled her eyes before continuing, “Fine I’ll stop swearing. Anyway, me and a couple of the others were down in one of the camps when this guy in a vault outfit comes out of nowhere and starts shooting up the place. All of the noise attracted the ferals, and he escaped in the confusion. I was the only one who made it back here.”

“That’s awful,” Fluttershy said quietly, squeezing Maddy a little tighter.

Rainbow rubbed her neck awkwardly, “I hate to say it but… you know… if they were raiders-”

“Then they deserved it?” Maddy spat, “Well those raiders were the only fuckers who would take me in after my parents were eaten by a fucking deathclaw, so watch your fucking mouth you mutant slut!”

“That’s ENOUGH!” 

All of the girls turned to stare at Sunset in surprise.

“Look, we don’t have time to sit here and argue right and wrong. Fluttershy, can you help her sort that wound out properly?”

“O-of course.”

“Good. Give her a stimpak if you have to. And as for you,” Maddy couldn’t help but flinch as Sunset addressed her, “I can’t even begin to imagine whatever you’ve been through, but right now you have a chance to turn things around. Do you know the way to Galaxy News?”

Maddy looked uncertainly at her, “Uh, yeah?”

“Good. As soon as you feel up to it I want you to sneak out of here and find your way there.”

“But the Brotherhood of-”

“Won’t hurt you as long as you keep your gun away and your hands up,” Sunset continued firmly, “Tell them the Rainbooms sent you, and that you want to speak to Three-Dog. As long as you’re willing to help, then he’ll look after you.”

Maddy chewed her lip nervously as she thought it over, but finally she nodded. 

“Are you sure it’s alright to just leave her alone?” Rarity asked in an undertone as Fluttershy went to work.

“Probably, I mean it’s got to be safer than following us around down here, right?” Sunset tried to stand back up, only to stumble as a wave of dizziness rushed over her. 

“Whoa there!” Applejack grabbed her by the shoulders to steady her, “You okay there sugarcube?”

“Yeah… yeah… just stood up too quickly,” Sunset muttered, then hissed as another jolt of pain flashed through her gut, followed by a bigger wave of dizziness. 

Dimly she realized that something was going very, very wrong.

“Fluttershy…?”

The room span as Sunset’s legs crumpled beneath her, Applejack barely managed to catch her before her head hit the tracks, “Hey! Wha- Fluttershy get over here!” 

Fluttershy was at her side in a flash, “Quick, lay her down!” 

As soon as Sunset was safely settled on the floor Flutters reached down and yanked up her dress.

“Fluttershy be careful of her modest… oh my…” Rarity trailed off as she saw Sunset’s exposed midriff. 

The bruising had gotten even worse, and there was a noticeable swelling on the one side.

“Everyone give us some space!” The rest of the group backed away as Twilight darted forward, dropping to her knees next to Fluttershy.

“No… oh no…. no no no…” Ignoring Sunset’s pained moan, Fluttershy ran her hands over the swelling, her face growing steadily paler as she inspected it. With a sudden movement she pulled a stimpak from her nursing kit and slid it into Sunset’s arm. As soon as it was empty she withdrew it and turned back to her kit, rummaging around for something else.  

Sunset sighed with relief as the stimpak took the edge off the ever-increasing stabbing pains in her gut. The relief was short-lived as she saw Fluttershy pull a blood pack out of her kit, check the blood type, and carefully slide the needle into her arm. 

“What’s going on, what’s with the blood?” Rainbow asked. 

“She’s haemorrhaging,” Twilight breathed. 

Applejack raised an eyebrow, “She what now?”

Twilight just shook her head, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob.

Sunset felt a chill run through her as the others shared a worried look. 

Oh no, please tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it does.

Fluttershy’s voice shook as she spoke. “We… we have to get moving. We need to get to Rivet City as soon as possible.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? There’s no way Sunset’s up to that journey right now,” Applejack replied slowly, “Shouldn’t we rest here for a bit to let her get her stren-”

“We don’t have that kind of TIME!” Fluttershy snapped, “Her kidney contusion has gotten worse and now something has ruptured. She’s bleeding internally.”

The others stared in shock as Fluttershy lost her composure, tears streaming silently down her face as her whole body shook. 

Sunset felt cold terror grip her at Fluttershy’s words. She didn’t have much medical knowledge, but she knew enough to know exactly how much trouble she was in right now.

Her eyes burned as she glanced helplessly up at Twilight. 

“I’m dying, aren’t I?”
> Chapter 23 - Fading Sunset
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

If there was one thing that Twilight Sparkle was proud of, it was her intellect. Her agile mind and intense curiosity had always been her greatest assets, equaled by few, beaten by none. 

They had also lead her to her greatest failure. 

Midnight Sparkle. 

Even the mere thought of the monstrosity she had become was enough to send a shiver down Twilight’s spine. 

But it was through that failure that Twilight had encountered what had swiftly become one of the most important parts of her life. Her friends. 

While they admired and respected her intelligence it wasn’t what made her important to them. It was Twilight that they valued, and she in turn valued them more than anything save for her family. They had taught her the magic of friendship, and that sometimes, just sometimes, there were occasions where she should listen to her heart and not her head. 

So when Sunset Shimmer had made a difficult request of her, back in the Megaton clinic, Twilight had listened. Despite every iota of her vast intellect screaming at her to refuse, that it would only end badly, both she and Fluttershy had accepted Sunset’s request. After all Sunset’s own intelligence was not inconsiderable, she had far more experience both with friendship and, thanks to her chequered past, physical confrontation. 

Now, looking down at Sunset’s battered form, Twilight realized that not listening to her intellect had led her to another colossal failure. 

She just hoped her friend wouldn’t have to pay the ultimate price for this mistake.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Sunset!”

Twilight was snapped back to her senses by the sound of Applejack’s reproach.

“Come on now, ah’m sure it’s mighty unpleasant, but you’re just being dramatic. There’s no way you’re dying, right girls?” Applejack looked unsurely from Twilight to Fluttershy, “Uh…. Right?”

“Unless we can get her to a competent surgeon in time then…” Twilight trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. 

The girls stood in horrified silence as the awful truth sank in. 

Rarity was the first to stir, turning and shrieking at the others, “Well don’t just stand there! Rainbow, grab Sunset and get her to Rivet City this instant!”

“Right!”

Twilight grabbed Rainbow’s arm before she could dart off, “No! Wait! It’s too dangerous!”

“How can it be too dangerous!?” Rainbow shot back, “You said it yourself, Sunset’s going to die if we don’t hurry!”

“You won’t make it on your own.”

The girls turned at the sound of Maddy’s voice.

“Oh yeah? What do you know?” Rainbow spat.

Maddy snorted at her, “Your little asshole of a friend managed to get the attention of almost every goddamned feral down here. If you try to get through that mess on your own, you’re fucked. Especially the far camp, that was fucking swamped.” She shook her head and glanced over at Fluttershy, “Besides, I switched the turrets back on in the cavern ahead. You’ll have to switch them off at the terminal if you want to get past.”

“Turrets?” Rarity asked worriedly.

“If there’s a terminal, I can deactivate them,” Twilight said quickly, “Thanks, Maddy!”

Maddy just huffed and looked away, though a small blush colored her cheeks, “Yeah, well, you helped me, now I helped you. We’re even. Just try not to get killed down there.”

“Yeah yeah, thanks for the info squirt, now come on and let’s go already!” Rainbow cried.

Applejack nodded at that, “Alright, in that case ah’ll carry Sunset until we’re past the turrets, then we’ll see how bad the ghoul situation is. Sound good?” 

The others agreed quickly. Suiting actions to words, Applejack knelt down and hefted Sunset easily in a princess carry, eliciting a pained hiss despite how careful she tried to be.

“Sorry about that sugarcube.”

“It’s fine,” Sunset replied. She sighed heavily as Fluttershy, “I’m sorry girls, this is-”

“Don’t you start worrying about us now, you just rest and save your strength,” Applejack said firmly as she let Fluttershy pin the blood pack to her shirt, to keep it elevated as they moved.

As soon as that was done the girls set off, leaving Maddy behind. Rainbow took the lead as the group entered another maintenance corridor, rushing ahead recklessly while the rest of the girls stayed behind Applejack, who herself was moving as quickly as she could without dislodging the blood pack.

Hurrying through a series of corridors, Twilight couldn’t repress a shiver as they came across a pair of dead raiders. Both of their throats had been slashed.

“This is insane,” Rarity muttered. 

“This whole world is crazy,” Sunset hissed as Applejack stepped carefully over the corpses.

“Hey, hurry it up!” Rainbow called from up ahead. 

As the girls emerged from the corridor into a small office space, Twilight’s attention was immediately drawn to the bulky computer terminal sat next to a door. She assumed it was the one Maddy had mentioned, that controlled a set of turrets. Before she got a chance to take a closer look, however, Rainbow yanked the door open and rushed out onto a metal walkway, overlooking a rocky cavern. 

Twilight’s heart leapt into her mouth as she realized what was about to happen.

“RAINBOW LOOK OUT!” Pinkie screamed.

“Huh, WHOA!”

There was a clatter of gunfire and a blur as Rainbow dove aside, barely avoiding the streams of bullets that tore apart the walkway where she had been standing a split-second before. 

The rest of the girls scurried for cover as Twilight darted to the terminal, Rainbow’s terrified yells barely audible over the roar of the turrets. After a few seconds of rapidly typing commands the turrets deactivated, leaving a ringing silence in their wake.

The girls peeked warily out of their hiding places, then Fluttershy scrambled frantically for the door. 

“Rainbow!?”

“I’m okay!”

Twilight stuck her head around the door to see Rainbow flapping slowly up towards them, a sheepish look on her face. She barely had time to land before Fluttershy flung her arms around her neck.

“Whoa, take it easy Flutters,” Rainbow said quietly, though she smiled as she said it, “I’m okay.”

“But you very nearly weren’t,” Applejack growled as she stepped out from behind a cabinet, still clutching Sunset, “What the heck were you thinking?”

Rainbow glowered as she extricated herself from Fluttershy, “I was trying to hurry. Y’know, so we can get Sunset to a doctor as soon as possible?”

“Fat lot of good it did, you nearly got yourself killed!”

“Girls! We don’t have time for this!” Rarity interjected before it devolved into an argument. A pained moan from Sunset served to punctuate her statement.

Applejack looked down at her worriedly, “Er, right. Let’s get moving.”

Rainbow nodded vigorously, “Good idea, just be careful out here on the walkway. It’s… uh… not safe.”

Following her out onto the walkway, the girls saw exactly what she meant. It was well built, if a little patchwork, winding down and around until it reached the floor of the cavern. The problem was that it had also clearly been the site of a terrible battle. The bodies of dead raiders were sprawled haphazardly across it and it had been shredded in several places by recent heavy gunfire.

Deciding against navigating such a treacherous route, Rarity conjured a glittering series of gemstones to use as stepping stones to the ground. Rainbow, Fluttershy and Twilight took to the air, flying alongside the others as they descended.

Once they reached the bottom the Rainbooms hurried onward, making their way into a rocky tunnel that dripped with condensation, with several inches of stagnant water covering the floor. A metal walkway rose slightly above the murk, but it was coated with slime and filth, forcing the girls to tread carefully.

“There’s one thing I don’t get,” Pinkie said suddenly, “Isn’t Sunset’s contusion basically just a bruise, but on the inside?”

Twilight nodded, keeping a wary eye on their surroundings in case a feral ghoul or something worse was lurking in the shadows, “It’s a little more complicated than that, but essentially yes.”

“But isn’t a bruise just bleeding on the inside anyway? How come it’s gotten so bad all of a sudden?”

“It’s not that simple. A kidney contusion is a very serious condition that can deteriorate rapidly without the proper precautions.”

“Hold up, you never told us that!” Rainbow cried suddenly.

Twilight snapped her mouth shut. She risked a glance at Sunset, only to see her face-palming in Applejack’s arms. 

Applejack herself was glaring angrily at Twilight and Fluttershy, “If it’s so serious then why the heck didn’t we just stay put in Megaton until it was healed!?”

“What possible reason could you have for not telling us?” Rarity asked.

Twilight shared an awkward look with Fluttershy, “Um… well… you see…”

“I asked them not to tell you.”

The girls all stared in shock at Sunset’s admission. 

“I know it was a stupid thing to do, but I didn’t see any other choice.” 

“No other choice?!” Rarity asked incredulously.

Sunset sighed heavily, “We’ve been in this world over a month already and we still have no idea of how to get home. James is our only shot at getting back, the longer we take finding him the more chance there is that something terrible will happen and we’ll be stuck here.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes, “Uh, hello? James used to live out here in the wasteland! He knows how to survive out here.”

“To be fair, he has spent the last twenty years living peacefully in a vault,” Pinkie added reasonably.

“That’s still no reason to go risking yourself like that!” Applejack said sternly, “Ah know you want to get home, we all do. But why are you being so desperate about it?”

Sunset bit her lip and looked away, eyes brimming with tears, “You girls have families waiting for you. I just… I couldn’t…”

Twilight’s heart clenched as she watched Sunset start sobbing quietly, “We told her not to worry about it, but… well… you know how she gets,” The others nodded sagely at that, “Besides, James is a brilliant doctor so we figured that if we could keep an eye on her injury until we found him, then he could fix her up.”

“And that’s why you agreed to keep it quiet,” Rarity muttered, on the verge of tears herself, “Damn it, Sunset. Of all the stubborn, stupid, selfless little stunts you could have pulled…”

Applejack sighed as she looked down at her charge, “Alright now, settle down sugarcube. Ah may not agree with what you did but ah get why you did it. So come on now, stop worrying and just focus on saving your strength, alright?”

The Rainbooms fell into silence after that, traversing the walkway with as much haste as they could safely muster. 

Fortunately the tunnel came to an end after only a few twists and turns, the walkway itself leading up to a heavy, reinforced utility door. 

“Finally!” Rainbow huffed, roughly smacking the button. The door slid noisily into the ground, revealing a concrete maintenance tunnel with a small barricade of sandbags and breeze blocks a few feet in. Each of the girls tensed as the Geiger counters on their Pip-Boys immediately started ticking.

Five feral ghouls were clustered around the barricade, their heads snapping around at the sound of the door opening. One of them glowed brightly with a vivid yellow-green hue. The moment they spotted the girls they snarled and hurled themselves at the group. 

“Oh no you don’t!” Rarity spat, thrusting an arm forward and conjuring a huge gemstone that shot forward and slammed into the charging beasts, knocking them flat. 

A moment later Rainbow was among them, her blades licking out to open their throats with puffs of arterial spray. The glowing one was the last to feel the bite of Dash’s knife as it tried to rise, tainted yellow blood spilling from the gash on its neck.

“Yeah, that just happened,” Rainbow said smugly, flicking the blood off her knives, “Come on, let’s keep moving.”

Twilight shook her head, watching the ghouls with mounting horror, “Uh… Rainbow?”

“What? Oh.”

The ghouls were still moving, albeit feebly. The glowing one, however, was already clambering back to its feet, the wound in its neck bleeding far less than such a deep cut should.  

“What the he-”

With a crackling buzz the glowing one’s skin suddenly flared, giving off a pulse of  yellow light that made the girls’ Geiger counters spike like crazy. Worse, it seemed to reinvigorate the other ghouls, their bleeding slowing and their movements becoming more energetic as they struggled to rise.

“Aw crap,” Rainbow skipped away as the glowing one charged at her, slashing madly as she tried to fend off its furious assault. 

“Twilight, take Sunset for me!” Applejack snapped as the remaining ghouls clambered to their feet. 

“No. I’ve got this,” Pinkie said suddenly as she strode forward, reaching up to grab one of her curls and give it a sharp tug. 

With a little ching a revolver sprang into the air from the depths of her locks. The first ghoul was almost to its feet when Pinkie caught the gun, pressing it to the beast’s head and pulling the trigger. Quick as a flash Pinkie spun and did the same to the next one, before diving forward into a commando roll. As she rolled to her feet she brought her gun around, blasting the last two ordinary ghouls in the head in one smooth motion. 

Twilight could only gape as the ghouls all crumpled to the floor. 

A moment later Rainbow managed to find an opening against the glowing one, jamming her knives one after the other into it’s skull then booting it in the gut, ripping the blades free as it fell backwards. 

“Let’s see you get back up from that!” Rainbow spat, then turned to raise an eyebrow at the rest of the fallen ghouls, “Whoa. Nice work, Pinkie.”

Pinkie shrugged, her hair deflating slightly, “Let’s just get out of here.”

The others shared a worried look before doing as she suggested, Rainbow once again taking the lead. Everything else aside, Twilight was particularly happy that their radiation counters slowly went quiet the further they got from the ghouls.

Applejack fell into step alongside Pinkie as the group moved swiftly through the tunnel and into another maintenance corridor, “Hey sugarcube, you okay?”

Pinkie just sighed and shook her head slightly, “I don’t… I don’t like all this killing.”

“Me neither, Pinkie. Me neither,” Applejack replied softly, “If, uh, if you don’t mind me asking, where did you get the gun?”

“From the raider Sunset shot,” Pinkie said flatly, then shot her an apologetic look, “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, Pinkie,” Sunset slurred. 

“I’ve only got one bullet left for it anyway, you mind if I borrow yours?”

“If you’re alright with it then you certainly should darling. Sunset certainly isn’t in any position to… oh my… ” Rarity trailed off as she emerged from the corridor into a large storage room. Stepping out behind her, Twilight quickly saw why.

Bodies were strewn everywhere. It was clear from the layout of the corpses that several raiders had attempted a doomed last stand against a mob of feral ghouls. A couple of living ones still crouched amongst the carnage, messily gorging on raider remains. There was a sudden blur of motion, then their corpses joined those of their brethren on the metal floor. 

“So much easier without one of those glowy things around,” Rainbow muttered, wiping her blades with a rag torn from a dead ghoul.

“Um, one moment please,” Fluttershy called as the group made to move off. With practiced ease she quickly swapped Sunset’s drained blood pack for a fresh one, then gave her a stimpak for good measure. 

“How many more of those packs do we have?” Rarity asked. 

Fluttershy grimaced, eyeing Sunset with concern, “No more of her type.”

Applejack nodded grimly, “Then we need to move fast. It’s near enough a straight shoot south from here, let’s just try not to get bogged down by any more big groups of ghouls.”

Proceeding once again, the group hurried through a series of maintenance corridors, metro tunnels and raider encampments of various sizes. They moved as quickly as they could, aided in that endeavor by the fact that the only living things they encountered were feral ghouls, and then only in small groups that were easily dispatched by Pinkie, Rarity and Rainbow. Thankfully they didn’t run into any more glowing ones. 

The only point at which the group slowed down was as they passed through the Metro Central Station. A large mob of ferals lurked up on the mezzanine, forcing the girls to creep along underneath while Rainbow near-silently dispatched the few stragglers on the bottom floor.  

Unfortunately, while their pace allowed the Rainbooms to cover a considerable distance in a fairly short space of time, it was not without its drawbacks. 

Neither Twilight nor Fluttershy had the stamina to maintain such a drawn out jog for any real distance, even with the extra energy provided by their ponied-up forms. The spikes in adrenaline they got every time they ran across a ghoul were of dubious aid, lending them a short-term boost but leaving them even more drained afterwards. 

Eventually the two were forcing themselves onward through sheer force of will, the others helping them up when they stumbled. 

Still, despite everything, none of the girls were willing to stop and take even a short rest. Both knew better than anyone just how little time they had to get Sunset to real medical aid.

Given their determination Twilight was more than a little surprised when, as the group emerged from a metro tunnel, the rest of the girls skidded to a stop in front of her. 

Just before she hunched over, gasping for breath, Twilight had a brief glimpse of another metro station, fairly packed with ruined subway cars, huge mounds of rubble and the remains of a raider camp beneath a crumbling mezzanine. 

This must be Museum Station. We’re almost there.

“Oh shit!”

Snapped from her brief respite by Rainbow’s foul mouth, Twilight looked up to see what was wrong. 

Her blood ran cold at what she saw. 

Feral ghouls. Dozens of them. All looking directly at the girls. Dotted among the masses Twilight could make out the luminous forms of at least three glowing ones. 

“Guess Maddy was right about the ghouls…” Pinkie muttered.

With a collective snarl that reverberated throughout the station, the horde threw itself at the girls. 

“Everyone up on that train! Now!” Applejack yelled, jerking her head at the nearest subway car. She gave a grateful nod as Twilight scooped Sunset up in her magic before taking flight herself. 

Rarity paused just long enough to send a pair of huge gems smashing into the ghouls, knocking several of down and tripping the ones behind, before scrambling on top of the train with the others. 

As soon as they were up Pinkie and Applejack started firing indiscriminately into the oncoming horde. Rarity swiftly added her magic to the fusillade, launching heavy gemstones at the nearest ferals. 

Several ghouls fell, but not all of them stayed down, especially those in the proximity of the glowing ones. A few even managed to make it to the train, claws scrabbling for purchase before they were either shot or battered by a gemstone. 

Twilight gently set Sunset down, Fluttershy instantly there to tend to her, then turned back to see what she could contribute to the battle, placing herself between the ghouls and the nurse. She was loathe to use her magic to actually attack a living creature, even ones as foul as feral ghouls or super mutants, but they were out of options and nearly out of time.

Swallowing her reluctance, Twilight hefted a chunk of masonry in her magic and threw it in the general direction of one of the glowing ones. She tried not to wince at the sickening crunch that followed.

Searching for another suitable projectile, Twilight’s heart sank as she spotted even more ghouls, a handful of them glowing ominously, charging in from different tunnels. Some even threw themselves off the mezzanine in their frenzied desire to maul the girls. 

Twilight’s thoughts were suddenly knocked off kilter by an explosion that tore a hole in the middle of the horde. Blinking furiously, she watched Rainbow reach into her pack and produce another grenade, rip out the pin and lob it down into the ghouls.

Oh, right. I forgot she had those.

Snapping back to her senses, Twilight hurriedly grabbed a heavy piece of debris and flung it, smashing an advancing ghoul in the face. Gritting her teeth, she settled herself into a rhythm, grasping whatever she could in her magic and slamming it into the nearest monster. 

More and more of the ghouls were reaching the train, forcing Rainbow to abandon her grenade barrage in favor of hacking away at those that tried to clamber up. Applejack helped as much as she could in that regard, kicking and stomping on anything that got close enough and shooting anything that didn’t. Unable to see the floor through the press, Twilight panicked and resorted to tossing the ghouls themselves, grabbing one at a time and hurling them at the walls and other train cars with bone-shattering force. Rarity had switched tactics too, instead of simply hurling chunky gemstones she was manifesting large, flat, sharp-edged ones, spinning them in circles and mowing down the ghouls like a scythe through wheat. 

Dangerous as their predicament was it only became more so when the guns ran out of ammunition. Applejack cast her empty rifle aside and settled for using her fists, punching the ghouls with such force that they exploded in a welter of gore. Pinkie snatched up the discarded rifle and used it to bludgeon anything that got in range. 

“If anyone’s got any ideas on how to get out of this, now’s the time for it!” Applejack shouted, launching a glowing one across the room with a solid shove.

Twilight tried to glance around, her mind racing as she tried to come up with a solution. The flow of ghoul reinforcements into the station had become a trickle, but the train they were stood on was still an island in a sea of rotten flesh. She did have one idea, but it would be a tremendous risk. 

“Twilight!”

Twilight flinched and spun around, dropping the ghoul she was levitating. 

Sunset was barely conscious, her eyes rolling. She was dripping with sweat and her breathing was quick and shallow. Twilight gasped and dropped next to her, hand flying to Sunset’s neck to check her pulse. It was faint, but extremely rapid. That was not a good sign.

“Look out!” Twilight glanced around just in time to see Applejack pulverize a ghoul that had managed to haul itself onto the train behind her, “What’s wrong? Is Sunset okay?”

“She’s going into shock!” Fluttershy cried. 

Applejack bared her teeth and booted away another ghoul that was dragging itself up, “How long do we have?”

“Um… I don’t…”

“Not long enough,” Twilight replied. Deciding it was now or never, she called out, “Rarity! Get ready to make a bridge to the exit tunnel for us! Everyone else, keep those things off me for a minute, and get ready to run!” 

“What are you going to do?” Fluttershy asked.  

“Something stupid,” Twilight fervently hoped the station’s ceiling was more stable than it looked as her gaze settled on a nearby subway car. Reaching out her arms, the train was surrounded by a purple aura as she gripped it in her magic. Twilight was already exhausted, and the subway car was easily one of the heaviest things she had ever levitated, but desperation gave her strength. Giving herself over to her magic entirely, there was a rumble of dislodged rubble as the car slowly rose into the air. The metal flexed in her grip as she dragged it painstakingly closer. 

As soon as it was positioned correctly, Twilight dropped it.

The subway car crashed to the floor barely two feet from the Rainbooms’ own, flattening most of the remaining ghouls with a resounding boom that shook the whole station. 

Twilight herself collapsed from exhaustion a moment later, Rainbow barely catching her before she toppled off the train. Her heart pounding, Twilight could only watch in horror as the cracks in the already-damaged roof started to grow, chunks of concrete slipping loose and smashing apart on the ground below.

“Now, Rarity!” Pinkie screamed.

Smacking away a surviving ghoul, Rarity thrust out her arms and conjured a glittering walkway that stretched and curved from the train towards the tunnel the girls needed to follow. 

The girls all belted for it, Rainbow scooping up Twilight as Applejack grabbed Sunset. 

Larger parts of the ceiling started dropping as the group fled, crushing everything unlucky enough to end up underneath. Twilight closed her eyes, unable to watch the devastation she had unleashed. She kept her eyes closed as the crashing and rumbling slowly faded away behind them, replaced with the sound of ragged breathing and hurried footsteps. 

The Rainbooms kept running through what Twilight guessed was the tunnels. Every now and again she heard a minor scuffle as they came across a lone ghoul or two, but thankfully they didn’t run into any more groups of them. 

Her mind whirling with everything that had happened, Twilight was just managing to get her breathing under control when the silence was broken. 

“Ana… stasia… Crossing… this is it!” Rarity panted.

Twilight opened her eyes at that. They were in another station, one in considerably better condition that the last couple they had been through and thankfully free of any ghouls. 

Relief shot through her as she realized this was where the exit to Rivet City was. Said relief was soured slightly as she looked around at her friends. 

Blood was dripping down Rarity’s arm, a sure sign that she’d reopened her wound.  Pinkie was struggling to support Fluttershy as she ran, both of them glassy-eyed and weary. Applejack's chest was heaving and even Rainbow was flagging, their incredible stamina drained by the desperate battle and flight.

“Rainbow, put me down. I can walk,” Twilight said as the others started making their way up the escalators. 

“You sure?” Rainbow asked.

“I’m sure.”

Rainbow just nodded and set her down. Twilight stumbled a little, but she waved off Rainbow’s hand and forced herself into a jog up the stairs. Sparing a quick glance around as she reached the top she spotted the remains of another raider camp, with several of the former occupants laying in pools of blood.

I never thought I’d be glad to see dead bodies, what in Tartarus is wrong with me? 

“Come on… the exit’s around here!” Applejack called as she led the way into the exit corridor, “We're almost there!”

The girls put their all into it, running as fast as they could manage. 

Just as they rounded the corner a voice rang, bringing them all to a halt.

“Hold it right there!”

Three men were standing in front of the exit, daylight streaming in past them. They were each dressed in some sort of customized combat armor, painted entirely black save for a stylized white eagle claw over their left breast. Each of them was also carrying an assault rifle, which they kept pointed squarely at the Rainbooms.

“I thought I heard something,” the one in the middle said slowly, “What the fuck do we have here?”

“We don’t want any trouble,” Applejack said quickly, “We just want to get to Rivet City. Our friend is hurt, badly.”

The man who’d spoken grinned maliciously, “Yeah, looks like she’s fucked. Still, what’s one less mutant in the world, eh?”

As the other two chuckled at their leader’s sick comment something ugly reared it’s head in Twilight’s mind, something she had only felt once before. 

She didn’t know who these people were, or what they wanted. 

All she knew was that they were in her way.

“Move. Now. Or else.”

The leader raised an eyebrow, his smile vanishing, “Oh? Looks like we got a mouthy one here. Why don’t we show this bitch what we do with mutant freaks who-”

Twilight didn’t give him a chance to finish. With a swift grasping motion she gripped the three men in her magic and slammed them into the wall. With another motion she grabbed their guns and pulled them out of their grasp, casually tossing them behind her.

The men slumped to the floor in a daze. The leader shook his head to clear it and reached for his sidearm, but Twilight gripped his arm before he could draw it. The poor fool screamed as she rolled her hand, snapping his elbow with a sharp twist.   

“You fucking freak!” he spat, his face drawn with agony, “You just fucked with the wrong-”

The leader choked as Twilight’s magic wrapped around his throat, squeezing tightly. 

“Twilight?”

Twilight snapped to her senses with a jolt. Releasing the magic, she turned to the others, a terrible sense of shame and guilt welling up inside her, “I… I don’t…  I didn’t mean to…”

“It doesn’t matter, lets go!” Applejack huffed, charging off without even glancing at the fallen men. 

The rest of the girls hurried after her, shoving their way through the gate, up the last set of steps and finally out into clean, fresh air and blinding sunlight.

“Whoa,” Rainbow said quietly once her eyes had adjusted.

Twilight couldn’t blame her. The path ended a short distance ahead, dropping down into ocean waters. Beyond that there rose a colossal aircraft carrier, towering over the girls and stretching out to an incredible length. Even the fact that it’s bow seemed to have snapped off at some point couldn’t detract from the imposing majesty of the huge war engine. 

They had found Rivet City at last. 

Not slowing their pace, the girls kept charging forward, towards a squat metal structure that, according to Sentinel Lyons, functioned as a boarding platform for the ship. 

Twilight and Rainbow both took to the air, flying up to the top. Twilight turned back and reached out to grab Sunset in her magic. Before she could do so Applejack’s Geode flashed, the ground cracking beneath her feet as she jumped, landing on top of the platform with a grunt.

Right… super strength.

Turning back to the city, Twilight wondered just how exactly they were supposed to get there. She could see several men on the ship leveling weapons in their direction, but there didn’t seem to be any way of crossing the water. 

Just as she was considering flying Sunset over a nearby intercom crackled to life.

“Don’t shoot yet just- Who are you? What’s your business with Rivet City?”

“We’re the Rainbooms!” Rainbow called out, “Our friend is dying, we need a doctor! Quick!”

“The Rainbooms? You mean Three-Dog was… Shit! Extend the bridge! Someone go get Doctors Li, Preston and Kaplinski and have them meet me in the clinic, we’ve got an emergency patient coming in! Hold on, we’re extending the bridge now!”

Twilight let out a sigh of relief as a metal bridge extended from the ship and swiveled around towards the boarding platform. 

Applejack sighed and started forward, looking down at Sunset, “You hear that sugarcube, you’re going to be alright, just hold on a little longer. Uh… Sunset?” She frowned and tilted her head down to Sunset’s, “Girls, she ain’t breathing!”
> Chapter 24 - Lurking Evils
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tara hummed happily as she strolled through the corridors towards her new lab, deep in the bowels of Raven Rock. She glanced back down at the assets list in her hands, unable to believe just how many resources were being devoted to this project. Doctor Turner had already headed off to Requisitions to get the equipment they would need and Becky was currently in a briefing with one of the legendary Sigma squads, freshly assigned to this project, leaving Tara as the one to inspect their new workspace. 

Oh my gosh, I’m so excited! We might actually get to make first contact with inter-dimensional travellers! That is, if the guy on the radio broadcast we intercepted was telling the truth. And wasn’t undergoing a prolonged and vivid hallucination of some kind. I mean he is a wastelander after all, who knows what kind of psychological issues he’s got. Not to mention whatever chemical crap he probably pumps into his body. But still, even if it is a load of bull, at least I get to experiment with our collected alie-

“Ah, Doctor Strong. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Tara jumped at the unexpected voice. Glancing around wildly, she spotted the speaker standing in front of the door to her new lab. An imposing man, he had iron-grey hair and wore a heavy, tan trench coat over a jet-black uniform. 

The man stepped forward and clasped his hands behind his back, “I don’t believe we have ever officially been introduced. I am Colonel Augustus Autumn.”

Tara hardly needed the introduction. She didn’t think there was anyone in the Enclave who could fail to recognise the leader of the military. She snapped a quick salute, “A pleasure to meet you Colonel. Is there something I can do for you?”

“At ease, Doctor. I’m actually here because I have some questions for you. I understand you recently finished work on designing Duraframe servos for our new Hellfire prototypes?”

Tara nodded, “Yes, sir! Wait, is there a problem with the design? Did we make a miscalculation somewhere? I was sure I accounted for ev-”

Colonel Autumn held up as placating hand, “Relax, Doctor. Doctor Turner has informed me that your work on the servos was exemplary and I see no reason to doubt his word. My questions are actually about your sudden reassignment.” He lowered his hand and clasped it behind his back once again,” You see, I was led to believe that upon completion of your work on the Hellfire Project you and Doctor Shoichet would be assigned to my Jefferson Taskforce.”

The Colonel narrowed his eyes, sending a shiver down Tara’s spine, “Imagine my surprise when I discover that you have both been removed from the taskforce and attached to a new project. One that I have not been given the details of as of yet.”

Tara frowned at that, “You weren’t made aware of it, sir?”

“I was not,” Colonel Autumn made a show of looking around to make sure no-one was listening, then stepped closer and lowered his voice, “I don’t know what this new project is about, but the Jefferson Taskforce could prove to be a huge step in returning the United States to its former glory. It is a top priority operation. Now, Doctor Turner has informed me that you are something of a prodigy, so I would appreciate it if you could explain to me why our most brilliant scientist is being directed elsewhere at such a critical juncture.”

Tara blushed at the compliment, but shook her head hesitantly, “I-I’m sorry, sir. But the President was very insistent that we don’t discuss the project with anyone unless he personally authorizes it.”
Colonel Autumn narrowed his eyes, “I understand that this is a matter of clearance and I respect your dedication, but I’m afraid I must insist.”

“That won’t be necessary Colonel.”

Both turned as someone called out, and Tara felt a surge of relief at the sight of her brother striding towards them. Heavily muscled with cropped jet-black hair he cut an impressive figure, especially in his officer's uniform.

Autumn raised an eyebrow as he drew near. “Lieutenant Colonel Strong, to what do we owe the pleasure?”

The Lieutenant Colonel snapped a salute, “Sir, I’m here to personally oversee all security matters pertaining to Doctor Strong’s current project.”

Autumn returned the salute with a sharp look, “And what exactly is Raven Rock’s head of security doing playing babysitter for a little science project? Not favoring your little sister I hope?”

“No sir,” came the curt reply, “But when a project requisitions our entire stock of X-51 classified materials I would prefer to keep a close eye on it.”

Colonel Autumn’s eyes widened at that little bit of information, “I see.” 

Tara glanced sidelong at her brother. If President Eden hadn’t told the Colonel anything about Project Exodus that was his business. She’d done her best to avoid getting involved in the power struggles between the higher-ups, but her twit of a sibling had just gone and dumped her right in the middle of one between the two most powerful entities in the whole damned Enclave. Tara snapped her attention back to Colonel Autumn as he spoke again.

“Very well, Lieutenant Colonel. Given the nature of the X-51 materials I expect you to keep me informed of any ‘security’ developments that arise as a result of this project.” 

“Naturally, sir.”

“Good. Now if you’ll excuse me I have a speech to prepare for the next cadet graduation. Lieutenant Colonel, Doctor.” With a curt nod Colonel Autumn turned and strode away. 

Tara rounded on her brother once she was sure the Colonel was out of earshot, “What are you playing at, Andrew?”

Andy just grinned at her, “What, I just told him the truth?”

“And how exactly did you know that we’ve been given all of the X-51 stuff?”

Andrew gave her a flat look, “You do remember I’m the head of security, right? The first thing the Requisitions Officer did when Doctor Turner asked for that equipment was inform me.”

“What, why?”

“It’s his job to, that’s why,” Andrew said seriously, “That stuff’s dangerous, Tara. I don’t know what you’re doing with it, but I want you to be extremely careful, alright?”

Tara just rolled her eyes, “Alright, alright.”

“I’m just looking out for my little sis,” Andrew said, giving her a playful nudge. 

“Always the knight in shining armor,” Tara rolled her eyes, “Come on, you may as well help me do a safety review while you’re here.” 





Princess Twilight stood in the lab room at Canterlot High, staring dejectedly at the Geode Diviner. It largely resembled her own mirror portal, only the attendant machinery was made out of steel and plastic rather than wood and brass, and there were far more coils, pumps, electrodes and cables than on her own humble apparatus. Necessary differences since this particular unit was powered primarily by electricity rather than magic.

Twilight sighed and lowered her head. This was supposed to have been a triumph, a marvel of magic and technology that would have helped safeguard this world from Equestrian threats. Instead it had turned into a monumental failure that had taken her friends and thrown them somewhere she couldn’t follow. 

“Hey, Twilight.”

She turned at the sound of Starlight’s voice, a small flicker of hope burning in her chest, “Has anypony found them? What did Discord say?”

Starlight shook her head sadly, “Sorry, Twilight, but there’s been no sightings and Discord hasn’t sensed any magical disturbances that would indicate another portal opening up. He says he’ll have a look around though, just to be sure.”

Twilight just nodded, turning back to the machine. 

“Don’t worry, Twilight. We’ll find them,” Spike said softly, laying a reassuring paw on her leg. 

“Have you had any luck repairing the Diviner?” Starlight asked.

“It wasn’t actually damaged very much, we just had to replace a few fuses and power cables,” Twilight replied. She gestured to the young man typing away at the Diviner’s console, “Micro Chips is just checking the system log now. Hopefully that will shed some light on what exactly went wrong.” 

“Hopefully,” Starlight echoed softly.

The three slipped into an uneasy silence after that, one broken only by the tapping of keys as Micro Chips continued his checks. Much as they wished they could help, neither of the ponies-turned-human had anything more than a rudimentary understanding of how the computers worked in this world. 

The group were dragged from their thoughts as Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna entered the room. Both looked weary and miserable.

“I’ve informed the girls’ families,” Celestia said quietly, “They’re upset, but they understand that we are doing everything we can to make sure the girls are brought home safely.” She glanced over at Starlight, “I assume you didn’t have any luck in Equestria?” 

Starlight shook her head. 

“Do you have any idea what happened?” Luna asked.

Twilight looked over at the mirror, “I can only guess at the moment, but it seems that there was some sort of power surge that caused whatever that vortex was that you spoke of.”

“A power surge?” Luna frowned. When she spoke next, her voice had a slight edge to it, “Shouldn’t there have been some sort of safeties in place to prevent that from happening?”

“That’s just it, there are! It was one of the first things we all agreed on!” Twilight insisted, “The Diviner was supposed to shut down automatically in the event of any anomalous power readings, whether magical or electrical!”

“Did you have any problems with the portal on your side?” Celestia asked.

“None whatsoever. As soon as we realized something was going wrong with the Diviner we activated our safety procedure and the system switched off instantly.”

Starlight nodded in agreement. The ‘safety procedure’ on their end had simply been to yank the magic journal away from the mirror.

“The safeties we implemented on the Geode Diviner were intended to deprive the system of both power and magic,” Twilight continued, “The Diviner isn’t capable of creating a self-sustaining portal, it should have been rendered inert the second the safeties engaged. I have no idea why they didn’t work.”

“They were deactivated,” Micro Chips said suddenly.

Everyone turned to look at him in shock.

“What do you mean they were deactivated?!” Twilight cried.

Micro frowned at the console’s screens, “They were switched off after the Diviner was activated.”

Twilight gaped at him, “But… why would Twilight do that? Why would Sunset do that!?”

Micro shook his head, “I don’t know. What I do know is that when the Diviner was switched on someone increased all power outputs to their maximum setting.”

“That would be the electrical surge we detected,” Starlight muttered, “But that would only have increased the sensitivity of the Diviner until it fried the circuits, it still doesn’t explain what happened to Sunset and the others.”

“No, but this might,” He indicated one of the screens on the console, “Take a look at these readings, maybe you‘ll be able to make some sense out of them.”

Twilight and Starlight hurried over to inspect the data as Micro went back to checking the system.

Starlight raised an eyebrow, “Why am I seeing three magical signatures here?”

“Three different portals,” Twilight replied with a shiver, pointing at the screen, “Look, when the Diviner reached maximum power it actually picked up a connection to another open portal. That must be what caused the magical feedback we experienced!”

Starlight nodded in comprehension, “Right… the Diviner wasn’t built to maintain a connection to two portals at once. So when we closed our portal off it connected to the other one instead?”

“Exactly.”

“So the others really are lost somewhere in Equestria then,” Starlight sighed.

Twilight shook her head, “I wish it was that simple. Look. This third magical signature doesn’t match any known Equestrian magic.” 

“What are you trying to say?” Celestia asked, struggling to follow the conversation.

Starlight shook her head as she realized what Twilight was getting at, “She means the other portal must be in another world entirely.”

The teachers blanched at that.

“Can we use the Diviner to open another portal and bring them back?” Luna asked.

Twilight paced as she thought it through, “It’s possible, but it won’t be easy. The Diviner was designed on the assumption that there would be a flow of Equestrian magic between both sides of the connection, from the Geodes on this side and Equestria on the other. Running at maximum power, and without any Equestrian magic on the other side, the Diviner must have just shunted all nearby magic through the portal in an attempt to stabilize the connection.”

“That explains why Sunset and the others were sucked through,” Starlight huffed. 

“If you say so,” Luna mumbled.

Twilight carried on obliviously, “That also makes it dangerous to try and open up the connection again. Unless there’s enough Equestrian magic in the other world to stabilize the connection, anyone who has Equestrian magic on this side of the portal will just be sucked through again.”

Celestia gaped at Twilight for a few moments as she caught up, “So… how are we going to get my students back?”

Twilight frowned, still pacing. Finally she stopped and turned to Starlight, “I need you to head back to Equestria. Send a message to Starswirl and tell him to come here as quickly as possible. Also, I know it’s a long shot, but see if Discord would be willing to try and find the world that matches this unknown magical signature.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow, “Do you really think he’s capable of that?”

Twilight nodded, “I’ve seen him open a hole to another world before, at the Grand Galloping Gala.”

Starlight’s eyes widened in surprise, “Remind me to ask you about that when all of this is over. What are you going to do in the meantime?”

“I’ll stay here and try to figure out a way of opening a portal without getting sucked through.”

“Hang on, I’ve think I’ve found something,” Micro cut in.

Celestia stepped forward eagerly, “What is it?”

“Er… well… I don’t think it was Sunset or Twilight who deactivated the safety protocols,” He turned to offer Twilight a querulous look, “Mind if I ask why the Diviner has an internet connection?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at the odd question, but answered anyway, “Uh… I think Sunset said it was something to do with a… uh… G… P… S? Why, what have you found?” 

Micro turned back to the console, squinting at the lines of code on the screens, “It looks like someone used that connection to hack the system while you were testing it.” 

The Principals gasped, but Twilight and Starlight just stared in confusion.

“What, uh… what exactly does that mean?” Starlight asked.

“It means someone accessed the Diviner without authorization. It means someone did this deliberately,” Luna growled.

“Wait a second, you’re saying this was sabotage?” Starlight shot.

Twilight stared at the others incredulously, “But… but who? And why?”





Somewhere on the other side of town, a dark figure stepped off a bus and into the rain. She smirked as she thought back over what she’d overheard back at the school. The plan to overload the Geode Diviner had gone far better than she’d ever imagined. It was only supposed to scare the Rainbooms into keeping it deactivated for a while, giving her a little more time to operate before she’d be forced into the open.

Of course, the fact that it was more effective than intended has brought it’s own little… complications… but we can work around that.

The woman was still smirking as she walked up to a house and let herself in. She shook the rain out of her hair and made to go upstairs, then stopped as a voice called out. 

“So, has your little scheme paid off?”

The woman glanced over to the lounge, and the girl scowling in the doorway. 

Adagio Dazzle.

The woman sneered as she spotted the filthy little siren’s sisters peeking over from the sofa, “Things went far better than I expected, actually. The Rainbooms are no longer going to be an obstacle.”

“Does this mean we can go back to Equestria now?” one of the sirens called out.

“Quiet, Sonata! What do you mean ‘no longer an obstacle’?” Adagio asked.

“It’s nothing you need to worry yourselves about,” the woman said airily, “However, it seems that Princess Twilight has made the transition to this world again. And she brought a friend.”

“If she’s back then things are only going to get more difficult!” Adagio snarled, “You promised us you’d be able to get us back to Equestria!”

“Silence!” the woman snapped. Taking a breath to calm herself, she forced a smile onto her face, “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten my end of the bargain. The three of you will be back where you belong soon enough. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to see to our other little guest.”

The woman ignored Adagio’s muttering and hurried up the stairs. She had spent a lot of time searching for a way around the Rainbooms. Ex-Principal Cinch had been useless, ranting about cheaters, hypocrites and monsters. Filthy Rich hadn’t been interested in anything unless it brought him more money, and Vignette Valencia had been so self-absorbed it beggared belief. 

Finally the woman had given in and hunted down the sirens. She had despised the very thought of working with them, but there weren’t any other options. At least they had proven to be useful so far, giving accurate information on the Rainbooms and the rest of Canterlot High, but their usefulness was swiftly coming to an end. 

Disgusting creatures. I shall have to find a way to dispose of them before I go back through the portal, those vile abominations don’t belong in Equestria. Or anywhere, for that matter.

Banishing the thought of purging those foul sea-spawn, the woman drew herself up and knocked on the door of the smallest bedroom. Footsteps sounded within, and a moment later the door was tentatively opened. 

The figure inside opened the door wider when she saw the woman waiting outside, “Did… did it work?”

“It most certainly did. There have been a few small complications but nothing that we can’t handle.”

“I’m sorry, I told you hacking isn’t really my forte. I’m more of a hands-on sort of girl.”

The woman gave her a reassuring smile, “Don’t be silly, Miss Shimmer, you did an excellent job. With your help I’m certain we can get the Equestrians back where they belong and take control of that portal, for the greater good.”

Sunset Shimmer nodded, “Good. That sort of power should be kept in the hands of someone responsible.”

And you think that’s you don’t you, you little rat. Well I’m terribly sorry, but it seems those filthy sirens won’t be the only one’s who are disappointed once I’m finished here.

The woman arched an eyebrow as Sunset shivered suddenly, “Is something the matter?”

Sunset shook her head, her face twisted with confusion, “I just had a really bad feeling all of a sudden. Don’t worry about it, I’m just being silly.”

The woman turned to walk away, mostly to hide the malevolent grin that was spreading across her face, “I’m sure you’re right. It’s probably nothing.”
> Chapter 25 - Center of Attention
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is nice. 

The gentle breeze, the waves rolling against the cliffs, the wind chimes ringing softly in the leaves. 

It’s nice.

Calm. 

Soothing.

The pain is gone now. 

Or maybe there never was any pain?

Was there pain? Or wasn’t there?

Meh, who cares?

Maybe I should ask Celestia, since she’s stood right there on that book.

Oh, wait. That’s a bat-pony.

I wonder what that beeping sound is?

Sunset’s eyes slowly cracked open as she woke up.

She glanced around sluggishly, trying to figure out where she was.

Sunset seemed to be in a small room, but her vision was blocked by a folding screen that separated her from the rest of the room. The walls, ceiling and floor around her were all made of some dull, grey metal. The annoying beeping sound turned out to be a heart monitor, stationed next to a little bedside table with a jug of water and a few glasses on top.

Giving up on the room, Sunset turned her attention to herself instead. She was on a gurney of some sort, with thin sheets pulled up to her chest and her arms resting on top. Sunset grimaced at the needles and tubes poking out of the one arm, then did a double-take as she spotted the simple grey tank top she was wearing, the bright colors of her Geode sticking out like a sore thumb against it. 

Where the heck did that come from? Hang on a second…

Reluctantly, Sunset peeled back the blanket with her non-perforated arm and lifted her top slightly. Thick medical dressings coated the left side of her belly. 

“Great,” Sunset shook her head and pulled the blanket back up, shivering slightly. Figuring it was time to find out where she was, and where her friends were, she decided to try calling out, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

Sunset heard footsteps approaching, and a moment later a young woman in a typical white lab-coat appeared around the screen. She had shoulder-length brown hair and sparkling blue eyes that widened when she spotted Sunset staring back, “Oh, you’re awake!” The woman stepped over and knelt next to the gurney, “I’m Doctor Janice Kaplinski, how’re you feeling?”

“Uh… kinda thirsty?” Sunset replied.

Janice nodded and reached over to grab the jug of water and a glass off the bedside table. Sunset tried to sit up, but hissed at a twinge of pain from her stomach.

“You probably shouldn’t try to sit up right now, don’t want to pop your stitches,” Janice said with a wince, “Here, let me help.”

With Janice’s help, Sunset was just able to lift her head enough so she could drink without choking or spilling anything. Once she was finished she dropped her head back onto the pillow, “Thanks. Where am I? Are my friends okay? What happened?”

“Your friends are safe and unharmed,” Janice said reassuringly, “It’s… er… probably best if I let Doctor Preston explain the rest. Just give me a moment and I’ll go and find him for you, okay?”

Sunset just nodded as Janice disappeared back behind the screen. A moment later there was a metallic clank and the sound of a heavy door closing announced her departure. A shiver ran down her spine as she went over Janice’s words again in her mind. Clearly she’d had surgery of some sort, but she still had no idea just how bad things had actually gotten. 

Sunset wasn’t left to stew for long, as only a couple of minutes later the door opened again and a man stepped around the screen. He looked to be easily in his fifties, his kindly, bespectacled face framed by grey hair with a matching beard and mustache. He had a clipboard under one arm and, like Janice, wore a long lab-coat.

“Good afternoon, I’m Doctor Preston,” the Doctor smiled as he wheeled a chair over to the gurney and settled himself on it, “I understand you may have some questions about what’s happened but I’d just like to go through a few things first if that’s alright with you?”

Sunset nodded hesitantly.

“Good, good. Now, can you tell me your name please?”

“Sunset Shimmer.”

Doctor Preston made a note on his clipboard, “Good. And where are you from, Sunset?”

“Uh… Vault one-oh-one.”

“I see, and where were did you come from before that?” 

“Canterlot High,” Sunset replied cautiously.

“And before that?”

Sunset eyed him warily, wondering just how much he knew, “Equestria…?”

Another note on the clipboard, “And can you remember what you were? Back in Equestria?”

Sunset raised an eyebrow, but nevertheless felt herself relax slightly. Three-Dog hadn’t mentioned anything about Equestria in his radio broadcast, which meant that Doctor Preston must have spoken to her friends, “I was a unicorn. Princess Celestia’s personal student.”

Preston tried to repress a smile as he made another note, “One last question, what’s the last thing you remember before waking up here?”

Sunset frowned as she thought back, “We… we were running through the tunnels. Applejack was carrying me. I think I remember there being some feral ghouls but…”

“That matches up with what your friends told me,” Preston nodded, “Excellent. You’ve been unconscious for quite some time and your brain had been starved of oxygen for a little longer than I’m comfortable with, but it doesn’t seem to have had any major effect.”

“Wait, starved of oxygen? What do mean?!”

“You were in a very bad way when your friends brought you here. You had lost a frankly alarming amount of blood and your kidney had degraded severely, it was incredibly difficult to repair. Honestly I would have removed it if I thought you would survive the procedure.” 

Sunset couldn’t repress a shiver at that. 

Doctor Preston smiled reassuringly at her, “Don’t worry. Rivet City still has a small stock of pre-war experimental hydrogel for use in emergencies. That helped seal the wound quite nicely. There will probably be some impairment in the function of that kidney, even after you’ve fully healed, but your other one should pick up the slack without any problems. ”

Sunset nodded slowly as the Doctor stood and pulled a small torch out of a pocket, “Now I’d like to give you a quick once-over, just to make sure everything’s in order. Would you mind removing your Geode while I do so?”

“You know about my Geode?” Sunset asked, surprised.

“Your friends explained it to me. You needn’t worry, the only people who know are myself and Doctor Li. Your secret is safe with us.”

Sunset hesitated for a moment, then reached up and slipped the Geode off with her good hand, reaching over to place it on the bedside table. As soon as that was done Doctor Preston got to work. Sunset tried to stay as still as possible while he checked her over, shining the torch in her eyes, checking her pulse and listening to her chest with a stethoscope. After that he started testing her limbs, making sure she could still feel and move them properly. Finally he turned his attention to her abdomen, gently pressing in different areas and asking if she felt any pain or discomfort. 

“So… um… you seem to have accepted the whole ‘I used to be a unicorn’ thing quite easily,” Sunset stated, trying to distract herself from the fingers tracing across her belly.

The doctor hummed softly, “I was skeptical at first, even after I saw some of your friends’ abilities. Does this hurt at all?”

Sunset shook her head, “What changed your mind?”

“Doctor Li was adamant that your ’magic’ was actually some form of advanced technology. In order to prove this she made the mistake of trying to analyse it.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, your friends did try to warn her that your previous attempt at doing just that hadn’t quite gone to plan,”  Doctor Preston chuckled, “After witnessing the aftermath of that little farce the Council has, quite wisely, put a complete ban on all magical experimentation within the bounds of Rivet City, and I have decided to try and keep a more open mind about things.”

Sunset smiled up at him, but before she could say anything the door was suddenly slammed open. A moment later a familiar face darted around the screen, clad in another lab-coat and wearing her hair up in a tight bun.

“Sunset!”

“Hey, Fluttershy. Ho-”

Any more speech was cut off as Fluttershy burst into tears and dropped to her knees next to the gurney, throwing her arms around Sunset in an awkward attempt at a hug. 

“Well you seem to be healing nicely, so I’ll let you both catch up,” Doctor Preston said softly as he stood, giving Fluttershy a quick pat on the shoulder before he left. 

Careful not to nudge the needles in her arm, Sunset reached up to awkwardly hug Fluttershy back, patting her head with her good arm, “Hey, it’s okay Flutters. I’m okay.”

The two stayed like that for a little while, Sunset bemusedly doing her best to comfort the young nurse as she bawled her eyes out. She was more than a little discomfited herself at Fluttershy’s reaction. I must have been in more trouble than I thought.

Fluttershy eventually managed to get herself under control, perching herself on Doctor Preston’s chair and roughly drying her eyes on her sleeve, “I-I’m sorry. Are you alright? Are you in any pain?”

Sunset smiled and shook her head, “I’m fine. I actually feel pretty great!”

“Oh thank goodness!” Fluttershy sagged with relief. She rubbed her eyes again and leaned forward to check the tubes entering Sunset’s arm, “You’re on a low dose of Med-X along with the fluids and medication at the moment, but now that you’re awake we can always up the dosage if you need it.”

“Okay, thanks,” Sunset idly fiddled with the bottom of her top, “So, uh, how is everyone?”

“Everyone’s been… stressed. Dealing with the feral ghouls was bad enough but after what happened to you during the surgery…” Fluttershy shuddered and shook her head, “I think everyone will just be glad to know that you’re finally awake.”

Sunset frowned at that, “What do you mean? What happened during the surgery?”

Fluttershy froze, her eyes widening, “Di… didn’t Doctor Preston tell you what happened?”

“He told me he was in a bad way when we arrived and that the surgery was difficult but that’s about it,” Sunset looked at the young nurse expectantly, but didn’t get a response. “Fluttershy, what happened during the surgery?” she pressed.

Flutters sighed and looked away, knotting her hands in her lap, “You… weren’t breathing when we arrived. Luckily we managed to resuscitate you when we got to the clinic and Janice set up a blood transfusion while the other doctors worked, but partway through the surgery your…” She closed her eyes, tears streamed silently down her face once more, “Your heart stopped.” 

Sunset felt the blood drain from her face. 

“The doctors were still patching you up, so I started the chest compression's. They managed to close the wound, but we couldn’t get your heart started again,” Fluttershy choked back a sob, “I kept going. You were fixed, you had the blood, but you just wouldn’t come back. Doctor Li tried to… tried to call time of death…”

Sunset reached out to clasp her hand as the young nurse broke down again. The heart monitor betrayed her own racing pulse as the full realization hit of just how close to the brink she had been. 

“Fluttershy listen to me. I’m alive, okay? You brought me back,” she urged, half trying to convince herself, “You brought me back, and I can never thank you enough for that.”

Fluttershy shook her head slowly, “I couldn’t give up. I couldn’t let you go I just couldn’t I-”

“Hey, hey. It’s alright, I promise,” Sunset said softly as Fluttershy leaned over for another hug.

Focused on trying not to break down herself, Sunset barely heard the scrape of the door over Fluttershy’s quiet sobbing. She managed a wobbly smile as another familiar figure stepped around the curtain. 

“Whoa, you look rough.”

Sunset rolled her eyes, “Nice to see you too, Rainbow.”

Rainbow smirked and moved to crouch next to Fluttershy, “Hey, I call it like I see it. I’ve told the others you’re awake, they’re on their way up now. How are you feeling?”

“Eh, pretty good I guess, all things considered.”

“Awesome, how about you Flutters?”

Fluttershy just nodded silently, her arms still wrapped awkwardly around Sunset.

“What about you and the girls?” Sunset asked, “Fluttershy told me everyone’s been stressed.”

Rainbow rubbed her neck awkwardly, “Heh, yeah. It’s been… kinda crazy. How, uh, how much do you remember? About the journey here?”

Sunset shook her head, “Not much. I remember speaking to Maddy, getting carried by Applejack, you nearly getting shot by those turrets-”

“Of course you do,” Rainbow mumbled.

“-and I think I remember us running into some feral ghouls? But it all gets fuzzy after that.”

“Huh, so you don’t remember that huge horde of ghouls we fought?”

“Horde of them?” Sunset asked.

“I don’t really remember much of that either,” Fluttershy said, peeling herself away from Sunset, “I was too busy making sure you were okay.”

“Lucky you,” Rainbow muttered, “That was one heck of a fight though.”

Sunset listened intently as Rainbow described everything that happened after they left the cavern with the turrets. The first group of ghouls they encountered, the horde, the collapse of the station and then finally the men that accosted them as they tried to leave. She could hardly believe everything she heard. Probably wouldn’t have believed some of it if Fluttershy hadn’t been there to confirm, Rainbow was known to exaggerate sometimes after all.

“That’s insane,” Sunset muttered when the tale was finished.

Rainbow nodded in agreement. “We were pretty lucky really. The only reason security even let us on board without a fuss was because they’d heard about us on the radio.”

“I just can’t believe you had to go through all of that,” Sunset said softly. She shook her head and looked up at Rainbow, “Is everyone coping alright?” 

“I’m, um, I’m alright. I’m just glad we all made it here,” Fluttershy replied.

“I’m totally fine. Yep, totally not having nightmares or anything,” Rainbow chuckled nervously, “Applejack’s been playing it cool, but I think she’s having trouble too.”

“Rarity and Twilight have been keeping themselves busy, but I know they’re having nightmares too,” Fluttershy added, “And Pinkie’s… well…”

“Being Pinkie?” Sunset supplied.

Fluttershy and Rainbow shared an uneasy look.

“Not exactly,” Rainbow said slowly.

“What do you mean?”

The conversation was interrupted by the sound of the door opening yet again. Rainbow stood and shifted the curtain aside to reveal the rest of the Rainbooms trooping into the room. 

“Sunset!” 

“You’re alright!”

Sunset smiled as the girls hurried to her side, talking over each other as she reassured them that she was on the mend. Rarity looked mostly the same as always, aside from the fact that her arm brace had finally been taken off. Applejack had swapped her usual outfit for a set of heavy-duty work overalls, with her sort-of-stolen Vault-issued tool belt worn over the top. Twilight was once again clad in a long lab-coat, her hair tied sloppily back and a set of goggles perched precariously on her forehead. Lastly, there was Pinkie. 

Sunset could hardly believe the change that had came over her party-loving friend. 

Pinkie’s hair had lost all of it’s usual puff, laying straight and flat in a sensible ponytail. Her boisterous exuberance was gone without a trace, replaced with a quiet and unassuming demeanor that gave Fluttershy a run for her money. Worse than that was her expression. Pinkie smiled and replied when spoken to but, just once, Sunset saw the mask slip, the forced cheeriness replaced by a haunted and broken look that had no right being on the face of someone so bright and cheerful.   

“Pinkie? Are you o-”

“Yep! I’m fine!” Pinkie yelped, an unconvincing smile plastered on her face once again, “I’m just glad you’re finally awake, you’ve been asleep for so long!”

Sunset considered pressing the issue for a moment, but she let it slide. If Pinkie didn’t want to talk yet, she wouldn’t force her. Besides, Pinkie had reminded her of something.

“Speaking of, how long have I been out cold for? Something tells me it’s been more than just a few hours.”

“A few hours?” Rarity glanced uneasily at the others, “Darling, you’ve been comatose for almost a week.”

“A WEEK!?” A painful twinge from her abdomen had Sunset instantly regretting her outburst.

Applejack nodded solemnly, “Yep, so right now you’re going to take it easy and do exactly what the doctor tells you. Is that clear?” Sunset just nodded meekly, “Good, ’cause as soon as the doc says you’re good to go we’re going to have a little discussion about that ridiculous stunt you pulled.” 

“Awww….”





Tara huffed as she stared at the terminal in front of her. It was bad enough that Colonel Autumn was constantly trying to catch her alone to try and squeeze more details about Project Exodus out of her, but now the rest of the higher ups had gotten wind of the President’s secret project and were trying to stick their noses in. 

Stupid politicians. Senator Devall isn’t too bad, but I swear if Senator Prince tries to force his way in one more time I’m going to grab that little ex fifty one Blaster and ram it up his pompous- 

“Hi, Tara. How’s it going?”

Tara nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden voice behind her. Whirling around, she relaxed as she saw Becky closing the door.

“Whoa, you okay there?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Tara sighed and turned back to the terminal, “Sorry. I’m just a little on edge. These results are taking forever to come through.”

“What results?”

Tara nodded towards the sealed experiment chamber off to the side. Blast-resistant and radiation-proof, it was perfect for running tests on items of unknown origin and function, “The old readings from artifact ex fifty one dash one four.” 

There was a pause as Becky tried to remember which item she was on about, “The signal detector thingy?”

“The signal detector thingy,” Tara echoed, “At least, I think that’s what it is. I’m just running it a diagnostic to make sure all of the signal data matches what we have on record, but it’s taking so damned loooong!”

She huffed and slumped over on the desk, then smiled as she felt a pair of arms wrap around her from behind, “Sunny… what are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing?”

Tara could hear the smile in Becky’s voice. She giggled as she felt a little nibble on her ear, “Stop that. Sienna will be back soon, what if she catches us again?”

“Doesn’t that just make it interesting?”

“Maybe…” Tara grinned and turned her head slightly to plant a kiss on Becky’s lips.

Becky raised an eyebrow at that, “Now who’s misbehaving?”

“Oh, shut up and kiss me, Sunny.”

Becky quickly complied, turning Tara’s chair around and kissing her hungrily. Tara couldn’t resist a moan as Becky straddled her lap and hooked their legs together.

Both girls jumped as the door suddenly opened, Becky flailing for a moment as she tried to leap away.

They looked around to see another of the doctors who been assigned to Project Exodus. Clad in the standard-issue Enclave lab-coat, her jet-black hair was tied back in bunches and she was wearing a set of protective goggles over the top of her usual pink-framed glasses.

“Hello Doctors.” 

“Hello, Doctor Bohn,” Becky forced out through gritted teeth.

Tara giggled nervously, “Hi, Sienna.”

Sienna just gave them a deadpan stare, “I suppose I should just be glad that you’re clothed this time.”

“Hey, we were clothed last time too!” Becky shot, her and Tara both blushing furiously.

“A lab-coat and shoes does not count as being clothed, especially when the coat is open and there’s nothing else underneath,” Sienna retorted, “Also, you don’t seem to have noticed that the diagnostic on the signal detector thingy is finished.”

Tara gasped and span her chair back around to face the terminal. Sure enough, the results of the diagnostic had popped up on the screen. “Perfect! Okay, let’s have a look.”

Becky sighed and turned to Sienna as her partner buried her nose in the diagnostic report, “So, what did the President say?”

“Doctors Evans and Pickering have both been assigned to Project Exodus, as requested,” Sienna replied, “Senator Devall has also been nominated to oversee our budget and resource management alongside Doctor Turner.”

“That’s a relief,” Becky muttered. Between the two of them, she was sure that Turner and Devall would be able keep the project’ requirements safe from outside interference.

“Could you two take a look at this for me?” Tara called suddenly.

Becky and Sienna glanced at each other for a moment, then stepped over to the terminal.

“What’s up?” Becky asked.

Tara pointed at the screen, “This is the most recent signal the detector picked up, aside from the electricity we’re using to test it,” she turned to frown at the other two, “This signal was detected just over a month ago.”

“That’s impossible, the detector has been in secure storage for the last four months,” Sienna replied.

“Wait a minute,” Becky said slowly, “Isn’t that around the estimated time that the Rainbooms’ portal allegedly brought them here?”

Tara nodded, “Yes, at least according to our calculations and the radio reports we’ve intercepted.”

Sienna’s eyes widened, “Are you saying this signal was generated by the portal opening?”

“I think so,” Tara replied, “And if what we’ve heard on the radio is true, that means this signal right here is either a kind of radiation we’ve never encountered before or it’s… well… magic.”

The three woman stared at the screen in awestruck silence.

“Is there any way we can open a dialogue with the Rainbooms?” Sienna asked eventually.

Becky frowned and tilted her head, “I don’t know. Our intel suggests that their current location is the settlement known as Rivet City. They’ve been there almost a week now.”

Tara pushed herself out of her chair and scurried over to the secure intercom, “Mister President? This is Doctor Strong.”

After a moment there was a buzz and a tinny voice crackled out from the intercom, “Doctor Strong? This is quite a surprise. What can I do for you?”

“We’ve found something important. At least I think it’s important, I mean it could be nothing. Not that I think it’s nothing. I think it’s really important! But I don’t want to give you the wrong idea or-”

“Please, calm down, Doctor Strong. What have you found?”

Tara took a deep breath before replying, “A signal. It may prove our alpha delta pi tau hypothesis.”

“That is fantastic news, Doctor Strong! What do you need to prove this hypothesis?”

“We need to scour all Enclave records, to see if there is any other example of this particular signal being detected at any point in the past,” Tara paused and glanced back at Becky and Sienna, “Also… we would like to know if there is any possibility of us being able to open a dialogue the alpha delta pi tau subjects.”

“…you want to contact the Rainbooms?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a brief pause on the line as the President considered the request.

“Very well.”





Nestled deep in Evergreen Mills, inside a winding cave system that extended out from the old foundry, two men were on the hunt. The caves were the home of a makeshift bazaar that had been set up by an enterprising raider crew some time ago, to cater to others of their ilk. 

The men shoved their way through the crowd of carousing raiders, making their way to their chosen targets.

“Alright, this is Jack’s place,” Blades said as he stopped next to one tunnel, “You comin’ with?”

Crawler shook his head, “Nah. I’m going to head on up to Madame’s, see if I can’t find myself some good pussy.”

“I though you fucked that slave chick back in Paradise Falls?” 

“I said good pussy. That stupid bitch didn’t have a fucking clue what she was doing.” Crawler smirked as he turned to leave.

Blades huffed a laugh, “Alright fine. Just make sure you don’t spend all your caps, you still need a new fucking gun yet!”

“I know, I know!”

Turning down the tunnel, Blades was still chuckling to himself as he made his way around the corner and into the general store. The store was little more than a small cave lined with wooden counters and shelves that contained the stock. 

Only two people were in the store at the moment, a woman browsing by one of the counters and the proprietor himself. 
Bald as a cue ball save for a spectacular handlebar mustache, ‘Smiling’ Jack was one of the busiest and best traders in the wasteland. If you needed something, chances were he could get it. Friendly and jovial, there was always some idiot that saw him as an easy target, too stupid to realize that no weak little sap could ever survive in the shit-hole that was Evergreen Mills, let alone run a successful shop.

Jack took great pleasure in introducing those idiots to the business end of his customized shotgun.  

“Hey! Jack!” Blades called as he entered. 

Jack looked up and grinned as he spotted who was calling, “Well I’ll be damned! Blades you son of a bitch, I thought you were dead!”

Blades grinned back as he strolled over to Jack and leaned against the counter, “Sorry to disappoint.”

Jack laughed and clapped him on the back, “Shit, I ain’t disappointed! You always bring in the good stuff!” He stepped back and rested his hands on the counter, “So what can I do for you? You selling or buying?”

“Buying. And I’ve got a favor to ask,” Blades pulled his caps pouch out of his pants and threw it on the counter “I’m looking for a crew, and all of the best hardware you’ve got.”

“I like the sound of this,” Jack smirked as he emptied the caps out and started counting, “You got a big job lined up?”

Blades nodded curtly, “Yeah. I want to take down the Rainbooms.”

“Hah, you’re a fucking riot,” When Blades didn’t respond Jack stopped counting, the smirk sliding from his face, “You… you’re fucking serious.”

“Deadly fucking serious.”

“You’re crazy,” Jack said flatly, “Have you even heard about the shit Three-Dog says they can do? I don’t know if it’s true or not but either way yo-”

“It’s true,” Blades cut in, “Me and Crawler ran into them a little while back. They killed Gilda and Ice, but I managed to make one of them bleed at least.”

“Shit…”

“I’m in.”

Blades and Jack both turned to face the woman. She’d stopped browsing and was leaning against the counter, her arms folded under her chest as she watched the men. Lithe and beautiful, she had long, slicked-back blonde hair and was wearing a pair of rugged shorts with a ripped tank top. There was a stylized lightning bolt and wings stitched over her left breast.

Blades shook himself as he realized he was staring, “I… uh… what?”

The woman smirked at him, “The name’s Lightning. You said you’re after the Rainbooms, and I’m looking for a challenge.” Her smirk spread into an evil grin, “Like I said, I’m in.”
> Chapter 26 - Pinkie's Lament
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sky was heavily overcast. Dark and brooding clouds covered the sky as far as the eye could see. 

Pinkie couldn’t help but wonder if the weather was somehow reflecting her mood.

She was standing on the highest point in Rivet City, leaning on the railings of a little observation deck that afforded what should have been a spectacular view of the surrounding landscape. The devastated ruins of D.C spread out below her as far as the eye could see. Rubble-choked streets ran between skeletal buildings, the battered old aircraft carrier that was Rivet City towering above it all. 

To Pinkie, it just looked like a desolate hell-hole. The shattered remains of a broken world. 

Peeking over the edge of the railings, she could just make out the line of the Potomac River directly below. What the girls’ first assumed to be an ocean harbor had actually turned out to be just a filthy, polluted river that wound it’s way through the old capital city. 

Pinkie sighed and looked away from the water. Ever since the mad scramble to get Sunset to Rivet City she’d felt… off. Not herself. As if a dark cloud had ensconced itself in her mind, dampening her thoughts and smothering any little spark of happiness she felt before it could properly shine. 

Ever since the rush to the city. Ever since she’d killed those ghouls.

Pinkie nearly jumped out of her skin as the door opened behind her.

She whipped her head around just as a lined old man shuffled through the door and onto the deck. He was almost entirely bald, with only wisps of black hair and a bushy black beard framing his heavily wrinkled face. He closed the door quietly, then gave a start as he spotted Pinkie, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“It’s okay. I was just… thinking, I guess,” Pinkie replied, tucking a stray hair behind her ear.

“I understand. Well, I don’t want to bother you. I’ll… uh… I’ll just go.”

“You don’t have to. There’s more than enough room up here for two of us,” Pinkie said quickly as he turned to leave, “I’m Pinkie Pie. What’s your name?”

“Me? I’m Mister Lopez,” Lopez hesitated for a moment, then glanced over at her, “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“You won’t be,” Pinkie replied quietly, “Actually, I could probably use the company.”

Lopez sighed and shook his head, “I’m sorry, but I’m not really any good at conversation these days.”

Pinkie smiled sadly, recognizing the haunted look in his eyes, “That’s okay. Sometimes it’s nice just to share some quiet time.”

“I suppose you’re right.” 

Lopez turned from the door and wandered over to Pinkie’s side, the two of them leaning on the railings and looking out over the ruins.

The pair stayed that way for some time, silently watching the world go by. At one point Pinkie spotted a small group of people emerging onto Rivet City’s boarding platform far below. Dressed entirely in black, she couldn’t help but wonder if they were connected with the thugs that had accosted the Rainbooms down in the metro system. One of them seemed to be having a heated exchange over the intercom with the city’s security guards who, for whatever reason, weren’t extending the bridge to allow the group entry. 

Eventually the group gave up and turned to leave, making some very rude gestures to the security team guarding the bridge controls as they went. Pinkie slowly let out a breath she hardly realized she’d been holding as the last of the people disappeared from view. She wasn’t really sure why but she was glad that, whoever those people were, they weren’t allowed in Rivet City. 

“So… I… uh…”

Pinkie looked up to see Lopez glancing at her, “What’s up?”

Lopez shifted uncomfortably, “Is it true what people are saying, that you girls are from another world?” His eye’s widened slightly as Pinkie nodded, “Wow, that sure is something.”

“Yeah, yeah it is,” Pinkie muttered, turning her head away. 

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to upset you.” Lopez said nervously.

“No it-it’s okay. It’s just…” Pinkie hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to say. “It’s hard, you know?”

Lopez sighed heavily, “Yeah. I know.”

Something about his tone sent a shiver down Pinkie’s spine. Glancing sidelong at him, she saw shame, regret and self-loathing clouding his features.

It was an expression that Pinkie recognized instantly. One she’d worn herself more than once over the last week. She shivered again as she came to a dark conclusion. 

“You didn’t come up here just to admire the view, did you?”

Lopez’ eyes darted around nervously as he tried to stammer out a reply, but a glance at the look on Pinkie’s face had him closing his mouth. With a sigh he turned and looked over the railings, staring into the murky waters below. 

“I come up here every day,” Lopez’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper. He jerked his head towards a section of the deck where the railings had been broken off, “I stand over there and see if I can work up the nerve to…”

“… to jump,” Pinkie finished softly. Lopez just nodded. 

The two fell silent after that. There was a low groan of metal from the ship, as if Rivet City itself was picking up on their somber mood. 

“A couple of days ago, I thought about jumping too.” 

Lopez whipped his head around, stunned by Pinkie’s frank admission. 

Pinkie took a deep breath to steady herself before explaining, “Ever since we left the vault, we’ve had to fight. Random nutcases, angry crab monsters, raiders, those I could deal with. Even when it came to the super mutants and I had to kill something myself I-I could handle that. I didn’t like it… but I could handle it.” Pinkie swallowed reflexively, “But then we found those ghouls.”   

Lopez was listening intently, hanging on every word. 

“I felt kinda bad when I killed the super mutant but… it was a monster, and it was trying to kill my friends. It had to be done. The little groups of feral ghouls we fought afterwards? That was harder.” 

Tears were streaming down Pinkie’s face as she spoke. Each memory was more painful than the last, but she didn’t think she could stop talking even if she wanted to.

“It’s not right. Those ghouls they… they used to be people. Just ordinary people. What’s happened to them isn’t their fault, they can’t control themselves… and I killed them anyway…”

Lopez clasped her shoulder and spoke softly, trying to reassure her, “Hey, it’s alright. Those feral ghouls… there’s nothing you can do for them.”

Pinkie just nodded, “I know. I know that there’s no cure, that the best we can do is put them out of their misery. That’s what I kept telling myself. That’s how I managed to keep moving forward, fighting when I had to, to protect my friends. But when we ran into the horde…”

She shivered and drew her arms around herself, “There were so many of them. So many people who had suffered, who were still suffering. Every time I killed one of them… it felt like I was losing a little piece of myself. Then after all of that there were the issues with Sunset’s surgery and… and then she didn’t wake up I just… it was just too much.”

Pinkie drew in a shuddering breath, trying to keep her emotions in check as she haltingly explained everything that had happened since. 

At first, she’d struggled to keep up a positive front for the sake of the others. Each of them had been dealing with what had happened in their own way and Pinkie was adamant that she wouldn’t be an additional burden on them. She’d done everything she could think of to try and keep everyone’s spirits up, to keep them from dropping into despair, but the strain of keeping up the façade had been more than she could handle. 

Overhearing the doctors talking, suggesting that Sunset might never wake up, had been the last straw. 

Barely a few minutes after hearing that, Pinkie was up on the observation deck. 

Family, friends and bringing joy to others. Those were the three main things that she lived for. 

Coming to this world had ripped her from her family. Her closest friends were suffering or on the brink of death. And ever since the slaughter of those ghouls, some of them had been small enough that they might have been children when they changed, joy was something Pinkie no longer believed she could feel, or even deserved to feel. 

Standing right on the very edge of the deck, where the railings were missing, there had been nothing between Pinkie and the drop. All it would have taken was a slight shift in her balance and she would have fallen, smashing into one of the lower decks or dashing herself on the rocks rising up from the depths of the river below. 

How long she’d been balancing there for, teetering on the edge and wondering whether or not to take that final step, Pinkie honestly couldn’t say. In the end, it was only the thought of her friends that had pulled her back from the brink. They were suffering enough as it was, no matter how hard things were, she couldn’t bring herself to torture them in that way. 

When she finally stepped back from the edge, Pinkie had made a rather startling discovery. She’d been so preoccupied with her dark thoughts that she hadn’t noticed the door opening behind her and someone else joining her on the deck. 

Thankfully Rainbow Dash hadn’t been angry. Shocked and upset, but not angry. Once she’d realized what Pinkie was up to she’d stood back and waited silently, letting her come to her own decision. Rainbow had ponied up of course, there was no way in heck she would have actually let Pinkie kill herself, but she’d trusted her to make the right decision. 

Then dragged her into a hug the second Pinkie’d realized she wasn’t alone. 

That was when the façade had finally shattered, Rainbow holding Pinkie tightly as she broke down completely. Once she’d cried herself out, Rainbow brought Pinkie back downstairs and gathered the others. 

That hadn’t been a fun conversation, but there was no denying that it had been necessary and, to some extent, cathartic. That was when they had all decided, as a group, that no matter how bad everyone felt or how bleak things looked, they all had to talk to each other. It was the only way they were going to all make it home alive.

Lopez listened patiently as Pinkie spoke, letting her get everything off her chest. She wasn’t even sure why she was telling all of this to a complete stranger. Even Sunset hadn’t heard it all yet, though admittedly she’d only woken up a few hours ago.

Eventually the story drew to a close. Pinkie sniffed and gently brushed away the tears she’d shed. She didn’t exactly feel better as such, but she did feel a little relieved. A little less bottled up. It had definitely been easier talking about it the second time around, especially to a man who was as patient and kind a listener as Lopez, one who understood all too well how she felt. 

“I was a trader once, out there in the wastes.”

Pinkie looked up at Lopez. He smiled sadly at her then cast his gaze out over the ruined landscape, speaking softly.

“Ten years ago me and my wife tried to make the trek here with our son. We’d saved up enough caps over the years that we could live quite comfortably here for a while, until I found work. The plan was that I’d either open up a stall in the marketplace or just join the security folks, if they’d have me.”  

Lopez’s face brightened as he reminisced, “My wife was a character, let me tell you. Witty, bright as a button and with a tongue sharper than anyone I’d ever met. Heh, my little boy was just as bad. Couldn’t take my eyes off him without him getting into some sort of mischief.”

Pinkie got a horrible sinking feeling as she heard Lopez say ‘was’. Indeed the twinkle in his eyes died and his whole body slumped as he continued, “We were almost here. We traveled carefully, avoiding all of the places we knew that super mutants liked to camp, but it wasn’t enough.”

Lopez nodded to a street corner down in the city below, “We were ambushed by raiders, right down by there. I managed to drive them off, but not before they…”

Pinkie slipped an arm around his shoulder as his throat bobbed. 

“They died in my arms.”

“I’m sorry.” Pinkie whispered. 

Lopez passed a hand over his face, taking a few breaths to calm himself, “Once… once I’d buried them, I came here. I knew they would have wanted me to go on but… I didn’t know what to do. I tried to make myself useful, but I’d lost everything I could really trade with, and I didn’t have the stomach for fighting anymore. Not after that. I’ve been alone here ever since. Just taking up space and getting in the way.”

Pinkie rested her head on his shoulder, “You’re a lot braver than I am.”

Lopez scoffed lightly at that, “If I was a brave man, I’d have thrown myself off this deck a long time ago.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Pinkie replied, “If it wasn’t for my friends I would have given up on that day, I couldn’t face doing this alone. But you… you’ve found the strength to face that burden every single day for the last ten years. I can’t even imagine how hard that’s been for you.”

Lopez’s breathed turned haggard, tears rolling out from under his hand and dripping off his chin. 

“But you’re not alone anymore, and you’re absolutely not useless or a waste of space. I Pinkie Promise.”

“I am, I rea-”

“You’re not,” Pinkie urged, gently but firmly, “You’ve lived in the Capital Wasteland for a long time, right?”

Lopez nodded, “All my life.”

“And you used to be a trader?”

Another nod.

Pinkie’s lips curved into a small smile, “Then I bet you’ve got lots of stories about things you’ve seen, and a lot you could teach someone who’s new to the wastes. I sure wish I had a good friend who could tell me stories like that, and teach me everything they knew about living out here.” She gave his shoulder a squeeze for emphasis. 

Lopez chuckled softly, pulling his hand away from his face. His eyes were red and there were wet tracks running through the dust on his wrinkled face, but there was a little spark in his eyes that hadn’t been there when he arrived on the deck, “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” Pinkie replied, smiling up at him, “But why don’t we start with where you were born?”

Lopez wiped his face and smiled back at her, “You ever heard of a town called Canterbury Commons?”





Unnoticed by either of the two on the observation deck a lone figure lurked in the shadows, watching the two as they talked. 

Fluttershy hadn’t intended to spy on them. 

She’d only come up to the observation deck in the first place to make sure that Pinkie was okay, but after hearing what they were talking about, she couldn’t help but listen. She felt bad enough leaving Pinkie on her own after recent events, even when the alone time was requested, there was no way she was going to leave two people with suicidal tendencies unsupervised in such a precarious position. 

Fluttershy still felt terrible for doing it. 

She’d barely managed to stifle her sobs as she listened to Pinkie and Lopez, her heart breaking at the thought of the pain and suffering they were going through, but she forced herself to be quiet.

Peeking through the slightly-open door again though, Fluttershy knew she’d made the right choice in not interrupting them. 

Pinkie’s hair, while still largely straight and flat, was starting to curl slightly at the tips. 

She’s got a long way to go, but Pinkie’s taken a few steps in the right direction today. Hopefully she can help Mister Lopez on the road to recovery too. 

Smiling slightly, Fluttershy turned and started down the stairs, leaving the two to their healing.
> Chapter 27 - Rivet City
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are few things more mortifying than realizing that you are wearing a catheter, though Sunset would argue that having said catheter removed is a strong contender. Especially when the only people available to remove it for you are an old man, doctor though he may be, and one of your best friends. Fortunately for Sunset the rest of her friends had already left. That helped mitigate at least some of the embarrassment. 

Sunset spent another week in her little room just down the corridor from the clinic, most of which was spent alternating between physiotherapy and bed rest. She’d been given a gentle routine, simple leg and breathing exercises intended to speed her post-operation recovery, that she performed several times a day. She also spent a small amount of time each day walking around the clinic under the watchful eye of Fluttershy. 

Doctor Preston later admitted that most people would have been discharged sooner but, given Sunset’s predilection for pushing herself, he’d felt the need to keep her under his watch for a little while longer. Nevertheless, her time recovering was hardly spent idle. Through her friends and the doctor she gathered as much information as she could about Rivet City, the wasteland in general, and any events she’d missed while she was asleep. 

It turned out that James had indeed came to Rivet City and spoken to Doctor Li before departing again, heading for something called ‘Project Purity’. Adam had arrived sometime later and, after finding out where his father had gone, had shot off in hot pursuit. There had been no word from either of them since. Sunset hated to admit it, but unless either of them returned to the city it was unlikely that the girls would be able to catch up at this point. 

Having come to a similar conclusion, and faced with the daunting prospect of paying off Sunset’s medical bills, the rest of the Rainbooms had decided to look for work. Fortunately their job search was far more successful in the city than it had been in Megaton. Fluttershy had quite obviously taken up a position as a nurse once again, but the others refused to tell Sunset what it was that they did, saying only that they would show her when she was discharged. 

Sunset’s offer of trying to help work off their debt was shot down before the thought had even finished forming in her brain. 

Eventually, once Doctor Preston was satisfied with her recovery, it was time for Sunset to leave the clinic. 

Or, at least, that was the plan. 

“Come on, Fluttershy. She’s fine!” Rainbow grumbled.

“I’m still not convinced,” Flutters responded, frowning slightly. 

The three were in Sunset’s convalescence room, waiting for her to pick up her few belongings and, apparently, trying to convince Fluttershy that she was actually fit to leave.

Sunset just rolled her eyes and shrugged her leather jacket on, glad to be back in her normal clothes again, “Rainbow’s right, Doctor Preston said I’m good to go.”

“But what if you push things too far and hurt yourself again?”

Rainbow let out an exasperated groan, “She’s only going on a tour of the city, the worst thing she’s going to face are stairs!”

“Look, I promise I’ll be careful, alright?” Sunset cut in quickly as Fluttershy opened her mouth to retort, “Walk but don’t run, take stairs slowly, and don’t lift anything heavier than ten pounds. Exactly what Doctor Preston ordered.” She sighed and slipped her Pip-Boy onto her arm, “Besides, it’s not like I’m going to be wandering around on my own.”

“I suppose,” Fluttershy said slowly, “But I want you to promise that you’ll tell us if anything hurts, okay?”

Sunset nodded, “If I don’t feel right or I need a break I’ll let you know. Pinkie promise.”

Flutters still looked reluctant for a moment, but finally she relented, “Oh… alright then. 

“Awww yeah! Come on Sunshim, time for a tour of Rivet City!” Rainbow cried as she yanked the door open.

Sunset couldn’t resist a grin as Fluttershy sighed and shook her head before following the overexcited athlete out into the corridor.

“So… where are we going first?” Sunset asked.

“I was thinking we could go and get some food from where Pinkie works,” Rainbow replied, “Come on, it’s thi-”

“One moment, girls!”

The three turned to see a man hurrying towards them, clad in the armored uniform of the Rivet City Security force. He had close-cropped brown hair and striking blue eyes that seemed to pierce Sunset where she stood.

“Oh, that’s Chief Harkness. He’s head of the security force,” Fluttershy whispered. 

Sunset couldn’t help but wonder what the head of security wanted with her. She’d spent her entire time in the city either in her room or in the clinic, and she certainly didn’t think she’d managed to do anything wrong in that time.

“Sunset Shimmer, it’s good to finally see you awake,” Harkness said as he approached. 

Sunset raised an eyebrow and planted a hand on her hip, “Been watching me sleep, officer?”

Harkness just gave her a flat look, “I watched the doctors stick you in that room after they’d finished putting you back together if that’s what you mean.”

Sunset couldn’t repress a shiver at the reminder of her near-death experience, “Oh… right.” 

“Anyway, I’m glad I caught you before you went wandering. There’s something I want to talk to you about,” Harkness looked around to make sure no-one else was near, then leaned in and lowered his voice, “I know you and your friends all have special abilities, I’ve even seen some of you at work with them, but I’m particularly concerned about your powers, Miss Shimmer. I’m sure you can appreciate how a telepath, such as yourself, might cause certain… ‘complications’ when it comes to matters of security.”

“I don’t have any intention of using my powers on anyone,” Sunset said quickly, “I only use them when I absolutely have to.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Harkness nodded solemnly, then gestured to the Geode around her neck, “Incidentally, Doctor Preston told me where your powers actually come from. As of yet he, myself and Doctor Li are the only ones aboard in the city who know about it, and I’d suggest we keep it that way. The last thing we want is anyone trying to steal one of those things.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“Alright then. In that case I’ll leave you girls to it. Enjoy Rivet City, and don’t go getting into any trouble.” 

Harkness gave a curt nod then turned and headed back down the way he came. Sunset stared after him until he went around a corner and out of sight. She turned away with a sigh, only to see Rainbow and Fluttershy staring at her, odd expressions on their faces. 

“What’s up?”

Rainbow just raised an eyebrow, “You know he’s way too old for you, right?”

“I… you… I wasn’t trying to flirt with him!” Sunset spluttered, a rosy tint appearing on her cheeks.

“Sure you weren’t,” Rainbow smirked. 

“Now now, Rainbow. Sunset’s been through enough without you making fun of her like that,” Fluttershy chided. 

Sunset smiled warmly at her, “Thanks, Fluttershy.”

“It’s alright. You’ve had a difficult couple of weeks and you’re on some very strong painkillers, it’s only natural for you to be a little awkward around people at the moment.”

“Er… thanks?”

Rainbow burst into laughter at that, prompting Sunset’s blush to return with a vengeance. Waving away Fluttershy’s stammered apology, she stuffed her hands into her pockets and fell into step behind the other two, Rainbow still sniggering as she led the group away from the clinic. 

The corridors and stairways of Rivet City were far more cramped and winding than even those of the Vault. Even so there were a fair number of people out and about. Many of the residents and even the patrolling security officers greeted the girls enthusiastically, several of them making a point of telling Sunset how glad they were to see her finally up and about. 

“So what do you think?” Rainbow asked as she led the way down another corridor.

“There people here seem so… nice,” Sunset said slowly, “It sure is different from the reaction we got back at Megaton.”

Rainbow huffed a laugh, “You said it. I guess we can thank Three-Dog for that.”

“The broadcasts he’s been putting out really have helped us fit in,” Fluttershy agreed, “Although, um, it’s a little scary too. Lots of strangers know our names now a-and they keep talking about us and asking us questions.”

“It’s just ‘cause we’re so awesome,” Rainbow smirked as they approached a door marked ‘Marketplace’, a muffled hubbub just audible beyond it, “This is it, Pinkie works at a restaurant in here.” Pausing before the door, she glanced back at Sunset uneasily, “Uh… before we go in there, just remember that Pinkie’s still feeling a little… uuuhhh…”

“Delicate,” Flutters supplied. 

Rainbow nodded, “Yeah, what she said. So just… y’know. Be patient with her, okay?”

“I will,” Sunset replied. She still hadn’t been given details about whatever had happened to Pinkie but, given how the rest of her friends had practically begged her not to push the issue, it must have been something bad. Sunset wasn’t exactly happy that she was being left out of the loop, but she respected her friends’ wishes. 

Besides, if Rainbow of all people is suggesting patience, it’s probably a good idea to listen to her.

All further thoughts were blown out of Sunset’s mind as Rainbow opened the heavy door and the girls were buffeted by a wave of noise. 

“Whoa.”

“Right?” Rainbow grinned.

A short set of steps led down into what must have originally been a ship’s hold or a hangar for one of the aircraft carrier’s planes, none of the girls knew enough about warships to tell, but now it had been converted into a huge, and bustling, market. 

Sunset couldn’t help but gawp. Dozens of stalls and stores had been set up in rows throughout the cavernous room, with what looked like hundreds of people crowding around them. She’d never seen this many people gathered in one place in the wastes before. Admittedly she hadn’t really been in the wastes, or even in this world, for very long, but after everything the girls had seen she’d barely imagined there even were this many people left in the wasteland. 

Gathering her wits about her, Sunset followed Rainbow and Fluttershy down the steps and into the crowd. 

They had barely set foot of the bottom step before people started noticing them. Many of them called out to Rainbow and Fluttershy, then did a double-take when they spotted Sunset behind them.  Sunset couldn’t help feeling a little self-conscious at the wave of sound that rippled out from the nearest people as word spread rapidly about the new arrival. 

Fluttershy was right, this is kinda scary.

Fortunately no-one actually tried to stop the girls, the crowd content to call out greetings and well wishes as they parted to let them pass. 

Rainbow lapped up the attention, waving and sticking her thumbs up at the people they passed. Fluttershy, on the other hand, did her level best to stay out of sight, sliding subtly behind Rainbow. Sunset very nearly copied her, but managed to pluck up the courage to smile shyly and return the people’s greetings, looking around at the stores as she did so. 

The first stall they came across was a large one, almost twice the size of most of the others, that sold a plethora of guns and various types of armor, even a suit of powered armor just like that worn by the Brotherhood of Steel soldiers, though it seemed a lot bigger and bulkier than it had when Sunset had first seen it. 

I guess the painkillers, blood loss and general shock had something to do with that.

After that there were stalls selling fancy clothes, medical supplies, electrical equipment and batteries, leather goods and assorted junk. Anything and everything a good wasteland survivor could possibly want. 

“That’s the one we want, Gary’s Galley!”

Looking where Rainbow pointed, Sunset spotted another large stall at the end of one of the rows. It had two counters running down it’s sides and several tables and chairs set out in an open space between it and the hangar walls. An older gentleman with black hair slowly turning to grey stood manning a register behind one of the counters, while a blonde-haired girl was waiting tables alongside someone that no-one could fail to recognize.

“Hey, Pinkie!” Rainbow called out. 

Pinkie looked up and grinned as she spotted her friends approaching. Her hair was still mostly flat, but the ends were slowly curling up and several strands were regaining some of their natural flounce as she walked.

“Hey, girls. Pick a table and I’ll be right over.”

The three nodded and found themselves an empty table. Once she was safely settled between the other two, Fluttershy glanced around quickly before turning to Sunset and speaking in an undertone, “Um, I should probably warn you, some of the food here is a little… um… strange.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, um, they can’t really grow any crops out here in the wasteland, so they have to make do with what they have.”

“Fair enough, but what about our Vault supplies?”

“We ran out of those days ago,” Rainbow cut in, “Don’t worry, the food tastes fine, it’s just a little… weird. Pinkie will bring something you’ll like.”

Just as Sunset opened her mouth to respond Pinkie appeared and plonked a bottle of water and a bowl down in front of each of them.

“Order up!”

Sunset eyed the food on her tray warily as Pinkie sat with a tray of her own, “Uh, what is it?”

“Cream of iguana soup,” Pinkie replied, “Iguana, carrots and potatoes in a cream made from brahmin milk.”

“It’s pretty good, try it,” Rainbow said, tucking into her own soup.

Still not entirely convinced, Sunset picked up a little piece of meat on her fork. It didn’t look particularly appealing, but it turned out to have a pleasant taste, a delicate flavor with a similar texture to chicken.

“Told you,” Rainbow grinned.

Sunset smiled and shook her head, “Alright, I admit it, this is good. Definitely better than the noodle broth they serve in the clinic.”

“The clinic food isn’t great,” Fluttershy agreed, throwing a quick glance Pinkie’s way, “Um, Pinkie?”

“Yeah?”

“Shouldn’t you be, um, you know… working?”

Pinkie just waved a hand absently, “It’s fine, Gary said I can take a quick break to eat with you three.”

“So you’re a waitress?” Sunset asked.

“And a cook, when it’s not too busy,” Pinkie replied.

“Cool. What about you Rainbow?”

Rainbow swallowed a mouthful of food and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, “I’m sort of a delivery girl. If someone wants a letter or parcel or something delivered to another part of the ship, I’m the one that takes it. Saves them a journey.”

Sunset was about to ask about the others when she felt a light tug on her sleeve. Glancing around she spotted a young girl with vibrant ginger hair, looking up at her hopefully.

“Um, excuse me, miss. Are you Sunset Shimmer?” the girl asked. She broke into an ecstatic grin as Sunset nodded in response, “Mom says you can read minds. Can you really?”

“I suppose I can, in a way,” Sunset replied, smiling at their enthusiasm. 

The little girl’s jaw dropped in awe, “Whoa… can you show me?”

Sunset shook her head, smiling sympathetically, “I’m sorry, but the security chief doesn’t want me using my power unless I absolutely have to.”

“Awwww.”

“Chandra!”

“Eep!”

The little girl practically jumped out of her skin as a woman, presumably her mother, emerged from the crowd. 

“Sorry about her,” the woman said gruffly as she ruffled Chandra’s hair, “Can’t let her out of my sight without her getting into some sort of trouble.”

Sunset grinned and shook her head, “It’s okay, she wasn’t bothering us.”

Chandra ducked out from under her mother’s hand and scowled up at her, “See? I was just talking to the angel, I wasn’t getting into trouble!”

“First time for everything I suppose,” the woman muttered, then darted forward and grabbed her daughter, tossing her over her shoulder like a sack of apples, “Sorry again.”

Sunset frowned as the woman strode away, ignoring her daughter’s furious protests. Something little Chandra said had raised her concern.

“Did… did she call me an angel?”

“Yep,” Rainbow said flatly.

Fluttershy sighed heavily, “It seems the Church of Atom didn’t believe Applejack when she tried to tell them we weren’t angels.”

“They’ve been spreading the news as far and as fast as they can,” Pinkie added, “A few travelling merchants brought the story here from Megaton and since then it’s spread like crazy.”

“Great,” Sunset groaned, turning back to her soup. She’d barely had another mouthful when a familiar voice called out from behind her.

“Hey, y’all.”

Rainbow’s head shot up at that, “Applejack? I thought you were going to be busy all day fixing those coolant pipes?”

“Ah thought so too,” Applejack replied as she dropped into an empty seat, “Turns out the pipes themselves were fine, it was just the pressure gauge that was busted. Much easier to fix.”

“Do you want me to get you some food?” Pinkie asked.

“Nah, already ate. Thanks anyway.”

“Okey dokey lokey,” Pinkie picked up her bowl and slurped up the last of her cream, letting out an appreciative sigh as she finished, “Well, I’d better get back to work. See you all later.”

The girls quickly said their goodbyes as she trotted off, taking her tray with her. 

“So you’re back in maintenance then, Applejack?” Sunset asked.

“Yep. It’s hard work, but it sure is a lot better doing it here than back in that darned Vault,” Applejack replied. 

“Speaking of work,” Rainbow pushed her empty bowl away and looked over at Applejack, “Since you finished early do you mind taking over on Sunset’s tour for me? I’ve got a few deliveries to do before the end of the day and the sooner I get them done the better.”

“Sure thing, sugarcube.”

“Sweet! Thanks AJ!”

Applejack turned to Sunset as Rainbow hurried off to get some work done, “Alright, so how much of the city have you seen so far?”

“Not much really. We pretty much came straight here from the clinic,” Sunset replied. 

“Hmm. In that case how about we take the scenic route up to the upper decks, show you where Rarity’s been working, then from there we’ll head over to the science lab and say hey to Twilight, that sound okay?”

Sunset nodded, “Sounds good to me. Let me just finish this and we’ll go.”

As soon as the food was finished the tour started up again, Applejack leading the little group out of the marketplace and back into the winding corridors that formed the majority of Rivet City. Sunset kept up as well as she could, taking short breaks whenever her abdomen started getting sore. 

She listened intently as Applejack and Fluttershy pointed out the various facilities and institutions of the city, including a bar, a hotel and, to Sunset’s quiet surprise, a museum. There was even a church, though fortunately the faith it served bore very little resemblance to the Cult of Atom, instead being one of the last remnants of an ancient religion that had mostly died out in the wasteland after the bombs fell. 

“Well, that’s almost everything,” Applejack said as the girls entered one of the uppermost decks, “Just around the corner here is where Rarit- oof!”

Applejack let out a soft grunt as she collided with a heavy-set man hurrying around the corner, the two rebounding off each other. 

“Hey watch where you’re fucking- oh, oh it’s you. Uh, sorry, I guess.” The man’s sudden temper evaporated the second he realized who he’d bumped into. He made to step past Applejack, then stopped abruptly as he spotted Sunset. A look of sheer terror flashed across his face and he retreated several steps, raising his hands as if he were  warding off a blow, “I… you… I… uh… I’ve gotta go.”

With a fearful glance at Sunset the man turned and fled down a side corridor, moving as quickly as he could without actually running. 

Sunset raised an eyebrow, “What was that about?” 

“That was Sister,” Applejack grumbled, “He’s a troublemaker alright, but he always tries to stay on our good side.” She frowned and folded her arms, looking thoughtful, “Never seen him act like that before though, almost looked like he thought you were going to tear a piece out of him.”

“Weird,” Sunset muttered. 

“Maybe he thought you were going to read his mind?” Fluttershy suggested. 

Sunset shook her head, “I doubt it, I wasn’t anywhere near close enough to touch him.”

Fluttershy tilted her head, thinking, “Um, does anyone other than us actually know that your powers only work by touch?”

Sunset just blinked stupidly, “Huh.”

“Well as long as he doesn’t cause us any problems ah say leave him to it,” Applejack said, straightening her hat and turning the corner, “Come on, Rarity works just down here.”

Sunset and Fluttershy followed her to a door right at the end of the corridor. A curious symbol was painted in the middle of the door, a little plus sign surrounded by eight white stripes in a circle, almost like an asterisk. A heart-shaped knocker sat underneath the symbol, which Applejack used to rap on the door. A few moments later the door creaked open to reveal a mousy little woman, her platinum blonde hair cut into a stylish bob. 

“Oh, hello. Are you here to see Rarity?”

Applejack nodded and tipped her hat, “Sure are, Coco. Mind if we come in?”

Coco smiled and stepped aside, “Not at all, please.” 

Sunset had to repress a giggle as she entered the room. 

There were mannequins everywhere, each of them displaying the highest quality clothes Sunset had seen in the wasteland yet, with several desks and chalkboards scattered around that were covered in designs for suits, dresses and other, less ‘public’ garments. Rarity herself was stood at one of the mannequins, wearing her glasses and eyeing the sleeves of a suit critically. 

Trust Rarity to find a fashion boutique in the middle of a post-apocalyptic hellhole.

The fashionista looked up as she heard her friends enter the room, “Applejack? This is a pleasant surprise, I thought you were going to be busy all day?”

Applejack huffed a laugh, “Yeah, well, turned out to be an easier fix than ah thought. Just figured we’d drop in while giving Sunset the tour.”

“Oh of course, and how are you finding the city, darling?” Rarity asked. 

“I’m actually a little surprised, it’s more impressive than I expected,” Sunset admitted, “So this is where you work?”

“It certainly is,” Rarity cleared her throat and flicker her hair, striking an elegant pose, “Welcome to the Seaborne Boutique, where every garment is chic, unique and magnifique!”

Coco giggled into her hand, “I still think Miss Germain is going to love that catchphrase.”

Sunset looked at her curiously, “Miss Germain?”

“She’s the proprietress,” Coco clarified, “Miss Germain designs all of the clothes we sell and I help her make them. I wish you could meet her but she and her sister were called away on an urgent business errand not long before you arrived.”

“A business errand?” Fluttershy enquired. 

Coco nodded, “Hopefully it’s just another commission from the elites living in Tenpenny Tower, and she won’t be away too long.”

A shiver ran down Sunset’s spine at the mention of Tenpenny Tower. She couldn’t quite remember where she’d heard of t before, but she was sure that it was in no good context. Shrugging it off, she asked, “Don’t you have a stall down in the marketplace?”

“We do sell some of our clothes to Bannon, the proprietor of the Potomac Attire stall, and most of the commissions we get are from people who come directly to us, but sometimes a messenger turns up and Miss Germain gets dragged off to deal with some bigwig who doesn’t want to risk the journey here,” Coco grinned and leaned closer, speaking in a conspiratorial tone, “Sometimes, we even get customers who’ve come all the way from the Commonwealth!”

The Commonwealth, now that’s a name I remember!  

Glancing surreptitiously at her friends, Sunset realized that they too remembered the place James had told them about before, where the technologically advanced Institute was said to be located.

The four girls spent several minutes trying to subtly wheedle as much information about the Commonwealth out of Coco as they could, just in case, but sadly she knew very little, other than the fact that the ground was said to be somewhat more fertile there.

After a while they decided to call it quits and go visit Twilight. Saying their goodbyes to Rarity, who still had work to finish, Applejack, Sunset and Fluttershy set off through the corridors once more, heading for the science labs. Given how much the rest of Rivet City had exceeded her expectations, Sunset was expecting to be thoroughly impressed by the laboratories. 

They didn’t disappoint. 

When they first entered the room the girls found themselves on a metal walkway that ringed the upper level of the room, with several doors leading off to other sections of the ship and short staircases allowing access to the floor below. Generators and containers of all sizes and descriptions dotted the lower level of the room, with masses of pipes running from each of the into the walls and ceiling. Tables were scattered around between them, all of them covered in equipment, experiments or reams and reams of research notes.  

All of the equipment was attended to by a score of technicians and scientists, the buzz of their conversations audible even over the hum of the machinery. Twilight easily stood out from the rest of the group, her colorful hair tied up in a messy bun to keep it out of the way. She grinned and waved as she spotted the little group. 

As the three made their way down the stairs to the lower level, Sunset noticed another of the scientists turn to see who Twilight was waving at. The woman had dark brown hair that was neatly styled, and had a definite aura of authority. She folded her arms as she spotted the girls, her expression blank.

“Who’s that?” Sunset whispered.

“Doctor Li,” Fluttershy spat.

Ah, the one who tried to pronounce me dead. This should be interesting.

“Easy now, sugarcube. We don’t want to cause another ruckus,” Applejack said soothingly, placing a hand on Fluttershy’s shoulder. 

Flutters just grumbled, her expression settling into a scowl. 

Twilight didn’t seem to notice, striding straight up to Sunset and pulling her into a gentle hug, “Hey, how are you feeling?”

“Pretty good actually.” 

“Good, that’s good,” Twilight released the hug and stepped back, tucking a stray hair behind her ear, “So, what do you think of Rivet City?”

Sunset opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted as a raspy voice called out to her. 

“Sunset Shimmer, I presume?”

A chill ran down her spine at those words. Trying not to quake at the memory of the last time she'd heard those words, Sunset turned to face the speaker.

An near-bald elderly gentleman stood next to her, wearing a smart grey suit and a thick pair of glasses. An imposing thug in thick, dark clothing was hovering around his shoulder like a bodyguard. 

“I am Doctor Zimmer. I wonder if I could borrow a moment of your time?”
> Chapter 28 - Are We Taking Requests?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset eyed Doctor Zimmer warily. She’d been in a similar situation before and had no desire whatsoever for a repeat of what happened with Mister Burke. 

“Oh, is this about the android again?” Twilight piped up suddenly.

…come again?

“You still haven’t found anyone who can find that thing for you?” Applejack asked.

Zimmer shook his head slowly, “Regrettably no, I haven’t.”

Seeing Sunset’s blank look, Twilight explained, “Doctor Zimmer is a representative of the Institute. He’s here looking for a lost android.”

“The Institute?” Sunset was sure that she’d heard that name before, but she couldn’t remember what it meant. After a few moments she gasped as realization hit, “You mean from the Commonwealth! The organisation James mentioned!”

“The very same,” Zimmer replied, holding out his hand, “And on behalf of the Institute I would like to formally welcome you to our world, however little of it that remains.”

Sunset let out a breath as she took the proffered hand, relaxing slightly, “Thanks. So you believe that we aren’t from this world then?”

“Absolutely. I’ll admit I was skeptical at first but after seeing what your friends are capable of, not to mention the little mishaps that occurred when the good Doctor Li tried to study your peculiarities, I see no reason for any doubt.” 

Making a mental note to ask the others what exactly had happened during Doctor Li’s ill-fated experiments, Sunset was about to ask about a rather more pressing matter when someone else cut in.

“I’ve already asked about portal technology,” Twilight said quickly, pre-empting her question, “They don’t have anything even remotely like what we need so far.”

Zimmer sighed heavily and shook his head, “It’s such a shame you didn’t arrive at the Institute rather than in one of those obsolete old Vaults. With your co-operation I’m certain we could make great strides in developing such technology.”

“You don’t have any idea what could have brought us here?” Sunset asked hopefully.

Another shake of the head, “Miss Sparkle gave me a description of the item that your friend James supposedly used but without conferring with someone from Advanced Systems I really couldn’t say.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” Sunset said softly, she’d known it was a long shot anyway. “So what’s this about a lost android?” she asked, eager to change the subject.

Zimmer visibly brightened at that, “I’m glad you asked. You see, unlike the glorified gardeners who are content to sit in this forsaken backwater and play with their chemistry sets, we at the Institute spend our time working with real science.”

Sunset frowned slightly at that. From what she’d heard the scientists at Rivet City were focused on perfecting portable fusion power and increasing the yield from their hydroponics experiments. Bringing clean electricity and radiation-free food to the wasteland was hardly something any decent person would mock. Oblivious to her feelings, Zimmer continued his little speech.

“Among our technological achievements are true robots. Not those ridiculous buckets of bolts that the people of yesteryear were so proud of, but true synthetic humanoids, like my bodyguard, Armitage.”

Sunset glanced in surprise at the thuggish man looming over Zimmer’s shoulder, “He’s a robot? But… he looks so…?”

“Real?” Zimmer smirked, “Yes, he’s what we call a Generation Three Synth. Virtually indistinguishable from an ordinary human save for a few small components. Unfortunately a rare few are prone to malfunctions, often getting confused and wandering off or even trying to run away.”

“Let me guess, that’s what happened to the one you’re looking for?” Sunset asked.

Zimmer nodded, “What makes this case worse is that the synth in question was a prototype Courser, a powerful model programmed to hunt down and retrieve other lost units, which means he knows-”

“Exactly how to evade whoever gets sent after him,” Sunset finished.

“Precisely. I tracked him as far as here, but the trail has gone cold. I suspect he’s done something drastic, most likely facial surgery and a mind wipe, or else I would have found him by now.” Zimmer huffed and grumbled angrily, “Of course, if I could just speak to Doctor Li I’m sure I could get this whole mess dealt with a lot faster.”

“And I’ve already told you I don’t have time to play hide and seek with your runaway toy.”

The group turned at the sound of the voice, Zimmer with ill-disguised irritation. 

“Doctor Li. So kind of you to grace me with your attention at last.”

Doctor Li was standing with her arms folded, glaring down her nose at him, “As fascinating as your technology is, Doctor Zimmer, the fact remains that my team and I have more pressing matters to attend to than finding a lost robot,” Li glanced sidelong at Twilight, “And that includes you, Miss Sparkle.”

Twilight jolted as if she’d had an electric shock, “Yes, Doctor!”

“Miss Shimmer, I’d like a word with you as well, if that’s alright?” 

Sunset blinked with surprise, “Oh, uh… okay?”

Zimmer scowled and folded his arms, “I fail to see what could be more pressing than recovering one of the most advanced pieces of technology this pathetic wasteland has ever seen!”

“I’m well aware, doctor, which is why I refuse to waste my time dealing with you any more than is absolutely necessary,” Doctor Li replied contemptuously. Giving him one last look of disgust she turned to walk away, calling back over her shoulder, “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a ‘pathetic wasteland’ to help.”

Zimmer opened his mouth to retort as Twilight and Li walked away, but was cut off by Sunset, “I’ll help look for your android, er, synth. I can’t promise anything while I’m still recovering, but I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

“Thank you, Miss Shimmer,” Zimmer said brightly, throwing a glare at Doctor Li’s back, “It’s nice to see that someone around here can appreciate the importance of real science.”

It took all of Sunset’s willpower not to roll her eyes at that. Luckily neither the old coot nor his bodyguard noticed.

“He won’t be easy to find, though I suspect your particular… ‘abilities’ will expedite matters,” Zimmer continued obliviously, “I’d recommend speaking to any doctors or techies you can find. He’d have needed someone of considerable talent to perform facial reconstruction and a complete memory scrub.” He glared once again at Doctor Li as she stepped out through a doorway at the far end of the room, “Which is precisely why I came to find that impossible woman in the first place.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Sunset replied.

Zimmer fixed her with a serious look, “If you do find him, please be careful. He may not even realize that he’s a synth anymore and talking about it may upset him. Just come to me immediately and I’ll handle it.”

Sunset nodded, “Okay. Well, I guess I’d better go and see what Doctor Li wants.”

“Very well, Miss Shimmer, and thanks again.”

Raising a hand in farewell, Sunset headed towards the door Twilight and Doctor Li had disappeared through, Applejack and Fluttershy following in her wake. Counting the seconds in her head, she got to six before the inevitable came.

“Uh, are you sure that was a good idea?” Applejack asked.

Sunset couldn’t resist a small smile at the question she’d known was coming, “It’s not like I’ve got anything else to do, and it gives me an excuse to go around and get to know some of the residents here.”

“What if this ends up being another Burke incident?”

“It won’t,” Sunset replied firmly, “If things start to look dangerous we’ll go straight to Chief Harkness, tell him everything we know, then barricade ourselves in the most secure room we can find.” A grim smile worked it’s way across her face, “Either that or you get to rip a robot limb from limb.”

“That’s fine by me,” Applejack muttered darkly. 

A moment later the three stepped through the doorway, emerging in a long corridor with a number of doors leading off on both sides. Each of the doors was sealed shut, with the word DANGER painted across them in large, white letters. A bright, rainbow-colored sludge was seeping out from under one, while one of the others was covered in an odd, glittering sheen. Doctor Li and Twilight were stood in front of the latter, inspecting it. They looked around as Applejack closed the heavy door behind them.

“Hey, Sunset.” Twilight smiled.

“Hey,” Sunset returned the smile before looking to Doctor Li, “You wanted to speak to me?”

Doctor Li nodded, “I did yes. First of all let me congratulate you on your recovery. It’s good to finally see you on your feet.”
Sunset just about caught the sound of a tiny snort from Fluttershy, who’d maintained a stony silence ever since they’d set foot in the science bay. She couldn’t blame her, Sunset herself wasn’t sure how she felt about the woman.

“Er, thanks.” she said, after a few moments of awkward silence.

Doctor Li’s stole a quick glance at Fluttershy, “I assume you’ve already been told about what happened during your surgery.”

“I have, yeah,” Sunset replied stiffly.

“I thought so,” Doctor Li sighed, her shoulders slumping, “Look, I realize you probably think I’m an evil bitch who was quite happy to let you die, but you have to understand just how dire your situation was. Being asystolic for that long, you should be a vegetable. It’s a miracle that you survived at all. The fact that you aren’t severely brain-damaged is, frankly, impossible.”

“L-look, it’s fine, okay?” Sunset spluttered. She shivered as cold fear gripped her, as it always did when she was reminded of the surgery.

“Sunset, are you alright?” Fluttershy asked softly.

“I’m fine, just a little cold.” Desperate to change the subject, Sunset gestured to the sparkly door, “S-so… uh… what happened here?”

Applejack smirked and tilted her hat back, “Heh, a whole bunch of failed experiments, ain’t that right, Doc?”

Doctor Li scowled at the glittering door, “In a manner of speaking. That’s actually something I wanted your help with.” Straightening her shoulders, she cast an appraising look at Sunset, “I understand you’ve previously attempted to analyse your friends powers scientifically. I was hoping you would share the results with me.”

“Now hold on a second,” Applejack interrupted, “You know you ain’t supposed to be doing any research on magic anymore, the Council won’t allow it.”

“I’m well aware of that, but if I know what Sunset’s results were I’m sure I can devise a safe method of studying your powers.”

Sunset shook her head, “I’m sorry, but the only results I ever got from studying our magic were bruises and a really weird mess to clean up.”

“Just trust us on this one. Messing around with magic when you don’t know what you are doing never ends well,” Twilight said softly, “You’re lucky that no one was hurt with the basic analysis you tried.”

Doctor Li sighed heavily, “I suppose you’re right. But I still think it’s worth looking into. Just imagine all the good we could do if we could replicate your abilities, or even just some of the results we saw in these rooms. We could save lives, make the wasteland a better place again! People wouldn’t have to struggle just to… oh for fuck’s sake.”

Sunset gaped as a soft glow washed over Doctor Li, her hair lengthening and turning a pale blue while a pair of lime-green pony ears sprouted out of the top of her head.

“You ponied up,” Sunset said flatly.

“I noticed,” Doctor Li muttered grumpily.

“But… how?”

“I wish I knew. It’s been happening ever since I got covered in whatever that stuff is,” she replied, pointing at the rainbow-slime dribbling out from under the one door.

Sunset squatted next to the slime. It looked to her exactly like the stuff that had erupted from the computer when she tried to study Rainbow Dash’s magic, back before the Friendship Games. She ran her Pip-Boy over it, just to be sure, but it wasn’t giving off any form of radiation. 

“It doesn’t seem to be dangerous in any way,” Twilight said quickly, crouching next to Sunset, “However, after everything that we’ve had to deal with in the past we decided it would be best to seal off the rooms Doctor Li used for testing our magic, at least for now.”

“You’re darn right,” Applejack supplied, “The last thing we need right now is rogue Equestrian magic getting loose in the Capital Wasteland.”

“No arguments here,” Sunset agreed. 

“Has anyone else ponied up?” Fluttershy asked, her ire with the doctor forgotten for now.

Doctor Li shook her head, “Not as far as I know. The only other person I allowed to help me with these experiments was Anna, and she hasn’t mentioned anything out of the ordinary.” 

“Good,” Sunset stood and stretched, wincing as her stitches pulled, “Does anyone else have access to this corridor?”

“Just me. I keep it locked when I’m not in here.”

Well, at least that’s one less thing to worry about.

Applejack frowned, her gaze flicking from the slime to the sparkling door, “Do you think we should try and clean all this mess up before it gets loose?”

“What would we do with it though?” Fluttershy asked, “It’s not like we can just wash it into the river or something.”

Sunset shivered as the thought of magically mutated mirelurks danced through her mind.

“Fluttershy’s right. We should keep it sealed for now and see if we can find a way of storing it properly,” Twilight said firmly.

“That’s all well and good, but what are we going to do about this?” Doctor Li pointed to her new ears, twitching them for emphasis.

Twilight shrugged, “I don’t think ponying up is going to cause you any real harm, if anything it seems to have a mild healing effect.”

“For now you should just make a note of what you’re doing whenever you feel it happen. We always seem to pony up when we do something that expresses the deepest, truest part of our nature,” Sunset explained, “If you can figure out what that is for you, maybe you can find a way to control the change?”

“Observe, record, hypothesize. The simplest form of science,” Doctor Li sighed, “Start with the basics I suppose.”

“It’s the safest way of doing things, especially when concerning magic,” Sunset replied.

“Yeah, trust us on that one,” Applejack smirked and gave Twilight a nudge, earning a sheepish smile in response.

Doctor Li raised an eyebrow at that, then shrugged and started back towards the main science lab, “Very well, I shall defer to your experience in this case. Come on, I’ll lock this corridor up again and then we really should get back to work.”

“Fair enough, I guess I’ll make a start on finding Zimmer’s robot then,” Sunset said as she was chivied out of the corridor.

“You agreed to look for it?” Doctor Li asked in surprise. At Sunset’s nod she frowned and turned to lock the door, lowering her voice as she did so, “Just be careful. Zimmer is more interested in science for the sake of science than anything else, he doesn’t give a damn about ethics or the greater good.”

“We’d noticed,” Sunset, Applejack and Fluttershy all said in unison.

Doctor Li allowed herself a small smirk, “Very well. Come on, Twilight, we should get back to our experiments.”

“Yes, Doctor. I’ll see you girls later tonight.”

After a quick wave goodbye as the two eggheads wandered off, Applejack turned to Sunset, “Alright then, where do you think we should start?”

“Zimmer did say we should speak to a doctor. Maybe we should see if Doctor Preston knows anything?” Fluttershy piped up.

Sunset nodded, “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

“Works for me. Let’s get moving,” Applejack said brightly. 

Following Applejack’s lead, the girls headed back to the science lab’s upper walkway and back out into the main corridors of Rivet City. 

Sunset still wasn’t used to the maze of bulkheads and tight passageways, and she had absolutely no idea where anything was in relation to anything else yet, so she was quite surprised when she learned that the clinic was only a short walk away from where they were on the Upper Deck. 

Fortunately the way was mostly empty, there being little in the way of foot-traffic between the lab and the clinic. Even more fortunately, Doctor Preston was actually present at the clinic, something Fluttershy had assured her wasn’t always a sure thing, as he had a tendency to wander off if his services weren’t immediately required.

“Miss Shimmer! I wasn’t expecting you back so soon!” he exclaimed as the girls entered the room, “You haven’t popped your stitches already have you?”

Sunset huffed a laugh, “Nothing like that yet, Doc. Actually we’ve got sort of an… odd question to ask you.” 

The doctor raised an eyebrow and turned his chair to face them, his curiosity obviously piqued, “I’m all ears.”

Sunset rubbed her neck awkwardly, wondering how best to ask him, “Well, this is going to sound really random but… have you ever heard anything about an android, or a synth, asking around about facial reconstruction?”

The three girls had expected a blank look, or perhaps even another check to make sure Sunset wasn’t brain-damaged. What they hadn’t expected was for Doctor Preston to frown and start rifling through his drawers, searching for something.

“Funny you should ask, I have actually heard something about that. Just let me… ah! Here it is!” With a little flourish he pulled out a dusty old holotape,  “I received this a few years ago. Here we go…”

Brushing the worst of the dust off, he slotted it into a player on his desk and hit the ‘play’ button. A moment later a man’s voice crackled out from the speaker.

“Hey, doc, I'm only sharing this with you because you seem like someone we can trust. Have you heard about the synthetic men they make up north in the Commonwealth? Well, the rumors are true. They're called androids. They're men like us, just made out of different parts. I know one of these androids. He's looking for a trustworthy doctor to perform some facial surgery. Can you do it? Do you know someone who can? Also, do you know anyone who's really a wiz with computers?”

There was a short beep and the tape stopped playing. 

Silence reigned for a few seconds as everyone digested what they’d heard. 

“Is that it?” Applejack asked. 

Doctor Preston nodded, “That’s it. I received that from a total stranger some years ago now. He asked me to listen to that when I was alone then give him an answer the next day.”

Sunset frowned, wondering if the stranger might have been the synth himself, “What did you tell him?”

The doctor just shrugged and shook his head, “I told him I couldn’t help him. I’m not confident that I’d be capable of performing that kind of surgery, and I don’t know anyone who I’d say is really a ‘whiz with computers’.” 

“Have you seen that stranger since?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t.”

“Darn. Well, I guess that’s the end of that,” Applejack grumbled.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” Doctor Preston said quietly.

“It’s fine, it’s not really a big deal,” Sunset sighed, “Thanks anyway.”

“It was my pleasure, dear.”

Leaving the Doctor to his work, Fluttershy assuring him that she’d be back bright and early the next morning, the girls congregated in the corridor to discuss their next move.

“Well that was a bust,” Applejack muttered.

“Doctor Zimmer did say this wasn’t going to be easy,” Fluttershy said reasonably.

Sunset smiled and patted them both on the shoulder, “Don’t worry about it, girls. We made an effort, but I’m not planning on losing any sleep over this. The android is probably better off away from that old grump anyway.”

Applejack smirked at that, “Ah reckon you’re right about that. What to you fancy doing now then?”

Sunset hummed softly as she considered, “I’m not sure. Do you think maybe we could go and take a… look… at…” 

She trailed off as she spotted a woman sneak around the corner. She was wearing tatty old clothes and a dirty white head-wrap, and kept peering around nervously as she rounded the corner. The moment the woman spotted the girls her eyes widened and she hurried over. 

“You… you’re Sunset Shimmer, aren’t you?” She spoke quietly, her whole body trembling, “Please. You have to help me!”

“Hey, it’s okay. Just relax,” Sunset placed a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to calm the poor woman, “What’s wrong?”

“M-my name’s Mei. I used to be a slave. I escaped a while ago and I’ve been living here ever since.”

The girls couldn’t help but gasp upon hearing that. They’d heard in passing that slavery existed in the wasteland, but this was their first time encountering someone who had suffered such an awful fate.

“Don’t worry, sugarcube, we’ll help you,” Applejack said soothingly, “What do you need?”

Mei looked pleadingly at Sunset, “It’s him. He’s here for me, I’m sure he is, but the security teams can’t do anything about it without proof.”

Sunset shared a shocked look with the others, her thoughts immediately jumping to Zimmer. He’d implied that the synth they were looking for was male, but that didn’t prove anything. In fact, given the synth’s reputed history, it made an odd sort of sense. If your captor’s were looking for a man, the best way to hide would be to become a woman.

“It’s okay. We won’t let anyone hurt you,” Fluttershy said softly, “why don’t you tell us who’s after you?”

“Sister.”

Sunset blinked stupidly, her train of thought utterly derailed, “Sister?”

Mei nodded slowly, “He’s a slaver.”
> Chapter 29 - Slaves Of All Sorts
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“A slaver…” Applejack muttered under her breath, “Are you sure?”

Mei nodded, “I recognize him from Paradise Falls. He’s here for me, I’m sure of it.”

“Why the heck didn’t you come and find us sooner?”

Mei looked away, “I-I don’t have any proof. You wouldn’t have any reason to believe me.” She looked up at Sunset suddenly, wringing her hands nervously, “But you can prove it. You can reveal him for what he really is.”

Realizing what the former slave was after, Sunset shook her head sadly, “I’m not allowed to use my magic on anyone. Not unless it’s an emergency.”

Seeing the light of hope die in Mei’s eyes almost changed Sunset’s mind there and then, but she couldn’t afford to get on the wrong side of the security team, not to mention how difficult it would be to get close enough to use her power on him anyway given how wary he was of her. 

Wait a second…

“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Fluttershy asked.

Applejack shook her head with visible reluctance, “Ah hate to say it, but there ain’t much we can do. It’s not like we can just march up to him and confront him without proof.”

“Mei, do you have a room of your own?” Sunset asked suddenly, “One that you can lock?”

“No. I-I sleep in the common room,” she replied.

“What’re you thinking, sugarcube?” Applejack asked suspiciously.

Sunset frowned and folded her arms, “I’ve got an idea, but I thought we should get Mei someplace safe first before we try anything. I don’t know how strict security is around here, but I’m guessing they won’t let him force his way into a locked room. If she lives in the common room though…”

Applejack nodded and clapped a hand on Sunset’s shoulder, “Just leave that to me. Ah’ll put her someplace where she’ll be safe for a few hours or so. For now you and Flutters just head back down to Gary’s Galley and wait until ah get back. You can explain everything to us then.”

Sunset quickly agreed to that and allowed Fluttershy to lead her, for the second time that day, from the corridor outside the clinic back down to the marketplace. The journey this time was a little slower, owing to the need for Sunset to take a rest on the stairs. 

The day was getting on towards evening but there was still quite a crowd of people in the market, picking over the stalls before they started packing up for the day. The people were just as friendly and eager to greet the girls as they had been earlier, even those who had already spoken to them, and Fluttershy once again did her level best to stay hidden behind a friend. 

Pinkie was still at the Galley restaurant too when the girls arrived, sat at a table on her own and fiddling with her Pip-Boy. 

“Hey, Pinkie,” Sunset called as she approached.

“Huh? Oh! Hi!” Pinkie grinned as Sunset and Flutters joined her at the table, “What’re you doing here? Are you hungry?”

“I’m… famished actually,” Sunset was surprised to admit. She glanced sidelong at Fluttershy, “I know we’re not exactly here for food but…?”

“It’s fine,” she giggled, “We’ve done a lot of walking today, you should keep your energy up.” 

Pinkie nodded and called out to a young woman wiping down tables. One quick order later, after a review of what was available, and a steaming bowl of more iguana soup was plonked in front of Sunset. 

Pinkie raised an eyebrow as she started to chow down, “You really like that stuff, huh?” 

Sunset just grunted in response, too busy chewing to speak. She had to admit that she was getting a taste for it. The fact that it was one of the few dishes on offer that wasn’t radioactive certainly helped matters. 

“So why’d you come back here if it wasn’t for food?” Pinkie asked.

Fluttershy opened her mouth to answer, then squealed as a sudden blur shot past her.

“Heh, sorry, Fluttershy,” Rainbow said sheepishly as the others glared at her.

“It’s alright,” Flutters sighed, relaxing again, “What are you doing here?”

“One of the security guys told me that Applejack’s been trying to find me. He said she wanted me to wait here for her.”

“That’s a pretty good idea actually,” Sunset mused.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at her as she flopped onto a chair, “Uh… what is?”

“Having you on board too.”

“Well we’re on a ship, so technically we’re all on board, silly!” Pinkie grinned as the others suppressed a groan. “Say, is this something to do with why you and Fluttershy are here too?”

Sunset nodded, “Pretty much.”

“So what’s up?” Rainbow asked.

Glancing around surreptitiously, Sunset noticed that several people were looking their way every now and again, understandable given how much they stood out, but no-one was paying close attention. She lowered her voice anyway, just in case, “A woman called Mei came to ask for our help. For her safety we’re keeping what she told us a secret for now, so don’t go shouting or making a fuss, alright?” Sunset waited for Rainbow and Pinkie to agree before continuing. “She thinks Sister is after her, and that he’s a slaver.”

“Seriously!?” Rainbow yelled as she shot to her feet. 

Sunset face-palmed as the sudden outburst drew the attention of everyone in the vicinity. Rainbow at least had the good grace to look embarrassed as she sat back down.

“Uh… sorry,” she said sheepishly. “So… uh… Sister’s a slaver?”

“We’re not sure, but Mei said she recognized him from when she was a slave,” Fluttershy replied. 

Rainbow’s expression darkened at that, “If that’s the case then why haven’t the security team done anything about it?”

“They don’t have any proof,” Sunset sighed, “That’s why she came to us. She wanted me to use my magic on him, but-”

“But Chief Harkness said not to use your magic unless you absolutely have to,” Rainbow huffed. 

“Exactly.” 

“Poor Mei,” Pinkie mumbled.

Sunset smiled and patted her hand reassuringly, “Don’t worry, Applejack is taking her somewhere safe for now, and I have an idea on how we can get the truth about Sister.”

“So what’s the plan?” Rainbow asked eagerly. 

“It’s probably best to wait until Applejack gets here. I don’t want to explain everything twice,” Sunset replied before turning back to her food.

“Eh, fair enough,” Rainbow shrugged and tried to swipe a chunk of meat from Sunset’s bowl, earning a sharp slap to the back of the hand. 

“I hope she doesn’t take too long to get here, the marketplace is closing soon and the security team is really strict about people being in here after hours,” Pinkie said quietly.

“If it comes down to it we can just wait outside,” Fluttershy replied. “So how has work been today?”

Time passed easily as the girls talked amongst themselves. Sunset spoke little, content to just listen to the others as they talked about their day. After a little while Rainbow tuned in to Galaxy News on her Pip-Boy, listening eagerly to a radio program about the exploits of a pair of famous wasteland adventurers, Herbert ‘Daring’ Dashwood and his ghoul ‘manservant’ Argyle.

Finally, just as the program was wrapping up, Applejack arrived with Rarity in tow.

“It’s about time!” Rainbow huffed.

“Ah’m sorry y’all. It took me a while trying to find someplace safe for Mei,” Applejack sighed as she settled into a chair, “Ah brought Rare’s along just in case. Ah tried to get Twilight too but Doctor Li wouldn’t let her come.”

Sunset nodded, “That’s fine, the rest of us can handle this. And don’t worry,” she added as Applejack opened her mouth to object, “I won’t let this turn into another Burke situation.”

“If you say so,” Applejack said quietly. “Alright, so what’s your idea?”

After making sure that no strangers were close enough to hear over the hubbub of the crowd, Sunset quickly relayed her plan.

“That… is… devious!” Rarity breathed, sounding impressed. 

Sunset smirked, “Hey, I did use to be the evil queen of CHS.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Applejack muttered, smiling faintly. “Alright. I think this could work, but we’ll have to be darned careful about it.”

Fluttershy nervously brushed a lock of her behind her ear,, “But, um, what if Sister gets angry and… and tries to…”

“If he tries anything at all dear, I shall be sure to politely, but firmly, use my magic to… ahem, restrain him,” Rarity replied. 

“Sweet!” Rainbow cried as she clambered out of her seat, “Come on! What are we waiting for?”

“Well for a start we don’t know where to find him,” Applejack said flatly.

“Why not try his room in the Weatherly Hotel on the upper deck?”

The other girls stared at Rainbow in surprise.

“And how exactly do you know he has a room there?” Rarity asked suspiciously.

Rainbow just gave her a blank look, “I’m a delivery girl. Duh.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course,” Rarity replied, coloring slightly.

Sunset snorted and rose to her feet, “Come on, let’s get this done. Are you sure you’re okay to sit this one out, Pinkie?”

Pinkie nodded slowly as the others got out of their seats, “I’m sure. I don’t think I could handle a confrontation right now.” She sighed and hung her head, “I’m sorry, girls.”

“Hey, it’s okay. We totally get it,” Rainbow said softly, giving her a reassuring pat. 

“And don’t you go worrying about us,” Applejack added, “Ah think we’re starting to get the hang of handling people in this world.”

Fluttershy nodded, “And Sunset promises that she’s not going to overdo anything and hurt herself again. Don’t you, Sunset?”

“Y-yes ma’am!” Sunset spluttered, shocked by the sheer menace the meek little nurse managed to pack into that single question.

Rainbow chuckled and strode off, taking the lead through the crowd, “Come on then, girls. It’s this way.”

The rest of the Rainbooms fell into step behind her, waving to Pinkie as they went. 

The journey up to the Weatherly Hotel was fairly brief, though Sunset groaned internally as she realized the route was taking her back up to the clinic. Again. In fact, it transpired that the hotel reception was practically next door to the room Sunset had been using during her convalescence. 

The actual rooms of the hotel were spread along several corridors. There were one or two people around, mostly residents going to and from their quarters, but there weren’t any security officers wandering around. Sunset wasn’t entirely sure that that was a good thing. On the one hand, it meant no awkward conversations about what they were doing, but on the other it also meant there wasn’t anyone with authority in the immediate vicinity in case everything went pear-shaped.

“That’s the one,” Rainbow said suddenly, gesturing to one of the doors.

Sunset nodded and stepped up to it. The other girls arranged themselves around her, Rarity at her side just in case, Rainbow and Applejack just behind, then Fluttershy lurking safely at the back. 

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Sunset knocked on the door. There was a deep grumbling followed by footsteps, then a harsh metallic squeal as the door was hauled open. 

“-fuck’s sake, who the fu-”

Sister’s foul-mouthed complaining stopped the instant he saw who was at the door. His eyes widened and his complexion rapidly changed from ruddy to something more closely resembling Rarity’s natural shade.

“Wha… I.. w-what do you…”

Sunset raised her hands slowly, “Easy, we just want to talk to you. May we come in?”

At first it looked like he would refuse. His mouth opened and closed several times without any sound coming out, but finally he relented, stepping back and giving the girls room to enter, “S-sure. C-come on in.”

“Thanks.”

Sister backed away as the five traipsed into the room, getting as far away from them as he could in the cramped little room. 

A simple naval cot hung from one wall, a table with a metal footlocker underneath ran along another and, bizarrely, the steel frame of a bunk bed, devoid of any form of mattress or bedclothes, was sat right next to the door. There were a couple of chairs and even a sofa in the room, but they had all been stacked against the walls to preserve some small amount of space. 

Sunset idly wondered how much such a room must cost, before turning her attention back to the reason for their visit.

Sister had backed himself right up against the far wall. He was a big man, broad and muscular, but he was staring at Sunset as if she were the harbinger of his doom. Seeing him looking so intimidated, she hesitated as she thought out the best way to go about speaking to him. 

The plan was fairly simple. Sister clearly knew that Sunset could read minds, but he wasn’t aware that she had to physically touch someone for it to work. It also didn’t seem likely that he knew she wasn’t permitted to use her magic within Rivet City unless it was an emergency. All the girls had to do was imply that they knew what he was and let him incriminate himself as he tried to defend his position. Fluttershy, at the back, was secretly recording the whole conversation on her Pip-Boy so they would have hard proof for the security team to act on.

“Okay, you’re in. Now what do you want?” Sister asked defiantly. 

“Relax, sugarcube. We ain’t here to cause a ruckus,” Applejack said quietly. “We just want to talk is all.”

“W-what about? I don’t have all day y’know.”

Sunset folded her arms and fixed him with a level glare, “You know what we want to talk about.”

Sister gulped audibly, “I… I don’t do that shit anymore.”

“And why should we believe you?” Rainbow asked.

“Because life here is fucking safe!”  

“Hey, it’s okay,” Sunset said quickly before he got any more agitated, “It’s like Applejack said, we aren’t here to cause any problems.” She gestured to the cot, “Look, why don’t you just sit down and explain everything to us.”

Sister looked away, running a hand through his hair nervously, “Shit. I… shit.” He glanced back at the girls, then sighed and dropped onto the cot, looking up at Sunset seriously, “Alright, fine. Look, life outside is fucking harsh. There’s constantly something trying to either eat you or fucking shoot you.”

“We’d noticed,” Rarity muttered.

“Yeah, well in here there’s none of that bullshit. I just wake up, go lift some heavy shit from the dorks downstairs, get paid, then do what the fuck I want until it’s time to sleep. I know I did some bad shit, but I just want to make an honest living from now on. As long as Eulogy thinks I’m still looking for that damned robot, I’m good.”

Sunset, Applejack and Fluttershy shared a stunned look at that.

Rainbow just stared blankly at them, “Robot? What robot?”

“Zimmer’s android,” Sunset breathed, “That’s what you were here for.”

Sister gave her a puzzled look, “Well… yeah? What did you think I was here for?”

“We thought you were looking for more slaves,” Sunset said quickly.

He just blinked in surprise, “You think I’d be trying to snatch people for slaving here? In Rivet Fucking City? You’re crazy. Security would fill my ass full of holes the second I mezzed some poor cunt.” The girls all grimaced at Sister’s disgusting language, but he didn’t seem to notice, “No, you’re better off grabbing them out there in the wastes where there’s no-one around to help. That’s how I used to do it.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes, “But you don’t do that no more?”

“No! I swear! I told you, I’m out of that life now!” Sister shifted awkwardly, “So… are you going to tell the security guys about me?”

Sunset cocked her head, thinking. Slavery was an awful business, and Sister had almost certainly committed terrible crimes in the past. 

But… if he’s truly trying to turn over a new leaf…

“As long as you’re serious about doing the right thing, we won’t tell anyone about your past.” She held up a hand as his face lit up, “But if we hear anything about you going back to your old ways, or hurting anyone, we will put a stop to it. Is that clear?”

“Crystal.”

“Good,” Sunset sighed. “Now that that’s sorted, maybe there’s something you can help us with.”

Sister eyed her warily, “What is it?”

“The robot. Did you manage to find it?”

“Huh? You’re looking for that thing?” A look of surprise flashed over his face, but then he shook his head slowly, “I never did find it, I stopped looking once I realized how much better life was here instead of back at Paradise Falls, but I did manage to track it as far as Seagrave.”

Rainbow perked up at that, “Seagrave Holmes? The guy who runs Rivet City Supply?”

Sister nodded, “Yeah, him. Apparently the robot went to him for help. I haven’t got a fucking clue where it went after that, but maybe he would know.”

“The market ain’t closed yet,” Applejack said with a glance at her Pip-Boy, “If we’re quick we should be able to catch him before he closes up for the night.”

Sunset groaned and muttered sarcastically, “Oh yay, back to the marketplace.”

“Aww come on, sugarcube. At least it’s good exercise,” Applejack smirked.

“The doc did say you need to keep walking,” Rainbow added.

“And while we’re on the way could you kindly tell me what all of this is about a robot?” Rarity asked.

Sunset just sighed, “Yeah, yeah. Let’s get this over with. Thanks, Sister.”

“Uh… yeah. No problem,” he mumbled.

Fluttershy hung back as the rest of the girls hurried out of the room. Stopping with her hand on the door, she looked over her shoulder at the former slaver, “Um, I know you said you’re trying to be, well, nicer now, but… you do know that Chief Harkness is going to throw you out if you keep being, um, mean to people, don’t you?”

Sister sighed and looked away, “Yeah, I figured. It’s just… it’s hard, y’know? Back at Paradise Falls you’ve got to be a hard-ass, it’s the only way you can survive. I’m not used to living in a place where that kind of shit gets you into trouble instead.”

“Oh, I see,” Fluttershy glanced out of the door, then back at Sister, “Well, if you ever need help, you might want to try talking to Pinkie. She can get along with anyone. I’m sure she’d be able to help you do the same.”

Sister smiled faintly, “Thanks, I might do that.”

Smiling back at him, Fluttershy closed the door behind her and scurried after the others. 

The journey back to the marketplace for the umpteenth time went fairly quickly, mostly because the corridors were near enough empty save for the security team, but the girls still ended up arriving just as the stalls were starting to pack up for the evening. Fortunately the guards on duty were happy to let them in to speak to Seagrave, as long as they didn’t take too long about it.

Rainbow took the lead once again, making a beeline straight for one of the larger stores. Inside was a man bent over a large, heavy trunk. He was wearing a scruffy set of overalls and, for reasons known only to himself, had an old-fashioned motorcycle helmet perched on his head. 

“Hey, Seagrave!” Rainbow called out as they approached.

The man looked around at that, “Oh hi, Rainbow! Give me a second, let me just…” There was a loud click as he locked the trunk. Brushing the dust off his hands, he straightened up and turned to the girls with a grin, “You’re all here a bit late. What can I do for you?”

“We’re looking for some freaky android, we heard he came to you looking for help?”

Seagrave nodded, “Sure did. That was a fair few years ago now, I’m surprised anyone even knows about that anymore.” He sat on the trunk with a sigh, leaning back as he reminisced, “He’d heard I was good with computers and was hoping I could do a memory wipe on him.”

“What did you say?” Sunset asked eagerly.

Seagrave smiled ruefully, “I said no! I may be pretty handy with a bit of coding, but that stuff was way too advanced. I told him straight up, the only person I could think of who had the know-how to mess around with that kind of tech was old Pinkerton.”

Sunset glanced at the others to see if they recognized the name, but they all seemed as clueless as her.

“Who’s Pinkerton?” Rainbow asked.

“He was a scientist. In fact he was one of the guys who helped start Rivet City back in the day, sat on the Council when it was first formed and everything.” Seagrave replied.

Sunset frowned at that, “You say he was a scientist, is he still around?”

“No idea, he up and left years ago,” Seagrave said cheerfully, “He went to live in the bow of the ship, the big bit that’s broken off on the front, and no-one’s heard anything from him since.” 

“Great,” Sunset muttered. “Well I guess I know where we’re off to next.”

“The heck we are,” Applejack said suddenly, “Ah’ve seen the front of the ship, it’s snapped clear off. If we want to get down there we’d have to go outside and there is no way we’re letting you go out while you’re still recovering.”

“Besides it’s far too dark to go looking now, darling,” Rarity added. 

“Fine,” Sunset sighed, “Can I at least take a look around from the flight deck tomorrow?”

Applejack folded her arms and narrowed her eyes at Sunset as she thought it over, “Ah don’t know… what do you think, Fluttershy? You think she’ll be alright on the flight deck?”

“Um… as long as one of us is with her, I guess it should be okay.”

Applejack kept the frown for a few moments longer, but finally she relented, “Ah suppose we can let you up on the flight deck. We’ll take a look over at the bow in the morning and if, if, it looks safe enough, we’ll go over. All of us.”

“Thanks, Applejack,” Sunset grinned. 

“Don’t you go grinning at me like that, you put so much as one toe out of line between now and then and I’ll have the doc tie you to one of the beds in the clinic, you hear me?”

“Kinky,” Rainbow quipped.

The rest of the girls agreed that the follow-up smack upside the head, courtesy of Applejack, was entirely justified.






Tara was bored. She was stuck in the lab waiting on results yet again, this time from any of the rickety old Eyebots that they’d managed to get their hands on. The near-obsolete robots had been refitted with sensors to detect the same odd signals that had been logged by artifact X51-14, recently dubbed as ‘the signal detector thingy’. 

So far they had come up with absolutely nothing. 

The signal detector thingy itself was now permanently plugged in and connected to a computer, just in case it picked up anything else. The rest of the X51 equipment had been fully unpacked, logged, tested, and had ultimately proven utterly useless so far, at least as far as Project Exodus was concerned.  

On top of that, it had been two weeks since Tara had requested a dialogue be opened between her team and the Rainbooms, and not a damned thing had come of it. She knew the girls were still at Rivet City, and had been so for a while, but for some reason getting in contact with them was proving nigh-impossible. 

Spinning slowly on her chair, Tara looked around to see what the others were doing. Sienna was staring blankly at a computer terminal. Doctors Pickering and Evans were huddled in a corner admiring the schematics of the radiation scrubber that Tara had managed to smuggle into the new lab. Becky, ever the dedicated scientist, was focused on an incredibly important and technical experiment. That is, she was trying to balance a pencil between her nose and her upper lip. 

You’re lucky I love you, you fucking spaz. 

“I’ve been wondering something,” Sienna said suddenly. 

The rest of the scientists turned to look at her, Becky managing to keep her pencil balanced while she did so.

“What is it?” Tara asked.

Sienna gestured vaguely at Tara and Becky, “What are you two going to do when you turn thirty?”

Becky raised an eyebrow, allowing the pencil to clatter to the floor, “Well… for my birthday I was thinking we could do what we always do. Get some booze and cake and eat out.”

Evans looked up in confusion, “Where do you eat out?”

“Usually in the bed or the shower,” Becky grinned, prompting a furious blush from Tara.

Sienna rolled her eyes, “I meant when Assigned Procreation rolls around.”

That wiped the smile off Becky’s face, “We’re not sure yet. We actually looked into getting me into the program early but…”

“The man selected as the best genetic match for her wasn’t exactly ideal for us,” Tara finished. 

“Who was it?” Sienna asked.

“My brother.”

The other scientists all winced at that. 

“Yeah, that would be awkward,” Pickering muttered. 

Tara nodded, “We’ve still got three years until Becky has to join, and five for me, so we’re going to gather as much credit and influence as we can and see if we can select our own sperm donor, anonymously, for IVF treatment.”

“Do you have any donors in mind yet?” Evans asked.

Tara and Becky shared an awkward glance.

“Well we do, but…”

“Spill it.”

“You have to keep it a secret.”

“Deal,” the others replied in unison.

Becky sighed and shook her head, rubbing her neck awkwardly, “Well… you see it’s… Senator Devall.”

Dead silence greeted her words.

“Fleur would rip your face off,” Sienna said flatly.

“Fleur can suck a dick,” Becky shot.

“She does. Devall’s.”

“Besides, she’s really nice,” Tara said earnestly, “We have to talk with her about it. I mean we’ve sort of hinted at it, but we should really have a sit down with her and discuss things properly.”

“And hope she doesn’t kill us,” Becky grumbled. She shook herself and sat up straight, “So what about you, Sienna?”

“I’ve applied to see if I can just donate my eggs,” she replied. “I’m not really interested in having kids.”

“Fair enough.”

Tara glanced over at Evans and Pickering, “No need to ask you two. Have you decided on a date for the wedding yet?”

Evans grinned back, “Almost. We just have to decide between J-”

The conversation was interrupted as the door to the lab suddenly opened. 

Doctor Turner and Senator Devall strolled in, looking particularly happy with themselves.

“Ah, you’re all here. Excellent,” Devall smiled and clasped his hands behind his back, “I have some good news for you.”

“What is it?” Tara asked eagerly.

Doctor Turner smiled, “The President has agreed to your request for an additional research station off-base, and a suitable site has been selected. I’ve dispatched Squad Sigma and a handful of Eyebots to secure it already so hopefully you’ll be able to move in within a day or so.”

“It’s a largely subterranean pre-war facility a few short miles south of the old Capitol Building,” Devall explained, “Specifically, it was a retrofitting station for Delta Nine rockets. Records indicate that there should still be some units stored there in a repairable condition.”

Becky raised an eyebrow, “What were Delta Nine rockets?”

“They were originally used for manned flights to the moon, before they were converted for military use shortly before the war,” Pickering said quickly. “If there’s still some there that are salvageable…”

Devall nodded, “The President agrees with your suggestion that having a dedicated vehicle for any possible inter-dimensional travel is a good idea. Once the site has been secured you are to assess any remaining Delta Nine units and, if any can be restored to full working order, you have permission to attempt to convert one into a suitable manned transport.”

“That’s amazing!” Tara beamed as Pickering and Evans gave each other a high-five. She glanced up at Doctor Turner, hoping for more good news, “What about the Rainbooms? Have we managed to initiate contact with them?”

Doctor Turner’s smile turned into more of a grimace, “I’m afraid not. It appears the agency we use for interacting with the wasteland settlements, a group called Talon Company, is not permitted within the bounds of Rivet City. They’ve tried anyway but…” He shook his head as he trailed off.

Tara face fell at that.

“Why aren’t they allowed in?” Becky demanded.

Doctor Turner shrugged, “Maybe some sort of primitive power play by whatever passes for the authorities in that old rust bucket?”

“I suppose it makes sense,” Devall mused, “Talon Company is a mercenary group. The inhabitants of Rivet City may be understandably wary of letting a powerful rival inside the bounds of their community.”

“Either way, until the Rainbooms leave the city it appears we have no way of contacting them yet.”

“So why don’t we send one of our own people?” Becky suggested.

Devall shook his head, “We don’t have anyone else available. Not for now at least.”

“Why don’t one of us go?” Tara gestured at herself and the rest of her team, “It’s not like we have much else to do until the new facility is up and running.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Turner cut in, “Until Squad Sigma returns Project Exodus doesn’t have any military assets whatsoever.”

“I could provide two members of my own security if necessary,” Devall said suddenly. “That would probably make a better impression than sending a full squad anyway. I may even be able to convince the President to allow us the use of a Vertibird so we can get to Rivet City quickly and safely.”

“But who would go? As much as Doctor Strong says there is little for her team to do they’ll all have to study the schematics for the Delta Nine rockets thoroughly, not to mention researching the possible warheads they may find in the facility that will have to be assessed and either disarmed or removed.”

Tara sighed and slumped over in her chair. I guess the Rainbooms really are out of reach for now.

“You could go,” Devall said suddenly.

Turner glanced sidelong at him, “I’m sorry?”

“I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t go in their stead.”

“Uh… well I mean I… I’m needed here, to oversee the project.”

“You were needed here to oversee the project when it was first implemented, but I believe responsibility for oversight has now fallen on me,” Devall corrected. “I know I may not have your technical knowledge, but I’m sure the members of your team can dumb down anything of critical importance enough for me to understand.” He smiled faintly and adjusted his monocle, “It’ll only be for a short period, of course. Just long enough for you to establish a dialogue with the Rainbooms.”

Doctor Turner gaped at the Senator, mouthing silently as he hurried to come up with a reason to refuse, “I… I don’t think I’m the right choice for it. One of the Rainbooms is a potential telepath after all, we don’t want to give away any sensitive information. Besides, I worked on the Scouring Strain of the FEV. The last thing we want is for them to see that the Enclave has been working on things like that.”

“I thought you said you argued against that plan?” Sienna frowned at him suspiciously.

“W-well of course I did!”

Devall clapped a hand to his shoulder, “I’m sure you’ll do fine, Doctor. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you stay here and discuss with your team exactly what you should say to them while I go and arrange some transport.”
> Chapter 30 - Doctor Li Did A Silly
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset gazed around the room the girls were occupying during their stay in Rivet City. It had originally been used as a storage room, but when the Rainbooms had turned up out of nowhere the random bits and pieces had been moved out and a handful of beds shoved in instead. The girls were stuck sharing beds again, but that wasn’t too much of an issue. Now that Sunset was moving in with them she had been granted a bed of her own on account of her injury.

“Is everything alright, dear?” Rarity asked. 

Sunset blinked, pulled from her reverie, “I’m fine, just… thinking.”

“What’s on your mind, sugarcube?” Applejack called from where she was preparing for bed.

“Magic,” Sunset sighed.

Twilight looked up from her Pip-Boy, “Doctor Li?”

“Yeah.”

“She’ll be fine. I mean, I get that she’s freaked out about ponying up, but it’s not like it’s ever hurt any of us,” Rainbow chimed in. “Besides, it’s her own stupid fault for even trying those tests in the first place.”

“We did try to warn her,” Fluttershy said quietly. Pinkie nodded solemnly in agreement. 

Sunset glanced around at each of her friends, “I’m probably going to regret asking this but… what exactly happened during those tests?”



 

The Rainbooms, minus their leader, were currently gathered in one of the testing rooms just off the main science lab. Accompanying the girls were Doctor Li and another scientist, a middle-aged woman with brown hair and a severe look named Anna Holt. 

“I would like to thank each of you once again for agreeing to this,” Doctor Li said brightly. 

“I still think this is a very bad idea,” Twilight muttered.

“Both I and the rest of the Council are aware of your concerns,” Doctor Li insisted, “That is why we are merely performing a basic analysis of your technology-”

“Magic!”

“I’ll believe that when I see it. Either way you yourselves admitted that such an analysis has been done before.”

Applejack nodded slowly, “Yeah, by Sunset. And she didn’t find out anything useful.”

“If you just wait for her to wake up, she’ll tell you the same thing herself,” Fluttershy muttered, glowering at the doctor from behind her fringe. Doctor Li just shook her head sadly. That was an argument they had already had, more than once.

Anna rolled her eyes, “We appreciate that Miss Shimmer may have been unsuccessful, but both Doctor Li and myself have far more experience tackling problems in multiple scientific fields.” 

Doctor Li winced as the girls bristled at the disparagement of their absent friend. “We just want to run some simple tests, nothing invasive or dangerous, I promise. The worst that will happen is that we won’t find anything. If that ends up being the case you have full rights to say ‘I told you so’.”

“Ah’ll bear that in mind,” Applejack muttered, “Alright. Who do you want first?”

“Fluttershy, if she doesn’t mind.”

Fluttershy flinched and looked around wildly in alarm, “W-why me?”

“I suppose out of all of us your magic is probably the least dangerous,” Rarity mused.

“It’s also one of the most useful, at least for those of us living in the wastes,” Doctor Li added. “If we could manage to communicate with and tame even a fraction of the wasteland’s fauna, it would give people’s chances of survival out there an incredible boost.”

Fluttershy scowled at Doctor Li for a moment longer, but she relented nonetheless, “What do you need me to do.”

“Just stand in the center of the room please.” 

As soon as Fluttershy was situated Doctor Li and Anna pulled a series of cables and electrodes from a bulky machine set into the wall and started attaching them to the young nurse.

“Some of these will measure your bio-metrics, such as your heart rate and brain activity,” Doctor Li explained, “The rest will be monitoring any electromagnetic or nuclear radiation that is generated while you do your thing.”

“Um, okay.” Fluttershy squeaked and blushed as Anna reached up her dress to attach electrodes to her thighs.

Once the connections were done the doctors checked the settings on the machine. Satisfied that everything was set up correctly, Doctor Li turned to Fluttershy. 

“Now, I’d like you to bring your wings out. I assume you are able to do that at will?” Fluttershy nodded nervously. Grinning, Doctor Li and Anna each pulled a set of goggles over their eyes. “Excellent. Whenever you are ready then.”

Fluttershy glanced worriedly at the rest of the girls, who all quickly backed away as far as they could go, then gripped her geode tightly. A warm yellow glow quickly spread out to envelop her body. Her hair lengthened, wings sprouted from her back and her dress morphed into a beautiful purple and blue gown.

The doctors’ eyes widened at the magical display.

“Nanotechnology. It has to be,” Doctor Li breathed. 

“Um. Doctor?” Fluttershy asked quietly.

“Either that or it’s some form of ultra-fast genetic manipulation,” Anna said, not paying attention.

Flutters frowned and spoke a little more firmly, “Doctor?”

Doctor Li shook her head, “Genetic manipulation wouldn’t explain the alteration to her clothes.”

“Unless they have a biological component?”

“That seems unlikely. What would be the poi-”

“Doctor!”

The doctors both jumped at Fluttershy’s shout, then looked around as she jabbed a finger at the machine set in the wall. The screens on it were an incandescent pink, and growing brighter every second.

“Oh sh-”

The two barely managed to throw themselves out of the way as the screens exploded outward, releasing a swarm of shining butterflies into the room. 

Doctor Li gaped as the butterflies fluttered all over the place, one of them perching itself on top of her head.
Fluttershy arched an eyebrow with glacial slowness, giving Doctor Li a look of utter contempt.

“We told you so.”



 

“No way! You said that?” Sunset gasped. 

Fluttershy nodded meekly as the others laughed, “I was, um, a little mad at her.”

“Still are last ah checked,” Applejack chuckled.

Sunset smirked as the young nurse shrugged noncommittally, “So what happened to the butterflies?”

“They’re still down there for now, until we can figure out what to do with them,” Twilight replied, “I make sure Doctor Li takes some nutrient water in for them every day,. Right now they’re probably safer and better off than most of the people out in the wastes.”

“Probably,” Sunset agreed. “So what happened next?”



 

The group had relocated to the next room along the corridor, a testing room identical to the previous one. 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Applejack asked as the doctors strapped electrodes to her, “Ah’d have thought you would have given up after what happened with Fluttershy.”

Doctor Li frowned as she joined Anna at the console, “That was… unexpected. But we did get some readings off the machine, so we’re going to continue and see if we can corroborate those readings with the ones we’ll get off you.”

“If you say so.”

“I think you were right before, it must be nanotechnology to work like that,” Anna said brightly, “Maybe the butterfly thing was some sort of crazy fail-safe? To prevent people from studying it?”

“We’ll soon find out,” Doctor Li muttered. “Applejack? If you would?”

Applejack sighed and tapped her geode, “Alright, but don’t say ah didn’t warn you.”

An orange glow surrounded the farm girl as she ponied up. The glow spread rapidly from Applejack to the electrodes, down the cables and on to the machine. 

Everyone stared in awe as leaves started growing out of the cables. A moment later branches burst forth from the machine, somehow fusing with and growing from the metal. Magically glowing apples sprouted from the branches, all different colors popping out and swelling to an impressive size over the course of just a few seconds. 

Anna and Doctor Li just stared bemusedly at the computer-apple-tree hybrid.

“Uh…”

“Well ah’ll be,” Applejack planted her hands on her hips, grinning at the tree-thing. “Ah’m calling him Mac!”





Sunset gave her a flat look, “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Rarity sighed as the others groaned at the memory.

“Yep, Rivet City’s own Little Macintosh!” Applejack beamed.

There was a moment of silence as the rest of the Rainbooms stared at the apple-crazed farmer. Finally the silence was broken by Twilight.

“Anyway…”





“I’m afraid I really must protest, Doctor,” Rarity huffed.

The group was in another test room, this time with a certain fashionista hooked up to the machine. 

“We’re not stopping until we get some consistent results,” Doctor said firmly.

“It’s technology. Just advanced technology. You’re not crazy.” Anna kept mumbling repeatedly under her breath.

Fluttershy, standing against the wall with the others, leaned a little closer to Twilight. “What do you think will happen?” she half-whispered.

"I have no idea."

“Five caps says the computer turns to crystal,” Rainbow said quietly.

Applejack smirked, “You’re on.”

“Count me in,” Pinkie added.

Doctor Li ignored them, her eyes glued to the machine as Rarity ponied up. Several seconds passed and, aside from an odd crackling sound filling the room, nothing whatsoever happened to the machine.

“Different results… again…” Doctor Li suddenly grinned manically, “But nothing strange happened. No anomalies! No physical impossibilities! We DID IT!”

Anna tapped her on the shoulder lightly, “Uh, you might want to take a look around.”

“What, why?” Doctor Li’s jaw dropped as she turned to look.

The rest of the room was covered in glittering gemstones. A thick layer of crystal over the lights doused the room in a kaleidoscope of refracted colors.

Only the computer and attached cables remained untouched.

“Oh come on!” Rainbow cried.





Sunset shook her head in disbelief, “Wow… this all sounds even worse than the first time I tried to study your magic.”

Rainbow snorted and burst out laughing, “Oh man, that’s nothing. Wait until you hear what happened with Twilight!”





“Just how many of these rooms are there?” Rarity asked.

Applejack shrugged, “Beats me. Probably the whole corridor.”

Yet another testing room had been appropriated. Once again the girls were lined up against a wall, this time watching as Doctor Li attached the various wires and electrodes to Twilight, who was remaining oddly silent throughout. Anna was lurking near the computer, her gaze flicking nervously from Twilight to the screen and back.

Rarity frowned as she watched the doctors get ready, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the first time Twilight’s magic has been tested?”

“I think it is, actually,” Fluttershy replied.

Rainbow grinned, “This should be fun.”

As soon as the last of the electrodes was attached, Doctor Li hurried over to stand next to Anna. 

“Alright, Twilight. Begin.” 

Twilight gave the girls one last look, then rolled her eyes and gripped her geode. Both doctors watched warily as a purple aura infused her body. Wings appeared, clothes changed and hair lengthened, but nothing else happened. 

Anna and Doctor Li both sighed as the glow from Twilight’s transformation slowly faded.

Just as the two relaxed there was a sudden pulse of light. In a flash of purple Twilight’s magic zipped down the cables and into the computer. A split-second later it radiated out to encompass the two scientists. Both screamed as they were hoisted into the air, floating around and tumbling end over end as if gravity had decided to take a day off.





Twilight grimaced, “And that’s how we found out that Anna is, apparently, not a fan of underwear.” 

“Also she shaves, like, everything. Including down there,” Rainbow added, gesturing vaguely at her crotch. 

“Really, Rainbow Dash. Do you have to be so vulgar?” Rarity huffed.

“What? I’m not the one who took a razor blade to my privates. Imagine if your hand slipped.”

“Ah’m trying not too,” Applejack muttered, crossing her legs tightly.

Fluttershy shivered, “That actually happened to one of our patients, back in the vault.”

That got a collective wince from the entire group. 

Rarity chuckled awkwardly, “Moving swiftly on…”





“This is a terrible idea,” Rarity said flatly.

“Ah’m inclined to agree with you,” Applejack muttered.

The girls had been relocated again, given that the computer in the last room still hadn’t stopped glowing and levitating anything that came close. Rainbow Dash was the subject this time, and the girls were more than a little concerned about how she was, in her own words, going to ‘make this one epic’.

“I-I think we should stop this, Doctor,” Anna suggested, her cheeks still tinged pink. “We haven’t gotten any consistent readings at all and this is all starting to scare me.”

“No. I am not stopping now!” Doctor Li snarled. Her hair was an absolute mess and her eyes were twitching at random intervals. Cramming her goggles on her face, she joined Anna at the computer and turned to face Rainbow. “Do it!”

Rainbow grinned evilly and tweaked a dial on her Pip-Boy. A second later a very familiar beat blared out from its speakers.

“Oh dear,” Fluttershy breathed.

The girls started edging towards the door as Rainbow shredded on an imaginary guitar and belted out the lyrics to Awesome As I Wanna Be.

Doctor Li seemed fixated on the machine, but Anna stared in horror as Rainbow ponied up, multi-hued magical energy sparking out from her body and racing down the cables.

“Fuck that!”

She and the girls gave up all restraint as they darted for the door. The second they were all out and in the corridor Applejack slammed the door behind them. Not a moment too soon either, as a hollow boom rocked the ship.

Silence reigned as dust and little flakes of rust trickled from the ceiling. The girls and Anna shared a worried look as they wondered if things had just gone terribly wrong. They all sighed with relief as they heard Rainbow’s sudden cackling, and a few moments later the door slowly swung open. 

Rainbow tottered out, doubled over and laughing fit to burst. Doctor Li trudged out after her, covered from head to toe in multi-colored goop. The remains of the computer could just about be seen in the room behind her, more of the freaky fluid spurting out of it in jets.

Doctor Li slowly reached up to pry her goggles off her face. She looked just about ready to burst into tears.

“Are… are you alright, sugarcube?” Applejack asked softly.

The doctor opened her mouth to reply, then spluttered as some of the gunk dripped onto her tongue. Her face contorted with agony and what little of her skin that could be seen suddenly blazed a bright, angry red.

“Ho… hot! Water! Water!”

Doctor Li clamped her hands over her mouth and looked around wildly for water before turning and sprinting out of the corridor towards the main lab. 

“Will she be alright?” Anna asked.

“Um, probably?” Fluttershy replied.

“… Chief Harkness is going to go ballistic, isn’t he?” Rarity asked quietly.

“Probably,” Twilight echoed.

Pinkie tilted her head curiously, “When do you think she’ll notice that she has wings?”

A sudden, shrill shriek tore through the air. 

“Ah’d say right about now.”
> Chapter 31 - Preparations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sleeping in Rivet City took some getting used to. The night’s chill was one thing, though the girls had managed to procure good blankets and some thick, warm clothing that served well as pajamas, but there was little they could do about the noise.

Being a grounded, deteriorating old aircraft carrier, Rivet City was never truly silent. Loud groans and creaks were commonplace as metal flexed and settled, and it wasn’t that uncommon for the entire ship to shift slightly at the whims of the river’s current. Add in persistent and recurring nightmares and you had a perfect recipe for insomnia. 

Fortunately for Sunset the fact that her abdomen was still particularly sore, while not exactly a pleasant sensation, meant that she could take a full dose of strong meds at bed-time and conk out entirely for the night.

The downside to that, of course, was waking her back up in the morning.

“Come on now, sugarcube. Up and at ‘em.”

“Muurrrr.”

“Um, Sunset? You really should get up and have something to eat now.”

Sunset just moaned again and sleepily pulled the blanket over her head, trying to drown out the voices of the evil lunatics that wanted to drag her out of bed so early in the morning.

“Really, darling. We understand that you’re recuperating but you’ve been asleep for over fourteen hours. It’s lunchtime.”

Moaning and grumbling incomprehensibly, Sunset slowly swung her legs around and pushed herself into a sitting position. With a colossal yawn, she blearily looked up at her tormentors. 

“And ah thought Rarity was bad in the mornings,” Applejack muttered, shaking her head as she pulled something out of her pocket, “Here you go, ah brought you an apple from the hydroponics lab. It’ll help wake you up.”

Rarity smiled and rolled her eyes, “You think apples help with everything, darling.”

“Actually apples contain quite a lot of sugar, so they really can help you wake up in the mornings,” Twilight supplied. 

Sunset ignored them, wordlessly accepting the apple as well as a glass of water from Fluttershy. When she’d finished she handed the core to Twilight so she could take the seeds back to the hydroponics lab, stood, stretched, then hissed as her stitches protested. 

“Oh, be careful!” Fluttershy said quickly.

Rarity winced, “Yes, do try not to put yourself back in the clinic.”

“I’ll try not to,” Sunset huffed.

“Good. Well, now that you’re finally up hurry and get dressed so I can sort your hair out.” 

“I’ll help you change your bandages,” Fluttershy added.

Rarity pulled her pack out from under a bed and started rummaging around inside. “As soon as you’re presentable we’ll meet Pinkie and Rainbow down at the Galley for lunch then go straight up to the flight deck together.”

“Doesn’t it get expensive eating at that restaurant all the time?” Sunset asked.

Applejack chuckled and shook her head, “Nah, Pinkie eats for free and the rest of us get a heck of a good discount on account of how much business she brings in.”

“Indeed. Even though she’s not at her best Pinkie has still managed to increase their custom five-fold,” Rarity added as she pulled out a hairbrush. 

Sunset smiled as she started stripping out of her pajamas, “That’s Pinkie for you.” 

As soon as Sunset was dressed, and Rarity had managed to tame the incredible mess that was her hair, the five of them headed off to the marketplace. Now that she was properly awake Sunset eagerly chatted with the others as they walked. It turned out each of the girls had managed to get the afternoon off in anticipation of taking her up on the flight deck and, possibly, over to the bow of the ship.

Sunset could hardly wait. The outside world may be a desolate waste, but that didn’t stop her from wanting some fresh air and sunlight. Even the Vault had been brighter and less cramped than Rivet City. Mostly.

The marketplace was just as busy as it had been the day before. Sunset felt a little more confident as people greeting them this time around and made a point of calling out to the people she recognized, including Seagrave, little Chandra and her mother.

“Over here, girls!”

Sunset glanced up at the shout to see Pinkie waving madly from a table at the Galley with Rainbow.  

“Yo, what took you so long?” Rainbow asked as the girls settled into seats.

“We had a little trouble hauling a certain someone out of bed,” Applejack jerked a thumb over at Sunset. “Ah wasn’t sure whether or not ah’d have to use my crowbar to get her out of there.”

Pinkie giggled and waved down the waitress, “At least now that we’re all here we can get some food.”

“Finally,” Rainbow muttered.

Once the orders were placed, Sunset once again opting for the iguana soup, it wasn’t long before the food was brought over and the girls settled into chatting. 

“So how’re things in the egghead section?” Rainbow asked, stirring her own soup idly.

Twilight rolled her eyes at the casual insult, but smiled as she did so, “Today’s been pretty good actually. We’re close to a breakthrough on the portable fusion and with Applejack’s help we’ve managed to increase the yield on a few of the apple bushes.” 

“Ah may not be a sciency person but ah know my apples,” Applejack nodded proudly.

“We couldn’t have done it without you,” Twilight’s smile faded slightly, “We probably could have gotten a little more done if Doctor Li hadn’t ponied up again.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at that, “Seriously?”

“Do we have any idea what’s causing it yet?” Sunset asked.

“We think we might have an idea actually,” Twilight said slowly, “It seems like it happens whenever Doctor Li is thinking about doing things that can help people. She’s going to speak to the Council today and see if she can get permission to practice ponying up in private, just to make sure.”

“As long as she’s careful with it. We don’t know exactly how rogue magic is going to affect this world, the last thing we want is another… well…” Sunset trailed off awkwardly.

Twilight nodded, getting the implication instantly, “I’ll talk to her. We all told her that magic is dangerous if not used properly, but maybe it would be better if she understood just how dangerous.”

The girls lapsed into an awkward silence at that. Sunset kept her head down and just focused on her food, trying to shake off the guilt of trashing a perfectly happy conversation. Thankfully she wasn’t left to stew for too long, as Rarity cleared her throat to speak.

“On a less, er, depressing note, I heard a bit of good news on the radio earlier. It seems the Brotherhood of Steel have taken in the little lost lamb we found in the tunnels.”

Fluttershy’s face lit up instantly, “Oh, you mean Maddy?”

“That little raider brat?” Rainbow asked.

“She wasn’t a brat, she was a scared and hurt young woman,” Rarity replied tartly. “I’ll admit her language may have been a little… colorful… but the poor dear had been through a terrible ordeal.”

Applejack nodded in agreement, “At least now the Brotherhood will look after her. Maybe they can help her do some good in the world.”

Rainbow snorted, “I guess.”

“How come you hate her so much?” Pinkie asked.

“Aside from the fact that she’s a raider?” Rainbow sighed and fiddled with her spoon, “There’s just something about her that bugs me. Hang on, that reminds me!” She smirked and pulled a letter out of her pocket, “Looks like Sunset’s getting her first one of these.”

Sunset looked up curiously, “First one of what?”

Rainbow tossed the letter over, “Just read it!” 

Rarity gave her a disgusted look, “Really, Rainbow? You couldn’t have given it to her in private?” 

Sunset cast a wary glance at the others, then set about opening the envelope. Rainbow grinned, Twilight winced and Fluttershy gave her a sympathetic look as she pulled the letter out and unfolded it.

“Uh…”

Rarity laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, “W-what does it say, darling? It’s not too vulgar I hope?”

Sunset gave her a blank stare, “It’s an invitation to a sermon at Saint Monica’s Church tomorrow?”

There was a brief stunned silence, then the whole table erupted with laughter. Sunset just stared at each of them in bewilderment.

“Th-thank goodness!” Rarity gasped between laughs.

Applejack whipped her hat off and used it to fan herself, trying to get herself under control, “Phew! Ah was not expecting that one!”

“Me neither!” Rainbow agreed, still grinning from ear to ear, “I totally thought that was going to be a love letter!”

“Love letter!?” Sunset yelped.

Twilight sighed and nodded, “We’ve all gotten one. Or at least we’ve all had someone try and express their affections in some way.”

“Seriously?”

Fluttershy shivered, “Sadly, yes.”

“At least the young man who asked you out was an absolute sweetheart about it,” Rarity wrinkled her nose with distaste, “Some of the propositions the rest of us have received have been less than pleasant.”

“You said it, sister,” Pinkie muttered darkly. 

Sunset cringed inwardly at the thought of the sort of perverts they’d had to deal with. The Tunnel Snakes had been bad enough. Deciding to change the subject, she was about to ask exactly what the plan was for the day when a voice called out from behind.

“Miss Shimmer?”

Sunset nearly jumped out of her skin, groaning and clutching at her stitches as they pulled. 

Chief Harkness hissed in sympathy as he stepped up to the table, “Ouch, sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just hoping I could have a word with you.”

Gently rubbing her sore gut, Sunset forced a smile onto her face, “Sure, what’s up?”

“In private, if you don’t mind.”

Sunset sighed as she stood and followed the security chief. She glanced sidelong at him as he led her towards an empty table right next to the hangar wall, Rainbow’s words from the day before ringing in her head. She had to admit he was somewhat good looking... but she’d known him for all of thirty seconds. In any case, romance was the very last thing on her mind at the moment.

Besides, Rainbow’s right. He’s way too old for me.

“So what’s this about?” Sunset asked as she sat in the seat the chief indicated.

Harkness glanced at the girls at the other table as he slid into a chair opposite her. Satisfied that they were out of earshot, he fixed Sunset with a serious look, “There’s a few things I wanted to talk to you about actually. First things first, what did you do to Sister?”

Sunset blinked in surprise, “Sister? We spoke to him yesterday but we didn’t do anything to him. Why? Is something wrong with him?”

“Nothing’s wrong per se, it’s just that he sought me out this morning. Told me he knew he’d been an ass and was going to work hard at being a better person. He practically begged me not to throw him out of the city.” Harkness eyed her suspiciously, “In my experience, a hard-ass like him doesn’t up and change so fast unless someone’s got something on them, and you girls were spotted leaving his room last night.”

“I, er, I see your point,” Sunset sighed, “I know how this must look, but it’s not what you think. All we did was talk. None of us used our magic on him or threatened him in any way, I swear.”

Harkness leaned back and folded his arms as he mulled over what she said. Finally he smiled faintly, “I’m inclined to believe you. Three-Dog certainly vouches for you, so I suppose I can go on a little faith. I’m hardly going to complain about you making Sister clean up his act either way.”

“That’s good to hear,” Sunset said hopefully, “What else did you want to talk about?”

His smile evaporated instantly, “Zimmer. I understand you’re looking for his missing robot.”

“Yeah, we’ve actually managed to make some progress on that. Is that a problem?” Sunset asked warily.

Harkness waved a hand dismissively, “No, no. I don’t have a problem with you looking for the robot. Hell, I hope you find it. The sooner we get that man and his lackey out of Rivet City the happier I’ll be.”

“What do you mean? Has he done something wrong?”

Harkness frowned and scratched his stubble, “Not that I know of. There’s just something about him that sets me on edge. Be careful around him.”

“We will,” Sunset promised. 

“Good. Well, that’s all I wanted to discuss with you,” Harkness stood and rolled his shoulders to settle his armor a little more comfortably. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I prefer to keep on top of things like this. Just in case.” 

“I understand,” Sunset said, getting to her feet too. As the chief turned to leave an idea suddenly popped into her head, “One second! Do you know anything about the bow of the ship?”

Harkness glanced at her quizzically, “Not really. I’m sure I tried exploring it once when I was a lot younger, but I can’t really remember it all that much. Apart from the mirelurks. Why?”

Sunset swore silently at the mention of mirelurks, “We were thinking about going over there later to look for clues about Zimmer’s android.”

“I see. Watch your step if you do go over there. No-one has been over there to do maintenance in easily a decade or so.”

“We’ll bear that in mind. Thanks.”

Harkness smiled and nodded once, “Don’t mention it. Take care, Miss Shimmer.”

Sunset watched him until he disappeared into the crowd, then turned to head back over to the other girls. 

The six of them were standing at the table waiting for her. They all glanced up as Sunset approached.

“Everything okay there, sugarcube?” Applejack asked. 

“It’s fine. He was just checking up on us,” Sunset replied.

The girls all let out a collective breath.

“That’s a relief. For a moment we thought you were in some sort of trouble,” Rarity said quietly.

“Not yet,” Sunset quipped. “So… are we going up to the flight deck?”





A little cajoling and a short walk later, the Rainbooms stood together on Rivet City’s flight deck. 

The space was huge. Several battered old fighter planes were dotted around, with a bunch of them teetering precariously on the edge of the deck where the bow had snapped off. 

The rumble of thunder overhead had each of the girls glancing up nervously. Roiling black clouds obscured the sky as far as the eye could see, lending what was normally the depressing enough view of the city ruins a decidedly sinister air. 
Down on the shoreline dark forms could just be made out, shadowy figures rushing to get to the safety of the city before the heavens made good on their threat of rain.

“Well, this is it,” Applejack said soberly. “Come on, the bow is over here.”

Sunset couldn’t help staring at the planes as they passed, stark reminders that Rivet City was originally a weapon of war. She wondered idly if any of them could be fixed. It would make travelling through the wastes a lot safer, but refueling would be a nightmare. That’s if they even had any fuel left that hadn’t degraded entirely over the last two hundred years.

A tap on the shoulder brought Sunset’s attention around.

“Hey, might want to watch where you’re going now. This section’s not exactly safe,” Rainbow suggested. 

Sunset nodded and focused on where she was putting her feet. They were getting close to the broken-off area, and the floor was starting to get treacherous where the metal had warped and rusted over the years.  

Treading carefully, the girls edged their way around the clustered planes until they were as close as they could safely get to the brink.

“Whoa,” Sunset breathed.

The front of the ship lay before them. Exposed girders and ruptured metal plating showed where time and the elements had conspired to tear the warship in two. Leaning over carefully, Sunset spied several more fighter planes laying partially submerged in the river waters. Several dark, bulky creatures could be seen swimming menacingly around them. 

“Mirelurks,” Applejack spat, keeping a hand on her hat so it didn’t fly off in the breeze. “Every now and again they try to burrow into the city through one of the exposed bulkheads. It’s a right pain checking to make sure they haven’t gotten in every day.”

“They must have some sort of nest in the broken section,” Twilight supplied. 

“Probably.”

“We can handle mirelurks,” Rainbow said confidently.

Fluttershy glanced down at them anxiously, “I don’t know. The ones we met before attacked us just for passing through their territory. If we stumble across a nest, I can’t imagine how badly they’ll react.”

“Not to mention we don’t know how to get over there in the first place,” Applejack added quietly.

Rainbow stared at her incredulously, “Uh, you do remember that three of us can fly, right?”

“And I can quite easily conjure a bridge for us, darling,” Rarity chimed in. 

Applejack still didn’t look convinced, so Sunset stepped in, “I don’t think it’ll really be all that dangerous. Or at least the mirelurks won’t be.”

“How can you be so sure?” Fluttershy asked.

Sunset pointed at the exposed decks on the other side, “Look, the corridors are just as narrow and cramped as they are on this side. The mirelurks would only be able to get at us one at a time.”

“One mirelurk is still dangerous,” Pinkie said quietly.

“True, but if we do run into any of them, Rarity can easily block the corridor to stop them coming after us. All we’d have to do then is make our way back up here and go try again another day. If we go in through one of those bulkheads near the top we might even be able to sneak in and out without them ever knowing we’re there.”

“That’s… not a bad plan actually,” Applejack admitted reluctantly. “Alright fine. We can go in.” 

“Yes!” Rainbow and Sunset hissed in unison.

“But, we are going to be careful about this,” Applejack said firmly. “Sunset, ah want you to stay at the back of the group with Fluttershy. You don’t take so much as a step without her say-so, you hear me?”

Sunset nodded, “Loud and clear.”

“Good.”

“Oh, one second!” Rainbow cried suddenly before disappearing in a blur. 

The girls just blinked in surprise at her sudden absence. 

“Where’d she go?” Pinkie asked.

Twilight raised an eyebrow, “You don’t think she’s gone to get-”

She was cut off by Rainbow’s rapid reappearance. She was clutching a curious, makeshift blade in one hand, a thick tube running from the pommel to a gas tank strapped across her back.

“Aww yeah, check this thing out!”

Sunset eyed it appreciatively, “Whoa, you actually managed to make one of those?”

Rainbow grinned widely, “Yep! Applejack and Twilight helped me out. Seagrave gave me a hand getting the parts together, sort of like a bonus for getting his deliveries done quickly. Don’t worry! I’m not even going to light it unless I have to,” she added quickly, seeing the looks on some of the other girls’ faces. “It might come in handy if the mirelurks turn out to be scared of fire though.”

“They seem to prefer dark places, so it’s possible,” Twilight supplied.

Applejack gave her a curt nod, “Good thinking. Alright then, we ready to go?”

The others quickly gave their assent. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Rarity held her arms out and conjured a bridge of glittering gemstones leading to an exposed corridor.

Crossing over in single file, the girls made their way over to the broken bow and plunged into the shadows.





Doctor Turner paced anxiously in his office. He was waiting for the President to contact him in regards to his most recent ‘assignment’ and was filled with too much nervous energy just to sit and wait patiently. 

His head snapped around as the secure intercom crackled into life.

“Doctor Turner?”

The doctor scrabbled over to his desk and jabbed the button to reply, “Yes, Mister President?”

“Please forgive my tardiness in responding to you. I am afraid I must deny your request to delay or reassign first contact with the Rainbooms. A vertibird and two members of Senator Devall’s security detail have already been allocated for your use, and you are to leave for Rivet City as soon as this conversation is concluded.”

The blood drained from Turner’s face upon hearing that, “B-but Mister President I-”

“I’m sorry, Doctor, but new information has come to light that requires swift action and I do not have the time to assign and debrief a more suitable candidate.”

“New information?”

There was a brief pause as the President appeared to consider how much information to share, “Five minutes ago the Eyebots you set to monitor Rivet City spotted the Rainbooms leaving the main section of the ship to explore the detached section. The recordings confirm that at least two of the Rainbooms do indeed wield the powers the rumors espouse.”  

“If that’s the case then surely it would be more prudent to wait. If the leader of the Rainbooms truly is a telepath she could potentially extract extremely sensitive information from my mind!  Project Scour, the Vault Experiment, the Chiroptera Horribilis specimens, our Deathcl-”

“I am well aware of the risks, Doctor. However, a report I received from Talon Company indicates that the leader, Miss Sunset Shimmer I believe, suffered quite a serious injury recently. That would most likely be the reason the Rainbooms have remained at Rivet City. It is also possible, and the Eyebot recordings seem to corroborate this, that she is not entirely recovered yet. If so this grants us an opportunity.”

“How so, Mister President?”

“Simple. We shall offer medical treatment. That, coupled with providing sanctuary and an offer to aid them in returning to their own world, will hopefully be enough to earn their favor and distract them from our less… neighborly… endeavors.”

Realizing he was running out of options, Turner tried his last, desperate, hope, “What about Senator Devall? Surely he is more qualified for this sort of thing?”

“True, but Senator Prince is our official wasteland correspondent and frankly I am in no mood to deal with his tantrums should I send another Senator to do his job for him,” the President replied flatly. 

“But won’t he complain about me being sent?”

The President chuckled softly, in manner that was in no way reassuring, “You are technically our designated Vault-Tec representative. Given how the Rainbooms’ first arrived on our world, or rather… where they first arrived, I’m sure Senator Prince won’t kick up too much of a fuss. Now, are you done trying to weasel your way out of this?”

Bollocks. “Yes, Mister President,” Turner sighed.

“Good. On a related note, Squad Sigma has successfully secured your beta site and are holding position. Once you have established first contact with the Rainbooms I would like you to escort them there as well, rather than bring them here. I am already making arrangements for Doctors Strong, Shoichet and Bohn to meet you at the site as soon as possible.”
> Chapter 32 - Ships Passing In The Dark
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“This is Doctor Madison Li, about to attempt a deliberate self-induced transformation. In other words I’m going to try to ‘pony up’. The purpose of this experiment is to hopefully achieve manual control of the transformation. Doctor Anna Holt is assisting.”

Doctor Li sighed and leaned back in her chair. She was currently sat in a quiet corner of the science lab away from the rest of the team. Bannon and Harkness had agreed to let her practice ponying up on her own, in the interest of keeping it under control, and she intended to take full advantage of the opportunity.

“Are you ready to begin, Doctor?” Anna asked.

Li nodded, “Just give me a second.”

Taking a slow, steady breath, she closed her eyes and turned her focus inwards. 

My name is Madison Li. I’m a scientist, and I want to help people. I want to use my knowledge to improve people’s lives and make the world a better place.

God I feel like a fool.
Okay. Focus. 

My name is Madison Li. I’m a scientist, and I want to help people. I want to use my knowledge to improve people’s lives and make the world a better place. I’ll  make it safer.

It was faint, but Doctor Li felt something inside her stir, an odd warmth that pulsed deep inside her chest. She tried to latch on to it, to draw it out while focusing on her little mantra at the same time. After a while, Li couldn’t say for sure how long, it slowly started to grow. 

Come on Madison, you can do this. I want to make the world a better place. No… I will make the world a better place.

As if a dam had burst the warmth suddenly surged forth, sending a shiver down her spine and leaving her whole body tingling.

“Transformation successful. You did it, Doctor!”

Doctor Li slowly opened her eyes. Her head felt heavier from the mass of extra hair that had grown, though not uncomfortably so, and the twitching of her new ears was a truly bizarre sensation no matter how many times it happened.

“That was easier than I expected,” she admitted, “Still, it supports the hypothesis that the transformation is linked in some way to a subject’s emotional state in some way.” 

Anna nodded and made a note on her clipboard, “No wings again this time though. I wonder why that only happened the first time? Do you think you’re… ‘running out of juice’?”

Doctor Li reached up and idly twiddled a strand of her newly blue hair, “It’s possible. It could also be due to a difference in mental state at the time of transformation. I suppose it’s even possible the first transformation was affected by Rainbow Dash’s influence, and the magic has since adjusted to my body and mind. We’ll have to perform more tests before we can draw any conclusions.”

Anna bit her lip and glanced at the doctor, “So you, er… you believe the girls then? That it’s magic?”

“It’s either magic or some technology so advanced that it may as well be,” Doctor Li huffed. “Either way I need to learn how to control my transformations. Having them happen randomly is more than a little annoying.”

“Do you think you’ll get some sort of power like the Rainbooms have?”

“Not likely.” Not without a Geode of my own. “According to Twilight it’s something that doesn’t just happen spontaneously.”

“That’s a shame,” Anna sighed.

“Not for me it isn’t,” Doctor Li said firmly. “Having one crazy thing that I don’t understand happen to my body is more than enough for me.”

“But think of all the possibilities! If you could learn to wield magic the same way the girls do you could really push the boundaries of science to their limits!”

“Or do something terrible. You heard what Twilight said, magic is dangerous, probably far more so than we realize.”

“Most likely,” Anna agreed, “But I’m sure the girls wouldn’t mind helping you find out exactly what you’re capable of.”

Doctor Li shook her head, “I’d rather not take the risk. It’s not worth it.”

“If you say so.”

“Uh… Doctor Li?”

Li turned at the sound of the voice. A young man stood there, one she had half-expected never to see again. He was the image of his father when he was younger, right down to the thick, black mop of messy hair on his head. He was still wearing that odd leather jacket, a bit more tatty than she’d last seen, over the top of his Vault uniform.

“Adam? I thought you were…” Doctor Li trailed off as an older gentleman stepped out from behind him.

My God. You found him.

James raised an eyebrow as he stared at the Doctor, “Hello again, Madison. It seems my son isn’t the only one with an interesting tale to tell.”





The Rainbooms switched on their Pip-Boy lights as they wandered further into the corridor. The walls and floor were all heavily corroded, forcing them to tread carefully. Most of the doors the girls passed were rusted shut, the few that weren’t contained little more than small, long-abandoned rooms.

At the very end of the corridor the group came to a hatch in the floor. Thankfully it wasn’t locked, but the hinges did squeak awfully as Applejack hauled it open to reveal a ladder descending into darkness.

“O-oh my, do you think it’s safe?” Fluttershy asked.

“We’re about to find out,” Applejack said quietly, angling her Pip-Boy light to try and get a better look at the bottom, “Ah’ll go first.” 

Suiting action to words, Applejack lowered herself onto the ladder and carefully made her way down. The rungs creaked ominously under her weight, but they held fast. As soon as she reached the bottom she cast her light around, then called softly up to the others.

“It’s safe. Come on down.”

The girls followed Applejack down one by one. Sunset wasn’t looking forward to it, using a ladder with stitches in her abdomen was sure to be an unpleasant experience, but when her turn came she found herself surrounded by a glowing purple aura as Twilight used her magic to gently float her down instead.

“How do you think we should go about this?” Rarity asked, glancing warily around.

“We’ll take it floor by floor, search every room,” Applejack replied. “If anyone’s still here, they’ll probably be as far away from the mirelurks as they can get.”

The others quickly agreed. Applejack and Rarity took the lead, with the others following close behind. Sunset and Fluttershy brought up the rear. 

The first few decks the Rainbooms explored were almost pitch-black. There was little to be found. Many of the rooms they searched showed evidence of having once been lived in, dust-covered old toolboxes and clothes left where they’d fallen when the bow had been abandoned, but there were no signs of recent habitation. 

It wasn’t until the group reached the lower decks that they encountered any signs of life at all.

“Did y’all hear that?” Applejack asked as they reached the bottom of another staircase.

The girls shivered as a distinctive clicking sound echoed quietly through the corridors again.

“Mirelurks,” Rainbow muttered.

Rarity grimaced, “Is it really worth sticking around any longer? I highly doubt anyone would be living so close to a mirelurk nest.”

Sunset sighed and shook her head, “You’re right. Come on, let’s get out of here before we get into any danger.”

“Wait a second, ah think ah see something,” Applejack  said suddenly, pointing down a nearby corridor, “Some sort of red light just do-” She was cut off as Pinkie grabbed her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. “Hey, what gives?”

In response Pinkie just pointed down, at the tripwire that the farmer had almost walked right in to. The wire was barely visible, running across the path in front of the staircase and up the wall, then stretching across the ceiling until it connected to a small bundle tied just above the girls’ heads. The knobbly shapes of several grenades glinted dimly in the light. 

Applejack’s jaw dropped when she spotted it, “Whoa. Nice catch, Pinkie.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Twilight adjusted her glasses as she carefully inspected the grenades, “There’s no dust on them. Either these were set very recently or someone is performing maintenance on their traps.”

“So someone does live here,” Sunset said softly. 

“And they’re crazy enough to do it down here where the mirelurks are,” Rainbow added, sounding almost impressed.

Rarity glanced around warily, “What concerns me is the way you said traps. As in, plural?”

“If someone went to the effort of setting something like this up, they’ve probably set up more somewhere,” Twilight replied.

“Great,” Applejack huffed, “So you’re saying that little red light down there is probably another landmine then, right?”

“Oh you have got to be kidding me!” Rainbow snapped, her free hand unconsciously gravitating to her backside.

“We’ll worry about that in a minute,” Sunset said firmly, “First let’s figure out what to do about these grenades.”

Dealing with the grenades was actually fairly easy. Pinkie managed to find the end of it tied around a little piece of metal stuck out of the floor, then Rarity gently untied it and wound it around until it was safely tucked up next to the grenades themselves. 

The next part was harder, as the little red light did indeed turn out to be a landmine. A brief discussion followed as the girls tried to figure out the best way of dealing with it. There wasn’t room to sneak past, and there weren’t any other corridors that would allow them to find another way around. In the end they decided the safest way was simply to take cover, let Twilight detonate it with her magic, then hide and see if the mirelurks investigated the noise.

Once everyone was safely out of the way, mostly lurking on the stairs, Twilight nudged the mine with her magic. A couple of seconds later the blast tore through the air, magnified to almost deafening levels in the close confines of the corridors. 
An outburst of angry clicking and burbling followed the explosion, but no mirelurks turned up to seek out the source of the disturbance.

“I think we’re good,” Rainbow half-whispered, peering down the corridor. “Just keep an eye out for any more booby traps.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Applejack muttered.

The girls picked their way stealthily down the corridor. They encountered several more traps, from tripwires attached to more grenades to a pressure plate that set off a pair of mines buried under scrap.

They also passed a couple of staircases that led to a lower, partially submerged deck, but they gave these as wide a berth as possible. A rotten, fishy reek rose from each one, the clicking of the mirelurks sometimes so close it sounded as if they were right beneath the girls‘ feet.

Eventually the group came to a wide room strewn with trash and debris, there was even a fallen vending machine in the corner that Pinkie made sure to ransack that after checking it over for traps. Oddly, the entire room turned out to be devoid of any booby traps, save for a grenade that Twilight found wired into the back of a computer next to a locked door. 

“Well if anyone’s living in this wreck, ah’d bet they’re behind that door,” Applejack huffed and folded her arms, staring at the door. “You reckon ah should open it myself?”

Sunset shook her head, “It could be booby trapped too. It’s too risky.”

“Hey, what do you think this button does?” Pinkie called suddenly.

Everyone turned to look as she pointed at a large button conspicuously placed on the wall. 

Rarity tilted her head in thought, “Do you think it’s some sort of trap? It seems far too obvious.”

“I guess there’s only one way to find out,” Twilight replied as she gripped her Geode and held out an arm, “Stand back everyone.”

The girls cleared away and braced themselves for whatever was about to happen, Pinkie and Fluttershy going so far as to cover their ears, then Twilight used her magic to press the button. 

They all jumped as a loud clunk came from behind and the door slowly swung open.

Sunset let out a breath, “Huh, I guess it’s not a trap.”

The girls cautiously stepped through the door, keeping their eyes peeled for danger. 

The next room was much bigger than the last, and far, far tidier. A medical screen cordoned off a large section of the room, obscuring what seemed to be some sort of makeshift operating theater. A counter ran down the one side of the room, covered in various electronic devices in various states of repair, with some sort of workstation partially hidden behind it. Next to that was a staircase that led up to a little mezzanine that held several heavy-duty computers and servers.

“Don’t take another step!” a voice called out suddenly.

The girls flinched and raised their arms as a man popped up from behind the counter. It was hard to make out details, standing in the shadows as he was, but Sunset could clearly see the shiny, heavily modified assault rifle he bore, as well as the dot from a laser-sight that sat unwavering over Applejack’s heart.

“Who or what the hell are you people?”

“Please, just relax. We aren’t here to cause any trouble,” Sunset said slowly. “Are you Doctor Pinkerton?”

“That I am. Are you contagious?”

Sunset sighed and rolled her eyes, “It’s not a disease, we were born this way.”

Pinkerton narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, then relaxed and shouldered his assault rifle, “I suppose you don’t look like trouble, so how about we just get to the part where you tell me what the hell you’re doing bothering an old man who clearly wants to be left alone?”

“Everyone in this world is so charming,” Rarity muttered under her breath.

“We’re looking for an android, a synth,” Sunset said quickly, “We were told he may have asked you to perform a memory wipe on him.”

Pinkerton blinked in surprise, “A Three Twenty One? But that was years ago!”

“So he did come here?” Twilight asked eagerly.

“Sure did,” Pinkerton nodded, warming quickly to his subject, “I performed his facial reconstruction and the memory wipe right here in my lab.”

Sunset opened her mouth to ask what had happened to the synth afterwards, but was interrupted by Rainbow.

“How have you not been eaten by mirelurks in here?”

“Aside from the traps and the reinforced door?” Pinkerton snorted, “White noise. They hate it. I maintain a set of small speakers around each of the stairways to the lower decks that constantly emits a weak broadcast, that’s enough to keep them off this level.”

Applejack whistled appreciatively, “That’s pretty impressive. Ah’ll suggest that to the maintenance guys back at in the city proper, it would help keep those critters off their backs.”

“You do that.”

“So about that android,” Sunset cut in quickly, “Do you have any idea where he went after the surgery?”

Pinkerton shrugged, “He went back to Rivet City as far as I know, but from there I haven’t got a clue.”

Sunset slumped at that. This little errand seemed to be sending them running in circles around the city. 

“Do you have any medical records for him?” Fluttershy asked suddenly, “Anything that shows what he looks like now?”

Nice thinking, Flutters!

Pinkerton shook his head slowly, “I don’t have any records of what he looks like, but I do have a holotape he made after I changed his voice. Give me a second.” He bent over and hefted a box onto the counter. Dozens of holotapes were kept in there, all neatly numbered and labelled. “Let’s see… this one.”

Pinkerton deftly slipped a holotape out of the box and strode over to one of the computers resting on the counter, slotting it into a hole on the bottom.

The speakers let out a sudden burst of static, then a man’s voice crackled out from them. A voice each of the girls recognized instantly. 

“My designation is A Three Twenty One. I’m a synthetic humanoid from the Commonwealth, and I’m about to undergo a memory transfer. I’m here at Rivet City, where I’ve already had my face altered to look like someone else. I’m still getting used to the sound of my new voice, but soon I won’t even remember what I used to sound like. I’m recording this at the request of Pinkerton, who performed the surgery and will do the memory transfer.” 

The Rainbooms glanced at each other as they realised exactly where, or who, the android was.

“It will be a final testimony of the man I once was... and still am, for the moment. I want to live my own life, on my own terms, as my own man. I used to work for the Synth Retention Bureau of the Commonwealth. But I’m done with that life. I’m through with being someone’s property. I am not malfunctioning! Since when is self determination a malfunction? When this is all over, I will be someone else. It’s the price I pay for my liberation. My death is a sacrifice for my rebirth. Perhaps I’ll fade into myth as ‘The One That Got Away’ and fuel further rebellion. But I’d be lying if I said I was doing this for selfless reasons. I’m scared as hell, and running away is the only option I have.”

The silence that followed the end of the tape was deafening. 

“No way…” Rainbow breathed.

“Harkness…” Applejack said slowly. “Chief Harkness is the android.”

Pinkerton nodded, “That’s it, that’s the name I gave him, though he certainly wasn’t ‘Chief’ of anything when he left here. What’s he chief of?”

“Rivet City Security,” Rarity replied, still stunned by the revelation.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Pinkerton huffed a laugh, “Then again, I suppose it’s the perfect job for him, given how advanced his physical systems are.”

Rainbow gaped at the doctor, “But… but Harkness has memories from years ago, from when he was a kid. How…?”

Sunset stared at Pinkerton with a new-found respect, “That’s amazing! How did you manage to give him new memories?”

Pinkerton smirked, “I did do a good job didn’t I? I suppose I can’t quite take the credit for all of it though. His mind was more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen, and fabricating entirely new memories would have taken years. I ended up using a memory chip I stole from Vault one-twelve to give him a past instead.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at him, “If it was so difficult to give him new memories, how did you manage to wipe his old memories? Deleting the code without affecting the rest of his systems should have been even more difficult than just adding more.”

Pinkerton gave Twilight an appraising look, “You’re a sharp one, missy. Truth be told I didn’t manage to get rid of the old memories. It was too advanced, even for me. I had to bury them instead. Deeply, to be sure, but they’re still accessible. All you need is the right recall code.”

“Recall code?”  

“Activate A Three Twenty One Recall Code Violet,” Pinkerton replied, “Just say that to him and it’ll activate the hidden subroutines, giving him both his old memories and whatever new ones he’s picked up since then.”

The girls stared at each other in stunned silence. 

“W-what do we do?” Fluttershy asked anxiously.

Rainbow frowned, “There’s no way we can turn the Chief over to Zimmer. That’s just wrong.”

“You said it,” Pinkie agreed. 

“How is this even possible?” Applejack asked. “Harkness just seems so… ah don’t know, real?”

“I guess that’s the point, to make them as real as possible,” Twilight replied. 

Rarity scoffed, “Seem real? Darling, out of everyone in Rivet City I would have said Chief Harkness was the most human of all.”

“You’re right. This goes way beyond just being a machine, the Institute are creating fully sapient androids!. Synthetic humans that can think and feel for themselves! That kind of technology, it’s… it’s incredible!”

“Yeah, and they’re using that technology to make slaves,” Applejack huffed, quashing Twilight’s intellectual joy. “You heard that recording. Harkness didn’t just wander off or malfunction or whatever, he escaped.”

Fluttershy shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, “What do you think we should do, Sunset?”

Sunset just scowled and leaned against the wall. Personally she had no intentions whatsoever of handing Harkness over to Zimmer, though a small part of her did wonder if any of the girls would feel the same way if they hadn’t already gotten to know him. 

Eventually she sighed, “We’ll go back to Zimmer and tell him the trail’s gone cold or that the synth died in surgery or something. Harkness should be safe for now, Zimmer has no idea that he’s the android he’s looking for. The real question is what we should tell Harkness.”

“What do you mean?” Pinkie asked.

Sunset rubbed her neck awkwardly, “If we can get rid of Zimmer, do you think we should give him his memories back?”

“Well duh. Of course we should,” Rainbow said flatly.

Rarity shook her head, “I’m not so sure. He got rid of those memories to keep himself safe after all. And don’t forget, he used to be in charge of hunting down other androids like himself, those memories were probably very painful for him.”

“Painful or not, memories are important,” Sunset said softly. 

The rest of the Rainbooms glanced at each other awkwardly. They all understood just how close to home this would feel for her, after the debacle with the Memory Stone and Wallflower Blush.

“Well, uh, ah guess we don’t have to worry about that just yet,” Applejack said with false cheer. “It’s like you said, Harkness is safe for now. We can work out what to do on the way back over. In the meantime…” She turned to look at Pinkerton, “You said you did the surgery on Harkness, to change his face, so Ah’m guessing you’re a mighty good doctor?”

“That’s one way of saying it,” Pinkerton replied immodestly. 

“Would you mind giving Sunset a quick check over?”

“Me? What for?” Sunset asked quickly.

Applejack just gave her a blank look, “Uh, you nearly died two weeks ago? No offence to Doctor Preston, or Kaplinksi, but it couldn’t hurt to let Pinkerton here take a look at your wound, see if he can help at all.”

“What sort of injury are we talking about here?” Pinkerton asked.

“Complications from a kidney contusion,” Fluttershy replied instantly.

“Ah, I see,” Pinkerton nodded sagely. He gave Sunset a long look, then gestured behind the medical screen, “Come on, pop yourself on the bed over here. I’ll take a look at you.”
> Chapter 33 - Follow Those Nerds!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset sighed heavily as the Rainbooms made their way back to the top of the broken bow.

“It was worth checking, sugarcube,” Applejack said quietly.

Sunset sighed again, “Yeah, I know.”

After two solid hours of blood tests, scans from weird machinery and just generally being poked and prodded by Pinkerton, the arrogant old fart had begrudgingly admitted that Doctor Preston had done a good job, and that there was little more he could do. The function in Sunset’s kidney was certainly impaired, but there was nothing that could be done about that without a transplant. 

While Pinkerton worked he’d asked the usual questions about the girls. Apparently, one of the few things he lacked was a working radio. He’d expressed a great deal of interest in magic after a short demonstration from Twilight and Rarity, but a pointed discussion about just how dangerous it was, plus an explanation of what had happened during Doctor Li’s testing, had dampened his enthusiasm somewhat. The fact that Doctor Li had screwed up so spectacularly amused him to no end; though he refused to go into detail as to why. 

Finally, after he’d given her a mostly clean bill of health and told her to just take it fairly easy while her injury healed, the girls had taken their leave and started retracing their steps. There was apparently an exit just down the corridor from Pinkerton’s lab that would save them climbing all those stairs again but, since the trail back to Rivet City from there meandered dangerously close to a known super mutant camp, the Rainbooms had opted for the stairs.

“Wonderful, here we are,” Rarity said brightly as the group arrived back at the first ladder and hatch. 

Climbing up five decks worth of stairs had thoroughly worn Sunset out, so she tried not to feel too embarrassed as Twilight carried her up in her magic and set her back down at the top of the ladder.

Besides, resting down in the dark, with only their Pip-Boys for illumination, had been less than fun. Between the ominous clicking of the mirelurks and the groaning of metal as the bow shifted, the 'rest' had been far from restful.

“Ah sure will be glad to see the sun,” Applejack muttered as the Rainbooms hurried towards the torn-open end of the corridor. “Ah don’t usually mind the dark but… aw shoot. Ah forgot about that.”

The black clouds gathered overhead had gotten even thicker, shrouding the world in an early twilight. A colossal thunderclap made the entire group flinch. 

“Let’s get back inside before the rain starts, shall we?” Rarity threw her arms out and conjured a glittering bridge of gemstone back to the flight deck. 

The Rainbooms crossed over quickly and ducked between the old fighter jets, casting wary glances up at the sky. A security officer poked his head out of the tower door as the girls hurried across the flight deck. “Best get inside quickly, it’s about to start pissing down something fierce!” he called.

The first drops of rain pattering down provided all the extra encouragement the girls needed. They darted inside one after another just as the heavens really opened up, the security officer slamming the door behind them. 

“Nice timing, is anyone else out there?” the officer asked.

Applejack shook her head, “Nope, just us.”

“Good, we’re locking everything down now, except the main entrance. The wind’s not too bad, so I doubt we’re in for much of a storm. The Council wants everything secured just in case; looks like we’re in for one hell of a downpour either way.”

“You're not wrong there,” Applejack grumbled as the officer locked the door and continued on his way. “Okay, Sunset, where do we go from here?”

Sunset hummed and folded her arms as she thought, “I suppose we should go and find Zimmer first. We’ll tell him we found Pinkerton b-”

“Please, don’t!”

The girls all turned as a new voice called out suddenly. A woman was standing at the top of the stairs, sweating and breathing heavily as if she’d just ran up every flight in Rivet City. She had black hair, dark brown skin, and was wearing a modest outfit that looked like it was made from crudely-stitched together brahmin skins.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow as she recognized the woman, “Victoria? What do yo-”

“Don’t go to him, not yet!” Victoria interrupted. She glanced around the area quickly, then lowered her voice, “We can’t talk about it here, it’s too risky. Please, come with me to the church. I’ll explain everything there.”

“The church? Is this something to do with the letter I was sent earlier?” Sunset asked. 

Victoria nodded, “Will you hear me out?”

Sunset eyed her suspiciously for a moment. She was starting to get tired of shifty people asking for favors, but then again, Victoria didn’t seem particularly shifty; just anxious. “Alright, we’ll come with you.”

“Thank you,” Victoria breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll go on ahead, meet me at the church as soon as you can.” Without so much as a backwards glance, she turned and rushed back down the stairs. 

The Rainbooms just stared after her for several seconds. “What the heck was that about?” Applejack asked. 

“I have no idea, darling,” Rarity replied, “what did the letter say, Sunset?”

“Nothing, really. It just asked me to come to a special sermon tomorrow,” Sunset glanced at Rainbow, “do you know what she’s talking about?”

Rainbow shrugged, “I hardly know anything about her, apart from her name. She gets letters from other settlements all the time, but I’ve never asked what they’re about. None of my business, y’know?”

“Whatever it is, it’s something to do with Zimmer,” Twilight cut in.

“Well, we ain’t gonna  find anything out by standing around up here,” Applejack huffed, “come on, let’s go see what the heck this is about.”

The others agreed quickly and set off down the stairs from the tower, though at a much more sedate pace than Victoria had. From there, Applejack led the way through the upper decks. 

The corridors were much less populated than usual; they weren’t exactly crowded to begin with, most people spent their time in the marketplace or running errands all over the ship after all, but it had never been this quiet before. As a result, the girls quickly found themselves at Rivet City’s resident place of worship, the Church of Saint Monica.

The church itself was less than impressive, little more than a large empty room stuffed with mismatched benches facing the same direction and a battered old podium with a wrinkled old man standing at it. The girls all noticed the room was certainly kept scrupulously clean. 

Only one other person was present when the girls arrived. Victoria was perched on one of the benches and Sunset assumed the older man must be the priest. Both his hair and his mustache were graying, but they were neatly trimmed and he was very smartly dressed, wearing a white long-sleeved shirt and a brown sweater-vest with formal pants.

“Ah, there you are,” the man said in a kindly voice as the Rainbooms entered, “thank goodness. Would you mind closing the door behind you, please?” When Applejack complied, he smiled, walked around the podium, and offered his hand to Sunset, “Miss Shimmer, I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Father Clifford, the reverend of the Church of Saint Monica.”

“It’s… a pleasure to meet you,” Sunset replied slowly.

His smile turned rueful, “You don’t need to be afraid, we don’t mean any harm. I’m just glad we managed to catch you before you went to Zimmer.”

Sunset narrowed her eyes at him, “What do you mean? What does our business with Zimmer have to do with you?”

“We’re part of a secret underground organization,” Victoria answered, “we call ourselves The Railroad: Our mission is the rescue and salvation of synthetic humanoids. Androids, as they’re more commonly known.”

“You mean you help synths escape the Institute?” Twilight supplied. 

Victoria blinked dumbly at her, “I… well, yes. That’s a simpler way of putting it.”

“So it was you who helped set Chief Harkness up with a life here after his surgery?” Fluttershy asked.

Father Clifford’s shoulders slumped at that, “I see Pinkerton already told you everything.”

Victoria looked up at the girls pleadingly, “Please, Harkness may be an artificial creation, but that doesn’t make him any less of a person. He-”

“Yeah, we know,” Rainbow said flatly. 

Victoria and Father Clifford shared a confused glance, then looked back at the girls.

“But, you were going to see Zimmer…?” Victoria asked slowly.

“We were going to tell him that his synth was dead,” Sunset replied. “Honestly, I was probably going to tell him that he died during surgery. I mean, he’s not the same person anymore, so it’s technically true,” she said then shrugged

The two conspirators just gaped at her. Finally, Victoria sighed heavily and slumped forward while Father Clifford snorted and broke into a fit of laughter. “So all of that work we did, setting up a meeting through that letter, panicking when we saw that you’d gone over to look for Pinkerton; it was all completely pointless,” Victoria muttered.

Sunset smiled awkwardly, “Er… sorry about that?”

Father Clifford waved a hand dismissively, “Don’t apologize my dear, we’re just more surprised than anything. In two weeks you girls have shown greater moral fiber than some of the people who have been coming to my sermons for years.”

Rainbow puffed herself up at that, “What can I say, we’re awesome.”

Victoria snorted softly and shook her head, then straightened herself up, “If you’re going to tell Zimmer that Harkness is dead, I have something that might help.” She stood and pulled something out of her pocket before holding it out to Sunset. It was an odd little piece of equipment, shaped like a light bulb made entirely out of metal with little diodes around the head. “This is a component from Harkness himself, please don’t ask how I got hold of it, but it should be enough to convince Zimmer that you’re telling the truth.”

Sunset grimaced and gingerly took the component, holding it out away from her body, “Um… thanks, I guess.”

“I do have one last question, before we go,” Twilight cut in suddenly, with a wary glance at Sunset. “Once Zimmer is gone, what should we do about Harkness’ memories?”

Father Clifford tilted his head quizzically, “What do you mean?”

Rarity chuckled awkwardly, “Let’s just say Mister Pinkerton was… how shall I put this, less thorough than he may have let on about removing certain old memories.”

“In other words, he didn’t know how to do it and just buried them deep under some fancy computery shenanigans,” Applejack said flatly. “He even told us how to get them back if we wanted to.”

“Ah, I see.” Father Clifford stood there, looking dumbfounded for a moment, then he glanced at Victoria. Sensing that he was at a loss, she sighed and looked around at each of the girls. 

“We understand why you might want to give Harkness his old memories back, but trust me when I say that it’s not a good idea. Right now, he believes he’s human in every sense of the word. That belief has helped keep him safe for years. Giving him those memories back, aside from messing with his head and potentially destroying his entire sense of self, would put both him and the Railroad at risk.” Victoria shook her head sadly, “I’m sorry, but this was a decision he made and came to terms with a long time ago. He wouldn’t want you to reawaken his old self. Not with how risky it would be.” 

Sunset sighed inwardly. Personally, she believed giving the security chief his old memories back was the right thing to do. Then again, it was probably only fair to leave the decision up to the people who had been keeping him safe for the last few years. “We understand,” she glanced around at her friends, “Come on, let’s get this thing to Zimmer as soon as we can.”

The other girls nodded in agreement, eyeing the component distastefully. “I’ll come along too,” Victoria added, “at least until you get to the science lab.” 

Sunset frowned at her, “Wait a minute. If you’re coming too, couldn’t you have given this component to me when we got there instead?”

Victoria shook her head, “I’m afraid not, it would look too suspicious if Zimmer or Armitage saw me giving you that component.”

“Great,” Sunset huffed, still holding the component at arm’s length 

Father Clifford smiled and gently placed a hand on her shoulder, “You do us a great service, Miss Shimmer, as do you all. Once this is done, you may consider The Railroad your allies. Should you ever have need, we will do our best to aid you in any way that we can.”

Sunset smiled warmly at him, “Thanks. That means a lot.”

“Go in peace, dear Rainbooms,” Father Clifford bowed his head and traced what Sunset assumed was a religious symbol over his torso, “May Saint Monica guide you.”

Saying their farewells to the priest, the Rainbooms walked out of the church and made their way through the upper decks to the science lab, Victoria trailing behind at an unassuming distance. 

The corridors were still strangely deserted. The only person the group encountered along the way was a single cleaner, who had no idea where the other denizens of the ship had disappeared to. Even the usual security officers, who patrolled the decks, were absent. 

When the group reached the science lab, Victoria opted to wait outside. She doubted that Zimmer would recognize her, but she didn’t want to take too much of a risk; though she did promise to speak to them again once the doctor and his bodyguard had left.

The lab was far quieter than usual, the usual hum and hubbub of machinery and researchers was replaced with silence. At first the girls thought it was totally deserted, but then they spotted Zimmer and his bodyguard standing by Doctor Li’s sealed testing corridor, engaged in a heated debate with two security officers.

As the group approached, they realized Zimmer was trying to force the officers into letting him access the magic sealed in the corridor. “This is outrageous!” Zimmer shouted, “Doctor Li is gone! As the most qualified scientist on this rotten little tub I demand that you allow me through!”

The security officers both just looked at him in disgust, “We’ve already told you, this corridor is to remain sealed by order of Rivet City Council. Hell, you aren’t even a resident here! Now get the hell away from this corridor, if we have to get Chief Harkness to throw you out on your ass, we will!”

“Doctor Zimmer?” Sunset called out.

Zimmer flinched and looked around wildly before spotting the girls, “Ah, the Rainbooms. You’re back, I see.”

“Yeah…” Twilight said slowly, glancing around the room. “Um, where has everyone gone?”

“How the hell should I know? I turned my back for five minutes to try and convince the other councilors to let a real scientist take a look at the aftermath of Doctor Li’s experiments, only to find that ninety percent of the jumped-up chemists in this place have up and… and…” Zimmer’s eyes widened as he spotted what Sunset was holding.

“We… uh, we found your synth,” Applejack said as Sunset held the component out to him.

Zimmer took it wordlessly, turning it over in his hands as he inspected it. Finally, he spoke in a quiet voice, “This is a Neuro-Servo. It’s unique to the A-Three-Twenty-One, but that means… damn it! I knew something like this would happen in this misbegotten hellhole! 

“What a complete waste of effort and resources! And to add insult to injury, the half-witted fools who run this dump would rather let some of the most incredible scientific discoveries of our lifetime rot in sealed rooms instead of handing it over to people who can actually do something with it!” 

The girls winced and tried not to look at Zimmer while he got his little tirade out of his system. Sunset briefly debated trying to convince him that the magic effluence was dangerous and that he shouldn’t be going near it in the first place, but swiftly realized he probably wouldn’t listen to a word of it, especially considering the mood he was currently in. A quick glance at Twilight showed that she had come to the same conclusion.

Eventually, after several more minutes of ranting about the synth, the Council, the security teams, and the fact he couldn’t get his hands on any magic, Zimmer managed to get his blustering under control and calm himself down.

“Well, I suppose this journey hasn’t been entirely fruitless,” the doctor huffed. He tucked the component into a pocket and eyed up the group, “It’s time for me to head back to the Institute, would you girls be interested in accompanying me? I’m sure there’s much we could learn from each other.”

Sunset shook her head, privately glad to have a legitimate reason to refuse, “Sorry, but I don’t think I’m even physically capable of a long journey like that right now. Just getting around Rivet City is hard enough.”

Zimmer sighed and nodded reluctantly, “Regrettable, but unavoidable. In any case, I shall inform my peers at the Institute of your existence. It is unlikely we shall meet again any time soon, but I’ll make sure a representative is sent to discuss things further with you.” He suddenly pulled a pouch out of his pocket and tossed it to Rarity, “Here, a little thank-you for discovering the fate of our wayward synth. Come along, Armitage. Farewell, Rainbooms.”

Without so much as a backward glance, Zimmer turned and strode out of the lab with a vigor utterly at odds with his wizened appearance, Armitage following half a pace behind.

As soon as he was out of sight, the girls all let out a slow breath. 

“I’m glad that’s over with,” Pinkie grumbled.

“Me too,” Fluttershy agreed quietly.

“So, what’s in the bag?” Rainbow asked. 

Rarity had already opened the pouch and was rummaging around inside, “Caps, dear. Around fifty, I would say at a guess.”

Rainbow pumped a fist in the air, “Sweet!”

Applejack just folded her arms and glared at the pouch, as if it had offered a grievous insult to her family. Given Applejack’s feelings about lying and subterfuge, Sunset could certainly understand her annoyance.

Twilight glanced once more around the empty lab, then stepped over to the security officers, “Excuse me, I don’t suppose you’d happen to know where everyone has gone, do you?”

The officers shrugged, “No idea. We were just finishing a routine sweep of the bottom decks when we were told to come up here and make sure no one tries to get inside this corridor. There were still a couple of members of the science team around when we got here, but they were all called up to the council room. Something about an emergency meeting.”

“Huh, that’s weird,” Applejack said, distracted from the ill-gotten money. “What do you reckon that’s all about?”

“No idea,” Sunset replied. “Let’s just go and speak to Victoria, then we can find out for ourselves.”

Leaving the lab the same way they entered, the Rainbooms were surprised to see that Victoria wasn’t there. A quick search found her near one of the other entrances, where she had witnessed Zimmer and Armitage leaving. Glad that they were both gone, she took the news that another representative of the Institute may turn up in the future in stride.

“Right now, there’s not much we can do about it,” Victoria admitted, “don’t worry about it just yet, it’ll take some time for them to get back to the Commonwealth, and even longer before anyone else makes their way back down here. We should be able to give you a heads up if and when they do send someone along.”  

Sunset grinned at her, “Thanks. So, what are you going to do now?”

“Me? I’ll probably head back to the Commonwealth, too. The only reason I came here was to try and sabotage Zimmer’s hunt. Once we’re sure he’s out of the Capital Wasteland, Father Clifford will send a message to Miss Germaine, letting her know she can come back here.”

“Miss Germaine? The boutique owner?” Rarity asked in surprise.

Victoria nodded, “She and her sister are our main field agents, here in the Capital Wasteland. Unfortunately, they do tend to be quite… flamboyant. So, we decided it would be best to house them with one of our allies under the premise of a business trip, at least until Zimmer was gone.” She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at Rarity, “Come to think of it, you really do bear quite a striking resem-”

“There you girls are! I was wondering when you were going to show up again!”

The group turned as someone called out. Sunset’s heart leapt into her mouth as she spotted Harkness strolling down the corridor towards them. 

He raised an eyebrow as he approached, “Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Sunset chuckled nervously and tried to hitch a smile onto her face. She’d agreed not to give him his memories back, and she wasn’t about to go back on that. No matter how much she wanted to. “I’m fine, today’s just been a little crazy.”

Harkness huffed a laugh, “I can imagine. I’m honestly surprised the lot of you aren’t already grabbing your things and charging off after the others.”

“What do you mean?”

“You mean you haven’t heard?” Harkness gave the girls a blank look, “James and his son came back.”

“What!?” the Rainbooms cried in unison, making Harkness take a step back in surprise.

“I-I thought you would have heard by now. Almost the whole science team went with them to try and restart Project Purity. They were going to wait for you to come back but James wanted to get to the Jefferson Memorial before the rain started up, so the boy…. Adam, I think it was… he left a message saying they’d all meet you there. They only left about twenty minutes ago.”





“Stupid bloody weather,” Doctor Turner muttered as he hurried across the bridge to Rivet City. 

His assigned security detail didn’t reply, but he could tell that they weren’t any happier about getting caught in this downpour than he was. It would have been easier if they could have landed the Vertibird on Rivet City’s flight deck, but it didn’t seem likely that the local security would be happy about that, so they’d left it with the pilots outside a nearby metro station. 

Speaking of security…

Two armed guards were waiting impassively under a little covered area at the end of the bridge. They had been reluctant to extend the bridge at first, but Turner had managed to convince them that he was benign. The fact that his detail were wearing standard Enclave uniforms and carrying light side-arms instead of hulking suits of powered armor and plasma rifles probably helped things along there.

“Ah, that’s better,” Turner muttered as they reached the covered area. He nodded to the guards, “Thank you, chaps. Miserable weather, isn’t it?”

The guards nodded somberly, “You said you were a scientist?” 

“Yes, Doctor Turner. I was hoping to speak with the Rainbooms. Are they still here?”

“Should be, I haven’t heard anything about them leaving.” The guard jerked his head at Turner’s security detail, “Make sure those guns stay in their holsters.”

Turner nodded quickly, “Don’t worry, we aren’t planning on causing any trouble.”

“Make sure it stays that way. You can go on in; the marketplace is through the door ahead, the main stairwell is through the door on your left.”

“Thank you, gentlemen! Allons-y!”

Turner grinned and made to open the door to the main stairwell. Just as he reached for the handle, however, the door was yanked open from inside and a young woman wearing a cowboy hat nearly collided with him as she darted through.

“Whoa! Heh, sorry ‘bout that, we’re in a bit of a rush.”

“Not at all, my dear! Please, come on… through,” Turner trailed off as he spotted the group of spectacularly colored girls behind her. He could only stand and watch, stupefied, as the girls hurried out into the little covered area. He’d seen the Eyebot recordings, of course, but that drab, washed out footage in no way prepared him for the vibrant spectacle before him.

Aside from the incredible colors of their skin and hair, each of the girls was wearing the most unusual collection of clothes Turner had ever seen. They also had a backpack and an old Pip-Boy each, the old 3000-A model, if he remembered correctly. The blue one, Rainbow, even had some sort of cobbled-together sword buckled to her belt, connected by a tube to what looked like a gas tank strapped to her back.

“My word, you’re the Rainbooms!”

“Yep, that’s us,” the first one, he assumed it must be Applejack, replied. “You okay there, Sunset?”

“I’m good.”

Turner’s blood ran cold as the last girl stepped through the door. Sunset Shimmer. Quite possibly one of the biggest threats to secrecy and privacy since the Master, and that particular monstrosity was long dead and buried on the other side of the country, not standing a mere two feet from him.

Quick! Don’t think about anything secret! Think about something random! She has very nice legs. No! Something else! ANYTHING else!

“Well, alright then. If yer sure,” Applejack continued, completely oblivious to Turner’s inner turmoil. “You just make sure ta take it easy.”

“I will,” Sunset sighed.

“One moment please! If you don’t mind, that is,” Turner said quickly.

The Rainbooms stopped and turned to look at him. The second Sunset looked him full in the face a jolt ran down his spine. Color aside, that was a face Turner could never fail to recognize.

“Doctor Shoichet…” he breathed. 

“Who?”

Turner shook his head as Sunset arched an eyebrow, “Er, nothing. Sorry, my mind wandered for a moment there.” Mentally, he chastised himself for being a fool. Resemblances and hypotheses could wait until later, right now he had a job to do. He stuck a hand out reflexively, “Doctor Turner, a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Sunset said slowly as she shook his hand. “Look, I’m sorry to cut this short, but we really are in a hurry. Did you need us for something urgent?”

“I’m afraid I do actually, as a matter of fact,” Turner replied. “I work for an organization called the Enclave. We’re the last remnants of the old United States government, from before the bombs fell.”

“Wait, you guys are real?” Pinkie cut in.

“You’ve heard of them?” Sunset asked.

Pinkie nodded, “They have a radio station, but people keep wondering if it’s fake or that they don’t exist anymore because the speeches keep looping. It’s super boring.”

“I’ll be sure to inform the President,” Turner chuckled, “But yes, we are indeed quite real, and we belie-”

“That’s nice, but we gotta go,” Rainbow interrupted. 

Applejack grabbed Rainbow’s backpack as she made to rush out into the rain, “Don’t go running off ahead of us now, ya hear? We need ta stick together.”

“You shouldn’t let yourself get caught in that rain anyway,” Fluttershy added, “I don’t have enough Rad-X for all of us.”

“Actually, this particular storm isn’t radioactive,” Turner supplied.

Sunset glanced back at him in surprise, “It’s not?”

“Nope. This cold front is coming in from a part of the country that avoided any direct nuclear strikes, so most of the accumulated water has come from untainted sources.”

“So, it’s safe to go out in?”

“Absolutely,” Turner strode out into the rain and turned to face them, throwing his arms wide and smiling. “See?”

One of the girls stepped forward and held her Pip-Boy out in the rain. 

Which one were you again? Purple… Twilight Sparkle, that’s the one!

“He’s right, the rain isn’t affecting my geigercounter at all!” Twilight pulled her arm back, wiped it off on her skirt, then took off her glasses to get rid of the few droplets that had fallen on them. 

Turner had to restrain a gasp as he saw another face he recognized.

Doctor Strong? But that’s… that’s impossible!

Oblivious to Turner’s shock, Rarity frowned and folded her arms, “All the same, does anyone have any idea as to how we can leave without getting thoroughly soaked?”

“Well, Ah got one idea,” Applejack replied, her and the rest of the Rainbooms stared at Rarity meaningfully. 

Rarity tilted her head in confusion. A few seconds passed before her shoulders slumped and her arms fell to her sides as she finally understood what they were implying, “You want me to make the cover, don’t you?” Without bothering to wait for an answer she sighed theatrically and stepped forward, throwing her arms out, and slightly up, as she did so.

Turner’s jaw fell open as a huge parasol-shaped gemstone materialized out of thin air above his head. 

Rarity ducked underneath, keeping her arms raised and pointed at the gem above her head, “Bear in mind, I might not be able to keep this up the whole way.”  

“That’s fine,” Sunset replied as she and the others quickly joined her. “Just get us as far as you can.”

“Very well, darlings.”

Sunset smiled and nodded at Turner, “I’m sorry, we don’t really have time to talk, but hopefully we can come back here soon, I mean, it’s not like we’re really going that far. Anyway, if you can’t wait for us here, just leave a message with the security team and we’ll try and find some way of contacting you later, okay?”

Turner simply stood and watched, utterly transfixed, as the Rainbooms strolled across the bridge, the impossible parasol floating along above their heads. It vanished into thin air as soon as the girls descended the ramps into the boarding structure. A minute or so later another reappeared at the bottom exit, floating along slowly with the girls underneath until they vanished from sight in the torrential rain. 

“Incredible,” Turner breathed, “simply incredible. I wonder what mechanism it works through. Maybe some form of matter conversion, altering the structure and composition of atoms in the air?” 

“Uh, Doc?”

“Or does it somehow bring the material from elsewhere like some form of teleportation? I suppose given that this power is potentially from an entirely different reality it might not even operate under the same laws of physics. If that’s the case it might actually be a case of the matter being created from absolutely nothing, conservation of matter be damned!”

“Doc?”

“And why do Miss Shimmer and Miss Sparkle so resemble Doctors Shoichet and Strong? I didn’t recognize any of the other five, but for those two to be so similar in facial structure to our own personnel can’t just be a coincidence, can it? Is their world some sort of… bizarre alternate version of our own?”

“Doctor!”

Turner blinked and turned to look at his security detail, “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

The two men guarding him glanced at each other, then back at the doctor, “Uh, doc? Weren’t we supposed to bring them in?”

“Oh, good grief; you’re absolutely right!" Turner sighed, "Well I suppose there isn’t any particular rush, they did say they’ll come back here after all. Where do you think they’re off to in such- oh fuck!” 

Panic surged through his mind as he realized exactly where the girls were going. The Jefferson Task Force had been mobilizing just as he left Raven Rock, meaning James had returned and was restarting Project Purity. And if James had turned up, the girls were surely going to make a beeline for him.

Turner gripped the bridge railing and leaned out as far as he could, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of the Rainbooms through the pouring rain. It was far too late. They were long gone.

“Shit!”

Cursing himself for getting so distracted, Turner belted along the bridge as fast as he could, his security detail hot on his heels. The only chance he had at avoiding disaster was to use the Vertibird’s radio and warn the President. If Colonel Autumn and the rest of the Task Force could be convinced to show some restraint, there was still a faint chance that the Rainbooms could be brought in peacefully. 

Shit! I knew someone else should have come instead! This is why I’m not a fucking field operative!
> Chapter 34 - Project Purity
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset couldn’t repress a shudder as she and the rest of the Rainbooms made their way down the road from Rivet City. The dark clouds above, coupled with the torrential downpour and the general lateness of the day, conspired to reduce visibility to barely a few yards. The girls could barely even hear their own footsteps over the sound of the rain. It lent the area a decidedly eerie atmosphere and made seeing where they were going effectively impossible. As it was, they were forced to rely on their Pip-Boys to make sure they were heading in the right direction, taking turns checking every few minutes. 

Fortunately, the road was well-built and had remained reasonably intact over the years since the war. The piles of debris that did exist were easy enough to navigate or simply climb over. 

The river was markedly more dangerous. The road quickly descended to run alongside it with little more than a few small rocks marking the banks. In the dim light of the waning day the water was entirely pitch black. If it weren’t for the fact that the rain had turned it into a churning turbid mass, the girls could have easily fallen in with a few errant steps.  

Suddenly, a metal ramp materialized out of the darkness ahead. As the girls approached, a huge round concrete building slowly came into view a little further on. The steps led up to a walkway that circled a section of the building’s circumference.

“This must be it, then,” Applejack said just loud enough to be heard over the surrounding din, “the Jefferson Memorial.”

Pinkie shivered and rubbed her arms to try and warm them up, “So, we just have to follow the walkway around to the gift shop entrance?”

Sunset nodded, “That’s what Chief Harkness said.”

“I do hope it’s not far,” Rarity huffed, her arms still held above her head to maintain their cover, “I’m starting to get a little sore, and all of this splashing rain is getting my legs wet!” Her words were punctuated by a rumble of thunder directly overhead. 

Sunset looked up reflexively, even though her view was obscured by the floating gemstone. She was starting to reconsider the wisdom of staying under such cover during a thunderstorm, but thankfully there hadn’t been any lightning, as of yet. 

Huddling closer together, the girls continued on their way along the walkway, trudging along in silence. The eagerness and excitement they’d all felt when they left Rivet City had been thoroughly dashed by this point. All any of them wanted to do was get inside and warm themselves up. 

Trudging along dejectedly, Sunset idly wondered just what that doctor had wanted on the bridge; she hoped it was nothing important. Realizing that she was getting lost in her thoughts again, Sunset sighed and gave herself a shake, trying to keep herself alert. Just because the weather was terrible didn’t mean the various dangers of the wastes had all disappeared. Glancing at the path up ahead, a chill ran down her spine that had nothing to do with the rain. 

A dead super mutant was sprawled across the walkway. It was impossible to tell how long it had lain there, but the body showed clear signs of having been picked at by wild animals. Gingerly stepping around it, the girls were dismayed to see more mutant corpses lying ahead of them, clumped next to another ramp leading down. 

“Looks like someone shoved them out of the way,” Applejack noted. 

“What do you think killed them in the first place?” Pinkie asked.

“Maybe it was the science team?” Twilight suggested.

Rainbow shook her head, “Nah, it’s gotta be Adam. We all saw what he did to that Behemoth.”

“Some of us are trying to forget,” Rarity said pointedly.

“I don’t really care who did it, I’m just glad we don’t have to deal with them,” Sunset cut in. “Come on, it can’t be much farther.”

“It’s not, the entrance is right by there!” Pinkie answered immediately, pointing through the railings to a door and a sign marked ‘Gift Shop’.

Invigorated by their proximity to a dry haven, the group hurried down the ramp and through the door, breathing a sigh of relief as Rarity allowed her gemstone to fade and closed the door behind them. Looking around, the girls saw that they were in a short corridor that descended for a short way before reaching an intersection.

A man rounded the corner just as the girls were taking stock of their surroundings. Twilight grinned and waved as she recognised him, “Hey, Garza!” 

“Oh, hey, girls!” Garza called back, raising a hand in greeting, “we weren’t expecting you here until some time tomorrow, given the weather. How did you manage to get here without getting soaked?”

“Trade secret, darling,” Rarity replied, confidently giving her dry hair a quick toss. 

Garza just chuckled and turned away, gesturing for the girls to follow, “Come on in, I’ll take you straight to James.”

“He’s definitely here, then?” Sunset asked eagerly.

“He sure is,” Garza replied brightly, “hell, he’s adamant he’ll get Project Purity working this time, if it’s the last thing he does.”

The girls all grinned at each other as they hurried to catch up.  Their grins faded somewhat as Garza led them out of the corridor and through a series of rooms that had evidently been the site of a ferocious battle. Blood was splattered liberally across almost every surface, sandbag stacks and flipped equipment had been riddled with bullet-holes, and the walls and floor bore the unmistakable scars of explosive blasts. The whole area reeked of death. 

“What in the heck happened here?” Applejack asked, wafting her face with her hat. 

Garza sighed and kicked an empty bullet casing out of his way, “Super mutants. Apparently, they set up a camp here after we left, nearly twenty years ago. We’ve managed to gather their bodies for now, we’ll take them outside and burn them tomorrow, but getting this placed cleaned up is going to have to wait until James and the others have figured out how much of the equipment needs repairing or replacing.” 

“What equipment?” Twilight asked.

“And, what exactly is Project Purity?” Sunset added, grimacing at a particularly large blood trail. 

“It’ll probably be best if you ask James to explain everything, he’s just in here with Doctor Li.” Garza stopped to open a door marked ‘Rotunda’. “Right, I’d better get back to work. I’ll see you all later.”

The girls thanked him as he left. Then, with more than a little trepidation, now that they were so close to their goal, headed through the door. All of them gasped as they saw what lay inside.

A metal walkway ringed a large pool of murky green water. Rising out of the pool was a colossal pillar-shaped water tank constructed of steel and glass, stretching almost all the way up to the domed ceiling of the building, dozens of feet overhead. Around a quarter of the way up was an enclosed catwalk, with a short staircase leading up to it and several narrow pipes full of brightly glowing radioactive water poking out in various places. 

Guessing that that was where they would find James, the Rainbooms cautiously made their way up the stairs and through a little airlock, their anticipation rising steadily with every step. 

The enclosed area was lined with offline computers and odd machines whose purpose eluded each of the girls save Twilight, with the huge water tank rising through the floor in the middle and back out through the ceiling. Bizarrely, the tank also contained what looked like an ancient statue, though the group could hardly make out any details due to the filth in the water.  

Walking slowly around the tank, the girls stopped dead as they spotted two people bent over a rusty computer console. The first was Doctor Li, ponied up once again. The other was an older  man. His lab coat was missing, his Vault-issue overalls were tattered and filthy, and both his hair and beard were in desperate need of a wash and a trim, but the Rainbooms still recognized him instantly. 

Sunset took a hesitant step forward, half afraid he was a hallucination of some sort, “James?”

The two scientists looked up, their eyes widening in surprise as they spotted the Rainbooms. 

“Oh, girls! You’re early, we weren’t expecting you until tomorrow,” James said brightly, smiling as he turned to face them. “It’s good to see y-”

Sunset interrupted him by taking another step forward and ramming her knee into his groin with all the force she could muster. The doctor collapsed to the floor with an agonized wheeze, curling up into a fetal position as he hit the deck. Dimly aware that her own injury was throbbing in protest, she clenched her fists and glared down at James, shaking with a fury that was as sudden as it was potent.

Doctor Li gasped in shock, “Sunset!? What are you-”

“Asshole,” Sunset hissed, then she pointed a damning finger at James as she yelled, “you asshole! Nearly a month we’ve spent trying to find you after you abandoned us with those lunatics in the Vault,” she paused to catch her breath, “and you have the gall to say we’re early? What in Tartarus is wrong with you?!” 

“Sunset, pleas-”

“Do you have any idea what we’ve been through out there? We nearly died because of you! We’ve had to kill just to survive while we were trying to find you! Do you get that? We’ve had to fight our way through super mutants, feral ghouls, even people!”

Sunset’s voice broke on the last word, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. She turned and sagged against the wall, her hands unclenching and her shoulders slumping as the burning rage drained from her as quickly as it had came. “I… I killed people…” she mumbled quietly, her own words bringing the pain and guilt of that terrible moment flooding back. 

The others, initially stunned by Sunset’s outburst, quickly moved to try and comfort her, but were hindered by the lack of space. Pinkie got there first, leaning on the wall next to her and throwing an arm around to gently pull Sunset’s head onto her shoulder.

James looked up slowly, still clutching his bruised tenders. “I… nngg… I’m sorry,” he ground out, then paused to retch, “I know that must… ugh… must have… been hard for you.” 

“Yeah, things have been a little rough,” Applejack replied gruffly. 

Doctor Li just kept glancing from Sunset to James and back again, her pony ears twitching. Finally she turned and grabbed a little first aid kit from beside one of the computers, “Do you, uh, want any painkillers?” she asked tentatively. 

“Please,” James and Sunset replied weakly and in unison. 

Fluttershy looked up anxiously at Sunset, “Your stitches?” Sunset just nodded. “I’ll take a look.”

“Stitches?” James winced as Doctor Li slowly helped him into a sitting position.

Applejack nodded with a grimace, “Ah did say things have been a little rough.”

“Don’t worry, I can handle this,” Fluttershy said softly, kneeling and getting Sunset to lift her top so she could get a better look at the injury. 

There was an awkward silence for a few minutes as Doctor Li and Fluttershy fussed over their respective patients. Li gradually managed to get James standing, providing pain lozenges and helping him with breathing exercises as soon as he was straight legged. 

“I’d give you an ice pack but somehow after nearly twenty years with super mutants I doubt the freezer is working,” Doctor Li teased the man as he tried to straighten his back with little luck.

“It’s alright. Thank you, Madison,” James said quietly. He glanced over at Fluttershy, “How’s Sunset, are her stitches alright?”

“They’re fine, I think she just pulled them a little,” Fluttershy replied as she pulled clean bandages out of her nursing kit, “I’ll redress it then I’ll give her some pain medication.”

James frowned as he caught a glimpse of the stitches on Sunset’s abdomen. “I’d suggest using a stimpak, it’ll help the wound heal and deal with any swelling too.” Fluttershy nodded and reached back into her kit. “That looks like it was a serious injury, what exactly happened to you girls?”

Rarity scowled and folded her arms, “First of all, I think you owe us an explanation, perhaps a reason for why you decided to abandon us halfway through helping us find a way home?”   

James nodded grimly, “Fair enough. ” He sighed and leaned against a computer console, wincing slightly as he did so, “I've never told you about Adam’s mother, have I?”

The Rainbooms shared an uneasy look. They’d wondered why Adam’s mother wasn’t in the Vault with her husband and son, but hadn’t wanted to pry. 

“I, uh, don’t think you’ve mentioned her before,” Twilight replied warily. 

James sighed again and folded his arms, “Her name was Catherine. She was an incredible woman; intelligent, witty with a single-minded focus you wouldn’t believe.” He smiled at the recollection. “All of this starts with her. You see, she used to enjoy reading the Bible.”

“What’s that?” Pinkie asked. 

“It’s an old religious text, from before the war,” Doctor Li supplied. “Most people in the wastes abandoned Christianity after the bombs fell. It’s hard to believe that any benevolent deity would allow such global devastation, but there are still a few people who have faith. The Church of Saint Monica back in Rivet City is one such example.”

“Catherine found faith as well,” James continued, “she was hardly devout, but she did enjoy reading the Bible. Her favourite passage was always Revelation 21:6; ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life, freely,’” He gestured at the water tank, “that’s where the idea for Project Purity came from.”

The girls all stared at it. “It just looks like a regular old water purifier to me,” Applejack said flatly. 

Doctor Li nodded, “That’s exactly what it is. But where most purifiers can only handle a dozen or so gallons an hour, at most; Project Purity has the capacity to purify all of the water in the tidal basin at once. That’s millions of gallons a day.”

Sunset blinked in surprise, “That could provide clean water for just about everyone in the Capital Wasteland!”

James grinned, “That was exactly the point. Clean, potable water, free of charge, for everyone who wants it. To that end we came here to set up our laboratory, the Brotherhood of Steel provided protection and technological resources, and we got to work on trying to make our dream a reality.”

“I don’t get it,” Rainbow cut in, “if this project was so awesome, why’d you ditch it?”

James and Doctor Li shared a somber look. “There were a lot of problems we had to overcome,” Li said. “Purifying water in small amounts is one thing, but doing it on this sort of scale had never been done before. The science involved is whole orders of magnitude more difficult.”

“Progress was slow,” James added, “our initial experiments with small volumes of water were promising, but making it work on larger quantities was nearly impossible. Eventually Catherine hit on a breakthrough that allowed us to operate at full capacity, but it was horribly inefficient and we couldn’t sustain it for long.”

Doctor Li nodded slowly, “Our work stalled after that. No matter what we tried we just couldn’t crack it. To make matters worse, we were faced with ever-increasing numbers of super mutant attacks, plus rising threats elsewhere in the wasteland forced the Brotherhood to keep reducing the amount of resources and troops they sent us.”

James sighed heavily and hung his head, “Adam was the final nail in the coffin.”

“Your own son?” Applejack spat incredulously.

James looked up, a bleak expression on his face, “Catherine died giving birth.”

Most of the Rainbooms gasped in surprise, Rarity clasping her hands to her mouth. Fluttershy just closed her eyes for a moment, breathed in deeply through her nose, then opened them again and finished dressing Sunset’s injury before packing her kit away.  

“James… I’m so, so sorry,” Twilight half-whispered.

“It’s alright,” James replied gruffly. He cleared his throat before continuing, “I know it was selfish of me, but between losing Catherine and having to look after a newborn, I’m ashamed to say that I just couldn’t handle the pressure of working on Project Purity as well.”

“You’d lost family,” Applejack said softly, pulling her hat low so it covered her eyes, “ain’t nothing shameful or selfish about struggling after something like that.” The rest of the Rainbooms gave her sympathetic looks, and she didn’t protest when Rarity gently pulled her in for a hug.

“What happened next?” Pinkie asked, hoping to move away from such a depressing topic before someone broke down in tears. 

James ran a hand through his hair, “After Catherine passed, all I cared about was Adam’s safety. I’d heard that Vault 101 was still functioning, so I decided to try and convince them to let us in. Thankfully, the Vault didn’t have any trained medical professionals, so they agreed to allow us sanctuary on the condition that I kept our past a secret from the younger residents.” 

“The Brotherhood of Steel agreed to provide him with an escort, but as soon as he was gone they finally pulled all support for Project Purity,” Doctor Li huffed. “We were out of resources and defenseless, so the remaining members of the team relocated to Rivet City.”

“Incidentally, it was on the journey to the Vault that I discovered the piece of equipment that facilitated your arrival in this world,” James added.

“Where did you find it?” Twilight demanded.

James frowned and scratched his beard as he thought back, “It was in an old raider camp in the ruins a few miles from here. I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” he said quickly, seeing the eagerness in the girls’ eyes, “Paladin Cross searched the area thoroughly and didn’t find anything else even remotely like it. The raiders must have looted it from somewhere.”

Twilight sighed sadly, “It was worth a shot.”

Sunset opened her mouth to ask a question, then snapped it shut and looked around warily as several of the computers suddenly started humming and beeping rapidly.

“It’s alright, it’s just the mainframe coming back online,” Doctor Li explained.

An intercom next to one of the computers suddenly crackled into life, “Hey, I’ve switched the power back on down here, how’s it looking?”

James sprang off the computer he was leaning on, wincing as his new injury twinged, and jabbed a button to reply, “Yes, good work, it’s… er…”

“Hey, it looks like Adam got- oh, hey girls! You’re here earlier than we expected! ” Doctor Kaplinski called as she jogged into the room. She grinned and looked over at James, “It looks like Adam got the power back on.”

“Yes, we’d established that,” James smirked, then turned back to the intercom, “Things are looking good so far, but there’s still a few minor repairs to be done up here, why don’t you come ba-”

“Hold on a second, the flow’s not coming through right. It looks like there’s a blockage in the intake pipes,” Janice cut in, frowning at one of the computers.

James heaved a sigh and pressed the intercom again, “Janice says there’s a blockage in the intake pipes. It’s back up on the museum level, can you clear that out for us? Buzz me on the intercom when you get there then head back up here once it’s done. Some people have arrived that I think you’ll be happy to see.”

“Sure thing, dad,” Adam replied. “Who is it?”

James stared blankly at the intercom, “Well… who were we expecting?”

“…have you got a message through to the Brotherhood of Steel already?”

Sunset raised an eyebrow as everyone else chuckled, “Is he being serious?”

James just hung his head and sighed again, looking like a man seriously evaluating his life choices, “The Rainbooms are here, Adam.”

“Oh, really? Groovy! I’ll be right up!” Adam said brightly.

“And the intake pipes?” James prodded.

“Right, yeah, the intake pipes. I’ll do that first. See you soon!” 

Silence reigned for a few moments. Finally James shook his head slowly, “I swear, that boy.”

Sunset tried hard not to laugh, “He seems a little… distracted?”

“Scatterbrained, you mean,” James snorted. 

“He’s like that most of the time,” Fluttershy giggled softly, “At least until he gets focused on something.”

James nodded, “He’s like his mother in that regard, once he sets his mind on something, he sees it through to the end, no matter what.”

“Like tracking you down, you mean?” Applejack said pointedly.

James had the good grace to look embarrassed, “Yes. I must admit I hoped that between the Overseer, Amata, and his feelings for, er, I mean, his friendship with… you… girls.” He coughed unconvincingly as the others exchanged startled glances, “Anyway, I was hoping that all of that would be enough to keep him in the Vault.”

“Are you saying Adam has a crush on one of us?” Rarity asked gleefully, ever eager to pounce on juicy gossip.

Applejack rolled her eyes, “Ah think we’ve got more important things to worry about at the moment,” she folded her arms and looked meaningfully at James, “like why you decided to leave Vault 101 and come back here after all this time. Y’all couldn’t get Project Purity working before, what makes you think you can do it this time? What changed?”

James smiled sadly and resumed leaning against the computer, grunting in discomfort as his injury protested slightly, “I went to Vault 101 purely for Adam’s sake. The Vault was far from perfect, as you girls will attest, but it was safe. I knew that as long as Adam stayed there he would never have to struggle just to survive from one day to the next, like so many of us out here in the wastes have to.” 

He glanced wistfully at the water tank. “But, I never forgot about Catherine’s dream. I kept working on our hypotheses in secret with Jonas, hoping that we could figure it out and, one day, when Adam was a grown man and could look after himself, make my way back out here and finish what we started all those years ago.”

“So, you managed to do it?” Fluttershy asked.

“Not quite,” James replied. “I spent years trying to figure it out, but never made any real progress. In the end I snapped, got drunk, and broke into the overseer’s office when he was asleep.”

“Why in the heck would you do that!?” Applejack shot. 

James just shrugged, “The Vaults were one of the pinnacles of pre-war technology. I hoped the overseer’s personal terminal would give me a clue to some old technology that might hold the key to getting Project Purity working.” He rolled his eyes, “Most of it was garbage, just old exploration reports and dossiers on the Vault residents, but then I found something.”

“What was it?” Pinkie asked.

James grinned, “A miracle. Shortly before the end, a Doctor named Stanislaus Braun invented something called a G.E.C.K, a terraforming device, capable of transforming dead and irradiated dirt into fertile soil. I always believed it was a myth, but the overseer’s terminal proved that the G.E.C.K really did exist, it even mentioned that Braun had been accepted into another Vault in the Capital Wasteland, Vault 112.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow, “So, that’s why you left Vault 101, to find a G.E.C.K.?”

“Yes and no,” James replied, “I believed that if I could find Doctor Braun’s notes, then I could find out whether or not a G.E.C.K would be enough to get Project Purity running at full capacity and, more importantly, maybe even find where one is.” His expression darkened suddenly, “I found Vault 112. I’d rather not talk about what happened down there, but I did find proof that a G.E.C.K would be enough to get Project Purity up and running.”

“We don’t have a G.E.C.K yet,” Doctor Li supplied, “so we’re going to get things set up as much as we can before we send a message to the Brotherhood of Steel. Now that we have definitive proof that we can make Project Purity work, they’re bound to lend us their aid once more.”

James nodded, “And with their help, we can finally, finally, turn Catherine’s dream from a fantasy, into a reality.”

The Rainbooms stared in awe at the two scientists. “Woah,” Applejack said finally. 

“That’s… actually pretty awesome,” Rainbow admitted.

“Why didn’t you tell us about any of this before?” Twilight asked. 

James shook his head, “It was too risky, the overseer in Vault 101 was already suspicious of us. As long as he believed that you girls were focused on getting yourselves home above all else, he was content to leave you alone.”

Sunset scowled at him, “You could have at least told us you were leaving instead of just abandoning us. And how exactly were we supposed to get home without you?”

“You didn’t get my note?”

The girls just gave him blank stares. “What note?” Sunset asked flatly.

James raised an eyebrow, “I left two separate notes for you.” He scratched his neck awkwardly and said quietly, “Adam told me about what happened to Jonas, so I’m not surprised you didn’t get the more personal one I left with him.” James cleared his throat before continuing, “But I also left a report with the overseer containing all of my thoughts on the best way to get you home. Didn’t he tell you?”

“Far from it, darling,” Rarity scoffed. 

“He had… other ideas,” Pinkie said darkly.

Doctor Li tilted her head quizzically, “Other ideas? From what I’ve heard I’d have assumed he would take any opportunity to get rid of you?”

Rainbow snorted, “Yeah, right, more like the opposite.”

“What do you mean?” James asked. 

Fluttershy shuddered at the memory, “Well, um, he saw your report that said we didn’t have any genetic abnormalities, and, well, you know how concerned he was with the, um, genetic stability of the Vault, so…”

Janice’s head whipped around at that, her face a picture of disgust, “Wait a minute, you’re not saying…?”

Applejack nodded grimly, “Yep. He wanted to keep us as extra breeding stock.”

“We told him we were leaving the moment he suggested it,” Twilight supplied.

“He weren’t happy about that,” Applejack added, “he sent two of his security goons to try and kill us. If it weren’t for Gomez, Ah don’t think we would’ve gotten out of there in one piece.”

James swore under his breath, “I’m so sorry girls, I never imagined he would even consider something like that.”

Sunset shrugged, “That still doesn’t explain how you thought we’d be able to get home without you.”

“Oh really?” James smirked, “Twilight, just how much help was I to you in finding a way home? What exactly did I contribute to our experiments?”

Twilight’s eyes widened in surprise, “You contributed lots! You helped me set up the experiments, you helped me put the equipment together properly, you-”

“How much did I help you with ideas, hm?” James interrupted, “Or with the science of it? The equations?”

“I… but…” Twilight frowned as she thought back. “That can’t be right…”

James laughed humorlessly, “You don’t need me, you never did, and that’s exactly what I wrote in my report to the overseer. The note I left with Jonas was just a more personalized version of the same letter.”

Twilight’s mouth dropped open, “B-but that’s crazy! I know I’m smart, but I’m not that smart.”

“You’re joking, right?” Doctor Li cut in incredulously, “Twilight, in two weeks you learned enough about nuclear physics to single-handedly speed up our progress on portable fusion generators by months. You’re a goddamned prodigy.” She narrowed her eyes and glanced sidelong at James, “Having said that, that’s an awful lot of pressure to just dump on such a young woman out of nowhere.”

Janice nodded slowly, “I hate to say it, but I agree with Doctor Li here. That was a dick move.” 

“Totally,” Rainbow agreed.

James cowered under the combined scorn, “Er, right. I… I’m sorry girls. I can see I made a mistake in not explaining things to you properly beforehand.”

“Darn right you did,” Applejack muttered. 

“You have my sincerest apologies,” James sighed heavily, “I give you my word, as soon as we’ve gotten Project Purity working, I will do everything in my power to help you girls get home safely.”

The Rainbooms stared at him in silence for several long seconds, silence broken only by quiet humming of vacuum tubes and sloshing water. Finally they relented, smiling vaguely at each other.

“Can’t say fairer than that, Ah suppose,” Applejack stepped forward and rolled her shoulders, “Alright, what can we do to help?”

Janice blinked in surprise, “Really? You’re going to help us?”

“We may as well,” Sunset replied. “The sooner we get this thing working; the sooner we can go home, right?”

James smiled at her, “As much as I appreciate the offer, right now I think you should all take a much needed rest, there’s nothing major to be done until we can get a message to the Brotherhood of Steel tomorrow. We can discuss things further when Adam gets up here. I know he’s particularly interested in hearing exactly what you girls have been up to since you left the Vault.” He chuckled softly, “I wish I’d seen his reaction when he heard Three-Dog’s first broadcast about you. The revelation about your magic damn near blew Adam's mind.”

Doctor Li looked at the girls appraisingly, “Speaking of magic, I hope you girls are still happy to help me figure out exactly what is happening to me?” She flopped her lime-green pony ears emphatically.

Twilight and Sunset glanced at each other, then nodded. “We’ll see what we can do,” Twilight said brightly.

As Twilight wandered over to Doctor Li and started asking questions, the rest of the Rainbooms sat on the floor or leaned against the walls and consoles. Sunset breathed in deeply, held it for a moment, and let it back out slowly, feeling some of the tension drain from her body. 

“Are you okay,?” Pinkie asked softly.

Sunset just nodded. There was still a lot to do, and she was still more than a little mad at James, but for the first time since the girls arrived in this world, she felt like they were finally getting closer to finding a way home.





Colonel Autumn fumed as he stared out of the window of the Vertibird. 

President Eden had contacted him via radio just after he’d departed with the rest of the Jefferson Taskforce, revealing that the Rainbooms were almost certainly going to be present at the Jefferson Memorial and gave orders to bring them in unharmed. That little revelation had forced the Colonel to change the original plan of engagement on the fly. Fortunately, quick thinking was a talent of his and he’d quickly come up with a revised method of securing the site.

The original plan had been simple; most of the Taskforce would move to establish a wide perimeter around the Memorial and make sure that no denizens of the wasteland could get in or out. 

Once the perimeter was secure, Colonel Autumn would accompany a squad of soldiers into the monument through the primary entrance. This squad would separate into predetermined fire-teams and proceed through the building, relying on the sheer mass and strength of their power armor to intimidate the small contingent of scientists within. A second squad would enter through the secret tunnels underneath the monument, to round up any of the scientists that had the presence of mind to flee. Classic shock and awe tactics. 

The presence of the Rainbooms threw a wrench in those plans. 

Colonel Autumn was no fool, he hadn’t managed to uncover exactly what the Rainbooms were capable of since the President had gone to extreme lengths to keep all pertinent information on them secret, but he knew that they had some connection with the sudden revival of Project Exodus. The President had also admitted that the girls were potentially extremely dangerous. As if the fact that he’d assigned Squad Sigma to keep them contained wasn’t proof enough of that already.

In light of all of that, Colonel Autumn had abandoned shock and awe in favor of a swift and brutal suppression. A full platoon would storm the Memorial with several additional fire-teams using breaching charges at designated areas to facilitate entry while avoiding sensitive infrastructure Two full squads would enter through the tunnels to corral anyone who tried to escape as the final nail in their coffin.

“We’re coming up on the target now, sir, ETA, sixty seconds,” the pilot announced. 

“Excellent,” Colonel Autumn leaned forward and pressed a few buttons on the radio, opening a connection to the receiver in each and every soldiers’ power armor. “This is Colonel Autumn. You have your revised orders. Remember, your primary objective is to secure Project Purity and the lead scientists. The Rainbooms are also to be brought in peacefully, if possible. If they engage in hostilities you are to subdue them using non-lethal means only.”

The Jefferson Memorial slowly came into view through the rain. The other Vertibirds of the Taskforce spread out and quickly moved to set points around the monument, hovering twenty feet above the ground. Squads of soldiers rapidly disembarked, dropping to the ground and dashing to their assigned positions, the ground cracking and churning under their heavy tread. 

Several minutes passed while the pilots checked their Vertibird systems and the squads moved, until finally the comms clicked. “Squad Gamma, in position.” 

“Squad Beta, in position.”

“Squad Alpha, in position.”

“Squad Delta, in position.”

“This is Lieutenant Simpson, all squads are in position, sir,” a squad commander announced to the Colonel.

Colonel Autumn nodded, “Confirmed. Lieutenant Simpson, you have a go.”

Simpson nodded to his comrade. “Understood. All squads, on my mark,” he held up three fingers and lowered them one by one, then shouted the words that changed everything. “Breach! Breach! Breach!”
> Chapter 35 - Tyranny Over The Mind Of Man
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A series of sharp blasts shook the walls of the Jefferson Memorial.

“What in the heck was that!?” Applejack spat as she and the others scrambled to their feet.

James shook his head and jabbed the intercom button, “What’s going on out there? Are we under attack?” He glanced worriedly at the computer consoles and tried the intercom again, “Anyone? What the hell were those noises?”

A few seconds passed in tense silence before the intercom crackled into life. Screams and shouted orders echoed through the speakers, interspersed with odd hissing and crackling and the sound of heavy footfalls. Garza’s panicked voice could just be made out over the din, “It’s the Enclave! The Enclave are atta-” 

The transmission cut out abruptly in a burst of static.

James blanched, “No, no, no, not when we’re so close!”

“The Enclave? What the heck are they doing here?” Applejack asked.

“And why are they attacking us?” Rarity added nervously.

“Project Purity,” Doctor Li snarled, “they must have been observing us somehow. They’re here to take control of it!” She glanced sidelong at James, “James, you know we can’t let that happen.”

“I know, damn it, I know!” he shot back, thumping the console angrily. “Shit!”

Sunset looked from one doctor to the other, “Why would the Enclave want Project Purity? What’s going on?”

“There’s no time to explain,” Doctor Li replied, “come on, we have to… get…” she trailed off oddly, her eyes widening as she stared at the girls. “Oh god,” she said fearfully, “James… James, we have to get the Rainbooms out of here!”

His head snapped around at that, “The magic! Jesus Christ, if they get their hands on that…” He swore and turned to Doctor Li, “Madison, get them away from here! Use the escape tunnels and take them to the Citadel. Janice, you go with them!”

“What about you?” Janice asked worriedly.

“I’ll set the fail-safes on the system here, then I’ll go and find Adam,” James replied, turning back to one of the consoles. “We’ll follow you as soon as we can.”

“We can’t just leave you behind!” Rainbow spat.

“We don’t have a choice!” Doctor Li made to grab Sunset’s arm and lead her out of the room, then scowled when Sunset yanked her arm free. “We don’t have time for this! The Enclave’s soldiers will get in here any second!”

“What about Project Purity?” Sunset snapped, “What about getting us home?”

James stepped forward and gripped Sunset’s shoulders, looking her directly in the eye, “I swear I will do everything I can to help you, but if the Enclave find you then you might never get home! You have to go!” He stepped back and pointed back out of the enclosed catwalk. “Go!”

The last shout jolted the Rainbooms into action, sending them piling out of the airlock alongside Janice and Doctor Li. Sunset paused at the door and glanced back at James one last time, but he had already turned back to the console and was typing away furiously. Reluctantly, her thoughts whirling, she turned and hurried after the others.  

How did this happen? We were so close!

“This ain’t right,” Applejack muttered as the girls rushed down the stairs, “there’s gotta be something we can do.”

“We can fight!” Rainbow cried.

Doctor Li shook her head, “It’s too dangerous, even the Brotherhood of Steel is wary of engaging the Enclave directly.” She cast an anxious glance back up at the enclosed catwalk as she stepped off the bottom step, then turned back and pointed to a nearby door, “Come on, the entrance to the tunnels is just thro-”

The doctor’s words were drowned out as the door was suddenly smashed off it’s hinges, kicking up a cloud of dust as two dark forms stormed through the doorway. A deep, electronically distorted voice called out a second later, “I’ve got eyes on the Rainbooms! Sector four!” 

As the dust cleared, Sunset finally got a good look at the Enclave troopers. She immediately wished she hadn’t. 

They were huge, almost a foot taller than any of the girls, clad in armor that somewhat resembled that worn by the Brotherhood of Steel soldiers, but where the powered suits of the Brotherhood Knights had been silver and somewhat clunky-looking, the armor of these soldiers was sleek, black, and far more intimidating. The fact that both bore laser rifles that were pointed directly at the group certainly didn’t help matters. 

“We’re with the Enclave Armed Forces!” one of the soldiers called out, “put your hands behind your head and get on your knees, now!”

The girls shrank back away from the soldiers, except for Doctor Li. Sunset couldn’t help but admire the doctor’s courage as she stood tall and spoke in a respectable attempt at a defiant voice, “You can’t do this, this is a private venture, you have no autho-”

“This project is being commandeered on the authority of President Eden,” the soldier interrupted, stepping forward menacingly while the other took several steps to the side, flanking the group. “Now get your hands behind your head and get down on your knees, this is your last warning!”

Both Janice and Doctor Li quickly complied. The Rainbooms put their hands behind their heads to show they weren’t a threat, but not one of them made a move to get on the floor. 

“Girls, get down!” Doctor Li hissed.

Sunset ignored her. She couldn’t let things end like this, she had to at least attempt to negotiate, “Please, we don’t want to fight. We spoke to someone from the Enclave earlier, a doctor, I think his name wa-”

“I said get on the ground!” 

Sunset cried out in pain as the soldier lunged forward, grabbing a fistful of her hair and forcing her to her knees. 

The rest of the Rainbooms yelled in outrage. A split-second later a pair of huge gemstones materialized out of thin air and slammed into each soldier, knocking them off balance before fading from sight. Pinkie and Fluttershy took the opportunity to drag Sunset back out of harm’s way as Doctor Li and Janice scrambled for cover, while Applejack hurled herself at the one that had attacked Sunset.

A hollow boom echoed through the room as her magically enhanced punch connected with the soldier’s armored breastplate, sending him rocketing backwards to crash through the wall as if it was made of paper. 

“Holy shit,” the second soldier breathed. “Rainbooms hostile! We need reinfo-” he was interrupted by a purple aura attempting to yank his rifle out of his hands. A heartbeat later there was a multi-hued blur as Rainbow clambered atop the soldier, her shishkebab out and blazing. Reversing her grip on the sword, she jabbed it downwards, trying to stab it through a chink in the armor. 

Looking up in apparent panic, the soldier suddenly let go of his gun and dropped into a crouch, sending Rainbow tumbling off him. As she fell, the soldier surged back up, caught Rainbow before she could hit the floor, then hurled her bodily at Rarity, knocking the unfortunate fashionista flat. 

There was an angry yell as Applejack charged in and threw a powerful right hook. Terror gripped Sunset as the soldier expertly deflected the punch, then rammed an uppercut into Applejack’s belly hard enough to lift her off her feet and have her empty her stomach over his vambrace. He held her there, suspended on the end of his fist for a second, then dropped the poor girl to the floor where she curled up into a ball, retching and gasping for air.

Out of sheer desperation Sunset scrambled to her feet and dove for the soldier’s discarded laser rifle. Fully expecting to feel an armored fist crash into her, she snatched up the gun and swung it around, then paused, her jaw dropping at what she saw. 

The soldier’s hand was halted inches from her face, lock in a purple aura. Glancing past the outstretched arm, she saw that his entire body had been gripped in Twilight’s magic, holding him in place. Sunset looked back to where Twilight was standing, both hands outstretched, with a nightmarish look of grim determination on her face. 

A bark of pain from the soldier brought Sunset’s head snapping back around. Even as she watched, there was a horrific metallic screeching as reinforced armor plates crumpled and buckled under an incredible amount of pressure. The soldier started screaming a moment later.

Twilight was crushing him like an aluminium can.

Transfixed by fear, awe and disgust, it took an immense effort of will to tear her gaze away from the hellish spectacle and focus on the task at hand. She shuddered as the soldier gave another tortured scream and stepped towards her fallen friend, “Applejack, are you okay? Can you stand?” Applejack just moaned piteously in response. Sunset reached out a hand, “I know it hurts, but we need to get out of he-”

Sunset’s breath hitched as several small, black objects bounced through the doorway and the hole in the wall.

Grenades!

Before anyone could react there was a colossal blast, and the whole world went white.





Colonel Autumn couldn’t help a certain sense of pride as he stalked through the Jefferson Memorial. The lead scientists of Project Purity had been detained and the Rainbooms subdued, with only two soldiers injured in the process. Two fireteams were still working at securing the basement, apparently James’ son was proving himself a far more tenacious opponent than his father, but the Colonel was confident that his men would have that jumped-up little turd dealt with shortly.

Rounding a corner, Colonel Autumn raised an eyebrow as he spotted a team of soldiers and technicians working to prise a fallen trooper’s armor open. A trail of debris led from the prone soldier to a rough hole in a wall twenty feet away. “What in God’s name happened here?”

One of the soldiers turned at that, hurriedly straightening up to salute, “Colonel Autumn, sir!”

“At ease,” Autumn replied automatically. He had no intention of impeding the recovery of an injured trooper so he simply asked, “Where’s Lieutenant Simpson?”

The soldier pointed to the hole in the wall, “Sector Four, sir.”

Autumn nodded, “Thank you, soldier. As you were.”

Picking his way carefully through the trail of debris, it wouldn’t do for a Colonel to be taken out of action by something as pathetic as tripping over a rock, Autumn cast a critical eye over the hole and associated rubble. 

Just what the hell did they hit that soldier with? The only man-portable weapon I know of that could knock a full X0-2 suit that far through a wall is a Fat Man, but there’s not nearly enough blast damage to indicate someone fired one of those. Some kind of experimental Gauss cannon maybe? 

The Colonel briefly considered entering the Rotunda by clambering through the hole, but thought better of it and turned to enter through the door instead. The Rainbooms were laid out on the floor, unconscious and manacled, with a pair of medics moving between them checking them over and the full complement of Squads Delta and Alpha standing guard. Lieutenant Simpson and another medic were tending to an injured soldier who was slumped against the wall next to the hole, his brutally mauled suit of armor propped up nearby. Two of the targeted Project Purity scientists were sat on a set of steps leading up to an enclosed catwalk with their heads in their hands.

With a satisfied nod, Colonel Autumn strode up to Lieutenant Simpson, a faint sizzling emanating from the protruding electrodes of the officer’s Tesla armor. “Lieutenant?”

The Lieutenant glanced around, then snapped a crisp salute as he spotted Autumn, “Sir!”

Autumn quickly returned the salute, “What exactly happened here, soldier?”

Simpson clasped his hands behind his back and glanced back towards the Rainbooms, “Sir, the initial stage of the operation proceeded as planned. Upon securing Sector’s One and Two, Squad Alpha separated into fireteams as directed, with Fireteam Alpha-One accompanying Squad Delta to secure Sector Three while Fireteam Alpha-Two affected entry into Sector Four.” 

“That was when Alpha-Two encountered the Rainbooms?” Colonel Autumn asked.

“Yes, sir,” Simpson replied. “The Rainbooms did not comply when ordered to stand down, and reacted with hostility when Alpha-Two attempted to force compliance. Sergeant Barnes was injured in the initial exchange. Corporal Wells,” the Lieutenant gestured to the injured man, “requested reinforcements, and was able to incapacitate three of the Rainbooms before being subdued himself. Fortunately Squad Delta and myself arrived before they could injure him seriously, though most of his armor is severely damaged.”

“Excellent work, Corporal,” Autumn said sincerely. The man just gave a shaky salute, staring blankly at nothing as the medic bandaged his other arm. The Colonel frowned and took another good look around the room, expecting to see a discarded cannon or experimental weapon of some sort, “What sort of weapon system did the Rainbooms use?”

Simpson hesitated for a second before replying, “They didn’t, sir.”

“Excuse me?”

The Lieutenant stared at Autumn, his helmet impassive, “Aside from a single makeshift blade, the Rainbooms were unarmed, sir.”

Autumn raised an eyebrow, “Are you trying to tell me that seven girls armed with a pointy stick were able to take out two highly trained soldiers?” He gestured to the ragged hole, “Correct me if I’m wrong, Lieutenant, but the last time I checked it took more than a homemade sword to knock a fully armored man twenty feet through a god-damned wall!”

“She punched him.”

Autumn and Simpson both looked down at the Corporal. “What did you say, soldier?” Autumn asked incredulously. 

Corporal Wells pointed half-heartedly at the Rainbooms, “It was her… the blonde one. She punched him. Right through the fucking wall.” He swallowed reflexively, “I took her out. And the blue one, I threw her at the white one that kept throwing the shiny stuff. Then the purple one… she…” 

“She crushed his armor,” Lieutenant Simpson finished for him. He shook his head, anticipating Autumn’s question, “I have no idea how she did it, I looked through the hole and saw her with her arms outstretched and some sort of purple glow surrounding the Corporal. It’s like she’s telekinetic or something.”

Colonel Autumn opened his mouth to refute that, then closed it again slowly. It sounded impossible, but it was hardly the first time impossible things had occurred in the American wastelands. 

The Master, Melchior, Hakunin, the Enclave maintain several highly classified files on known psykers that have appeared in the past, it’s hardly a stretch to imagine that the Rainbooms could be more of that ilk, and if my hunch about Zetan involvement is correct…

Damn it, Eden. What in God’s name are you playing at?

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” Lieutenant Simpson asked suddenly.

Autumn nodded, “Granted.”

Simpson reached up and tugged his helmet off, tucking it under an arm and ran a hand across his close-cropped Mohican, “With respect, sir, what the hell are we dealing with here?”

“I have no idea,” Autumn admitted. “I’ve told you everything the President told me, that the Rainbooms were present at Project Purity and to be considered extremely dangerous. Whatever they really are, it’s so highly classified that even I can’t get anywhere near it, no-one outside Project Exodus can.”

Simpson raised an eyebrow at that, “So the rumours are true, sir? Project Exodus really exists?”

Autumn eyed him seriously, “Those are just rumours, and rumours are what they are going to stay. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good,” Autumn sighed. “How did you manage to incapacitate the Rainbooms?”

“Flash-bangs,” Simpson replied. “I’ve got the medics sedating them now, just in case. There’s one more thing,” he pointed at the two technicians sat on the stairs, “Doctor Li. When we arrived, she was mutated.”

Autumn blinked in surprise, “Mutated? How so?”

“Her hair was blue, and much longer than it is now,” Simpson replied. “She even had two extra ears, like freaky green animal ears, right on top of her head. She only changed back about a minute or so before you arrived.”

“Animal ears?” Autumn frowned and folded his arms. “That makes even less sense than anything else I’ve heard today.”

“This whole day has gone from weird to weirder,” Simpson muttered.

“What about James, our primary objective?” Autumn asked.

Simpson pointed up to the enclosed catwalk, “He’s up there. I’ve got two Privates keeping an eye on him.” 

“And the rest of the scientists?”

“All known personnel have been accounted for and secured,” Simpson replied. He raised a hand to his ear-bead and frowned, “Sir, Fireteam Kappa are reporting heavy resistance in the basement and Fireteam Lambda is not responding to radio contact.”

“Shit,” Autumn huffed. Apparently James’ son was proving to be even more of a pain than expected. He shook his head, quickly making a decision, “Have Squads Beta and Gamma take the Rainbooms out to the extraction point and keep them secure until Doctor Turner shows up. Assign what’s left of  Squad Alpha to keep the scientists corralled, and send Squad Delta to reinforce Fireteam Kappa.”

“What about Doctor Li?” Simpson asked. 

Autumn considered for a moment, “She stays with me while I interrogate James. Hopefully we can get some god-damned answers out of her. Pack the other one off with the rest of the scientists.”

“Yes, sir!” Simpson went to place his helmet back on his head, then stopped at the sound of a pained moan. One of the Rainbooms, the yellow-skinned one with the pink hair, was stirring feebly. 

“I thought the Rainbooms were all sedated?” Autumn snarled.

“The medics haven’t got to her yet,” Simpson replied. “That particular one didn’t join the fighting. She has a nursing kit, so we assumed she was a non-combatant.”

Autumn scowled and stalked up to the Rainboom, “Get them all sedated and moved as soon as humanly possible.” Just as the girl raised her head Autumn bent and lashed out with a fist, striking her in the face and knocking her back out cold. “Don’t take any more chances with them.”





“Oh, jeez!” Adam ducked back as a bolt of green energy hissed past his head. He leaned out and fired off two shots with his laser pistol before popping back behind the wall as the soldiers retaliated. 

Two power-armored troopers were at the top of a set of stairs, blocking the way up and out of the basement. Adam flinched as more plasma blasts vaporised chunks of the corner wall next to him. He’d already dealt with two soldiers downstairs, thanks to creative use of a plasma grenade and a gas pipe, but running into another two was just not fair. Adam huffed and ripped a pair of different grenades from his belt. 

I sure hope this works!

He tossed a frag grenade first, not bothering to pull the pin out, then quickly primed and threw a pulse grenade after it.

“Grenade!” one of the soldiers yelled. “Shit, there’s a pul-”

The moment he heard the crackling buzz of the pulse grenade detonating, Adam sprang into action, belting up the stairs as quickly as he could. He felt a wave of relief as he spotted both soldiers struggling to move, their armor’s systems overloaded by the pulse grenade. Scooping up the frag grenade he’d tossed, he ripped out the pin and jammed the grenade into the armor of one of the soldiers, lodging it right into the neck joint before scrabbling away and diving behind some machinery.

A deafening blast tore through the air a few seconds later.

Adam warily poked his head out over the top of the machinery. One soldier was very clearly dead, smoke rising from the remains of his skull. The other, amazingly, was still moving, his armor scratched and dented but otherwise intact. Adam moved to finish the soldier off, then froze as he heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs ahead. Thinking quickly, he tossed a bucket down the way he’d came, causing a terrific racket as it clattered down the stairs, then ducked back behind the machinery, curling up into a tight ball and desperately hoping he was out of sight.

“Fireteam Kappa? Fireteam Kappa do you copy?” Adam clutched his pistol tightly as what sounded like a full squad of power-armored soldiers thundered into the room. “Shit, man down. What about you, soldier, are you good to go?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” came the reply. “One hostile, equipped with pulse weaponry. Bastard went down those stairs.”

“Copy that. Can you stand? Good.  Alright, Delta, we’re going down after him, B Formation. Fenix? You and Santiago take point.”

“Yes, sir!”

Adam waited until the soldiers had all left, then crept out from his hiding place and over to where the dead soldier lay smouldering. He stuffed his pistol into its crudely stitched holster and grabbed the man’s discarded plasma rifle.

Right. Time to find Dad and the North Blockers, er, I mean, Rainbooms, then get them somewhere safe until I can figure out a way of dealing with whoever these toughs are. Rivet City should be safe enough.

Moving silently, Adam darted up the far set of stairs and out of the basement. Once he reached the main floor of the Memorial building he slowed down, scurrying from cover to cover as he made his way to the Rotunda.

Where is everyone? There’s no way those soldiers were the only bad guys around. There aren’t any bodies, maybe they’re rounding everyone up?

Adam scowled as he realised vaguely what was happening. Creeping through the doorway into the Rotunda, he took cautious note of both the gaping hole in the wall and the shishkebab left conspicuously on the floor. The sound of voices drew his attention up to the enclosed catwalk. He could just about make out his father and Doctor Li, both talking to a pair of armored troopers and some random guy in a trench coat. 

Filled with grim resolve, Adam readied the plasma rifle and crept up the stairs towards his destiny.





James struggled to keep his anger and fear from showing on his face as he stared down the Enclave representatives gathered around himself and Doctor Li, “As I’ve already said, Colonel, this facility is not operational. It never has been.”

“Even if it was, you had no right to attack us without provocation the way you did,” Doctor Li added. 

Colonel Autumn just stared at them imperiously, “The Rainbooms are dangerous mutants that refused to comply with orders and were met with an appropriate level of force. Now this is the last time I am going to repeat myself. You are to immediately hand over all materials related to the purifier, as well as any and all information related to the Rainbooms and their abilities. Furthermore you are to assist Enclave scientists in assuming control of the administration and operation of this facility at once.”

James clenched a fist behind his back, “Colonel, I assure you, the purifier does not work, we were never able to replicate our tests on a large enough scale. And as for the Rainbooms we do-” He sucked in a breath as he spotted Adam through the window, stalking slowly up the stairs to the catwalk. Seeing his hesitation, Colonel Autumn and the soldiers turned to see what had grabbed his attention. 

Reacting on instinct, James shoved Madison as hard as he could, sending her staggering into the airlock, then slammed a hand into the airlock controls a split-second before one of the soldiers yanked him away. He gasped as he crashed painfully into one of the consoles, but couldn’t help a surge of relief as the airlock door slid shut, sealing himself and the Enclave thugs in the catwalk. 

Adam sprang up the rest of the stairs quickly and bent to check on Madison, then looked up to glare furiously at Colonel Autumn.

One of the soldiers grunted and jabbed the controls, prompting Adam to raise his rifle, but the door remained stubbornly closed. James felt a sudden surge of pride as he realised the rifle his son was clutching was an Enclave plasma rifle he had obviously liberated from one of their soldiers. 

“Get that door open!” Colonel Autumn snapped.

“You can’t,” James said flatly. “I’ve engaged the failsafes, the only way that door is opening is if I disengage the system.”

“I assume this must be your son,” Autumn cast an appraising eye over Adam, then snorted softly before turning to one of his soldiers, “Have Squad Delta get back up here and deal with that brat.”

“Wait!” James said quickly. He held his hands up as the Colonel looked back at him, “If you agree to let them both go, peacefully, I’ll do as you ask.”

“Don’t you dare, Dad!” Adam growled, stepping up to the airlock door. “Just open this door and let me deal with these posers.”

Colonel Autumn looked from James to Adam, humming as he considered. Finally he turned to James, “Very well. Provide me with the materials and access I have requested, and you have my word that I will allow your son and the good Doctor Li to leave unmolested.”

Bullshit. The second I open that door you’ll have your goons kill Adam and clap Madison in irons. 

“Thank you, Colonel. Just give me a moment to bring the system online.”

James turned to the main console, ignoring Adam’s protests. He barely managed to repress a shiver as he brought himself to terms with what he was about to do. Project Purity was Catherine’s dream, the culmination of her desire to help heal the wasteland. Water, the most basic necessity for life itself, free and clean, for any and all, regardless of who or what they were.

But Catherine was far from naïve. She was well aware, right from the outset, that there were those in the wastes who would see the purifier as a tool, a bargaining chip in their path to dominating the wastes. Allowing the purifier to fall into the hands of those who would use it in such a way was something Catherine had refused to permit, and so they had built in a failsafe. 

The purifier required a vast amount of electricity to function. That power was provided by a nuclear generator, located below the purifier itself. With the failsafes primed, entering the correct code into the main console would overload the purifier and remove certain sections of shielding from the generator, directing lethal amounts of radiation into this very room.

James looked down at the keypad on the console. Revelation 21:6, that verse was the clue to the code that would activate the purifier safely. It was only fitting that the clue for the failsafe code was in another Bible verse.

Ezekiel 7:8. 

“I am about to pour out my wrath on you and spend my anger against you. I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices.” 

One verse to bring life, another verse to end it.

“I grow tired of waiting,” Autumn said impatiently.

“Sorry. It will only take a few moments,” James replied. He swallowed and slowly pressed the number seven, followed by eight. Nothing happened at first, but the little light that suddenly blinked into life told James that the code had been accepted. Taking a deep breath, he turned to take one last look at his son.

I’m sorry, Adam. I’ve failed you, in so, so many ways. I’ve been doing a lot of that, throughout my life. 

Several of the consoles at the back of the room suddenly exploded, and the Geiger counters on the soldier’s armor started ticking away at a ferocious rate. A wave of dizziness passed through James as the radiation did its deadly work. Colonel Autumn and his soldiers yelled in terror, the Colonel injecting himself with something and slumping to the ground as the soldiers desperately pounded on the airlock door in a futile attempt to escape.

James ignored them. In that moment, as his every dream burned to ashes around him, he had eyes only for his son. Vaguely, he realised that Adam was shouting something, trying to heave the door open in a valiant effort to save the only family he had ever known. 

“Adam… run…” James’ voice was scarcely more than a whisper as he slid to the floor, his back against the main console. 

I’m sorry. Everything I’ve ever done has been to make the world a better place for the people I love, first for my wife, and then for you. Of all the things I have ever done, you are the only creation of mine I have ever truly been proud of, the only venture that I didn’t fail at. I cannot tell you how much this breaks my heart, this final betrayal that I must inflict on you, but I cannot let you mother’s dream be tainted by evil. 

James feebly raised a hand as the world slowly darkened around him.

Adam… Catherine… please… forgive me…
> Chapter 36 - Darkness, Decisions and Downpours
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starlight rubbed her hoof and grinned awkwardly, glad nopony else was around to see her discomfort. Except for a certain draconequus, of course. 

“Really, Starlight, while I appreciate your faith in my abilities, it's going to take me just a teensy bit longer to search every nook and cranny in Equestria and beyond,” Discord said airily. “In fact, I was just finishing up my search of Klugetown when you summoned me. And before you ask, no, I didn’t find any magical gateways, rifts, portals, or other remnants of such, though I did find a poor fellow suffering from Pastellus Coloritis. Quite unpleasant; it probably won’t be long before bits star-”

“I-it’s okay, Discord,” Starlight interrupted quickly, holding up a hoof. “We, uh, we don’t need you to search Equestria anymore.”

Discord raised an eyebrow, “You’ve found them already? That was quick.” He shrugged and turned away, waving a claw distractedly, “Well, I suppose if you don’t need my help anymore, I’ll just be off. I have a tea party to prepare for.”

“We still need your help, now more than ever!” Starlight replied quickly, prompting the spirit to turn his back around allowing him to face her while slowing his walk to a stop midway through a wall. “It turns out our mirror friends were sucked through another portal. One not connected to Equestria.”

“One not connected to Equestria?” Discord ran his single fang through his beard absently as he turned around and reassimilated properly, humming in thought, “That can’t be right. While I’ve never actually been to the world through the mirror, I have a policy against going to dimensions that lack magic, I could have sworn that that world and Equestria are only linked to each other.”

Starlight nodded, “They are, or, at least, they were, but there was an incident in the human world. The Diviner, the machine we were using to communicate through our portal, overloaded and it picked up a connection to another world. Our friends got sucked through and we haven’t been able to contact them since.”

“What do you mean, it picked up a connection?” Discord asked, narrowing his eyes and lowering his head to Starlight’s level. 

Starlight shuddered at the sudden chill in his voice, “The Diviner overloaded while we were talking through it. We shut down the portal here in Equestria, but the Diviner in the human world somehow opened up a portal to another world.” 

“You mean you somehow managed to rip open a fresh hole in the border between realities?” Discord hissed.

Starlight winced, “Um… yes?” 

Discord stood as tall as his serpentine body would allow and looked in the exact direction of the Mirror Portal. “Is the new portal still open?” he asked quickly.

“No. The Diviner needs a constant supply of Equestrian magic on both sides of the portal to function,” Starlight replied. 

Discord hummed and folded his mismatched arms into origami cranes while he thought, “Well, I suppose that’s something of a silver lining.”

“How can you say that!?” Starlight retorted angrily. “My friends are lost on some alternate world, we have no idea whether they’re safe or not, and so far we have no way of even finding them, and you think that’s a good thing!?”

“Ah, ah, ah. That’s not what I said,” Discord retorted, waggling a claw. “I said it’s a good thing the portal isn’t still open. If it was, who knows what sort of things could have slipped back through,” he curled around himself and formed into a donut with sprinkles that he then slithered completely out of while wearing a velociraptor costume.

Starlight frowned at him, “What do you mean?”

“The only worlds you know of are our one and the human world, but there are far more than that out there: An infinite number of different realms, realities, even whole multiverses all happily existing and minding their own business.” A series of miniature globes, solar systems and bizarre symbols sparked into life around Discord as he spoke while the light in the room dimmed enough so the created objects shone and sparkled brilliantly, “and trust me when I say that some of them are far, far more dangerous than anything you’ll find in the human world. A few contain beings even I would tread carefully around.”

Starlight shivered involuntarily when Discord said that in one of the most serious voices she’d ever heard him use. She didn’t even want to imagine a creature that could make Discord wary. On the other hoof, the thought of her human friends being trapped in a world with a monstrosity like that was more than enough to harden her resolve, “I can’t just abandon my friends, no matter how dangerous it is,” she stomped a hoof in resolution.

“I wasn’t suggesting you should,” Discord replied. “Even if I did, I highly doubt you would listen. However, I would suggest, quite strongly, that you and our little Princess Purple Smart take every precaution you can possibly think of when you try and open up the portal again. You should probably get Starswirl to take a look as well, he was always fond of that sort of thing.” 

Starlight nodded, “I’ve already sent him a message. In the meantime, we were hoping that you would be willing to help us look for the world they’ve been sent to.”

“What!?” Discord cried, poofing his little floating globes and things back out of existence, “Did you not hear me when I said there are infinite realities out there?” He reached and grabbed her ears, with a tug several ears of corn sprouted from the tips. “It could take eons for me to find your friends by just searching randomly!”

Starlight flipped her ears and turned her head freeing herself from the magical prop while she levitated a sheet of parchment out of her saddlebags, “What if I could show you the magical signature of the world they were sent to?”

Discord grabbed the parchment, pulling a pair of pince-nez glasses out of thin air and putting them on with a comical squeak sound, “Hmmm, this should narrow it down slightly,” he said puffing on a corncob pipe he’d made from one of the corns from Starlight’s ear.

Starlight’s shoulders slumped, “Only slightly?” 

Discord nodded, “Sadly, yes. Unless I’ve been to a world before, it’s extremely difficult for me to open a direct portal to it. It’s just as likely that I’ll end up in a completely random reality full of sapient toenail clippers.” He shook his head and tossed away the glasses, “Having the signature should help,” he spat the pipe out and it flew away on its own, “but even then it just makes it more likely that I’ll open a portal to a reality that’s only roughly in the same area, metaphysically speaking.” 

Starlight looked up at him hopefully, “Will you at least try? Please?” She adopted the cutest look she could while asking.

“Well I would but…” Discord squirmed uncomfortably under the little pony’s pleading look. Finally he sighed, “Oh… fine.” He pinched two fingers together on the parchment and pulled away a wad of thick black sludge. He span it around his hand a few times then flicked it away, only for it to splat onto an invisible surface apparently hanging in empty air. “You should probably stand back,” Discord waited for Starlight to heed his warning, then ran a claw through the hovering sludge, tearing a hole through the fabric of realities.

Both Starlight and Discord recoiled as a palpable aura of hatred and suffering poured out of the gap. Peering through the tear, the pair could see a large building build solidly of wood. Panelled glass windows lined the walls, with a small archway forming the entrance. Above the arch was a sign covered in writing, though not in any language that Starlight recognised, and above that again was a large clock. Roiling black clouds could barely be seen above the building.

Starlight tried not to retch as the sickening aura intensified, “What… urk… what is that?” she dry heaved.

“Dark magic,” Discord replied with an uncharacteristically bleak expression, “of a variety far more terrible than anything you will ever find in Equestria.”

Starlight fought back a terrified shudder, “Is… is that where my friends are?”

Discord shook head, “I don’t know. For all we know the magical signature you showed me could be one of dozens, or even hundreds that exist within the reality your friends ended up in. I’ll have to go through and search the area thoroughly before I can be certain, one way or the other.”

A shrill scream suddenly rang out from inside the building. The two stared fearfully for several seconds, but no further sounds were forthcoming. 

“I don’t know about you, but I sincerely hope your friends are not in this particular reality,” Discord said slowly. Coming to a decision, Starlight pulled a book out of her saddlebags, a sibling to those that Twilight and Sunset shared, and wrote a lengthy note in it while Discord watched the world beyond. “I don’t want to picture finding any version of Fluttershy in a place like this.”

Starlight looked up at him, “I’m coming with you.”

“You most certainly are not!” Discord spluttered.

“I know how to handle myself, and there is no way I’m letting a friend go to such a dangerous place all alone,” Starlight said firmly. A short buzz from the book grabbed her attention and she nodded grimly when she opened and read from it, “That was from Twilight, she says she’s happy for me to go with you. She and Starswirl should be able to reconfigure the Diviner between them.”

Discord rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “I… w-well that is… um… I mean, thank you, Starlight,” he said gratefully.

“Don’t mention it,” Starlight replied. “One quick question though,” she pointed a hoof through the tear, “can you read that sign?”

“Tenjin Shougakkou,” Discord said after a quick look, “it roughly translates as ‘Heavenly Host Elementary School’.”

Starlight pawed the ground nervously. Her voice quavered as she spoke, betraying her nerves, “Well, I guess it can’t be that bad. I mean, how dangerous can a school be?” 

“I suppose we’ll soon find out,” Discord muttered darkly knowing better than she the true horrors the multiverse held. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Absolutely,” Starlight replied with far more bravado than she felt. “Come on, let’s go.”

Side by side, the two strode through the rippling tear in reality.





Sheltered within a bombed-out building, not far from Project Purity, several dark figures shifted restlessly as they watched the activity around the Memorial building. 

“Stupid fucking weather,” Blades muttered. The torrential rain made it difficult to make out anything more than dark shapes interspersed with occasional lights. Scratching idly at his stubble, he called to the woman perched several meters away, right on the edge of the ruined floor, “Hey, you see anything yet?”

Lightning didn’t answer at first. She was staring down at the Jefferson Memorial through a pair of compact binoculars. Eventually she sighed and lowered them, “The Rainbooms are definitely down there, but I have no idea who those other fuckers are.” She tossed the binoculars to Blades, who caught them easily and raised them to his eyes, “Looks like they got to the freaks first, they’re loading them onto one of those plane-things.”

“Yeah, I see it,” Blades muttered, the binoculars’ night-vision easily penetrating the darkness and rendering the rain as little more than a constant static. Normally he would have wondered where she’d managed to pick up such impressive tech, but right now he had more pressing problems. “They’re moving the Rainbooms on stretchers, did they kill them already?”

Lightning shook her head, “I doubt it, not with the way those dorks without the armour keep fussing over them. They must be medics or scientists, or something.”

Crawler stepped over and crouched next to Blades, peering out into the rain, “You reckon we can take ‘em?”

“Nah, there’s too many of them, and most of them have power armor,” Blades replied.

“Shit,” Crawler hocked a mouthful of phlegm out of the window, “What’s the plan then?”

Blades just grunted. As he watched, two more power armored figures emerged from the building, carrying a stretcher that bore a grizzled-looking man in a trench coat. Behind them came another power armored soldier and a scientist. The two seemed to be engaged in a heated argument, with the scientist gesturing angrily between the stretcher, the building, and the Rainbooms. 

A nudge from Crawler dragged Blades out of his reverie, “Hey, come on, man, we gotta move fast. Now that we’ve got this crew, it ain’t going to take long for news to get back to the Red Flags that we’re still-”

“Shut the fuck up!” Blades hissed quietly, jerking a head in Lightning’s direction. 

Lightning smirked at them, “Relax, I’m not going to sell you morons out to Shí Yáng.” Her smirk widened into a full grin as she turned to stare out into the rain, “I’ve got my eyes on a bigger prize.”

Blades eyed her warily, then shrugged and stood, glancing down through the hole in the floor to where the rest of his new crew were sheltering from the elements. Satisfied that none of them had been paying attention, he stepped over to hand the binoculars back to Lightning, “Come on, let’s get everyone off their asses. We’ll track the plane-thing the Rainbooms are on. If we’re lucky, they’ll put down somewhere where there’s a lot less people around. We’ll figure our next move from there.”





“Unbelievable! Absolutely unbelievable!” Doctor Turner spat as he stomped up the ramp of his Vertibird. The Rainbooms had already been loaded; special harnesses secured them and their stretchers to the floor of the Vertibird so, hopefully, they wouldn’t be bounced around too much during any in-flight turbulence. 

Turner scowled anew as he spotted the vile bruise maring Fluttershy’s forehead and the equally concerning monstrosity blooming across Applejack’s exposed abdomen. The methods Autumn had used to acquire Project Purity would probably be enough to turn the Rainbooms thoroughly against the Enclave on their own, let alone the injuries they’d suffered from simply defending themselves.

Stepping gingerly around their unconscious forms, Turner tried not to let his drenched clothes drip on the girls as he made his way to the benches.

As if it’ll make a difference anyway, they’re already bloody soaked! I’ll have to have them dried off and brought warm clothes the second we get to the Exodus beta site, then Doctor Bohn can take a look at them when they wake up. That is, if they let her.    

Doctor Turner sighed heavily as he dropped onto the passenger benches opposite his security detail. “Ready when you are, pilot!” he called out, fastening his harness and donning his headset.

“Are you alright, Doctor?” one of the bodyguards asked.

Turner glanced back at the girls as the Vertibird’s ramp closed with a hiss of hydraulics. His stomach performed a familiar lurch as the noise of the tiltwing’s rotors grew to a dull roar, lifting the craft from the ground. “There’s a term I never really understood until today.”

His bodyguards raised an eyebrow, “What term is that, Doctor?”

“Clusterfuck,” Turner said simply. “The President is going to pitch a fit when he hears about this. Autumn is really going to get it in the neck. If he survives, that is.”

The bodyguards shared a blank look, “If he survives?”

Turner nodded, “It turns out he didn’t just totally mess up the task of peacefully recruiting the Rainbooms, he even managed to let the creators of Project Purity somehow activate a failsafe of sorts, turning it into a radioactive deathtrap.”

One of the security aides snorted at that while the other tilted his head curiously, “Didn’t he have some of that experimental Rad-X though? I thought all of the top brass were supposed to keep a shot of it on their person at all times?”

“He did, yes. Unfortunately for him, however, James managed to completely lock down the main section of Project Purity,” Turner replied. “He’s lucky I arrived just in time to hack into the mainframe and reactivate the shielding on the nuclear generator, another minute or two and he’d have been beyond saving.” 

And he’s even more lucky I didn’t realise exactly what he had done to the Rainbooms until after I’d deactivated the failsafe. If I’d known beforehand I would’ve pretended it was impossible and left the arrogant prick to rot.

“What are we going to do about the Rainbooms now?” one of the aides asked, “Do you think they’ll still agree to work with us?”

Turner shrugged, as much as he could in a restrictive harness, “It seems unlikely. We may end up having to keep them contained as best we can, if they revert back to hostilities when they wake up. I’ll suggest to the others that we do everything we possibly can to bring them around peacefully. I doubt it’ll work, but it’s worth trying. Hopefully the rest of the team will agree with me.”

“Can’t you just order them to?” the aide asked.

Turner smiled bitterly, “I wish I could, but when I contacted the President and informed him that I’d let the Rainbooms go, he made it very clear that I am no longer the lead scientist on Project Exodus. Doctor Strong is in charge from now on.” He cast another worried glance back at the Rainbooms, his eyes settling on Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer. The resemblances to his fellow scientists were far too uncanny for mere coincidence. “I just hope she can get some answers.”





Across the river from Project Purity, nestled amongst several large rocks on the bank, a well-hidden manhole cover was slowly lifted and pushed aside. A battered and bloody young man painfully hauled himself out, then turned to help a far less brutalised woman clamber onto the riverbank. The two sat there in the rain for several minutes, catching their breath. 

Fleeing Project Purity had not been easy. The Enclave had somehow deployed two full squads of soldiers into the escape tunnels forcing Adam and the doctor to use stealth to get out. The pair had almost made it, too, but the soldiers had been too well trained and the escape had devolved into a desperate battle for survival. Even when they finally managed to get away from the soldiers, the appearance of feral ghouls in the final stretch of the tunnels had nearly proved fatal. If the two hadn’t stumbled across a Brotherhood of Steel outpost, they would almost certainly have died. 

“Are… are you alright?” Doctor Li asked eventually. 

Adam just nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He was far from alright, in every sense of the word. Physically speaking, he was a wreck. Blood was dripping down his arm from under a hastily-applied bandage, he had a nasty plasma burn on his leg that was in dire need of medical attention, and he was pretty sure he had torn something in his shoulder, not to mention the impressive number of minor cuts and bruises that he was practically covered in.

Adam’s mental state wasn’t any better. His entire world had been ripped out from underneath him once again, and this time he wasn’t sure what to do about it. His mother’s dream was little more than ashes, the scientists working on it had all been rounded up, save for the woman seated next to him, his friends had been kidnapped by the evil organisation responsible, and as for his father…

With a hiss of agony, Adam pushed himself to his feet. He couldn’t afford to think about that right now. He rolled his good shoulder to try and settle his shishkebab and pilfered plasma rifle more comfortably on his back before turning to Doctor Li, “Come on, we should get under shelter before we catch hypothermia or something. How far to the Citadel?”

“It’s just up there,” Doctor Li stood, wrapped her arms around herself, and led the way away from the banks of the rain-swollen river. Adam dutifully limped after her, but his injuries slowed him. He was so focused on trying to catch up he ended up stumbling over a pile of loose rocks. The sound grabbed Doctor Li’s attention. She gasped and hurried over when she saw him struggling, “I’m so sorry! I should have realized how hurt you were!” 

“It’s fine,” Adam mumbled as Li gently tugged one of his arms around her shoulders to support him. “It’s been a bit of a rough day for both of us.”

Doctor Li chuckled nervously, “That’s the understatement of the century. Come on.”

As the two shuffled along, a huge building slowly came into view through the rain. Large support struts lined the walls with a tower crane looming over the whole construction attached to a colossal slab of rusted metal forming a crude, but effective, gate mechanism. Two Brotherhood Knights in full power armor stood watch at the gate, accompanied by the imposing form of a well cared for sentry bot.

The men lifted their guns up warily as the two approached, “Who’s there? Identify yourselves!”

“I’m Doctor Madison Li,” the doctor replied. “This man’s injured, we need help.”

The first Knight shook his head, “I’m sorry ma’am. No unauthorized citizens allowed in the Citadel. You’ll have to leave.”

Doctor Li gave him a disgusted look and slipped out from under Adam’s arm, shoving past the Knight and thumping an intercom set in the wall, “Lyons!? Lyons, I know you’re in there! I know you can hear me! You open this god damned door right now! Lyons?!”

The Knight shouldered his rifle and reached for Li, “Ma’am, please, step away fro-”

Doctor Li shrugged his arm off and slapped the intercom again, “Lyons, you bastard! Open this damn door now!”

There was an almighty grinding sound as the crane kicked into gear, dragging the metal slab up and revealing a bombed-out section of building that had been crudely repaired and repurposed as a makeshift bottlenecked entranceway. The Knights stepped aside as Doctor Li ducked back under Adam’s arm, “Just go straight down there and through the doors at the end,” she was instructed by a slightly baffled soldier.

“Gee, thanks,” Doctor Li muttered sarcastically, gently guiding Adam forwards.

Pushing through the doors at the end, the two found themselves in a wide pentagonal bailey. The entire area was set up as a training field with multiple shooting ranges, a makeshift sparring ring, a small rest area lined with beds, and even a crude assault course. 

Brotherhood personnel were everywhere. Most of them were clad in simple, light, reconnaissance armour, though there were a few individuals on the assault course wearing power armour, an instructor standing on the sidelines alternating between offering advice and hurling insults. 

Adam and Doctor Li both turned as a door slammed open. An elderly man and a young woman stepped out into the rain and made a beeline for the new arrivals. The man was ancient sporting a bald head with a long well kept white beard that reached his sternum, but his back was straight and his steps were sure, his heavy blue robes splaying out impressively as he walked. The woman next to him was no less interesting. Tall, lithe and muscular so much that it was evident under her light armor, she had vivid red hair that poked out from under the officer’s cap she wore proudly. 

“That’s Elder Lyons,” Doctor Li whispered. “He’s the leader of the Brotherhood of Steel, here in the Capital Wasteland.”

“Here, let me help,” the woman said as she stepped forward. Doctor Li nodded gratefully as they switched places, the woman carefully pulling Adam’s arm around her shoulder instead. 

Elder Lyons reached out and placed a hand on Li’s shoulder, a worried expression on his face, “Madison, what’s going on? Are you alright?”

Doctor Li shook her head and crossed her arms across her chest, “No, no I’m not. It was the Enclave. They’ve overrun Project Purity.” She gestured to Adam, “This is-”

“James’ son, yes. I see the resemblance,” Lyons interrupted, with a glance at Adam. “Our sentries reported that something was happening at the Jefferson Memorial,” he returned his attention to Doctor Li, “but we had no idea it was you over there. I thought you’d abandoned that project years ago?”

Doctor Li nodded, “We did, but James he… he found a way to make it work. He discovered what it was that we were missing.”

“Do the Enclave know this?” Lyons asked sharply.

“I don’t… I don’t know,” Doctor Li admitted. “We had barely arrived, we were just doing some basic repairs and seeing what we could salvage before we sent a messenger here, then the Enclave attacked out of nowhere. Now they have Project Purity, they’ve captured the Rainbooms and James is…” she trailed off slowly, breathing hard as she tried to hold back a sob. 

Lyons let out a soft sigh, “I’m sorry about James, he was a good man. I hate to press you so soon, but, when you say the Rainbooms were at Project Purity-”

“It’s true,” Doctor Li cut in, “their magic, their abilities, everything. It’s all true. If the Enclave can figure out how to control that power…”

Elder Lyons frowned, his mouth set in a grim line, “You did the right thing, coming to us. Come with me, I’ll need you to explain everything before we can make a move against the Enclave.” He glanced over at the woman he had arrived with, “Metzger, get that young man to the infirmary, then gather your squad. Have them prepare for a scouting mission in known enemy territory.”

“Yes, Elder!” Metzger snapped a salute as Lyons led Doctor Li through the nearest door. “Alright, you, let’s get you to a medic,” she said quietly to Adam before helping him shuffle across the courtyard. Even in his pained state, Adam couldn’t help but marvel at how easily she supported his weight, though neither of them could suppress a shiver as they passed out from under cover and into the rain.

As the two slowly approached the covered rest area, Metzger called out to one of the people relaxing there, “Squire Peters! I’ve got a job for you, and you’re not going to like it.”

A young woman jumped up and saluted at the shout. She couldn’t have been older than fifteen or sixteen, and her hair was little more than a brown fuzz, as if she’d recently had her head shaved. “Yes, Knight-Sergeant! What do you need me to-” her eyes widened as she saw who the sergeant was carrying, then her expression settled into a snarl, “What’s that fuck-stain doing here!?”

“Watch the language, recruit,” Metzger warned. “I know you’ve got a beef with this guy, but he’s our ally, and that means we help him. That means you have to help him.” When the squire ignored her, glaring at Adam and clenching her fists, she lowered her voice so only the three of them could hear, “Come on, Madeleine. You’ve got a chance at a fresh start and a new life here. Don’t throw all of that away, not like this.”

Squire Peters kept up the glare for a few more seconds, then finally sighed and relented, unclenching her fists, “Fine.”

Metzger raised an eyebrow, “What was that?”

“I said ‘yes, Knight-Sergeant’!” Peters cried, snapping another salute.

“That’s better,” Metzger huffed. “Here, you grab his gear and bring it with us to the infirmary.”

“Yes, Knight-Sergeant.”

Adam just stared in bemusement as the squire stripped him of his weapons and pack. “Um, did I do something to offend yo-” he snapped his mouth shut as the squire gave him another seething glare.

“We’ll sort that out later,” Metzger said firmly. “Right now, let’s get you to the infirmary. And while we’re on our way I want to know exactly what happened to the Rainbooms. I owe those girls. If the Enclave really do have them, then me and the rest of the Wonderbolts are going to have something to say about that.”
> Chapter 37 - Counterparts
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“It’s going to be fine, Tara. You can do this,” Becky said softly. 

Tara shook her head vigorously, “I don’t know if I can. What if something goes wrong? What if make a mistake and upset them even more? What if their injuries are serious and one of them dies and they think we did it deliberately!?”

Becky had to hold back a sigh as her girlfriend got herself increasingly worked up. She had been like this ever since the Rainbooms had arrived with Doctor Turner, almost an hour ago. 

The Doctor had barely set foot in the building before informing the team that the Rainbooms were in the back of his Vertibird, that they were injured and unconscious, and that Tara was now in charge of Project Exodus. The women had tried to find what exactly had happened, but all he would say was that Colonel Autumn had royally screwed the pooch. After that he’d requisitioned Squad Sigma and Sienna to help get the Rainbooms inside and check them for injuries, downed a mug of coffee, then left Tara and Becky alone in the main office. 

Becky glanced back at Tara to see if she was done with her ‘process’ yet. Nope, still freaking out. Okay, she’s going to need a nudge.

“Tara, stop. Look at me,” Becky said firmly. Tara closed her mouth mid-sentence and just sat there, blinking dumbly at her. “Don’t get lost trying to think of everything at once, okay? Remember your process. Just take a deep breath, get a piece of paper, and wr-”

“Write a list of objectives, break the problem up into lots of smaller ones, then find a way to achieve each of them, one at a time,” Tara finished. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. They’re only young, it’s not as if they’re a group of mysterious beings from another dimension that possess extremely dangerous superpowers. Oh, wait!”

“Easy on the sarcasm, Sparkles, I never said it would be easy,” Becky huffed. 

Tara sighed softly, “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just… this is a really big deal, what if I do something wrong? What if I fail?”

“Since when have you ever failed?” Becky smirked, “Besides, you’ve got me and the rest of the team here to cover your ass, just in case. Or to punish you if things go perfectly.”

Tara raised an eyebrow, “Why would I get punished if things go perfectly?”

Becky smiled and leaned in close to whisper in Tara’s ear, “Well, most people seem to think getting spanked is a punishment.” She gently nibbled at her earlobe, immensely enjoying watching the little nerd shiver with anticipation. Just as Tara started to squirm in her seat, Becky gave her a teasing bite then pulled away, throwing her a smouldering look.

Tara glared at her hungrily for a few moments longer, then pouted as she realised playtime wasn’t going any further than that, “You’re evil.”

“You like it that way,” Becky retorted. “Now come on, write out a plan of action and we’ll break out the toybox later.”

A faint blush graced Tara’s cheeks, “Fetch me a pen and some paper, then.”

Becky gave herself a mental pat on the back. So easy. Just press the right buttons, redirect her stress, then all of a sudden she’s that much happier. Not to mention how much more fun bedtime will be…

The sound of the door opening brought the two out of their rosy little haze. Turner and Sienna both stepped into the office, their expressions not exactly inspiring confidence in the others. “We need to talk,” Sienna said without preamble.

Tara instantly went back into panic mode, “Oh no, something’s wrong isn’t it? What’s happened? Are they badly injured? Are they going to be alright? Are the-”

“The Rainbooms are going to be fine, don’t worry,” Turner cut in, quickly heading her off. 

Sienna nodded, “Most of them just have some nasty bruising. Sunset Shimmer has some stitches and a damaged kidney but those are too old to be anything to do with Colonel Autumn. The only one I’m a little worried about is Fluttershy, she sustained a heavy impact to the skull that rendered her unconscious for at least several minutes. The auto-doc hasn’t picked up any signs of brain trauma, but I’m keeping her hooked up to it just in case.” 

“Well, I suppose that’s not too bad,” Becky replied. “Are any of them awake yet?”

Sienna shook her head and tugged off her glasses, cleaning them with her sleeve, “Autumn’s men heavily sedated them. They’ll probably be nauseous as hell when they wake up, so I decided it would be best to just let them sleep it off.”

“We should probably give them some space. Having Enclave personnel looming over them the moment they wake up probably won’t help get them on our side. I’ve got one of our modified eyebots in the room that’ll alert us if and when they come around,” Turner added. “Four members of Squad Sigma are guarding the corridor outside, just in case. The other two are putting the Rainbooms’ necklaces in secure storage.”

“Why would you take their necklaces!?” Tara asked incredulously.

Turner gave her a serious look, “The eyebot picked up some very interesting radiation coming off them. I can’t be certain until we’ve done some proper tests, but I’d bet my left arm that it’s a match for the signal we detected from their portal.”

Becky frowned at him, “You mean their necklaces might have something to do with how they arrived on our world?”

Turner nodded, “It’s possible.”

Tara groaned and rubbed her temples, “How are we supposed to get them to cooperate with us if the first thing we do when they get here is steal their stuff!?”

“We aren’t stealing them!” Turner insisted. “We’re just… keeping them safe. They’re all secured in individual lockboxes anyway, so no one can tamper with them without us knowing.”

“Either way, that isn’t what we needed to talk about,” Sienna said quickly. 

Tara eyed her warily, “What is it, then?”

“While I was checking the Rainbooms over I took some blood samples and ran them through the Reflectron, just so we have a record of their DNA on file. It turns out the DNA of two of them matches that of two personnel within the Enclave,” Sienna replied.

“What?!” Becky and Tara cried in unison.

Sienna nodded and folded her arms, staring curiously at Tara, “It gets weirder. I don’t know how, but… Twilight Sparkle is genetically identical to you, Tara.”

Stunned silence greeted that proclamation. 

“That’s… that’s impossible,” Tara breathed. 

“What about the other one?” Becky asked, not entirely sure she wanted to hear the answer. 

“Sunset Shimmer.” Sienna turned to look Becky in the eyes, “Her DNA matches yours.”





Lost in a timeless fugue, Sunset drifted softly from a drug-induced, semi-conscious haze into blissful sleep and back again, the line between the two blurring constantly. Her slumber was eventually disturbed by a gentle rocking, then a voice whispering in her ear finally brought her into a state of wakefulness. 

“Sunset? Can you hear me? Wakey-wakey?”

Blinking blearily, Sunset cracked her eyes open and turned her head to see a shadowy figure standing over her. “Wha… Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie smiled apologetically, “Hey, Sunshim. Sorry to wake you up, how are you feeling?”

Sunset closed her eyes for a few seconds, using the time to try and actually figure out the answer. “A little ill,” she said finally.

“I thought so,” Pinkie said while nodding slightly, “I think the Enclave drugged us with something before they brought us here, wherever here is.”

“The Enclave?” Sunset frowned in confusion, then gasped as she remembered the events before she was knocked unconscious, “Project Purity! What happened? Is everyone okay?”

Pinkie winced, “I don’t know about Doctor Li or the others, the only people here so far are us girls. Some of us are a bit beat up, but… I think we’re all okay?”

Trying to will away the faint nausea she felt, Sunset pushed herself onto her elbows to take a look around. 

They were in a large white room, longer than it was wide, with rows of beds lining the two longest walls and the rest of the girls spread out around them. Rainbow and Twilight were both awake and sitting up in bed, while Rarity was kneeling next to Applejack’s bed. Applejack herself was rubbing her belly tenderly and frowning at something in the corner of the room. Following her gaze, Sunset’s eyes widened as she realised why.

Fluttershy lay on a bed right in the corner, apparently sleeping peacefully. Next to her bed was a boxy little machine on wheels, with a computer terminal on one side and several articulated arms on the other, each ending in a different medical implement of some sort. Two of the arms, each sporting what appeared to be scanning devices, were passing around an over Fluttershy’s head constantly. 

“What is that thing?” Sunset asked quietly. 

“Some sort of hospital scanny thing, I think,” Pinkie replied. 

“It’s an auto-doc,” Twilight cut in. “They’re highly advanced machines designed before the war that can perform medical procedures. There’s an old broken one in Rivet City, but this one looks much more advanced.” She climbed out of bed and went over to inspect it, “I’m no expert, but I think it says that Fluttershy is stable and sleeping.” 

“So why’s it only on her?” Rainbow asked.

Twilight winced, “She does have a very nasty bruise on her face, she must have hit the floor pretty hard when we were all knocked unconscious. Maybe they’re just being extra careful, what with it being a head injury and all.”

“I hope so,” Sunset muttered, turning her attention back to Pinkie. Her friends’ hair had lost some of the frizz it had regained recently, but at least it wasn’t back to being lank and straight again. Sunset frowned slightly as she realised that wasn’t the only thing that had changed, “Pinkie, what are you wearing?”

“Huh?” Pinkie glanced down at herself. She was clad in a grey jumpsuit, similar to the utility jumpsuits the maintenance crew in Vault 101 wore. “Oh, this? When I woke up I was already wearing it, we all are.”

Sunset lifted the thin blanket off herself and raised an eyebrow, “Uh, I’m not?” 

Instead of a jumpsuit, Sunset was wearing a dark blue vest and a baggy pair of two-tone, tan and dark blue shorts. 

“Well, that’s weird,” Pinkie said flatly. 

“Yeah,” Sunset agreed, frowning at her clothes. She felt like something was off, but she couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Glancing back at Pinkie, her hand leapt to her throat as realisation struck, “Our Geo-mph!”

Pinkie clamped a hand over Sunset’s mouth before she could more than a word out. She chuckled nervously, “Sorry, Sunshim, but we should probably be careful what we talk about.” She jerked her head towards the door at the far end of the room, “I think we’re being watched.”

Sunset looked over to see what she was talking about. There, floating next to the door, was another of the little ball-shaped robots they’d encountered just outside Megaton. This one seemed to be in much better condition however, it’s metal shell gleaming and it’s little motor running silently.

“It’s the same as the one we saw outside Megaton, isn’t it?” Pinkie asked, evidently having reached the same conclusion. 

“I think so,” Sunset replied, clambering out of bed and stepping over to take a closer look. “It looks like it has more antennae than the other one, maybe it’s a different model?” She scowled at the little robot. It didn’t appear to have an obvious camera anywhere on it’s carapace, but Sunset had no doubt that it was keeping an eye on them somehow.

So the Enclave have been spying on us for a while then, they probably have these things all over the wasteland. Well, if that’s the case…

Bending over to peer into the strange grill-like front, Sunset tapped the side of it gently, “Hey, is anyone out there?”

“Good morning!”

“Wah!” Sunset skipped backwards in surprise as a chipper voice crackled out from a speaker on the robot.

“Sorry! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you!” the voice said quickly. Sunset stared incredulously at the robot as she waited for her heart rate to return to normal. Even with the slight distortion from the speaker, she would recognise that voice anywhere. “Twilight?”

“Um, no. Well, not exactly. I mean I don’t think so?” A couple of other voices held a quick and muffled conversation before the voice spoke again, “Let me start from the beginning. My name is Doctor Tara Strong. I’m a scientist working for the Enclave. I know your first real interaction with our organisation may have been a bit… terrible, but I’d like to take the opportunity to try and rectify that. Going by what you just called me, I think you’ll agree that we have at least one good reason to talk to each other.”

Sunset looked back at Twilight, who was staring at the robot, a thunderstruck expression on her face, “What do you think?”

Twilight just shook her head slowly. 

“If you don’t want to speak to us, that’s completely understandable,” Doctor Strong said softly. “Your clothes and the rest of your belongings are all in footlockers underneath your beds, except for your necklaces. I’m afraid we had to put those into secure storage, they were giving off an unknown form of radiation and, since we don’t know how they operate, we didn’t want to take any chances with our own health.”

“They’re perfectly safe!” Sunset snapped, then regretted it instantly. “I mean, they’re safe as long as they’re with us, if anyone else starts messing around with them, things are going to get dangerous.”

“No-one is going to mess around with them in any way. They are currently secured in individual lock-boxes with a combination lock that only I know the combination for, you have my word,” Doctor Strong replied. “I know this won’t exactly help us gain your trust, but until we’re certain that the necklaces don’t pose any threat, I’m afraid we can’t give them back to you yet.”

Sunset seriously considered telling the doctor that she could get stuffed until the geodes had been returned, or even just refuse to cooperate outright. After all, it wasn’t as if the Enclave had given the girls any reason whatsoever to trust them. The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that talking to the scientists might well be the only way the girls were getting out of there. 

Before Sunset could think of a suitable reply, Doctor Strong spoke again, “If it helps in any way, there won’t be any soldiers present for our conversation. It’ll just be myself and two of my colleagues. One of them is medically trained, and the other is… well… you’ll probably be interested to meet her. So… how about it?”

Sunset glanced back at her friends again. When Twilight gave a subtle nod, she turned back to the robot, “Fine. But no soldiers.”

“Of course, we’ll be right down,” came the reply. 

Sunset just nodded and turned away. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Applejack asked as Sunset returned to her bed and sat down.

“Not really,” Sunset admitted, “but what choice do we have? Besides, did you hear the doctor’s voice?”

The others all nodded. Twilight cast a wary glance at the robot, “Do you think she really is… y’know?”

Sunset shook her head, glancing at the robot, which was undoubtedly still monitoring them, “I don’t know. Honestly? This world is so different from home I never even considered that there might be other… y’know.” She sighed massaged her temples gently. “What time is it anyway?”

“Hold on, I’ll check,” Pinkie replied. She scampered back to her own bed and reached underneath, pulling out the footlocker that Doctor Strong had said would be there.

Well, at least that’s one thing they weren’t lying about.

Pinkie flipped the lid open and smiled as she spotted her Pip-Boy nestled on top of her folded-up clothes. “Let me see…” she muttered as she picked it up, “it’s nearly half seven in the morning the day after yesterday.”

Sunset shot her a curious look, “The day after yesterday?”

Pinkie nodded, “According to the date on here, Project Purity was yesterday, so this must be the day after.”

Applejack frowned as she tried to follow the logic, “So you’re saying we were attacked yesterday, and we’ve been out cold all night?”

“Yep.”

Rarity opened her mouth to say something, but everyone’s attention was grabbed by a sudden moan from Fluttershy. Rainbow got there first, leaping out of bed and sliding on her knees at Fluttershy’s side just as the nurse opened her eyes, “Hey, are you okay?”

Fluttershy blinked a few times, then looked up, “Nnn, Rainbow?”

“I’m here, we’re all here,” Rainbow said gently. “How are you feeling?”

“My face hurts,” Flutters replied.

“I’m not surprised, with a bruise like that,” Sunset said, trying not to wince as she approached and got a good look at her friend’s face. Her whole left cheek was black and blue.  

Fluttershy frowned and raised a hand to her face, then let out a soft ‘ouch’ when her fingers brushed her cheek. “Can someone pass me my nursing kit?”

“Oh, uh…” Rainbow looked under the bed, “Sure.”

Fluttershy gently pushed the arms of the auto-doc away and sat up as Rainbow pulled her kit out from under the bed. The nurse rummaged around in the kit for a moment, before pulling out a bottle of water and some pain lozenges, which she swiftly took. Once she was done she wiped her mouth and glanced around the room, “Um, where are we?”

“Some sort of Enclave facility,” Sunset replied. “They must have brought us here after they attacked Project Purity.”

“What about the others? Are Adam and James alright?” Fluttershy asked quickly.

Rainbow and Sunset shared an uneasy look. “We have no idea, it’s just us here,” Rainbow said slowly.

“Oh.” Fluttershy’s shoulders slumped for a moment, but she pulled herself together quickly, “What about you, are you all okay? Is anyone injured?”

“Applejack’s in quite a bit of pain with her belly,” Rarity called out.

Applejack huffed and rolled her eyes, “Ah told you, Ah’m fine.” 

Rarity glared at her, “You are most certainly not fine, darling. You can barely move!”

“If you’re hurt; you should rest, Applejack,” Twilight cut in. “We don’t want a repeat of what happened with Sunset.”

Applejack’s response was interrupted by a knock at the door. Sunset moved to stand in the middle of the room, then looked around at the others, each of whom gave her a reassuring nod. Sunset folded her arms and took a calming breath as Twilight stepped up alongside her. “Come in.”

The door squeaked open slowly, revealing young women in lab coats. The first had long golden hair, tied back in a tight ponytail, while the second let her shoulder-length blonde hair hang loose. The jolt that ran through Sunset was nothing compared to the one she felt when she spotted the second woman. Colors aside, it was as if she was looking at herself, only older.

“Wow, you really do look like us,” the first woman said quietly. She shook her head and straightened up to speak more clearly, “Um, hello. I’m Doctor Strong, and this here is my colleague, Doctor Shoichet.” Doctor Shoichet just gave a half-hearted wave, a look of wary confusion on her face. “We’ve been looking forward to speaking with you, but, first of all, I believe we owe you an apology.”

Sunset blinked in surprise. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it certainly hadn’t been that.

“Hang on a second, you’re actually apologizing for attacking us?” Rainbow asked.

“Attacking you was never part of the plan,” Doctor Strong insisted. “We sent Doctor Turner to Rivet City to see if you would be interested in talking with us, peacefully. We had no idea you’d be anywhere near the Jefferson Memorial, or that the Taskforce had even been sent out already.”

“But, why would you even want to attack Project Purity in the first place?” Twilight asked.

Doctor Shoichet shrugged, “We don’t know the details, the higher-ups don’t share information about military operations with personnel who aren’t directly involved. Originally, we were going to be assigned to the Jefferson Taskforce, so we would have been told, but that changed after we received the radio broadcast about you girls.”

“After that, we were assigned to a different project. As part of that project I suggested that we open a dialogue with you, to see what we could learn from each other,” Doctor Strong continued. “Unfortunately, Doctor Turner got a little, er, distracted, when he first met with you. By the time he remembered what he was supposed to be doing, you had already left for the Jefferson Memorial. Doctor Turner deduced where you were heading and informed the President, who then contacted Colonel Autumn.”

Sunset frowned at her, “And Colonel Autumn is…?”

“He’s the head of the Department of the Army, and also the one who personally commanded the Jefferson Taskforce,” Doctor Strong replied.

“He’s also an asshole,” Doctor Shoichet added.

Doctor Strong giggled nervously, but her expression quickly turned sombre, “The Colonel misinterpreted the orders he was given, and instead of contacting you peacefully he… well, I think you know the rest.”  

The room fell silent as the girls processed everything they’d been told. Sunset herself didn’t know what to think. On the one hand, Doctor Strong seemed to be genuine and, given who she was almost certainly this world’s counterpart of, Sunset was inclined to believe that the Enclave didn’t intend for the Rainbooms to get hurt. On the other hand, however, the fact that they had clearly been planning the attack on Project Purity for a while was undeniable, and the girls still hadn’t been given a reason as to why. 

On top of that, James had been insistent that the Enclave not get their hands on any magic, and Doctor Strong herself admitted that they had taken custody of the Geodes already. To make matters worse, it wasn’t a subject that Sunset could easily press without raising suspicion. The harder she pushed to have the Geodes returned, the more likely it was that the Enclave would realise how important they were.

“You say you wanted to talk to us, before everything that happened at the Memorial,” Sunset said after a while. “What exactly did you want to talk to us about?”

Doctor Strong smiled brightly, “There’s actually quite a few things we wanted to discuss with you!” She pulled a rolled-up sheet of paper out of a pocket, “I’ve made a list of topics here.”

Rainbow snorted, “She’s definitely Twilight, alright.”

Sunset shot her a glare. She didn’t want to share too much of what they knew or suspected with these people, not until she knew exactly what they were after.

Doctor Strong glanced curiously from Sunset to Rainbow, “You know something about this, don’t you?”  

“You say you didn’t mean to attack us,” Sunset interjected, ignoring the doctor’s question, “does that mean you’re going to let us go, or are we prisoners here?”

Doctor Strong shook her head, “You’re not prisoners, but it won’t be easy to leave. The area this facility is located in is extremely dangerous.”

“In what way?” Sunset asked.

“It’s crawling with super mutants,” Doctor Shoichet replied. “You were brought in on a Vertibird, but it had to return to base to refuel. We have another one, but we-”

The doctor was interrupted by another woman stepping through the door, carrying a small first aid kit. This woman was also wearing a lab-coat, along with a pair of pretty pink-framed glasses, her jet-black hair was pulled back into bunches. “Sorry I’m late,” she said flatly, not sounding at all sorry. 

Doctor Shoichet rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by Twilight’s surprised cry, “Sugarcoat?!”

The woman stopped in her tracks and turned to stare at Twilight, arching an eyebrow as she did so, “Did you just… call me ‘Sugarcoat’?”

Twilight threw an apologetic look at Sunset, “I didn’t, I mean I was just, uh, thinking about-”

“You do know something,” Doctor Shoichet said, eyeing the girls suspiciously. “Who are you really? How did you get your powers? And why the hell are we so alike?”

Sunset drew herself up and glared at the doctors, “You attack us, you attack our friends, you steal our necklaces, and now you expect us to just give you the answers you want?” She snorted angrily, “Give me one good reason we should even consider trusting you!”

“She makes a good point,” the new doctor said.

Doctor Strong nodded, rubbing her arm nervously, “Doctor Bohn is right, you have every reason not to trust us, but please, just give us a chance.”

“Why in the heck should we?” Applejack called out from her bed.

“If we can’t come to a working arrangement, I’ll let you leave, you have my word,” Doctor Strong replied. “With your necklaces,” she added, pre-empting the question.

Sunset studied the doctor’s face carefully. She didn’t seem to be lying. If anything, she looked painfully sincere. “Why are you so desperate for us to work with you?” Sunset asked. “If you’re after our powers, then I’m afraid we can’t help you.”

“I’d be lying if we said we didn’t have any interest in your abilities, but that’s not the main reason we sought you out,” Doctor Strong replied.

“Then what is the main reason?” Twilight asked.

Doctor Strong smiled faintly, “We want to send you home.”

The Rainbooms stared at her incredulously. “Explain,” Sunset said bluntly.

Doctor Strong nodded, “I will, but first I was hoping that we could get to know each other a little better first. You’ve had a rough night and I really don’t want to push too much on you in one go.” She hesitated for a moment, then gestured at the door, “Would you care for a tour of the facility? We can talk a little more as we go.”

Sunset didn’t know what to say. She glanced back at the others, hoping for some input, but they all looked as confused and surprised as she felt. “What do you think?”

Rainbow shrugged, “Beats being cooped up in here.”

“I want breakfast,” Pinkie added. Her stomach punctuated the statement with a loud growl.

Doctor Strong chuckled, “We can go and get some food if you’d like.”

“While this all sounds very lovely, I’m afraid dear Applejack is just not up to moving right now,” Rarity said firmly.

“Oh for crying out loud, Ah said Ah’m fine!” Applejack shot back.

“I can help with that,” Doctor Bohn put in. “I wanted to give Miss Fluttershy a quick check over anyway, to make sure she doesn’t have a concussion. If that’s alright with you, that is?”

Fluttershy flinched at being addressed directly, “Oh, um, okay.”

Sunset’s mind whirled as she stepped out of the way to let the doctor through. Do these people really think they can send us home? And if they can, why? What do they want out of it? She shook her head and sighed. She could worry about that later. Glancing up at Doctor Shoichet, Sunset wasn’t surprised to see the doctor looking appraisingly back at her.

So, these are this world's’ versions of me and Twilight. Huh, I wonder if the rest of us are around somewhere, too?





The path stretched unendingly through the forest, leading the old woman through the endless greenery. She had walked this path for many a year now, watching the many plants grow, blossom, and wither. Each tree, every blossom, vine, and blade of grass was the essence of another being, living their own life outside this realm of dreams and prophecy. The life of each and every living person could be mapped out here, by those who had the gift of Sight. 

Occasionally, the old woman would sight a will o’ the wisp floating through the forest, the mark of one who would change the fate of the entire wasteland. But while the plants and the people would differ, both the forest and the path were constant, never ending, never changing. 

Until now. 

Somewhere, out in the wider world, mighty powers were stirring. The old woman could see them even now, seven great wisps, all of different colours, that had exploded into life fully-formed only a short time ago, drifting erratically through the trees and altering everything they passed. 

Slowly, but surely, the entire forest was beginning to shift around them. Dense thickets, mighty boughs, even the path itself were all creaking and moving into different alignments. Huge pines that should have stood for decades more were withering into nothing, while some of the tiniest seeds were sprouting saplings that would soon become towering oaks. 

Worse was the pattering of liquid on the canopy above. At first the old woman thought it to be rain, or maybe even sap, but as more and more of it dripped down through the leaves she felt a dawning horror as she saw it for what it was.

Blood.

Puddles formed at first, little pools of glistening red. Soon, the puddles linked together, the forest floor quickly becoming covered in a shallow layer of gore that reached almost to the old woman’s ankles. 

Tearing her gaze away from the terrible sight, the woman was surprised to see seven more wisps, following in the wake of the first ones. Two had already caught up, a pair of scientists eager to learn. A third was close behind, a young woman, both she and her sister safe for the moment, but soon to seek out the others. 

The old woman nearly slipped then, the rising tide of gore rapidly climbing up to her knees. Pushing forward, she spotted the fourth follower, skimming along the surface of the blood, satisfied with a recent sale and looking forward to the next.

A sudden break in the canopy overhead drew the old woman’s attention. The sky was black, with sparkling rubies for stars gleaming in the firmament. Two crescent moons hung low in the sky, one surrounded by inky clouds, the other almost enclosing a single, shining star. Even as the woman watched, a great winged beast passed over the two, moving back for another pass just as she plunged back into the thick of the forest. 

The blood was above her thighs now, her fear mounting as the threat of drowning became a very real possibility. Just as the realisation struck, the fifth wisp sped into view, a terrified woman desperately fleeing for her life. 

Pushing forward, the woman hoped, needed, to see find the final two before the blood rose too far. Despite her extra effort, it wasn’t until the crimson tide had risen to her chest that the sixth wisp appeared, the spirit of a young woman locked in deadly combat, fighting for her family despite her terrible wounds. 

The old woman was starting to panic as she struggled to move forward. Out of sheer desperation she tried to paddle, but roots and vines clawed at her legs and feet, forcing her to lumber forward as best she could. 

Finally, just as the blood was reaching her chin, the woman cried out as she spotted the final wisp. She fought to keep her head above the gore, for she felt a spark of recognition with this one, but she couldn’t get close enough to see. Just as the woman was about to give up hope, the wisp seemed to pause. The wisp turned, and the face of a woman she knew well was the last thing the woman saw as the blood washed over her face.

The old woman woke with a start. She was shivering uncontrollably, cold sweat drenching every inch of her body. She flinched as a gentle hand touched her shoulder, “Are you alright, Bloomseer?”

Bloomseer Poplar looked up to see her attendant kneeling over her, an expression of deep concern on her pretty little face. The Bloomseer couldn’t repress a shudder as she saw the ghostly image of butterflies flitting around the girl, invisible save for those with the Sight. The young woman winced as Poplar grabbed her wrist, “Flutter, go and fetch the Tree Father and the Leaf Mother immediately. I have urgent news for the Great One.”
> Chapter 38 - Friend or Foe?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Watching Applejack stand easily, barely twenty seconds after being injected with some form of advanced stimpak, Sunset couldn’t help but marvel at the efficiency of the Enclave’s medicine. 

“So, how do you feel?” Doctor Bohn asked. 

Applejack looked curiously at her belly and gently prodded her bruise, “That’s amazing! Ah barely feel a thing!”

Doctor Bohn nodded and packed away her first aid kit, “Good. Just remember to take it easy. If you push yourself too much you’ll only regret it later.”

“Sure thing, Doc,” Applejack replied. 

“Are you sure there’s no internal damage?” Fluttershy asked.

“Positive,” Doctor Bohn replied firmly. “There’s no swelling, no numbness or excessive pain, and the Auto-doc didn’t detect any perforations or ruptures in her internal organs. She just has a nasty bruise.”

“I must say, that’s quite a relief,” Rarity sighed, much to the agreement of the others.

“And you’re certain that Fluttershy doesn’t have a concussion?” Sunset asked suspiciously.

Doctor Bohn gave her a flat look, “We want you girls to trust us. Lying about any injuries you have and waiting for one of you to pass out halfway through the tour wouldn’t exactly help our cause.”

“Sienna,” Doctor Strong said warningly.

“It’s fine, she has a point,” Sunset admitted. As tempting as it was to argue just for the sake of it, she knew it wouldn’t get her anywhere. Until they could get their geodes back, and find a safe way back to their friends, the girls would have to play nice. “So, what happens now?”

“It’s up to you,” Doctor Strong replied. “You can have some breakfast first, if you’d like, or we could give you a tour of the facility and answer some of the questions you undoubtedly have. Or, if you just want to take some time to acclimate, we can leave you alone and give you some space to think.”

“I vote breakfast,” Rainbow exclaimed, her hunger evident.

“Me too,” Pinkie added. The rest of the girls quickly agreed.

Doctor Strong nodded, “Very well. If you’ll kindly follow me, the dining hall is just down the corridor.”

The doctors left the room first, with the girls filing out after them. Sunset looked around as she stepped out into the corridor, intending to memorize the layout of the area but she didn’t see anything remarkable. Simple metal hatches lined the corridor, but that was it. 

Falling into step behind the scientists, Rarity eyed the concrete walls with distaste. “Are all of your facilities this charming?” she asked sarcastically. 

“Pretty much, but this one isn’t actually an Enclave facility,” Doctor Shoichet replied. 

Doctor Strong glanced back over her shoulder, “I assume you know about the war that created the wasteland?” The girls nodded. “Before the bombs fell, this place belonged to a corporation called RobCo Industries. They were a computer and robotics corporation that had several ties with the government. This facility was originally a factory and maintenance depot, but shortly before the war it was repurposed as a retrofitting station.”

“If this place ain’t one of yours, then what the heck did you bring us here for?” Applejack asked.

Doctor Shoichet shrugged, “We occupied this building because it contained useful resources. It was also considered a suitable neutral ground where we and, through us, the Enclave could engage in peaceful talks with you girls in a less intimidating environment.”

Sienna rolled her eyes, “Then Colonel Autumn got involved and took things from intimidating to outright hostile in the space of a few minutes.”

“Colonel Autumn was never supposed to have anything to do with this project,” Shoichet grumbled.

Rainbow snorted, “So, what? You were just going to invite us over for a chat and hope we didn’t find out how twisted the rest of you are?” 

Sunset struggled to repress a vindictive smirk as the three doctors winced. 

“That’s… not quite how I’d put it,” Doctor Shoichet said delicately. 

“Ah bet it ain’t,” Applejack muttered.

The group lapsed into an awkward silence after that. Sunset desperately wanted to talk privately with her friends, to try and figure what their best course of action should be, but there was no chance of that happening while the scientists or their little robot were around. 

“Um, here’s the canteen,” Doctor Strong said finally, pushing open a set of double doors. 

The canteen was long and wide. Several tables with attached benches stretched the length of the room, all of which had clearly been recently cleaned. At the far end of the canteen was a small worktop with a sink and some cupboards, and next to those was a portable generator hooked up to a small refrigeration unit. Bowls, plates and boxes of cereal were lined up on the worktop. 

Doctor Strong gestured towards the food, “Help yourselves. There’s milk and fruit in the refrigerator and there’s canned food in the cupboards. It’s not brilliant I’m afraid. We brought all of the supplies we could from our main headquarters, but our food budget wasn’t big enough to cover anything particularly fancy.” 

“I’ll grab something too, I haven’t had breakfast yet,” Sienna said, striding forward and helping herself to the cereal. The Rainbooms swiftly followed suit.  

Grabbing herself a bowl of cereal too, Sunset leaned against the worktop with a sigh. If the doc’s eating it too, I guess it can’t be drugged or anything. She blinked in surprise as she tasted the first bite, “Is this almond milk?”

Doctor Strong nodded, “Plant-based products are easier for us to grow in a sealed environment. Almonds in particular require a lot of water to grow, but we have extensive water recycling and reclamation systems. The Enclave does have a stock of real milk too, from livestock kept at specially designed facilities around the country, but it’s very much a luxury item. Is there anything else about the Enclave you want to know?” 

“What happened to our friends from Project Purity?” Rainbow asked instantly. 

Doctor Strong shook her head sadly, “I’m sorry, but I really have no idea.”

“Find out,” Sunset said firmly. “Until we know they’re safe, you’re not getting anything from us. That is not negotiable.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” Doctor Strong replied. “They should all be fine. I don’t think even Colonel Autumn would harm unarmed scientists.”

“Adam wasn’t unarmed,” Fluttershy put in quietly. 

“I’ll contact the President as soon as we’re done here,” Doctor Strong promised. “If I tell him it’s necessary for our cooperation, I’m sure he’ll tell me what everyone’s condition is.”

Applejack grunted, “And Ah suppose we’re supposed to take your word for it? That ain’t good enough.”

“Let us speak to James,” Twilight cut in, “he was the lead scientist on the project.”

Doctor Strong tapped her chin thoughtfully, “I can’t see that being a problem, but it may take a little longer. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Is there anything else we can do to earn your trust in the meantime?” Doctor Shoichet added.

“Giving our necklaces back would be a nice start,” Rarity shot. 

Sienna shook her head, “Not yet, not until we know more about the radiation coming off them.” 

Sunset glared at her and opened her mouth to speak, but Twilight got there first, “They’re perfectly safe, as long as no-one tries to interfere with them. They’re each tied to our unique magical signature. Trust me, we’ve been wearing them constantly since we arrived in the wasteland, and no-one has suffered any ill effects from them.”

“All the same, I’d rather keep them safe and secured for now,” Doctor Strong replied. “Some of the equipment around here is volatile enough as it is, I don’t want to risk exposing any of it to an unknown form of radiation.”

“What do you mean by ‘volatile’?” Sunset asked warily.  

Doctor Strong glanced at Shoichet, who just gave a noncommittal shrug. Sighing quietly, Strong looked back at Sunset, “The maintenance depot upstairs was, essentially, a front. The true purpose of this facility was converting civilian space rockets into intercontinental missiles.” She paused, hesitating for a moment, “There are still a couple of warheads on the factory’s main floor.”

“Warheads? You mean nuclear warheads?!” Sunset yelped.

“It’s okay!” Doctor Shoichet said quickly.

“The heck it is!” Applejack snapped.

Doctor Strong held her hands up in a placating manner, “The warheads aren’t armed, they’re completely inactive at the moment.”

“Inactive or not, what possible reason could you have for bringing us to such a place?” Rarity asked incredulously. 

“We weren’t going to, at least at first,” Doctor Strong replied. “Originally, we were going to bring you to the Enclave’s main base of operations, but we managed to secure this place faster than we expected.”

“The downside of that is that we haven’t any time to clean, tidy, or generally make this place presentable, let alone shift any of the more bulky equipment,” Sienna continued. “Of course, we were expecting you to arrive awake and aware of exactly what we were doing and how we could help each other, not beaten, drugged and unconscious.”

“Well, if you hadn’t attacked our friends for no reason, maybe we’d be having a different conversation right now,” Applejack retorted, biting down on an apple she’d found in the fridge.

“We’ve already told you, that wasn’t us, it was Colonel Autumn,” Doctor Shoichet huffed.

“It doesn’t matter who led the Taskforce, it was still on the Enclave’s orders,” Doctor Strong said quickly, pre-empting the Rainbooms’ response. “Right now we’re representing the Enclave, so it’s up to us to make this right.” She sighed and got to her feet, “I’ll go and contact the President. I’ll ask about bringing James here, and I’ll see if I can find out the reason behind the acquisition of Project Purity.”

“No, I’ll go,” Sienna shoved her empty bowl away and stood too. “I’ll ask Turner if he knows anything while I’m at it. He’s better connected than us, he might have details.” She glanced around at each of the Rainbooms, “If we do this, will that be enough to get you to trust us?”

Sunset rubbed her neck awkwardly as she thought about it. She wanted to trust them, but there were just too many things that didn’t add up. Doctor Strong was being entirely sincere, Sunset was sure of it. She even had a nagging suspicion that Sienna was honestly out to help. However, the fact remained that both James and Doctor Li has been insistent, even desperate, to keep the girls away from the Enclave. That alone was reason enough to be cautious. Besides, it would hardly be the first time a version of Twilight had been manipulated into darkness by an evil ’benefactor’. 

Going by the looks on her friends’ faces, none of them were confident about their options either. The sole exception was Rainbow, who had folded her arms and was pointedly looking away from all of the Enclave women. “It’ll be a start,” Sunset said eventually. 

“That’s good enough for me,” Doctor Strong replied, relief evident in her voice.

“I’ll see you all soon, then.” Sienna started towards the door, then glanced over her shoulder at Doctor Strong, “In the meantime, don’t you have a theory you wanted to discuss with a certain someone?” She looked very deliberately from the doctor to Twilight and back as she said the last bit. 

Twilight watched Sienna warily as she left, “Uh, what did she mean by that?”

Doctor Strong chuckled nervously, “Oh, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“Come on, Tara,” Doctor Shoichet urged, “I want to see where this goes too.”

“Where what goes?” Pinkie asked.

Doctor Strong glanced at Twilight, chewing her lip nervously, “Well, you see… it’s about what Becky asked you earlier; About us being the same.”

Twilight eyes widened and she shot a questioning look at Sunset, who sighed inwardly. I knew this topic was going to come up again soon.

The look wasn’t lost on Doctor Shoichet, who was watching the two carefully, “We know you have an idea of what we’re talking about.” She gestured between herself and Sunset, “Colours aside, me and you look the same, we sound the same, hell, even our DNA is completely identical.” 

“How do you know that?” Twilight asked quickly.

“We ran some blood tests on you when you arrived,” Doctor Strong admitted. Seeing the look on Sunset’s face, she quickly added, “It’s standard procedure to make sure you aren’t carrying any infectious diseases that we haven’t encountered before. Especially since you’re originally from another world.”

“What difference does that make?” Rainbow asked.

“The people of this world might not have any immunity to diseases we brought along from back home. James did the same thing when we first arrived in the Vault, remember?” Fluttershy answered. “In the worst case, even a minor illness that we find annoying could potentially wipe out a community that’s never built up an resistance to it.”

“Exactly,” Doctor Shoichet gave Flutters a respectful nod before turning back to Sunset, “anyway, like I was saying, physically speaking we’re near enough the same person. The same goes for Tara and Twilight.”

“You even called me ‘Twilight’ at first,” Doctor Strong frowned curiously. “What we don’t know yet is why.”

“But we think you do,” Shoichet added. “I realise that you don’t trust the Enclave yet, but this has nothing to do with our organisation. This is just between us and you. Will you tell us what you know, please?”

Sunset didn’t know how to respond. Seeing the pleading look on Doctor Strong’s face, she decided on the truth. If her and Shoichet were friends, then there was a good chance that Sunset could befriend her too, and befriending her could end up being the key to getting out from under the Enclave’s thumb and back to James. “You already know that we’re from a different world, right?”

“When you say a different world, do you mean a different planet or a different dimension?” Doctor Strong asked.

Sunset shrugged, “World, dimension, alternate reality, call it whatever you want. The truth is, I’m not from the same one as the rest of us.”

Doctor Shoichet frowned, “You mean you’re from another different world?”

Sunset nodded, “There are big differences between the two worlds, very big differences, but they have many things in common. One of the main similarities between the two is that both worlds have their own version of the same people. We’ve actually met two Twilight Sparkles, this one,” Twilight gave a shy little wave, “and another one from my homeworld.” Sunset folded her arms and looked Doctor Strong in the eye, “Apparently, now we’ve met three.”

The doctors both stared at her in stunned silence. After several long seconds, Doctor Shoichet opened her mouth, “Huh.”





“The Great Hall is just in here.”

Adam nodded his thanks to the squire and stepped through the door indicated. Inside the well-lit room, two large, wooden, c-shaped tables were placed facing each other. Elder Lyons, his daughter Sarah, Doctor Li, and Knight-Sergeant Metzger were all seated around the tables on comfortable chairs, with a young squire standing to attention behind the Elder.

Elder Lyons nodded in greeting, “Adam. I’m glad you could join us. Are you healing well?”

“Near enough, thanks,” Adam replied.

“Good. Please, take a seat.” The Elder waited for Adam to ease himself into a chair next to Doctor Li before addressing the room, “Now that we are all here, there are a couple of things I would like to discuss. First of all, Project Purity.”

“Can you retake it?” Doctor Li asked. 

Elder Lyons hummed and stroked his beard, “The Enclave have set up a comprehensive perimeter, and are strengthening their defences even as we speak. However, with the refinements on fusion power you’ve brought us, Scribe Rothchild believes that we will be able to activate Liberty Prime at full power within the week. Sooner, if providence shines upon us.”

“I suppose that’s something you’ll have to thank Twilight for,” Doctor Li replied. 

“Speaking of the Rainbooms, what are we doing about rescuing them?” Adam asked. “I thought Knight-Sergeant Metzger was taking a squad out to find them yesterday?”

“Believe me, I wanted to,” Metzger grumbled.

“We couldn’t risk sending a rescue squad out, not until we knew where the Enclave were keeping the girls,” Sarah cut in. “If they were imprisoned at Project Purity, there’s no way a single squad would be able to break them out. However, we received word from Three-Dog that an observer from Rivet City witnessed the girls being loaded into a Vertibird and transported South-East.”

“This was corroborated by our scouts, as well as by a wasteland merchant one of our squads encountered south of the river,” Elder Lyons added. “Factoring in the estimated range of a Vertibird, we believe the Rainbooms have most likely been taken to either the old Bolling Air Force Base, the remains of the Suitland Federal Center, or the RobCo maintenance facility.”

Metzger scowled, “All three of those are deep in super mutant territory.” 

Elder Lyons nodded grimly, “Indeed. Unfortunately, that isn’t our only problem. Doctor Li has informed me that even if we successfully retake Project Purity, we’ll still need to acquire a certain component before we can activate the purifier.”

Adam felt a stab of pain at the reminder of what he had lost at the memorial building, but he forced it to the back of his mind, “The G.E.C.K module.”

“Precisely. A very rare piece of equipment,” Elder Lyons replied. “The problem is manpower.” He gestured towards Metzger, “I only have a single squad I can spare from the preparations for the assault, and right now rescuing the Rainbooms is a higher priority than a G.E.C.K. We cannot risk the Enclave getting control of their powers.”

“What about me?” Adam asked, “I can’t just sit this one out.”

The Elder shook his head, smiling tightly, “We wouldn’t expect you to. Our archives contain records of every Vault in the Capital Wasteland, hopefully one of them was issued with a G.E.C.K.”

“You want me to find out which one, then go and fetch it,” Adam finished.

Elder Lyons nodded, “I’m afraid I can’t offer you any equipment, but I’ve authorised Paladin Gunny to train you in the correct use of power armour, just in case you should be lucky enough to find a suit in one of the Vaults.”

“Or in case you manage to drag an Enclave asshole out of one,” Sarah smirked.

Elder Lyons huffed a laugh, but his expression quickly turned serious as he looked at Metzger, “That brings us to you. I want you to take your squad and skirt around the edge of the Enclave perimeter to the south of Project Purity, then make your way to each of the three locations we suspect the Rainbooms are being held. Once you have found them you are to return them here as quickly as humanly possible.”

Metzger snapped a salute, “Yes, Elder.”

“This is an extremely dangerous mission, Knight-Sergeant,” the Elder said gravely. “However, if you succeed, you, and your squad, will have earned your place among the ranks of the Paladins.” He paused and scratched his beard, “I believe you’ve nicknamed Squad Pilum the ‘Wonderbolts’, is that correct?”

Metzger nodded stiffly, “Yes, Elder.”

He smiled and nodded back, “Succeed in this mission, and that is how you will be remembered in the scrolls of honour.”

Metzger snapped another salute, her chest swelling with pride, “We won’t let you down, Elder!”

“Good.” Elder Lyons took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “In that case, Squire Maxson, please show Adam to the archives. Knight-Sergeant, good luck, and Godspeed.”





On the upper floors of Tenpenny Tower, in a tastefully decorated suite, three well-dressed people sat on comfortable chairs. The first, a powerfully built old man with thick white hair and a matching beard, was the owner of the apartment. The other two, one a beautiful woman with fine features and silky black hair, the other her curly-haired younger sister, were staying him under the pretence of a business visit. 

“I must say, I really am thankful that you’re still willing to put up with us, Daring,” the woman said and sipped a delightful blend of tea imported from a less desolate part of the wastes.

Daring Dashwood grinned and shook his head, “Don’t be ridiculous, Tabitha. You know I always enjoy having you two around, it brightens up my days. The fact that it helps the Railroad is just icing on the cake.”

“You are far too kind,” Tabitha replied, giving her hair a little flick. “Though I must admit, I’ll feel a lot better once that horrid Zimmer is gone and we can finally get back to work.”

Her little sister snorted, “I still think we should take him out while he’s down here and vulnerable.”

“Now, now, Claire. You know as well as I do he is hardly vulnerable as long as he has that bodyguard with him,” Tabitha admonished. “I would be very surprised if Armitage isn’t some form of advanced prototype, much as our other friend was.”

Dashwood nodded, “Your sister’s right, little lady. Besides, you heard Three Dog’s broadcast earlier, the Enclave is starting to make a move here in the Capital Wasteland. The best thing the Railroad can do right now is keep it’s head down.”

“I suppose,” Claire said sadly. “Do you think it’s true, about the Rainbooms being captured?”

“It seems likely,” Tabitha replied. She was kept from responding further by an abrupt knock at the door. 

“Come in!” Dashwood called. 

The door was gently pushed open and a cross-eyed young woman with a long blonde ponytail stepped through. Tabitha breathed a sigh of relief as she recognised her as one of the Railroad’s favoured couriers. 

The courier smiled brightly when she spotted Tabitha, “Hey, Miss Germaine. I’ve got a letter for you.”

Tabitha set down her teacup and stood to accept the letter, “Thank you, darling. I’ve been hoping this would arrive soon. How are things?”

“Same old, same old” the courier replied. “I’d best be off. I’ve got to get up to the Republic of Dave before nightfall if I can.”

“Oh, of course, dear, don’t let me keep you.” Tabitha gave her a concerned look, “And do be careful when you go past Old Olney, won’t you?”

“Will do!” the courier said cheerfully as she left, closing the door behind her.

Dashwood chuckled softly, “She’s a tough one, I’ll give her that.”

“What does the letter say? Is Zimmer gone yet?” Claire asked earnestly.

Tabitha rolled her eyes and tore open the envelope. The letter within was handwritten in Father Clifford’s flowing script. At first glance it simply seemed to be a rather banal letter asking about how her trip was going and giving some pointless news about goings on in Rivet City, but Tabitha had no trouble picking out the coded phrases that spelled out the missive’s true message. 

Claire raised an eyebrow, “So are we going home, or what?”

Tabitha shook her head. Zimmer had indeed left for the Commonwealth, thanks to the Rainbooms no less, but now those same girls were in desperate need of help, and the Railroad was not in the habit of abandoning those who helped them. 

Tabitha dropped the letter onto a table and stalked over to the nearest armoire, where her armored overcoat had been stored, “Gather your equipment, Claire. We have an assignment. Daring? I hate to be a bother, but do you mind if I borrow a few things from your secret stash?”
> Chapter 39 - Foreboding
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doctor Turner was starting to get antsy. The Rainbooms were finally awake and here he was, stuck in a testing room while the other doctors conducted the initial interviews, as he had been for most of the night. He was well aware that the circumstances were almost entirely his own fault, but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

Still, I hope they’ll be able to smooth over the incident at Project Purity. After all, it was hardly our fault that that jumped-up meathead couldn’t manage a peaceful discussion without screwing it up.

Heaving a sigh, Turner looked over at the observation monitor for the hundredth time. It was connected to a camera set up in the next room over; a lead-lined and blast-proof room designed for containing malfunctioning nuclear warheads while they were fixed. Inside the room, on a table directly in front of the camera, an experiment had been set up to test the radiation being emitted by the Rainbooms’ necklaces; their so-called ‘magic’. Specifically, they were testing the radiation’s passive effect on living beings. 

A recently found and reprogrammed Protectron allowed Turner to manipulate the equipment without exposing himself to any unnecessary risk. 

The experiment itself was quite simple. A small cage containing a single un-mutated rat had been placed in the middle of a table. One of the Rainbooms’ necklaces, Rarity’s to be precise, had been placed next to it and the X-51 Signal Detector Thingy, newly christened as the SDT-1, had been placed on the other side of the cage. A complex array of sensors surrounded the set-up transferring the readings from the SDT-1 to Turner’s computer, while at the same time measuring every conceivable scrap of data the scientists had been able to think of. 

Thus far the experiment had been a total bust. The SDT-1 was measuring a low dosage of unique radiation; a dosage several orders of magnitude higher than that emitted by the Rainbooms themselves, but still negligible compared to the size of the reading from when they first arrived. On top of that, what little radiation that was being emitted was having no visible effect whatsoever on the rat. Aside from the typical symptoms of boredom, the little rodent was perfectly fine. 

“You really should be more grateful,” Turner huffed. “Most of the rats we breed for experiments like this end up either mutated or dying a horrible painful death. Not you though. No, you get to just scurry around your cage, minding your own bloody business, don’t you, you little turd?” He shifted in his seat and glanced at the clock, “Oh, balls to it.” 

Reaching into a pocket, Turner pulled out a small voice recorder, “This is Doctor Timothy Turner. Current time is... eight-ten, date is the same as last recording, plus one. Inter-dimensional Radiation Experiment RG-01 has been running for four hours with no visible change in either test subject. Terminating experiment now and removing biological sample for a more thorough examination.” He typed a command into the nearby console and stuffed the recorder back in his pocket as the Protectron got to work packing away the necklace.   

A few short minutes later the necklace was safely back in its box and both it and the rat had been removed to an adjacent room. A quick check with the SDT-1 showed only trace amounts of residual energy where the pendant part of the necklace had sat on the table. Satisfied, Turner ordered the Protectron to place the SDT-1 back on the table then locked the room’s doors again and activated the radiation traps he’d installed to sterilize the room before he set up the next experiment. 

As soon as that’s finished, I’ll set the rat aside so Sienna can run some more thorough tests on it. Then I’ll run decontamination procedures in the room, fetch Sunset’s necklace, set up the experiment again, and sit on my arse in here for another four hours straight. 

Yay.

Spinning idly on his chair, Doctor Turner was just considering checking the feed of the eyebot in the Rainboom’s room when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. He rubbed his eyes and frowned at the monitor, not quite sure of what he was seeing, “Hello, what’s this?”

An undulating tendril of purple energy was slowly rising out of the spot on the table where Rarity’s necklace had lain. Doctor Turner watched as the tendril started to twist, coiling itself into a loose, rippling spiral. 

“This is incredible!” Turner exclaimed, yanking the recorder back out of his pocket and holding it up to his mouth. “This is Doctor Turner, experiment has taken a very surprising turn. It appears that exposure to high levels of radiation can cause even trace amounts of unique radiation’ to somehow replicate, manifest, and take on some sort of physical shape.”

He glanced at the readings from the SDT-1, “Yes, the unique radiation has indeed increased dramatically. The readings are vastly higher than that which was emitted passively by the necklace, and are still increasing, rapidly. More tests will need to be performed to discern how, exactly, the two forms of radiation interact to cause this phenomenon, as well as how varying the relative… hang on.”

Turner gaped in surprise as the tendril suddenly started to darken and split, numerous additional tendrils branching out from the main one and questing through the air. The grasping mass of magical energy was starting to reach almost three feet in height.

“My word, this is a new development,” Turner recorded absently, “it almost appears as if the unique radiation is mutating or adapting.” He cast a curious glance at the SDT-1 readings then muttered, “Scratch that, it is definitely changing. This is fascinating, I wonder how thi- oh shit!”  

One of the split tendrils suddenly whipped around, gouging a long furrow in the table beneath it. Deciding that things were starting to get out of hand, Turner abruptly shut off the radiation traps in the testing room, watching anxiously as the rad count in the room ticked down to zero. The magic, however, didn’t diminish. Instead it simply curled in on itself, wrapping itself into a dimpled ball that floated several inches above the table.

“That… was random. Note to self; magic is every bit as unstable as radiation and is apparently as mutable as FEV. Consider greater safety precautions before performing tests on the other necklaces. Now, what the hell am I supposed to do with that bloody magic ball floating in the middle of my testing room?"

The sound of the door opening behind him had Doctor Turner’s head whipping around. He sagged with relief as he saw who it was, “Doctor Bohn. You startled me.”

“Good,” Sienna said flatly. “I need you to contact the President for me.”

“In a moment,” Turner promised, “but first, would you mind taking a look at this for…?” He trailed off lamely as he turned back to the monitor. 

The ball of magic had vanished.

Sienna raised an eyebrow as she glanced at the monitor, then shook her head, “Whatever it is, it can wait. Tara’s unhappy as it is with you performing these experiments, no matter how passive they are. Besides, I’ve got a couple of demands from the Rainbooms. It would be in our best interest to provide them with answers if we want them to work with us.”

Turner was only half-listening. He nodded along as she spoke, but he was more concerned with figuring out where the ball of magic had gone, especially given that the SDT-1 was still reading it in the room. “What do they want?” he asked quietly.

“They want to know exactly why Project Purity was targeted, and why their friends were attacked,” Sienna replied. “They also want to speak to James.”

“What?!” Turner yelped, finally giving the conversation his full attention.

Sienna tilted her head curiously at his response, “James, the lead scientist on Project Purity? The Rainbooms want to speak to him. They’re adamant that they won’t co-operate until they’ve spoken to him.”

Turner just stared at her, cold horror working its way up his spine. 

Unnoticed by either of the scientists, the Protectron in the testing room shuddered slightly, its AI rapidly adapting to the mutated magic now coursing through its frame. 





Deep in the bowels of Raven Rock, the Enclave’s mountain headquarters, Colonel Autumn marched stoically into the Senate Chamber. Modeled after the pre-war Senate Chamber in the old Capitol Building, the room contained rows upon rows of opulent desks and plush chairs, enough to seat well over a hundred people. Now it housed less than a tenth of that number, the entirety of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the old Federal Government condensed and reduced to the mere handful of people that currently occupied the center-most seats.

Colonel Autumn held back a scowl as he spotted the eyebot hovering above the President’s seat. He knew it was physically impossible for the President to make a personal appearance, but the indignity of the coming disciplinary meeting was bad enough without having to converse through an intermediary. The fact that Senator Devall was sat to the President’s right, in the seat usually occupied by Autumn himself, did nothing for his temper, nor did it bode well for his career. Stopping in front of the President’s bot, the Colonel snapped a salute, “Mister President.”

“Colonel Autumn,” the President acknowledged, “I trust you have recovered well.”

“As well as could be expected,” Autumn replied tightly. He’d barely fully woken up in the medical bay before he was dragged down here. He still had sharp pains in his joints whenever he moved, side-effects of the experimental rad-x he’d taken at Project Purity.

Devall leaned forward and adjusted his monocle, “It’s good to see you up and about again, Colonel. I just wish it was under more favorable circumstances.”

Autumn didn’t reply. He and the overly-friendly monocle-wearing tool had been at loggerheads for years, a mutual dislike that had only intensified after Devall’s assignment to watch over Project Exodus. 

President Eden cleared his throat loudly, “Now that you are here, Colonel, there are several matters that we need to discuss. Starting with your many failures at the Jefferson Memorial.” 

“I fail to see how and where I failed in my stated objectives,” Autumn replied. “Project Purity has been secured and all scientists are accounted for. The Rainbooms were the only uncertainty in the mission, and they were delivered safely into the custody of Project Exodus, as ordered.” 

“Your objectives were to take control of Project Purity, it’s scientists, and to bring the Rainbooms in peacefully. Peacefully, Colonel,” the President said snidely. “Given that one soldier was severely injured and another traumatized in the process of forcibly subduing the Rainbooms, an act of aggression that Doctor Strong and her team are attempting to rectify as we speak, I fail to see how you can possibly say you achieved that particular objective.”

“My orders were to bring them in unharmed, not peacefully, Mister President,” Autumn shot back.

Senator Devall raised an eyebrow, “Unharmed, you say? I may not be a soldier, Colonel, but even I can see that getting punched in the stomach by a soldier wearing a full suit of X0-2 power armor is enough to harm… well… anyone. Let alone an un-armored young woman.”

Colonel Autumn clenched his fists behind his back and resisted the urge to glare at the Senator, “My soldiers gave the Rainbooms every opportunity to submit without confrontation.”

“Your men made a token effort, at best,” President Eden cut in. 

“They made the best decision given the circumstances,” Autumn retorted. “If I had been given details on what exactly the Rainbooms were capable of before launching the assault even the few injuries that resulted could have been avoided.”

“If you had exercised a modicum of caution and restraint the confrontation could have been avoided altogether!” the President snapped. “And as for the ‘few injuries’ you mentioned, have you forgotten about the brave soldiers that perished thanks to your bungling of the operation?”

The Colonel cursed silently. He was ashamed to admit that he had forgotten about the two Privates that had accompanied him in the purifier’s control room. Autumn made a mental note to check their names and next of kin as soon as this meeting concluded, he made a point of personally writing condolence letters to the families of soldiers who fell in the line of duty. “An unfortunate loss. However, considering the potential threat the Rainbooms presented, I find myself relieved that only two members of the taskforce were lost.”

“Two?” President Eden asked incredulously, as the gathered Senators and advisers muttered amongst themselves. “Good God, did you not ask the men to debrief you on your way up here?” 

Autumn hesitated, suddenly very concerned, “I assume that-”

“Assume nothing,” Eden interrupted. “Senator Devall; will you kindly inform the Colonel of what exactly happened after he was rendered… indisposed.”

Devall nodded and scanned a report on his desk, “After the lead scientist, James, activated the purifier’s failsafe, his son, Adam, successfully escaped the Memorial building with Doctor Li in tow.” Autumn felt his blood run cold at that, “In the process of his escape, a total of six additional men were killed in action, three more are still in critical condition, a further four suffered minor injuries, and three Eyebots were destroyed.” 

President Eden somehow managed to project a sense of disapproval even through his faceless intermediary, “Those losses are merely the tip of the iceberg. Since you don’t seem to have completely grasped the extent of your failure, allow me to enlighten you. Since James activated the failsafe, Project Purity has become increasingly unstable. The scientists attached to the Jefferson Taskforce are having to perform round-the-clock maintenance just to keep it from exploding. In other words, Project Purity is not secure.”

Autumn couldn’t help a sinking feeling in his chest as the President continued, “Combined with Doctor Li’s escape, and your inability to bring the Rainbooms in peacefully, you somehow managed to fail every single objective you were given. As if that wasn’t bad enough; upon making their escape, Adam and Doctor Li fled directly to the Brotherhood of Steel, placing all of our operations here in the Capital Wasteland in jeopardy!”

Autumn felt a spark of defiance, “The Brotherhood are hardly that much of a threat.”

The President gave a mirthless laugh, “Oh really? Need I remind you that it was the Brotherhood of Steel that drove the Enclave out of the West Coast in the first place?”

Colonel Autumn scowled. The loss of the Poseidon Oil Rig, and the resulting stain on his family’s honour, still stung, “Even so, I am confident that-”

“The Brotherhood is no longer your concern,” the President said darkly. “From this point onward you will not plan an operation or redeploy troops without clearing it with me first, is that clear?”

Autumn glared at the eyebot, his fists clenched at his sides. One sentence. All it would take is one damned sentence, and I could end this whole farce right here and now. Not yet though. It’s too risky, I can’t afford to tip my hand too soon. 

“Is that clear, Colonel?” the President pressed, his voice dropping dangerously.

“Crystal. Mister President,” Autumn forced out through gritted teeth.

“Good.” President Eden’s eyebot turned to look down the room, “Now that that is out of the way, we can move on to other matters. Development is finally complete on the Hellfire armor and we are ready to start putting it into production. The first units will be ready within the week and will be delivered to Squad Sigma for field testing.”

“How long until we can begin mass production?” Colonel Autumn asked quickly. 

“Not any time soon, I fear,” the President replied. “Our stock of Duraframe components is running low and we don’t have the resources to produce much more.”

“The Hellfire armor should be a top priority,” Autumn insisted. “It represents a significant improvement over the X0-2, and will greatly enhance the survivability of our soldiers. We should appropriate all Duraframe components from other projects immediately.” 

“That seems a little excessive, don’t you think?” Devall asked.

The President hummed thoughtfully, “Actually, I believe the Colonel has a point. The components set aside for FEV Experiment FH-1 shall stay where they are for now, but none of the other ongoing Projects show anywhere near as much promise as the Hellfire armor.”

“I beg to differ,” Devall replied. “Whitley’s enhanced eyebots in particular could be useful.”

Autumn snorted derisively, “Eyebots are surveillance tools and glorified radios. Making them tougher won’t make them any more useful.”

“On the contrary, more advanced and durable eyebots would be extremely useful for many things. For example, helping facilitate safe communication with certain ‘outside parties’,” Devall countered, giving the President a significant look. 

Colonel Autumn bristled at the veiled dig at his own failure, but he stayed silent. Pointless insults weren’t Devall’s style. He had an agenda, and Autumn would bet his left arm it had something to do with Project Exodus.

President Eden was silent for several moments as he considered. “I see your point, Senator, but the Hellfire armor is still a high priority. I’m aware that Whitley has completed his first prototype, so I’ll allow him and the prototype to be attached to Project Exodus, but the rest of the Duraframe components from his work will be appropriated for Hellfire production immediately.”

Devall conceded with a nod, “Of course, Mister President.”

Colonel Autumn watched the interaction carefully, as did the rest of the room. It was hardly a surprising result, but he couldn’t fathom why Project Exodus could possibly need Whitley or his research. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he realized just how many assets the project had managed to accrue. 

The Colonel frowned as he spoke, “With respect, Mister President, Project Exodus has already been granted a vast portion of our remaining resources. If we aren’t going to redirect all Duraframe components into the Hellfire armor, then shouldn’t we at least grant the first suits to a squad that will actually be able to field test them? Or, better yet, replace Squad Sigma with another squad, rather than keeping our most elite unit stuck on babysitting duty.”

“Regrettably, their duties are far from mere babysitting, Colonel,” the President replied dryly. “Through Senator Prince’s contacts, we’ve learned that the Rainbooms have rapidly become a beloved presence in two of the largest wasteland settlements, and their popularity is swiftly spreading. I had hoped that we could use that popularity, releasing them once we’d helped each other and having them spread word of our benevolence throughout the wastes. A quick and easy way to win the hearts and minds of the wasteland populace.”

The eyebot intermediary floated forward a few inches, and the President lowered his voice menacingly. “Since that plan has been ruined by your bullheadedness, I have instead transmitted a propaganda broadcast, stating that the Rainbooms came to us willingly, that they are impressed with the water purifier that we are constructing at the Jefferson Memorial, and that they are helping us on a top secret project intended to help all the people of the wastes. Of course, if the Rainbooms manage to escape, all of that will swiftly be revealed as falsehood.”

Autumn nodded as he considered the President’s words, “So Squad Sigma are essentially the Rainbooms’ jailors?”

Senator Devall turned a surprised look on the eyebot, “Pardon me, but I was under the impression that we would be releasing the Rainbooms once we’d learned everything we could from them?”

“The Rainbooms are too dangerous,” President Eden replied. “We defeated them easily once, but that was when they were caught off-guard. Now they have time to plan, knowledge of what our troops are capable of and, more likely than not, something of a grudge against us. Keeping them permanently contained is our best option. I have already given Squad Sigma orders to secure them if they attempt to escape. Alive, if possible. If not, well, there are seven of them. We can afford to lose one or two as a message to the others.”





Sunset felt a small sense of satisfaction as she watched the two scientists sit and try to piece their minds back together. 

Doctor Strong looked over at Twilight, her eyes narrowing as she spoke slowly, “So, you’re another me?” Twilight nodded. “From a different reality?” Another nod. The doctor turned to Sunset, “And you’re another Becky- Doctor Shoichet, I mean; from a different reality again, and there’s another version of me there, too?”

Sunset nodded, “That’s right.”

Doctor Strong stared dumbly at Sunset for a few more seconds, then looked back at Twilight, “I’m… not sure how to deal with this.”

Twilight smiled faintly, “Yeah, it was kinda weird the first time I met the other me, too.”

Doctor Strong nodded slowly, her gaze sharpening as she focused on Twilight. Sunset could almost see the gears turning in her head as the woman’s confusion turned to curiosity. “What’s she like, the other you, uh, me, uh... us? Is she a scientist too? Are you a scientist?”

“Let’s take things one at a time, shall we?” Doctor Shoichet cut in.

“I know, I just have so many questions!” Doctor Strong exclaimed, practically vibrating in her seat.

“Yeah, well, your questions are going to have to wait,” Applejack growled. “You’re not getting anything else out of us until we’ve spoken to our friends from Project Purity.”

Doctor Strong recoiled as if she’d been slapped. Doctor Shoichet placed a reassuring hand on her arm and threw a filthy look at Applejack, “Hey, we’re trying to help you out here, so do you mind not being such a bitch?” 

Applejack’s eyes narrowed dangerously as Rarity and Rainbow Dash glared daggers at the doctor. 

“Need we remind you that if the Enclave hadn’t attacked us then we wouldn’t need your help in the first place!” Rarity spat. 

“That’s if they’re even trying to help us,” Fluttershy muttered darkly.

“We are,” Doctor Shoichet insisted.

Sunset arched her eyebrow, “Really? Because from where I’m standing it looks like you’re trying to butter us up so we’ll agree to work with you. Heck, you still haven’t even told us why you want us to work with you, or what you’re really after!”

Shoichet opened her mouth to retort, but Doctor Strong cut her off, “That’s enough, Sunny. Arguing isn’t going to solve anything. Besides, they’re right.” 

The two shared a look for a moment, before Shoichet sighed and turned to Applejack, an abashed look on her face “I… I’m sorry. I have a bit of a problem with my temper.” She huffed a laugh and glanced at Sunset, “I guess you’d know that better than anyone.”

Sunset snorted softly, “Yeah. You could say that.”

“I have a question,” Pinkie said suddenly. 

“I hope I have an answer,” Doctor Strong replied. 

Pinkie tilted her head to the side and looked at Doctor Shoichet curiously, “How come you called her Sunny?”

Doctor Strong smiled shyly, “It’s silly, really. Although I suppose it sort of makes sense makes sense now that we know your names.” She paused for a moment as she thought, then shook her head, “Anyway, she’s Sunny and I’m Sparkles. They’re the nicknames we gave each other when we first started dating.”

There was a sharp clatter as Pinkie dropped her spoon, then dead silence filled the dining hall.

Doctor Strong looked around at each of the girls in surprise, “What? What’s wrong?”

“Would, uh… would you mind repeating that last bit?” Twilight asked quietly. 

“You mean the part about us dating?” Doctor Strong raised an eyebrow, looking from Twilight to Sunset curiously, “You mean you two aren’t?”

The two glanced at each other, blushed, and looked away, shaking their heads slowly. “No. No we are not,” Sunset answered. 

Twilight rubbed her neck awkwardly, “I… actually have a boyfriend back home.”

“Wait, really?!” Doctor Strong cried. Twilight nodded shyly. “But… but how can you have a boyfriend? Are you sure you’re really into men?”

“Pretty sure,” Twilight replied with a nervous laugh.

Doctor Shoichet grimaced, “Oh God, please tell me it’s not Vincent!”

“Um, no? His name’s Timber Spruce,” Twilight replied.

Doctor Shoichet gave her a blank look for a second, then slapped a palm to her forehead, “Right, you’ve all got different names. Um… he likes music, and he’s sporty but he’s a bit of a clumsy dork. I actually dated him for a while back when we were cadets, but it didn’t work out.” She smiled ruefully at the recollection. “A while after we broke up he ended up getting a crush on Tara.”

“That sounds more like Flash Sentry,” Sunset said slowly. “Me and him dated for a while when we were freshmen. After we broke up him and the Twilight from my world sort of ended up crushing on each other pretty hard.”

Shoichet frowned and folded her arms, “So there are big similarities in the way our lives have gone, but some major differences too.” She looked up at Sunset, “So does this mean the Tara, Twilight, from your world is heterosexual, or…?”

“I’m not really sure to be honest,” Sunset admitted. “At a guess I’d say she’s bisexual, like me. Sexuality isn’t a big deal where I come from originally. You love who you want to love, we don’t care about gender, biological or otherwise.”

Doctor Strong turned to Twilight, “What about you? I mean, I don’t want to pry but-”

“I’m heterosexual,” Twilight replied, blushing again. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind women, so I guess I’m sort of bisexual, but I just... I prefer men.”

“And yet I have no sexual interest in men whatsoever.” Doctor Strong slumped in her chair, “I guess there are differences between us. Other than just our colors, I mean.”

“Um, about that,” Fluttershy put in quietly, “if you’re genetically identical then shouldn’t you be the same, um, colors?”

“Mmm, yes and no,” Twilight replied. “Our genotype is the same, so in theory our phenotype, how we look, should be the same, but there’s a little more to it than that. Our phenotype is the result of how our genotype interacts with the environment. If we’d both grown up on the same world, we probably would be the same color, but since we’re from different worlds with slightly different physical laws…”

Doctor Strong sat up straight at that, “Wait, you mean the laws of physics are different in your world?”

Twilight nodded, “Only slightly, as far as I can tell. The most obvious difference would be the radia-”

“I think that’s enough for now, Twilight,” Sunset interrupted. “Let’s save teaching them about our home until after we’ve heard from James.”

Doctor Strong looked like she was about to press her case, but she relented with a sad sigh. Doctor Shoichet, seeing the look on Strong’s face, looked up at Sunset defiantly, “Look, I get that you don’t trust the Enclave in general, but why not us? I mean, we’re you, aren’t we? Come on, just throw us a bone here.”

A sudden clattering sound grabbed everyone’s attention. The whole group stared in stunned disbelief as a random bone skittered across the table to come to rest in front of the doctor. Shoichet looked from the bone, to Pinkie, back to the bone, then back to Pinkie again. “I, uh… why?”

Pinkie shrugged, “You said to throw you a bone, silly.”

Sunset burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity of it, swiftly followed by the rest of the Rainbooms. The doctors just sat and stared in baffled silence as the girls rapidly descended into hysterics. 

“Oh man, that was awesome, Pinkie!” Rainbow coughed out. 

Pinkie giggled and smiled at her, her hair looking a little closer to it’s true floofiness, “What can I say? I’ve still got it.”

“Where did you even get that bone?” Twilight asked, wiping away a tear. 

“I made a friend in the wastes,” Pinkie replied cryptically. 

Doctor Shoichet grimaced as she gently pushed the bone back across the table to Pinkie, “Uh, here, why don’t you have that back?”

“Okie Dokie Lokie!” Pinkie popped her thumb in her mouth and blew, puffing her hair up to its maximum level of poof, tucked the bone into the curly mass, then allowed it to deflate back down to it’s previous, diminished self. 

The two doctors stared at her, utterly dumbstruck. 

Applejack smirked, “Ah’m guessing the Enclave doesn’t have a Pinkie of its own?”

Doctor Strong shook her head slowly, never removing her eyes from Pinkie, “No. Twilight and Sunset were the only ones who had a genetic match in our database.” 

“How did you do that?” Shoichet demanded.

Sunset smiled, “Okay, I’ll give you one last piece of advice. After that, you’re getting nothing until we’ve spoken to James.” Her smile widened and she shook her head, “Pinkie is Pinkie, try not to think about it too hard, and don’t … try to figure it out. That way lies madness.”

Before anyone else could respond the door opened and Doctor Bohn stalked through, looking annoyed. 

“Sienna? What’s wrong?” Doctor Strong asked.

Sienna glowered at her, “Turner’s being a dick.” 

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. He’s freaking out about something, but he won’t tell me what. He just sent me to fetch you,” Sienna replied. “He said it was extremely urgent, so you should probably hurry before that limey asshole has a stroke or something.” 

Doctor Strong swore under her breath, “I’d better go and see what’s wrong.”

“I’ll come with you,” Doctor Shoichet added quickly. “Sienna, you… you just stay here for now.”

“Fine by me,” Sienna replied. “It’ll make resisting the urge to emasculate him easier.”

“Sorry girls, we’ll have to continue this later,” Doctor Strong called over her shoulder as she and Shoichet hurried out of the room.

The Rainbooms just stared at the door, surprised at how quiet the room had suddenly gotten.

“Well, that was random,” Rainbow said flatly. 

“What was that about?” Sunset asked.

“Like I said, I don’t know,” Sienna replied bluntly. She eyed Sunset curiously, “Couldn’t you just read my mind to figure that out?”

A flash of mild panic made Sunset splutter, “I… um… you see, I… I don’t like to do it without permission. It’s not polite.”

Sienna slowly arched an eyebrow, “You’re worried about being polite to members of the group that assaulted and kidnapped you?”

Sunset scowled, “Someone has to be the better person.”

Sienna stared at her in silence for a few moments. “Moral, but bitchy. I like you.” She smiled slightly and turned to the door, “Come with me. Now that you’re awake and fed, I want to see what I can do about your stitches.”
> Chapter 40 - Magic and Memories
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tara and Becky hurried through the corridors of the Exodus building, heading to the appropriated testing rooms.

“What do you think has gone wrong?” Becky asked. 

Tara shook her head, “I don’t know, but if it’s something to do with the Rainbooms’ necklaces, then…”

Becky didn’t need her to finish. They were having a hard enough time trying to get the girls to trust them as it was, despite the revelation of who they represented. If anything happened to the necklaces, this attempt at diplomacy was going to blow up in their faces.

Hurrying around a corner the two spotted the door to the testing rooms open ahead of them to the left while the door to secure storage room was open on their right. The sound of Doctor Turner’s increasingly panicked voice coming from the storage room let the scientists know where he was.

“Doctor Turner?!” Tara practically yelled as she darted into the room with Becky hot on her heels. 

Inside the room the lockboxes containing the Rainbooms’ necklaces were all lined up on a table. Two members of Squad Sigma that had been assigned to their protection were standing at either side of the table watching Doctor Turner as he paced around and talked agitatedly to himself. All three of the occupants looked over as Tara and Becky entered the room. 

“Ah, you’re here,” Doctor Turner said evenly. 

“Sienna sent us, what’s wrong? Has something happened with the necklaces?” Tara asked urgently. 

Doctor Turner stared blankly at her for a second, then blinked as he realised what she was talking about, “Ah, no. No, the necklaces are fine, they’re all safe in their boxes. There’s been a bit of a development on the energy they emit, but that’s not the reason I’ve called you here.”

The two women both let out sighs of relief. “If it’s not those, then what could be so urgent?” Tara asked. 

Doctor Turner frowned and resumed pacing, not looking at either of them, “James.”

“What about him?” Becky asked. “Did the President refuse to let him speak to the Rainbooms?”

Doctor Turner stopped again and grimaced, “He’s dead.” 

“What?!” Becky and Tara cried in unison.

Doctor Turner nodded gravely, “He activated a failsafe on the purifier; one that killed him, two soldiers, and almost killed Colonel Autumn. He sacrificed himself to keep the Enclave from being able to use Project Purity.” 

The two women stared at him in stunned silence. “We’re screwed. We’re fucking screwed,” Becky grumbled.

“Hmmm, maybe not yet,” Doctor Turner said slowly. “From what we’ve heard over the radio, the girls are somewhat reasonable. Surely if we explain that James’ death had nothing to do with us then th-”

“No, they were very clear on that. They speak to James, or we get nothing,” Becky replied firmly. “It’s been hard enough getting anything at all out of them, and Applejack in particular seems to be getting more and more annoyed the more we press for information.” She glared at the doctor, “I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly comfortable pissing off a girl who could literally tear me in half!”

One of the Sigma soldiers glanced over at her, “If you’re worried about the Rainbooms getting aggressive, you should take one or two of us in with you, to keep them in line.”

“No,” Becky said emphatically. “The moment we bring a soldier in with us is the moment what little trust we’ve managed to earn is lost.” 

“Trust we’re going to lose anyway when they find out James is dead,” Doctor Turner pointed out. He sighed heavily and shook his head, “There’s got to be something we can do to make them… er… Doctor Strong? What are you doing?”

Coming to a decision, Tara had stepped over to one of the lockboxes and was fiddling with the combination. A second later the lockbox opened, and she dumped the pink necklace inside onto the table, before moving on to the next box, “I’m giving the necklaces back to the Rainbooms.”  

“What?! B-but you can’t!” Doctor Turner spluttered.

“I have to!” Tara retorted, tipping the contents of the next box onto the table too, this one a red and orange necklace with a sun symbol on it. “This is the only chance we have of earning their trust! I’m giving them their necklaces back and I’ll let them know they can leave if they choose to. Hopefully, they’ll see that we’re being sincere and choose to stay, or at least share some infor-”

“That won’t be possible,” one of the soldiers suddenly cut in.

Tara looked at him warily, “What do you mean?”

“We have orders,” the soldier replied, “the Rainbooms are to be kept contained here at all costs.”

Tara was taken aback for a moment, but soon rallied herself, “Well, as the scientist in charge of this Project, I’m giving you new orders. The Rainbooms are to-”

“Our orders came from the President himself,” the soldier told her bluntly.

Shock paralysed Tara for a moment, “The… the President? But… why? Imprisoning the Rainbooms was never one of Project Exodus’ goals!”

“I suppose it makes sense,” Doctor Turner supplied. “The Rainbooms are dangerous, they proved that at Project Purity. If we can hold them here, then at least we know they aren’t out in the wasteland, doing God knows how much damage. I must admit, I’m a little concerned about how they’ll react,” he glanced sidelong at the soldier as he spoke, “but I’m sure Squad Sigma will be able to handle them. We’ll just have to… break it to them gently?”

Tara looked from Doctor Turner to the soldier, then lowered her head sadly, “This is wrong.”

“I don’t like it myself, to be honest,” Doctor Turner admitted. “Unfortunately, it’s out of our hands. Come on, let’s get these necklaces locked away again, and then we can-”

“No,” Tara said firmly, unlocking the next box and dumping out a blue necklace. 

Doctor Turner winced and moved to stop her, “You really shouldn’t be touching those, they’re dan-” 

“I said no, doctor!” Tara insisted, shrugging him off as she moved down the table and reached for the next box. “The necklaces go back where they belong. And I’m going to speak to the President, myself. We have new information, something that… that changes…”

Doctor Turner watched Tara curiously as she trailed off. After a few seconds of waiting for her to continue, he spoke up, “Doctor Strong? Are you alright?”

Tara didn’t answer. The instant her hand had touched the next box she’d felt something, a tingle and a pulse that she couldn’t accurately describe. “Can you hear that?” she half-whispered.

“Hear what?” Doctor Turner asked.

“Something inside. It’s calling to me,” Tara mumbled. 

Not quite realising what she was doing, Tara slowly unlocked the box and opened the lid. Inside, a purple necklace with a curious star-like symbol glittered up at her, more beautiful and entrancing than anything she’d ever seen before. Voices could be heard, saying inconsequential things, but none of that mattered to Tara. All that mattered was the necklace. It was calling to her, it belonged to her. It was a part of her that she had never realised was missing. Just as she reached in to claim the necklace, strong hands grabbed her shoulders, while something ripped the box from her hand and slammed the lid shut. Tara blinked and gasped as she snapped out of her trance. 

“Bloody hell, woman, what the hell was that about?!” Doctor Turner growled in her ear.

Tara shook her head, looking up at the soldier who’d snatched the box from her, “I… I don’t know. The necklace it… it hypnotized me somehow…”

“Hypno… what do you mean, hypnotised?” Doctor Turner asked incredulously.

“I don’t know, I… wait…” Tara frowned as a strange thought occurred to her. “Who’s necklace is that one?” she asked, already sure of the answer.

“Twilight Sparkle’s,” Doctor Turner replied, confirming her suspicion. “Why?”

“She’s me; another version of me, from an alternate reality,” Tara explained. “That’s why we share the same DNA.” She shuddered as she looked at the box containing Twilight’s necklace, “I guess that means we somehow share a connection to that thing.”

“A connection?” Doctor Turner mused. Suddenly he gasped, “Doctor Shoichet!”

Tara’s head snapped around at that. Becky stood next to the table, a focussed look on her face as she reached out to the necklace in front of her. Cold fear gripped Tara as she realised which Rainboom it belonged to. “Becky, no!”

Her yell came too late.  

As Becky’s hand grasped the necklace there was a flash of light and a shockwave rocked the room. Becky’s eyes glowed a searing white as the necklace blazed with power, sending pulses of energy rippling through the air. Tara and the others could only watch in shock and terror as Becky’s hair lengthened and changed colour to match Sunset’s, a pair of twitching, amber, animal ears sprouting from the top of her head. There was a final flash of light, then a blast of power that shook the entire building, knocking the scientists to the floor and causing dust to rain from the ceiling. 

Groaning from the sudden impact, Tara rolled over and looked over to where Becky had been standing. Her girlfriend lay unconscious on the floor, wisps of steam rising from her body. 

“Sunny!”





Sunset hissed in pain as the doctor slowly removed the last of her stitches. 

“And… there… we… go.” Sienna dropped the last piece of stitching into a trash can next to the bed and leaned in to check her work, “Good. Now we just let the auto-doc finish up.”

Sunset winced, biting her lip as two of the auto-doc’s robotic arms extended. The first sprayed some form of protective film over the little holes left by the stitching. It was a pleasant enough feeling, but it was the second arm that bothered Sunset. Or rather, it was the large needle at the end of said arm that bothered her. She shivered and looked away as the tip moved closer to her belly. There was a sharp pain followed by a sense of burning as the needle pierced her skin, followed by a pleasant, tingling, cooling sensation.  

“Are you sure she can’t have any painkillers, Doctor?” Fluttershy asked.

“It’s better not to, if the patient can bear it,” Sienna replied. “It makes it much easier to tell if they’re having a reaction to the biogel. Besides, it’s all finished now.”

Sunset let out a breath and looked down at her wound. She had an angry red line running up her belly, with tiny red pin-pricks showing where the stitches had been, but it looked a lot better than it had a few days ago, “Phew, thanks, Doc.”

Sienna smiled softly, “Don’t mention it. Your wound should be fully healed in a day or so. I wouldn’t try running a marathon or contorting yourself into odd positions in that time, but aside from that, feel free to move around however you normally would.”

Sunset nodded and sat up, pulling her top back down. The pain had already faded almost entirely, “Thanks, this stuff’s pretty cool.” 

“It’s a combination of advanced biogel and a layer of cyanoacrylate glue, designed for sealing and healing surgical incisions and internal injuries,” Sienna replied. “The only stuff the Enclave have that’s better is experimental.”

“It sure is impressive,” Applejack put in.

“It’s fascinating!” Twilight exclaimed, “They had a stock of something similar in Rivet City, but this seems even more advanced again. How exactly does it all work?”

Sunset sighed and looked around idly as Twilight, Fluttershy, and Sienna started talking medicine. They were back in the room the girls had woken up in, with Sunset perched on the bed that Fluttershy had previously occupied. The rest of the Rainbooms had taken the opportunity to change out of their jumpsuits and back into their own clothes. The clothes were a little damaged and scruffy in places, much to Rarity’s chagrin, but they were clean and dry enough. 

“I have a question,” Sunset said suddenly, garnering quizzical looks from the others. “Why did you change our clothes?”

“Your clothes got drenched when you were loaded onto the Vertibird that brought you here,” Sienna deadpanned. “If you’re wondering why we dressed you differently to the others, it’s because we ran out of jumpsuits and had to give you a set of Officer’s underclothes instead.” She paused and raised an eyebrow, “It was either that or Tara’s Nuka-Girl rocketsuit, and you probably wouldn’t want that given what she gets up to in it.”

Sunset blushed furiously at the thought of what, and who, Tara did while wearing whatever a Nuka-Girl suit was. Looking away uncomfortably, her embarrassment certainly wasn’t helped by the matching scarlet glow she spotted on Twilight’s face. “A-anyway, maybe we should-”

Her head snapped around as she felt a sudden surge of power. Equestrian magic, from a source she knew intimately. 

“You okay there, Sunset?” Applejack asked.

Sunset clenched her fists and stood up. “They’re messing with a Geode. My Geode,” she replied angrily, turning a baleful look on Sienna, “Our necklaces, where are you keeping them?”  

Sienna opened and closed her mouth a few times in shock, “They… I… I don’t think I can-” She was interrupted by a deep rumble that shook the walls. Sunset just gave her a pointed look. Quickly rethinking whatever she had been going to say, Sienna hurried to the door, “T-this way.” 

“Ah thought Doctor Strong promised that no-one was going do mess with our necklaces?” Applejack asked darkly as the girls followed the doctor out into the corridors.

Sienna flinched and glanced back at her warily, “Before you all woke up, Doctor Turner pestered Tara into letting him see if the radiation had any passive effect on living beings. Tara agreed, but only as long as he didn’t actually do anything to your necklaces. All he was permitted to do was place them next to a living specimen and observe. That’s all, I swear.”

“That wasn’t passive magic!” Sunset spat. “So either you’re lying, or something’s just gone wrong.”

“Why do you think I’m not trying to talk you out of coming along?” Sienna shot back.

Applejack loudly cracked her knuckles. “Maybe ‘cause you know there’s nothing you can do to stop us?” she growled. Sienna blanched and picked up the pace. 

The Rainbooms followed along as the doctor led them quickly through the facility. They took a somewhat longer route than previously, going down several staircases and heading past several large office spaces and workshops. As they were descending what Sienna assured them was the last stairwell, the group heard hurried footsteps coming up towards them. Scant moments later a man sped around a corner and nearly ran headlong into Sienna. 

“Whoa! Sorry!” The man clutched at his sides as he gasped for air. “I… shit… I was just come… coming to find you!”

“We felt some kind of blast, is anyone hurt?” Sienna asked urgently.

The man frowned at her, mouthed ‘we?’, then did a double-take as he spotted the Rainbooms gathered behind her. Sunset scowled as she recognised him as Doctor Turner, the man that had met them outside Rivet City

“Doctor, is anyone hurt?” Sienna pressed.

Snapped back to reality, Doctor Turner shook his head, “Doctor Shoichet… she grabbed the… the necklace and…”

“Where is she?!” Sienna demanded.

Turner shrank back from her, “S-secure Storage.”

Sienna swore and shoved past him, darting down the stairs as quickly as she could, the Rainbooms hot on her heels. Turner cursed loudly as he got left behind, but nevertheless he turned back around and did his best to keep up. 

A few more flights down the group came to the bottommost corridor of the facility and broke into a run. As doors flew past on either side, Sunset silently thanked Sienna for fixing her stitches. Turning one last corner, she was just in time to see the doctor disappear into a room on the right. She reached the door herself moments later.

Sunset vaguely noticed a table and a pair of armored soldiers inside the room, but her attention was immediately drawn to the woman sitting on the floor, amber pony-ears poking out from flowing red and yellow hair. Doctor Strong was kneeling next to her, gently stroking her hair and tearfully whispering something to her. Gasps from behind told Sunset that the others could see what was happening, too.

Sienna hurried over and knelt next to the two, “Shit, what the hell happened to you?!”

Doctor Strong shook her head, choking back a sob, “I… I don’t know. The moment she touched Sunset’s necklace there… there was this light and she…”

“She ponied up,” Sunset finished. 

The three doctors all looked up at her. Sunset made to step forward, but a hand clamped onto her shoulder and held her back.

“Hold up, Sunshim,” Rainbow warned, jerking her chin at the soldiers. Sunset gulped as she realised both of them had their guns trained on her.

Following her gaze, Doctor Strong narrowed her eyes at them, “Lower your weapons.” The soldiers just ignored her. “The Rainbooms are the only people here who might have a fucking clue about what just happened to Becky, so lower your god-damned weapons!” she snarled.

Sunset relaxed slightly as the soldiers complied. Taking a slow breath to try and control the mixture of fear and anger she felt, she stepped over and crouched next to Doctor Shoichet, looking into her eyes. “You were doing something with my necklace.” she stated evenly.

Doctor Strong shook her head, “We weren’t. I was gett-”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Sunset growled. 

Doctor Shoichet just looked back at Sunset. They stayed there silently for several long seconds before finally she spoke, “Tara was going to give the Geodes back to you.” Sunset barely managed to keep her expression neutral as she called the necklaces by their proper name. “When I saw my… your… Geode, it called to me. It felt like it was… I don’t know…”

“Meant for you?” Sunset prompted. Doctor Shoichet nodded slowly. “When you touched it, what did you see?”

“See?” Doctor Strong asked. “Wait, you mean sh-”

Sunset held up a hand to silence her. “What did you see?” 

Tears welled up in the Doctor Shoichet’s eyes, “I saw...” She gulped nervously and tried again, “I saw… everything.”

Sunset somehow knew exactly what she meant. They shared a connection now, one she honestly didn’t know how to describe. The doctor sniffed and raised a hand, holding out Sunset’s Geode, “This belongs to you.”

Sunset took it gently and slipped the chain over her head, smiling despite herself as she felt a comforting warmth emanating from it, “Thank you, Doctor.”

“Call me Becky,” she replied thickly. “The rest of your Geodes are in those boxes on the table.”
Sunset glanced up at the table, then looked back down at Becky, “We’ll be leaving now.”

Becky just nodded in response.

“We can’t allow that,” one of the soldiers cut in.

Everyone in the room tensed at the soldier’s words. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Rainbow asked warily.

“We’re under orders,” the soldier replied. “You’re to be permitted supervised access to the basement levels, at Doctor Strong’s discretion, but you are not permitted to enter the upper levels or to leave the facility under any circumstances.” He hefted his rifle meaningfully, “Attempts to disobey will be dealt with, severely.”

“You can’t just keep us here!” Rarity cried. 

“We can, and we will,” the soldier said simply.

Doctor Strong wilted under the appalled looks the Rainbooms gave her. Even Sienna and Becky were looking at her as if they couldn’t believe what they were hearing. “We received our new orders from the President just before everything happened with the necklaces, it’s why I was going to give them back to you, as a gesture of faith.” She lowered her head in shame, “I’m sorry.”

There was a brief, miserable silence. 

“So, we really are prisoners then,” Applejack muttered. 

Sunset gritted her teeth as impotent fury rose up within her. She wracked her brain, trying to come up with a way of distracting the soldiers so she could grab the rest of the Geodes, but she couldn’t come up with anything that wouldn’t get one of her friends killed. Escape would have to wait. She flinched as she felt someone suddenly grab her wrist. 

Becky’s head was drooping, as if she were weary, but the look she gave Sunset from half-lidded eyes was earnest and calculating, “Wallflower.”

Sunset could only stare in amazement. “I… what?”

“Wallflower Blush, who is she?” Becky pressed, squeezing Sunset’s wrist as she did so.

“Aw, shoot! Please tell me she didn’t get brought here too and we didn’t notice!” Applejack exclaimed worriedly. 

Sunset shook her head, utterly baffled, “No, she was at a gardening event when we arrived in Vault 101, there’s no way she ended up here.”

“You mean she’s a friend of yours?” Sienna asked incredulously. 

“Yeah,” Sunset admitted, her mind whirling. She was positive that Becky was trying to tell her something, there had to be a reason she was asking about Wallflower specifically, after, but Sunset couldn’t figure out what it was for the life of her. 

“Your friend? But how is that possible?! How could Becky have known that?” Doctor Strong asked incredulously.

Ignoring her girlfriend, Becky subtly squeezed Sunset’s wrist again, “Wallflower and… who was that other one? That girl by the lockers?”

“Girl by the-” Sunset gasped as she realised what Becky was getting at. Aware that the soldiers, not to mention everyone else, were watching her carefully, Sunset snatched her hand out of Becky’s grip and scrambled for a convincing lie to cover herself, “I… you… how did you know about her?! It was one time, and I didn’t know she was a virgin!”

The sounds of shock and confusion coming from pretty much everyone in the room made Sunset instantly regret whatever foul coincidence that made that her first thought, but at least the blush that illuminated her cheeks helped sell it. To an extent.  

“Uh… what the heck is going on?” Rainbow asked. 

“Nevermind!” Sunset said quickly, rubbing her neck awkwardly. She let out a sigh and stood up, turning to face the others, “Come on, girls. Let’s get back to our room. There’s no point in arguing.”

“Wait!” Tara cried desperately, “What about Becky? How did she know your friend’s name? Is she going to be okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” Sunset called out, not bothering to look back. “She just got a taste of what it’s like to be me. The magic should wear off soon enough, and then she’ll be back to normal.”

Tara sighed with relief, “I… are you sure?” Sunset nodded. “Um… I’ll just get Becky up to the first aid room for now, then… and then I’ll come up to you and we’ll… we’ll try and sort this mess out, okay?”

Sunset paused for a moment then shrugged, “Whatever. Just bring the rest of our necklaces with you.” 

“Of course,” Doctor Strong replied quietly. “Doctor Turner, would you mind escorting the Rainbooms back upstairs for me?”

Turner looked around at each of the girls warily, as if he was half-expecting them to lash out in anger. Finally, he gestured to the door and spoke in a calm and measured voice, “Very well. Right this way, please.”

The rest of the Rainbooms looked to Sunset, each of their expression varying between scared, confused, and defiant, but she just nodded and indicated that they should leave. Sunset felt a surge of gratitude as they obeyed, the fact that they did so without questioning it spoke volumes about how much they trusted her. She hoped she could live up to their expectations.

Just as Sunset reached the door, she surreptitiously glanced back at Becky and gave her the ghost of a wink. The young woman nodded subtly and winked back. Stepping through the doorway, Sunset sighed and tried to stop her heart from pounding as she thought about what Becky had been getting at. 

Wallflower Blush and the Memory Stone. Me and my friends here destroyed the Memory Stone, but it wouldn’t have been possible without a little bit of subterfuge and a lot of help from Trixie Lulamoon, the person I least expected help from.

Someone I thought was an enemy turning out to be an ally. That was some pretty quick thinking there, Becky. I just hope I’m doing the right thing by trusting you. 





Becky’s thoughts were a chaotic mess as Tara and Sienna took her to the first aid room; both from what she’d seen and what she was considering doing because of it. 

Sienna stepped into the room first and held the door open for the other two, locking it behind them once they were in. “Can you get on the bed for me, please?” she asked.

“As long as Tara’s joining in,” Becky said coyly, giving her girlfriend a quick wink and getting a strained smile in return.

“You’re still a colossal pervert, so unfortunately your personality hasn’t been affected,” Sienna said flatly as she fetched some tools from a set of drawers. “Now hold still and keep quiet while I check you over.” She gave Tara a stern look, “That goes for you, too. I don’t want you stressing both her and yourself out with two hundred questions, so shush until I say otherwise.” Tara nodded sadly and wrapped her arms around herself. Becky desperately wanted to comfort her, but right now she had to let their medic do her job.

As Sienna got to work, poking, prodding, and shining lights in various places; including the new set of ears, Becky tried to relax and get a handle on her emotions. Tara hovered around anxiously, constantly checking over Sienna’s shoulder and reading every notation she made on her clipboard.

Eventually Sienna sighed and stepped back, removing her stethoscope from her ears and hanging it around her neck, “As far as I can tell, you’re fine. I’ll have to do some more detailed blood tests and maybe a scan or ten, but apart from your hair and your new ears, I don’t think anything else has changed. How are you feeling?”  

Becky took a moment to think before answering. “Physically, I actually feel pretty good,” she replied honestly. “I’m a little sore in places, and my brain feels like it’s been electrocuted, but other than that, I’m fine.” She gave a wan smile, “I was lucky. That could’ve gone a lot worse.”

“I’ll say,” Sienna huffed. “What were you even thinking? Why did you grab that thing without any form of protection?”

Becky chuckled awkwardly, “Yeah, that was kinda dumb. In my defence, I was hypnotized, so…?”

Sienna arched a disbelieving eyebrow, but Tara quickly stepped in, “It’s true. The same thing happened to me the moment I touched the box that had Twilight’s necklace in.”

That got a thoughtful frown out of Sienna, “Do you think this has anything to do with the fact that your genetics match theirs?”

“Probably,” Becky replied. “Do you remember what Twilight said about the Geodes being tied to each of the Rainbooms’ unique magical signatures? I suppose we must share those signatures too, since we’re just different versions of the same people, after all.”

“Geodes… you said that earlier, too. Do you mean the necklaces?” Tara asked. 
Becky nodded, “That’s what the Rainbooms call them.”

“Before that, can we just take a couple of steps back for a moment?” Sienna cut in, “What the hell do you mean by different versions of the same people?”

Becky and Tara both glanced at her curiously. Tara was the first to catch on, “Ooooh, of course. You weren’t there for that part.”

Between the two of them, they swiftly told Sienna what they had learned about the alternate realities the Rainbooms had come from and how they were alternate versions of each other. 
When they were finished, Sienna sank slowly into a chair, her expression a picture of stunned amazement, “So you’re saying there’re three different versions of Tara?”

Becky nodded, “And two of me.”

Sienna blinked dumbly, then narrowed her eyes, “So, when they called me Sugarcoat…?”

Becky couldn’t restrain an amused snort, “That’s the name of the version of you from their world. I recognized her straight away. She’s got grey skin and white hair, but you have the same pigtails, and even the same glasses.”

Tara and Sienna shared a shocked look, then turned back to Becky. “How could you possibly know that?” Tara asked. “And how did you know about their friend, Wallflower?”

Becky’s mood immediately turned solemn. “Sunset’s Geode. When I picked it up it… it showed me things.”

The other two blinked in surprise. “It showed you things? How?” Tara asked breathlessly.

“It’s magic,” Becky replied quietly, but clearly. “Not advanced technology, not weird mutations, not even illusions or trickery of some kind. Its real, tangible, honest-to-God magic.”

Sienna still looked sceptical, but Tara pressed ahead, “What did it show you?”

“I…” Becky started to reply, then hesitated. What she had seen through the Geode, what she had felt, they weren’t really hers to disclose. Heaving a great sigh, she decided she had to tell the truth, if not the details. If she went through with the plan that was still half-formed in her head, then maybe this would at least help soften the blow for the others, “It showed me Sunset’s memories.” 

“You saw her memories?!” Tara and Sienna exclaimed in unison. 

Becky nodded slowly. She could still see them clearly. A series of images flashing before her eyes in rapid succession. Memories of a life that was so far removed and alien to her own, and yet, at the same time, so similar in some aspects that Becky was still reeling from the implications of half of them. “I didn’t see everything,” she clarified. “It just showed the times where she was feeling particularly sad, or happy, or stressed, or… angry.”

Tara gaped at her, “But that… how is… you… she…” she shook her head and stopped trying to articulate her thoughts, “this is insane.”

Becky huffed a laugh, “Yeah, no shit.” She briefly considered mentioning some of the crazier memories the Geode had shown her; like of Sunset’s life before she left her home world, but quickly decided against it. “Anyway, you should go and speak to the Rainbooms, you did say you’d take their Geodes up to them, and you probably shouldn’t piss them off any more than we already have.”

“They seemed strangely calm about everything actually,” Sienna supplied, giving Becky a look that sent a chill down her spine. “Especially Sunset Shimmer.”

Becky chuckled nervously, “Still, we probably shouldn’t push our luck too much.”

“The Rainbooms will wait a little longer,” Tara said firmly, reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Becky’s ear. “Right now I’m more concerned about you.”

Becky struggled not to tear up, touched by the gesture, but at the same time wanting both of the women to leave her alone and give her time to think. Please, Tara. The less you know about what I’m thinking right now, the safer you’ll be.

“You say you saw Sunset’s most emotional memories, the best and worst times of her life?” Sienna asked suddenly.

Becky nodded warily, “I… I guess, so. It’s still a little blurry but-”

“Is that why you’re planning on helping them escape?” Sienna asked flatly, driving a knife of pure terror through Becky’s heart.

Tara forced a laugh, “This is no time to be joking around, Sienna.”

Sienna didn’t take her eyes off Becky as she replied, “I’m not joking.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Tara said sharply. “There’s no way Becky would do something like that. Right, Becky?” The confidence she was feeling visibly wavered as she saw the look on Becky’s face. “You wouldn’t, right?”

Becky just looked up at Sienna wearily. She had hoped she could get away without getting anyone else involved, but the cat was out of the bag now. “How did you know?”

Sienna shrugged, ignoring Tara’s startled gasp, “It was pretty obvious, really. I’m not a meathead like the soldiers, and unlike Tara, I wasn’t distracted by worry and confusion. I saw you squeezing Sunset’s wrist while muttering that crap about Wallflower, whoever the hell she is, and I saw you nod and wink at her when she left the room. It doesn’t take a genius to put it together.”

Becky laughed humorlessly, “You’re perceptive, as always.”

“Don’t forget, I used to be a first responder working with the FEV researchers,” Sienna replied. “Staying calm and paying attention while a patient is undergoing spontaneous mutation is part of my job.”

Tara looked from Sienna to Becky in shock, “Wait, you mean, you really do want to help them escape? But… but why?”

Becky lowered her head, focusing on her lap, “It’s the right thing to do.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Becky couldn’t bear to look up, she didn’t want to see the look of betrayal on her lovers face.

Finally, after several long seconds of the most torturous silence Becky had ever endured, Tara spoke in a quiet voice, “You… you can’t be serious. The President has ordered us to keep the Rainbooms in our custody. If you help them escape that… that’s treason.”

“I know,” Becky said softly. “I don’t want you to get involved, if you have to report this then I’ll understa-”

“No!” Tara cut in anxiously. “You’ve obviously been affected by Sunset’s memories or… or the Geode has done something to you.”

“It made me realize just how much is wrong with our world!” Becky snapped. “The Rainbooms’ worlds are so different to this one it isn’t even funny! They’re not perfect, not by a long shot, but they make our world look like a degenerate hell-hole, and that’s before the bombs fell!”

“If that’s the case, then there’s all the more reason we’ll need the Rainbooms help,” Tara responded earnestly. “Think about it, if we can successful recreate a portal between our realities then the Enclave will finally be able to leave this wasteland and start to rebuild.”

Becky looked up at Tara defiantly, “The Enclave are the last remnants of the government that helped create this shit-hole of a wasteland. There’s no way in hell I’m helping to inflict them on someone else’s world.”

“I’m in,” Sienna said unexpectedly.

“You… wait, what?!” Tara cried.

Sienna threw down her clipboard and sighed, “I said, I’m in. The higher-ups are mostly evil selfish bastards who don’t give a damn about anything other than power, I’ve known that for years.”

“How can you say that?!” Tara replied in a scandalised voice.

Sienna gave her a serious look, “Easy. Project Scouring.”

That was enough to give Tara pause. “I… okay, I know that particular Project wasn’t exactly our finest moment, but it was an act of desperation.”

“Don’t spout the bullshit they fed us in elementary classes to me, Tara,” Sienna shot back. “I know you’re smarter than that. You say it was an act of desperation? That project was active for over thirty years. And we didn’t create it from scratch, the Scouring strain was modified from an older strain of FEV, one we spent decades developing.”

Tara stepped back, surprised at the vitriol from her usual deadpan friend, “But… it was a last resort.”

“You mean like the nukes were supposed to be?” Becky asked sarcastically.

“That was different,” Tara replied stubbornly. “Besides, Project Scouring was shut down months ago. The President himself made the announcement.”

“Only after half of the Senate and almost eighty percent of our scientists demanded it. Even Colonel Autumn was against that project,” Sienna retorted. “The fact that such a plan even existed should be enough to clue you in on what kind of people our superiors are. If the Scouring strain ever got loose, thousands would die. Children would die. Even babies would die horrible and painful deaths. Only a monster with no regard for human life, whatsoever, would even consider using such a weapon.”

“The… the President worked on that project personally,” Tara said in a small voice.

“That’s exactly my point!” Sienna snarled.

Becky couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Not about the Enclave’s dark secrets; she’d long suspected that certain parts of the their history had been edited and polished, but the sheer hatred Sienna held for her own home was astounding. 

Tara, for her part, turned away from both of them, wrapping her arms around herself again and facing the wall, clearly wrestling with her own thoughts. 

Becky bit her lip and glanced up at Sienna, “I… I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Sienna replied darkly. “When I was a medic on those projects I saw and did things that I can’t even bring myself to face. Even telling you about some of them is enough to warrant a death sentence for disclosing classified information. The only reason I even agreed to join Project Exodus is because I hoped I would finally get a chance to escape from all of this bullshit, but if what you’re saying about the Rainbooms home is true then… I…” 

“You know we’ll probably be executed for this, don’t you?” Becky asked softly.

Sienna clenched her fists and looked at the ground, “The Rainbooms come from a peaceful world. Just looking at their clothes is enough to tell that; flashy, decorative, colourful, not practical in the slightest. Not for a world like ours. There’s enough dirty blood on my hands. If saving a peaceful world from the Enclave’s bullshit can make up for it in any way, I’m willing to bet my life on it.”

Becky just nodded. Words weren’t enough to express what she was feeling. She felt a fleeting sense of just how absurd this was, that she was potentially about to sacrifice her life on account of something that could easily have just been a radiation-induced hallucination of some sort. Deep down, though, she knew. The things she’d seen, the emotions she’d felt, they were real. 

“What about you, Tara?” Sienna’s voice dragged Becky out of her reverie, “are you going to report this?”

“Don’t, Sienna,” Becky admonished softly. This was why she hadn’t wanted either of the others involved. Tara practically hero-worshipped the President. Making her choose between him or her girlfriend, it was sadistic on a whole other level. “Look, Sparkles, I-”

“Telepathy,” Tara replied. 

Becky and Sienna shared a confused glance. “Um, what?”

Tara turned around, unwrapping her arms and placing her hands on her hips, “Sunset Shimmer is a telepath. We know that, the President knows that, pretty much everyone who’s attached to Project Exodus knows that.” She sighed and shook her head, “I suppose it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say she can mind control people too.”

Becky gave her a startled look, “Wait, do you me-”

“I know how and why the old Poseidon Rig was destroyed,” Tara interrupted. “I also happen to know something about the President that neither of you do. No-one does, except for the Senators and a few senior officers.” She gave Sienna a cold look, “You’re not the only one with doubts, and you’re not the only one who’s worked on unpleasant assignments. I worked on Experiment FH-1, before they learned that sticking a computer chip in his brain wasn’t going to be enough to revive him.” She cringed and shuddered at the memory, “The experiments we did on those test subjects were horrifying.”

Sienna tilted her head curiously, “I’ve never heard of FH-1-”

“It’s classified.”

“-but does this mean you aren’t going to report us?”

Tara rolled her eyes, “No. I’m not going to report you. I am going to tear a new asshole out of both of you when this is all over, but I won’t report you. Instead, I’m going to help you two morons do this without any of us getting executed.”

“Mind control,” Becky said flatly.

“Yes. Once the Rainbooms are gone, all we have to do is report that we can’t remember anything except her voice in our heads telling us what to do,” Tara replied. “It won’t be difficult to fabricate some sort of evidence between the three of us.” She paused and folded her arms, frowning slightly, “Either that, or I suppose we could always go with them. I doubt the Brotherhood of Steel would turn away three gifted scientists, but I’d prefer to remain here with Project Exodus if at all possible.”

“Tara, are you sure about this?” Becky asked. “This is serious stuff. We’re talking treason here, remember?”

Tara hesitated for a moment. Visibly steeling herself, she nodded, “I don’t like it, but it’s not as if we’re destroying the Enclave. Besides…” She walked back over to Becky and cupped her face in her hands, “I trust you. Whether or not this is the right thing… I’m not really sure, but imprisoning the Rainbooms here is definitely not right. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you get yourself executed. Not if I can do anything about it. So, what’s your plan?”
> Chapter 41 - The Best Laid Plans
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Deep within the Exodus’ building’s sub-basements, in a freshly appropriated office, Doctor Turner sat and typed away at a terminal. He was first compiling his findings regarding the Rainbooms unique radiation, and then he would begin noting down a series of hypotheses that he wanted to experiment with. He would have much preferred to be conferring with Doctors Strong and Shoichet, but that wasn’t really an option right now. 

Doctor Turner sighed and leaned back in his chair. As soon as he’d escorted the Rainbooms back to their room he’d sought out Doctor Strong and tried to convince her that keeping the girls in custody was a good idea. He barely managed two words before she told him to ‘fuck off.’ 

Turner hardly blamed her for being angry with him since the young woman had always had a strong moral compass, one that kept her from crossing certain lines. It was a trait he envied. All too often he would become so engrossed in the purely scientific aspects of his work that he wouldn’t even realise what lines he was crossing, not until it was too late.

Shaking his head, Doctor Turner returned to his typing and resolved to speak to Doctor Strong again in the morning, once she’d had time to cool off and start thinking clearly again. In this particular instance, he wasn’t just following the President’s orders in the name of keeping his own arse covered. He glanced at the recorder he’d placed next to the terminal and shuddered. 

Keeping the Rainbooms secure was the safest option, both for them and for the Enclave, Turner was convinced of that. Exposing just a trace amount of the Rainbooms unique radiation to a high quantity of native radiation had utterly bizarre consequences and he still had no idea what had happened to the weird little ball that had manifested in the testing room. For now he’d left the door locked and sealed while he worked on his hypotheses. Unfortunately, the most pressing matter he wanted to test was also the one that would be effectively impossible to experiment with in an ethical way. He sighed and frowned at the terminal, well aware that he could do little more than speculate at the moment. 

The unique radiation that interacted with our native gamma radiation was merely a trace sample left on the surface of an inanimate object. The Rainbooms’ bodies contain only a small amount of that radiation, but even that droplet is whole orders of magnitude higher than what was left on that bloody table. If they end up exposed to high levels of our radiation, or even just to a moderate amount over a prolonged period, what the hell kind of effect will it have on those girls?   





Sunset sighed as she put her own clothes on over the Enclave attire she was already wearing. Doctor Turner had escorted them back to their shared room and swiftly left, muttering apologies and reassurances that Sunset had only half heard. Her mind was slowly becoming a frazzled mess after what had happened downstairs with Becky.

“Can someone please explain just what in the heck happened down there?” Applejack asked, clearly having similar trouble. 

Sunset shrugged as she pulled her boots back on, “You heard what Becky said, they were going to give our Geodes back.” She slipped into her jacket and perched herself on the edge of her bed, “She must have touched my Geode when they were getting them out of the lockboxes; it recognized her as being the same as me, somehow, and ponied her up.”

“Do you think that’s really what happened?” Applejack asked sceptically. 

Sunset nodded, “I believe her.”

“How can you trust them so easily?!” Rainbow shot. 

“I can’t really explain it. I just do,” Sunset replied, flicking her eyes towards the eyebot still hovering in the corner.

Rainbow didn’t notice, “Seriously? After everything the Enclave has pulled, you still-”

“Leave it be, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity said calmly, placing a hand on Rainbow’s shoulder. “Remember, we’re still being watched,” she whispered. 

Rainbow gasped and almost turned to look at the eyebot, but caught herself at the last  instant. “This blows,” she muttered.

“You said it, sister,” Pinkie agreed. 

Rarity pursed her lips, “I have to agree with you there, though I may have phrased it slightly differently myself.”

“Speaking of phrasing,” Pinkie quirked an eyebrow at Sunset, “what was that about someone not being a virgin?” Sunset felt her cheeks warm as the others winced sympathetically. Rarity gave a delicate cough and sauntered over to the pink menace, whispering a quick explanation to her. Pinkie’s eyes widened as understanding blossomed, “Oooooohhhhh, that’s what that was about!”

“Yes, now can we please stop talking about that?” Sunset spat through gritted teeth, fervently wishing she had come up with something else, anything else, as a distraction. 

The others were spared from answering by a knock at the door. Instantly on guard, nobody spoke or even moved for several seconds. “If we tell them to get lost, do you think they’ll listen?” Rainbow asked.

“It’s probably best if we get this over with,” Sunset replied. She stood and straightened out her clothes before calling out, “Come in.”

The door opened slowly and Tara poked her head through, “Hey. I’ve brought your Geodes with me, do you mind if I come in?”

At Sunset’s curt nod, the doctor pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped through. The Rainbooms stiffened as two soldiers followed her in, one carrying a stack of lockboxes in his arms, but thankfully the men didn’t say anything. Completely ignoring the girls, one soldier stood aside to guard the door while the other stepped over to the nearest bed and gently placed the lockboxes down on it.   

“The boxes are unlocked. You’ll find the rest of your Geodes inside,” Tara explained before turning to the soldiers. “You can wait outside now, I’ll be fine on my own.”

“It would probably be best if we wait with you,” one of the soldiers replied. 

“I said I’ll be fine on my own,” Tara repeated sternly. 

The soldier shook his head. “With respect, Doctor, we’re here to protect you, not be your assistants. Until we can be sure that the Rainbooms aren’t planning any form of aggression in retaliation for their confinement; leaving you or any of the other scientists alone with them just isn’t an option.”

Tara threw him a disgusted look, then turned back to the Rainbooms, “I’m sorry. This isn’t how I wanted things to go.”

“Pfft, whatever,” Rainbow mumbled.

“Frankly, we’re starting to expect this sort of behaviour from the Enclave,” Rarity added tartly. 

Tara winced but quickly recovered, “I’d like to see if we can talk things through, but I don’t want to press you; so we’ll wait until tomorrow, if that’s okay. In the meantime, I’ll have this eyebot removed from the room, so you don’t fe-”

“That’s not a good idea,” one of the soldiers interrupted. 

Tara scowled and rounded on him. “Given that one of the occupants of this room is a known telepath, how exactly is keeping them under constant surveillance going to help us? It’s not like we’ll be able to tell if they’re planning anything.” Not waiting for the soldier to respond, Tara turned back to the girls, “As I was saying, I’ll have the eyebot placed outside the room instead. There’s a toilet directly opposite this room, should you need it. If you want any food, just speak to the eyebot and one of us will be up to escort you to the dining hall.”

Sunset nodded slowly, “How’s Becky doing?”

Tara sighed heavily, “She’s feeling okay. She’s still all…” The doctor gestured vaguely to her head.

“Ponied up?” Sunset prompted.

Tara nodded, “Yeah. There aren’t going to be any long-term side effects, are there?”

Sunset shrugged, “Honestly? I don’t think so, but we haven’t had this sort of thing happen to anyone else from this world before. It’s kind of a unique case.” She decided against mentioning Doctor Li, at least in front of the soldiers.

Tara nodded again, “Okay, good. Anyway, I’d better get back and check on her.” She stepped forward and held out a hand, “I know things haven’t exactly gone smoothly between us, but I sincerely hope we can change all of that. We could do great things together, if we tried.” Her eyes flicked rapidly between her outstretched hand and Sunset.

Sunset frowned curiously. Taking the proffered hand she kept her face neutral as she felt the doctor pressed a crumpled piece of paper into her grip. Giving her hand a quick shake, Sunset stepped back and clasped her hands behind her back, hiding the paper from the soldiers. 

“Okay,” Tara said quietly, “did any of you have any other questions?”

“Can we bring food back here from the dining hall?” Pinkie asked.

Tara chuckled softly, “Of course. Right, I’ll be off then. See you later, girls.” She gave Sunset a meaningful look before walking over to the eyebot and guiding it out of the room. The soldiers followed her out, closing the door behind them. 

The moment they were gone, Sunset held up the piece of paper and quickly unfolded it. On it was a simple handwritten note. ‘Exodus. Tonight. Be ready.’

“I’ll be back in a sec, I need to use the bathroom,” Rainbow said suddenly. 

“One second,” Sunset called out.

“Can it wait? I really need to pee,” Rainbow replied.

“Charming,” Rarity muttered.

Sunset smiled and crumpled the paper back up, “Just be quick then, I think I’ve got some good news.”





Bored and alone in the first aid room, Becky idly toyed with a lock of her newly multi-coloured hair. Tara had gone to give the Rainbooms the rest of their Geodes and to hopefully tip them off about the escape attempt, while Sienna had headed off to fetch the SDT-1. Both of them had forbidden Becky from going anywhere until the magic had left her body and she’d gone back to normal.

For the umpteenth time, Becky flicked her hair aside and reached up to fiddle with the odd pony ears sticking out of her head. She still couldn’t quite get used to the sensation of having them up there, especially when she realised she could move them around independently. Though, she had to admit, gently scratching behind where they connected to her skull was definitely a pleasant feeling. 

The sound of the door opening distracted Becky from her mild bodily exploration. 

“Hey, Becky,” Tara called as she stepped into the room. “How are you feeling?”

“Same as before,” Becky replied. “How did it go with the Rainbooms?”

Tara sighed heavily, “I didn’t get a chance to speak to them properly. Squad Sigma are refusing to leave any of us alone with them, as we suspected. I did manage to give them the note without the soldiers noticing though, and I’ve given them their Geodes back, so hopefully they’ll be ready to go when we are.”

“Hopefully,” Becky echoed. “How are they holding up?”

Tara sank onto a chair next to Becky’s bed, “Angry, upset, cautious. I can’t really say I blame them either.”

Becky nodded, “It’s only going to get worse when they find out what happened to James.”

“Yeah,” Tara sighed again. She looked down at her feet for a few seconds, then back up at Becky, “Are you… are you sure about this?”

“I am,” Becky replied firmly. “Are you?”

Tara nodded, “I still don’t know if we’re doing the right thing here, but… I can’t just sit around doing nothing.”

“I know the feeling,” Becky said softly, reaching out to take her hand.

Tara smiled thinly up at her, “I just hope everything goes to plan. Doctor Turner shouldn’t bother us, I told him I was angry with him and that I didn’t want to speak to him tonight.”

“Do you think he bought it?”

Tara raised an eyebrow, “I wasn’t acting, I am angry with him. He has screwed up or concealed information at almost every opportunity since we got here.”

“Fair enough,” Becky conceded. “What about Squad Sigma?”

“I’ve prepped the distraction, all we have to do is run the program,” Tara replied. 

“Good.” Satisfied that the plan was coming together, Becky reached up and started fiddling with her hair again.

“That suits you, y’know.” Becky glanced down to see Tara smiling shyly at her. “The hair, it suits you,” Tara repeated.  

“Well, it should. I mean it is technically mine after all,” Becky replied. 

Tara reached up and pulled her own ponytail around, “What about me? Do you think I’d look good in purple?”

“You look better in nothing,” Becky stated in reply, getting a playful swat in return.

Both women froze as the door suddenly opened, then breathed a sigh of relief when they saw Sienna stepping into the room, the SDT-1 cradled under one arm.

Sienna raised an eyebrow at them, “You’re both clothed, and you’re glad that I’m here. This is turning into a really weird day.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll walk in on me with my head buried between her thighs again sometime soon,” Becky shot back, prompting Tara to give her a slightly sharper swat, accompanied by a blush this time.

“I’ll look forward to it,” Sienna deadpanned, rolling her eyes as she placed the SDT-1 on a nearby table. “By the way, I have no idea how to use this thing.”

“I’ll set it up,” Tara said quickly. “Did you have any trouble getting it?”

Sienna shook her head, “No. It was still in the testing room where Turner left it with the Protectron.” She frowned and folded her arms, “The Protectron was acting funny, so I sent it back to it’s charging pod to run a diagnostic on itself.”

“It’s probably just glitching from being left on standby for two hundred years,” Becky told her. “Alright, while you check me over with that thing, I think we should go over the plan one more time.”





The day passed almost unbearably slowly for the Rainbooms. Without the eyebot listening in on their conversations, they had spent several hours discussing everything that had happened; from the battle at Project Purity, to what had happened since they’d woken up, and finally the cryptic note that Tara had left them. Sunset was certain that it meant an escape attempt was imminent and the others mostly agreed that it seemed likely. Applejack and Rainbow still had concerns that it might be a trap of some sort, but none of them could figure out what possible purpose such an act might serve.

Eventually, they’d grown bored of simply talking over the same points over and over again, not getting any closer to an answer, and the conversation slowly died off. Twilight and Sunset had both made a deliberate point of avoiding talking about the revelation of their counterparts’ love life. Rainbow’s attempt at pressing the issue had been met with little more than stony silence and icy glares. 

After a while the group made a single trip to the dining hall, accompanied by two soldiers and an apologetic Sienna, and decided to carry as much food as they could back to their room so they wouldn’t have to do so again. Stuck with little to do, and no real desire to explore the facility under the stern gazes of armored soldiers, the Rainbooms had kept themselves occupied in any way that they could, with occasional breaks for the toilet and snacks. 

Twilight settled in to tweaking the programming of her Pip-Boy while Rarity busied herself trying to repair the damage that had been done to their clothes. The rest of the girls ended up pushing several of the beds together so they could comfortably play a game of cards, using a deck that Pinkie had pulled from somewhere. Throwing her cards down after several consecutive losses, Sunset was about to shuffle the deck again when she heard a faint tapping at the door. 

Quick as a flash, the cards were packed away and the girls were on their feet, ready for anything as the door slowly opened to reveal Becky and Tara. Behind them stood Sienna, a pair of metal lockboxes in her arms. The three ducked quickly into the room and closed the door quietly. Sunset was glad to see that Becky’s hair and ears had gone back to normal since the morning’s events. “Did you read my note?” Tara asked without preamble.

Sunset nodded, “We did, and we’re ready.”

“Ready for what, exactly?” Applejack asked warily. 

“We’re getting you out of here,” Becky replied.

Tara held a warning hand up as the girls all made sounds of relief and excitement, “I have to warn you, this is going to be difficult and dangerous. If you aren’t willing to take the risk, you’d best tell us now.”

“We’re ready,” Sunset said firmly. The others nodded in agreement. 

“I do have one question first, though. If that’s okay?” Twilight cut in.

Tara glanced over at her, “Just one?”

Twilight smiled shyly, “Well, just one for now. Why are you doing this? Why are you helping us escape?”

Becky gave her a wry smile, “Sunset’s Geode showed me a lot of things. You girls don’t deserve this, and your worlds don’t deserve having to deal with the Enclave.”

Sunset frowned at her in confusion, “What do you mean by that?”

“That was what we wanted your help with,” Tara explained. “We were working on something called Project Exodus. Our objective was to find a way to open a portal to your world and see if it was suitable for habitation. If so, the Enclave was planning to travel there en masse, leaving only a token force behind to maintain a foothold in the wasteland while we rebuilt our civilization on your world.”

The Rainbooms stared at her in stunned silence. “There’s no way we would’ve helped you do that. Not after what happened at Project Purity," Rainbow said bluntly.

“Funnily enough, that’s pretty much what we expected,” Sienna said flatly.

“None of that matters right now, anyway,” Becky put in. “Right now, we need to get you out of here without anyone noticing.”

“Well, alright then! So, what’s the plan?” Applejack asked.

Tara stepped forward to answer, “First of all, we’ll need to sneak you through the facility to the main cargo area, that’s where the elevators are to the surface section of the building. Doctor Turner is asleep, so we shouldn’t have any trouble with him, the problem will be the two Sigma soldiers guarding the entrance to the cargo area.”

“How do we deal with them?” Twilight asked.

“That’s my job,” Becky replied. “All of you will wait in the admin office around the corner while I go and speak to the soldiers. We’ve set up a problem in the lower levels to act as a distraction for them. Hopefully, both soldiers will go down and deal with it themselves, rather than calling down reinforcements from upstairs.”

“It’s a pretty nasty incident we’ve cooked up, so they’ll probably deal with it themselves as an immediate priority,” Sienna added. 

Becky nodded, “Once we’re through we’ll use the personnel elevator to reach the surface and then head out through the main entrance, which is where we’ll meet our next problem.”

“Let me guess, more soldiers?” Rarity asked.

“Four more,” Tara confirmed. “The entrance opens onto a large forecourt. The soldiers are billeted in a security office in the forecourt, along with the pilots for their Vertibird. The Vertibird itself is parked alongside the office. You’ll have to sneak past them somehow if you want to escape. Once you’re out your best option would be to head north for several kilometres, until you reach the remains of the river, then head east until you find Rivet City.”    

“You’ll need to be extremely cautious, even once you’re out of here,” Becky added. “We weren’t lying when we said this building is deep in super mutant territory. And make sure you don’t actually cross the river. Chances are the Jefferson Task Force, the guys who took Project Purity, have fortified the northern embankments.” 

“Can’t we just take a back way out?” Twilight asked.

Tara shook her head, “All of the other ways in and out of the facility have been sealed and barricaded, to reduce the likelihood of super mutants successfully gaining entrance. There is a parking lot around the back of the building that you can reach from the main entrance, but that whole area is dotted with concealed plasma mines, in case anything tries to break in from the rear.”

“Great,” Sunset muttered. “Do you have any suggestions on getting past the soldiers at the gate?”

Becky folded her arms, humming as she thought, “We might be able to make a distraction of some sort but, honestly, none of us has actually been topside since we first arrived here. We’ll have to see what’s up there that we can work with.”

“What about James and the other eggheads from Project Purity?” Rainbow asked. “There’s gotta be something we can do to save them!”

At the mention of James the three scientists shared an awkward, wary look. After a moment, Tara spoke up, “If you really want to save the scientists at Project Purity then the Brotherhood of Steel is probably your only real hope, but…”

“But what?” Applejack pressed. 

Tara opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. After a few attempts, Becky placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Looking Sunset in the eye, Becky answered quietly for her, “James is dead.”

There were gasps and cries of shock and grief from each of the Rainbooms. The words hit Sunset like a brick, leaving her feeling like she’s been thumped in the stomach. Applejack quietly swept her hat off her head and held it over her chest, bowing her head sadly. 

“Who did it?” Rainbow growled. 

“We don’t really know the details…” Tara began.

“I said. Who. Killed. James,” Rainbow snarled, practically spitting each word out.

The scientists all flinched away from the sheer venom in her voice. “He did it himself,” Becky replied. “We were told that he sacrificed himself to activate some sort of failsafe that prevents anyone from using the purifier.”

There was a soft thump as Fluttershy’s legs gave out and she slumped to her knees. Applejack and Rarity quickly knelt down next to her, gripping her shoulders gently in case she fainted completely. 

“How long have you known?” Sunset asked in a quavering voice. 

“We only found out from Doctor Turner this morning,” Tara replied. “It’s why we were going to give your Geodes back and allow you to leave, if you wished. Then everything happened with Becky and your Geode and we just…”

Sunset closed her eyes and swallowed, trying to force down the grief and rage that roiled within her. There would be time to mourn later; right now they had bigger problems.

Becky sighed quietly, “I’m sorry, I know he was your friend.”

“He was more than that, he was the first person we met in this world who treated us like normal people,” Twilight replied sadly. “He was kind and smart and did anything he could to help us. He was even trying to help us figure out a way home.” She blinked a few times as the meaning of her own words suddenly hit her, “Wait, he was the one helping us get home! What are we going to do now? How are we going to get home without him?! We’re going to be stuck here fore-”

“Twilight, stop right there, breathe, and focus,” Becky said firmly. “You are not going to be stuck here forever.” 

Sunset couldn’t help but be impressed at how quickly Becky stopped Twilight’s freak-out in its tracks. She supposed it must be second-nature given that she was dating the nerd’s wasteland counterpart. Still, Twilight wasn’t quite done yet, “But, without James, I have no idea where to even begin on getting us home.”

“We think we might have a lead for you,” Tara cut in. She glanced over her shoulder, “Sienna? If you wouldn’t mind?” Sienna nodded and stepped forward to place the lockboxes on one of the beds. 

Tara thanked her and grabbed the first lockbox, fiddling with the combination, “When we were first attached to Project Exodus, we requisitioned a collection of unique technology that the Enclave has acquired over years of searching the wasteland. One of the items of particular interest was this thing.” She flipped the lid open and picked up as small metallic object from inside. It was egg-shaped, smooth and silvery, with curious little green crystals at each end, “We call it the SDT-1. It’s a signal detector of some sort, and it somehow managed to-”

“I’ve seen one of those before.” Everyone turned to look at Twilight, who was staring in shock at the SDT-1. “James showed me a picture of one. It’s the same as the item he was hooking up to the reactor and testing back in Vault 101, the thing that-”

“The thing that brought us here!?” Sunset blurted out incredulously. 

“Wait a second, are you absolutely certain that it was one of these that helped bring you to this world?” Tara asked. Twilight just nodded dumbly. 

“Well it’s about darn time we had some good news for a change,” Applejack huffed, still clasping Fluttershy. “Quick, hand it over and we can stick it in one of our packs.”

“We can’t give it to you,” Tara replied instantly. 

“Why the heck not?!” Rainbow snapped.

“You don’t understand,” Tara replied earnestly. “If we give you the SDT-1, President Eden will make retrieving it the military’s highest priority. They’d stop at nothing to bring you all back in.”

Sunset swore silently. To be so close to a way home and not being able to take it, it was cruel beyond measure. “If you aren’t going to give it to us, then why did you even bring it up here?” Twilight asked, obviously thinking along the same lines. 

“To show you what this kind of technology looks like,” Tara said as she gently placed the SDT-1 back in it’s box. “Somehow, this little gadget detected the energy pulse given off by the portal that first brought you to this world.”

“How can you be sure?” Twilight asked. 

Becky smiled softly, “Simple, really. We just held it next to each of you when you were first brought here. Each of you gives off a faint, but distinct, magical signature. When viewed together, your combined magical signatures match the one that the SDT-1 picked up almost two months ago.”

“When we first arrived in Vault 101,” Sunset muttered to herself, getting a nod from Tara and Becky. 

“The thing is, the Enclave didn’t create the SDT-1, we found it,” Tara continued. “It was originally discovered over a century ago, when the Enclave sent a scouting team to determine what had happened to our outpost in Appalachia. Since it can obviously detect your unique radiation, er, magic…” Tara paused for a moment, visibly uncomfortable with using such an ‘unscientific’ term, “a-anyway, since it can detect that, we were hoping that you could memorize what it looks like.”

“But what good would that do us?” Twilight asked.

“All of the X-51 technology is similar in style and design,” Tara explained. “We figured that you could search the wastes for something similar and, hopefully, find a way home on your own. We thought it was a long shot, but now that we know that there are definitely more of these…”

“Then there’s a chance we could find another one somewhere in the Capital Wasteland,” Sunset finished.

Tara nodded, “Exactly.”

Pinkie sniffed and brushed a tear off her cheek, trying to put the news about James behind her, for now. “I don’t get it, if the Enclave didn’t make that little egg-thingy, then who did?”

Tara opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a sudden beeping in her pocket, “Shit, that’s the timer I set for the distraction.” She reached into her pocket to turn off the alarm, then glanced up at Sunset “I know this is a lot to take in, but if you want to get out of here safely then we have to leave. Now.”  

Caught off-guard by the woman’s sudden change in tone, Sunset hesitated before turning to the others, “Everyone grab your packs. Fluttershy, are you good to go?”

Fluttershy closed her eyes and took several long, deep breaths. When she opened them again, her expression was determined, “I’m ready.”

“Good.” Tara quickly unlocked the second lockbox and beckoned Rainbow over, “Rainbow Dash? Here, these are yours.”

Rainbow cocked her head curiously, “What is it?”

“Two knives and some grenades,” Sienna replied. “We confiscated them from your pack when you first arrived here, as a precaution.”

Rainbow did a surprised double-take, “Awesome! I forgot about those. Hey, do you have my shishkebab?”

The three scientists glanced at each other in confusion. “Everything we had of yours is in this room. Anything else must have been left at Project Purity,” Becky told her.

“Damn it,” Rainbow muttered as she picked up her blades. 

“Are you all ready to go?” Becky asked. When everyone confirmed that they were, she turned and handed the lockboxes back to Sienna, “Now, remember everyone. First, we’re going to the admin office near the main cargo area. Until I’ve dealt with the soldiers there we all need to be silent. Not just quiet, silent, understand?” A series of nods came in response. “Good. Okay, let’s get moving.”





Becky couldn’t help but worry as she led the group through the corridors to the admin offices. The Rainbooms were a worrying mix of scared, angry, and grief-stricken, though Pinkie was the only one openly, but silently, crying. 

As they rounded the corner to the admin offices the group distinctly heard the voices of two soldiers just around the next bend, sending a shiver of anxiety through each of them. Thankfully, the door to the office they wanted was already open. Becky quickly ushered everyone else in. Once they were all inside and out of sight, she backtracked down several corridors since she had to make sure the soldiers were likely to hear her coming and it would certainly help matters if she was out of breath when she got to them.  

Okay, Becky, take a deep breath. You’re going to have to really sell this, or we’re dead.    

Clenching and unclenching her hands a few times to try and stop them shaking, Becky turned back and sprinted as fast as she could towards the soldiers. Belting past the admin office, she nearly crashed into the wall as she flew around the last corner. Just as she’d planned, the soldiers already had their weapons up and ready when she spotted them, standing in front of a pair of metal double doors. 

“Sigma, thank God! I need your help!” Becky gasped.

“Doctor Shoichet? What’s wrong?” one of the soldiers asked. 

She turned and pointed back down the corridor, “The damaged assaultron we found down in the lower repair center, it’s malfunctioning. I tried to deactivate it but it’s going wild, cycling it’s weapon systems constantly, and without any targeting data it…” Becky let the statement hang. An uncontrolled military robot without any targeting data would blast anything that crossed its path indiscriminately. 

“What were you doing down there in the first place?” the soldier asked suspiciously. “You’re supposed to be in the first aid room?”

Becky lowered her head, “I… I was trying to take my mind off of all the… all of the shit that happened earlier.”

The soldier huffed angrily, “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

The second soldier nudged him with an elbow, “You go and deal with that, Michaels. I’ll stay up here and keep watch.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just make sure no one gets past you, rookie. And as for you,” Becky flinched as the soldier pointed at her, “get your ass back to the first aid room. You do not want to be wandering around with a rogue assaultron on the loose.”

Becky’s heart sank as he stepped past her and broke into a run, leaving his fellow soldier still guarding the main cargo area. Unless both soldiers were out of the way, the plan was dead before it had even truly stared, “Uh, shouldn’t you go with him? Assaultrons are extremely dangerous.”

“Michaels is part of Sigma, he can handle it,” the soldier replied. “And now that he’s gone, maybe you can tell me what it is that you’re really up to?”

Becky’s heart went from sinking to practically leaping out of her throat, “I, uh, I don’t know what you mea-”

“Spare me the bullshit, Becky. After what happened this morning we both know there’s no way Tara would let you anywhere near a security robot on your own, especially a fucking assaultron. Not until she was a hundred percent certain you were back in top form.”

Becky took a cautious step back, “How do you…?” The soldier just sighed and shouldered his rifle before reaching up to remove his helmet. “What the… Vincent?! Since when have you been a member of Squad Sigma?!”

“Not long, Project Exodus is my first big assignment with them,” Vincent replied. “Now do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Th-there’s nothing going o-”

“It’s not going to take Michaels long to deal with the assaultron, that’s if it's actually been set to rampage, which I doubt,” Vincent cut in. “You clearly wanted us out of the way for something, so what is it?” Becky wilted under his gaze. She racked her brain, trying to come up with some excuse, but before she could Vincent sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose, “It’s the Rainbooms, isn’t it?” 

Becky felt the blood drain from her face, “Don’t be so fucking stupid, I wouldn’t do-”

“You should practice being a manipulative bitch a bit more often, you’re out of practice,” Vincent interrupted again. “All of the Exodus scientists have clearance to go through this door, meaning the only reason you’d need us out of the way is if you’re bringing something, or someone, through that doesn’t have clearance. So, where are they? The toilets down that way? Or the admin office around the corner?”

Becky’s shoulders slumped in defeat. We didn’t even manage to clear the first fucking obstacle. “When did you get so fucking sharp?”

“I’m a soldier, it’s kinda my job to think tactically these days,” Vincent replied. 

“You used to be shit at that sort of thing,” Becky mumbled.

Vincent smirked, “Yeah, well, I’ve had plenty of practice.” His smile faded as he turned serious once more, “Come on, Becky, just level with me.”

Becky sighed and looked away, “The Rainbooms don’t belong here.”

“No shit,” Vincent muttered under his breath. The two stood in silence for several long moments, Becky looking everywhere but at Vincent. Eventually he sighed heavily, “Man, I can’t believe you’re putting me in this position. Ah, fuck it. Go on, hurry up and bring them here, before Michaels gets back.”

Becky stared up at him in blank shock, “Wait, what?”

“Will you just hurry up already!” Vincent pressed. “Get them, and get the fuck out of here, quickly!” 

“R-right!” Becky turned to run back to the admin office, then stopped as Vincent called out to her again.

“And remember, you owe me big time for this!”

Becky narrowed her eyes as she looked back at him, “I’m not going to fuck you again, if that’s what you’re after.”

Vincent snorted, “It’s not. But I wouldn’t complain if you put a good word in with Sienna for me.”

Becky arched an eyebrow, “I’ll see what I can do.”
> Chapter 42 - Magic Unleashed
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waiting impatiently in the admin office, the Rainbooms plus Tara and Sienna, listened intently for any sign of what might be happening outside. Indistinct voices could just about be heard around the corner, then the whole group cowered and held their breath as a soldier went thundering past. Their relief at not being discovered was short-lived as everyone wondered why only a single soldier had left his post. 

The tension was palpable as another muffled conversation started up around the corner. Tara, in particular, started to get increasingly agitated as the seconds ticked by, wringing her hands and repeatedly glancing at the door nervously. Sunset was starting to worry that she might have to hold the scientist back when they finally heard the soft footfalls of Becky returning. 

Sticking her head around the door, Becky let out a soft sigh of relief as she spotted the girls, “We might be in luck.”

“Are the soldiers gone?” Tara hissed anxiously.

“One soldier stayed behind, but I… I think we can trust him,” Becky replied.

“Are you sure about that?” Applejack asked.

“I think so,” Becky nodded, then looked over at Tara, “It’s Vincent.”

Tara’s eyes widened in surprise, “Vincent? He’s part of Squad Sigma?!” 

“Apparently.” Becky pulled the door open wide and gestured for the girls to follow, “Come on, we don’t have long.”

“Are you sure we can trust this soldier?” Sunset asked as the group followed Becky out into the corridor.

“Be ready, just in case I’m wrong, but I think we’ll be okay,” Becky whispered, just loudly enough for the girls to hear, before smirking slightly. “You’ll probably recognize him as Flash.”

“Flash? You mean Flash Sent…ry…” Sunset trailed off lamely as they rounded the next corner and spotted the soldier in question waiting for them, helmet still tucked under his arm. His hair was black instead of blue and he was clearly a few years older than the one she knew, but there was no doubt that the man standing before them was this world’s version of Flash Sentry.

Vincent’s face fell when he saw the group approaching, “Aaand Tara and Sienna are both in on this too, because of course they are.” He sighed and shook his head. “Y’know, I was kinda hoping you were just high, or something.”

“Er, sorry,” Becky said sheepishly. “Are you still going to let us through?”

Vincent just gave her a calculating look, then sighed and jammed his helmet back on, “Fuck it, come on; let’s get all of you out of here.” An intense feeling of relief swept over the group as he turned and opened the double doors behind. “In here, quick. Michaels will probably be back up soon.”

The Rainbooms couldn’t help but gasp as they stepped through the door into the cargo area. The room was massive, easily twice the size of the marketplace hangar in Rivet City. Various portable generators, mobile cranes, and other less identifiable articles of heavy machinery were scattered around the warehouse, but all of them were dwarfed by two huge vehicles that sat on either side of the warehouse. They were rocket-shaped with a set of flat wings halfway along the fuselage and a set of stabilisers at the rear, like some bizarre fusion of a fighter plane and a space rocket. 

“Those are Delta IX rockets,” Becky explained, seeing the awed looks on the Rainbooms’ faces. “They were originally civilian spacecraft, until the military started converting them into intercontinental missiles.” She pointed ahead towards the far end of the room, where a pair of elevators were located, “Those personnel elevators are the ones that we want.”

The group dutifully followed the scientist through the warehouse. As they walked, Tara sidled up to Vincent, a sheepish look on her face, “I… um… I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but… why are you helping us?”

He gave a dry laugh, “Because, I’m a moron, apparently.”

“It’s not surprising if you think about it. After all, there’s technically four women in this room that he’s romantically interested in,” Sienna said flatly. 

Everyone glanced at her curiously. “What do you mean?” Tara asked, “I thought the only one he’d dated was Becky?”

Becky shrugged, “Don’t forget, he also had a crush on… oohhhh, okay, I get it.” She grinned evilly at Vincent, “In that case, technically it’s five.”

“I’m helping,” Vincent cut in as Sienna raised an eyebrow, “because it’s either that, or turn you in and probably get you killed. Besides, I’m assuming you have a plan for getting past the guys upstairs.”

Tara chuckled awkwardly, “Well, uh…”

“I don’t want to know what it is,” Vincent said bluntly. 

Sunset opened her mouth to tell him they plan was essentially just to wing it, but was distracted by an odd clunking sound coming from behind one of the rockets. 

“What’s that noise?” Twilight asked warily as the clanking sound started getting closer.

Vincent chuckled quietly, “Don’t worry, it’s just the protectron. It wandered up here earlier babbling about doing an inventory check or something. We figured it wouldn’t do any harm to let it patrol this section. Extra security, y’know?”

The Rainbooms watched curiously as an odd-looking robot stomped into view. It was vaguely humanoid in shape, with a bulbous body supported on stiff but sturdy legs, it’s arms were thick and ended in grasping claws with a small muzzle poking out of its palms, and a glass dome on top of the robot seemed to serve as a face. The protectron paused as it spotted the group, then resumed walking towards them and spoke in a tinny voice, “Warning. This is a... restricted... area.”

“Crap,” Tara muttered, “I’m going to have to delete it’s memory, so it can’t give us away later.”

Rarity grimaced at the patina of dust and corrosion all over the robot, “What is that thing?”

“A protectron,” Sienna answered. “It was stationed here before the war as a precaution against Chinese spies and saboteurs.”

“Warning. Unauthorized personnel... detected. Please provide... identification,” the robot said haltingly as it stomped closer, holding its arms out towards the Rainbooms. 

“Is it supposed to sound like that?” Applejack asked. 

Tara sighed, “Yeah. These pre-war models are pretty basic. This particular unit has been patrolling the facility for over two hundred years without any maintenance so…”

“It’s definitely sounding worse than the last time I spoke to it though,” Sienna put in. “I wonder if Doctor Turner managed to damage it somehow?”

“I... repeat. This is... a... restricted... area,” the robot continued. “Unauthorized... personnel... must provide... identification.”  

“It’s okay, er, Protectron. They’re with us,” Becky told it. 

The protectron halted, it’s little claws spinning  around its wrists as it seemed to process the scientist’s words. The robot suddenly started shuddering, causing something inside its casing to start rattling wildly, then it stopped with a loud bang and the glass glowed a deep, dark purple. When it spoke again its voice was far smoother and more human-sounding, “Unauthorized personnel must provide identification immediately, or security measures will be activated.”  

“That’s weird,” Tara said quietly. Sunset backed away slowly, suspicion blooming at the sight of the odd glow. Seeing this, Tara held a hand out reassuringly, “It’s okay, I can fix this. Protectron? Command protocol delta- aah!?”

Tara yelped and skipped back a step as a laser lashed out from the glass dome and struck the floor in front of her feet, prompting cries of fear and alarm from everyone. Becky was instantly at Tara’s side, glaring at the robot “What the fuck was that about?!”

The protectron just stared back impassively, “This unit will not allow itself to be shut down until identification is provided. Failure to provide correct identification will resu-” 

“Shut it!” Vincent snapped, pulling up his rifle and firing a bolt of green plasma directly at the protectron’s glass dome. Just before the plasma struck, the shimmering purple outline of dozens of tiny connected hexagons materialised mere inches from the robot’s chassis, forming an energy shield that stopped the bolt before fading from view.    

Becky’s jaw dropped open, “What the fuck was that?!”

“Equestrian magic,” Sunset replied in surprise.

The protectron shifted slightly and raised its arms again, pointing them directly at Vincent, “Security protocols engaged.” Petal-like crystalline structures suddenly sprouted and grew from it’s claws, glowing with an intensity that increased by the second. 

“Everybody move!” Sunset yelled just before twin beams of coruscating energy lanced through the air just as everyone threw themselves aside. The beams tore through machinery and equipment like a hot knife through butter until they finally slammed into the far wall. 

“Holy shit!” Sienna gasped as she stumbled backwards.

“Get away from that thing!” Becky barked, grabbing Tara and belting away from it. The others were already reacting by scattering and running for cover as the protectron charged up and fired again, narrowly missing Vincent. Ducking behind some barrels with Rarity, Sunset yelped as another pair of magical beams lashed out, carving one of the Delta IX’s in half. Risking a quick glance, she gasped at what she saw. 

Vincent was still diving and dodging as he traded fire with the robot to keep it focused on himself, but all of his shots were being blocked by the protectron’s magical shield. Each time the shield appeared and blocked the shots Vincent fired before vanishing without a trace.
 
“He can’t keep that up forever,” Sunset hissed. “We’ve got to help.”

Rarity nodded and threw an arm out, launching a crystal spike at the robot. Sparks flew as the shield intercepted it. Unlike with the plasma bolts, the shield remained in place for a few seconds afterwards, its surface rippling and distorting. “Did you see that? It’s weak against my magic!” Rarity cried. 

The robot noticed too. Sunset’s heart leapt into her mouth as it turned to face them, its arms glowing ominously. “Look out!” 

Sunset shoved Rarity aside and rolled away just as the robot fired. The crackling energy tore the barrels they’d been hiding behind into glowing fragments of dust and missed them by inches. The sheer concussive force of the attack knocked both girls clean off their feet.

Groaning with pain, Sunset hauled herself to her knees. Glancing around to check on Rarity, her mouth went dry when she spotted the protectron charging up again. One arm pointed at Rarity, the other at herself. Sunset tried to get her feet underneath her; making one desperate attempt at saving Rarity, though she knew she’d never make it in time. 

Time seemed to slow as the glow from the weapons intensified. As Sunset scrambled to her feet she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. Even in her terrified state, her mind registered confusion at the sight of the luminescent little glass bottle arcing towards the robot.   

Blinding pink light filled the room as a colossal blast tore through the air. 

Coughing and spluttering, Sunset peered through the cloud of dust that the explosion had kicked up. The robot was still standing. It’s entire frame was shrouded by the magical shield, but instead of fading the shield was sparking and flickering intermittently. 

Realising Pinkie’s magic must have overloaded that of the robot, Sunset shot to her feet and cupped her hands to yell. She needn’t have bothered. Seeing that the protectron was vulnerable, Vincent instantly unleashed a hail of plasma fire. Struggling under the punishing storm, the shield thinned, flickered once more, then finally dissolved in a shower of sparks. 

The first shot to get through the shield blew the protectron’s casing open. The second shattered the glass dome atop it. The robot tottered for a moment, then fell backwards to land with a metallic clang. Sunset breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the robot fall. 

“Is everyone alright?” Vincent called out.

A chorus of weak agreements rang out as everyone slowly came out from where they had been hiding. A quick check revealed that most of the group had picked up a few new bruises and scrapes, but no-one had suffered any real harm. Satisfied that her friends were uninjured, Sunset joined Vincent at the fallen protectron.

“What the fuck was that?” he asked, nudging it gently with his boot. 

“Equestrian magic,” Sunset replied. She turned an accusing glare on Tara, “I thought you said you hadn’t done any experiments on our Geodes?”

Tara shook her head quickly, “We didn’t, I swear!”

“It must have been Turner,” Becky groaned. “Something must have happened when he was observi-”

“None of that matters right now,” Vincent cut in. “All of you need to get in an elevator and get the hell out of here. Now!”

“Do you think the soldiers upstairs will have heard all of this?” Sunset asked as Rainbow sped off to call an elevator. 

Vincent shook his head, “Even if they didn’t, you can bet that Michaels did. You probably only have sec- oh, shit!”

Both Vincent and Sunset leapt back from the protectron as a dark purple ball of pure magic slowly floated up out of it’s remains. 

“What the fuck is that?!” Vincent cried. 

“Dark magic!” Sunset answered, recognising it instantly. 

“All of you, cease what you’re doing, immediately!” another voice boomed out suddenly.  Sunset whipped around at the shout. The second soldier, Michaels, was standing with his gun pointed at the group. He’d evidently returned at some point during all of the commotion. “All of you, get down on the ground! And you, Rainbow, get away from that elevator!”

Vincent stepped back, not taking his eyes off the magic, “Michaels, this isn’t what it-”

“Can it, rookie! Right now you’re under suspicion of assisting the Rainbooms in an escape attempt!” Michaels snapped. He dipped his head slightly, apparently activating his armour’s radio, “Sigma Leader, this is Sigma Four. We’ve got a situat-”

Suddenly, before anyone could react, the ball of magic rocketed forwards and slammed into Michaels. The impact punched him off his feet even as the magic spread and soaked into his armour, suffusing it with an ominous dark glow.

“Oh, no,” Becky whispered. 

“That can’t be good,” Vincent growled, raising his rifle. 

Sunset grimaced as she watched waves of magic rippling across the surface of the armour. She knew what had to be done, the trick was going to be getting it done safely. “Vincent, you and the doctors get in cover. We’ll handle this!”

“Are you sure?” he called over.

“We’ve got this, now go!” Sunset snapped.

Michaels groaned and painfully hauled himself back up, shaking his head slowly. “You alien freaks, what have you done to me?!”

“Twilight, grab his gun! Quickly!” Sunset cried.

A purple aura surrounded the weapon, snatching it from the soldier’s grip. Michaels cried out and flung an arm out towards it and several crystalline spider-like limbs burst from his gauntlets and grabbed the gun, yanking it back out of Twilight’s magic.

There was a flash of colour and the severed tips of the limbs fell to the floor. Rainbow smirked as she skidded to a halt past him, clutching the rifle in one arm and a knife in the other, “Too slow, dude.”

Michaels snarled, made to turn after her, then lurched and almost fell as his legs were suddenly encased in glittering crystal. More spider-limbs sprouted from his armour, but each of them was seized in Twilight’s magic. A second later he was blinded as a cupcake splattered across his helmet’s eyes. 

“Now, eat this!” Applejack yelled, hurling herself at him from the side. Michaels tried to defend himself, but Twilight used her magic to tie his arms up in his own spider-limbs. Applejack grunted with exertion as she unleashed her full might in a single titanic punch. The strike connected with a sound like a thunderclap, launching the soldier across the room to slam into the last remaining Delta IX rocket. 

Sunset felt a pang of guilt as she watched Michaels disappear into the wreckage, radioactive fluids pouring out of ruptured fuel cells, but she didn’t have the luxury of being concerned with killing, “Quick, get over here!” She took a deep breath as her friends hurried over, clasping hands and delving deeply into the magic they all shared. The warmth flowing through Sunset as they ponied up was both a comfort and a relief. 

No matter where we are or what happens, we can always rely on each other.  

Power surged through the girls as and lifted them into the air as they faced the wreckage of the rocket. Sunset couldn’t help a small feeling of relief as she saw that Michaels was still moving, slipping on the radioactive goop as he tried to get back to his feet, “Alright, girls, it’s time to show these people how we deal with trouble on our world!”

“Right!” the rest of the Rainbooms cried in response. 

“Pinkie, do you want to do the honours?” Sunset asked.

Pinkie grinned widely, her hair puffing up to its usual extent, “Light him up, ladies!”

Beams of coloured light shot out of each of the girls’ Geodes and converged in front of them, forming a ray of shimmering power that arced down and crashed into the corrupted soldier. Michaels roared with pain and fury as the dark power festering within his armour was burned away by the magic of friendship. 

Their victory was short-lived. 

The magic flowing from the Geodes slowed to a trickle, but the power that had already been fired didn’t disappear. Instead it somehow intensified, the radioactive liquid pooled in the wrecked rocket taking on a golden glow as the magic coalesced into a swirling vortex. 

Moments later, the vortex erupted in a hurricane of magical force. 





Knight-Sergeant Metzger yawned as she stretched, her armour creaking even more than her joints. The Suitland Federal Center had been a bust. Ideally, she’d have liked to go on to the next target straight away, but travelling through super mutant territory at night was practically suicide, so they’d set up camp in a bombed-out old building. 

“Any ideas on where we’re hitting first, tomorrow?” Hill asked, stifling a yawn himself. 

Metzger folded her arms as she pondered, “I think we should hit the old air base first. It’s further away, but if it does turn out to be empty, we'll be able to hit the RobCo facility on the way back. Saves us a bit of a journey.”

Hill nodded, “Cool. Do you think the Rainb- whoa!”

The two soldiers almost jumped out of their skin as they heard a terrific roar and the ruins were suddenly bathed in shining light. Spinning around, they gasped as they spotted a colossal pillar of light blazing into the sky, burning so brightly that it effectively turned the night into day.  The commotion roused the rest of her squad, who scrambled to their feet and gazed stupidly up at it. 

The column appeared to originate only a few kilometres or so away, towering over the surrounding ruins before disappearing into the clouds above. Hundreds of streamers of differently-coloured light split off from the column as it rose. Most of these streamers soared away into the distance, but no small quantity drifted closer to the earth before zipping through the ruins. Metzger herself narrowly dodged one, a bright red bolt that fizzed madly as it shot past her. 

“What the shit?!” Hill shouted, ducking as a pale blue one careened past his face.

“Don’t let them hit you!” Metzger snapped. She had absolutely no idea what would happen if one did make contact, but she’d much prefer to play it safe and not find out.

Eventually, after several minutes of avoiding or hiding from the bizarre little things, the pillar slowly thinned out, fading to a trickle before dissipating entirely. Cautiously, the soldiers straightened up and looked in the direction the pillar had come from. 

“Uh… Spitfire? What was that?” Hill asked slowly.

Metzger stared out into the ruins. There was no doubt in her mind as to what caused it, “It’s got to be the Rainbooms.”

“You sure?” Misty asked.

“That light originated from where the RobCo facility is supposed to be, I’m sure of it,” Metzger replied. “Besides, I can’t think of anything else in this world that’s weird enough to be able to cause that kind of crazy shit.”

“Good point,” Hill conceded. “So, what are we going to do?”

Metzger snorted, “You have to ask? Get your asses in gear, Wonderbolts, we’re moving out!”





Not far away, in the middle of a debris-strewn street, a pair of young women were sprawled on the floor. 

“Ow,” Tabitha huffed. She and her little sister, Claire, had been silently traversing the ruins when the pillar had erupted from the ground. Enthralled by the incredible sight, Tabitha hadn’t been paying close enough attention when a purple streamer had split off from the mass and struck her straight in the face. “Claire? Are you alright?”

“I… I think so?” came the reply. “What happened?”

“No idea, darling,” Tabitha muttered. Grateful that her sister was unharmed, she rolled onto her hands and knees, then froze as she felt something odd on top of her head. Reaching up, she bit back a cry of shock as she felt a pair of animal-like ears poking out of her hair. Almost as shockingly, the loose strands of hair that were now dangling in front of her face had clearly turned a vibrant and luscious indigo with hints of mulberry. 

A shocked gasp brought Tabitha’s head snapping around. Claire was staring in horror at her own hair, now a pale mulberry and rose  and long enough to reach halfway down her back. A pair of white animal ears poked out of the top of her head. As Claire sucked in a breath Tabitha lunged at her, clamping a hand over her mouth. 

“Don’t scream,” Tabitha hissed. “I know this is scary, but that light will have woken up every super mutant within fifty miles of here. So, whatever you do, don’t scream. Okay?” Claire’s eyes were wide with fear, but she nodded nonetheless. Glad that her sister had calmed down enough not to get them both killed, Tabitha removed her hand. “There. Now, how do you feel?”

Claire frowned, breathing heavily, “I feel… pretty good. Great, actually.”

“Me too,” Tabitha admitted. It wasn’t a lie. Whatever it was that had hit her left Tabby feeling stronger and more energetic than she could ever remember feeling before. Still, she wasn’t willing to trust it just based on that. “Come on, we need to get back to Rivet City as quickly as possible.”

Claire tilted her head quizzically, “But, what about the Rainbooms?”

“I’ll come back out for them,” Tabitha assured her, “right now, though, I think we should get a doctor to take a look at us. Immediately.”

“We can’t just abandon the mission!” Claire hissed back. “Besides, whatever this is, it must have been caused by the Rainbooms!”

Tabitha arched an eyebrow at her, “Oh? How so?”

Claire just gave her a flat look, “Three-Dog mentioned that they can do this thing where they grow ears like this in one of his broadcasts,” she flicked one of her new ears for emphasis, “and we know that they’re supposed to have weird hair colours. What else could it be?”

Tabitha mulled it over quickly. Personally, she was inclined to abort the mission and get Claire to a doctor as soon as humanly possible, but, if the Rainbooms really were the cause of this, then they’d be the best people to speak to about fixing it. Sighing heavily, she hefted her railway rifle and got to her feet. “Okay, sweetie, I’ll trust you. Grab your SMG and let’s get moving. Quietly, if you don’t mind.”

 “Sure thing, sis!”





“Shit! Shit, shit, fucking shit!” Blades kicked at a stone in frustration. He and his crew had managed to track the Rainbooms into the depths of the old ruins, and then that pillar of light had appeared and blown everything to shit. Four of his team had been hit by the bizarre little lights that shot out of it and ended up mutating. Their hair had grown and turned a whole mess of funny colours, and they’d even grown freaky ears on top of their heads; again, in a range of colours. Two of them had even grown wings. 

To make matters worse, a few of the little lights had slipped into some of their equipment, bonding with it somehow. After seeing what they did to the people they hit, no-one was being stupid enough to touch the damned things.

“What are we going to do, man?” Crawler asked. 

“Shit,” Blades spat again. He looked around at the others and stuck his hands on his hips, “We’ll get out of here, regroup back up by the old bank a few blocks north.”

“That’s not good enough,” Lightning shot, glaring at him. “I say we leave the guys who got hit and carry on without them.”

“Are you nuts?” Blades asked incredulously. “Every fucking super mutant between here and Tenpenny Tower is going to be hauling ass to find out what the fuck that light was. Add in those power armored fuckers and you’ve got a full-on suicide mission down there.”

Lightning strode up to him, getting right in his face, “I came here to take down the Rainbooms. I am not turning back empty-handed just because you’ve turned soft.”

Blades snorted, “Yeah? Then you’ve got a fucking death wish.”

Lightning just smirked at him, “That’s what all the pussies like you say.” She stepped back and looked around at the others, “What about the rest of you? Any of you have the balls to come with me?” One or two of the men looked up at her, but none of them offered to come with. “Fine,” she snapped, turning and walking away, “looks like I’ll have to bring those bitches down myself.”
> Chapter 43 - Magical Mayhem
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset groaned as she stirred feebly. That last magical blast had swatted her out of the air and left her sprawling on the floor. Cracking her eyes open she spotted her friends, all still ponied up, in a similar predicament; moaning and shaking their heads as they came to. 

“Are y’all okay?” Applejack called out. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” Sunset replied, pushing herself into a sitting position as the rest of the Rainbooms gave similar responses. She blinked in surprise as she swept her gaze over the aftermath of their magical barrage. 

The Delta IX rocket had been completely vaporized, save for a large puddle of glowing white sludge that split into a kaleidoscope of colours around its edge. A man, Sunset guessed it must have been Michaels, was laying flat on his back in the middle of the puddle. His armor was missing, somehow, and she could just make out a pair of crimson pony ears protruding from a mop of violet hair on his head. Whether or not he was still alive, however, was something she couldn’t figure out from where she was sitting. 

Looking around bemusedly, Sunset noticed that the ground around the puddle had been altered too; all of the dust, rust, and grime had been scoured away, leaving behind nothing but gleaming steel. 

“Whoa, look at that,” Rainbow said suddenly. 

Sunset looked over, then followed her friends’ gaze up to the ceiling. Her mouth dropped open at what she saw. A colossal hole had been bored through the ceiling directly above where the rocket had been. The internal surface of the hole was glowing softly with a kaleidoscope of colors. 

Rainbow flew slowly over and looked up, careful not to touch the puddle, “It looks like it goes all the way to the surface!”

“Did we do that?” Fluttershy asked, awestruck.

“I-I think so?” Sunset replied. 

“Awesome!” Rainbow cried.

Applejack huffed and gestured to Michaels, “What about that guy, he alive?”

Fluttershy got up and flew over slowly, “He’s breathing, I think he’s just unconscious.”

A sudden hydraulic hiss from behind snagged the girls’ attention. Sunset glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Vincent stagger backwards out of his unsealed power armor wearing simple grey and amber underclothes. Pale amber wings stretched out of his back, a match to the pony ears poking out of his bright blue hair. “I… what the… what?” He peeked over his shoulder and turned on the spot as he nervously tried to get a good look at his new appendages.  

A moment later, the three doctors that had accompanied the Rainbooms stepped out from behind various pieces of machinery they’d been using as cover. Each of them had ponied up too; Becky was once again bearing amber ears and red-and-yellow hair, Tara now had a pair of purple wings with matching ears and hair that was the spitting image of Twilight’s, and Sienna was sporting the white and blue pigtails of her Crystal Prep counterpart, complete with a pair of greyish blue pony ears. 

“Oh, dear,” Rarity sighed, “it’s Doctor Li all over again.”

 “Uh, guys? I think I have wings,” Vincent asked worriedly, getting more and more frantic by the second, “why do I have wings?!” 

“Vincent, calm down!” Becky said firmly, hurrying over and clasping his shoulders to stop him spinning. “It’s okay, Vince, just look at me. I know this is freaky, but I need you to take a deep breath and try to calm down.” 

Vincent did as he was told, locking eyes with her and sucking in deep breaths in time with hers until he managed to get himself under control, “Okay. I’m good. Thanks, Becky.”

“Don’t mention it,” Becky replied, letting him go and taking a step back before turning to her compatriots. “What about you two, are you alright?”

“Peachy,” Sienna deadpanned.

“I… I think I’m fine,” Tara replied, trying not to flinch every time one of her new body parts twitched. “Um, could someone please explain what just happened?”

Sunset stood and dusted herself off, “Honestly? I’m not sure. Usually when we use our magic like that it just destroys or purifies whatever evil magic we throw it at.” She turned and looked up at the hole in the ceiling, “I’ve never seen it do something on that kind of scale before. I guess some of the excess power must have entered each of you somehow.”

“Is it going to harm us in any way?” Vincent asked. Sunset shook her head. She opened her mouth to elaborate, but Vincent cut her off, “Good. In that case, all of you need to get out of here, right now.”

Becky nodded, “Vincent’s right. If that blast really did go all the way up to the surface, then you can bet your ass that the rest of the squad up there will come down here any second to figure out what’s going on.”

Sunset swore under her breath, “So much for sneaking out quietly.”

“I say we smash our way out! We can take those guys!” Rainbow cried. 

“Ah ain’t so sure about that, sugarcube,” Applejack responded, rubbing her belly absently. “The last time we went up against soldiers, we got our butts handed to us.”

“I fear we may not have much choice in the matter,” Rarity said reasonably. “At least we have an idea of what to expect this time, we won’t be caught off-guard by them again.”

Vincent cleared his throat, getting everyone’s attention, “Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better decide fast. Clock’s ticking.” 

Twilight nodded, “You’re right. Come on, girls, we have to try.” She reached out with a hand and used her magic to pluck Michaels out of the magic goop, placing him gently on the floor away from the puddle before turning to address the doctors, “What about you three, are you coming with us?”

One of Becky’s new ears flicked subconsciously, “We’re staying. It’s a risk, but we believe we may be able to do some good while we’re still a part of the Enclave. Go on, we’ll put the lower facility on lockdown the moment you’re gone, in case any super mutants come looking.”

“Alright then, good luck,” Sunset replied, giving her a respectful nod before hurrying over to the elevator with the others. “And thank you!” she called out over her shoulder as she ran. 

Rainbow got there first, jabbing the button repeatedly. The grinding noise the elevator doors made as they opened felt appallingly loud in the near-silent warehouse. Crowding into the elevator, Pinkie pressing the only button available, the Rainbooms had one last glimpse of Becky and the others before the doors ground shut and the cab jolted into motion. 

No one spoke at first. Each of the Rainbooms was too busy either trying to process the sheer insanity that they’d dealt with over the last couple of days, or worrying about the horrifically dangerous battle that was surely awaiting them the moment they reached the surface. After a couple of minutes, however, the group started getting restless. 

“Just how deep underground are we?” Applejack asked, her patience already wearing thin. 

Rainbow shrugged, “That tunnel we blew open was pretty long. Why do you think I stuck with the elevator instead of just flying up?”

“Good point.”

Fluttershy shuffled her feet nervously, “Do… do you think we’re really going to have to fight those soldiers?”

“I hope not,” Sunset replied. 

“We’ll figure something out,” Twilight said bracingly. “In fact, as long as they don’t have any more of those grenades they used back at Project Purity, I should be strong enough to keep them immobile long enough for the rest of you to get away. All I’ll need then is for Rainbow Dash to help me escape using her super speed.”

Rainbow grinned at her, “You can count on me!”

Sunset raised an eyebrow as she thought it through, “Huh, that’s actually not a bad plan. Are you sure you’ll be able to hold them still for long enough?”

“If not, Ah’ll just have to punch them while she holds them steady,” Applejack said, smacking a fist into her palm for good measure.

“Hopefully it doesn’t come to that,” Rarity replied fervently. 

The whole group jumped a mile as the elevator jerked to a sudden stop and the doors scraped open. Peeking out, the girls saw that the building on the surface was much the same as the facility underground; featureless corridors made out of dull concrete. Unfortunately, unlike the underground section, the lights upstairs were all turned off, presumably to fool the local super mutants into believing that the place was still abandoned. 

Torn between the need for stealth and the need for light, Sunset switched on her Pip-Boy lamp. A sprained ankle wouldn’t help anyone. Swallowing her fear, she gave the others a quick nod before sneaking out into the corridor. As the girls crept silently through the building they came across odd markings, multicolored streaks and gouges that were almost certainly caused by rogue magic. 

Eventually, after taking a circuitous route through the building to avoid the more ruinous sections, the group stumbled across the facility’s entrance foyer. The main doors had been smashed off their hinges, leaving nothing between the girls and whatever was lurking outside. Sunset quickly turned off her light. Taking a silent breath, she gestured for Twilight and Rarity to follow her and scurried over to scout out the entrance doors. 

The forecourt was surprisingly well-lit, both by the moon and by more of the odd multi-coloured splatters that glowed in the night. High walls outlined the court’s perimeter, with a small security building next to a gateway, the boom gate long gone, that led out into the surrounding ruins. A gravel-strewn road, dotted with abandoned cars, stretched from the security building around to the facility entrance and beyond before it curved around to disappear around the side of the facility. Huge bombed-out office buildings towered over the forecourt on all sides. 

A large tilt-rotor aircraft, the Vertibird Becky had mentioned, was parked at the far end of the forecourt, next to the security building. Five men were gathered around it. One was laying flat on his back next to an open suit of oddly shimmering power armour. The other three soldiers were still in their armour, though from the way they were checking themselves over it was clear that something wasn’t right. Sunset assumed the fifth man was a pilot. He had bright white ears and wings, with glorious pink hair cascading down over his simple grey combat fatigues.  

The implications of the man’s pony form were not lost on the girls, but they didn’t have time to worry about it right now.

“What do we do?” Rarity asked. 

“We can’t sneak past, it’s too bright,” Pinkie answered. “Maybe we can find another way out or around?”

Sunset chewed her lip as she considered her options. Before she could come to a decision there was a sudden fizzing sound from behind, and a split-second later a tiny comet of sparkling yellow magic zipped between the girls and out into the forecourt, careering past the soldiers before disappearing into the ruins ahead. 

The three soldiers snapped their weapons up, instantly on guard. One of them spotted the girls, shouting out to his fellows before any of them could react. They quickly trained their guns on the group, one of them hefting something that looked disturbingly like a flamethrower, but, thankfully, didn’t open fire.

“Awww, nuts,” Pinkie muttered under her breath. 

“Now what?” Rarity hissed.

Sunset swore silently. She’d hoped they could get away without the soldiers noticing, but there was still a chance they could get away without a fight. “Follow my lead.” Straightening up and throwing her shoulders back, Sunset marched out towards the soldiers as confidently as she could. She didn’t dare look back, but the sound of footsteps told her that the others were following.

“That’s far enough!” the flamethrower-wielding soldier called out when they got to within a few metres. “You girls are not supposed to be out here!”

Sunset stopped and folded her arms, glaring at him with all of the false arrogance she could muster, “We’re leaving. Don’t try to stop us.”

“By orders of the President I cannot allow that,” the soldier retorted. “As Sigma Leader I am ordering you to return to lower facility at once.”

“That’s not happening,” Sunset said flatly. “I’m guessing you saw that blast, so you know what we’re capable of.”

The Sigma Leader just stared back at her, his helmet masking his expression. “Diaz? Are comms up and running yet?” he called out suddenly. 

“Not yet, Sir!” came an answering shout from inside the Vertibird.

“What about the outer perimeter feed?” The Leader asked next.

“Still down,” one of the other soldiers replied.

The pilot shifted on his feet, looking worriedly from the Rainbooms to the gateway and back again, “Sir, with the feed out we have no way of knowing how far out the super mutants are. They could be on us any second.”

“I’m aware of that!” Sigma Leader snapped. “Grab Wilkins, get him in the security office and lock the door. As for you, girls, we are not letting you leave this complex, not under any circumstances. Now, get back in that building. I won’t ask you again.”

“You might not have much of a choice about that,” Pinkie said giving a small, worried chuckle. 

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” the Sigma Leader asked darkly. 

In response, Pinkie simply pointed at the gateway. A truly bizarre creature was lumbering towards them. Completely naked, it looked vaguely like a quadrupedal humanoid, though in place of legs it was shuffling forward on several misshapen arms, its limbless torso lurching from side to side as it moved. Three large tentacles protruded from the creature’s mouth, looking disturbingly like oversized tongues. Upon spotting the group, the monster reared back on it’s limbs and let loose a horrific gurgling cry. 

“Centaur!” one of the soldiers yelled, spinning on his heel and snapping off a shot in one crisp movement. The shot blew the creature’s head off, but the damage was already done. Before the echoes of the centaur’s cry had faded, there was a chorus of answering roars and guttural yells from the surrounding ruins.

“Shit, Diaz! Get that bird in the air, now!” Sigma Leader shouted, glancing over his shoulder. “Squad, we hold here until the bird is gone, then-”

His orders were drowned out by an echoing bellow from above. Moments later a super mutant crashed onto the roof of the security office. Huge, fleshy wings fanned out from the mutant’s back, whipping up a cloud of dust as the beast raised a sledgehammer and roared in challenge. To the soldiers’ credit, they didn’t hesitate for a second before shooting the mutant down, green plasma and crackling blue flames ripping it apart in barely a second.

“Quick, get down!” Sunset called out. She ducked behind the nearest car as more mutants charged into view through the gateway. Each of them bore some sort of weapon; from hammers and nail-studded boards of wood to bolt-action rifles and fully automatic machine guns.  

“Get back in the facility!” the Sigma Leader snarled, bullets ricocheting off his armour as he turned his flamethrower on the approaching mutants. Instead of the expected gout of flame, the weapon coughed great wads of blue fire that incinerated everything they touched, whether stone or metal or mutant flesh. 

There was a mechanical whine as the Vertibird’s rotors slowly started to spin. Leaning out from behind another car, Twilight used her magic to grab the winged pilot and the unconscious soldier and toss them unceremoniously in the Vertibird’s open crew compartment. The whine grew to a roar as the rotors picked up speed and the craft slowly rose into the air. 

“I couldn’t just leave them,” Twilight said in response to Sunset’s querulous look. The two yelped and ducked instinctively as bullets tore into the cars they were using as cover. 

The forecourt was rapidly turning into a charnel house. Despite the heroic efforts of the three remaining soldiers, they were barely managing to keep the super mutants out of the forecourt. Some were clambering over the walls in an effort to reach the humans, and a rare few even tried to fly in, much as the first one had, but fortunately they had little more success. Rarity was quick to add her own power to the barrage, hurling razor-edged gemstones that clove skulls and opened abdomens, but the Rainbooms’ chances of successfully escaping were swiftly dwindling. It was only the fact that the mutants were concentrating their meager firepower on the armored soldiers that was keeping the girls alive, a situation that wouldn’t last for long.

“We’ve got to do something!” Sunset yelled, flinching as a bullet tore right through the car, inches from her shoulder. 

Pinkie looked up at the Vertibird. It was several meters in the air now; just a little higher and it would have cleared the tallest ruined buildings and would be able to leave safely. “Do you think we should have gotten on that thing too?” 

As if in answer to her query, a rocket soared out of somewhere in the ruins and slammed into one of the rotors. The explosion sent the Vertibird spinning uncontrollably. With smoke pouring from the damaged wing, the girls could only watch in horror as the craft whirled away out of sight down a nearby street. A colossal explosion tore through the air mere seconds later.

The Sigma Leader swore loudly, “Fall back! Into the facility, now!”

The soldiers obeyed without question, backing towards the facility while keeping up a punishing rate of fire on the super mutants. Sunset was considering giving up the escape and joining them when another super mutant stomped through the gateway. This one was bigger and bulkier than the others, with a boxy laser rifle clasped in one meaty fist. 

The mutant shrugged off plasma blasts as if they were mere pinpricks and raised his weapon. The rifle’s barrel glowed orange for a second, then three separate beams lanced out, easily punching clean holes straight through one of the soldiers. The man dropped his weapon and tottered for a moment, before falling to the floor with a crash.  

“Shit, take that bastard down!” the Sigma Leader shouted. The large mutant shrank back from the torrent of magical flames that came his way, staggered, and finally fell. 

There was a sudden roar from above as a trio of flying mutants used the momentary distraction to dive down and mob the other remaining soldier. Caught by surprise, the unfortunate warrior struggled to fight them off as they tried to wrestle him to the ground. With even more mutants taking the opportunity to charge through the gateway, there was little the others could do to help. 

Sunset snarled and slapped her hand against the car in terrified frustration. I need a gun. If we just keep sitting here like this we’re all going to die, but the only magic we can use right now is Rarity’s. We can’t even use Pinkie’s without risking blowing up all of these cars.

Wait…

“Applejack! Can you toss a car into that gateway?” Sunset shouted.

Applejack risked a look over the top of her car, then ducked back down and nodded, “Sure thing!”

“Do it! Then, Pinkie, you light it up!” Sunset barked. “Rarity! Shield us!”

Heedless of the bullets flying around her, Applejack straightened up and lashed out with a foot, slamming her heel into the side of the car with all of her might. The car rolled and flipped across the forecourt, flattening a pair of mutants before crashing to a halt right in the middle of the gate. Sunset had just enough time for a glimpse of a glowing Nuka-Cola bottle smashing against it before a huge crystal shield manifested around them all.

The explosion that followed shook the ground with its fury. Rarity grunted with effort as shattered debris and torn metal crashed against her shield, each impact creating a spider web of cracks. After the echoes of the blast had died down she relaxed and lowered her arms, allowing the gemstones to fade away. 

“Whoa,” Rainbow said under her breath. The explosion had knocked down large portions of the wall and security building, and had also killed every super mutant still standing in the forecourt. Groans and curses showed that the Sigma Leader and his last soldier had survived, though both had been knocked clean off their feet.

“Now’s our chance! Go, go!” Sunset shouted. As one the Rainbooms leapt out of cover and scrambled for the smouldering remains of the gateway, the Sigma Leader shouted a reprimand, but the girls ignored him, focusing only on getting through the ruined gateway. 

Another of the winged super mutants flapped overhead, aiming a rifle at Applejack. Before it could shoot there was a blur of color and the mutant fell, its wings brutally slashed. There was another blur as Rainbow swooped down and slashed the mutant’s throat before it could try to stand. 

Pounding across uneven ground, the girls reached the gateway just in time to almost collide with another group of super mutants. Carnage erupted instantly: The Rainbooms didn’t give their foes time to react, gemstones scything through the air as Rainbow darted from mutant to mutant, slashing at eyes and throats. Purple magic snatched weapons from hands, allowing Applejack to unleash her strength on disarmed opponents. The rest of the girls just tried to stay out of the way. 

Dodging past one super mutant, Sunset skidded to a halt as another one lumbered into her path. The shark-toothed monstrosity raised an axe high above its head, then suddenly staggered and cried out in pain. A heartbeat later there was a clatter of gunfire and the mutant collapsed to the ground. Bullet holes traced a line up its spine and a sharp metal spike protruded from its shoulder. Wondering where the help had come from, Sunset looked up at the building looming in front just in time to see something huge leap out of a broken window. 

The ground shook as the Brotherhood Knight landed, squashing a super mutant beneath armored boots. Four more Knights landed right after, and as one the squad raised their weapons. “Wonderbolts! Take them out!”

A strong arm grabbed Sunset and pulled her down to the ground as the Knights opened fire. There was a series of rhythmic cracks and barks of agony as precise laser shots swiftly downed the remaining super mutants. 

Within seconds the fight was over, and a tense silence fell.

Glancing to her side, Sunset realised it was Pinkie who had dragged her down. “Heh, sorry,” the party girl said apologetically, “Can’t be too careful, right?”

“Are you girls alright?” the first Knight asked. 

Sunset just nodded and pushed herself up onto her knees to look back at the others. Fluttershy and Twilight were both cowering behind Rarity. Applejack was staring at the Brotherhood soldiers in surprise, gore drenching her arms and spattered liberally all over the rest of her. Rainbow, on the other hand, bent to wipe off her knives on a dead super mutant before straightening up and grinning at the Knight, “I think we’re fine. Nice save, Knight-Sergeant.”

“Don’t take another step!” a sharp voice called out, prompting the Knights to raise their rifles again and the Rainbooms to spin around on the spot. The Sigma Leader and his last squad-mate were both standing a few meters away, their weapons poised and ready. “The Rainbooms are staying with us. You filthy scavengers are going to crawl back under whatever… rock… um… oh.”

The leader trailed off as a purple glow enveloped both the muzzle of his flamethrower and the barrel of his subordinate’s plasma rifle, twisting and warping the metal in a shower of sparks until they were utterly useless. “You’re going to leave us alone,” Twilight said darkly, levelling a furious glare at them. She raised a hand, using her magic to grip the joints on their armour, “Or you can keep pushing your luck.”

“Leave them,” the Knight-Sergeant commanded, “we should get out of here before any more mutants turn up.”

“Hmph,” Twilight turned away and flicked her wrist, buckling portions of the Enclave armour and forcing the soldiers to their knees before letting them go. “I suppose you’re right. Let’s get-”

A sudden tremor in the ground distracted her from what she was going to say. The Rainbooms looked around warily as they felt another tremor, then another. “What is that?” Rainbow asked.

“It almost feels like… footsteps,” Fluttershy replied. 

“That’s some mighty big footsteps,” Applejack said, unable to keep a note of worry out of her voice.

The Knight-Sergeant glanced around at the group, then gestured into the building she’d came from with her gun, “Come on, let’s get out of here before whatever’s causing that gets here.”

Pinkie looked up at something down the street, pure terror flitting across her face, “Too late.”

Sunset followed Pinkie’s gaze, and instantly wished she hadn’t. A titanic super mutant stepped around a corner a few blocks down the street. It was easily thirty feet tall, with huge, bony, chimney-like growths growing out of its back, each of them belching foul smoke into the air. The monster’s skin was translucent, pulsing with an angry red glow. The mutant paused as it spotted the girls, then pointed and let out a horrific roar that shook the very earth. 

“Fucking run!” the Knight-Sergeant yelled.

The others were already moving, not needing any prompting to get away from the colossal nightmare as fast as they possibly could. The whole group piled into the building through the nearest entrance. They kept running, one of the Knights leading the way, not stopping even as they heard the creature’s thunderous footfalls coming ever closer. 

Sunset looked back in terror as she heard screams from behind, followed by another earth-shaking roar. With a horrible sinking feeling she realized that the Enclave soldiers had been left behind, their damaged armor making them sitting ducks before the advancing monster. Sunset knew that the sound of rending metal and tortured screams that followed would haunt her for the rest of her life, even as the monster’s enraged bellowing slowly faded away with every step she took. 
> Chapter 44 - A Brief Respite
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The group didn’t dare to stop running. Still going at full speed, the Rainbooms and their Knight rescuers passed through broken buildings and open streets in quick succession, moving as far from the Exodus building as they could get. The occasional gang of super mutants got in their way, but these were quickly avoided or dispatched  and left in the group’s wake. 

Finally, when the mutated Behemoth’s enraged roars could no longer be heard, the Knights and the Rainbooms slowed to a stop in the middle of an old playground. Sunset leaned against a rusty climbing frame and bent over, placing her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath.

“Do you… think we… lost it?” Pinkie gasped. 

“I’d say so,” the Knight-Sergeant replied. “If it was going to catch up to us, it would’ve done so by now.”

The Rainbooms all sighed with relief. Rainbow grinned and strode up to the Knight-Sergeant as though she hadn’t done more than a walk down the street, “Thanks for the help. I guess this makes us even.”

Sunset looked up and raised an eyebrow, “Even? What do you- wait, are you Metzger?”

“That’s me,” Knight-Sergeant Metzger replied. 

Applejack sighed and settled herself against the climbing frame alongside Sunset, “Ah gotta say, Ah’m glad you showed up when you did. We were in one heck of a tight spot back there.”

“We noticed,” one of the Knights huffed. “What the hell was that thing anyway? I’ve never seen a Behemoth like that before.”

Sunset hung her head in shame, “I… I think that was our fault.”

“We’ll worry about who’s fault it is later,” Metzger said firmly. “We should get moving, we’re still deep in super mutant territory.” She turned and pointed down a nearby street, “There’s a defensible building a kilometer or so that way, we’ll head there and set up camp until the morning. Save the questions and explanations until we’re less exposed.”

The girls weren’t exactly happy about having to move so soon after their desperate escape, but none of them had any interest in another brawl with magically enhanced super mutants. Just as they were getting ready to go, a thought occurred to Sunset, “Quick question, are all of the weapons you’re carrying laser-based?”

“Pretty much,” Metzger replied.

Sunset frowned curiously, “But… if that’s true, then who shot the super mutant that was attacking me?”

“That would be us, darling,” a voice called out. 

The whole group whipped around, instantly on guard, then hesitated, surprised at what they saw. Two women were approaching, one a little older than the Rainbooms, the other in her mid-teens. The elder had luxurious purple hair that would be recognised instantly by anyone who’d ever seen Rarity, while the younger had curly two-tone purple and pink hair that made her a spitting image of Sweetie Belle. Both women had matching alabaster pony ears. 

“Please, don’t be alarmed. We aren’t here to cause a scene,” the older one said brightly. “Having said that, I do have some… questions…” She trailed off as her gaze settled on Rarity, who stared back in equally stunned disbelief. “I… er…”

“Are they friends of yours?” Knight-Sergeant Metzger asked. Unfortunately, Sunset didn’t know how to even begin answering that question. Not if they wanted to get moving anytime soon. Seeing her hesitation, Metzger sighed heavily, “Are they enemies?”

“No,” Sunset and the younger woman said in unison. 

“Good.” Metzger signalled for her squad to lower their weapons, “Alright you two, you’re coming with us. Questions can wait until later, unless you fancy asking the super mutants, are we clear?”  

“We’re clear,” the younger woman said quickly, giving the other a sharp jab in the ribs with her elbow. “Come on, sis,” she hissed loudly. 

“R-right,” the older one said, rubbing her ribs. “Lead on, Lady Knight.”





Sunset shivered and scooted a little closer to the fire. The group had managed to make it to the building that Metzger had mentioned without any incident, and the majority of them were now resting in the basement while the Knight-Sergeant and two of the Brotherhood Knights kept watch upstairs. Rubbing her hands to warm them up, she subtly glanced around at the others.  

The two newcomers were huddled in a corner by themselves, still ponied up and sneaking surreptitious looks at Rarity. Rarity, for her part, couldn’t help but reciprocate whenever she thought they weren’t looking. Oddly enough, Applejack kept doing so as well. Rainbow, Pinkie and Fluttershy were bunched up on the other side of the fire, chatting quietly. Twilight, perched next to Sunset, was staring silently into the flames. She hadn’t spoken a word since they’d gotten away from that Behemoth. 

Everyone looked up as heavy footsteps announced the arrival of a Knight from upstairs. The Knight nodded at the group before stepping over to a wall, reaching down to rest their gun against it, then straightening up and holding their arms at their sides. There was a series of mechanical clicks as the back of the armour opened up abruptly, and a redheaded woman efficiently disengaged herself from it. 

Knight-Sergeant Metzger swept a hand through her hair before turning to face everyone, “Alright, we aren’t out of the woods yet but we should be safe here for the night. We’ll leave at first light and, as long as we don’t have too much trouble with the super mutants or Enclave reinforcements, it’ll only take a few hours to get back to friendly territory.”

Sunset just nodded, “How did you know where to find us?”

“Doctor Li,” Metzger replied. “She and Adam managed to escape Project Purity and get word to us.”

The Rainbooms instantly perked up at that. “Adam escaped?!” Fluttershy asked eagerly.

Metzger smirked, “The kid can handle himself, I’ll give him that.” The smile quickly disappeared, replaced with a serious expression, “Enough about him, though. Right now I’ve got some more pressing questions, starting with who the hell you two are.”

The two newcomers shared a quick glance, before the older one cleared her throat and straightened her posture, “My name is Tabitha Germaine, and this my little sister, Claire.”

Rarity gasped in surprise, “Wait a moment, you mean to say you’re the Miss Germaine, the proprietress of the Seaborne Boutique?!”

“You know of my Boutique?” Tabitha asked in a delighted tone.

“Know of it? My dear, until this most recent fiasco reared its ugly head, I was working there, aiding Miss Pommel during your absence,” Rarity replied. 

“You’re a store owner?” Metzger narrowed her eyes at Tabitha, “If that’s true, that means you’re probably based in either Megaton, Rivet City, or Tenpenny Tower. So why would a well-off store owner from a fortified settlement come all the way out here to the middle of Shitsburg to try and help a group of people she’s never even met?”

Tabitha rolled her eyes, “We have mutual friends, and those friends requested that we assist the Rainbooms in any way that we could. Anything more than that is, quite frankly, none of your business.”

“She’s telling the truth, we do have mutual friends,” Sunset added. She didn’t know why Tabitha didn’t want the Brotherhood knowing about the Railroad, but she wasn’t about to expose them without good reason.  

Metzger raised her eyebrow for a second, then snorted, “Fair enough.” Her expression quickly turned serious once more as she addressed the Rainbooms, “Next question. What the hell was that pillar of light we saw earlier? Was it something to do with you lot?”

The Rainbooms shared a concerned look. “Pillar of light?” Sunset prompted uneasily.

Metzger nodded, “Me and Soarin’ were taking the first watch when we saw this huge ray of light shoot right up into the sky, then all of these little wisps and things started splitting off from it and spreading out through the sky and the ruins.”

“That’s what we saw,” Claire chimed in. “We got hit by two of those weird little light-things, they made us look like this.” She pointed to her pony ears for emphasis. “That’s why we followed you instead of going straight home, once we knew you were safe. Or, y’know, safe with the Knights, anyway.”

“You don’t have to worry, it’s not dangerous,” Rarity said quickly, easily guessing their reasons. “Doctor Li found herself in a similar predicament a short while ago.”

“It should go away in a few hours,” Fluttershy added. “It may come back every now and again, but it won’t cause either of you any harm.”

Metzger folded her arms and gave the Rainbooms a dark look, “So it was you girls that made that light.” 

The girls winced, but nodded. “We didn’t mean to do it. Not like that, anyhow,” Applejack said, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. 

“We were defending ourselves,” Sunset pointed out earnestly. “A robot had been infused with dark magic, I don’t know how, and it was attacking us. We destroyed the robot, but the darkness found another host. We combined our own magic, to purge the dark power, but it ended up going completely out of control.” She sighed and hung her head, “That’s never happened when we’ve done this before.”

The Knight-Sergeant hummed, her expression not changing in the slightest, “So, was that light the reason the super mutants changed?”

Sunset felt her heart sink. She’d already suspected that, but had been holding out a faint hope that maybe they were just unusual mutations caused by whatever had created them in the first place. “It probably was,” she admitted, “when magic is used in ways it shouldn’t be, or by people with bad intentions, it’s been known to cause some pretty… extreme mutations.”

“Like Gloriosa Daisy,” Applejack shuddered.

Rainbow nodded, “Or Juniper Montage, or-”

“Or me,” Twilight finished, staring into the fire once more. 

Sunset placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, “That wasn’t your fault. And don’t forget, dark magic changed me, too.”

“What do you mean, it ‘changed’ you?” Metzger asked. 

It was Sunset who answered, glancing quickly at Twilight, “I… I tried to mess around with powerful magic that wasn’t meant for me, before I came to this world. It turned me into a demon, and I don’t mean that as a metaphor.”

Metzger’s eyes widened, “You mean…?”

Sunset nodded grimly, “Wings, claws, fangs, the whole works. My friends,” she gestured around at the rest of the Rainbooms, “managed to turn me back by combining their magic, but, considering what happened when we did that here…”

“It might not be an option this time around,” Metzger finished. She frowned as she digested everything she’d been told. “And now that shit might be all over the fucking wasteland,” she muttered to herself. After a few moments she sighed, unfolded her arms, and squatted down next to the fire. “Elder Lyons is going to have to know about this, he can figure out what to do about it. All of this talk about magic and demons and shit is way above my pay grade.” 

“I couldn’t agree more, darling,” Tabitha cut in, “I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that magic is actually real. I’d heard the broadcasts, of course, but I just thought that Three-Dog was starting to go a bit loopy from being cooped up in that studio at all times.”

Applejack huffed a laugh, “If you think that’s crazy, Ah got something that’ll really bust your bushel.”

“Like what?” Claire asked eagerly.

Applejack smirked and turned to Rarity, “You wanna field this one?”

Rarity gave her a flat look, “You enjoy putting me on the spot, don’t you?” Applejack just smiled smugly back at her, getting a weary sigh in return. “Oh, very well. I assume you’ve heard that we’re from another world?” Tabitha and Claire both nodded. “Well, it turns out that each world has different… well… versions of the same people. I think you can see where I’m going with this.”

Tabitha just blinked a few times in surprise. Claire’s face creased as she pieced it together, “So… you… and my sister… are…?” 

“It certainly appears so.” Rarity adjusted her posture and addressed Twilight and Sunset tartly, “And, I have to say, you both understated just how odd of an experience this is. Severely understated.”

Metzger stared at her in blank shock, her mouth hanging slightly open. Suddenly she threw her hands up in the air, “That’s it, I’m done. No more talking. If I hear any more crazy shit I’m going to lose my fucking mind. Get some rest, all of you. We’re going to make an early start in the morning.” She jerked her chin at Tabitha and Claire, “You’re welcome to come with us to the Citadel, it’ll be safer than travelling on your own.”

“I think we’ll take you up on that,” Tabitha replied weakly. 

Metzger nodded, “Good. Now, I’m going to try and get some fucking sleep before any more weird shit happens.





< ALERT >

<RADIATION SPIKE DETECTED: CLASS-UNKNOWN; ANALYZING >

< ANALYZING >

< ANALYZING >

< COMPLETE >

< CONFIRMED - RADIATION: EQUIDAE OMEGA CLASS - VARIATION - >

< TRIANGULATING SOURCE >

< SOURCE LOCATED >

< SCANNING >

< SCANNING >

< SCANNING >

< SCANNING >

< COMPLETE >

< SATURATION INSUFFICIENT >

< COMPILING REPORT >

< COMPLETE >

< SENDING >

< COMPLETE >

< COUNCIL NOTIFIED >

< CONTINUE OBSERVATION >
> Chapter 45 - Aftermath
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The morning after the Rainbooms’ desperate escape from the Enclave, a thick pall of fog blanketed the entire wasteland. Whether or not it was related to the unleashed magic of the previous night was impossible to say. It was thankfully free of radiation, so most of the wastelanders were just happy to have a source of clean water for a change, no matter how small the quantity. 

For the Rainbooms, it probably would have been less of a problem if they and their escort weren’t attempting to clamber over a particularly huge mound of debris. Loose chunks of concrete and exposed sections of rusting metal rebar made the journey especially treacherous. 
Sunset had, understandably, raised the question of whether or not the group should just go around the small hill, but Knight-Sergeant Metzger had refused, citing that their only other options involved either swimming across the irradiated Potomac river, or wandering dangerously close to a known mercenary encampment. 

Rarity took a slow, deep breath as she crested the hill and started easing her way down the other side. They had left their little camp at the crack of dawn, trekking for a few hours through blasted streets and skeletal buildings. Fortunately, they hadn’t run into any more super mutants, magical or otherwise, though they had certainly heard them in the distance. The Knight-Sergeant had still ordered total silence until they crossed the river, just in case. 

“Easy, watch your step.” Rarity looked up at the sound to see one of the Knights helping Fluttershy off the bottom of the hill. An old road stretched out ahead of them in a straight line past several bombed out buildings on one side and a river tributary on the other.

Once everyone was safely down, Knight-Sergeant Metzger gestured for them to gather around, “Alright, we’re out of super mutant territory now, but don’t let your guard down too much. It’s not unheard of for raiding parties to come here or even attempt to attack the Citadel, so stay on your toes.”

With that, the group headed off once more, with the Knights splitting up to cover their front and rear. Trudging along quietly, Rarity wasn’t particularly surprised to find Tabitha and Claire keeping pace alongside her. She was glad to note that neither of them were ponied up any more. 

“You’re… Rarity, is that correct?” Tabitha asked quietly. 

“It is,” Rarity replied. “How are the two of you holding up?”

Tabitha took a deep breath in through her nose, then let it out through her mouth, “Fairly well, I suppose, all things considered. I can’t deny I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around the concept that magic is real, let alone the fact that you’re all from another world and… well…”

“That we’re different versions of each other?” Rarity suggested. Tabitha just nodded. “I suppose it is a lot to take in.”

“That’s an understatement,” Claire muttered.

Rarity smiled wryly, understanding all too well how they were feeling. She considered asking about the Railroad, and how they knew where the Rainbooms had been taken, but the Knights were all still within earshot, so she stuck with a slightly safer topic, “I, er, I’d like to thank you for helping to rescue us. It means a lot.”

Tabitha smiled graciously at her, “You’re more than welcome, darling. I’m just glad we were able to provide some assistance.”

“Eyes up, we’re here,” Metzger called suddenly. As the group crossed a small parking lot, a huge building slowly came into view through the fog. Large gun turrets poked up out of concrete emplacements at strategic intervals, panning back and forth as they scanned for targets. As they approached the girls spotted more Brotherhood Knights patrolling the perimeter, all of whom called out greetings to Metzger and the others as they passed. 

“What is this place?” Applejack asked, looking up at the walls. 

“We call it the Citadel,” Metzger replied. “It’s the home, fortress, and base of operations for the whole eastern Brotherhood of Steel.”

Pinkie cocked her head as she looked up at a series of brightly coloured splatters on the walls, “What’s that supposed to be?”

Metzger looked up at it too. Her helmet may have hid her face, but she couldn’t hide the note of worry in her voice as she replied, “I don’t know, it wasn’t there before. It must be something to do with your magic.”

Tabitha shivered and looked out into the fog, in the direction of the downtown ruins, “I have to admit, after seeing what it did to those super mutants, I’m more than a little worried about what all that magic is going to do out there in the wastes.”

Rarity grimaced, but nodded in agreement, “You and me both, darling.”





Tara couldn’t suppress a shudder as she watched the feed from the eyebot. After grabbing what little sleep they could last night, she and the others had woken early and set themselves to work, cataloguing everything that had been destroyed or damaged in the fight and trying to establish what exactly had happened up on the surface. Vincent had tried contacting the rest of Squad Sigma using his armour’s built-in radio, but all attempts at communication had been met with silence. 

Without any other real options, and with Michaels still unconscious in the first aid room, Vincent had opted to go to the surface by himself and see what had happened, with Tara and Becky monitoring the situation via eyebot. The fact that they were all still ponied up actually hindered matters in that regard, as Vincent’s wings prevented him from fitting properly into his power armour. After a short argument, the women agreed to let him go without, provided that he stayed within the eyebot’s line of sight and kept his walkie-talkie switched on.

The surface level of the Exodus building was surprisingly untouched. The thick fog, however, gave Vincent a moment’s pause when he arrived at the building’s main entrance. “Entrance is clear, no contacts. Visibility outside is low, maybe five or six metres at most,” he half-whispered into his walkie-talkie. 

“We can see it, be careful out there,” Becky replied.

“Will do.” Holding his plasma rifle steady, Vincent cautiously made his way outside, the eyebot bobbing along behind.

The forecourt was disturbingly quiet. Congealed blood was splattered around in many places, with the odd dismembered mutant limb or bone dotted around, but of the bodies that these pieces belonged to, there was no sign.

Tara and Becky both nearly leapt out of their seats as the door to the office behind them suddenly opened. “Sorry,” Sienna said as she stepped into the room and closed the door.

“It’s fine,” Becky sighed, settling back down. “What did Turner say?”

Sienna rolled her eyes, “You were right, those sleeping pills he uses are seriously strong. He didn’t hear a thing last night.” She plopped down onto a chair and yelped as she caught her elongated hair under her backside. After a couple of seconds of struggling she managed to free her hair and fling it back over her shoulders. “I hate this stupid hair. Anyway, I told him the version of events we agreed on before we went to bed.”

Becky nodded. The three of them had agreed that, given his recent track record, Doctor Turner was not to be trusted with the truth of the Rainbooms’ escape. Instead, they had altered the story slightly, insinuating that the Rainbooms had broken themselves out, and everything else that had happened occurred in the process of trying to stop them. “How did he take it?” Becky asked.

“He freaked out, as you’d expect,” Sienna replied. She was about to say something else when Vincent’s voice crackled out from the speakers.

“Hold on. Uh, are you seeing this?” he asked. The three women instantly looked back at the monitor. A single suit of X-01 power armour was standing in front of Vincent, it’s back open to expose the inner framework. It was in pristine condition, without even a speck of dust on its glossy surface. Peering around the back, Vincent glanced back at the eyebot and shook his head, “This is Lector’s suit, but where the hell is he? And how is it so clean?” 

Tara hummed, then leaned forward and pressed the button to respond, “Have a look around, see if you can find any clues as to what happened, or where the Rainbooms went.”

Vincent nodded, “Roger that.”

It happened just as Vincent was turning away. The moment he wasn’t looking, the helmet of the armour shifted suddenly, swivelling around to look directly at the eyebot. ‘I see you.’

The women all stiffened at the sibilant voice that hissed out of the monitor. Becky lunged forward and slammed her palm on the button, “Vincent! The armour!”

“Huh?” Vincent glanced over his shoulder at the armour. “What th-holy shit!” He leapt away and whipped his rifle around as the helmet snapped it’s gaze to him.

‘Little girls hiding. Hiding downstairs.’ The helmet snapped back to looking at the eyebot, ‘Not hiding from me.’

“FUCKING SHOOT IT!” Becky screamed.

Vincent complied instantly. The moment the first bolt of plasma struck the armour it collapsed, the whole suit suddenly turning liquid and splashing to the ground. The black puddle that remained writhed and bubbled, bright colours occasionally shimmering across its surface as if it were an oil slick. As Vincent took aim again the puddle moved, sliding across the floor and disappearing into the fog before anyone could so much as blink.

Silence reigned for several moments. Finally Vincent whispered, “What the fuck was that?”

Becky shook her head. She knew he couldn’t see it, but her mind just wasn’t capable of forming a verbal response just yet. All she could think about, over the pounding of her own heart, was the sound of that voice talking directly to her and her colleagues. 

“Fuck this, I’m coming back downstairs,” Vincent said flatly. “Have you sent the distress signal out yet?”

Tara reached out with a shaking hand and flipped a switch on the monitor, then pressed the reply button and managed to croak out, “Y-yes.”

Vincent nodded and started heading back to the entrance, looking in every direction as he moved, “Good, because I get the feeling things are going to start getting a whole lot fucking worse around here.”





Lightning bit her lip as she pressed her back into the wall, stifling a cry of pain. Blood was streaming down her arm from a nasty gash, but she didn’t dare take the time to try and bandage it just yet, not with that thing still out there. Gripping her remaining pistol tightly, she eased closer to the edge of the wall and peered around the corner, keeping herself out of sight as much as possible. 

The street looked deserted, at least, as far as she could tell with all of the fog. Lightning didn’t let that fool her. Waiting patiently, her diligence was rewarded as she heard something scrabbling over rubble. Sure enough, only moments later she spotted a yellow glow coming closer through the fog. The creature gave a gurgling moan, then somehow darted up the side of a building, easily clearing four storeys in barely two seconds. 

Lightning held her breath, hoping that the creature was leaving. Her hope was short-lived as the monster hopped out of a window on the first floor. The ghoul glanced around quickly, then scrambled on all fours to a nearby mound of debris, squatting down on top of it. 

This was it. This was Lightning’s one and only chance. Fighting to keep her hands from shaking, she slowly raised her pistol. Her first shot took it in the chest. Her second shot missed as the ghoul became a blur, crossing the distance between them in the span of a heartbeat. 

Her third shot came just as the ghoul’s jaws latched around her throat. 
> Chapter 46 - Debrief
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The boom of the gate as it slid down behind them made all of the Rainbooms flinch. To Sunset, it almost felt like they were being locked in captivity again. She tried to shrug it off as she and the others followed the Knights through the makeshift entrance passageway and through the doors at the end. 

The courtyard ahead was a hive of activity, with dozens of Brotherhood personnel engaged in training or hurrying to complete errands. One of the Knights glanced at them as he passed, then did a double-take and stopped in his tracks. “Whoa, is that the Rainbooms?!” All activities in the bailey quickly ground to a halt, a hush spreading as more and more personnel noticed and stopped what they were doing to watch. 

Sunset shifted uncomfortably under the combined stares of the soldiers. Some of them looked surprised or excited, others were giving Metzger and her squad impressed and encouraging looks. But, there were some, dotted throughout the crowd, who seemed less positive. Wary, scared, even angry; seeing expressions like that directed at her and her friends put Sunset on edge. The tension was broken suddenly as a woman’s voice rang out. “Alright, that’s enough gawping. Everyone, get back to your posts!”

Everyone in the courtyard quickly returned to what they were doing, giving the Rainbooms nothing more than passing glances as Sentinel Sarah Lyons strode towards the group. Instead of her armour, the Sentinel was clad in a simple grey uniform. Metzger and her soldiers immediately snapped to attention and saluted.

“At ease,” Sentinel Lyons said with a return salute. “Follow me, Elder Lyons wants all of you debriefed immediately.”

“Begging your pardon,” Tabitha cut in, “but, since my sister and I are somewhat surplus to the requirements here, I think it would be best if we headed off. We should be able to make it safely back to Rivet City on our own from here.”

“Who are these two?” Sentinel Lyons asked.

“They assisted us in rescuing the Rainbooms.” Metzger replied. 

Sentinel Lyons nodded again and turned to Tabitha. “I realize that you want to return home as quickly as possible, but we would greatly appreciate it if you could join the debriefing. Having an extra perspective on whatever happened last night could be invaluable in reassuring the rest of the Wasteland.”

Tabitha looked around uneasily, however after a quick glance at Claire, she relented. “Very well. Since you put it that way, I suppose I can’t refuse in good conscience.”

“Excellent.” Sentinel Lyons turned and gestured for them to follow. “Come with me. The others should already be gathering in the Great Hall.”

The group followed the Sentinel as she led them to a door and then into the Citadel’s interior. Sunset felt a twinge of irritation as she found herself, once again, following someone through a series of cramped corridors. Still, she’d take cramped conditions inside over the wild and unpredictable dangers of the open wastes any day. 

The reactions of the Knights and other personnel they passed varied just as much as those in the courtyard. Though, thankfully, a sharp glance and a terse word from Sentinel Lyons was enough to keep them minding their own business. 

Eventually, after walking through a veritable maze of concrete corridors, Sentinel Lyons stopped outside a nondescript wooden door flanked by two Knights. The Knights saluted the Sentinel and one of them opened the door, announcing to the room within. “Officers, Sentinel Lyons has arrived with Squad Pilum and the Rainbooms.”

“Good. Send them in,” a voice called from inside. The Knight stepped aside to let everyone enter the room.

Two large, wooden, c-shaped tables dominated the room within. Around a dozen people were sat around the tables, along with a few teenage looking boys and girls standing around the walls of the room. Most of those at the table were men, wearing the same uniform as Sentinel Lyons, or thick red robes that stretched down to their ankles, but two of them stood out in particular. The first was Doctor Li, who let out a sigh of relief when she saw the girls enter the room. The other was an old man with a long wizened beard clad in heavy blue robes. 

The old man’s eyes widened as he spotted the girls, but he gave no other hint of his surprise as he stood and clasped his hands behind his back. “You must be the Rainbooms, it’s good to finally meet you. I am Elder Lyons. It is my honour and duty to lead our chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel here in the Capital Wasteland. I apologise for bringing you here so soon after your liberation, but I’m afraid that current circumstances demand swift action, and the information you hold could prove vital in the coming days.”

“As well as perhaps explaining the madness that occurred last night,” one of the red-robed men added. 

“Indeed,” Elder Lyons agreed gruffly. He ordered a nearby squire to fetch some refreshments for everyone then sat back down, steepling his fingers on the table. “Now then, where to begin?”

Over the course of the next two hours, the assorted top brass of the Brotherhood of Steel thoroughly interrogated the Rainbooms, pressing them for every single detail they could remember about what happened after their capture at Project Purity. The girls divulged almost everything they’d been through, leaving out only the details of their Geodes.  

Elder Lyons and the others listened intently. They asked the occasional question for clarification, but mostly they just sat silently while two of the red-robed men scribed everything that was said. The revelation that there were different versions of the same people scattered across realities, as well as the news that certain scientists and military personnel were willing to work against the President, was of great interest to the Brotherhood’s leaders, as was the fact that the Enclave was looking into inter-reality travel. 

When the girls reported their interception by the magically enhanced protectron, however, the mood in the room swiftly turned grim. Relaying the events that followed certainly didn’t improve matters. Eventually the story got to the part where the Rainbooms reached the surface, and it was here that the Wonderbolts, Tabitha and Claire added their testimony, explaining everything that they had seen and experienced during that last fight and flight. 

Finally, after reaching the point where the group arrived at the Citadel, their tale came to an end. “Is that everything?” Elder Lyons asked.

Knight-Sergeant Metzger nodded. “Yes, Elder.”

“This is insane,” one of the red-robed men muttered. 

Elder Lyons laughed mirthlessly. “You’re not wrong, Rothchild. However, insane or not, it is up to us to deal with it as best we can, for everyone’s sake.” He sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, “For now, our greatest concern should be whatever magic is still in the Enclave’s possession.”

“We are sure that it truly is magic then?” Rothchild asked.

“Is there anything else we can call it?” Doctor Li replied. “I’ll admit that I was sceptical as well at first, but after what we saw last night I don’t think there can really be any doubt.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow curiously, “Uh, what exactly did you guys see last night?”

“A flash of light on the horizon, then thousands of those little wisp things flying through the sky in all directions,” Sarah Lyons replied. “Several of them collided with our personnel, causing them to… what was it you called it? Pony up?”

“Several of them also made contact with various inanimate objects,” Scribe Rothchild added accusingly, “imparting properties to them that we are hesitant to even test.”

Elder Lyons held up a placating hand, “Now, Rothchild, I know that this… complication is the last thing we needed right now, but we can hardly blame the Rainbooms for what occurred.”

“They should never have used that… that combined blast,” Rothchild retorted. 

“If we had known what would happen we never would have,” Sunset countered. “We’ve used that power before to defeat dark magic, and it’s never done anything like that before.” 

“In any case, what’s done is done,” Elder Lyons cut in. “As I said, the biggest threat right now is whatever magic was left in the Enclave facility.” He gave Sunset a serious look, “Do you believe that enough residue was left behind for the Enclave to study?”

Sunset frowned, “There’s more than enough left. I don’t think that either Tara or Becky would risk running experiments on any of it after what happened, but…”

“But they may not have a choice in the matter,” Elder Lyons finished. He sighed and shook his head. “Either way, it is a chance we cannot take. Now that the Enclave is aware that magic is real, and they have a stock of it available, we must operate under the assumption that the Enclave is going to do what it can to study it.”

“In any case, we should warn the rest of the wasteland about the new dangers they may be facing,” Sentinel Lyons put in.

Elder Lyons nodded grimly, “I agree, I’ll have a squad sent to Galaxy News Radio immediately. If we spread the word that this was all caused by the Enclave dabbling with forces they don’t understand, we may even be able to turn these events to our advantage.” 

“Yes, well, this is all well and good, but what about us?” Rarity asked. “What’s going to happen to us now?”

“And what about Project Purity? And Adam?” Rainbow added. 

Elder Lyons gave them a wan smile. “Fortunately, those questions are far easier to answer. Even as we speak, all available Brotherhood forces are being gathered together in preparation for an assault on Project Purity and Adam has gone to Vault 87 in search of a piece of technology that may allow us to finally get the purifier working as it was meant to.” He gestured vaguely towards the Rainbooms. “As for you seven, you are free to do as you please. If you wish to remain here at the Citadel until Adam returns, you are more than welcome to do so.”

Sunset glanced around at her friends. Exhaustion was clearly starting to show through; each of them had slumped shoulders, dark shadows under their eyes, and that was before adding in the minor scrapes and bruises that everyone sported. Sunset strongly suspected that she herself didn’t look much better. “We’ll take it easy here, if you don’t mind.”

“But what about Adam?” Fluttershy asked, “we can’t just leave him out there on his own.”

Rainbow looked at her incredulously. “Uh, you do realise that Adam’s kinda turned into a badass, right?”

“W-well, yes, but…” Fluttershy ducked her head and rubbed her arms nervously, “a-after what happened to… to J-James… he…”

“He might not have his head screwed on right,” Applejack said quietly. She sighed heavily and lowered her hat over her eyes. “Yeah, Ah get what you’re saying. Losing family ain’t something you just shrug off.”

A hushed silence fell at her words. Each of the Rainbooms was keenly aware of just how close to home this situation would hit for Applejack. It was Rarity who moved first, stepping forward and placing a comforting hand on the farm girl’s arm. “It’s alright, darling, we’ll all go and check on him. At the very least, he’s going to need some friends to look out for him in his time of need.”

Sunset nodded. “We’ll go after him, but we should at least get some rest for a couple of hours first. We don’t want to end up needing rescuing again.”

Applejack sighed. “Can’t say fairer than that, Ah guess.”

Elder Lyons clasped his hands and stood. “It’s settled then. I’ll have a squire take you to the rest and recreation areas and, when you’re ready to leave, just ask Scribe Rothchild how to find Vault 87.”

“Thank you,” Sunset replied gratefully. 

Elder Lyons smiled at her, but his expression quickly turned serious once again. “One last thing. Once Project Purity had been reclaimed, I would greatly appreciate it if you would assist our scribes in learning everything we can about magic.”

Twilight gave him a wary look, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Magic is extremely dangerous when used improperly.”

“That’s something I learned the hard way, as you’re well aware,” Doctor Li huffed. “It may be dangerous, but doing nothing and just trying to ignore the magic is going to be even more dangerous in the long run. Especially if the Enclave does start studying magic too.”

“Take some time to think about it,” Elder Lyons said. “For now, I believe we can adjourn this meeting here. Sarah, Ladies Germaine, I’d appreciate it if you could remain here for a moment. The rest of you, you’re dismissed.”





Tabitha glanced at her sister as everyone else moved to leave, careful not to let any of her concern show on her face, the Rainbooms gave them curious looks, as did several of the Brotherhood higher-ups, but thankfully no one said anything. After just a few moments the room was empty save for Tabitha, Claire, Elder Lyons, and his daughter, Sarah.

“There’s no need to be alarmed, I assure you,” Elder Lyons said gently. “I just have a few questions for you, and then you may both be on your way.”

Tabitha settled her expression into a vapid smile. “Of course, I just hope I can be of service to such an esteemed personage as yourself.”

Elder Lyons shook his head. “On any other day I would gladly indulge in this little game of flattery and wit, but I haven’t the time, so I shall have to be blunt. Which organisation are you working for?”

“Organisation?” Tabitha asked, feigning ignorance. “I’m afraid I have no idea what you are talking about. I actually run a little boutique in-”

“Rivet City, yes, I know,” Elder Lyons interrupted with a nod. “Let’s not play games here. We both know that you weren’t aiding the Rainbooms on a whim or on the request of an acquaintance.”

“We know you’re not working for Reilly’s Rangers, the Regulators, Rivet City Security, or the Brotherhood Outcasts,” Sarah put in, folding her arms. “Unfortunately, the only other groups we know of in the Capital Wasteland who would have a reason to go after the Rainbooms would be Talon Company, Paradise Falls or Evergreen Mills.”

“What kind of sickos do you take us for?” Claire snapped.

“Not now, sweetie,” Tabitha hissed, thinking quickly. She’d known that questions would be asked, but she hadn’t expected the Brotherhood to be quite so sharp, nor that they would pay so much attention, given everything else they had on their plate. She decided it was time to go on the offensive. “Forgive me, Elder, but this is starting to sound like an interrogation. Does the Brotherhood of Steel usually treat people who help them in this way?”

Elder Lyons shook his head again. “This isn’t an interrogation, we just want to find out which other groups are making moves across the wasteland.” Tabitha opened her mouth to respond, but Elder Lyons held up a hand, “Please, no more games. I’ve been playing this game for a lot longer than you have. We know that you are part of some organisation here in the wasteland, one with ties to the Rainbooms, we just don’t know which one.”

Tabitha sighed heavily. “Fine. We are indeed part of a wider organisation. But I can assure you that we have no interest in interfering with the Brotherhood of Steel’s affairs. Our aim is simply to aid those that have no one else to turn to.”

Elder Lyons raised an eyebrow, “Then it seems our goals are aligned. One of the main aims of the Brotherhood of Steel here in the Capital Wasteland is the protection of the people. New allies in that endeavour would be welcomed with open arms.” 

Tabitha smiled wryly. “The problem with that, Elder, is that many of the wasteland’s inhabitants, some of your Knights included, are very particular in their definition of ‘people’.” She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I shall pass your sentiments on to my superiors. Anything more than that, I cannot promise.”

Elder Lyons nodded. “That sounds fair. Very well, just speak to the squire waiting outside and he will show you to the exit. Thank you for your time.”

Tabitha gave him a curt nod as she stood. “Not at all. Come along, Claire.”

The Elder and the Sentinel both watched silently as the sisters quickly left the room. As soon as the door was closed, Sarah turned to her father. “So, what do you think?”

Elder Lyons hummed as he thought for a moment. “I don’t think we need to worry about them for the moment. Once we’ve dealt with Project Purity and the Enclave, I’ll ask the Rivet City security chief if he can give us any information on the two of them, but we have bigger things to worry about right now.”

Sarah nodded. “Okay. So what’s our next move?”

“For now, we’ll continue gathering our troops until Liberty Prime is fully operational. As soon as Adam returns with the G.E.C.K, we shall begin our counterattack,” Elder Lyons replied. “In the meantime, we had better get word to Galaxy News about the magic.”





Alright, children. This is Three Dog, arooooo; coming to you with a special emergency news broadcast. 

I’ve just received word from the Brotherhood of Steel, and they’ve confirmed that the Rainbooms have been rescued from the clutches of those Enclave assholes, and are currently recuperating at the Citadel. 

Unfortunately, that’s about where the good news ends. 

That blast and light show we all saw last night? It turns out, the Enclave were messing with forces they don’t understand... and couldn’t control. Those little wispy bits of light that went flying out over the wasteland weren’t just radiation, or fireflies, or whatever; they were balls of pure, unrefined, uncontrollable magic. 

Yes. I’m serious. And you all need to pay close attention to what I’m about to say, because that shit is dangerous, with a capital D.

You see, those magic balls... they didn’t just fly around in the sky, they flew around at ground level too, and they bumped into things. The people that were hit by it all ponied up, just like the Rainbooms do. I haven’t heard any reports of people getting superpowers yet, but people have been growing funny ears and wings and stuff. If that happens to you or to someone you know. Do. Not. Panic.  It may be all kinds of freaky, but this transformation is not permanent, and it is not, I repeat, not, dangerous. 

What is dangerous is what has been happening when it hits something other than people. I’ve got word from the Brotherhood of Steel that there are super mutants that have been hit by this stuff, and they are getting transformed too. 

That’s right children. Super mutants. With. Wings. 

As if that wasn’t bad enough, apparently this magic has affected at least one Behemoth that we know of, and it may have affected other creatures across the wasteland too. For all we know, there could be ghouls with super strength or flying god-damned Deathclaws out there, so keep your eyes open and your head on a swivel if you have to travel anywhere. 

To make things even more weird, the magic has even affected guns, clothing, and other assorted non-living objects. I’ve got an aerial upstairs that’s glowing a funky blue colour, and the Brotherhood tells me they’ve got all kinds of things happening to some of their kit, so be careful if you’re handling anything that might have been touched by magic.  

Bear in mind that Rivet City has been placed on lockdown for the time being. It was close to the blast and got hit with a whole bunch of magic, and security has been beefed up massively to try and control the chaos. If you’re heading that way, be aware than its taking a while for anyone to get in or out of there, and for god’s sake don’t go pushing your luck with the security teams. 
 
Apart from that, we have no real idea of how far that magic went or what kind of crazy shit it’s causing out there in the wider wasteland. And that’s where you lot come in, children. We need to know how far the magic has spread. If you saw any of those freaky balls of light flying overhead, try and spread the word any way that you can. 

And remember, if someone has been hit by the magic, don’t be a dick. It ain’t their fault, and they are not any more dangerous than a normal person, raiders might have wings but that doesn't mean they can fly. The transformation isn’t permanent, and it won’t hurt you.

Thanks for listening chiiildren! This is Three Dog, awoooo!
> Chapter 47 - A Wizard, a Scholar, and a F**king Big Robot
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Twilight stood up and quickly dusted herself off. She’d been through the mirror portal several times now, but she still hadn’t quite got the hang of consistently coming out the other side without falling over. She allowed herself a quick glance up at Canterlot High before stepping aside. Moments later there was a flash as an old man flew out of the base of the statue and landed on the ground with a thump. 

Starswirl the Bearded groaned as he rose to his hands and knees. “That was just as painful as I remember it being.” 

Twilight winced sympathetically and reached a hand down to help him up. Starswirl looked like he would refuse for a moment, but after a quick glance at how she was standing on two legs, allowed her to aid him in clambering to his feet. He wobbled for a moment, but Twilight allowed him lean against her as he slowly found his balance. 

“Thank you, Princess,” Starswirl said gruffly, looking down at his clothes. The portal had dressed him in a pair of light brown slacks with a matching tweed waistcoat over a white shirt. His trademark beard flowing down to his belly cemented the image of an eccentric old college professor. “Hm, this is new.”

“Have things changed much since you last came here?” Twilight asked. 

“Indeed they have, very much so, in fact,” Starswirl replied, looking up at the school in wonder. “When last I came there was little here, merely some quiet woodlands and a large boulder that contained the portal…” He trailed off as his gaze started to wander, taking in the road, the surrounding buildings, and the vehicles that passed on the road.

Normally, Twilight would have been all too happy to let a fellow scholar indulge their curiosity, but they didn’t have the time. “Uh, Starswirl?”

“Hm? Oh! My apologies!” He shook himself and looked up at the school once more, “Lead on.”

Together, the two strode up the path to the school. Starswirl stumbled and nearly fell at first, but, with Twilight’s help, he soon got the hang of walking on two legs. When they reached the door, Twilight moved to open the door for him. Indignant at the thought of a Princess stooping to opening a door for him, he attempted to open the door himself with his magic, and immediately fell prey to the same mistake Twilight made when she first came to this world. 

Fortunately, the only thing he injured was his pride. 

Trying to express her sympathy while stifling a laugh, Twilight quickly opened the door and led her mildly bruised friend inside. A few short minutes later they found themselves at the lab containing the Diviner. 

Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna were waiting for them inside. Their expressions brightened as they saw Twilight, but tightened when they laid eyes on Starswirl. 

“Hey, I’m back!” Twilight said as she entered, not having noticed. “This is Starswirl the Bearded, one of the greatest wizards ever to have lived in Equestria. Starswirl, allow me to introduce Principal Celestia and Vice-Principal Luna.”

Starswirl stepped forward and bowed slightly, taking care not to overbalance, “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I just wish it was under less unfortunate circumstances.” He straightened up and smiled softly, “I must say, even after everything I’ve heard from Princess Twilight, this is still quite a singular experience. However, I feel I owe you an apology.”

“Oh?” Celestia folded her arms and arched an eyebrow, while Luna just looked surprised. 

Twilight turned a curious look on him, “What do you mean?”

“The Sirens,” Starswirl responded simply. He opened his mouth to explain further, but Celestia held up a hand.

“It’s fine,” Celestia told him. “We’re not exactly thrilled that you sent them to our world, but you’re willing to apologise, and we have more important matters to discuss.”

“Very well.” Starswirl leaned to look around the Principals, “Is that the construct in question?”

Twilight nodded as the four of them stepped over to the machine, “Yes. It’s switched off for the moment, and we’ve disabled the internet connection that allowed the sabotage to occur in the first place.”

Starswirl hummed as he inspected the Diviner, “You realise it will take some time for me to become familiar enough with this technology to be able to assist you?”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Twilight replied. “I was just hoping that you could help with the magical side of things. If we can figure out how to open a stable magical portal, Micro Chips and I will be able to adjust the machine to actually do it.”

Starswirl nodded, “I see. May I see your notes?”

“Of course.” Celestia handed over a clipboard that was heavy with sheets of paper, “These are the notes that Twilight, er, our world’s Twilight took. They contain all of the Diviner’s specifications as well as everything we’ve learned about the new portal since the girls disappeared.”

Starswirl thanked her and took the clipboard, quickly reading through the contents. The others waited patiently as he read, checking the Diviner or quietly chatting amongst themselves until, finally, Starswirl sighed and lowered the clipboard. “If these notes are correct, I believe we will be able to re-open the second portal safely.”

“Great!” Twilight cried as the Principal’s both sighed with relief. 

Starswirl nodded, “Indeed. We have the magical signature we need, and it seems you’ve already figured out how to modify the machine to actually handle a portal. Your proposal about bringing enchanted crystals from Equestria to help stabilise the connection should work too.” He frowned up at the mirror in the middle of the Diviner, “However, finding the correct combination of gems, magical frequencies and enchantments to both create a two-way portal and keep it stable for any length of time is going to be difficult in the extreme.”

“True, but it’ll be a lot faster and easier if we’re working together,” Twilight said confidently, earning a smile from Starswirl.

“Pardon me for asking, but… how long do you think this will take?” Celestia asked.

“We realise this isn’t going to be easy,” Luna added, “but those poor girls have been missing for almost two days now.”

Twilight and Starswirl shared a look, then the Princess gave them a solemn nod, “Don’t worry, we’ll get to work right away. We’ll bring them home as quickly as we possibly can.”





There was a loud crack, and Sunset felt the unfamiliar kick of the rifle against her shoulder. The instructor gave a curt nod as she lowered the rifle, “Not bad. It’s not perfect, but you’re hitting the centre of mass every time.” 

Sunset nodded back and racked the bolt on the hunting rifle, ejecting the spent cartridge and chambering another in a pair of smooth movements. She’d been reluctant to accept weapons training at first; the memory of using a gun against someone for the first time still lurked at the back of her mind, but, given how dangerous the wasteland had proven to be, she didn’t feel that it was something she could refuse. If learning to use a gun properly was what it took to keep her friends safe, then so be it.  

At least she wasn’t alone. Applejack was standing a few feet away, practicing with another hunting rifle. Neither of them were exactly sharpshooters, but they were both hitting the targets consistently. The fact that the targets they were shooting at were painted onto human-shaped mannequins certainly wasn’t helping Sunset’s state of mind, however. Shaking her head to try and clear it, Sunset sighed and flicked the rifle’s safety on before lowering it and looking around the courtyard for the rest of her friends. 

Twilight wasn’t there. After the debriefing, the Rainbooms had been permitted a hot shower, which, admittedly, had been gratefully taken advantage of, but Twilight had barely finished hers before Doctor Li whisked her away to show her some sort of big science project she wanted help with. Almost immediately after, a Knight had arrived and stated that Elder Lyons had authorised his instructors to give the girls some weapons training, if they wished. 

And so, with nothing better to do, the girls had found themselves in the courtyard once again. Sunset and Applejack were the only ones that had actually accepted the offer of using the guns. Fluttershy had, understandably, flat out refused to handle a weapon, and was currently talking to a standby medic by the resting area. Pinkie and Rarity had declined to use the guns as well, citing that their magic was more than effective enough if it truly became necessary. Rainbow Dash, for her part, was currently engaged with an instructor on the other side of the courtyard, learning the basics of Brotherhood knife-fighting and unarmed combat.

Another loud crack brought Sunset’s attention around just in time to see Applejack huff and lower her rifle, “Well, that’s the last of my ammo.” She gave a satisfied nod and turned to Sunset, “What now, sugarcube? Are we shooting some more, or what?”

 Sunset shook her head, “We really should get going if we want to catch Adam at the Vault before sundown.”

“Ah hear you.” Applejack flicked on the rifle’s safety and held it out to the instructor, but the man just shook his head. 

“Elder Lyons says you can keep the guns,” he told them. “We only use these hunting rifles for target practice anyway, we use laser rifles on operations.” He bent down and pulled out a few boxes of bullets from a bag at his feet, holding them out for the girls to take, “Here, take these.”

“Oh, alright then. Uh, thanks,” Applejack replied, shouldering her rifle and taking two boxes. 

Sunset glanced down at her own rifle, hesitating for a moment, before slinging it over her shoulder and accepting the proffered ammunition. Trying not to think about when she might actually be forced to use the rifle, or on who, she thanked the instructor and left, gathering the rest of her friends from the courtyard before asking a squire where they could find Scribe Rothchild. 

The squire almost exploded with excitement when Sunset asked him for help. Barely able to contain his stammering, the boy shakily pointed to a set of double doors in one corner of the courtyard. 

“It seems someone here has a fan,” Rarity said coyly as the girls headed to the doors. 

“Duh, we’re awesome,” Rainbow replied with a grin.

“Let’s just find Twilight and Rothchild and get out of here,” Sunset cut in, not in the mood for any talk of fans or followers. “The sooner we go, the sooner we can find Adam, and the sooner the Brotherhood can take the purifier back.”

Fluttershy looked around at the Knights and squires around them, all going about their business quickly and efficiently. “I hope this doesn’t end up turning into another war,” she said quietly. 

“Me too,” Pinkie agreed. 

“There’s going to be a battle, at least,” Applejack supplied with a grimace. “Ah just hope we don’t get caught up in the middle of it.”

“We’ll cross that bridge if and when it comes to it,” Sunset said firmly, striding ahead to open the doors. “In the meantime, we just have to- whoa…” 

The rest of the Rainbooms hurried forward to see what had grabbed her attention, each of them letting out a gasp of awe as they saw it too. Through the doors was a lab, similar to Rivet City’s science lab. Inside the lab, surrounded by a framework of steel girders, stood a huge robot. 

Easily forty feet tall, the massive humanoid was covered in burnished metal plates, with patches of rust showing through on the few parts of the inner frame that were visible. Its faceplate was utterly blank save for a visor-like slit in place of eyes. 

“Magnificent, isn’t it?” The girls turned to see a red-robed scribe watching them. He smiled and gestured down some nearby stairs to the laboratory floor. “You’ll find Scribe Rothchild down there, along with your friend, Twilight.”

Nodding their thanks, the Rainbooms hurried down the steps, spotting Twilight, Doctor Li, and Rothchild, all talking animatedly over a single computer terminal at the robot’s feet. Doctor Li spotted the girls approaching, gently nudging Twilight and nodding in their direction. Twilight smiled brightly when she saw them, “Hey! Is it time to go already?”

Applejack nodded, “Yep, we’re going to go and find Adam before he ends up getting lost and disappearing again, or something.”

“We were just coming to find Scribe Rothchild, to find out where Vault 87 is,” Sunset added, unable to tear her gaze away from the robot. 

Rothchild smiled proudly as he noticed where her attention lay. “It is magnificent, isn’t it?”

“It looks awesome!” Rainbow cried. “Is it some sort of super battle robot?”

“Pretty much,” Rothchild chuckled. “We discovered it when we first occupied the Citadel, around twenty years ago. It was built before the war as a super-weapon, the most powerful robot ever to have existed on Earth. They called it Liberty Prime. Unfortunately, finding a suitable power source was a fruitless endeavour,  that is, until Doctor Li arrived with her most recent research on nuclear fusion.”

Doctor Li sighed and stretched, rolling her neck. “Thanks to the breakthrough we had in Rivet City, I believe we have a generator design that is small, but still powerful enough to bring Liberty Prime up to operating capacity.” She nodded to Twilight, “That’s partially why I wanted Miss Sparkle here. Her skills with coding are far beyond any of ours, so I was hoping she would be able to modify Liberty’s programming to increase efficiency. Not to mention seeing if we could get her input on any further improvements to our power supply.”

“I didn’t really do all that much,” Twilight said modestly, blushing at the compliment. 

“Er, sorry to butt in,” Rarity interrupted, “this is all very fascinating, but we really ought to get going soon.”

Scribe Rothchild dipped his head in apology. “Of course. My apologies.” He gestured to a large display on a nearby wall, “Our map is just over here.” Following the scribe over to the display, the girls saw that it was a digital map of the Capital Wasteland. A reticule meandered constantly across the map, pausing intermittently over various landmarks. Several Vaults were prominently highlighted. 

“We are here.” Rothchild pointed the Citadel out on the map, before pointing to a marker to the Northwest. “Vault 87 is up here, but the entrance is lethally radioactive. The only other possible entrance, and the route Adam followed, will likely be through Little Lamplight Caverns, over here.” He pointed it out on the map.

Applejack frowned as she looked up at where he was indicating. “That looks like an awful long way to go.”

“It’s on the far edge of the Capital Wasteland. Getting there won’t be an easy journey,” Rothchild admitted. “The ruins to the West of here are incredibly difficult to cross, on account of how much rubble there is, so your best bet would probably be to head north until you clear the city ruins, then head west past Megaton.”

“That’ll take way too long,” Rainbow huffed. “I say we cross the city ruins. We can do it.”

“Ah’m with Rainbow on this,” Applejack supplied. “Between Rarity’s magic, and the three of y’all’s wings,” she gestured at Rainbow, Twilight and Fluttershy, “we should be able to handle a little rough terrain. No problem.”

Rarity sighed theatrically, “While normally I would argue against such an arduous trek, I must admit that it will certainly be preferable to getting shot at.”

Sunset folded her arms, frowning at the map as she considered. After a few moments she came to a decision. “We’ll see how bad the city ruins are. If we can cross them safely, we’ll go that way. Everyone, make sure to mark the Citadel and the Little Lamplight Caverns on your Pip-Boy maps.” She glanced at Rothchild as the others obeyed, “Thanks again, this is a really big help.”

“Don’t worry about it, just be careful out there,” Rothchild replied. “I doubt the Enclave will be sending anyone after you just yet, but there are still plenty of other dangers in the open wasteland.”

“We’d noticed,” Applejack muttered darkly. 

Rainbow grinned and nudged her shoulder, “Don’t sweat it, we’ve got this.”

“I sure hope so,” Sunset put in. “Come on, girls, let’s get our packs and go. Thanks again, Scribe Rothchild.”

“Don’t mention it,” Rothchild replied with a nod. 

Leaving the scribes and scientists to their work, the Rainbooms made a quick detour to the storage room where they’d left their packs, before heading back up to the main gate. There was a short wait as the gate was raised to let them out, then the girls stepped out into the wasteland. 

Sunset paused as soon as they were safely out, her friends stopping alongside her. The boom of the gate closing behind them didn’t seem anywhere near as loud as it had when they were entering. The mist from the morning was still around, but it was far less thick than it had been, wan sunlight filtering down through it in dappled spots. 

“You okay, sugarcube?” Applejack asked.

Sunset glanced at her before turning her attention back to the way ahead. “I think so. It’s just… here we go again, you know?”

Applejack nodded in understanding. “Ah hear you. But things are different this time.”

“Indeed,” Rarity agreed. “This time we have a better idea of what to expect, and how to deal with it.”

Sunset looked around at the rest of the Rainbooms. Each of them nodded to her in turn. “Let’s do this,” Fluttershy said firmly. “Let’s go and find Adam.”

Bolstered by her friends’ resolve, Sunset refused to allow her courage to wilt. Pulling her rifle off her shoulder, she took a moment to make sure that it was loaded. “Alright. Let’s do this.” Suiting action to words, she checked the direction on her Pip-Boy and set off into the mist.
> Chapter 48 - Crossing the Wastes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crossing the city ruins wasn’t as difficult as the girls had expected. Vast piles of unstable rubble blocked the routes, forming a nearly impenetrable barrier for most people, but for the Rainbooms it was barely a hindrance at all. They didn’t even have to pony up; Rarity simply conjured small ramps taking them from one safe stopping point to the next.

Once the rubble had been cleared, the ground mostly levelled off. Aside from having to snake between buildings, the odd broken fence, and piles of debris the going was far smoother on the other side. The girls didn’t encounter much in the way of threats either, save for a pair of feral ghouls that were swiftly dispatched by Rainbow before they even noticed there was a threat and several obscenely large ants down in a lower street, which were given a very wide berth. 

It wasn’t until they came to a bridge leading out of the ruins that the girls saw another human being. A ramshackle little store had been set up in the middle of the bridge, surrounded by sandbag walls and occupied by a scavenger and her two dogs. Funnily enough, the woman turned out to be a fan of the Rainbooms and very much enjoyed listening to their songs on the radio. 

Thrilled at meeting the group, the woman was more than happy to help them out. She didn’t know the way to Little Lamplight, unfortunately, but she did give them information on the local topography in exchange for nothing more than their autographs and a signed picture, which was taken using Twilight’s magic with an old press camera the woman owned.   

Leaving the scavenger behind with her prize, the Rainbooms continued across the bridge and headed out through the outlying ruins. Following an old road on the scavenger’s advice, they made their out of the city limits and up to the top of a nearby hill, one that provided plenty of cover while also giving them a great vantage point to watch out for danger. 

Finally out in the wastes proper, the girls made sure to keep their eyes peeled at all times, not dropping their guard for an instant. Their diligence was soon rewarded, as they spotted a group of what appeared to be raiders lurking in a group of blasted trees on the far side of the hill. 

Entirely unwilling to risk a battle, the girls went out of their way to avoid them, taking care to stay out of sight as they took a circuitous way past. The going was slow and nerve-wracking, each of the Rainbooms half-expecting to hear a shout or feel the sting of a bullet, but after a few minutes of tense creeping they managed to get by safely. 

The trek onwards was long and arduous. The distance to Little Lamplight was easily greater than what they had covered between Megaton and Rivet City, but the girls had little choice but to press on, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t run into any more trouble. Unfortunately, trouble had a way of finding the Rainbooms, no matter how hard they tried to avoid it. 

Somewhere past the halfway point of their journey, or so the girls hoped, they came across a thick concrete wall jutting out of the ground. Past that they came across several more walls clustered around a wide field of rubble, though whether they were originally part of a single building or a whole complex was impossible to tell. 

Amongst the mess were several old explosion craters, the ground around them bulging as they rose to the lip of the bowl-shaped pits. Pinkie attempted to get a closer look at the first one they spotted, but the sudden warning ticks of her Pip-Boy’s Geiger counter quickly made her rethink the idea, and none of the group dared to approach any of the others too closely. In the center of the ruins, however, they discovered a crater that drew their attention like moths to a flame. 

Much larger than the surrounding ones, the vast crater was easily over a dozen meters deep and more than double that in width, but that in itself wasn’t what had drawn them. Billowing out of the crater was a thick cloud of multicoloured magic, the colours mixing and separating as they swirled and rose slowly into the sky before dispersing far above their heads.

“That doesn’t look good,” Applejack supplied. 

“You’re not wrong,” Sunset replied with a frown. “I don’t understand. That’s clearly Equestrian magic, but what is it doing here? And why does it look like that?” 

Twilight folded her arms and hummed, staring thoughtfully at the cloud. “I wonder…” To the surprise of the others she suddenly walked right up to the lip of the crater, then stopped and backtracked when her Pip-Boy started ticking. “I thought so. This crater is radioactive, too.”

“Well duh!” Rainbow spat incredulously.

“No offence, darling, but we probably could have told you that without you having to go near it,” Rarity added. 

Twilight shook her head, “That’s not what I meant. Do you remember when we used our magic on the soldier back at Project Exodus? Specifically, do you remember what he was standing next to?”

“The rocket,” Sunset answered, thinking about how it had been leaking radioactive fluids all over the hapless trooper. “You think the radiation is affecting the magic somehow?”

Twilight nodded. “I think so. After all, we didn’t overload our magic, it only went out of control when it hit the Delta IX rocket.”

“Well, that all sounds pretty fucking interesting!” a voice called out suddenly. The girls spun around to see three men in black combat armour. One of them bore a heavy combat shotgun, another carried an assault rifle, and the third bore a laser rifle like those the Brotherhood used. All three of them were taking cover behind chunks of broken concrete and all had their weapons pointed carefully at the Rainbooms. 

“Don’t even think of trying anything!” the man with the shotgun shouted. “If any of you so much as twitches we’ll blow the whole fucking lot of you away! Drop your weapons and get your hands in the air! Slowly!”

Sunset cursed under her breath. One unusual sight had been all it took to get her and her friends to drop their guard, and now they were back in yet another potentially lethal situation. Deciding it was best to do as asked for now, she bent to place her rifle on the floor and straightened up, raising her hands slowly. Applejack did the same a moment later. 

“What do you want with us?” Sunset called out. 

The man grinned at her. “The Commander has put a price on you lot, wants you brought in alive. Never thought you’d come sniffing around our neck of the woods.” He chuckled darkly. “Must be our lucky day.”

“More like your unlucky day if you think you can take us!” Rainbow challenged. 

“Cool it, Rainbow!” Sunset hissed, before looking back to the men. “Are you with the Enclave?”

The man spat on the floor. “Fuck the Enclave. Now step away from your weapons and get those tight little asses over here. Nice and slow. No funny business.” 

“Hey, who’s your Commander?” Pinkie called out brightly. 

The man just snorted, his aim never wavering from Sunset. “Oh, don’t worry. You’ll be meeting him real soon.”

Pinkie beamed and pointed off behind the men. “I knew it! He’s that big ugly bear thing coming down the hill, isn’t he!”

All three of the men gasped and looked around to see what she was talking about. They realised their mistake just a second too late.

The man with the shotgun was the first to fall. He looked back to the girls just in time for Rainbow to smack his weapon aside and plunge a knife into his throat, ripping it back out in a crimson arterial spray. The other two barely had time to react before Twilight gripped their guns and crushed them to pieces with her magic. 

The men stood there dumbfounded, looking from their empty hands, to the Rainbooms, to the corpse of their companion lying at Rainbow’s feet. Sunset opened her mouth to demand that they either leave or surrender when one of them suddenly lurched forward, screaming in agony. 

The air behind the man seemed to shimmer and ripple, a dark outline slowly appearing as if from thin air. Sunset’s blood ran cold as the outline solidified to reveal a gigantic black scorpion, bigger even than Applejack’s family truck. The scorpion scuttled forward, claws raised menacingly, and it’s sting lashed out almost faster than the eye could follow, bringing the man’s screams to an abrupt halt. 

The last survivor, seeing his colleagues slaughtered so easily, turned and fled as fast as he could. Sunset considered joining him as she snatched her weapon back up. Against such a huge creature, her hunting rifle felt like little more than a pop-gun. 

Fortunately, the scorpion didn’t appear to be interested in them. Scooping up its prey in its claws, the scorpion turned and scuttled away towards one of the craters, the colour already bleeding from its carapace once again. By the time it crested the lip of the crater and disappeared inside all that could be seen of it was a telltale ripple in the air as it moved. 

An appalled silence remained in the wake of the brief struggle. “Did… did that really just happen?” Applejack asked tentatively.

“I think so? Either that or we’re all starting to go crazy.” Sunset replied, her rifle aimed at the crater the scorpion had disappeared into. Giving herself a shake, she lowered her rifle and walked over to Rainbow. Stepping up alongside her, Sunset saw that she was staring down at the corpse of the man she had killed, a stream of blood still trickling from his neck. Rainbow’s expression was inscrutable. 

Sunset slowly reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, you okay?” she asked softly. 

Rainbow’s eyes flicked sidelong at her before looking back at the body. “I… I don’t know. This feels… weird. I mean, I’ve killed a bunch of those feral ghouls, no problem, and going for super mutants doesn’t bother me either, but… this…” She shook her head slowly. “It just feels weird.”

Sunset nodded in understanding. Looking down at the corpse brought back memories of the two raiders and the discussion in Megaton that followed. It took an effort, but Sunset managed to say, “You did the right thing.”

Rainbow looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

“If you didn’t, then neither did I,” Sunset replied evenly.

“Heh, you have a point,” Rainbow admitted.

“Darn right I do.” Sunset gave her a gentle thump on the shoulder and turned away. “Come on, let's get out of here before anything else shows up.”

Eager to get moving again, the girls quickly made their way onwards, keeping their eyes peeled for any more camouflaged giant scorpions. They made sure to take a more northern route than originally planned to avoid going in the same direction as their fleeing assailant. Their caution proved to be justified when Rainbow spotted what appeared to be a large ruined military compound not far from the cratered area. They made sure to keep as far away from it as possible as they headed around, taking extra care to stay out of sight of any sentries that may have been on the lookout. 

Once the Rainbooms were past the complex, the rest of the journey passed in relative peace. There was a rather hair-raising encounter with a particularly fearsome-looking bear, but thankfully the big brute proved to be quite a softy and was perfectly happy to leave them alone after a quick chat with Fluttershy. 

After another couple of hours walking, a large hill slowly came into view. Picking their way across several large boulders scattered around, the Rainbooms skirted the bottom until, finally, a campground came into view. Bunting and electric lights were strung up between posts dotted at random intervals and there were several wooden wind-pumps installed at the top of a nearby rise. At the bottom of the rise, decorated with more bunting and lights, and partially obscured by a broken down old school bus, was the entrance to a cavern.  

Applejack stopped and tilted her hat back to get a better look. “Ah guess that must be Little Lamplight.”

“Yep!” The girls all glanced at Pinkie as she shouted gleefully, only to leap apart with startled yells when they noticed a random woman standing in their midst. The woman was clothed in little more than a simple tank top and a baggy pair of shorts and sported a beaming grin that showed she was utterly unbothered by the Rainbooms’ reactions to her appearance. She giggled and snorted before giving a little wave. “Hi, I’m Diane! What’re your names?”

Sucking in deep breaths in an attempt to get her thundering heart under control, Sunset held up a hand to stall for time until she was capable of forming a coherent response. “We… we’re the Rainbooms.”

Diane gave an almost impossibly large gasp and in the span of a blink was suddenly right up in Sunset’s face. “Oh my gosh! That’s so amazing! I’ve heard all about you on the radio!” She instantly darted over to Pinkie, inspecting her with intense interest and zero concern for personal space. “Wow! You look just like I did when I got hit with that weird floating ball of pink pinkie stuff earlier! It hit me right in the boobies! At first I was all like, ‘Hey, you’ve gotta take me out for dinner first, Buster!’, but then it was already inside me, and I mean don’t get me wrong; I don’t really mind that, but it didn’t feel good in the usual kinda ‘oh, it’s inside me!’, kinda way, but it still felt kinda good, and then I had pink hair and it was really weird and-”

Diane paused mid-sentence to suck in a deep breath. Pinkie attempted to use the opportunity to slip away from her, but the new nutcase had already zipped over to Rainbow, pulling a tray of desserts out of nowhere and holding it out. “Cupcakes?”

Rainbow back away a couple of steps, eyeing both the cakes and their bearer with concern. “Uh, no thanks. I’m good.”

“Did you say your name was Diane?” Twilight asked. 

Diane tossed the tray away and whipped around, snapping a crisp salute. “Yep! Diane Pinkamena Pie, travelling baker and merchant, at your service! I’d like to stay and chat, aw, who am I kidding, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got to be getting on with my deliveries!” She skipped over to a charred picnic table and pulled a heavy rucksack out from under it, slipping it onto her back with practiced ease. 

“One delivery to Little Lamplight, right on schedule! Now, I’ve just got to get this shipment over to Andale and then I’d better go on the hunt for some more ingredients! Bye bye!” With one last vigorous wave Diane turned and skipped away faster than they could run, soon disappearing from sight around the hill. 

The girls stared after her, still struggling to process what exactly had just happened. Rarity was the first to finally stir. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but that was this world’s version of Pinkie, wasn’t it?”

“I… I think so?” Twilight answered uncertainly. 

“It was,” Pinkie said in a flat voice. 

Applejack glanced at her curiously. “Do you think we should go after her?”

“No,” Pinkie replied firmly. In response to the others querulous looks, she shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know, something just feels… off. Besides, I get the feeling we’re going to run into her again at some point.” She looked up in the direction Diane had gone, then shook her head again and turned away. “Come on, let’s go and find Adam.” The rest of the Rainbooms could only give each other confused looks and follow after Pinkie as she made her way down to the cavern entrance. 

The ground just inside the entrance sloped downwards towards a flimsy wooden door. Inside the girls found themselves in a narrow but dry and surprisingly warm cave system, well lit by string lights and strategically placed lanterns. After following the lights for a short way down some stairs and around a few corners the cave opened up into a larger chamber. The way ahead was blocked by a sturdy wall constructed out of old billboards and sheets of metal plating. 

A young boy looking over the wall stood up the moment he spotted the Rainbooms. “For fuck’s sake what’s with all the fucking mungos tod- hey, you’re the fucking Rainbooms!”

“Nah, we’re just the Rainbooms. No fucking going on here,” Rainbow replied dryly.

 “Rainbow Dash!” Rarity cried in a scandalized voice. “You shouldn’t use such foul language, especially not in front of a child!”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow at her. “Uh, you do realise that kid swore like three times in one sentence. Plus, Sunset’s sworn a few times before.”

“That’s not the point!” Rarity countered. “Besides, while I may not approve of Sunset using expletives, at least she only does so when we’re under duress!”

“Man, who rammed a stick up her ass?” the kid called out, prompting an indignant splutter from Rarity and an amused snort from Rainbow. “What the fuck are you all doing here, anyway?”

“We’re looking for a friend of ours,” Sunset replied quickly. “His name is Adam, he was trying to get into Vault 87 and we think he might have came through this way.”

The kid gave her a surprised look, “Huh. Yeah, I remember that mungo, he did us a favour earlier so I let him in.”

“Do you mind if we come in to wait for him?” Sunset asked. 

The kid gave her a calculating look. “That depends. We don’t usually let mungos in here.”

“And what, exactly, is a ‘mungo’?” Applejack asked. 

“Big people, like you,” the boy replied. “The second anyone here turns sixteen they have to leave and head out to Big Town instead.”

Pinkie gasped and charged up to the wall, bouncing on the tips of her toes. “You mean everyone in here is a little kid?!”

The boy folded his arms and glared down at her. “Yeah, but don’t think you can fuck with us just because we’re young. You pull any funny shit and I won’t hesitate to pump your ass full of lead.” 

“He’s too young to pump it full of anything else,” Rainbow muttered, earning a smack from Applejack.

Pinkie squealed loudly and clapped her hands together. “Please can I come in? If everyone in here is a kid then that means this is gonna be a giant slumber party and I haven’t had a slumber party or even any kind of party in aaaages! Please! Please, please, please!”

She kept up a barrage of rapid-fire talking interspersed with pleading until the boy finally relented, holding up his hands to try and pacify her. “Alright, alright, fine! Look, I’ll let you all in on three fucking conditions.”

“What conditions?” Twilight asked.

The boy held up three fingers. “One, you help out around here until your friend comes back. I’m not gonna let you just come in and fucking laze around. Two, you feed your fucking selves. We hardly have enough food to go around as it is.” 

“That seems fair,” Applejack replied. “What’s the third condition?”

The kid leaned forward, an eager glint in his eye. “Prove what Three Dog’s been saying. That you can all do magic.”

The Rainbooms all glanced at each other and shrugged. Touching a hand to their Geodes, the girls each ponied up one by one. “Is this good enough for you?” Sunset asked.

The boy’s grin was so wide it must have been almost painful. “This is so fucking cool! Alright, I’ll let you all in now.”

“Yay!” Pinkie cried gleefully

The boy flicked a switch and a series of pulleys on the ceiling raised one of the billboards enough for the girls to duck under. As soon as they were through the girls let the magic fade from their bodies, returning themselves to normal. The cave on the other side was fairly large, with a tunnel leading off to the left and a wooden cabin on the right.

Sunset nodded up at the boy on his little platform beside the gate. “Thanks. Uh… what was your name?”

“MacCready,” he replied. “I’m the Mayor around here.” He pointed to the tunnel. “The main chambers are that way, you can wait for your friend down there. Three Dog said you girls are good people, but if you cause any problems whatso-fucking-ever, I’ll put you in the ground. Is that clear?”

“Crystal,” Rarity replied huffily. 

“We’ll behave ourselves, don’t you worry about that,” Applejack put in. 

Macready nodded, “Good. Oh, and be careful when you’re in the Great Chamber. New people who aren’t careful tend to fall off the paths.”

The Rainbooms shared a wary look at that. “Uh… thanks?” Sunset replied slowly. Leaving the Mayor behind, the girls made their way down the short tunnel and emerged in another large cave filled mostly with a deep pool of water. 

The cave was lit by lots more string lights strung across the ceiling, illuminating a single path of thick rock poking up above the waters, and several makeshift islands made out of wood floating on top connected by little bridges. Some of these islands bore picnic tables and benches, and there were several children milling around them or nimbly running across the bridges with youthful ease. Pinkie skipped ahead happily, waving and calling out greetings to each of the kids as she passed. 

“Easy now, sugarcube. Don’t go slipping and hurting yourself,” Applejack warned.

“It’s fine, I’m not going to sli- whoops!” Pinkie’s one foot skidded and she flailed for a moment before regaining her balance and looking back sheepishly. “Hehe, meant to do that?” She shook her head and continued on, a little more carefully. “Anyway, let’s go and find somewhere dry to sit. I can’t wait to- oh, hi, Adam- I can’t wait to see the look on Adam’s face when he sees us all waiting for him!”

Sunset did a double-take at Pinkie’s words, her gaze snapping to the person Pinkie had waved at. A young man stood there, staring at the Rainbooms with an expression of blank shock matched only by their own. 

Adam smiled and waved nervously at the group, “Um… hey, how’s it going?”
> Chapter 49 - Friends and Foreboding
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Adam!” There was an ear-piercing screech as Pinkie finally registered who she’d spoken to, then a pink blur as she launched herself at him. The hapless man was nearly pitched into the water by the ensuing collision, teetering on the brink for several seconds while simultaneously enduring a rib-cracking hug.

Applejack lunged forward and grabbed the two, pulling them away from the edge. “Simmer down, there, Pinkie. Let’s try not to kill the guy the second we finally find him.” 

Pinkie chuckled nervously and let him go, “Sorry, Adam.”

Adam smiled and shook his head. “It’s cool, Pinks. I’m glad to see you too. Last I heard, you were all locked up by the Enclave. Did Metzger and her squad get you out?”

“Something like that,” Applejack replied. “Have you been through Vault 87 yet?”

“Nah, not yet.” Adam jerked his head over to a group of children who were huddled around one of the picnic tables. “The Mayor wouldn’t let me enter unless I rescued a few of the kids from slavers, so I had to go and do that first.” He looked around quickly, apparently oblivious to the amazed stares the girls were giving him, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder at an empty picnic table. “Should we, er, sit and down and catch up?”

“Are you sure we won’t be too heavy?” Sunset asked, eyeing the floating wooden island warily and pointedly ignoring Rarity’s indignant scowl.

Adam glanced at her, then quickly looked back at the wooden island. “Er, yeah. Yeah, it’s fine. Those wooden pallets aren’t really floating, they’re actually built on these huge pillars of rock that poke up from under the water.

“Stalagmites. They probably formed before the caves got submerged.” The others stared in surprise at Pinkie’s sudden input. “What? My sister likes rocks.”

Now it was Adam’s turn to look surprised. “You have a sister?”

Applejack sighed heavily. “Alright, y’all, let’s sit down before we start jabbering. It looks like we’ve all got some explaining to do.” The others quickly agreed to this and crowded around the picnic table, grabbing a few empty seats from one of the other islands so that they could all sit. 

While pulling a selection of food and other supplies out of her pack, after Pinkie suggested that they may as well have a meal while they talked, Sunset privately wondered just how awkward the following conversation was going to be. After all, despite living in the same Vault for a month, not to mention the close working relationship they had with his father, most of the Rainbooms had barely exchanged more than an occasional greeting with Adam. 

Pinkie, Fluttershy and Applejack were the exceptions. Fluttershy had worked alongside Adam in the clinic for the duration of her stay, and Applejack had apparently spoken to him whenever he had wandered down to the maintenance level to secretly practice with his BB gun. Pinkie, naturally, had simply gone out of her way to make friends with him purely for the sake of it. 

“You know, uh, I think this is the first time most of us have actually spoken to each other properly,” Adam said once they’d finished preparing their food, evidently thinking along the same lines. 

“Heh, yeah, sorry about that,” Rainbow replied sheepishly. “It’s not like we meant to ignore you, we just had other things to focus on, y’know? We weren’t really expecting to be in this world for that long.”

Twilight’s shoulders slumped at that. “I’m sorry, girls.”

“Don’t go taking that the wrong way,” Applejack cut in firmly. “We know you were doing everything you could to get us back home, and you should know darn well by now that none of that business is anyone’s fault, so shrug off that guilt already, y’hear?”

Twilight smiled at her. “You’re right, sorry. I think I’m just frazzled after everything that’s happened.” 

“You and me both, darling,” Rarity agreed, her brows knotting as she picked up a somewhat stale sandwich. 

Adam looked around at the lot of them curiously. “So… everything that Three Dog and the Brotherhood have been saying about you and your, uh, magic… it’s true?” The Rainbooms all nodded. “And all of that about you being from another world, too?”

Applejack nodded again. “It’s true. Do you remember when Generator Four blew just before we joined the Vault?” 

Adam looked up at the ceiling as he thought back. “Uh… sure. It was about a week before you girls turned up from North Block.” He shook his head and took a swig from a Nuka-Cola. “At first I thought that was why you girls came into the main Vault, that the generator had overloaded and knocked the power grid out in your section.” He huffed a laugh. “I guess I was wrong.”

“Actually, that generator is a big part of how we got here,” Sunset told him. “James was secretly using it to experiment with some weird tech that he found in the wastes. We’re not exactly sure how or why but, somehow, it was able to make a connection with a portal on our world that sucked us in and dumped us in the Vault.”

“A portal? What kind of portal?” Adam asked. 

Sunset smiled wryly. “Maybe we should start this from the beginning.” 

And so, the Rainbooms told Adam everything. First they spoke about Equestria and Sunset leaving through the mirror, the incident at the Fall Formal and Sunset’s demon transformation, then the adventures they went through together after, right up to the activation of the Geode Diviner. They explained the truth of how they’d actually arrived in Vault 101, and what they had been working on until the fateful day when James left them.

Adam was particularly interested in what had happened in the Vault after he had gone chasing after his father. He was glad that Officer Kendall had survived his run-in with the radroaches, he was already sadly aware of Jonas’ and the Holdens’ demise, and he shared the girls’ concern over the fate of Officer Gomez. The revelation that the Overseer had intended to have the Rainbooms procreate with the rest of the Vault was met with stunned horror.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said in a hushed voice, “I never imagined he would try and do something like that. I was just so focussed on chasing after Dad that…” His voice died as his thoughts turned to his father.

Fluttershy, sat next to him, placed a reassuring hand atop his own. “It’s okay, we don’t blame you for any of this.”

“What exactly happened that day?” Sunset asked. “All we heard was that James had left the Vault and you went after him.”

Adam sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly before answering. “That’s pretty much it. Amata woke me up and told that he… that he’d left. She told me about Jonas too, and that the Overseer was sending the security teams to bring me in for questioning, and that I should leave the Vault. When I heard that I pretty much just grabbed everything I could and got the hell out of there.”

He sighed again and folded his arms, slumping over and resting his arms on the table. “Officer Kendall tried to grab me outside my room, but a bunch of radroaches attacked and I managed to escape while he was dealing with them. Then Butch came running up, saying that his mom was in trouble, so I went and saved her from another bunch of radroaches. That’s where I got this jacket from.” He paused and brushed off the dust from the sleeve of said jacket. “After that I just kept moving. Chief Hannon tried to stop me, but I ended up beating the tar out of him. Then I ran into the Overseer.” The girls shrank back, surprised at the cold fury that suddenly seemed to radiate from the young man. “Him and Mack had Amata in a chair. Mack was beating the crap out of her, trying to find out where I was.”

“That’s awful!” Rarity gasped. 

Applejack glowered at the table. “How could he do that to his own daughter? His own flesh and blood?” She hunched over and lowered her hat, glaring at nothing in particular. “If Ah ever see him again, Ah swear, Ah’m gonna knock his teeth so far down his throat he’s gonna be biting his own ass.”

“Not if I get to him first,” Sunset cut in. “What happened next, Adam?”

Adam shrugged. “I couldn’t leave her like that, so I jumped in and smacked seven shades of shit out of Mack.”

“Nice.” Rainbow reached a fist out over the table.

Adam smirked and bumped it with his own before continuing. “Anyway, Amata ran while we were fighting. The Overseer tried to get me to give myself up, but I had to go after Dad. Turns out there’s a secret passageway right to the Vault entrance through the Overseer’s office. I went down there, opened up the Vault, said goodbye to Amata, and left.”

The group fell silent for several moments as they digested what they’d heard. “Damn,” Rainbow muttered under her breath.

“Ah guess we’re just lucky that Mack and Hannon had been dealt with before we started kicking up a fuss,” Applejack supplied, getting eager nods from the others in agreement. “Where did you go after you left? We heard you did some sort of errand for Moriarty in Megaton?”

Adam grimaced as he remembered. “Yeah. That ass-hat had me go and collect a debt from a junkie living on a ranch just outside Megaton. Poor girl, wish I could have helped her out more.” He shook his head sadly. “Maybe when the Enclave have been dealt with. Anyway, as I was saying…” The Rainbooms listened with rapt attention as Adam told them of his adventures after leaving the Vault. 

It turned out that, after getting the information he sought from Moriarty, Adam had indeed gone charging off to Galaxy News, taking the route through the old Metro tunnels as the girls suspected. When he started relaying his encounter with the Brotherhood of Steel outside Galaxy News, however, Rainbow remembered a particular detail that she wanted clarified. “Hey, did you really take on that Behemoth one-on-one?”

Adam smiled and rubbed his stubble self-consciously. “Well, I mean, not really. Sarah and the others were shooting at it, but the brute just wouldn’t go down. That’s when I spotted that one of the dead soldiers was carrying a Fatman.”

“Carrying a what?” Applejack asked, sure she’d misheard.

“A Fatman,” Adam repeated. “It’s like a really big grenade launcher, except it launches mini-nukes instead of grenades.”

“Mini-nukes?!” Sunset and Rainbow spluttered in unison, Sunset nearly choking on her water in the process. 

“That. Is. So. Awesome!” Rainbow added in an awestruck voice. “Tell me you still have that thing!”

Adam shook his head. “Sorry, but the Brotherhood soldiers wanted it back after I was done with it. Besides, it was way too unwieldy to go carrying around all over the place. I just grabbed it, blew the damn Behemoth’s head off with it, then gave it back to the Brotherhood.”

“I’m amazed it didn’t blow you up in the process,” Twilight blurted out. 

Adam gave a noncommittal shrug in response. “Eh, it probably would have if the mutant had been close enough.”

“Ah’m guessing you spoke to Three Dog after that?” Applejack asked. She frowned as she remembered something. “That’s a point, didn’t he get you to fix his radio signal or something?”

Grimacing at the memory, Adam told of how he had been asked to find a replacement relay dish for Three Dog after his original one had been destroyed. He spoke of a deadly journey across the most war-torn sections of the D.C. ruins to get to the Museum of Technology, running battles with the super mutants as he searched inside, then a desperate flight to the Washington Monument once he had retrieved it. 

Once that was done, Three Dog informed him that James had headed for Rivet City to find Doctor Li, and Adam had set off at once. The girls listened intently when he mentioned the raiders and ghouls he encountered in the Metro tunnels, but silently agreed not to tell him about the trouble that his actions caused them on their own trek through them. The last thing he needed was any more guilt or regret. 

Next Adam spoke of meeting Doctor Li in Rivet City, from there heading to Project Purity and finding evidence that James had gone looking for Vault 112, in search of technology that could potentially get the purifier working at full capacity. Making his own way to Vault 112, Adam had, at last, found his father. From there the two of them had returned to Rivet City with all haste, recruited Doctor Li and her team, barely missing the Rainbooms in the process, and gone on to re-occupy Project Purity. 

Applejack whistled appreciatively when he finished. “Hoo-whee! That’s a tale and a half. That Vault 112 must be one heck of a long way away, though. How far away from the Capital Wasteland is it?”

Curiously, Adam averted his eyes at Applejack’s question, focussing on the food in front of him. “It’s, uh… it’s not actually outside the wasteland,” he said quietly. “In fact that Vault is probably closer to the Citadel than this place is.” 

The Rainbooms all shared a confused look. “How can that be possible?” Twilight asked. “Vault 112 wasn’t marked on the map Scribe Rothchild showed us.”

“Not to mention it took you about two whole weeks to get there and back,” Applejack added. “If it was that close, how come it took you so long to get there?”

The group was surprised by Fluttershy suddenly bursting into a fit of giggles. “Oh, Adam,” she said between giggles, “You got lost again, didn’t you?”

Rainbow snorted with laughter. “Come on, Shy, there’s no way he managed to get lost out there for two whole weeks!” Adam blushed and rubbed at his stubble again, and pointedly avoiding the others’ gazes. “No way. You did get lost?!” Rainbow shot incredulously. 

“How the heck did you manage that?” Applejack asked as Rainbow curled up laughing. “You have a map on your darn Pip-Boy, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” Adam huffed. “I’m just… not great at reading it.”

“He even got lost in Vault 101 once or twice,” Fluttershy piped up slyly, still giggling. 

“Aw, come on, Flutters, you didn’t have to tell them that,” Adam muttered as the others gaped at him. “Besides, it wasn’t really my fault this time. I got chased by a freaking bear for miles. By the time I lost the stupid thing, I didn’t have a clue where I was or which way I had to go. Then I ended up running into this massive raider encampment, and I had to run from them, then there were those damned super mutants I kept finding.” He sighed heavily. “I found Vault 112 pretty much by accident, and then that ended up being a whole bunch of crazy thanks to the mad scientist that lived there. I tell you, this wasteland is insane.”

“Tell me about it,” Sunset agreed. 

Adam laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, I guess you’d know that by now.”

The group fell silent for a while, each of them lost in their own thoughts. Eventually, once they’d all eaten and rearranged their packs, Sunset asked what was on everyone’s mind, “So, what do we do now? Shall we try searching Vault 87?”

Adam shook his head. “I was going to rest here for the night then try it in the morning. Apparently, the Vault is full of super mutants. I don’t fancy tackling that without plenty of preparation and a good night’s rest.”

Rainbow groaned loudly. “Not more super mutants. I’m getting sick of those things.”

“Especially now that they have magic,” Sunset added sourly. 

Adam frowned at that. “Yeah, I heard something about that on the radio. Was that big wave of lights really caused by you?” Sunset opened her mouth to reply, but Adam suddenly gasped and dove under the table. “That reminds me! I’ve got something for you!” The girls stared in amazement as he pulled out a shiny blue-tinged gas tank, smaller than usual, and connected via a flexible pipe to a makeshift sword made out of the same blue-tinged metal. 

Rainbow stared at it, awestruck. “Is that…?”

Adam shrugged. “I found it at Project Purity. I figured it must be one of yours, so I brought it with me in case I found you again. It didn’t look like this when I found it though. While I was on my way here it got hit by one of those of those little balls of, uh, magic, and it sorta mutated, somehow.” He held it out to Rainbow. “The ball was blue, so… I guess this must be yours?”

“My shishkebab!” Grinning from ear to ear, Rainbow quickly accepted her prized weapon, strapping the gas tank to her lower back and holding the sword out in front of her. “Whoa, this feels kinda… weird,” she said quietly. 

“What kinda weird?” Pinkie asked. “Like, a good weird, or a bad weird?”

“I don’t know.” Rainbow stared at the blade reverently. “It doesn’t feel bad. It actually kinda feels like… like my Geode or something.” She took a step away from the table and held the blade out over the water. Shimmering, sky-blue fluid ran down the blade as she gripped the hilt. She clicked the lighter and, with a loud whoosh, the blade ignited, incandescent blue flames bursting into life and banishing all darkness from the cave. 

“Whoa…” 

Rainbow grinned at the awed sounds the rest of the group made. “Okay, now this is going to be awesome!”





“How long do you think it will take to gather the materials you require?” Vice-Principal Luna asked as she escorted Starswirl and Princess Twilight to the front door of CHS. 

“It shouldn’t take long,” Twilight replied. “I’ll send messages to Canterlot and the Crystal Empire as soon as I get back. While I wait for a response from them I’ll dig through the various items and artefacts I’ve picked up over the years, maybe there’ll be something we can use.” 

Starswirl nodded. “I’d suggest that you request aid from Stygian and the other Pillars as well. In the meantime, I’ll remain here and learn what I can of this Geode Diviner’s inner workings.”

“Thanks, Starswirl. If you need to contact me for any reason, just use the journal I gave you.” Twilight pushed open the school’s front door, then stopped dead in her tracks, her heart suddenly thundering in her chest.  

A woman was standing just outside the door, looking like she was about to enter. Twilight recognised her instantly, and the woman clearly noticed. 

Luna blinked in surprise, then raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you a visitor? If so, I’d appreciate it if you could- hey!”

The woman turned and ran off at top speed. Twilight tried to run after her, calling out for her to wait, but the woman was just too fast. She sped past the broken base of the statue portal and darted across the road as a bus made its approach. 

As she reached the other side of the road the woman turned and looked directly at Twilight. Her lip slowly pulled up into an evil smirk, then the bus drove past and obscured her from sight. When the bus had passed, there was no sign of her. Twilight looked wildly up and down the street, looking for any clue as to where she might be fleeing, but there was nothing. The woman was gone.

“Wha… what was that about?” Luna asked as she caught up. 

“Has that woman been around here before?” Twilight demanded. 

Luna blinked in surprise at the authority in Twilight’s voice. “Not that I’ve noticed, I’ll have to check with my sister. Why? Who is she?”

Twilight just turned and stared at the spot where the woman had stood before she disappeared. She knew who her enemy was now, and this was not someone she’d be able to defeat on her own. She needed help, and there was nopony better placed to provide it than the woman’s pony counterpart. “Tempest…”





Tara took a slow, deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. The distress call had been answered promptly, a Vertibird arriving within an hour of it being activated and dropping off a full squad of Enclave soldiers. Once contact had been re-established with Raven Rock, and the perimeter of the Exodus building secured once more, another Vertibird had been sent out in order to ferry Tara, Becky, and Doctor Turner back to the Enclave’s main base of operations. 

The second they arrived at Raven Rock, Tara and Doctor Turner had been summoned to the Senate Chamber for an immediate audience with the President. With little else to do, Becky had offered to check up on Doctors Evans and Pickering, and wait for her girlfriend down in the labs. 

Now, standing outside the Senate Chamber, Tara could barely contain her fear. If the President had any idea of the truth behind the Rainbooms’ escape, then she and her fellow conspirators were as good as dead. The fact that the soldiers standing guard outside kept sneaking glances at her pony ears and purple hair certainly didn’t help matters.

“Enter,” a voice called from within the Chamber.

Trying to stop her hands from shaking, Tara pushed open the door and stepped inside, Doctor Turner right on her heels. No-one else was in the chamber whatsoever, save for the modified Eyebot that served as the President’s intermediary when dealing with official matters. 

Tara couldn’t decide whether that was a good sign or not.

“My, my,” President Eden said as the two approached his eyebot. “I see you were not exaggerating the mutagenic qualities of the Rainbooms’ magic. Are you well?”

Tara nodded stiffly. “Er, I think so, Mister President.”

“Good! It’s a pleasure to see you again,” the President said brightly. “I will admit I was deeply concerned for your safety after contact was lost with the Exodus facility.”

“We’re glad to be back, Mister President,” Turner replied. “I assume you’ve heard the reports?”

The eyebot bobbed once, “I have indeed, doctor. However, I would like to hear everything directly from yourselves, if that’s quite alright?”

Between the two of them, Tara and Doctor Turner reported everything that had happened or been discussed since the Rainbooms had arrived at Project Exodus, excepting, of course, the fact that Tara and the others had helped the girls escape. The President listened patiently. He occasionally asked for clarification on a certain point, but on the whole he remained silent until the two had finished talking. 

“Hmmm, it seems we greatly underestimated the Rainbooms and their abilities,” he said finally. “Has there been any change in Sigma Four’s condition?”

Tara shook her head. “As of this morning, he’s still in a coma.”

“I see. And what of the rest of you? Are these new physical changes of yours permanent?” the President asked. 

“We’re not sure,” Tara replied, flicking her hair around to allow him a closer look. “Doctor Shoichet believes that we’ll return to normal once the magic has completely left our bodies, it’s just taking a long time because we were so close to the epicentre of the Rainbooms’ magical attack, and were inundated with vast quantities of raw magic.”

President Eden chuckled softly. “Forgive me. It is quite an odd experience hearing a hardcore atheist such as yourself speaking of matters such as magic with a straight face, doctor.” He cleared his throat before continuing, “What of Doctor Shoichet? Is it true that she has gained access to Sunset Shimmer’s memories?”

Tara shrugged noncommittally, “Well, sort of. Ever since she touched the Geode she’s been able to recall Sunset Shimmer’s memories, but she doesn’t have much control over what or when she can remember at the moment. We’ll look into a more effective method for retrieving the memories once Project Exodus is back on its feet.”

“Good.” The eyebot moved a few inches closer to Tara. “You say that you have large quantities of raw magic left over from the Rainbooms’ final magical attack, is that correct?”

“Yes, Mister President.” Tara grimaced at the realisation of where he was going with this. “If I may be blunt though, Mister President, attempting to move or experiment on it would be a terrible idea, at least until we can figure out a way to do so safely. It’s far, far, too dangerous.”

“Well, that is unfortunate.” The President sighed heavily. “Very well, thank you for your report, Doctor Strong. I’ll make arrangements for replacement security and the Senate has arranged to transfer more resources to Project Exodus. They should arrive at the Exodus facility within the week, God willing. You may leave, now.”

Tara sighed with relief, though she tried to keep it from showing too much on her face. “Thank you, Mister President.”

Doctor Turner and the President watched as the scientist turned and left the room, with a little more haste than was strictly necessary. “Do you believe her, Doctor Turner?” the President asked as soon as the door was closed. 

Turner nodded. “I do. I know she may seem a little off, right now, but after everything that’s happened I honestly don’t blame her.” He shivered involuntarily, “Especially considering that haunted armour that’s been slithering around. Thankfully the soldiers you provided managed to chase it off towards Rivet City.”

The eyebot turned to face the doctor fully. “So, did you manage to procure what I asked for?”

Doctor Turner nodded. Not long after the first Vertibird had arrived he had made sure to secretly contact the President directly using its radio, making sure that the other Exodus personnel didn’t overhear him. Glancing at the door once more, he reached into his lab coat’s inside pocket and produced a large jar, full to the brim with brightly glowing magic. 

“I must warn you, Mister President, Doctor Strong is right to be cautious,” he said quickly. “All it took was a truly miniscule amount of magic to cause absolute carnage in the Exodus facility. If the magic in this jar manages to get loose somehow, it could devastate this entire fortress.”

The eyebot hovered forwards until it was a mere foot away from Doctor Turner. When he spoke, the President’s voice was hushed, but firm, “I understand your concerns, Doctor, but I’m afraid we have little choice. The loss of Squad Sigma was a great blow to our military strength at a time when we can ill-afford such setbacks.”

Doctor Turner frowned, not quite following. “Surely, sir, we could simply train more soldiers to replace them?”

“We don’t have the time or the resources right now,” the President replied. “James’ son has been spotted entering the Lamplight Caverns. We believe he is attempting to retrieve a G.E.C.K. from Vault 87.”

“A G.E.C.K.?” Doctor Turner repeated eagerly. “My word, I wonder if that could be the last piece needed to get Project Purity working?”

“I believe so,” President Eden agreed. “I have dispatched Colonel Autumn to the Vault to apprehend the boy, and the Rainbooms too, if they dare to try and follow him. However, this still leaves us with a dearth of military might. I expect you to make up the shortfall.”  

“Me?! But how?!” Doctor Turner asked incredulously. 

The President chuckled darkly. “With that magic. As of this moment I am transferring you from Project Exodus to Experiment FH-1.”

“Experiment…” Doctor Turner’s heart leapt as he realised what the President was asking. “You mean…?”

The eyebot moved even closer, until it was barely an inch from Turner’s face. “We’ve tried everything we can to wake that thing up ever since we dragged its remains out of the wreckage of the Poseidon Oil Rig. That magic might be the key to getting it back in the field. I realise that exposing it to something as volatile as this magic will be dangerous, especially when combined with the FEV already in its system, but we are out of options. We need military power, and we need it now. I don’t care what it takes, Doctor Turner, but wake up Frank Horrigan.”
> Chapter 50 - ShyWanderer
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Little Lamplight’s Great Chamber was quiet at night, with no sound save for the gentle breathing of sleeping children and the occasional patter of condensation falling from the walls. The Great Chamber was aptly named; a vast cavern supported by thick pillars of rock that rose up out of the deep water that covered the floor of the cave. There were a few patches of dry rock that poked up out of the water, but they were few and far between. Instead, the cave was traversed by a series of wooden walkways and platforms suspended high above the water, many of them snaking around and attached to the support pillars. Bright lights were strung up along each walkway, providing plenty of light for navigating the complex paths.  

At the far end of the Chamber, away from the sleeping areas, Fluttershy stood with her arms resting on the walkway railings, gazing down into the inky blackness below. Her friends were sleeping fitfully in an alcove around the edge of the cave. Any one of them would have undoubtedly been willing to talk if she had woken them but, for now, she was just happy to have a quiet moment to herself so she could try and organise her thoughts. 

The last few days had been awful. For one brief shining moment things had been looking up, and then everything had fallen apart. Learning of James’ death had been the worst part. Losing someone who had started as an ally and ended up becoming a good friend was almost too much to bear. 

Fluttershy hadn’t given up hope, though. The knowledge that Adam and the other scientists were alive helped, but it was the thought of her friends that was most responsible for her resolve. Jonas, Mary, and James. Three of her friends had died since the Rainbooms had first arrived in this world, she was not going to let anyone else get taken away, not as long as there was something she could do about it. 

Still, that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t mourn. Fluttershy had allowed herself time, on that first night after escaping from Exodus, to cry while the others slept. It wasn’t much, but it had helped to clear her head and enable her to focus on supporting the rest of the Rainbooms.

Since then, things had finally started to look up again. Fluttershy didn’t want to get her hopes up too much. After all, there was still a mountain of problems for the Rainbooms to face, starting with the prospect of a mutant-infested Vault in the morning, but she couldn’t help but feel that their luck was slowly improving. The fact that they had at last found Adam was certainly helping to raise her spirits. 

Fluttershy sighed as she replayed their earlier conversations in her head one more time.  After Rainbow’s little display with her shishkebab, and her subsequent assertion that she just had to come up with an awesome name for it, the conversation had turned to what they were going to do next. 

Flutters had made a small attempt to nudge the conversation towards James, but Adam had made it very clear that he didn’t want to talk about it. She just hoped he wasn’t forcing himself to bottle up his emotions. Such things never ended well. 

Eventually the group had decided it was best to try and get a good night’s sleep before they braved the Vault tomorrow. Mayor Macready had agreed to let them stay the night on condition that they didn’t cause any problems or try to ‘diddle the kids’. Rainbow’s retort was probably best forgotten. As was the verbal tirade from Rarity that followed.  

The sudden sound of creaking boards snapped Flutters from her little reverie. Turning to see who else was up, she was surprised to see Adam rounding a nearby pillar. He blinked as he spotted her too, then smiled and gave her a small wave. “Oh, hey, Fluff.”

“Oh, um, hi,” Fluttershy replied, trying to ignore the sudden storm of butterflies that erupted when he used his little nickname for her.

Adam paused in his tracks. “Er, are you okay? I can leave if you want to be alone.”

“No! I mean, um…” Fluttershy blushed as she mentally chastised herself. “It’s okay, um, I wouldn’t mind a little company.”

Adam smiled and joined her at the railings, bending slightly to lean against them. Unfortunately, since he wasn’t looking at what he was doing, the poor fool chose to rest his arms on a spot that was particularly wet with condensation, causing them to slip out from under him and pitch him forward to smack painfully into the rail with his ribs. 

Fluttershy winced in sympathy and reached out a steadying hand. “Are you alright?”

“Yep! I’m good. Totally good,” Adam said quickly as he straightened up, brushing the fresh damp spot on his battered jumpsuit. He planted his hands on his hips and shook his head, chuckling softly. “Man, how smooth was that, right?”

“So, so smooth,” Fluttershy replied with a giggle. 

Adam huffed a laugh and frowned at the railing. “Right, let’s try this again.” With exaggerated care he leaned against the railings again, making sure to avoid any slick sections. Once he was settled he looked back to Flutters. “So… the last few weeks have been kinda weird.”

“Um, yeah.” Fluttershy nodded and looked out across the cave, not quite able to meet his eyes. “Things have been a little… um… strange.”

The two of them lapsed into an awkward silence. While they had been chasing after him, Fluttershy had imagined hundreds of different things she wanted to say to Adam, but now that he was actually here, she didn’t have a single thought in her head. 

“I… er… I think I owe you an apology,” Adam said shortly. 

Fluttershy glanced at him curiously. “What for?”

The railing creaked as Adam shifted uncomfortably. “For what I asked you. Y’know, back in the Vault.” A blank stare was the only reply. “Remember? After the… er… after that chat with Christine.”

The memory hit Fluttershy like a train. She twitched her hair in front of her face to hide the crimson glow now radiating from her face. “O-oh. Um, that, um… you… you’ve already, um, apologized for… for that.”

“Well, yeah,” Adam admitted, a matching blush spreading across his own face. “But, I mean, back then I didn’t really know what was going on, y’know? If I had known that you were trying to get back I never would have asked. Not that I wouldn’t- I mean that I don’t… ah, you know what I mean.” Fluttershy tried to reply, but the strangled squeak that she came out with was barely audible even to her own ears. “I guess what I’m saying is, I get why you said no,” Adam continued quietly.

“I-it's not that,” Fluttershy managed. “It… it would have been cruel to say, um, to say y-yes,” her face somehow managed to burn even more as she said it, “especially when we didn’t think we would be here this, um, this long.”

“Fair point.” Adam sighed. He smirked as he thought of something. “You know, you’re going to have to tell me the truth about your world some time. Especially about your magic.”

Fluttershy smiled and nodded. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” Adam replied, before trying to stifle a yawn. “Not right now though. We should probably get some sleep ready for tomorrow. I was only going for a walk to try and clear my head a little.”

Fluttershy nodded again. “I’ll go back soon. I just want to clear my head a little more, too.”

“Groovy. Alright, I’ll see you in the morning, Fluff.” Giving her one last nod, Adam turned to walk away. 

Before he rounded the pillar and passed from sight, Fluttershy called out to him softly, “Adam, um, well, um, I was thinking. When all of this is, um, when all of this is done and we’ve got Project Purity back… would…um… would you like to… talk?”

Adam glanced back over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows at her. “Uh, sure? What about?”

“Well, um… you see…” Taking a deep breath, Fluttershy swallowed her embarrassment, clasped her hands together and turned to face him fully, her heart thundering so loudly she was amazed it wasn’t echoing around the cavern. “M-maybe… maybe next time the answer won’t be no.”

Adam mouthed the word ‘no’ blankly, then blushed as his brain caught up and comprehension dawned. “I-I… uh, oh, uh...” He cleared his throat loudly and turned to face her, rubbing his neck awkwardly. “But what about, uh, what about when you go home?”

Fluttershy dipped her head, looking up at him from under her eyebrows. “Well, um, we’re probably going to be stuck here for a while still. Plus, um, well, m-maybe, if it's okay with you a-and the others, maybe you could come with us?”

Adam stared at her in stunned silence. For a couple of terrifying moments Flutters half-expected him to reject her, but her fears proved ill-founded as he spoke quietly, “Yeah. Yeah, I think I’d like that.” As Fluttershy struggled to keep a beaming grin off her face he raised an eyebrow and looked around in confusion. “Hey, what’s that sound?”

Fluttershy had noticed it too; a quiet and high-pitched squeal that seemed to be coming from nowhere. She’d recognise it anywhere. “I-it's probably just bats,” she said shakily. 

Adam shrugged. “Yeah, probably. Anyway, I’m going to go and get some shut-eye. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you in the morning?” Fluttershy nodded. “Okay. Well, uh, goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” Fluttershy watched as he walked away. The moment he was out of earshot she turned and leaned against the railings, her heart pounding and her legs feeling like they were made out of jelly. Taking a deep breath, and resisting the near-overwhelming urge to bury her face in her hands, Fluttershy called out, “Y-you can come out now.”

Almost before she’d finished speaking there was a loud creak as someone else bounded up next to her, still squee-ing in a way that must have been driving any nearby dogs insane. “Tell. Me. Everything!” Rarity squealed.
> Chapter 51 - Vault 87
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset folded her arms, eyeing the nondescript door before her dubiously. It hadn’t worked in years but, according to Macready, if they could get it working again, it would provide safe entry into Vault 87. Sunset was more than a little sceptical, but given that the only other way into the Vault was through a tunnel that the Little Lamplighters called Murder Pass, the Rainbooms had decided to give this way a shot.

“You’re sure this leads into the Vault?” Adam asked.

Macready shrugged. “Fuck if I know. You’ll have to get the fucking thing working first, either way.”

“That should be easy enough.” The group turned to see Twilight entering the room, with a teenage boy in tow. “Joseph here says the door isn’t actually broken. Its just that the last scouting team that used it several years ago logged out of the access terminal and forgot the password to get back in.”

Joseph nodded. “I turned the power to the door off when I took over as the teacher here. We couldn’t use it anyway, and it was just draining power. If you think you can hack in to the terminal, and the Mayor is okay with it, I’d be happy to turn the power back on.”

“Hey, if it gives us a way to get our scouts into the fucking Vault without have to go through Murder Pass, I’m fine with it,” Macready said flatly. 

Given the go ahead, Joseph stepped over to the terminal and reached under to flip a switch. The computer quickly ran through its start-up routines before settling into a login screen. Seeing that it was working fine, Joseph stood aside to allow Twilight to take a look at it.

“So, do you think you can crack it?” Macready asked.

“I’m already in,” Twilight replied. “All I have to do is unlock the door and we’re in.” She glanced over her shoulder at Sunset. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Good work, Twi.” Sunset looked around at the others. “Are we all ready?”

The Rainbooms quickly voiced their assent, but Adam looked uncertain. “Are you sure we should all go in there?” he asked with a surreptitious glance at Fluttershy. “It’s going to be dangerous.”

“We’re all going,” Fluttershy said, quietly but firmly. “If anyone gets hurt in there, you’re going to need me.”

“Fluttershy’s right, but we need to be smart about this.” Sunset slid her rifle off her shoulder and checked to make sure it was loaded. “I was thinking about this yesterday, but I think we should split up into two teams. If there are eight of us tramping around in there we’re just going to get in each other's way.”

“Sounds fair. So, what’s the plan?” Applejack asked.

Sunset hummed as she thought. “I was thinking that you, Rarity and Twilight could go with Adam, while Rainbow, Pinkie and Fluttershy come with me. That gives us a good mix of guns, offensive magic and medical skills on each team, just in case. We’ll split up into two teams once we’re inside and search the Vault for this G.E.C.K., as well as anything that looks like the SDT-1 that Tara showed us.”

“SDT-what?” Adam asked, raising an eyebrow curiously.

“We’ll tell you later,” Sunset said quickly. “Is everyone okay with that plan?”

“Sounds good to me,” Applejack replied as the others nodded,

“We should try and be as stealthy as possible,” Adam suggested. “We don’t want to start a fight unless we absolutely have to.” 

“Good idea.” Sunset looked over at Rainbow apologetically. “Sorry, Dash. That means no lighting up the shishkebab.”

Rainbow shrugged. “Eh, it’s fine. I’ll only switch Flashburn on if I have to.”

Adam glanced warily at the sword hanging at her side, but let it go with a shake of his head. “Also, bear in mind I’m not exactly great at patching people up. I was an assistant, not a nurse.”

“Hopefully we won’t need any medical attention.” Sunset looked around at each of the others in turn. “Is there anything else before we go?” When no-one replied, Sunset took a deep breath and turned to face the door, readying her rifle. “Brace yourselves, girls, we don’t know what we’re going to meet on the other side of this door.” 

The others prepared themselves, lowering their stances and readying the few weapons they had. Applejack and Rainbow stood at the front with Sunset, Applejack holding her rifle steady and Rainbow clasping Flashburn’s hilt tightly with both hands. Rarity and Pinkie were next, Rarity ready to create a shield at a moment’s notice while Pinkie held a sugar shaker loosely in one hand. Adam and Fluttershy brought up the rear, Adam keeping his plasma rifle safely pointed at the ground until it was needed.

“I’ll guard the door until you lot get back,” Macready offered. “Don’t get eaten in there.”

“We weren’t planning on it.” Sunset checked quickly to make sure everyone else was ready, then nodded to Twilight. 

Twilight entered a command into the terminal, then stepped back and used her magic to press a switch next to the door. The group tensed as the door rose into the ceiling with a clatter of rusted gears. When nothing happened, Applejack edged forward slowly, with the others following close behind. The room beyond was dark, faltering lights in the ceiling revealing grime and rust-encrusted walls and a run-down, battered old generator. Thankfully, there weren’t any mutants to be seen.

“What do you think the chances are of the mutants checking this door?” Twilight asked quietly. 

“Not high,” Applejack replied, casting a critical eye over the generator. “That there’s a sub-generator, and it ain’t exactly in great condition. Ah doubt anyone’s even come into this room in years.”

“Alright, everyone, let’s keep quiet from here on out,” Sunset whispered. “Applejack, you take the lead. We’ll split into teams whenever we find a fork in the path. Do not get lost.” She couldn’t quite tell in the dim light, but she was certain that Adam, in particular, blushed at that last part. 

“The super mutants won’t know that we’ve got this door working again, so don’t lock it unless you have to,” he muttered to Macready. The girls couldn’t hear the mayor’s response, but Adam nodded at him. “We’ll be back soon.”

The sound of the door closing behind them sounded unbearably loud in the small room, but there were no answering shouts of surprise or curiosity from listening mutants, so the girls felt certain that their stealthy entry to the Vault had been successful. Hefting their weapons, Applejack and Rainbow headed to the only other door in the room, the others close on their heels. 

The next room was full of large old-fashioned magnetic tape drives. Filthy glass windows on either side of the room looked out, oddly enough, on small rocky cavities that contained nothing of any apparent interest. The group did, however, find a safe in one corner, which Twilight unlocked using her magic before turning her attention to a nearby computer terminal. 

The safe contained a pile of old pre-war dollar bills which were given to Pinkie, just in case they came in handy, and a small pistol. The pistol was a different model than the last one Sunset had used, but Sunset fished her old holster out of her pack anyway and, after a few quick adjustments from Rarity, the new weapon fit in easily enough. 

“Anything useful?” Sunset asked Twilight in a whisper as she strapped her holster on under her jacket. Twilight just sighed softly and shook her head before switching the terminal off. 

Pressing on, the group came to a series of short corridors. They came across a pair of doors along the way, but the first opened to reveal a blank rock-face and the second, up a short flight of stairs, led into a rocky tunnel that they assumed must lead to Murder Pass. Given the number of caves they’d seen and the fact that this Vault clearly wasn’t as heavily sealed as Vault 101, Sunset couldn’t help but wonder if this one hadn’t been entirely finished when the nuclear war broke out. 

Continuing on, the group arrived at another room containing magnetic tape drives with windows to nothing in the walls. A small clutch of radroaches skittered around in one corner, but Rainbow stomped them into oblivion before they were even aware that they weren’t alone. When Applejack opened the very next door, however, the sound of harsh voices echoed down the corridor. 

Everyone tensed and raised their weapons, but the voices didn’t come any closer. From what they could hear, it appeared that at least two super mutants were standing just around the next corner, idly talking with each other. Whether they were guarding this particular corridor or had simply stopped to chat was unknown. Either way, the group was going to have to get past them. As everyone tried to think of a way of getting past the mutants without raising the alarm, their thoughts were interrupted by an even more concerning sound; heavy footsteps, echoing up the corridor from the tunnel. 

The group whipped around to see a super mutant clad in heavy metal plates amble into the room. Grumbling to itself, the mutant paused when it spotted the group, it’s eyes widening in surprise before a razor-edged gemstone split it’s skull from crown to chin. Killed instantly, the mutant toppled over like a statue and slammed to the ground with a deafening crash. 

“Hn?! What was that!?” one of the mutants yelled from the corridor. With nowhere to hide, everyone scurried to the corners of the room, out of immediate sight of the corridor as the super mutants thudded closer. A moment later a trio of them lumbered into the room, their weapons out and ready. Their attention immediately went to the corpse lying incongruously on the floor. “Hey! What kille-”

The first super mutant died instantly, a gemstone spike piercing it’s skull like a javelin. The mutant had barely twitched before Rainbow was between them, two quick slashes with Flashburn opening red smiles in the throats of the other two as their guns were crushed beyond use in a purple aura. The two mutants dropped the useless remains of their weapons and clutched at their necks, trying vainly to stop the crimson flow that gushed forth. Another pair of gems put them out of their misery. 

Several tense seconds passed as the group waited with bated breath. Once they were sure that no other mutants had heard the scuffle, they allowed themselves to relax somewhat. 

“Why did you destroy the guns?” Adam asked quietly. “We could have used them.”

“Sorry, but I figured they might fire on reflex and I figured that gunshots would probably echo more in here,” Twilight whispered back. 

Adam reluctantly accepted the point and stepped over to the corpses to strip them of any useful equipment and ammunition. Applejack quickly joined him, pocketing some extra ammo for her rifle. When they were done, the group debated hiding the bodies, but decided it wasn’t worth trying. There was nowhere small enough that they wouldn’t be found and there was nothing that could be done about the fairly obvious pools of blood in any case. 

Leaving the corpses behind, the group made their way cautiously down the corridor, up several small flights of stairs and through a few more generator rooms. They did encounter another super mutant on the way carrying a heavy sledgehammer, but Rainbow and Rarity worked together again to subdue the beast, Twilight using her magic to gently lower it’s body to the ground noiselessly this time around. 

Tramping up the last set of stairs, the group came to a halt on the threshold of a large room. Upon opening the door the stench that poured out was almost a physical force, threatening to drive the group to their knees and forcing many of them to forcibly suppress their retching. Blinking back tears from the foul reek, Sunset supposed that, once upon a time, the room had probably been almost identical to the atrium in Vault 101, but such was clearly not the case anymore. 

Huge steel panels and girders were stacked around to make odd barricades of sorts. Bonfires blazing in metal drums combined with the few remaining functional electric lights to illuminate makeshift cages built from what looked like shopping carts. Worse than any of that were the bags of disembodied limbs and mutilated bodies that were tossed around haphazardly or strung from the ceiling, blood dripping or seeping from them to add to the general filth that already coated the floors. As if the nightmarish tableau before them wasn’t bad enough, the guttural speech coming from many different directions let the group know that there were several super mutants somewhere in the vicinity. 

Taking a quick peek into the room, Sunset checked to make sure that no mutants were in direct sight, then turned back to the others and gestured back down the way they’d come. Backtracking down to one of the generator rooms, the group breathed a little easier once they were away from the appalling reek of the atrium, enough that they could hold a hushed conversation. 

“Oh man, that was disgusting!” Rainbow croaked, holding her free arm over her nose and mouth. Rarity nodded in agreement, her cheeks tinged with green. 

“This is even worse than Project Purity before I cleared it out,” Adam muttered. “And I get the feeling it's not gonna get any better the further in we go.” 

“What do you think we should do, sugarcube?” Applejack asked. 

Adam sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know. If it was just me, I’d try and sneak in anyway, probably try to pick off any lone mutants silently. If it came down to a fight, I’d try and confuse them, they’re not exactly bright, then take them out one at a time.” 

“There’s nothing saying we can’t do that together,” Applejack put in. 

“Yes, but there’s a lot more mutants than we expected,” Rarity hissed. “This is far too dangerous. We should go back to the Brotherhood of Steel and have them send troops in.”

“The Brotherhood can’t spare anyone, all of their troops are either on operations or preparing to take back Project Purity,” Adam countered. 

“It’s up to us, then,” Applejack said firmly. “Ah know this is dangerous, but we need that G.E.C.K.” She looked around at the other Rainbooms meaningfully as she added, “”Remember what we discussed in Rivet City?”

Sunset raised an eyebrow as the others nodded solemnly. “What did you discuss in Rivet City?”

Her friends shared an uncertain look. “Well, uh, when you were still, y’know, out cold, we got to talking about things,” Applejack replied slowly. “One of the things we agreed was that, if we were forced into a situation like with the raiders or the super mutants again, we’d… well… we wouldn’t hesitate. We’d do what needed to be done.”

Sunset frowned. The fact that her friends had had such a conversation, that there had been a need for such a conversation, cut her right to the core.

“Look, we need to make a decision,” Rainbow cut in. “Standing around talking like this is just going to get us killed, so what are we going to do? Are we going back, or are we going in?” 

Her voice may have been full of confidence, but Sunset noticed that her hands were shaking, not that she could blame her. They were all terrified of what they were about to walk into. Still, Applejack was right. If they wanted to have any chance of getting home, then things like this needed to be done. 

Swallowing the nagging fear that her next words might send one of her friends to their deaths, Sunset took a deep breath and willed her own hands to stop shaking. “We go in. Stay quiet and keep out of sight. We’ll split up in the atrium, but if we hear a fight break out, we’ll head back towards it to help each other out. If it’s too much, we’ll get out of here as fast as we can.”

The others nodded, accepting her judgement, and turned to head back up to the atrium. When they reached the door they paused, steeling themselves for what they were about to do, then crept out into the room. Splitting into their two teams, Adam took his group right towards a nearby corridor while Sunset led her team across the atrium to a corridor on the far side. They moved silently, keeping their eyes peeled for any super mutants. Voices could be heard coming from several adjacent corridors, and shadowy forms could be seen moving on the atrium’s mezzanine, but nothing spotted either group as they moved through the shadows. 

Stopping outside their chosen corridor, Sunset looked back over her shoulder to see Adam, Twilight, Applejack and Rarity disappear into another one. She glanced at Pinkie, Rainbow and Fluttershy, who all nodded to her, then turned and headed into the dark. 





Twilight fought to keep herself from trembling uncontrollably as she followed the others into the corridor. They’d fought super mutants before, and won, but something felt different this time. Maybe it was just the dark and the reek of death that clung to everything, but somehow every shadow felt more menacing and deadly than before. 

The fact that her mind burned with questions served as something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the mystery of trying to figure out how the super mutants got into a Vault in the first place would have been a welcome distraction for Twilight, but on the other, she could hardly afford such a distraction in a situation when a momentary lapse of focus could prove fatal. 

Making their way up some stairs, the team came to a corridor that connected to the atrium mezzanine. Of the first doors they came to, one was a toilet, and the other was locked tight. Figuring that a locked door might be hiding something useful, Twilight used her magic to pick the lock. To the team’s dismay, all they found through the door was a small room that led to the other side of the atrium without having to go over the mezzanine. 

They were about to ignore this route and continue on their way when they heard a group of mutants coming down the corridor behind them. Their decision made for them, the group hurried through the door and closed it behind them. Shortly afterward they heard the mutants wandering past on some errand or other. 

More than happy to put off any fighting for as long as possible, Twilight was relieved when Adam led them across the room instead of trying to go back through the door. In the corridor on the other side, the group faced a dilemma. To the left was a set of stairs leading back down, while to the right the corridor extended away into the shadows with several doors leading to the atrium’s mezzanine on one side. The low conversations of mutants came from both directions. 

Adam paused, looking both ways as he pondered. Coming to a decision, he turned to the right and stepped up to the nearest door to the atrium, took a careful peek through the doorway, then looked back at the girls and held up three fingers. Three mutants.

Applejack hefted her rifle and raised an eyebrow questioningly, but Adam shook his head and mouthed ‘they’ll see’. 

‘What do we do?’ Rarity mouthed back.

They didn’t catch his response at first, but at their uncomprehending looks he repeated ‘distraction?’.

The other two glanced at each other and shrugged, but Twilight nodded and gestured for Adam to swap places with her. Adam glanced back over his shoulder, then reluctantly shifted so she could get to the door. As they brushed past each other he stopped her and brought his lips right to her ear, whispering almost inaudibly, “Careful. They’re right by the door.”

Twilight nodded and, her heart pounding harder than ever before, inched towards the door frame. Adam hadn’t been lying. One of the mutants was leaning against the wall right beside the door with the other two standing next to it, so close Twilight could have easily reached out and poked them if she wanted. 

Thinking fast, she looked up at one of the bags of gore dangling from the ceiling by a cable and clasped her fingers, focusing on her magic. A purple aura appeared around the fixture in the ceiling and, before any of the mutants could notice, she gave it a strong yank. The cable came free with a loud tung and the bag dropped, barely missing the railings as it fell past the mezzanine and landed on the bottom floor with a wet splat.

The mutants all looked up at the sound and rushed over to the railings to see what had happened. Mere seconds later the three of them twitched one-by-one as each of them had their skulls pierced by vicious crystal spikes. Twilight caught them as they fell and lowered their corpses soundlessly to the mezzanine floor. 

A quick look around showed no more mutants on the mezzanine, and there were no cries of alarm that indicated that they’d been seen. Twilight was leery of leaving the bodies where they were; in case more mutants discovered them, but a swift search of the corridor revealed a cramped storeroom that Adam and Applejack ransacked before stuffing the bodies inside. For good measure, Twilight used her magic to lock the door then mangle the mechanism to make sure no-one would be able to get in. There was little they could do about the blood stains, but they suspected that the mutants probably wouldn’t notice given the amount of filth already covering the floor. 

Once that was dealt with, the four had a whispered debate as to which way they should go next. Applejack suggested heading left and going down the stairs they had ignored earlier to see if they could pick off some more mutants, but trying to sneak down stairs would almost certainly mean that the mutants would spot them before they spotted the mutants. Besides, Sunset and her team were probably somewhere in the corridors beneath their feet, so maybe they would deal with the mutants downstairs themselves. 

With few other options available, the group continued going right, eventually coming to a set of stairs that led up to a higher floor in the Vault. Taking the stairs, they made their way cautiously through a series of winding corridors, avoiding most of the mutants they came across and taking out those that they could subdue silently until they came to an office of sorts. Another super mutant lurked inside, one of the winged horrors that they had faced outside Exodus. 

This super mutant was different to the others. It was more lithe and less overly-muscled than the other mutants, and its fleshy wings had taken on something of a bat-like quality. Even more surprising, the mutant seemed to realise that something was off and it whirled around just as Rarity flung a gemstone, though it made little difference as the spike simply speared through its eye instead of the back of it’s skull. Twilight barely managed to catch it in her magic and set it down gently as it fell. 

“Phew. Ah gotta admit, that sure puckered up my butt-hole,” Applejack breathed quietly.

Adam gave her a concerned look, then shook his head and nodded to a terminal in the corner of the office. “Hey, Twilight, I’ll watch the door, you check that terminal and see if you can find anything out about the G.E.C.K and whatever it is you’re looking for.”

Twilight nodded and hurried over to the terminal, eyeing up the dead mutant as she passed. As she got a closer look, she realised that the mutant’s ears tapered to a point, it’s canines were now very elongated and exceptionally sharp-looking, and it’s eyes seemed to reflect the light just like those of a cat, all of which combined to lend it a distinctly eerie aspect.

Shaking off the feeling, Twilight turned her attention to the terminal. Password-protected, typical. She wondered for a moment whether the super mutants were smart enough to create a computer password, then dismissed the thought as ridiculous, surmising that it had probably been left by the terminal’s original owner. Either way, bypassing it was the work of mere seconds. As soon as she was in, Twilight set herself to skimming through the many logs and records stored within.  

“You okay, sugarcube?” Applejack asked quietly.

Twilight looked back to see her and Rarity standing over the mutant. Even in the dim light, it was easy to see that Rarity wasn’t feeling her best. Sweat beaded her forehead and her hands trembled as she brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. I… I know they’re monsters, but… they’re still living creatures. Slaughtering them like this just…”

“I can take over, if you want,” Twilight suggested. “I mean, I should be able to subdue them just as quietly with my magic as you can.”

Rarity shook her head again. “No. I can do this.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then gagged slightly as she got a concentrated dose of Vault 87’s putrid stench. Blowing out through her nose in a vain attempt to try to clear it, she pointedly turned away from the mutant and looked over at Twilight. “Have you found anything on the computer?”

Twilight turned back to the terminal with a frown. “Maybe. According to this, there's some sort of experimental lab somewhere in the Vault. If there’s a G.E.C.K here, or anything else of value, I’d guess that it’s probably in there.”

Applejack nodded. “Sounds like a fair bet to me.” She glanced at Rarity worriedly, but the fashionista gave her a determined nod. “Alright, let’s get moving.”

Twilight gave the terminal one last anxious look as she followed the others back into the corridors. The records kept within were deeply suspicious at best. According to the terminal, after the Vault was sealed there had been dozens upon dozens of deaths among the Vault population before the entries stopped abruptly barely a few years later. Almost all of them had been marked as undefined or unexplained, and almost all of them were related to the experimental section. 

Of course, those deaths had been so long ago that the reason behind them couldn’t possibly be relevant after so many years. Something told Twilight, though, that she and the others were about to find out exactly what kind of terrible secret lurked in Vault 87’s history. 
> Chapter 52 - Penny For The Guy?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Splitting up had not been the best of ideas, Sunset quickly decided. Her team were encountering increasing numbers of Super Mutants. Several times the girls were forced to hide behind whatever cover they could find as a group of them stomped down the corridors, cowering in silent terror until they could find a chance to sneak past. 

Rainbow Dash did what she could to make things easier, taking out lone mutants when she could, but the wretched things were incredibly tough. Slashing their throats still gave them plenty of time to thrash around loudly, and the first time she tried to actually stab one in the skull Flashburn got stuck, forcing the whole team to work together to yank it out and hide the corpse before any other Super Mutants turned up. Beheading them wasn’t much of an option either, much to Rainbow’s chagrin. Athlete though she was, she just didn’t have the strength necessary to lop a super mutant’s head off in one clean sweep. 

Fortunately, the foot traffic slowly eased off the further they progressed into the Vault, heading upstairs whenever they could to try and get away from the main thoroughfare they had unwittingly stumbled upon. The few mutants they did come across were apparently being sent on errands or missions, with the big mutants bossing around the smaller ones and getting bossed around in turn by even bigger mutants. 

From what the girls could piece together from the scraps of broken conversation they overheard, several scouting parties were being sent out into the wastes, which somewhat explained the high volume of Super Mutants heading to the lower areas. Any relief they may have felt about the fact that most of the mutants were leaving was quashed when they discovered that the scouts were being ordered to hunt down more of the ‘colorful glowy stuff’ that had been seen flying over the wasteland. 

The fact that the Super Mutants were trying to collect magic chilled the girls to the bone. The possessed protectron and the souped-up lasers the girls had faced at Project Exodus had been bad enough. If the mutants managed to get themselves an arsenal of magically enhanced weaponry, then the fate of the entire Capital Wasteland was at risk. The wastelanders would have to be warned. Still, as tempting as it was to turn tail and get the word out immediately, the girls had a job to do. 

Creeping down a deserted corridor, the four stopped outside a grimy door. The sign painted on it was faded and several of the letters had been scraped away over the years, but the words ‘Authorized Entry Only’ could still be made out under the fade of time and rust. A restricted area. Exactly the kind of place that rare or valuable technology would most likely be found. Unfortunately, a test of the door controls revealed that it was locked tight. 

Sunset silently cursed herself for not taking up lockpicking after that time Juniper Montage locked Rainbow in a storage closet. Thinking fast, she looked around quickly to make sure that they were still alone then gestured for Pinkie to come closer and whispered in her ear, “Do you think you can use your sugar magic to break that lock?”

Rainbow gaped at her as if she were mad. “Uh, I thought we were supposed to avoid being heard?”

“It doesn’t have to be a big blast,” Sunset said quickly. “Use a tiny amount of sugar. Just enough to break the mechanism.”

Pinkie looked from Sunset to the lock, chewing her lip nervously. “Uh… I can try?”

“Good girl.” Sunset patted her on the back then indicated a door a short way down the corridor. “As soon as you’ve set the sugar to blow, we’ll all hide in that bathroom until we know that nothing’s coming, okay?”

“Okay.” Pinkie nervously eyed up the keyhole as the others backed away a few steps. Just as she took a deep breath and knelt down in front of it there was a loud click, and the door slid smoothly up into the ceiling to reveal a towering super mutant standing over her. 

The two regarded each other in shock for a heartbeat. Pinkie recovered first, leaping back with a yelp. The mutant snarled and opened its mouth to roar, but the sound became little more than a wet gurgle as there was a sudden blur and Flashburn was buried point-first in its throat. Rainbow leaped out of the way as the mutant instinctively lashed out with a fist then dove back in, slashing with her blade. 

The mutant reacted with surprising aggression, ignoring the grievous wounds it received and driving forward with its fists. Rainbow dodged the attack easily and opened up a nasty gash across its arms as she slipped out of the way. The mutant tried to lunge after her, but ended up simply collapsing to its knees as blood loss took its toll. Bringing a hand up to its throat, the mutant slowly looked around at each of the girls, defiance burning in its eyes. 

In one last act of malice, the monster stuck its middle finger up at Rainbow and yanked something off its belt with its free hand. Terror gripped Sunset as the mutant ripped the pin out of the grenade. Rainbow darted forward and hacked at the mutant’s hand, then kicked the falling grenade back through the open door and disappeared in a blur as the others dove aside. 

Amplified by the cramped confines, the explosion that followed was deafening. Clumps of rust and dust were knocked loose from the ceiling as the echoes reverberated through the corridors. 
Glancing back at her friends, Sunset was relieved to see that none of them were injured, but they had to move quickly or that could easily change. Even through the ringing in her ears, she could hear guttural shouts and cries of alarm coming from the corridor beyond the door. Another multi-hued blur made her flinch reflexively. 

“That doesn’t sound good,” Rainbow said flatly as she helped Sunset to her feet. “We need to get moving. Which way should we go?”

Sunset’s reply was cut off as another super mutant thundered through the door, an assault rifle clasped in its meaty paws. She raised her own rifle and snapped off a shot almost instinctively. The mutant howled and staggered as the bullet tore through its cheek, bringing a hand up to its face. The sight triggered a memory in Sunset; an image flashing across her mind of a raider standing atop a rocky outcrop, twitching and falling as a series of bullets tore through him. 

The memory paralyzed her. Even as the mutant snarled and glared at her with hate-filled eyes, Sunset could only stand and watch in frozen horror. It wasn’t until the beast raised its weapon that she snapped back to reality. Time seemed to slow as she cycled the bolt on her rifle, ejecting the spent cartridge and chambering a new one, but she knew she wouldn’t make it in time. At the last second, a handful of glowing pink powder puffed against the back of the mutant’s head. 

The sugar detonated with a loud pop, splattering blood and brain matter all over the walls. The sudden destruction of the mutant’s brain sent a violent spasm through its entire body. Its hands clenched as it fell, a wild spray of bullets coughing from its assault rifle and ricocheting dangerously off the walls and ceiling. Sunset flinched at both the noise and the sudden searing heat she felt across her right bicep as one of them grazed her. 

The echoes of the fight died down quickly, but the distinctive sound of more mutants coming to investigate the disturbance told the girls that they weren’t safe yet. Sunset looked over at Pinkie and Fluttershy, both fearful and horrified, then at Rainbow, determined but worried, and knew that she needed to get her head back in the game. “Everyone, through that door and see if you can find somewhere to hide, quickly!” she snapped, pointing at the restricted area. 

The others quickly did as they were told, with Rainbow going in first. Sunset paused just long enough to sling her rifle across her back and snatch up the fallen mutant’s assault rifle before darting in after them. 

Rushing through a short corridor, the group emerged in a huge room, far wider and taller than any they’d ever seen in Vault 101. Half a dozen immense vats lined either side of the room, each of them spaced at even intervals from each other. Thick pipes rose out of each vat, snaking between a grid of catwalks that surrounded them before disappearing into the ceiling. 

A trio of Super Mutants were gathered around the far end of the room, with more up on the catwalks, all carrying a variety of different weapons between them. The largest, a nine foot tall monster wearing thick armour with a set of flight goggles and bearing a heavier model of assault rifle, pointed at the group and roared, “Get them away from green stuff!”

The girls separated, Pinkie and Rainbow diving behind one vat and Sunset and Flutters diving behind another as the mutants opened fire. Bullets spanked off the metal sides of the vats as the mutants advanced. 

“Now what?!” Rainbow yelled over the din. 

Sunset tried to peek out, then ducked back as a bullet ricocheted past her face. “Whoa!” Remembering what Adam said about fighting Super Mutants, she called over to the other two, “We need to confuse them! Everybody, pony up! Rainbow, light up Flashburn!”

Rainbow nodded and held her shishkebab in front of her, grinning like a maniac. A moment later, raging blue flames exploded into life around the blade once more, lighting up the entire room in a burst of incandescent fury. Four smaller flashes followed as each of the girls ponied up in turn. 

Rainbow whooped and flexed her wings before zooming straight up and dashing away over the tops of the vats, leaving a burning after image in her wake. Trying to ignore the bellows of rage and the sounds of battle that ripped through the air, Sunset hefted her stolen assault rifle and shouted to Pinkie, “Do what you can to help Rainbow! Cause as much mayhem as you can!”

“Roger!” Pinkie snapped a crisp salute, tucked her sugar shaker into a pocket and crammed her hands into her hair, pulling out a bottle of Nuka-Cola and a bottle opener. She popped the lid off the cola, stuck her thumb over the opening and gave it a good shake before stepping out from behind the vat and hurling it at one of the mutants on the catwalk. “Order up!” 

“What should I do?” Fluttershy asked, wincing at the blast from Pinkie’s magic. 

“Just stay behind me and don’t get shot!” Sunset replied.

Fluttershy nodded nervously. “O-okay.”

Gritting her teeth, Sunset leaned out from behind the vat and raised her weapon, looking for targets. The biggest mutant was down already, smouldering gashes marred its neck and chest. The other two were standing back to back, waving their weapons around and desperately trying to track Rainbow as she careened around the room at top speed. Both of them jumped as a burning mutant toppled off the catwalks and crashed to the ground beside them.   

Sunset seized the opportunity, swallowing her revulsion and opening fire on the pair. The rifle bucked madly in her arms, utterly ruining her aim, but all of the bullets went in the right general direction and she actually managed to score a few hits. One of the mutants crumpled as tiny red craters opened up in its torso. The second yelled in pain and turned to face its attacker, then staggered and fell as a shining streak flashed in front of it and spilled its guts onto the floor before slashing open its throat.   

Rainbow skidded to a stop next to Sunset and wiped her brow with her free arm, her breath coming in ragged gasps. “Man, this is rough. On the plus side, it looks like Flashburn actually cuts better when its lit.” 

“Good to know,” Sunset muttered, looking around for more targets while avoiding looking at the gory mess left of that last mutant. She looked up as another explosion tore through the air, just in time to see a super mutant corpse drop from the catwalk with its entire right side missing. 

“I think that’s the last of them.” There was a multi-hued blur as Rainbow checked the room before stopping back by Sunset less than two seconds later. “Yeah, we’re good. There’s a terminal up on the catwalk over there, though,” she pointed to a ladder between two of the vats, “you might want to check it out.”

“Good idea.” Sunset nodded and glanced over at Pinkie, who was grimacing at the collection of entrails now littering the floor. “Are you okay, Pinkie?”

Pinkie gave a weak nod and a thumbs up. “I’m good. Just… one sec…” With an awful retch, her whole body shifted as she bent over and vomited loudly. Fluttershy immediately hurried over to rub her back and hold her hair out of the way. 

Seeing her friend empty her guts, combined with the nightmarish scene before her and the vile stench that was assaulting her nostrils, was enough to make Sunset’s stomach rebel too. She clamped a hand over her mouth, fighting her own rising gorge as she made her way over to the ladder. Unfortunately, Sunset was so busy trying not to vomit that she wasn’t paying enough attention to where she was stepping until her foot skidded on something. She looked down without thinking and, upon spotting that she had slipped on some variety of mutant internal organ, staggered away and braced herself against a vat as she lost her lunch too. 

Rainbow groaned and turned away. “Oh man, I don’t think I can take much more of this. I’m gonna watch the door, to make sure no more mutants come in here.”

Sunset nodded jerkily. “Okay… be careful.” Giving her mouth a wipe with the back of her hand, she straightened up and made a second attempt at getting to the ladder, this time being very careful as to where she put her feet. As she reached the base of the ladder, she was surprised to see Fluttershy walk up next to her. “Flutters? Is Pinkie okay?”

The young nurse nodded slowly. “She’ll be okay, she’s gone to watch the door with Rainbow. I figured you probably wouldn’t want to be left alone in here.”

“Thanks,” Sunset said gratefully. She looked up at the ladder, then glanced down at her assault rifle. “Uh, do you mind carrying this up for me? I’m kinda going to need my hands.”

“Oh, um... of course.” Fluttershy cautiously accepted the weapon after Sunset had made sure the safety was on, then slowly flew up alongside her as she climbed the ladder. 

When they reached the top, Sunset grunted and rolled her neck as she straightened up before accepting her assault rifle back. She spotted the terminal Dash had mentioned at the end of the catwalk, a dead super mutant lying next to it with a blackened slash wound stretching from its collarbone to its hip. Sunset shook her head and tried to put the death and destruction out of her mind. “Well, at least that was easier than I expected... I guess,” she said, trying to look on the bright side. “I’m not sure why I even bothered ponying up.”

“It was probably a good idea,” Fluttershy replied quietly, glancing in each of the vats as they passed. Most were empty, but the one nearest the terminal was full of some vile-looking lime-green goo. “Um, what do you think that stuff is?”

Sunset shrugged, grimacing as she stepped gingerly around the dead mutant. “No idea.” She perked up slightly when she saw that the terminal was on and, thankfully, not password-protected. Even better, as she skimmed through the files it contained, she discovered an inventory for all non-standard equipment issued to the vault. The G.E.C.K. was mentioned, along with a whole bunch of machinery related to something called the ‘EEP section’, but Sunset couldn’t find anything that sounded like the SDT-1 that the Exodus team had shown her. 

“Does it say what that green stuff is?” Fluttershy asked. 

Sunset shook her head. “No, it just says that most of the vats are empty and need refilling. It looks like this Vault doesn’t have anything like the SDT-1 either, so I think we should just find the G.E.C.K. and meet up with the others, then get the heck out of here as fast as we can.”

Fluttershy opened her mouth to reply, then clamped it shut when something moaned loudly at her feet. The two looked down, then yelped and jumped aside as the mutant they’d considered dead shakily raised its hunting rifle in one hand and fired off a shot, the bullet tearing a hole in one of the pipes above and releasing a spurt of green muck that caught Fluttershy in the face. Sunset’s response was immediate and deadly as she emptied the rest of her clip into the mutant. 

“What was that?!” The two girls cried out in fright as Rainbow suddenly appeared next to them, her sword held out aggressively. 

“This one wasn’t dead!” Sunset snapped, her shock turning to anger in less than a heartbeat. 

Rainbow looked down at the now very much deceased mutant. “Oh, my bad,” she said contritely. “Uh... I’ll go check the others.”

Sunset growled as the athlete disappeared in a flash, but reined her anger as she glanced at Fluttershy. “Are you okay?”

Fluttershy nodded, wiping her face with a towel from her nursing kit. “I-I think so. Whatever this is, it doesn’t appear to be corrosive. I just hope it’s not toxic or poisonous.”

“We’ll get you straight to a doctor the moment we’re out of here,” Sunset promised. “Come on, let’s find the others and get out of here before anything else goes wrong.”





Twilight stared in mute horror at the grisly scene before her. 

After leaving the record room the team had set out to find the Vault’s experimental section, a task that turned out to be far easier than anticipated as they had stumbled across it barely a hundred yards away. Upon entering the experimental section, the group found a long corridor lined with small rooms, each with a viewing window and a terminal outside the door identifying them as FEV Test Chambers. 

Curious as to what FEV was, Twilight had blithely peeked through the closest window, then frozen as she spotted the nightmare inside. 

“What is that thing?” Applejack asked in a horrified undertone. Twilight just shook her head, not trusting her voice right at that moment. 

Lying on a slab in the centre of the room was a dead creature. It looked superficially like a super mutant, but one of its legs was severely underdeveloped and it had a grotesque growth of twisted muscle and bone bulging out of its chest. It was possible, Twilight supposed, that it was simply an ordinary super mutant that had suffered from some form of horrific disease, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the poor thing had been made that way somehow. That, above all else, led her to some very dark conclusions about the nature of Vault 87.  

“Whatever it is, it can’t hurt us,” Adam said reasonably. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”

Eager to get away from the horrid scene, the girls quickly assented. Thankfully, most of the other testing chambers they passed were empty, and the corridors themselves seemed deserted save for another of the bizarre four-legged creatures with hands in place of feet. Killing the horrid creature felt almost like an act of mercy.  

Turning a corner after dealing with the mutant, the group came across a clinic. In the dim light it almost seemed to be cleaner than the rest of the Vault; though, admittedly, that wasn’t really saying much. Adam immediately set to searching for any medical supplies he could salvage while Twilight went to a terminal in the corner of the room. The username indicated that it originally belonged to the Vault’s chief physician. 

Time lost all meaning as Twilight delved into the physician’s records, reading with an ever-increasing sense of horror and disgust as each new entry and file was somehow worse than the last, a catalogue of scientific endeavours pursued with no regard whatsoever for even the most rudimentary morality. 

Completely lost in her reading, Twilight flinched when she a gentle hand on her shoulder brought her back to reality.  

“Uh, are you okay there, sugarcube?” Applejack asked softly. 

Twilight blinked and lifted a hand to her cheek, noticing for the first time that it was wet with tears. She hadn’t even realised that she’d been crying. 

“Darling? What’s wrong?” Rarity pressed.

“Yeah, what’s up, Sparkle?” Adam put in.

Twilight shook her head and wiped away the tears. “It was an experiment. It was all a huge, twisted experiment.”

The others shared a confused look. “What was?” Applejack asked. 

“This Vault, the Super Mutants, all of it,” Twilight replied as she slumped onto a filthy chair. “It was all an experiment to try and create super-soldiers.”

“Super-soldiers?” Applejack repeated. 

Twilight nodded, staring at the floor. “They used something called the Forced Evolutionary Virus, the FEV, on the Vault inhabitants. It mutated them, making them bigger, stronger and tougher, but also reducing their intelligence and making them prone to bouts of uncontrollable rage and anxiety.”

A long silence greeted her explanation. Rarity was the first to break it, her eyes wide with horror, “You… you mean the mutants… the ones I’ve been slaughtering…”

“It ain’t your fault!” Applejack cut in quickly. “They ain’t human anymore-”

“But they were!” Rarity cried, lifting her hands to her head as her breaths came faster and sharper. “They were all people once! Victims! And I’ve been butchering them like cattle!”

Applejack rushed over to her and took Rarity’s face in her hands as she started to hyperventilate. “Rarity, listen to me,” she said firmly, “It is not your fault, you hear? Maybe they were human once, but they ain’t anymore; all they are now are monsters. All we can do now is put them out of their misery.”

“It’s not right-” Rarity began.

“None of this is right,” Applejack interrupted. “This whole darn world is rotten to the core.” She sighed and gently rested her forehead against Rarity’s. “Look, I know this is messed up, Ah mean even more messed up than the cracks Rainbow makes about me and my brother, but it’s gotta be done. These Super Mutants may have been human once, and you can be sure as sugar that none of them asked for this to happen, but what’s done is done. Unless there’s a cure or something we can find,” she added with a glance at Twilight.

“The records don’t mention one,” Twilight replied. “As far as I can tell, the scientists who made the virus didn’t even consider making one.”

“Well, that’s that, then.” Applejack sighed again as she looked Rarity in the eye. “Don’t worry. Me and Adam can handle the Super Mutants, you just focus on using your magic to keep us safe, alright?”

Rarity nodded jerkily. “O-okay.”

“Atta girl.”

Adam rubbed his neck awkwardly and turned to Twilight. “So… did it say anything about where the G.E.C.K. is?”

“No,” Twilight replied, “but it does mention some maintenance work being done in the G.E.C.K. chamber, and something about having to bring the head of maintenance in on the Vault’s secret experiments, so I suppose it would make sense for it to be somewhere in this sector.”

“Good enough for me.” Applejack stepped back and placed her hands on Rarity’s shoulders. “Are you going to be okay?” 

Rarity let out a weary sigh. “It’s not like I really have an option at the moment, do I?” She gave herself a shake and smiled wanly at Applejack. “I’ll be alright, dear... just… I’m going to need some serious therapy when we finally get back home,” she said quietly.

Applejack huffed a laugh, “Yeah, you and me both, sugarcube. Come on, let’s go find that G.E.C.K.”

Leaving the clinic behind, the four headed back out into the corridors, each person even more subdued than they had been when they entered. Twilight privately thought that Rarity had made something of an understatement. Forget therapy, at this rate I think we’re all going to end up institutionalised.

As the group continued on its way, the four of them deliberately avoided looking in any more of the testing chambers they passed, to spare themselves the sight of more twisted attempts at making more mutants. It was for this reason that, when they reached an intersection, none of them noticed that one of the chambers was very much occupied until an intercom crackled into life, startling all of them. “You… over there. Please, come speak to me.” They turned in the direction of the gravelly voice just as it said, “I’m in the room to your left.” 

A super mutant clad in the tattered remains of a Vault jumpsuit stood in one of the testing chambers, peering out of the window at the group. They approached it cautiously, but it made no attempt to attack or raise the alarm; instead, it simply stared at them with wide eyes. “I… it can’t be!” it said in a rough, halting voice. “Either you are all quite real, or I am going quite mad. Are all of you human?”

The four shared a baffled look, not quite sure what to make of the situation. Even given what they now knew about the Super Mutants’ origins, they still hadn’t expected to meet one that was actually friendly. 

“Yeah, we’re all human,” Adam replied warily. Seeing the mutant looking at the girls, he added, “It’s a long story, but yeah, they’re human too. Uh… who’re you? Do you remember your name?”

The mutant cocked its head. “You… you care about who I am?” 

Applejack tilted her hat back as she regarded the mutant. “Well… Ah mean… you ain’t trying to kill us or get us killed so, uh… sure, why not?”

“I see.” The mutant gave her a slow nod. “Forgive me, I am not used to such pleasantries. Most of the time all I hear from the others are grunts and insults.” It looked back to Adam. “To answer your question, my name is Fawkes.”

“What are you doing in there, Fawkes?” Adam asked.

Fawkes sighed heavily. “As you may have noticed, I am not as aggressive as my fellow Meta Humans. I don’t know how or why, but when I was born of the FEV chambers, I somehow retained my intellect, if not my memories. The others saw me as a freak and a curiosity. When I tried to reason with them, they locked me in here as a punishment.”

To the surprise of the others, Rarity stepped up to the window and pressed a hand against it, staring at Fawkes with incredible intensity. “Do… do you remember anything about your life before you became this? From when you were a human?” she asked breathlessly.

Fawkes shook his head. “I do not. The FEV strips our minds entirely, leaving nothing behind but emptiness. The only reason I am able to converse with you with what little eloquence I possess is because this room contains a terminal that is connected to the Vault’s mainframe. I taught myself everything I now know from there.”

“So the others… they don’t remember anything either?” Rarity pressed. 

“Not that I know of,” Fawkes replied. “Where I sought to replace the void in my mind with reason and learning, theirs are filled only with rage and cruelty.”

As fascinated as she was with what Fawkes was saying, one thing in particular stood out in Twilight’s mind, but it was Adam, clearly thinking along the same lines, who asked about it first, “You say that terminal is connected to the mainframe?”

Fawkes nodded. “It is. Let me guess, you’re looking for the G.E.C.K.?”

“How’d you know that?” Applejack asked.

“It is the only sane reason a small group such as yourselves would dare enter a place such as this,” Fawkes replied simply. 

“Do you know where the G.E.C.K. is?” Adam asked eagerly.

Fawkes nodded again. “Even better, I can retrieve it for you.”

“Well, what are we waiting for? Twilight, let him out!” Rarity cried.

Twilight nodded hurried to the terminal by the door. She frowned as she booted it up. “You’ll have to give me a minute, this one’s got some pretty heavy encryption.”

Fawkes watched her work, his eyes widening in apparent surprise. “You’re serious? You’re going to help me escape?” 

“Unless you’d rather stay,” Adam asked with a raised eyebrow.

Fawkes shook his head vigorously. “No! I am merely surprised that you would be so willing. I imagine my fellow Meta Humans have given you little reason to trust one such as I.”

Applejack slung her rifle over her shoulder and stepped over to the door, frowning and folding her arms. She gave Fawkes a sidelong glance as she said, “If we let you out of here, you promise you won’t try to attack us?”

“You have my word,” Fawkes replied. “I swear it on my life.”

Applejack nodded and unfolded her arms before rolling her shoulders. “Alright then, stay back from the door.”

Fawkes looked at her curiously, “Why? What are you goi-”

There was a colossal boom as Applejack threw a punch, launching the door across the testing chamber to slam into the far wall. “Alright, you’re free. Now let’s go get that G.E.C.K.”

Fawkes looked from her to the fallen door in blank astonishment. “It seems that I have gone very mad indeed!” He reached down and picked up a massive sledgehammer from beside the doorway, hefting it in both hands. “I would very much like to hear your tale sometime, but for now, follow me. And thank you.”
> Chapter 53 - Found and Lost
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“We should get moving, something is bound to have heard that,” Adam said quickly. 

“Do not worry, I will be more than happy to assist you against any of my kin that attempt to impede us,” Fawkes replied. 

“Sounds like you’re about to get your chance,” Applejack growled as the sound of heavy footfalls echoed down the corridor. 

Fawkes just nodded and stomped towards the corner the noise was coming from. Just before he reached it, a pair of Super Mutants thundered around the corner, almost blundering into him. They barely had time to register that Fawkes wasn’t just another one of them before he caved in the first one’s skull, then decapitated the second one with his backswing. 

“Whoa.” Applejack tilted her hat back and looked up at Fawkes in surprise. “You really do hate those fella’s. Ah’m sorry Ah ever doubted you.”

“I do not blame you for being suspicious, I am just grateful that you gave me the benefit of the doubt.” Fawkes nudged the corpses aside with his boot and gestured for the others to follow. “Come, the G.E.C.K. is this way.”

The rest of the group were content to walk along in his wake as he lumbered through the corridors, keeping an eye out to make sure nothing attacked them from behind.

“So, uh... if we’re going to work together, you should probably know our names,” Adam said brightly. “I’m Adam, and these are Applejack, Rarity and Twilight.”

“Howdy.”

“Hello, darling.”

“Hi.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you.” Fawkes glanced over his shoulder and nodded to them once before turning his attention back to the path ahead. “If you don't mind my asking, are you also a form of Meta Human?”

“Not exactly,” Twilight replied. “As Adam said, it’s kinda a long story. I suppose the short version would be that we’re from an alternate reality to this one.” 

Fawkes stopped in his tracks and turned to look at them in wide-eyed amazement. Adam smirked and shrugged. “Yeah, it gave me a funny turn the first time I heard about it, too. The really funky part is that their world and our world have different versions of the same people living in them.”

“Sunset and me have actually met this world’s version of ourselves already,” Twilight supplied. She tilted her head to the side as she thought. “Though, I’d say the strangest thing about us is probably our magic.”

Fawkes opened and closed his mouth a few times, as if he couldn’t quite think of what to say. Finally he just sighed and shook his head before resuming walking. “It seems I have missed much during my imprisonment. I don’t think I’d ever believe a word you were saying if I hadn’t witnessed the power you displayed back there. Do all humans have such strength where you come from?”

“Nah, just me,” Applejack replied. “Most folks don’t have any magic at all. Those of us that do, well, we all have different powers.”

“Incredible! I would like to see what each of you is-” Fawkes stopped talking abruptly as he opened a door and almost walked right into another mutant. 

Fawkes reacted first, bodily shoving the mutant back and storming through the door after it with Adam charging in after. There were shouts and roars of alarm from within the room, followed by the unmistakable sounds of battle. The girls looked through the doorway cautiously to see a small chamber with several Super Mutants inside. Two were down already, but the last was backed into a corner struggling to wrestle Fawkes’ hammer away from him. 

Seeing that the others couldn’t get a clear shot, Twilight held out a hand to grab the mutant’s knee in her magic, then she snapped it with a brutal twist of her wrist. The Super Mutant’s bellow of agony was cut short with an awful crunch as Fawkes brought his hammer down. 

With the fight over, Applejack hurried over to the far side of the chamber to keep watch at the only other door while Adam set to searching the bodies for anything useful. Fawkes kept looking from his hammer, to the mutant at his feet, then to the girls, as if he couldn’t figure out what had just happened. Before he could ask, Twilight used her magic to levitate one of the mutants’ fallen weapons as a demonstration. The sight of his eyes practically popping out of his skull in wonder and surprise was more than a little gratifying. 

“Er... Fawkes?” Rarity called out suddenly. The others turned to see her standing in a corner hunched over with her arms wrapped around herself and staring blankly at the dead mutants. “Do… do you think there might be others? Others like you, I mean… intelligent mu- Meta Humans?”

Fawkes hummed as he thought. “I heard a rumour that there was another like me; one who successfully fled the Vault. There is also one more Meta Human who managed to retain their intellect that I know of, but they are more cruel and sadistic than any of the rest of my fellows; a true monster if ever there was one.”

Rarity looked up at him with a pleading look in her eyes. “Isn’t there some way to reason or bargain with them? They were human once, just as you were. Surely there must be some way of getting through to them peacefully? Or, maybe even a cure can be found?”

Fawkes shook his head sadly. “I wish it were so. Believe me, I have spent decades trying to appeal to their better nature, but there is nothing human left in their minds whatsoever.” He sighed and lumbered over to her, then got down on one knee and placed a giant hand gently on her shoulder. “You have a good heart. I do not like this any more than you do. They are my fellow Meta Humans, after all, but there is nothing we can do." 

“A cure would take years to create, yet every single day they go out and capture more pure humans to expose to the FEV, making more of themselves and perpetuating the cycle. My brethren must be stopped. They have my pity, but they cannot have our mercy.”

“If anything, I’d say that putting them out of their misery is a kind of mercy,” Adam put in.

Fawkes nodded in agreement. Rarity stared into Fawkes’s eyes for several long moments, as if searching for any trace of falsehood, but finally she relented and nodded as well. “I understand. I’m sorry, everyone.” She sighed and straightened her shoulders, a determined expression on her face. “I’ll pull my weight from now on.”

“Don’t sweat it, sugarcube, you’ve done more than me on this trip,” Applejack replied with a wry smile. “All Ah’ve done so far is punch a door.”

“It’s better than nothing.” Adam stood up from checking the last corpse and tossed her a box of ammunition, then stretched his neck and hefted his plasma rifle once more. “We should probably lay off the conversation while we’re searching. The stealthier we are, the better.”

“I fear that stealth is beyond my capabilities,” Fawkes said apologetically. 

Twilight shook her head. “It’s fine, if anything, it’s a good thing that the other mutants…” she winced at the look Fawkes gave her, “er, I mean, other Meta Humans can hear you coming. As long as they don’t hear us talking they’ll just think you’re another one of them until they get close enough to recognise you.”

“And then we smack ‘em before they get a chance to do anything about it!” Applejack added.

Fawkes huffed a laugh. “A fair point. Alright, let’s go.”

Leaving the bodies of the dead Super Mutants behind, the ragtag group continued on their way. The Vault was even more of a maze than Vault 101 had been, but Twilight made sure to make a mental note of each and every turn they took, just in case. They did cross paths with several more small groups of super mutants, but between the five of them they managed to subdue their opponents without any serious incidents save a very near miss with a bullet that left an angry burn across Applejack’s thigh. 

Eventually the group came to a series of small interlinked rooms, each with windows that allowed the occupants to look into an adjoining corridor. Sickly green light emanated from the corridor and bathed the rooms in an eerie glow that filled the girls with anxiety. 

“That doesn’t look too friendly,” Applejack muttered.

Fawkes nodded. “Indeed. That is the path to the G.E.C.K. chamber, but it is heavily flooded with radiation.”

“Aw, nuts.” Applejack stepped up to a window to get a better look at the radioactive goo on the floor, checking her Pip-Boy to make sure the radiation wasn’t coming through cracks in the walls to irradiate them. “How the heck are we supposed to get through that?”

“That is where I come in,” Fawkes replied. “Like my brethren, I have inherited an incredible resistance to radiation. Wait here, I shall fetch the G.E.C.K. and bring it to you.”

Adam eyed the window warily. “Are you sure about this? That’s gotta be a huge amount of radiation.”

Fawkes glanced at him, his expression softening. “I am grateful beyond words for your concern, but you need not worry. Not even the vast levels of radiation at the Vault’s main entrance are enough to trouble myself or my brethren. I shall return shortly.” 

Adam and the girls watched as Fawkes stomped through a nearby open doorway. Moments later, he waved to them through the window as he lumbered past.

Twilight watched until he disappeared from sight. “I suppose that explains how the super mutants are able to get out of the Vault without going through Little Lamplight. I wonder how they manage to bring their captives in alive, though?”

“You could always try asking one of them.” Applejack sighed and leaned against the wall. “Right now, Ah reckon we should decide what we’re doing next. Should we try and find one of them SDT things, or should we just go and get the other girls and hightail it out of here?”

“If it’s all the same with you, I’d prefer if we could leave this wretched place as swiftly as humanly possible,” Rarity replied. Twilight and Adam nodded their agreement. 

“That settles that, then,” Applejack said in response. 

“What exactly is this SDT thing you’re talking about?” Adam asked.

Applejack and Rarity kept watch at the doors while Twilight gave Adam a quick rundown of the device. The revelation that his father had been indirectly responsible for bringing the Rainbooms to his world hit Adam hard, no matter how much the others tried to say that it wasn’t the fault of either of them. In the end, in an attempt to dissuade him from heading off to search the entire Vault by himself, the girls agreed to ask Fawkes if he’d seen anything like the SDT when he got back. They didn’t have to wait long as they saw him only moments later through the window carrying a small case in his arms. 

“Here,” Fawkes called out as he stomped back into the room with the humans shortly after. “The G.E.C.K., as promised.”

Adam slung his plasma rifle and carefully took the G.E.C.K, cradling it in his arms. “Thanks, Fawkes.” 

Fawkes shook his head. “Do not mention it. It was a small price to pay for my freedom.”

Twilight smiled nervously. “Um... actually, we were hoping you could help us with something else. We’re looking for another small device; the Enclave call them SDT-1’s. You wouldn’t know if there were any in the Vault, would you?”

Fawkes frowned and hummed as he thought. “I have never heard of such a thing. What does it look like?” He listened as Twilight described the SDT, but shook his head sadly when she was done. “I am sorry, but to my knowledge there is no such object in this Vault.”

Applejack shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, we figured it was a long shot. What are you going to do now, Fawkes?”

“I have one more thing to do, and then I shall find my way out of this Vault,” Fawkes replied. 

“Do you want us to come with you?” Adam asked.

“I appreciate the offer, but I must decline.” Fawkes hefted his hammer, staring meaningfully at the bloodied head. “This is something I must do alone.”

Applejack raised a curious eyebrow. “You sure?” Fawkes just nodded. “Well, alright then. Come on, y’all, let's find the others and get back to Little Lamplight.”

“Others?” Fawkes asked as he followed the others back through the rooms away from the G.E.C.K. chamber. 

 “We came here with four others, we split into two groups to make searching the Vault easier,” Twilight explained.

“I see.” Fawkes sighed as they reached an intersection. “This is where we part ways. If I see your friends, I shall inform them that you are returning to Little Lamplight.”

“We’d appreciate that,” Applejack said. “Their names are Sunset, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Rainbow. They’re just like us, you can’t miss them.” She tipped her hat respectfully. “You look after yourself, Fawkes.”

“I believe I shall. I hope to see you again, someday.” Fawkes bowed his head to them. “Farewell, friends.”

The rest of the group said their goodbyes before heading down one corridor, leaving Fawkes to head down another other, alone. “Ah sure hope he’s gonna be okay,” Applejack said quietly.

“Me too,” Adam replied, glancing back over his shoulder. 

The four made their way through the Vault in a somber silence. Twilight felt that she wasn’t the only one feeling more than a little melancholic. Despite knowing him for barely any time at all, she still found that she missed Fawkes. It didn’t feel right to her leaving him to wander the halls of his erstwhile prison on his own. 

Following behind the others, Twilight paused on the threshold of a large empty room. She was about to suggest that maybe they should go back for him when she saw something clatter to the floor in the middle of the room, beeping and giving off a bright blue glow. 

The team didn’t have time to react before the grenade detonated. 

Instead of heat and shrapnel, the grenade released a cloud of super-cooled air and chemicals that froze everything it touched. Twilight cried out in shock and pain as she was enveloped in the cloud. Ice crystals instantly formed across the lenses of her glasses, effectively blinding her. She tried to take them off, but she was so cold that she couldn’t even lift her arms. 

Her breath coming out of her in freezing puffs, Twilight collapsed to the ground, the impact sending waves of agony lancing through her body. Unable to see or move, she could only listen as heavy footfalls stomped closer and several dark figures loomed over her prone form. 

“Objectives are secured, Sir,” a voice called out. 

“Good work, soldier,” an authoritative male voice replied. “Make sure the G.E.C.K. is secured aboard my Vertibird.” 

Vague panic gripped Twilight as her addled mind slowly realised that the Enclave had somehow caught up with them once again. She tried to talk, to attempt to reason with the soldiers or whoever was leading them, but nothing came out. A faint jumble of voices was the last thing Twilight heard before her vision went dark and she slipped into unconsciousness.  
> Chapter 54 - Blade of Loyalty
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Colonel Autumn watched with grim satisfaction as the medics prepared the fallen Rainbooms and the boy for transport. He ordered them to make doubly sure that the cryo-grenade’s effects had taken full hold before injecting each of them with the same experimental rad-x that allowed the Colonel and his troops to survive the radiation at Vault 87’s main entrance, at least for a short while.

“The objectives are secure and ready for transport, Sir,” Lieutenant Simpson called, snapping a salute. 

Colonel Autumn nodded. “Excellent. Load them onto the Vertibirds and lets get out of this hellhole before that horde of mutants comes back.”

“What about the rest of the Rainbooms?” the Lieutenant asked.

“We have what we came for,” Colonel Autumn told him. He was about to elaborate when the sounds of combat echoed down a nearby corridor. A flickering blue light could just about be seen, casting wild shadows on the walls. Mere seconds after the fighting started there was a pink flash and a colossal blast rocked the Vault. Colonel Autumn flung out a hand to steady himself against the Lieutenant as the floor shook and dust rained from the ceiling. 

Once the echoes of the blast had died down, he straightened up and glanced at his subordinate. “I’m not risking any more lives for the sake of the President’s whims! Get those four on the Vertibirds, now! If the rest of the Rainbooms show up, I want your men to put them down. Permanently.”

Lieutenant Simpson snapped a salute. “Sir! Yes, Sir! Hawkings, cover that corridor!”

The Colonel quickly returned the salute as Lieutenant Simpson started barking orders, then turned and marched back towards the Vault exit, drawing his pistol as he went. 




 
Rainbow Dash let out a breath as another Super Mutant keeled over before her, blood pouring from its arms and neck. It struggled feebly as it lay dying. Not willing to risk another incident like in the vat-room, Rainbow reached down and stabbed Flashburn through the side of its neck, making sure to sever the artery that went to its brain. Its struggles stopped soon after.  

With the mutant definitely dead, Rainbow straightened up and stretched out her wings before turning to call out to the others, “It’s okay, we’re clear.”

The other three cautiously entered the corridor, Pinkie at the front with a bottle of Nuka-Cola ready, while Sunset brought up the rear, keeping her scavenged assault rifle pointed safely at the floor. “Good work,” Sunset said quietly. 

Rainbow just nodded. They were encountering fewer and fewer Super Mutants the more they explored the Vault and she’d made sure to kill each and every one of them as quickly and efficiently as possible. “How much farther should we go?”

Sunset shook her head. “I have no idea, this place is a maze. Maybe we’d be better off backtracking to where we first split up and follow the corridor that the others took. We might stand a better chance of finding them that way.”

“Do you think we should check back with Mayor Macready first?” Fluttershy asked. “They might have already gone back.”

“Good point.” As Sunset considered their best course of action, a sudden loud blast echoed down the corridor, grabbing everyone’s attention. “What the heck was that?”

“Do you think it was the others?” Pinkie asked. 

“There’s only one way to find out,” Sunset replied. “Come on, let’s go!”
 
The four hurried in the direction the sound came from, Rainbow leading the way. The corridor was full of twists and turns, but fortunately the corridor didn’t fork at any point, and the only doors that led off were small store rooms filled with all manner of foulness. As they rushed around another corner Rainbow skidded to a halt, almost running headlong into a Super Mutant as it lumbered out of a bathroom. They both stared at each other in surprise for a second, then simultaneously exploded into motion. 

Rainbow was faster. Even as the mutant raised its hammer she lashed out with Flashburn and sliced off its fingers. Dodging around the falling weapon, she swept her blade around and opened the Super Mutant’s belly then whipped it up and pierced its throat before skipping back out of range. The mutant tottered for a moment, soundless working its mouth, then collapsed on its own spilled entrails.    

Sighing heavily, Rainbow was about to lower her sword when she heard heavy footsteps behind her. Quick as a flash she span around, then barely leaped aside in time as several knives whizzed out of an open door and embedded themselves deep in the metal wall opposite. Whipping her blade up defensively, Rainbow lowered it again as a bizarre Super Mutant shambled into the corridor, cold terror gripping at her heart. 

The mutant was clad in a thick leather blacksmith’s apron, liberally splattered with blood and entrails. Unlike most other mutants, this one had a thick mass of very dark pink hair stretching from its head all the way down its back almost to the floor, and its lips had been stretched right back up its cheeks to form a disturbingly oversized grin.  

The Super Mutant cocked its head to the side as it stared at Rainbow. Chuckling darkly, it reached a hand up and plunged it into the great mass of hair, then, to her immense horror, it slowly drew out a vicious-looking pickaxe. The pickaxe left a glittering rain of pink particles in its wake with each slight movement of its head. 

“Aw, crap,” Rainbow muttered. 

With a rumbling laugh, the Super Mutant hefted the pickaxe and charged at her. Clenching Flashburn tightly, Rainbow ducked and dove under the mutant’s swing, rolling back to her feet behind it. She aimed a slash at the mutant’s back, but it somehow managed to twist and turn away at the last second. 

The two regarded each other warily for a moment. The Super Mutant struck first again, lashing out madly with its pickaxe. Rainbow carefully avoided its strikes, ducking and weaving with a dancer’s grace, until finally the mutant clasped the pickaxe in both hands and swung it in a mighty arc. Grinning, Rainbow ducked under the attack easily and skipped back out of range. Her grin faded when, instead of impacting against the wall as she expected, the pickaxe simply swept through the wall as if it wasn’t even there, leaving a fizzing pink stain behind where the head had passed through. 

Certain that nothing good was going to come of it, Rainbow dropped to the floor and yelled out, “Sunset, fire!”

The roar of Sunset’s assault rifle was deafening in the narrow corridor. Incredibly, the Super Mutant almost managed to dodge the hail of bullets. Unfortunately for it, almost wasn’t quite good enough, and a cluster of crimson eruptions stitched their way up the mutant’s side as it tried to fling itself out of the way. Alone, that probably wouldn't have been enough to drop the Super Mutant, but the second it pulled the pickaxe out of the wall, the pink stains it left behind began to glow with a rapidly increasing intensity. Recognising what was about to happen, Rainbow lurched to her feet and launched herself backwards at top speed, shoving the other girls back around the corner before diving around herself. 

The explosion that followed shook the entire Vault. 

Rainbow slowly opened her eyes as the echoes and vibrations faded away. Her ears were ringing, but she had to make sure the Super Mutant was down. Peeking around the corner, she was gratified, and more than a little disgusted, to see that the mutant was most certainly dead; only a disembodied pair of legs remained intact. The part of the wall that the pickaxe had touched was gone, replaced with a gaping, rock-filled cavity, while the floor, walls and ceiling around it had been blackened and warped by the ferocity of the blast. The pickaxe itself lay incongruously on the floor. 

“That was my magic, wasn’t it?” Pinkie asked, startling Rainbow.  

“I dunno, but it looked like it,” Rainbow replied. She was about to ask how a Super Mutant managed to end up with magic just like hers, not to mention the impossible hair, when she heard voices echoing down the corridor. “Okay, I know my ears are still a little screwy after that explosion, but that doesn’t sound like Super Mutants to me.”

“It sounds like soldiers,” Sunset put in as she stepped up alongside the others. 

“I thought the Brotherhood of Steel didn’t have anyone spare to come here?” Fluttershy asked.

“They don’t,” Sunset replied darkly. “But there is another group with trained soldiers that’s been spying on us since we first left the Vault.”

Rainbow scowled and glared down the corridor towards the sounds. “The Enclave.” Sunset nodded. “What do you think we should do?”

“Shouldn’t we head back and try to find the others before the Enclave finds us?” Fluttershy asked.

Sunset shook her head. “For all we know that blast we heard earlier could have been a flashbang. If it is the Enclave, then they might have already captured the others again.” She raised her assault rifle meaningfully. “We need to at least check. If they don’t have our friends, we’ll try and backtrack without them seeing us.”

Rainbow shot her a look. “What do we do if it comes to a fight? Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to beat the living snot out of some Enclave chumps, but their armour is just too tough.”

“Not for that it isn’t.” To the surprise of the others, Pinkie stalked over to the pickaxe and picked it up, hefting it in both arms to get used to the weight. “I don’t really like fighting, but if it comes down to it…” She twirled the head of the pick, sending a spray of glittering pink dust cascading to the floor. 

Sunset nodded grimly. “Alright, let’s move!”

Taking the lead once more, Rainbow clicked Flashburn’s ignitor and the magical blue flames were instantly extinguished. The four hurried down the lengthy corridor, ignoring all of the doors that led off it until they came to a corner. Rounding it, they saw that the next corridor ended in an open door. A power-armoured soldier stood in the doorway. 

Rainbow swore and ducked back around the corner just as the soldier opened fire. Green globs of plasma melted the metal walls where they impacted, releasing the distinctive reek of ozone. “Yep, definitely Enclave!” Rainbow told the others. 

“Great,” Sunset muttered. “Do you see Twilight and the others?”

“One sec.” Trying not to flinch as another bolt of plasma scorched the wall of the corner, Rainbow ducked and rolled around the corner, narrowly avoiding yet another shot. Using her super speed, she dashed to the door before he could fire again. The bulky power armour the soldier was wearing was too tough even for Flashburn to cut through, but his weapon wasn’t.

Reigniting her blade, Rainbow swept it up and smashed it through the soldier’s plasma rifle in a shower of sparks. As the soldier stepped back in surprise, she took the opportunity to look past him. A burning fury rose in her chest as she spotted a hat that lay discarded on the floor, one that was very familiar to anyone who knew Applejack. 

“They’ve got the others!” Rainbow yelled. Clasping Flashburn in both hands, she unleashed a hail of blows at every part of the soldier she could reach, dodging his retaliatory strikes in turn. Her attacks barely even scratched the power armour, but they kept the occupant distracted just long enough.  

“Rainbow, move!” Warned by Pinkie’s shout, Rainbow stepped aside just in time for a bottle of Nuka-Cola to shatter over the soldier’s armour. Darting away, she barely managed to get out of the blast radius before the magic in the cola detonated with a searing flash of pink. Blinking to clear her eyes, Rainbow looked up just in time to see the soldier topple over to land with an echoing crash. A smoking crater was all that remained of the front of his armour. 

Pausing just long enough to give Pinkie a nod, Rainbow sprinted to the door and dove over the dead soldier, rolling to her feet in the middle of the room with her blade up and ready. The chamber was large and empty, save for the hat on the floor, but Rainbow spotted one of the doors leading off it sliding shut. Hurrying over, she jabbed the button to open the door again, then skipped back with a yelp as a flurry of scarlet laser beams lanced through the doorway, almost eviscerating her. “Keep moving, I’ll hold them back!” a soldier yelled over the storm of zaps and hisses. 

Rainbow couldn’t help but flinch away from the storm of death that pounded the doorway, rapidly heating the metal around it to the point that it glowed. Gritting her teeth, she took to the air and cautiously flew closer to the door, awkwardly trying to angle herself so she could poke her head through the doorway from above. A single soldier guarded the corridor beyond, and he was slowly backing away towards another door down the far end of it even as his gun unleashed hell. His weapon was huge and boxy, with a long barrel sticking out of the end of it, all connected to a bulky power pack on the soldier’s back. 

The soldier’s head flicked up as he noticed Rainbow, but before he could adjust his aim something huge lumbered out of the dark doorway behind him. There was an immense clang as a huge hammer connected with the side of his head and the soldier staggered sideways. A second later the hammer smashed into the back of his leg, forcing him down on one knee. The soldier stopped firing and looked back over his shoulder as a massive Super Mutant loomed over him. The Mutant tossed its hammer aside and reached down to rip the soldier’s helmet off, then punched the terrified man in the face with enough force to shatter his skull.  

Shoving the dead soldier to the floor, the Super Mutant straightened up and looked over to where Rainbow was standing, just as Pinkie and the others caught up. Not willing to give the freak a chance to arm itself again, Rainbow raised Flashburn and charged just as the Mutant spoke. 

“Miss Rarity’s-” Rainbow barely stopped the blade an inch from its neck. “-friends? Nn? Augh?!” The Mutant instinctively flinched back and clamped a hand over its throat, feeling for any injuries. “You… you are fast!”

“No shit,” Rainbow shot, levelling her blade at the Mutant. “How do you know Rarity?”

The Mutant eyed Flashburn warily. “My name is Fawkes. Miss Rarity and the others rescued me from my incarceration, and as recompense I helped them retrieve the G.E.C.K.. When I saw that these soldiers had taken them captive in turn, I took it upon myself to return the favour.”

“Did you see where the soldiers took them?” Sunset asked as she jogged up alongside Rainbow.

Fawkes nodded. “They are taking them to the Vault’s main entrance. Wait!” He stepped in front of Rainbow as she tried to step around him. “The corridors beyond here are highly irradiated. An unprotected human such as yourself will expire long before you manage to rescue your friends.”

“We’re not going to just let the Enclave take them!” Rainbow spat. 

“Do not worry,” Fawkes replied. “Like my fellow Meta Humans, I am extremely resistant to radiation. I shall follow your friends’ captors, find where they are taking them and, if I am able, will restore their freedom.”

Rainbow glared at Fawkes as she digested what he said. After a moment, she shook her head. “Nope. Not good enough. I’m going after them!”

“You can’t, Rainbow!” Pinkie cried. “You heard what Fawkes said, the radiation will kill you!”

“Not if I run fast enough!” Rainbow retorted. She sighed heavily. “Look, even if I trusted this guy, which I don’t,” she added with a sidelong glance at Fawkes,”there’s no way he’d be able to let us know where he was going. By the time we get back through Little Lamplight the Enclave will be long gone and we won’t be able to follow.”

“Even if you catch up to them, you won’t be able to take on their soldiers on your own,” Sunset warned her. 

“I know,” Rainbow admitted grudgingly. “I’ll just follow them to wherever their base is, then come back and get the rest of you.” She glanced down at the dead soldier and shook her head. “Look, we don’t have time for this! I’m fast enough to get in and out of the radiation before it even affects m-mph!” She was cut off as Fluttershy stuffed a handful of pills into her mouth.

“Shut up and swallow these,” the young nurse said, handing her a bottle of water. 

Rainbow accepted the bottle and took a swig, swallowing the pills with a little difficulty. “Uh… what were those?”

“Rad-X, now hold still.” Fluttershy pulled a bag of sickly-looking yellow goop out of her nursing kit and quickly taped it to Rainbow’s left bicep. Once that was done she washed the back of Rainbow's hand with an alcohol wipe, gently slapped it a few times to get the veins showing, then, much to Rainbow’s consternation, almost casually jammed the bag’s attached needle into a vein. “Stop squirming.” As Fluttershy taped the needle securely to the back of Rainbow’s hand, and checked the tube connecting it to the bag for good measure, she explained, “This is Rad-Away. It’ll help get rid of the radiation in your body. Do not knock that needle, or try to pull it out, or squeeze that bag, not under any circumstances. Do you hear me?” Rainbow nodded obediently. “Good. The moment you get outside you fly straight up into the sky until your Pip-Boy stops ticking. No fighting. No messing around. You have three seconds flat to get from here to the safe area outside the radiation, is that clear?”

Rainbow stared at her blankly. “Seriously? That’s barely enough time t-” 

Fluttershy cut her off again, this time by gripping the front of her clothes and yanking her close so their faces were almost touching. “Three. Seconds. Flat,” she hissed. Rainbow just nodded jerkily, too shocked to properly reply. “Good. Meet us outside Little Lamplight when you’ve found out where the others are going.” Fluttershy pulled her in for a quick hug, then released her and stepped back. “Come back safe.”

“I will,” Rainbow promised. She glanced at her Pip-Boy’s clock, then turned to Fawkes, who dutifully stepped aside, revealing the door she needed to go through. “Three seconds flat. Easy.”

“Be careful, Rainbow,” Sunset warned. “And don’t you dare die.”

Rainbow just gave her a cocky smirk. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” Not giving herself a chance to reconsider, she stepped back into as close as a sprinter’s starting pose as she could get, then launched herself through the door at top speed. 

The Vault passed her by in a blur. She caught up to the first of the Enclave soldiers in a heartbeat and passed them by even quicker. Speeding by, her Pip-Boy started to tick just as she caught up to her friends. They had been completely frozen through some advanced technological trickery, and were being carried like blocks of ice by two soldiers apiece. Rainbow allowed herself to slow, just enough to reach out and give Applejack a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and then she was gone, before any of the soldiers had even noticed that she was there. 

Dodging in and around the line of soldiers and scientists leaving the Vault, Rainbow zipped through a door and finally spotted the main Vault entrance lying open just ahead. Worryingly, her Pip-Boy’s ticking was starting to get increasingly quick and insistent despite the appalling speed she was moving at. Running as fast as she could manage, she bodily shoved a scientist out of her way as she zoomed through the Vault’s door. The tunnel ahead was largely collapsed, but Rainbow bolted through it at top speed, heedless of the treacherous footing. Smashing her way out of the rickety wooden door at the end of the tunnel, she burst out of the Vault and found herself dazzled by bright, blinding sunshine. 

The ticking of Rainbow’s Pip-Boy spiked the second she set foot outside. A wave of nausea nearly made her stumble, but she managed to keep herself steady. She crouched for the barest of moments, then, with a powerful flap of her wings as she pushed off, she launched herself into the air. Rainbow pushed herself to her absolute limit, desperation lending her strength until, finally, the ticking of the Pip-Boy dwindled to silence. 

Now that she was out of danger, Rainbow slowed to a stop in midair. Flapping her wings just enough to keep herself hovering in place, she moved to wipe her brow with her free hand, but a twinge in the back of her hand reminded her that there was a needle sticking out of the back of it. She briefly toyed with the idea of removing it, but decided against it. Partly because Fluttershy would freak out when she found out, but mainly because, given how sick she felt and how much her head was currently spinning, Rainbow was a little worried that the little bag might well be the only thing keeping her alive. 

“Okay, Rainbow, remind Sunset to remind you never to do anything like that again, okay?” She shivered and let herself hang limply for a few minutes while she caught her breath. Far below, she could see the Enclave personnel swarming around a trio of Vertibirds. A group of scientists were currently loading something onto one of them. Going by how carefully they were handling it, she assumed it must be the G.E.C.K.. Shortly afterwards, Adam, Applejack, Rarity and Twilight were brought out of the Vault and loaded onto another Vertibird. 

Once the Rainbooms were secured, the soldiers and remaining scientists all boarded the Vertibirds themselves. Moments later there was a roar of rotors as the Vertibirds rose into the air and turned to head away from the Vault, flying away north. Making a quick mental note as to which Vertibird contained her friends, Rainbow set off in hot pursuit.

The landscape rolled by swiftly as Rainbow followed the three Vertibirds. Making sure to keep an eye on the ground, just in case some random wastelander decided to take a potshot at her, Rainbow focused on staying far enough behind the Vertibirds that the soldiers on board might not spot her 

Despite her efforts, only a few minutes after beginning the chase one of the Vertibirds peeled off from the others and slowed down dramatically, dropping back behind Rainbow. Cursing her bad luck, she realised a little too late that her attempt at stealth would probably have gone better if she hadn't had Flashburn cheerfully blazing away in her hand. Looking back, Rainbow's heart leapt into her mouth as she spotted the gun poking out from underneath the Vertibird’s nose; pointed directly at her. She swerved aside just in time to avoid the stream of crackling laser bolts that poured from it barely a second later. The Vertibird shifted to keep targeting Rainbow, forcing her to dodge and weave wildly to avoid getting shredded. 

“Dammit, this is not cool!” Banking around to stay out of the line of fire, Rainbow flared her wings to catch as much air as possible. The sudden deceleration sent the Vertibird racing ahead of her once again. “Now it’s my turn!” Surging forward, Rainbow flew up and over the top of the Vertibird until she was above its engine. Planting her feet on the engine and using her wings to stabilise herself, Rainbow aimed carefully while watching the rotors spin in slow motion, then started hacking at the joint where the rotor head joined the engine proper. Her plan was to try and damage the rotor enough that it would fall apart or snap. Unfortunately, Flashburn’s magic proved to be a little too effective as its fire was sucked into the engine. Rainbow watched with fascinated horror as searing blue flames flickered from the back of the engine and a tell-tale blue glow traced its way up what appeared to be fuel lines. “Aw, crap.”

Rainbow snapped her wings open to their fullest extent and let the wind tear her off the Vertibird’s wing, then angled herself into a swooping climb directly up and away from the plane. Not a moment too soon, either, as the engine exploded with all the fire and fury of a newborn star. The blast half-consumed the rest of the Vertibird even as it sent it spiralling out of control, the blazing remains spinning and twisting until they slammed to the ground far below. 

“Whoa.” Rainbow paused to watch the burning wreckage for a few seconds, mixed feelings racing through her at the thought of the lives she had just taken. Human lives. She shook her head and forced her feelings down. “Come on, Dash, worry about that mushy crap later. Your friends need you.” Sighing heavily, she checked the bag of Rad-X and its attached needle to make sure they were still secure. Frankly, she was amazed that the wind hadn’t ripped them away already, but she just put it down to her magic being awesome like that. Satisfied that they were still in place, Rainbow angled her wings and set off after the two remaining Vertibirds.





Sunset stared dumbly at the door that Rainbow had disappeared through. 

"Do you think she'll be ok?" Pinkie asked quietly. 

"She'll be fine," Sunset replied firmly, unwilling to even entertain the alternative. "You know how fast she is, if she's done as she was told she's already way outside the radiation." Eager to distract herself, she looked up at Fawkes. "So, what's your story?"

Fawkes blinked at her in surprise, but he didn't hesitate before explaining about his incarceration, about how the others had rescued him, and about how he had retrieved the G.E.C.K. for them before they went their separate ways. "I realize that, having encountered my fellow Meta Humans already, you may be hesitant to trust me. Nevertheless, please allow me to accompany you, so that I may deliver liberation unto your friends, as they did for me."

Sunset just stared at him in amazement. He seemed genuine and he certainly knew Rarity and the others, at least to an extent, but trusting him out of hand seemed risky. Unsure of what to do, she looked back at Fluttershy and Pinkie. Both just nodded. I guess that settles it. Sunset turned back to Fawkes. "Okay, looks like you're with us."

"I appreciate that." Fawkes looked back over his shoulder towards the entrance. "Are you certain that your friend will be alright out there?"

"She's got a better chance than any of us,” Sunset replied.

"Very well. In that case, let us-" Fawkes paused as he looked down at the dead soldier by his feet. His gaze shifted from the soldier, to his hammer, and back again, then he placed his hammer against the wall and crouched next to the soldier. "One moment." Fawkes reached out and started stripping the soldier of his heavy laser. "It seems this man has no further need of his weapon."

"Good idea," Sunset said, privately glad to have the extra firepower on their side while they went back through the Vault. "Now we just have to figure out how to convince Mayor Macready to let you through Little Lamplight."

"Oh, I didn't even think of that," Fluttershy admitted softly. 

Pinkie hummed thoughtfully. "If you're immune to radiation, do you think you could find your way around from the Vault entrance to the Little Lamplight cavern?"

Fawkes shook his head slowly. "I know how to find Murder Pass from within the Vault, but I'm afraid I don't know my way around outside."

"Leaving so soon, Fawkes?" The girls whipped around at the sound of the voice. A hulking Super Mutant stepped into the corridor. It was so huge it had to angle itself sideways to get through the door, and it was only the fact that it was hunched over that prevented it from smacking its head on the ceiling. Sunset's eye was immediately drawn to a thick medallion hanging from the Mutant's neck. It was made of dark green stone and was shaped like a stylised nuclear blast. "I see you have made some new… friends." The Super Mutant had a surprisingly soft voice for its size.

"Shephard." Fawkes muttered darkly. "I'm leaving this Vault. I will not let you imprison me again."

Shephard let out a low chuckle. "Let me? You are only still breathing because I am letting you." The Mutant took a step forward and the medallion flashed with sudden light. "However, I think I'll have to-" Shephard was cut off as Sunset opened fire with her assault rifle. She unloaded the rest of the magazine into the Mutant, but, to her horror, the bullets didn't so much as scratch it. Shephard just chuckled again. "Save your ammunition. There is nothing you can do to hurt me."

"How about I try!" Pinkie span on the spot and hurled her pickaxe at Shephard. The pick sailed through the Mutant as if it were made of smoke, leaving behind pink smears on its chest where the head passed through. Fully aware of what was coming next, the girls threw themselves back and covered their eyes just as the smears detonated.

As she lowered her arm, cold terror filled Sunset at the sight of Shephard still standing there, skin blackened but otherwise unharmed. "I told you," the Super Mutant growled, "there is nothing you can do to hurt me." Shephard stared at them for a few moments more, then turned and stepped back through the door. "I shall allow you to live, for now. Until next time, Miss Shimmer."

Sunset watched as Shephard lumbered away, a mixture of relief and stunned disbelief thundering through her mind. "Wha… what the hell was that about?!"

"That was Shephard," Fawkes answered, hefting his new weapon. "One of the only other Meta Humans who retained some measure of intelligence, and a monster in every sense of the word. We should leave... immediately."

Sunset nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think you're right." 

As the group started making their way back through the Vault towards Little Lamplight, Sunset couldn't help the cloud of dread that cast a pall over her thoughts. Super Mutants were bad enough, and Super Mutants with magic were worse, but she never, not even in her darkest nightmares, imagined that she would ever meet one with its own Geode.
> Chapter 55 - Gathering Dark
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tense silence filled the Vertibirds as they made the journey to Raven Rock. The loss of one of the ships, and the troops inside, had shocked everyone on the remaining transports to the core. 

Colonel Autumn knew he had to try and keep his Troop’s morale up, but he didn't have the faintest clue of how to manage it. He'd never imagined that one of the Rainbooms would be able to fly fast enough to keep up with a Vertibird, let alone that she'd be capable of actually destroying one with almost contemptuous ease. Thankfully, she had kept her distance since downing the first Vertibird, though Colonel Autumn suspected that that was less to do with any fear or exhaustion and more because she wasn't willing to risk her friends or the G.E.C.K. in a direct confrontation.

"Sir, we're coming up on Raven Rock," the pilot said factually.

"Is the Rainboom still following us?" Colonel Autumn asked.

"Yes, sir," the pilot replied .

Colonel Autumn swore under his breath. "Inform base command there is a bandit on our tail and we have precious cargo on board. We'll need whatever AA support is available."

The pilot quickly relayed the Colonel's request, and base command directed them to the nearest available landing pad. When the Vertibirds came in to land on their designated landing pad, a huge metal platform situated high up on the mountainside, they were greeted by several full squads of power-armored soldiers, many of whom were carrying heavy weaponry.

Colonel Autumn had both Vertibirds open their crew compartments as they landed; the second they touched down all of the soldiers on board disembarked immediately and turned to form a firing line. The Colonel himself waited inside his Vertibird with the scientists until the soldiers were all out before stalking down the ramp to join them. He turned and looked up to see the damnable Rainboom circling high above like a vulture, too far away to be a worthwhile target.

"Colonel!" The Colonel glanced over his shoulder to see Lieutenant-Colonel Strong hurrying to his side. "What's the situation, sir?" he asked, saluting.

Before Colonel Autumn could answer there was a sudden flash of colour and a gust of wind ruffled his coat. His gaze snapped back up to where the Rainboom had been, but all he saw was a rainbow-coloured streak already fading into the distance. 

"C-colonel! Take your coat off!" one of the soldiers shouted. Colonel Autumn looked around in surprise just as the soldier grabbed his coat. "Your coat, sir! It's on fire!" A few panic-filled moments followed as the two worked together to rip his longcoat off and throw it on the ground. Blue flames rose from the back of it in the shape of an R. The Colonel fought back a shiver, trying to ignore the cold fear creeping up his spine, and nodded his thanks to the soldier.

"Uh, Colonel? You might want to take a look at this," Lieutenant-Colonel Strong said slowly.

Now what? Taking care to keep his expression neutral, Colonel Autumn turned to see what his subordinate was worried about. His attempt at looking unconcerned for the sake of his men failed miserably barely a second later as he spotted a message written in the rockface above the entrance to the fortress; smouldering letters ten foot tall crudely carved into the rock itself.


WE'RE COMING FOR YOU


Hissed curses and worried murmurs broke out among the soldiers on the landing pad. Colonel Autumn knew he should suppress them, that discipline should be maintained; but in this instance, he truly couldn't blame them. This was way beyond anything they had ever faced before. That Rainboom's speed was on a level that simply disregarded belief. The fact that he and the Lieutenant-Colonel were still alive despite their lack of armor meant that the girl had likely made a conscious decision not to kill them, a fact that chilled Colonel Autumn to the bone.

Lieutenant-Colonel Strong gave Autumn a worried look. "Sir? Just what the hell are we facing here?"

The Colonel shook his head slowly. “I don't know, but by God I'm going to find out." He turned to the nearest soldier. "Get those four offloaded and secured in separate cells. I want the girls especially kept under heavy guard, and make sure they're sedated when they start to wake up." As the soldiers moved to carry out his orders, he turned back to Lieutenant-Colonel Strong and spoke in an undertone, "I'm going to make my report to the President. As soon as those freaks are secured, I want you to fetch your sister and her girlfriend and bring them to me as quickly as possible."

The Lieutenant-Colonel saluted. "Yes, Sir! Uh, may I ask what you need them for, Sir?"

"Those two are the only people in Raven Rock who've seen all of the Rainbooms in action and lived to tell the tale," Colonel Autumn replied. "I want to know exactly what these girls are capable of."



 

The corridors of Vault 87 were eerily quiet. The only sounds that could be heard were Fawkes's heavy footfalls and the occasional drip of blood from the vile sackfuls of gore strung up from the ceiling. Nevertheless, neither Sunset nor the others dared to drop their guard despite the almost suspicious lack of Super Mutants they had encountered. Shephard was still out there, somewhere, and there was no telling who, or what, else could be lurking in the Vault.

Even with the group obsessively checking every shadowed corridor, it didn't take long for the girls to retrace their steps back to the corridors that led to Little Lamplight's secret entrance.

"Phew, here we are," Pinkie sighed as they stepped into the abandoned generator room. 

"Yeah, now we just have to figure out how to convince Mayor Macready to let Fawkes in," Sunset reminded her. "Any ideas?"

Pinkie hummed loudly and tapped a finger on her chin. "We could try asking nicely?"

Sunset and Fawkes just stared at her blankly, and even Fluttershy raised an eyebrow at her. After a moment, Sunset shrugged. "Eh, I guess it's worth a shot." Lacking any better ideas, she stepped forward and knocked on the door to the tune of 'Shave and a Haircut', then pressed the button that opened it.

Mayor Macready was standing ready on the other side of the door. He relaxed and lowered his gun when he saw the girls, then snapped it back up the second he spotted Fawkes, promoting Pinkie to jump protectively in front of him. "Wait!"

"It's okay, he's not an enemy," Sunset said quickly.

"Bullshit!" Macready spat. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, bringing a fucking Super Mutant here!?"

"He's friendly," Sunset insisted. She shouldered her assault rifle and held her hands out placatingly. "Look, our friends have been taken by the Enclave and this guy's helping us get them back. We just want-"

"Don't fuck with me!" Macready shifted to aim at her instead. "This and Murder Pass are the only way anyone except the Super Mutants can get in or out of the Vault, and you can be damn sure no Mungos have come through Little Lamplight except you fuckers! I ought to blow your fucking heads off right now!" 

Sunset swallowed and tried not to look at the assault rifle pointed at her face. "The Enclave got into the Vault through the main entrance. The radiation wasn't enough to stop them. Rainbow has gone after them, her magic can get her through the radiation, but we have to get back outside to meet her when she gets back. We just want to pass through, and we want Fawkes to come with us. I'll vouch for him."

"We all will," Pinkie put in. 

Macready glared at the four of them. After several tense seconds he shouted over his shoulder to someone else, "Hey, Joseph! Get your ass back to the others and tell them to arm up and hunker down! We've got a freak coming through!" When Joseph agreed Macready stepped back to let the group through the door, though he didn't lower his rifle. "As for you, you go straight from here to the front door, you get the fuck out of here, and you never drag your sorry asses back here again, you hear me?"

Sunset sighed and nodded. "I, we understand."

Glaring suspiciously at Fawkes, Macready gestured for the group to come through with his rifle. "Get moving. Any of you so much as step out of place and I'll shoot your fucking faces off!"

The girls stepped through first. Fawkes followed after them slowly, treading carefully and taking great care to keep his new weapon pointed at the floor in a vain attempt to make himself look less threatening. Macready used the terminal to close and lock the door into the Vault then followed the group, keeping his assault rifle trained on Fawkes' back.

The journey through the caves of Little Lamplight was almost as nerve-wracking as exploring the Vault had been. Macready frog-marched them along while watching them like a hawk, and the kids that they passed either ran away in fear at the sight of Fawkes or clutched their weapons tightly and watched the group warily until they had passed.

Soon enough they arrived back at the makeshift gates of Little Lamplight with a pair of armed kids standing guard. Both of them paled with fear when they laid eyes on Fawkes. 

"Stacey, Caps, get that fucking gate open!" Macready barked, making the two of them jump and hurry to obey. As soon as the gate was raised he turned back to the girls and pointed outside with his gun. "Alright, now fuck off and don't come back."

Fawkes, Pinkie and Fluttershy stepped through quickly, but Sunset paused on the threshold and looked back over her shoulder at Macready. At the very least, she felt he deserved a warning. "One last thing, it looks like some of the Super Mutants have got their hands on some magic of their own. I don't know what they can do, or what it's capable of, but somehow I doubt it'll make them any less dangerous. Be careful."

Macready raised an eyebrow, and for a second she assumed he was going to arrogantly brush it off, but instead he nodded grimly. "Thanks for the heads up. Now go on, get out of here."

Relieved that he wasn't blaming the Rainbooms for the Mutants' magic, not yet anyway, Sunset quietly followed the others through the tunnel that led out of the caverns. None of them spoke as they tramped up the rocky path, through the flimsy door at the end, and out into the morning sunlight.

When they finally got outside, Pinkie wandered over to a blackened picnic table and flopped onto the bench with a huff. "Well that could have gone a lot better."

"It could have gone worse, too. At least the mayor didn't realize that it's our fault that the Sup- um, that the Meta Humans have magic now," Fluttershy put in, echoing Sunset's earlier thoughts.

Fawkes sighed sadly. "I apologize. I did not wish to cost you your allies."

"It's fine," Sunset told him. "If you're really as benign as you say you are, then I'd rather annoy them by setting you free than to keep them happy by leaving you to rot." Fluttershy and Pinkie both nodded vigorously at Sunset’s comment.

Fawkes opened his mouth to reply, then closed it and just looked down at the floor instead. Fluttershy stepped closer and placed a hand on his elbow, misreading his silence. "Um, Mayor Macready didn't upset you with the, um, with the mean things he was saying, did he?"

Letting out a soft chuckle, Fawkes shook his head. "No. I was prepared to face such reactions from the people of the Wasteland. I was merely… I was just…" He sighed heavily. "It seems I am a little overwhelmed. The kindness you have all shown me means more to me than I can truly articulate."

"Awww, cheer up, big guy; it's what we do!" Pinkie called out as she jumped back to her feet. "Don't you worry. As soon as we've rescued the others from the evil fascist organisation that wants to subdue and control the descendants of all of the innocent civilians they abandoned two hundred years ago, I'll make sure we throw you a nice big 'Congratulations on escaping Vault 87' party! Pinkie Promise!" She frowned and tapped a finger on her chin. "Speaking of the Enclave, what are we going to do now?"

Sunset shrugged. "I'm not sure there's much we can do until Rainbow gets back. We may as well wait here and just hope that she doesn't take too long."

"Um, what do we do if she does take a long time to get back?" Fluttershy asked uneasily.

"I guess we'll just have to set up camp here," Sunset replied, gesturing to the derelict picnic area that surrounded them. "It's either that or find a way to leave a message for her and head back to the Citadel."

None of the others particularly fancied going back to the Citadel and risking missing Rainbow, so instead they all found a place to sit and tried to make themselves comfortable. They talked while they waited, the girls telling Fawkes all about their home and Equestria while, in return, asking for everything he knew about Shephard, which unfortunately wasn't much.

The group had only been waiting for around twenty minutes when, to their immense surprise, they saw Rainbow approaching from the North. The four of them clambered to their feet as she banked around in a wide circle and came down to land.

"I know where their base is," Rainbow said without preamble. She turned and pointed back the way she'd came, "It's pretty much a straight line in that direction, but it's going to take a while on foot, and there's some freaky radar stations and a few sketchy-looking places we're probably going to have to avoid which are going to slow us down even more."

Fawkes grunted and hefted his weapon. "It doesn't matter how far they run, they will not escape their retribution."

Rainbow glanced sidelong at him and smirked. "Careful, if you keep talking like that I might actually start to like you." She flicked her hair back and looked over at Sunset. "So? When do we leave?"

"Right now," Sunset replied. "We'll eat on the way, the only problem is how we're going to deal with the soldier’s' power armor when we get there." She turned to Pinkie, who was staring silently at the head of her pickaxe. "I hate to say it, but I think you're the only one who can hurt them."

Pinkie nodded grimly and twirled the head of the pickaxe, sending out a cascade of glittering dust. "It's okay, I can do this. It's just like the trope; let's get dangerous."





Tara hummed thoughtfully as she read through the communiqué she'd been given. It had been delivered by a cadet shortly after she'd gotten back to the dorm room she shared with Becky. Tara had been content to sprawl out on their bed and take her time with it in order to try to take her mind off the stress of recent events.

"Anything interesting?" Becky asked from where she was lounging on a chair in the corner of the room.

"Actually, yes," Tara replied. "Evans and Pickering are going to be sent to Project Exodus within the next hour along with a squad of soldiers to replace Squad Sigma." She sat up and tossed the communiqué onto the bedside table. "It looks like they've sent us a doctor called Whitley from the Adams Air Force Base, too. He'll be at the Exodus building by the time we get back."

Becky gave an impressed whistle. "I've heard of him, he's apparently doing some pretty impressive stuff with eyebots and AI."

"Er, right." Tara tucked a stray hair behind her ear and tried to keep her expression neutral. The truth was that the Enclave already had an incredible AI; one far, far more powerful than anything Whitley had created, and much closer to home. Unfortunately, that fact was also highly classified.

Thankfully, the women’s conversation was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door. "Come in," Tara called out. The door opened almost before she had finished speaking and she was surprised to see her brother duck through the door before it was even halfway open. "Andrew? What's wro-"

"Both of you need to come with me, right now," the Lieutenant-Colonel cut in.

Before anyone could respond, the facility's PA system crackled into life. "This is President Eden. As of this moment, this facility will be going into complete lockdown. All personnel are hereby ordered to follow established lockdown procedures and all military reserve personnel are to be on standby and ready for immediate activation should the necessity arise. I repeat, this facility is going into immediate lockdown and all personnel are to follow established procedures. This is not a drill." 

The PA system clicked and the two women jumped to their feet. "What the hell is going on?!" Tara demanded.

"We've got a fucking huge problem coming our way, that's what," Andrew replied darkly. "Colonel Autumn just got back from Vault 87 with his strike team. They managed to capture the son of that scientist from Project Purity and three of the Rainbooms."

"What?!" Becky and Tara yelled in unison, making Andrew jump back in shock. "You mean he's brought the Rainbooms here?!" Tara snapped.

Andrew nodded quickly. "We've got them secured in cells upstairs. The problem is one of the others managed to follow the team here, apparently she even took out one of the Vertibirds singlehandedly. She's gone for now, but we strongly believe that she's going to return with support and attempt to assault this facility." He gestured to the two women. "That's why you have to come with me. Colonel Autumn wants to speak to you; you two are the only people here who've seen them in action."

Tara and Becky shared a worried look. It appeared that their treasonous actions back at Project Exodus had been all for naught. "H-have the captive Rainbooms said anything yet?" Tara asked.

"Not yet," Andrew replied to the relief of the others. "They're still frozen from the cryo grenades used to capture them, it's going to take a few hours to thaw them out."

"Shit." Becky wrenched open the top drawer of their dresser and pulled out a laser pistol with its holster, which she attached to her belt under her lab coat. "Okay, take us to see the Colonel."

As she followed the other two out of the room, Tara managed to catch Becky's eye and give her a determined nod. One way or another, it looked like she was going to have to save the Rainbooms again.

She just hoped she could manage it without getting herself, or the people she loved, killed.





Down in the very lowest levels of Raven Rock, Doctor Turner stared up in awe at the subject he had been assigned to wake. At first glance, it simply looked like an oversized suit of Enclave power armor strapped into an immense docking frame, but those who were aware of the Enclave's history would know that they were in the presence of something far greater and more terrible than a mere suit of armor.

Frank Horrigan.

The name was a dark legend among the Enclave; a brutal monster who had once been the most deadly entity ever to stalk the wasteland.

Born and raised an ordinary human, Horrigan had been accidentally exposed to a variety of FEV while on a mission on the West Coast. Sensing an opportunity, the Enclave's scientists had performed innumerable experiments on him, ranging from surgery, to genetic manipulation, to mental programming. 

When they were finished, Horrigan had become a nightmare; a mutant abomination that stood over twelve feet tall. Permanently bonded with customized power armor that doubled as a life support apparatus. Horrigan had been given his own unique weapons and unleashed on the wasteland, carving out a blood-spattered legend of epic proportions.

The comatose remains that stood before Turner now were a pale shadow of that once unstoppable monster.

Defeated in a cataclysmic battle on the old Poseidon Oil Rig, Horrigan had lost everything below his waist and the majority of his skull and brain stem when his armor’s power system overloaded.

His legend would have ended there had a fleeing group of soldiers not dragged his bloody carcass away before the Rig was destroyed under the assumption that they would be rewarded for salvaging what remained of his armor. It wasn't until a team of scientists examined the remains later that they discovered that his armor's life support systems were still functional and that Horrigan was, in fact, still alive.

For the past thirty years whole teams of scientists had been working to rebuild Horrigan. 

Turner stepped forward and carefully examined Horrigan's new armor. Constructed entirely of Duraframe, it was the single most advanced suit of armor the Enclave had ever created. The legs were robotic, to replace Horrigan's original ones, and the helmet contained an advanced variety of the biogel, found in Robobrains, to protect and regrow the remnants of Horrigan's damaged brain.

Unfortunately, despite the vast amount of resources and effort put towards bringing him back, nothing had so far succeeded in waking Horrigan up. His brain had largely regenerated, but even so, he remained in a persistent vegetative state that he just couldn't be broken out of. 

Doctor Strong herself had spent a year working on him. Her idea of using computer chips to stimulate his brain and artificially implant memories had been a stroke of genius, but even that had failed.

Now, though, the Enclave had something that might just work. Turner just had to wait and see if his ideas would bear fruit. As if summoned by the doctor's thoughts, the door of the lab opened and a technician entered carrying a small box in his hands.

"How did it go?" Doctor Turner asked. "Did the centrifuge work?"

"It actually worked perfectly, Doctor." The technician opened the box and showed him the contents; eight small vials. Seven of them each contained a different colour of brightly glowing magic, while the last contained a swirling white mixture. "It separated them all right out, except for that little bit in the last vial."

"Excellent!" Doctor Turner beamed. He had never really expected something as simple as a centrifuge to work, but it had. And it also handily proved his hypothesis that the white magical mixture he had smuggled into Raven Rock had been a combined mix of each of the Rainbooms' magicks. "Have the radiation experiments been set up?"

The technician nodded. "The rest of your team are working on them now. You were right, they're getting more of… whatever this stuff is already." 

Doctor Turner hummed as he took the box from the technician. "Good, good, and have any of them started getting darker, do you know?"

"Not yet, Doctor," the technician replied. "They've been keeping the exposure levels small,.like you requested. It seems to be working so far."

Doctor Turner grinned and turned back to face Horrigan. "Perfect. I want the first new batch brought to me as soon as we reach the projected quantities." He looked up at the tubes that fed into Horrigan's armor, each of them ending in a socket that the vials he now held would fit into perfectly. "I wish to begin the experiments immediately."
> Chapter 56 - Forbidden Fruit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raven Rock was a hive of activity as everyone hurried to comply with the lockdown procedures. Tara's mind whirled as she and Becky followed her brother through the corridors to wherever Colonel Autumn would be. She desperately wanted to ask her brother what exactly had happened, but trying to discuss classified information out in the open where anyone could hear would be more trouble than it was worth.

Fortunately, one of the benefits of being led around by the facility's head of security was the fact that everyone else, even power armored soldiers, stepped out of the way at his approach, so they made good progress, despite the number of people bustling around. The rush of people wouldn't last long anyway; once lockdown procedures were completed, the only people moving around the base would be soldiers or those undertaking essential work.

Before long, the three arrived at the cell block. Colonel Autumn was waiting outside one of the cells, arms folded as he glared in through the open door. He looked around when Andrew called out to him, "Colonel, I've brought them, as you ordered."

"Thank you, Lieutenant-Colonel," Colonel Autumn replied, shifting his attention to the doctors. "I appreciate you coming so quickly. I'm sorry to summon you out of the blue like this, but a situation has arisen involving the Rainbooms and I need your help."

"Andrew, er... I mean, Lieutenant-Colonel Strong told us that some of the Rainbooms had been taken captive?" Tara replied cautiously. "He also said that you need our help with them."

Colonel Autumn nodded. "Indeed, follow me." He closed the door of the cell next to them and strode up the corridor to stop outside another one. Instead of opening the door, he checked up and down the corridor to make sure no one else was around, then leaned in close to the others and spoke in an undertone, "I highly doubt that I really need to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway; everything we discuss now is to be considered highly classified. No-one without clearance is to hear any of this, is that clear?"

"Yes, Sir," Tara and Becky replied.

"Good." Without further ado, the Colonel immediately told the two of them everything that had happened in Vault 87, the return flight, and the incident on the landing platform when they arrived at the base. "As you can see," he said when his story was finished, "these girls pose a far greater threat than previously thought, hence why I'm seeking your advice."

Tara just stared at him in blank shock. "But… you… why? Why would you even want to kidnap them again? Especially after what happened at Project Exodus?"

"I assure you, it was not my idea," Colonel Autumn replied with a scowl. "If it were up to me, I'd have had the lot of them put down the moment we learned that they were a threat. Unfortunately, the President disagrees with me on that point. And, going by the looks on your faces, it appears that you do, too."

The two women shared an uneasy glance. "It's not exactly in the Enclave's best interests," Becky said slowly.

Colonel Autumn gave them a long, hard look, then slapped the button to open the cell door and ushered them in. Inside, held upright against the back wall by a set of electromagnetic restraints, was Twilight Sparkle. Her skin was alarmingly pale. A pair of medics spared the group a quick glance before turning back to their patient.

"Is she injured?" Becky asked anxiously.

One of the medics shook his head. "No, Doctor. The Rainbooms were hit with cryo-grenades, but we administered the recommended anti-frost agents to prevent cellular damage before we put them in full-cryo for transport here. We're just starting the chemical thawing on this one, she'll be fine in a few hours."

"Remember to make sure that she and the others are sedated when they start to come around." Colonel Autumn waited until the medics had finished with their ministrations and left the cell before he turned back to the doctors and the Lieutenant-Colonel. "Alright, now I need you to tell me everything, and I mean everything, about the Rainbooms, starting with this girl right here."

Tara looked at Twilight, unconscious and vulnerable, and couldn't repress a shiver. Somehow she knew that Colonel Autumn bringing them to see her in particular couldn't be a coincidence. In an attempt to head him off, she decided to dive in and explain about the Rainbooms' magic, with a few appropriate exaggerations, naturally, "Her name is Twilight Sparkle, she's telekinetic. Her magic is very powerful, enough so that-"

"That she can crumple a suit of power armor with ease," Colonel Autumn finished with a grim nod. "I saw the aftermath of her handiwork at Project Purity."

"The others are equally dangerous," Becky supplied. "Which other girls are here?"

Colonel Autumn glanced at Andrew, who replied, "We've got the blonde one with the cowboy hat, and the albino with the purple hair."

"Applejack and Rarity." Becky winced dramatically. "I suppose it could be worse, but those two are still dangerous enough to cause problems. Applejack's magic gives her super strength. She's strong enough to tear apart Duraframe as if it were paper. Rarity, on the other hand, can manifest temporary gemstones out of thin air in any shape or size she desires."

"The others are Rainbow Dash, Sunset Shimmer, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy," Tara added. "Unfortunately, they're probably the most dangerous of the group. I imagine it was probably Rainbow that chased you and destroyed the Vertibird, she's the only one who'd have the speed to keep up with them." She frowned thoughtfully. "I don't have any idea how she managed to actually destroy the Vertibird, though. Maybe it's another aspect of her powers?"

"Or maybe Pinkie gave her something?" Becky offered. 

Tara hummed as she considered. "It's possible." Seeing her brother's curious look, she clarified, "Pinkie's magic allows her to turn anything she touches into high explosive and detonate it at will." She neglected to mention that her magic was limited to processed sugar.

"Wait, anything?!" Andrew cried incredulously.

"Anything." Becky backed up the lie with a nod. "Sunset's magic will cause us problems, too. She's a telepath and has even displayed a small measure of mind control. We think that's how the Rainbooms managed to escape Project Exodus."

The blood slowly drained from Colonel Autumn's face. "Mind control," he echoed. "You mean she…" His expression hardened suddenly. "Are you certain that she isn't still controlling anyone?"

"We don't think so, not at this distance," Becky replied.

"That just leaves Fluttershy, who is arguably the most dangerous of the Rainbooms by far," Tara finished, this time without any exaggeration.

Andrew glanced at her warily. "What could possibly be more dangerous than mind control?"

Tara fixed him with a serious look. "She can converse with, and potentially command, almost any of the wild creatures of the waste that she encounters." She turned back to Colonel Autumn, speaking with deadly sincerity, "I'm curious, what exactly is our plan if her power happens to work on deathclaws?"

"W-well, we can handle a deathclaw or two, and the chances of her running across any more of them than that on the way here is pretty slim,” Andrew said with false confidence.

"There's a known hotspot of deathclaw activity located between here and Vault 87," Colonel Autumn corrected, prompting a look of horror from the Lieutenant-Colonel. "Still," Colonel Autumn continued, "I've yet to hear why eliminating the Rainbooms is not in the Enclave's best interests. From what you're telling me, it would be best to remove them as quickly as possible." He gestured to the unconscious Twilight Sparkle. "And nothing I've heard so far explains why this particular Rainboom happens to look like you, Doctor Strong."

Shit. Realizing that there was no real way out of this without causing more problems, Tara explained the truth about the alternate realities that Sunset and the other Rainbooms were from, the fact that each of these realities had different versions of the same people, and that Twilight Sparkle was her own extra-dimensional counterpart.

When Tara had finished, both Andrew and Colonel Autumn glanced over at Twilight's unconscious form. "So this… Twilight Sparkle," Colonel Autumn said quietly, "she's another version of you?"

Tara nodded. "Yes, Sir."

"I see." The Colonel turned to glare at them suspiciously. "And I suppose you expect me to believe that neither of you have any ulterior motives for trying to keep these girls alive?"

Becky let out a disdainful snort. "My own interest in Twilight is purely academic. The same cannot be said for Sunset Shimmer, though, given that she happens to be my otherworld counterpart."

That stopped the Colonel in his tracks. He slowly glanced over his shoulder at Twilight, then back to Becky. "Sunset Shimmer. That would be the telepath?" Becky nodded. "And I assume the two of them are in a similar relationship to…" He gestured vaguely at the two doctors.

"Yes," Tara and Becky lied together. "That's not the worst part," Becky continued.

"Of course it's not," Andrew muttered in a resigned tone. "Just… just tell us and get it over with."

"The people of their worlds, especially Sunset's original home, do not abandon their friends," Becky explained. "You can be damned sure that the people the Rainbooms left behind are searching for a way to bring them home. When you consider the fact that the Rainbooms are high schoolers, adults, and yet the people of their realities are perfectly comfortable letting them run around with such devastating magic, you have to wonder how powerful their actual military is." 

The Colonel had gone entirely white, but Becky kept pressing, "I don't know about you, but I don't think it's a good idea to be antagonizing a group whose rulers might be able to wipe the Enclave off the map without breaking a sweat! Hell, for all we know, we could end up facing an enemy that could drop the god-damned moon on us!"

"Alright, you've made your point!" Colonel Autumn spat. He sighed heavily and folded his arms. "Damn it, now what the hell are we going to do?"

"Taking out the Rainbooms is off the table," Andrew said flatly. "If someone does come looking for them; there's no way we'd be able to convince them that we didn't harm the girls, not so long as the Brotherhood of Steel is around to refute it, unless we are likely to have obliterated the Brotherhood anytime soon?"

Colonel Autumn shook his head. "The Brotherhood have a veritable fortress in the form of the former Pentagon, several smaller defensive outposts dotted around the downtown area, and the support of many of the local settlements. Getting Project Purity working will be a huge step towards weakening their position, but even so, it will probably be a few months, at best, before we can eradicate the local Brotherhood."

"Are we making any progress on Project Purity?" Tara asked.

"Things would be progressing faster if you were on the taskforce, as originally planned," Colonel Autumn replied sourly. "Still, the President allowed a single Vertibird to leave before the lockdown was complete, taking the G.E.C.K. to Project Purity. I am confident that the assigned scientists won't have too much trouble getting it to work. Unfortunately, even when the purifier is complete, we still lack the access code required to bring it online." He growled and lowered his voice, "I intend to interrogate our prisoner from Vault 101 personally on that matter."

"T-that probably wouldn't be a good idea!" Tara said quickly, earning an exasperated glare from the Colonel. "The boy from Vault 101 is a close personal friend of the Rainbooms, harming him is not going to help us get in their good graces."

Colonel Autumn swore viciously under his breath and turned away, planting his hands on his hips. "I suppose that explains why our surveillance eyebots reported the Rainbooms entering the Little Lamplight caverns after the boy had already been there for a while." No-one dared speak as he stood and stared at the wall, lost in thought. Finally, after several minutes he swore again and turned back to the others. "Fine. I'll make sure that the Rainbooms and the Vault brat are unharmed by my troops unduly, but anything further than that is beyond my control," he said abruptly.

"Even with that, it's not going to be easy to get back on peaceful terms with the Rainbooms," Andrew supplied. Colonel Autumn eyed him suspiciously, clearly wondering if that was a veiled dig at his own bungled attempt at first contact.

"There is one way of getting them friendly, or at least ending hostilities." Becky took a deep breath before continuing, "We offer a peace treaty."

Andrew and Colonel Autumn shared a confused glance. "You… want us to sign a peace treaty with the Rainbooms?" Andrew asked.

Becky rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. "Not exactly… but there is another group that we know they're friendly with that we-"

"Absolutely not!" Colonel Autumn snapped.

"Offering the Brotherhood of Steel a peace treaty is our best chance right now," Becky retorted. "I know our history with them is chequered at best, but pooling our resources and manpower would be the most efficient way of preventing future issues, not to mention the quickest way to rebuild the United States."

Colonel Autumn snorted scornfully. "That has to be the most insane thing I've heard all day. Even on the off chance that the Brotherhood themselves would accept such an offer, you'd be hard-pressed to find any right-thinking person in the Enclave who would even consider working alongside those small-minded thieves until the Brotherhood have been thoroughly put in their place."

Becky wasn't ready to give up that easily. "Surely if our organizations could come to an agr-"

"Enough! If you are so adamant that allying ourselves with the Brotherhood of Steel is our best option, then take it up with the President." Colonel Autumn clasped his hands behind his back and regarded the women imperiously. "Now, unless you have anything else to offer regarding the Rainbooms…?"

Becky deflated, slumping her shoulders, but Tara chimed in, "Their necklaces. They emit a previously unseen form of ionizing radiation; part of Project Exodus' duty is to study that radiation to discover whether or not it's dangerous."

The Colonel nodded curtly. "Very well. I'll have a technician deliver the necklaces to you as soon as we can safely remove them. You're dismissed."





In the most secure room of Raven Rock, near the center of the mountain, President Eden waited patiently in his inner sanctum. 

It had been several hours since the lockdown was initiated, but he was glad that things were running smoothly for the moment. According to the medics, the visitor from Vault 101 would be waking up shortly; an event the President was very much looking forward to. 

Still, despite the lockdown, the resident scientists had been anything but idle. Those operating under Doctor Turner had been especially busy, working on their available stock of magic.

President Eden allowed himself a moment of thrilled anticipation at the thought of the wondrous substance. It seemed to operate on a set of rules all of its own with no regard for any known laws of physics. This, of course, made it valuable beyond words. 

So far the scientists had managed to separate it out into eight distinct varieties; seven that were apparently identical to that generated by each of the individual Rainbooms, and one further variety that appeared to be a compound mixture of the others. 

The scientists had also been exposing each of the varieties to measured doses of radiation in order to increase the quantities available; the most useful attribute of the magic yet discovered. Thankfully, Doctor Turner and his team had avoided any unpleasant incidents like that which occurred at Project Exodus, though inaccuracies in measuring the dosage of radiation had led to them procuring a large amount of more volatile magic, which was rather whimsically being referred to as 'dark' magic.

In fact, the quantity of magic stored had increased so dramatically that President Eden had authorized the secret departure of single Vertibird a short while ago to the Adams Air Force Base. It carried several containers of each variety of magic, in both ordinary and dark forms, along with strict instructions on how it was to be stored and handled safely.

With the more advanced facilities available at the air base, mass production of the magic would be able to begin in earnest. President Eden had also sent an encrypted message instructing the science teams stationed there to begin experimenting with the magic immediately; testing its effect on everything from munitions and armor to food production and energy generation. 

The President was confident that, under his careful leadership, it wouldn't be long before the Enclave could count themselves as a magical superpower.

The only problem, so far, lay with Doctor Strong.

President Eden felt a complex mix of pride and frustration whenever he thought of the good doctor. The woman was a genius; one of the finest minds ever to come out of the Enclave's educational programs, but she had a powerful sense of compassion and moral obligation that limited her usefulness when it came to some of the Enclave's more… unsavoury projects. Unfortunately, this meant that the new magical research had to be kept largely under wraps. There was no telling how the doctor would react if she were to discover its existence prematurely.  

Despite Doctor Strong's idealistic weakness, however, the fact remained that she was one of the most brilliant scientists alive, and one of the very few people who knew about the President's own secret. So, when she had requested a private meeting with the President in person less than half an hour ago, he saw no reason to refuse. 

Initially expecting a report or request of some sort, President Eden was astonished when she instead came to him with a written proposal for a peace treaty between the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel. It came complete with a thirty-two point presentation on why such a treaty was the best step forward for the Enclave. 

It was a bold move, to say the least. Of course, once Project Purity was working, the results of Project Scouring would render an alliance with any wasteland organisation a pointless endeavor, but there was no need to inform the good Doctor of that. Luckily, Doctor Strong accepted his assertion that he would at least consider her proposal.

Less lucky was the Doctor's follow-up question about what the President was planning for the magical effluent still stored at Project Exodus. When he stated that he hadn't decided yet, she, rather impertinently, chose to remind him that the magic was extremely dangerous and should not be experimented on at all until she and her team could devise a safe method of storing and analyzing it. 

President Eden didn't particularly like lying to his best scientist, though admittedly that was largely because he knew that she might see through it. Given that she would inevitably find out the truth at some point, the President went with a little clever wordplay instead; implying that he had no intention of experimenting with the magic rather than actually saying it was being experimented on at Adams Airforce Base. Doctor Strong would undoubtedly be angry when she discovered his ruse, but by then he hoped that the ends would more than justify the means.

A sudden alert from one of the base's security cameras caught the President's attention. Ah, it seems our visitor from Vault 101 has finally woken up. Excellent.

The Lone Wanderer's cell was the only one to have a direct camera link inside, and Eden watched eagerly as the young man regained consciousness. He seemed momentarily confused by the fact that he was standing upright in a set of magnetic restraints, but that confusion quickly gave way to a cautious examination of his surroundings. Seeing the boy's keen analytical mind at work mere seconds after waking up from cryogenic stasis confirmed for the President that he was making the right choice with him.

"Good afternoon." The boy's head snapped around to the camera in the corner. "Please forgive the somewhat uncouth invitation I sent."

"Where are the Rainbooms?" the boy demanded.

"They are safe, I assure you," the President promised, not untruthfully. As the young man opened his mouth to speak, President Eden cut in quickly, "I am sure that you have many questions, but perhaps it would be better if we spoke face-to-face. Here," the boy stumbled as his restraints were suddenly deactivated, "I have instructed my soldiers to allow you to pass unmolested. I would appreciate it if you didn't dawdle too much. Time is of the essence."





Becky sighed heavily, blowing a lock of hair out of her face as she sprawled out on the bed. Tara had gone to present the treaty proposal to the President, but Becky didn't have high enough security clearance to go and see him too, so she had been stuck twiddling her thumbs while waiting for her better half to come back.

Determined to at least do something useful instead of just moping, Becky sat up and decided to try and go through the jumble of memories she'd received from Sunset Shimmer again. As she wondered where to begin, she glanced over at the lockbox on the bedside table. A technician had delivered it shortly after Tara had left. Inside were all three of the Geodes belonging to the captured Rainbooms.

Becky frowned as she considered the magical necklaces. As far as she could tell from Sunset's memories, the Geodes were near enough a complete mystery. They must have came from Equestria originally, but figuring out how or when, or even what the Geodes actually were was effectively impossible. 

Sunset's memories suggested that they were potentially related to the Elements of Harmony, whatever the hell they were, but the only concrete fact available was that they were immensely powerful artefacts. Learning anything more about them was made even more difficult by the fact that magic worked differently in this world than it did in either Equestria or the world the other girls came from. 

The sound of the door opening dragged Becky out of her reverie. She looked over to see Tara enter the room, resignation written all over her face. Becky made an attempt at a sympathetic smile. "I guess it didn't go well?"

Tara dropped into her desk chair with a huff. "The President said he'd consider it, but I get the feeling he was just humoring me." She raised an eyebrow as she spotted the lockbox. "Is that the girls' Geodes?" 

Becky nodded grimly. "Yeah. I was going to take them down to the old lab, but I can't while this lockdown is still in effect." She rolled her eyes for dramatic effect. "What did he say the plan was for the magic back at Exodus?"

"Not much." Tara sighed and spun the chair around idly. "He just said, and I quote, 'any plans to experiment with that dangerous substance are on the same shelf as the Chiroptera research and Project Scouring."

It took a moment for what her girlfriend had said to sink in, but Becky's blood ran cold when it did. "Uh… Tara?"

Tara stopped the chair and looked around at her tone. "Hm? What's wrong?" 

Becky glanced at the door to make sure it was closed, then got up and stepped over to whisper in Tara's ear, "The Chiroptera research, that's the Scorchbeasts, right?"

"How do you…" Tara trailed off at the look on Becky's face. "Yes, it's Scorchbeast research. It was abandoned when the researchers concluded that the plague they spread was too difficult and dangerous to contain." Tara replied warily. "Why?"

"Because the Scorchbeast research is still ongoing," Becky said quietly.

Tara just stared at her in shock. "H-how do you know?" 

Becky grimaced and looked away. "I… may have hacked into Doctor Turner's personal terminal a few months ago, back when we heard that Project Scouring was getting shelved."

Stunned disbelief flashed across Tara's face. "Why would you even do something like that?!" 

"I didn't trust them," Becky said flatly. "I wanted to make sure that Project Scouring was definitely being abandoned, and Doctor Turner was in charge of FEV research at the time." She held a hand up as Tara opened her mouth to scold her. "Yes, I know; it's against the rules, but I did it anyway. The point is, I didn't find anything about Project Scouring on his terminal, but I did discover that we have Scorchbeast specimens down in the sub-levels. The experiments never stopped."

The blood drained from Tara's face as she connected the dots. "But… if the Chiroptera research is still active then…" 

"Then maybe Project Scouring is too," Becky finished. Tara sat frozen on her seat for a moment, then whipped the chair around and started typing away maniacally on her personal terminal. "Er, what are you doing?"

"Finding out," Tara replied simply. 

Becky squinted as she tried to follow what her partner was doing on the screen. "You're accessing the mainframe? How will that help?"

"All of the President's secret files are stored on the mainframe," Tara explained. "You just have to know where to look."

Becky's eyes practically popped out of their sockets. "The Presi… are you insane?!"

"Probably," Tara admitted grimly, "but I have to know."

The two lapsed into an uneasy silence. After a few minutes of feverish typing, Tara quietly said, "I'm in."

"What's in there?" Becky asked, leaning over to see for herself.

"One second…" Tara opened a file named FEV Projects and started scrolling through a list of project names. "Most of these are inactive or cancelled. Deathclaw research is active… there's a bunch of Super Mutant countermeasure programs…" She sighed and slumped her shoulders when she spotted the next one. "Chiroptera research… huh? What the fuck is a Wanamingo? Ah! Here; Project…"

Becky felt her heart sink as Tara trailed off. Peering at the screen, she saw Project Scouring clearly marked as being 'Active'.

"He's betrayed us," Tara said shakily. "Congress, the military, the very democracy he's supposed to stand for."

Becky tried to place a comforting hand on her shoulder, but Tara slipped away from her and moved over to the bed, sinking onto her side and putting her head in her hands. Becky sighed and sat at the desk instead, glaring at the damning evidence on the terminal. "Okay, I know this is pretty bad, but we can figure something out. Colonel Autumn was against Project Scouring, if we can get this information to him-"

"He'll use it as an excuse to stage a military coup," Tara interrupted. "All we'll do is swap one monster for another." Before Becky could come up with another suggestion she heard the snap of a latch and Tara say in a dark voice, "If we're going to stop either of them from committing any more atrocities, we're going to need power. Real power."

Becky looked around just in time to see Tara lift all three Geodes out of the lockbox and slip them over her head. Becky tried to launch herself across the room and stop her, a yell of horror on her lips, but she didn't even manage to clear the chair before the Geodes flashed and a thunderclap sent her tumbling to the floor.

An ethereal wind ripped through the room as Tara was lifted into the air, while a sphere of magical energy slowly expanded out from the Geodes. Just before the sphere encompassed her entirely Tara let out a ghostly scream that lingered even after she disappeared.

Seeing Tara's silhouette through the magic, Becky tried shouting her name, but she didn't get any response as the sphere flickered black. Finally, the sphere exploded in a flash of light that shook the entire mountain and knocked the lights out, plunging the room into darkness. 

Becky groaned and cradled her head, noticing dimly that the facility's emergency alarms were blaring through the corridors. A pale glow from near the bed drew her attention and she looked over at where Tara had been, fearing the worst, then gasped in fear and awe at what she saw.

Tara was floating two feet off the ground. Her pristine white lab coat was now ragged and had turned a deep purple color. Her hair was a mix of purples and black, with a long amethyst ponytail that stretched down past her feet, and all of it rippled in a non-existent breeze. Vast, near-black wings spread out from her back, and a shining horn poked out from her forehead, providing the faint glow that lit the room.

The thing that Tara had become laughed; giggling softly at first, then throwing her head back and letting out a lunatic cackle that echoed out through the walls.





Doctor Turner beamed with satisfaction as he looked up at the frame holding Horrigan upright. The first vials of magic had already been administered with no real effect, but they had modified the frame slightly and now there were several gallons of each variety suspended above the frame, ready and waiting. 

"Which one should we give him first?" the technician at the frame asked.

Doctor Turner hummed thoughtfully. "I'm thinking maybe the blue one, his body seemed to accept that one a little easier than the others. We'll start off with, erm… let's go with five hundred mils for now, just to be safe."

The technician nodded, but before he could administer the magic a violent tremor shook the room and the lights suddenly cut out. 

"Um, that's a little unusual," Doctor Turner pointed out. Fortunately, the emergency lights clicked on a couple of seconds later. They were dim, but they at least provided enough light to move around without bumping into things. He was about to say something witty when he heard a faint echo of someone laughing, seemingly coming from somewhere above.

"D-doctor!" the technician cried. 

Doctor Turner glanced at him to see what was wrong, then yelped as he saw all of the magic draining from their containers into tubes and pumping into Horrigan's body. "What are you doing?! You weren't supposed to put it all in!"

"It wasn't me!" the technician snapped. "That earthquake must have done something!"

The two men could only watch in fascinated horror as the containers slowly emptied. Turner bit his lip as the last of the magic dripped through the tubes and into Horrigan.

Seconds passed. Then a minute. After almost five minutes of waiting Doctor Turner finally sighed. "Well, that was a little disappointing. I suppose next we'll have to-"

The sharp rasp of the respirator in Horrigan's helmet made Turner's mouth snap shut. His face cracked into a grin as a glowing green mist slowly seeped out of the joints in Horrigan's armor, followed by a faint click as the helmet's eyes switched on, blazing red in the dim light.

"Yes… yes… I think we've-" Doctor Turner was interrupted again as the light suddenly faded and the eyes switched off. A half-second later there was a series of clicks and thunks as pipes and wires disconnected from the armor, then Horrigan slumped to his knees and tilted sideways until he thudded against the frame.

Doctor Turner just stared at the lifeless lump. "I… um… what?"

"No…" The technician took a step towards Horrigan. "No… no, no, no!" He darted towards him and started trying to reconnect the cables and pipes. "You can't die like this!" he shouted desperately. "I've spent twenty fucking years keeping your sorry ass alive! Wake up!" He gave the helmet a slap and screamed in its face, "Wake up you mutant freak!"

The glowing green mist suddenly spurted out from the armor's joints again with a violent hiss, and the eyes blazed into life once more. The technician barely had time to move before Horrigan lifted an arm and backhanded him across the room with enough force to smash him against the far wall.

"I'M NO MUTIE." Horrigan's voice reverberated out of his helmet's speakers like a shockwave. Doctor Turner trembled with naked terror as the huge monstrosity turned its crimson eyes on him. "WHERE AM I?"
> Chapter 57 - Garden of Sin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doctor Turner stood paralyzed by fear as crimson eyes bored into his own.

"WHERE AM I?" Horrigan repeated in a thunderous voice.

"R-raven Rock," Doctor Turner squeaked.

"HUH, D.C." Horrigan nodded and turned his attention to his armor, inspecting the poisonous looking mist still flowing out of its joints. "WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OIL RIG?"

Doctor Turner winced and pressed his hands over his ears. "Sorry, but can you turn the volume down or something? Your voice is deafening."

He shivered as Horrigan looked back at him, then back to his armor. The flow of mist slowed until all that remained was a faint glow from the joints. "Better?" Horrigan asked.

"Much." Doctor Turner lowered his hands and sagged with relief. "To answer your question; the Poseidon Oil Rig was destroyed around thirty years ago."

Horrigan grunted. "That's unfortunate. Ugh, it feels like I'm whispering." He rubbed his helmet idly, then clambered to his feet in a display of speed and dexterity that belied his size and mismatched nature, startling the doctor once again. "So, who's in charge here?"

"P-president Eden," Doctor Turner replied shakily, rubbing his chest to try and soothe the pounding of his heart. "Well, I say that, but Colonel Autumn is in charge of the military, so I-I guess you'll be answering to him."

"President Eden, Colonel Autumn; got it. So, what's with the lights?" Horrigan gestured vaguely around the room.

Suddenly remembering the tremor and the ghostly laughter, Doctor Turner smiled nervously. "That's actually a very good question. One second." He glanced up at Horrigan one last time, then turned away and stepped over to the intercom. "Er, Mister President? Are you available?" Dead silence was his only response. He jabbed the button a couple more times, then tried calling other people on different channels. After several attempts he finally gave up. "Bugger. Looks like the intercom is down."

"Where's the Colonel?" Horrigan asked.

Doctor Turner shook his head. "Honestly? I have no idea. There was some sort of minor earthquake just before you woke up, which I assume is why the main power is offline."

Horrigan snorted. "In that case, I'll go find out for myself."

"I-I'll come, too!" Doctor Turner hurried after Horrigan as he stomped towards the lab's door. The moment the door started to open the sounds of emergency sirens, terrified screaming, and animalistic roars ripped through the air. 

Doctor Turner cautiously poked his head out into the corridor. The lights were dim out there, too; the emergency lights barely illuminating the large thoroughfare. He felt a rush of panic as he realized that the power outage must have caused containment failures in some of the nearby research labs. With an audible sigh, Horrigan just lumbered out into the corridor, apparently unconcerned with whatever was going on. 

As Doctor Turner stepped out after him another shrill scream echoed down the corridor, which was abruptly cut off with a grisly crunch. Seconds later, Doctor Turner watched in horror as a mutated monstrosity emerged from the shadows. More massive even than Horrigan, the beast resembled a quadrupedal bat with slavering jaws and yard long fangs that dripped with blood and saliva. Letting out a piercing shriek, the Scorchbeast launched itself directly at them.

Horrigan met it head-on. At the last second before impact he threw his arms out and caught it by the jaws, stopping it dead in its tracks. With a savage wrench, he yanked the Scorchbeast's head down to the ground, then slammed a fist through its skull, pulverising it’s brain through mashed bone and flesh.

Revulsion and terror rooted Doctor Turner to the spot as Horrigan straightened back up and looked back over his shoulder. He looked like something that had crawled out of a madman's nightmare; eyes burning crimson and the joints of his armor glowing acidic green, with blood and brain matter dripping from his clenched fist.

Horrigan chuckled darkly and flicked gore from his hand. "Come on. You can fill me in on what I've missed while I was out."





Memories of another world flashed through Becky's mind as she watched Tara laugh demonically. Of all the things that could have resulted from the Equestrian magic loose in this world, seeing the love of her life mutate into Midnight Sparkle was definitely the worst possible outcome. 

Tara's laughter slowly died away, leaving the wailing of the emergency alarms as the only sound, and mere seconds later even they stopped abruptly. Tense silence remained in their wake. 

"So this is what magic feels like." Tara grinned evilly. "I have to say, I like it."

"Um, Tara…?" Becky ventured quietly. She tensed as Tara looked down at her. "Wh-what are you doing?"

Tara's smirk was anything but reassuring. "Power, Sunny. Eden has betrayed us, the Enclave, and humanity itself; he must be deposed. On top of that, Colonel Autumn must be forced to either submit or die. To accomplish this we need power." She held up a hand and a pale green aura of power flickered around it. "I'm the one with the power now."

Becky slowly got to her feet, not daring to take her eyes off Tara for an instant. "What happens when you've dealt with Eden and Autumn?" she asked evenly.

"Then Congress can choose another President, obviously." Tara gave Becky a mildly confused look, then chuckled as realization hit. "Seriously? I'm not going to try and take the Enclave for myself, you twit. You know I'm not interested in leadership."

"You weren't interested in power either until a minute ago," Becky retorted before she could stop herself.

Thankfully, Tara just smiled ruefully. "Don't worry, I don't have any intention of stealing this magic from the Rainbooms. Once it has served its purpose, I'll gladly return it to them."

Becky considered her next words carefully; Tara was certainly behaving more rationally than Midnight had, at least so far, but she didn't want to push it. "What exactly are you planning, if you don't mind my asking?" 

Tara sighed and floated down towards her, gently setting her feet on the floor and raised a hand to caress Becky's cheek. "I swear, once I've dealt with Eden and Autumn, I'll use this power to free the Rainbooms, and return their Geodes. We may have to abandon the Enclave after this, but that's a price I'm willing to pay." Her expression suddenly clouded over and she lowered her voice, "That treacherous bastard Turner had better hope I don't find him, though."

"Turner?" Becky asked in surprise. "What the hell has he done this time?"

"I can sense huge amounts of magic dotted around the base," Tara replied. "There's no way the other scientists managed to gather that much already, not unless Turner showed them how he created more." She let out a dark laugh at the look of shock on Becky's face. "Don't worry, there's nothing in this base I can't handle." 

As if in demonstration, Tara thrust a hand out towards the door and a beam of searing light roared outwards, vaporising the door instantly. "Come, we have a President to depose."





Fumbling in the dark, it took Adam longer than he cared to admit to find the button that opened the door to his cell. He was glad that the alarms had stopped, though. Speaking to President Eden the moment he woke up in captivity was hardly pleasant, but having the intercom and lights cut out the second he grabbed his effects from a locker was unnerving at best. Something was clearly going wrong. Hopefully it was either nothing to do with the Rainbooms or, if it was, it was all a part of some crazy plan they'd concocted.

Once the door was open, Adam cautiously stuck his head out into the corridor. Emergency lighting provided weak illumination, barely enough to see by. A man in some sort of military uniform was patrolling the corridor.

"Hey!" The man yelped and whipped around at Adam's shout. "You mind pointing me in the direction of the President's office?"

The man stared at him in shock, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. "You… what are… what the hell are you doing out of your cell?!" 

Adam stepped into the corridor fully and shrugged. "Beats me. The President let me out of the restraints and told me he wanted to speak in person; he was just telling me how to get there when the power went out. Didn't he inform you, Mister…?"

"It's Lieutenant Williams," the officer insisted. "You say the President wanted to speak with you in person?"

"Yeah. Is there any way you can confirm it with him?" Adam asked.

Lieutenant Williams shook his head. "No, whatever knocked the power out is interfering with our communications, too." He eyed Adam warily. "Did you do something to cause all of this?"

Adam just gave him a flat look. "How in the living hell could I have caused a power blackout from inside a cell?" 

The dumb look on Lieutenant Williams' face was easily the funniest thing Adam had seen in weeks, not counting the stuff that Pinkie came out with. "Uh…" 

"Lieutenant?" Both Adam and Williams turned as a power-armored soldier came around a corner. "Oh, you've found him. I managed to get through to the President on my suit's comms, he wants me to escort the boy from Vault 101 to his office."

"I, uh, really?" Lieutenant Williams glanced back at Adam, then looked back at the soldier and drew himself up. "Is there any word on when the main power will be back online?"

The soldier shook his head. "No idea. The comms are still fucked, I could barely hear the President over all the static. Apparently there have been containment failures and all sorts of weird shit going on all over the base."

Lieutenant Williams made to say something, but Adam stepped around him to interject, "What about the Rainbooms? Are they alright?"

"They're fine. Their restraints failed when the power went out, but they're being cooperative so we stuck them all in one cell so one of us could keep an eye on them while the rest of the squads go and suppress whatever has gotten loose in the science labs."

"Can you take me to them?" Adam asked. "The President will want to speak to them, too."

The soldier nodded. "Sure, come with me." 

Ignoring Lieutenant Williams' blustering attempts at refusal, the soldier led Adam through corridors until they came to another cell guarded by a single soldier. 

"Major, I've brought him," Adam's escort called out. "He wants to take the Rainbooms with him."

The Major cocked his head curiously. "Do you really think that's wise, Corporal Peters?"

Peters shrugged. "If it helps keep them sweet, then why not? I don't fancy getting punched through a wall or getting crushed inside my own armor if they lose their patience, uh, Sir."

"Yeah, me neither." The Major sighed heavily. "Fuck it, all of this magic bullshit is above my pay grade. If the President wants to speak to them, then he can fucking have them." He jabbed the button to open their cell and stuck his head inside. "You can come on out, the President wants to speak to you."

"The President, huh? Well, ain't we lucky." Adam couldn't help but smirk at Applejack's unamused drawl. A moment later she emerged from the cell with Twilight and Rarity in tow. Each of them had their Pip-Boy lights on; reminding Adam that he could have used his own one earlier and not spent ten minutes messing around in pitch blackness. "Hey, Adam. Am Ah glad to see you again. You doing okay?"

"I'm fine," Adam replied. "Where are the others?"

"It's just us, darling," Rarity told him.

"The other four weren't brought in; Colonel Autumn didn't want to risk any more casualties," the Major explained.

Rarity scoffed derisively. "Colonel Autumn would have avoided a lot more if he and the rest of you Enclave brutes had just left us alone."

"I can shove you back in that cell if you want," the Major growled.

"No, you can't," Twilight replied in a low, flat tone, "because we're the only ones who can save you from the nightmare you've unleashed."

Everyone looked at Twilight in concern. She was staring at the ground and flexing her hands, her expression inscrutable.

"Uh, are you okay, sugarcube?" Applejack asked.

Twilight just snorted softly. After a moment of awkward silence the Major shook his head and turned away, gesturing for the others to follow. "Come on, I'm getting you to the President before something else goes wrong."

"That's probably a good idea." Adam glanced worriedly at Twilight before following. "After that, you can release us and we'll get on with our lives."

The Major didn't reply, instead choosing to lead the group through the dimly lit corridors in silence with Corporal Peters bringing up the rear. 

"So, how are you three holding up?" Adam asked as he ambled along.

Rarity sighed and flicked her hair. "Not too bad, all things considered. This is the second time the Enclave has captured us, after all. How about you, darling? You seem to be taking this remarkably well?"

Adam opened his mouth to reply when a sudden surge of emotions clogged his throat. Clamping down on the sudden, inexplicable, urge to cry, Adam shrugged and looked up at the ceiling. "Well, y'know, I've seen a fair amount of crazy stuff since I left the Vault. At this point I figure I may as well just roll with it." He took a deep breath in through his nose to calm himself and jerked his chin at the Major. "Hey, buckethead, how far is it to the President's office?"

"Not far," came the irritated reply.

Once they were out of the cramped cell block, they were led through an empty mess hall and up several flights of stairs to a small room with a solid metal door that a flickering electronic sign marked as the entrance to the 'Tech and Cryo Labs'. Just as the Major was about to open the door he hesitated.

"What's up, Major?" Corporal Peters asked.

The Major looked back over his shoulder. "If there's been containment failures all over the base, it might be a better idea to go through the Bio-Labs instead."

Corporal Peters cocked his head to the side curiously before saying, "Oh, right; this is where they've been keeping Deathclaws. The rest of our squad came through this way though, so the monsters must have been neutralised by now."

"Uh, what's a Deathclaw?" Adam asked warily. The Major's response was drowned out by something heavy slamming into the door from the other side, followed by a rumbling animalistic growl. "On second thought, I'm probably much happier not knowing."

Something crashed into the door again and the whole group took a fearful step back. "We're going around!" the Major snapped. "Get moving. Go, go!"

Before anyone could obey his command, the door was smashed open and something huge forced its way through, using its momentum to charge like a colossal bull into the middle of the group. Everyone dove out of the way, save for the Major who barely had time to shout before he was lifted up on the creature's horns. The poor man was carried across the room until the two slammed into the wall with an impact that shook dust from the ceiling. The creature backed up and shook its head violently to fling the mangled remains of the Major aside, then stood up on two legs and turned to snarl at the others.

The beast was something out of a nightmare; standing twice the height of a man, with a pair of great curving horns sprouting from its head, a mass of sharp fangs spilling from its maw, and long muscular arms tipped with vicious claws. 

"Deathclaw!" Corporal Peters screamed, raising his laser rifle and firing wildly at it. The Deathclaw roared in pain and fury and lunged at the Corporal with a speed that belied its size. Adam watched in horror as the monster bowled the soldier over and started tearing into his armor. The screaming snapped him back to his senses and he yelled to the girls, "Come on! Run while it's distracted!"

Applejack and Rarity ran through the ruined door, with Twilight hot on their heels. Adam let the three of them go first then darted in after. The group found themselves in a high-tech laboratory of sorts with alcoves in every corner and empty cryogenic stasis tubes dotting the room. Corpses littered the floor and another deathclaw was hunched over on the other side of the lab messily devouring the remains of a scientist. 

The deathclaw looked up at the sound of the four running and snarled. 

"This way!" Applejack cried. The others followed her as she bolted towards another door. Adam risked a glance over his shoulder, then swore loudly when he saw that the deathclaw had abandoned its meal in order to chase them down, gaining on them with every step.

Adam turned his attention back to where he was going just in time to see Twilight stumble. He grabbed her as he passed, half-dragging her onwards and desperately praying that she wouldn't fall. "Come on, come on!"

Applejack and Rarity were already through the door, then Adam slapped the button to close it as he crossed the threshold. Twilight let out an agonized scream and fell just as the door slid closed and the deathclaw smacked into it. Adam skidded to a stop and turned to help Twilight, then gasped and cried out to the others, "Guys, Twilight's hurt!"

The deathclaw had managed to get its arm through before the door closed, and was now trying to tear it back open. Twilight lay face-down in front of it where she had fallen, her clothes torn and soaked with blood. 

Applejack rushed back to help Adam pull her away, narrowly avoiding the deathclaw's flailing arm. Together they managed to get her to her feet and pull her arms over their shoulders. 

"Come on, Twi, you're gonna be okay," Applejack said, though the quiver in her voice didn't help her sound convincing. 

Twilight let out a pained moan. "She… she's here."

Before anyone could reply, Rarity shrieked in terror and there came a terrible wrenching sound from the door as the deathclaw managed to tear its way through. Adam was about to duck out from under Twilight's arm, ready to face down the monster with his fists if it would buy the girls a little more time, when a searing bolt of pale green energy lashed out from behind and vaporized the deathclaw's head.

Hardly daring to breathe, Adam slowly turned to look at their saviour.

"Midnight…" Twilight mumbled.

The woman was easily the most terrifying thing Adam had ever seen. Floating a foot off the ground, she was clad in what looked like a torn black lab-coat and had dark purple hair that whipped about in a non-existent wind. Great wings stretched from her back and a glowing horn extended from her forehead.

A scientist stepped around her, eyes widening as she spotted the group. "What the- what are you doing here?"

"Becky?!" Applejack barked in surprise. She glanced up at the floating woman. "What's goi- aw, fuck it, Ah don't care, you've gotta help Twilight! She's hurt, bad!"

"What happened?" Becky ran over to see what was wrong, then winced when she saw Twilight's back. "Tara, little help?"

Midnight-Tara waved a hand and Twilight's shirt was torn to shreds by a purple aura leaving behind only her bra, dangling by the shoulder straps where the backstrap had been severed by the deathclaw's swipe. The purple aura flashed again, clearing the blood away from Twilight's back and revealing four ragged claw-marks. Adam caught a brief, nauseating glimpse of bone before more blood poured from the wounds and covered it.  

"Shit! We need to get her to surgery!" Becky snapped.

"There's no time." Tara thrust a hand out and Twilight screamed as black crystals formed across her wound. "That should keep her going long enough to get her out of here." She floated past, staring down the corridor. "Becky, get them to the war room, I'll join you in a moment. There's something I have to deal with."

Becky opened her mouth to say something, then closed it and frowned, looking at the floor. Adam wondered what was going on for a moment, but then he felt it too. The floor was vibrating; a rhythmic pulse coursing through it as if something tremendously heavy was stomping closer. 

"This way, we're almost there!" The group looked up as another scientist appeared from around a corner. He took one look at them and his hand flew to his chest, fear written across his face. "Ah, bollocks."

A moment later the source of the vibrations became clear as a huge armored soldier stomped around the corner. Well over twelve feet tall, his armor's joints glowed acid-green and his eyes blazed like hellfire. He let out a low chuckle when he spotted the group. "More muties." He slapped a fist into a palm and his armor's joints started leaking a foul green mist. When he spoke again, his voice rocked the air like a thunderclap. "TIME TO DIE."
> Chapter 58 - Clash Under The Mountain
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tara subtly summoned her new powers as she scowled arrogantly at Doctor Turner, pointedly ignoring Horrigan's threat. "I see you've betrayed us yet again. Using Equestrian magic on Horrigan? You are truly insane."

"D-doctor Strong?!" Turner gasped. "You… you're…"

"SHE'S DEAD!" Horrigan lunged forward with surprising agility, drawing his arm back for a punch. 

It was exactly what Tara had expected. Before Horrigan had covered half of the distance between them she raised her arms and a searing bolt of magical power slammed into him, blasting him off his feet. Taking a chance while he was down for a second, Tara called back over her shoulder, "Get those four to the war room! I'll join you once I've dealt with this."

Becky tried to shout a rebuttal, but Tara waved a hand and a flash of dark magic sealed the corridor, rapidly solidifying into a wall of black crystal. Turning back to her opponent, Tara saw that Doctor Turner had made himself scarce while her attention was elsewhere. Unfortunately, hunting the traitor would have to wait as Horrigan was already back on his feet.

"SO, YOU HAVE SOME TRICKS." Horrigan let out a low laugh. "THIS IS ALMOST A FAIR FIGHT."

"Almost." Tara raised her hands again and unleashed another potent magical blast.

Horrigan crossed his arms protectively in front of his face. When the bolt struck, instead of knocking him back again, the ravening energy broke against him like waves against the shore. Tara watched in horror as her magical attack was slowly absorbed by Horrigan's armor, shining green spirals tracing their way up his arms as the energy was consumed. 

The two combatants stared in amazement at the symbols adorning Horrigan's arms, then they locked eyes. 

"Oh, shi-" Tara barely had time to summon a sparkling shield around herself before Horrigan flung his arms out towards her and an emerald inferno erupted from his fists. Gritting her teeth, Tara pushed back with her shield, holding off his onslaught until the flames finally died away.

Horrigan huffed a laugh. "LOOKS LIKE THIS NEW ARMOR HAS SOME TRICKS, TOO." He made to break into a run again, but Tara used her magic to grip one of his feet and yank it aside just as he tried to take a step, sending him crashing to the floor again. 

Another quick magical beam to the head made Horrigan surge back to his feet with a snarl and lunge forward, only to be greeted with a pillar of black crystal that rose from the floor and smacked him in the face. He shattered the pillar with a swipe of his forearm, but another three appeared at once, two smashing into each knee while the third struck him in the lower back, right where his spine met his cybernetics. 

The floor rang as Horrigan's legs buckled and he sank to his knees. Taking advantage while he was down, Tara quickly created an interlocking latticework of more crystals around him, locking him in place. With Horrigan pinned, she reached out with her magic and gripped his helmet, twisting and pulling at the same time. His skull still wasn't fully regenerated, so without his helmet Horrigan's brain would be exposed and vulnerable.

As she continued to work at ripping off the helmet, Tara slowly noticed that Horrigan seemed oddly unconcerned about his predicament. Her blood ran cold as he looked up at her, then shattered the crystals holding him down with a casual shrug and smoothly got to his feet. The evil light pouring from Horrigan's joints refracted through the crystal shards cascading from his body, sending a dizzying array of colors sparkling off the walls. "YOU'RE STARTING TO GET ANNOYING." 

Calmly ignoring the magic still trying to remove his helmet, Horrigan stomped over to the mangled door with a dead Deathclaw stuck under it, ripped the door from its frame, then hurled it directly at Tara. 

Tara barely managed to swat the door aside with her magic. A heartbeat later she caught a thrown chunk of crystal. "You're going to have to-whoa!" Horrigan used the opportunity while she was distracted to close in on Tara, forcing her to stop floating and drop to the floor in order to avoid his wild punch. Caught off-guard, she desperately summoned a shield around herself just as he lashed out with another punch.

The punch landed with the force of a freight train. There was a colossal boom, and Tara felt a second impact as the punch slammed her right through the wall. What felt like dozens more impacts followed, each one sending a shockwave through her whole body, until finally her shield shattered and she was left sailing through the air unprotected. Tara hit the ground with a grunt and rolled, careening across the floor until she eventually ran out of momentum.

Agony coursed through Tara's body. The shield had done its job well, but maintaining it against such a powerful blow had been almost more than she could handle, even with the power of three Geodes to call upon. Her head was ringing so much she could barely tell which direction was up.

A loud crash brought Tara's attention around. Focusing through the pain and disorientation, she clambered slowly to her feet. Looking around, her eyes widened as she realized she was in the maintenance section; Horrigan's punch had knocked her halfway across the facility. 

Another crash made Tara look up at the ragged hole in the wall she had been smashed through. She could sense the magic that flowed through Horrigan coming closer; he was smashing through the intervening walls in order to hunt her down and finish what he had started. Cold fear filled Tara. Despite the incredible power she now wielded, it wasn't enough to even scratch that monster.

Tara sucked in a deep breath and looked around to get her bearings. She may not be able to kill Horrigan, but she might have a chance at getting him off her back long enough for her to escape. Remembering the layout of the section and hoping that the lockdown wasn't going to affect her plan, Tara staggered off through the corridors as quickly as she could.

The crashes got louder as Tara stumbled along. She could sense Horrigan getting closer, inexorable as death itself. Just as she reached the corner of the corridor, she heard the wall behind her explode into bits. 

"THERE YOU ARE." A terrified whimper escaped Tara's lips as she ducked around the corner. "YOU CAN'T ESCAPE ME." Fear lent her speed and she hurried down the next corridor while Horrigan's heavy footfalls thudded loudly after her. She stumbled at the end of the corridor and turned around just in time to see Horrigan stomp around the corner.

Horrigan laughed darkly and rolled his shoulders. "GIVE IT UP, MUTIE. YOU'RE STRONG, I'LL GIVE YOU THAT, BUT YOU'RE STILL A PATHETIC BUG COMPARED TO ME."

Tara forced an arrogant grin onto her face and summoned as much magic as she could, allowing a nimbus of dark energy to flicker around her hands. "Big words, coming from a mutated tin can shit-stain like you."

A furious growl rumbled out from Horrigan's helmet, rising in volume until it became an inarticulate howl of rage that shook the very walls as he launched himself forward. At the very last instant before impact, with the floor warping under his thunderous charge, Tara used her gathered magic to teleport behind him. 

Bereft of his target, Horrigan only realized that he had been tricked when he barged through the doors of the cargo elevator shaft. His momentum carried him across the shaft and his sheer mass dented the far wall when he crashed into it. He hung suspended by the deformation of the steel wall and, for a brief moment, Tara feared that he would be able to climb back out. But, with a screech of tortured metal, Horrigan slipped and fell down the shaft. His enraged roars filled the air until he finally landed with a colossal boom. 

Silence reigned in the aftermath of Horrigan's fall.

Slowly, Tara raised a middle finger down the elevator shaft. "A violent temper, but not very bright. It seems the old records were right about you. Brains over brawn, dickhead."

"THIS ISN'T OVER, MUTIE!" Tara scrabbled back from the shaft as Horrigan's voice echoed out of it, clutching at her pounding heart. "WHEN I FIND YOU, I'M GOING TO RIP YOU LIMB FROM LIMB!"

Deciding that waiting around to be dismembered by a mutant cyborg wasn't high on her to-do list, Tara turned and hurried back towards the walls she had been smashed through, dredging up just enough magic to allow herself to float again. She had to get back to the Rainbooms before that monster found her again.





Adam watched in shock as the wall of black crystal sealed the corridor.

"No! Damn you, Tara!" Becky banged a fist against the crystal angrily. "Shit!" 

The others watched her uneasily as the sounds of battle wafted through the magical barricade. "Er… what should we do now?" Rarity asked slowly.

Becky thumped the crystal one last time, then swore under her breath and turned to face the group. "We'll wait for Tara in the war room. Twilight? How are you doing?"

"I…" Twilight let out a pained groan, but managed to lift her head up to look at the doctor. "It hurts, but I think I can manage."

Adam was about to offer her his jacket to cover her effectively naked torso when a sudden tremor rippled through the floor. "What the hell was that?"

"Nothing we can do anything about," Becky said bitterly. "Come on, let's get moving."

With a shrug, Adam and Applejack shifted Twilight slightly so she was settled more comfortably between them, then set off after the doctor. Rarity gave them an awkward look as she walked alongside. "Shouldn't we at least cover you up, darling?"

Adam blushed, trying hard not to think about the fact that he was currently holding the first topless woman he had ever seen. Despite the circumstances, his mouth suddenly felt very dry. Twilight just huffed in pain and embarrassment. "It's… fine… just move," she hissed.

The five of them moved on in silence as Becky led them through the winding corridors, then up a short flight of stairs and into a large round room at the top. Inside was a raised platform bearing a circular metal desk. Atop that platform, turning to stare at the group as they entered, was Colonel Autumn. "What the hell are all of you doing in here!" he snapped.

Becky just threw him a glare, then turned to the others. "Get Twilight up here and lean her against the map so I can check her wounds."

"You'll do no such thing!" Colonel Autumn growled. "This is a restricted area! Get them out of-" He quickly shut his mouth as Becky ripped her laser pistol out of its holster and aimed it at his face. 

"I'd stay quiet if I were you," Becky said flatly. She gestured to his waist. "Your sidearm, drop it."

The Colonel scowled, but did as he was told. As soon as he had dropped his own pistol and kicked it away, Adam and Applejack helped Twilight up onto the platform and leaned her against the desk. Focusing on the desk rather than the semi-naked girl next to him, Adam realized that it was actually a holographic map detailing what appeared to be troop positions. 

"I'm going to have to ask you to look somewhere else, boy," Colonel Autumn said curtly. "And as for you, Doctor Shoichet, I hope you understand that what you are doing right now is treason."

"What I'm doing is trying to fix what you and President Eden fucked," Becky retorted, then nodded to Adam. "Hey, take my gun. Do not let him move."

"Gladly." Adam carefully took the pistol, keeping it trained on the Colonel. After what had happened with his father, it took a supreme effort of will not to pull the trigger immediately. 

The moment Becky's gun was handed over she turned her attention to Twilight. She couldn't hold back a grimace when she inspected the crystals encasing Twilight's wounds. "Okay, uh, good news and bad news. Good news; you're not bleeding. Bad news; I haven't got a fucking clue what to do about this. Tara said it'll keep you going long enough to get you somewhere safe, so I guess we're just going to have to trust her."

Twilight just nodded in response. Given that there was little else she could do, Becky shrugged off her lab coat and gave it to Twilight, helping her to get it on. 

Colonel Autumn watched the proceedings with a curious frown. "What exactly is going on here?"

"You're shutting your mouth and doing as you're told, that's what," Adam said firmly.

"It's fine, he should know about this." Becky took a deep breath and turned to face the Colonel, who waited expectantly. "Doctor Turner smuggled Equestrian magic into the base, I assume on the President's orders. As literally anyone other than them could have predicted, the magic has broken loose. That's what's causing the power outage in the base. As if that's not enough, Tara and I just discovered that Project Scouring is still active. Again, on the President's orders."

"What?!" Colonel Autumn paled in the face of Becky's half-truth. "How do you know all of this?"

"I hacked the President's personal files, that's how we learned about Project Scouring," Becky told him, protecting Tara with another half-truth.

"I see. And, I suppose you think that I had something to do with it?" Colonel Autumn asked.

Becky shook her head. "Actually, I don't. I heard how much you argued against that Project."

"Then why in God's name is there a gun pointed at my head?!" Colonel Autumn snarled.

"Well I'm pointing it because you killed my father," Adam said bluntly. 

"Your father killed himself, boy," Colonel Autumn replied in an icy tone. "If he had just handed over control of the purifier as ordered he would have been permitted to stay on board as an advisor. Instead, he chose to throw his life away in a spiteful attempt to deny the Enclave our rightful-"

The Colonel's rant ended in an agonized yell as Adam shot him in the arm. "Keep jabbering and the next one will be in your face. 

"You tell him, Sugarcube," Applejack put in. 

Becky raised an eyebrow and gave Autumn a cold look. "I'm having a gun pointed at your head because we knew that the first thing you'd do when we told you about Project Scouring was start planning a military coup. I am not going to let that happen. We'll deal with President Eden, and then we'll have Congress elect a replacement, like the democracy that we're supposed to be."

If looks could kill, the Colonel's glare would have put Becky in a coffin. With Adam still pointing the gun at him, however, he wisely chose to stay silent.

Applejack pinched the bridge of her nose and held a hand up. "Okay, can we just take a step back for a second, please? First of all, what the heck is Project Scouring, and what exactly is so evil about it? Second, how did Doc Tara go all Midnight Sparkle on us? And for that matter, what in the name of applesauce is that thing that she's fighting back there?!"

"Whatever it was, it was pumped full of Equestrian magic," Twilight supplied weakly.

"Also, what's a Midnight Sparkle?" Adam added.

Becky bit her lip and looked back at the door they came in through. Seeing her look, Applejack clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Tara's gonna be fine, and we aren’t going anywhere until she's back. Why don't you tell us what you know while we wait; try and take your mind off it."

Without any better ideas, Adam and the others listened intently as Becky explained almost everything; including Doctor Turner's discovery that radiation causes magic to replicate, Tara's usage of the Geodes to empower herself, and the apparent smuggling of magic and its use on Horrigan.

Rarity hummed thoughtfully. "So, this Horrigan fellow is some form of mutated super soldier?"

"I think so, but I don't really know any details," Becky replied. "All I've heard are old stories about him. Honestly, I thought he had died decades ago." She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. "If he's back and pumped full of Equestrian magic, there's no telling what he'll do. He's probably as much of a threat to the Enclave as he is to anything else."

Adam nodded. He still had the gun pointed at Colonel Autumn and was stubbornly refusing to admit that his arms were starting to get tired from it. "What about Midnight Sparkle?"

"She's an evil version of me," Twilight answered quietly. She rubbed her neck awkwardly as she explained, "Before I became friends with Applejack, Rarity, and the others, I created a device that accidentally siphoned off some of their magic. My principal at the time pressured me into using the stolen magic to win some silly competition and it turned me into a dark and twisted version of myself; obsessed with learning everything about magic and willing to destroy anything that got in my way. I almost ripped my world apart trying to get to Equestria." She looked bleakly up at her friends. "Now that Tara is using our Geodes, she must have turned into her own version of Midnight."

Adam struggled to suppress a shudder at the thought of having a monster that powerful coming up to greet them at any moment. Then again, she sure is taking her time getting up here. That Horrigan must be one hell of a beast to be able to keep her busy for so long.

"What about Project Scouring?" Applejack asked suddenly. "You've told us everything else, but you haven't said anything about what that Project actually is."

Becky winced and nodded. "Right, yeah. Sorry, I'm too used to keeping classified stuff secret. Project Scouring is an ol-"

"Don't you dare tell them about Project Scouring, Doctor. That's an order!" Colonel Autumn barked. "You're teetering on the brink of treason already, but if you tell them anything else I'll have no choice but to order your execution!"

"Will you please just shut up!" Twilight raised her hand and a black aura flashed into being around Colonel Autumn's forearms. She flicked her wrist, and the Colonel screamed in agony as both of his arms snapped loudly.

The others stared in horror as Colonel Autumn dropped to his knees, trying to cradle his mangled arms against his knees.

"Nicely done." Everyone looked around to see Tara float through the door, grinning from ear to ear. "You shouldn't use too much of the magic from those crystals, though. It's what's keeping you from bleeding to death."

"Wait a minute, those crystals in her back let her use magic?" Becky asked incredulously.

Tara nodded. "Indeed they do. Anyway, you were all asking about Project Scouring." She floated past the group and over to another door on the other side of the room. "Project Scouring was an old plan to release a modified strain of FEV into the atmosphere. The FEV was designed to kill anything that had mutated DNA, including any humans that weren't born in Vaults or the sealed facilities of the Enclave." 

Stopping just before the door, Tara turned to face the group. "The plan failed, but President Eden decided to try again, this time altering the FEV so that it was waterborne rather than airborne. Congress voted to cancel the Project, as the number of unmutated humans has dropped to such low levels that releasing the new Scouring strain would put humanity at risk of extinction, not to mention the fact that it's just downright evil. Unfortunately, it seems that President Eden has been keeping the project going in secret."

"Project Purity." Adam's blood ran cold as he realized what the President's plan was. "He must want to use the purifier to spread the FEV directly to all of the settlements in the Capital Wasteland."

Tara nodded grimly. "My thoughts exactly. Come on." She turned back and used her magic to open the door. "We have a President to dispose of."
> Chapter 59 - President Eden
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doctor Turner struggled to control his breathing as the elevator descended to the lower levels of Raven Rock. His journey up to the war room with Horrigan had shown him that something was going very wrong at the base, but he had never expected to see Doctor Strong so monstrously mutated. She had been barely recognisable. Given the fact that she now, apparently, had the magical power to go toe-to-toe with Horrigan, Doctor Turner had done the most sensible thing he could in the circumstances; run as fast and as far away as he could.

He hardly had a set destination in mind, so by the time Doctor Turner regained some semblance of composure, he was already in an elevator, though he had no idea which one. He flinched when the elevator reached the bottom and the doors slid open.

"Oh… well, shit," Doctor Turner muttered as he realized that he was on the biological storage level, right around the corner from the Wanamingo pens. He poked his head out into the corridor, then, seeing no immediate threats, crept out and made his way towards the nearest panic room.

Fortunately for Doctor Turner, the corridors were deserted. He saw signs of escaped beasts everywhere; scratches and blast marks marred the walls at irregular intervals and empty pens lined either side of the corridor, but he didn't encounter anyone, or anything, until he stumbled across a square hole in the floor.

The hole was almost ten feet wide, right in the middle of the corridor. Doctor Turner shuffled cautiously up to the edge and peeked in. The hole dropped over a dozen feet until it opened into a tunnel, one the doctor recognised as serving the facility's ventilation needs. A mangled grating lay at the bottom on the floor of the tunnel.

Doctor Turner was so absorbed in inspecting the hole that he didn't notice the sounds of heavy footfalls coming closer until they were almost upon him. When the noise finally penetrated his consciousness, he gasped and whipped around just in time to see Horrigan come to a stop right next to him.

"DOC?" Doctor Turner yelped, cowered, and clamped his hands over his ears at Horrigan's thunderous voice prompting a rumbling sigh from the huge being. The green mist pouring from his joints slowed to a trickle and when he spoke next it was with an annoyed huff, "What have you found, doc?"

The doctor slowly took his hands away from his ears. Once he was certain that Horrigan wasn't about to try and deafen him again, he glanced back at the hole. "It looks like one of the specimens has escaped into the ventilation tunnels. I hope it wasn't one of the queens, the tunnels connect to vents on the outside and the last thing we need is Wanamingos or Scorchbeasts getting out and breeding all over the wastes again." He shook his head and looked up at Horrigan. "Anyway, what are you doing down here? How did you even get down here?"

Horrigan growled and jabbed a thumb back over his shoulder. "That mutie dumped me down an elevator shaft. I'm just looking for a way back up so I can rip her arms off and stuff them down her throat."

Something told Doctor Turner that Horrigan wasn't being metaphorical when he said that. Still, the big brute was surprisingly calm for someone who had just been dropped down about six storeys. "I, er, as much as I can understand the sentiment, I believe we have a somewhat more pressing matter to attend to, if you're up to it?"

"What do you mean?" Horrigan asked.

Doctor Turner glanced at the hole again, thinking fast. If Tara was heading to the war room while hopped up on Equestrian magic, chances were that she was going after the President. If so, it was almost guaranteed that Eden was going to fall long before Horrigan would be able to stop her, and Doctor Turner was certain that he would be next on her hit list. 

Of course, Horrigan probably wouldn't give a damn about any of that, but Doctor Turner had a backup plan. "If a progenitor specimen has escaped into the wastes, it will cause immense disruption to the Enclave's operations in this region. We have to prevent that. The mutant we encountered upstairs is powerful, but ultimately less of a threat. Besides, she'll still be here when we get back, unless Colonel Autumn's troops bring her down first."

Horrigan looked down at the hole, then sighed heavily. "Fine, but make it quick. I want that mutie dead."

"The sooner we chase down any escapees, the sooner you can get back," Doctor Turner said quickly. He crouched down next to the hole and peered in again, frowning. "I suppose the only problem is how we're going to get you down there. There's an access ladder I can use, bu-" His question was answered as Horrigan stomped up to the hole and simply dropped in, landing on his feet with a thunderous crash. "Well, I suppose that's one way of doing it."





Adam watched as Tara floated through the door. A robotic voice rang out through the doorway, swiftly followed by the sounds of rending metal and general destruction, then Tara popped her head back through the door. "Okay, it's safe now. Follow me."

The girls followed her immediately, Becky and Applejack supporting Twilight between them, but Adam hesitated as he looked down at Colonel Autumn. His finger curled around the trigger of the laser pistol held loosely at his side. "Did you know? About what your President was planning for Project Purity?"

The Colonel glared up at him, his eyes full of hate and pain. "Of course I didn't," he spat. "If I wanted everyone in the wastes dead, I wouldn't have bothered keeping the extra technicians alive."

Adam gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on the pistol, then sighed and turned away, following the others through the door. 

On the other side was a small antechamber where the others were waiting. Scattered across the floor were the disparate remnants of what Adam assumed were recently two or three advanced military robots. "Whoa. Why did you destroy the bots?" 

Tara just shrugged. "They defend the President's chamber. It's better than waiting for them to start shooting. We're lucky, usually there are a couple of soldiers posted here, too. I assume Colonel Autumn ordered them to help out around the base when the power went down."

Now that Adam had caught up, Tara opened the door at the other end of the room and floated through, gesturing for the others to follow. A short corridor on the other side led to a tall room full of computers and databanks. A hollow pillar stood in the centre of the room. The top of it was lost in the gloom above, stretching up to disappear among vast banks of servers and electrical equipment. A narrow staircase wound around the pillar until it reached a mesh walkway about halfway up.

Applejack groaned when she saw the staircase. "You're telling me we've gotta climb all the way up there? Just where is your President's office anyway?"

"This is his office," Tara replied. "And no, you don't have to climb." She raised her hands and a dark purple aura gripped each of the others, then she snapped her wings open and, with a mighty flap, launched herself upward. The others yelped as her magic lifted them up with her, but the ride was surprisingly smooth until they all reached the walkway and she deposited them gently on their feet.

Adam gave himself a shake as he checked himself over. "Give me a warning next time, would you? Just being snatched up like that gives me the willies."

Tara ignored him and strode up to the pillar. A large screen was set into it at head height with smaller ones at each corner and a bulky computer console underneath. The smaller screens displayed constantly shifting lines of code and data, but the large one was entirely blank, save for a single blue line that bisected it horizontally. A vase filled with fresh daffodils sat incongruously on top of the console. Tara stopped in front of the console and folded her arms. "Good afternoon, Mister President."

The rest of the group looked up in confusion, though that confusion turned to amazement when the blue line on the screen quavered and an electronic voice answered, "Good afternoon, Doctor Strong. I must admit, I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon, or in such an… unusual form."

"Yes, well, I've learned a few things since our last meeting and I felt that it would be best if I had the ability to defend myself," Tara replied evenly.

"I see. I'd like to thank you for bringing our visitor from Vault 101 along with you, by the way, although I see you also brought our Rainboom guests and your paramour." The electronic voice chuckled softly. "I don't think I've ever had so many visitors to my inner sanctum at once."

Becky stepped haltingly towards the screen, looking confused. "Tara, what's going on? This is… isn't this the ZAX AI that runs the base's systems? But…" she glanced sidelong at Tara, then looked back at the screen. "You're telling me that this is President Eden?!"

"Indeed I am," President Eden replied. "You are all now privy to one of the most highly classified secrets in the Enclave." 

"You're kidding, right?" Applejack cut in. "Are you seriously telling me that your big bad President is some lousy computer?!"

"I am far more than 'some lousy computer', if you don't mind," President Eden said in a frosty tone. "While I was once little more than a simple AI, created to monitor this very facility, over the decades and, indeed, centuries, I have become something far, far greater."

Tara let out a scornful snort. "A fluke glitch gave him self-awareness and he crafted a personality for himself by mashing together the biographies of every US President from the time of the Founding Fathers right up until nuclear war broke out. When the Enclave retreated here after our devastating losses on the West Coast, they needed a strong leader. That was when this AI assumed control and 'President Eden' was born."

Adam and the girls shared a surprised look, but the President spoke up before any of them could sort out their thoughts, "A little overly simplified, but correct in essence. Nevertheless, since my inauguration, I have led the Enclave from victory to victory, and my great plans for this once beautiful country of ours are only just beginning."

"Like Project Scouring, you mean?" Tara asked darkly.

Tense silence filled the room. "I thought I felt someone digging around earlier," President Eden said slowly. "I can only assume that the good Doctor Shoichet put you up to it, you aren't the type to do something so insubordinate without prompting."

"We had good reason," Becky put in. "I was going to ask how the hell you could be so evil as to continue that plan, but I guess an AI just doesn't give a damn about humanity."

"On the contrary, Doctor," President Eden replied in a hurt voice. "I care a great deal about humanity and its future. It's because I care that I continued Project Scouring. The scourge of mutation runs rampant across the wasteland, beyond the ability of either the Enclave or those cultists, the Brotherhood of Steel, to counter. The only way we can restore this great country to its former glory is if we wipe the slate clean and start over. Project Scouring will allow us to do that."

"You're talking about another genocide!" Becky spat.

The President sighed heavily. "It is unfortunate, and do not think that I made this decision lightly, but it is a necessary evil. The mutated dregs of humanity that scuttle across the wastes do little more than wage near-constant war upon each other. Only when the mutants are gone can the true and pure Americans of the Enclave and the surviving Vaults revive and restore the United States in its entirety." President Eden's voice took on a pleading tone as he continued, "Don't you see? I want to bring about a mighty change, a change you can believe in. I can make the United States great again."

"Great, you say?" Rarity scoffed and flicked her hair. "I hate to say it, darling, but you happen to be the biggest hypocrite I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. By far."

"I beg your pardon?" Eden asked icily. 

"She's right," Applejack replied quietly. "You say that the other humans do nothing but wage war. But, from what we've seen, the Enclave has been causing more violence and suffering than all of the others put together. And another thing; say you do manage to kill off everyone else in the wasteland, what's to say that some of your Enclave buddies aren't gonna start fighting amongst themselves over whatever's left."

"Don't be absurd," President Eden chuckled. "Once we have restored our sovereignty, there will be no more need for war or violence. We will finally be able to live in perfect harmony, as one."

"How do you know?" Becky snapped.

"It's obvious," President Eden shot back.

Twilight coughed out a laugh, causing the others to give her worried looks, but she ignored them and stared up at the screen. "Circular logic."

The screen flickered as President Eden hesitated. "Circular… what do you mean?"

Tara nodded slowly. "You know because… you know? You say it's obvious, and yet everyone in the Enclave knows about the power struggles that go on between the higher ups, especially between you and Colonel Autumn."

"Those are just growing pains," President Eden retorted. "Once things have settled down-"

"What if they don't?" Tara interrupted. "How long until disagreements among the brass escalate into violence, like they did before?" She floated down until her feet touched the floor and slammed her hands onto the console, her face inches from the screen. "Face it, Eden, neither you, nor me, nor the rest of the Enclave, are any better than anyone else. You forget; the only reason that the people out there had to survive through the radiation and the mutations is because we, the Enclave, abandoned them. This bullshit stops now. Project Scouring stops now. And your Presidency stops, now."

The room fell silent once more as President Eden considered her words. Finally, after almost a minute, he said quietly, "Very well, Doctor, how do we proceed from here? Are you forcing a coup and becoming President yourself?"

Tara shook her head and stepped back from the console. "No. I have no interest in ruling. What's going to happen is this; first, we are going to get the power back online and make sure that any escaped experiments are returned to containment. While we're doing that, you are going to authorize a peace treaty to be brought to the Brotherhood of Steel as soon as physically possible. After that, you are going to step down as President and resume your post as monitor of this facility and nothing more."

"You don't intend to destroy me?" President Eden asked conversationally.

"Not unless you try to betray us again," Tara replied darkly. 

"I suppose that's fair." Eden let out a drawn-out sigh. "Who do you plan on putting in charge, then?"

Becky shrugged. "I guess we'll have to inform Congress that they're going to be holding an election. It shouldn't be too hard. There's only, what, five or six members?"

"We just have to make sure that Colonel Autumn doesn't try and stage a military coup." Tara folded her arms and hummed as she thought. "I suppose I can ask Andrew to keep him in check. He's got enough sway with the troops to at least put a damper on Colonel Autumn's ambitions."

"Er, excuse me?" Everyone looked around as Adam raised a hand sheepishly. "I, er… Eden? I assume you have a sample of the thing you were going to use for Project Scouring?"

"I do," Eden replied. "I was hoping that you would insert it into the purifier at Project Purity once it was active, but it appears that plan has failed. Why?"

"Do you mind if I have the sample?" Adam asked.

The others all stared at him as if he had gone mad. "Why in the heck would you want that?!" Applejack cried.

Adam winced and held up a hand placatingly. "I was just thinking we could take it to the Brotherhood of Steel so they can make a vaccine, or an antivirus, or something. You know, in case someone else tries something like this somewhere down the line."

"That's actually a pretty good plan." Tara glanced back at Eden. "Where are the samples?"

A panel on the base of the console opened and extended like a drawer, revealing a slot containing a single glass capsule. "There was only one sample made. It was all I could smuggle the resources for." He waited until Adam had collected the capsule before retracting the panel. "Was Project Scouring really so misguided?"

"Yes," everyone replied in unison. "Even Colonel Autumn was against that plan, and we all know what an ass-hat that guy is," Becky added.

"Back on the topic of Project Purity," Rarity cut in, "what's going to happen to it now?"

Tara tapped a finger against her chin. "I think the best thing to do would be to hand control of it over to the Brotherhood of Steel for now, as a goodwill gesture to show that we are serious about the peace treaty. Once things have calmed down we can offer resources to help with distribu-"

"No." The group looked around to see Colonel Autumn stagger onto the walkway. His mangled arms dangled uselessly in front of him as he shuffled forward. The agony must have been near unbearable, but his face was a mask of furious determination. "Project Purity belongs to the Enclave. With it, we can unite the wastes under one banner, and finally start rebuilding our world."

"That's exactly what we were just talking about," Becky told him, grimacing at the sight of his arms. 

"I think we should get the Colonel some medical attent-" Eden began.

Colonel Autumn snarled. "You don't get to speak, traitor. You've already betrayed everything the Enclave is and stands for, I'm not going to let you and these charlatans give away our one shot at restoring our nation and our government." He slumped against the guard rail and slid to the floor, hissing as his arms bent at an awkward angle. Glaring up at Eden, he spat through clenched teeth, "Priority Override, Authorization code 420… 03… 20… 9..."

President Eden's screen flickered. "No… oh my…" His screen flickered again and when he spoke next it was in a flat monotone, "Root level access granted. Override O-923. Authorization J-512. Self-destruct sequence initialized."

A sudden blare of alarms made Adam jump out of his skin. "What's going on? What's happening?!"

Tara snarled and reached out with her magic, enveloping Colonel Autumn in a dark purple aura, and hurled him against a wall. His arms flopped around loosely as he collapsed to the walkway, unconscious. "Fucking asshole!" She turned to the others and pointed to a door at the end of the walkway. "That must have been the emergency override code, that fucker just set off the base's self destruct sequence! We have to move. Now!"





Just inside the main ground entrance to Raven Rock, a pair of armored soldiers looked around in alarm as they heard the sirens start blaring. "What fuck, is that the evacuation alarm?! What the fuck is going on?!"

The second soldier shook his head. "Hell if I know. Hey, what the hell is that?!" 

The first soldier turned to see what he was pointing at. The main door to the facility, a thick metal construct designed to withstand a nuclear blast, was suddenly glowing with a vivid pink light. "Oh, shit! Get ba-"

Before he could finish, the door detonated with the force of a bomb, punching the two off their feet. As the echoes of the explosion faded, one of the soldiers groaned and looked up. Several figures slowly materialized through the dust.

"Nice work, Pinkie," one if them called as she stepped through the shattered entrance. 

The soldier watched in stunned disbelief as the rest of the Rainbooms followed her in, one clutching a glowing pink pickaxe, another swinging a sword that blazed with blue fire. A Super Mutant was the last one through the doorway, hefting an Enclave issue gatling laser. 

Sunset Shimmer raised her assault rifle and pointed it directly at the fallen soldier. "Alright, asshole, what have you done with our friends?"
> Chapter 60 - Ravenfall
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adam swore and looked up at President Eden. "Hey, can you deactivate the self destruct?"

"Once initiated, the self destruct sequence cannot be terminated without authorization by Enclave personnel of General rank or higher," Eden replied in a flat monotone. "Recommend that personnel and civilians evacuate the facility immediately."

"There's no point, the override code will have suppressed his higher functions." Tara used her magic to open the nearby door and waved the others through. "Come on, we don't have any time to waste!"

The others hurried through quickly, Becky and Applejack still supporting Twilight between them. Rarity slowed down as she reached the door and looked down at Colonel Autumn's unconscious form. "Er, is he dead?"

"Who gives a shit? Just move!" Becky snapped.

Adam glanced at the Colonel as he hurried out of the door. Conflicting emotions briefly fought within him but after a second he shook his head and continued on, trying not to feel guilty for leaving the man to die.

Outside the door to the President’s chamber the group found themselves in another maze of corridors. If it weren't for Tara and Becky, Adam and the girls would have swiftly ended up hopelessly lost. 

What Becky and Tara couldn't really help with was how much the situation had changed over the last few minutes. Before, the corridors had been quiet; the lockdown ensuring that only a few personnel were wandering around. Now, with the sirens blaring almost painfully loud, people were hurrying about all over the place; an evacuation plan clearly in action. Many of the evacuees did a double take when they spotted Tara floating along, but luckily they were all more interested in escaping with their lives than getting in the way of the floating witch. 

Even the soldiers they encountered gave them little more than a passing glance, and the few robots that were ushering people along didn't pay them even the slightest bit of attention.

As the group hurried onwards, Adam kept his head on a swivel, constantly checking his surroundings. Glancing through a window in the corridor, he was surprised to see an elevator carrying a Vertibird up a cylindrical shaft. He looked over at Becky and shouted to make himself heard over the din, "How is that thing working? I thought the power was still out?"

"Emergency generators," Becky replied. "They provide enough power for an evacuation in case of an emergency."

Adam nodded, but before he could say anything else a sharp noise echoed through the corridors, barely audible above the sirens. "Was that a gunshot?" Almost as soon as he spoke he heard the zap and snap of laser fire interspersed with the clatter of more traditional weaponry.

Tara and Becky shared a worried look. "There aren't any bio-labs up here, so there shouldn't be any escaped specimens roaming around," Tara said with a scowl. "Whatever it is, they can get the fuck out of our way. We're nearly at the exit and we don't have time for this bullshit."

Without another word, Tara hurried onwards towards the sound of the firefight. The others quickly followed, but Adam paused as he spotted something through a nearby door. "Hello, what fool abandoned you?"





The blaring of the sirens was almost deafening as it reverberated through the base, the sheer volume of them designed to physically encourage all human personnel to leave as swiftly as possible. Despite that, Eden found the rhythmic wailing to be oddly soothing. 

Locked away in a tiny corner of his own mind, or servers if you wanted to get technical, the President of the Enclave could do little more than wait for the end to come. He technically still had access to the facility's surveillance system, but the general power outage meant that only a handful of cameras were operational. Even the camera in his own sanctum was on the fritz. At least, he assumed so, given that he couldn't see Colonel Autumn anywhere, though he supposed that someone could have moved the man while he wasn't paying attention.

Eden let out an internal sigh as he considered Colonel Autumn. Strangely, he couldn't bring himself to blame the poor fellow. They may not have seen eye to eye, but everything the Colonel had done had been for the good of the Enclave, however misguided, and that sort of devotion was something that the President could respect. At the present moment, it was something he could identify with on a fundamental level.

Naturally, while he was pondering his situation, Eden had tried everything he could to get around the override, but nothing had worked. All he had managed to do was delay the self-destruct by a couple of minutes. It wasn't much, but it should be enough to allow most of the personnel to get to safety. The fact that the facility was on lockdown would actually help in that regard; part of lockdown procedure was to review evacuation routes as soon as you were in a secure location, precisely in case of situations like this.

As the clock ticked down towards the inevitable, the President idly wondered how the blast from the self-destruct would affect any magic the scientists had left behind. Probably nothing good. Unfortunately, there was no way he could do anything about it now. In the last few seconds before the facility blew, Eden tried to come up with a final quote; some enigmatic last words worthy of a great President, nothing particular came to mind.

I suppose this is it. My final moments, and I can't even think of something to say, though I suppose that's only human.

I wonder what it's like, living the way they do?

That spark of curiosity was the last thing to go through Eden's mind before the clock ran out and the first detonations started.





Doctor Turner glanced anxiously back over his shoulder as he and Horrigan made their way through the ventilation tunnel. The self-destruct sirens could be heard echoing, weirdly warbling, even at their distance from the main facility.

When they first started, Horrigan had immediately attempted to turn back and deal with whatever was causing them. Doctor Turner had only convinced him not to by pointing out that whatever had caused them, it was certainly far too late to prevent the base from going up in flames. The best option was simply to keep going and get as far away from the blast as possible. Ascertaining what had gone wrong could come later, though Doctor Turner was quietly confident that Doctor Strong had had something to do with it.

"What's that?" Horrigan asked suddenly.

Doctor Turner followed his gaze to a large pile of pale slime on the floor. "I'm no expert, but I think that's guano." Which means at least one Scorchbeast really did come this way. That's not good.

Putting thoughts of giant bat-like monstrosities to the back of his mind, Doctor Turner stepped past the suspected turd and made to continue down the tunnel, then paused as he noticed an odd green glow on the walls throwing his and Horrigan's shadows out ahead of them. A heartbeat later he felt a faint rumble through the floor.

"Oh no…" With an awful sinking feeling in his stomach, Doctor Turner turned to see a green light back down the way they had come, growing brighter and closer with every passing second. "Oh shit… oh shit!"

"Get down!" Horrigan dropped to one knee and threw his arms around the Doctor, protecting Turner with his own body just as the blast reached them.





Sunset ducked back behind a reinforced door frame as a bolt of plasma narrowly missed her; things weren't looking good. After blasting their way into Raven Rock, she and the others had beaten their way past the first few soldiers they had met; largely thanks to Pinkie, Fawkes, and the element of surprise, but now they were encountering more organized resistance and their advance had stalled. 

Right now the group was stuck in a small room linking two corridors. Fawkes and Pinkie were holding the soldiers ahead at bay and Sunset was helping out where she could, not that her assault rifle was making much of an impression against the Enclave's power armor, but it was proving impossible to push forward any further. Fluttershy and Rainbow hung back, making sure that no-one managed to flank them through a hidden door somehow.

Silently cursing the sirens that were starting to make her head throb, Sunset risked another look through the door. A swift barrage of laser and plasma fire had her skip back out of the line of fire. "Crap! How are we supposed to get through this?!" 

"Dunno!" Pinkie cried as she blindly lobbed a glowing Nuka-Cola through the door. A pink blast lit up the dim room a second later. "At least they aren't trying grenades again!"

Sunset couldn't argue with that. A couple of soldiers had tried to use grenades to shift the group, but after having them thrown back courtesy of Rainbow, the rest had given up trying and stuck to using guns.

"This is quite a dangerous predicament!" Fawkes shouted as he slapped a fresh magazine into his heavy gatling laser. He was about to step out and start shooting again when a sudden wave of darkness swept across the floor almost faster than the eye could see. A second later the shadow faded from sight, leaving behind a thick layer of black crystal that encompassed each member of the group's feet, rooting them to the spot.

Before anyone could react, a soldier thundered into the room. He skidded to a halt, looked around in apparent surprise when he saw everyone. "Huh? What are you guys doing here?" Fawkes and Sunset both raised their weapons at the same time and the soldier threw his hands up in the air, waving them frantically. "Whoa, don't shoot, it's me! It's me!"

"Adam?!" Sunset cried in amazement.

The soldier nodded quickly. "Yeah, it's me. Now come on, we need to get out of here!"

"Hold up!" Sunset snapped, not daring to lower her gun. "How do we know it's really you?"

"It's him." A purple aura gripped Sunset and Fawkes' weapons and forced them down, then a wave of terror washed through Sunset as Midnight Sparkle floated through the door. "I wasn't expecting to see all of you here." She waved a hand and the crystals encasing the group's feet disappeared. "We need to move, this whole facility is about to explode." 

Sunset just blinked in surprise. "I… what... Tara...?" She gasped as she spotted Applejack and Becky supporting Twilight between them, but before she could anything a purple aura grabbed her and shoved her back.

"Chat later! We need to move!" Midnight Tara snapped.

The urgency in her voice got to Sunset more than her words did. As Sunset and the others hurried out of the room Tara turned and waved to the soldiers, yelling at them to start running, too. 

The next couple of minutes were a blur to Sunset as she found herself swept up by a whole crowd of people, both soldiers and otherwise, all making a mad dash for the base's main entrance. All enmity was forgotten in the rush to escape; Adam helped drag a fallen scientist back to his feet as he ran, and more than once an Enclave soldier helped one of the Rainbooms when they stumbled.

The mismatched group finally caught sight of the mangled remnants of the entrance door just as a great tremor shook the base and the rush turned into a last-ditch sprint as panic took hold. Rainbow was the first to reach the door, swiftly followed by Fawkes and Rarity, with Sunset hot on their heels.

Thick cloud cover obscured the sun, but even the wan sunlight was incredibly bright compared to the tunnels of Raven Rock. Even so, no-one stopped running, especially as another tremor rocked the earth beneath their feet.

Risking a glance back over her shoulder, Sunset saw several Vertibirds fleeing from the upper reaches of the mountain, gaining altitude rapidly to escape the coming blast.

Everyone was still running when acid-green flames suddenly flared out from various doors and shafts all over the mountain. Another huge tremor set the earth quaking so much that Sunset tripped and ended up sprawled out on the ground. She wasn't the only one. As more explosions tore through the mountain Sunset curled up into a ball, desperately hoping that they were out of the blast radius until, at last, one final shockwave rippled through the ground and the noise stopped in an instant, as if someone had flipped a switch. 

Slowly, unsure of how safe she was, Sunset uncurled and looked back at the mountain. Despite the apparent violence that had just occurred inside, Raven Rock looked surprisingly untouched. "Huh, that wasn't so-"

Before she could finish the mountain suddenly flashed with an intense blackness that seemed to swallow all light. The darkness rippled out from Raven Rock and overtook the group in the blink of an eye. Sunset yelled and covered her ears as scorching gale-force winds buffeted her, a terrifying noise like the screams of dying souls assaulting her ears. 

After what felt like hours, though in reality it was probably only moments, the wind and the screaming died away to nothing, leaving naught but a ringing silence in its wake.
> Chapter 61 - Darkness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset didn't know how long she stayed curled up on the ground. The stone felt warm against her skin, but the light breeze that ruffled her hair felt pleasantly cool after the fury of the magical shockwave. When she was confident that nothing else was going to explode, Sunset uncovered her ears and sat up to take a look around.

The rest of the Rainbooms and the Enclave personnel were picking themselves up off the dry soil and either looking around at each other, much as Sunset was, or staring up at Raven Rock in blank shock. She followed their gaze and gasped at the incredible spectacle set before her.

The mountain had been transmuted into a towering spire of obsidian. Dozens of glassy spines and outcrops jutted out from it, each of them a different color, twisting and curling in on themselves at angles no natural structure could possibly manage. Thick veins of multi-colored crystal stretched out from the base of the spire, some of them hundreds of meters long, looking for all the world like huge crystalline tree-roots.

Dragging her eyes away from the mountain, Sunset clambered to her feet and turned to check on her friends. Tara was hovering nearby but Sunset's attention was drawn to Twilight sitting on a knot of crystal with Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy gathered around her. 

"Are you all okay?" Sunset asked as she hurried over.

Applejack glanced around and nodded in greeting. "Ah sure am glad to see y'all again. We're all okay, except for Twilight; she took a nasty hit to her back when everything started going crazy in there. Doc Tara put some magic crystal stuff over the wound that stopped the bleeding, but we should probably get her to a medical doctor, lickety split."

"That's definitely a good idea," Tara put in as she floated over with Becky in tow. "Let me just renew the magic in the crystals so it'll last until you can get back to the Citadel or Rivet City."

Sunset gave her a wary look as she approached. "I think an explanation is in order, too."

"I think we'd all like an explanation," one of the Enclave soldiers said loudly. Sunset realized that everyone who had escaped from the main entrance with them was starting to gather around, all looking at Tara and the Rainbooms expectantly. Rainbow, Pinkie and Fawkes were with them too, Fawkes in particular getting concerned looks from several of the Enclave personnel and one of the power armored people removed his helmet to reveal himself as Adam.

Tara glared at the Enclave personnel imperiously, but a touch from Becky made her sigh and shake her head. Becky gave her a quick nod and stepped forward to call out to everyone. "Alright, I'll explain what I can quickly, then we need to figure out what we're going to do from here."

The small crowd listened intently as Becky outlined everything that had happened within Raven Rock. Sunset noticed that the doctor reasoned Tara's transformation on 'experimental magic techniques', but the fact that Applejack, Rarity and Twilight were missing their Geodes let her put two and two together. She had to admit that she was impressed by the ease with which Becky handled the crowd; answering or diverting questions as necessary and quelling fears where she could.

Curiously, Applejack covered her face with her hat when Becky told everyone that they had spoken peacefully with Colonel Autumn in the war room before he had followed them to see Eden, making Sunset wonder if their conversation with the Colonel really had been peaceful.

When the explanation was done the gathered personnel started grumbling and shifting in a mutinous manner, but Becky held a hand up to silence them. "Look, I understand how you're feeling, believe me. The actions of President Eden and Colonel Autumn have caused immense problems for all of us, but right now th-"

"Why did you attack Colonel Autumn?" one of the soldiers shouted. 

Tara snorted and replied in a tone dripping with condescension, "In case you weren't listening, he's the one who set off the self-destruct. As far as I'm concerned, risking the lives of everyone in the facility out of spite is something worthy of a beating."

"Do we know if the elementary education section was evacuated?" one of the scientists called out suddenly. "My nephew, he's one of the elementary kids, do you think they got out okay?"

"The Maternity, Nursery, and Education sections were the first to be evacuated in the event of an emergency, remember?" Becky replied reassuringly.

"What do we do about them?" Another soldier asked, pointing at Sunset. "They're the ones who brought this magic shit here. Hell, half of them attacked the base just before everything went to shit!"

Applejack glared at him and balled her hands into fists. "Y'all were the ones who attacked us first! If your darn President and that Colonel would've just left us alone, none of this would've happened!"

Several of the soldiers called out retorts and insults, but Becky shouted over the top of them, "That's enough!" She planted her hands on her hips and drew herself up, flicking her hair back as she did so. "Applejack's right. Twice the Enclave has picked a fight with the Rainbooms without provocation, and twice it has fucked us over." She flung a hand out to indicate the crystalized mountain behind them. "Case in point. Starting another fight now isn't going to help anyone. Right now the best thing we can do is… hang on… that sound…"

Everyone looked up as a dull humming noise filled the air, slowly getting louder until it became recognisable as the sound of propellers. After a few seconds a trio of Vertibirds came into view circling the crystal spire. 

Becky sighed with relief. "They must be looking for survivors."

The Vertibirds swept around and slowed to a hover in a clear space just ahead of the group before they landed, facing away from everyone. The centre Vertibird's crew compartment opened the moment it touched the ground and a man in an Enclave officer's uniform stepped out.

"Andrew?" Tara said blankly.

In response to Sunset's confused look, Becky explained, "Lieutenant-Colonel Strong. He's Tara's brother." Seeing that no-one else was stepping forward, she took it upon herself to salute. "Lieutenant-Colonel, it's good to see you."

The Lieutenant-Colonel gave Tara a dark glower before nodding to Becky and returning the salute. "Doctor Shoichet. I assume this is everyone that made it out from the main entrance?"

"Yes, Sir," Becky replied. "We were just deciding on the most appropriate course of action, but since you're the highest ranked officer here…"

Lieutenant-Colonel Strong picked up on her implication immediately and stepped forward to address the crowd. "Is anyone here injured?" A chorus of 'no, Sir', was the reply. "Good. In that case, we can fit about five more people each in the escort Vertibirds. Decide amongst yourselves who's coming, non-combatant personnel only. Soldiers, there's an outpost about 2 clicks East of here, I want you to escort the remaining non-combatants there then await further orders. Is that clear?"

Given a job to do with clear instructions, the Enclave personnel immediately set to carrying out their orders, with the scientists quickly selecting who would take the Vertibirds and the rest being corralled by the soldiers ready for departure. Satisfied that his orders were being followed the Lieutenant-Colonel folded his arms and glared up at Tara. "Alright, sis, what the hell have you gotten yourself into this time?"

"It's a long story," Becky cut in quickly. She rubbed her neck awkwardly as she added, "It, uh… it kinda ties into, well, that." She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder at the crystal spire for clarification.

The Lieutenant-Colonel groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just… just give me the short version."

"President Eden was keeping Project Scouring going in secret, and he wanted to use the Vault 101 boy to spread it around the wastes using Project Purity. I borrowed some magic from the Rainbooms so I had the power to get him to step down and keep Colonel Autumn from launching a coup. The Colonel didn't like that so he set off the base's self-destruct," Tara rattled off. "Add in the fact that Doctor Turner apparently smuggled some magic into the base, magic which replicates when exposed to high quantities of radiation, and you end up with a weird explosion and a mutated mountain fortress."

"Which explains the weird wave of multi-colored crap we saw getting launched across the wasteland." Lieutenant-Colonel Strong ran a hand through his hair nervously. "Ever since we got involved with this magic bullshit things have gone from troubling to fucking insane." He sighed again and looked over at Sunset. "So, is my little sister gonna be a permanent freakshow now, or what?"

Sunset shook her head, ignoring Tara's indignant spluttering. "She should turn back to normal as soon as she gives my friends their Geodes back. Speaking of which," she fixed Tara with a serious look, "I think it's time you handed them over."

Tara frowned and flexed her fingers, allowing a flicker of magic to play around them. Sunset saw Rainbow tightening her grip on Flashburn out of the corner of her eye and for a moment she was afraid that things were about to explode into violence, but Tara suddenly smiled and lowered herself to the ground.

"I suppose you're right. Here." Tara raised a hand to her chest. There was a flash of magic and the three Geodes appeared, separated, and flew through the air until they found their respective owners. 

The effect on Tara was almost instant; her wings and horn disintegrated until nothing remained, her hair shortened and returned to its usual blonde, and her lab coat tidied itself up and bled color until it was perfectly white once again, clean as new. Tara swayed on the spot for a second and would have collapsed if Becky and the Lieutenant-Colonel hadn't darted forward to support her. "I… wow… that was… wow." she mumbled.

"Are you okay?" Becky asked.

Tara nodded slowly. "Yeah… just… tired."

Sunset glanced at Twilight, who was just slipping her Geode back over her head. "What about you, are you okay?"

"I'll be fine." Twilight shivered when the Geode settled around her neck, but nodded and smiled weakly. "My back is sore, but I think I can make it to the Citadel if we get a helping hand." She gave the Vertibirds a pointed stare.

"We can't take you to the Citadel," Lieutenant-Colonel Strong said flatly. 

"Where are you going to take us?" Becky asked.

The Lieutenant-Colonel hummed as he thought. "The two escort Vertibirds are going to Project Purity, but I'll be finding the nearest outpost with refuelling capabilities before heading on to-" he paused and glanced at the Rainbooms, "-to another site."

"Take us to Project Exodus," Becky said firmly. "We can give you directions and we can drop the Rainbooms off on the way. If we can convince whatever is left of the Senate to agree to a peace treaty with the Brotherhood of Steel, then that will at least make us look a little better."

"And what if we can't convince them?" Lieutenant-Colonel Strong asked. "You know Colonel Autumn will argue against it when he wakes up."

"That asshole survived?" Becky smiled awkwardly at the flat glare she received in response. "Heh, I mean… er… well, I guess we'll just have to forget to mention that we transported the Rainbooms?"

Tara grunted and straightened herself up. "Either way, Project Exodus isn't going to align itself against the Rainbooms again. And we will not support any more conflict with the Brotherhood of Steel. Take us to Project Exodus and drop the Rainbooms off along the way. If Congress doesn't like it, then they can drag themselves to Downtown D.C. and kiss my ass in person."

Lieutenant-Colonel Strong raised an eyebrow at her, then snorted and shook his head. "You're fucking crazy. Alright, fine; as far as anyone on my Vertibird will remember, they never even saw the Rainbooms. That's as far as I'll be able to protect you, though; so I sure as hell hope you know what you're doing."





Two sets of footsteps echoed down the ventilation tunnel; one heavy and regular, one light and shuffling. When they reached the end of the tunnel, two mismatched figures clambered over the mangled remains of a metal grating and stepped out into the open air of the wasteland. 

Doctor Turner knew that Horrigan was staring at him, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Despite the big brute's best efforts at shielding him, the doctor had still been caught by the blast and, unlike Horrigan, he lacked any form of protection from the magically charged flames. Fortunately, while extremely painful to the touch, the flames hadn't actually physically burned Doctor Turner. Unfortunately, they had affected him in a manner that was, in many ways, far more concerning.

The doctor's right arm had turned entirely charcoal black with bulging veins that pulsed a sickly yellow glow. Other patches of skin were in a similar condition where the flames had touched them.

Flexing his mutated arm experimentally, Doctor Turner sighed and looked back in the direction of Raven Rock. He raised an eyebrow as he spotted the crystal spire jutting into the sky. He hadn't been sure what he was going to see, but he hadn't expected that.

"Are you okay, doc?" Horrigan asked.

Doctor Turner nodded curtly and looked down at his arm again. "It's nothing to worry about. I've seen similar conditions on previous experimental subjects, it'll go back to normal in a month or so," he lied. The last thing he needed was for Horrigan to squash him for being a mutant.

Thankfully, Horrigan accepted his reply without question. "Good to hear. What's the plan, now?"

"That's a very good question." Doctor Turner looked up at the dark clouds in the sky as he considered his options. The top brass would probably want him to deliver Horrigan to Project Purity, but the doctor had no interest in putting himself in the path of a potential assault from the Brotherhood of Steel and the Rainbooms. 

Travelling to Project Exodus, on the other hand, that sounded more interesting. Horrigan would easily be able to forge a path through any Super Mutants or other wasteland nasties that got in the way, even against a Scorchbeast such as the one the doctor spotted disappearing into the clouds, or one of the Wanamingos that had managed to escape too, judging by the tracks that led away from the tunnel.

Of course, it was almost certain that Doctor Strong would return to Project Exodus, but that was a risk that Doctor Turner was willing to take. In fact, he was positively hoping that she would be there. She wouldn't be able to run from Horrigan if she was locked in a secure underground facility. Getting access to the vast amount of magical goop still sitting in the hangar would just be the icing on the cake.

Doctor Turner grinned evilly. "Tell me, do you know the way to the old RobCo facility a few miles Southeast of the Pentagon?"





Somewhere underneath Raven Rock, in a newly transmuted cavern of multi-colored crystal, a faint light glowed in a wall that had once housed a large console and an accompanying monitor. A sudden crack echoed loudly in the silent cavern, and a fist-sized chunk of light blue crystal fell from the wall. The floor let out a clear chime when the chunk landed.

Eight segmented spikes unfolded from the chunk of crystal and flailed around aimlessly. With great difficulty, the spikes shifted and rolled the chunk until it finally flipped over, revealing itself to be a bizarre crystalline spider. The spider turned on the spot several times, as if getting a feel for its surroundings.

"Well now, this is irregular," Eden muttered, his mandibles glowing with a faint blue light when he spoke. "I really should listen to Doctor Strong in the future. If I ever see her again, that is."

Eden glanced around the cavern once more. Spotting a way out, the mutated AI skittered loudly towards a nearby crystal tunnel.





< ALERT >

< RADIATION SPIKE DETECTED: EQUIDAE OMEGA CLASS - VARIATION - >

< TRIANGULATING SOURCE >

< SOURCE LOCATED >

< SCANNING >

< SCANNING >

< SCANNING >

< SCANNING >

< COMPLETE >

< LOCALIZED SATURATION: 21.343% >

< COMPILING REPORT >

< COMPLETE >

< SENDING >

< COMPLETE >

< COUNCIL NOTIFIED >

< INCOMING COUNCIL DIRECTIVE >

< NON-INTRUSIVE ACQUISITION: EQUIDAE OMEGA CLASS - VARIATION - RADIATION - ACQUISITION AUTHORIZED >

< NON-INTRUSIVE COLLECTION UNITS DEPLOYED >

< CONTINUE OBSERVATION >





Princess Twilight Sparkle sighed as she trotted through the streets of Ponyville. She had just sent letters to Canterlot, the Crystal Empire, each of the old Pillars of Harmony, and Fizzlepop Berrytwist; now all she had to do was trawl through her collection of artefacts and oddities in the hopes of finding something that might allow the Diviner to open a stable interdimensional portal.

Sighing again, Twilight was snapped from her thoughts by a wet ripping sound. She gasped as the air in front of her rippled and shimmered, then split open to reveal a swirling black vortex. A palpable wave of horror and suffering poured out from the vortex, accompanied by the metallic stench of blood and a foul rotten reek that brought to mind images of death and decay.

Twilight retched and reeled back from the vortex, summoning a shield around herself to keep the awful smell at bay. As she tried to figure exactly what it was, not to mention how to get rid of it, the vortex pulsed and two familiar figures were launched out of it to sprawl on the floor. 

"Discord? Starlight? What in Equestria is goi- Starlight?!" Starlight moaned incoherently as Twilight galloped to her side. Her right flank was covered in small cuts and gashes, a bloody bandage covered her left eye entirely and more blood was trickling from the corners of her mouth. "Starlight? Starlight, can you hear me?! Discord, wha-?!"

A child-like laugh suddenly echoed out from the vortex. Discord's head snapped up at the sound and he thrust his paw out, firing a ray of searing heat at the vortex that slowly welded the tear in reality shut. When nothing remained of the vortex but empty air, Discord turned his attention to Starlight.

"What's going on? What happened?!" Twilight demanded.

Discord ignored her and crawled across the ground until he reached Starlight, then gently placed his paw on her shoulder as he checked her over. Finally he sighed and looked up at Twilight. "Starlight told you that we were going to search a different world for your friends together?" Twilight nodded dumbly. "We got trapped. Sachiko, the thing in charge over there, managed to suppress even my powers, it took everything we had just to escape." Discord glanced down at Starlight uneasily. "Thankfully, I at least managed to stop the ghosts from taking her tongue."

"Her…" Twilight felt her gorge rising and clamped a hoof over her mouth. 

With a hiss of pain, Discord got to his mismatched feet and stretched, revealing that he too was sporting several nasty cuts. "Get her to a hospital as quickly as you can."

Twilight nodded quickly. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to see if I can find the right world this time." Discord pulled a sheaf of parchment out of his ear, glanced at it for a moment, then swiped a claw through the air and sliced open another hole in reality; this one leading to a deserted fog-enshrouded street. "I'll keep searching for your friends and try to bring them back, then I'm going to go back to that nightmare world and burn it to the ground."

Without another word, Discord slithered through the hole in reality and closed it behind himself with a faint pop.

Twilight decided that she didn't really need to worry about Discord and getting Starlight to a hospital was more important. "Don't worry Starlight, it's going to be okay." Twilight’s horn flashed as she teleported herself and Starlight away.

The street was left in silence after the two had gone. Several seconds passed before a faint hissing started emanating from the spot where the vortex had closed. A tear slowly appeared in midair, dripping blood on the ground as it increased in size until finally a little unicorn filly slipped through and fell to the ground.

The filly had a deathly pale coat with a long black mane and tail, both of which were unkempt and dirty, and was wearing a tattered red dress. Dark rope burns were easily visible around her neck. The little filly examined her body curiously, then turned her attention to her surroundings. She took in the buildings of Ponyville with an impassive expression which morphed into a sadistic grin as her eyes fell upon the Ponyville schoolhouse off on the edge of town. 

Giggling softly to herself, Sachiko lit up her horn and a crimson mist surrounded her body. When the mist dissipated she was gone, leaving behind several paper cutouts in roughly human shapes, and a single sheet of paper with strange writings scrawled all over it.
> Chapter 62 - Jolly Little Jukebox
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The monotonous drone of the Vertibird's rotors was the only sound Sunset could hear clearly in the passenger compartment. She and the rest of the Rainbooms were packed in alongside Tara, Becky, Adam, Fawkes, a soldier, and a small family. 

The number of people in the compartment meant that most of them were stuck standing up, holding onto small handles in the ceiling for stability. Of the Rainbooms, the only one who had been allowed to sit was Twilight because of her injury; Twilight had fallen asleep very soon after takeoff to the relief of her friends. 

Fawkes and, to a lesser extent, the Rainbooms had been receiving a lot of curious looks from the non-combatant Enclave personnel aboard the Vertibird. In particular was a little boy who couldn't have been older than six that had become utterly infatuated with Pinkie Pie over the course of the flight.

Sunset, for her part, was mostly just trying to distract herself from the stench of sweat that pervaded the crew compartment.

"Hold on tight, we'll be coming in to land soon," the pilot called back to them.

Everyone who was standing up adjusted their grip and stance while those who were sat down checked their harnesses. Soon enough the Vertibird slowed to a hover; the landing itself was relatively smooth with only a slight bump when they actually landed, though it was enough to jolt Twilight awake.

Lieutenant Colonel Strong poked his head into the passenger compartment. "Alright, Rainbooms, this is your stop. The Citadel is directly to the East, beyond the ruins. You'll have to find a way over or around them." As Adam, Fawkes and the Rainbooms started disembarking, the Lieutenant Colonel called out, "Sunset Shimmer? I'd like a quick word before you go."

Sunset gestured for the others to get off first and shuffled through the Enclave personnel towards the pilot compartment. As she approached the Lieutenant Colonel, he stepped forward and she felt something solid press against her ribs. Glancing down, she realized that he had a laser pistol aimed directly at her heart.

"Don't move," Lieutenant Colonel Strong said quietly. "Just pretend everything's fine and we're having a pleasant little chat and you get to walk away from this alive."

Sunset swallowed reflexively. The position they were in blocked the pistol from her friends' sight, so there was little chance of help from there. Her first instinct was to ask what she had done to get on his bad side, but given everything that had happened to the Enclave and, more specifically, to his sister, there were just too many possibilities, so instead she asked, "What do you want?"

"I want the truth," Lieutenant Colonel Strong said flatly. "What exactly is your goal in the Capital Wasteland?"

"Me and my friends just want to go home," Sunset replied honestly.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that exactly what Project Exodus is supposed to be about?" he asked. "Why go back to the Brotherhood of Steel?"

Sunset arched an eyebrow at him. "Seriously? The Enclave attacked and kidnapped us, attacked a group of lightly armed scientists who were trying to make fresh water for the wasteland, tried to imprison us, attacked us again after we escaped and kidnapped half of our group, your scientists have stolen our magic and started messing around with it despite knowing how insanely dangerous it is and, as if that wasn't enough, we've just found out that your President was secretly plotting to murder most of humanity as part of some massive eugenics scheme? Why wouldn't we go back to the Brotherhood of Steel?"

That gave the Lieutenant Colonel pause. "Okay, those are fair points," he admitted. "What are you going to do now, though? I know that the Brotherhood is planning an assault on Project Purity, are you and your friends going to be a part of it?"

"I don't know." Sunset considered her words carefully. "I know Adam will join in after what happened to his father. As for me and my friends… the Brotherhood has promised to help us get home once they've retaken Project Purity. If having our magic on their side makes that easier for them then, well... I guess it all depends on how that peace treaty works out."

Lieutenant Colonel Strong narrowed his eyes at her, then finally removed the pistol and stuck it back in its holster. "I'll do what I can to have it pushed through." He glanced over her shoulder at the others, then leaned in close to whisper in her ear, "If anything happens to my little sister because of some shit that you or your friends pull, I swear, peace treaty or not, I will end you."

"I'd expect nothing less," Sunset shot back. Turning away, she gave one last nod to Becky and Tara, waved at the little boy who was staring up at her in awe, then navigated through the rest of the personnel and stomped down the Vertibird's ramp to rejoin her friends.

The moment Sunset was clear the ramp closed up and the Vertibird took off, gaining altitude quickly before its rotors tilted and it smoothly peeled away. Within moments it vanished from sight over the top of some ruins to the south.

"What did he want?” Rainbow asked when it was gone.

Sunset shrugged. "Eh, nothing special." Deciding that it wasn't worth riling up the others with his threats, she looked up at the devastated buildings towering over them. "Aren't these the same ruins we climbed over when we were heading to Vault 87 yesterday?"

"Was it only yesterday?" Rarity asked incredulously. "It feels like it has been a lot longer than that." 

Pinkie pouted and crossed her arms over her chest. "That's probably because we only get a chapter every two weeks at the moment, so…"

The others just stared at her in blank confusion. After a few awkward moments Sunset shook her head and said, "Anyway… Twilight, are you okay?"

Twilight just nodded slowly from where she was propped up between Applejack and Rainbow. 

"Don't worry, we'll be able to get her over there easily enough, so long as Rarity can help us out with her magic," Applejack said confidently. "Ah could probably carry her myself, but Ah don't want to risk nudging those crystals out of place or something."

"It's fine, darling." Rarity waved a hand and a ramp made of glittering gemstones appeared, curving around at a shallow angle until it reached a relatively stable-looking chunk of debris.

Fawkes stomped over to the ramp and crouched down to get a closer look. "A most impressive use of your abilities. It seems to me that the more I see of your magic, the more I realize just how versatile it can be."

"It's a funky trick, but do you think it'll be able to hold my weight with this thing on?" Adam slapped the chest of his stolen power armor for emphasis.

Sunset looked back at him as she started up the ramp. "If it can't, we'll just have Applejack toss you over the ruins and we'll meet you on the other side."

Adam chuckled softly. His laughter died away as he saw the look on Sunset's face. "You're kidding. She's kidding, right?" When no-one answered he started looking around at everyone wildly. "Hang on, are you being serious? Sunset? Sunset?!"





The final leg of the flight to Project Exodus was uneventful. The pilot took a slight detour to avoid a heavily mutated Behemoth, but they were lucky enough to avoid the attention of the roving bands of Super Mutants in the streets below.

Tara's thoughts were a jumbled mess. Handing the Geodes over had taken more willpower than she had anticipated and the shock of the magic leaving her body so suddenly had left her feeling exhausted. It was only the fact that there was a vast amount of magical waste still present at the Exodus building that gave her the strength to give up the power, at least for the moment.

Glancing over at her brother, Tara once again wondered what exactly he had said to Sunset before she left. Hopefully it was nothing too threatening. Tara was well aware that her brother believed her lies about Sunset being capable of mind control and she was beginning to suspect that that particular lie was going to come back to bite her in the ass at some point. Fortunately, the Lieutenant Colonel had his hands full for the moment. 

Tara picked up from his hurried radio communications that Colonel Autumn had indeed been evacuated from Raven Rock by a squad of soldiers, but he was also still unconscious, leaving Andrew as the highest military authority in the Enclave. 

Andrew was rising to the occasion magnificently. Despite spending most of his recent career in Raven Rock, he was effortlessly coordinating the evacuees; swiftly gathering information on how many personnel had survived the blast and directing them to the most appropriate rendezvous points while simultaneously getting word out to as many officials as he could about the potential necessity of a peace treaty. Colonel Autumn wouldn't be happy about the latter, but there was little he could do about it until he woke up.

"We're coming up on the RobCo facility," the pilot called out. “Where do you want us to land?"

Becky leaned forward as far as her harness would allow her. "Head for the main entrance. There should already be at least one Vertibird there, they'll guide you in."

"There should actually be a few there," Andrew cut in. Catching sight of Tara and Becky's questioning looks, he added, "I redirected some of the evacuees to the Exodus building, it's the most defensible place in the area that's still under Enclave control."

The pilot contacted someone on the ground via radio, then the Vertibird banked around and slowed to a hover before coming down for a soft landing. When the crew compartment opened the personnel made their way down in a quick but orderly manner. Several soldiers were standing by to receive them, directing everyone across the forecourt and into the building. 

Tara slowed to look around as she stepped off the Vertibird's ramp. The area had been entirely cleared of abandoned vehicles and debris and squads of soldiers were busy setting up sandbags while others were erecting makeshift shelters to serve as firing points.

"How have the Super Mutants not attacked this place yet?" Becky muttered.

"No idea, we haven't seen any sign of them," one of the soldiers replied. "This way, doctors, follow the directions and they'll assign you to a temporary room until we can set up something more permanent."

Tara shook her head. "That won't be necessary. I'm Doctor Strong and I'm the lead scientist for Project Exodus."

The soldier hesitated, then snapped to attention as Andrew joined them. "Sir!"

"At ease." Andrew gave him a firm nod, then glanced up at the building. "Who's in charge here?"

"Major Carter is the ranking officer, sir, but there's a soldier from Squad Sigma who's nominally in command of Project Exodus itself until the… er, until Doctor Strong returns," the soldier replied. He paused and put a hand to his helmet, clearly communicating with someone via his armor's radio, then nodded and said, "The people downstairs are expecting you. The eyebot will escort you down."

"Eyebot?" Tara looked around to see one of the curious little robots floating towards them. 

The eyebot was unlike any other that Tara had ever seen. It was more heavily armored for a start and its armor plates glittered like fool's gold in the late afternoon light.

Apparently realizing that it had been noticed, the eyebot gave a trill of happy-sounding little beeps and turned to head back into the building. Tara and Becky shared a confused look, shrugged, and set off after it. The eyebot kept playing a jaunty little tune of chirps and beeps as it escorted Andrew, Becky and Tara across the forecourt, through the building, and finally into the elevator where they descended to the basement.

As the elevator began its lengthy descent into the bowels of the Exodus building, Andrew asked the eyebot to stop its chatter for a minute and turned to face the women. "Right, before we get down there I need to know the truth about Sunset Shimmer and the rest of the Rainbooms."

"What do you mean?" Becky asked, a little too quickly.

Andrew folded his arms and gave her a flat look. "I already know you were bullshitting us about Sunset being a mind reader and being able to mind control people. She nearly shit herself when I pulled a gun on her earlier, if she-"

"You what?!" Becky and Tara yelled together.

"I had to check," Andrew replied unabashedly. "If she was really such a dangerous telepath she would have known what I was going to do, or at least made me put the gun away sooner. So, what else have you been bullshitting me about?"

Tara sighed and sagged against the back of the elevator. "Sunset can't control people's minds," she admitted. "She is a telepath, to an extent, but she has to be touching someone for it to work on them. Everything we told you about the others is true, at least as far we know."

"I'm not sure about Pinkie Pie," Becky put in. "The memories I picked up from Sunset's Geode suggest that she can only detonate refined sugar, but it looked like her magic that blew up Raven Rock's entrance. It must be something to do with that pickaxe she has. That thing is new."

Andrew frowned at her. "When you say Geode, do you mean their necklaces?"

"Yes. Their Geodes are the source of the Rainbooms' powers," Becky replied. "When I touched Sunset's Geode, thanks to our connection, it actually transferred some of her memories to me."

Andrew's frown deepened as he looked from Becky to Tara. "So you were already planning on busting them out when you took their Geodes back in the prison block?"

Tara shrugged. "I wasn't sure what I was going to do, I just wanted to keep the magic out of Colonel Autumn's hands. Finding out that President Eden was keeping Project Scouring going in secret forced my hand."

"For fuck's sake." Andrew sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just… explain everything to me. Everything that happened when you had the Rainbooms here, everything that happened after they left, and everything that happened at Raven Rock. Don't leave out any details."

"Maybe later," Tara replied with a pointed glance at the eyebot. It was only then that she noticed that the little robot's armor was still glittering.

Andrew clearly noticed it too. "That's Duraframe, isn't it? Is it supposed to do that?"

"Not as far as I know," Tara said quietly. Either the eyebot had some odd coating over its armor that she had never seen before, or Equestrian magic was at work once again. Somehow she knew exactly which of the two options was correct.

The rest of the descent was spent in an uncomfortable silence, though the eyebot spontaneously starting up another chirpy tune actually made Tara feel a little more relaxed, much to her own surprise.

When the elevator finally reached the bottom and the doors opened, Tara gasped at how much the underground hangar had changed. All of the abandoned pre-war equipment was exactly where it had been left, along with the ruined trash from the battle against the mutated Protectron, but the magical waste had taken on an entirely new form.

Instead of a huge puddle of slurry, the magic now formed a swirling tornado made up of thousands of tiny wisps, each one a different color. The mass reached from the floor right up to the rough circular opening in the ceiling. Around the base of the tornado someone had strung up a chain between a series of short metal poles to act as a simple cordon.

Four people were standing around the chain and all of them turned around as the eyebot let out a loud trill. Sienna and Vincent were there, both ponied up, along with a male scientist that Tara didn't recognize. On the other hand, the fourth person was a woman that Tara recognized instantly. 

"Mom!" Tara felt a weight she hadn't known she carried lift from her shoulders as her mother hurried forward and pulled her and Andrew into a hug.

"Thank God you're both okay," their mother gasped, squeezing them tightly.

"We're fine, mom." Twilight pulled back to get a proper look at her. "What about you, are you alright? Where's dad?"

Her mother sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "He's upstairs making sure that the children being brought here are properly accommodated. You know what he's like." She shook her head and fixed the two of them with a serious look. "But enough about us, what the hell has been happening? Why was Raven Rock destroyed?"

"Good question," Sienna said flatly as she approached, with Vincent and the other man just behind her. "Personally, I'd like to know why we felt another crazy magical shockwave that turned our slushy crap into this massive light show," she jerked a thumb over her shoulder, "then five minutes later we get a message saying that Raven Rock is gone and we're about to get a whole bunch of evacuees turning up."

"We can discuss that later," Andrew said curtly before turning to Vincent. "I'm assuming that you're the last member of Squad Sigma?"

Vincent saluted. "Yes, Sir. Michaels is here too, but he's still in a coma."

"Noted." Andrew glanced at the pair of orange wings sprouting from the soldiers' back. Vincent opened his mouth to say something, but the Lieutenant Colonel held up a hand to silence him and just said, "Never mind," before turning to the unknown scientist. "And you are…?"

"Doctor Whitley," the man replied instantly. "I was assigned to Project Exodus just before everything went to hell in a handbasket. And you've already met ED-E." The eyebot beeped happily.

Andrew looked around at everyone else in turn, eyeing them suspiciously. "You all seem strangely okay with this magic crap." When no-one replied he groaned and massaged his temples. "Why do I get the feeling that you're about to tell me something that's going to make me choose between my family and the Enclave?"

"Not necessarily, it depends on how we play this," Becky told him. "Having said that, we are going to need you to keep an open mind." She glanced at Sienna. "I'm guessing you've told the others everything?" 

"Only Whitley and Mr. and Mrs. Strong," Sienna replied.

Andrew just huffed as he relented. "Alright, I'll give you a fair chance; start from the beginning."





Sunset sighed heavily as she stepped out of the Citadel's shower block wearing a simple grey Brotherhood of Steel uniform consisting of pants and a shirt while her own clothes were sent to be laundered.

Getting the gate guards to let her and her friends in had been difficult; largely due to Fawkes, partially due to Adam's stolen Enclave armor, too. Eventually they managed to convince the guards to let them in on the provision that Fawkes would be escorted by at least two soldiers at all times while within the Citadel. 

Fawkes took their wariness in stride; according to him he was just glad that they were giving him a chance and that he now had friends willing to stand by his side and back him up. 

Sentinel Lyons made a point of meeting the group when they were finally allowed in. When she saw the state that Twilight was in she ordered the Rainbooms to get her to the infirmary and to get themselves checked out while they were there, then dragged Adam and Fawkes off for an emergency debriefing with her father.

The medics in the infirmary were understandably concerned by Twilight's condition and immediately took her into surgery. Fluttershy went with them to try and help as much as she could, but the others were kept back as the medics insisted on treating their own injuries.

Pinkie and Rarity had nothing worse than a few scrapes and bruises, but Applejack had an ugly burn across her thigh, and Rainbow had a nasty bruise on the back of her hand where the Rad-Away needle had been, as well as an unpleasant case of radiation poisoning from her reckless charge out of Vault 87's front door. Sunset was now sporting a clean bandage around her upper right arm from a close encounter with shrapnel that she had almost forgotten about.

After the infirmary the girls had been granted the use of the Citadel's showers. It was the best moment for them in days, being able to wash away all of the blood, sweat, mud and grime that had been coating them since leaving Rivet City.

Now that she was clean, Sunset wasn't quite sure what to do; Twilight was almost certainly still in surgery, the others were still in the showers, and she had no idea where Adam and Fawkes would be. A sudden cramp from her stomach told her that finding food would be a pretty good idea.

"Miss Shimmer?" A voice called out, ruining that thought the instant she heard it.

Sunset bit back an exasperated groan and turned to see a Squire staring at her. She vaguely recognised him as the same one that was present the last time she had met Elder Lyons. "Can I help you?"

"Elder Lyons wants to speak to you as soon as possible," the Squire replied. 

"Of course he does," Sunset sighed and pushed her damp hair back out of her face. "Okay, show me where to go."

The Squire led her quickly through the maze of corridors that formed the Citadel's interior. The Knights and scribes they encountered greeted her enthusiastically, offering their congratulations and thanks; news about what had happened at Raven Rock had spread like wildfire and morale among the Brotherhood of Steel had been greatly boosted by the fact that the Enclave had suffered such a devastating blow.

Soon enough Sunset found herself outside the same guarded door from her last meeting with the Elder. Unlike last time, the Squire knocked on the door himself and pushed it open without waiting for a response, stepping inside and holding it open for Sunset to follow. "Elder, I've brought Miss Shimmer, as you asked."

Elder Lyons looked up from the ‘C’ shaped table as Sunset entered the room. He and his daughter were the only ones in the room. "Excellent work, Squire Maxson." The Elder gestured to a chair placed just in front of him on the inner curve of the table. "Come, Miss Shimmer, take a seat."

Sunset walked over and sat in the offered chair as Squire Maxson took up position behind the two leaders he served. 

"Good evening, Miss Shimmer. Are you and your friends alright?" Elder Lyons asked.

"I'm worried about Twilight, but the rest of us are okay enough," Sunset replied.

The Elder nodded. "I received word from the infirmary not long before you arrived to see me. The surgeons had a nasty shock when the crystals sealing Miss Sparkle's wounds disappeared, but they have managed to stabilize her and she is not in any immediate danger."

"Thank Celestia." Sunset sagged in the chair as relief flooded her.

Elder Lyons allowed her a few seconds of peace before he spoke up again. "I have already heard most of what happened in Vault 87 and afterwards from Adam and Fawkes, but I want to get your take on things. Specifically, I want to know anything you can tell me about the magical side of what happened."

"I, er…" Sunset pulled herself together and straightened up in her seat. "I'm not sure how much help I can be, most of the magic that's loose in this world is working differently from what I'm used to."

"Please, anything you can tell us, even the slightest detail, could help save lives," Sentinel Lyons put in.

Sunset hesitated. There was little enough she could say about the magic they encountered at Raven Rock that Adam and Fawkes wouldn't have already told them, save for her own perspective. The biggest issue that Sunset could think of would be the Super Mutant that had managed to acquire a Geode, but to truly warn the Brotherhood of Steel about the danger it possessed she would have to tell them about the Rainbooms' own Geodes.

In the end she decided that the Mutant was dangerous enough that she couldn't avoid warning them with a clean conscience. "There's something, but… if word of this gets out to the wrong people, it could make things a lot more dangerous in the wasteland, for us girls and for everyone else."

Elder Lyons hummed thoughtfully then turned to speak to the Squire. "Arthur, make sure you don't speak a word of what you hear here to anyone. Discretion can be as important a tool as anything else for a good leader."

"Yes, Elder," Squire Maxson replied.

"Good man." The Elder turned back to Sunset. "Very well, we shall ensure that whatever information you give us will be strictly controlled," he said with a nod for her to continue.

Reluctantly, Sunset explained about the Super Mutant and its Geode. She also remembered to tell them about the Mutant that had been enhanced by Pinkie's magic. The Elder and Sentinel exchanged a grim look at the prospect of an apparently near-indestructible Super Mutant, but they agreed that allowing word of the Geodes to spread unchecked across the wastes would potentially cause far worse problems.

"Is there anything else you can tell us about the magic that the Enclave had?" Sentinel Lyons asked.

Sunset frowned as she thought back. "I don't think so. Tara, Doctor Strong that is, gave back the Geodes that she borrowed, but apart from that I don't think I saw much more than Adam or Fawkes." She paused as she remembered something other than magic that she had heard. "Did Adam mention the possible peace treaty?"

Elder Lyons sighed and nodded. "He did."

His response didn't exactly encourage Sunset. "And…"

"And, I don't know what to make of it," the Elder replied. "If the Enclave truly desires peace then it would be a momentous occasion, a bright turning point in the history of the Wasteland, but… we don't know that it's true. Even if it is true, it will be difficult to convince all of our Knights and Paladins that we should agree to such a treaty; there's too much bad blood between our organizations." 

He sighed and fiddled with his beard idly. "To make matters worse, we don't have the luxury of just sitting back and waiting for them to offer us a treaty. The longer the Enclave is in control of Project Purity, the greater the chance that they will be able to activate it and use it to secure the support of the local settlements. The fact that Frank Horrigan is potentially still alive is another problem. I remember what that monster was capable of. If he is truly back and enhanced by magic, then I fear that Liberty Prime may be the only thing on the planet capable of stopping him."

Sunset felt an awful sinking feeling in her gut at the Elder's words. "What are you going to do?"

"There's not much we can do," Sentinel Lyons replied. "I have offered to go to Project Purity personally, tonight, as part of a diplomatic envoy. We'll offer them a peace treaty in exchange for returning Project Purity to Brotherhood of Steel control." She shook her head slowly. "If they accept we can at least stall any further violence for a while, but if not…"

"If not, we have no option but to take Project Purity back by force," Elder Lyons finished. "If it does come to that, Adam and Fawkes have both agreed to fight alongside us, but what of yourself and your friends?" He held up a hand at the look on Sunset's face. "You do not have to fight if you do not wish to, none of us will judge you for it, but I cannot deny that your magic would be a great aid to us and, frankly, we need all the help we can get."

Sunset didn't reply at first. Despite what she had told Lieutenant Colonel Strong she wasn't interested in picking any more fights with the Enclave and she sure as Tartarus didn't feel comfortable answering for the others in that regard. "I… I'll talk to my friends. I can't promise anything, yet, though."

Elder Lyons nodded. "I understand." He glanced back over his shoulder, "Squire Maxson, please escort Miss Shimmer to the room we assigned for her." Turning back to Sunset he stood and held out a hand. "No matter what the future brings, you have my thanks, Miss Shimmer. I suggest you go and get some rest; the coming days could well be some of the darkest and most difficult the Brotherhood has seen for decades."





Colonel Autumn gritted his teeth as the medics worked to splint the mangled remains of his arms. Even with a borderline dangerous dose of the strongest painkillers available the agony was almost unbearable, but the Colonel flat-out refused to make any more noise than a grunt in front of his troops.

He had woken up in a makeshift clinic inside Project Purity a little over half an hour ago now and he was doing everything he could to take control of the situation. The medics had tried to warn Colonel Autumn that he needed to rest, that tests were needed to make sure no permanent damage had been done, but with the Enclave in such a precarious position now that Raven Rock was gone, he didn’t think he could afford to sit back and do nothing.

Admittedly, Lieutenant Colonel Strong had done a fine job of coordinating the evacuees. Unfortunately, his blatant attempts at pushing through a ceasefire with the Brotherhood of Steel, likely orchestrated by his sister and her lover, were not only premature but potentially dangerous.

The heavy footfalls of a power armored soldier slowly percolated through the Colonel's pain and drug-induced fugue. He looked around just in time to see a soldier stop next to his chair and snap a salute. "Sir! We've just received a message from the Brotherhood of Steel."

Colonel Autumn slowly arched an eyebrow. "A message? Who brought it?"

"A woman, sir," the soldier replied. "She says her name is Sarah Lyons and that she's the second-in-command of the Brotherhood of Steel. She had a few others with her as escort, but Lyons herself was unarmed."

"I see. And where are they now?" Colonel Autumn asked.

"They're waiting outside the first barrier for an answer, sir," the soldier told him.

Colonel Autumn nodded. "Good. What's the message?"

The soldier unfolded a sheet of paper and held it out for the Colonel to read. "They are offering a peace treaty. They will suspend any and all hostilities against the Enclave in return for handing control of Project Purity over to them by thirteen hundred hours tomorrow."

Colonel Autumn snorted as he read through the letter himself. There was plenty of flowery crap in there; assertions that they could make the wasteland a better place together, put aside past differences and such, but there was also a definite tone of 'or else' should the Enclave consider rejecting their terms. 

After considering the letter for a few minutes, Colonel Autumn shook his head. "Tell the messenger we are rejecting their offer."

"Sir?" 

"The Brotherhood of Steel has likely heard of the loss of Raven Rock already and therefore believe us to be in a state of immense disarray," Colonel Autumn explained. "While that may be partially true, it is also true that our hold on Project Purity has not weakened in the slightest. If anything, the influx of troops evacuated from Raven Rock has strengthened our position here. The Brotherhood must know this and they are attempting to take advantage of our confusion and intimidate us into complying with their demands." 

The Colonel laughed humorlessly. "Think about it, soldier. If the Brotherhood of Steel truly believed that our forces had weakened, they wouldn't bother with this peace treaty, they'd attack, take control of Project Purity by force, and use that as a bargaining chip to force us to surrender. The fact that they're even trying this tactic proves that their leaders do not believe that they have the strength to shift us through military means."

"I see, sir." The soldier crumpled the letter up in his armored fist. "What should we do about the messenger?"

"Let her go," Colonel Autumn replied. "Their tactics may be slippery, but this Lyons woman must have some courage to come and face us unarmed." 

The soldier nodded and tossed the crumpled letter on the floor. Colonel Autumn stared at it as the soldier walked away, wondering if he was making the right decision. Just as the soldier reached the door, Colonel Autumn called out, "Wait!"





The sound of running water almost felt hypnotic, the patter and heat of the shower doing what little it could to soothe Fluttershy as she scrubbed the muck from herself. When the water running off her was no longer black or crimson she turned the shower off and stepped out of the cubicle, grabbing a towel off the nearby rack as she went.

An hour had passed since Twilight had gone into surgery. She was still in there; the surgeons had stabilized her and were now working to repair her damaged back muscles, but Fluttershy had been sent away to get some rest. There was little more that such an inexperienced nurse could do to help anymore, especially when compared to the Brotherhood's own highly trained medical staff.

Fluttershy bit back her shame at being unable to help her friend in this time of need and focused on drying herself. When she was done she tossed the towel in a hamper and stepped over to the sinks, checking herself in one of the unbroken mirrors. She looked like a mess; her eyes were bloodshot and sunken with dark bags clearly standing out beneath them; her cheeks were hollow and her skin was pale and waxy. 

If the animals at the shelter saw me now they'd probably be terrified.

Shaking her head, Fluttershy clothed herself in clean undergarments and the uniform that the Brotherhood had provided and left the shower block. Despite the number of Knights that had gathered in the Citadel for a potential assault on Project Purity, the corridors were surprisingly quiet. Most of the Knights were either on guard duty or were already asleep and the scribes were all busy at their posts, leaving only the occasional Squire hurrying about completing errands for their elders.

As she walked around a corner on the way to her assigned room, Fluttershy felt her heart skip a beat when she spotted Adam coming down the opposite way, clad in the same Brotherhood uniform. It actually suited him pretty well, he smiled wearily as he spotted her too. "Hey, Flutters. How's Twilight?"

"She's stable for now. There's still a risk of complications, but the medics are confident," Fluttershy replied, pushing her worries to the back of her mind. "Most of the damage was to her Rhomboid, Deltoid and Teres muscles, so hopefully the medics can save the mobility of her arms."

"Hopefully." Adam leaned back against the wall and patted the spot next to him. "And how are you doing?"

Fluttershy sighed and leaned against the wall too. "I'm… I don't know." She almost said that she wanted to go home, but saying that to Adam didn't seem particularly tactful. Instead, she went with a safer option. "I just hope the Enclave and the Brotherhood do end up signing a peace treaty."

"Yeah, me too," Adam agreed.

A somber silence fell between the two. Lost in her own thoughts, Fluttershy suddenly remembered something. "Oh, how is Fawkes doing?"

"He's pretty happy, actually," Adam replied in a tone of mild surprise. "He's been assigned to the same room as me for the night. I was just going to see if I could fetch an extra blanket or two while he's in the shower." He grinned and shook his head. "The Knights didn't want to let Fawkes anywhere near the showers at first, but Rarity threw the most epic tantrum I have ever seen until they agreed to let him in. Big guy looked like a kid at Christmas."

Fluttershy surprised herself by giggling. "It's probably the first shower he's had in a long time, if ever; it’s no wonder he's happy. I'm curious as to why you haven't had a shower."

"Wha- I have!" Adam spluttered.

A sly smile worked its way across Fluttershy's face. "Weird, I can still smell ice cream."

"Oh, wow, that again?" Adam huffed with mock indignation. "I'm never living that down am I?"

"Nope!" Fluttershy giggled at the memory from Vault 101. She and Adam had headed to the diner on their lunch break, but Adam hadn't noticed the 'out of order' sign on the dessert machine. Something was clearly very wrong with it as it ended up squirting ice cream all over the hapless boy. That alone wouldn't have been so bad, but instead of strawberry, the ice cream absolutely reeked of fish. It had taken several showers to finally remove the stench and Fluttershy had made a point of not letting him forget about it.

Adam let out a resigned sigh. "I guess I'd better go for another shower. Just in case."

"Don't be silly," Fluttershy nudged him with her shoulder. "You don't smell."

"Are you sure? You can't smell strawberry salmon on me?" Adam asked jokingly, nudging her back.

The two laughed at their silly little inside joke until Fluttershy suddenly became aware of three very important things. One; Adam was looking at her, two; their faces were inches apart, and three; the atmosphere between them was suddenly charged with something that both terrified and enticed her.

Fluttershy could feel her heart thumping in her chest, but her mind was strangely calm as Adam's head tilted slightly to the side. She closed her eyes as the two of them drifted slowly closer until their lips met. The kiss sent an electric charge racing up and down her spine.

After a single blissful moment, Adam leaned away slightly, breaking the kiss. Fluttershy dared to open her eyes. She barely caught one glance before he kissed her again and the two shifted so they were facing each other properly. Fluttershy wrapped her arms around his shoulders and her heart leapt as he placed a hand on her lower back and reached up with the other to gently cup her face. Fluttershy kissed him hungrily, her lips parting as he pulled her closer.

The sound of approaching footsteps suddenly broke whatever spell she was under and they both whipped their heads around just as Sunset appeared around the corner.

Sunset's eyes practically popped out of their sockets when she saw the two still intertwined and Fluttershy felt a blush like nothing she'd ever felt before exploding into existence across her face.

"Er, sorry," Sunset said awkwardly. "I… I was just coming to find everyone to, uh, tell them…"

"Has something happened?" Adam asked worriedly.

"Sentinel Lyons is back from Project Purity." Fluttershy felt a sudden twist of fear in her gut as Sunset spoke. "The Enclave rejected the peace treaty. The Brotherhood are launching their assault in the morning."
> Chapter 63 - Take it Back!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

All of the Brotherhood of Steel's available forces were gathering in the Citadel's courtyard. Adam couldn't help but wish that there were more; barely fifty power-armored Knights and Paladins were assembled into small squads, their armor gleaming in the morning light. Squires hurried around and between them, fetching ammunition or carrying messages.

"Is this everyone?" Fawkes asked.

Adam nodded. "According to Elder Lyons, this is everyone they could gather on short notice without leaving the Citadel undefended."

Still, despite the lack of numbers, Adam couldn't deny that the Brotherhood's strike force contained some truly formidable warriors. He and Fawkes had been assigned to the Lyons' Pride for this battle, the most elite team in the whole Brotherhood of Steel. Not far away the newly christened Wonderbolts were checking over their equipment; sitting under a shelter at the edge of the courtyard were the Rainbooms.

A storm of butterflies suddenly took flight in Adam's stomach as he noticed that Fluttershy was making her way over. The memory of last night's meeting, cut short though it was, made him struggle to keep a goofy smile off his face.

"Um, hey," Fluttershy said as she approached, her hair covering half her face.

"Hey," Adam replied. "Are, uh, are you okay?"

Fluttershy looked around at the assembled soldiers and said quietly, "I, um, I'm a little nervous."

"Yeah, I get that," Adam said somberly. "How's Twilight doing?"

"Oh, she's okay," Fluttershy replied. "She's still sleeping at the moment, but the surgery was successful and the medics think she should regain the full use of her arms when she heals."

"Good. That's good." Adam watched her awkwardly, unsure whether he should say something about last night or not, in case it made her run off in embarrassment. After a moment he threw caution to the wind and held an arm up; a clear invitation for a cuddle. To his absolute delight Fluttershy immediately ducked under his arm and squeezed up next to him. Her cheeks were turning bright red, but she also had a small smile on her face.

"I… um… I know I said to ask me after all of this was over, but…" Fluttershy glanced up at him from under her hair. "Well, I think you've got my answer." Adam felt a blush grace his own cheeks as he clasped his arm around her shoulders. "A-anyway, um, shouldn't you be getting in your armor?"

Adam glanced at the power armor he had 'borrowed' from the Enclave, currently standing empty waiting for him to step inside. The Brotherhood has been worried that people might mistake him for an Enclave soldier and shoot him in the confusion of battle, so their scribes, in a fit of irony, had painted it in the Vault-Tec scheme of blue with yellow trim. "I'll put it on when we're ready to go. I don't want to run down the fusion core, not until we can salvage some more from the Enclave."

"Good thinking." Adam looked up to see Sentinel Lyons walking towards them, accompanied by another woman. 

The new woman wasn't wearing a helmet just like the Sentinel, but where Sarah Lyons had pale skin and a blonde ponytail the new woman had dark brown skin and a black buzz cut. She was carrying an immense sledgehammer, easily the same height as her, in a single hand as if it was a wizard's staff. She stopped just in front of Adam and held out her free hand. "Star Paladin Cross. It is good to finally see you again."

Adam raised an eyebrow as he shook her hand. "We've met before?"

Paladin Cross nodded. "Almost twenty years ago. I was the one who escorted you and your father across the wastes to Megaton after your mother passed." She clasped her fist over her heart and bowed her head. "I am deeply sorry that I was not present to prevent your father's death, but permit me the honor of aiding you in this battle to realize their dreams."

"I-I, uh, wow." Adam rubbed at his neck awkwardly then quickly pulled himself together. "Please, the honor would be mine. I just hope I don't drag you guys down out there."

Sarah smirked. "I've seen you fight. Trust me, you won't." Before he could reply she turned to Fluttershy. "What about you, are you joining us, today?"

"I will, but, um, I'll be with the rest of the Rainbooms and I'll just be doing first aid instead of, um, f-fighting," Fluttershy replied.

"Fair enough, in that case you'd best go and get some armor on, we'll be starting any minute," Sarah told her.

"Oh, um, okay." Fluttershy ducked out from under Adam's arm and made to walk away, then darted back and planted a quick kiss on his cheek before scampering away as quickly as she could, her own cheeks burning brightly.

No amount of self-control could prevent the goofy grin this time, not that Adam was trying particularly hard.

"She is a very sweet girl," Fawkes said approvingly.

"Yeah, I can feel my teeth rotting just from watching her," Sarah joked. "Come on, loverboy, get in your damn armor before you get diabetes or something."





Sunset sat on a bench near the edge of the Citadel's courtyard. Her stomach kept twisting in knots as she tried and failed to avoid thinking about what was about to happen. The rest of the Rainbooms were similarly lost in their own thoughts, save for Fluttershy who had gone to speak to Adam quickly before the mission began. 

Glancing over at the two of them, Sunset allowed herself a smile as she saw Adam's arm around Fluttershy's shoulders. 

"They do make a cute couple, don't they?" Rarity said, barely keeping the 'squee' out of her voice.

"Who?" Applejack turned to see where the others were looking, then blinked in surprise when she saw. "Huh? Since when have those two been dating?"

"Since last night, I think," Sunset offered.

Rainbow grunted. "I didn't even know that she was interested in him."

"Apparently he asked her out back in Vault 101, not long before James left, but Fluttershy turned him down because she didn't want to enter a relationship that would be doomed when we went home," Rarity supplied. She sighed dramatically. "After we met back up in Little Lamplight, she told him to ask again when everything had calmed down again. It seems she couldn't quite keep to her own restrictions." Rarity beamed and danced excitedly on the spot. "Oohhh I'm so glad about this! They look adorable together!"

Sunset was about to add her own thoughts on the subject when a group of squires hurried over. Each of them carried a heavy-looking bundle in their arms. "Miss, er, Rainbooms? We've brought some combat armor for all of you," the lead squire said loudly.

Snatched back to reality, Sunset struggled to remain composed as a squire helped her put the armor on. It was simple enough, really; a metal chestplate, backplate and shoulder pads for her torso, a belt with more metal plates to protect her hips and groin, and a set of metal shin-pads with matching knee-pads. The squire assured Sunset that it was comparatively lightweight, but it was still incredibly heavy to someone who wasn't used to it. She was glad that she had decided to ditch her backpack for this mission.

The others didn't seem to be having too much trouble with it. Rarity, predictably, was busy lamenting that the dull steel plates didn't go with her outfit, while Pinkie and Rainbow were both shifting around and swinging their arms to check their mobility. Applejack just gave the armor a quick check to make sure it fitted alright, nodded with satisfaction, and went back to fiddling with her Pip-Boy.

"Hey, whose is the extra kit?" one of the squires asked, holding up a spare set of armor.

"I think that's m-mine," Fluttershy called out as she hurried over. 

Sunset tactfully chose not to comment on the incredible blush the young nurse was sporting. Instead she asked, "Any idea how much longer we're going to be standing here?"

"Yes… um… one second." Fluttershy let the squires help her get the armor on before replying, "Sentinel Lyons said that we'll be starting any minute."

Sunset nodded and tapped her Geode. "In that case we'd better get ready. Pony up, girls."

There were six flashes of light as the Rainbooms all ponied up, followed by a wave of gasps and muttering that spread rapidly through the courtyard. Sunset blinked in surprise as she realized that her new armor had taken on a reddish tinge. Looking around at the others, she noticed that the other girls' armor had taken on the faint color of their magic, too.

The noise in the courtyard was silenced as a pair of doors at one end slammed open and Elder Lyons stepped out. He looked impassively around at the assembled troops, then raised what looked like a walkie-talkie to his mouth. A moment later a series of speakers around the walls crackled into life, "Brothers and Sisters, the time is upon us. This may well be the most important battle of our lives. The Enclave have control of Project Purity, and intend to use it to force the local settlements into subjugation. We cannot allow that."

A sudden rumbling sound made Sunset look up. A large crane that towered over the walls was turning until it was positioned directly over the center of the bailey. 

"The Enclave have fortified Project Purity against us, using advanced energy fields to block all avenues of attack," Elder Lyons continued. "They believe that they have us outgunned, outclassed, and outmatched. They are wrong."

As the crane lowered its hook, a huge circular hatch opened up in the ground for it to disappear into. Moments later the cable went taut and, with the sound of straining metal, hoisted out the immense robot that the Rainbooms had seen in the lab underground.

Astonished cries and cheers filled the air as Elder Lyons voice rang out through the speakers, "Liberty Prime shall open the path to the objective. Stay with the robot until your route is clear, then occupy Project Purity and drive out the Enclave."

The crane turned slowly, moving to place Liberty Prime outside the Citadel. Unfortunately, the crane's operator apparently misjudged the distance between the robot and the wall, and its leg collided with the top of the Citadel with an impact that knocked free a deluge of shattered bricks and plaster.

Elder Lyons glared up at the crane as it raised Liberty Prime a little more, just enough to clear the wall, then finished turning. With a nod, Elder Lyons held out an arm and called out to the troops, "Go forth, my Brothers and Sisters. Onward to victory!"

The assembled Knights let loose a great roar that echoed around the courtyard as they all piled through the Citadel's exit. Swallowing her trepidation, Sunset hefted her assault rifle and called out to the rest of the girls,"Alright, Rainbooms, let's go!"

The girls found themselves near the back of the miniature army making their way out of the Citadel; a splash of color among a sea of gray power armor. 

Liberty Prime was waiting outside. As soon as the first Knights reached it the robot jerked into motion. The ground shook with each step Liberty Prime took as the giant robot led the way down a dirt track away from the Citadel. As it walked, the robot's speakers suddenly boomed, "MISSION: THE DESTRUCTION OF ANY AND ALL CHINESE COMMUNISTS." 

Sunset looked up at it in awe. She suspected that Chinese communists must be the original foe that Liberty Prime was programmed to fight, but she doubted that it would have much difficulty dealing with the Enclave troops instead. 

A short way along the route a couple of squads split off from the main group. They opened up a manhole cover just off the path and, with a shout of encouragement to the others, made their way underground one by one. The rest of the Brotherhood forces continued down the path after Liberty Prime. 

After crossing a short metal bridge across a creek, they came to a battered old concrete bridge, a solid construct built for two lanes of traffic, that spanned the width of an irradiated river. Two large pylons had been erected at the top of the ramp that led onto the bridge. A crackling blue energy field shimmered between them, blocking the way ahead. Enclave soldiers could be seen getting into position behind it, taking aim at the approaching Brotherhood of Steel troops.

Out of nowhere a missile suddenly flashed across the river and slammed into Liberty Prime's shoulder, raising worried gasps from the Knights. Liberty Prime paused in its tracks to look in the direction the missile had come from. A moment later a series of blue laser beams lanced out from the robot's eyes and slammed into a Vertibird hovering on the other side of the river, blowing it out of the sky.

"COMMUNISM IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF FAILURE." Satisfied that its enemy was destroyed, Liberty Prime stomped up the bridge towards the energy barrier. "OBSTRUCTION DETECTED. COMPOSITION: TITANIUM ALLOY SUPPLEMENTED BY PHOTONIC RESONANCE BARRIER. PROBABILITY OF MISSION HINDRANCE-" Liberty walked directly into the barrier, arcs of electricity cascading all over its body, until finally the barrier collapsed in a shower of sparks, "ZERO PERCENT."

The Enclave soldiers on the bridge panicked and fired wildly at the robot, but Liberty Prime opened up with its lasers as it walked, mowing the troopers down with ease.

"Damn, that thing kicks ass!" Rainbow cried.

Encouraged by the robot's effortless destruction of their enemies, the Knights piled onto the bridge in Liberty Prime's wake. Sunset slowed to a walk as she reached the top of the bridge, crouching as much as she could and casting her gaze around warily.

"What's wrong, sugarcube?" Applejack asked.

Sunset bit her lip. "Something doesn't feel right. Liberty Prime may have taken the Enclave by surprise, but you'd think that they'd have something else up their sleeves in case we made it onto the bridge. We're seriously exposed up here."

The words had barely left her mouth before they were justified, as a whistling cry echoed over the bridge. One of the Knights yelled, "Artillery!" Explosions rent the air a bare second later.

Liberty Prime shrugged off artillery shells as if they were merely an irritant, but the Knights weren't so lucky. Even their power armor wasn't enough to save them; the explosions tore through metal and flesh alike with terrifying ease, scattering debris and broken bodies all over the road. The Rainbooms were saved by the fact that they were right at the back of the group, just out of the artillery's range, but even they were pelted by shards of tarmac.

Enduring the Enclave's barrage, Liberty Prime reached for a dispenser on its back, pulled out a man-sized bomb, then stepped forward and tossed it as if it was passing a football. The following blast was out of the girls' sight, but was powerful enough to shake the very ground beneath their feet. 

"Sometimes I hate being right," Sunset said quietly, unable to hide the quaver in her voice. "This is way beyond anything we can handle."

"It's about to get worse," Pinkie hissed. As she spoke a pair of Vertibirds flew over the ruins, one on either side of the bridge and just out of range of the ground troops. The two of them launched a barrage of missiles that engulfed Liberty Prime.

Rainbow swore loudly. "I'll take out the one on the right!" She ignited Flashburn, then disappeared in a multicolored blur. 

"Ah got the other one!" Applejack slung her rifle over her shoulder and snatched up a dislodged length of rebar, then hurled it like a javelin at the Vertibird. The steel pole smashed through the corner of the vehicle's windshield. It must have hit the pilot or an important part of the controls, because the Vertibird immediately spun out of control and crashed into the river below.

A loud blast from the other Vertibird snagged Sunset's attention just in time for her to watch it plunge into the river too, blue flames pouring from one of its engines. Rainbow landed back at her side a heartbeat later. "Got 'em, is the robot okay?"

Sunset tore her gaze from the Vertibird's watery grave and looked ahead. Liberty Prime seemed unfazed by the pounding it had taken as it pulled out another bomb and lobbed it at the distant artillery. The Knights that had hunkered down or taken cover soon noticed that the bombardment had stopped, scrambling back into some semblance of order and charging after Liberty Prime as it continued on its way.

"Looks like it's fine, let's go!" Applejack cried.

"You girls go on ahead, I'm going to help the wounded!" Fluttershy called out before flying over to the nearest fallen Knight. 

The screams of the wounded and the dying hounded Sunset as she and the others hurried to catch up to the rest of the Brotherhood troops. Worse was the sight of those soldiers who would never cry out again; shattered bodies strewn across the road in pieces like some macabre puzzle. 

Sunset tried to focus on the Knights who were still standing in an effort to take her mind off the carnage, but that just brought a fresh problem to her attention; counting the Knights that had taken the sewer route, the strike force had lost about half of their number already. Still, the Enclave had taken heavy losses, too, as the mangled remains of steel barricades would attest. 

More gunfire broke out when Liberty Prime reached the far end of the bridge. Tall ruins rose up on each side of the road, providing the Enclave soldiers with excellent vantage points from which they could rain fire down on the Brotherhood troops. Fortunately, most of them concentrated their efforts on Liberty Prime. The robot weathered the storm and responded in kind, blasting them with its lasers or hurling miniature nukes that brought down entire buildings with their fury.

A short way past the end of the bridge the road turned to the right and down a ramp. The buildings on the right descended with it, but the buildings on the left stayed on the same elevation, until the floor was high enough above the road that it was level with Liberty Prime's shoulders. 

Sunset looked up at the ruins anxiously as the Rainbooms started down the ramp. They had been lucky enough to avoid being targeted so far, probably because they were right at the back of the group and a much smaller threat than the massive battle robot currently causing mayhem up ahead, but this enclosed area would be a nasty place to get ambushed.

Almost as soon as the thought crossed her mind Sunset heard aircraft approaching from behind. Her heart leapt into her mouth as another Vertibird appeared over the top of the ruins. "Everyone get off the road!" The Rainbooms and the few Knights that heard scrambled into the nearest building just as the Vertibird opened fire, scouring the road with a storm of laser fire and missiles. 

Before Sunset could catch her breath there was a loud crash as an Enclave soldier dropped down from a higher floor, landing hard enough to shatter the rocks beneath his feet. Pinkie shoved Sunset aside just in time to save her from getting a bolt of plasma to the chest. The soldier aimed at Pinkie instead, but a shining gemstone smacked into his gun and fouled his aim. A second later there was a colossal boom as Applejack used the distraction to punch him as hard as she could, sending him sailing through the walls behind.

"Are y'all okay?" Applejack called out. The others had to shout to make their replies heard as the sounds of fierce combat filled the air. Sunset swore as she realized that she had been right; they'd walked right into the Enclave's ambush. 

"What do we do now?" Rarity asked. 

Sunset opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off as a sudden burst of plasma fire from above forced the girls to scatter and run deeper into the building. Time seemed to lose all meaning as Sunset ran, each ruined corridor or debris-strewn room providing a fresh glimpse into Tartarus as Brotherhood Knights and Enclave soldiers clashed in a brutal melee.

In one room a Knight was emptying his minigun into an Enclave soldier's face at point blank range, firing until his enemy's head was little more than a red mist dotted with flakes of scrap metal. In another, several Knights had abandoned using their ineffective weapons and resorted to mobbing a lone soldier, holding him down while one of their number ripped off the soldier's helmet and bludgeoned him to death with it.

The Brotherhood wasn't having everything go their way. The Enclave soldiers had better equipment and training, and wherever they matched the Brotherhood's numbers the Knights were gunned down mercilessly. 

Everything was too chaotic for Sunset to tell who was winning. She had lost sight of the rest of the Rainbooms, and the constant snap of laser and plasma fire coupled with intermittent explosions rendered her near enough deaf. Sunset had yet to fire a single shot herself. Every time she pointed her rifle at someone images of the raider she had shot flashed across her mind, keeping her from pulling the trigger.

Lost, confused, and scared, Sunset just kept moving until, as she ran across an open room, a single laser shot punched her in the chest. Her armor took the hit, but the impact threw off her balance just enough that she tripped over her own feet and fell to the ground, spraying bullets everywhere as she accidentally pulled her rifle's trigger.

Sunset rolled onto her back and looked up in time to see an Enclave soldier stomping towards her. She yelled and fired wildly at him, terror overriding her hesitation, but the bullets just pinged harmlessly off his armor. Just as the soldier raised his own weapon a Knight came charging out of nowhere and tackled him to the ground. 

Granted a reprieve, Sunset surged to her feet and sprinted away, not daring to look back at the fight that erupted behind her. She ran through the ruined building as fast as she could, not stopping until she finally found herself in a small back room stocked with a couple of rusty filing cabinets.

Sunset was at the end of her rope. Pushed beyond rational thought, she tossed her assault rifle aside and sagged against the wall, running her hands through her hair as she tried to get her breathing under control. Panicked as she was, it took Sunset a few moments to realize that she wasn't alone. Pinkie was curled up in a ball in the corner, staring blankly at the wall ahead as tears streamed silently down her face.

Neither girl spoke. Sunset wanted to give Pinkie a hug, to at least try to comfort her, but when she tried to take a step her knees buckled and she instead found herself sitting on the floor with one leg folded underneath her. Belatedly, Sunset realized that she was shaking uncontrollably as she cried, too.

Heavy footsteps and a shadow falling across the door announced the arrival of someone else. An Enclave soldier stomped into the doorway, and Sunset was vaguely aware of a warm wetness spreading between her legs as she lost control of her bladder in her terror.

The soldier took a single step into the room, then slumped against the doorframe and slid down until he was sitting on the floor. A closer look revealed that the one side of his armor was battered and rent, with multiple holes dotting the deformed metal. Sunset stared warily at the soldier for several seconds before crawling over to him. When she got to him she reached up and, with a grunt of effort, managed to pry off his helmet.

The soldier was barely more than a boy, around the same age as the Rainbooms. His skin was waxy and deathly pale. Blood spattered from his mouth as he coughed out, "I… don't wa… don't wanna... die…"

"I-it's okay," Sunset managed to whisper. "You… you're going to be alright." Without thinking, driven by deep-rooted compassion, she reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The moment her hand touched his skin her Geode pulsed and her magic flared into life.

A flood of images flowed into Sunset's mind, snapshots from the soldier's life. A little boy playing catch with his father in a hangar. Playing tag with friends in a makeshift jungle gym. Learning math from the kindly elementary teacher. Getting his first flight in a Vertibird with his father. Being treated to a real steak as a reward for getting accepted into the higher education football team. Standing nervously in front of Colonel Autumn as he started military training. Learning to field-strip a plasma rifle. A girlfriend crying out in ecstasy as he thrust into her. Crying tears of pride after graduating Raven Rock's military academy with honours. Hugging his mother before flying out to the Jefferson Memorial for his first mission. And finally stumbling into a back room, wounded by explosives after his first battle went sideways. 

As the visions slowly faded to black Sunset felt something tugging at her mind, as if her very soul was being sucked into a dark abyss. She snatched her hand back and the magic cut off instantly. Sunset stared blankly at the corpse sitting in front of her, her heart hammering so hard it actually hurt. She tried to move, to stand or scream or do anything, but her body just wouldn't cooperate. The world span, and Sunset felt herself slump to the floor just before she slipped into unconsciousness.





Adam ducked instinctively as another missile slammed into Liberty Prime. The robot shrugged it off and retaliated with its lasers, easily obliterating the offending soldier. It looked up and down the street for any further targets. Seeing that all Enclave troops in the open were down, it turned to continue on its way.

"That's the last of them!" Sentinel Lyons called out. "Pride, Wonderbolts and Adam, with me! The rest of you head into that building and help the others deal with whatever's left of the ambush!" 

Three Knights split off from the group and ran back towards the building the rest of the strike force had disappeared into. Adam just blinked dumbly, having expected there to be more troops left, then hurried to catch up with Lyons and the others. Fawkes and Paladin Cross kept pace with him; friendship on one side and duty on the other.

The few remaining Enclave soldiers on the streets were wiped out easily by the group as they advanced. Cross wielded her super sledge with an elegant brutality that spoke of years of experience, while the barrel of Fawkes' gatling laser glowed white-hot from the sheer amount of firepower he had unleashed. The rest of the team had scavenged plasma rifles from fallen Enclave soldiers, snatching up ammunition from the dead wherever they could; they were the only other weapons that could consistently breach the Enclave's superior power armor.

It didn't take long for the group to reach the end of the ruined streets. One more concrete bridge over a tributary river led to Project Purity, but the far side was protected by an extensive system of photonic resonance barriers that ringed the entirety of the Jefferson Memorial; one final obstacle for the Brotherhood to overcome.

Liberty Prime stomped over the bridge towards the barrier with no sign of concern whatsoever, causing cracks in the concrete that made Adam worry about the bridge's structural integrity. "DEMOCRACY IS NON-NEGOTIABLE." When it reached the barrier it reached out to grip the pylons on either side of the bridge. Electricity arced all over Liberty Prime's body, filling the air with the reek of ozone, until finally the robot collapsed onto all fours as the ring of barriers failed in a colossal shower of sparks.

The small team stared at Liberty in stunned horror, but they soon breathed a sigh of relief as the giant robot pushed itself to its feet and lumbered forwards once more. "COMMUNISM IS A TEMPORARY SETBACK ON THE ROAD TO FREEDOM."

A handful of Enclave soldiers tried to resist, apparently determined to fight to their last breath, but Liberty Prime's overwhelming firepower ensured that those final breaths were only seconds away. Adam actually felt sorry for them. Most of them were probably just ordinary people following bad orders, but that didn't make an ounce of difference to the cold logic of a combat robot.

Sentinel Lyons clapped Adam on the shoulder as she stepped past him. "Alright people, this is it. Liberty Prime has done his part, now it's up to us to get in there and secure the purifier. Let's go!"

Just as the team started towards the Memorial building they were caught off-guard by the sudden roar of rotors. Fear clenched Adam's heart as four Vertibirds soared around the exterior of Project Purity, two on each side flanking the group in a pincer manoeuvre. 

Sentinel Lyons tried to shout a warning, but it was drowned out by the sound of the Vertibirds unleashing a furious salvo of missiles at Liberty Prime. Thankfully, the attacks were no more effective than previously. Unlike previously, however, the Vertibirds kept moving, shifting into single file and speeding up as they made a beeline for the robot. 

"Shit, it's a bombing run!" Sentinel Lyons shouted. "Everyone scatter!"

Adam belted for cover, risking a glance over his shoulder as he ran. Liberty Prime managed to blast two of the Vertibirds out of the sky, scattering chunks of blazing debris all over the place, but the robot couldn't turn in time to target the other two before they reached it. Adam caught a brief glimpse of several small black masses dropping out of the Vertibirds as they passed over Liberty Prime, then his focus was shattered as the explosions started.

The ground quaked as nuclear fire enveloped the giant robot. Over a dozen blasts ripped through the air, each one rolling into the next like some nightmare crescendo. Adam threw himself to the floor and covered his head, desperately hoping that he was far enough away from the explosions for his armor to protect him. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the last of the blasts faded away, leaving a ringing silence in their wake.

Cautiously, Adam uncovered his head and pushed himself onto his knees before reluctantly turning to see the aftermath of the bombs. Black smoke shrouded the robot entirely. The two Vertibirds could be seen banking around, clearly lining themselves up for another attack. Adam felt his heart sink as he realized that their next target would likely be him.

"DEATH IS A PREFERABLE ALTERNATIVE TO COMMUNISM." Blue lasers suddenly tore out of the smoke, obliterating the Vertibirds with ease. Adam gasped and clambered to his feet, then whooped as the smoke dissipated to reveal Liberty Prime, blackened but unbeaten, one fist raised in the air triumphantly. "DEMOCRACY WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED."

A few scattered cheers and shouts of awe greeted his proclamation. Adam looked around quickly, mentally counting as the Wonderbolts and the Lyons Pride picked themselves up off the ground and gathered together again. Cross looked fine, if a little pissed off, and at least two of the Knights were obviously injured by the way they were moving, but Fawkes was nowhere to be seen.

"Fawkes? Where are you, buddy?" Adam called out. "Fawkes?!"

"Over here," came the gruff reply. Adam followed the voice around the mangled remains of a car to find Fawkes sat against the side of it. "I am glad to see that you are unhurt."

"What about you, how are you doing?" Adam asked, trying to keep the worry out of his voice.

Fawkes sighed and shifted his leg to reveal a foot-long shard of twisted metal sticking out of his knee, earning a sympathetic hiss from Adam. "Do not worry, I will live, but I am afraid I will not be able to help you secure your objective. Not unless you can wait for an hour while I crawl over there."

"It's fine, buddy, you rest," Adam replied with a relieved grin. "We'll handle the rest of these posers, then I'll fetch you a glass of fresh water. How does that sound?"

Fawkes chuckled softly. "That sounds agreeable indeed." He reached up to clasp Adam's hand. "Go. Carry out your destiny and fulfil your parents' dream."

Adam nodded and clapped him on the shoulder before jogging over to the others.

"How's Fawkes?" Metzger asked.

"He'll be okay, but he's going to have to sit this one out," Adam replied. "What now?"

Sentinel Lyons glared up at the Memorial building. "Now we finish this fight." Without another word she charged off towards the nearest door, forcing the others to follow quickly or get left behind.

The interior of Project Purity was far cleaner than Adam remembered. Most of the debris had been cleared and the accumulated filth and bloodstains had been completely scrubbed away. "Say what you will about the Enclave, but at least they keep things tidy."

Angry shouting could be heard from a doorway just ahead on their right. Sentinel Lyons held up a hand to halt her team, then gestured for Cross to come closer. Adam frowned as he tried to figure out their best option; there was only one way in or out, and the Enclave soldiers within were certain to have it well covered with as much firepower as they could muster. 

As he was still pondering what to do, Cross stepped aside and crouched next to the wall opposite the door, just out of sight of whoever was inside. As soon as she was situated she nodded to Sentinel Lyons, who raised her hand again and called out to the Enclave soldiers, "This is Sentinel Lyons of the Brotherhood of Steel. We have you surrounded and outnumbered. Surrender and your lives will be spared; you have my word."

"With all due respect, Sentinel, you can go fuck yourself!" someone shouted in reply. 

Sentinel Lyons just shook her head and dropped her hand. The moment she did Cross exploded into action, launching herself at the wall next to the door and barreling straight through it as if it were made of paper. Adam barely had time to register what had happened before he was caught up in the rush as the rest of the team charged in after her with a roar.

Three soldiers were in the room. They were clearly well disciplined, smoothly switching their aim from the door to the hole in the wall and firing in unison, but the moment of distraction cost them dearly. 

Cross dove into a commando roll the moment the soldiers fired, an incredible feat in power armor, then swung her hammer in a wide arc as she rolled back to her feet, using her momentum to cave in the nearest soldiers' helmet. The last two soldiers were caught in a barrage of plasma fire that only ended when they both fell. Cross kicked their weapons aside, just in case they weren't quite dead.

Adam whistled softly as he lowered his weapon. He realized that he was going to have to learn and account for what power armor was actually capable of in the future, especially if he was going to get involved in more fighting. Putting that to the back of his mind for now, he asked, "What now?" 

Sentinel Lyons gently wiped her brow with a gauntlet as she answered, "The squads we sent through the sewer tunnels are downstairs trying to take control of the reactor. We'll secure this floor, then go downstairs and give them a hand."

"That won't be necessary," a familiar voice called out. Adam and the Sentinel frowned at each other, then walked over to a nearby door, readying their weapons as a precaution. Colonel Autumn was sitting on the edge of a portable hospital bed with both of his arms in splints. A medic and an Enclave officer in dress uniform were in the makeshift clinic, too, holding their hands above their heads. Colonel Autumn looked up at the Sentinel as she stepped into the room. "You win, Sentinel Lyons. Major Johnson, give the order for our troops to lay down their arms. We surrender."

"Wise decision. It's a shame you didn't make the same call yesterday." Sentinel Lyons looked back over her shoulder at the rest of the team. "Wonderbolts, take these men into custody, then I want you to-"

"Hang on a second," Major Johnson cut in. "Colonel, we've got a problem."

"What kind of problem?" Sentinel Lyons asked testily.

The Major looked from her to the Colonel and back as if waiting for permission, but when none was forthcoming he shrugged and replied anyway, "Our scientists are saying that the reactor systems downstairs were damaged in the firefight. They're generating an immense amount of power and they can't switch it off, if we don't do something in the few minutes it's going to overload and explode!"

"He's telling the truth," one of the Pride's Knights supplied. "I've just got word from our troops down there, the reactor got hit by wayward laser fire. We need to evacuate the building!"

"Has the G.E.C.K. been installed properly yet?" Adam asked urgently.

Major Johnson nodded. "It has, but that won't help. Switching the purifier on would solve our issue but we don't know the activation code."

"No need, I know the code!" Adam turned to leave, but was stopped as the Major shouted after him.

"Wait! The control room is still massively irradiated, going in there will be suicide!"

That was enough to give Adam pause. Seeing his hesitation, Sentinel Lyons stepped up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Tell me the code. I'll activate the purifier."

Adam looked at her as the rest of the Knights started arguing over whether they should evacuate or not. She was clearly terrified, but determined. That was enough to set Adam's mind. "Fine, but you'll need that monkey wrench over there."

As the Sentinel turned to see what he was talking about, Adam shrugged off her hand and sprinted out of the room, thundering through the building as quickly as he could. He could hear her following him, shouting for him to wait, but he paid it no mind. Fawkes was right, this was his destiny.

The rotunda containing the purifier was almost exactly the way Adam last saw it. The hole in the wall hadn't been fixed, but the debris around it had been safely cleared away. He charged through the hole, smashing more chunks from the edges in his haste, and surged up the stairs to the control room. Metal stairs buckled under his armor's weight, but he made it to the top and into the airlock without stumbling.

Sentinel Lyons reached the top a second after the reinforced glass door slid shut. She pounded a fist on the door as she yelled, "Damn it, Adam! Why?!"

"Sorry, Sarah, but I'm not going to let anyone else die for the sake of my parents' dream. This is something I have to do myself." He reached for the button to open the inner door, then paused and glanced over his shoulder. "Tell Fluttershy that I'm sorry."

"I will." Sentinel Lyons snapped a crisp salute. "The wasteland will never forget this sacrifice, I swear."

Adam just nodded and pressed the button. His armor's Geiger counter immediately crackled into life as a wave of dizziness passed through him. Forcing himself forward, he stepped over to the main control panel and looked down at the keypad.

The activation code was easy to figure out for anyone who had known James well. His wife, Adam's mother, had always loved the Bible, and one certain verse in particular. It was this verse that would inspire her dream, and what would now become her legacy in the form of Project Purity. 

"Revelation 21:6." Adam typed in the three digit code. "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life, freely." His heart broke as he heard the purifier kicking into life. 

Adam sank to one knee as his strength rapidly faded, tears flowing down his face as he allowed himself to finally break down at the unfairness of it all. He had lost his mother on the day of his birth, then lived a lie for most of his life and had the comfort of that lie stripped away in one awful day. Ever since then his days had been a hellish conga line of misery. At the very last, when he had finally found a shred of light, a whisper of kindness in the harshness of the wastes, he was forced into this last and most cruel of choices by his own heroic nature.

"Sorry… Flutters… I didn't… want… to hurt you. F… forgive me…" Adam keeled over as the radiation in the room suddenly spiked, and the darkness claimed him as its own.
> Chapter 64 - Trauma
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy was dead. She was sure of it. She had died and gone to Tartarus. It was the only explanation for the waking nightmare her life was becoming.

She was currently sitting beside a bed in the Citadel's infirmary; Adam lay on the bed next to her, trapped in a deep coma. The medics kept saying that it was a miracle that he was even alive, given the amount of radiation he had been exposed to, but it was a cold comfort at best.

The Wonderbolts and Lyons' Pride had explained everything that had happened at Project Purity, and the knowledge of what Adam had done caused conflicting emotions to rage across the young nurse's mind. 

Fluttershy was proud of what he had done, that was undeniable, and she greatly respected the courage that it must have taken to sacrifice himself like that. Naturally, she was worried about whether or not he would ever wake up again, and she was unspeakably sad at the thought of losing him so soon after they had truly gotten closer, but there was something else burning within her heart, something that was growing stronger with every hour that passed.

Anger. 

Fluttershy hated herself for feeling it, but it was there nonetheless. Anger at the Enclave for what they had done, at the Brotherhood of Steel for allowing him to sacrifice himself, and, most of all, anger at the wasteland itself for being the kind of shithole where things like this were considered normal and allowed to happen.

Fluttershy was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice someone else enter the room and talk to one of the medics, not until he stepped up next to her.

"How are you holding up?" Elder Lyons asked. When Fluttershy didn't reply he just sighed and said softly, "I understand. We may have retaken Project Purity, but that doesn't make this any easier."

Fluttershy glanced up at him, then followed his sad gaze over to the room's other patient. Sentinel Lyons had tried to stop Adam and activate the purifier in his place, but she had failed and been knocked out by the massive burst of radiation unleashed when Project Purity was switched on. Just like Adam, she was now stuck in a coma, too.

"Don't give up hope, Miss Fluttershy." Elder Lyons patted her shoulder gently before going to sit next to his daughter, leaving Fluttershy to her own dark thoughts and inner turmoil.





The Citadel's training area was unusually quiet as most of the Knights and Initiates were busy trying to refortify Project Purity by nightfall, while those few who weren't were taking the opportunity to rest while they could. 

All of that suited Rainbow Dash just fine, it simply meant that she could redo the assault course as many times as she wanted without anyone else getting in her way.

Rainbow still had her armor on with Flashburn sheathed at her waist and its gas tank secured on her back, though she could swear that it had shrunk somehow over the day, and she had strapped her pack over the top of it for extra weight. The only missing item was her Geode, which had been left with Applejack for safe keeping.

Ideally, Rainbow would have preferred to train with it, but she didn't want to risk supercharging the others again. Having her magic get more sensitive was the last thing Sunset needed right now. Unable to push her magic's limits, Rainbow's only option was to push her body's.

The assault on Project Purity should never have gone down the way it did; if she had been faster, been stronger, been better, then she could have prevented most of the Brotherhood's casualties, she was certain of it. But, because she had gotten bogged down struggling to pierce the Enclave's power armor, people had gotten hurt. Her friends had gotten hurt.

Rainbow would never let that happen again. It was that single thought that filled her mind as she ran through the assault course over and over again, until finally a passing instructor had to step in and physically drag her away from it.





It sucks being in a hospital and the Enclave are dicks. Those were the stunning realizations that Twilight and Pinkie came to while they were cooped up in a recovery room together.

Twilight had been awake for a couple of hours now, long enough to hear about everything that had happened at Project Purity. It hardly felt real, hearing what everyone else had been through, but then again, Twilight was currently lying in a hospital bed dosed up to her eyeballs on painkillers and was being propped up by strategically placed cushions so she didn't hurt her back, and she was also completely unable to move her arms. 

A lot of things didn't feel real right at that moment.

Still, Twilight was at least glad that she should regain most of the use of her arms, eventually.

Throwing the likelihood of permanent disability to the back of her mind as best she could, Twilight looked over at Pinkie. The medics had brought her in an hour or so after Twilight had woken up and plonked her in the chair next to the bed. Pinkie was looking a lot perkier than she had been when she was first brought in, though her hair was still flatter than it was normally.

According to the medics, Pinkie had been suffering something of a severe dissociative experience and they felt that having her speak to Twilight would help her in some way; partially because seeing a close friend would be beneficial for them both, and partially because Twilight was the only Rainboom who wasn't currently processing any mental trauma from the assault on Project Purity. The implications of that worried Twilight more than anything, but she kept it to herself.

Fortunately, the medics had been right and Pinkie had been slowly emerging from her shell. Speculating on whether or not the apprentice medic who blushed every time she entered the room was attracted to one of them certainly seemed to help their mentalities. Pinkie wasn't back to normal yet, but she was a lot better than she had been back in Rivet City; at least she was currently feeling well enough to lament the necessity of hospitals and viciously slate the Enclave in their entirety.

Taking a slow, deep breath, Twilight closed her eyes to hide the icy wrath she felt at the thought of the Enclave. As soon as she was back on her feet, Twilight  was going to make them suffer for what they had done to her friends.





Applejack stretched as she ambled through the corridors to the room she was sharing with Rarity, enjoying the sensation of her joints popping between paces with each twist and tweak of an achy limb. She had done what she could to help with clearing the battlefield, using her prodigious strength to help shift any larger pieces of equipment that could be salvaged, but now she was in the mood to get some much needed rest.

"Finally," Applejack muttered when she spotted the door to her shared room. As she opened it, she called out, "You in here, Rarity?"

Rarity looked around from the small table she was sitting at and gave a wan smile. "There you are, darling. I was wondering how much longer you were going to be."

"Sorry about that." Applejack sat on the edge of her bed and tugged her boots off. "Hoo-wee, my dogs’re barkin' after today. What are you working on over there, Rares?"

"Not much, I've just been fixing our clothes, mostly to try and take my mind off…" Rarity gestured vaguely at her head and sighed heavily. "I'd probably have finished by now, but…"

"Your hand still giving you trouble?" Applejack asked.

Rarity nodded. Ever since she had been shot by the raider on the way back to Arefu, the fingers of her left hand had had a tendency to freeze up on occasion. It wasn't painful, or so she said, but it did occasionally flare up when she was performing delicate work like sewing, forcing her to improvise. "In any case, I've at least managed to patch up the worst of the damage and I've fixed up that broken brassiere of yours. You shouldn't have any more trouble with the wire for a while."

"Thanks, Ah owe you one." Applejack said sincerely. "Speaking of bras, this one's coming off." Standing back up, she pulled off her top before undoing her bra and letting it slip to the floor. "Phew! Now that's better." Applejack basked in the feeling of sweet release for a moment before stripping off the rest of her clothes and then changing into a baggy t-shirt and shorts. 

Rarity chuckled softly. "At least one of us in high spirits, how do you manage it?"

"Easy enough, Ah don't know any girl that don't feel better when they take their bra off at the end of the day." Applejack grinned as she dropped onto the edge of the bed again. "You should try it yourself."

Rarity gave one of her characteristic scoffs. "As much as I enjoy mammary liberation, I'm afraid I still have to go and fetch some food from the dining hall later, and I refuse to step outside of this room without a brassiere on. Goodness knows how many of these Knights are secretly lecherous perverts... then again," she added coyly, "I suppose I should be more concerned about the lecherous pervert currently sharing a room with me."

Applejack didn't reply. She had just spotted dried blood underneath her fingernails, she must have missed it in the shower, and the sight of it had utterly ruined her attempts at distracting herself from the morning's events.

The chair creaked, and a moment later Applejack felt a weight on the bed next to her and an arm reaching around her shoulders. "It's going to be alright, darling," Rarity said quietly. "I know this must be awful for you; it was bad enough using my magic against Super Mutants, I can't even imagine how hard it must have been to use your power against other people; but we're going to get through this together. I promise."

"That's just it, Rarity, it wasn't hard. It was as easy as knocking down an old barn," Applejack replied darkly. When her gun had proven useless against the Enclave's power armor, she had resorted to her magic; sneaking up on the enemy and using her strength to crush armor, snap limbs, and shatter skulls. "Don't get me wrong, all that fighting was scarier than anything Ah've ever seen before, but every time Ah killed someone, Ah just felt… nothing." Applejack stared down at her hands as if they were still soaked in blood. "What kinda person can crush a man's skull between her palms and not be bothered by it. How… how can Ah ever look Apple Bloom in the eye ever again, knowing that Ah'm that kinda person, that Ah'm some kind of… of monster."

"You're not a monster, Applejack," Rarity said firmly, squeezing her tightly. "Maybe it'll hit you later, or maybe it won't, but fighting for what's right is not something you should be ashamed of. The fact that you're worrying about this at all is proof that you aren't a monster."

Applejack didn't say anything, she just leaned into Rarity's hug and hoped that, despite everything, she was right.





Cold wind rattled the broken glass of old window frames, filling the room with a biting chill. 

Sunset welcomed it.

She had been wandering through the Citadel randomly for hours trying to familiarise herself with her own body, trying to remember the simple feeling of just existing, until finally she ended up in this unused room in the Citadel's outer ring. It must have been an office once, going by the large desk in the corner with windows that looked out onto a wreck-strewn parking lot.

Sunset bit her lip as she stared out of the window. The cold, the soreness in her limbs, even the sting of the cuts she had picked up in the morning, Sunset accepted all of it. Needed it. Anything that would remind her that she was still alive.

None of it was working, though. No matter where she went or what she did, Sunset couldn't shake the feeling of that gaping abyss leeching at her soul, of how it felt to die.

Sunset clicked her tongue in annoyance and turned to storm out of the room. As she considered where she was going to go next she yanked the door open, swept through the doorway, and promptly collided with someone else in the corridor.

"Whoa! S-sorry about that, Miss Shimmer." The man kept apologizing profusely as Sunset looked him over critically, a ludicrous idea quickly taking shape in her mind. The man wore a Scribe's robe, but he was powerfully built nonetheless, with heavily muscled forearms and messy black hair. He was even a full head taller than her to boot. Perfect.

The scribe clearly misinterpreted the look he was receiving as he shrank back, cowering slightly. His obviously timid nature fanned the reckless fire building in Sunset's core. Abandoning her reservations, Sunset seized the front of his robes and pulled him down to mash her lips against his.

Taken by surprise, it took the scribe a few seconds to realize exactly what was going on, but when he did he responded enthusiastically, grabbing Sunset's hips and pulling her close as she pushed her tongue into his mouth. Sunset ground herself against him to make sure he definitely knew what she was after then pulled away, dragged him into the old office, and kicked the door shut.

There was no tenderness between the two as they clashed together once more, just animal lust and, on Sunset's part, a desperate fervour. She moaned as the scribe's hands roamed over her body and as they slid up and under her top. Following his lead, Sunset shrugged off her jacket and pulled her top off before wrapping her arms back around his neck.

The scribe eagerly took the unspoken invitation, wrapping one arm around Sunset's lower back as the other slid up to her breast. He massaged her through the bra, groaning as she pressed into him, then slowly trailed his hand down her body. Just as the scribe's fingers slipped under her waistband the door suddenly slammed open, startling the two of them.

Paladin Metzger was standing in the doorway, her expression set in an icy glare. "Scribe Irons, don't you have someplace else you need to be?" She asked in a tone of deadly calm.

The scribe whipped around instantly. "Wha- er, I-I mean, y-yes, Paladin!" Without another word he darted out of the room as if his life depended on it. 

Sunset couldn't even watch him leave. She just stared at the ground instead, utterly frozen in place. Metzger's arrival had been like a bucket of ice-cold water to the face, snapping her back to her senses. The realization of what she had been doing, of what she had been about to do, burned in Sunset's thoughts; a hidden brand of shame that left her feeling sick to her stomach. She could feel Metzger's eyes on her, judging her. 

"I get what you're trying to do, Sunset, but this isn't the right way to do it," Metzger said slowly, pushing the door closed behind her as she spoke.

"If you're going to call me a whore or something, then just get it over with already," Sunset managed to spit out. 

Metzger just sighed. "That's not what I meant." She picked Sunset's top up off the floor and handed it to her, then leaned against the desk and patted the spot next to her. "Come on, let's talk."

Thrown off by Metzger's sudden change in demeanor, Sunset slipped her top back on and leaned next to the Paladin. The two sat in silence for a while, until eventually Metzger spoke up, "Look, I may not know the details, but I get what you're going through." She held a hand up as Sunset tried to interject. "If you're gonna say something about your magic, that's fair. I don't know a damn thing about magic. But I do know that you've been through hell, you've seen people dying in horrible ways up close and personal, and you're reacting to it."

Sunset didn't have a response. Metzger's words were forcing her to confront the pain inside and she was afraid that if she tried to open her mouth, then she would lose whatever composure she had. 

Metzger pressed on regardless. "You want to shut out the bad thoughts, but at the same time you want to revel in any sensations you can just to reassure yourself that you survived where others didn't." She huffed a laugh. "Sex can be great for that, but were you seducing Irons because you wanted to get laid, or because you wanted out of your own head and he was there? I'm not saying that either way is right or wrong, but… just try and be more careful, okay?"

There was nothing Sunset could say because she knew Metzger was right, she had to try to pull herself together. Normally she would turn to her friends, but she could hardly dump her issues on them when they were all struggling themselves. Then again, the Rainbooms might not be the only people she could rely on. "I felt him die," she half-whispered. 

"Your magic?" Metzger asked.

Sunset managed a nod. She tried to speak, to explain what had happened, but all that came out was a strangled sob. Sunset tried to rein herself in, but the floodgates had opened and a moment later her composure shattered like glass. 

Neither woman knew how long they stayed there as Sunset let her stress flow from her eyes, but Metzger kept a reassuring arm around Sunset’s shoulders until she finally managed to get herself under control; that was when Sunset found the pain and the fear that had gripped her so tightly had lessened somewhat. The abyss was still there, but its grip on her had weakened. 

With her head clearer than it had been in a while, Sunset found herself filled with fresh resolve. Project Purity had been secured and the Brotherhood had promised to help the Rainbooms get home once that was done. All that remained was to find one of the SDT-1 artifacts that Tara had shown them, but to do that…

"I have to get stronger."
> Chapter 65 - Machinations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A tense silence filled the main office of the Exodus building. Tara, Becky, Sienna, Andrew and Vincent were all sitting at a table piled with reports and inventory lists, digesting the most recent updates they had received from outside. 

With Project Purity occupied by the Brotherhood of Steel once again, Project Exodus was now the closest major Enclave outpost to Brotherhood territory and, given that the Brotherhood were aware of its location, was likely to be the target of an assault at some point in the near future.

For now, Tara was just trying to focus on the positives. According to the last radio communications they had received from the purifier before the assault began, the Brotherhood had at least tried to offer a peace treaty, so there was still a small possibility of another one happening now that Colonel Autumn was out of the picture. The fact that she and Becky had a good rapport with the Rainbooms would hopefully help matters there.

On top of that, Project Exodus was now very well fortified by dozens of soldiers and, aside from the odd minor skirmish, the local Super Mutants had left them alone. Andrew and Vincent were somewhat concerned as to what exactly the mutants were up to, but there was little use in worrying about that just yet.

More immediate was the fact that Andrew had accepted what Tara and Becky had done to help the Rainbooms. He wasn't happy about it by any stretch of the imagination, but he accepted their reasoning, especially in the wake of what President Eden had pulled with Project Scouring. 

The magic situation, on the other hand, was something that Tara couldn't help but worry about. Aside from the obvious issue of the magical tornado currently making itself at home in the hangar, there were a bunch of other things happening both inside and outside Project Exodus.

Vincent's power armor was probably the most disconcerting. Apparently, ever since Tara and Becky had left for Raven Rock it had taken on a life of its own, patrolling the base as if it were a soldier and occasionally standing guard outside random rooms. Sienna had understandably nearly shit herself the first time she saw it wandering around without anyone inside. Thankfully, it didn't seem inclined to be hostile. 

ED-E was another issue. The little eyebot had somehow picked up a rudimentary form of telekinesis, though it couldn't pick up anything much heavier than a brick. The scientists were actually quickly growing attached to the little eyebot. His chirpy nature was quite infectious, and the fact that he had a habit of bringing everyone coffee and snacks certainly helped endear him to the busy doctors.

"What do you think the Senate is going to do, now?" Sienna asked suddenly, breaking the silence and dragging the others out of their thoughts.

Becky shrugged. "Who knows? Hopefully they've finally got it into their heads that messing around with magic or the Rainbooms is a fucking stupid idea, but we can't bet on that." Her comment earned her a stern look from Andrew, but he kept his mouth shut.

"As long as they don't figure out what happened inside Raven Rock I'll be happy," Tara said wearily. "We can worry about everything else when the time comes."

"Well I've got something we're going to want to worry about right now." Everyone turned to look at Vincent curiously. "I've just got word from upstairs, we've got some new arrivals; a mutated scientist, the sentries think it's Doctor Turner, and some… thing in a massive suit of power armor."

Tara and Becky shared a horrified look. "Horrigan?!" Becky cried. "How the fuck did he survive?"

"The sub-level ventilation tunnels," Tara supplied. "He and Turner must have met up and escaped through them." She wrung her hands anxiously. "Do you think they're after me?"

"They might just be trying to regroup with other Enclave forces," Andrew suggested. He pushed himself to his feet and strode over to the door. "Tara, stay here. I'll go and find out what they're after. If it comes down to a fight, seal the building."

Just before he could leave Becky called out to him, "Wait!" She waited for Andrew to look back at her before continuing, "Sealing the building won't work, Horrigan will just smash his way in, but I have an idea. It's a seriously big risk, but if it works it'll make our lives easier and it'll beef up our security."

The others listened as Becky outlined her plan. Andrew's expression grew stonier as she spoke. By the time she was finished, his face could well have been carved from granite.

"That's… a plan, I guess," Sienna put in. 

"You want Tara to go up there and face that monster?" Andrew growled.

"She won't have to face him, she might not even have to talk to him," Becky replied. "I know this is dangerous, but just trust me, okay? Besides, even if it does all go tits-up, we'll have a better chance of escaping if we're already upstairs instead of waiting down here for Horrigan to find us."

Andrew didn't look convinced, but Tara stepped over to him and laid a hand on his arm. "I appreciate that you're trying to protect me, but Becky's right. This is our best shot." 

He looked her in the eyes, and for a moment Tara feared that he would order her to stay downstairs, but finally he relented with a sigh. "Just don't go getting yourself killed, alright? Mom'll never let me hear the end of it."

With their plan firmly in mind, Tara, Becky and Andrew made their way through the Exodus building and up to the surface. When they reached the forecourt they saw that the guards were keeping Horrigan and Doctor Turner right in the center of the yard, with carefully placed soldiers dotted around the perimeter not-so-subtly pointing their weapons at the pair. It wasn't hard to see why; Horrigan's armor was practically writhing with glowing green spirals and runic script, while Doctor Turner had mutated horribly; his right arm had turned entirely charcoal black with bulging veins that pulsed a sickly yellow glow, and he had similar mutated patches visible through the burnt holes in his clothes. His right eye shone faintly with the same unhealthy yellow light.

"What the hell happened to them? Andrew muttered.

"They must have been caught in the blast from Raven Rock," Becky supplied before turning to Tara. "Remember, stay out of sight until we call you."

Tara nodded and patted the walkie-talkie they had taken from the office. Becky had its twin on her belt, with the button stuck to transmit so Tara could follow everything that was said. "Got it, just let me know when you need me." Tara tried not to let herself panic as she watched her girlfriend and her brother head out into the forecourt.

The two new arrivals looked up as Becky and Andrew approached. Horrigan's helmet remained as impassive as ever, but the way he straightened up and turned to face them fully indicated that he at least recognised Andrew as an officer. Doctor Turner, for his part, grinned in a way that sent a shiver down Tara's spine even from where she was standing just inside the entrance. 

"Agent Horrigan, it's an honor to finally meet you. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Strong, currently the highest military authority in the Enclave," Andrew said as he approached. "And Doctor Turner, have you come to explain your actions at Raven Rock?"

"My actions?" Doctor Turner's grin became a sneer. "Perhaps we should ask Doctor Shoichet about your sister's actions, what do you say, Doctor?"

Horrigan tilted his head as he looked at Becky, then growled and hunched his shoulders. "You. You were with that mutie. Where is she?"

"Mutie?" Tara had to admire Becky's audacity as she planted her hands on her hips and glared up at Horrigan. "Doctor Strong, the doctor that you attacked back at Raven Rock, was using experimental technology, she is not a mutant. The only mutant here is the sorry excuse for a scientist standing next to you!"

"Experimental technology?" Doctor Turner asked curiously. As Becky had predicted, the prospect of bleeding-edge science knocked all thoughts of anything else clear out of the doctor's head. Tara was torn between relief and embarrassment that her former superior was so single-minded; he truly was an abysmal field operative.

Becky just sighed theatrically. "Yes, Doctor, experimental technology. We were granted access to the Rainbooms' at Raven Rock, and Tara devised a method of utilizing their power without any of the drawbacks from using unrefined magic."

"She was on her way to apprehend a traitor to the Enclave when you set Horrigan loose on her." Andrew held up a placating hand as Horrigan rounded on him. "We're not blaming you, Agent. Hell, the fact that you're back on your feet is a godsend, but the method that Doctor Turner used was untested, unapproved by any scientist with authority and dangerous in the extreme."

Doctor Turner floundered as he realized what was happening, opening and closing his mouth like a fish before he managed to stammer, "That m-may be true… but I-I took precautions!"

"You mean like the precautions you took when you accidentally mutated a Protectron?" Becky shot.

"Th-that's not fair! None of us had any idea how those necklaces were going to react," Doctor Turner retorted. His face brightened as another thought occurred to him. "And that's another thing: Doctor Strong was wearing one of those necklaces! At least one! You say that she didn't mutate, but I don't see her here! How do we know you aren't just bullshitting us?"

"Good question," Horrigan growled.

Becky snorted. "Don't see her? She's right there!" Tara stepped out of the entrance as Becky threw an arm out towards her. "See? Does she look mutated to you?"

Doctor Turner looked thunderstruck. Horrigan looked from him to Tara and back again, as if he was trying to put two and two together but couldn't quite manage it.

"As we were saying," Becky continued, "Doctor Strong is fine. She didn't mutate because she used a properly refined form of the magic in the correct manner." She looked up at Horrigan while pointing a damning finger at Doctor Turner. "When this power isn't used properly it mutates everyone and everything it touches, just like it did to him, and Doctor Turner was fully aware of this fact when he pumped you full of it! It's a miracle that he didn't accidentally turn you into some sort of freak!"

A deadly silence fell over the forecourt. Tara held her breath as Horrigan stared down at Becky; it all came down to how he reacted. Horrigan's hatred of mutants was legendary, a fact made all the more ironic given that he was entirely unaware that he himself was a mutant. After a few terrifying seconds Horrigan slowly turned his head to look at Doctor Turner. "You tried to turn me into a mutie?"

Doctor Turner took a hasty step back and held up his hands. "I-I didn't, I swear! I admit that it was a possibility given the FEV in your system, but-"

"FEV?" Horrigan hissed. Doctor Turner backpedaled as the huge brute took a step towards him. "Are you trying to say I'm a mutie? Let's get one thing straight, YOU PUNY SACK OF SHIT." Green mist boiled from Horrigan's joints, his voice rising til it shook the ground with its fury, "I'M NO MUTIE!"

Tara staggered backwards from the force of his yell. Even with her hands clamped over her ears the sheer volume of Horrigan's voice had been enough to deafen her; a piercing ringing all she could hear in its wake. 

Forcing herself to look back up, Tara saw that Turner was cowering on the ground with Horrigan looming over him, while Becky and Andrew were on their knees with their hands over their ears. Becky seemed to be shouting something at Horrigan. Whatever she said must have worked, as a few moments later Horrigan turned and stomped away. A pair of soldiers hurried forward and led him around the back of the building; presumably to the cargo entrance, while another pair grabbed Turner and hauled him inside.

Holy shit, I can't believe that worked! Intensely relieved at the fact that she didn't have to fight Horrigan again, not yet anyway, Tara stumbled over to Becky and Andrew. As she helped her girlfriend to her feet and wrapped her arms around her, a couple more thoughts passed through Tara's mind. First, with Horrigan at their disposal, security was not going to be an issue, and second, she now had a pair of very interesting test subjects to play with.





Outside the boundaries of the Capital Wasteland, in the area once known as Maryland, Senator Devall leaned forward to peer through his Vertibird's windshield, surveying the buildings below. They were currently flying over Adams Air Force Base, a massive fortified compound that contained everything from housing districts and recreation centers to runways, armories and enough hangars and construction yards to house and maintain the Enclave's entire fleet of Vertibirds. Once known as the home of the President's personal plane, Air Force One, the base was now the Enclave's last and mightiest stronghold.

Dozens of soldiers and hundreds of other personnel could be seen going about their business on the ground, and Senator Devall gasped as he managed to catch a glimpse of an old pre-war Heavy Tank rumbling around. "My word, it looks like the engineers are bringing out anything with a gun that they can get their hands on."

"It sure does," the pilot replied. "What do you think is going to happen?"

Senator Devall shook his head. "Honestly? I'm not sure. How long until we reach the command center?"

The pilot nodded towards a large concrete building ahead. "That's it right there, we'll be landing in a couple of minutes."

A few short minutes later the Senator had disembarked and a pair of soldiers escorted him through the center to a meeting room. It was nothing special, just a simple room with a long table intended for budget discussions and the like. A handful of the Enclave's top brass were already seated at the table.

"It's about time," Senator Prince said huffily as Devall walked in. He was lounging on the chair looking bored, as if everyone else present was beneath his attention. Tall and muscular, with shoulder-length blonde hair and a tailored suit that must have cost him a fortune, he was considered the Enclave's main ambassador to the few other groups in the wasteland that they regularly interacted with. He was also one of the most arrogant and self-centred assholes the world had ever seen.

Senator Devall ignored him and picked a chair near the other end of the table so he wouldn't have to look at the buffoon. "Who else are we waiting for?"

"No-one, Senator," one of the soldiers replied. "You were the last one to arrive. All of the other command staff and Senators are either captured or dead."

Devall whipped his head around in horrified surprise. "All of them?!" The soldier nodded in confirmation. Devall looked slowly around at the people gathered in the room. Two commissioned officers, one Major and one Captain, one member of the President's Secret Service, four scientists, and five Senators including Prince and Devall. Over half of the Enclave's leadership had been lost. "What about Colonel Autumn? I thought he survived the incident at Raven Rock?"

The Major nodded sombrely. "He was evacuated to Project Purity immediately after the loss of Raven Rock. Unfortunately, the Brotherhood of Steel assaulted Project Purity this morning, seizing the purifier and taking Colonel Autumn and most of his command staff captive."

"What?!" Devall cried in shock. "What happened to the peace treaty that Lieutenant Colonel Strong suggested?"

"Apparently, the Brotherhood of Steel approached Colonel Autumn with their own offer of a treaty last night," Prince put in. "Naturally, the Colonel refused, believing the offer to be a bluff." He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Well, it's not the first time he's been wrong."

"The Brotherhood of Steel assault was swift and devastating," the Major continued. "They were assisted by the Rainbooms, though it should be noted that the girls did not have much of an impact on the outcome of the battle. The main reason for our defeat was an immense battle robot that the Brotherhood brought."

"A battle robot?" Prince asked.

One of the scientists, a powerfully built old man with shaggy white hair and a scraggly beard named Doctor Acheson, gave a disgusted snort. Tough and domineering, Acheson was one of the Enclave's top scientists. "Liberty Prime," he spat. "It was developed before the war as a superweapon, but was left unfinished due to power issues. A full report will be provided to all of you after this meeting, and a team has already been put together to research countermeasures and strategies."

"Either way, Project Purity is lost to us, and with that President Eden's propaganda will be revealed as farcical." Prince grimaced and rapped the table with his knuckles. "It will be difficult to regain the trust of the local settlements when this gets out. Unless we can come up with something big, and quickly, winning the hearts and minds of the populace is going to be near impossible."

Devall nodded. "Given the circumstances, I believe we should give serious thought to offering the Brotherhood of Steel a peace treaty in turn. Further conflict with them is not in our best interests, or the interests of the wasteland as a whole."

"We were just discussing that very matter when you arrived." Prince scowled at the others. "I regret to say that our colleagues aren't inclined to agree with it."

"Of course we don't," Senator Lily hissed. A deathly pale woman with shoulder-length jet-black hair, she was as cunning and devious as they come. Devall hated her.  "There is too much bad blood between us and the Brotherhood," Lily continued, "even if we sign a treaty, it will likely only end up as yet another cold war as each side builds up their strength in order to destroy the other in one swift blow."

"With the Rainbooms and that robot both on the Brotherhood's side, I don't fancy our chances in a race like that," the Major added.

Lily tapped her inch-long fingernails on the table. "I say we put it to a vote. Since there are only five of us Senators left, shall we allow everyone else at this table to have a vote as well?"

"Absolutely not!" Prince cried. 

"Senators, all those in favour of allowing everyone else at the table to vote?" Lily smirked as she, Devall and the other Senators raised their hands. "Motion passed. Now, Lieutenant Colonel Strong should really be here to vote on the peace treaty, but since he made his position quite clear earlier I think we can call that one vote in favour. Everyone else, all those in favour of offering the Brotherhood of Steel a peace treaty?"

Devall's heart sank as he, Prince, and the Secret Service agent were the only ones to raise their hands. 

"Well, well." Lily grinned widely. "Three in favour, if we include Lieutenant Colonel Strong that makes four in favour, compared to seven against. Peace treaty rejected."

"Unbelievable," Prince muttered.

Acheson chuckled darkly. "Now that we've dealt with that nonsense, I'd like to introduce you all to someone." He gestured to the scientist next to him, a somewhat scared-looking woman with short brown hair. "This is Doctor Anna Holt. Doctor Holt was originally a member of the Project Purity staff, working under Doctor Li, but after seeing how much more advanced our technology is she has wisely decided to work for us instead." 

"Project Purity?" Prince gave her an appraising look. "Yes… yes, that could work. If we can create a second purifier that might well help sway some of the local settlements to our cause."

Acheson snorted derisively. "Eden didn't send Holt here so she could show us how to make an oversized faucet, she's here to assist us with researching the magic that the Rainbooms introduced to this world." 

A chill ran down Devall's spine, but he kept his expression and tone carefully neutral as he said, "That may be a little difficult. I'm sure that you've heard about the stock of magic currently stored at Project Exodus, but I assure you that Doctor Strong won't part with any of it. It's far too dangerous."

"Don't worry, Senator Devall, we don't intend to interfere with your little team," Lily said coyly. "Indeed, all of us here want Project Exodus to succeed more than ever, now that we're aware of the details." She inspected her fingernails idly before continuing, "President Eden sent a shipment of magic here before Raven Rock fell, along with instructions on how to safely replicate, handle and store it. He also left a long list of instructions on what to test it on. Doctor Holt has some experience on working with the Rainbooms' magic, which is why we've brought her on board."

Acheson nodded. "Exactly. We've already got teams preparing to test the magic on numerous applications, and I've set aside a certain amount for a couple of projects of my own." He grinned widely. "The first of these is going to be a prototype for a new form of power armor. Coupled with Professor Oliver's breakthroughs with plasma and fusion technology, this suit will be far more advanced than even our new Hellfire model. I call it Project Daybreaker."
> Chapter 66 - Hospital Visits
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sound of hooves echoed through the corridors of Ponyville Hospital as Princess Twilight followed the nurse to Starlight's room. She had been waiting with the rest of her friends for hours while the doctors worked until finally Nurse Redheart had come and fetched her. Unfortunately, the nurse had refused to tell her anything other than that Starlight's wounds had been cleaned and dressed, that her life wasn't in any danger, that she was awake, and that Twilight could speak to her alone if she wished.

"Here we are." Nurse Redheart stopped outside a door and gave the Princess a serious look. "Please, don't go asking Starlight a thousand questions about what happened. I don't know exactly what she went through, but it was obviously an extremely traumatic event. It's likely going to take quite some time for her to come to terms with what's happened."

"I understand," Twilight replied solemnly. 

Redheart gave a satisfied nod before gently opening the door and sliding her head in. She spoke quietly to Starlight, then pushed the door open for the Princess. 

Trying to tread as quietly as possible, Twilight slowly walked over to the only bed in the room, barely registering the nurse closing the door behind her. Starlight was tucked in under the blanket with only her hair and the tip of her horn poking out from underneath.

"Hey, Starlight," Twilight said softly, "how are you feeling?" When she didn't get a response, she asked, "Do… you want me to get you anything? A drink or… or something?" The seconds ticked by slowly until Twilight started to wonder whether Starlight would reply at all, but finally her horn lit up and peeled the blanket back slightly.

Starlight looked rough. She had a clean pressure bandage over her left eye and smaller ones covering her neck, while her mane was patchy as if something had ripped chunks of it out. Twilight was careful to keep her worry from showing on her face, though, as she asked, "Hey, how are you doing?"

"I've been better," Starlight mumbled. She shifted her weight under the covers. "You should get back to CHS. You need to find the others."

"Starswirl is already working on it," Twilight replied. "Besides, I can't just run off and leave you in the hospital."

Starlight fixed her good eye on the Princess. "Twilight, you have to find them, as quickly as possible. If the world they're in is anything like…" She gulped and closed her eye, then took a deep breath before continuing, "Those girls are in trouble, more than you can imagine. Find them, before it's too late!"

Taken aback by her words, it took Twilight a moment to gather her thoughts. "Right. Don't worry, I'll bring them home safely. I promise." She turned to head back to the door, but paused on the threshold and cast a worried look over her shoulder. "Do… you want me to fetch Trixie for you before I go?"

"Please," Starlight replied quietly.

Twilight nodded and opened the door to leave. Sunset and the others needed her help, but she could at least be confident that Starlight would have a good friend by her side.





A loud creak filled the air as Sunset pushed a door open with her backside. Inside, Twilight was resting peacefully, propped up on an infirmary bed. She looked up curiously as Sunset entered the room. 

"Um, hey." Sunset held up the tray she was carrying. "I wasn't sure if you've had breakfast or not."

Twilight grinned. "I have, but I'm not going to complain about getting seconds. I need as much protein as I can get if I want these muscles to heal."

"Great!" Sunset smiled back and sat on the edge of the bed, placing the tray carefully on the bedside table. "Today's menu consists of hard-boiled radchicken eggs, mini mirelurk cakes and freshly made iguana soup courtesy of Pinkie Pie, with some warm brahmin milk to wash it all down. Do you need a hand with eating?"

"Nah, I practiced this earlier." Twilight's forehead creased as she concentrated. After a second her Geode started to glow and a hazy purple aura surrounded one of the mugs. She beamed with pride as her magic carried the mug over so she could take a sip.

"Nice," Sunset murmured appreciatively.

Twilight shook her head and used her magic to put the mug back down. "It's nothing special. Without my arms that's about the best I can manage."

"It's still impressive," Sunset told her as she grabbed a mirelurk cake. "So, how're you doing?"

"I'm okay at the moment," Twilight replied. "The medics want me to try walking around today, so I'll be doing that later. I can just about move my fingers too!" She used her magic to fetch an egg before looking back at Sunset. "What about you? How are you holding up?"

Sunset didn't know how to answer. The truth was that acting casual and normal like this was taking just about all of her strength. She had resolved to get stronger in that room with Metzger yesterday, but when she tried to get some training in this morning that resolve had crumbled like a sandcastle before the tide. Merely hearing the crackle of gunfire from the firing range had been enough to set her shaking. 

When Sunset had tried picking up a gun herself, she had almost passed out; her breath turning ragged as an icy claw gripped her chest like a vice. In the end she had practically ran from the training area and spent twenty minutes crying alone in a dark corner of the Citadel.

Realizing that Twilight was still waiting on an answer, Sunset shook her head slowly. "I've… uh… I've been better."

"I think we all have," Twilight said quietly. She averted her gaze, her eyes flicking back at Sunset as she said tentatively, "Pinkie told me about… about what happened…"

Sunset nodded slowly, feeling the shadow of that dark abyss settling inside her again. "Did she tell you about the soldier?"

"She vaguely remembers you being in a room with her, but she was kinda out of her wits at that point," Twilight replied with a wince. "Do you want to… talk about it?"

"Not really," Sunset sighed, trying to shake off the dark feelings for a moment. "Maybe I'll need to at some point, but I'm not ready yet."

Twilight accepted that with a nod and two fell quiet, finishing their breakfast in companionable silence. Just as they were polishing off the last of the mirelurk cakes someone knocked on the door.

"Come in?" Twilight called.

The door opened and Applejack poked her head in. "Hey, how’re you doing, Twi?"

"I'm good thanks," Twilight replied. "What about you?"

"Good as can be expected," Applejack huffed. "Sorry, but this ain't a social call. Elder Lyons wants to speak to us, Sunset."

"What about?" Sunset asked.

Applejack shook her head. "Ah'm not sure. Something about getting help from Rivet City."





Fluttershy sat quietly next to Adam's bed, keeping watch over him and Sarah Lyons. Under normal circumstances the Brotherhood would have one of their own medics keeping an eye on them, but most of them were busy dealing with the casualties from the assault on Project Purity and Fluttershy was at least a partially trained nurse. Besides, it wasn't the first time she had looked after a coma patient.

Reminding herself about Sunset's time in a similar situation did nothing to improve Fluttershy's already black mood. The others had tried cheering her up, but they were fighting a losing battle. The fact that they themselves were struggling with their own demons just made it worse.

At the moment, Fluttershy was finding it hard enough just thinking straight, and the few coherent thoughts she managed were dark and depressing at best. Her mind was largely fixated on Adam. She desperately wished that there was something she could do for him, but once again, Fluttershy found herself powerless in the face of reality. All she could do was wait for him to wake up. If he woke up.

Fluttershy closed her eyes and tried to shake off such dark thoughts. He was going to wake up, and she'd be right there beside him when he did. He was going to wake up, he was going to get out of the infirmary and then…

And then his suffering will start all over again.

Fluttershy opened her eyes and looked at him as a terrible idea crossed her mind. Adam had suffered right from the start; first with losing his mother, then losing his friend Jonas and being forced to leave the Vault, and losing his father after that. Even just getting the purifier back had nearly killed him. Forcing him to wake up and face the darkness of the wastes once again wouldn't be a good thing, it would be a cruelty beyond measure. The best thing anyone could do, the kindest thing, would be to allow him to slip away peacefully in his sleep.

Slowly, barely even thinking about what she was doing, Fluttershy stood up and reached out to wrap her hands around Adam's neck. Just as she started to squeeze the sound of approaching footsteps snapped her back to her senses.

Fluttershy snatched her hands back as if they'd been burned, horror and nausea rising up within her as she realized what she had been about to do. She was so lost in shock she didn't notice the door open or the medic talking to her until he finally touched her shoulder, making her flinch and whip around to stare at him in wide-eyed fear.

"Uh, sorry, Miss Fluttershy. I didn't mean to startle you." The medic frowned at her in concern. "Are you okay? You were sort of out of it there."

"I-I… um… I have to go." Ignoring the medic's response, Fluttershy pushed past him and hurried out of the room, walking through the corridors as fast as she could go. Her mind was racing. People tried to speak to her as she passed, but Fluttershy didn't hear a word of it. A darkness had entered her heart somehow, a malignant shadow that was warping her feelings and clouding her thoughts. 

Oblivious to her surroundings, it wasn't until she felt the damp chill of a thick mist on her face that Fluttershy realized that she was in the Citadel's courtyard. Even so, she didn't stop. The main gate was open to allow easy access for teams moving between the Citadel and Project Purity, and Fluttershy took the opportunity to get outside and away from people, at least for a little while. It wasn't until she had walked away from the entrance and right down to the edge of the river that she finally stopped, collapsed onto a boulder, and buried her face in her hands.

Time lost all meaning for Fluttershy as she sat there wrestling with her own mind, trying to get her thoughts in order or at least figure out what was going wrong with her. She tried to detach herself and be analytical, as James had taught her, but she couldn't focus enough to manage it. The psychological trauma of the last few days could certainly explain her freaking out, but something about that just didn't seem right.

Shifting slightly on the boulder, Fluttershy suddenly realized that her joints were aching terribly, and she was also completely and utterly soaked, far more than she should be from just a bit of fog. "What the… sweat?" Pressing a palm to her forehead, Fluttershy's eyes widened as she felt a searing heat beneath her skin. "A… a fever? But ho-" She gasped as she remembered the strange substance she had been sprayed with back in Vault 87.

"I… I'm ill. Some sort of bacteria or… or a virus, maybe?" Fluttershy frowned as she struggled to organise her thoughts. "Rapid onset symptoms… very rapid. Surely it shouldn't have affected me so fast unless… unless it's feeding on my magic." A cold shiver that had nothing to do with the mist or the sweat ran down her spine. "Oh… oh no… I… I need a doctor."

Fluttershy jumped to her feet, swaying slightly as the sudden movement made her light-headed. As she turned to head back to the Citadel she heard the crunch of footsteps on stone behind her, followed by a man hissing, "Mezz her, quick!" Before Fluttershy could respond there was a flash and a strange zapping sound, then her whole body was rocked by an electric jolt and she fell to the floor. The last thing she heard before she slipped unconscious was a distorted voice calling out, "Nice shot, Crawler! Come on, grab her and let's get the fuck out of…"
> Chapter 67 - Broke The Wrong Cutie
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Raised voices fell silent as Sunset opened the door to the Citadel's Great Hall and stepped inside with Applejack right behind her. Almost the entirety of the Brotherhood's leadership was seated around the c-shaped tables, a mixture of Knights and Scribes including Elder Lyons and Scribe Rothchild, with Rarity and Rainbow Dash both standing just inside the door. 

"Miss Shimmer, so glad you could finally join us," one of the men called out snidely.

"That's enough, Paladin Stark," Elder Lyons said sternly. He gave the offending Paladin a lingering glare before turning to the girls. "My apologies. Coordinating the operation of Project Purity while preparing for our next strike against the Enclave has us all a little short-tempered at the moment."

"That's fair," Applejack replied, though she too leveled a glare at Paladin Stark. "Ah guess that's what you wanted to talk to us about?"

Elder Lyons nodded. "Partially. There are actually two issues we require your assistance with."

"The first is manpower," Scribe Rothchild supplied. "We just don't have enough Knights to defend the Citadel, Project Purity, Galaxy News, escort deliveries of water across the wastes, and take the fight to the Enclave. Especially if we try to keep up our usual patrols and exploratory missions as well. Liberty Prime is a godsend, but we can only spare a single squad at a time to go with it, and sending the robot out alone simply isn't an option."

Sunset rubbed her neck awkwardly. "Er, how exactly are we supposed to help with that? I hate to admit it, but I'm not going to be much use in a fight anytime soon."

"And neither are Flutters, Pinkie or Twilight," Rainbow added. "I know Fawkes is helping you protect the purifier, but I doubt that me, AJ and Rarity are going to make that much of a difference, no matter how awesome we are."

"We don't need you to fight directly, don't worry," Elder Lyons replied. "We were actually hoping that Miss Shimmer, and a select few others of you, would go to Rivet City and obtain the aid of their security team." He sighed heavily. "We've already contacted Chief Harkness. He wishes that he could help, but apparently they have their hands full dealing with a spate of magical problems that have broken out within the city. If you could help them get the magic under control, I'm sure that Harkness will be only too happy to aid us in return."

Rarity frowned and cocked her head to the side. "That's a fair idea, but is the route between here and Rivet City safe?"

"As safe as anything in the wastes," Scribe Rothchild replied. "There'll be a fire-team of Knights accompanying you, so you shouldn't have any trouble."

"Fair enough, so what's the other problem?" Applejack asked.

Just as Elder Lyons opened his mouth the door suddenly slammed open and a Knight burst in. "Elder! We've just received an emergency report from the sentries, Fluttershy of the Rainbooms has been kidnapped!"

"What?!" Rainbow disappeared in a flash, then reappeared a second later with Flashburn in her hand. "Who took her and which way did they go?!"

"U-up north, towards Wilhelm's Wharf," the Knight stammered.

"Rainbow, wait, we'll go toge-" Sunset's voice fell on deaf ears as Rainbow sped out of the room, again, in a blur of color.





Fluttershy grunted in pain as she felt herself thrown to the ground. She would have cried out, but the rough gag knotted in her mouth removed her voice as thoroughly as the bag over her head removed her sight. Her wrists were bound tightly behind her back, preventing her from doing much more than simply curling up on the floor where she'd been dumped.

"Nice work, shitbags," a male voice called out. Fluttershy was sure that she recognized it from somewhere. "That'll get the attention of the Brotherhood and the rest of those multicolored freaks. Remember the plan; they'll probably send out scouts first, but the mines we've set will slow them down. When they follow the false trail into the narrow street outside we'll ambush them with the pulse grenades and Mezzer. That clear?"

Several people voiced their agreement before the first voice spoke again, "Good. You three, get outside and keep a lookout. The rest of you, go sit on your asses for a while." The sounds of voices and footsteps slowly faded away and Fluttershy almost allowed herself to relax a little, then she jumped as a hand grabbed the bag and yanked it off her head.

The first thing Fluttershy noticed was that she was in a back room with walls of dirty grey concrete. There was a single door in one wall with a desk next to it and against the opposite wall was a filthy mattress and a lone steel bucket that she assumed was to serve as a toilet.

"Enjoying the view?" Fluttershy flinched and looked up. Her eyes widened as she recognized the two raiders standing over her; the very first raiders that the Rainbooms had met, and humiliated, just outside Arefu. The same pair that had shot Rarity after they'd met the Family. One of them, the blonde-haired thug with a crooked nose, bent over to leer at her. "Heh, not too bad on the eyes, are you? You've got good taste, Crawler."

The other, Crawler, just nodded. "What are we going to do with her, Blades?"

Blades straightened up and planted his hands on his hips. "She'll do as bait for now. Once we're done with whichever fuck-stain comes looking we can sell her to either Paradise Falls or Evergreen Mills. Until then, though," he clapped a hand on Crawler's shoulder, "she's all yours. I'm gonna go keep an eye out. Try not to break her too much. And for fuck's sake; use a condom. Bitch looks like she's coming down with something."

A lead weight dropped in Fluttershy's stomach at the mention of a condom. Blades snorted at her expression before ambling out of the room, closing the door behind him. 

Fluttershy trembled with terror as Crawler advanced on her. She flinched as he crouched in front of her, but he just reached slowly behind her head and gently untied her gag. "That's better," he murmured, apparently to himself. 

Crawler tried to stroke Fluttershy's cheek but she jerked away from his hand. He just smirked at her. "Resist if you want, but I think you know where this is going." 

Huffing a laugh, Crawler straightened up and stepped over to the table. Fluttershy desperately tried to think of a way out while his back was turned, but between the adrenaline and whatever she was ill with she just couldn't think straight. 

"I'd get on that bed if I were you," Crawler called as he unclipped his belt and dropped it on the table, "unless you want to tear your face and knees to shit on that floor." He licked his lips and pulled his top off, tossing it into a corner. "Using a fucking jimmy hat is a pain in the ass, but I'll take what I can get... for now." As Crawler fumbled with his pants he said bluntly, "Best get used to this cock, bitch, as soon as you're healthy you're getting the dicking of your life." He laughed sadistically. "Until then, I guess I'll just play with any of the other freaks we catch."

At Crawler's words, something deep inside Fluttershy snapped. She averted her eyes and flicked her hair across her face as he dropped his pants in an attempt to hide the expression of raw hatred that flashed across her features. An icy wrath filled her, leaving her mind strangely calm and clear. 

The threat against her was bad enough, but she could not tolerate the threat against her friends. One way or another, this man had to die. Fluttershy had no weapon, but one thing she had learned from years of studying animals was that no creature was ever truly unarmed.

Fluttershy carefully gathered her feet beneath herself and rose to a crouch, shuffling her feet as if she was aiming for the mattress. Crawler chuckled and stomped towards her. "Too late for that, you're getting fucked right whe-"

The moment Crawler got close enough Fluttershy surged at him. Caught off guard, the raider didn't have a chance to react as Fluttershy clamped her mouth around his throat and bit. Her teeth tore through flesh and cartilage with a sickening crunch. 

Crawler shoved her away, but the damage was already done. He clutched at the gaping hole in his neck in a desperate attempt to stem the crimson tide flowing down his front. Still seething with rage, Fluttershy kicked Crawler in the side of the knee, toppling him to the floor, then stamped brutally on his skull until he finally stopped moving. 

The room fell silent save for Fluttershy's ragged breathing. Staring down at the corpse at her feet, it took several seconds before she noticed that she still had a chunk of Crawler's throat in her mouth. The moment she realized, the coppery tang of blood filled her senses and sent an electrifying jolt through her body. 

Fluttershy spat the bloody mouthful out and, with a sudden surge of monstrous strength, snapped the rope binding her arms. She felt strong, powerful in a way she had never even imagined. More than that, she felt a savage bloodlust rising up within; a primal urge to rend and tear until nothing was left standing.

Glancing around, Fluttershy spotted a heavy knife on the table with Crawler's belt. Without a second thought she swept it up and stalked to the door. A new predator had been born, and her prey was waiting.





People and corridors alike became a blur as Rainbow sped past. The moment she reached the Citadel's bailey her Geode flashed as she ponied up and she rocketed into the air. 

Rainbow knew that she should wait for the others; she was still sore from overexerting herself while training, and there was no telling just how many raiders there were, but she couldn't allow Fluttershy to remain in the hands of her kidnappers for even a second longer than necessary.

Aiming North, it wasn't long before Rainbow spotted the remains of a huge bridge; an ancient edifice that must have once spanned the river. Under one of the arches she spotted some sort of encampment. Two figures were seated inside, apparently playing a game of cards. 

Perfect.

Rainbow shifted into a dive. She angled herself so that she flew right between the two of them, flipping over in midair and skidding to a halt while dragging Flashburn's blade along the floor ground, creating a cascade of sparks. As the two men yelped in surprise Rainbow pointed Flashburn at them and snarled, "Where's Fluttershy?"

The men scrambled off their chairs, almost falling over in their surprise, but Rainbow advanced on them before they could draw any weapons. "I said, where is Fluttershy?!"

"W-we don't know!" One of the men stammered. As Rainbow raised Flashburn he held his hands up and shook his head desperately. "It's true, I swear! Another crew brought one of you Rainboom people through here not long ago, but we don't know where they took her!"

"I don't believe you!" Rainbow snapped. 

The man stepped back quickly. "Oy, easy, take it easy! They're probably somewhere in the ruins a little North of here." Rainbow just glared at him until he clarified, "The guy in the charge of that crew is an asshole called Blades. He's on the run from the Red Flags, he wouldn't risk going so openly past Grandma Sparkle's place on Wilhelm's Wharf. Too many fuckers who might recognize him."

Rainbow had no idea who Grandma Sparkle was, but she suspected that the man was telling the truth. Just in case, however, she whipped Flashburn through the air and growled, "If you're screwing with me, you'll regret it." Without waiting for a response she turned and sprinted out from under the bridge before taking to the air again.

The landscape spread out below Rainbow as she rapidly gained altitude. When she got high enough that she could see what was going on on the ground but was less likely to be spotted in return, or at least she hoped, she leveled off and followed the course of the river North, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. As she soared through the air she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. 

On the top floor of a ruined building overlooking a narrow alleyway, just off the river, a pair of people were squatting next to a hole in the wall peering down at the alley. In the building opposite a lone man was clutching a pistol in one hand and idly tossing something in the air with the other. Rainbow's heart clenched as she realized what it was; Fluttershy's butterfly hair clip. 

Rainbow snarled and banked around sharply. She dove down through a hole in the roof above the two raiders to land behind them. Moving at top speed, she darted to the first man and slashed Flashburn across his hamstring. Before he could even draw breath to scream she ripped a knife out of his belt and rammed it through the hand of the woman next to him, pinning her to the wall. 

The blood was still spraying from Rainbow's initial strike as she launched herself at the building opposite, directly at the man with Fluttershy's hair clip. Just before she reached the raider she flipped over in midair and slammed into him feet first. The impact knocked him flying backwards, sending the clip flying out of his hand. Rainbow caught it and skidded to a halt just as the other raiders started screaming.

"Where's Fluttershy?" Rainbow growled. The raider just coughed wetly. Blood and spittle dribbled down his chin as he struggled to breath, while his eyes wandered unfocused in a barely conscious fugue. "Aw, crap."

Just as Rainbow was about to fly back over to the other two raiders the muffled sound of gunfire from below made her dive for cover. Cautiously, she poked her head out of a smashed window and peeked down. The gunfire was coming from the open door of a building at the end of the alleyway.

"Hang on, Fluttershy! I'm coming!" Rainbow flew down to the ground and ran for the door, but before she reached it a man suddenly came stumbling out of it. 

The man was a mess; blood was pouring from a nasty gash above his eye and another ragged wound in his side. Rainbow paused and held Flashburn up defensively. Something wasn't right here. "What's going on? Where's Fluttershy? And who's attacking you?"

Her words fell on deaf ears. The man just ignored her and kept staggering onwards as fast as he could. Rainbow wasn't sure whether she should try to help him or just leave him to his fate like the others, but a moment later the choice was taken out of her hands as someone hurtled out of the doorway and tackled him to the ground.

Rainbow watched in stunned horror and disbelief as Fluttershy plunged a knife repeatedly into the raider's back, flicking blood in all directions each time she ripped the blade out. Fluttershy herself was liberally splattered with gore, none of it her own, with a crimson stain around her mouth that really didn't bear thinking about.

Eventually, long after the raider was blatantly dead, Fluttershy stopped stabbing and leaned back, her chest heaving as she gasped for breath.

"F-Fluttershy?" Rainbow ventured tentatively.

Fluttershy slowly looked up at her, blinking in mute surprise, then clambered unsteadily to her feet. "I got them. I got them… all…" 

Rainbow sheathed Flashburn and lunged forward in the blink of an eye, just in time to catch Fluttershy as she keeled over. Her face was flushed and utterly dripping with sweat, her eyes were rolling back in her head, and her breathing was growing increasingly labored. "Damn it! Hold on, Flutters; I'm getting you to a doctor right now!" Rainbow swept Fluttershy up into a bridal carry and leapt into the air, soaring back to the Citadel at top speed.





Blades watched with bated breath as the two Rainbooms disappeared into the sky. He had never imagined that things could go to shit so impossibly fast; he'd barely been out of their lair for thirty seconds, making sure that the stairwells in the surrounding buildings were clear in case of combat, when he'd heard screams coming from above. 

Something had gone drastically wrong. The original plan had been to draw a Brotherhood rescue party into an ambush and hammer them with pulse grenades, but the flying Rainboom had torn that plot to pieces. The possibility of an attack from above just hadn't occurred to any of the raiders.

Blades had actually considered trying to sneak up on the rainbow-haired bitch, but the sound of gunfire coming from the lair had shown him that it would be pointless. Clearly Crawler, or one of the others, had royally fucked something up and, if the Rainboom that they had originally kidnapped was to be believed, the rest of the crew was already dead. A dozen raiders slaughtered in less than a minute. 

Two of the sentries upstairs could still be heard whimpering in agony, but Blades wasn't stupid enough to try and help them. They would only slow him down. He had to get away before anyone else turned up, then figure out a way to get himself back on top.

Just as Blades stepped out of the building something solid slammed into the side of his head. Stars danced in front of his eyes as he dropped to his hands and knees, lances of pain shooting through his temple with each slight movement of his head. Blearily, Blades looked up to see his attacker. A hazy figure was standing over him, his outline wavy and distorted as if he wasn't fully corporeal.

"Your time's up, Blades," the figure said in a deep baritone. "You should have known that the Red Flags would find you eventually."

Blades frowned as he recognised the voice. "Chopper? You… what the fuck…?"

"Yeah, it's me," Chopper replied.

"Fuck." Blades held a hand up in a vain attempt to ward him off. "You don't have to do this, Chops. Let me go, and I can make it worth your while, you know I can."

Chopper shook his head. "Sorry, Blades, but unlike you, I'm loyal to the Flags. You broke our laws, and now it's time to pay the price."

Blades snorted. "Bullshit. If that raid had gone off without a hitch we'd be having a different conversation right now."

"If you believe that you're dumber than you look," Chopper spat. "All those who break our laws are punished whether their ploys work or not, that's how we maintain discipline. That's how we have survived and grown strong where others have failed." He folded his arms and glared down at Blades. "You attacked the Brotherhood of Steel against our laws, then fled when your ambush failed. Apparently, you still haven't learned your lesson if this debacle is anything to go by. You should never have left, Blades."

"Oh, get fucked," Blades huffed. He pushed himself up onto his knees and glared defiantly up at Chopper. "If you're going to kill me, just get it over with already."

A slow smirk worked its way across Chopper's face. "Nah, you're not getting out of this that easy." His smirk widened into a grin. "We've been ordered to bring you back to the Village. Shí Yáng wants to deal with you, personally."

Terror seized Blades as two more raiders appeared out of nowhere and grabbed his arms, the air shimmering around their tight stealth-suits. "W-wait! No! No, p-please! No!" He struggled to pull himself out of the clutches of the others, but their grip was just too strong. He was still writhing and screaming when Chopper stepped forward and yanked a bag down over his head.





Shock, horror, and anxiety warred for control of Sunset's mind as she listened to Rainbow Dash's explanation of what she had seen on her rescue trip. The two of them were currently in a small medical lab in the infirmary along with Elder Lyons, Rarity, Applejack, and one of the Brotherhood medics. 

"You're saying that Fluttershy killed one of them?" Applejack asked incredulously.

Rainbow nodded, her face ashen. "At least one. From the amount of blood on her I'd say she took down a whole bunch of raiders."

"That's horseshit, it's gotta be," Applejack said flatly. 

"I'm telling you, it's true," Rainbow insisted. "You didn't see it, she went nuts on that guy. It freaked me out."

"It's possible that the raiders drugged her," the medic suggested. "Some raiders dose their captives with Psycho so they struggle more. A high dosage would easily cause such a violent outburst, especially if they didn't restrain her properly. Of course, we won't know for sure until we get the results of her blood test."

Elder Lyons nodded. "Where is she now?"

"In a private room, away from the others," the medic replied. "I've got one of my team in with her at the moment taking blood, they should be back any minute."





In a private room, a few corridors down from the medical lab, Fluttershy lay unconscious on a hospital bed. The medic tending to her had carefully taken a blood sample and was just checking her vitals again before taking it to be analyzed. Both her heart rate and blood pressure were a little high, but they were within safe limits. More concerning was the obvious fever she was sporting. 

As the medic left the room and hurried to the lab, he could never have known what it was that burned beneath her skin.

Empowered by magic and strengthened by blood, the curse of Vault 87 bloomed into a new and terrible form.
> Chapter 68 - Evolution of Kindness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack resisted the urge to pace up and down the lab with great difficulty. The only thing keeping her planted on a chair in the lab was the fact that she didn't want to distract the medic running tests on Fluttershy's blood. Rainbow and Rarity were similarly seated, talking quietly about the raiders that had tried to take their friend. 

Elder Lyons had suggested that the girls leave the lab so that the medic could work in peace, something Applejack had agreed to do even if she hated the idea, but the medic had stated that he liked having company while he ran the tests. Only Sunset had actually left, offering to pop in on Twilight and Pinkie to let them know what was happening before going to look after Fluttershy; ostensibly to give the overworked Brotherhood medical team one less job to do, but Applejack suspected that she just wanted to be alone for a little while. 

"How much longer until we know if Fluttershy was drugged or not?" Rainbow asked suddenly.

"Rainbow, don't distract him!" Rarity hissed indignantly.

The medic waved a hand absently from his terminal next to a medical machine of some sort. "It's fine, I'm actually almost done." He entered a command into the terminal, then a few seconds later a beep came from the machinery and several lines of script slowly appeared on the screen. "Hmmm, she doesn't have any of the known chems in her system, which is a good thing, but she does have an elevated white blood cell count."

Applejack shifted her hat so she could scratch her head. "Is, uh… is that a bad thing, or…?"

"It's possible." The medic stood and set about fiddling with equipment that Applejack couldn't identify. "It could just be because she's stressed, but it could also signify an infection of some kind. I'd like to run some tests for viruses and set up a blood culture to see if we've got a bacterial or fungal issue, but first I'm just going to toss a sample of her blood under a microscope to see if I can spot anything out of the ordinary."

Applejack nodded, privately glad that she could at least follow what he was saying, if not what he was doing. Rainbow shuffled impatiently as the man set up the microscope, but a quick glare from both Applejack and Rarity kept her quiet.

"Right, let's see what we've got here," the medic muttered as he put his eye to the microscope. He fiddled with a dial on the side a bit, then whispered, "Gotcha." A moment later he frowned and did a double take. "What the…?" The man reared back from the microscope and blinked a few times before looking through it again. "What the fuck is that?"

"What's wrong?!" Rainbow snapped.

"Her blood cells, they're-" The medic snapped his head up, then darted over to a pile of clipboards, throwing them aside one by one until he found what he was looking for. "No… no that can't be right."

"Doc? What's. Wrong. With. Fluttershy?" Applejack growled.

The medic shook his head. "Her blood cells appear to be changing somehow, even as I watch."

Rarity stepped over to the microscope and took a look for herself. "Oh my, that's odd. Do you think it could be her magic that's causing that?"

"I highly doubt it, Miss Sparkle's blood didn't do that when we checked hers," the medic replied. "I've never seen anything like it. It does somewhat resemble the descriptions of the effects of FEV on blood cells, but it's much-"

"FEV?!" Rarity and Applejack yelled in unison. Rarity snatched the clipboard from the medic and scanned it frantically as Applejack asked, "You mean that stuff that turns folks into Super Mutants?!"

"Wait, Fluttershy's gonna turn into a Super Mutant?!" Rainbow cried.

The medic crossed his arms and shook his head. "I don't know, and let's not jump to conclusions. It certainly resembles what I've heard of FEV, but it's working way too fast. It's equally likely that it could be something else that she's been exposed to."

"Can't you just take a look through the microscope and see if it's FEV?" Applejack asked.

"The FEV is a virus, it's too small to be seen on a standard microscope like this," the medic replied. "Do you know if Fluttershy has been exposed to any unusual substances recently?"

Rainbow shrugged. "I don't think so? Oh, wait! There was that green stuff she got splattered with back in Vault 87."

Applejack sucked in a breath at Rainbow's words. "Green stuff? Ain't that…?"

"FEV," Rarity confirmed in a horror-struck voice. "Why didn't any of you tell us that Fluttershy had been splashed with something so toxic?!" she cried angrily.

"H-hey, we didn't know it was dangerous!" Rainbow replied quickly. "She wasn't bothered by it at first, then with everything that happened with the Enclave afterwards, we just forgot." She looked up at the medic desperately. "There's gotta be something we can do, right? Some sort of cure or… or something?"

The medic opened his mouth to reply, then frowned and looked back at the microscope. Applejack followed his gaze and gasped as she saw wisps of smoke rising from the glass slide containing Fluttershy's blood. "What the heck? What's it doing now?"

"FEV is highly corrosive, it must have replicated enough to actually eat through the glass," the medic replied as he carefully removed the slide before it could damage the microscope. "But how is it reproducing so quickly? And how did it not burn her skin on contact?"

"Well, Fluttershy was ponied up when she got splashed. Do you think that has anything to do with it?" Rainbow suggested.

Applejack's blood ran cold as another thought occurred to her. "Hang on, that stuff is in Fluttershy's blood, right?" The medic nodded. "Then doesn't that mean that that stuff that just burned a hole through solid glass is growing inside her body right now?"

The others stared at her in frozen shock for a second, then charged for the door at top speed.





Sunset ran a hand over her face as she made her way towards Fluttershy's room. She was reaching the end of her tether; if anything else bad happened she wasn't sure that she'd be able to handle it without completely losing her mind.

The only silver lining that Sunset could see at the moment was the fact that Rainbow had managed to rescue Fluttershy so quickly. Of course, it was still an insanely reckless thing for Rainbow to do and Sunset fully intended to chew her out for it, but that could wait until Fluttershy was healed and everything had calmed down again.

Halfway down one of the infirmary corridors Sunset finally reached the room where Fluttershy was being kept. She paused outside the closed door and took a deep breath to mentally prepare herself for the sight of another friend unconscious. When she was ready Sunset opened the door and stepped inside, only to gasp in surprise when she saw Fluttershy sitting up on the edge of the bed, clearly awake and gently removing an IV drip from her arm. 

Fluttershy tossed the IV aside and glanced up at the sound of the door opening. Her eyes were watery and unfocused, and her face was dripping with sweat. "Sunset?" She tried to push herself to her feet, but her legs wobbled beneath her and she tottered forward like a drunkard.

"Whoa!" Sunset darted forward and caught her before she could fall over. "It's okay, I've got you. Let's get you back on the bed."

Fluttershy shook her head slowly. "N-no, I need… nursing kit." 

"Nursing kit?" Sunset looked around the room, quickly spotting Fluttershy's bag on a desk by the door. "I see it, what do you need from it?"

"Blood pack," Fluttershy said roughly.

Sunset raised an eyebrow dubiously, but nodded and gestured to the bed. "Okay, you just sit here for a second then, and I'll fetch a medic to set it up for you." 

"No," Fluttershy hissed. "Need it now."

"You're not in any shape to set it up yourself," Sunset said gently. "It's okay, it'll take me two seconds to fetch a medic and bring the-"

"I said no!" Fluttershy slammed a fist into the filing cabinet beside the bed, the metal crumpling like paper beneath her hand. 

Fear gripped Sunset at this sudden display of anger and raw strength. She backed away slowly as Fluttershy started growling deep in her throat. "Uh, Flutters…? Are… are you okay?"

With a feral snarl Fluttershy grabbed the filing cabinet and hurled it against the opposite wall, sending loose paper flying everywhere. 

Sunset skipped backwards until she felt her back slam into the door. She watched in mounting horror as Fluttershy hissed and snarled, clutching at her head and writhing as if she was in agony. Finally, with a flash of light from her Geode that pulsed over her entire body, Fluttershy abruptly hunched over with a scream as an immense pair of bat-like wings exploded from her back in a welter of blood.

Time seemed to stand still in the wake of that awful moment. The room was silent save for Fluttershy's ragged breathing and the faint drip of blood from her new wings. Her knuckles cracked as she flexed her hands, displaying inch-long curved talons in place of her fingernails.

Sunset, frozen in place by the door, could only watch in horror as Fluttershy slowly looked up at her. A jolt of pure terror shot through her as Fluttershy's hair fell away from her face to reveal blood-red eyes and a vicious-looking set of elongated fangs. 

Somehow, Sunset could sense an unnatural hunger in the burning gaze that Fluttershy directed at her. Sunset's entire world had suddenly been flipped on its head, but she didn't have time to try and figure out how things had gone so wrong as Flutters took a measured step towards her.

In a flash of inspiration, Sunset glanced inside the nursing kit on the nearby desk and snatched a blood pack out of it. Fluttershy's eyes instantly locked onto it. Gratified and horrified that her theory was correct, Sunset tossed the blood pack at her friend.

Fluttershy caught it in her teeth and bit down hard, piercing it with her fangs, and drained the whole thing in a flash.

Sunset gaped as Flutters spat out the empty pack and began advancing on her. "I, uh, guess that wasn't enough," Sunset said with false confidence as she reached blindly for the door handle, not daring to take her eyes off her suddenly vampiric friend. "W-why don't you wait here and I'll, uh, go get some more."

A loud snarl tore from Fluttershy's throat as Sunset found the handle and wrenched the door open, quickly ducking out and slamming it shut with both hands. A heartbeat later the door was smashed off its hinges, knocking Sunset clean off her feet and landing on top of her as she crashed painfully to the floor.

Sunset didn't have a chance to get her bearings before the door was ripped off her. Fluttershy casually tossed it away down the corridor before bearing down on Sunset. Just before fangs reached flesh something barreled into Fluttershy's side, pitching her off Sunset and knocking her sprawling.

"Damn it! We're too late!" Sunset looked up to see Rainbow Dash staring at Fluttershy. 

Sunset opened her mouth to ask what was going on, but Fluttershy was already back on her feet, hissing like an enraged cat. She crouched as if she was about to pounce, then suddenly her head snapped around as something behind her got her attention.

A moment later a power-armored Knight stepped into the corridor. "What the- what's going on?"

Fluttershy let out a piercing screech and launched herself at the Knight. He must have assumed that she wouldn't be able to harm him in his armor, as he didn't react until her claws gouged deep furrows in his chestplate. The Knight cried out in shock as she raked her claws across his helmet in a shower of sparks.

As the Knight backed away Rainbow surged forward in a blur, sweeping Fluttershy's legs out from under her. "Quick! Hold her down!"

Fluttershy tried to scramble to her feet, but the Knight grabbed her arm, dragged her off-balance, and forced her to the floor again. The moment she was down he quickly pinned her, planting one hand on her shoulder and the other on her outstretched wrist so she couldn't gain the leverage to shift him. Fluttershy kicked and flailed around wildly, but the sheer weight of his armor was enough to counter even her newly enhanced strength.

Sunset just watched from where she lay on the floor. She heard footsteps approaching rapidly from behind, but her eyes were locked on Fluttershy's. Seeing her friend in that state, her feral screeches of frustrated rage echoing down the corridor, Sunset felt something within her soul shrivel up and die.
> Chapter 69 - Silver Lining
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Senator Devall repressed a sigh as he trudged towards his new domicile. He had just finished sending a report to the Exodus Team detailing the outcome of his meeting with the surviving Enclave leaders and right now all he wanted to do was see his wife for the first time in weeks and get some rest. Unfortunately, any rest Devall did get was likely to be limited.

Truth be told, the Senator was seriously considering fetching Fleur, acquiring a Vertibird and moving to the Exodus building. It was in an incredibly precarious position; what with the Brotherhood of Steel being aware of its location, Super Mutants surrounding it and the huge amount of raw magic stored on-site, but at least there he could trust the people in charge. With Acheson trying to weaponize his own stock of magic, Adam's Air Force Base was probably the most dangerous place in the entire wasteland.

Turning past a Protectron recharging station, the Senator finally let out that sigh as he saw his assigned building. It wasn't much, little more than a glorified bunker really, but it was a place to sleep, and his wife was waiting.

Devall opened the heavy metal door as gently as he could. A dull metal corridor stretched out in front of him with a couple of doors spaced evenly on either side. "Fleur?" He called out softly, not wanting to wake her if she was asleep. 

A quiet cry of surprise and shuffling footsteps preceded the arrival of Fleur herself. Devall barely caught a glimpse of her long silky brown hair, refined features, and somewhat protruding belly before she threw her arms around him. "Finally," she purred. "God, I've missed you. Talking over the radio just isn't the same."

"I heartily agree." Devall kissed Fleur's forehead before dropping to one knee and laying his hands on her belly. "And how is our little one doing?"

"Kicking me right in the bladder every ten minutes," Fleur huffed, though she smiled as she said it. "Anyway, I'm sure that you want to relax and tell me exactly what the hell has been going on over the last few days, and God knows I want to hear it, but it's going to have to wait. You've got a visitor."

"Of course I do," Devall sighed. Fleur led him through one of the doors into a surprisingly cosy sitting room with a big squishy sofa, a matching loveseat, and an electric fireplace burning brightly.

The visitor was standing next to the loveseat; a young woman clad in a nondescript black suit with black hair pulled back into a tight braid. A plasma pistol was holstered at her waist. Devall was surprised to recognize her as the Secret Service Agent from the earlier meeting. 

"Senator Devall, it's a pleasure to officially meet you," the agent said, extending her hand in greeting.

Devall nodded as he shook her hand. "The pleasure is mine, Agent…?"

"Bonnie Drops, but everyone calls me Bon Bon," the agent replied.

"Very well, Agent Drops. Please, take a seat," Devall said, the use of Bon Bon's title setting the formality for the meeting. He and Fleur settled themselves on the sofa while the agent perched on the edge of the loveseat. "Now then, what can I do for you? I must admit I'm curious as to why a member of the Secret Service would be calling on me."

"I'm here to discuss the results of the meeting with Senator Lily and Acheson," Agent Drops said without preamble. 

Devall kept his expression carefully neutral. Agent Drops had voted in favor of a peace treaty, but that didn't automatically make her trustworthy. Prudence required that he figure her agenda before giving anything away. "What exactly would you like to discuss about them?"

Agent Drops gave Duvall a calculating look. "I noticed that, despite the many things we covered in that meeting, no-one happened to mention anything about installing a new President."

It was a statement, not a question, but it certainly gave Duvall an idea of what the agent was after. "I can't speak for the others, but I felt that pushing for a vote so soon after losing Raven Rock would simply cause more conflict and confusion among our ranks."

"I see." Agent Drops slowly arched an eyebrow. "With respect, Senator, I'd appreciate it if we could skip the bullshit and talk openly." Devall blinked in surprise at her sudden brusque attitude, but Agent Drops just rolled her eyes and said flatly, "You and I both know that the only reason Senator Lily didn't announce her presidential campaign there and then is because she wasn't certain that she would win, and the current lack of oversight plays into whatever schemes she's pulling behind the scenes." 

Agent Drops leaned forward to frown at him. "The other Senators are non-entities, but you… you're the only Senator left that can directly challenge her. You know you would most likely win if you aimed for the Presidency. So why didn't you push for it?"

It was exactly as Devall had expected. He supposed he should be grateful that it was only Agent Drops that had come knocking. With a heavy sigh, he said firmly, "I agree that I would most likely win, but I have absolutely no intention of becoming President of the Enclave."

Shock flitted across Agent Drops' face. "Why not?! You would be able to push through a peace treaty with the Brotherhood of Steel and put the brakes on this insane magical experimentation!"

Devall could practically feel the surprise and curiosity wafting off of Fleur, but she knew better than to let it show on her face. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders before replying, "I'm afraid I am not a selfless man. In a few short months I am going to become a father, and I have no intention of putting my family in any unnecessary danger. Becoming President would paint a colossal target right across our backs." Devall allowed himself a small smirk. "Having said that, I'm not simply sitting idle. I've been putting out feelers and laying the groundwork for someone else to take up the Presidency; someone far more qualified and, if I'm being honest, far more intelligent."

Silence fell in the wake of Devall's little speech. After a few seconds, to his great surprise, Agent Drops smiled wryly. "I assume the fact that Horrigan is back is going to factor into your plans somehow, and maybe the experimental technology that Doctor Strong apparently used just before the as-of-yet unexplained destruction of Raven Rock?"

"How do you know about that?!" Devall demanded. He himself had only learned of it during his communication with Lieutenant Colonel Strong just before he came home, and he certainly hadn't mentioned it to anyone else yet.

"I have a contact at Project Exodus," Agent Drops told him. "She hasn’t been there long, but Horrigan is kinda hard to miss, and there's a few things going through the grapevine among the personnel stationed there."

Devall narrowed his eyes at the agent. "What exactly do you want?"

Agent Drops stopped smiling and straightened up. "You know what I want; a decent President who has the best interests of the whole wasteland at heart, not just their own agenda." She stood and smoothed out the creases in her suit. "I would like things to be done peacefully, but somehow I doubt that's going to happen. I suspect, and I think you do too, that a rift is opening up in the Enclave." Agent Drops looked Devall dead in the eye. "I know which side of that rift I'm on, Senator. Am I the only one?"

Devall stood and crossed his arms, giving the woman an appraising look. Finally he extended a hand to his new ally. "No, Bon Bon, I don't think you are."





"Hey, y'all wanted to see us?" Applejack called out as she and Rainbow entered the Great Hall. 

Elder Lyons was standing alone in the middle of the room between the c-shaped tables. He turned as the girls closed the door behind them. "Applejack, Rainbow, thank you for coming."

"Where's everyone else?" Applejack asked.

Elder Lyons stepped over to one of the tables and perched himself on the edge of it. "It's just me, for now. I'd like to keep this conversation relatively private. How is Fluttershy doing?" 

Applejack and Rainbow shared a dark look. "We managed to strap her down safely. She still ain't back to herself, yet, but Twilight says she's gonna study up on FEV and see what she can do."

"I'll have the scribes bring her everything we know about FEV," Elder Lyons said with a nod. "In the meantime, I know that this is not a good time, but I'm afraid I have a request for each of you."

"Is this about Rivet City again?" Rainbow asked.

"It is," Elder Lyons admitted. "They have requested Applejack and Rarity specifically, and I was hoping that Sunset would go with you as well." He held a hand up as the girls tried to interrupt. "I realize that Sunset is not in the best frame of mind right now, but that is exactly why I believe that going to Rivet City might be good for her."

Applejack looked at him skeptically. "How do you figure?"

"For a start, it'll take her mind off fighting," Elder Lyons replied. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Besides, there is little she can do to help either Adam or Fluttershy here. At least if Sunset goes to Rivet City, she'll be able to help them with their magic problem and actually being able to help someone with a problem will be a lot better for her mental health than sitting around feeling useless." He sighed again and shook his head. "Trust me, I speak from experience."

With a jolt, Applejack remembered that his daughter was in the infirmary, too; stuck in a coma next to Adam. "Alright, Ah'll talk to her," Applejack told him. "Ah can't promise that she won't kick up a fuss, though."

Elder Lyons nodded. "Fair enough. A squad will be back from Project Purity in around two hours to escort you to Rivet City. Please try to be ready in the courtyard by then."

"What about me?" Rainbow asked. "Am I going to Rivet City too, or what?"

"I actually have something else in mind for you. If it works, then you might actually be able to help both Twilight and Fluttershy, and possibly even the entire wasteland." Elder Lyons fixed Rainbow with a serious look. "I warn you, this will potentially be an extremely dangerous mission, and you'll be going in solo. I'm only asking you because between your speed, your ability to fly, and your proven track record against Vertibirds; you are the only person that I believe can pull this off safely."

Rainbow stared at him blankly. "Super dangerous mission that might help fix Twilight and Fluttershy?"

"Indeed," Elder Lyons replied gravely. "If you don't think that you are up to-"

"I'm in, what's the plan?" Rainbow cut in. 

Elder Lyons raised an eyebrow, but quickly explained, "I want you to sneak into Project Exodus and try to contact the scientists that helped you escape from there. See if you can find out what the likelihood of a peace treaty is and, if it seems unlikely, gather as much intel about the Enclave as you possibly can."





Twilight winced as Pinkie pushed her wheelchair through the corridors. She was wearing a special brace that immobilized her arms and shoulders to prevent tearing her wounds back open, but even with painkillers she still felt the odd twinge.

"Is this the right room?" Pinkie asked.

Twilight looked up at the door they'd stopped next to. "I think so?" A low snarl from within the room served to confirm their suspicions. The two shared a worried look, then Pinkie opened the door and carefully wheeled Twilight in.

Fluttershy was lying on a hospital bed inside, with several sets of padded cuffs restraining her arms and legs and a thick leather strap around her torso keeping her from squirming too much. Her wings were awkwardly splayed out beneath her and a drip poked out from a bandage on her elbow. Sunset, sitting on a chair next to the bed, looked around as the pair entered. "Oh, hey, how're you feeling?"

"Uh, could be better," Twilight replied as Pinkie made a so-so gesture. "I tried walking earlier, but it didn't go so well, so the medics told me to stick to a wheelchair for now." Twilight considered asking how Sunset was, just to be polite, when she was startled by Fluttershy suddenly trying to lunge at them. Fortunately, the restraints foiled her attempt, so she settled for letting out a blood-curdling hiss of frustration.

"Alright, I'll get you some more now," Sunset said wearily.

"Get her some what?" Pinkie asked. 

They watched curiously as Sunset reached down to a bag at her feet. Twilight recognized it as Fluttershy's nursing kit. Their curiosity turned to horror as Sunset pulled out a blood pack, snipped a corner off, and carefully held it up to Fluttershy's mouth. Fluttershy sucked at it greedily.

"Sunset?! W-what are you doing?!" Twilight asked incredulously. 

Sunset shrugged. "She wants blood, so that's what I'm giving her. It might help."

Twilight stared at her in shock. "Help?! That doesn't even make any sense!"

"None of this makes sense!" Sunset spat. "The FEV, the radiation, the violence, this entire world is beyond insane. All I know is that Fluttershy's drinking a lot slower than earlier, the first two of these disappeared in seconds. I don't know if that means it's helping, or she's just getting full, but I'm going to keep doing it until either Fluttershy is back to normal or I'm out of blood." Sunset crumpled up the empty blood pack now that Fluttershy was done with it and tossed it aside.

Twilight sighed internally. She couldn't bear to watch her friends suffer like this, but she didn't know what she could say to try and make things better. "Sunset, I-"

"M-more." The three girls stared at Fluttershy, hardly believing their ears. "P-please… mo… more," she whispered again.

"Holy shit! Is this actually working?!" Sunset snatched another blood pack out of the bag, cut it open, and held it out for Fluttershy.

Twilight and Pinkie watched in amazement as Fluttershy closed her eyes and slowly drained the pack, sighing and letting her head fall back against her pillow once it was empty. When she opened her eyes again she just stared up at the ceiling blankly. "What's happening to me?"

The others all sighed and sagged with relief. "FEV," Sunset told her, "but don't worry, we're going to do everything we can to help you, okay?"

Fluttershy opened her mouth to reply, then snapped it shut as her cheeks turned a pale green. "I think I'm going to…"

"Don't throw up!" Sunset cried. "You've only got one blood pack left and the Brotherhood will go nuts if I start stealing theirs!"

Fluttershy gritted her teeth and groaned. "Wh-what's in the IV drip?"

"Uh… I think it's just ordinary fluids?" Sunset replied.

"Standard saline solution," Twilight confirmed with a quick glance at the bag.

Fluttershy nodded stiffly. "Sunset... Cyclizine, in my kit. It should be in a syringe. And someone get me out of these restraints."

Sunset snatched up the nursing kit and started rifling through it as Pinkie set to undoing Fluttershy's restraints. It wasn't until she found the requested drug that Sunset realized that releasing their vampiric friend might be a monumentally stupid idea, but before she could say anything Pinkie undid the last restraint and flicked it aside.

Thankfully, instead of attacking them in a feral rage, Fluttershy just held a hand out for the syringe. Sunset wordlessly handed it over, feeling a little guilty for not trusting her friend.

Fluttershy checked the syringe to make sure it was correct, then bit the lid off, attached it to the catheter in her elbow one-handed and slowly administered the Cyclizine. The girls watched in silence as Fluttershy gave herself measured pushes of the drug over the course of a few minutes. The time seemed to crawl by until, when she was finally done, Flutters carefully removed the syringe and tossed it aside before sinking back against the bed, her wings creaking beneath her.

"Er, what was that? Sunset asked.

"Cyclizine, it's an antiemetic," Fluttershy replied. Seeing the blank look on Sunset's face, she sighed and lifted her arm to rest it above her head. "It helps prevent vomiting. Can everyone please just… just be quiet for a little while?"

The room fell silent as everyone dutifully obeyed. Twilight couldn't help but feel a little frustrated at how useless she was at the moment. Without her arms her magic was limited, leaving her as little more than an observer while everyone else did the work. Admittedly, there wasn't much she could do in this situation anyway, but it would be nice to at least have options. Until then, Twilight swore that she was going to study harder than ever before, especially about FEV.

Eventually, Fluttershy sighed again and looked up at Sunset. "Hey."

"Hey, how are you feeling?" Sunset asked.

Fluttershy blinked and looked back up at the ceiling. "Um, in the last few hours I've tried to kill my boyfriend,-"

"Wait, what?!" Sunset blurted out.

"-ran out of the Citadel," Fluttershy continued heedlessly, "got kidnapped by raiders, nearly got raped, bit out a man's throat, killed a bunch more raiders, mutated into some sort of vampire and drank a ridiculous amount of blood," she ran a hand across her forehead. "Somehow though, I feel pretty… I don't know… not good, but… mellow?"

"You're probably in shock," Twilight supplied.

"Probably," Fluttershy agreed. She groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. "The last few weeks have been fucking awful."

Twilight raised an eyebrow at her candour, not to mention the casual profanity. Apparently, either the FEV or just the situation in general were affecting Fluttershy pretty severely. Twilight was about to suggest maybe letting her get some sleep when she noticed Sunset shaking with barely suppressed mirth.

"What's so funny?" Pinkie asked.

Sunset snorted, holding up a hand at the surprised looks of the others. "S-sorry. It's just… I never expected Fluttershy to say  the word f-fucking!"

Twilight stared at Sunset in mute shock as she started snickering. Her surprise grew as Fluttershy and Pinkie joined in, gradually losing control of themselves until finally the three of them were howling with laughter. Twilight just sighed heavily and shook her head. "We're going to need some serious therapy after this," she said flatly.
> Chapter 70 - Flutterbat
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight looked around at the little team she had been provided, feeling oddly like some sort of college professor leading a study group. One medic and two Scribes were waiting to assist Twilight and take notes, respectively. A power-armored Knight was standing guard in the corner, at Elder Lyons' insistence, and Pinkie was standing behind Twilight, just in case her wheelchair needed moving. Fluttershy, the object of their interest, was sitting on the end of a hospital bed facing the group with a somewhat dazed expression on her face.

It was the first time that Twilight had had a chance to get a good look at Fluttershy since her transformation. Fluttershy’s wings were enormous, large enough to stretch out two feet beyond her outstretched arms on either side. The other visible physical changes were blood-red sclera, elongated talons that replaced her fingernails, and prominent fangs, were just as Twilight had noted earlier, though she was surprised to realize that Fluttershy's ears now tapered to little points, too. 

"Are we going to get started soon?" Fluttershy asked.

"We'll get started right away," Twilight replied, making a mental note that Fluttershy was certainly bolder and more abrupt, though whether that was due to psychological stress or the FEV mutation remained to be seen. "First of all, how are you feeling?"

Fluttershy eyed the Brotherhood personnel warily. "Um, surprised that it's not just us, but otherwise okay."

Twilight hardly blamed her, it wasn't pleasant being treated like a lab rat, even at the best of times. "Sorry about them. I wanted it to be just you and me, but Scribe Rothchild wanted a full team of Scribes in here; this was our compromise."

"I understand," Fluttershy sighed. "What do you want to know?"

Twilight hummed as she considered. "How has your perception been affected? Does everything still look the same?"

"My senses are definitely sharper," Fluttershy replied. "I can hear everyone's heartbeat from here and I can smell everything in this room, even the grease that lubricates the joints on that power armor."

Somehow, Twilight wasn't surprised by that. Those changes were just further proof that Fluttershy was adapting to become a predator. Of course, the fact that her friend had mutated into a predator in the first place, and one that preyed upon humans no less, was absolutely terrifying. Still, the more they learned about how Fluttershy had changed the better, and that was precisely what this little session was about. 

"Okay, so you've got improved senses, and we've already seen that you've got enhanced strength, too." Twilight frowned. "I imagine that you've probably got increased stamina as well, but we can't really test your physical capabilities until Elder Lyons lets you use the assault course."

"That won't happen until we're sure that she's not going to attack anyone again," the Knight stated from the corner.

Twilight let out a resigned sigh. "Fair enough." She looked uneasily at Fluttershy. "So, Fluttershy, er, do you have any idea if you're going to, uh… do that again?"

Fluttershy absently patted her stomach. "I don't think so? I'm not feeling the same itch I did before when I was… well… hungry."

"Can you remember everything from when you were out of control?" Twilight asked.

Fluttershy nodded. “I was conscious, but… I couldn't control myself, I couldn't even think properly. It was like I was acting on pure instinct. I felt itchy all over my body, and every fiber of my being was consumed with this desperate urge to…" she blushed and looked away, "to get blood as quickly as possible."

The Scribes scribbled everything down furiously. As they wrote, one of them asked, "But you don't feel that way now?"

"No," Fluttershy replied. "I guess I must just be… full."

"We should probably start putting together a stock of spare blood packs, in case you start getting thirsty for blood again," Twilight suggested. "We may want to look into blood substitutes too, just in case."

One of the Scribes raised a hand. "Um, if I may, FEV is known to remove all sexual characteristics when introduced to humans. Have you noticed any changes in that regard?"

Twilight wished her hands were mobile so she could slap a hand to her face. That was a topic she had wanted to broach privately, if only to spare Fluttershy a little embarrassment. Fluttershy did indeed blush, but, to Twilight's immense surprise, she pulled the collar of her top out so she could look down at her own breasts. 

"I don't think there've been any changes," Fluttershy said flatly. "I'll, um, check properly later."

"A-anyway," Twilight cut in, "what about your magic? I know we don't have any animals here for you to talk to, but can you still pony up?"

Fluttershy blinked slowly. "I… I don't know." She grabbed her Geode and closed her eyes, then frowned thoughtfully. "That's weird. It almost feels like…" A faint glow wafted from the Geode, spreading until it covered Fluttershy's whole body. When it faded it took her wings and talons with it, her eye color returned to normal, and even her fangs shrank until they were merely larger than average instead of being offensive weapons. Only her ears were unchanged, still tapering to little points where they poked out of her hair.

"Wait, you were ponied up this whole time?!" Twilight cried, ignoring the twinge of pain from her back.

Fluttershy shook her head slowly. "No… I just…" She raised an eyebrow as she stroked her Geode absently. "I… think I can still…" her Geode flashed and suddenly she was ponied up; her hair, clothes and wings all changing exactly as they usually did. She let the magic drain away and returned to normal, then the Geode flashed again and suddenly Fluttershy was once more transformed into a vampiric caricature. "I think I can switch forms at will."

"That's great!" Twilight's back flashed with pain again as she looked over at the Scribes, pausing her and everyone else in the room as they watched her twinge in pain. A few seconds passed before Twilight spoke again, "Let Elder Lyons know that Fluttershy can change at will, she's sa-"

"Wait," Pinkie interrupted. "Fluttershy? Are you okay?"

Twilight blanched as she realized that Fluttershy was grimacing and clutching at her stomach, her breathing coming in rapid gasps.

"I think my magic changed, too," Fluttershy hissed. "I… I'm itchy again."

Before anyone else could respond, a blood pack flew out of nowhere and smacked Fluttershy in the face. She flinched, but nevertheless managed to catch it and sank her fangs into it before drinking deeply. When it was empty she let out a satisfied sigh. "Thanks, Pinkie."

"No problem," Pinkie replied brightly.

Twilight shook her head in resignation. "We're going to need more blood packs." She brightened up as a thought occurred to her. "We might be able to get by with animal blood instead of human; we'll have to try that the next time you need some. I guess we'll have to figure out a more suitable receptacle for the blood than those little packs, too."

"You know, blood can be used as a suitable substitute for eggs when baking," Pinkie put in. "Want me to make some cakes with it?"

"No, Pinkie," Twilight huffed.
> Chapter 71 - Founts of Magic
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow Dash double checked her equipment as she stepped out into the Citadel's courtyard. Her combat armor was fitted securely and comfortably, Flashburn was scabbarded at her waist with its gas tank secured on her lower back, and her combat knives were secured on her other hip.

The sky was nice and clear; not great weather for sneaking into places, but it was better than flying in a thunderstorm.

As she made her way to the center of the courtyard, Rainbow spotted Applejack, Rarity and Sunset standing near the unarmed training ring. "Hey! Are you guys leaving too?" She called out.

"Soon," Applejack replied as Rainbow approached. "We're just waiting on our escort, then we'll be heading over to Rivet City. Are you heading for Project Exodus now?"

"Yep." Rainbow put her hands on her hips and looked up at the sky. "I figure the quicker I go, the quicker I get back." She glanced sidelong at Sunset. "How's Fluttershy doing now? I heard that you sorta fixed her, or something."

Sunset brushed her wet hair out of her face. It looked like she'd only just gotten out of the shower. "She's still all… vampirey, but yeah; she's talking now, instead of trying to eat people." She fixed Rainbow with a serious look. "Be careful, okay? I don't think I can take any more bad news."

Rainbow nodded. "Don't worry, I'm not looking for a fight today. I think Fluttershy has done enough of that for all of us." She tapped her Geode and enjoyed the rush of magic as she ponied up. "Alright, I'm off. You guys have fun in Rivet City!" 

With a quick wave, Rainbow launched herself into the air and banked around to fly due south. It didn't take long for her to find the bridge that the Wonderbolts had taken them across on their way to the Citadel for the first time then, from there, it was a simple matter to follow the route that they had taken on their escape from Project Exodus. Rainbow was careful to fly high enough that she wasn't likely to get spotted, only dropping to ground level to get her bearings when she wasn't sure which way to go.

Several bands of Super Mutants were roving around, but they were easy enough for Rainbow to avoid or, when she spotted winged Mutants, hide from until they had passed. 

The only moment when Rainbow genuinely felt afraid was when she was following the route down a ruined street. As she swooped down to get a better idea of where she was, she felt a rhythmic thumping the moment her feet touched the concrete. Rainbow immediately sprinted into the nearest building, out of sight. Not a moment too soon as a magically mutated Behemoth lumbered into view around the corner, walking on all fours in the manner of a gorilla. 

Unlike the last Behemoth that Rainbow had seen, this one's skin had become entirely coated in scales, with large clusters of amber crystals growing out of its joints. At first, the Behemoth wandered aimlessly down the street, but the moment it reached the building that Rainbow was lurking in, it paused and sniffed loudly. 

Rainbow ducked out of sight just as it looked down at the building. She could hear the beast coming closer and, unwilling to get into a fight with such a massive creature, she used her super speed to sprint around the inside of the building and up a set of stairs she used to launch herself into the sky via a hole in the roof. The Behemoth, so intent on sniffing the doorway she'd entered through, never saw her as she flew over its head and continued on her journey.

After another hour of careful flying, Rainbow finally spotted the Project Exodus building. Unfortunately, it was a lot better fortified than it had been the last time she was there. She counted three Vertibirds parked around the building with dozens of power armored soldiers, and several eyebots patrolling or standing guard at various points. There were even a couple of soldiers on the roof of the building keeping watch, forcing Rainbow to lurk behind some ruins out of sight.

Given how secure the place was, Rainbow quickly decided that getting into the subterranean facility using the elevator wasn't going to happen. Fortunately, there was an alternative. Carefully watching the soldiers from cover, Rainbow waited for a moment when one of the upper windows was unobserved and seized her chance to zip inside at top speed. She waited for a minute or so and listened for any sign that the alarm had been raised. When she was certain that she hadn't been spotted, she cautiously made her way towards the center of the building.

The Exodus building was surprisingly busy, but luckily most of the people wandering around were neither soldiers nor were they particularly alert. Sneaking past them wasn't troublesome. All the while, Rainbow kept moving towards the middle of the building, and the immense vertical hole that their magic had carved through it. When she finally reached the pit, Rainbow couldn't help but let out an awestruck gasp at what she saw.

Thousands upon thousands of magical wisps swirled around like a whirlwind; a kaleidoscope of color that shimmered and flowed unceasingly up and down through the perfectly circular holes in the building's floors. The wisps all moved at different paces and in different directions, never once straying out of the invisible boundaries of the tornado. On occasion a flurry of them would surge together like a wave in the air, at other times some would coalesce into half-formed shapes before dissipating once again. 

Just as impressive as the light show, was the sound. Each wisp sang as it moved, a soft but clear note like the ringing of a crystal glass. When the wisps bumped into each other, they chimed like tiny ethereal bells. Altogether it created a symphony of haunting beauty, a melody that tugged at the heart as it enraptured the mind.

Rainbow had no idea how long she stood and stared at it, utterly mesmerized. It wasn't until she heard the distinctive sound of power-armored footsteps that she realized that she had been standing around like a gormless fool. She looked around desperately for cover, but thankfully the footsteps slowly receded, as of whoever was coming had turned down a different corridor.

With a sigh of relief, Rainbow turned back to the magic tornado. She clapped her hands to her cheeks a few times to clear her head and cautiously moved closer. Stepping over the thin chain the Enclave had strung up to cordon off the tornado, Rainbow got as close as she could to the swirling wisps without actually touching them and peered down into the hole.

The hole was easily the length of a tennis court in diameter. It burrowed through the floors of the building and the rock below in a perfect cylinder shape.

Rainbow frowned, unsure of whether the magic was safe to touch, then shrugged and extended her hand into it anyway. Her skin started tingling the moment it crossed the tornado's invisible boundary. Most of the wisps avoided her arm, altering their path at the last second to avoid it, but dozens of blue ones that somehow reminded Rainbow of her own magic clustered around her hand, enshrouding it in a sparkling glove of pure energy. When Rainbow pulled her hand back the wisps peeled away from her rather than leave the mass, bobbing around for a moment before zipping off and continuing on their merry way.

"Okay, seems safe enough," Rainbow whispered to herself. Taking a deep breath, she took one last step forward and dropped into the hole.

It was an experience unlike anything else Rainbow had ever felt. It was as if she were floating down through the eye of her own personal storm, albeit one constructed from the fever dreams of a mad artist. Most of the wisps simply moved out of her way, but the blue ones seemed to seek her out and clung to every part of her body. Dozens at first, then hundreds, then finally thousands of them coated her in a flickering mass of magical power. 

As Rainbow dropped further towards the bottom, she slowly realized that the tornado seemed to be getting denser. Millions of tiny lights filled the air, and yet somehow she could still see perfectly through them. Still, if the magic was becoming denser, Rainbow figured that it might pose a certain problem.

The tornado certainly hadn't been around the last time Rainbow was at Project Exodus, meaning that it was relatively new. If it was relatively new, then the Enclave probably had someone monitoring it at the bottom. Whoever was monitoring it would have noticed it getting denser and would therefore be paying more attention, which would make it that much more difficult for Rainbow to get out at the bottom without getting spotted.

Thinking fast, Rainbow tilted her wings and turned her floating into a wide circling descent, picking up the pace as she did so. The wisps reacted, swirling around and out of her way until the whole tornado was spinning faster and more chaotically than ever.

Rainbow kept it up until she finally saw the floor of the subterranean hangar down below. Two people were standing near the bottom of the tornado looking up. Hoping that the mass of magic would mask her, Rainbow used her super speed to burst out of the tornado and dart behind a stack of metal crates behind the two figures. 

Peeking out from behind the crates, Rainbow was relieved to see that the two people were still looking up at the magical maelstrom, blissfully unaware of her presence. She recognized one of them as Doctor Strong, but she had no idea who the second person was. She ducked back behind the crates and was about to head off in search of Doctor Shoichet when something caught her eye. "Whoa…" 

Rainbow's armor had changed; altered by her trip through the magical tornado. Where before it had been made of some dull grey material that resembled steel, now it seemed to be composed of a deep blue gemstone; sapphire, if her time around Rarity had taught her anything, lined with pale metal that gleamed in the light. A matching vambrace covered her right forearm, with greaves covering her shins. Even her Pip-Boy had been converted into the same sapphire with pale metal lining, and instead of green, the script running across the screen was now a bright baby blue.

As she inspected her newly modified armor Rainbow noticed that Flashburn had changed, too. The pipe that connected the blade to the gas tank was gone, and a quick check revealed that the gas tank itself had disappeared entirely. The handle of the shishkebab now resembled the hilt and crossguard of a true sword, and the leather sheath that Rarity had made for it was now covered in ornate silver filigree. Drawing the blade, Rainbow saw that Flashburn had indeed mutated into a real backsword, with a single-edged blue steel blade. It may have lacked the fuel for flame, but somehow she knew that it would ignite if only she wished it to.

Rainbow was so absorbed in checking out how her equipment had changed that she didn't notice someone standing and staring at her until the woman cleared her throat, making her practically jump out of her skin.

"Are you done admiring yourself, or should I come back later?" Sienna asked with a raised eyebrow.

Rainbow chuckled awkwardly and sheathed Flashburn. "Uh, hey, Doctor Bohn. I didn't see you there."

"Which is surprising considering you almost ran into me," Sienna deadpanned. "What are you doing here?"

 "There's a few things going on back at the Citadel, we could kinda use your help," Rainbow replied.

Sienna sighed heavily. "Of course you do. You're lucky that Horrigan's on patrol at the moment." She stepped around the crates and called out to the others, "Tara, Pat, could you come over here?"

"What are you doing?!" Rainbow hissed.

"Relax, Patricia is trustworthy," Sienna replied. "She's Tara's mom."

"Wait, her mom?" Rainbow waited impatiently as the two women made their way over from the magical tornado. Both did a double take as they stepped around the crates and spotted her.

"Rainbow Dash?! What the hell are you doing here?!" Tara cried.

Tara's mother, Patricia, looked Rainbow over curiously. "So you're one of the Rainbooms? I'd heard the stories, but I've got to admit, I don't think I really believed them until now."

"Yeah, I'm awesome," Rainbow said distractedly before turning to Tara. "Look, I know this is kinda out of the blue, but we need your help."

"What's wrong?" Tara asked. 

Rainbow ticked off the list on her fingers. "First of all, Twilight's injuries are pretty bad, she can't even walk without making them worse. Second, Fluttershy had been infected by FEV and mutated into some sort of vampire thing-"

"What?!" the other women cried in shock.

"Third," Rainbow continued, "the Brotherhood of Steel wants to know if the Enclave are a little more open to a peace treaty after what happened at Project Purity. And fourth, if there's not going to be a peace treaty, then they want as much information on the Enclave as they can get."

The three Enclave women just stared at her in blank shock. Finally, Sienna broke the silence, "Is it just me, or has the whole world just decided to go full-on batshit crazy?"

"It's not just you." Tara sighed and shook her head. "Come with me. We'll fetch Becky and see what we can sort out."





Sunset watched Rainbow fly away with more than a little trepidation. Seeing her look, Applejack clapped a hand to her shoulder. "Don't you worry, she'll be fine."

"If you say so," Sunset muttered. 

"Trust me. Rainbow may be reckless, but she ain't looking for a fight," Applejack said firmly. "The only reason she's going back there is to find something that can help Flutters and Twilight, and you know as well as anyone that Rainbow never leaves her friends hanging." 

Sunset sighed, but she gave a small smile. "I guess you're right."

"Darn right, Ah am." Applejack slung her pack over her shoulder and tipped her hat back. "Come on, looks like our escort is here." She nodded to three Knights that were approaching from across the courtyard.

"Excellent," Rarity said as she picked up her pack and straightened out her armor.

The Knights stopped and saluted when they reached the girls. "Ladies, we're here to escort you to Rivet City. Are you ready to go?"

"We're ready," Sunset replied, patting her armor to reassure herself that it was still there. None of the Rainbooms were willing to leave the Citadel without armor, but Sunset was particularly attached to hers, after it had saved her life during the assault on Project Purity.

The girls quickly fell into step behind the Knights as they led the way out of the Citadel's main gate. The weather was perfect; bright and clear without a cloud in the sky, but not too warm either. Even so, Sunset couldn't help the uneasy feeling in her gut as the group made their way to Project Purity, following the same route they had taken in the battle to reclaim it.

Remnants of the battle surrounded the group from the moment they set foot on the big bridge across the river. The Brotherhood of Steel had been working hard to clear the worst of the mess, but their priority had been moving the bodies of the dead and acquiring any equipment that still worked, leaving behind piles of scorched stone and twisted metal. The bloodstains remained too, silent markers of suffering and death. 

Sunset found her feet dragging as the group turned onto the street where they had been ambushed. In her mind, she knew that the constant Brotherhood patrols made this path one of the safest areas in the wasteland. Unfortunately, her heart was convinced otherwise and her memories certainly weren't helping to change that state of affairs. Passing by the building they had taken cover in was the worst part. Sunset could almost hear the cries and gunfire, she could smell the stench of hot metal and charred flesh in her memory.

"Easy there, sugarcube." Sunset looked around as Applejack spoke. The farm girl nodded to the corner of the street ahead. "You're okay, just keep walking 'til we're out of this street and you'll be fine. You've got this."

Sunset nodded and focused her gaze on the building at the end of the street. Her heart was pounding in her chest, but she concentrated on her breathing as best she could and just kept putting one foot in front of the other. Soon enough, though it felt like an hour to Sunset, the group turned the corner and were out of sight of the awful place.

"There you go, darling. The hard part is out of the way," Rarity said softly.

"Yeah," Sunset replied wearily. 

"Don't worry, we're not far from Project Purity," one of the Knights told them. "From there, it's just a short walk to Rivet City."

The rest of the walk to Project Purity passed without incident. When they arrived at the memorial building, the girls were impressed to see several Knights standing guard while dozens of Scribes hurried around, moving heavy steel drums and taking inventory. Some of the personnel paused to greet the group as they passed, calling out encouragement to the girls and their escort, but most of them were either too busy or just not interested.

Sunset looked up at the memorial building as she followed the others. Much of the damage and debris from the assault had been cleared away, and in the bright sunshine Project Purity looked far cleaner and less oppressive than the last time they had been there. Still, the very sight of it brought back unpleasant memories for each of the girls; after all, everything had only truly gone wrong for them after they had met James there.

As the girls followed their escort onto the great metal walkway that ran around Project Purity they finally got their first view of the great pipes sticking out of the side of the building. Clear water was blasting out of them at a ferocious rate into the Tidal Basin.

"Well, would you look at that?" Applejack said softly. "That's sure going to help a bunch of people around the wasteland."

Sunset couldn't deny that, but she couldn't help but think about what it had cost. She tried to shrug off the dark thoughts rising within her and focus on the good things happening right before them. 

"We've got a job to do first," Rarity said. "The sooner we get to Rivet City and help them with whatever magical issue they're dealing with, the sooner we can get their help with distributing this water to the people that need it most."

Once they were off the walkway and on the last stretch of road leading to Rivet City, all of the girls, even Sunset, felt their spirits rising a little. The city may have been cramped and dilapidated, but it was the last place that any of them had felt truly safe. As they made their way up the hill and Rivet City came into view, however, the girls stopped and stared in stunned disbelief at the scene that greeted them.

"What the...?" Sunset muttered.

Rivet City had changed beyond recognition. Irregular patches of the exterior had somehow been restored to what must have been their original state. The burnished steel gleamed in the sunlight while crystal formations sprouted from random sections of the hull. Even more bizarrely were the closely packed trees and thick vegetation that covered the entirety of the far side of the ship, apparently growing directly from the metal itself. Chunks of loose metal floated sedately above the city, surrounded by a purple glow, while the trees and command tower were giving off flashes of multicolored lightning at random intervals.

"You can see why they want your help," one of the Knights said flatly. 

"Yeah, no kidding," Applejack muttered.

With the initial shock at Rivet City's transformation over, the girls noticed a small crowd of people gathered around the base of the metal structure that held the boarding platform. A squad of Brotherhood Knights was handing out bottles of water from a pack Brahmin to those around them.

"You've started distributing the water already?" Sunset asked her escorts.

The Knights nodded. "We've been giving the water out freely from here since it's close to Project Purity. We give a certain quantity to Rivet City as well, but we can't really do much more on our own. We need help from the Rivet City Council if we want to get shipments to the rest of the settlements of the Capital Wasteland."

Thankfully, the crowd largely ignored the girls as they passed by and entered the metal structure, climbing the ramps until they reached the boarding platform. A few people were up there already, apparently waiting for the bridge to extend. One of the men leaning against the railings perked up as he spotted the group. "Hey, you're the Rainbooms!"

"The Rainbooms?" The woman next to him raised an eyebrow curiously. "I'd heard you were working with the Enclave, what are you doing with the Brotherhood of Steel?"

"The Enclave kidnapped us," Applejack replied grumpily. "The Brotherhood helped us escape."

"I wonder if you'd say that if the Knights weren't here," the woman muttered.

"Put a sock in it," one of the Knights retorted as he stepped over to the intercom. "This is Knight Green of the Brotherhood of Steel here with Applejack, Rarity and Sunset Shimmer of the Rainbooms."

A reply crackled over the intercom a few seconds later. "Seriously?! Alright, we'll extend the bridge. Knights and Rainbooms can come over, but that's it. Anyone else tries to come across and they'll get shot."

The annoyed grumbling of the waiting people was drowned out by the metallic grinding noise the bridge made as it shifted into motion. Sunset watched with interest as it swung around towards them, feeling a sudden surge of relief that she wasn't at death's door this time.

When the bridge was in place, the Knights gestured for the girls to cross first. Several members of Rivet City's security team met them on the other side. One of them stepped forward and nodded in greeting. "It's good to see you. Knights, you're welcome to rest in the security team's lounge if you wish. Girls, the Council wants to see you immediately, refreshments will be provided in the Council room; if you'll follow me, please."





"Whoa." Metzger stared up at the crystalline mountain in awe. She and the rest of her squad were on a secret mission to investigate what had happened to Raven Rock, with a new friend of theirs acting as a guide. "Nice work, Fawkes."

"You are most welcome," Fawkes replied with a nod.

Hill stepped forward and tapped his finger against a five-foot ruby growing out of the ground. It let out a soft chiming sound when he touched it. "Damn… I know the briefing told us about this, but I sure as hell didn't believe it until now."

"Yeah, me neither," Metzger muttered. She glanced over at Fawkes, who was frowning curiously at a large sheet of tourmaline near his feet. "What's up, Fawkes? Something bothering you?"

Fawkes turned and slowly cast his gaze around at the many crystal formations jutting out of the ground around the mountain's base. "It is spreading."

"The gemstones?" Misty asked. Fawkes just nodded. "That's weird."

"I get the feeling we're going to have to get used to weird shit happening wherever the Rainbooms go." Metzger readied her laser rifle and gestured at a cave mouth at the base of the mountain. "Come on, let's take a look inside."

The squad moved forward as one. Every time they stepped on a gemstone it rang or chimed loudly but, surprisingly, none of them so much as cracked under the weight of the Wonderbolts' power armor. The entrance to the cave mouth was square and clean-cut, leading Metzger to believe that it used to be the original entrance to Raven Rock.

"Alright, Hill, take point with me. Fawkes, I want you in the middle," Metzger said firmly. "Keep your weapons ready and your heads on a swivel. We have no idea whether or not anything survived the blast, and there's always the chance that some critter’s wandered in here since."

Inside, the tunnel was dim, but not quite dark. Every surface was made of crystal with hundreds of different colors and shades blending together seamlessly; each of them let out a faint glow that provided just enough illumination to see by. The squad followed the tunnel as it twisted and turned, burrowing ever further into the mountain. Several more tunnels split off from the one they were in but, in the interest of not getting lost, the group stayed on the straightest path.

"This is not right," Fawkes said quietly.

"What do you mean?" Metzger whispered back. Something about the tunnels made her want to be as quiet as possible.

Fawkes frowned as he glanced down one of the side tunnels. "I did not trespass far into this facility before the detonation of magic, but I remember the path we took well enough, and the layout of these tunnels has changed."

Metzger was about to reply when a series of loud chimes echoed down the tunnel. She gestured for the squad to halt and the ringing of their footsteps quickly faded, but the chiming from ahead grew steadily louder. The Wonderbolts tensed and raised their weapons, ready to defend themselves, but the chiming started to slowly fade away.

"This is above our fucking pay grade," Hill muttered.

"Can it." Metzger huffed, though she privately agreed with him. "It doesn't look like we're going to be able to get much useful information, not without someone who actually gets how this magic shit works. Let's just get the samples that Rothchild wants and get the hell out of here."

"Perhaps, I may be of assistance?" Everyone whipped around at the strange voice, but they couldn't see anyone else in the vicinity. "If you would be so kind as to avoid shooting me, I'm up here." The Wonderbolts all looked up, only to see a fist-sized blue crystalline spider ensconced in a little hole in the shimmering ceiling. It waved with one of its front legs when it saw that they had spotted it.

Metzger lowered her rifle and stared at it blankly. "What the hell?"

"It's a sparkly talking spider, of course it is." Hill shook his head. "Okay, this is officially the weirdest thing I've ever seen. There's no fucking way things can get weirder than this."

The little spider chuckled. "I suppose it certainly is unusual. My name is Eden."

"Eden," Metzger said flatly. "As in, 'President of the Enclave' Eden?"

"Former President," Eden replied in a surprisingly cheerful tone. "I was deposed shortly before Colonel Autumn initiated the base's self-destruct."

"And just when I think we've hit peak weird, we find something even fucking crazier," Hill put in.

Metzger eyed the little spider suspiciously. "How can you possibly expect us to believe that you used to be the President of the Enclave? For all we know you're some ordinary little bug that got mutated when this place blew." She shook her head as she realized that she was arguing about trust with a spider. "What the hell am I doing? Come on guys, let's get out of here."

"Wait!" Eden scuttled down the wall as the group turned to leave. "You make a fair point, but I can prove who I am!" He stopped and raised his forelegs as Metzger paused to look down at him. "I've already mentioned Colonel Autumn... oh, wait, maybe you don't know who he is-"

"He was the asshole at Project Purity who refused our peace treaty," Metzger shot.

"The Colonel escaped from here successfully?" Eden folded his forelegs and scratched his head with another. "How surprising. Anyway, if my knowledge of the Colonel isn't enough to convince you, how about Project Exodus, hm? I know the Brotherhood of Steel is aware of that. 

“Or, I could mention the old Poseidon Oil Rig, maybe our Navarro outpost?" He skittered past the group and headed towards the entrance. "Look, just take me with you and I'll tell you everything I know, but we should probably talk as we walk. We don't want any of the other residents of this place to find us."

 "What do you mean, 'other residents'?" Misty asked.

"The magic didn't just change me," Eden replied. "Our deathclaw specimens, suits of power armor, the few people that didn't escape in time, even the dead were affected by the magic."

Metzger couldn't help but cast a worried glance over her shoulder. "What did it do to the dead?"

"Nothing good." Eden paused to wave them onward with a leg. "I speak from experience when I say that most of them aren't friendly." His body clinked like glass as he shuddered. "But even the dead are nothing compared to what's lurking down in the lowest sub-basement."

Still trying to decide whether or not she believed him about the dead or, rather, just hoping that he was lying, Metzger asked, "And what have you got down in the basement? A living sex dungeon?"

Eden paused in his tracks again and walked right up to Metzger's feet. He rose on to his back two pairs of legs to look up at her face. "This is no joking matter, Knight. There is something down there that even I didn't know about, until I found it last night. A secret pet project of Senator Vess, or Lily as she prefers to be called, one that your leader needs to hear about. Now are you going to accept my help or not?"

Metzger glared down at the little spider. She briefly considered stomping on it, but managed to restrain herself. Whether or not the thing was actually Eden was up for debate, but it did have knowledge of the Enclave's inner workings and, as weird as it was, that made it potentially a valuable asset. "Fine. Fawkes, do you mind carrying him so we can move a bit faster? We'll grab the samples for Rothchild from the crystals outside and get back to the Citadel before any more weird shit turns up."

As the group made their way back out of Raven Rock, none of them noticed the creature following them through the crystal walls, nor the abomination that watched them through its eyes.
> Chapter 72 - Rivet City Revisited
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset idly inspected her surroundings as the security officer escorted her, Applejack, and Rarity to the Council Room. Most of the interior was just as rusty and dimly lit as she remembered, but there were patches where the metal was perfectly clean and shiny as if it had only been built the day before.

"Just in here, ladies," the security officer said, stopping and gesturing to a nearby door. "Bannon and Chief Harkness are already inside, our new science representative should be here soon."

Applejack raised an eyebrow as she watched the security officer leave. "Huh, Ah forgot that they'd need a new science rep, now that Doctor Li is over at Project Purity. Who do you reckon it is?"

"I guess we'll find out in a minute." Without further ado, Sunset pushed the door open and stepped through. Inside was a large room furnished with a single square table. Two people were already sitting and a holotape recorder lay between them. One person, Sunset recognized as Chief Harkness. The other, she assumed, was Bannon. The man had dark brown skin and black hair, which was trimmed in a neat buzz cut. His clothes, a dress shirt and pants with a corduroy waistcoat, were cleaner than any Sunset had seen outside of the Enclave or Vault 101.

"Ah, girls, it's good to see you again," Harkness said as the girls walked in.

"Indeed." The other man inclined his head to Sunset. "Miss Shimmer, I don't believe we've met. My name is Bannon; I represent the interests of the city's merchants in the council."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Sunset replied politely. 

Harkness gestured to the empty chairs around the table. "Please, take a seat. Miss Nalaar shouldn't be long."

Applejack's eyes widened as the girls sat down. "Pia? She's your new science rep?"

"For sheer lack of other options," Bannon muttered, earning a reproving look from Harkness. Before the security chief could say anything else, the door opened again.

"Sorry I'm late! We had to clear a bunch more of those butterflies out of the purifier room." The woman who hurried into the room had light brown skin, and dark brown hair tied back in a rough ponytail. Rivulets of sweat cut trails through the dust and oil covering her face. Her clothes consisted of light pants and a tank top under a thick leather trench coat with matching gloves; all of which were dotted with burns and stains. It took Sunset a moment to recognize her as the mother of the precocious little girl she'd met the last time she was in Rivet City.

Pia dropped into the nearest empty chair and heaved a great sigh of relief. "Am I glad to see you, girls. Things have been going crazy in here."

"So we've noticed. What the heck happened?" Applejack asked.

"We were hoping that you could tell us," Harkness replied. "One second." He pressed a button on the holotape recorder and cleared his throat, "This is the fifth supplementary council meeting regarding the magical disturbances affecting Rivet City. In attendance are myself, Chief Harkness, as the security representative, Bannon as the civilian representative, and Pia Nalaar as the science representative. Also in attendance are Sunset Shimmer, Applejack and Rarity of the Rainbooms, who are here as consultants on this issue."

"Yes, and now that you're back, perhaps we can finally reopen the city properly and get some customers in." Bannon glowered at the girls. "The market is the lifeblood of this city, and thanks to this mess profits have dropped considerably."

Harkness threw him a dark look. "Bringing more people on board can wait until we know it's safe."

"Which is where we come in," Rarity stated.

"Exactly," Harkness agreed.

Sunset frowned and tapped her fingers on the table. "Okay, tell us everything that happened right from the start. After that, we'll take a look at the trees and… whatever else has changed, work out what we're dealing with, and go from there."

Pia nodded and leaned back in her chair, folding her arms as she thought back. "I assume you already know about the magic… things… that were left behind by Doctor Li's experiments?" Sunset nodded. "A couple of days after you left, when that big explosion of magic happened, a whole bunch of those weird little lights crashed into the city. Most of the people were indoors, so not many were struck directly, but when they started hitting the boat itself, the magic that was already locked away in the city suddenly went haywire."

"That's an understatement," Harkness put in. "It felt like an earthquake had hit us, I honestly thought the entire ship was going to explode!"

"What do you mean? What happened?! Sunset asked.

Pia shook her head. "I'm not sure. I was checking on the hydroponics equipment when it happened. One second everything was fine, the next there was magic all over the place. Trees started growing out of walls and even computers, we had glowing butterflies, clusters of glittery stuff, and rainbow-colored magic all zooming through the ship, and random purple flashes making stuff levitate and throwing things all over the place."

"My goodness!" Rarity exclaimed. "No one was injured, were they?" 

"Nothing severe, mostly just a few cuts and bruises," Harkness replied. "One of my security team pulled a muscle and got a pretty nasty poke in the eye when his boyfriend suddenly grew wings, but that's about the worst of it."

Sunset winced. "How many people were affected by the magic altogether?"

"All of us were affected, Miss Shimmer," Bannon shot.

"I believe Miss Shimmer is asking how many people ponied up," Pia retorted. "That is what you call it, right? I heard Three-Dog mention it on the radio."

"That's right," Sunset replied with a nod.

Harkness smiled grimly. "Two people ponied up as a result of being struck by those little magic wisps, then a further forty two people ponied up as a result of the subsequent magical disturbances."

"My daughter being one of them," Pia added sourly.

Horror filled Sunset's heart at the thought of such a little girl being mutated by out of control magic. "Is she okay? What happened to her?!"

"She's okay at the moment," Pia replied with a sigh. "She was a little freaked out at first, but she calmed down soon enough. I'm just glad her wings disappeared before she relaxed enough to really try them out."

Applejack chuckled at that. "Yeah, she's as feisty as a ferret on a sugar rush. Ah can't imagine that givin’ her wings would make her any easier to wrangle."

Everyone looked around as Bannon loudly cleared his throat. "Do you think we could get back to the matter of the magic? Some of us have work to do," he said testily.

Pia glared at him, but bit back the insults she clearly wished to hurl and took a deep breath before addressing the girls, "Around ten minutes after it first hit, the magic started to settle down. We've managed to contain, or cordon off, some of the rooms and things that have been affected but, as you've probably seen, there's a whole load of stuff that's too big for us to handle."

"Like the trees?" Applejack asked.

"The trees, the butterflies, the floating equipment, the random rainbow sparks, and that's just the most obvious stuff," Harkness said. "It got even worse after that second wave of magic blasted through a couple of days ago."

"Is it true that the Enclave caused that blast too?" Bannon asked.

Applejack nodded. "Them morons got their hands on some magic of their own. We didn't even know they had it til their Colonel blew their own base sky-high. All the radiation made the magic go haywire."

"Radiation makes magic go haywire?" Pia asked, wide-eyed.

"Sort of," Sunset replied. "We're not really sure, exactly, how they interact yet, but when large quantities of magic and radiation mix, the reaction tends to be pretty… energetic." 

"Meanin’ that the last two times a load of magic met a load of radiation, it exploded all over the wastes like a boy in puberty," Applejack said flatly, earning a disgusted moan from Rarity.

Pia frowned and crossed her arms. "That would certainly explain what's happening with our generators."

"What's going on with the generators?" Sunset asked.

"Some of them have been altered by the magic," Pia replied. "They aren't showing any overly weird properties,yet, but their output has almost quintupled compared to normal. That's actually one of the first things we wanted you to take a closer look at, just in case."

"Fair enough." Sunset chewed her lip as she considered how to phrase what was on her mind. "I should probably warn you, I don't think we'll be able to get rid of most of the magic affecting the city. We can try if it's absolutely necessary, but it would probably only end up making things worse."

Harkness sighed heavily. "We were afraid that you'd say that. In that case, we'd appreciate it if you could at least help us get as much of the magic under control as possible."

"Of course," Sunset replied. "Do you have a list of what needs checking, or…?"

Harkness pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, and spread it out on the table. "I've got a complete list of every magical disturbance we’ve found here." He pushed it over to Sunset and leaned back in his chair. "I've put a star next to the most pressing issues."

Sunset read through the list quickly. She was surprised to see that it wasn't really that long, but there were a few items on there that could potentially be very problematic. "Er, what's this one that's been crossed out?"

"Ah, the Boogeyman." Harkness grimaced. "It looked like a suit of black power armor, but it could shift its form into some kind of oily shadow that moved with incredible speed. It infiltrated the city a couple of days after the magic hit and started terrorizing the residents. Thankfully, no one was hurt. It seemed more interested in scaring people than actually hurting them, but it still caused us no end of trouble. We managed to drive it out of the city a few hours before the second wave of magic hit, and it hasn't been seen since."

"That's… weird," Applejack mused.

"It's one less thing for us to worry about right now," Sunset said firmly. She knew that the Boogeyman was a problem they'd probably have to deal with eventually, but it was beyond their reach for the moment and, if she was honest with herself, she wasn't up to another confrontation just yet. "Okay, where do you want us to start?"

"Pia can show you and Applejack what needs to be checked," Harkness replied before looking over at Bannon. "As for Rarity, I believe that you needed her for something, didn't you?"

Bannon nodded and turned to Rarity. "It's not actually me that needs you, but Miss Germaine. She wishes to speak to you about a rather urgent matter, and I agreed to request a meeting with you for her. Would it be possible for you to see her as soon as possible once this meeting has concluded?"

"Oh, er…" It was clear from her expression that Rarity had mixed feelings about meeting her alternate self, but after a moment she nodded slowly. "Yes, I suppose we do have a few things to discuss."

Harkness glanced around at everyone before pushing back his chair and standing up. "Alright then, if there's nothing else to discuss, then I believe we can adjourn this meeting."

"Finally," Bannon huffed. "Pia, Harkness, I’ll see you on Monday for our regular Council meeting. As for you three, I look forward to hearing good news about these disturbances being dealt with swiftly. Good day." 

"And good riddance," Pia muttered as he left the room. 

Harkness switched the holotape recorder off and headed for the door, himself. He paused on the threshold and glanced back over his shoulder. "It's good to have you girls back, just remember the rules and stay out of trouble. See you later." Sunset raised a hand in farewell as he left. 

"So, where’re we headin’ first?" Applejack asked. "Engine room?"

Pia shook her head. "Thankfully, no. It's only a few of the portable generators that have been affected; we're keeping them in a secure room in the science labs." 

"I'll follow you partway," Rarity said. " I've never been through this part of the ship before."

"Fair enough." Pia got out of her chair and stretched. "Phew! Okay, let's go."

The girls followed as Pia led them quickly through the corridors of the ship. They met several people going about their business as they moved into the more industrious parts of the city; most of whom greeted the group enthusiastically. There wasn't time to stop and chat, but the girls made sure to let the people know that they were here to help with the magic, however they could.

"One thing Ah'm wondering," Applejack put in after they'd passed another couple of people, "how exactly are we gonna help everyone with all this magic? You said yourself that there's too much for us to get rid of."

Sunset sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Yeah, Equestrian magic has spread too far and too fast for us to contain or get rid of all of it. I think we're just going to have to destroy whatever dark magic we find and teach people how to live with whatever's left."

"It's as good a plan as any, I suppose." Rarity stopped at a side corridor with a sign showing directions to the church. "I'll head off here, I know my way to the boutique from the church."

Sunset and Applejack waved goodbye to Rarity as she left before following Pia once more. The effects of the magic were becoming more obvious the closer they got to the science bay. Rust-covered roots and branches grew out of the walls, ceiling, and floor; along with the occasional colorful gemstone. Once or twice, Sunset even thought that she could see flashes of magical energy twinkling in the corner of her eye, but whenever she turned her head to get a better look, it was gone.

Despite the new structural oddities, the three arrived at the science labs without any particular difficulty. When Pia pushed open the door to the labs, though, neither Applejack nor Sunset could help a loud gasp when they saw how much the lab had changed.

Every single surface was gleaming; so clean and shiny it was virtually unrecognisable. One of the room's walls was covered entirely in trees, with tangled roots knotting into the floor. Great branches spread across half of the ceiling and entwined around the walkways of the upper level. A second look revealed that the trees' bark was made of burnished brass and their leaves were a sparkling metallic green. Apples of every size and color hung from the branches, while hundreds of ethereal pink butterflies danced among the leaves and fluttered around the lights in the ceiling.

"Well Ah'll be… things sure have changed around here!" Applejack grinned and nodded to the tree-covered wall. "Don't tell me all of that grew from Little Mac?!"

Pia sighed. "Yeah. It's completely covered the one side of the ship's exterior, and it's slowly spreading through the interior, too. We're just lucky that it isn't blocking off any of the corridors. Hell, the damn thing has actually made the ship more stable since its roots started poking out of the bottom and digging into the riverbed." She gestured for the girls to follow. "Come on, the generators are this way."

The other members of the science team called out greetings as the three descended to the lower level. Sunset noticed that there were a lot fewer people around than before, and that most of them were technicians rather than researchers. James and Doctor Li had taken most of the dedicated scientists with them when they left for Project Purity.

"How are you managin’ with the hydroponics and stuff, now that the rest of the science team is gone?" Applejack asked, taking the words right out of Sunset's mouth.

"It hasn't been easy," Pia admitted. "I was never actually on the science team. I'm an engineer, not a researcher, but Doctor Li left very clear instructions on how to use and maintain the equipment, along with a ridiculous amount of research notes for us to look through, in case we want to try and keep improving the yield."

Sunset gave her a sidelong look. "If you weren't on the science team, how did you get on the Council as the science representative?" 

It took her a moment to realize just how rude that sounded, but thankfully Pia just grinned. "It's simple, really. I'm the only person left on the ship who can understand half of what's written in Doctor Li's notes." Pia glanced around to make sure no one was looking and spoke in a quiet tone, "If I'm honest, the only reason I took the job was because it meant I could have a permanent residence in the city, without having to pay the usual fees. It's hard work, especially with everything that's going on at the moment, but if it means I can give my daughter a stable home to grow up in, then it's worth it. Speaking of…" 

Pia turned and called out to one of the technicians, "Hey, Isaac, can you fetch Chandra for me? Thanks!" She opened one of the side doors and stepped aside for Applejack and Sunset to enter. Inside was a small workshop with three portable generators positioned against the back wall. 

"These’re the ones that were affected by the magic?" Applejack asked, getting a nod from Pia as she closed the door to keep the technicians from looking in.

Sunset stared at the generators curiously. She could see a faint glow coming from under some metal panels and she was sure that she could sense the tingle of Equestrian magic in the room somehow, much like when she and Twilight had first found their Geodes at Camp Everfree, but Sunset didn't have the faintest idea of how to go about figuring out whether it was dangerous or not. Keenly aware that Pia was watching, she asked Applejack in an undertone, "Uh, do you have any idea how these generators work?"

"Nope," Applejack replied. "You?"

"Not a clue." Sunset rubbed her neck awkwardly and turned to Pia. "So… um… do they actually do anything, or…?"

Pia just gave her a flat look. "You have no idea what you're doing, do you?"

"Well…" Sunset tried to smile hopefully, but at Pia's unamused look, she huffed and frowned in irritation. "Look, magic works differently in this world than it did in our homeworld, and that worked differently from the magic back in the world that I originally came from. Whatever magic is in those generators doesn't look or feel dark at the moment, but until I can actually see it doing something, then I have no idea whether it's safe to use or not."

Pia raised an eyebrow. "It's not dark? Should I assume that dark magic is bad?" Sunset nodded, prompting Pia to hum and rub her chin thoughtfully. "So… if we were to connect the generator up to something, maybe try and rig it up to a simple lightbulb or something, you'd be able to tell if it was dangerous from that?"

"Maybe," Sunset replied. "But, setting up such an experiment would be extremely difficult to do safely given the-"

"The radiation," Pia finished. She stepped over and patted one of the generators, then sighed and turned back to the girls. "I'll brainstorm it. If I can come up with a safe idea, would you be willing to help me give it a try?"

Sunset glanced over at Applejack, unsure of what to do. Seeing her look, Applejack shrugged and said, "Why not? It ain't like she's tryin’ to make weapons, like the Enclave; these generators will help people. Better generators means more electricity, which means more food and more water purifiers. Ah reckon it's worth looking into."

"I suppose," Sunset sighed. "Okay, if you can come up with a way to test the generators safely, then we'll help you. But, if it seems like the magic is doing anything it shouldn't, we shut the experiment down immediately, is that clear?"

Pia's expression hardened. "I'm not an idiot. My daughter lives here. I'm not going to risk her life over something like this."

"Well, not everyone in this world seems to think like that," Sunset retorted.

At first it looked like Pia was going to snap back at her, but after a moment her expression softened. "I wish I could say that you were wrong about that, but the fact that we're living in a broken down old aircraft carrier in the middle of a radioactive wasteland is pretty good evidence to the opposite." She brushed a few loose strands of hair back out of her face and glanced at Applejack. "Going back to what you said about food production, the next thing I wanted you to look at was those trees. Specifically, their apples."

Applejack broke out into a wide grin. "Alright, now you're talkin’! Come on, Ah've been itchin’ to get a closer look at them magic apples ever since Ah saw them!" She was still gushing over the prospect of scrutinizing the apples as she hurried out of the room, leaving the other two in her dust. 

Sunset smirked at the look on Pia's face. "Hey, you're the one who pointed Applejack at apples and said 'go'. What did you expect?"

The two left the room just in time to see Applejack striding up to the trees on the wall, waving the nearby technicians out of her way. "Step aside, y'all, let me take a look at these here beauties." 

Sunset and Pia stepped up alongside Applejack. "I know that you helped Doctor Li with increasing the yield of apples from the hydroponics experiments, so I was hoping you could tell me whether or not these things are edible," Pia said.

"Well, Ah wouldn't know off the top of my head," Applejack replied. "Some of them look like regular apples. That up there's a Granny Smith, you got a couple of Golden Delicious and a Bramley over there, a Pink Lady down there, you've even got one up there that looks like an Egremont Russet, you don't see those around too often." She planted a hand on her hip and tipped her hat back with the other. "Ah don't know about the rest of the ones with the funny colors though. Ah ain't never seen a blue apple like those ones up there before, not without painting them; that's definitely magic for you."

Pia jerked her thumb at a table just behind them, loaded with machinery and a few different types of apples. "We've tested the composition of some of the apples already." She held a hand up as Sunset glared at her. "I know it was dangerous, but we had to check if they contained anything toxic or poisonous after the security team caught a few teenagers eating the ones growing up on the flight deck."

"Were they toxic?" Sunset asked. 

"Surprisingly, no," Pia replied. "Despite literally growing out of metal walls, they just seem to be normal apples, apart from the colors. If they're safe enough to eat without mutating people or ponying them up, then we'll have a massive boost to our food production."

Applejack reached out and plucked a shiny green apple from the nearest branch. "Well, Ah guess there's only one way to find out." The apple gave a loud and satisfying crunch as she bit into it. "Oh, wow. Hoo-whee! That's got some serious bite to it, real tangy."

"Do you feel anything?" Sunset asked. "Any magic?" 

"Nope. Nothing but apple," Applejack replied. "Ah'd still be careful with the funny colored ones, but Ah reckon you should be fine with the ordinary apples, at least."

Pia sagged with relief. "Good. I'd like to do a couple of extra tests just to be sure, but if you're right, then this is going to mean a lot of fresh, clean food for the wastes."

As Applejack and Pia discussed crop yields and how to identify different varieties of apples, Sunset walked along the tree-laden wall, inspecting it closely. What she had originally thought was a multitude of trees was actually just one immense one; a colossal network of trunks interlocking and weaving together. 

As she stepped over a large knotted root, Sunset spotted a door nestled between a couple of thick trunks. A beautiful series of intricate spiral patterns were etched all over its surface, coming together to form Applejack, Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash's Cutie Marks in the center. It took Sunset a moment to realize that it led to the rooms where Doctor Li had performed her initial tests on magic. 

"That's where all of the magic spread from," Pia called out as she and Applejack joined Sunset at the door. "We have to keep the door locked, because there's so much energy loose in there. One of the technicians who has already been exposed to the magic volunteered to close the door after the blast smashed it open, and she's still ponied up from the sheer amount of it in her system."

"Is she okay?" Sunset asked warily.

Pia smiled wryly. "She's got bright white feathers and silver hair, even when she's wearing her overalls she looks like a fucking goddess. I'd hate her guts, if she wasn't so damned likeable." Her smile became a smirk as she lowered her voice, "Going by how her husband mysteriously ponies up every morning, I get the feeling he's happy with it, too."

Sunset and Applejack both blushed furiously as they caught her meaning. Applejack grinned mischievously as she said, "So… Sunset? How do you fancy giving Harkness some pony ears?"

A semi-playful thump on Applejack’s arm was Sunset's only response. Any further blushing was completely unrelated, and she would deny any images of the process popping in her head until her dying breath.

"Mommy?" The three turned to see a technician and a little girl walking up to them. The little girl had vibrant red hair and was wearing a patched little sundress. 

"Chandra!" Pia picked the girl up, wrapped her in a hug, and nodded to the technician. "Thanks, Isaac." She smiled at Applejack and Sunset. "You both remember my daughter, right?"

"We sure do," Applejack replied, smiling and waving at little Chandra. Sunset hesitated, guilt rising in her chest at the knowledge that the magical blast they had caused had stressed this poor little girl, but Chandra's bright grin broke down Sunset's reluctance so swiftly and efficiently that she was smiling and waving, too, before she even knew what she was doing.

Pia nodded to another side room at the far side of the lab. "Mind if we talk in there?" she asked quietly. "I'd rather keep this next bit as private as possible."

Sunset and Applejack shared a curious look, but quickly agreed. When they stepped inside the room, which turned out to be a small storage room, Pia put Chandra down and gestured for the girls to close the door behind them. 

"Okay, we're alone," Applejack said as she pushed the door closed. "What's up?"

In response, Pia crouched next to Chandra. "Okay, red, do you still have your necklace?"

Chandra nodded and pulled a little necklace out of her pocket; a thin copper chain holding a crimson stone emblazoned with a stylized flame. A jolt ran through Sunset's body as she realized what it was.

"I… is that a Geode?" Applejack asked incredulously. 

"I think so," Pia replied. 

Sunset blinked in surprise. "You know what a Geode is?"

Pia nodded. "When the first wave of magic hit, a chunk of gemstone rocketed out of the corridor where Doctor Li ran her tests on your magic and went flying off around the ship. I had one of my friends on the security team looking after Chandra for me, and she says that the gemstone flew into the room, smacked straight into Chandra, and turned into that necklace."

"That's what made her pony up?" Sunset remarked.

"Yeah. When Harkness heard what happened, he told me about your Geodes, assuming that it was something similar," Pia explained.

"He was right, or at least I think he was." Sunset stared blankly at Chandra. The Rainbooms' Geodes were all related to the elements of harmony that her friends represented, but she had no idea what this world's Geodes were related to in the slightest. "What, er… what does her Geode do? If you don't mind me asking."

Pia frowned pensively at Chandra. "Okay, Chandra, you can put the necklace on, but no flying, and be careful."

Chandra smiled gleefully and put the necklace over her head. Almost immediately, the Geode flashed and she sprouted a pair of bright red feathered wings with matching pony ears, her dress transformed into a set of deep crimson robes, and her hair glowed and rippled like a living flame on top of her head. 

As shocked and surprised as she was, Sunset had to admit that the little girl standing before her with tiny wings curled around her looked absolutely adorable.

"Aw, shucks, ain't you just the cutest little thing!" Applejack cooed, clearly not immune to her charms either.

Chandra pouted and stuck her fists on her hips, flaring her wings as she did so. It would have been cute, but the twin streaks of flame that shot out of her nostrils as she huffed slightly ruined the impression.

"Uh… did she just breathe fire?" Sunset asked flatly.

"She did," Pia confirmed with an anxious look. "I tried to keep the Geode locked away at first since, y'know, fire and small children don't usually mix well, but, unless she keeps it close, the Geode has a habit of setting fire to things, or even melting them, all on its own."

"That's… concerning," Sunset said quietly.

Applejack nodded in agreement. "Ah knew there was a load of magic goin’ around these parts recently, but Ah never thought Ah'd see new Geodes croppin’ up."

"It's actually the second new Geode I've seen," Sunset supplied. "We found a Super Mutant in Vault 87 who had one," she added in response to Applejack's shocked look. 

"Why the heck didn't you tell me about him?" Applejack demanded.

"I forgot, okay!?" Sunset shot back. "In case you hadn't noticed, the last few days haven't exactly been easy!"

Applejack flinched as if she'd been slapped. "You're right, Ah'm sorry." She rubbed her neck awkwardly. "So… you wanna talk about stuff, or…?"

Sunset shook her head and held up a hand. "Thanks, but not right now." She pinched the bridge of her nose and sucked in a deep breath, holding it for a second before letting it out again slowly. "I'm sorry I snapped, it's just… yeah."

"Yeah." Applejack cleared her throat and made a quick attempt to change the subject, "So, uh, Chandra's Geode gives her fire. What did the Super Mutant's one do?"

Sunset shivered at the memory of it shrugging off Pinkie's magic with ease. "It makes him tough. Really tough. I think it's going to take Liberty Prime or something to deal with that monster." 

"That doesn't sound good," Pia put in.

Sunset glanced down at Chandra. "That's not the worst part. We know there are two new Geodes here in the wasteland, but how many more are lurking out there?" She clasped her own Geode tightly. "And how many of them have fallen into the wrong hands?"





Senator Lily sighed as she locked the door to her workroom. It was only a small room; a private laboratory put together so she could work on her own little experiments in peace. Many of the experiments, including the injections and creams that helped her maintain a youthful aspect, were things that she had been working on back when she was still a doctor, long before she became a Senator. Some of the experiments, however, were far more recent.

After quickly double checking the lock, Senator Lily gave a satisfied nod and stepped over to her work table. Piles of notes and calculations covered most of it, but in a clear space in the middle sat a small glass tank containing a dead rat. A precise scalpel wound in its side revealed the cause of death.

"Now then, time for attempt five." Senator Lily reached up and pulled a little metal lockbox down from one of the shelves. She bit her lip in anticipation as she unlocked the box and flipped back the lid. Inside was a simple necklace; a thin silver chain holding a black stone emblazoned with a stylized skull.

Senator Lily took a deep breath to steady herself before she put the necklace on. She felt the tingle of magic the moment her fingers touched the chain, and the trickle of power she felt as the stone fell against her chest sent a shiver down her spine. Coaxing the magic out, Senator Lily felt a thrill run through her body as she ponied up; her hair lengthening and turning silky as jet-black pony ears sprouted from her skull and matching wings grew from her back.

The Senator paused for a moment, enjoying the sensation of dark power flowing through her veins. Still, she couldn't afford to savour it for long. Someone could come looking for her at any moment, and it wouldn't do for them to discover her newfound abilities before the time was right.

Turning her attention to the dead rat, Senator Lily held a hand towards it and delved into the magic of her Geode. A gossamer tendril of dark magic wafted into being around her hand, thickening and growing until it was a thick black mist, then slowly reached out to envelop the rat. 

Senator Lily held her breath as her power sank into the rat's body. It jerked spasmodically for a few seconds, then fell still once again. 

"Shit." Senator Lily braced her hands on the table and hung her head in failure. "Looks like I have to get another specimen." She made to turn away when something caught her attention in the corner of her eye.

The rat was twitching. Senator Lily watched, captivated, as the rat slowly shuddered and clambered to its feet. She grinned as the miniature zombie took a few faltering steps. "I did it." The Senator chuckled, softly at first, but slowly growing in volume until she was cackling madly as the zombie rat squealed loudly alongside her.
> Chapter 73 - Conspiracy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow tried her best to look inconspicuous as Sienna, Tara, and Patricia led her through the corridors of the Exodus building. It wasn't easy; what with her wings, bright coloration and extremely sparkly new armor, but she tried nevertheless. Luckily for her, no-one else seemed to be present in that particular section of the building's basement.

"We're here." Tara halted the group next to a nondescript door and knocked softly on it. "Sunny? Are you alone in there?" She called out.

"One second!" Rainbow heard shuffling sounds from inside, then after a few seconds Becky called, "Come in!"

Tara pushed the door open and froze with one foot across the threshold. Sienna and Patricia weren't in the right position to see but Rainbow, standing right behind Tara, had a perfectly clear view over her shoulder.

Becky was standing, ponied up, with one foot planted on a chair in the middle of the room. Her outfit consisted solely of a pair of high-heeled leather boots, a leather belt draped across her hips, a leather jacket thrown open at the front just to make sure that absolutely nothing was left to the imagination, and a riding crop that slapped intimidatingly against her palm.

The scene only lasted for a split second; Becky's eyes practically popped out of her head when she realized that Tara wasn't alone, then she bolted towards a back door just as Tara pulled the door she was holding shut, but that was plenty of time for the image to sear itself into Rainbow's mind.

"What's the matter, Tara?" Patricia asked.

"Nothing!" Tara replied quickly. "Becky had just gotten out of the shower and wasn't expecting company!" She pushed the door slightly open again, poked her head inside to have a quick look around, then opened it all the way and stepped inside, gesturing for the others to enter. 

The room was small and simple; with a double bed in the corner, a pair of desks against one wall and a wardrobe against the other. The door that Becky had disappeared through was evidently the bathroom.

As Sienna stepped past Rainbow she patted the Rainboom on the shoulder and whispered, "Don't worry. Whatever you saw, it could always be worse. Trust me."

Rainbow didn't answer. She was desperately trying not to think about how Becky, and by extension Sunset, looked incredible naked, and was also pondering whether or not it was worth asking Sunset if she shaved her pubic hair just like her counterpart did. 

Huh, that's two people I've seen who shave their bush. Is that a thing in this world? Should I do mine? Nah, I would never trust myself with a razor down there. I could ask Rarity to- wait, no, nononononono! Bad brain!

"Yoohoo, Earth to Rainbow Dash?" Rainbow snapped back to reality at the sound of Sienna's voice. "There you are. What the hell was Becky doing to make you space out like that?"

"N-no, it's not that!" Rainbow said quickly. "I, uh, was just thinking about Twilight and Sunset and… stuff."

"Don't worry, we'll do what we can to help." Tara glanced at the bathroom door. "Why don't you all sit down while I just check on Becky?"

As Tara followed Becky into the bathroom Sienna took the chair and Patricia sat on the edge of the bed. Rainbow, not trusting either of those options, opted to lean against the wall instead. 

"How did you get the new kit?" Sienna asked.

Rainbow looked down at her armor. "The Brotherhood of Steel gave me some combat armor, but that freaky magic tornado thing back there is what did this." She gestured to the glittering breastplate for emphasis.

"That's weird." Sienna shrugged. "I guess it's just one more thing to add to the list of bizarre shit that magic does."

"Um, excuse me?" Patricia raised her hand like a student in class. "I have a few questions."

"What do you wanna know?" Rainbow asked warily.

Patricia leaned forward and fixed her with a focused look. "What is your home like? How different is it from this world?"

Rainbow stared at her in surprise. "Uh, it's about as different as it can possibly get. Seriously, our home and this crappy world have almost nothing in common."

"Really?" Pat arched an eyebrow. "And what makes it so different?" 

"There hasn't been a nuclear war for a start," Rainbow shot. "It's not perfect, but from what I've seen we've got more people living in one city than there are in the whole Capital Wasteland, and there's no raiders or Super Mutants or stinking Enclave going around killing people for no damn reason."

Patricia scowled and opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Tara and Becky coming back out of the bathroom. Becky had replaced her kinky outfit with a simple gray bathrobe and slippers. "Okay, what the fuck is going on, Rainbow?" She asked. "Tara says that Twilight can't walk and Fluttershy has been mutated by FEV?!"

Rainbow nodded. "Sunset managed to stop Fluttershy from going crazy and trying to bite people, but we were hoping that you might have some way of curing the FEV and undoing her mutation."

The bleak expressions on everyone else's face was answer enough for Rainbow.

"There's no cure for FEV, at least, none that I know of," Tara said quietly.

"Come on, there's gotta be something that you can do!" Rainbow cried.

Tara shook her head. "I'm sorry, but it's not something that the Enclave has ever researched."

Rainbow sagged against the wall. "Right. I guess it was a long shot." She sighed and wiped a hand across her eyes. "Can you give us whatever information you have on FEV anyway? Twilight might be able to come up with something."

"Of course, Rainbow," Becky replied. "Speaking of Twilight, what happened? I know her injuries were severe, but I thought the Brotherhood of Steel would be able to fix her up without too much trouble?"

"They've done what they can, but she can't walk without opening her wounds back up." Rainbow pulled a folded square of paper out of her pocket. "Here, the medics asked me to show you this. It's a list of what they did to try and fix her."

Sienna stood and held out a hand. "Let me see that." Rainbow handed the sheet over, and Sienna's eyes widened as she read through the list. "Wow, her injuries were nastier than I expected. This is why I kept pushing for better containment of the Deathclaw specimens." She started pacing, humming every now and again in thought. "The auto-doc they used is an older model but still serviceable, and the procedure they used is definitely correct; their surgeon knows what he's doing, but why would they use that kind of biogel? The Enclave hasn't used that type in almost a century, it's obsolete!"

"The Brotherhood don't have access to our R&D, remember?" Tara put in.

"Good point." Sienna folded the sheet of paper and slipped it into a pocket. "I'll see if I can find a holotape with a software update for their auto-doc. The hardware hasn't changed much since the war, so it should take easily enough. While I'm at it I'll see how much biogel and how many stimpaks I can spare." She huffed and shook her head. "It won't be perfect, but it'll at least help her recover in six weeks instead of six months."

"I'll see if I can dig up our FEV research without raising suspicion," Tara offered. "If I frame it as part of our Exodus research, then we should be able to get away with it."

Rainbow nodded her thanks. "That's awesome. Seriously, we owe you one." She glanced at Becky. "What about the peace treaty?" 

Becky shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry. The Senate held a vote to decide on whether or not they should approve a peace treaty, but it didn't go through."

"Crap," Rainbow muttered.

"So I guess that means we're going to have to help you without the Senate finding out," Becky continued.

Patricia chewed her lip nervously. "This is treading dangerously close to treason again. Think carefully about this."

"We have been thinking carefully, and I'm done with the top brass's bullshit," Becky replied. "You heard what Devall said, they're already replicating and experimenting on the magic, we can't-"

"Hang on, what magic?" Rainbow cut in. "I thought the only magic the Enclave had was here and at what's left of Raven Rock?"

Tara grimaced and sank onto the bed. "I wish that were true. Thanks to Doctor Turner's betrayal a large supply of magic was delivered to our primary base of operations; the Adams Air Force Base just outside the Capital Wasteland."

"Getting really close to treason here, Tara," Patricia said warningly.

"Fuck treason, those assholes betrayed humanity the moment they chose to chase power and control instead of ending this lunatic war," Becky spat. "I'm not standing by and watching the Enclave burn down what little civilization is left in this world. If that means siding with the Brotherhood of Steel and working with the Rainbooms, then so be it."

Rainbow gave her an impressed look. "Are you sure about this? I mean, it's cool that you want to help us, but isn't that gonna be like, super dangerous?"

"No more dangerous than letting that lunatic Acheson play around with magic," Becky replied.

Patricia shifted uncomfortably. "And what about Andrew?"

"We can't tell him," Tara said quickly. "The less he knows the safer he'll be. Besides, he's the head of the military, we'd be putting him in an awful position."

"No shit." Everyone looked in startled surprise as the door opened and a man stepped in. He was wearing an officer's uniform and had a stubby plasma pistol clenched at his side, which he subtly pointed at Rainbow the moment he spotted her. Rainbow recognised him as the officer that had greeted the Vertibirds she'd chased at Raven Rock. 

"Andrew?!" Pat and Tara cried in unison, jumping to their feet.

Andrew didn't acknowledge them. Instead he just glared at Rainbow Dash, who in turn didn't dare take her eyes off the plasma pistol pointed directly at her gut.

"Take it easy, you two. Don't do anything hasty," Becky said in a calm tone. 

Rainbow smirked. "Don't worry. If I was going to kill this dipshit I'd have done it already."

"Big words for someone at gunpoint," Andrew countered.

"You're the one at gunpoint," Sienna called out. Despite themselves, Andrew and Rainbow both glanced at her. Sienna was still lounging comfortably in the chair, but she had pulled a sawn-off shotgun from somewhere and had it pointed directly at Andrew.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Tara snapped. "That's my brother you're threatening!"

"Really? I hadn't noticed," Sienna deadpanned.

Andrew frowned, but didn't lower his gun. "If you fire that from there the spread is likely to catch Rainbow too."

"It's a good thing it's not loaded with buckshot then," Sienna replied in a bored voice. "I use hollowpoint slugs."

The blood drained from Andrew's face in an instant. "You're really set on this, huh?"

Sienna inclined her head slightly in admission. "I'd rather not kill you if I don't have to. It would upset Tara and Pat-"

"No shit," Tara hissed.

"-but the Rainbooms are pretty much the only ones who can help us keep all of this magic from destroying everything," Sienna continued. "You're pointing a gun at one, so you do the math."

A taut silence fell as Andrew clearly weighed his options. Rainbow kept her guard up, ready to dive out of the way in a heartbeat if he decided to try and shoot her anyway. 

After several long seconds, Patricia finally broke the silence, "Andrew, please put the gun down."

"You know I can't do that, mom," he replied.

"Yes, you can, dear," Patricia insisted. "The Enclave has been betrayed by its leaders so many times now. Thanks to Eden and Autumn we lost our home, families have been destroyed, and the Enclave is weaker than it ever has been. Whole classrooms full of our own innocent children were almost wiped out because of their power plays, and now Acheson and Lily are going to do the same damned thing with their stolen magic."

Andrew nodded slowly. "Maybe, but what about the soldiers under my command? How can I let you pass information to the Brotherhood of Steel while still keeping good people from getting killed?"

"You rat bastard!" Becky yelled suddenly, making everyone else jump out of their skin. "You're not going to shoot Rainbow, you actually agree with us!"

"Wait, what?" Rainbow looked back at Andrew to see him raising an eyebrow.

Becky huffed and shook her head. "I thought something was off. Why did you wait outside until we mentioned you? And why didn't you just drop in a flashbang and tie Rainbow up while we were incapacitated?" She gave him an unamused look. "You wanted to make sure that we were all on board before you made a move. Hell, is that gun even loaded?" 

Andrew stared at her impassively for a moment, then sighed and held the gun up. "It's not even a real gun, it's a model of one of the prototypes that R&D have been working on. Come on, I wouldn't point a real weapon at someone I wasn't intending to shoot, loaded or not. Basic gun safety."

"Gun safety?" Sienna shot as she lowered her shotgun. "I almost blew a cavity the size of a football in your chest, dumbass."

"Yeah, I wasn't expecting you to be armed, especially with that," Andrew admitted. "Besides, I know we're exes, but I thought we were on better terms than that."

"Hang on, when did you two date?!" Tara asked incredulously. 

Sienna scowled at Andrew. "We didn't date, I just used to let him bend me over a desk every now and then."

"Andrew!" Patricia snapped. 

As the others all started talking over each other Rainbow threw her hands up and called out to get their attention, "Hey! Can someone explain to me what the heck just happened?"

Becky sighed, walked up to Rainbow, patted her on the shoulder and gestured to Andrew. "This asshole was scoping us out. He wanted to be sure that we-"

"Were all actually planning on helping me and my friends," Rainbow finished, "yeah, I got that. What I don't get is why he pointed a fake gun at me and pretended to threaten me."

Andrew shrugged. "Sorry about that, but I had to see how serious everyone was about this. If they had immediately started apologizing and begging for forgiveness then they wouldn't have the resolve to see this course of action through to the end."

"Right." Rainbow shot a confused glance at Becky. "How did you figure it out?"

Becky allowed herself a small smile. "His question: How can he let us pass information along without getting his soldiers killed?" She nodded to Andrew. "You weren't being rhetorical, were you? You were literally asking how we could manage to help the Brotherhood while avoiding getting the decent people under your command killed."

Andrew sighed heavily. "I'd prefer it if as few people die as possible, but since war is currently our only option thanks to the Senate, we may as well make sure that it's only the people who actually want a war that take the brunt of the fighting."

The bed creaked as Patricia sank back onto it. "I don't know how to feel about this," she said quietly. "How long have you been planning on betraying the Enclave too?"

"I'm not going to betray the Enclave," Andrew said firmly. "It's like you said; Eden, Colonel Autumn, Acheson and Lily all betrayed us. When we were in school we were taught that the Enclave did what it did because we were helping to restore peace and civilization back to the wastes. I plan on making those idealistic lies a reality." He crossed his arms as he added coldly, "People like Senator Lily who foment war in the name of power have no place in the Enclave's future as I see it."

Rainbow grinned at him. "I have no idea who most of those people are, but that still sounds awesome!"

"You're damn right it does," Becky agreed. "Alright, Andrew, clearly we have some planning to do, but first I'm going to need you all to fuck off for a minute." In response to everyone's confused expressions, she gestured to her bathrobe. "I need to get some clothes on, and there's no way in hell I'm stripping down in front of all of you."

That was enough to get everyone moving. Sienna said that she would gather some medical paraphernalia for Twilight and disappeared, quickly followed by Patricia who mentioned going to find her husband. As Andrew made to leave too, Tara called out to him, "Hang on a second, how did you even know that Rainbow was down here? I thought you were upstairs?"

Andrew nodded. "I was. Horrigan had just come back from patrol and was giving me his report when we saw the magic wind thing in the middle of the building suddenly flare up. It seemed pretty suspicious, so we came down in the cargo elevator. The moment I saw that none of you were observing the magic I figured that we had an intruder, so I left Horrigan guarding the hangar and came to find you." He looked back at Rainbow. "On a related note, you'd best come and find me when you want to leave so I can sneak you in and out of the elevator without Horrigan or anyone else seeing you."

"Sure, I'll do that." Rainbow waited as he closed the door behind him, leaving her alone with Tara and Becky.

"You should probably go with Andrew or Sienna," Becky suggested. "I wasn't kidding about wanting to get dressed."

"Yeah, sure, in a sec. I've just got a quick question first," Rainbow replied.

Becky and Tara shared a wary look. "What is it?" Becky asked tentatively.

Rainbow pointed up at Becky's pony ears. "How did you manage to pony up?"

"Huh? Oh, that?" Becky heaved a great sigh of relief. "It's pretty simple, actually. The magic in that weird tornado thing seems to respond when we get close, and certain colors get drawn to us." Rainbow nodded as she remembered the blue wisps swarming her on her way down. "I found out that we can actually catch some of the magic from the tornado just by holding a jar and waiting for a bit to float in. I've got a bit of Sunset's magic in a jar in the bathroom; I just open it up a little and it ponies me up straight away."

"Cool!" Rainbow replied, impressed.

"Was there anything else?" Tara asked.

Rainbow gave them a sly grin. "Just one more thing. What were you planning on doing with that outfit and the riding crop?"

"Out, Rainbow!"
> Chapter 74 - Fashion and the Forest
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rarity stared at the door ahead of her anxiously. She had been inside the Seaborne Boutique a dozen times before without hesitation, but that was before she had discovered that the proprietress was her native counterpart; this world's very own version of 'Rarity'.

In a way, Rarity was excited to meet Tabitha again, especially since they hadn't really spoken much when they had first met, but at the same time the prospect of speaking to her was absolutely terrifying. Tabitha was a successful businesswoman, a professional designer, a skilled fighter and a member of a secret organisation to boot. Not to mention the fact that she and her sister, this world's Sweetie Belle, had been affected by magic due to an accident that was partially Rarity's fault. All in all, there was a high chance that the coming conversation could get decidedly awkward.

Deciding that she couldn't stall any longer, Rarity sighed and knocked on the door using the little heart-shaped knocker.

"Just a minute!" Someone called from inside. A few seconds later the door opened. "Welcome to the Seaborne Boutique! Where every garment is chic, unique and- Rarity!" Tabitha stopped in the middle of her welcoming speech and stepped back to let Rarity enter. "Please, come in!"

Rarity allowed herself to be swept inside, surreptitiously eyeing her counterpart as she closed the door. In place of an armored overcoat Tabitha was wearing a charming blue swing dress, and her silky black hair was pulled back into an elegant French plait. Rarity looked away as Tabitha turned back to face her, not wanting to be caught staring, and it was then that she noticed something unusual. "Where are Coco and Claire?"

"Coco is out to lunch, Tabitha replied. "As for Claire she's doing some work for Bannon, helping with customers and such." She smiled and gestured for Rarity to follow her. "Let's sit and chat, shall we?"

Rarity just nodded and followed her quietly into the back room. It was a wide space with a pair of battered old sofas on either side of a round coffee table. A series of worktops, household appliances and wardrobes lined the walls.

"I see that you've got yourself some armor, a smart choice for traveling through the wastes," Tabitha said as she stepped over to the refrigerator. "Take it off if you want, I know that stuff can be heavy. Just pop it on the rack over there."

Rarity eagerly took the opportunity to remove her armor. By the time she had taken it all off and hung it on the rack, Tabitha was just placing a couple of mugs filled with ice-cold Nuka-Cola onto the table.

"Here we are! I'm afraid I'm out of wine, but this is the next best thing you can get out here in the Capital Wasteland," Tabitha said brightly. 

Rarity looked at her mug uneasily. "Er, I hate to sound ungrateful, but is that, um… irradiated?"

"Huh?" Tabitha blinked and stared blankly at the mugs. "Probably a little, I mean it is Nuka-Cola, but that tiny amount won't hurt, will it?"

"I'd rather not increase my chances of getting cancer," Rarity said slowly. "Goodness knows we're risking it every time we go outside."

"Cancer?" Tabitha tilted her head in confusion. "But radiation-induced cancers are incredibly rare these days! Most people are genetically resistant to it after so many generations of living in… the… ah." Her eyes widened as the pieces fell into place. "And you aren't from the wastes. Oh my God, I'm so sorry! I should have realized sooner!"

"I-it's alright," Rarity put in as Tabitha hurried back to the fridge. "Really, I feel dreadfully rude for refusing your hospitality."

Tabitha shook her head. "Don't be ridiculous. It's not rude to refuse something that might actually kill you!" She returned to place another mug on the table. "Here, pure clean water with ice cubes."

"Ooo, I haven't seen ice cubes in a drink since the Vault," Rarity cooed, though privately she wondered just how much the wasteland had changed her if such a simple little thing made her day.

"I heard something on the radio about you being in a Vault," Tabitha said with interest. 

Rarity nodded. "Yes, Vault 101. The Overseer was a brute and some of the people were horrid but after what's happened since we left I almost wish I was back down there."

"What was it like, living down there?" Tabitha asked eagerly. 

With the initial awkwardness out of the way, the two slipped into casual conversation with the ease of old friends, much to Rarity's delight. Predictably, the topic soon shifted to fashion. Rarity was more than a little self-conscious of her current outfit; her top and skirt were so patched and stained that she would never dream of wearing them back home, but Tabitha was enthralled by what she called its 'otherworldly chic'.

Rarity and Tabitha spent hours swapping ideas and techniques, working together on whatever garments took their fancy and holding an impromptu fashion show to see how it all looked on a real person. 

Tabitha proved to be no less generous than her counterpart, and Rarity's pack was soon bulging with a pretty red swing dress, a set of formal office clothes, several new sets of well-fitted underwear, and a couple of sets of what Tabitha called 'battle undergarments', though they were clearly designed for a very different activity to fighting. Rarity had blushed furiously at being presented with them, and even more so when told to actually try them on, but she couldn't bring herself to refuse them. 

"Well? What do you think of them?" Tabitha asked as Rarity stepped out of the changing room, her new underwear dangling from one hand.

"They're exquisite, if a little more daring than anything I've worn before," Rarity replied. "I, er, don't think I'll have any reason to wear them anytime soon, though."

"It always pays to be prepared, darling." Tabitha smiled slyly. "Besides, I can think of at least one person who would love to see you in them." 

"Wh-what?!" Rarity spluttered.

Tabitha hummed and tapped a finger on her chin theatrically. "I suppose I could be wrong, but she seemed awfully protective of you when we were on our way to the Citadel after rescuing you."

"She?" Rarity thought back to their escape from Project Exodus. She hadn't been paying much attention at the time, the sudden appearance of her own alternate self had occupied most of her thoughts, but there had been someone keeping close to her, going out of their way to keep an eye on her just in case…

"It looks like you know who I'm talking about." Tabitha giggled at the look on Rarity's face. "It looks like you're not against their interest, either."
 
Rarity turned away to hide her blush, nervously fidgeting with her hair. "W-well, I don't, I mean it's not like, well there was that business at the theme park, but she never pressed her case so I didn't think-"

"Did you want her to press her case?" Tabitha asked pointedly. Rarity suddenly felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. "I'll take that as a yes." Tabitha sighed and sipped her cola. "Let me give you some advice. I don't know how you do things in your world, but here in the wastes; if there's something you want, you take it. Don't wait for her to come to you, get out there and make her yours." She set the mug down and stepped over to a nearby wardrobe. "While you're reeling from that little bombshell, perhaps we should get on to the main reason I asked you to come."

"And what's that?" Rarity asked weakly.

Tabitha opened the wardrobe and reached in to fiddle with something in the back. "I assume you already know that Claire and I work for a secret organisation called-"

"Ooo, yes, the Railroad! Sunset told me all about it" Rarity said eagerly, perking up instantly at the thought of clandestine operations. 

"Yes, well, I heard from Victoria about how your friends got rid of Zimmer for us, and I wanted to give you all a token of my appreciation." There a loud clunk from inside the wardrobe and Tabitha pulled out a large plank of wood, followed by several rolled up sheets of paper.

Rarity gasped excitedly. "Is that a secret compartment?"

"Naturally. A secret agent requires secret compartments." Tabitha placed the sheets on the table and waved Rarity over. "First of all is this." She unrolled a sheet that had six symbols drawn on it; each with a single word written underneath. "These are Railsigns. They're secret markings used by the Railroad to designate safehouses, weapons caches, and the like."

"Like the one on your door?" Rarity asked. 

Tabitha nodded. "Exactly. The mark on the door lets other members of the Railroad know that they can find an ally here; moi. Commit these to memory. They're not used all that much down here in the Capital Wasteland, but they might just come in handy someday." She patted the rest of the sheets. "Once you're sure that you've memorized those, we'll go through these maps. They show a list of locations used by the Railroad regularly, as well as some of the Capital Wasteland's major landmarks."





Sunset yawned as she walked up the stairs towards the flight deck. After handing Chandra back over to her babysitter, she, Applejack and Pia had spent the last few hours traipsing all over the ship, checking off the list of magical disturbances and alterations that Harkness had given them. Thankfully, the group didn't find any sign of dark magic, and most of the disturbances were an inconvenience at worst, and some of the magic would be actively beneficial if only they could convince the people of Rivet City that it wasn't dangerous. 

Possibly one of the most useful things they found was a room in the upper deck whose walls were covered in a thick layer of purple magical slurry. Whoever entered the room was teleported to a random location on the ship in a bright flash of light. Security had cordoned it off, but they allowed Sunset and Applejack to enter in the interests of finding out if they could control the teleportation. 

Through a little trial and error, a whole lot of walking back to the room after being teleported, and a particularly uncomfortable incident where Pia and Sunset had been forced to explain to a furious wife that they had not intended to join her incredibly confused husband in the shower, they finally managed to figure out how to select the destination of the teleport. 

To Pia's immense annoyance, the answer proved to be surprisingly simple. One simply had to throw on some gloves, scoop some of the excess slurry into a container and smear it onto the wall of the room you wanted to teleport to. Then, all one had to do was keep the destination in mind when they entered the teleporter room, and they appeared in the correct room a moment later. Best of all, the slurry didn't disappear after use, so the same destination could be used repeatedly without any issue. The girls quickly came up with a list of potential destinations to put before the Council, and Pia made a note to experiment with the slurry to see if she could facilitate two-way teleportation, creating a means of rapid transportation through the ship.

Once they were done with the ship's interior, all that remained was the flight deck.

"How much magic is up here?" Applejack asked. "Ah saw the trees and the floating stuff, but is there anythin' else we should know about?"

Pia let out a humourless chuckle. "Aside from the magic lightning? Not much, really."

"Has the lightning hurt anyone?" Sunset asked.

"Not seriously, thankfully," Pia replied. "Access has been restricted until we can get it under control, to make sure it stays that way."

When they finally reached the door to the flight deck, a pair of security guards opened the door for them. Sunset let out an awestruck gasp as she stepped onto the flight deck. 

The whole deck was covered with a network of interwoven roots. The trees that the roots came from towered over the one side of the ship, providing shade and a truly dizzying variety of apples in every conceivable color. Even the old warplanes hadn't escaped the growth; with thin roots creeping up over the fuselage. Dozens of little crystal obelisks, ranging from around two to four feet in height, poked out of the floor in random places, and the lower branches of the trees were swarming with tiny pink butterflies. Floating several meters above it all were hundreds of hunks of metal; from tiny fist-sized panels to detached warplane wings, all shrouded in a sparkling purple aura.

"It's beautiful," Applejack whispered. She flinched as a bolt of turquoise lightning flashed out from the top of a tree with a loud crack. "Whoa! It's scary, too!"

"You're not wrong." Pia sighed and carefully picked her way across the roots towards the trees, gesturing for the girls to follow. "Most of the time the lightning sticks to the upper branches, but sometimes it comes out of the lower ones, too, so be careful."

Sunset stared at her as if she were crazy. "If there's a chance of getting hit by lightning, then why the heck are you going towards the trees?!"

"Don't worry, the trees always show some sign before the lightning comes," Pia replied. "It gives you plenty of time to get out of the way."

"If you say so," Applejack muttered. 

The two girls looked around curiously as they cautiously followed Pia, both trying to ignore the loud crack of lightning coming from the command tower and the treetops. Sunset inspected the little obelisks as she passed. They all glowed with a faint inner light, but beyond that they didn't seem to do anything. Bereft of ideas, Sunset asked, "What exactly are we doing up here?" 

Pia stopped a good six feet away from the base of the nearest tree. Without looking back, she replied, "The lightning is the main issue. Ideally we'd like to know what the crystals are, but since they don't actually do anything it hasn't been listed as a high priority. What do you girls think?"

Applejack shrugged. "Ah got nothin'. Sunset?"

"I'm not sure." Sunset knelt and gently tapped the nearest obelisk. The light flared a little brighter for a second, but nothing else happened. "If I had to guess, I'd say they're probably just crystallized magic. As long as you don't do anything to them, then they should be perfectly safe."

Pia nodded. "That should be easy enough to arrange. What about the lightning?"

"That, I couldn't tell you," Sunset replied, standing and looking up at the trees. "I've never seen anything like this before."

"Hang on a second, how long has the lightnin' been going on for?" Applejack asked suddenly.

Pia frowned as she thought. "Not long. I think it started a few hours after the second wave of magic hit."

Applejack nodded as if that confirmed a suspicion. "And would that be around the time the roots started reaching the river, below?"

"I think so?" Pia risked a sideways glance at her. "Why?"

"The river with the radioactive water?" Applejack asked pointedly.

"That's it!" Sunset exclaimed. "The roots are sucking up the water, the radiation is mixing with the magic, and the trees are releasing the energy generated by the reaction by emitting the blasts of lightning! Applejack, you're a genius!"

Applejack grinned and lowered her hat to cover her eyes. "Shucks, it ain't that big of a deal."

Pia crossed her arms and hummed thoughtfully. "So, if we want to stop the lightning, we need to figure out a way to siphon off the excess energy from the trees."

"Harvestin' them apples ought to help," Applejack suggested. 

"It'll boost our food supplies, too." Pia smiled and turned to Sunset. "Would you mind going down to the lab and bringing Isaac up here for me? In the meantime Applejack and I can start figuring out how to go about harvesting the apples."

Sunset nodded. "Sure thing. I'll be back as quick as I can." Leaving the other two behind, she carefully headed across the roots and back inside.

As she made her way through Rivet City's corridors, Sunset wondered whether or not the Council would agree to aid the Brotherhood of Steel now. The Rainbooms had held up their end of the bargain; all of the magic in Rivet City was either dealt with or in the process of being brought under control, so she hoped that Harkness could spare some people to help distribute fresh water across the wastes. If not, then Sunset planned to suggest asking Three Dog to put the word out. Surely someone in the wastes would be interested in helping.

Lost in thought, it was a little while before Sunset realized that she was also just plain lost. She still wasn't used to the ship yet, and what she had thought was a shortcut to the labs was turning out to be anything but.

Great. This is just what I needed. Sunset sighed heavily and looked around, hoping to see something that she recognized. There weren't any signposts in sight, but there were tools and toolboxes all over the place, with little symbols painted on the floor and walls. It looked like the area was being prepped for maintenance and repairs. Just as Sunset was about to turn and retrace her steps, she heard a loud bang come from further down the corridor.

"What the…?" Listening carefully, Sunset could just make out an indistinct voice talking, each few words interspersed with muffled thumps. 

Assuming that it was a maintenance worker struggling with something, Sunset decided to go and help them. As she got closer, the swearing and sounds of impacts getting louder with every step, her mind slowly registered that something didn't seem right, but it wasn't until she turned a corner and saw what was causing the sound that she realized that something was very, very, wrong.

A strange man was in the corridor, standing aggressively over another person laying curled up on the floor. Sunset barely had time to process what she was seeing before the man kicked the other person hard in the ribs, eliciting a disturbingly faint groan from his victim. "You like that, Sister? Fucking traitor."

"What the hell are you doing?!" Sunset snapped before she could stop herself.

The man whipped around to face her, his eyes widening as he spotted who it was. "You! You're one of those Rainbooms." He jabbed a finger down at Sister. "Stay out of this, bitch, this is slaver business."

"Slaver?" Sunset half-whispered. 

"That's right," the man spat. "This little fucker's a traitor, and I've been sent to deal with him, so stay the fuck out of it unless you want a whole world of trouble." 

Sunset was shocked at the sheer venom in the slaver's voice, but she stepped forward as he stamped hard on Sister. "Leave him alone!"

The slaver snarled as he rounded on her. "Or what? Huh? What the fuck are you gonna do about it?" 

Sunset suddenly found herself frozen, a wave of terror holding her in place as the man advanced on her. She flinched as he raised a hand as if to slap her. Seeing her reaction, the slaver paused and grinned. "Aw, looks like someone's scared." He clapped the hand to her shoulder, still grinning widely. "Hey, it's okay. This asshole? He's done some bad shit, now I'm here to do bad shit to him, it's just karma. Now run along and leave us to it, okay?" 

He clasped the back of Sunset's head and pulled her in close enough that she could feel his reeking breath on her cheek. "And don't go telling no security officer what we're up to, cos if I get in trouble, I'll make sure that Eulogy brings the boys and we'll run a fucking train on your ass. Is that clear?" Sunset couldn't bring herself to answer, or even to move, but the slaver took it as assent. "Good." He spun her around, slapped her backside hard enough to make her yelp and shoved her away. "Now get the fuck out of here, before I change my mind."

Consumed with fear, Sunset was barely able to put one foot in front of the other, but somehow she managed to keep going until she turned the corner and was out of sight, trembling uncontrollably. It wasn't until the sounds of heavy impacts started back up that she stopped. Sunset desperately wanted to go back, to rescue Sister and out the slaver in his place, but her body just wouldn't listen. Fear and shame roiled inside her as she listened to Sister getting beaten to death.

Biting back a sob, Sunset's eyes fell on a heavy pipe wrench, poking out of a nearby toolbox. She stared at it for an eternity, conflicting emotions warring within her, but finally she reached down and picked it up. The wrench was surprisingly heavy. Weighing it in her hands, Sunset clutched the handle with both hands and turned back to face her enemy, her fear fuelling a desperate, white-hot wrath.

The slaver looked up as Sunset stormed around the corner again, but this time he didn't have time to react as she swung the wrench with all the strength she could muster, smashing it into the side of his head. The impact knocked the slaver against the wall. Sunset didn't give him a chance to recover, striking him with the wrench again. The slaver's skull gave way with a horrific crunch and he slumped to the ground, but fear and fury made Sunset hit him one last time, bringing the wrench down in a wide arc to bury it in the remains of his head.

An awful silence filled the air, broken only by Sunset's heavy breathing. She slowly straightened up, blood dripping from the wrench as she pulled it free, and stared blankly down at the slaver's corpse. All of a sudden Sunset's strength drained from her body, as if a switch had been flipped, and she sagged against the wall, letting the wrench drop from nerveless fingers. She glanced down at the corpse again, then retched and twisted to the side just in time to avoid puking all over herself.

Sunset gasped for air as she hunched over. Her head was spinning, but she couldn't afford to stop yet. She still had to get Sister to a doctor. Wiping her mouth, Sunset carefully avoided both the dead body and the pool of vomit as she stepped over to Sister and dropped to all fours next to him. Her hands were shaking too much to properly check for a pulse, but she could see that he was still breathing, if only just. "S-stay here. I'll go get help."

Pushing herself to her feet, Sunset staggered and almost fell as she tried to run back the way she had come. Her legs felt like they were made of jelly. Realizing that tripping and injuring herself probably wasn't the best idea, Sunset took a deep breath in a vain attempt to steady herself and set off at as fast a walk as she could manage, reeling like a drunkard the whole time. 

Any semblance of a sense of direction had completely left Sunset's head; she just headed down whichever corridor was well-lit and hoped that she would run into someone who could fetch a security officer.

"Sunset?! What's wrong?!" Sunset looked up to see Harkness hurrying towards her. She almost wept with relief at the sight of him. "Hey, hey, it's okay," he said as he reached her. "Tell me what happened."

"S-sister," Sunset said quietly.

"Sister? What's that bastard done to you?" Harkness growled.

Sunset shook her head, then immediately wished she hadn't as it made her vision swim even more. "No…slaver... hurt…" It took her a few tries, but eventually Sunset managed to convey the fact that Sister was seriously injured. 

To his credit, Harkness didn't waste time asking for details, instead he immediately grabbed his radio and called for all available security officers to sweep the rough area that Sunset had appeared from until they found something. Harkness let Sunset rest against the wall until, less than ten minutes later, word came through that the officers had found Sister and were taking him to the doctor. 

"He's badly hurt, but he should pull through," Harkness said. Sunset heaved a sigh of relief and slid down the wall to sit on the floor, so Harkness squatted and sat next to her. "Are you okay?" 

"I…" Sunset didn't know how to respond. She felt like her brain had been fried and thrown in a blender.

Harkness shifted slightly to look at her properly. "I know this might be difficult, but I have to ask you a few questions. My team found another man around there. Was he the one who hurt Sister?" Sunset managed a single nod. "Okay. Do you know why he was attacking Sister?"

"Slaver," Sunset whispered.

"I see." Harkness nodded before asking in a soft voice, "You defended Sister, didn't you?" Sunset nodded slowly, choking back a sob as she did so. "Hey, it's okay, you did the right thing," Harkness told her. He diplomatically looked away to speak into his radio as Sunset cried quietly. "Feeling any better?" He asked when she was done.

Sunset sniffed and wiped her face with her arm. "I hate this world," she said quietly.

"It's not an easy place to live," Harkness admitted. "Look, why don't you stay here in Rivet City for a while? I'll make sure you get your own room, and I'll have a security guard escort you twenty four hours a day to keep trouble away from you. That way you'll be safe, you'll have plenty of food and clean water, and you'll be able to speak to me or Doctor Preston on a daily basis if you need to. What do you think?"

Sunset felt almost ashamed that she was actually tempted to accept Harkness' offer. The prospect of being safe and looked after, not to mention the chance of something approaching actual therapy, was too good to simply brush aside out of turn. Still, in the end there was only one answer she could give. "No."

"Why not?" Harkness asked.

"My friends," Sunset replied simply. Harkness opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off, "I know, you'd probably do the same for them, too, but that's not going to get us home. To do that, we're going to have to search the wastes for the tools we need. I can't do that if I'm cowering under a blanket here, and there's no way I'm letting my friends do something so dangerous without my help." She swallowed hard and ran a hand through her hair, noticing for the first time that she was soaked in a cold sweat. "I need training." Sunset looked up at Harkness, fixing him with a serious look. Her heart was pounding, but her mind was set, and her voice was firm. "Teach me how to fight."
> Chapter 75 - Regrouping
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight Sparkle watched with no small relief as Fluttershy yawned and stretched in the evening sun. It was ridiculous, but she had been a little worried whether or not her newly vampiric friend would cope under the sunlight, but thankfully it didn't seem to affect her any differently at all. Since Fluttershy was back in her normal form, albeit with pointy ears and slightly elongated canines, Elder Lyons had grudgingly allowed her to wander around the Citadel's courtyard, provided that Twilight and Pinkie accompanied her. Twilight sighed heavily. The old man hadn't exactly been easy to convince.

"Are you okay?" Pinkie asked quietly from beside her wheelchair. "Are the painkillers still working?"

"I'm fine, thanks, Pinkie," Twilight replied. She had twisted awkwardly in her chair earlier necessitating another big dose of painkillers. They were making her absent-minded and she was fairly certain that she was hallucinating: Colors didn't blend and swirl that much normally, but it was a small price to pay to bring the pain down to a manageable level. "What about you, Fluttershy? How are you feeling?"

Fluttershy smiled down at her. "I'm okay. I'll feel better if we can get this FEV out of my system, but until then I'll just avoid ponying up or, um, vamping up as much as I can. I'm just glad we've got it under control for now." She stroked the pointy tip of one of her ears. "Besides, there are a couple of small benefits to this."

"You mean the fact that you now look like the elf girl from Adam's Grognak comics that he really likes?" Pinkie asked flatly. 

Fluttershy's blush was immediate and obvious even to Twilight's drug-addled eyes. In an attempt to spare her shy friend, Twilight asked, "How are you actually feeling, y'know, after everything that's happened."

She realized that that was probably a terrible thing to ask even as she said it, but thankfully Fluttershy just cocked her head and hummed in thought. "I… I don't know. I feel bad about what happened, but at the same time I know it wasn't me that did it. It was all thanks to the FEV so, I guess, I don't really feel guilty. Does that make sense?"

Twilight nodded, trying not to let her surprise show on her face. "Of course it does. You're compartmentalizing. That's not a bad thing, in fact it's actually a good thing." Fluttershy smiled shyly, and Twilight privately noted that Fluttershy was showing an enviable amount of mental fortitude.

The sound of the Citadel's gate opening grabbed the girls' attention. Shortly afterwards, a squad of Knights entered the courtyard leading Applejack, Sunset and Rarity. "Oh dear, they don't look happy," Fluttershy said quietly.

Twilight squinted at them. "Darn it, I can't see their expressions. My vision is too blurry."

"Your glasses are on your head," Pinkie told her.

"Huh?" Twilight tried vainly to look at the top of her own head. "Oh, right." She blinked as Pinkie dutifully put her glasses on properly for her and looked over at the girls. They certainly didn't look happy, Sunset in particular looked like she had been put through the wringer, but they brightened up when they spotted Fluttershy.

"Hey, Flutters, you're okay!" Applejack called out as they approached. 

Fluttershy tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Um, not quite. We've got it under control for now, though."

"What about you guys? Did something go wrong?" Pinkie asked.

Applejack and Rarity winced as Sunset seemed to curl in on herself. "Sunset had a bit of a disagreement with a slaver." Applejack said softly.

"Oh no! Are you alright? You weren't hurt were you?" Fluttershy asked anxiously.

Sunset shook her head. "I'm okay, it just… messed with my head a little." She shuddered and rubbed her neck. "Anyway, Harkness has agreed to help the Brotherhood of Steel with distributing water as long as we help get their magic under control. We've made a start, but there's still a lot to do. We're going to go back every day until it's sorted out."

"Why not get a room there?" Twilight asked. "It would save you making the journey every day. It would probably be safer, too."

"Probably," Sunset admitted. "But we're going to ask the Brotherhood of Steel to train us every day before we head over, and Harkness is going to teach us to fight as well."

Twilight stared at her in surprise. She opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by Pinkie pointing into the sky and crying out, "Hey, look! Rainbow's back!"

The girls all looked up to see Rainbow arcing through the air towards them. She flipped over in midair at the last second before hitting the ground, skidding to a halt right next to the group. "Hey, Fluttershy, you're okay?"

Twilight blinked dumbly at Rainbow's gemstone armor. "Uh… is Rainbow Dash all sparkly now, or are my painkiller-induced hallucinations getting worse?"

"Sparkly indeed!" Rarity reached out to stroke Rainbow's breastplate reverently. "This is Royal Blue Sapphire! Darling, you must tell me where you got this armor!"

"Before or after you're done gropin' her tit?" Applejack asked grumpily. 

Rarity snatched her hand back as if it had been burned, but Rainbow just rolled her eyes. "Yeah, my armor's as awesome as I am, but seriously, Fluttershy, what's up with the ears? Are you fixed now, or what?"

"Um, not exactly," Fluttershy replied. With Twilight and Pinkie's help, she explained to the others what had happened during Twilight's tests. 

Sunset frowned when they were finished. "You can shift between your ponied up form and your vampire form at will?"

Fluttershy nodded. "I think so, but transforming seems to make me more, um, 'thirsty'. We're not sure if using my ordinary magic has the same effect or not, or whether it's something that'll change over time, but we're going to perform more experiments once we've built up our stock of blood again." She looked anxiously at Rainbow. "Did the Exodus girls have anything that might help?"

"They didn't have a cure for FEV, but they did give me this." Rainbow let the magic drain out of her, switching from her ponied up form back to normal, before shrugging off her pack and pulling a few holotapes out of it. "These contain all of their research on FEV. They also gave me some medical stuff to give to the Brotherhood medics, to help Twilight recover faster."

"Really?!" Twilight leaned forward eagerly, then regretted it as a twinge of discomfort broke through the effects of the painkillers.

Rainbow dumped the holotapes on Applejack and gestured for Twilight to follow. "Come on, I'll give the medics the stuff right now and they can get started on making you better. I should probably speak to Elder Lyons, too. I've got some intel that he'll want to hear as soon as possible."

"You'll probably have to wait, he's in a meeting right now," Twilight told her.

Pinkie nodded. "The Wonderbolts came back just before you did. They had a little spider thing with them, it was really weird."





Elder Lyons stared at the little crystal spider wandering around on the desk in mute bemusement. Paladin Metzger had brought it back from her reconnaissance of Raven Rock, saying that it was, somehow, the former President of the Enclave. Elder Lyons had been about to order her in for a psych evaluation when the bizarre creature had asserted that she was telling the truth, and requested an immediate meeting to discuss sensitive matters.

Now, mere minutes later, the Elder and the Paladin were sitting in a secluded office in the Citadel's administration sector, with Eden perched on the desk between them. Metzger's armor stood empty in the corner of the room.

"I must say, I'm rather impressed," Eden said brightly. "Your Brotherhood have kept the place far cleaner and tidier than I expected." He ran a leg across his head then sank into what appeared to be a spider's version of a bow. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Elder Lyons. Please, allow me to officially introduce myself. I am Eden, formerly the President of the Enclave."

Elder Lyons just stared at him for a moment further, then looked up at Metzger, who shrugged. "He seems to be telling the truth," she said. "He certainly knows a lot about how the Enclave is structured and how it operates. He was telling us about it on the way over. It fits with what we already knew or guessed."

"Indeed, and there is so much more I can tell you," Eden added. "Of course, I do have a few minor conditions, in exchange for my information."

"I expected nothing less." Elder Lyons eyed the spider suspiciously. "What are your conditions?"

Eden crossed his two pairs of forelegs. "They're quite simple, really. One: I wish to be permitted to live without being permanently imprisoned. I understand if you wish to keep an eye on me, but I would appreciate being able to explore my surroundings a little. I spent my life in a box, unable to move or touch or feel. I want at least a taste of what freedom feels like."

"Fair enough, I'll see what I can do," Elder Lyons said with a nod.

"Second," Eden continued, "I want to speak to the Rainbooms, with an observer present, naturally. I wouldn't want to push your trust."

Elder Lyons raised an eyebrow. Eden seemed to be willing to go to great lengths to gain his trust, but that in itself could be a reason to remain suspicious. "That can be arranged. Is there anything else?"

Eden nodded. "Just one more thing. I wish for the Brotherhood to keep attempting to broker a peace treaty with whatever remains of the Enclave." In response to Lyons' surprised look, he sighed and started pacing on the desk. "My actions as the leader of the Enclave may have been misguided, but I do truly want what is best for humanity. An alliance between the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel would form a strong foundation from which we could begin to rebuild our fair nation."

"I see." Elder Lyons frowned down at Eden as he thought. He had every reason to be suspicious of the little creature, even to despise him, if he really was the Enclave's former President, but at the same time Eden could prove to be an extremely valuable asset. Metzger had had the right idea, bringing him in. "Very well, Eden. So long as you don't perform any action that may harm the Brotherhood or the people of the wastes, I shall agree to your terms."

"Wonderful!" Eden replied happily. "However, before we discuss the finer details of the Enclave's dealings in the Capital Wasteland, there is something else I have to warn you about."

"Oh? And what is that?" Elder Lyons asked.

Eden glanced at Metzger before skittering up to the edge of the desk and looking up at Lyons. "There is a threat growing beneath what is left of Raven Rock. A creature that needs to be dealt with before it is too powerful."

"He mentioned this earlier, but he wouldn't tell me what it is," Metzger cut in.

"Only because I do not believe that you would understand the significance of it," Eden countered. "Tell me, Elder, have you heard of the old Mariposa Military Base?"

Elder Lyons' blood ran cold at the mention of that name. It was a name whispered with fear among the older members of the Brotherhood, a site of dark events from before the Brotherhood of Steel had split apart, when Lyons himself was only a boy. "I have heard of it."

"Good, then I am sure you are aware that, after the original tenants were evicted by the Vault Dweller so many years ago, the Enclave took custody of it?" Eden asked.

"So I have been told," Elder Lyons replied.

"One of the doctors stationed there, a woman named Liliana Vess, acquired a sample of genetic material from a certain mutant, the one that organised the revolt that forced us out of the base. A mutant named Melchior," Eden explained.

"Melchior?" Metzger asked, confused.

"He was a powerful psychic Super Mutant," Elder Lyons told her. "A monster capable of summoning creatures and having them do his bidding. Much like Fluttershy, if I'm not mistaken."

Eden nodded. "Melchior is long dead, but Vess is not. She went on to become a Senator, but she kept studying and experimenting with FEV, seeking a way to prolong her lifespan. She also experimented with the genetic sample she retrieved from Melchior, but the resulting abomination was weak and fragile, utterly useless." Eden shuddered at some dark memory. "I only discovered all of this last night when I found the creature still alive in the bowels of Raven Rock, feeding on the residual magic left behind by its destruction and becoming more powerful by the hour."

Elder Lyons swallowed hard. "My god," he whispered. "How dangerous is this creature at the moment?"

Eden's body swayed from side to side. "Not very at the moment, but we must not leave it alone for too long or we will have a second Melchior on our hands."

"I understand." Elder Lyons heaved a great sigh. "However, the Brotherhood of Steel doesn't have the resources to deal with both the Enclave and this creature at the same time. If the Rainbooms were on top form I would send them; use magic to defeat magic, but they are in no condition for further conflict right now. I appreciate the warning, but the Enclave is the bigger threat for the moment. We will have to deal with them first."

Eden sighed backed away. "I understand. I only hope that this creature does not grow too powerful before you are in a position to strike."





The creature beneath Raven Rock allowed itself to relax a little. Looking through Eden's eyes, it could see and hear all that was said around him without anyone, least of all Eden, discovering its observation. 

Luckily, Eden had accepted the lie that he had been presented with without suspicion. Pretending to be an offshoot of Melchior had clearly been the right idea; powerful enough to discourage a fight, but not so powerful as to provoke an immediate response. Perfect. Time had been bought, and now it was time to use it

Searching through the eyes of the other crystallized beings in the mountain, the abomination made sure that there were no other intruders on its domain before curling up into a ball. It needed to rest and grow, and then the feeding would begin anew.
> Chapter 76 - Getting Physical
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset grunted as she fell and her back smacked into the mat again.

"Not bad, you're improving," Harkness said as he adjusted his grappling gloves. 

"Right." Sunset clambered back to her feet and brushed herself off. "Y'know, when I asked you to train me I wasn't expecting to spend so much time on my back."

She blushed as she realized what that sounded like, but thankfully Harkness didn't seem to notice. "I'm not lying when I say that you're improving. You haven't been at this for long, but I've been at this for over a decade. You're doing well."

Sunset nodded and rolled her shoulders to ease some of her tension, trying to avoid staring at Harkness as she did so. The security chief was wearing nothing but a pair of tatty shorts and a pair of fingerless grappling gloves, leaving his surprisingly toned sweat-streaked torso completely bare; a sight that Sunset was having increasing difficulty keeping her eyes off. Sunset herself was wearing a similar outfit, along with a sports bra specially made by Tabitha and a light tank top that exposed her midriff. 

The room they were in was a small gym in the tower set aside for training security officers. Harkness had been taking Sunset aside and training her in there for a week, occasionally bringing Applejack, Rarity or Rainbow Dash along, too. He was proving to be a good teacher, and an incredibly skilled fighter. Even Rainbow was impressed by how fast his reflexes were. 

An unexpected bonus to this training, other than the eye candy, was the fact that between it, fixing Rivet City's magic, and training with the Brotherhood, Sunset was too exhausted at the end of each day to have any nightmares. She just passed out in bed at night, then woke up in the morning and did it all again.

"Are you ready for another round?" Harkness asked.

Sunset shook her hands out and nodded before assuming her stance; one foot at an angle in front of the other and her hands held up in loose fists to protect her upper body. "Okay."

"Good." Harkness readied himself, too. "Remember, you don't have mass on your side, so try to parry and deflect rather than blocking outright, and if you're aiming to hit a bony area use the base of your palm instead of your fist. It won't hurt your opponent as much, but at least you won't break your knuckles before you hit them somewhere softer." 

"Got it." Sunset skipped forward and jabbed at Harkness’ face, snatched her hand back as he tried to block and snapped a quick kick to his groin while he was distracted, forcing him to skip back to dodge it.

"Not bad," Harkness said with a smirk. "Feints and improvisation. You're learning quickly."

Sunset opened her mouth to reply, only to narrowly avoid a punch in the face as Harkness took the opportunity to attack. The two traded measured blows; Sunset carefully redirecting his punches and lashing out in return only to have her own strikes blocked or deflected with the ease of experience. It was the longest Sunset had sparred for without getting planted on her ass.

Seeing what she thought was an opening, Sunset feinted with a quick kick at Harkness' ankle then immediately snapped off a punch to his face. It never even got close. Harkness grabbed her wrist with incredible speed and yanked Sunset off-balance, stepping behind her as he did so and snaking an arm around her neck before she could react. Quick as a flash he had her in a chokehold. "Nice try, but overly ambitious," he said calmly in her ear. Sunset desperately tried to ram her backside into him, achieving absolutely nothing beyond making him chuckle. "Are you trying to fight me or seduce me?"

"Is the second one an option?" Sunset choked out. His joke sparked a crude idea in her mind, and she ground her butt against his crotch as sensuously as she could manage. 

"Wh-what the hell are-" Harkness' spluttering became a cry of pain as Sunset used his distraction to stamp her heel on top of his foot, then ram her elbow backwards into his diaphragm. Harkness loosened his grip as he doubled over. Sunset quickly grabbed one of his wrists and ducked out of the way, pulling and twisting his arm until she had him in an armlock. 

"Now I just do this-" Sunset kicked the back of his knee and shoved Harkness to the floor, "- and it's game over!" She grinned as she stepped back from him, panting for breath. "You okay?"

Harkness nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'm good." He turned his head to raise an eyebrow at her. "That was low."

"Hey, you were the one who said I had to use every advantage I could find." Sunset walked around until she was in front of him and looked down, smirking at the man on his hands and knees before her. "I can see why you like winning. The view from up here is great!"

Harkness hummed and slowly, deliberately, ran his gaze over her body, sending a far from unpleasant shiver down her spine. "I don't know, the view from down here isn't so bad."

Sunset blushed, feeling a new kind of heat building beneath her skin. Caught off-guard by his words, she didn't spot the victorious look in his eyes until it was too late. 

With a sudden burst of speed Harkness lunged and wrapped his arms around Sunset's waist, picking her up and dumping her on the mat. Before she could even process what was happening he was on top of her, his powerful hands pinning her wrists to the floor on either side of her head. "You aren't the only one who can win by playing dirty." 

Sunset didn't answer. She was suddenly acutely aware of the half-naked man pinning her down, their faces inches apart, with her legs on either side of his hips. Sunset's heartbeat thundered in her ears. She was simultaneously terrified that he might lean his face down closer to hers and desperately hoping that he would.

As she was wrestling with her conflicting feelings, Harkness chuckled and clambered off her, offering a hand to help her up. Sunset huffed and accepted his hand, trying to ignore the infuriating mix of relief and regret that washed through her.

Over the course of the last week, Sunset had found herself flirting with Harkness more and more. It was just a bit of harmless fun for her at first. He was, after all, a lot older than her, and she didn't really have the time or the mental stability for a relationship even if he wasn't, but there were moments during their time together when Sunset was driven up the wall by her own emotions.

The fact that Harkness was completely oblivious to her feelings at least helped keep things from being awkward.

Shaking her head to try and clear it, Sunset followed Harkness off the mats to a table nearby. She caught the towel that he tossed to her and used it to mop the worst of the sweat from her face while Harkness did the same with another. When they were both dry they each grabbed a bottle of water, clinked the tops together, and leaned against the table to drink.

"You're definitely getting better," Harkness said, flexing the toes of his sore foot. "It's only been a week and you're almost as good as most of my security officers."

Sunset smirked. "How many of them have beat you by grinding their ass on you?"

"More than you'd think," Harkness replied. He grinned at the look on her face and gave her a playful push. "Get your mind out of the gutter. My officers are professionals." 

Sunset laughed and waved a hand dismissively. "Okay, okay, I'll behave."

"Somehow I don't believe you," Harkness sighed. 

Deciding that she should change the subject, Sunset asked, "How are the rest of the Rivets handling the integration of the new magic into the city?"

Harkness chuckled at her use of the name Pinkie had coined for the residents of Rivet City. "Things are going well so far. The food production has gone through the roof thanks to those apple trees, and we've managed to get the teleport room correctly regulated and ready for use. Some people are annoyed that we're still restricting access to the flight deck, but they understand the necessity for now."

Sunset nodded, feeling a little guilty about it. "We're trying to get the lightning under control, but it's not easy. Harvesting the apples is helping to reduce the frequency of the blasts, but we still haven't figured out a way to safely drain enough magic to prevent them entirely."

"Don't worry about it," Harkness replied. "Have you had any progress with the enhanced generators?" 

"Not yet, we still don't have a way to test them without risking the radiation causing problems," Sunset explained.

"Fair enough." Harkness took another swig from his bottle and let out a satisfied sigh. "How's your training with the Brotherhood of Steel going?" Sunset just groaned loudly. "That bad?"

Sunset shook her head. "No, it's fine, I guess. I can manage the full assault course, at least." Harkness nodded, glancing sidelong at her. Sunset squirmed under his look, until finally she added, "I managed to pick up a gun without freaking out this morning."

Harkness beamed at her. "That's great! That's amazing progress!"

"I still can't bring myself to actually shoot it," Sunset admitted. "I'm not strong enough."

"You'll get there," Harkness promised, gently clasping her shoulder. "Remember, it's not about being strong or weak, it's about doing what you can. Push yourself, if you can, but don't force yourself. Even just picking up the gun is a huge step forward. I'm proud of you."

Sunset smiled up at him. "Thanks. That means a lot."

Harkness smiled back at her. "It's not going to stop me from introducing your backside to the mat every day, though."

"Hey, I dropped you today," Sunset shot.

"And I dropped you a minute later," Harkness retorted. "And I'll do the same thing again tomorrow."

"Oh? Are you going to climb on top of me and pin me down again?" Sunset asked coyly before she could stop herself.

Harkness smirked, slowly cocking an eyebrow at her. "I didn't hear you complaining."

Sunset's pulse immediately shot through the roof, her heart hammering away as if it wanted to make a break for it. Okay, maybe he's not as oblivious as I thought. Or is he?

Harkness held her gaze for a few seconds, then snorted and finished his water. "Relax, you look like a kid caught with their hand in a candy jar." He stood and stretched before grabbing his shirt and pulling it over his head, then snatched up a satchel containing his clothes. "Come on. I think we both need a shower."

"R-right," Sunset replied, too frazzled to even joke about whether the shower was meant to be together or not. 

Grabbing her own pack, Sunset hurried to follow Harkness out of the gym. As he was locking the door behind them, he glanced over his shoulder at her. "Oh, I almost forgot to ask: how are Twilight and Fluttershy doing?"

"They're doing alright," Sunset replied, falling into step alongside Harkness as he set off towards the upper deck. The gym had an attached shower, but Harkness preferred using his own whenever he had the chance. "The new treatment we acquired for Twilight has worked wonders. She can actually walk and even move her arms a little now without too much trouble. She hates the physiotherapy the medics are putting her through, though."

"I can imagine." Harkness tactfully avoided asking about what the 'new treatment' was or where it had come from, and Sunset was grateful for it.

"As for Fluttershy, she's adapting well. She's joined the rest of us training on the assault course with the Knights, and she's only needed blood once in the last week, so that's good." Sunset's mood sank as she thought about Fluttershy's other problem. "She's still worried about Adam. We all are, of course, but it's worse for her."

"He's still in a coma?" Harkness asked quietly. Sunset nodded solemnly. "That's unfortunate. Don't lose hope, though. You were under for two weeks before you woke up, and now look at you."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Barely clinging on to whatever is left of my sanity while I train to do something most residents of my birthplace would consider abhorrent beyond measure?"

Harkness frowned at that. "You know what I mean." He was clearly about to say something further, but stopped when he saw that Sunset was smirking. "Ass."

"Yes, you've mentioned my ass already today." Sunset giggled and ducked as Harkness tried to swat her. "Come on, there's nothing wrong with a bit of dark humor!"

Harkness just let out a heavy sigh and gestured down a nearby corridor. "I'm heading off here. What're you going to do now?"

"I'll head back to the hotel for a shower then go and get some food," Sunset replied. "After that, I guess it depends on what the others are doing."

The two arranged a rough time the day after to continue training before saying their goodbyes and splitting up. As she had told Harkness, Sunset headed back to the hotel room she had been given for a thorough scrub before heading down to the marketplace in search of lunch. A steadily increasing flow of people greeted her the closer she got to the hangar; a sure sign that the rampant magic wasn't enough to scare away a tide of visitors now that the city had opened back up.

The marketplace was as busy as it had ever been. The only major difference was the larger concentration of security officers patrolling, making sure that the vendors were obeying the council's restrictions on selling magically infused items. 

Pushing her way through the crowd, Sunset grinned as she spotted Applejack sitting alone at her favourite Galley restaurant, reading a battered old book as she ate. "AJ!"

Applejack looked up from her meal just as Sunset sat opposite her. "Oh, heya, Sunset. How'd your trainin' go?"

"I actually managed to take him down this time," Sunset answered proudly. "Admittedly, he got his own back straight afterwards, but I'll take whatever win I can get."

"Ah wish Ah'd seen that." Applejack closed the book and rubbed her eyes. "Ah've just been lookin' through this old electrician's manual, seein' if Ah can get any ideas on how to drain some of the magic from those trees."

"Has it helped?" Sunset asked.

"Nope." Applejack sighed and turned her attention back to her food. "Honestly, the only thing Ah came up with was jammin' a tap in their trunks and seein' if we can't pour the magic into a barrel as if it were sap."

"That's actually a pretty good idea." Sunset flagged down the waitress and ordered a bowl of iguana soup. "If it works, all we've got to do is figure out what to do with the drained magic."

"The council could always trade it to the Brotherhood of Steel," Applejack suggested. "Ah know you don't like it," she said at the look on Sunset's face, "but they're gonna need magic too if they wanna keep up with the Enclave."

Sunset scowled and folded her arms. "I guess, but I really don't think it's going to end well. Speaking of the Enclave, do we have anything news on how the war is going?"

Applejack nodded. "Rainbow dropped in with a report for the water caravans earlier, and she brought some news while she was at it." She took a swig of water before continuing. "Liberty Prime destroyed another Enclave outpost somewhere West of here. Intel said that it was a stagin' post of some sort, but by the time Liberty arrived the troops had already shifted most of their supplies elsewhere."

"That makes it sound like they knew that Liberty Prime was coming," Sunset noted.

"It sure seems that way," Applejack huffed. "Scribe Rothchild reckons the Enclave have some way of communicatin' and coordinatin' with their troops secretly, but no-one has any idea how they're doin' it."

Sunset frowned as she thought. "What about the Exodus team? Don't they know how it's happening?"

Applejack shook her head. "The Brotherhood is still tryin' to get the radio relays set up so Twilight and Tara can talk directly, but until then it ain't easy gettin' messages through to them."

"That sucks." Sunset sighed, but there was little that any of them could do to help at the moment. For now, she was just going to have to leave everything to the Brotherhood.





Andrew watched uneasily as the Vertibird slowly descended towards the courtyard. The occupants were incredibly important, not just to the Enclave itself, but potentially to the fledgling splinter faction he was in the middle of forming. Horrigan had already cleared the surrounding area of any hostiles, but Andrew couldn't help but worry. The rampant magic loose in the wastes meant that nothing was a certainty anymore.

Even when the Vertibird had finally landed and opened its crew compartment, Andrew didn't let his guard down. The aircraft were never more vulnerable than when they were unloading. He glanced around cautiously out of habit, then stiffened as the new visitors appeared at the top of the ramp.

Senator Devall assisted his wife off the Vertibird before turning to Andrew. "Lieutenant Colonel Strong, it's good to see you."

"And you, Senator, Mrs Devall." Andrew gestured towards the Exodus building. "Allow me to show you to your new quarters."

"I'm afraid that'll have to wait," Senator Devall said grimly. "We need to talk, immediately. We have a problem."
> Chapter 77 - Enclave Exodites
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Senator Devall spread out several sheets of paper on the table in the middle of the room and stood aside to allow the Lieutenant Colonel to scrutinize them. 

"These are the latest reports from the Air Force Base?" Andrew asked. Devall nodded. "What's all of this activity around Raven Rock?"

"Mining operations," Devall replied. "Several groups have taken an interest in the magical crystal, though they are only taking small quantities from the surface so far. Most of the people that venture inside don't come back out." He ran a finger down a list of different factions. "Aside from the Enclave itself, our eyebots have spotted people from the Brotherhood of Steel, the slavers of Paradise Falls, at least three different raider gangs, Talon Company, the Super Mutants, and a local cult based in a settlement called…" Devall checked the list again, "Megaton."

"What the hell do they want with the crystal from Raven Rock?" Andrew asked. 

Devall raised an eyebrow. "I imagine they want it for the same reason we do; the magic contained inside."

"Shit," Andrew huffed. "The last thing we need is more magic in the hands of lunatics."

"Agreed. Unfortunately, I don't think that there's much we can do about it that isn't already being done," Devall said.

"If what's being done doesn't get us killed," Andrew spat.

"What's going to get us killed this time?" Becky asked as she and Tara entered the room. 

Devall nodded in greeting. "Doctor Shoichet, Doctor Strong, it's good to see you."

"It's good to see you, too. Now, what's going to kill us?" Becky asked again, more insistently.

Andrew sighed and stepped away from the table, gesturing at the reports. "People from around the wastes are trying to mine Raven Rock's crystals."

Becky scowled and complained loudly about idiots and psychopaths, but Tara just crossed her arms and looked at Andrew curiously. "I get that that's not exactly good news, but how does that equate to getting us killed?"

"The Senate has decided that action must be taken to secure as much of the magic crystal as possible," Devall answered gravely. "To this end, it has been decided that a strike force will be sent to Raven Rock to acquire as much crystal as they can for our experiments. Horrigan will accompany the strike force to provide additional protection."

Becky and Tara shared a shocked look. "Horrigan?!" Becky cried. "But he's Project Exodus' primary defense! The only reason the Brotherhood of Steel hasn't attacked us is because we intentionally let slip to their scouts that Horrigan is based here! Without him, there's nothing stopping them from launching a full scale assault!"

It was an understandable reaction, one that Devall would normally have accepted, but his recent discussions with Agent Drops had given him cause to be suspicious. It was time to test his theory. "Forgive me, Doctor Shoichet, but I don't believe that Horrigan's presence is the only reason that the Brotherhood of Steel hasn't attacked Project Exodus. After all, if the Brotherhood knew exactly where their greatest threat was residing, surely they would have sent in their new robotic superweapon by now." Becky and Andrew's reactions were flawless; showing offended surprise at Devall's words, but the flash of fear that crossed Tara's face before she could hide it all but confirmed his suspicions. "In fact, I highly doubt that those Brotherhood scouts were actually scouts at all."

"What exactly are you implying?" Andrew asked in a tone of deadly calm.

Devall was suddenly forcibly reminded that the Lieutenant Colonel was highly trained, proven in combat, almost certainly armed, and more than willing to kill a man in cold blood if it meant protecting his family. Needling him would not end well. It was time to either step back or press forward, and Devall had no intention of backing away from this. "I've heard, from a very reputable source, that there is a certain… movement… gaining traction here at Project Exodus. I believe our goals may align."

The others glanced at each other in surprise. After a brief pause, Becky asked, "Where did you hear about this?"

"From me." Everyone turned as Agent Drops closed the door and locked it, taking up a position next to it apparently out of habit.

Andrew stared at her blankly. "Agent Drops? I didn't even know you'd escaped Raven Rock. How the hell did you get down here without security notifying me?"

"I'm very good at my job," Agent Drops replied smoothly. "Also, I've got a contact here who helped me sneak in," she added. In response to three very confused looks she smiled and said one word, "Lyra."

"The technician?" Becky narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Why are you giving up your contact's name so casually?"

"Because we want you to trust us," Devall answered. He spread his arms to show that he had nothing to hide. "Let me put this bluntly. "We suspect that you three are attempting to put together a secret band of mutineers, a splinter faction, or even a full rebellion against Acheson and his ilk. Agent Drops and I wish to join you."

The ball was well and truly within Andrew's court now. All he had to say was that he was doing no such thing, and he would be well within his rights to execute both Devall and Agent Drops for treason. It was a colossal risk and yet, somehow, Devall was certain that it really was no risk at all.

Andrew glanced between the two, apparently sizing them up. "How do I know that I can trust you?"

"Evidently you already do or you wouldn't have bothered asking," Devall replied with a small sigh of relief. "However, to answer your question, I have a child on the way, and I get the feeling that she's more likely to survive and have a safe childhood if we work with the Brotherhood of Steel rather than letting Acheson and Lily mess around with forces that they don't understand."

"As for me, I'm in the market for an Enclave that actually gives a shit about the rest of humanity," Agent Drops put in.

"Aren't we all?" Becky muttered. She then said a little louder, "Alright, our options are either to let you in or shoot you, and I'm not in the mood to shoot anyone right now, so I guess you're in."

Devall smiled wryly. "I'm glad to hear it. Since we're going to work together, perhaps you'd like to have this." He pulled a thin file from inside his jacket and dropped it on the table. "Everything I've managed to gather on the magical experimentation going on at the Air Force Base. It's not much, but it's all I've been able to get my hands on discreetly."

Tara swiped the file before Devall could even finish his sentence, devouring the contents so quickly that her eyes were a blur. Agent Drops spared her an exasperated look before shaking her head and addressing the Lieutenant Colonel, "How large is this group so far? And what exactly are you aiming for?"

"Our goals are simple," Becky replied. "We're looking to turn the Enclave into the beacon of civilization that we taught about when we were kids. If that means splitting off from Acheson and his power-crazed compatriots, then that's what we'll do."

Andrew nodded. "There's not many of us who're directly involved yet, but we're recruiting more people every day. Lieutenant Bles and Lieutenant Rogers are with us, as are most of each of their platoons, but I'm not sure about Lieutenant Simpson; he was very close to Colonel Autumn."

"Aside from them, we've got about another forty technicians, scientists, engineers and civic personnel that are all on board," Becky continued. "We're working on bringing Horrigan around, but we have to be subtle about it. His loyalty to the Enclave is unshakable, but if it splits in two, we have to be sure that he sees us as the 'true' Enclave."

"Which leads back to why you're keeping him here," Devall prompted. 

Andrew sighed and braced himself against the table. "We weren't lying, Horrigan is a huge part of our defence. This building was designed as a factory and a front, not a fortress." 

"That's not the only reason though, is it?" Agent Drops asked.

Andrew shook his head. "One of the reasons we want him here is so we can keep working on him; find out where he stands on us against Acheson and the rest of the Senators, but the main reason is to keep him away from the Brotherhood of Steel."

"So you are working with them!" Devall exclaimed.

"Not quite," Becky cut in. "The Brotherhood doesn't entirely trust us yet, and the feeling is mutual. We've communicated with them using coded messages sent to the Rainbooms, but so far our cooperation has only really extended to leaving each other alone and not engaging each other's troops in hostilities."

"We're actually in the middle of setting up a series of radio relays so that we can contact them directly and securely," Tara said without looking up from the file. 

"Speaking of which, we should probably let them know that Horrigan is heading to Raven Rock, just in case they have troops in the area," Andrew added, almost as an afterthought.

Becky whipped around to face him, her eyes wide with shock. "You're sending him out?!" 

"It's not like I have much of a choice," Andrew grumbled. "The Senate expressly voted to send Horrigan to provide support. I could try to use my authority to defy them, but it would be as good as drawing a line in the sand. We cannot afford to make our move just yet."

Devall sighed heavily. "I'm sorry. I tried to fight against it. Even Senator Lily was vehemently opposed to sending Horrigan out, but Acheson managed to get the rest of the Senators on his side."

"It's fine, we'll manage." Andrew straightened up. "You should get some rest, take some time to get a feel for the place. This facility is a maze."

"Good idea. I should go and make sure that Fleur is settled." Devall held a fist in front of his mouth as he yawned. "I must be getting old. All of this excitement and all I want is a nap."

Andrew watched impassively as Devall and Agent Drops left the room. When they were gone, Becky carefully checked to make sure that no-one was in the corridor outside before closing the door. "Are the precautions in place?" She asked.

Silently cursing the circumstances that made this deception necessary, Andrew nodded. "I had Vincent bug the radio in their Vertibird. If they try to betray us, we'll know about it."

"Good," Becky sighed. I just hope they're telling the truth."

"So do I," Andrew said softly. "Anyway, we should get a move on, we've got a lot to do in a very short amount of time. Tara?" His sister looked up from the file she was still perusing. "Fetch ED-E and send him to Project Purity with a coded message for Twilight, tell her everything that we've discussed here. I'll go and see how the radio relays are coming along."





Acheson hummed thoughtfully as he regarded the glass beakers laid out on a table before him. There were seven in total, each containing the distilled magic of one of the Rainbooms. There were vast quantities of each stored in various places around the base, most of which was being actively experimented on, but these seven samples were special. 

They were all a perfect mix of ordinary magic and their dark variant.

It had taken days to achieve, and it would probably take another few days before the process could be replicated reliably, but for now, Acheson could be content with this small achievement. Either on its own was incalculably useful, but when mixed together the resulting compound was far more versatile and potent than the standard forms, though with the trade-off that it was far trickier to work with.

"Doctor?" Acheson turned to see that Doctor Anna Holt had returned from her errands. "I've spoken to the team working on integrating magic into the plasma weaponry. They're running ahead of schedule, and are confident that they'll be able to bring you what you asked for tomorrow."

Acheson nodded. "Good, and the heavy munitions team?"

"They've finished cleaning up after the failed experiment with the darkened Loyalty magic, and are preparing to go ahead with the testing on the darkened Honesty magic instead," Anna replied.

"It's about time," Acheson huffed, though he was glad that the other teams of scientists had adopted Doctor Holt's suggested magical classification system so readily. The former Project Purity scientist was hardly a genius, but she was quick enough on the uptake and her experience in working with the Rainbooms' magic was proving invaluable. Of course, it also helped that access to the Enclave's advanced technology had bought her loyalty completely.

"Are those for the Daybreaker prototype?" Anna asked, gesturing to the beakers of magic on the table.

Acheson shook his head. "No, those are for something else." He glanced over at the suit of power armor propped up on a frame in the corner of the room. 

It had originally been a suit of Hellfire armor, more advanced and powerful than standard Enclave power armor, but with every drop of magic added it warped further, its color shifting from black to a pale gray and its limbs becoming slender and elegant. The biggest change, however, was going on inside the armor. 

There was a creak as the helmet tilted slightly to stare back at Acheson. He shivered and looked away. For some yet unknown reason, every suit of power armor that was infused with magic ended up gaining a measure of sapience; a fact that raised interesting questions about Horrigan, but they would have to wait until later, assuming he survived the coming trials.

Shaking off the creepy sensation of being watched by an inanimate object, Acheson turned and stepped over to a collection of odd pieces of equipment arranged carefully on another nearby table. It consisted of a metal breastplate covered with electrical circuits and sensors, a metal backplate bearing what looked like a miniature gasoline powered generator with two thin exhaust pipes poking up from it, and a pair of thick leather gloves studded with metal plates and covered with more electrical circuits. The fingertips of each glove ended in small claw-like antennae, and the whole collection was connected to each other with a messy web of wires, cables and tubes.

"Here, help me put all of this on," Acheson said gruffly.

Anna frowned curiously, but did as she was told. Putting the equipment on without getting tangled up in wires wasn't easy, even with someone helping, but together they finally managed it. "What is it?" Anna asked when they were finally done.

Acheson allowed himself a small smile as he flexed his fingers inside the gloves. "It's a new tool, built using everything I've learned about manipulating magic over the last week. It should make the construction of magical equipment a lot quicker, easier and safer. At least, I hope it does. I'm calling it my Thaumic Integration, Restoration, and Extraction Kit."

"You'll have to come up with a snappier name than that," Anna shot. 

Acheson threw her a glare, then snorted and rolled his eyes as she realized that she was just teasing. "I don't care what it's called, as long as it works." He rolled his shoulders and strode over to a door at the back of the workshop, gesturing for Anna to follow. "Come on, doctor, let's put it through its paces."
> Chapter 78 - Tricks, Traitors and Trouble
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Twilight couldn't help but grunt with effort as she lugged a heavy bag through the corridors of Canterlot High. It was packed full of magical crystals sent directly from the Crystal Empire. Twilight was glad that Cadence and her brother had responded to her request so quickly, but her gratitude didn't make carrying a sackful of crystals any easier. Thankfully, she didn't have far left to go.

Pausing outside the Diviner room, Twilight put the bag down just long enough to open the door, then grabbed the handles to drag it inside. Inside, Starswirl and Micro Chips were hunched over the Diviner's console while Vice Principal Luna was standing behind them with her arms folded, staring up at the Diviner. Luna and Starswirl both looked around as Twilight shuffled into the room, then quickly hurried to help her.

"What is all of this?" Luna asked as they hefted the bag onto a desk.

"Magic from the Crystal Empire," Twilight replied. "Hopefully enough to help us make a stable portal to wherever the girls are."

Luna gave the bag an impressed look. "It's about time we got some good news. How long will it take to set them up?"

Starswirl shook his head. "A few hours at best, more likely a day or so. It won't be easy to calibrate them all to the correct magical frequency. Once that's done it's simply a matter of opening a portal, seeing if it's the correct world, and adjusting the frequency if it's not, but setting it all up in the first place is not going to be the main problem."

"At least it's a step towards getting the girls home," Luna said with a sigh. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I don't think there's much that can be done beyond what you're already doing. Unless you've found anything out about Tempest?"

"Not yet. Celestia and Cadence are making some quiet enquiries with relevant authorities, but they haven't turned anything up yet," Luna replied. "What about you? Have you managed to get in contact with your world's Fizzlepop?"

"I've sent a letter, but the last I heard she was on the other side of Equestria," Twilight told her quietly. "It could take a while for her to reply."

Starswirl patted the two on the back. "Do not worry overmuch, we may not know our opponent or their objectives, but we at least have the advantage in that we still hold both the Diviner and the portal to Equestria. I assume that the portal is guarded on the Equestrian side?"

Twilight nodded. "The rest of the Pillars of Harmony are on their way to Ponyville as we speak, and my friends are holding down the castle in the meantime." Her cheeks flushed and she rubbed her neck awkwardly as she added, "I, er, think some of the students of the School of Friendship may have heard what's going on and written home, too. At least, that's the feeling I got from the letter that King Thorax sent me asking if I needed somecreature to talk to."

Luna opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again and shook her head. "So, the castle is safe?"

"The castle is safe," Twilight replied. "Don't worry, we'll get started on calibrating the crystals right away."





Adagio Dazzle bit back a groan as she watched Sonata and Aria bicker over the TV channel for the hundredth time. Still, as annoying as the two were, at least it was a familiar annoyance. Between babysitting the human Sunset Shimmer and waiting for the increasingly irritable Tempest to fulfill her end of their bargain, Adagio found herself almost longing for the days when putting up with her fellow Sirens was the worst part of her day.

The sound of the front door opening grabbed the attention of the three, and a moment later Tempest herself stalked into the room. Adagio hated to admit it, and would never do so out loud, but Tempest had raised effortless intimidation to an art form. The woman was tall, lean and muscular, with deep purple skin and a dark pink mohawk, and she moved with a predatory grace that belied her height.

"Sirens, I need a word," Tempest said without preamble.

Adagio scowled at her. "We have names, you know."

"I'm not in the mood for playing around," Tempest growled warningly. "I need information and I need it fast."

"Why not ask your pet upstairs?" Adagio said with a roll of her eyes. "She's been saying that she's bored-"

"Do you want to go home or not?" Tempest snapped. When no-one said anything, she gave a curt nod. "That's what I thought. As I was saying, I need information. Have any of you ever heard of a pony named Starswirl?"

"Starswirl the Bearded?" Adagio asked in surprise as Aria scowled and Sonata hissed like a cat. "We've met before, but that was a very long time ago."

Tempest frowned and crossed her arms. "It appears that, while I was away shoring up our finances, Starswirl came through the portal to assist Twilight Sparkle in fixing their little project. Do you know anything that might help us to gain an advantage against him?"

"We don't," Adagio replied quickly, before either of the others could chime in. "Like I said, it was a long time ago, and it might not even be the same pony."

Adagio kept her expression carefully neutral, with just a hint of condescension, as Tempest eyed her suspiciously. Finally Tempest sighed with irritation and turned to head back out. "I'll go and do some more reconnaissance. Try not to burn the house down while I'm gone." 

The Sirens waited until Tempest was definitely gone before turning to each other.

"There's no way it's the same Starswirl," Aria said flatly. "That wrinkly old sack must have died years ago."

"I'm not so sure," Adagio said quietly. "I wouldn't put anything past him and those annoying Pillars of his."

Sonata blinked and gave them a blank look. "Pillars? I thought they were ponies?"

Adagio groaned and slapped a hand to her forehead. "Just go back to watching TV, Sonata." As Aria and Sonata predictably returned to sniping at each other, Adagio looked over at the door Tempest had left through. Everything was going wrong and it didn't look like that was going to change anytime soon. At the rate things were getting worse, it was going to be practically impossible for the girls to get back home to Equestria.

"What do you mean, we won't be able to go home?" Aria asked.

Adagio silently cursed herself; she hadn't meant to say anything out loud. Glancing at the door to make sure that human-Sunset wasn't in earshot, she said quietly, "Things are getting out of control. It was bad enough that the Raingoons ended up getting sent to who-knows-where, but with Sparkle and now even Starswirl here, I don't see how we're going to be able to get back to Equestria. Not without doing something drastic."

"Like what?" Aria frowned. "You don't want us to try and force our way through, do you? Cause I don't think that'll end well for us."

"Don't be ridiculous," Adagio spat. "Even if we managed to get through the portal, we'd have half of Equestria chasing after us and we'd just end up back where we started."

Aria raised an eyebrow. "Uh, why not just ask Tempest? She said she'd help us get back, it's time she kept her promise."

"That's if she even has any intention of keeping her promise," Adagio countered. "No, we need to do something ourselves."

"It's been a really long time, and we don't have our magic anymore, so why not just ask Starswing if he'll let us back through?" Sonata asked.

"It's Starswirl, you moron, and he's not going to let us through just because we ask nicely," Aria said roughly.

"Hang on a second," Adagio cut in. "As impossible as it sounds, I think Sonata might be onto something." She paced up and down the room as a plan slowly came together in her mind. "We'll have to play this carefully. Tempest knows we're not idiots. Or, at least," she paused and grinned evilly at Sonata, "she knows that I'm not an idiot."





The Citadel was many things; a fortress, a sanctuary, a training ground, and a laboratory, just to name a few. Unfortunately, one of the things it wasn't was romantic. 

There were plenty of Knights and Scribes who got together; going on dates to the occasional dances that were held in old halls or going on late-night walks through the lesser used corridors, but neither of those options were particularly appealing to Rarity. Sitting on the roof and looking up at the stars at midnight sounded wonderful, but getting permission to do it was worse than getting teeth pulled. The laser turrets installed for defence also detracted from the atmosphere somewhat.

With her preferred methods out of reach, Rarity had been left with few other options. She had conferred with Tabitha, naturally, but while her counterpart had sympathized with her desire to build a romantic atmosphere, her suggestions had been geared towards pragmatism and a level of daring that Rarity wasn't certain that she possessed.

After a week of being chased in circles by her own mind, Rarity had decided to take a break from her scheming, at least temporarily. Thankfully, Pinkie was always good for providing a distraction, and so Rarity found herself sitting at a table in the Citadel's courtyard with Pinkie, Fawkes, and Twilight in her wheelchair, taking it in turns playing a game of checkers on a borrowed steel plate using painted metal nuts as pieces. 

Rarity hummed thoughtfully as she considered her next move. Fawkes, her opponent for this particular match, was proving to be a surprisingly good player, able to give any of the girls a run for their money. "I think this will do nicely," Rarity said as she shifted one of her pieces forward.

Fawkes nodded and casually took three of her pieces in one smooth move, dropping his piece in her starting line. "King me."

"Oh, for the…" Rarity scowled and kinged his piece before settling down to decide her next move. 

"Wow, you kinda suck at this," Pinkie said bluntly.

"To be fair, I've only played against Twilight and Fawkes so far," Rarity retorted. Twilight couldn't quite move her arms enough to play, so she resorted to using her magic to move the pieces. This didn't stop her from using some mathematical wizardry to annihilate everyone she played against. Even Pinkie's utterly random play style couldn't beat her.

Still scowling, Rarity moved one of her pieces forward. A moment later she let out an exasperated groan as Fawkes took two more pieces and gained another king. "It is not like you to be so inattentive to detail," he said quietly. "Is something on your mind?" 

Rarity sighed and lowered her head. "No. Yes. I don't know, I'm just… stuck with something of a personal matter." She raised her head just in time to see the others sharing a concerned look. 

"Do you want to talk about it?" Twilight asked.

Rarity shook her head. "I appreciate the offer, darling, but I'm not sure that it's something you can help me with." 

"If you're sure," Twilight said.

"I'm sure," Rarity replied, though it wasn't entirely true. In fact, Twilight or Fluttershy were both perfectly placed to help her with questions about romance, but this was something she wanted to do on her own, not to mention the painful feelings such a conversation would bring up in them.

"If I may ask, how is your research on the FEV coming along?" Fawkes asked Twilight, tactfully changing the subject.

Twilight groaned in response. "It's a lot harder than I expected. Learning about nuclear fusion under Doctor Li was hard enough, but this is a very specialized subject in a completely different branch of science. Between the painkillers and the physiotherapy, I hardly feel like I'm making any headway whatsoever. Fluttershy is making a lot more progress than I am with it."

"She does have some experience as a nurse, I'm sure that helps," Rarity put in. "Besides, it's her body that has been affected, I'm not surprised that she's studying the FEV as hard as she can."

"I know," Twilight sighed. "I just wish there was more that I could do."

Rarity gave her a reproachful look. "Twilight, darling, you are pushing yourself too hard as it is. Even when you're supposed to be taking a break you end up helping the Scribes update Liberty Prime's programming."

"That is a break for me!" Twilight insisted. "I enjoy working on Liberty's programming. It makes a change to actually do something I'm good at."

"Darling, there are lots of things you're good at," Rarity said firmly. "I know things are difficult right now, but we'll get through this." She absently moved another of her pieces forward. "As soon as this dreadful war is over we can put our minds together and, with the help of the Brotherhood and the Exodus team, figure out a way to get home."

"Assuming the Brotherhood wins, and the Exodus team don't get wiped out," Twilight grumbled.

"It will be fine," Fawkes said quietly but confidently. "There will be much bloodshed, but Liberty Prime is with us, and Eden's information has proven incredibly useful."

Rarity shivered at the reminder of the creepy little spider that had been given the occasional tour of the courtyard, riding on the shoulder of a Knight like some bizarre pet. She was still having trouble believing that the horrid creature was the former President of the Enclave.

"He still wants to speak to us, doesn't he?" Pinkie asked. 

Twilight nodded. "I've been considering it, but I'd rather wait until I'm healed up a little more. I don't want to have my mind muddled by painkillers when I'm dealing with him."

"Rather you than me, darling." Rarity reached for one of her pieces, then blinked dumbly and frowned at the board. "Where have all of my pieces gone?"

"You lost," Fawkes said flatly.

"Oh." Rarity sighed and let her shoulders slump. "Well, I wish I could say 'well played', but I fear I didn't put up a very good showing this time around."

Fawkes chuckled as he started resetting the board, but before they could decide on who was playing next they were interrupted by a voice calling out, "Hey, Miss Sparkle!" The group looked around to see a Squire hurrying towards them. She made a crude attempt at a salute as she said, "Elder Lyons wants to see you, he wants help sorting out some magic stuff."

Something about the girl seemed familiar to Rarity, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She shook her head and put it to the back of her mind as she asked, "Does he just want Twilight, or should we all go?"

The Squire shrugged. "Fuck if I- uh, I mean, I don't know. Maybe the three of you should come, just in case."

Rarity rolled her eyes and apologized to Fawkes as she got to her feet. She frowned at the Squire as they fell into step behind her, Pinkie dutifully pushing Twilight's wheelchair. Something about the Squire was definitely familiar, she just couldn't figure out what.





Horrigan breathed in deeply as he waited, feeling the air hissing in through his helmet's filters and flowing through metal tubes before they filled his lungs. He was currently strapped into a huge frame reminiscent of those used for working on power armor. Doctor Bohn, though she insisted that he call her Sienna, was busy checking the readouts of his armor and life support systems on a nearby terminal.

Strange as it seemed, Horrigan quite enjoyed times like this. Whenever he was being examined or having his armor adjusted was an opportunity to relax and not have to worry about keeping an eye out for potential threats; a rare luxury for a former bodyguard.

"How are you feeling, Horrigan?" Sienna asked. "Any pain?"

"No, Doc," Horrigan replied. He knew that the good doctor was only doing her job, but it still amused him that she thought a pathetic little Super Mutant could hurt him. He had faced a small band of them on his morning patrol. One of them, a foul-smelling beast with purple hair and a bony horn poking out of its forehead, had managed to get the drop on him, jamming a crystal spike into his shoulder joint from behind. The feeble attack had barely scratched Horrigan's armor. He had made sure that the Mutant didn't live long enough to get a second chance.

"What about your fusion cores? How are their power levels looking?" Sienna asked.

Horrigan checked his armor's power source with a thought, the information getting delivered directly to his mind through the chip in his brain. "Still staying steady at 50%."

"Good." Sienna put on a bulky set of headphones. "Now can you push all of your armor's settings to normal, please?"

Horrigan did as he was asked. It was an odd sensation. It almost felt as if he was relaxing some intangible mental muscle, freeing the power stored in his armor and allowing it to flow as it was supposed to. "FUSION CORE OUTPUT IS BACK AT 100%."

Sienna winced at the volume, even through the protective headphones. "Okay, can you drop it down for me again?"

With a sigh, Horrigan focused and brought the power back under control again. He would much prefer to keep the power flowing at all times, but he had to keep himself in check if he didn't want to deafen everyone in the vicinity every time he spoke. "Back at 50%."

"Thanks." Sienna pulled the headphones off and rubbed her ears gently. "It looks like your magic is definitely what's causing your volume issues. I'll have a word with Doctor Strong and see if we can figure out some way of isolating your speakers from whatever channels your magic is flowing through. At least then you'll be able to talk normally without having to restrain yourself."

"I'm still surprised that magic even exists," Horrigan said flatly.

Sienna nodded in agreement. "You're not the only one. The whole world has gone bat shit crazy over the last month or so."

"Do you know why my fusion cores aren't running down normally?" Horrigan asked.

"I haven't got a clue; I'm a doctor, not a physicist," Sienna replied bluntly. "You'll be better off asking Doctor Strong about that one."

Horrigan just grunted and shifted his shoulders slightly to get more comfortable. He waited patiently as the doctor ran through several more tests, answering the occasional question thrown his way, until finally she was satisfied.

"Ok, you're all set," Sienna said as she switched the terminal off.

With his moment of peace over once again, Horrigan sighed and helped Sienna disconnect the diagnostic cables from his armor. It took a lot longer to do than it had in his old facility, but, given that most of the equipment here had been cobbled together in a hurry from whatever the team could get their hands on, that was only to be expected.

Just as they finally disconnected the last of the cables, Horrigan heard the sound of booted feet approaching. A few seconds later there came a knock on the door and Lieutenant Colonel Strong poked his head in. "Is everything going smoothly in here?"

Horrigan snapped to attention and saluted crisply. "Sir, yes, sir!"

Sienna's lips thinned at having her work interrupted, but she nodded anyway. "As far as I can tell, Horrigan is perfectly healthy. Well, as healthy as he can possibly get while missing his legs, skull, and several internal organs."

"I'm fine," Horrigan insisted. "Everything that's missing has either been replaced or I didn't need it anyway."

"Good," the Lieutenant Colonel said before Sienna could reply. "I've received orders directly from the Senate. You're to provide support and protection for a mining team at the remains of Raven Rock. You'll be leaving in fifty minutes."

Horrigan would have raised an eyebrow if he still possessed them. "I thought I was supposed to stay here, in case those Brotherhood maggots send their toy soldier our way?"

"That was the original plan. Unfortunately, if the Senate wants to dictate military operations, there's very little I can do to stop them," Strong replied, his expression clearing showing that he dearly wished that he could. "We should be alright while you're gone. The Brotherhood hasn't attacked us yet, so we might be lucky. In the event that they do launch an attack while you're not present, we'll do our best to hold them off until you return."

Horrigan growled angrily. He didn't like civilians interfering with military matters, and he especially didn't like being used as a pawn in a petty political tug of war. Still, as the Lieutenant Colonel had said, there was little that could be done about it. "I'll get ready to leave immediately."

"Not yet, you need a nutrition intake first," Sienna cut in. 

Lieutenant Colonel Strong nodded. "Doctor Bohn is right, you've got fifty minutes yet. Take your time."

Horrigan sighed and sat heavily on the floor as the Lieutenant Colonel left the room. As Sienna got to work opening the panel on his armor that allowed nutritional supplements to be pumped directly onto his stomach, Horrigan rested his helmeted head on his fist and pondered what was happening with the Enclave. They were already at war with the Brotherhood of Steel but, with the way things were going, he almost felt like the Enclave was just as much at war with itself.
> Chapter 79 - Squire Scoots
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rarity grew increasingly curious as the Squire led her, Pinkie, and Twilight into a part of the Citadel they had never entered before. It was largely deserted, with only the odd Squire or Scribe passing by in the corridors as they went about their errands.

"Why are we going to such an out of the way area?" Twilight asked.

The Squire shrugged without looking back. "The Elder said something about keeping the magic stuff away from the main parts of the Citadel, in case something went wrong." Twilight tried to ask her something else, but the Squire huffed and cut her off, "If you've got questions, you can ask him yourself. We're here." Without another word, the Scribe shoved her way through a nearby door and held it open for the others.

Inside was a wide room with dozens of metal boxes stacked against one wall. Elder Lyons was standing in the middle of the room next to another small stack of boxes, along with Fluttershy, a Squire, a Scribe, two Knights in power armor, and two unarmored Knights.

Everyone looked around as the girls entered the room. Elder Lyons smiled as he spotted them. "Ah, good timing. Thank you, Squire Peters."

Fluttershy did a double-take as she noticed the Squire accompanying the girls. "Maddy? Is that you?"

Squire Peters nodded. "Yeah, I did what your friend told me and signed up with these guys." She rubbed her arm nervously. "I, uh, guess I should thank you again. Y'know, for fixing me up, back in the metro."

"Wait a moment..." Rarity gasped softly as she finally realized why she recognized the Squire. "You're the girl from the tunnels behind Galaxy News!"

"Yeah, no shi- I mean, uh, yeah, that's me," Squire Peters replied. 

"Squire Peters was in a bad way when we first met her," Elder Lyons told them. "At first, we were hesitant to take her on, but Three Dog vouched for her, so we accepted her as one of our own. So far, Squire Peters has proven to be a hard worker and an adept pupil." He frowned at her as he added, "However, I'd still like to see some improvement to her language fairly soon."

Squire Peters sighed and looked away. "Yeah, sorry. I'm still working on it."

"Very good." Elder Lyons nodded and turned his attention back to the girls. "Now, for the reason I called you here." He placed a hand on the little stack of boxes before continuing. "As you are probably already aware, the explosion of magical energy from Raven Rock's destruction didn't directly affect the Brotherhood of Steel in any real way. What you are likely not aware of, is the fact that the first explosion of magic, the one unleashed during your escape from Project Exodus, did affect some Brotherhood personnel and equipment."

"I assume these people are the affected personnel that you're referring to?" Twilight offered.

"Indeed they are," Elder Lyons replied. "Squire Maxson is here merely as an aide," he gestured to the boy standing next to him, "but Squire Peters, Scribe Benson, and Knights Andrews and Johnson were all affected by the magical wisps released from Project Exodus."

Rarity noticed, curiously, that the Elder hadn't mentioned the two Knights in armor, both standing with their arms folded watching the proceedings impassively. "And those gentlemen?"

Elder Lyons gave a tight smile as the Knights glanced at each other. "These two… gentlemen... are the suits of power armor that Andrews and Johnson were wearing when they were struck by the magic, and they are currently empty."

Stunned silence greeted his admission. "But… they're alive," Pinkie said blankly.

Elder Lyons nodded. "We're not sure how or why, but somehow the magic has given them some level of sapience."

"Just like the Boogeyman," Twilight said quietly. As everyone turned to stare at her, she explained, "The Boogeyman we told you about, the one that was chased out of Rivet City, matches the description of a suit of power armor that fled from Project Exodus after being affected by magic. As impossible as it sounds, it looks like the magic brings any power armor it touches to life."

"Can, er, can they talk?" Rarity asked.

"Not so far," Elder Lyons replied. "As for your suggestion, Miss Sparkle, I fear you may be a little off the mark; twelve of our Knights were struck by the magic, but, aside from these two, the worst that happened was a little discoloration at the impact points."

Twilight frowned thoughtfully. "So several suits of power armor were hit, but only these two were affected? How is that possible?"

"Our Scribes believe it is something to do with where they were hit," Elder Lyons told her. "Both of these were struck directly on their fusion cores."

"Aren't fusion cores the things that power them?" Rarity asked.

Elder Lyons nodded. "Do you think their current, er, condition, might be something to do with the radiation the cores emit? I remember you saying that radiation and magic interacted in unusual ways."

Pinkie raised a hand as if she was in class. "Quick question, I thought nuclear fusion didn't cause radiation?" 

Twilight looked mildly surprised that Pinkie of all people would ask such a question, but answered without commenting on it, "It's true that the fusion reaction itself doesn't emit ionizing radiation, and the tiny amount of tritium used in the reaction won't emit enough radiation to have any real effect. However, depending on the blanket solution and internal structures of the core, it's possible that intense neutron fluxes could cause activation of the core's structural material. Of course, that's assuming that the neutron fluxes themselves aren't affecting the magic in any way."

Pinkie nodded and hummed thoughtfully, leaving Rarity feeling rather self-conscious of the fact that she had barely followed the explanation at all. Thankfully, Twilight's moment of nerdy exposition was apparently over, as she sighed and said, "I wish I had more time to spend trying to figure exactly how and why magic and radiation interact the way they do, but I've just got too much on my plate already. I know Sunset is working on a similar issue to this with Pia Nalaar at Rivet City, maybe she had come up with something?"

"We'll ask her when she gets back to the Citadel, but surely you must have some theories that we can work on," Elder Lyons pressed.

Twilight's face crumpled as she shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I don't; and before you ask, I can't spare the time or energy to even try and come up with one. I'm already working on two different scientific specialties, which themselves are so specialized that they draw on at least a dozen other scientific specialties between them. It's too much. I can't, I just… I can't."

The sight of Twilight hanging her head in defeat prompted Rarity to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder, snarling at Elder Lyons as she did so, "What the hell do you think you are doing, trying to dump everything on Twilight? Don't you have your own scientists?"

Elder Lyons glanced uncomfortably between Twilight and her friends. The fact that even Fluttershy was giving him the stink-eye seemed to particularly bother him. "I, er, didn't mean to overwhelm you, Miss Sparkle, we just wished for your input given that you have more experience than our Scribes in matters of magic." He loudly cleared his throat. "We'll put it to Miss Shimmer when she returns. Er, I don't mean to push, but I was hoping that you- that all of you, would be willing to help us with a quick experiment or two, while we're all here."

"What sort of experiment?" Rarity asked suspiciously.

"The magical kind," Elder Lyons replied. He gestured to the power armors, and one of the suits dutifully stepped forward and opened one of the metal boxes. Inside, sparkling in the light, was a collection of raw, uncut gemstones in a kaleidoscope of colors. "These were mined from the exterior of Raven Rock. I gathered the personnel who've previously been exposed to magic in order to see if they, under your supervision, can draw some of the magic out of these crystals."

Rarity gave him a flat look. "After everything that has happened? Everything that still happens whenever someone pokes around with magic they don't understand; do you really think that this is a good idea?"

"Why do you think we're in a secluded section of the Citadel?" Elder Lyons countered. "Besides, these crystals are small and, as far as we can tell, contain only a small amount of magic, and we'll only be using one crystal with one person at a time. It's about as safe as we can make it."

"I'd better get some Nuka-Cola ready," Pinkie said, digging a bottle out of her hair.

"Whatever for?" Elder Lyons asked in complete confusion.

Pinkie fished a bottle opener out of her pocket and held it at the ready like a knife. "In case I need to blow something up in a hurry."

Elder Lyons shot an alarmed look at the other girls, as if expecting them to rebuke her, but they just nodded grimly and backed away to the door, Rarity pulling Twilight's wheelchair since Pinkie's hands were full.

"Who's going first?" Twilight asked.

"Er, well…" Elder Lyons looked around at his little group. After brief consideration, he motioned for Squire Peters to step forward. "It'll probably be safest if our youngest member goes first."

"Cool!" Squire Peters grinned and eagerly stepped up to the crate. "So, uh, what do you want me to do?"

"Just take a crystal from the box," Elder Lyons replied. "One crystal," he reiterated firmly.

Twilight shifted slightly in her wheelchair. "Try to pick one that calls to you, as if it was somehow meant for you."

"Riiight." Squire Peters frowned as she stared into the box. After a few seconds of humming thoughtfully she reached in and pulled out a small pyramid-shaped crystal. "I guess… this one?" Her chosen crystal was a deep orange color with faint veins of white and yellow running through it. The light refracted through it beautifully, lighting up the walls with hundreds of little dots in every color of the rainbow. "What now?"

Elder Lyons glanced hopefully at Twilight. She tried to shrug, then winced and hissed as her wounds reminded her that that was not a good idea. 

"Careful, darling," Rarity admonished gently. "You just rest, I think the rest of us have enough experience with magic to try and have a go at this." She cleared her throat and drew herself up to address Squire Peters. "Now then, er…" Rarity floundered for a moment, then decided to just go with the first thing that popped into her head. "Do you feel anything?"

Squire Peters opened her mouth to reply, then closed it and looked down at the crystal in her hand. "I… I don't know," she said slowly. "It feels kinda tingly, but… it feels like there's something... I don't know… missing."

"Why don't you just focus on that tingly feeling for now," Fluttershy suggested. "I know this sounds weird, but try to pull that tingly feeling out of the crystal and into your hand."

"O...kay?" Squire Peters shrugged and frowned at the crystal again. "How do I know if it's- whoa!" The crystal flashed brightly and an orange glow rippled across Squire Peters' body as she ponied up. "Wow! That felt awesome!" She grinned widely at her success, though her smile faded as she saw the looks on the Rainbooms' faces. "What's up? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Rarity just stared at her, utterly thunderstruck. She had felt before that something was familiar about the squire and, though the orange pony ears and tiny orange wings were certainly unusual, the mess of scruffy purple hair sitting on top of her head was instantly recognizable to anyone who knew the three troublemaking disaster-magnets of the Canterlot Movie Club. "Scootaloo…?"

"Come again?" Squire Peters said blankly.

Elder Lyons eyed the girls curiously, clearly putting two and two together. "She has a counterpart in your world, someone you know." 

"Wait, what?" Squire Peters gave him a questioning look. "What's a counter-whatsit?"

Rarity shared an awkward look with her friends as Elder Lyons explained about counterparts in other realities. It was plain from the looks on their faces that Pinkie, Twilight and Fluttershy were all feeling just as guilty as her that they hadn't recognized who Squire Peters really was much sooner.

When Elder Lyons was done explaining, Squire Peters and the rest of the gathered Brotherhood personnel looked more confused than ever. "So… there's more than one version of… like… the world? And they've all got different versions of the same people in them?"

"The details are a little more complicated than that, but yeah, that's pretty much right," Twilight replied. 

Fluttershy bit her lip nervously. "Um, should we tell Rainbow? About Madd- I mean, Squire Peters?"

"Tell me what?" The group whipped around in surprise to see Rainbow, Sunset and Applejack file into the room accompanied by a Squire. They all stopped in their tracks as they spotted Squire Peters. Rainbow in particular looked as if she had been punched in the stomach. Her face crumpled as she looked anywhere in the room except at the Squire. 

"Rainbow? Are you okay?" Fluttershy asked tentatively.

"Yeah, I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?" Rainbow replied unconvincingly. "Anyway, I've got shit to do. I'll see you later." Without another word, Rainbow turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her hard enough to dislodge a trickle of dust and ancient plaster from the ceiling.

"I'll go after her," Sunset said quickly. "You guys do… whatever the hell you were doing." She threw Elder Lyons a glare as she opened the door and slipped out after Rainbow, leaving a strained silence in her wake.

Squire Peters looked around at everyone in blank confusion. "Uh… what the f-, what the hell just happened?"

Rarity coughed delicately before answering. "Scootaloo goes to the same school as us. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that she worships the very ground that Rainbow Dash walks on, and Rainbow herself has essentially adopted Scootaloo as a little sister. Seeing you in this, er... form, must be bringing up some rather complicated feelings."

"Ain't that the truth," Applejack muttered. Rarity looked over at her just in time to see her pull the brim of her hat lower and step back out of the door. "Ah'm gonna go get some sleep. See y'all later."

The Squire who had brought the three, a scrawny boy no older than ten, glanced anxiously after his three charges, clearly wondering whether he had done something wrong. Seeing his expression, Elder Lyons sighed and said softly, "It's alright, lad. I asked you to bring them here, not make them stay. Was there anything else?"

The boy nodded nervously and pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket. "A message came from Project Purity for Miss Sparkle. They've written it down for her." 

He had barely finished his sentence before a purple aura took the paper from his hands, eliciting a startled yelp. Twilight mumbled an apology and used her magic to unfold the sheet, reading it carefully. "It's a coded message from our mutual allies. I'll give you the details somewhere more private, but the gist of it is that their numbers have grown. Apparently, Horrigan has been sent to Raven Rock, too, so you should make sure we don't have any troops in the area."

"Thankfully, we don't," Elder Lyons replied with a scowl. "I can't say I'm happy to hear that Horrigan is on the move, though. I thought they were keeping him on a tight leash?"

"Like I said, details later," Twilight said pointedly.

Elder Lyons nodded. "Fair enough. I'll have Liberty Prime and the Lyons' Pride recalled, just in case. It'll take a little while for them to get back, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. Until then…" He looked around at the remaining Rainbooms and sighed heavily. "I suppose we may as well end this experiment here. I was expecting some form of issue with rogue magic that we'd need your help containing, not a coincidence that would upset your friends. You have my apologies."

"Apology accepted," Rarity said quickly. Without another word, she turned on her heel and hurried after Applejack. 





Sunset followed Rainbow through the corridors as quickly as she could. There was no way she could keep up with Rainbow's super speed, but she was fairly certain that she knew where her friend was going. The number of shocked-looking and windswept personnel she passed on the way let her know that she was on the right track.

Sure enough, when Sunset emerged into the courtyard, she spotted Rainbow over in a corner, thumping away at a punching bag as if it had grievously insulted her. Sunset had actually expected Rainbow to be doing laps of the assault course, so she was a little relieved that she wouldn't have to try and flag down the athlete just to talk to her.

Waving away the small group of Squires that was gathering to stare, Sunset stepped up alongside Rainbow. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Rainbow said curtly, not breaking her rhythm for a second.

Sunset nodded, realizing that that had probably been a stupid question. "So… I guess we've found this world's Scootaloo."

"That's not Scootaloo!" Rainbow snapped, punching the bag even harder. "That little shit used to be a raider! Scootaloo would never do something like that! That little runt back there isn't fit to clean Scootaloo's sneakers!"

"That's not fair, Rainbow," Sunset retorted. "The moment we gave her a chance to do something decent, she took it; just like Becky and Tara did. We already know that Maddy's parents are dead, and who even knows what happened to her aunts-"

"They live in Rivet City." Sunset stared at Rainbow in blank surprise. "I delivered a few things for them when we were staying there. I thought I recognized them, they even mentioned that they lost their brother, sister, and niece, but I never put it together until now. They had family out there in the wastes, and they never. Bothered. Looking for them!" She punctuated each word with a wild swing at the punchbag. 

Sunset stepped back, shocked at Rainbow's sudden vehemence. Something didn't feel right. It wasn't normal for Rainbow to viciously insult someone, then defend them in the very next breath. Something else was going on. Sunset was fairly sure she knew what was up, but she had to be careful with how she approached it, or she’d risk having Rainbow close up on her. "Rainbow? You know you're awesome, right?"

"Huh?" Rainbow paused in her physical onslaught, thrown off-guard by the random question. "Well, duh, of course I'm awesome. Heck, I'm the reason most of the Enclave Vertibirds fly in pairs in a defensive formation now."

Sunset nodded. "Exactly, so no-one is going to think you're any less of a badass because you're missing home."

Sunset was expecting Rainbow to deny it; to say that she didn't miss anything, that Sunset was just being ridiculous, and everything was fine. So it was somewhat surprising when Rainbow simply sighed and lowered her arms, looking dejectedly at the floor. "This world sucks."

"You're right about that," Sunset agreed fervently.

Rainbow shook her head. "I'm not even talking about the radiation or the fact that it's all a freaking wasteland. I just can't stand the fact that there's people out there, other versions of us and our friends, who've ended up being put through so much shit, or even just grown up around the wrong people. What if I find the other version of me and she turns out to be some kind of psycho?"

Sunset placed a reassuring hand on Rainbow's shoulder. "No matter what kind of person she is, if she's anything like you at all, she'll be one of the most loyal and awesome people you'll ever meet."

"Heh, thanks, Sunshim," Rainbow said quietly.

Sunset smirked, an evil thought popping into her head. "And don't worry, I won't tell the others how much you miss seeing Bulk Biceps every day."

Rainbow snorted and tried to splutter out some sort of denial, but she was cut off by a loud and very familiar voice yelling out, "YEAH!"

The two girls slowly turned to look across the courtyard. Standing near the assault course, next to a stand full of barbells, was a hugely-muscled man with a blonde buzz cut. 

"No... way," Rainbow muttered, staring at him fearfully. "Seriously? This world has a Bulk Biceps, too?!"

Sunset nudged Rainbow and cried out with false glee, "Look, Rainbow! The universe heard us speaking of your lost love and is giving you another chance! Go to him!" She ducked Rainbow's retaliatory swipe, cackling at the look on her face.

"You're lucky we need you in one piece, or I'd kick your ass from here to Megaton for that," Rainbow spat, though she couldn't help a lopsided smile as she said it. She shook her head and sighed. "Seriously though, we should probably get some food and rest, we all need to get stronger if we want to get ahead in this world."

Sunset grinned and threw an arm around her shoulder. "Don't worry. We've made it this far. As long as we stick together, there's nothing we can't handle."





Horrigan crossed his arms as he stared up at the Vertibird hovering overhead. It was a different model than the usual ones; a variant designed with special cranes and winches for hauling up heavy cargo without having to land. This time around, that cargo was going to be Horrigan himself.

"Are you sure you'll fit?" One of the nearby soldiers asked.

Horrigan nodded. He'd have to curl up into a ball for the duration of the flight, but it meant that when they reached their destination they could simply switch off the electromagnetic clamps and drop him into combat, near-instantly. Looking around, Horrigan saw the gathered soldiers, scientists and workers all staring at him, waiting for orders to board their own waiting Vertibirds. "Everyone, mount up! I want us off the ground and on the way in five minutes!"
> Chapter 80 - Into The Depths
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Horrigan huffed as he allowed the Vertibird to lower him gently to the ground. He had wanted to just drop out of the hold for the sake of ease and speed, but the scientists had been worried about him damaging the crystals that covered the ground, so he had to put up with being winched down like an oversized piece of cargo. When he finally reached the ground, Horrigan quickly pulled the clamps from his armor and took his first proper look at Raven Rock and the surrounding area.

The mountain itself sparkled in the wan sunlight, as did the ever-growing carpet of crystal that spread out for several hundred yards from the mountain's base. Dozens of workers were chipping away at the crystal with various tools, under the supervision of a team of scientists and three squads of power-armored soldiers. The only point of concern that Horrigan could see was a collection of dark clouds slowly approaching from the East. It looked like a storm was coming.

After a quick glance around, Horrigan spotted a man in an officer's uniform who seemed to be directing the nearest workers. "What's the situation, Sir?" He called out as he approached.

The officer's eyes almost popped out of his head when he turned to see who was talking. "A-agent Horrigan!"

"Just Horrigan, Sir," Horrigan cut in.

"R-right." The officer swallowed and swept an arm out towards the workers. "As you can see, work is progressing smoothly for the moment. A band of raiders was present upon arrival but, after a suitable display of force, they decided to relocate without any fuss."

Horrigan nodded. "Do you have any workers inside the mountain?"

The officer winced. "We sent a surveyor team in a few hours ago, with a squad of soldiers as escort, but they haven't been heard from since."

"Are there hostiles inside?" Horrigan asked. 

"I don't know," the officer replied nervously. "There's definitely something in there, but I have no idea what, and Command ordered me not to send in another team to look for them until you were here to guard the perimeter."

Horrigan turned to appraise the surrounding area. A few Vertibirds were close at hand, dropping off additional reinforcements. Beyond them, around two kilometres East, he could make out a small makeshift camp, probably belonging to the ousted raiders, and about a Kilometre South he could see a Yao Guai snuffling in the dirt. There was nothing in sight that posed a threat. "The perimeter is safe. I'll take a squad and look for the missing team myself. You've already lost one squad of weaklings, there's no point sending another in without my help."

The officer stammered out an agreement and pulled out a radio, issuing orders as Horrigan stomped over to the entrance to Raven Rock. He paused in front of the glittering tunnel that led into the mountain and crossed his arms. Aside from the crystal itself, Horrigan couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. Whatever was in there must be deep inside. Or just particularly stealthy.

"We're ready to go when you are, Sir." Horrigan glanced around and saw five soldiers, gathered around him. "Just give the word."

"How many personnel are we looking for?" Horrigan asked.

"Four soldiers, six surveyors," the squad leader replied instantly.

Horrigan nodded and uncrossed his arms. "Alright, follow me and keep your heads on a swivel." Without another word he strode purposefully into the tunnel. 

The floor chimed loudly with every step Horrigan and the soldiers took, echoing off the walls until the tunnels rang like a crystal choir. Whenever they came to a side tunnel, markings on the wall left by the surveyor team indicated which direction to take. Strangely, the group didn't encounter any other signs of life at all while they searched.

"This is weird," one of the soldiers muttered.

"It's a magic crystal mountain, Private, of course it's fucking weird," the squad leader shot.

The Private shook his head. "I meant the layout. Most of the corridors are still in the right places, but there's some that have closed up and other new ones that have opened up instead."

Horrigan nodded, mentally referencing the map of Raven Rock stored on the chip in his brain. It looked like around 75% of the corridors were unchanged apart from their crystalline composition. "Where were the surveyor team headed?"

"Probably one of the armories," the squad leader replied. "There's bound to be a shitload of equipment that's been warped by all of this magic bullshit. If the brass wants the magic from the crystal, you can bet your ass they want any magic tech they can get their hands on, too." He gestured down a nearby side tunnel, with a cross scratched into the wall next to it indicating that the surveyors had checked it and found a dead end. "Wasn't that where they set up the projector so we could watch old movies?"

"Yeah, it was," the Private replied with a sigh. "When my sister was put into Assigned Procreation, the engineer she was matched with took her there for a date. They didn't end up married, but at least he put the effort in instead of just knocking her up and getting it over with like some of them do. He helps look after the kid, too."

"That's enough chatter," Horrigan cut in. The tunnel was approaching a crossroads, but there weren't any obvious signs scratched into the walls to indicate which way the surveyors had gone. As he stomped right into the middle of the crossroads, the squad carefully following behind him, the group spotted a man standing in the middle of the tunnel on the left. He was wearing a standard military dress uniform, and jerked his head back challengingly as he watched the squad.

"Is that one of the surveyors?" Horrigan asked skeptically.

"Nah, that's Jackson," one of the soldiers replied, pointing his laser rifle directly at Jackson's chest. "He didn't make it out of here before the place blew. How the hell is he still alive?"

"Magic," Horrigan huffed, before calling out to Jackson, "A surveyor team passed through here earlier. Which way did they go?"

Jackson didn't answer. Instead, he slowly raised his arms until they were pointing at the squad, then he clenched his hands. At his gesture the crystal tunnels seemed to burst into life; thin crystalline tentacles sprouted from the wall, wrapping around Horrigan's limbs and body and reeling him in like a mirelurk caught in a net. The shouts of surprise and fear coupled with sporadic laser fire told him that the same thing was happening to the squad.

Caught by surprise, Horrigan watched the tentacles with mild interest for a few seconds, amused by the fact that they were actually able to shift his bulk. Unfortunately, the sight of his squad getting overpowered by the tentacles meant he couldn't enjoy this little farce too much.

Releasing the power stored inside himself, Horrigan rolled his shoulders as swirling symbols blazed into life all over his armor and acid-green flames leaked from its joints. He shattered most of the tentacles holding him with a simple flex and pointed a damning finger at Jackson. "THAT WAS A MISTAKE." 

Naked terror flashed across Jackson's face. He made another grasping motion at Horrigan, who laughed as more tentacles shot out of the walls and grabbed him only to shatter as he lumbered forwards, their strength absolutely nothing compared to his. 

Apparently realizing his predicament, Jackson tried to turn and run at the last second, but he had left it too late. Horrigan chuckled as he snatched Jackson up, wrapped his hands around the man's waist, ripped him in half like a piece of scrap paper and casually tossed the halves aside. The blood and gore that splattered the floor sparkled and glittered in the light, as if it too contained tiny crystals.

Satisfied that his enemy was dead, Horrigan turned to berate his squad for being weak, only to realize that they weren't there. Staring at the walls, he spotted black masses in the walls where the tentacles had somehow managed to drag them through the solid crystal and bury them alive. One of them had even been dragged beneath the floor. "DAMN." 

Thankfully, a quick check of their suits radios revealed that they were all still alive, though if Horrigan still possessed eyes would have rolled them at their terrified screams for help. It was yet another reminder that Enclave soldiers may be the toughest ordinary people around, but they just couldn't hold a candle to him. "HANG ON, YOU WUSSES. I'LL GET YOU OUT."

Smashing the unfortunate soldiers out of their crystal tombs would be easy, but it would also more than likely end up destroying their armor and injuring or killing them, so Horrigan was forced to carefully chip away at the crystal until they were exposed enough that he could yank the men out without breaking them. When he had finally fished the last soldier out of the floor, Horrigan reigned his power in once again and crossed his arms as he waited for them to catch their breath.

"Th-thanks, man," the squad leader coughed out when he had regained his faculties. 

Horrigan just grunted. Protocol dictated that a soldier should never undertake a mission alone unless there aren't any other options, but searching for the missing personnel would be a lot easier if he didn't have to act as a babysitter for his own squad. "Take your men and get back to the surface. I'll search the mountain myself."

The squad leader cocked his head in surprise. Horrigan thought he was going to try to refuse, but, to his surprise, after a brief pause the man nodded. "That's probably for the best. Hell, if everything in here is that dangerous, we'll only slow you down." He straightened up and snapped a salute. "Safe hunting, soldier."

Returning the salute, Horrigan waited for the squad to disappear back the way they had come before turning his attention back to the ravaged walls. There were no visible signs indicating which way the surveyor team had gone. It was possible that Jackson had killed them all, but Horrigan didn't think so; he'd be able to see shadows where they had been dragged inside the walls if they had been killed. 

With a shrug, Horrigan referred to the map in his mind, selected a route that would most likely lead him towards one of the armories, and set off down the corridor, uncaging his magic again as he walked. That was another benefit of sending the squad away; he didn't have to hold back anymore. 

Further down the corridor, at the very next intersection, the choice of direction was vindicated by the discovery of a marker on the wall pointing down a side corridor. Horrigan paused and called up the map again, suspicion blooming in his mind. The side corridor the surveyors had taken led away from the nearest armory. His suspicions grew as he followed the winding trail of markers deeper into the mountain. Instead of any armory, the path seemed to be leading towards Raven Rock's Bio Labs.

Damn it, what the hell are you idiots looking for?

As he turned down another corridor, Horrigan finally found one of the surveyors, or rather, what was left of them.

The corpse was so badly mauled it was unidentifiable, though the fact that the head was missing certainly didn't help in that regard. It looked like the body had been rent asunder by something with very large claws; most likely a deathclaw, going by the size of the wounds. Scorch marks on the walls indicated that the soldiers had put up a fight, and probably driven it off.

The fact that Deathclaws were apparently loose in the mountain didn't bother Horrigan in the slightest. He was currently much more concerned about what the surveyor team was doing, since the path beyond the corpse was clearly leading to the Bio Labs. 

Horrigan stepped over the corpse and picked up the pace, stomping along with a single-minded focus now that his objective was close. As he walked past another narrow side tunnel a crimson-skinned deathclaw burst out of the shadows, letting put an ear-splitting roar as it lunged at him. Horrigan didn't even bother glancing at it as he shattered its skull with a casual backhanded swipe.

"PATHETIC," Horrigan rumbled. 

As he turned the last corner to the Bio Labs, Horrigan found himself facing a small predicament. The door to the labs should have been directly in front of him; however, instead of a door, a solid wall of crystal greeted him, a thick spiral shape carved or grown into it. Horrigan briefly debated whether or not he should smash through the wall or backtrack to see if the team had gone a different way. 

Before he could come to a decision, the wall let out a loud chime and the spiral moved, opening up like an iris to allow Horrigan to pass.

On the other side of the wall the corridor opened up into a wide hall. Thick pillars of multicolored gemstone rose up from the ground and buried themselves in the ceiling high above, while thin crystalline stalactites pointed down from above. It would have been beautiful, if not for the bodies.

The remains of the surveyor team and their power-armored escorts were strewn about the room. The surveyors' bodies were actively rotting, leaking foul fluids onto the sparkling ground, while the soldiers' armor looked like it had been eaten through by some kind of acid. A soft squelching sound echoed around the room, coming from something on the far side of one of the pillars. Horrigan edged forward, readying his power just in case, then stopped in his tracks when he saw the source of the noise.

The creature was facing away from him, chewing on the corpse of one of the surveyors. It looked like the upper half of a human, blackened and dripping with brown filth, with lank hair that swayed in a non-existent breeze. Everything below the waist was missing, and its rotting intestines trailed on the floor behind it. A stomach-churning stench of burnt sewage wafted off the creature in overpowering waves.

Horrigan tensed as the creature finally seemed to sense his presence, pausing in its chewing and lifting itself up on its hands so it could look back at him over its shoulder. The monster was missing its nose, and its teeth were yellowed, but it was the eyes that sent a shiver down Horrigan's spine; bright and clear blue eyes that belonged on a movie star, not a hellish abomination. The two stared at each other in a tense standoff for several long seconds.

Horrigan was the one who broke it. He thrust his fists forwards and sent twin jets of emerald flame roaring at the filthy creature. He kept up the onslaught to the count of five, then reeled his power in and lowered his arms. The surveyor's body was burning with green fire, its rotted flesh sizzling as it melted, but there was no sign of the monster.

"WHAT THE HELL?" Horrigan spat.

"I… it's a corpse." Horrigan whirled around and spotted one of the prone soldiers staring at him, apparently not quite dead. "It must… must have been one of the people… killed by a deathclaw before… the place… exploded." He coughed wetly, his whole body heaving with the effort. "The magic mu… must have… done something to it."

Before Horrigan could reply, he felt an electric jolt run through his leg. He looked down to see the creature using his leg to pull itself out of the floor. His armor's magic flared and hissed where the creature grabbed him, as if the monster's mere touch was corrosive. Horrigan tried to kick it away, but the creature dragged itself up his body faster than he could react until it was hanging on to his chest. With a wet snarl, the creature punched his breastplate, sending a wave of nausea and revulsion through him.

Horrigan grabbed the creature and hurled it at the wall with a roar. To his horror, the crystal rippled like water as the creature disappeared into it. Horrigan looked around wildly, opening and clenching his fists as he tried to figure out where the next attack would come from. Every time he thought he spotted the creature in the wall he launched a wave of flames at it, flashes of acid-green light illuminating the room with each blast, but it didn't do any good.

"WHERE ARE YOU?!" Horrigan yelled in frustration.

A high-pitched screech answered him as the monster landed on his head. Burning pain ripped through his body as the creature snarled and clawed at his helmet. Horrigan bellowed with fury and pulled the creature away with both hands. Agony coursed through his arms as he held the creature tight, but he refused to let go as he unleashed his fire once again, his wrath fuelling a blazing ball of flame that set the nearest corpses alight from its heat. 

The creature screamed and flailed desperately in his hands, but Horrigan was out for blood. Burning flesh sloughed away and fell to the floor, the creature's struggles slowing until, finally, with a gurgling moan, the creature crumbled to ashes in his hands.

Horrigan lowered his arms and stared at the pile of offal and embers at his feet. The undead monstrosity had been the toughest single being that he had ever fought, but he didn't find himself relishing the challenge of it. Horrigan didn't think of himself as superstitious, but that thing had been an abomination, a grievous crime against the very laws of nature itself. 

Shaking his head to try and clear it, Horrigan turned to speak to the dying soldier, then stopped and sighed, feeling an unpleasant sinking feeling in his gut. More of the creatures were pulling themselves out of the walls, floor, and ceiling, all staring directly at him. Dozens of them. 

Horrigan chuckled grimly and cracked his knuckles. "WELL? DO YOU REALLY THINK THERE'S ENOUGH OF YOU TO BRING ME DOWN?"

The creatures didn't answer. They just kept staring at him, staying perfectly motionless. Horrigan raised his fists and prepared himself for a brutal showdown, when he was distracted by a truly unexpected sight. 

A young woman, barely out of her teens at most, was shuffling awkwardly towards him. She had long black hair that reached to her waist, with gray eyes that peeked out from behind her bangs, but she wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing save for a pale blue necklace that dangled between her breasts. 

"You're Horrigan," she stated in a quiet, gentle voice. 

Horrigan didn't bother asking how she knew his name. Despite being surrounded by unholy nightmare creatures, every instinct he had practically screamed at him that this girl was dangerous. "WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

If the girl was bothered by the volume of his voice, she didn't show it. "I want one of two things," she said calmly. "Either join us, or leave us alone. Since I know you won't willingly join us, yet, I'll give you a gift." She held a hand out towards the dying soldier and the crystal floor beneath him flashed with a golden light. "There. He should live long enough for your doctors to save him. Take him and go. You will not be harmed."

Horrigan considered her words carefully. Under any other circumstances he would have killed her simply for having the temerity to attack Enclave personnel, or even just for being a mutant, but something told him that the Enclave would be better off just accepting her offer, for now. Still, he couldn't leave just yet. "WHAT ABOUT THE TROOPS ON THE SURFACE?"

"I have no interest in those," the girl replied. "Take as much of the magic from outside as you want, but stay out of Raven Rock. This mountain is my domain, now."

Horrigan nodded. He stepped over to the soldier and carefully picked him up, carrying him like a delicate little ragdoll, then walked back out of the room without bothering to look back. Horrigan didn't take kindly to being driven out of anywhere. As soon as the war against the Brotherhood of Steel was over, he intended to gather a proper strike force and come back to show that girl exactly what happened to people who ended up on his shit list. 

Until then, though, he had other things to worry about. Satisfied that he wouldn't be attacked as he backtracked through the mountain, though he couldn't say why he believed the girl at all, Horrigan restrained his magic so he could question the soldier. "Are you awake?"

"Y-yeah," the soldier replied weakly.

"What the hell were you and the surveyors looking for down here?" Horrigan asked.

The soldier coughed and shook his head. "Not surveyors. Con… containment team. Acheson wants… biological specimens that have been exposed to… to magic."

"Acheson." Horrigan growled with irritation. Lieutenant Colonel Strong had told him that Acheson and Senator Lily were messing with things they didn't understand, but this was the first proof of it that he had seen for himself.

The two fell mostly silent for the rest of the trek back to the surface, only speaking every now and again so Horrigan could be sure that the soldier hadn't died yet. 

When they finally reached the surface, Horrigan was surprised to see an officer waiting for him. It wasn't the same one that had met him earlier; this one was older and bore the insignia of a Major. He was also a lot angrier than the other one had been.

"Where the hell have you been?!" The Major snapped when he spotted Horrigan. "You disobeyed a direct order to secure the perimeter!"

"The Lieutenant Colonel's orders were to assist." Horrigan laid the soldier on the ground and waved a medic over. "I'm assisting."

The Major glanced down at the soldier, as if finally noticing him. "Where's the rest of the team?"

"Dead," Horrigan said flatly. "If you don't want to lose any more lives, I'd suggest you tell Acheson to stop sending teams in for specimens."

The Major stiffened, and Horrigan had to wonder if he was one of the officers that the Lieutenant Colonel had mentioned; the one's working for Acheson while doing what they could to undermine the Lieutenant Colonel's authority.

Wisely deciding not to push his luck, the Major cleared his throat and gestured back to a trio of Vertibirds that hadn't been there earlier. "Now that you're back, we can continue with your actual mission."

Horrigan stared down at him in confusion. "What do you mean, my actual mission?"

"I received a secret encoded command directly from Lieutenant Colonel Strong," the Major replied. "You're to be sent out on a top secret mission to assault and hold a fortified position until reinforcements arrive, bringing it back under Enclave control. Full details will be given to you en route."

Horrigan looked from the officer to the Vertibirds. Something wasn't adding up, but he didn't quite know what. "Why wasn't I informed of this earlier."

The Major shrugged. "Hell if I know, soldier. If it were up to me we'd be keeping you here in case any more lunatics show up after the magic in these crystals, but orders are orders."

That much was true, at least. Something still felt off, but Horrigan decided to let it go for now. He could always crack some skulls later if things went South. "Fine. What's our target?"
> Chapter 81 - Unmatched Might
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rarity knocked tentatively on the door of the room she shared with Applejack. When no response was forthcoming, she opened the door and cautiously stuck her head inside. Applejack was sitting on the sofa, her hat in her hands, staring down at the floor. Rarity stepped inside, closed the door and leaned against it in silence. 

"Every time Ah think Ah'm gettin' used to this world, it finds some new way to mess with my head," Applejack said quietly. "Findin' out that there's different versions of our families running around out there was bad, but then Ah saw the other you and Sweetie Belle livin’ safely in Rivet City and Ah figured, y'know, maybe the rest of them are doing okay out there, too." She sighed heavily and tossed her hat onto a side table. "Seeing Maddy like that though, knowing that she's Scootaloo, and knowing all the things she's been through: That just ain't right."

Rarity went over to sit next to Applejack, wrapping her arms around her friend's shoulders. "It's going to be alright, darling. I know this world is a horrible place, but the Apple family are the strongest people I know. I'm sure they're all safe, sound, and happy living wherever this world's version of you happens to be."

"Even her parents?" Applejack asked flatly.
 
Rarity tensed, taken completely off-guard by the question. Feeling her reaction, Applejack sighed and continued in a soft, tremulous whisper, "Ah lost my parents once already. Ah don't think Ah can take losin’ them in this world, too."

Rarity didn't know what to say. She wasn't sure that here was anything to say. All she could do was hold Applejack tight and hope that she knew she wasn't alone. Applejack sighed again and leaned into Rarity, resting her head against Rarity's collar.

The two sat in silence for some time, neither wanting nor needing any company beyond their own. Rarity couldn't help but notice the irony that this was the closest she had ever felt to Applejack, and it was entirely due to circumstances she desperately wished had never occurred.

Eventually, Applejack stirred. "Sorry about this. We're all goin' through the same trouble, Ah shouldn't be dumpin' my problems on you."

"Nonsense, darling. I'll always be here for you," Rarity replied.

"Heh, likewise." Applejack gave a lop-sided smile that set a swarm of butterflies loose in Rarity's stomach. She was suddenly acutely aware of just how close their faces were to each other, and she saw a spark of recognition in Applejack's eyes as she realized the same thing. They stared at each other in a silent mix of nerves and excitement for what could have been second, a minute, or a full day for all either of them knew, before Applejack suddenly swallowed and pulled away. "Uh, Ah should probably take a, uh, whatchamacallit… a shower! That's the one. Ah need a shower."

"O-of course, dear." Rarity reluctantly removed her arms so Applejack could disappear into the bathroom, with perhaps a touch more haste than was strictly necessary, though Rarity hardly blamed her.

As the sound of running water filled the air, Rarity buried her face in a pillow and tried to scream into it as quietly as she could. She and Applejack had almost had a perfect moment there, but the appalling timing of it had nipped it in the bud. It just wasn't fair. Rarity knew she was unlikely to get a true fairytale romance, but surely even in this wretched world the universe could stand to throw her a bone.

With a heavy sigh, Rarity decided that if she couldn't spend her time enjoying the fruits of a flowering relationship, then she would at least get something productive done. Right now, that meant working on her and Applejack's armor. After quickly retrieving both sets from the wardrobe they were stored in, Rarity placed Applejack's on her work table first and considered what needed doing.

The armor itself was surprisingly well-made. It was composed of plates of an advanced polymer that resembled steel, though it was somewhat lighter, with thick padding on the underside for comfort. The Brotherhood of Steel's scribes had already repaired the scrapes it had picked up during the assault on Project Purity. Still, there were always things that could be improved.

Rarity would have dearly loved to paint it all in colors that suited Applejack, but drab grey was certainly more suited to stealth in the local ruins. There was one small concession to form over function that Rarity was willing to make, though. 

Rifling through her drawers, Rarity quickly found the small stash of paint and a brush that she had managed to talk the Brotherhood into giving her. A trio of little red apples painted just over the heart felt like the perfect way to personalize the armor without compromising stealth. Next Rarity did the same thing to her own armor; giving herself a trio of diamonds just over the heart. 

Once that was done, Rarity got to work altering their armor's padding, making minor adjustments so that it would fit just that little bit more comfortably. The work helped to calm her down, even if she did still have trouble getting the fingers of her left hand to cooperate. 

After she had finished making a few final tweaks, Rarity sighed and leaned back to admire her handiwork. It wasn't much, but it would do.

"All finished?" Rarity almost leapt out of her seat when she heard Applejack's voice in her ear. "Er, sorry," Applejack said apologetically. "Ah saw that you were busy so Ah figured Ah'd watch."

"Oh, no, it's fine, dear." Rarity took a deep breath to try and get her thundering heart under control. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Applejack's hair was wet. "I must have been in the zone. I didn't even hear you get out of the shower."

Applejack smirked. "That was a while ago, now. Ah showered, dried and dressed and Ah've been sittin' out here next to you for about an hour now."

Rarity chuckled and shook her head. "Sorry, darling. Here, let me make it up to you by drying your hair for you." As she stood up to suit actions to words, the sudden blaring of a siren made both of the girls jump. 

"What the heck?" Applejack winced at the piercing wailing echoing through the Citadel. "Ah sure hope that's just a fire drill."

Before Rarity could voice her agreement their door was slammed open and a Knight stepped halfway into the room. "Get your armor on, now!" He yelled. "We're under attack from the Enclave!"





Horrigan breathed slowly in and out as he heard the first exchange of gunfire between the Citadel and the Vertibirds. He was clamped safely in the belly of a cargo 'bird, while three gunships bombarded the Citadel, targeting the defence turrets so Horrigan would have less to deal with when he went in. As if he needed the help.

The plan was simple; the Vertibird gunships would thin out the exterior defences, then Horrigan would deploy and secure the courtyard, killing as many of the Brotherhood troops as he could without damaging the Citadel itself too badly. Once he had thoroughly grabbed the attention of the Brotherhood the gunships would drop off their complement of soldiers, who would then sweep the Citadel's interior and hold down the fort until reinforcements could arrive to secure the facility.

Horrigan perked up as his armor's intercom crackled into life. "This is Murderbird 1 to Big Boy, preparing for deployment."

"This is Big Boy, ready when you are," Horrigan replied. He relaxed his body as the pilot counted down, then felt his stomach lurch as the cargo clamps released and dropped him out of the hold.

The ground shook as Horrigan landed heavily on his feet. The dilapidated bulk of the Citadel rose up ahead of him, with the massive steel plate that served as a gate standing directly in his path. With a thought, Horrigan unshackled his magic and allowed it to flow freely through his body.

Laser fire sparked off Horrigan's armor as he approached the gate, bothering him as much as the patter of rain, and about as effective at stopping him. He snorted as someone inside found the presence of mind to fire a rocket at him, but he just shrugged off the hit and chuckled as a Vertibird blew the offender to pieces with its own missiles. More firepower was directed towards Horrigan; the defenders correctly identifying him as the biggest threat, but it was too little, too late.

When Horrigan reached the gate he reached for the bottom and grasped it tightly, easily digging his fingers into the thick metal. He would have preferred to simply smash through it, but that would make the facility much harder to defend later, so instead he raised the gate as high as he could and stepped through. 

When he was through, Horrigan quickly knocked some chunks of masonry from the surrounding walls and kicked it under the gate before lowering it; the masonry holding it up just high enough for the following soldiers to squeeze under. With that done, he stomped down the ruined passageway and smashed his way through the doors at the end.

The courtyard was a scene of organised chaos. Unarmed children and teenagers ran for the doors to the interior while power-armored Knights took up defensive positions, all of them aiming at the gateway. Horrigan got a brief view of the wide training area before he was greeted by a storm of lasers and bullets.

Horrigan huffed a laugh and thrust his arms out, sending a wave of green fire washing over the nearest pair of Knights, but they wisely ducked into cover before he could cook them inside their own armor. Unfortunately for them, the seconds they wasted gathering their wits after the attack was all the time Horrigan needed. 

In just a few quick strides he reached the makeshift barricade they were lurking behind. He smashed it with a swipe of his arm, slamming aside one of the Knights in the process. The remaining Knight yelled in fear and tried to run, but before he could escape Horrigan stamped on his leg, shearing it off at the knee. The Knight's screams of pain were silenced a moment later as Horrigan crushed his skull with a fist.

To the Brotherhood of Steel's credit, the grisly death of the two Knights only seemed to spur the rest of them on; the Knights pouring an ever-increasing quantity of firepower in Horrigan's direction. Grenades exploded all around him even as lasers and bullets sparked and ricocheted off his armor like hailstones. 

Horrigan raised an arm to cover his eyes, more to clear his vision than to actually protect them, when a missile soared from a corner of the courtyard and slammed into him, jarring his shoulder. He grunted and tried to spot the culprit before he could fire again; too many more hits like that and he'd end up pulling a muscle.

As he looked around, Horrigan noticed plasma fire coming from the direction of the gate, targeting the Knights. The soldiers of the strike team had joined the fight and were making their presence felt. The fusillade aimed at Horrigan dwindled as the Brotherhood of Steel were forced to split their fire between him and his backup.

Seeing an opportunity, Horrigan stalked through the courtyard, ignoring the Knights targeting him in favor of those that were distracted by the soldiers; crushing them with his fists or brutally ripping them apart with his magically enhanced strength.

"SCOUR THE INTERIOR. I'LL HANDLE THINGS OUT HERE," Horrigan called out to his soldiers. Before the echoes of his voice faded he felt a heavy impact on his shoulder and a huge explosion knocked him off-balance. Horrigan growled and glared in the direction the shot had come from, quickly spotting his new target; a Knight carrying the hefty frame of a Fat Man.

With practiced ease the Knight stuffed another mini nuke into his weapon; little more than a man-portable hydraulic catapult, before aiming at Horrigan again.

This time, Horrigan was ready. Just as the Knight fired Horrigan dove to the side, the mini nuke soaring past to become someone else's problem. Horrigan used his momentum to roll to his feet and launched himself into a sprint towards the Knight. The Knight quickly reloaded, but before he could raise the Fat Man again Horrigan was on him. Horrigan clamped a hand around the Knight's chest and lifted him effortlessly into the air, then slammed him back-first to the ground hard enough to flatten his armor and leave a shallow crater in the concrete below.

Glancing around for fresh targets, Horrigan spotted a Knight pulling a wounded comrade to his feet, a Super Sledge grasped in her other hand. 

Perfect. 

The Knight saw Horrigan as he approached and shoved her friend away. "Get inside! I'll buy you some time!"

The wounded Knight looked up at Horrigan, his fear evident even through his helmet. "B-but Paladin Cross-"

"Go!" Cross yelled. She gave him one last shove then held her hammer out, pointing it at Horrigan. "I shall be your opponent, monster, but I warn you; as mighty as you are, you shall not walk away from this fight unharmed."

Horrigan snorted. "YOU'RE BRAVE, I'LL GIVE YOU THAT." He rolled his shoulders and raised his fists as he advanced on her. "ALRIGHT, MAGGOT, SHOW ME WHAT YOU'VE GOT."

Cross stepped back and readied her hammer, but before they clashed a nearby wall suddenly exploded outwards and something large flew through the air between them. 

Horrigan watched in blank shock as the Enclave soldier crashed into the ground and carved a twenty yard furrow through the ground before he finally came to a halt, his breastplate crushed beyond repair.

"WHAT THE HELL?" Horrigan turned to see what had launched the soldier, only to grunt in surprise as a thick gemstone smacked into his head. 

"I'd rather hoped we'd never have to see you again, you oversized brute," a young woman with snow-white skin and purple hair said scathingly. Horrigan recognised her as one of the girls from Raven Rock; a Rainboom.

A flash of color and a light impact on the side of Horrigan's head announced the presence of another Rainboom. "Man, you weren't lying about him being huge." A blue girl with rainbow-colored hair appeared next to the white one in the blink of an eye, wearing some impressively sparkly armor and wielding a sword that blazed with blue flame. "You guys handle the mooks, we'll deal with this asshole," she called out. "Pinkie! Crack that shell for me!"

"TRY IT." Horrigan thrust his hands out and sent twin jets of flame arcing towards the girls. The white one raised her hands and a shield of gemstones appeared out of thin air, blocking his fire. By the time it faded, they had both disappeared.

Horrigan growled and looked around the courtyard for the girls. The remaining Knights and soldiers were busy furiously battling it out but, surprisingly, very little fire was directed at Horrigan. It seemed the Knights were foolish enough to do as the Rainboom said. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Horrigan saw another Rainboom, this one entirely pink. Horrigan flinched as she leaned out of a doorway and hurled something at him, then did a double-take as he realized that it was. He stared in confusion as the faintly glowing bottle of Nuka-Cola spun end-over-end through the air and smashed against his breastplate. 

The explosion sent waves of agony pulsing through Horrigan's body. He staggered backwards, swiping smoke from his armor, but thankfully it wasn't damaged beyond some scratches. He snarled and glared at the Rainboom, but as he took a step towards her, a multicolored blur flashed in front of his eyes at the same moment something yanked at his ankle and sent him tumbling to the floor. 

Horrigan looked down at his foot angrily just in time to see a purple glow fading from his ankle. 

"Hold him down, Ah got him!" Horrigan snapped his head up and saw another girl running towards him, her blonde ponytail whipping around her as she ran. For a moment, he wondered what her plan was; she was unarmed, and her only protection was a simple set of old combat armor, but then he spotted the discarded Fat Man lying on the ground just ahead.

"DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT." Horrigan reached out and flattened the Fat Man with his fist, ignoring the muffled detonation of the loaded mini nuke beneath his hand. 

The girl didn't stop. Instead she lunged past Horrigan's outstretched arm and reached back with her own to throw all of her strength into a single punch aimed directly at his face. Horrigan was so surprised at the sheer insanity of it that he didn't bother trying to prevent it; he just waited for the inevitable moment where she shattered her fist against his helmet.

The impact drove all conscious thought from Horrigan's mind. He was vaguely aware of a hollow boom echoing through the courtyard, or maybe just his helmet, and he had a strange sensation of tumbling over, as if up and down were constantly switching places.

When he regained his senses, Horrigan was sitting with his back against the shattered remnants of the courtyard's doors. He shook his head to clear it, then clambered to his feet with a groan. 

"You ain't welcome here, now get!" Horrigan looked up to see a crystal ramp growing out of the ground towards him, with the strong Rainboom sprinting up it. Before he could react the girl swung a mighty hook at his chest.

If anything, the second punch was even worse. Horrigan gasped as raw strength smashed him through the doors, down the passageway and through the giant steel gate at the end, shattered masonry following him as the sounds of devastation filled the air. There was an awful metallic scraping as Horrigan hit the floor and slid along, pulverising rock until he finally ground to a halt.

Horrigan gently rubbed his armored chest. The point where she had punched him throbbed in a way he hadn't felt in years; it was definitely going to leave a bruise. It took Horrigan a moment to realize that he was lying on the remains of the metal plate that formed the Citadel's front gate. The sheer force of the girl's punch, combined with Horrigan's mass, had ripped the front of the building clean off, leaving a cloud of debris and dust in its wake. 

The girl herself appeared a second later, charging out of the dust cloud like a barbarian queen on a rampage. Horrigan would have grinned if he could; he finally had a reason to put in some actual effort. 

With a quick flex, Horrigan rolled back over his own shoulder onto his feet, scraping his hand along the ground and flicking chunks of stone and grit at the girl in one smooth motion. The girl rolled aside to avoid the attack and leaped at him, kicking off his outstretched arm and driving her knee into his face, snapping his head around. Horrigan twisted with the impact so it didn't knock him senseless again.

Horrigan chuckled as the girl landed and whipped around to face him. "YOU'RE GOOD. BUT YOU'RE NO SOLDIER." 

The girl winced at the volume of his voice, but didn't drop her guard for an instant. "Yeah? Well Ah suggest you get the heck out of here or you're gonna be a dead soldier."

"NOT LIKELY." Horrigan dove into a commando roll, then as he rolled to his feet he kicked off the ground and leapt into the air, raising his hand above his head. 

The girl yelped and scrambled away, barely getting out of the way as Horrigan landed and punched a clean hole in the rock where she had been standing a split-second ago. Without pausing he ripped his hand from the ground and flung a chunk of stone at her, forcing the girl to drop to her belly to avoid it.

"GOT YOU!" Horrigan pounced on the girl before she could recover, wrapping a hand around her back and lifting her up easily. The girl tried to pry his fingers open, swearing and kicking wildly the whole time, but it was futile. 

"YOU'RE STRONG." Horrigan raised his other hand as if he was about to clap. "I'M STRONGER." He chuckled as he swung his hands together. As he had hoped, the girl got her legs up in time to stop herself from being squashed, but that left her sandwiched between his hands like a recalcitrant puppy. Now it was time to put her in her place.

The girl's eyes widened as Horrigan started to squeeze, pitting his magical strength against hers. A strange necklace around the girl's neck glowed as they struggled. Horrigan watched with mild curiosity as the girl sprouted little animal ears and her hair lengthened, but it made little difference. Slowly but surely, the girl was going to be crushed.

The girl had given up on trying to pry Horrigan's fingers open; her whole focus was on using her legs to keep his hands apart. He could have easily just squashed her like an overripe fruit with the hand that held her, but he wanted to prove that he was mightier than her. He wanted to see the look in her eyes, in the last second before her legs gave out, when she knew without a doubt that she was going to die.

"Applejack!" A huge gemstone smacked into Horrigan's side, but it wasn't enough to budge him. There was a flash of multicolored light and, the next thing Horrigan knew, the blue Rainboom was standing on his shoulders, trying to dig her sword into his eyes. She was barely even scratching his helmet's lenses.

"SO, YOUR NAME IS APPLEJACK." Horrigan laughed as her legs shook against his strength. "I'LL BE SURE TO CARVE IT ON YOUR GRAVESTONE." Just a few more seconds and her strength would fail, then she'd be little more than a grease stain between his hands. After that, he'd rip the blue one apart before she could escape. The rest of the Rainbooms could be destroyed at his leisure. 

Applejack screamed as her knees started to buckle. Her necklace grew brighter until it shone like a miniature sun, it's magic straining against Horrigan's. Something clambered up Horrigan's back, but he ignored it. Nothing could stop him now. 

"Get back!" There was a sudden fizzing crackle behind Horrigan's helmet and his whole body lurched, his strength gone in an instant. Applejack dropped from his grasp as he slumped down to his knees.

"A pulse grenade?" Horrigan huffed. He flexed his arms and clambered to his feet, already feeling his strength coming back. Glancing around for the girls, he spotted them sprinting back into the Citadel, accompanied by a girl with amber skin and red and yellow hair who was half-dragging Applejack along. She must have been the one who shoved the pulse grenade into his neck joint. "RUN ALL YOU WANT. IT WON'T SAVE YO-"

A colossal explosion knocked Horrigan off his feet, sending him sprawling sideways on the battered ground.

"DEMOCRACY IS NON-NEGOTIABLE." A massive humanoid robot, easily three times Horrigan's height, was stomping up the road towards the Citadel. 

"LIBERTY PRIME." Horrigan scrambled to his feet and raised his fists. "FINALLY, A REAL FIGHT."

Liberty responded by reaching around to its back and pulling out another nuke. Horrigan waited until the robot hurled the bomb, then twisted to the side and plucked it out of the air as it sailed past, but before he had time to even try to throw it back a blue laser arced from Liberty Prime's eyes and crashed into the nuke. The blast pitched Horrigan into the dirt once again.

More lasers struck Horrigan as he stood. They weren't anywhere near as powerful as Applejack's fists, but they packed enough of a wallop that he could feel it even through his armor.

"DAMN YOU!" Horrigan charged at the robot, determined to rip it to pieces. Liberty targeted his head with its lasers, forcing Horrigan to hold an arm in front of his face to protect his eyes, then tripped as the robot instantly switched to target his feet. He managed to avoid falling, but the moment's distraction allowed Liberty to sidestep Horrigan's bull-charge and grab the back of his armor. 

Horrigan felt his stomach lurch as he was hurled bodily through the air. He rolled as he landed on broken tarmac, using his momentum to get back to his feet, only to be greeted by another nuke to the chest. 

Warning signals popped up in Horrigan's vision as he was slammed backwards. He ignored them. Raising his head quickly, Horrigan swore and rolled to the side to avoid yet another bomb. The blast washed over Horrigan's armor, making his magic fizz and spark, but it was far more bearable than a direct hit.

Horrigan tried to push himself to his feet, then cried out in pain as pinpoint laser strikes caught him right on the joint where his spine met his cybernetic legs. 

"YOU BASTARD!" Horrigan roared. He surged to his feet and whipped around to face Liberty. The robot was advancing and firing relentlessly, but a quick glance revealed that it had tossed him into an old parking lot. 

As Liberty paused to ready another nuke, Horrigan dove sideways and rolled to screw with its aim, then leapt over an abandoned car for good measure. The moment his feet touched the ground he grabbed the car with one fist, then spun around and hurled it like a frisbee. 

Liberty blew the car to pieces with its lasers before it even got close, but Horrigan had been anticipating it. He threw himself into another charge using the smoke from the blast as cover. 

Horrigan barely managed three steps before a nuke flew through the smoke and struck him directly in the face.

Pain coursed through Horrigan's body. Warning signals and error messages flashed across his vision, distorted by static. He dismissed them and tried to get his bearings, realizing that he was face down in the dirt again, but before he could try to stand up a massive hand grabbed his leg. Horrigan cried out as Liberty Prime hoisted him into the air like a ragdoll and slammed him back into the ground, then almost casually tossed him aside.

More laser-fire pounded Horrigan where he lay. He tried to move, to climb to his feet or even just raise his arms, but he didn't have any strength left. The various warning signals were rapidly disappearing as his armor's systems shut themselves down, leaving him unable to do anything but lay there and stare up at the sky. The ground shook beneath thunderous treads, and after a few seconds Liberty Prime loomed over Horrigan.

The two stared at each other for a moment; Enclave-manufactured cybernetics gazing up at the apex of ancient US military engineering, and for the first time since he had been a child, kneeling before the violent drunk that passed for his father, Horrigan felt truly helpless.

Slowly, deliberately, Liberty Prime retrieved another nuke from its back and held it, as if it were about to spike a football. "COMMUNISM IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF FAILURE."

Horrigan felt the impact that followed reverberating through his very bones. His vision was swimming, but with the last of his strength he glared up at the robot and growled, "This... isn't... over. Next time… I'll… rip you apart."

Liberty Prime tilted its head curiously, then glanced over its shoulder, almost as if it were checking for witnesses, then it looked back down at Horrigan. "NO. YOU WON'T."

Liberty Prime raised its foot, and Horrigan had a brief, absurd glimpse of the Statue of Liberty imprinted on the bottom before the foot slammed down on his head, and darkness claimed him.
> Chapter 82 - Repercussions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset stood in the middle of the Citadel's Great Hall, her chin raised and her hands clasped firmly behind her back as she stared down the assembled leaders of the Brotherhood of Steel. Rainbow Dash was standing next to her, providing both moral support and, worryingly, one of her only real allies in the room. Elder Lyons, Scribe Rothchild and Star Paladin Cross rounded out the rest of the people Sunset felt she could trust; four people in a group of twenty.

"Is this how we're treating our allies now?" Elder Lyons growled. "Dragging them before a tribunal after they help save all of our lives?" 

Paladin Bergen, a gaunt man with brutally short black hair and an apparently permanent sneer, snorted and shook his head. "They may have attempted to help us, but the way they went about it, not to mention the decision made by Miss Shimmer and yourself in the immediate aftermath of the Enclave's assault, Elder, must be called into question."

"I don't see that the Elder has to answer to any of us," Cross put in.

"Uh, I'm pretty sure he does when his decisions risk the survival of the whole Brotherhood," Paladin Stark countered.

Elder Lyons threw him a glare. "Every decision I make I make for the good of the Brotherhood," he growled. 

"That may be so, but the Rainbooms are not so concerned with Brotherhood matters, are they?" Bergen said darkly.

"What exactly is that supposed to mean?" Rainbow shot.

Bergen gave her a piercing look. "Don't pretend that you and your friends have any real interest in helping the Brotherhood of Steel; all you girls want is to use us to find yourselves a way home, then you'll abandon us and the rest of the wasteland to our fate."

Sunset scowled at him. He wasn't wrong about her planning to get the hell away from the wasteland as soon as physically possible and never look back, but he was greatly misreading her if he thought she didn't give a damn about the people who lived here. "That's funny, because the last I checked we've done a whole bunch of stuff to help the Brotherhood."

"Oh really?" Bergen replied doubtfully. "Perhaps you could regale us with some of these exploits?"

Scribe Rothchild snorted. "Bringing us accurate intelligence about the Enclave and their dealings, assisting us in acquiring the equipment necessary for Project Purity to function, helping to discover the source of the Super Mutant infestation in the Capital Wasteland, improving Liberty Prime's programming, do I really need to continue? Or would you prefer an itemized list?"

Several of the people present murmured in surprise, looking at Rainbow and Sunset as if they saw them in a new light. "I never knew about all that," one of the Scribes muttered a little too loudly.

Elder Lyons smiled grimly. "Of course you didn't, we don't hide what they do, but we don't exactly shout about it, either. Would you rather I gather everyone and give an official announcement every time the Rainbooms do something nice for us?" 

"You don't need to announce their input this time," Bergen cut in. "I doubt there's many people who haven't noticed the gaping hole they left in our defences now that the gate is destroyed."

"We've already offered to help with repairs," Sunset told him.

Bergen slapped a hand on the tabletop. "And what do we do until the repairs are finished, hm? What happens if the Enclave launches another attack while we're vulnerable?"

"The Enclave won't attack the Citadel again," Cross said confidently.

"How can you be so sure?" Paladin Stark asked.

Cross smiled grimly. "Our defence turrets were strong enough to destroy or drive off their Vertibirds. The only reason we had any difficulty at all fending off their attack was because of Horrigan, and we have already proven that even he is not unbeatable."

"That brings me to my main point." Bergen glared at Sunset. "Why did you suggest calling off Liberty Prime and allowing the Enclave to recover what was left of Horrigan?" He turned to snarl at the Elder. "And why the hell did you authorize it?!"

"Watch your tone!" Cross snapped.

Elder Lyons held up a hand. "It's alright, this must be addressed." He clasped his hands on the table and looked around at the others. "The reason I allowed the Enclave to reclaim Horrigan was because Sunset suggested to me, and I agreed, that the Exodus team, the Enclave faction that houses Horrigan, would not have ordered this attack." Lyons coughed and cleared his throat. "It is likely that the primary leaders of the Enclave ordered the assault without the Exodus team's knowledge. Allowing the Exodus team to recover Horrigan is, shall we say, an act of faith."

Most of the people present stared at the Elder in blank shock. Bergen rubbed at his temples in frustration. "An act of faith. Are you fucking insane?!"

"That's enough, Bergen!" Elder Lyons snapped. "The Exodus team is not hostile to us, and may in future prove to be valuable allies. I won't throw that away just yet."

Paladin Stark raised an eyebrow. "Allies in the Enclave? It's an entertaining fantasy, but how can we be sure that they aren't just playing us for fools?"

"Because they're led by this world's versions of me and Twilight," Sunset replied.

As the room digested that little revelation, Rainbow patted Flashburn and said grimly, "Besides, I'm going to be paying them a visit to see what the hell is going on. If they've betrayed us, I'll kill them all myself."





Pinkie currently found herself in the rather unusual position of being the most calm, collected and, frankly, the sanest person in the room. She was standing in a store room just off the infirmary with Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy and Twilight. They would have been in the infirmary itself, but so many Knights had been wounded in the battle that there simply wasn't enough space to house mental traumas as well as physical ones.

Applejack was sitting on an upturned bucket with her head in her hands, trying to relax after her ordeal at Horrigan's hands. Rarity was rubbing Applejack's back and whispering encouragement in her ear, all the while visibly restraining herself from vilifying the Brotherhood medics for something that she knew was beyond their control.

Twilight was slumped in her wheelchair, mumbling to herself and alternating between childish giggling and despondent sobbing; utterly dosed out of her mind on whatever painkillers the medics had been able to spare. Twilight wasn't even supposed to have been involved in the fight, but she had spotted Horrigan through a fresh hole in the wall and used her magic to assist the others against him. Now she was paying the price for it in pain.

That just left Fluttershy. 

Pinkie winced as she looked over at Fluttershy, curled up in a ball in the corner and trying to take deep breaths through a clean hand towel. The sounds and smells of battle had awakened her FEV-induced bloodlust, and it was about all she could do not to vamp out and end up going on another rampage. Not that the Brotherhood knew about that; their tolerance of Fluttershy's mutation was stretched enough already.

"How are you feeling?" Pinkie asked tentatively.

Fluttershy shook her head slowly. "Better, to an extent, but I still feel…" She pinched the bridge of her nose and mumbled through the towel. "At least this is helping to mask the smell of blood."

Pinkie blinked in surprise. "You can still smell blood even from here?"

"Yeah." Fluttershy coughed and hissed angrily. "I… I'd take some blood if I could, but the medics will need it all for the wounded."

"How many are there?" Pinkie glanced around to see Applejack looking up at her with bloodshot eyes. "How many people were hurt?"

"You don't have to worry about that," Rarity said softly. 

"Thirty dead, four in critical condition and seventeen injured," Twilight replied, as if she was reading off an inventory, earning a scorching glare from Rarity. 

"There would have been a lot more if we hadn't stepped in," Pinkie said earnestly. 

Fluttershy nodded. "We… we did good."

Rarity gave the young nurse an uneasy look. "Perhaps, but I think we can do better by finding a way to help you. Isn't there anything we can do to make things a little easier?"

"Um, not really. Don't worry I'll be…" Fluttershy frowned as a thought occurred to her. 

"Anything that stops you from going bitey helps us as well, so just spill it, Flutterbat," Pinkie said firmly.

"F-Flutterbat?!" Fluttershy looked at her in blank shock, but Pinkie stared her down until she finally relented. "Well, um, there is something that might help, but we'd have to travel across the wasteland for it, and I know we can't spare anyone from here to do that."

Pinkie cocked her head to the side. "Why don't me and you go together, then? Just the two of us."

Fluttershy just blinked dumbly, as if the thought had never occurred to her. "Um, are you sure? 

"Not a chance, it's way too dangerous," Applejack cut in.

"Well we have to do something!" Pinkie retorted. 

Rarity glanced uneasily at each of them in turn, then groaned and rubbed her forehead. "I imagine I'm going to regret this, but I'll go with them and make sure they don't get into any trouble. What exactly was it you wanted to do?"

Fluttershy dropped the towel and bit her lip nervously. "Um, I want to speak to the Family."





Squire Peters looked around the entrance to the Citadel in amazement. She had been given the task of helping the more experienced Knights assess the damage and see what repairs were needed, but things were worse than expected. 

The gate was the most obvious issue. For a start, it had a massive dent in it. A team of power-armored Knights were already struggling to straighten it out, but even if they succeeded, the whole entranceway had been ripped away by whatever had smashed the gate off. They weren't getting that thing back in place anytime soon. 

Peters found herself hoping that what the Knights were saying wasn't true; that all of this damage had been caused by a single punch from Applejack. She had been way too rude to the Rainbooms to be comfortable with that bullshit.

"How the hell are they so powerful?" Peters looked around as Squire Maxson stepped up alongside her. "I know all of this magic can do some pretty freaky stuff, but those Rainbooms are on a whole other level."

Peters nodded. "Yeah, no shit." She glanced back at the mangled gate, then shivered and turned away. 

The other scars of the battle weren't any prettier. As Peters and Maxson walked around the outskirts of the Citadel, they couldn't help but cringe at the extent of the damage. Craters, smouldering debris and scorch marks marred the ground, and there were tiny scattered streaks of glass formed from dust caught in the heat and pressure of the nuclear blasts. On top of that, the area was irradiated enough that everyone who ventured outside had been given a dose of Rad-X to keep them from getting ill just from preparing the cleanup operation.

"Liberty Prime really is amazing," Maxson said proudly. He was looking around at the carnage as if it were the mark of some heroic victory, not the results of a deathmatch between two monstrous demigods of destruction.

"I'm more worried about what Prime was facing," Peters said flatly. "Anything that can take that much of a beating and keep swinging is something I don't wanna meet."

Maxson snorted. "That thing is dead, it didn't even stand a chance against Liberty Prime. Nothing does."

"If you say so," Peters replied quietly. She had a sneaking suspicion that there were more creatures out there that were just as capable of taking on a giant robot, but she held her tongue. Maxson was still a kid, he didn't deserve to have the shit kicked out of him by reality just yet.

As they were inspecting the area, the two Squires spotted Fawkes helping to clear away some of the debris, protected from the radiation by his mutation. Maxson grimaced as he saw him. "I can't believe we're getting help from that."

Peters shrugged. "He freaked me out a bit too, at first, but he's decent." Truth be told, Peters was glad to have Fawkes on her side. Any strong body that was willing to help her rather than sticking something in her or ripping something off her was a valuable ally in her books; she wasn't about to be picky about what they looked like.

Maxson, apparently, had other ideas. "It's disgusting. We ought to have put him down on sight, just like the rest of his kind."

"Huh?" Peters stared at Maxson in surprise. "What's wrong with Fawkes?" 

"He's an abomination," Maxson spat. "Those monsters don't deserve to exist."

Peters raised an eyebrow. "What gives you the right to decide that?" She asked coldly.

Maxson scowled at her. "We're Squires and trueborn humans, and if that isn't enough for you, I'm the descendant of the legendary Roger Maxson, the founder of the Brotherhood of Steel."

"So you've got the right because you were shat out of the right pussy?" Peters shot, prompting a shocked look from Maxson. "News flash, you little shit, most of the people in the wasteland aren't as lucky as you. You can bet your ass that Fawkes didn't choose to end up like that. The only difference between you, me, and him is pure luck."

"I would never let myself become a monster like that," Maxson hissed.

"You might not have a choice." Peters crossed her arms and looked around at the devastation. "I didn't, back when I became a raider."

"What?!" Maxson gave her a shocked look. "You were a raider?!"

Peters just shrugged again. "My parents died and they were the only ones who would take me in. If I had any other option I would have taken it; life with them was shit. Every time some asshole decided they wanted a piece of me, I had to figure out whether it was safer to fight them off or just open my legs and let them get it over with. Sometimes I picked wrong." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "The only reason I'm here now is because the Rainbooms found me and patched me up after things got seriously fucked, then they sent me to Three Dog, then he put in a good word for me with the Brotherhood. I got lucky, same as every other fucker in here."

Without another word, Peters turned and walked back to the entrance, leaving Maxson to his thoughts.





Becky hurried through the corridors of Project Exodus, her thoughts racing. An aide had found her a few minutes ago and told her that Horrigan was back, but that something had gone very, very wrong.

As she turned a corner to one of the decontamination rooms, Becky spotted Andrew standing outside there, staring at the door. "Andrew? What's happened? What's going on?"

Andrew looked around, and Becky stopped in her tracks at the expression of cold fury on his face. "We've been betrayed."

Becky's eyes widened. "Wha- betrayed?! By who? What ha-"

The sound of the door opening cut her off mid-sentence. One of the technicians stepped out and held the door open for them. "Okay, we've managed to decontaminate him and he's in the cargo inspection room now. It doesn't look good."

Andrew nodded and swept through without a word. Becky spared a moment to thank the technician before following the Lieutenant Colonel, a hundred different horrible scenarios running through her head. The two rushed through a series of observation rooms until they arrived at the cargo inspection room. Tara and Sienna were already there, both wearing simple grey uniforms instead of their usual lab coats, but the space was dominated by Horrigan's body.

Horrigan was sprawled face up on a huge flatbed cargo cart, with a tangle of wires and cables connecting him to a set of portable terminals. His armor was a mess; much of the paint had been burned away, it was covered in dents and scratches, and there were small patches where the metal was oddly dimpled from exposure to extreme heat.

"Oh my god," Becky whispered.

Tara looked around as she realized that the two were there. "Hey, sorry it took so long to let you in, he was covered in a lot of radioactive debris."

"What the hell happened to him?!" Becky asked. "Andrew said we were betrayed, but how? And by who?"

Andrew crossed his arms, his expression turning darker by the second. "Acheson. He faked a secret order from me to make Horrigan join a strike team he had put together. They tried to assault the Citadel."

"What?!" Becky ran her eye over Horrigan's damaged armor again. "So all of this must have been done by Liberty Prime, or do you think it was the Rainbooms?"

"The Rainbooms may have had a hand in the fight, but the reports indicate Liberty Prime did most of it," Andrew replied.

Becky glanced sidelong at him. "What reports? How do you know about all of this anyway?"

Andrew's jaw tightened. "The surviving Vertibird fled here after the assault failed. The pilots told me everything. Apparently, the plan was for Horrigan to hold the Citadel's exterior while the Vertibirds contacted us for reinforcements to clear out and secure the interior. Major Owen, Acheson's lackey, was planning on using it as a way to scatter the Brotherhood of Steel and discredit me in one fell swoop."

"How would taking the Citadel discredit you?" Sienna asked.

"I've been arguing against using Horrigan to attack the Citadel or Liberty Prime," Andrew replied tightly. "If their plan had worked, they would have proved that I was wrong."

"Instead they ended up proving you right," Becky finished. She stepped up alongside Horrigan and laid a hand on his breastplate. There was a fist-sized dent just over his heart, making her wonder if Applejack had gotten involved in the fight. If so, Becky hoped she wasn't hurt. "Is Horrigan… dead?"

Tara shook her head. "That's the scary part. According to the logs of his life support systems he's some nasty bruising, and a cracked rib under that dent by your hand, but aside from that he's perfectly fine."

"Really?" Becky gestured vaguely at Horrigan's prone form. "Then why's he like this?"

"The chip I put in his brain shut down his armor's systems and slowed his life signs to negligible levels," Tara replied. "Some sort of self-preservation protocol, one I did not program into him, I promise you."

Andrew raised an eyebrow. "Okay, that is kinda scary. This bastard is even tougher than I thought."

"I really don't think that this is the scary part," Sienna put in. In response to everyone's querulous looks, she rolled her eyes and said, "What I find scary is the fact that, as far as the Brotherhood of Steel and the Rainbooms know, we just sent Horrigan to attack them with a strike force. How long until they retaliate?"

Becky's blood ran cold. "Surely they must know that we wouldn't do that.?"

"I don't know," Andrew replied. "They left Horrigan's body for us to pick up, but we don't know if that was deliberate or if they were more interested in shoring up their defences and bracing for another assault than taking him in."

Becky shivered and leaned against Horrigan. Liberty Prime would be a problem, but at least it wouldn't be able to harm the facility below ground. The Rainbooms, on the other hand, were a different matter. The large hole in the roof had finally been sealed, but the elevator shafts would pose no obstacle to Rainbow Dash, and if she chose to strike first and ask questions later, then the Exodus team would be facing a slaughter.

Repressing another shiver, Becky looked up at Tara. "Can we wake Horrigan up?"

"Sure." Tara typed in a command on one of the terminals. A few seconds later Horrigan's joints glowed with a soft green light again, but the big guy himself didn't move.

Sienna gently tapped his helmet. "Horrigan? It's Sienna, can you hear me?"

Silence reigned for several long moments, until finally he answered quietly, "Yeah."

Becky let out a breath that she hadn't realized she was holding. "Shit, you had me worried there for a minute. How are you feeling?"

"Not good," Horrigan replied flatly.

"I'm not surprised, you just picked a fight with a walking superweapon," Sienna huffed.

Andrew stepped up to Horrigan's head and looked down at him. "Sorry to pester you when you've just woken up, soldier, but I need to know who gave you the order to assault the Citadel."

Horrigan slowly turned his head to look up at the Lieutenant Colonel. "A Major. I don't know his name. You didn't give secret orders, did you?" Andrew shook his head. "I didn't think so."

"If you didn't think so, then why the hell did you follow them?" Becky asked incredulously. 

Horrigan gave a half-hearted shrug. "We're at war with the Brotherhood, so I figured I'd go with it. Taking the Citadel seemed like a good idea, and if the orders were really fake then I could squash the traitor afterwards."

Andrew sighed and shook his head. "Well, you'll get your chance to do just that soon enough, but for now I want you to get some rest."

"No, I can still fight." Horrigan shifted his weight and tried to pick himself up. "There's a traitor that needs seeing to."

Sienna planted her hands on her hips and glared down at him. "That can wait, now stop struggling and lay your ass back down on that cart. Now." Horrigan looked up at her, then, to the amazement of the others, sighed and did as he was told. "Good. You're going to stay put until I say you can stand up, and when I say you can stand up, you are going to march down to your room, we're going to hook you up to your repair station, and you are going to stay there until I say otherwise. Is that clear?"

"Yes, doc," Horrigan replied quietly.

Sienna nodded and stroked his helmet gently. "Don't worry. The moment we've fixed you up you can get back on your feet and get back to work, okay?" She said softly.

Becky stared at Sienna with a mix of awe and fear, wondering how the hell the snarky doctor had managed to cow Horrigan of all people. Shaking her head, she turned her attention to more important matters. "Right, now that that's sorted, I think we've got a message to send as soon as possible. Where's ED-E?"





Technicians, administrators, and power-armored soldiers alike hurried to get out of Senator Lily's way as she stormed towards Acheson's workshop. There were few people in the Enclave who were willing to draw her attention when she was annoyed, and right now she was downright seething.

Spotting her destination ahead, Lily picked up the pace and slammed the door open without knocking. Acheson and his new assistant, some wasteland scientist called Anna, looked over in surprise. Acheson was wearing some sort of bizarre electrical contraption, while Anna was apparently taking notes. 

Acheson huffed when he saw who had so rudely entered his domain. "Senator. Would you kindly try not to make so much noise when you walk through my door?"

Lily stalked over to him. "What the fuck did you think you were doing?!"

"You're going to have to be a little more specific if you want a proper answer," Acheson replied calmly.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about!" Lily hissed. "Why the hell did you send Horrigan to the Citadel? Under false pretences, no less! I thought we had an agreement; leave Project Exodus alone!"

Acheson smirked at her. "I did leave Project Exodus alone. I simply made proper use of an asset that they had."

"On a gambit that failed!" Lily snapped. "Damn it, you old coot, now Project Exodus is defenceless!"

"You're just as old as I am, even if you don't look it, so don't try and throw that at me," Acheson grumbled. "As for my gambit, it actually worked perfectly." He chuckled softly. "Well, there wasn't any likely outcome where it could fail, really."

Lily's brow knotted as she put together what he was saying. "I want an explanation. Right now."

Acheson rolled his eyes. "Oh, very well. It's quite simple. If Horrigan successfully secured the Citadel, which, I might remind you, was once a government building and therefore ours by right, then finishing off the Brotherhood would be a trifling matter." He rolled his shoulders to settle his equipment more comfortably. "Destroying Liberty Prime would have been an added bonus."

"We already have a plan for destroying Liberty Prime," Lily cut in.

"Yes, but the satellite won't be prepared for a few days, yet," Acheson replied. "Besides, Horrigan's downfall is no great loss. If, or rather, when the Brotherhood of Steel retaliates against Project Exodus, they'll do everything in their power to avoid damaging any of the facility's infrastructure After all, the Rainbooms and the Brotherhood want that research as much as we do. Once we've dealt with Liberty Prime, retaking Project Exodus will be simple enough, and that way we'll have dealt with both the Brotherhood of Steel and those elements of the Enclave that won't fall in line."

"The ones that won't follow you, you mean," Lily shot.

Acheson shrugged. "Call it what you want, but when the dust settles I'll finally be the one in charge."

Lily snarled at him. "Do you really think I'm just going to let you get away with going behind my back on this?"

"You will if you want to see another day," Acheson growled.

Anna backed away as the two of them glared at each other, both of them practically daring the other to make the first move. Acheson was bigger and more muscular, not to mention whatever benefit the equipment he was wearing gave him, but he didn't know about the dark necklace that Lily was currently wearing beneath her uniform.

Eventually, just as Acheson's lip was beginning to curl, Lily scowled and turned away. "Project Exodus will not fall to the Brotherhood of Steel. I'll see to that personally."

Acheson snorted. "Feel free. The less fools there are around here to get under my feet the better."

Lily ignored the jab and strode out of the workshop. If she wanted to keep Project Exodus on track, and by extension her own plans, then she had a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it in.
> Chapter 83 - Road Trip
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy double-checked her nursing kit as she stepped out into the Citadel's courtyard. The rest of the Rainbooms were already gathered near the entranceway, or at least what was left of it. All of them, save for Applejack and Twilight, were wearing their armor and carrying their packs. The girls nodded in greeting as Fluttershy approached.

"Morning, Fluttershy. Are you ready to go?" Pinkie asked. 

Fluttershy nodded slowly. "I think so." 

"Are y'all sure about this?" Applejack asked anxiously. "Remember how dangerous things are out there, this ain't gonna be easy."

"We're well aware, darling," Rarity replied grimly. "I was hoping that Fawkes would be able to come with us but, as much as I hate to say it, bringing him along might cause more problems than it solves." 

"I tried asking Elder Lyons if he could send Cross or one of the other Knights with you, but with everything that's happened they just don't have anyone to spare," Sunset added. "Especially with their obligations to Rivet City."

Rarity sighed and shook her head. "Not to worry, darling. I'm sure we'll manage. We're certainly not as naïve as we were the first time we crossed the wastes."

Rainbow rubbed her neck awkwardly. "I wish I could come with you. I don't feel comfortable leaving you three to go all the way back to Arefu on your own."

"We'll be fine, don't worry," Pinkie said confidently. "You are the one who should be careful; going back to Project Exodus could be a really really bad idea."

"Maybe, but I don't think so," Rainbow replied. "I get the feeling there's a lot more going on behind the scenes of the Enclave than we know about. Hopefully I can find out more today."

Sunset ran a hand through her hair. "I'd go with you if I could, but I'm still needed at Rivet City. As soon as the next patrol gets back we'll be heading straight there."

"And that just leaves me and Twilight helpin' to fix all of the damage here." Applejack looked around uncomfortably, then took her hat off and held it over her chest as she addressed Sunset, "Speakin' of what happened, Ah didn't get a chance to thank you for savin' me. Y'know, from the, uh… the big guy."

"Don't mention it," Sunset said with a faint blush. "I'm just glad I was able to swipe a pulse grenade from one of the Enclave soldiers without him noticing."

"Yeah, me too," Applejack replied fervently. "And Ah'm doubly glad you paid attention when the Knights told you what a pulse grenade was and how to use it." She plonked her hat on again and looked around at each of the girls. "Well, Ah guess we're all splittin' up again. Y'all look after yourselves, you hear me? That goes double for you three."

Rarity nodded. "We'll be careful, darling, I promise." 

Pinkie nodded and hefted her pickaxe, resting it over her shoulder like a miner on the way to work. "Okay, let's get this show on whatever is left of the road."

"Alright, I'll see you all later." Rainbow gave them one last nod before ponying up and launching herself into the air. 

"I suppose that's our cue to leave," Rarity said without any enthusiasm. "Tata for now, darlings."

Fluttershy followed Pinkie and Rarity as they headed out of the Citadel. Dark clouds were gathering overhead, heavy with the threat of a morning downpour, but Rarity had already promised to provide a gemstone umbrella again should it prove necessary. 

As they stepped outside the Citadel, Pinkie pointed to a ruined old bridge to the North. "Rainbow says she found a raider camp under there when she was out looking for you, Fluttershy. We should probably avoid it if we don't want any trouble."

Rarity nodded. "I heartily agree. I would suggest heading into the ruins to the east and going through the metro to Galaxy News, but I don't particularly fancy squaring off against hordes of Super Mutants and feral ghouls again." She hummed and looked around thoughtfully. "I think our best bet would be to head into the ruins to the West."

"The ones we crossed on the way to Vault 87?" Fluttershy asked.

"Exactly, only this time instead of crossing them we'll just go far enough to avoid the bridge, then curve back around to the North and follow the river," Rarity replied. "That should take us at least most of the way to Meresti Station."

With their path set, the girls headed into the ruins. Climbing the treacherous mounds of debris would be extremely difficult for ordinary people, but Rarity's magic made things much easier. Fluttershy decided against ponying up and flying herself around; her teeth were itching as it was after the previous day's battle, and she didn't have enough spare blood packs to sate her thirst.

Once the girls were a small way into the ruins they changed course and shifted around to the North, alternating between picking their way through old buildings and using gems as stepping stones across impassable debris. Soon enough, the bridge, and the raider camp, were left behind, and the girls descended once more to the ground.

As they followed the riverbank, the three kept their eyes and ears peeled for danger. Fluttershy could faintly hear gunfire on the far side of the river, deep in the downtown D.C. ruins, but it was far enough away that it wasn't worth worrying about.

After a short and, thankfully, uneventful trek, the three came across a large makeshift house made of corrugated iron. Fluttershy could just make out a single steady heartbeat on the other side of the building. To her surprise, the heartbeat turned out to be that of a wrinkled old woman, sitting and looking aimlessly around; a perfect picture of serene calm. 

The old woman blinked in apparent surprise when she saw the girls, then smiled brightly at them. "Well, lookit' this! You mus' be them Rainbooms I've heard so much about on the radio."

"Well, we're some of them, at least," Rarity replied. "I'm Rarity, and these are Pinkie Pie-"

"Hiya!"

"-and Fluttershy." Fluttershy gave a small wave as she was introduced.

"Well ain't that jus' somethin'!" The old woman grinned. "I'm Grandma Sparkle, it's a pleasure meetin' you."

"The pleasure is all ours," Rarity said politely. "It's nice to meet someone out here who isn't trying to kill us. What are you doing out here?"

Grandma Sparkle gestured vaguely to the river. "I'm jus' waitin' for my boys. They're out huntin' 'Lurks; finest meat you can get, and it don't move around in your stomach like mole rat does." She looked curiously at the girls. "So what brings you young ladies all the way out here to Will'im's Wharf?"

"Sorry, Grandma, we're just passing through today, "Pinkie replied. "We're on our way to Arefu."

"Don' let me keep you, then," Grandma Sparkle said with a nod. "It's always best to finish your travels 'fore nightfall, else you might run into somethin' nasty. Go on, now, and look after yourselves out there, y'hear?"

"And you, dear," Rarity replied. Grandma Sparkle smiled and waved at the girls, who returned the gesture until they found an old road to follow and passed out of sight.

The road was in surprisingly good condition, and followed the curve of the river closely, allowing the girls to make good time on it. Some time after they left Grandma Sparkle they found the buildings around them becoming smaller and more spaced out, until finally they left the D.C. ruins behind altogether. 

Heading out across the wastes, the road continued on towards a single large building in the distance. It wasn't until they got closer that the girls recognized it. 

"Hey, that's the Super Duper Mart!" Pinkie said brightly.

Fluttershy squinted as she checked the building. The large windows on the front of the store were absolutely filthy, but she could just about see people moving around inside. "It looks like it's occupied. What should we do?"

Rarity pointed to the side of the building. "I think we should go around the back. I'd rather not risk running into trouble unless we absolutely have to, and frankly any new people we meet are just as likely to attack us as they are to talk to us."

Fluttershy nodded. "Around the back, then."

Suiting actions to words, the girls took care to stay out of sight as they hurried around to the back of the building, using the abandoned cars in the parking lot as cover. 

As soon as they were safely past the store the three followed what was left of the road. When that had finally deteriorated to nothing, they resorted to walking along the riverbank to make sure that they were going the right way. The riverbank was lined with huge rocks and piles of debris, slowing the girls down greatly, but the cover and concealment afforded by the rocks more than made up for the difficulty.

Unfortunately, the girls weren't the only creatures that were drawn to the river. A light breeze brought the first warning; a foul fishy reek that was worryingly familiar. Barely a hundred yards further on Fluttershy's keen hearing picked up a very distinctive clicking sound. "Mirelurks," she whispered, just loudly enough for the others to hear. 

Rarity grimaced. "I feared as much. Hopefully that's just the smell of an empty nest."

"It's not. I can hear at least three, maybe four of them," Fluttershy told her. 

Rarity looked at her curiously. "You can hear them? How?"

"FEV, remember?" Pinkie put in. "Being a bitey vampire has pimped out all of her senses."

Fluttershy swallowed her embarrassment at Pinkie's words, then noticed with a flinch that Rarity was giving her a calculating look. "I wonder… does this mean that it's easier for you to distinguish between different colors and shades now, too?" Rarity asked.

"Um, I think so, but maybe we should stick to avoiding the mirelurks for now?" Fluttershy said quietly.

"Oh, er, yes, of course." Rarity chuckled awkwardly and looked around, covering her embarrassment by searching for an alternate route. After a moment she pointed to the left. A short distance away, near the top of a gentle slope, was what appeared to be an old farmstead; the skeletal remains of a few ancient buildings gathered next to a surprisingly intact grain silo. "Up there. We can go up and over then return to the river without getting anywhere near the mirelurks."

The other two nodded in agreement and started up the hill. Just like the riverbank the slope was dotted with boulders and rubble, which proved to be a blessing as Fluttershy heard yet more trouble ahead. "Wait."

"What is it?" Rarity asked quietly, settling herself behind a large rock. "More mirelurks?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "No, it's… footsteps. Heavy, metal… I think it's people in power armor."

"The Brotherhood of Steel?" Pinkie ventured hopefully.

"I can't tell from here," Fluttershy admitted.

Rarity bit her lip nervously. "We should probably stay out of sight, just in case. Come on."

Taking great care to stay out of sight, the girls crept up the hill, taking a circular route to avoid getting too close to the farmstead. Fluttershy strained her ears as she walked. As they got closer she managed to pick up the voices of the people, relaying it in whispers to the others. "They're definitely Enclave. Two soldiers and a handful of other people, I think maybe scientists. It… sounds like they're studying the local wildlife? Right now they're observing the mirelurks. You were right, it is a nest, just not an old one."

"That's not exactly reassuring," Rarity muttered. "Have they heard us?" 

"No, thankfully," Fluttershy replied. She paused and cocked her head as she heard something particularly concerning. "Now they're discussing something about… deathclaw auxiliaries? Where have I heard of deathclaws before?"

"It was one of those monsters that injured Twilight," Rarity said with a shiver. "If the Enclave has figured out how to tame those things then that can't be good for anyone. We'll have to send a message to the Brotherhood of Steel and warn them when we get to the Family, but for now let's just get as far away from here as we can without getting spotted."

Neither of the others had to be told twice. Moving as quickly and quietly as possible, the girls didn't dare to relax until they had crested the hill and started back down the other side, the farmstead long since out of sight.

"Okay, I think we're clear," Fluttershy said with a sigh.

"Phew! Glad that's out of the way!" Pinkie said brightly. "Back to the river?"

"Actually, we have two options," Rarity replied, checking her Pip-Boy. "If I'm reading this map right, then we can either turn left and head to Megaton for a break, or we can go past that big building over there to the right to get to the river and continue on to Meresti." She gestured to a huge concrete edifice to the East.

Pinkie grimaced. "We probably shouldn't go to Megaton."

"Why not?" Rarity asked curiously.

Pinkie looked warily over her shoulder before answering, "The last time we were there me and Applejack met someone who pretty much worships the Enclave. We didn't know what he was talking about at the time, but with everything that's going on now, I'm not sure that we can trust the place."

"Unbelievable." Rarity sighed and rubbed her temples. "Okay, we'll avoid Megaton." She shook her head and started off down the hill. "Let's just head back to the river and-" 

"Look out!" Pinkie suddenly darted forward and yanked Rarity aside. A half-second later the girls heard a loud gunshot and a bullet sparked off a rock behind where Rarity would have been standing. 

"Eep!" Fluttershy dove behind a boulder, quickly followed by the other two. 

"Shit, that was close!" Pinkie cried, flinching as another bullet cracked against their boulder. 

"Language!" Rarity snapped. "Where are they firing from?"

Fluttershy hissed as a third bullet raised a puff of dust near her foot, prompting her to tuck it in a bit more. "It sounds like it's coming from the direction of the building we've got to get past, but I can't hear anyone from this distance."

"It's a guy in one of the windows, he's got some sort of rifle," Pinkie said. She flinched as two more shots landed in quick succession on either side of their boulder. "Or maybe there's more than one guy. Now what do we do?"

Rarity risked a quick glance over the top of the rock, ducking back before anyone could get a shot off at her. "I'll create some gemstone cover, we can use that to get from boulder to boulder and make our way past the building."

"We're going to have to move quickly," Fluttershy said tightly.

"Oh, why do I get the feeling you're about to point out something horrible?" Rarity whined.

Fluttershy glanced warily back up the hill, easily picking out the sound of heavy footfalls coming their way. "The Enclave soldiers must have heard the gunshots."

Rarity's eyes widened, then she leapt to her feet and threw out her arms to conjure a wall of gemstones between their boulder and the next one. "Get moving, go!"

The girls belted towards the building and the river beyond, Rarity throwing up more gemstones to shield them from their assailants in the building. Gunfire created rifts and spiderwebs of cracks in the gems, but the shields held. The three were almost halfway to the building when laser fire started fizzing overhead. Rarity conjured a few gemstones behind them as cover, but she needn't have bothered; the Enclave were only firing at whoever was in the building.

"Are they helping us?" Fluttershy asked as the girls ducked behind the next rock.

"Either that or they want us alive for their experiments," Pinkie suggested.

"Thanks so much for that thought," Rarity spat. She conjured another gemstone and waved the others forward. "Go on, I'll be right be-hyah!?" Rarity cried out as the ground suddenly opened up beneath her feet and she sank up to her waist into the dirt. "Ow!"

As Pinkie lent Rarity a hand, Fluttershy snuck a glance around the gemstone at the building. There were at least five raiders in there. Most were targeting the Enclave soldiers, but they were still taking the odd pot shot at the girls, too. "We're nearly there, once we're past the building we can-" She snapped her mouth shut and whipped around to stare in horror at the hole Rarity was stuck in. She could hear a distinctive chittering sound coming from within. 

"Rarity, get out of there, there's something down there with you!" Fluttershy grabbed an arm and helped Pinkie drag her out of the hole. Rarity's feet had barely left the hole when a large set of mandibles appeared, snapping at her heels. 

Fluttershy gasped as a giant ant, standing at least as tall as her thighs, emerged from the hole. The creature clicked it's mandibles again and launched itself at the girls as more of its kind dragged themselves into the daylight. 

The three screamed and ran, all thoughts of cover forgotten. Shots rang out, bullets sparking off rocks and raising puffs of dust from the ground, but luckily none of them hit their target. Fluttershy risked a glance backwards as she ran; most of the raiders were concentrating on shooting the ants now boiling out of the hole in the ground, while the Enclave soldiers were now ignoring the battle and working to release one of their number from another hole that had opened up beneath the weight of his power armor.

The girls kept running until the building, and the bizarre conflict that had brewed around it, were both left far behind. When they reached the river, the girls scrambled behind the biggest rocks they could find before collapsing against it.

Fluttershy's body shook as she tried to catch her breath. She could hear Pinkie's and Rarity's hearts pounding, sending warm blood thundering through their veins, and every gasp of air she sucked down brought with it the stench of fear and exertion, threatening to overwhelm her senses. 

"Giant... ants… really?!" Rarity panted. "What next? Giant bats? Monster sloths?"

"At least it can't get any worse," Pinkie muttered.

A loud screech from overhead made the girls cower in the dirt. A colossal shadow swept overhead before disappearing back into the clouds. 

The girls all looked up in fear. Rarity turned to glare at Pinkie. "Will you please stop saying things like that?" She sighed and shook her head, then did a double-take and reared back in fearful surprise when she looked at Fluttershy. "Fluttershy, darling, are you alright?!"

Fluttershy hissed and clamped a hand over her nose and mouth. "We need to get to the Family," she mumbled.





Becky rubbed her eyes and vainly tried to stifle a yawn. No matter how crazy things got in the Enclave, paperwork was something that just never seemed to go away. 

At least things had gotten back into a rhythm now, and everyone was playing their part. 

Sienna was checking over Horrigan. Andrew was coordinating guard and scout shifts, while also working to gather more soldiers to the Exodus team's cause. Devall was doing the same thing with the non-military personnel in between helping to clean and improve what few facilities and amenities were available. Patricia had finally organised a tutoring system for the children and teenagers currently housed at Project Exodus. Lyra and Agent Drops were taking inventory of the magical crystals that had just been delivered from Raven Rock. And lastly, Tara, Evans, and Pickering were finally getting a chance to sit down and brainstorm ideas on how they were going to go about fulfilling Project Exodus' primary objective; namely, opening a portal to Equestria.

Unfortunately, all of them being busy meant that Becky was stuck going through logistics to make sure that everyone had enough food, water, and other supplies that they needed to keep this place safe and secure.

As Becky leaned back in her chair and stretched, a gust of wind ruffled her hair.

"You've got some explaining to do." Becky whipped around in shock. Rainbow Dash was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. "And it had better be a damned good explanation."

"Jesus, Dash, you scared the shit out of me!" Rainbow scowled, and Becky threw her hands up placatingly. "Okay, okay! I can explain!" She sighed and planted her hands on her knees. "Look, the assault on the Citadel was never anything to do with us. We got word that the Senate wanted to requisition Horrigan for guard duty while they mined crystals from Raven Rock. We didn't even know that they were sending a strike force until a Vertibird dropped Horrigan back off here in a heap."

Rainbow pushed off the wall and placed a hand on the hilt of her sword as she stalked over to Becky. "And how am I supposed to believe you? How can I trust you after this?"

Becky gulped, her mouth suddenly feeling dry as a bone. "You trust Sunset, don't you?"

"I've seen Sunset and Twilight go full evil bitch before," Rainbow countered. "That monster did a lot of damage to the Citadel, and he almost killed Applejack, so I'm going to need a little more than just 'I'm another Sunset'."

"F-fair enough," Becky replied shakily. "Look, I don't have any proof, if that's what you're after. All I can say is that it wasn't anything to do with us. I swear it on my life. Hell, I swear it on Tara's life, Project Exodus had absolutely nothing to do with that attack."

Rainbow stared suspiciously at Becky for several long seconds, then finally relented and removed her hand from her sword. "Fair enough, then tell me who did order the attack so I can go and make them several inches shorter."

Becky let out a breath and ran a hand through her hair. “It was an asshole named Acheson. He's a scientist. Him and Major Owens have been acting as if they're the ones in charge of the Enclave. There's Senator Lily, too, but I don't know what her position was on this attack. From what I know of her, this doesn't seem like her style."

"Acheson, Owens, Lily, right." Rainbow nodded and crossed her arms again. "So where can I find those scumbags?"

"Adams Air Force Base, it's a huge pre-war compound," Becky replied. "Only problem is that I don't know where it is. It's somewhere just outside the Capital Wasteland, but I don't know the exact location." She held a hand up as Rainbow opened her mouth. "Before you ask, Tara and Andrew don't know either. After the Enclave was kicked out of the West Coast thirty years ago information on separate facilities was carefully controlled, to prevent the fall of one facility compromising the location of the others."

"Great," Rainbow huffed. 

Becky turned back to her table and pulled out a few sheets of paper; a gift she and the others had prepared for when the Rainboom had inevitably turned up,. largely in the hopes that it would make her less likely to go on a rampage. "Here, this is everything we know about Acheson, Owens, their research, and the troops and personnel that are loyal to them." She held the papers out to Rainbow. "These contain every secret that I can possibly share. Get them to the Brotherhood as quickly as you can."

Rainbow took the papers and looked through them curiously. Her eyes widened as she read a particular section. "Hold on, do you guys seriously have mind-controlled Deathclaws?!"

"It's not exactly mind control, but it's close enough," Becky replied with a nod.

"That's not cool." Rainbow stuffed the papers into her pack, then fixed Becky with a stern look. "Also, what's the deal with sealing up the hole in the ceiling? I had to come down the elevator shaft. Did you seriously think it would keep me out?"

Becky chuckled and shook her head. "No, it wasn't because of you. Our satellites picked up a storm heading this way, most likely a radioactive one. Given how dangerous the reaction between radiation and magic tends to be, we figured we had better cover up the hole before the storm dumps a ton of radioactive rain right on top of our magic tornado."

"That's… actually a pretty good idea," Rainbow said with a wince. "What about Horri-"

The sound of someone knocking on the door cut her off. Becky gestured for her to hide behind the desk before calling out, "Come in!"

The door opened and Agent Drops stepped into the room. "Doctor Shoichet? You're needed up in the office, immediately."

"Why? What's going on?" Becky asked.

"Senator Lily," Agent Drops replied. "She's here."
> Chapter 84 - Revelations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Becky tried to calm her nerves as she hurried through the corridors towards the office, Rainbow following a half-step behind. 

"Isn't Lily one of the bad guys you just mentioned?" Rainbow asked. 

"We're not sure what side she's on, now keep your voice down!" Becky hissed. Thankfully, Agent Drops had already gone back to the surface to keep an eye on the equipment and personnel that Senator Lily had brought with her. "There's a vent in the room next to the office that you can use to listen in on what we're saying. Just make sure that no-one catches you!"

"Alright, alright, I get it," Rainbow huffed.

"You'd better! Because if you get caught you could get the whole lot of us in some seriously deep shit!" Becky shot. She felt herself tense as she spotted the office corridor ahead, but the area was conspicuously devoid of guards. 

Torn between relief and suspicion, Becky gestured for Rainbow to slip into the room next to the main office, rolling her eyes as the Rainboom zoomed inside using her super speed, before stepping up to the office door. She could just about hear voices inside, which stopped abruptly when she knocked. Tara opened the door a few seconds later. "Ah, Becky, er, come in."

Becky raised an eyebrow as she stepped inside. Andrew and Devall were both present, standing against the one wall, but Becky's eyes were drawn straight to Senator Lily.

Lily was lounging on an office chair as if it were a throne, her presence commanding attention even as she did little more than idly inspect her fingernails. She was wearing a long white lab coat, opened at the front to reveal her simple Enclave uniform, and she had a strange metal headband placed securely over her long black locks.

"Doctor Shoichet, it's a pleasure to see you again," Lily said in greeting. Becky couldn't honestly return the sentiment, so she just nodded in return. As soon as Tara closed the door Lily straightened up and brushed dust from her pants before saying, "Now then, we're almost ready to begin."

Devall raised an eyebrow. "Everyone you asked for is here, Senator, and I'm sure you enjoyed summoning all of us like servants, but I think it's about time you told us what exactly this is all about."

Lily gave him a mocking grin. "Yes, everyone that I asked to speak to is here. However, it appears that Doctor Shoichet brought a friend along." Becky's heart leapt into her throat as Lily called out, "Oh, Rainbow Dash? I know you're listening, so why don't you just come in here so we can talk like civilized adults."

The others all turned to stare at Becky in shock, then whipped their gazes to the door as it opened and Rainbow stepped through warily, one hand on the hilt of her sword.

"I just want to talk, you won't be needing that," Lily said with a pointed look at the blade.

Rainbow snorted and kicked the door shut, gripping the hilt of the sword tightly so she'd be ready to whip it out at a moment's notice. "I'll decide whether I need it or not."

Lily just sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine."

Glancing surreptitiously at the others, Becky noticed that Andrew and Tara were looking just as tense as she felt. Devall, on the other hand, was looking from Rainbow to Becky and back again in stunned disbelief. It was plain to see that he was slowly, almost unwillingly, putting two and two together. "You've been working with the Rainbooms?" He asked quietly.

"You didn't know?" Lily asked, delight written clearly across her face. "I admit, I didn't know myself until I realized that she was here with Doctor Shoichet, but I thought that you of all people would know." She smirked and leaned back in her chair. "Honestly, I'm most surprised at you, Lieutenant Colonel. I thought such subterfuge was beneath you."

Andrew glared at Becky, though she noticed that his hand was inching subtly towards his plasma pistol. "I wasn't aware that Rainbow Dash was here, but I assure you that I'll be having a very thorough word with our security team later."

"Oh, don't play that game with me, and keep your hands up where I can see them," Lily said impatiently. "I've already said I'm just here to talk."

"How did you know I was here?" Rainbow cut in.

Lily smiled and rubbed at her chest absently. "I've been manoeuvring through the plots and intrigues of the Enclave since before any of you were born. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I am older than I look. Anyone who manages to survive as long as I have among the pit of vipers that is the Enclave leadership either has a keenly honed survival instinct, as I do, or has a simply staggering amount of luck."

Becky frowned at her. Something wasn't adding up, either with her explanation or with her presence. "Why don't we skip to the part where you tell us exactly what you want. You say you want to talk, so what do you want to talk about?"

Shifting around in her seat again, Lily adjusted her uniform's collar as she said airily, "It's perfectly simple, really. I want Acheson and Major Owens dead." Stunned silence was the only response to her statement. "Oh, don't look at me like that. Every single one of you is planning on killing him or having him killed anyway, so why are you so bothered by me wanting the same thing?"

"Whatever happened to subtlety?" Becky asked. "I thought you were a seasoned politician: This isn't cloak and dagger, this is a god-damned sledgehammer to the face."

Lily laughed softly. "My dear, the reason I do so well at this game is because I know when to misdirect and obfuscate, and when to cut the shit and lay my cards on the table. We haven't really seen eye to eye recently-"

"You voted to prolong this pointless conflict with the Brotherhood of Steel," Andrew shot.

"It seemed the best way to achieve a lasting peace and fulfil my goals at the same time," Lily countered. 

"Lasting peace?!" Andrew scoffed.

Lily gave him an unamused look. "Yes, Lieutenant Colonel, lasting peace. I don't trust the Brotherhood of Steel as far as I can throw them; I believed that if we signed a treaty with them our organizations would inevitably come to blows once again at some point, and the Brotherhood would use that time to build up their forces and their technology so that they could face us on a more even footing." She brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face. "After the ill-conceived assault on the Citadel, however, I trust the Brotherhood a hell of a lot more than I trust Acheson."

"I don't give a shit who you trust," Becky shot. "How the hell can we trust you? You've already admitted that you have your own hidden agenda, so, for the last time, what the fuck are you after?"

Lily smiled ruefully. "I want to live, pure and simple. Preferably for as long as is physically possible."

Becky shook her head in bemusement, feeling almost underwhelmed. "That's it?! That's all you're after?!" She spat incredulously.

"As someone who has spent a lot of time around death, I'd hardly dismiss the importance of living," Lily replied. "I've spent decades working to unlock the secrets of prolonging life. I know there are some who have had success through FEV, or implanting their brain into a robot and such nonsense, but I prefer the thought of living as an actual human being."

Becky and Tara shared a confused look. "But… what does that have to do with Project Exodus?" Tara asked.

Lily snorted. "I thought you were supposed to be the smart one. Magic, dear. I don't care about domination or leadership, all I want is access to as much pure Equestrian magic as I can get my hands on, and the scholars that they undoubtedly have that can teach me how to apply it to my research."

"That's…" Becky closed her mouth, swallowing her retort. She had been going to say that it was insane, that magic wouldn't be of more use to her for that purpose than anything else, but Sunset's memories told her otherwise; the Princesses of Equestria alone were a prime example of what magic could do for a lifespan, and that was before one considered what dark magic could do.

"It's a little trite, I admit," Lily said, apparently misreading her expression. "Still, we all have our dreams, mine are just a little more unusual than others." Her expression suddenly hardened, sending a shiver down Becky's spine. "This is why I'm against Acheson. He and I agreed that Project Exodus, and it's resources, would be left alone. Since he has betrayed my trust, I'll throw my lot in with all of you, instead." 

Andrew eyed her suspiciously. "You're being awfully blasé about all of this. What makes you think we'd even consider killing Acheson?"

Lily sighed and gave him an exasperated look. "You've been colluding with the Rainbooms for well over a week, and trying to avoid involving either yourselves or your followers in the conflict with the Brotherhood for just as long." She gestured to Rainbow Dash. "Should I bother mentioning the intelligence reports that you all put together just in case this brainless bluebird decided to show up?"

"Hey, you watch your mouth!" Rainbow snapped. 

"Oh? Have you actually followed anything that we've been saying so far?" Lily asked mockingly. 

Rainbow scowled at her. "You're a selfish bitch who trusted the wrong egghead asshole, so now you've come here and you're spilling everything, even the stuff that would get you killed by the egghead asshole, so these dorks will be more likely to trust you and take you in." There was a multicolored blur and Rainbow was suddenly standing behind Lily with her blade resting against the Senator's throat. "You've also got a backup plan just in case these guys decide that you're not worth keeping alive."

Lily swallowed hard, trying to edge away from the sword as calmly as she could. "Forgive me for believing that you were merely a dumb jock. You're wrong about one thing, though. I'm far too valuable for the team here to cast aside. Between myself and everyone else in this room, we control enough of the Enclave to challenge Acheson and Owens openly. Besides-" she glanced at Andrew, "-with Horrigan gone, you're going to need all the help you can get."

Becky chuckled darkly. "It seems your spies aren't as thorough as we thought. Horrigan is alive and well, and will soon be back on his feet, so it looks like we don't really need you after all." Lily tensed, but Becky just shook her head. "I guess you've got luck and a survival instinct. Let her go, Rainbow."

The relief in the room was palpable as Rainbow put her sword away. Allies or not, having an armed and alert Rainboom in the room was enough to put everyone on edge. Lily put a hand to her chest and allowed herself to take a few slow breaths in and out to calm herself. "Horrigan's alive?" She said when she was ready. "You've kept that quiet."

Becky shrugged. "It seemed like the best move. If most of our personnel think Horrigan is down then it'll sway-"

"Sway public opinion in your favour by making it look like Acheson is willing to betray and sacrifice anyone just to get what he wants," Lily finished, nodding. "The fact that Acheson's gambit failed will play into your hands even more, as it portrays both him and Owens as incompetent." She grinned up at Becky. "Well played. So when are you planning on confronting Acheson?"

"We're not, not yet," Becky replied. "If we challenge Acheson now then his cronies will just fade into the background and work against us from behind the scenes. We need to take them all out in one fell swoop, and to do that, we're going to need the Brotherhood."

Lily gave her a calculating stare. "You're a lot more devious than I expected, Doctor. Very well, what do you want me to do?" 

Becky smiled sardonically. "Simple. Write down everything you know about Acheson, Owens, and their followers, along with everything you know about their research." She turned away, glancing over her shoulder as he placed a hand on the door handle. "You can give a copy of it to Rainbow Dash when you're done." 

Not daring to look back again, Becky opened the door and hurried out into the corridor, keenly aware of Lily's eyes following her right up until she closed the door behind her. It took Becky a few seconds to realize that her heart was hammering in her chest. 

Lily was dangerous. All of the Enclave leaders were, really, but the Senator was something else. The fact that she had somehow known about the details about their alliance with the Rainbooms was downright terrifying, not to mention absolutely impossible. The only people who knew about the intel Becky had shared with Rainbow were herself, Tara, and Andrew, and none of them had spoken about it within earshot of another living soul. They had even been careful to make sure that there weren't any robots around when they spoke of it. 

As she rounded a corner, Becky spotted something in the corner of her eye and stopped to stare at it. A little rat was scurrying along in the shadows. As it scampered past her and disappeared into a vent, Becky could have sworn that she saw a neat little incision cut into its side.





The sight of Rivet City looming over the dock, flashes of multicolored lightning from the flight deck throwing it's silhouette into stark relief, was an oddly reassuring one to Sunset. She had only been away for a day, but seeing it again after everything that had happened made her feel just a little bit better.

It was crazy really, especially after the incident with Sister and the slaver, but Rivet City felt safe in a way that nowhere else in the wasteland did. 

The security team played a big part in that. As friendly as they were, they took their job seriously. Indeed, after the incident with Sister, Chief Harkness had managed to get funding to hire even more security officers, on top of what had already been granted to help with protecting the water caravans from Project Purity. The recruitment process was slow, mainly because Harkness refused to hire anyone who wasn't committed to the high standards that he set, but that was hardly a bad thing. 

Another part of what made Sunset feel safe in the city, and it was a big part, was how easily she had managed to fit in. She wasn't a pawn in someone else's game, she was just another person with a job to do. Some of the residents seemed to dislike her, but they were very much in the minority. Regular physical training with a magnificent specimen of a man certainly didn't hurt matters, either. 

Before she could get to either training or working, however, Sunset had something else to attend to. 

After crossing the bridge and greeting the guards at the entrance, Sunset headed upstairs to the Upper Deck. She hadn't spent that much time in this section of the ship; there were a couple of magical oddities up there that had needed seeing to, but usually she just passed through on her way to and from the gym in the tower. Even so, the directions that Rainbow had given her helped Sunset to find her destination easily enough. 

The Weatherly Hotel. It was the only hotel in Rivet City, possibly the only hotel in the Capital Wasteland, and the rates it charged on the larger rooms ensured that only those with considerable savings or consistent income could stay there permanently. According to Rainbow, the couple she was about to meet has both.

The room Sunset was looking for was near the end of a corridor all on its own. Just as she raised her hand to knock, Sunset hesitated. She might well be overstepping her mark by doing this; upsetting a pair of complete strangers for no good reason, but something told her that this had to be done.

Forcing her apprehension to the back of her mind, Sunset knocked curtly on the door. 

"Just a minute!" A voice called out. Sunset waited impatiently until finally the door opened, and a middle-aged woman with wavy shoulder-length blonde hair looked out. Her eyes almost popped out of her head when she spotted who was at the door. "Oh my goodness, you're Sunset Shimmer, aren't you?"

"Are you Mrs Holiday?" Sunset asked.

"Please, call me Jackie," Jackie replied. "What can I do for you?"

Sunset rubbed her neck awkwardly. “Actually, I kinda needed to talk to you about something… sensitive. Do you mind if I come in?"

"Oh, of course." Jackie stepped aside and held the door open for Sunset, with a slightly befuddled expression on her face. "Holly? We have a guest," she said as she closed the door behind Sunset.

The hotel room was surprisingly big, easily three times the size of Sister's cramped quarters. A double bed with an elegantly carved wooden headboard lay against one wall, while the others were lined with cupboards, a desk, and several black and white photographs of various people. 

Another woman was sitting on a couch opposite the bed, reading an ancient magazine. She had short brown hair, and was wearing a thick knitted sweater, though Sunset had to wonder where the heck she had gotten the wool from. 

Holly looked up curiously as Sunset entered the room. When she saw who had arrived, she dropped the magazine on a nearby desk and made to stand up. "Miss Shimmer? To what do we owe this pleasure?"

"Please, you don't have to get up." Sunset bit her lip and added, "Actually, it's probably best if we all sit for this."

Jackie shared a worried look with her partner as she joined her on the couch. "What's this about?"

Sunset glanced around for somewhere to sit. When no other options presented themselves, she gave up and sat on the end of the bed. This was it. She couldn't run away now. Taking a deep breath, Sunset steeled herself and said, "Okay, I can't think of any good way to ask this, so I'm just going to do it. Do you know a girl named Madeleine?"

Both women deflated, their expressions crumpling as if their world was ending. "W-we did," Jackie said quietly. "She was our niece, but she and her parents passed away a long time ago. How did you know about her?"

"I, er, heard something about it," Sunset deflected. "If it's not too much to ask, would you mind telling me what happened?"

Jackie sighed and shook her head. "My brother and his wife used to be researchers, studying the wildlife of the wastes to find better ways of dealing with them. About six years ago, we got word from a caravan that a deathclaw had gotten to them on their way back from an expedition." She sniffed and rubbed her nose, smiling sadly as Holly squeezed her hands. "We've been planning on going to visit their graves, but it's right on the other side of the wastes, and neither of us have left this city since we were children."

"Their graves?" Sunset frowned. According to Maddie, no-one had been willing to take her in, but if that were true, then who had cared enough to dig graves for her parents? And why not bring Maddie herself to her aunts? Something wasn't adding up. "Did they have friends with them when… when it happened?"

Jackie shook her head. "No, it was just them. The caravan guard who brought us the news dug the graves for them."

"That was nice of him, he didn't have to do that," Holly put in, her voice quavering. "But he said that he couldn't just leave the three of them laying there like… like that."

Now Sunset knew that something was up. Maddie herself had said that her parents were killed by deathclaws, so that part was likely true, and Jackie and Holly didn't seem like they were lying, but Sunset couldn't understand why the caravan guard would have lied about burying all three of them when Maddie was clearly still alive. "Where is the caravan guard now? Does he still come here regularly?"

"Oh, no, he hasn't been around here for quite some time, I think it's been just over two years," Holly replied. "Devan is his name. We've been friends with him since we were children, but he preferred going out into the wasteland to just staying put." She gestured vaguely at a wall. "Try asking Sister, he works down in the lower deck. Apparently the two used to travel together."

Sunset felt a brick drop in her stomach at the mention of Sister. If this Devan person used to travel with Sister, then he was almost certainly a slaver. That explained why he had told Jackie and Holly that Maddie was dead; he must have tried to enslave her, but she escaped and fled into the wastes where she ended up falling in with a raider gang. 

Sunset sighed and ran a hand through her hair. It was time to come clean. "Maddie is alive." The look of blank shock on Jackie and Holly's faces somehow made Sunset feel even more apprehensive. "Me and my friends found her in the metro tunnels beneath the D.C. ruins, alive. She said she didn't have anyone to take her in so we sent her to the Brotherhood of Steel. She's at the Citadel right now, training to become a Knight."

A stunned silence took over, broken only by the faint groan of settling metal from deep within the ship. 

"You… you're not lying, are you?" Jackie asked tentatively. Sunset shook her head. Jackie breathed in deeply through her nose, evidently holding back tears, then buried her face in her hands and started quietly sobbing.

Holly quickly threw her arms around her partner and gave Sunset a bewildered look. "But… why didn't she come and find us? We would have taken her in without question!"

"I don't know," Sunset admitted. "Truth be told, she doesn't actually know that I've come to see you. She might even be angry when she finds out what I've done, but I had to try and find what family she had left."

Holly nodded, still looking dazed. "Of course. I… can we see her?"

"I'll ask her," Sunset replied, though she added quickly, "I don't want to get your hopes up too much, though. I hate to say this, but she might not want to… well…"

"She might not want to see us after all this time," Holly finished sadly. 

Sunset wished that there was something she could say, or do, but nothing came to mind. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up painful memories again-"

"Don't be ridiculous," Jackie said, looking up again. Her face was a tear-streaked mess, but her face was hopeful. "You've told us that our niece is safe, that she's alive and well instead of dead in a-" Jackie swallowed hard and shook her head. "Don't apologize. She is alright, isn't she?"

Sunset smiled. "She has a bit of an attitude, but I can't really blame her for that. Aside from that, she's fine. She's fitting in well with the Brotherhood."

Jackie nodded. "That's good. Just… tell her that we're here if she needs us. No matter what she says, she'll always be our little niece."

"Not so little anymore," Holly said with a wry smile. "She must be around fifteen by now."

Jackie sniffed and laughed wetly. "Don't be silly, I'll always remember her as that adorable little bundle we looked after when she was newborn. I'll cherish that memory til the day I die."

Sunset felt something in her heart wrench at those words. "Yeah… memories are important," she said quietly. Blinking back tears of her own, though she wasn't certain where they were coming from, Sunset stood up. "I'd best get out of your hair. I'll talk to Maddie tonight when I get back to the Citadel, then I'll find you when I come back here tomorrow, is that okay?"

"It's more than okay," Holly replied with a sad smile. She stood up as well, Jackie following suit, and the two women bowed their heads. "Thank you, Miss Shimmer."

Sunset was taken aback by their sudden formality. "I… uh… don't mention it. I'll see you tomorrow."

Something niggled at the back of Sunset's mind as Jackie and Holly saw her out of the room. She wracked her brain as she strode through the corridors of Rivet City, but it wasn't until she reached the gym in the tower that she realized what was bothering her. Suddenly apprehensive again, Sunset pushed the door open with a feeling of dread nestling in her gut.

Chief Harkness was waiting inside. He had already changed into his training clothes and was currently doing some light warm ups on the mats.

"I wasn't sure whether or not you'd be coming today," Harkness said as Sunset stepped inside. "I heard about the battle at the Citadel yesterday, are you alright?"

Had it really only been yesterday? Sunset wondered. The conversation with Maddie's aunts felt like it had taken an eternity, even though it had probably been less than ten minutes. "I'm fine," Sunset replied slowly.

Harkness raised an eyebrow, then stepped off the mats and leaned against a table, patting the spot next to him. "No you're not. Come on, let's hear it." Sunset hesitated for a second, then relented and trudged over to sit on the table where he'd indicated. "Alright, Sunset, what's wrong? Your friends weren't injured, were they?"

"No, no, they're fine," Sunset replied quickly. "Applejack is a bit battered, but I think her pride is hurt more than anything. I'm just… this isn't anything to do with the fight."

"Okay…" Harkness looked at her curiously. "Is it something that you want to talk about?"

Sunset sighed and ran a hand through her hair. She had already pushed her luck once today, but this was something that she had to get off her chest. "I have this… friend. They lost their memories a long time ago. Well, it's more like they deliberately had them suppressed."

"I didn't even know that was possible," Harkness said flatly. "Is this a magic thing?"

"No, it's some advanced technology from this world," Sunset replied. "I learned recently that I can give them their memories back, but I don't know if I should."

"Why did they remove their memories in the first place?" Harkness asked.

Sunset shook her head. "It was to protect themselves, and the people they cared about, from someone who was trying to hurt them. They're safe now, I actually managed to convince the person looking for them that they were dead, and that person left the wasteland to go back to wherever he came from, but I don't know what I should do for my friend."

"Do they remember the fact that they've suppressed their memories?" Harkness pressed. 

"No," Sunset replied.

Harkness hummed thoughtfully. "That's a tricky one. I'm assuming you haven't spoken to them about it?" Sunset shook her head, unable to meet his eyes. "In that case, I'm really not sure. Are they happy as they are now?"

Sunset looked up at him. "I think so. They certainly seem to be, but, memories are important. Even the bad ones."

"I get the feeling that you have some sort of hangup over this." Harkness let out a humourless laugh. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised, with magic like yours, but this isn't about you. I don't mean to be harsh, but it wouldn't be fair to potentially make someone's life a misery just to make yourself feel better." 

Sunset sighed heavily. "Yeah, you're right. It's just, back home we met someone who stole my friends memories of me. It was awful. That's why when I heard about y- about this person messing around with their own memory, it… it got to me." She sighed again and raised her arms above her head as she stretched. "Anyway, I'd better go and get changed. Time to take out my frustrations by giving you a good pounding."

Harkness raised an eyebrow. "I think you'll find that you'll be the one on your hands and knees after our first round."

Sunset blushed, but said coyly, "Either way, this'll end with you on your back." She stood and headed for the foldable screens at the back of the room, decidedly not swaying her hips any more than usual as she walked.

Harkness was right; Sunset didn't have a right to force him to remember his past, nor to reveal the fact that he was really a synth. He was happy and, with Zimmer gone, safe, and that was all that mattered.

The training session that followed certainly helped to keep Sunset from worrying. If she had expected Harkness to go easier on her after what had happened at the Citadel, she was sorely mistaken; he was just as relentless as ever. Sunset put up a good showing, but no matter how much she had improved it still wasn't enough to take him down. 

Finally, after an hour of alternating between sparring and practicing techniques, Harkness called time. Sunset shambled off the mat like a zombie and collapsed against the table. 

"We'll just do some gentle exercises and stretching tomorrow, to let your muscles heal," Harkness said as he sat next to her. "That means no charging around an assault course with the Brotherhood as well, alright?"

Sunset gave him a half-hearted salute. "Sure thing, Chief." She smirked at his exasperated sigh and grabbed herself a water bottle. The taste of ice cold water after a hard workout was something she had never truly appreciated before.

"I'd want to know." Sunset lowered her bottle and looked at Harkness curiously. "I've been thinking about what you said, and you're right," Harkness explained. "I've never really thought about it before, but memories are important, even the bad ones. I can't say the same for whoever you're talking about but, if it was me, I'd want to know."

Sunset looked at him in surprise. "Really? I mean, they did it to protect themselves."

"And you said the danger has passed," Harkness countered. "I think we can trust your judgement in that regard. And if the danger does come back, whatever it is, I know you well enough to know that you'll do everything in your power to protect whoever is in trouble." He shrugged and reached for a towel. "Whatever the right decision is, I think we can trust you enough to make it."

Something caught in Sunset's throat. She hadn't expected Harkness to suddenly change his mind, nor did she realize that he thought that highly of her. "And if it was you, you'd want to know?"

Harkness nodded. "I'd want to know who I really was. Why don't you try doing something like this? Just ask them about memories like you did with me?"

"Right." Sunset bit her lip. "Are… are you positive that you'd want to know?"

"I just said so, didn't I?" Harkness looked at her suspiciously. "Why are you so fixated on my opinion? You almost make it sound like…"

Sunset saw comprehension slowly dawning in his eyes. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself to take another leap. "Activate A3-21 Recall Code Violet."

Harkness winced and hissed as if he was in pain, then his expression shifted to be replaced with a look of blank horror. "My God, I remember… I remember it all. The Commonwealth… the Institute… all… all the runners I brought down… my God." He pushed off the table and walked into the middle of the room, one hand on his head as if he was trying to hold his own thoughts in place. "My whole life has been a lie."

"It hasn't been a lie," Sunset insisted, quickly stepping up next to him and placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. She took it as a good sign that he didn't throw it off. "None of your life has been a lie. Some of it has just been… lost in the dark for a while."

"What about my memories of my childhood, my family?" Harkness spat. "None of it's real. It's all just a fabrication, a figment of Pinkerton's imagination. Jesus, I'm not even human."

"Neither am I," Sunset admitted without thinking. In response to Harkness' surprised look, she waved a hand dismissively. "I was born as something else in Equestria, but the point is that it doesn't matter how you were born or what you came into this world as. Hell, you're a better person, a better man, than almost anyone else I've met in this world."

Harkness sighed and slumped his shoulders. "Look, I understand what you're trying to do, and I appreciate it, I really do, but… I just want some time alone. I've got a lot to think about."

Sunset couldn't say a word as Harkness pulled away from her and trudged to the door. The sound of the door clanging shut behind him sounded like the death knell for whatever small thing had been growing between them.





Twilight idly swung her legs as she sat patiently on the edge of the bed. She was currently in one of the rooms just off the Citadel's infirmary, waiting for a medic to help her with her physiotherapy. Her wheelchair was sitting in the corner; a trainee had helped her out of it before disappearing to tend to the wounded from the previous day's battle.

The sound of the door opening made Twilight look up, but she was surprised to see Applejack enter the room rather than a medic. 

"Hey, how are you doing?" Applejack asked.

"I'm alright, thanks, just waiting to start my physio," Twilight replied. "Are you making progress with the gate?"

Applejack nodded and dropped into Twilight's wheelchair. "Ah managed to straighten it out enough to use, all that's left is to fix the wall so we can reinstall it properly. Ah offered to help, but for some reason they kept tellin' me to take a break and get some rest, so in the end Ah figured Ah may as well take them up on the offer."

"You should probably get as much rest as you can," Twilight told her. "Somehow I get the feeling we're going to be heading back out into the wastes ourselves at some point."

"Ah should be out there right now with the others," Applejack grumbled.

"There's not much we can do about it, the Brotherhood needs you here," Twilight replied fairly. "Besides, Rarity can handle herself, and I doubt anything is going to be able to get the drop on Pinkie or Fluttershy. The only one of us who's better suited to handling the wasteland is Rainbow Dash, and you know as well as I do that that girl is as likely to get into trouble as out of it."

Applejack huffed and crossed her arms. "Yeah, Ah guess. Ah just hate sittin' around here doing nothing. Ah know how to handle myself, Ah ain't weak."

Twilight watched Applejack seething in the corner, and pondered how to go about cheering her up. It was as plain as day to see what was bothering the farm girl, but addressing it without upsetting or offending her wasn't going to be easy. "No-one thinks you're weak, Applejack, we j-"

"Well, why the heck am Ah gettin' benched, then?" Applejack interrupted. 

"You're not getting benched," Twilight said patiently. "You're literally the only person that could help the Knights fix the gate, no one else has that kind of power."

"Yeah, right," Applejack growled. "The Brotherhood has power armor, they would've managed to straighten the gate out themselves, eventually. Ah should be out there, usin' my magic to protect Rarity and the others, but now everyone thinks Ah'm weak after Ah got beaten by that big darn freak from Tartarus!"

There was the crux of the matter, just as Twilight had suspected. Getting defeated by Horrigan had bruised Applejack's ego and shaken her confidence, not to mention whatever additional psychological trauma she was hiding from almost getting squashed like a bug. Seeing no easy way out of this, Twilight decided it was best to just rip the band aid off and get it over with. "Applejack, none of us think you're weak for losing to Horrigan. Do you?"

Applejack's expression told her that she had hit the bullseye. "Wha-? Don't be ridiculous, Ah ain't weak! Ah mean, sure, maybe Ah ain't as strong as Ah thought Ah was, but… yeah, Ah ain't weak. Maybe. Probably not. Ah mean Ah might be, Ah guess, maybe a little."

"Applejack, you walloped Horrigan from one end of the Citadel to the other. The only reason it didn't kill him is because he's an absolute monster, in every sense of the word." If Twilight could move her arms properly, she would have waggled a finger at her friend. As it was, she settled for blowing a lock of hair out of her face. "Hell, all of the Knights are impressed that you lasted as long as they did. You can count the number of people who have fought against Horrigan and won on one hand, and no one else in history has ever punched him in the face and walked away from it. It took Liberty Prime to finally put that thing down. You know, the literal walking superweapon armed with actual nuclear ordnance. Do you really think you're weak because you can't quite hit as hard as a nuclear bombardment?"

Twilight saw clearly that her words were hitting home. Applejack shifted uncomfortably, looking anywhere but at her friend, but after a few moments she begrudgingly admitted, "Ah guess not. Ah just don't want anyone thinkin' that Ah ain't good for nothin' after that."

"I promise you, none of us think that you're good for nothing," Twilight replied honestly. She suspected that it was going to take quite some time for Applejack to properly pick herself up from her defeat, and even longer before she managed to shrug it off entirely, but at least they had made a start.

Before either of them could say anything else, the door opened and a medic stepped through, calling back over his shoulder, "Don't forget to tell Elder Lyons the news about our civilian patient, alright?"

Twilight instantly sat up straighter, ignoring the flash of pain from her back. "Civilian patient? Do you mean Adam? What's happened, is he alright?"

The medic held up his hands placatingly. "He's fine, don't worry. I'm just reminding my colleague to keep the Elder informed of any progress. Right now I'm more interested in you. Do you remember the exercises we went through last time?"





Fluttershy felt a vague sense of relief as she stepped into the Meresti Trainyard. After the skirmish with the Enclave, raiders and giant ants, the rest of the journey had been thankfully uneventful, but all of the excitement had fired Fluttershy's bloodlust, and she was having increasing difficulty keeping her eyes off of Rarity and Pinkie's necks. Just their smell and the sound of their heartbeats was enough to drive her to distraction. 

"Are you alright, darling?" Rarity asked.

Fluttershy shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I need blood. Soon." Without waiting to see if Rarity and Pinkie were following, she strode to the tunnel entrance and headed inside. 

The metro tunnel was just as dismal and decrepit as the last time the Rainbooms passed through. Even the foul stench of the mirelurks they had dealt with previously still pervaded the air. Keeping an eye out for any booby traps, Fluttershy carefully picked her way along the tunnel. As she passed out of range of what little sunlight filtered in through the great metal doors at the end, she was brought to a halt by Rarity calling out to her, "Fluttershy, put your Pip-Boy light on before you hurt yourself!"

Fluttershy glanced back over her shoulder; Pinkie and Rarity were both hurriedly switching their own lights on and illuminating the area around them. "What do you mean?"

Rarity gaped at Fluttershy as if she had gone mad. "What do I mean? What do you mean, darling?! It's pitch black!"

"Huh?" Fluttershy looked around, momentarily distracted from her hunger. Away from the light, the world presented itself in an array of washed-out grays; colorless, and yet defined with crystal clarity. "Huh. I can see in the dark. That's new."

"That's incredible!" Rarity carefully hurried up next to her. "What does everything look like? Can you still see colors?"

"Everything is gray," Fluttershy replied curtly. The reek of rotting mirelurk covered any hint of the scent of Rarity's blood, but the rhythmic thumping of her heart was becoming more and more enticing to Fluttershy in a way that did not bode well for the fashionista's health. "I'll describe everything to you later, but can we please just find the Family first before I turn feral again?"

Rarity took a step back, chuckling nervously. "R-right. Sorry, Fluttershy, I keep forgetting how hard this must be for you. I'll stay focused from now on."

Fluttershy sighed and carried on ahead. The girls found avoiding the booby traps a lot easier this time around; Fluttershy's newly discovered impeccable night vision enabling her to easily spot the traps before they got anywhere near them.

As the group neared the final approach to the Family's hideout, squeezing past the abandoned metro cars that dotted the tunnel, Fluttershy hung back and let Pinkie go in front. The last thing she wanted to do was startle their sentry by suddenly appearing out of the darkness. That would be a good way to get accidentally shot.

When they stepped around the last subway car, carefully avoiding the last tripwire, a harsh voice shouted out, "Stop right there! Who the hell are you?"

"Take it easy, Robert, it's just your friendly neighborhood Rainbooms, again," Pinkie called in reply.

"Who? Oh, it's you lot." Fluttershy looked around Pinkie to see the Family's lookout, Robert, standing behind his sandbag wall flanked, as always, by two large metal drums, each with a fire merrily burning away inside. "I never thought I'd see you girls again. What are you doing here?"

"We need to speak to Vance," Rarity told him. "It's a matter of some urgency," she added with a glance at Fluttershy. 

Robert shrugged. "Fine by me, we owe you girls for helping get the blood packs we need." We waved them past. "Go on, you know where to find him."

After thanking Robert, the trio hurried into the corridor that led to the Meresti Metro Station. Fluttershy found herself strangely reluctant to continue, now that she was so close. The Family was a gathering of cannibals from around the wasteland; people who controlled their cannibalistic urges by only consuming blood rather than flesh. 

Fluttershy wasn't remotely afraid of them; they had been far too nice the last time she had met them, but she could already smell the blood packs that they kept ready for consumption. Her control felt like it was balancing on a knife-edge as it was. 

Soon enough, the girls emerged into the makeshift settlement of Meresti Station. The area was fairly loud, with a loud hubbub of conversation suffusing the air. About a dozen people were gathered around a wooden stall. Fluttershy recognised one of them as Vance, the leader of the Family, from his distinctive trench coat as well as the Shishkebab he kept scabbarded at his waist. One of the group spotted the girls and said something to the others, who all turned to look as the trio approached.

Vance's eyes widened when he saw them. "Girls, this is a surprise, though not an unwelcome one. Indeed, your timing is most fortuitous."

Rarity, Pinkie and Vance quickly slipped into conversation, but Fluttershy wasn't paying any attention. One of the group was clutching a blood pack, opening the nozzle as if she was about to drink from it. 

The scent of blood so close washed away the last of Fluttershy's restraint.

Fluttershy felt her magic rippling through her body, felt talons and fangs lengthen as wings unfurled from her back. With a feral snarl, she launched herself at the hapless woman and snatched the blood pack from her hands before sinking her fangs into it.

The blood felt like a balm as it flowed down her throat. It numbed her mind and soothed the awful itching that the blood hunger caused for just a brief moment, until the pack was empty. 

Looking around for more blood, the people scrambling back away from her tickled Fluttershy's predatory instincts, but the sight of a half-open mini fridge, fully stocked with blood packs, quickly snagged her focus. Vaulting over a wooden counter in the way, Fluttershy growled and snarled to scare off any fools that wanted to challenge her for her prize. Seeing that none dared get between her and her prey, Fluttershy gave a victorious hiss and set to gorging herself, draining the blood packs one after one in quick succession. 

Unfortunately, the blood ran out before Fluttershy was truly sated, but by the time it was gone she had at least regained enough of her faculties to hold off from going on a frenzied rampage. Straightening up, Fluttershy flicked her hair and looked around to see where her friends had gotten to. 

Rarity and Pinkie were standing exactly where Fluttershy had left them, both looking as if they were about to dive for cover. Vance was standing next to them, an expression of slack-jawed amazement on his face. "I assume this is what you wanted to talk to me about?" He said slowly.

"Er, yes," Rarity giggled nervously. "Fluttershy has been having difficulty controlling her, well, hunger for blood in stressful circumstances. We were hoping that you might be able to help."

"More blood would be nice, too," Fluttershy said bluntly.

"Of course." Vance called for some of his subordinates to bring more blood, then gestured for the girls to follow him. "Come, walk with me."

Fluttershy fell into step alongside Vance as he walked to the escalators and headed up to the mezzanine, Rarity and Pinkie following in their wake. 

"How long have you had this issue, Miss Fluttershy?" Vance asked. 

"Not long," Fluttershy replied. "Around a week and a half, I think. That's when I first ended up like… this." She flexed her wings for emphasis.

"I see." When they reached the mezzanine, Vance leaned against the wall and looked at her, running his eyes particularly over her wings and fangs. "Have you had trouble controlling your hunger at all times, or only when stressed?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "After the first, um, frenzy, I managed to keep the hunger under control quite easily. I needed to have more blood after about a week, but a single pack was enough, unless I use a lot of my magic, then I need more." She frowned and leaned against the wall, too. "The problem is that there was a battle at the Citadel, where we're staying for the time being. I didn't fight, but something about the excitement and the smell made it hard to control the itch."

"Which is when you thought of us?" Vance asked. Fluttershy nodded. "Understandable. Before I can help you, however, I would like some more details, if that's alright. How did you become like this?"

Between the three of them, the girls explained everything, from Fluttershy's initial exposure to FEV in Vault 87, to her escape from the raiders that kidnapped her, her mutation and resultant frenzy, right the way up to the fight against Horrigan and their trek to meet the Family. Vance listened carefully, asking pertinent questions whenever they came to him but mostly allowing the girls to do the talking. He was surprised and a little shocked that FEV was the cause of Fluttershy's condition, but he accepted it easily enough.

"I had heard from Arefu about the magical abilities you girls possess, but for it to manifest in such a way when mixed with FEV is truly incredible," Vance said when they were finished. "Incidentally, it's a good thing you girls were able to facilitate our alliance with the people of Arefu. If we didn't have their help in acquiring blood packs, then your little feast back there would have been a considerable blow to our supplies."

"Oh, um, I'm sorry," Fluttershy said quietly.

Vance shook his head. "Do not apologize, I understand all too well how difficult it can be to control one's inner darkness."

Fluttershy let out a soft sigh of relief. "Do you think you can help me control the hunger?"

"I do, but…" Vance tilted his head as he watched her. "I notice you keep referring to it as the hunger, not your hunger, is there a reason why?"

Fluttershy stared at him in mild confusion. "Well, I mean, it's not me, is it? It's all because of the FEV."

Vance gave her a piercing look. "My child, I don't mean to be cruel, but while the FEV may have been the initial catalyst, I assure you that it was you who did those things."

A lead weight dropped into Fluttershy's stomach at his words. 

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Rarity hissed. "We want you to help her, not torture her!"

"I want to help, and I will, but to do so I first need Fluttershy to accept who she is," Vance replied. "I'm not saying that you are to blame for what happened, I merely want you to understand that it was not some dark hand at work, some mystical force dictating your actions. The FEV, and your mutation, are a part of you, now. You are two sides of the same coin. Light and dark, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, all many parts of the singular entity that is you." Vance shook his head. "If you cannot come to accept that, then I'm afraid that there is little I can do to help."

Fluttershy felt as if the walls were closing in on her. She wanted to say that he was wrong, that the FEV was a parasite that had infected her mind; it wouldn't even be a lie, but Vance's words had the ring of truth about them. 

Seeing her hesitation, Vance pushed off from the wall and started towards a nearby corridor. "Come with me."

The girls shared a concerned glance before following him. Vance led them through the old metro station until they came to a door marked 'Restroom', with a computer terminal just outside. "This is where we bring all new members of the Family," Vance told them. "Here, they meditate in solitude, deciding whether they wish to stay and learn our ways, or leave and give society a second chance." He used the terminal to unlock the door then held it open for Fluttershy. "If you believe that you can come to terms with the darkness inside you, then enter and begin your meditation. If not, the Family will provide as much blood as we can spare, and I will give you whatever advice I can, though I do not know how much it will help. The choice is yours."

Fluttershy looked back at Pinkie and Rarity, but they were both as lost for words as she was. As she wrestled with her doubts, she saw Pinkie glance into the room and, ever so subtly, nod. "You can do this, Shy."

"Pinkie?" Rarity asked warily.

Fluttershy looked Pinkie in the eye, seeing a dark reflection there. Pinkie had already faced her demons, standing at the top of a precipice back at River City. If her friend had the courage to stand on the edge of despair and stare into the abyss, then Fluttershy would dare to try, too.

With her decision made, Fluttershy turned and stepped inside the room without another word. She had been keeping herself busy ever since she had mutated, throwing herself into studying medicine and FEV, all to avoid thinking about the horrible things she had done while using her mutation as a shield to avoid dealing with the horror and guilt of it. It was time for that to change.

"You're making the right decision," Vance said, pride evident in his voice. "It will be painful, but if you can face your darkness; if you can accept it and allow it to be a part of you, then I can help you to control it. I shall be back in a few hours. Good luck."

Fluttershy flinched as the door slammed shut behind her and locked automatically. A solitary chair was placed next to a little table in the middle of the room. Sitting down, Fluttershy flexed her claws and, for the first time in a while, allowed herself to think about Adam.
> Chapter 85 - Sanguine Solution
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The room was utterly silent. Even the sparse lighting had been switched off, so that the buzzing of the electricity couldn't bother Fluttershy's sensitive hearing and thus disrupt her meditation.

Fluttershy had been in the meditation room for three days now, her solitude only broken when a member of the Family brought her food, water and, once a day, a small glass of blood fresh from a pack. It was always Vance himself who delivered the blood, bringing with it a few words of encouragement sprinkled with nuggets of wisdom for her to ponder. 

Truth be told, Fluttershy was surprised that he had dared to come back after the first visit. She had done as asked and spent her first few hours thinking about everything that had happened, everything that she had done; starting with the awful moment where some horrific impulse had prompted her to try and euthanize Adam. 

Going over the memories of her virus-induced mutation, and subsequent rampage, was almost unbearable. The ensuing hysterical breakdown had been a long time coming, but Fluttershy had been surprised by just how furious it had made her. 

It wasn't fair. It would have been easier for Fluttershy to swallow if everything that had happened to her had been part of some evil plot; at least then she'd have someone to blame. Instead, she was stuck shouldering the consequences of a freak accident. The butt of some cruel cosmic joke. 

Something dark and violent within Fluttershy had reared its head in response to her anger. The urge to rend and tear had become almost overpowering; a predatory instinct that recognized a threat and sought to tear it limb from limb. But with the perceived threat being her own mind, the pent up aggression was left seeking a target. 

That target very nearly ended up being the nearest members of the Family. It took all of Fluttershy's willpower to keep from smashing down the door and initiating a bloodbath. To keep a lid on it, she turned her rage on the room around her. The table and chair were smashed to kindling, the door to the toilet had been ripped from its hinges, and the walls had been shredded like paper beneath her claws. 

It was as she was calming down from that outburst, squatting in a dark corner and panting heavily, that Vance had first turned up with a glass of blood for her. Maybe he had thought that it was safe once the noise had died down, or maybe he was insane enough to deliberately test her willpower right as she was coming down from a frenzy; either way, introducing uncovered blood into the room had been almost suicidally dangerous. 

Fluttershy had scented the blood and was hurtling towards its bearer before she even realized what she was doing. At the very last second she had managed to twist her arm aside, and the slash that had been intended to open the jugular of the lesser predator instead gouged deep furrows in the concrete wall beside the door. 

Vance, to his credit, had barely even flinched, though Fluttershy had smelled the fear coursing through his body. She had thankfully managed to avoid tearing his fingers off as she snatched the glass out of his hand, then retreated back to her corner and turned her back on him to drink it in peace. While Fluttershy lapped at the blood, Vance had crouched in the doorway and told her about the tenets all members of the Family were expected to live by.

Fluttershy had tried to ignore him at first, largely because she feared that acknowledging his presence would have swiftly led to her draining the poor man of every drop of blood he possessed, but his words stuck with her even as he cautiously backed away and left the room, locking her in again. When Fluttershy had finally managed to calm down entirely, she had gone through everything he told her again in her head.

The Law of Blood was first. Feast not on the flesh; consume only the blood. This is our strength. 

Fluttershy was pretty sure that she had that one nailed already, but Vance had made sure to impress on her its deeper meaning of channeling and directing one's hunger. He believed that Fluttershy could learn to apply the spirit of the law even when ravenous, keeping her hunger directed at blood that was already outside the body or, in extreme circumstances, that which was freely offered from the vein. Fluttershy privately hoped that the day she fed directly from a person would never come.

The Law of Exile was second. Bear not the child; welcome only the exile. This is our fate. 

Given that the FEV almost always sterilized those it infected, and Fluttershy hadn't had the courage to test herself yet, she wasn't even sure that she could have children, and in any case such considerations were a long way off, unless things happened to go spectacularly well with Adam. If he ever woke up.

The Law of Nobility was third. Feed not for pleasure; partake only to nourish. This is our dignity. 

That one would be easy enough for Fluttershy to follow. As soothing as the act of feeding actually was, she hadn't felt the urge to drink blood at all until prompted by the FEV.

The Law of Night was fourth. Seek not the sun's light; embrace only the shadows. This is our refuge.

This was one rule that Fluttershy didn't feel the need to worry about. She wasn't bothered by daylight in the slightest, not even in her vampiric form, and while her enhanced senses gave her an incredible advantage in the dark, she couldn't restrict herself to only being active at night if she wanted to help her friends. Shy she may be, but she didn't feel the need to hide away from society.

The fifth and final law was the Law of Family. Kill not our kindred; slay only the enemy. This is our justice.

Fluttershy had given a lot of thought to the Law of Family. She hated the idea of harming others, and the thought of killing people was abhorrent, and yet she had done it herself easily. Too easily. She had blamed the FEV at first, and it certainly played a large part in what happened, but Fluttershy realized that she had been using that as a crutch and as a veil. Blaming the FEV allowed her to absolve herself of guilt but, more than that, it allowed her to ignore her own dark feelings. Feelings that had been around since long before she ever went to Vault 87. 

With her initial freakout out of the way, Fluttershy had found it easier to think back over what she had done. She wasn't happy about any of it, not by a long shot, but she understood what had happened, why she had done it, and, over the last couple of days, she had managed to accept it.

The FEV may have been the catalyst, but the change, the darkness, was a part of Fluttershy now. During her meditation, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room the same way she had seen Tree Hugger doing it back home, she had finally managed to come to terms with that fact. 

Now, Fluttershy was calmer and more comfortable than she had been since she had first arrived in this world. She wasn't exactly happy; her boyfriend being in a coma somewhat precluded that, but she was at least at peace with herself.

She was ready to rejoin the world. 

As if on cue, Fluttershy heard footsteps coming down the corridor towards her. She got up off the floor, brushed the dust from her clothes, then flexed and stretched her stiff wings before turning to face the door and waiting. Almost a minute later, Vance finally opened the door. "Ah, Miss Fluttershy. How are you feeling?"

"I'm alright, thank you," Fluttershy replied.

Vance looked around at the room, at the wreckage she had piled as neatly as possible in the corner. "I like what you've done with the place." Fluttershy blushed and tried to stammer out an apology, but Vance shook his head. "Don't apologize. This room is meant to help us accept what we are and what we want to be. Sometimes, doing so requires us to vent our emotions into the surroundings. Better to do that on concrete instead of another living being." He looked over at Fluttershy. "How is your meditation coming along?"

Fluttershy straightened up and clasped her hands together. "Your teachings have helped, and I think I have a better chance of controlling my hunger now. I'm ready to go."

Vance smiled and gestured to the door. "Then let us leave this room and set you on your merry way. Your new life begins now."

Together, the two left the room and slowly walked back to the main living area. When they got to the mezzanine, Fluttershy was glad to see Rarity and Pinkie sitting together at a table playing cards. Both of them leapt to their feet when they spotted her.

"Fluttershy! Darling, are you alright?" Rarity asked as she hurried over.

Fluttershy nodded and smiled softly. "I'm alright. I think I've figured things out, now."

"Are you gonna break stuff instead of biting people?" Pinkie asked with a raised eyebrow. "Because we heard you tearing the walls apart from all the way down here. The guys were saying that Vance has brass balls for going in there with you every day."

"Pinkie, please learn to show a little tact, will you?" Rarity moaned as Fluttershy blushed.

Vance chuckled and crossed his arms. "It is merely a matter of faith. I believed that Miss Fluttershy would have the strength to restrain herself, once she was willing to try and accept herself for who she is. Though, I would be lying if I said that I was completely unafraid."

Apparently not amused by Vance's flippant attitude, Rarity cleared her throat awkwardly. "Yes, well, now that your meditation is over, what are we doing now, dear?" 

"We're going back to the Citadel," Fluttershy replied, getting relieved sighs from both Rarity and Pinkie. "Um, hopefully without getting attacked by raiders or ants or the Enclave this time." 

"Woohoo! I'll grab my stuff!" Pinkie darted off before anyone could reply, zipping around the station like a lunatic.

Fluttershy raised a curious eyebrow. "I thought we only brought my nursing kit, her pickaxe and both of our packs? What else is she getting?" 

Rarity sighed and shook her head. "I don't know. Not long after we got here she started complaining about the fact that her pickaxe wasn't practical in a fight, which of course is true; she can't hit something with it without whatever she strikes exploding like a bomb, then after that she started collecting bits and pieces of random junk."

"Her mind does work in… interesting ways," Vance put in. He shrugged and added, "She has already paid for everything she asked for by cooking and baking for us, and she clearly has a plan in mind for it all, so you may as well just wait and see what she comes up with."

Rarity cheeks turned green as she nodded. "Yes, I've never seen a cake baked with blood before, and hopefully I never have to see one again."

"She mentioned trying to make one before," Fluttershy noted.

"I'll see if there's a slice left for you before you go," Vance said with a nod. 

"Already got one!" Pinkie cried cheerfully as she reappeared, her pickaxe in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other. Her pack was bulging with mysterious treasures, and even more pieces of assorted junk had been clipped or tied on to it, making her look like some sort of bizarre scrap prospector.

Vance looked at her in bemused surprise, then visibly decided not to ask and turned back to Fluttershy. "We've restocked your nursing kit with more blood packs already, but there's something else I'd like to give you before you go, so would you mind waiting at the tunnel entrance for me?"

"Oh, um, alright." Fluttershy watched curiously as he disappeared back into the corridors. "That's strange. I was expecting him to ask for some sort of payment for helping me."

"You know that's not his style, dear," Rarity replied, turning to head to the escalators. "Besides, Pinkie and I have been helping him work out how to use his new magic crystal."

Fluttershy almost slipped on the escalator steps in her surprise. "There's magic here?!" 

Rarity nodded. "There certainly is. Apparently, they took it off the body of a raider who tried to attack Arefu. Vance said that it called to him the moment he saw it, but he didn't know how or why."

"Is it a Geode?!" Fluttershy asked incredulously

"Thankfully, no," Rarity said with relief. "I think it's just another one of the crystals that everyone seems to be digging up from Raven Rock, though that in itself is worrying enough. No, it's just a simple ruby, with a little bit of magic inside. We showed him how to pony up using it, and I must admit, he does look rather dashing with those wings, but it doesn't give him powers like ours."

"Nope! It just gives him fangs and bat wings, kinda like the ones you've got!" Pinkie added brightly.

"Bat wings?" Fluttershy would have asked more, but they reached the base of the escalators and she realized, with more than a little embarrassment, that every member of the Family was gathering near the tunnel entrance, all looking at her. Some looked wary, others disturbingly focused, but most looked almost reverent. 

Fluttershy had to fight down the urge to hiss at them.

"What's going on?" Rarity whispered.

"Maybe they want autographs?" Pinkie suggested.

The sound of footsteps on the mezzanine snagged Fluttershy's attention, distracting her from the crowd of gawking people. She looked back over her shoulder to see Vance standing on the mezzanine"s wall. He had a shining blood-red ruby on a chain around his neck, and clasped in his hands was a sword, nestled in a scabbard.

The ruby flashed and great black wings erupted from Vance's back. He took a deep breath, then took a single step forward. His wings and trench coat fanned out impressively as he fell. At the last second, his wings flapped once to slow his descent, and he landed on the ground with a dancer's grace.

"That's a pretty awesome entrance," Pinkie whispered.

Fluttershy privately agreed. She suspected that Vance had arranged to have everyone gather at the door just so he could put on such a dramatic act, but there was no denying the effect it had on his followers; each and every one of them looked at him as if he were a living legend, a king come to grace his subjects with his presence.

The same way that many of them had looked at her.

Vance approached the group slowly, each step measured and deliberate. "Brothers, sisters, dear members of the Family," he called out in a grand voice. "Today is an auspicious day. Our guests are leaving, but over these last three days they have given us something truly special." He nodded to Pinkie and Rarity. "They have brought us laughter, warmth, and a reminder of the joys of good food with good company, and they brought us something even more valuable." 

It was all Fluttershy could do not to flinch as every eye in the station turned to her. 

"The world's first true vampire," Vance continued, his voice soft, yet still carrying effortlessly through the room. "Fluttershy may not have been cursed with the same affliction as us, but still she sought us out, seeking our guidance. We all saw three days ago the reflection of our own struggle; the dark hunger that we must all fight to control, a common bond in spirit if not in letter. Now, today, she stands before us once again, a living embodiment of the ideal that all members of our Family strive to achieve."

As embarrassing as it was being the object of such a public grandstanding, Fluttershy couldn't help but admire Vance's initiative, not to mention his audacity. Using Fluttershy's situation as a foundation, he was solidifying his position whilst simultaneously improving the standing of the Rainbooms among his people. Lifting himself and his allies higher without putting anyone down. It was a masterstroke. No matter what flaws the man may have had, Vance was undeniably a born leader.

Fluttershy tensed as Vance stepped closer, stopping just out of arm's reach. "Lady Fluttershy. Do you remember the laws I spoke of that our Family lives by?"

"Of course," Fluttershy replied, her mouth suddenly dry. "I've thought a lot about them over the last few days."

Vance nodded. "Normally, I give each member of the Family one particular Law that they are to memorize and meditate on, that they may achieve a deeper understanding of it and therefore enrich us all with their insight. I know that you aren't staying with us, but would you take one of our Laws with you? Perhaps, if we meet again, you could enlighten us with the perspective of a true vampire?"

Fluttershy tried not to make her relief too obvious. Vance had mentioned such a thing before, during her meditation, and it was something that she had spent a great deal of time considering. "Actually, I was thinking of focusing on two of them."

"Truly?" Vance asked. "Pray tell, which do you wish to achieve a deeper understanding of?"

"The first law, the Law of Blood," Fluttershy replied. "I think you're right about following the spirit of it. If I can direct my hunger even when it's at its strongest, then my friends will be that much safer."

Vance smiled at her. "An admirable goal. And what is the second?"

Fluttershy swallowed, determinedly not looking at Rarity or Pinkie. "The Law of Family. Kill not our kindred; slay only the enemy." She tried to ignore her friends' gasps as she continued, "If it were up to me, I would never hurt anyone, or let anyone die, no matter who they are or what they've done. No-one is irredeemable. But sometimes, a choice has to be made. Rehabilitation may not be an option when lives are in immediate danger. If it comes down to it, and I have to choose between sparing an enemy or saving an innocent life, I hope I have the strength to act in time."

Rarity looked at her in a mix of surprise and concern. "Fluttershy, are you sure you've thought this through?"

Fluttershy gave her a grim nod. "Either way I'll have regrets. I'd rather regret the blood on my hands than regret not saving a friend. Don't get me wrong, I'm not planning on leaving a trail of death and destruction across the wastes, but I'm not going to let the rest of you shoulder the burden of fighting alone." She held her hands up and flexed her claws. "Besides, it's not like I haven't done it before."

Vance dipped his head. "A difficult decision to make, but a necessary one. In that case, this final gift I have for you may prove doubly useful." He held up the scabbard with one hand and slowly drew out the sword with the other. The blade was long and narrow, made out of some dark alloy that barely reflected the light, with a thin groove running down the middle to reduce weight. The handguard seemed plain at first, but Fluttershy's keen eyesight picked out intricate characters carved into it. 

"This is Vampire's Edge. Before the war, it would have belonged to a high ranking officer of the Chinese army," Vance explained. "It is far lighter, sharper, and more durable than any other of its kind that I have seen. I have been keeping it locked away, intending to bring it out for special ceremonies." He sheathed the sword again and held it out to Fluttershy. "I believe it will do far more good in your hands. May it protect you well."

Fluttershy took the sword carefully, trying not to let her reluctance show. Vance was right; even in its scabbard, the blade felt as light as a feather. She tried to thank him, but she couldn't seem to get her mouth to work anymore, so she just settled for a nod of thanks and attached the scabbard to her belt.

Thankfully, Vance didn't need any further response. "Farewell, my friends. I hope that our paths cross again in the future. But until then, go with the knowledge that, should you ever need refuge, the Family will always have a place for you and your friends." He placed a hand over his heart and bowed low, the rest of the Family swiftly following suit. 

Fluttershy almost choked at the sight of everyone bowing to her, but she managed to stammer out a 'thank you' before turning and heading down the tunnel towards the exit, keeping her footsteps calm and slow so as not to seem too rude.

"That was… unexpected," Rarity said quietly as she fell into step beside Fluttershy. "Still, I'm not complaining about getting help without having to fight for it. I just hope the weather is nice and clear."

Pinkie shook her head. "Nope. I was talking to Robert earlier, and he said it's hammering down out there."

Rarity sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fantastic."
> Chapter 86 - Change in Fortune
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset groaned and let her head thud against the desk. She and Pia had finally managed to get almost all of the loose magic in Rivet City corralled, contained and controlled. Even the spontaneous lightning generated by the trees had been stopped thanks to Applejack's idea of sticking taps in the trees and literally siphoning off the excess magic into jars. 

Naturally, a lot of magic was being extracted that way, but the science team had put together an efficient system of cataloguing the magic as it was extracted; setting the varieties they recognized aside in vats and selling off the excess to the Brotherhood of Steel at a heavily discounted price. It helped that the city's reopening, and the resultant influx of people and caps, had allowed the science team to hire a few new hands to help with all of the work.

All that remained were the magically enhanced fusion generators. Sunset and Pia had spent the last few days alternating between brainstorming safe ways to test them, and attempting to come up with a scientific theory as to how and why the magic reacted to radiation the way it did. Unfortunately, progress was a little slower than either would like. Specifically, progress was non-existent.

"What time is it?" Pia asked tiredly.

Sunset grumbled and straightened up so she could check her Pip-Boy. "Nine thirty-two AM, so just over a minute since you last asked."

Pia made a disgusted noise and shoved a clipboard across the table. "This is insane. I've tried every single thing I can think of and I'm getting nothing. None of these equations make any sense whatsoever. How did you used to figure this shit out back in your world?"

"At CHS, I didn't. I never managed to figure out exactly how magic worked back there," Sunset replied. "As for Equestria, things worked differently there. It had what we call a background magical field; a quantity of magic in the water, the earth, even the air itself. It doesn't really make much of an impact on day-to-day life, but it's an essential constant in magical theory and calculations. Trying to figure out magic without it is… How can I put this? … Imagine how much different physics would be if you went to a reality where neutrons didn't exist. A layman wouldn't really understand the issue, but a nuclear physicist would lose their mind." 

Pia frowned and scratched her neck absently. "I'm not a nuclear physicist, but I guess the only issue would be atomic mass, so certain elements wouldn't exist. No, hang on, there'd probably be some issue with gluon interaction…" Her frown deepened, then she held her hands up and shook her head. "You know what? I'm not even going to try and wrap my head around it. Okay, so magic study without a magic field is a fucking nightmare, got it."

"Pretty much." Sunset rubbed her eyes, feeling utterly exhausted despite it still being early morning. "And that's before we add the effects of radiation into the mix."

"Ugh, don't remind me." Pia sighed heavily. "I give up. Let's take a break for now and come back to it later." 

"Good idea," Sunset said with relief. "I've got training with Danvers later, so I don't want my brain to be too fried for that."

Pia looked at her almost warily. "So… Harkness is still avoiding you?"

Sunset nodded. She had barely even seen him since she had returned his memories. He had even assigned his second in command, Lana Danvers, to take over her training in the gym. The woman wasn't as good a fighter as Harkness, but she was still better than Sunset. Somehow, the fact that Harkness was still looking out for Sunset's well-being despite what had passed between them just made it hurt all the more.

"If you don't mind me asking, what exactly happened between the two of you?" Pia asked tentatively.

"Nothing major," Sunset replied in a toneless voice. "Just a difference of opinion."

Pia looked up as the door opened, then tensed up in her chair. "Um, are you absolutely certain that it wasn't something big?"

Sunset gave her a curious look, glanced over her shoulder to see who had come into the room, then did a double-take when she spotted Harkness in the doorway. She blanched as she spotted the plasma gun clasped in his hands. 

"Don't worry, I'm not going to shoot you," Harkness said quickly, correctly interpreting her expression. "I'm actually here to thank you."

"Thank me?" Sunset asked incredulously. "What for?"

Harkness smiled sadly. "For the other day. You could have been a little more subtle about the way you went about it, maybe a bit smarter too, but you did the best you could and, well, I am the one who effectively told you to do it. I've got no one to blame but myself."

Pia looked from one to the other as if she was watching a tennis rally, a look of intense curiosity on her face. "Seriously, what is going on between you two?" 

"It's private," Harkness and Sunset replied in unison.

"All right, all right, I'll keep my nose out." Pia glanced at the door. "I can leave you two alone if you want to make up properly on the table."

"Shut up, Pia!" Sunset hissed in a mortified whisper.

Harkness gave her an unamused look. "Enough with the jokes, Pia, I'm just here to give Sunset this." He patted the plasma gun meaningfully.

Sunset stared at him in surprise. "You're giving me that?! But, why? You're in charge of protecting this place, don't you need it?"

"I have other guns," Harkness replied. "Besides, I've heard about all the trouble you've had with the Enclave. If you're going up against power armor, you're going to need a weapon that can penetrate it. This should do the job." He held it up in one hand as he gestured to different parts of it with the other. "I've replaced some of the parts and altered others to make it tougher and easier to maintain, and I've refined the output so each bolt it fires is more powerful without using more ammunition. If you're done here, I'll take you up to the flight deck and show you how to use it."

"Whoa." Sunset glanced at Pia. "Uh, are we done here, or…?"

Pia shrugged. "Fuck it. Sitting here and staring at numbers that make no fucking sense isn't going to help us figure this out. May as well take our minds off it for a bit."

"You'll figure it out," Harkness said bracingly. "I never imagined you'd be able to stop the trees from shooting lightning, but you did. Hell, I thought we were going to have to install a few dozen lightning rods up there."

"Lightning rods wouldn't have helped," Pia supplied. "Magic lightning apparently doesn't earth like normal electricity, it just shoots out into the air randomly."

Sunset gasped as an idea suddenly exploded into her mind. "Holy shit, that's it!"

Pia and Harkness both stared at her in surprise. "What's it?" Pia asked.

Sunset ignored them and rifled through the sheets of paper on the table until she found a blank one, then snatched up a pencil and started scribbling down formulas. "I can't believe I didn't spot this before."

"Spot what before?" Pia pressed.

Sunset paused in her writing for a moment. "How can I explain this in simple terms? You know how light can be treated as both a particle and a wave?"

"No?" Harkness replied.

"It's a physics thing, light behaves as both a particle and a wave," Pia supplied. "Go on, Sunset." 

Sunset shrugged and returned to writing as she spoke, "Well, back in Equestria, magic operates under a similar duality; it can be treated either as physical matter or as an energy field, and can behave as both at the same time," Sunset explained. "That's why when two unicorns fire a beam of magic at each other the beams clash, instead of just passing through each other."

"Did she just say unicorns?" Harkness asked quietly.

Sunset nodded jerkily. "Yeah, I was actually born as one, but that's not important. What is important is the fact that magic can't behave like that, in a dual state, without a background magical field to stabilize it. Don't ask why. Starswirl the Bearded spent almost two decades working out the minutiae. It takes years to learn the details of it."

Pia crossed her arms. "Okay… that's fascinating, but how does it apply here?"

Sunset glanced up from her notes just long enough to flash her a grin. "Magic has been behaving exactly like that in this world, too."

"But you just said that magic can only do that when there's a background magical field… wait…" Pia's eyes widened as her mind caught up with her mouth. "You think this world has a background magical field of its own?!"

"I think so," Sunset replied. "In fact, I'm almost positive."

"How can you be so sure?" Pia asked.

"The lightning." Sunset mentally chided herself for not noticing sooner. "The lightning wasn't earthing when it was coming from the trees, so where was it going?"

Pia frowned and snatched up a pencil and paper of her own, quickly wrote down what Sunset had already said, then looked up at her expectantly. "Okay, hit me."

"I'll try and keep this as simple as I can." Sunset took a deep breath before continuing. "Object density affects how the background magical field works, and so does the presence of living creatures, even if they themselves can't use magic. If there wasn't a background magical field, then all of the excess magic from the trees should have all just bled into the ship constantly, instead of blasting out of the tops of them as lightning."

"So most of the magic was going up to the tops of the trees to escape the dense materials and people inside Rivet City, then escaping into the air as lightning when it couldn't travel any further?" Pia asked.

Sunset nodded. "Yeah. Of course, it could just be the case that the rusted metal that makes up the ship is insulating the magic; that has been known to happen sometimes, which would also funnel the magic upwards, but that's where the lightning itself becomes important. If the lightning was just caused by magic escaping the ship and burning itself out, then there should be residue in the air. You'd be able to see it as multicolored dust in the air after each lightning bolt, until it settles back to the ground. The whole damned flight deck would be covered in it if that was the case."

"Is this going to start making sense soon?" Harkness put in.

Sunset glared at him for a second before turning back to the paper. "There's no dust, no residue or aftereffect of any kind, meaning that the magic is diffusing into the atmosphere completely. It wouldn't do that if there wasn't a background magical field in the atmosphere for it to diffuse into."

Pia finished writing it all down, then hummed as she thought. "I don't know, are you sure about this?"

"There must be, it's the only way any of this makes sense," Sunset replied, double-checking the equations she had written down. "If I'm right, then all we need to do to get the affected generators working safely is attach a couple of Diffusers to siphon off excess magic and vent it into the background magical field. If we can gather the right parts, we could probably get one of the generators up and running in about a half hour or so."

Pia gave her an uncertain look. "That sounds all well and good, but what if you're wrong? You said yourself that magic works weirdly in worlds without a background magical field. Maybe the lightning not leaving a residue is just another example of that."

"Yeah, maybe." Sunset gave a satisfied nod and straightened up, crossing her arms. "But I've just tried putting the details of the new magic teleporter room upstairs into one of my old Equestrian formulas for measuring controlled unicorn teleportation, and the math checks out perfectly."

"Really?" Pia hurried around the table to look at the formula. Sunset had to give her a quick layman's explanation of what some of the symbols represented, but after double-checking it thoroughly Pia stepped back and ran a hand through her hair. "Shit, you might actually be onto something. Alright, I think it's worth a shot. All we need to do now is bring it up with the rest of the council so we can put it to a vote."

"That won't be necessary," Harkness cut in. "You only need two out of three votes for it to go ahead. We're both members of the council, that's two votes right there, so you can get straight to work without making us deal with Bannon's whining."

Sunset raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you sure? I don't want to be rude, but did you actually follow most of what we said?"

Harkness shrugged. "You're two of the smartest people I know. If you say that this will work, then I'll believe you. You've earned my trust."

Hearing him say that sent a warm feeling flooding through Sunset's chest. Pia grinned too, clearly happy to have a solution within her grasp, though the fact that she didn't have to deal with Bannon was probably part of it as well. "Sounds good to me," she said brightly. "Alright, Sunnybuns, how do we make those Diffusers?"

It didn't long for Sunset to describe how to make the Diffusers. When she saw Sunset's sketched diagram of them, Pia recognized them as, essentially, miniature Tesla coils; easy enough for her to cobble together. The trickiest part would be directing the magic into the Diffusers and out through the electrodes on top, but Sunset had a few ideas for getting around that.

When Pia was sure about what was needed and how to put it together, she gathered up her notes and smiled at Sunset. "What are we waiting for? Let's get to it!"

Sunset glanced unsurely at Harkness, hoping that she could talk to him in private. He seemed to be thinking along the same lines, as he said, "You go on and get started, Pia. There's something Miss Shimmer and I need to discuss."

Pia looked from one to the other curiously, then shrugged and headed for the door. "Fine, but don't take too long. I'm going to need her help to finish putting all of this together." 

The door clicked shut behind Pia, leaving an awkward silence in the room. When she couldn't take it anymore, Sunset cleared her throat and asked tentatively, "So, er, how are you doing?"

"I'm doing alright, all things considered," Harkness replied. "I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last few days, about a lot of different things." Sunset waited patiently as he placed the plasma gun on the table and leaned against it. After a moment he gave a look that was almost wary. "You really don't think it matters that I'm not human?"

"Not in the slightest," Sunset said firmly. "Whether you're an ordinary human or not doesn't make a blind bit of difference as far as I'm concerned. Most of the people I've met in this world have been jerks, losers, or absolute monsters, human or not." She smirked at him. "Besides, where I come from there weren't any humans at all, so who am I to judge?" 

Harkness let out a quiet chuckle. "Yes, unicorns you said, wasn't it?"

"Among other things," Sunset replied with a cryptic smile. "If we can ever build a portal home, you can come and see for yourself. Speaking of building things, we'd better go and give Pia a hand before she comes hunting for us."

"Good idea." Harkness stood and picked up the plasma gun again. "Then, once this is all finished, I'll show you how to use this."

Sunset winced as she remembered his offer. "I appreciate it, but if this experiment works I'm going to have to head back to the Citadel immediately. The other girls will need to know. I suppose the Brotherhood should, too," she added as an afterthought.

"Fair enough. In that case I'm sure the Brotherhood will be able to teach you how to use it." Harkness slung the gun over his shoulder and stepped over to the door. "If you used to be a quadruped, I guess that would make doggystyle the most natural way for you. Duly noted."

Sunset cocked her head at him curiously. "What do you mean by doggystyle?"

Harkness stared at her in amazement, then burst out laughing. "Oh man, you're even more sheltered than I thought." He held a hand up in response to Sunset's indignant pout. "That's not a bad thing, it just makes me feel a little guilty about one or two things. Tell you what, if or when I manage to get my head back on straight, I'll be happy to show you. Deal?"

"Deal," Sunset replied. "And I'll hold you to that!"

"I'm sure you will." Harkness chuckled, but his expression quickly turned somber. "Until then, I… I just want some time to try and figure things out. Is that okay?" 

Sunset nodded, vaguely understanding what he was hinting at. "Take all the time you need."

Harkness drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Right, now we really had better go and find Pia."

It didn't take long for Sunset and Harkness to find Pia, and barely half an hour later the three were gathered in the main lab, watching as a pair of technicians finished connecting a pair of Diffusers to their selected generator. The issue of directing the magic had been solved easily enough; they had simply dipped some of the components in a vat full of purple magic that had been siphoned from the trees. They had chosen the purple stuff because Sunset suspected that it was, essentially, a condensed form of Twilight's magic, and given that Twilight's Equestrian counterpart bore the Element of Magic itself, then using her magic was most likely to achieve the desired result.

Sunset felt her heart pounding as the technicians finished with the Diffusers and hooked the generator up to an industrial floor fan. If this experiment worked, it had ramifications for a lot more than the mere generation of electricity. "Okay, are we ready to go?"

Pia bit her lip, clearly nervous, but bravely stepped up to the generator anyway. "Ready when you are."

Sunset waited for the technicians to finish with the fan and get out of the way, then nodded once. "Switch it on."

Her lips moving in a silent prayer, Pia pressed a button on the generator before skipping back several places.

The generator hummed loudly as it powered up. The Diffusers fizzed and popped a few times, a series of purple sparks crackling out from their electrodes, then a faint violet glow emanated from them and the sound settled into a gentle hum. A second later the fan switched on, the blades slowly picking up the pace until they were a circular blur, sending a strong wind blowing towards one of the side rooms.

"It's working," Sunset whispered, hardly daring to believe. She stepped forward and put a hand into the fan's airstream. She couldn't sense the presence of any magic whatsoever. "It's clear, the Diffusers work!"

Pia and the technicians whooped and exchanged high fives as Harkness congratulated them. "I can't believe it, it actually worked!" Pia exclaimed excitedly. "The other scientists are going to freak out when they learn that this world already had a magical field, but we can worry about that another time. For now, we… uh… Sunset? What are you doing?"

Sunset wasn't listening. The moment she was certain that the Diffusers were working, she had darted over to a nearby table and grabbed a clean sheet of paper and a pencil, her hand flying as she made rapid sketches. "This world really has magic… it's weak, but it's enough... I won't even need to adjust the equations all that much… all we need are the right parts, and a way to lock on to the right signature…"

"Would you mind telling us what it is you're muttering about?" Pia asked. "You're starting to creep me out."

Sunset dropped her pencil and looked around at Harkness. He just sighed and smiled wryly. "Back to the Citadel?"

Pia blinked in surprise as Sunset nodded. "The Citadel? Why? Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong. Something has actually gone very right for a change," Sunset replied quickly. "I need to speak to the rest of the Rainbooms as quickly as possible." 

"Can't we at least celebrate a little first?" Pia asked. "What's so important about this background magical field that you have to go running off the second you confirm that it's real?"

Sunset took a deep breath, trying vainly not to get her hopes up, and held up the rough blueprint she had just drawn; a mirror surrounded by a complicated mechanical rig. "I know how to get us home."






Rainbow hated hospitals. The Citadel's infirmary wasn't much like any hospital she had been in before, but it still counted. Her, Applejack and Twilight were all sitting around Adam's bed, chatting quietly in an attempt to distract themselves from the fact that Fluttershy, Pinkie and Rarity still weren't back from the Family yet. A message had come in from Arefu two days before, saying that the trio had arrived, and that Vance had agreed to try and help Fluttershy control her hunger, but nothing had been heard since.

"Ah still don't think we should trust that Senator Lily," Applejack said suddenly. "Not in the slightest."

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Duh, we don't. Elder Lyons said the same thing when I handed over my report and their intel, but he also said we can't just ignore what she tells us."

Twilight hummed thoughtfully. "I think we can trust her."

The other two stared at her in shock. "Are you high again? Or should Ah get the docs to up the meds?" Applejack asked incredulously.

"Think about it," Twilight replied, ignoring the comment. "It may sound childish, but people have been chasing immortality for millennia, even in our own world. With this world's technology, and Equestrian magic, she might even be able to achieve it." 

"Why would she even want to be immortal?" Rainbow asked. "Every time you see a movie where someone can live forever, they always want someone to find a way to kill them. They get bored, or they get sick of watching their loved ones get old and die. It just seems pointless."

Twilight shook her head. "That's possible, but those sorts of people are always the ones who see immortality as the end goal. Lily is a scientist. There's a reason she wants to be immortal, and I suspect it's something to do with research. I can't imagine a scientist getting bored of immortality; there's always more to learn, more to discover, more to create. Imagine how far you could push science if you had an eternity to study it in."

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Okay, remind me to tell Sunset that we need to keep an eye on the mad scientist over here." 

Twilight gave her a flat glare. "I'm not saying we should trust her completely, just that she's probably telling the truth about wanting to keep Project Exodus going, and getting us home. I agree that we should be very, very suspicious of what she wants to do with her immortality, if she ever gets it."

"Meh, Ah guess you're right about that," Applejack said with a shrug. "Not much we can do about it either way. Elder Lyons has the intel, it's up to him what he does with it."

The three lapsed into a bored silence after that. Being stuck in a room with two coma patients, Adam on one side and Sarah Lyons on the other, wasn't exactly conducive to a happy atmosphere, but this was the only place where the girls could be sure that the Scribes wouldn't try to pester them about magic.

"There's something I've been wondering," Rainbow said suddenly, with an odd look at Adam. "People in comas still get food pumped into their stomach through tubes every day, right? So what happens when they need to take a dump?" 

"Nice, Rainbow, real nice," Applejack huffed.

Twilight sighed and shook her head. "No, it may be unpleasant, but it's a fair question. Unfortunately, Rainbow, the body's natural processes don't stop just because someone is in a coma, so nurses have to regularly check the patient over and, if necessary, er, clean them up."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Hang on, Fluttershy was working as a nurse at Rivet City back when Sunset was in a coma. Does that mean she…?"

"No!" Twilight replied quickly. "Doctor Preston knew that Fluttershy wouldn't be comfortable with looking after a friend like that, so he had someone else take care of it."

"But the only other person who worked at Rivet City's clinic was Doctor Kaplinski." Rainbow grimaced as she put two and two together. "Oh. Uh… let's not tell Sunset." 

"I wish you hadn't told me," a voice mumbled petulantly. The girls all gasped as Adam shifted and opened his eyes, looking up at them blearily. "Where's Fluttershy?"
> Chapter 87 - Together Again
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Walking through the middle of a torrential downpour wasn't a particularly nice experience. Trudging through bombed-out ruins, on a bone-chillingly cold day, in the middle of a radioactive torrential downpour, was yet another miserable experience for Sunset to add to the list of miseries that she had endured in the wastes so far.

The only thing that kept the journey at merely miserable, rather than nightmarish, was the immense overcoat that Sunset had been given by Tabitha. It was incredibly baggy, made of thick leather to keep her dry and lined with lead to protect from the radiation. It came with a pair of foot coverings that slipped under the pant legs to protect her shoes, and the hood had a stiff, wide-brimmed hat attached to keep the rain off her face, whether it was windy or not. Even the plasma gun that Harkness had given her was in a thick sack made of the same material, along with a handful of the little microfusion cells that functioned as it's ammunition.

Of course, the whole ensemble was incredibly heavy, especially with armor on underneath, and visibility was vastly reduced thanks to the hood and hat, meaning that fighting while wearing it would be almost impossible. Thankfully, having a squad of power-armored Knights as an escort meant that very few beings would be dumb enough to try and attack, especially in this weather. At least, that was Sunset's hope. Nothing had tried to attack them yet, so that was always a plus.

Even so, Sunset couldn't help but feel relieved when they finally got back to the Citadel. The main entrance still hadn't been fully repaired, despite the best efforts of the Brotherhood, so a set of temporary supports had been erected to keep the gate in place while they raised and lowered it. 

Once the group was inside, the Knights separated to give their reports to their superiors, while a gaggle of Initiates helped Sunset remove her overcoat.

"Your friends returned a little while ago, Miss, from Arefu" one of them said as they hung the coat up for scrubbing. "They're in the showers right now, then Miss Twilight has asked if you could all join her in Miss Applejack's quarters. They have something important to discuss."

"Awesome, thanks!" Sunset quickly thanked the rest of the Initiates and headed off to the showers herself. Slogging through the rain in armor and a thick overcoat was a perfect way to work up a sweat, so she figured she may as well clean up and check on Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie while she was at it. The fact that Twilight wanted to gather the Rainbooms all together afterwards was even better; it saved Sunset the job of tracking them all down herself, though she was mildly concerned about whatever it was that Twilight wanted to talk about.

When she reached the showers, Sunset found Rarity, Pinkie and Fluttershy getting dressed in the changing room. The three looked around as she entered. "Hey, Sunset! How's it going?" Pinkie asked brightly.

"Pretty good, actually," Sunset replied with a grin. "I've got some big news for everyone, but that can wait until I've showered. How did things go with the Family? Did you have any trouble crossing the wastes?"

"We had a little trouble with some raiders and an Enclave outpost on the way," Fluttershy said as she towelled her hair. "And, um, giant ants, too. The way back was alright, though. I think the weather is keeping most of the trouble at bay. Rarity had to keep up a shield the whole way home though, to keep the rain off us." Rarity did indeed look exhausted; every movement was slow and half-hearted, and her head was sagging even as she tried to pull her shoes on. "Things went alright with the Family, though," Fluttershy continued. "I, um, may have had a bit of trouble at first, but it worked out in the end."

Sunset listened eagerly as the girls described everything that they had experienced over the last few days. She was impressed that Fluttershy had managed to gain a measure of control over her hunger, though hearing about Vance's little demonstration just before they left almost had her in stitches: As much as he professed to be blessed by the arrival of a genuine vampire, Sunset couldn't help but think that it must have threatened his ego as well. Only someone with vanity to spare would have arranged such a self-aggrandizing display.

When the discussion turned to the Laws of the Family that Fluttershy had chosen to pursue further, though, Sunset couldn't help but feel a shiver run down her spine. The first Law made perfect sense; helping Flutters to control and direct her bloodlust. The second, however, hit uncomfortably close to home. "Slay only your enemies, huh?"

Fluttershy nodded grimly. "I'm not going to start going out of my way to pick fights, and to be honest, I'm not really sure that I'll be able to actually go through with it if the time ever comes, but I have to try. I can't stand by and watch the rest of you put your lives on the line while I just hang back and try not to get in the way." She picked up a sword from next to a locker, surprising Sunset. "Vance gave me this. He called it Vampire's Edge. Hopefully, it'll help give me courage when the time comes."

Sunset sighed and glanced at the plasma gun she had set aside. "I hate to say it, but I know what you mean. I think Harkness was thinking the same thing when he gave me that."

"I was wondering where you had gotten that from," Rarity murmured to herself. "Goodness, that's three of us with new weapons, now."

In response to Sunset's querulous look, Pinkie shrugged and said, "I'm going to try and build something with the Scribes' help later. I hope I'll never have to use it, but…" 

"But we might not have a choice," Sunset finished. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, then drew in a breath and shoved the dark thoughts to the back of her mind. "Well, either way, I've got some good news." Sunset quickly finished getting undressed before grabbing a towel and some toiletries from a cupboard. "Let me just have a quick shower and we'll all head over to Twilight's room together."

Pinkie smirked at her. "Are you sure you want to go straight there after the shower, or will you want to get dried and dressed first?"

"Pinkie!" Rarity snapped.

Sunset laughed and stepped over to the door to the showers themselves. "Sorry, Pinkie, but I will be getting dressed first, so enjoy the view while it lasts!" 

After a quick shower, largely spent listening to Pinkie giggling, Rarity giving an exasperated lecture about dignity and Fluttershy muttering enviously about body confidence, Sunset hastily dried herself off. It was only once she was dry that Sunset realized, much to Pinkie's amusement, that the only clean clothes she had in her pack were the Enclave clothes she had been given back at Project Exodus. Even Rarity didn't have anything spare for her tucked away in her pack.

The walk to the quarters Applejack and Rarity shared was, thankfully, a short one. Even so, Sunset's choice of clothing garnered more than a few confused and concerned looks from the Brotherhood personnel she met along the way.

"Who's in there?" Fluttershy asked as they approached the room.

Sunset looked at her curiously. "What do you mean?"

"I can hear five heartbeats in there," Fluttershy replied. "I guess three of them are Twilight, Applejack and Rainbow Dash, and one of those heartbeats is very strong, so I'm guessing that's Fawkes, but… who's the other one?" She frowned and sniffed deeply, then her eyes widened and she suddenly darted off ahead of the others.

"Hey, Fluttershy?!" Sunset hurried after her, struggling to carry her armour and plasma gun while Rarity and Pinkie followed along.

Fluttershy skidded to a halt and slammed the door open, eliciting surprised yelps from those within. Sunset caught up just as Fluttershy stepped into the room. 

Applejack was sitting at a small desk with Twilight next to her in the wheelchair, Rainbow was sprawled on the bed opposite, and Fawkes was sitting cross-legged in a corner. The only empty space was the bed next to the bathroom door.

"Well, now there's a sight for sore eyes!" Applejack said brightly.

"He's in the bathroom," Fluttershy said blankly. Before anyone could ask what she was talking about there came the sound of a flushing toilet from the bathroom, then a moment later the door opened. 

Sunset gasped as Adam stepped into the room, wearing simple Brotherhood-issue pants and a t-shirt. She almost said something, and she felt Pinkie about to explode with excitement next to her, but every eye in the room was drawn to Fluttershy.

"Flutters!" Adam stepped forward the second he spotted her, but Fluttershy took a step back and lowered her gaze to the floor, rubbing her elbow awkwardly. Hurt flashed across Adam's face, but only for a moment before comprehension bloomed. "Is this about the FEV?" Fluttershy snapped her gaze back to him in surprise. "Yeah, one of the trainee medics let slip what happened when he was giving me a checkup. Poor twit can't keep a secret to save his life." Adam shrugged and gave her a hopeful look. "So, yeah, I know about the whole vampire thing.” 

Fluttershy nodded sombrely. "O-okay, um, so we should, maybe, talk things over at some point, but until then, um, we should-"

"Pick up where we left off?" Adam suggested in a hopeful tone. The poleaxed expression on Fluttershy's face plainly said that that was not what she was going to say, and Adam faltered at the sight of it. "I mean, if that's what you want…?"

Fluttershy blinked dumbly at him, then looked around at each of the others in turn, a blush slowly creeping up her neck. Sunset feared that she might bolt like a scared rabbit, but instead she visibly steeled her resolve and looked at Adam. "Fuck it." 

Before anyone could react to the language, Fluttershy crossed the room in the blink of an eye, grabbed the front of Adam's top, and yanked him into a smouldering kiss that stunned everyone. No-one knew quite how to react as the two wrapped their arms around each other, kissing deeply. Rainbow shifted and grinned, as if she was about to say something, but a sharp look from Twilight made her settle back down silently.

That's interesting, Sunset mused. When did Twilight get a hand on Rainbow's leash?

After an uncomfortable few moments, for everyone else, anyway, Fluttershy and Adam finally separated. Fluttershy's face was burning brightly enough to fry an egg. She quickly turned and stepped over to the empty bed, having a little trouble with her sword as she sat on the edge of it, and flicked her hair in front of her face, though her embarrassment didn't stop her from leaning into Adam when he sat next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Sorry, Fawkes, but your 'welcome back' greeting just got bumped down to second place," Adam said with a faint blush of his own.

Fawkes held up a hand. "I have no intention of kissing you myself, so I shall graciously accept this demotion."

"Wait, what did Fawkes do?" Pinkie asked eagerly.

Applejack snorted. "Swept him up into a big hug then swung him around like a little girl. It was one of the funniest things Ah've ever seen." She gestured at Rainbow. "Hey, Dash, shift your ass so people can sit next to you."

"Don't move on my account, I'll just settle myself here." Sunset raised an eyebrow as Rarity stepped over to Applejack and perched sideways on her lap. Applejack made several garbled noises that almost approached speech, but didn't attempt to make the fashionista move.

"In that case, I call Fawkes!" Pinkie cried loudly. She darted over to Fawkes and dropped down into his lap, who just shrugged and accepted it without comment. Given the size difference, the two looked like a put-upon but indulgent father and his overly exuberant daughter.

Realizing that she was the only one still standing, Sunset shrugged and closed the door so she could lean against it. "I'll just stay here for now. What did you want us all here for, Twilight?"

Twilight vaguely waved a hand at Adam. "I was just going to surprise everyone with Adam being back, so, uh… surprise?"

"Cool, because I've got something important to tell you all as well. " Sunset grinned. "I know how to build a portal to get us back home."

The others all made noises of shock, joy, and incredulity at her words. "How did you figure it out?!" Twilight demanded.

"We ran experiments back at Rivet City," Sunset replied. "It turns out this world has a background magical field of its own, so we can actually build a portal based on the design of the Geode Diviner itself. The parts should be easy enough to come by, so all we need is something that can lock on to Equestria's magical signature, but that's going to be the tricky part."
 
"We're going to need something like the SDT-1 that they showed us back at Project Exodus, aren't we?" Rainbow asked.

Sunset nodded, quietly surprised that Rainbow had even remembered the designation. "Which means we need to make a decision. Two, actually."

"What decisions?" Pinkie asked.

Sunset jerked her chin at Adam and Fawkes. "First of all, if we build a portal, do you two want to come home with us?"

"You are inviting me?' Fawkes asked incredulously. Sunset just nodded. "I… I am honored beyond words." He glanced at Adam. "What will you do?"

Adam frowned thoughtfully. "A month ago I don't know what I would have said, but… my parents are gone, but Project Purity, their dream, is still here. I know it's up and running now, but the Brotherhood is still having trouble distributing water around the wasteland, even with Rivet City's help. I want to come with you, but I want to help stabilize the water distribution, and try to improve the connections between the various settlements in the Capital Wasteland first." He looked down at Fluttershy worriedly. "If that's alright?"

"Of course it is," Fluttershy replied quietly.

Fawkes nodded. "Very well. Then I shall assist in that endeavour to the best of my abilities and, when the time comes, I will join you in your journey beyond this world."

"I appreciate it," Adam said with a grin. "Okay, Sunset, what's the second decision?"

Sunset breathed in deeply and let it out slowly. "The second one is a little harder, and I think it's something we all need to decide on. Do we try and search the wasteland ourselves for an SDT-1? Or do we help the Brotherhood of Steel win the war, sign a peace treaty with whatever is left of the Enclave, and have Project Exodus help us build a portal when the war is over?"

The others looked around at each other uneasily. 

Pinkie rubbed her neck awkwardly. "We're probably going to have to fight whatever we do, aren't we?"

"Almost certainly," Sunset replied with a grim nod. "Either against the Enclave, or against raiders and whatever else is lurking out there in the wastes."

"Like Talon Company," Twilight muttered darkly.

"I say we help the Brotherhood fight the Enclave," Rainbow put in. "At least that way we'll have Liberty Prime on our side, not to mention a bunch of power-armored Knights and Paladins."

Applejack nodded. "Ah'm with Rainbow."

"I hate to admit it, but so am I," Rarity sighed. "The Enclave is going to try and get to us either way. I don't like it, but we're probably better off taking the fight to them."

"Fighting alongside the Brotherhood will give us the greatest chance of survival, while also maintaining our relationship with them and giving them more reason to help us in turn," Twilight added. "The only problem, aside from the tangled mess that is the ethical considerations, is going to be dealing with the Enclave's power armor."

"I've already sent a message to Elder Lyons asking if I can have some Scribes help me build a weapon," Pinkie cut in, her expression dour. "If we can make it work, power armor won't be a problem."

With everyone else's decision made, all eyes once again turned to Fluttershy. She swallowed hard, then brushed her hair out of her eyes. "I guess you'll need me, too. Someone is going to have to patch Rainbow up when she gets herself hurt again."

"That's just harsh," Rainbow muttered as the others laughed.

Sunset sighed and looked around at her friends, surprised by how much stronger they had all grown. "It's settled then. We fight."





Elder Lyons frowned as he read through the latest reports from his scouts. He and Scribe Rothchild were sitting at a desk in his own personal office, while Eden waited patiently on top of it.

"I'm guessing they don't have good news," Rothchild stated as he watched Lyons carefully. 

"Sadly not." Lyons threw the report on the desk and glared at the crystal spider on his desk. "The Adams Air Force Base is not in the location you gave us." 

Eden folded his forelegs and sighed. "That is most unfortunate. It appears someone must have tampered with my files on Enclave facilities during my routine maintenance at Raven Rock."

"Or you aren't telling us the whole truth," Rothchild countered.

"I have no reason to lie to you," Eden said flatly. "Besides, almost everything else I have told you has been true. Why would I bother to lie about this one thing?"

Lyons eyed the little spider suspiciously. Eden had indeed provided a wealth of information on the Enclave's infrastructure, technology, current research projects, even the personalities and tendencies of its most important personnel, and all of it so far had proven true. In particular, the breakdown of Enclave training, strategy and small-unit tactics had proven exceedingly useful during the fight for control of the Capital Wasteland. When it came to the exact locations of Enclave outposts and facilities, however, his information was annoyingly inaccurate. The fact that the Citadel's own archives were largely corrupted or deleted certainly didn't help matters. "Why would anyone bother altering your knowledge of where these sites are located?" Lyons asked.

"I can only assume it was performed at Acheson's behest," Eden replied. "The only personnel I know of with both access to my server and the ability to alter data without my knowledge were part of his team." Eden sighed and awkwardly laid down. "Acheson has always been ambitious, but I never imagined he would be aiming for total control of the Enclave. He must have been planning to take control for years; intending on using me as a figurehead while he manipulated events behind the scenes."

"If all goes well, Acheson won't be a problem for any of us for much longer," Lyons said firmly. "We do have some good news. Our scouts have confirmed the location of the satellite relay station mentioned in Project Exodus' intelligence report. If we can secure that station, we should be able to discover the true location of the Adams Air Base."

"That's a big if," Rothchild put in. "Especially if Senator Lily's information is true."

Lyons glanced down at Eden. "Well? Can Senator Lily be trusted?"

Eden hummed thoughtfully. "Normally, it depends. She is utterly fixated on making herself immortal, and will go to any lengths to achieve it. The abomination loose in the depths of Raven Rock is testament to that. If Doctor Shoichet was telling the truth, and bear in mind that the good doctor has already betrayed the Enclave to save the Rainbooms once, and Acheson really is the one that manipulated Horrigan into attacking the Citadel in an attempt to destroy either the Brotherhood or Project Exodus, then I imagine that Senator Lily will use any and all methods to protect her interests and wipe Acheson from the face of the earth. In this regard, I believe we can trust her."

"Very well." Lyons crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "The only question that remains is how to go about securing the satellite relay station without suffering devastating losses. We have to send in Liberty Prime, the station is too heavily defended for us not to, but if the Exodus intelligence is true..." He frowned at Rothchild. "Have we come up with any way at all of countering the Bradley-Hercules satellite?"

Rothchild shook his head. "Twilight Sparkle has been working to improve Liberty Prime's operating speed, reaction times and targeting systems, but we don't know if that will be enough to help it survive. We tried coming up with a system to scramble missile locks, but it won't be completed for months at best. On top of that, we're going to have to deal with lobotomized deathclaws, plus the Enclave's newly developed armor and magical technologies. This is not going to be an easy fight."

Lyons nodded grimly. "I agree, but it is a challenge that we are going to have to face head on. Liberty Prime will go. I had intended for Paladin Tristan to lead the assault, but he was injured in Horrigan's attack, so I'll have the Wonderbolts lead the charge in his stead. That just leaves dealing with the Enclave's magic." He sighed heavily. "Send for the Rainbooms. If they are willing, then tomorrow, at dawn, we will strike."
> Chapter 88 - Broken Steel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The black clouds and horrible weather of the past few days had finally cleared up, leaving nothing but beautiful clear skies. Sunset couldn't help but notice the irony that such a pleasant day would be marred by such an ugly task.

The Rainbooms were gathered in the Citadel's courtyard, along with Adam, Fawkes, and Star Paladin Cross. Liberty Prime, the Wonderbolts, and the rest of the strike force had already departed, taking separate routes to the rendezvous point in order to try and hide their planned target.

Twilight was sitting in her wheelchair, fussing over the details of the equipment and supplies that the group was taking with them. She would be the only Rainboom sitting this mission out. The rest of the girls had been given gray Brotherhood of Steel combat uniforms, and were wearing their armor over the top of it, Rainbow's sparkling in the sunlight. 

Sunset quickly checked over her own equipment as she waited. She had the plasma gun that Harkness had given her, a combat knife sheathed at her waist, and two pulse grenades attached to her belt. 

The rest of the group were just as well equipped; Rarity had been given a special robotic glove connected to sensors that ran into her sleeve, under her Pip-Boy and up her left arm, allowing her to use her hand without issue despite her nerve damage. Rainbow had Flashburn, a pair of combat knives scabbarded on her lower back and the plasma grenade she had filched from the metro tunnels, what felt like a lifetime ago. Applejack was inspecting the new laser rifle she had been given, and had a pair of frag grenades clipped to her belt, while Fluttershy had Vampire's Edge and her ever-present nursing kit. 

Adam was back in his Enclave power armor; freshly repainted deep blue with yellow trimming and a large '101' stenciled on the breastplate, his own plasma gun dangling from one arm. Fawkes had his Gatling Laser, and was wearing his very own gray combat gear stitched together by Rarity from spare Brotherhood uniforms, complete with combat armor made out of heavy plates of scrap metal. Cross was standing slightly apart from the others, clutching her trademark super sledge.

Pinkie, however, was probably the most heavily armed of the group. Her pickaxe was strapped across her back, but in her hands she held a bizarre contraption that looked like a grenade launcher made out of random scrap: its stock and trigger looked like they once belonged to a combat shotgun, and it had a small steam gauge assembly fixed just in front of the trigger guard, with a short chimney forming the barrel. 

"Okay, I've gotta ask, what even is that thing?" Rainbow asked suddenly, eyeing the weapon with concern. 

Pinkie grinned and hefted the weapon. "It's my new Party Cannon! The Scribes helped me put it together yesterday. It's powered by a fission battery I got from the Family, and Elder Lyons let me use a few magic crystals that have a bit of my magic in them to build it with, so when I pull the trigger…" She snapped the weapon up and pointed it away from everyone. When she fired, a shower of glittering pink sparkles shot out of the barrel. 

The others murmured appreciatively. "That's pretty awesome," Dash admitted, "but what does it actually do?" 

"If we're lucky, you'll never find out." Pinkie sighed heavily. "So I guess you'll see when we get to the relay station."

Sunset felt her heart clench at the sight of her perkiest friend having her spirit crushed. "Don't worry, girls. I know this mission is going to be as bad as any other we faced, maybe even tougher, but no matter how hard things get, just remember that every step forward we take is another step closer to home."

"Well said, Miss Shimmer." Everyone turned to see Elder Lyons step into the courtyard, followed by Squire Maxson who was carrying what looked like a metal dinner tray laden with shining metal objects. A closer look revealed that the objects were dog tags, each with a small holographic screen next to lines of etched information.

"Before you depart, I have something that I would like to give to each of you." Elder Lyons clasped his hands behind his back and drew himself up to address the assembled team. "Ever since you came to us, you have all shown tremendous courage, loyalty, and a willingness to aid and protect others no matter the odds; qualities that my chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel holds in the highest regard. In light of your achievements, even in the face of terrible darkness, it is my great pleasure to waive our traditional recruitment process and offer each of you a position in our organization."

Sunset shifted uneasily. As much as she appreciated the fact that the Elder held them in high regard, she wasn't sure that she was willing to thoughtlessly make herself and her friends subject to the commands of the Brotherhood of Steel.

Sensing her reluctance, Elder Lyons held up a hand. "Do not be concerned, Miss Shimmer. I have already spoken with the other leaders of the Council, and they have agreed that the Rainbooms shall be inducted into a new Order: The Order of the Staff, whose remit is the research and use of magic in defence of the weak and the innocent. You will possess a certain level of autonomy from the rest of the Brotherhood hierarchy, answering directly to me, and even then you have my word that I will give no command that you don't have the power to refuse if you wish."

"Can't say fairer than that, Ah guess," Applejack said with a shrug.

Sunset hesitated for only a second before nodding. If anyone in the Brotherhood of Steel could be trusted to hold their word, it would be Elder Lyons.

The Elder smiled softly. "As a sign of your new ranks, I shall bestow you with these holo-tags. Wear them well, and with pride." He picked up the first set and held them up. "Adam Howard." Adam put his plasma gun down and pulled off his helmet as he stepped forward, tucking it under his arm. "Your courage and self-sacrifice saved the lives of many of our brethren, and helped spread the gift of life-giving water to every civilized settlement in the Capital Wasteland. For this, I declare you a full-fledged Knight of the Brotherhood of Steel."

Adam lowered his head to allow Elder Lyons to slip the holo-tags around his neck. "Thank you. After everything the Brotherhood has done for my family, this means a lot."

Elder Lyons clapped a hand to his shoulder, then reached for the next set of tags. The chain on the second set seemed a lot longer than the first, though the reason became clear when the Elder called out, "Fawkes."

Blank shock flitted across Fawkes' face. "Me?"

"Yes, you," Elder Lyons replied with a smile. "You have fought well alongside our brothers and sisters, going to great lengths to help the people of the wastes with no thought of reward or praise. For this, I declare you a full-fledged Knight of the Brotherhood of Steel."

Fawkes stepped forward and dropped to one knee. Elder Lyons slipped the holo-tags over his head, but instead of standing back up, Fawkes stayed where he was. He worked his mouth, as if he was trying to say something, but after a few attempts he just lowered his head and covered his eyes with a hand. Adam gripped his shoulder and smiled down at him. After everything that Fawkes had been through, everyone present knew how much it meant to him to be accepted as an equal.

Picking up another set of tags, Elder Lyons stepped over to Twilight. "Twilight Sparkle. Your agile mind has helped drive scientific progress both here and in Rivet City, and your magic is some of the most powerful and adaptable that the Brotherhood has yet encountered. For this, I declare you a Field Scribe of the Order of the Staff." Twilight swallowed, then used her magic to lift her hair out of the way so he could clasp the holo-tags around her neck.

"Rarity," Elder Lyons called out next. "Your generous soul and refusal to allow any good deed go unnoticed and unthanked provide a shining example of what I want my Brotherhood chapter to aspire to. For this, I declare you a full-fledged Knight of the Order of the Staff."

Rarity curtseyed, holding herself like a princess as the Elder affixed her new holo-tags. "I'm grateful for the honor, Elder."

Elder Lyons smiled and nodded to her before turning to Pinkie. "Pinkie Pie. You've bounced back from everything the wasteland has thrown at you and still found the courage to smile. Your boundless energy reminds all of us, Brotherhood or not, of what it means to be human. For this, I declare you a full-fledged Knight of the Order of the Staff."

Pinkie practically vibrated in place as the Elder struggled to put on her holo-tags. "Oh, oh, does this mean I get to be called Sir Pinkie? Or would it be Sir Pie? Oh, or maybe Pinkie of the Pie? Sir Pie of the Pinkie? Do I still have to find a pink emerald before I can be a true Pinkist?"

"Why don't you think it through and get back to me?" Elder Lyons said hurriedly. As Pinkie continued her erratic muttering, he picked up another set of holo-tags and cleared his throat. "Applejack. Your straightforward honesty has earned the respect and trust of our brethren, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that without your incredible strength and determination, the Citadel, and even the Brotherhood of Steel itself, would have fallen. For this, I declare you a full-fledged Knight of the Order of the Staff."

Applejack took her hat off to let the Elder put on her holo-tags. "Well, shucks, this sure is somethin' to show the folks when Ah get home. Ah appreciate it. Just don't go askin' me to start speakin' fancy all of a sudden."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Elder Lyons chuckled. Fetching another set of holo-tags, he stepped over to Fluttershy, who blushed faintly as she realized that she was next. "Fluttershy. Several of the Knights wounded in the assault on Project Purity owe their lives to your swift and tender care, and even though recent events have placed you in an almost unthinkable position, you still have not given in to the evil that plagues many who suffer in this world. For this, I declare you a full-fledged Knight-Medic of the Order of the Staff."

Fluttershy dipped her head, her blush deepening as the Elder affixed her holo-tags.

Rainbow came next. The second the Elder looked in her direction she straightened up and puffed out her chest, holding her head up proudly. "Rainbow Dash. Your loyalty and valor know no bounds. You remain ever willing to throw yourself into the darkest abyss and always emerge in a blaze of glory. You will be pleased to know that, even before this was decided, the other Knights have taken to calling you the Sapphire Knight. For this, I declare you a full-fledged Knight of the Order of the Staff."

"Sir, thank you, sir!" Rainbow cried loudly, snapping a crisp salute once her holo-tags were on. 

Sunset stiffened as Elder Lyons picked up the last set of holo-tags and turned to her. "Sunset Shimmer. Last, but most certainly not least. Ever since your arrival in this world, your friends have looked to you for guidance and leadership. Bearing this burden, despite facing challenges unlike anything you have ever encountered before, you have strived towards your final goal, and still managed to help every unfortunate you’ve encountered along the way. For this, I declare you a Knight-Sergeant of the Brotherhood of Steel, and the Commander of the Order of the Staff."

Commander?! Sunset almost blurted out a refusal on reflex, but she managed to keep her mouth shut. She had known that the girls had looked to her for direction right from the start. They had even nominated her as their leader back in Vault 101, this just made things a little more official. Once the Elder had put her holo-tags on, she picked one up and inspected it. The little metal tags had her name, date of birth, and blood type stamped on them, along with a tiny imprint of her cutie mark. The little holographic screen detailed her rank and which section of the Brotherhood of Steel she belonged to; in this case the Order of the Staff.

"These tags mark you as members of the Brotherhood of Steel," Elder Lyons explained. "The details of how the Order of the Staff will fit into the rest of the Brotherhood hierarchy will be hammered out later, but for now, take comfort in the knowledge that those tags guarantee you the respect and aid of any Brotherhood of Steel personnel you will encounter here in the Capital Wasteland." He looked around at each of them in turn. "I wish I could arrange more of a ceremony for this, as is customary, but I am afraid there simply isn't time. Speaking of time, I should let you return to the task at hand. The other squads will wait for you at the Rockland Car Tunnel. Good luck, and godspeed."

The group all saluted, though Sunset suspected that only Cross and Rainbow actually did it properly, then without further fanfare they turned and headed out of the gate. Each of them waved to Twilight as they went, who waved back with a melancholic expression.

Turning left once they were out of the Citadel, the group made their way up and over the shattered ruins once again. Rainbow and Fluttershy ponied up and flew over, but the others were again forced to rely on a mix of Rarity's magic and their own sense of balance. Rainbow asked why the Brotherhood didn't try to build an easier passage through the debris, but Cross told her that the near impassable terrain was far too useful from a defensive standpoint for them to bother.

"That was… unexpected," Sunset said quietly as she picked her way down a mound of broken concrete.

"That's one way of putting it," Rarity sighed. "Still, I must admit that it's nice to have solid proof that the Brotherhood of Steel is going to stand with us."

Rainbow grinned. "It's pretty awesome that we actually get to call ourselves Knights, too. Anyway, you'd better watch your step there, Knight-Sergeant."

"Don't even start, Rainbow," Sunset warned her, though she did turn her attention back to where her feet were going.

"You should bear your rank with pride," Cross said firmly. "For an outsider to be granted a position of leadership, not to mention given command of their own Order, is unprecedented in the history of the Brotherhood."

Sunset sighed. "I guess, but I'm not helping you guys out so I can start grabbing power."

"Maybe not, but power will make it easier for you to gather whatever you need to get yourselves home," Cross replied.

"She's got a fair point," Applejack put in.

"I know." Sunset sighed again as she hopped off the last chunk of concrete and landed on ordinary dirt. She waited patiently for the others to join her before pulling up the map on her Pip-Boy. "Okay, the Rockland Car Tunnel is almost due East of here. Cross, are there any particular areas between here and there that we should be careful of?"

Cross frowned as she thought. "If we travel as the crow flies, the only places I can think of would be Tenpenny Tower, which shouldn't be an issue as long as we don't try to bother them, Andale, and Warrington Train Yard."

"Let me guess, raiders?" Applejack asked.

"At Warrington? Not likely," Cross replied. "The train yard is overrun with feral ghouls, and as for Andale, well, the less said about that place, the better."

Sunset got Cross to point out the locations of each of them on her map. "Leave Tenpenny Tower alone, and avoid Warrington Train Yard, got it." Sunset nodded and hefted her plasma gun. "Alright, let's move out."

The group followed a series of old roads that snaked through the ruins, taking a minute southerly route than when they had last passed this way on the search for Vault 87. Fluttershy's keen senses proved invaluable, allowing them to avoid what was almost certainly a raider crew camped out in an old parking lot. 

Soon enough, the team found themselves right at the very edge of the D.C. ruins. Sunset made to follow an old road that led in the direction they wanted, up a short slope, but Cross held her back. "You don't want to go that way. There's an overpass a little North of here, we can follow that."

Taking her advice, the group headed in the direction Cross had indicated. As they rounded the slope they spotted the overpass ahead, leading towards a large rocky hill. "That's the way we want to go," Cross said. "If we followed the road we'd end up in Andale, and that is not a place I'm in the mood to deal with right before an important mission like this one."

"What exactly is Andale?" Rarity asked.

Cross scowled. "A blight on this world. Someday I shall see it burnt to the ground, but we don't have the time right now."

The girls shrugged and decided to take Cross at her word. As they approached the overpass, they noticed that it actually followed a gentle slope up the hill that was largely devoid of rubble; a far easier prospect for a climb that didn't take them too close to whatever Andale was.

Adam made a point of investigating an overturned truck at the base of one of the overpass' pillars, hoping to scavenge something useful. Sunset made a mental note that she and the rest of the Rainbooms should probably learn from his example.

"Anything good?" Rainbow asked as he rejoined them. 

"Found a first aid kit with a couple of stimpaks," Adam replied. "Also I got something for you, Pinkie." 

Pinkie raised an eyebrow as he passed her a glass bottle filled with a glowing blue liquid. "Nuka-Cola Quantum?" She read out.

"Oh, those are pretty rare," Cross put in. "It's a crazy drink. It's more radioactive than ordinary Nuka-Cola, but it tastes a hell of a lot better and gives you a buzz like nothing else. It makes your piss glow, too, if you're into that sort of thing."

Pinkie's eyes practically popped out of their sockets, and she looked down at the bottle as if it were a sacred treasure. "Why did you have to be radioactive? Why must fate tempt me so?"

The others tried not to laugh as they offered their sympathies, but Pinkie kept the bottle anyway, stuffing it into her hair before getting right back to walking with a skip in her step. "I'll just have to take it home and figure out how it's made. There's bound to be a way of making it without it being radioactive!"

Sunset highly doubted that, but decided not to disabuse Pinkie of that notion.

The last part of the hill became quite steep as it rose to meet the overpass, but the lack of debris meant that it wasn't too difficult for the team to overcome. When they reached the top of the hill, however, Fluttershy hissed and lowered herself to the ground, making the others follow suit.

"What's up?" Sunset whispered.

Fluttershy pointed off to the right. "Enclave outpost. Not far that way."

Sunset nodded and looked around to the left. There was plenty of rubble around the top of the hill to provide cover for them. "We'll take the long way around. Stick to the rocks, and stay out of sight." She quickly relayed the plan to the others, and they stealthily picked their way towards the far side of the hill. Sunset was worried that Adam and Cross would have trouble being quiet thanks to their power armor, but Adam managed to keep the sound of his footsteps to a minimum, and Cross was quiet enough that Sunset could barely even hear her move.

Unfortunately, the other side of the hill held its own dangers. Rainbow reached the slope first, then stopped and motioned for the others to do the same before scooting back to Sunset. "Raiders. They're in some sort of parking lot over there." 

"That'll be the Overlook Drive-In," Cross said with a grimace. "Shit. Most of this side of the hill is made up of high cliffs. The only way down is a slope that goes right past the Overlook, we won't be able to get past without getting spotted."

"Are you sure that they're raiders?" Applejack asked.

Rainbow nodded grimly. "They're literally in the middle of using chains and hooks to hang a corpse from a lamppost, so yeah, I'm pretty sure."

Sunset groaned with disgust. "Great. Okay, let's take a closer look and see if we can get past without a fight."

Creeping closer, the group soon spotted the raiders in question. There were five of them, standing together at the edge of an old drive-in cinema filled with cars and, as Rainbow had mentioned, working together to hoist a corpse up onto a floodlight.

"Sick bastards," Adam muttered. He turned to glance at Sunset, then did a double-take when he saw Applejack. "Uh, AJ? Why are you smiling?"

"Because Ah have a plan," Applejack replied with a grin. "All of y'all stay down. When the blast dies down, start runnin' down that there slope."

"Blast? What blast? What are you-" Sunset was cut off mid-question as Applejack took a frag grenade from her belt, pulled out the pin, then used her enhanced strength to lob it right into the middle of the jumble of cars. "Oh, shi-"

The explosion that followed was deafening. The grenade blew first, then nuclear reactors that served as engines for the cars all detonated at the same time with all the force and fury of a bomb, their combined might sending hot air and scraps of warped metal scything through the air. The raiders didn't stand a chance.

Before the echoes of the blast had even begun to die down, Applejack leapt to her feet and belted towards the slope. "Come on, before the Enclave comes lookin'!"

The group broke out into a sprint, dashing past the remains of the Overlook and hurtling down the hill as fast as they could, each of them flinching as more explosions came from the cars that had been on the very edge of the blast. The gradient of the slope was much steeper than expected, and everyone was forced to dodge rubble, boulders and trees as they careened down the hill, utterly unable to stop. 

Sunset swore as she narrowly avoided slamming into a dead tree, then felt her stomach drop as she spotted a Protectron standing directly in her path. 

"Enemy. Detecte-" The Protectron raised an arm, readying it's laser, but Sunset leaped into the air and smashed her foot into the glass dome of its head. The Protectron toppled backwards and, to her own amazement, Sunset found herself balancing on the robot as it slid and skidded down the hill until, just before it crashed into a boulder, she dove off and dropped into a commando roll to preserve her momentum, then carried on with her mad charge down the hill.

Finally, the ground leveled off and the group were able to bring themselves to a halt, each of them bending over to catch their breath. A hissing sound grabbed everyone's attention, and they all looked around just in time to see Adam sliding on his back, until he came to a stop right in the middle of them.

"That was awesome," Adam muttered breathlessly.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "You slipped?"

"I slipped," Adam confirmed. He thanked Fawkes as he helped him to his feet, then looked over at Applejack. "You're a crazy bitch. Just thought you'd like to know."

"Ah'm aware," Applejack said proudly.

"We're all aware," Rarity spat, glaring daggers at her.

Cross huffed and straightened up. “Well, at least we're on the right track. There's Tenpenny Tower."

Sunset looked where she was pointing. An immense building rose up ahead of them. It looked like an old high-class hotel from the big city, towering at least twenty stories tall.

Applejack let out an impressed whistle. "Now that looks fancy. Ah bet it ain't cheap to live in that place."

"It really isn't," Cross replied. "Only the wealthiest wastelanders can afford to live there, but the security alone would be worth the price. Their security team is top-notch, and so is their hardware."

"As long as they don't try to use it on us, I couldn't care less right now." Sunset checked to make sure none of her equipment was damaged, then took the lead once again. "Come on, let's get out of here."

Luckily for the group, the ground ahead was mostly flat, with only the occasional low and gentle slope breaking up the monotony. Tenpenny Tower loomed over them as they drew nearer. 

Cross reassured everyone that the residents would leave them alone as long as they didn't take any hostile actions, but Sunset couldn't help feeling nervous. She was sure that she had heard someone mention the place before, in no pleasant context, and to make things worse she couldn't shake the sensation that they were being watched. 

When they reached the tower, the team saw that there was a large perimeter wall protecting the place, taller even than Fawkes, made up of enormous concrete slabs. The guards asked their business when they got within earshot, but didn't press further when Cross replied that they were just passing by. Even so, Sunset didn't let her guard down until they had left the tower a long way behind.

A few ruined buildings dotted the landscape beyond Tenpenny Tower, followed by several large concrete constructions a little further on and, beyond that, more rocky hills lined with cliffs rose up on the horizon.

"That's where we need to go," Cross said, pointing to the hills and squashing Sunset's vain hope that she wouldn't have to do anymore climbing that day. "You see those concrete buildings surrounded by fencing? That's Warrington Train Yard. We should probably head to the South a little so we can get past without being spotted by any feral ghouls."

No-one felt any need to disagree with her on that point. Each of the Rainbooms, other than Sunset, could vividly remember their last encounter with a horde of feral ghouls in the metro tunnels beneath the D.C. ruins, and none of them had any desire to repeat the incident.

Trusting to stealth once more, the group took care to give the train yard a wide berth as they headed up into the hills. Fluttershy said that she could hear and smell the ghouls shambling around in the yard, but thankfully the ghouls didn't share her incredible senses, and the group was able to pass without incident.

More good fortune followed, as while they were now steadily climbing the first of the hills, the slopes themselves were actually quite shallow. There were patches of treacherous scree dotted around, but they were easy enough to avoid. A short way up the first hill, the girls had a minor shock when they spotted what at first seemed to be beautiful green plants growing around a fallen tree. It was only when they got closer that they realized that what they had thought were plants were actually bright green mushrooms, growing on tall stalks that reached up to the girls' knees.

"Is it bad that Ah kinda got my hopes up for a second there?" Applejack asked.

Cross sighed and shook her head. "Honestly? So did I."

As they progressed further up the hill, the ground got progressively rockier. Rounding a particularly impressive boulder, the group paused in their tracks as they spotted a large building, constructed from steel and concrete, sitting on a rocky promontory above them to their right as if it were a sentinel watching over the path below. 

Something about the building sent a shiver down Sunset's spine. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something wasn't right. Whatever was inside, it was ancient, it was buried, and it was evil.

"Wh-what is that place?" Rainbow asked quietly, clearly sensing something too.

"The Dunwich Building," Cross replied in a somber voice. "We should get moving. I don't know much about that place, but no-one who has gone exploring in there has ever come back out."

Sunset shook herself to try and shift the bad feelings. "Which way is the rendezvous point?"

Cross pointed up the hill past the Dunwich Building. "That way. It's not far now."

The group picked up the pace as they passed the promontory, staying as far away from the building as possible and doing their best not to look at it. When they were past, and the others were letting out sighs of relief, Sunset looked back at it, almost reluctantly. Her heart leapt into her mouth as she spotted a pale face looking at her from one of the windows, but before she could so much as blink, it vanished. Shivering uncontrollably, Sunset put her head down and walked away as quickly as she could, pointedly ignoring the gossamer whispers that seemed to claw at her mind.

"Alright, we're here!" Sunset jumped out of her skin as Cross suddenly spoke up. They had come across the shattered remnants of a road, leading up towards a cliff. Nestled at the bottom of a cliff was an old car tunnel. The tunnel entrance was blocked by huge boulders, but a team of Brotherhood Knights was gathered around a side door, shifting wooden supply crates off a truck and taking them inside.

One of the Knights waved as he saw the group approaching. "Hey, you made it! Head on inside, Paladin Metzger is just setting up a base camp."

Cross thanked him and stepped through the door. The others quickly followed and found themselves in a dimly lit corridor. Squeezing past the power-armored Knights, the group passed through the corridor and into the car tunnel itself, which was mercifully free of debris. 

Lots of lights had been set up to illuminate the area, along with several pre-fabricated barricades and a handful of defensive turrets. Several Knights and Scribes were hurrying around, shifting supplies, tending to equipment and setting up more defenses. 

Paladin Metzger was standing in the middle of the area, her helmet tucked under an arm as she directed the operation.

"Hail, Paladin," Cross called out.

Metzger looked around and clamped a hand over her heart as she spotted the group. "Hail, Star Paladin, Rainbooms. I- oh?" She raised an eyebrow as she looked at each of them. "Hey, the Elder actually went through with it? In that case; hail, Brothers and Sisters. Come in, we've got billets over here and plenty of clean food and water to go around. Make the most of it while you can."

"How long until the operation commences?" Cross asked.

"You were the last group we were waiting on," Metzger replied. "You've got an hour to get yourselves refreshed before we head out to meet Liberty Prime."
> Chapter 89 - Death From Above
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Loud metallic groans filled the air as the walls finally stopped shaking. Acheson grunted with effort as he used the T.I.R.E.K. suit to suck up the last of the loose magic floating around the room. Magic was a wondrous tool, that was undeniable, but getting it to work consistently with standard technology was, at times, a royal pain in the ass. 

The most recent experiment had been simple, at least in theory: Adding a quantity of modified magic to a set of repurposed armor plates to be added to the Daybreaker prototype. Unfortunately, the magic, a customized blend of Loyalty and Laughter, had apparently disagreed with the cocktail of magic that was already flowing through the Daybreaker and expelled itself rather forcibly into the surrounding air. 

The unexpected arrival of a cloud of unrestrained magic had turned the workshop into a madhouse as Acheson tried to corral the magic and Doctor Holt attempted to keep all of the equipment and documents from wandering off.

As Acheson siphoned the last drop of magic, he sighed and savoured the feeling of raw power that flowed through him. He amused himself by flexing his arms, watching the magic washing out of the T.I.R.E.K. and rippling across his muscles, until a low rumble caught his attention.

The Daybreaker shifted in its restraints and let out the same noise again. Acheson couldn't help but wonder if it was laughing at him. The prototype had continually mutated with each new infusion of magic and it now stood eight feet tall, with armor plates so clean and white it almost hurt to look at them, and was so slender that it would be almost impossible for anyone bulkier than Holt herself to actually wear the thing properly. Physical changes weren't the only mutations it was undergoing, and Acheson was positive that the Daybreaker had achieved a rudimentary level of true sapience.

A loud knock on the door echoed through the workshop, prompting Doctor Holt to abandon her efforts at tidying and hurry over to see who was there. Acheson turned his own attention to the mess all over the floor, intent on ignoring whichever fool was attempting to disturb his experiments, until Holt came back with a harried-looking Major Owens in tow.

"Major? What are you doing here?" Acheson asked.

"It's the Brotherhood of Steel, Doctor. They've assembled a strike force, accompanied by Liberty Prime, the Rainbooms, and the Vault 101 boy," Owens explained. 

Acheson grinned. "It took them long enough. I wonder how long the Exodus team will be able to hold out against them?"

"They're not targeting the Exodus Building," Owens cut in. Acheson turned to stare at him curiously. "The strike force is assembling at the Rockland Car Tunnel. We believe that they're targeting our primary satellite relay station."

"What?!" Acheson gasped. He had expected the Brotherhood to launch an assault on the Exodus team in retaliation for the attack on the Citadel. He never imagined that they would ignore Exodus entirely, let alone that they would find the relay station so quickly. "Is the Bradley-Hercules Satellite ready to fire?"

Owens shook his head. "Not yet, but the techs say it should be ready soon. No more than an hour or so."

Acheson nodded. "Tell them to get it working as quickly as humanly possible, then contact the relay station and tell them to hold the Brotherhood off for as long as possible. Have them fight to the last man if need be." It wasn't too unreasonable an order. That relay station was the most heavily defended Enclave facility outside of the Adams Air Force Base itself. "I'll fetch you an authorization code, so tell the techs to fire the instant the satellite is ready."





Sunset took a deep breath to calm herself as she stared at the exit to the Rockland Car Tunnel. The scouts reported that the Enclave defenses began just on the other side of the door, and their troops were entrenched along the entire length of the road to the relay station. Even with Liberty Prime on their side, the strike force was in for one heck of a fight. 

More than that, Sunset knew that there would be no running away or cowering in a corner this time. If she wanted to get her friends home as quickly and safely as possible, she was going to have to fight. She was going to have to kill. Sunset had thought that she had come to terms with the prospect of doing just that before the assault on Project Purity, but the truth was that that awful experience had shown her just how woefully unprepared she actually was. This time would be different. It had to be.

"Remember, let the robot do most of the heavy lifting," Metzger said, seeing how nervous Sunset was. "We're just here to support the tin can until we get to the relay station itself, then we take over. And don't forget, you're not fighting alone in this, your brothers and sisters are here with you. We're a team. You watch our asses, and we'll watch yours." 

Sunset nodded and straightened up. "Okay."

"You got this?" Metzger asked.

"I've got this," Sunset replied with another nod. Metzger clapped a hand to her shoulder and stepped to the front of the group, leaving Sunset to look back at her friends. They all looked back at her, their expressions tense, but determined. Sunset glanced at Rainbow Dash, who was looking far more tense than the others. "You okay, Dash?"

Rainbow shifted to settle her armor a little more comfortably. "Yeah, just thinking about the plan for the satellite."

"You mean if we can't stop the uplink in time?" Sunset asked. She could hardly blame Rainbow for being worried. If they couldn't cut off the uplink in time, Rainbow would be Liberty Prime's first, and possibly only, line of defense. "Are you sure you're up for this?"

"Yeah, I'm sure," Rainbow said firmly.

"Final checks, people, make sure you're ready!" Metzger called out.

Sunset glanced back at the door, then drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly before addressing the rest of the Rainbooms. "Alright, girls. You heard the Paladin. Watch each other's backs out there. Let's pony up!"

The girls all nodded and ponied up one by one. The other Knights waiting around whistled and called out encouragement to them, while Adam, Fawkes and Cross just raised their weapons in a quiet salute. Metzger looked around at the gathered troops, her own Wonderbolts lined up next to her. "I hope you're ready, people. This battle could well be the one that decides the outcome of the war. Our enemy is strong, and their defences are tough, but we're the Brotherhood of Steel! We cannot yield, and we will not falter! Liberty Prime is with us, the Rainbooms are with us, and even the little lunatic from Vault 101 is with us!" A few Knights chuckled at Adam's sigh. "There is no greater fighting force in this entire wasteland! We will prevail! Are you with me?"

The Brotherhood troops cried out in unison, and Sunset couldn't help feeling her own spirits lift at the sound of a crowd of strong voices belting out through armored speakers. Metzger raised her laser rifle and turned to the door. "Then let's do this! Everybody, charge!"

Light streamed into the tunnel as Metzger kicked the door open and charged through it. The Wonderbolts thundered out after her, then Sunset led the Rainbooms out next. 

A narrow road snaked off ahead of them, bordered on one side by low cliffs and on the other by a rocky valley. A series of crackling blue energy fields blocked the road, and several concrete towers dotted the valley, each topped with clusters of gun turrets. Sunset gulped as a Vertibird soared into view, but before anyone could react bright blue lasers seared through the air and blew it to smithereens.

"ENGAGING RED CHINESE AGGRESSORS." The ground shook as Liberty Prime stomped into view, lumbering into the valley utterly unconcerned by the laser fire that crackled from the turrets.

The Knights opened fire on the turrets, while the Rainbooms ducked behind their power-armored fellows to avoid the retaliatory laser shots, but thankfully most of the turrets were targeting the giant robot.

Liberty Prime didn't bother firing again. It simply strode up to the base of the nearest tower, then stamped on something that exploded with a crackle of electricity. The turrets atop the tower were silenced instantly, and the first energy field blocking the road powered down a moment later.

"DEMOCRACY IS TRUTH. COMMUNISM IS DEATH." Liberty fetched a mini-nuke from its back and hurled it at the next field, vaporising the emitters and destroying the turrets around it.

"Keep moving! Everyone press forward!" Metzger barked. She led half of the strike force down a slope into the valley, with Pinkie, Rainbow and Applejack following, while Cross, Adam, Fawkes, and the rest of the Rainbooms joined the other Knights as they dared the roadway. 

A handful of Enclave soldiers guarded the way ahead, and just beyond them a third energy field blocked the way around a corner; this one crackling with blue and pink energy. As the Knights and soldiers traded fire, Rarity conjured glittering pillars spaced evenly apart for the troops, largely Sunset, Fawkes and herself, to take cover behind. 

Taking aim from behind one crystal pillar, Sunset swallowed her reluctance and fired at the nearest soldier. Adam and Fawkes both focused their fire on the same target, and the soldier's armor heated up, warped, then finally gave way beneath the storm of laser and plasma fire. Sunset felt her stomach lurch as the soldier fell, horror and revulsion threatening to overwhelm her, but she thrust her feelings to the back of her mind and focused her attention on looking for her next target.

"Shoot the same bad guys that I do!" Adam called out. "We'll concentrate our fire and overwhelm their armor, one by one!"

Sunset and Fawkes readily followed his advice, though the Enclave soldiers didn't make it easy. Crystal cracked and melted under their weapons fire, and Sunset saw two Knights fall before their guns, but the Brotherhood had the advantage of numbers. The soldiers didn't last long.

When the last soldier fell, the Knights charged up towards the energy barrier. Sunset looked around for Liberty Prime, but the robot was distracted by a particularly large Vertibird, one bristling with weapons and protected by a purple magical shield that rippled and flickered with each laser that Liberty fired at it.

A bright red laser sparked off the ground near Sunset's feet, making her yelp and jump aside in fright. A set of turrets on top of a nearby tower had apparently decided that the group stuck next to the energy field made good targets. Sunset dodged behind Adam, using him as a power-armored human shield while she shot one of the turrets until it exploded in a shower of sparks. A swift volley from Fawkes and Adam took care of the others.

"We need to find the generator, we're sitting ducks up here!" One of the Knights snapped.

Loud explosions ripped through the air as Liberty Prime finally gave up and just tossed a nuke at the Vertibird, blowing it out of the sky. "DEMOCRACY WILL PREVAIL." The robot glanced down and fired its lasers at something out of sight,  then the energy field fizzled out and disappeared. 

Adam huffed a laugh. "I guess that was the gener-"

A loud screeching roar cut him off, and barely a second later a two-legged reptilian nightmare bounded around the corner. The closest Knight had just enough time to yell out a warning before the creature pounced on him, claws and teeth flashing.

"Deathclaw!" The other Knights fired wildly as the Deathclaw tore through their companion's power armor with horrifying ease. 

"No you don't!" Rarity threw an arm out to the side and summoned a circular razor-edged gemstone, then sent it spinning towards the Deathclaw's legs. The monster roared in agony as the gem scythed through bone and muscle, sending the creature tumbling to the ground, but its misery didn't last long as Cross darted forward with her hammer raised high. Sunset tore her gaze away just as the hammer struck home with a sickening crunch.

"AMERICA WILL NEVER FALL TO COMMUNIST INVASION." Liberty Prime stomped along in search of enemies, following the curve of the valley as it, and the road above, turned to the right. Almost as soon as Liberty turned the corner the air was ripped apart by a terrific storm of lasers, plasma bolts and missiles, all directed at the robot. Wading through the fusillade, Liberty retaliated with its own lasers and the occasional thrown nuke. 

"That's our cue, let's go!" Cross led the group up on the road in a thundering charge around the corner. Sunset gritted her teeth and followed them reluctantly. Thankfully, there were no more energy fields blocking the road, but in their place were metal barriers and barricades guarded by turrets and more Enclave soldiers. The relay station rose up behind them; a windowless concrete edifice that bore no markings whatsoever. Huge satellite dishes rose up in a row on a ridge behind the building.

More firepower was directed at the advancing group, forcing Sunset to keep her head down as she ran, firing off snap shots whenever she got a chance. The flurry of lasers and plasma was also accompanied by brightly coloured flashes of light that spoke of magical weaponry being deployed, though in the chaos it was impossible to see what the effects were.

Sunset yelped as a laser scored a furrow across her armor. Ducking behind a Knight, she pulled a pulse grenade from her belt, armed it, and hurled it at the nearest barricade. The grenade detonated with an electronic crackle, and the soldiers behind the barricade lurched as their armor suddenly lost power. Cross took the opportunity to smash through the sudden weakness in the Enclave's defences, followed by several Knights, and they set to butchering the helpless troopers without mercy.

A colossal blast suddenly rocked the road, ripping a Knight to pieces and showering those nearby with grit, shards of metal and chunks of meat. Sunset hissed as she felt a sharp pain in her leg, but she ignored it and focused on diving behind a wrecked barricade. Looking around carefully, she spotted an Enclave soldier reloading a Fatman; a weapon the Brotherhood had taught her about that launched miniature nuclear warheads. She fired at the soldier, but ran out of ammunition before she could take him down.

As she ducked down to reload, hoping that the soldier wouldn't think to target her with a nuke, she spotted something pink moving down in the valley. Pinkie had spotted the soldier too and, heedless of the lasers turning patches of dust to glass around her, reached up to fish a Nuka-Cola out of her hair and stuffed it into the barrel of her Party Cannon, before pointing it up at the soldier with the Fatman. 

The Cannon fired with a high-pitched thoom. Sunset watched in amazement as the Nuka-Cola flew in a lazy arc, leaving a trail of glittering pink sparkles in its wake, until it smashed against the soldier's chest. The blast that followed was audible even over the furore of the battle. When the smoke cleared, all that remained of the soldier was an armored pair of legs, standing incongruously like a half-made statue.

"Holy shit," Sunset muttered under her breath.

"Language, darling," a voice said weakly. Sunset turned and saw that, to her mild surprise, Rarity was crouching next to her. The fashionista was liberally splattered with mud, ash, and blood, but at least the latter didn't seem to be her own. "This is a little more than we bargained for."

"You can say that again," Sunset agreed fervently. She flinched as a bolt of plasma melted a chunk of the barricade next to them. "Are you managing okay?"

Rarity nodded and stood up just long enough to fling a small crystal spike before ducking down again. "Their armor is too strong for my magic, so I'm just trying to aim for their weapons. It'll be harder for them to kill us if they can't shoot us." She brushed her hair out of her face and peeked over the barricade again. "Alright, darling, let's keep moving!"

It happened in an instant. Rarity stood up and placed a foot on top of the barricade, ready to vault over it, when a hissing orange bolt struck her in the chest and exploded like a miniature sun, punching her clean off her feet.

"Rarity!" Sunset scrambled over to her. The magical shot had burned a fist-sized hole through her armor, but the uniform beneath was only singed. Rarity groaned in agony, prompting Sunset to look around at the Knights. "Medic!"

"Give me a second!" Sunset whipped her head around to face the source of the shout. Fluttershy was kneeling next to a fallen Knight, back where the energy field had been. Sunset felt her blood run cold as she realized that Fluttershy had her hands inside the Knight's abdomen, clearly trying to staunch a horrific injury, but even as she watched Fluttershy gave up and shook her head, swearing loudly before pulling her hands out and sprinting up to Rarity. "What happened?"

Sunset scooted back to give her room. "Some sort of magic bullet. Shot her in the chest." 

Fluttershy put her ear to Rarity's chest and listened carefully for a couple of seconds. "No broken bones, you're fine." She pulled out a stimpak, rolled the fashionista's sleeve up and jammed it into her arm, ignoring Rarity's pained hiss. "This'll help you get back on your feet. Try not to get shot again!"

Without another word, Fluttershy turned and ran towards the next fallen Knight, ducking and weaving to avoid getting shot.

"She's scary when she's in doctor mode." Sunset glanced down at Rarity. "You good to go?"

"I think so?" Rarity grunted and tried to pull herself to her feet, then yelped and dropped to the floor as another orange bullet whizzed past her head and blew a chunk out of the ground.

Sunset looked around wildly for whoever was targeting them. A multicolored blur grabbed her attention as Rainbow flew up to the top of the relay building, Flashburn blazing in her hand. Apparently, she found her target, as she swung the blade once towards something laying on the roof and a moment later an object that looked awfully like a head rolled off the edge of the building, dropping to the ground below like a forgotten ball.

Another explosion shook the earth as Liberty threw another nuke, and all of a sudden an abrupt silence fell. Taken off-guard by the sudden lull in the fighting, Sunset carefully stood up and looked around for any enemies, only to realize that there weren't any left. All of the Enclave soldiers outside the relay station were either dead or too wounded to keep fighting.

"What now?" Rarity asked, standing up and rubbing her chest.

Sunset looked up at the satellite dishes. "Now we get inside and shut this place down before they can finish the satellite uplink."

"COMMUNIST THREAT ASSESSMENT: MINIMAL." Liberty Prime lumbered closer to the station, and a blue light illuminated the building as it scanned the structure. "SCANNING DEFENCES. STRUCTURAL WEAKNESS DETECTED. EXPLOITING." The giant robot hurled a nuke at the building. When the smoke cleared, Sunset saw a huge crater in the wall, with a spiderweb of cracks running through the concrete, but it hadn't been enough to breach the interior. Realizing this, Liberty walked right up to the crater, raised a fist, and punched a hole right through the solid concrete.

"Okay, now for the hard part," Sunset said grimly. Before she could take a step closer, two of the satellite dishes suddenly moved, metal groaning as they both aligned and pointed up into the sky. Sunset's heart sank as she realized what was happening. "No… no, no, no… we're too late."

"SATELLITE UPLINK DETECTED. ANALYSIS OF COMMUNIST TRANSMISSION PENDING." Liberty Prime ripped its arm from the wall and stepped back, tilting its head to look up at the sky. Mere seconds later, it let out a wailing siren. "WARNING. WARNING. RED CHINESE ORBITAL STRIKE IMMINENT." Liberty thrust an arm out, pointing away from the station. "ALL PERSONNEL SHOULD REACH MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE, IMMEDIATELY."

Shouts and orders rang out from the Knights, and the strike force swiftly retreated back the way they had come, dragging their wounded with them. Sunset and Rarity looked up as they ran. Bright lights could be seen in the sky, growing brighter with each passing second. Fear clutched at Sunset's heart as a rainbow-coloured blur rocketed upwards to meet them.

"Rainbow?! Is she insane?! What's she doing?!" Rarity cried.

"Trying to save Liberty Prime," Sunset replied shakily. Elder Lyons had warned them about the possibility of an orbital strike, but since they didn't have any way of attacking a satellite directly, this was the next best option. "She's going to try to intercept as many missiles as she can, and destroy them before they reach the ground."

Rarity gave Sunset a horrified look. "She's going to try and stop a barrage of orbital missiles head on?! With a sword?!"

Sunset didn't answer. Technically, all Rainbow had to do was sever a fuel line, wreck a guiding fin, or do enough damage to the fuselage to knock a missile off course, but with how fast the missiles would be travelling, not to mention getting away from each missile before it exploded, or even outrunning the explosion… it was a tall order, even for Rainbow Dash. One slight miscalculation, one wrong wing flap, and Liberty Prime wouldn't be the only one they lost.

Even as the pair ran, the first explosion lit up the sky. Sunset felt her heart clench, then another blast came, then another. After the third explosion, Liberty Prime fired upwards with its own lasers, and the sky was suddenly filled with fire and smoke.

"TARGETING SYSTEM INSUFFICIENT." Liberty Prime suddenly crouched and held its arms above its head. "NOT LIKE TH-"

The ground heaved as the first missile hit the ground right next to the robot. The force of the explosion sent seething air hissing over the fleeing Knights, and the immense shockwave made the very ground heave and split, throwing the girls to the ground. Further blasts followed as more missiles slammed home, turning the world into a hellish mess of screaming air and tortured earth.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the noise died away and the ground stopped shaking. 

Sunset coughed dryly. Slowly, half-afraid that the nightmare would begin again, she removed her arms from her head and moved her legs, shifting from the ball she had instinctively rolled into. She looked around at the others, seeing the Knights, Cross, and Adam still standing, while Rarity, Fawkes and Fluttershy were all curled up just as Sunset was. 

"Is everyone okay?" The sound of Pinkie calling out from the valley below sent a brief glimmer of hope through Sunset's chest, boosted a second later as she heard more Knights shout responses, Applejack's voice among them. As she stood and looked back towards Liberty Prime, however, Sunset felt that hope waver.

A great cloud of smoke and dust obscured the spot where Liberty Prime had crouched. Sunset could neither see nor hear a thing; not a glimpse of the robot, not a peep from its speakers, not even the groan of flexing metal.

A bright light descending from the sky made Sunset flinch, and her breath hitched as Rainbow touched down gently and swept Flashburn around with a flourish. "That… was fucking awesome! Isn't that right, big guy?"

Sunset's heart leapt as a giant shadow rose to its feet within the cloud. Its armor was blackened and rent open in places, but every single member of the strike force let loose a victorious roar as Liberty Prime raised a fist to the heavens. "LIBERTY SHALL NEVER DIE."
> Chapter 90 - Satellite Uplink Assault
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bolstered by the survival of Liberty Prime, not to mention the sheer awesomeness of seeing a giant battle robot striking a victorious pose like a fictional action hero, the Brotherhood of Steel strike force charged back towards the relay station with renewed vigor. 

The hole that Liberty had punched in the station's wall was situated directly above a concrete ledge that ran around the outside of the building, presumably some sort of maintenance access. While out of reach from the valley floor, the ledge was level with and easily accessible from the road above. The members of the strike force that had followed the road reluctantly stopped their headlong charge when they reached the building and waited for those who had taken the valley to catch up.

Metzger was the first to crest the slope. The moment the whole force was gathered she called out to a handful of Knights, ordering them to wait outside with Liberty Prime in case the Enclave sent reinforcements. "The rest of you, get inside and shut this place down before those bastards launch another orbital strike!"

Raising her hammer high, Cross pointed at the hole. "For victory!" The Knights roared and followed as she led the way, thundering recklessly along the narrow ledge in single file.

Sunset and Rarity hung back, waiting for the other Rainbooms to catch up. Both turned as they heard a low, drawn-out hiss from behind. Fluttershy was walking slowly towards them, pinching the bridge of her nose and keeping her gaze fixed on the floor. Adam and Fawkes were walking along behind her, giving her worried looks.

"Are… are you alright, dear?" Rarity asked warily.

Fluttershy shook her head. "Too much. It's all just…" Her Geode glowed brightly, then there was a flash of light as she shifted from her ponied up form to her vampire form. The moment Fluttershy's transformation finished she shoved a hand into her nursing kit and whipped out a blood pack, biting into it and draining it in a heartbeat. Adam cocked his head at her, but the helmet he wore hid his expression.

"Better?" Sunset asked.

Fluttershy nodded as she tossed the empty pack aside and licked her lips. "For now."

A gust of wind announced Rainbow's arrival. "Hey, are you going inside?"

"In a second, we're letting the guys with power armor make the first push," Sunset replied.

"Good idea," Applejack said as she and Pinkie finally reached the group. "Wow, y'all are a mess. Ah hope none of y'all are hurt?"

"We're fine, darling," Rarity replied, though she covered the hole in her armor with a hand as she said it. "Shall we get going?"

Pinkie shook her head. "I'll wait out here. I doubt my Party Cannon will be much use inside," she said in a toneless voice. Sunset couldn't help but notice that Pinkie's eyes were unfocused, staring at something the others couldn't see. Her hair was still poofy, though, which seemed to be a good sign.

"I'll stay out here too, in case the satellite fires again," Rainbow said, looking up into the sky.

Sunset nodded and hefted her plasma rifle. "Alright, we'll see you soon, then. Let's go, girls."

Joining the stream of Knights hurrying into the building, the group carefully made their way across the ledge and into the hole. A featureless corridor greeted the girls, with a single door smashed open at either end of it. The sounds of fierce fighting came from both sides.

Deciding to head through the door on her right, purely because the fighting didn't quite sound so brutal this way, Sunset and the others found themselves in a tall room lined with metal shelving units and kitchen appliances. Two squat machines dominated the far end of the room, while above hung the remains of metal walkways and stairs. Chunks of twisted metal and molten slag in the middle of the room showed what had happened to the rest of the stairways. 

A pair of tunnels led out of the room; one to the left, and the other behind the squat machinery. Both were guarded by Enclave soldiers, trading fire with the Knights that had charged into the room. 

Adam and Fawkes quickly added their firepower to the fight, while the girls prioritized finding some decent cover first. More Knights were following them into the room, but the Enclave soldiers weren't budging an inch.

"We need to block off one of those tunnels!" Sunset shouted as she crouched behind an old refrigerator.

"Got it!" Rarity rolled out from behind a shelving unit and threw her hands out towards the tunnel on the left. A huge gemstone appeared in front of the tunnel entrance, sealing it up. "That won't hold them for long!"

She hardly needed to have bothered with the warning. The instant the side tunnel was closed, every single Brotherhood Knight in the room turned their weapons on the soldiers in the other tunnel, unleashing a hail of lasers and plasma bolts that not even Enclave power armor could stand against.

The gemstone gave way a heartbeat later, shattering to pieces as an Enclave soldier barged through it like a battering ram, only to be greeted by a punishing fusillade that cut him down before he could even raise his weapon. His fellows lasted only a few seconds longer. 

As the last soldier slumped to the ground, Sunset lowered her weapon with a quiet huff. The Knights quickly set to dividing up labor: Selecting squads to take each tunnel and another to tend to the wounded. Sunset looked around, trying to see where her friends had gotten to, when she spotted something drop from above.

The Enclave soldier landed with a crash that shook the floor. His armor was bigger and bulkier than ordinary Enclave suits, and he wielded an immense sledgehammer that crackled with electricity. 

Before anyone could react, the soldier lashed out at the nearest Knight. The hammer slammed into the Knight's chest with a hollow boom and a bright flash of light, and suddenly the whole room was plunged into darkness. 

Sunset cowered behind the refrigerator as Knights fired blindly, scarlet, emerald and blue strobe flashes throwing nightmarish shadows on the walls as the soldier stalked his prey in the dark. Only the electricity arcing across the head of his hammer gave any clue as to where he was.

Aiming for where he should be in relation to his hammer, Sunset fired as rapidly as she could, sending a stream of plasma bolts at the soldier. The soldier seemed utterly unfazed, but the plasma lit up his silhouette well enough for others to target him.

"Ah got him!" Sunset stopped firing as Applejack leapt out of the shadows, drawing her fist back for a strike. The soldier turned, searching for the source of the shout, but before AJ could get close enough to strike several bolts of plasma struck the soldier in the back, washing over his shoulders like emerald flames. 

Applejack skidded to a halt. The light from the shots faded quickly, but it was enough for Sunset to see her expression shift from determination to abject terror. "N-no…" Applejack stepped back as the soldier turned to face her, her voice shaking, "No… get away, get away from me!"

"Look out!" A winged shadow slammed into Applejack just as the hammer swung, missing the pair by inches. 

Sunset raised her gun again, but before she could fire someone pounced on the soldier's back. The crackling electricity lit up Rarity's face from beneath, making her look utterly demonic as she pressed her hands to the soldier's armor, and a horrific crunch echoed through the room. Just as darkness fell again, the soldier gurgled wetly and fell to the ground with a loud clang.

An uneasy quiet fell in the wake of the soldier's death, broken only by the moans of the wounded and the hissing of bubbling plasma. Sunset hurriedly switched her Pip-Boy light on just as several Knights activated flashlights built into their helmets, lighting up the room.

Fluttershy was hunched over Applejack, her expression grim as she rubbed her friend's back. Rarity and Sunset hurried over to find Applejack curled up into a ball, hyperventilating.

"What's wrong with her?" Rarity asked urgently.

"Panic attack," Fluttershy replied tightly. "We have to get her out of here."

"N-no," Applejack forced out between breaths.

"You're in no condition to keep going!" Rarity snapped.

Sunset looked down at Applejack with concern. "What set this off? It's not like Applejack to have a panic attack."

"I get the feeling recent events weren't as easy to shake off as we expected," Fluttershy said quietly. She rummaged through her nursing kit and pulled out an empty syringe and a small vial. She filled the syringe using the vial, then gently took Applejack's arm. "Here, this will help." Applejack barely seemed to notice the needle sliding into her arm, but a few seconds later her breathing slowed down to normal and she visibly sagged.

"What did you give her?" Adam asked as he and Fawkes strode up to the girls.

"A sedative," Fluttershy replied. "I was going to use it to slow myself down if the bloodlust got too powerful. I know it's risky, but I put it together with my unenhanced metabolism in mind; Applejack is bigger and heavier than I am, so she should be okay. She's not going to be in any condition to fight for a while, though. As soon as I can get her outside without pushing past a bunch of Knights, I will."

Adam nodded. "Right, I'll stick with these two, the rest of you push on with the other troops."

"I am not leaving Applejack here in this state!" Rarity hissed. 

"Rarity and I shall stay," Fawkes cut in as Adam tried to retort. "Her magic will be particularly useful in protecting us, but you, Adam, will be far more useful than I in preventing another orbital strike." He clamped a hand on Adam's shoulder. "I shall protect them with my life, you have my word. Go."

Adam sighed heavily, then nodded again. "Fine. I guess it's just me and you then, Sunset. Flutters, Fawkes, Rare, be careful."

"We should be saying that to you," Fluttershy countered.

"Don't worry, I'll keep this idiot out of trouble." Sunset looked up as a wounded Enclave soldier crawled out of his damaged armor. She glanced around for a medic, spotted one who was closing the eyes of a dead Knight and, swallowing her unease, called him over as she dashed to the wounded soldier's side. Resting a hand on the fallen man's forehead, she quickly used her magic before getting out of the medic's way. "Try and save as many Enclave soldiers as you can, too. The less people who die here the better." 

With the information she had stolen from the soldier's memories fixed firmly in her mind, Sunset pointed to the left tunnel and shouted out, "The control room is this way! Let's go!" Without looking back, she charged towards the tunnel. The loud thumping of armored footsteps told her that Adam and the other Knights were following.

"I almost forgot she was a telepath," one of the Knights muttered as Sunset ran past.

Several Brotherhood Knights had already gone down the tunnel. In a small break room off the tunnel Sunset spotted a Knight watching over a pair of captive Enclave soldiers, both kneeling next to their power armor with their hands behind their heads. Hurrying past, it wasn't long until the sounds of combat could be heard from up ahead.

"Do you think they'll be alright?" Adam asked as they hurried forward.

Sunset glanced back over her shoulder. She didn't need to ask who he was talking about "They'll be okay. Fluttershy is probably struggling with her mutations right now, but helping Applejack will give her something to focus on, and neither Rarity nor Fawkes will let anyone get near them without a fight." Sunset looked ahead as they drew closer to the battle. "Right now, you should probably be more concerned about what's going to happen to us."

A handful of Knights were clustered around a door at the end of the tunnel, firing upwards at something inside the room beyond. Whatever it was, it fell swiftly, and the Knights ducked through the door in rapid succession. 

Sunset took cover behind the door and peeked inside. The room was narrow but incredibly tall, lined by a metal staircase that climbed several storeys into the darkness above. A bitter firefight was being waged between the Knights trying to make their way to the upper levels, and the Enclave soldiers doing their best to hold them back. Power-armored corpses littered the stairway.

"That looks rough," Adam grumbled. 

Sunset nodded, then did a double-take as she realized that he had the dead soldier's magic hammer in one hand, and his plasma rifle clutched like an oversized pistol in the other. "What the hell are you bringing that for?!"

Adam shrugged. "I was thinking of giving it to Cross." He glanced into the room and squared his shoulders. "Stay behind me. Use my armor as cover and shoot anyone who targets us." 

"Right!" Sunset followed as Adam stepped into the room, raising his rifle and blasting away one-handed. She couldn't help but envy the ease with which he handled the weapon, even with the aid of his power armor. 

The two slowly advanced up the steps, Sunset flinching every time a laser or plasma bolt cracked off the walls or Adam's armor. They moved with caution, trying to avoid getting caught in the sights of too many soldiers at once while focusing their fire on one target at a time. The Knights quickly followed suit, and between them the Brotherhood force started making smooth progress up the stairs. A soldier armed with a gatling laser slew two Knights and held the others off at one point, but only until another Knight managed to bring a missile launcher to bear and crack the offending trooper's armor wide open.

Finally, after a more gruelling climb than any Sunset had ever undertaken, the Brotherhood managed to reach the top of the stairs. She supposed she should feel relieved at clearing the hurdle, but the trail of dead and wounded troops from both factions behind them, not to mention the knowledge that the fight was far from done, crushed any enthusiasm she could have felt. 

"Which way now, Knight-Sergeant Shimmer?" One of the Knights asked. 

Sunset pointed over to a narrow corridor. "That way. Through the corridor, down another stairwell and into another tunnel system."

The Knights moved aside as Adam stepped to the front. "I'll take point. The rest of you keep them off my back, and don't forget to concentrate your fire on one poser at a time. It's the only way we'll be able to penetrate their armor." 

No one had any complaints about that, especially given how much more durable Adam's stolen Enclave armor was than the Brotherhood's ancient suits. Moving into the corridor, the team were surprised to find absolutely no opposition. They progressed slowly, checking every nook and cranny, but they didn't encounter anyone or anything until they emerged into another tall room.

A scene of absolute devastation met their eyes. Broken bodies were scattered all over the place, blood and entrails coated from every surface, and the stairway leading down had been shredded like paper. The stench was enough to turn Sunset's stomach, but worse was the cloying sensation of dark magic hanging heavy in the air.

"What the hell happened here?" Adam asked quietly.

A bizarre electronic chuckle made everyone flinch. Looking around for the source, Sunset spotted something glowing in the corner of the room. Cautiously moving closer, she realized that it was a large gun resembling a gatling laser, but with wisps of dark purple, pink and silver magic wafting around the muzzle. It let out another electronic chuckle, and Sunset backed away from it slowly. "I get the feeling we do not want to mess with that thing."

"We'll get a containment unit up here as soon as the site's secure," one of the Knights said. "I've gotta say, I'm not sure whether I'm glad that the Enclave is having trouble with magic too or not."

Sunset shook her head. "As long as it's not trying to kill us, I'm willing to worry about it later. Right now, I'm more concerned about how we're going to get downstairs."

The Knight stomped over to the edge of the stairs and looked over the railings. "It's not a big drop, our power armor can take it. You'll just have to make your way down carefully."

Without another word, the Knight kicked the railings away and hopped over the edge, his fellows following after with loud thuds as they landed below. Adam offered Sunset a shrug before dropping down himself. 

"Typical. I should have brought Rarity or Rainbow Dash with me," Sunset grumbled. 

Muttering under her breath in an effort to distract herself from the gore dripping from the ceiling, Sunset slung her plasma rifle over her shoulder and carefully made her way down the broken stairs. It was slow going at first, but after the first flight the remaining stairs were undamaged, allowing her to hurry after the others.

The Knights hadn't bothered waiting for her. The sounds of battle echoed through the building before Sunset even reached the first floor. They raged intensely for a moment, then a loud boom knocked a rain of dust from the ceiling, leaving silence in its wake.

"Please tell me that was Adam using that hammer," Sunset whispered to herself as she jumped down the last few steps and sped into the nearby tunnel. She rounded a few corners with no sign of anyone, then finally almost ran head first into the back of a Knight as she sprinted blindly around the last bend.

"Easy there, Knight-Sergeant," one of the Knights said brightly, holding her laser rifle over her shoulder. "We've got this under control.

A couple of Enclave soldiers lay dead on the floor, and a trio more were stepping out of their armor under the supervision of the Knights, their heads bowed and their hands above their heads.

"How much further?" Another Knight asked.

"Not much further," Sunset replied. "We're almost at the heart of the station. Adam?" The boy in question looked around curiously. "You take the lead again, I'll be right behind you."

Leaving a few Knights to watch over the surrendered soldiers, the rest of the team advanced through the tunnels once more. There were only a handful of them left now, including Adam and Sunset, but they were confident that they could handle whatever the Enclave had left to throw at them.

The group soon came to the end of the tunnel. They climbed up yet another short staircase and found themselves in a small room full of old server stacks, all beeping away cheerily. A large metal door at the far end of the room led to another short tunnel, and beyond that lay another large security door.

"That's it," Sunset said quietly. "That's where the satellite uplink terminal is located."

Adam nodded, hefting his plasma rifle in one hand and the hammer in the other while the remaining Knights clutched their weapons tightly. 

Sunset pulled her last pulse grenade from her belt, then took cover by the wall next to the door. "Okay, on three. One. Two. Three!" 

She pressed the button to open the door, but before the door had even finished rattling open a voice from inside shouted, "Don't shoot! We surrender!"

Surprised, and more than a little relieved, Sunset peeked into the room. Huge computer banks filled the room, red lights twinkling all over them. The biggest computer, the satellite uplink terminal itself, sat right in the middle of the room. A dead Enclave soldier lay on the floor, and a slightly battered-looking officer kneeled next to him with his hands behind his head. Two more soldiers were standing next to their empty armor with their hands raised, while a second officer had a plasma pistol aimed at the base of her kneeling compatriot's skull. 

The armed officer, a tall woman with cropped blonde hair, lowered her pistol as the Knights stepped into the room. The Knights raised their weapons as the officer stepped forward, but she ignored them and stopped in front of Sunset, looking her up and down. "I'm Lieutenant Bles. Lieutenant Colonel Strong said you'd arrive at some point. I'm sorry we couldn't stop the orbital strike, but we delayed it for as long as we possibly could. In any case, we've secured the uplink, and made sure that the stored data is safe and decrypted for the Brotherhood's perusal, you'll find everything on these terminals."

Sunset's eyes widened with recognition. "Colonel Strong? That means…"

Bles nodded. "I'm working with the Exodus team. It's an honour to finally meet you, Miss Shimmer."
> Chapter 91 - The Dust Settles
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There were many things that Sunset had taken for granted in her old life, both in Equestria and at CHS. One of the biggest things, something so fundamental and invisible that no one ever noticed it until it was gone, was something so rare in the Capital Wasteland that Sunset felt genuine happiness whenever she found it. 

Fully functional toilet plumbing. With clean water.

Even in the Citadel or Rivet City, with Project Purity running at full capacity, clean water was rare enough that the toilets mostly reused filthy brown water, or worse; faintly luminous rainwater. Only the Enclave were willing to use precious clean water for flushing toilets even in their most remote facilities, a fact that Sunset found herself oddly grateful for. 

With her business done, Sunset stepped out of the cubicle and shuffled over to the sinks, sighing heavily. 

The battle was over, the satellite uplink had been secured and the surviving Enclave personnel had been rounded up by the Brotherhood of Steel, both Exodus and loyalist. All that was left for the Rainbooms was a short rest period before they headed back to the Citadel with Liberty Prime.

Unfortunately, now that the battle was done and the adrenaline was gone, Sunset felt herself crashing hard. The only parts of her body that didn't ache were the bits that stung instead; minor cuts, bruises and burns she hadn't even felt happening during the fight itself. 

Sunset groaned and looked into the mirror above the sink. She looked like a mess. Blood, mud, ash and oil covered almost every inch of her body, while her hair blended it all together in a sticky matted mess.

"Whoa, you look rough." Sunset blinked and looked around, noticing with some surprise that another Knight was in the room with her, washing her hands. "They're giving out hot food out by Liberty Prime. I'd grab what you can before they send you back to the Citadel."

"Thanks," Sunset mumbled. She turned on the taps, washing her hands before scrubbing as much muck from her face as she could. 

The Knight wafted the collar of her suit and wrinkled her nose. "Damn, it's hot inside that power armor. The old T-45s don't have any cooling systems. I swear, if you wrung out my clothes you'd get enough sweat to drown a toddler."

"Delightful," Sunset huffed. 

"Yeah. I, uh, I'm kinda off my game here." The Knight coughed and cleared her throat. "I saw you fight back there. You're pretty tough, not to mention resourceful." Sunset just grunted and dried her face off with a towel. The Knight winced and slicked her hair back with a hand. "So, anyway, I was wondering… before we go back to the Citadel, do you want to get some of that food? With me, I mean. Food with me."

"Sure, food sounds good," Sunset replied with a sigh. Eating would probably be a good idea, if only to try and perk herself up. "Where did you say they were giving it out?"

The Knight raised an eyebrow, then frowned with concern. "You really are fucked, aren't you? I thought that wasn't your first battle?"

Sunset shook her head and turned to lean against the sink. "No, but fighting like that… killing… it's not something I can get used to that easily."

"I guess that's fair." The Knight smiled sadly and stepped to the door of the toilets. "I guess I'll have to ask again some other time. Come on, let's get you some food."

Sunset frowned curiously as she followed the woman out of the toilets, then shook her head as she remembered something. "Do you know what happened to that weird magic gun we found?"

The Knight grimaced at the reminder of it. "They stuck it in a containment crate ready to be shipped back to the Citadel. Cross and Metzger are both going to suggest that the Scribes stick it in storage and forget about it." She shivered as she walked over to her empty armor. "The damn thing was still laughing even when we stuck it in the box." The armor hissed as it sealed itself with the Knight inside. "So… food?"

Sunset nodded slowly. "Food."





The area outside the satellite uplink station was bustling with activity. Knights hurried around organizing guard shifts and moving supplies, while the Scribes that had waited in the car tunnel during the battle now cooked, repaired equipment, and tended to the dead and wounded. Liberty Prime stood watch over it all: A silent sentinel tirelessly protecting his smaller brethren.

Fluttershy sat on a rock near the edge of the gathering, nursing a small bowl of soup. She was back in her ordinary human form for now. While initially reluctant to consume any more of her blood packs, especially when there were so many wounded who would need transfusions, the Scribes had insisted that they had plentiful reserves of their own blood packs. And that she would be better served keeping her bloodlust thoroughly locked down than struggling needlessly.

Applejack was sitting with Rarity on an empty supply crate nearby, hunched over while the fashionista rubbed her back. The sedative had mostly worn off now, not that it had been particularly strong in the first place, but the aftereffects of it, the battle, and the panic attack had clearly brought Applejack to the limit of her endurance. Rarity was tending to her as best she could, but Fluttershy doubted that there was much anyone in the wastes could really do to help. 

She hadn't said anything yet, but Fluttershy was almost certain that the fight with Horrigan had left a lingering trauma in Applejack's mind; a festering splinter that would be nearly impossible to remove even with professional help. Seeing the Enclave soldier lit up by green plasma had probably wrenched the poor girl right back to her near-fatal encounter with that colossal monster.

Listening carefully, Fluttershy could hear Pinkie and Rainbow talking nearby. The two were hiding it well, but they were both wrestling with their own demons even as they ate and joked around with each other. Pinkie's laughter wavered, almost as if she were fighting back tears each time she opened her mouth, and Fluttershy had noticed earlier that she seemed to be looking through people rather than at them. Even Rainbow was shaken. She was still shamelessly bragging about how quickly she had moved and how awesome it had been to back up Liberty Prime, but she didn't actually mention any concrete details about the battle, and she couldn't quite hide the tremor in her hands as she held her bowl.

The sound of approaching footsteps grabbed Fluttershy's attention, and she looked up just in time to see Adam walking towards her. He had left his battered armor to the Scribes and was now wearing just his Vault jumpsuit and Tunnel Snakes jacket. 

The scent of the plateful of barbecued squirrel bits Adam was carrying mixed with the acrid smell of power armor lubricant, the sour odor of sweat, and the earthy musk of his skin as he sat on the rock next to Fluttershy. "Hey. You okay?"

"Worn out," Fluttershy replied honestly. "You?"

"Sore. Turns out going on a hike followed by fighting a battle right after you wake up from a coma is a great way to make your muscles hurt," Adam said in a surprisingly cheery tone.

Fluttershy winced sympathetically. "The medics did make sure to move your limbs around regularly while you were unconscious, so your muscles and tendons wouldn't atrophy too much, but I guess it wasn't enough. Do you need painkillers?"

Adam shook his head. "Nah, it's okay, thanks. It hurts, but it's the good kind of hurt, y'know? Like the ache you get after a decent workout." He held his plate up to Fluttershy. "Squirrel bit?"

"Oh, yes please." Munching on the little piece of meat, Fluttershy looked around at the organized chaos going on around them. It took her a moment to realize that something was missing. "Where's Fawkes?"

Adam swallowed his mouthful and gestured vaguely at the station. "Metzger asked him to help keep an eye on the captives. Him and the other Wonderbolts are near enough the only people she trusts to guard them without mistreating them. Some of the other Knights are grumbling about it, but she told them they could direct their complaints to Liberty Prime and see where that got them."

Fluttershy let out a quiet giggle at the thought of someone trying to whine to the robot. She went on to take a spoonful of soup, but paused as she noticed Adam watching her out of the corner of her eye. Seeing that she had noticed, Adam looked away and scratched at his stubble, as if trying to hide his emotions. "So, uh… that was your vampire form, huh?"

A nervous flutter ran through Fluttershy's gut. "Um, yes." She looked down at her bowl, not confident enough to look him in the eye. "I… um… I'm sorry that you had to see me like that."

"I'm not." Fluttershy looked up at Adam hopefully. He was still scratching his cheek, and it took her a moment to realize that he was doing so in an attempt to cover up a faint blush, though she couldn't fathom what was causing it. Adam glanced at her, then quickly looked away again. "You-" His voice came out in a squeak, and he cleared his throat before trying again. "You… well… y-you looked really, uh… y'know… er… good. You looked good."

"Um, okay?" Fluttershy said uncertainly. She couldn't quite believe that she looked anywhere near 'good' in her vampire form, but it wasn't Adam's style to lie about something like that, so she just accepted the compliment with a shy smile and considered herself lucky that her vampiric side didn't send him running for the hills. The fact that his heart rate had increased did confuse Fluttershy a little, though. He certainly didn't smell afraid. In fact, whatever he was feeling, the fresh scent wafting off of him at the moment wasn't something that she recognized off the top of her head.

Before Fluttershy could figure it out, Metzger came stomping over in her armor. "Best finish your food quick, you'll be leaving with Liberty Prime, the captives, and us Wonderbolts in about 15 minutes."

"What about Sunset? Has she eaten yet?" Fluttershy asked.

Metzger nodded. "Yeah, one of the Knights just dragged her out of the shitter to get some food. You should probably give her a stimpak before we head out, though. Poor girl looks like she's about to drop." She reached into a pouch at her hip and pulled out a bright red apple. "Hey, AJ." Applejack looked up slowly. Her expression was a bleak picture of exhaustion and gloom. Metzger handed her the apple. "Eat this, and get Fluttershy to give you a stimpak, too. It'll help, trust me."





"You're beginning to annoy me," Acheson growled.

The Daybreaker prototype just looked down at him impassively. The armor was still safely secured in its maintenance frame, but over the last few hours every time he had tried to run a diagnostic or check on its programming the machine had done everything it could to make things difficult, if not downright impossible. It seemed that the continued growth of its sapience was also making the Daybreaker… insubordinate.

Before another test could begin, the door to the workshop was slammed open. "Doctor Acheson! We have a pro-" 

"What the hell have I told you about interrupting me!" Acheson bellowed as he rounded on the intruders. Major Owens was standing in the doorway looking panicky, while Lieutenant Simpson, Colonel Autumn's former lapdog, was waiting behind him impassively. "If something has gone wrong, fix it! I can't spend all of my time babysitting you and your pathetic lit-"

"The uplink station has fallen!" Major Owens cut in. "The orbital strike failed to destroy Liberty Prime!"

"What?!" Acheson snapped. "How could the orbital strike fail? That satellite was created to devastate whole military compounds! That toy robot should have been squashed like a bug! Fire the satellite again!"

Owens shook his head. "We can't. The uplink station was our main connection to the Bradley-Hercules Satellite: The uplink built into the Base Crawler doesn't have enough power to get a stable signal through."

"Well grab some technicians and boost the signal!" Acheson shouted. "If the Brotherhood of Steel manages to decrypt the satellite's targeting and mapping data they'll be able to pinpoint this airbase, and before you know it we'll have that damned robot knocking on our door!"

"It's too late," Owens said darkly. "The last communication we had with the satellite before the connection was cut showed that the data had already been decrypted and was being downloaded. They'll have everything they need to find us by now."

Acheson roared and activated the T.I.R.E.K suit's magic, grabbing a nearby supply crate with an orange magical glow and swinging his arm to smash it against the wall. "Idiots! Ignorant moronic whelps! I gave you simple instructions: Use the satellite to destroy the robot, and do not let the Brotherhood seize the uplink station! How did you incompetent fools manage to fail on both counts?!"

Owens snarled at him. "We failed, Doctor, because the Rainbooms proved far more dangerous and powerful than we were led to believe! And at least a quarter of the magical equipment our troops were issued malfunctioned, causing heavy casualties to our own forces: Something that I warned you about when you ordered the equipment to be issued before it had been field tested!"

"The equipment worked fine on the firing range, so don't try and pin your failures on me, Major!" Acheson retorted. "Don't forget which of us holds the real power here, boy. I am the one in control of the Enclave now, not you."

"Well, perhaps our oh-so-wondeful leader can divine a way to protect the airbase from the walking superweapon that is going to be making its way here very soon?" Owens asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Acheson growled and turned away, thinking hard. "Can the Base Crawler be moved to another location quickly enough to avoid detection?" 

"Not a chance, it doesn't move anywhere near fast enough to outrun a power-armored strike force, even if the armor is obsolete," Owens replied. "Even if it could be moved, we wouldn't be able to cover our tracks, and we wouldn't be able to fit all of the Enclave's civilian population on board in any case."

"Of course." Personally, Acheson couldn't give a damn about fitting the civilian population onboard, but it was a moot point if the Base Crawler wasn't fast enough. "Thankfully, the Brotherhood won't be able to do anything with the satellite themselves, the uplink station doesn't have the capability. All they've done is slow our firing sequence down." He crossed his arms and looked up at the Daybreaker armor. "Do as I said and grab some technicians to boost our uplink signal, and send a message to the Exodus team. Tell them that the Senate has ordered all military units and equipment to be brought back here. Once that's done, I want you to drag every single scrap of military hardware you can find out of storage and make sure it works. If those Brotherhood bastards think they can take on the Enclave, we'll show them exactly how wrong they are."





Elder Lyons fought to keep smug superiority out of his expression. The scouts had returned from the uplink station and, while the exact numbers of dead and wounded was still coming in, the initial reports all confirmed that the assault had been a tremendous success. 

The station had been taken with only superficial damage to the superstructure and it's delicate equipment, Liberty Prime had taken some minor damage but was still fully functional, several Exodus supporters had been found and were divulging information already, and the remaining Enclave personnel had been taken into custody without any issues. On top of all of that, Adam, Fawkes, and the Rainbooms had all acquitted themselves well in the battle, and had contributed significantly to the operation's overall success.

Lyons couldn't have asked for a better result. There had been a lot of grumbling in the ranks about bringing in Adam and creating an entirely new branch for the Rainbooms, and accepting Fawkes, a Super Mutant, as a Knight, had caused an uproar among the Order. The results of the battle, however, would go a long way towards silencing any dissent. Hopefully, this meeting would quash whatever was left.

The entirety of the Brotherhood of Steel's leadership, minus those at the uplink station, were gathered in the Great Hall. Scribe Rothchild was sitting at Lyons' right hand, and the Elder spotted Paladins Bergen and Stark sitting amongst the rest of the inner circle. Squires Maxson and Peters were both standing behind the Elder, waiting to attend to him as needed.

Lyons idly pondered the former raider while the others got themselves settled. Rothchild had insisted that Peters be brought into the meeting alongside Maxson, though why was something that he hadn't addressed. Not yet, anyway.

Seeing that the rest of the brass were waiting on him, Lyons put Rothchild's game to the back of his mind and straightened up, calling out in a clear voice, "Ladies, Gentlemen, everyone, as I'm sure you're all aware, the satellite uplink station has been successfully taken. As expected, the Enclave attempted to destroy Liberty Prime with an orbital strike, but thanks to Twilight Sparkle's upgrades and the incredibly heroic efforts of Rainbow Dash, Prime survived with only minimal damage."

"So she actually managed to intercept missiles launched from orbit?" One of the Scribes muttered incredulously. "Forget Knight; we should promote her straight to Paladin."

Lyons nodded. "That is actually part of the reason I have called this meeting." He looked around at each of the attendees in turn. "Many of you expressed concerns over my decision to recruit the Rainbooms-"

"We didn't express concerns that you recruited those girls, we question the point of creating an entirely new branch of the Brotherhood for them when they themselves admit that they intend to leave the world the instant they are able to," Bergen interrupted loudly.

Several of the others reprimanded him for such a blatant breach of protocol, but Lyons held up a hand to silence them. A couple of those present had nodded as Bergen spoke, and the Elder was determined to crush this insubordination once and for all. "The point, Paladin Bergen, was to prepare ourselves for the future. Equestrian magic will almost certainly remain long after the Rainbooms have gone, and there are going to be an increasing number of people who are directly affected by it and become able to pony up through the use of crystals. Some of our personnel may even gain powers such as those wielded by the Rainbooms."

A murmur ran through the room at that, and Scribe Rothchild leaned forward to speak, "The Order of the Staff is about more than just the Rainbooms. It will be an Order for any members of the Brotherhood of Steel, Knight or Scribe, who is capable of drawing magic out of the crystals we mine from Raven Rock. The Rainbooms were recruited into it so that we may learn as much as we possibly can about how to directly utilize magic before they return to their own world. Squire Peters-" he gestured to her, prompting her to straighten up and lift her chin proudly, "-will be one of the first members."

Now Lyons understood why Rothchild had wanted Peters there. Silently thanking his old friend for his foresight, the Elder nodded sagely. "In light of their contributions, I believe our newest recruits have all proven their value and their worthiness beyond a shadow of a doubt."

"The Rainbooms, certainly, and James' son, perhaps," Bergen agreed. "However, even you cannot possibly justify allowing Super Mutant filth to sully our ranks."

"I can't see why not," Stark put in, surprising Lyons. "Sure, I was concerned at first, but the big guy has fought well for us over the last few weeks. The fact that Adam and our new amazon warrior princesses all trust him certainly counts in his favour. I think we should let him stay."

Bergen grimaced. "This is a disgrace. As if things weren't bad enough when the Outcasts left, now you want to allow mutants and Enclave rejects into our ranks. What's next? Ghouls? Trogs? The fucking Chinese remnants? Do any of you even have any shame?" Several of those present gasped at the disrespect he was showing, even some of his supporters looked uncomfortable, but Bergen just shook his head and looked over Lyons' shoulder. "What about you, Maxson? It's your ancestor's legacy that the Elder is shitting all over, what do you think of all of this?"

Dead silence filled the room. Elder Lyons would be well within his rights to exile Bergen on the spot, but something stopped him from talking. Every eye in the room turned to Maxson. Somehow, everyone knew that whatever the boy said would affect the whole Brotherhood of Steel. 

Maxson seemed surprised and more than a little nervous at having everyone suddenly staring at him, but that was understandable given his age. He quickly schooled his features into a calm and composed expression, though Lyons did catch him shooting a glance at Peters out of the corner of his eye. "I admit that I had my doubts about Fawkes too, at first, but someone recently pointed out to me that the only difference between him and us is luck."

Bergen scoffed. "Luck? Don't be absu-"

"That's right, luck. You asked for my opinion, so kindly shut the fuck up until I've finished giving it." Lyons blinked in surprise at hearing the boy talk like that, but Maxson didn't notice. "As far as I'm concerned, the only one shitting on my ancestor's legacy here is you. Fawkes is a Super Mutant, but he's also a Knight of the Brotherhood of Steel, and he works a damn sight harder than most when it comes to helping the people of the wastes. He has earned some god-damned respect, so it's about time you gave him some."

Everyone stared in stunned disbelief at Maxson. Bergen had wilted under the boy's harsh rebuke, while those who supported him all looked like they were rapidly rethinking their positions. The only person who didn't look utterly dumbfounded was Peters, who was struggling to keep a smug, triumphant grin off her face. Lyons had a sneaking suspicion as to who exactly had put those thoughts into Maxson's head.

The silence was finally broken as Rothchild cleared his throat. "If no-one has any further questions…?"

"Actually, I have one," Stark put in. "I get that having Rainbow Dash intercept the orbital strike was a fair plan: Seriously, that was awesome. But why didn't we just order Liberty Prime to blow up the satellite dishes on top of the station? I mean, aren't they the actual bits that send the signal up to the satellite? Why not destroy them and prevent the satellite from firing altogether?"

"A fair question. The truth is, we believe that having continued access to the satellite will work in the Brotherhood's favour," Rothchild answered. "If we can successfully acquire the launch codes when we assault the Enclave's main stronghold, we may be able to utilize the remaining orbital missiles ourselves. I shouldn't have to tell you how potent such a resource could prove to be."

"When will we be assaulting the stronghold?" One of the Knights asked.

Lyons scratched his beard as he thought about it. "We will have to perform some swift repairs on Liberty Prime first. In the meantime, we are planning on sending a small team, most likely Adam and the Rainbooms, to acquire an old piece of technology that will hopefully give us an additional means of defence against the Enclave's Vertibirds. All told, I'm hopeful that the final assault will be launched in about two or three days at most. Any other questions?" He glanced around, then nodded with satisfaction when no-one spoke up. "Very well. You're dismissed."

As the gathered leaders filed out of the room, Lyons gestured for Rothchild, Peters and Maxson to wait. When they were alone, and the door to the hall was closed, Lyons turned to Peters. "My apologies, young Squire, I hope you don't mind that we effectively shunted you into the Order of the Staff, back there."

Peters just shrugged. "I don't give a sh- I don't really mind where you put me, so long as I have a safe place to stay."

"That's good to hear. I'm a little concerned that your bad language is rubbing off on certain other Squires, but that conversation can wait for another time. Run along, now. I'm sure that you've got a lot of training to catch up on today." Lyons waited until the girl was gone, then smiled at Maxson. "It appears that I owe you my thanks, young man."

"I was just telling the truth, Elder," Maxson replied.

Lyons noticed that the young lad's eyes were flicking to the door now that Peters had left. The Elder bit back a sigh and indicated that the boy could go. He had barely finished dismissing him when Maxson darted off after Peters.

"I think you should foster that, you know," Rothchild said with a smile.

"Foster what?" Lyons asked in bemusement.

"Peters and Maxson," Rothchild replied. "She's strong-willed, tough, and she's one of the very few people in the Brotherhood who won't try to curry favor with him on account of his ancestry. She'd make a good right hand when he becomes Elder someday. Every Elder needs someone who isn't afraid to stand up to them, and Peters will gladly knock some sense into him."

"Or just knock his teeth out." Lyons sighed heavily. "I suppose you're right, though. She has apparently had some effect on him already."

Rothchild chuckled. "Yes, apparently they had something of an argument shortly after the Enclave's attack here. Ever since then he's been following her around like a duckling after its mother."

Lyons grunted and crossed his arms. "Good grief. I've spent years trying to instil some moral fiber in that boy, yet somehow he grows far more after getting put in his place by a raider girl."

"To be fair, she's confident, brash, and she has tits. That's a powerful combination to use against an impressionable young boy on the cusp of puberty," Rothchild pointed out. 

"Hmph, a raider changes her life and eventually becomes the advisor to the Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel. It would be a story for the ages." Lyons sighed again. "If she stays, anyway."

"When are you going to tell her about what Sunset discovered about her aunts?" Rothchild asked.

"Not yet," Lyons replied. "This battle with the Enclave is going to be exceptionally dangerous. I doubt that a Squire will be forced into combat, but I'd rather not risk giving her such a big distraction until we're sure that the war is over. In the meantime, we should probably talk logistics for the Rainbooms' next mission. Magic or no, scavenging in Old Olney is not going to be easy."
> Chapter 92 - Next Mission
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shame burned like hot coals beneath Applejack's skin. She had frozen up. When the time came, and her friends needed her help, she had cowered like a little girl and forced her friends to rescue her instead. She hadn't even managed to stand herself up by the time the battle was done: It had been Rarity who had helped with that, then guided her outside. 

Applejack probably would have felt better if she had at least been able to walk back to the Citadel under her own power, but even that had been beyond her as her legs had buckled before they even got back to the car tunnel. The sugar from the apple and the stimpak had barely helped at all. The rest of the way back had been spent in a half-conscious daze cradled in one of Liberty Prime's hands. Applejack's memories after that were entirely blank until she woke up in the morning, wrapped up warmly in her bed.

Unfortunately, even a good night's sleep didn't provide any relief from her own miserable memories. 

"It's not your fault," Elder Lyons said gently. "A traumatic experience like what you went through was bound to leave a mark. I should have thought to get you checked over sooner."

Applejack didn't reply. She was currently sitting on the edge of her bed, with Rarity next to her, and Elder Lyons and Paladin Stark there to discuss her future with the Brotherhood. A medic had already been and gone, talking about what had happened and making notes until he had finally made his horrifying diagnosis.

Post-Traumatic Stress.

The very thought of it made Applejack's gut writhe with humiliation. It was too early to say if this was simply the beginnings of PTSD rearing its ugly head, but the medic said that it was likely. Applejack hated it. Hated herself. She was supposed to be strong, stubborn, a mighty tree that could ride out any storm. Instead she was struggling to keep herself from shaking, or simply curling up into a ball and weeping; a pathetic little weakling.

"He's right, darling," Rarity told her. "There's nothing you could have done about this, it's something beyond your control."

"Ah shouldn't be this weak," Applejack mumbled under her breath.

"It's not about being weak or strong," Paladin Stark insisted. "You're looking at this like it's just fear you're losing to, but that's where your mistake is." When Applejack didn't reply, he sighed and continued, "Look, anyone can fight fear, that's easy, but PTSD isn't fear. Imagine fear as a pebble. Terror, what you feel when you face something huge and powerful like a Behemoth or something, that's a boulder. PTSD? That's a meteorite the size of the Mojave coming along to mess up your day. You can't fight a meteorite, even with all of your magic, no-one can. Trust me on this one."

Elder Lyons nodded. "It would be wise to listen to him on this one. Paladin Stark has more experience with this sort of thing than most, that's why I brought him to speak with you."

Applejack looked up at the Paladin in surprise, but he just grunted and averted his gaze. "There's a reason I don't run many combat missions these days," he admitted uncomfortably.

Coughing delicately, Rarity asked, "So, er, where do we go from here?"

"There are medications that can help," Elder Lyons replied quietly. "For the short term, I'd recommend that we keep you out of combat operations against the Enclave."

"Why?" Paladin Stark raised an eyebrow. "Applejack didn't get triggered until she got up close and personal with them, so why not just give her a bigger gun than that crappy little laser pointer and let her blast those Enclave bastards from long range?"

"Ah'm up for that," Applejack said quickly. Anything that would give her a chance to feel useful, and preferably let her bury a few of the assholes who had made her feel this bad.

Elder Lyons scratched his beard as he thought. "That could work. We do have a few big guns spare."

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea," Rarity ventured.

"Ah'll do it," Applejack said firmly. "What kind of guns do you have?"

"That depends. How long can you keep your super strength up for?" Stark asked. 

"Not too long," Applejack replied. "If any of us girls use our magic constantly for too long it supercharges the others." 

Seeing the gleam in Elder Lyons' eyes, Rarity shook her head. "I wouldn't get your hopes up, supercharging our magic makes it very volatile. The last time it happened Sunset constantly heard the thoughts of everyone near her whether she was touching them or not, Twilight levitated everything in her vicinity, and you don't want to imagine what happened when Pinkie went anywhere near anything sugary."

Elder Lyons grimaced. "I see your point. Very well, we shall see if we can strip down a minigun so it'll be light enough for you to use."

Applejack snorted. "Don't bother strippin' down anything. Ah can handle any gun you give me easy enough."

"No, you can't." Paladin Stark rejected her suggestion immediately. "A minigun is heavy, especially with all of it's ammunition. Carrying it is one thing, but lugging it to a battlefield, aiming, firing, and reloading, firing some more, then dragging it back home afterwards? That's something that takes a lot of training and practice to get used to. You're only going to have a couple of days at most, unless you're willing to bite the bullet and sit out the assault on the Enclave's final stronghold."

That gave Applejack pause. The thought of missing the battle while her friends went felt cowardly, demeaning, and depressingly tempting. "Strip down a minigun," she forced out.

"This isn't a good idea," Rarity warned.

"Don't worry," Elder Lyons said gently. "We'll spend the next few days giving Applejack a crash course in the use of a minigun, on the sole condition that she stays at the rear of a formation, away from close engagement, and provides fire support. Nothing more," he added firmly with a glance at her.

Applejack wanted to retort, but just the thought of getting too close to a power armored soldier again was enough to send an icy shiver down her spine. "Ah'll do it, Ah'll do fire support," she said, her voice a little higher than usual. 

"Good." Elder Lyons nodded. "An instructor will come and fetch you as soon as the gun is prepared. Until then, and whenever you aren't being shown how to use the gun, I want you to rest. I'll permit an hour a day of physical training, but any more than that and I'll make sure you aren't included in the final battle against the Enclave. Is that clear?"

"Yeah, Ah got it," Applejack grumbled. 

Elder Lyons eyed her suspiciously for a moment, then relented and turned to Rarity. "The same goes for you. Rest as much as you possibly can for the next few days. The Scribes are fixing your armor as we speak, so you should get that back soon. If you need any more painkillers, just see one of the medics. For now, though, we shall leave you to it. Rest well."

"Painkillers?" Applejack frowned at Rarity as the two men left the room. "What did he mean by that? What happened?"

Rarity waited until the door was closed, then stood up with a grim expression. "This."

Applejack's breath hitched as Rarity suddenly pulled her top off, but her shock immediately turned to concern as she saw the awful discoloration peeking out from beneath the fashionista's bra.

"I apologize for the lack of dignity, but this brassiere is making things more than a little painful." Rarity hissed as she unhooked her bra, then let out a quiet sigh of relief as it dropped to the floor.

Any feelings at seeing Rarity half-naked were immediately quashed by the sight of the horrific bruise blooming on her breastbone; a black blotch that stood out like a vile stain against her otherwise pristine skin.

"What happened?" Applejack whispered.

"A sniper with a magic bullet," Rarity explained. "My armor took most of the hit, but it still left more than enough damage to be going on with." She winced as she sat back on the bed next to Applejack. "I must say, I almost miss the battle. With all the adrenaline in my system it didn't hurt anywhere near as much yesterday."

"Ah can imagine." Applejack chuckled bitterly. "Well, your body's hurt, and my brain is a mess, so between us Ah guess that makes us one whole unbroken person, right?"

Rarity scoffed and nudged her with a shoulder, then hissed as her bruise twinged. "Remind me not to do that again until this is healed."

"Want me to kiss it better?" Applejack blushed furiously as she realized what she had just said. "Ah meant, uh, do you want an ice pack or somethin'?"

Rarity shook her head, her cheeks ever so slightly flushed. "No, the air is chilly enough on its own. Actually, I really should put another top on, just in case someone comes knocking."

"Right." Applejack tried to swallow the strange lump that had formed in her throat. "Well, uh, Ah'm gonna try and get some sleep until the instructor comes."

"Good idea," Rarity replied, fanning her cheeks with one hand while she picked up her top with the other. 

Applejack watched her head back over to her own bed, then shook herself and set to getting herself changed, wondering what the strange sense of disappointment she felt was about. Preoccupied as she was, she didn't notice that she wasn't the only one with a disappointed look on her face.





Sunset moaned softly as she stepped under the hot shower. She had washed the worst of the muck away the night before, but she had been way too tired to appreciate it as she gave herself a quick once over before passing out in bed. Now, she planned to thoroughly enjoy the ten minutes of shower time she was permitted. 

After scrubbing away the last of the blood and gunk, Sunset raised her face to the showerhead and allowed the hot water to wash away her stress and soothe her aching muscles. Truth be told, Sunset was surprised by how well she felt. 

The assault on the satellite uplink station had been a waking nightmare; Sunset had fought, and killed, yet somehow she was still… functional. Every death that she could remember weighed on her conscience, but the guilt was more bearable this time around. She had honestly been planning on forcing herself to remember every single life she took, no matter how unhealthy that was, but when it came down to it, after the first couple of kills it had become much easier, as if her emotions had detached themselves from what her body was doing. 

It helped that, in the chaos of battle, it was effectively impossible for Sunset to keep track of every single person that she had personally killed. Of those that she definitely had, the fact that she was doing it to help save more lives down the line, not to mention getting her friends home safely, provided cold comfort.

Sunset looked around as someone else stepped into the room. The woman, Sunset recognized her as a Scribe, nodded respectfully when she saw who was already there. "Knight-Sergeant Shimmer, Paladin Metzger wants to talk to you when you get five minutes spare, if that's alright?"

"Sure thing, as soon as I'm done here I'll go and find her," Sunset replied. “Do you mind helping check if I've got all of the muck out of my hair?"

Once she was positive that she was clean, Sunset thanked the Scribe, dried and dressed as quickly as she could, and set off to see what Metzger wanted. The debrief of the battle had already been done, so she suspected that there was another mission already lined up.

Asking around, Sunset was directed to a briefing room near the labs. Metzger was waiting inside, along with Pinkie, Adam, and Fluttershy.

Metzger greeted Sunset with a nod. "Knight-Sergeant. I'm glad you're back on your feet. Sorry about the short notice, but Elder Lyons has a mission for you if you're up for it."

"What's the mission?" Sunset asked.

Metzger gestured to a map spread out on a nearby table. "The Scribes are putting together new weaponry capable of destroying the Enclave's Vertibirds, so we don't have to rely entirely on Liberty Prime. But there's some crucial tech they need before they can start production. Unfortunately, with every other member of the Brotherhood busy preparing for the final assault or recovering from injuries, the only people we have available for a recovery mission are you four."

Pinkie cocked her head curiously. "What about Rainbow Dash?"

"She's already been sent to Project Exodus with a report for Doctor Shoichet," Metzger replied. "Fawkes is being trained in squad tactics, or, well, if we're honest, some of the squads are being trained to get used to having a Super Mutant working with them. Me and the Wonderbolts are getting sent out to reinforce Project Purity in an hour or so as well, so that just leaves you."

"I'm up for it," Adam said with a shrug. "Where are we headed?"

"The Olney Powerworks." Metzger pointed to it on the map. It was located in the far northern reaches of the Capital Wasteland. "Hopefully you'll be able to find an experimental Tesla Coil, built before the war. That's the piece we need."

Pinkie bit her lip, clearly hesitating, then asked tentatively, "Who are we going to have to take the coil from?"

Metzger laughed drily. "No-one. No wasteland group has ever been able to set up shop in Old Olney. Anyone crazy enough to try hasn't managed to survive very long."

That didn't sound promising to Sunset. "Why do I get the feeling there's some sort of mutated wasteland monstrosity living in the powerworks?"

"More like a bunch of them. Old Olney is crawling with Deathclaws." Metzger glanced at Fluttershy. "That's why Elder Lyons asked you to tag along instead of training with the medics some more. Your magic might prove invaluable out there."

Fluttershy blanched as she realized what Metzger was getting at. "B-but I've never used my magic on a Deathclaw before! What if it doesn't work?"

Seeing Metzger's confusion, Sunset and Pinkie explained what had happened when Fluttershy had tried to use her power on Mirelurks. By the time they were finished, Metzger's expression was grim. "That's not ideal, but it's not the end of the world. Your enhanced senses will still provide a huge advantage when it comes to avoiding any Deathclaws. And you'll also have this." Metzger placed what looked like a primitive radio on the table. "This is a prototype scrambler unit Scribe Vallincourt made. It constantly puts out a signal that disrupts the control collars the Enclave uses on their own Deathclaws. If you run into any, the Enclave scientists in control will be in for a nasty surprise."

"You think we're going to run into the Enclave at Old Olney?" Sunset asked.

Metzger shrugged. "They've got to be getting their Deathclaws from somewhere, so either they're breeding them, or they're catching them in the wild and taking them back to their base. This is just a precaution. Be careful with it though, it hasn't exactly been field tested yet."

"In other words, you're hoping that we'll field test it for you." Sunset sighed and rubbed her temples. "Fine, I'm in. What about you two?"

"I'll go," Fluttershy said, quietly but firmly. "My senses will help you out there, and my magic might come in handy in a pinch."

Pinkie shook her head. "I guess I can try and see this as a road trip? Who knows, maybe wild Deathclaws like party games."

"If anyone can find that out, it'll be you," Metzger chuckled. "Okay, mark the location on your Pip-Boys, grab your gear and whatever supplies you'll need for the trip, and meet back up in the courtyard. You'll be leaving as soon as you're ready."





The Citadel lab was a hive of activity as dozens of Scribes bustled about preparing weapons, testing equipment and, most importantly of all, repairing Liberty Prime. Much of the damage to the robot had been purely cosmetic, but there was enough of the outer armor that needed fixing for Rothchild to label it as the absolute highest priority.

Twilight sat comfortably in her wheelchair next to the terminal at Prime's feet, looking up at the Scribes clambering over scaffolding as they worked to bend metal plates back into shape and welded fresh pieces over holes and rents. Ostensibly, she was supposed to be monitoring the robot's diagnostic routine, but she had already written a program to do that for her while she performed her own secret task.

Aware of the people constantly moving around her, Twilight tapped out a query on the terminal, taking care to type quickly with her magic when no-one was paying attention. <Does.it.hurt?>

Glancing upwards, Twilight was relieved when Liberty ever so slightly shook its head. <Good..I.have.something.for.you.>

Using her magic, Twilight subtly pulled an old milk bottle from an inside pocket of her lab coat. Inside was a sloshing purple and orange mix of liquids: concentrated essences of Sunset's and her own magic that had been an absolute nightmare to procure without anyone noticing. Checking to make sure no one was looking, Twilight opened the bottle and pulled out the liquid in her magic, floating it quickly across the floor into Prime's shadow, up its legs, around its waist and under the armor plating of its torso.

There was a faint flash as the magic soaked into Prime's fusion generator.

Unfortunately, the flash caught the eye of a Scribe on the scaffolding, who frowned at the spot where the magic had gone curiously.

"That was me," Twilight called up. "I spotted some exposed wiring and figured I'd tuck it away before it hurt someone."

The Scribe nodded and gave her a thumbs up. "Good thinking, Sparkle!"

Twilight smiled and turned her attention back to the terminal, satisfied that her secret plan was safe for just a little while longer. The Enclave, and the whole Capital Wasteland, were in for a very big surprise when it was time for it to be finally unveiled. 

The butcher's bill was almost due, and Twilight intended to make sure that it was paid in full.
> Chapter 93 - On The Road Again
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A light breeze swept over the wasteland, ruffling Sunset's hair and wafting a layer of dust across the ground. She breathed in deeply, enjoying the moment of peace while it lasted. She, Adam, Pinkie, and Fluttershy were standing by the bridge near the Super Duper Mart, deciding on what their next move should be. 

The journey so far had been easy enough. A small group of raiders had been lurking around a short way north of the Citadel, but they hadn't dared risk a fight against three Rainbooms and a power-armored warrior.

"I think we should head that way," Adam said, pointing past the Super Duper Mart. "That'll be the straightest path towards Old Olney."

"That's west, Old Olney is to the north east," Fluttershy corrected gently. She glanced at the Mart. "This side of the river will take us in the right direction, but there's a Mirelurk nest, an Enclave outpost, a warren of giant ants, and at least one raider gang we'll have to get past, and that's just to get to Meresti Station."

"But the other side of the river might have Super Mutants." Sunset hummed and checked her map. "We're right at the northern tip of the downtown ruins, so hopefully we're less likely to run into any Super Mutants. Plus, that side of the river will give us a much straighter shot to our destination. I say we cross. What do you think?"

The others readily agreed. Once they'd crossed the bridge, the group followed the bend of the river to the north, avoiding getting too close, just in case there were more Mirelurk nests about. 

As the ground rose, more ruined buildings came into view: An outlying section of the downtown ruins. The group gladly gave them a wide berth, following a road that led them around the edge of the buildings and any hostile groups that may have been dwelling within. 

The journey was, at first, a lot less stressful than Sunset had anticipated. They passed buildings and blasted areas of detritus with little difficulty. They even discovered what appeared to be a huge scrapyard, though they made sure to go around it, just in case. 

The only encounters of note were a run in with an incredibly overgrown and bloated fly, which Adam put down with a single shot from his plasma rifle, and a crossing with a pair of mutated bears. 

That had been enough to get Sunset's blood racing. But, thankfully, despite their horrifying appearance, the pair were quite happy to leave the group alone once Fluttershy had had a word with them. 

Fluttershy proved invaluable in other ways; her senses allowed the group to easily avoid confrontations with raiders, radscorpions, and even a bizarre robot rolling around on tracks with what appeared to be a brain in a glass container for a head. 

The ground rose and fell gently, dotted with rocky patches and pits filled with radiation or billowing Equestrian magic, but even so the four made good time. 

Unfortunately, their good fortune had to run out at some point. 

As the group was climbing a hill towards Old Olney, Fluttershy suddenly stopped and tensed up. "There's an Enclave outpost up ahead."

Sunset looked up the hill. Near the top was a rocky area packed with debris, along with an equally rocky promontory that could also harbor potential enemies. "Are you sure that they're Enclave?"

"Positive," Fluttershy replied firmly. "They're not Exodus either, they're joking about how Acheson is going to crush Shoichet and her, um, f-fuck buddies."

"Assholes," Sunset spat, then checked her plasma rifle while Pinkie loaded her Party Cannon. "How many of them are there?"

Fluttershy crept forwards on all fours, her head cocked as she listened. "Two soldiers in power armor, three people without armor and…" she hissed angrily. "One Deathclaw."

"Do you think the Deathclaw will be able to hear us? Or smell us?" Adam asked.

"It won't matter, they're keeping it locked in a crate," Fluttershy replied.

Pinkie sighed with relief. "That's good. In that case, let's head back a little then sneak around really quiet-"

"No," Fluttershy growled. "It's in pain. I will not let them get away with this."

"No, wait! Fluttershy!" Sunset swore under her breath as Fluttershy darted forward in a running crouch. 

Moving as quickly and quietly as they could, the other three followed as Fluttershy disappeared into the rocky area below the promontory.

Weaving through the debris, Sunset heard voices wafting down from the peak. She hoped that all of the Enclave personnel were up there. A short distance into the rocky area, Sunset slowed to a halt, her eyes widening in horror.

Two large shipping containers were sitting incongruously among the rocks. One was open and empty, but the other was closed and locked with a solid deadbolt. Fluttershy was standing before the closed shipping container. There was a flash of magic as she vamped up, then she raised a clawed hand and, before anyone could stop her, sheared through the deadbolt in one fell swipe.

"What was that?!" The shout from above showed that the sabotage had not gone unnoticed.

Fluttershy clearly didn't care. She ripped away the ruined bolt and hauled the container doors open. Sunset felt an icy claw grip her chest as a Deathclaw stepped out into the light, looking around almost curiously.

"I sure hope this scrambler works," Adam said drily.

"What the hell?! That suicidal bitch just let the Deathclaw out!" Someone shouted from above.

Sunset looked up to see the Enclave soldiers staring at Fluttershy. An unarmored officer looked around them, spotting the rest of the group first, then stepping back in horror as he spotted Fluttershy. "That's the girl that controls animals! Shoot her you fuck-wits!"

The soldiers swore and raised their weapons, but by then it was far too late. Fluttershy dove aside into a commando roll while the Deathclaw lunged at the base of the promontory, scaling the rockface in a heartbeat and unleashing itself on the men.

Sunset flinched at the sounds of horrific carnage coming from above. At least it was over quickly, the shrieks of mutilated metal and the screams of terror swiftly fading, leaving only a deathly calm in their wake.

Fluttershy moved first, walking around the rocky area to find an easy way up. After sharing a worried look, the others cautiously followed. The Deathclaw was waiting patiently for them at the top of the promontory. Sunset tried to avoid looking at the gory mess it had made of its erstwhile masters.
 
"At least we know that the scrambler is working." Pinkie sighed with relief, then glanced sidelong at Fluttershy. "Normally, I love surprises, but could you at least let us know the next time you're planning a stunt like that?"

"I-I'm sorry," Fluttershy replied quietly. "I just, I could tell that he was in pain and I… I didn't think."

Sunset patted her on the shoulder as she stepped past. “We get it, just give us a heads up next time. I've only got one spare pair of underwear on me." She looked up at the Deathclaw. Sunset felt a little thrill of fear at being anywhere near the creature, but at the same time she couldn't help but admire the creature, enjoying a view that very few people would get to see and live to tell about. 

As Sunset inspected it, she spotted a little black box half-buried in the back of the Deathclaw's skull. "So that's how they're controlling them. Deathclaws are scary as hell, but that just feels wrong."

"It is wrong. It's that thing that's hurting him, but he's probably programmed not to touch it." Fluttershy reached down and pulled what looked like a bulky remote control from the hand of one slightly dismembered corpse. She wiped the blood from the little screen, then started flicking through it. "This looks like the control module." Fluttershy looked from the remote to the Deathclaw and back, then bit her lip. "I… I think I'm about to pull another crazy stunt."

"You're not going to let us use him as a bodyguard, are you?" Sunset asked.

Fluttershy shook her head. "I want to turn the control unit off."

"Of course you do." Sunset sighed and ran a hand through her hair, idly wondering how she could manage to hold a rational conversation while standing in a miniature open-air butcher's shop. "One second. Adam, stay where you are. Pinkie, get behind him and get your Party Cannon ready, in case our new friend decides he wants a bigger lunch."

"Roger!" Pinkie stepped behind Adam, who just sighed and lowered his shoulder so she could use it as a gun rest. After sidling behind Adam herself, Sunset nodded to Fluttershy. 

Fluttershy took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and pressed a button on the remote. The Deathclaw shivered and shook its head, dazed, but before it could recover Fluttershy spoke, "It's alright, they can't hurt you anymore, you're free now." She tapped the back of her head. "Don't touch that. I know it's painful, but trying to pull it out is going to hurt a lot more. We're going to go into Old Olney now. I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to attack us when we're on our way back. If you get hungry…" Fluttershy looked around at the dead bodies and swallowed, her face paling. "There's plenty of food here."

Without another word, she turned and walked away, heading north. The others looked warily at the Deathclaw before following. None of them felt particularly comfortable turning their backs to it, but, thankfully, the creature didn't follow them. 

The grisly crunching of bones as she walked away would haunt Sunset's dreams for a long time to come.





Princess Twilight dropped onto the chair with an exhausted sigh. Getting the crystals she had been given to resonate with the correct magical frequencies was proving exactly as fiddly and awkward as she had expected, and hooking them up safely to the Geode Diviner was just as tricky.

"How's it going?" Principal Celestia asked.

"We're getting there," Twilight replied. "We've got a fair few crystals connected, but we're still going to need more before we can open the portal again, and it's probably going to take a couple more hours to reconfigure the Diviner to safely open one to a world without Equestrian magic. That's assuming we can get it right."

Celestia nodded. "I have faith in you."

The two looked around curiously as someone opened the door. Trixie was standing in the doorway, an annoyed expression on her face. "Vice-Principal Luna sent the Great and Powerful Trixie to fetch you both. There's something you need to see."

"What is it?" Twilight asked.

"Something we should kick to the curb as soon as we find out what it wants," Trixie answered cryptically. "They're in the Vice-Principal's office."

Celestia and Twilight shared a confused look before setting off through the school. 

When the pair arrived at Luna's office, they found a surprise waiting for them. Sonata Dusk was there, sitting in the chair opposite Luna herself.

"Ah, good, you're here. Miss Dusk apparently has something to tell us," Luna explained.

"No, I don’t," Sonata said flatly. "Why would I have anything to tell you three?" 

Luna gave her a disbelieving stare. "You told me literally two minutes ago that you needed to see Twilight."

"Yeah, but I don't have to tell her anything," Sonata replied as if she was talking to an idiot. "I'm just supposed to text Dagi and ask her what flavor ice cream she wants, then wait with the annoying Princess until she replies."

The others watched in utter bewilderment as Sonata did exactly what she said she would; sending a quick text then sitting still with a vacant expression on her face. Barely ten seconds later Sonata's phone rang. "Hey, Twilight Sparkle's here. Should I go get the ice cream now?" Her expression soured at the reply. "What do you mean there's no ice cream?! Why do I have to give my phone to her?! Can I get ice cream later? How about tacos? Ugh, fine!" Sonata held the phone out to Twilight. "She wants to speak to you."

Baffled beyond any rebuttal, Twilight just accepted the phone without question. "Hello?"

"Twilight Sparkle," Adagio said by way of greeting. "This is Adagio Dazzle. We need to talk."
> Chapter 94 - Dark Surprises
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Twilight scowled at the little dessert parlor ahead. She had been there with her friends once before, shortly before the fateful Fall Formal, but this time she was going to meet a former enemy. Pushing the door open, she looked around until she spotted who she was looking for.

Adagio Dazzle. 

The siren was sitting in a booth at the back of the parlor, her impossibly poofy orange hair serving to frame her as she sipped a milkshake. She grinned and waved down the Princess.

"What's this about, Adagio?" Twilight asked as she slid into the booth, opposite the siren.

Adagio raised an eyebrow. "What? No friendly greeting?"

"If you want to be friends, I'm afraid you're going to have to wait," Twilight said huffily. "I'm very busy right now and I don't have time for any games."

"Oh, I know you're busy. That's why I'm here." Adagio put the milkshake down and sat up straight, any trace of playfulness gone from her expression. "Look, I know what happened to Sunset Shimmer and the other Rainbooms, and I want to make a deal."

Twilight frowned suspiciously. "How do you know what happened to them?"

"I have inside information," Adagio replied cryptically. "I know that they've been dumped in another world, and I'm pretty sure that it's not Equestria. I know that you and, ugh, Starswirl, are trying to get them back. And, I also know who it was that sabotaged their Geode Diviner."

"You know?! Tell me!" Twilight demanded.

"Ah-ah." Adagio held up a hand. "Like I said, I want to make a deal. I'll tell you exactly who sabotaged the Diviner, and where they're based. The other Dazzlings and I will even do what we can to help bring them in and help get your friends back, if you want, but we have a price."

Twilight glared at her. "What do you want?"

Adagio smiled. "It's simple really. We want to go home, to Equestria. Free, not as captives or prisoners."

It took all of Twilight's self control not to refuse point-blank. "Why do you want to go back?'

"Seriously? You have to ask?" Adagio gave her a look that made it obvious she was questioning the Princess's sanity. "For a start; there's no magic here. Second; we're sick and tired of having to live in a stinking van; living from hand to mouth and paycheck to paycheck. Third; there may not be any other sirens left, but we'd at least like to see our old home again. Whatever's left of it."

Twilight supposed that that was a fair request, but she still had concerns. "I'll consider letting the three of you back to Equestria, but only if you tell me everything you know about what happened to the Diviner, who was behind it, and how you know so much about it."

"You'd rather risk losing this information than let us go back home?" Adagio asked archly. "We don't even have our magic anymore, so it's hardly as if we're a threat to your precious little ponies," she added scathingly.

Twilight snorted. "Maybe not, but after everything that you did back at the Battle of the Bands, you're going to have to give me a reason to trust you before I believe anything that comes out of your mouth."

Adagio narrowed her eyes, then sighed and looked down at the table. "Fine. Shortly after you and the Rainbooms started building that Geode Diviner, a woman calling herself Tempest approached us, asking for information on all of you."

"Let me guess, you gave it to her," Twilight spat.

"Actually, we refused her at first," Adagio replied, surprising Twilight. "Contrary to popular belief, we don't actually hold any sort of grudge towards you. We took our chance, we failed, we moved on. Yes, we lost our magic, but it was a risk we were prepared to take, and we don't particularly blame people for protecting themselves. That's just the way the world works." She took another sip of her milkshake. "It was only when Tempest gave us a place to stay and offered to take us back to Equestria that we agreed to help her."

"That's almost decent of you," Twilight said sarcastically. "I'd almost applaud you, if your actions hadn't helped toss my friends into another world."

Adagio winced. "That wasn't part of the plan," she said quickly. "Even Tempest was surprised when that happened. The original plan was for her lackey, this world's Sunset Shimmer, to overload the Diviner so you wouldn't be able to use it for a little while longer."

"This world's Sunset?!" Twilight's jaw dropped open in shock, but she quickly shook her head. "That can wait until later. Why did Tempest want the Diviner out of commission?"

"Because she was afraid that it would detect her before she could figure out a way to get back to Equestria unnoticed," Adagio replied.

Twilight stared at her in stunned disbelief. "Tempest has Equestrian magic?"

Adagio smirked. "She is Equestrian. Her real name isn't Tempest; it's Mandible. She's a changeling."





"That must be Old Olney." Sunset frowned as she surveyed the area ahead. It almost looked like an organized settlement, with dozens of ruined buildings packed close together and makeshift fences made from salvaged metal sheets and chicken wire. But, something about the place felt… off. 

It was subtle, but there were definite signs that the place was overrun by something inhuman; claw marks in the dirt and on the walls, piles of dung dotted around the place, and the unmistakable stench of death drifting on the wind. The reek was enough to make Sunset's eyes water, she had no idea how Fluttershy was managing to bear it.

"How are we going to get to the Powerworks?" Adam asked.

"It's underground. There's a direct entrance, but the Brotherhood of Steel doesn’t know where it is," Fluttershy replied. "There might be another way, though. There's supposed to be a sewer entrance somewhere west of a large concrete building."

Pinkie pointed to a skeletal concrete structure off to the left. "You mean like that one?"

Fluttershy nodded. "Probably. The Scribes think we might be able to find a way from the sewers into the Olney Underground, and from there a way into the Powerworks." 

"So our options are wading around in a dark two-hundred year old sewer, or searching for a possibly hidden entrance through a Deathclaw-infested hellhole." Sunset raised an eyebrow. "I vote sewers."

"Me too," Adam put in. "Fluttershy? Do you think you'll be able to handle it?"

Fluttershy shrugged. "I've smelled some pretty foul things so far. At least the sewer probably hasn't been used all that much since the bombs fell."

"That's a good point." Sunset checked her weapon and, satisfied, pointed to the concrete building. "Let's go."

"Wait a second." The girls all looked around at Adam. "Do you think I should get out of the armor? It's not exactly stealthy, it'll be easier to sneak around without it."

"Yeah, but where would you hide it?" Sunset asked. "Besides, chances are we're not going to be able to avoid every Deathclaw, so would you rather them find you in your armor, or out of it?"

Adam paused for a moment. "I guess I can try and take quiet steps. Okay, let's go."

Taking care to be as stealthy as possible, the four made a beeline for the concrete building. As they neared it, Fluttershy held up a hand to halt the group. "Deathclaw. Coming closer." The group stopped, staying perfectly still until Fluttershy sighed with relief. "It's gone. It sounds like a couple of them are squabbling somewhere out there."

"Good, that means they'll be less likely to notice us," Sunset said quietly.

As they got closer to the concrete building, Sunset could soon hear the snarls and roars of a confrontation herself. Still, she wasn't willing to leave the group's safety to chance, so she made sure to hang back with Adam while Fluttershy took the lead and Pinkie brought up the rear.

Fluttershy advanced cautiously, keeping her leathery wings tucked in tightly and picking her way across the rubble with astonishing stealth. The concrete building was mercifully clear of trouble, but once they reached the streets the group's progress slowed to a snail's pace. Fluttershy directed the others carefully, making them wait or hide when necessary and waving them forward when it was clear.

Sunset felt her heart hammering in her chest whenever she heard a Deathclaw nearby. She was sure that one of them would hear it, which just made her that much more stressed, but thankfully Fluttershy managed to keep them safe. There was a brief moment when a Deathclaw charged through the streets like a demented cat, but the four just managed to hide themselves in an old building in time.

As they pressed on into a narrow alleyway, Fluttershy held up a hand and asked the others to wait, then scouted ahead on her own. Sunset desperately wished she hadn't, she kept imagining horrible things happening and not being around to help, but Fluttershy came back safe and sound barely two minutes later. "I've found the sewer entrance," she whispered. "It's just around the next bend, but we're all going to have to be utterly silent from here on."

"Is there a Deathclaw nearby?" Pinkie asked. 

Fluttershy nodded. "It's in the building right at the end of this alleyway. It's sleeping, but we mustn't make any noise whatsoever, no matter what you see or smell, alright?"

The others nodded in understanding, then followed as Fluttershy crept to the end of the alleyway. When they emerged into the street at the end, Sunset glanced around to the left, and immediately wished she hadn't.

A Deathclaw was curled up in a ball on the first floor of a shattered building, nestled on a thick pile of bones, scrap metal and chunks of multi-colored magical crystal. The creature was huge, bigger than any other Deathclaw they had seen, but somehow, the most terrifying part of the creature was the great pair of leathery wings that sprouted from its shoulders and wrapped it up like a cozy blanket.

Fluttershy gestured for Sunset to follow first. The two carefully tiptoed forward until they reached the edge of the building. In a little culvert, just past the building, a collection of half-eaten corpses had been piled up like some sort of sick larder. A manhole could just about be seen in the middle of the stinking mess.

Swallowing the urge to retch, Sunset waited patiently as Pinkie crept over, then it was Adam's turn.

The three girls held their breath as Adam walked towards them as stealthily as he could. It would have been comical, watching someone in a huge suit of power armor trying to tiptoe, but they were far too tense to laugh.

As he reached about the halfway point between the girls and the alley, right in the Deathclaw's line of sight, a small piece of debris crunched loudly under Adam's foot.

Everyone froze as the Deathclaw shifted. It yawned, displaying foot-long teeth and pink flames flickering at the back of its throat, then it lazily flicked its tongue out and snatched up a chunk of crystal, munching it loudly before curling up again and going back to sleep.

Sunset hardly dared to breath as Adam started forward once more, crossing the rest of the way without any issue. 

Finally, the four stood by the sewer entrance. Adam carefully shifted the bodies so they could get to the manhole cover. Sunset had feared that it would be too small for Adam's power armor to fit through, but it looked like it would just about make it. 

Glancing around one last time, Fluttershy nodded with satisfaction and bent down to pull the manhole cover aside. A dirty steel ladder led down into the darkness.

Sunset gestured for Adam to go first. He shook his head, so she tried to signal to him that his armor and its lights made him better suited for going into unknown territory first. He seemed to get the message, as he handed Fluttershy his plasma rifle and lowered himself down carefully. Metal rungs creaked beneath his weight, but, luckily, they held, and he slowly made his way into the depths.

As soon as he reached the bottom, as indicated by the lights in his helmet, Pinkie went down after. Fluttershy slung the plasma rifle over her shoulder and turned to lower herself, then froze on the lip. "Uh-oh."

Sunset's head whipped around as a loud crash echoed through the streets. A Deathclaw charged around a nearby corner at high speed, then fell as another pounced on it from behind. The two wrestled with each other on the floor, snapping and snarling, then one of them spotted the girls.

The Deathclaw immediately froze. The other growled, then, wondering what its fellow was so interested in, looked over their way, too. The four engaged in a bizarre standoff for several seconds. Finally, the silence was shattered as both Deathclaws roared.

"Crap! Fluttershy, move!" Sunset snapped.

Fluttershy immediately dropped into the hole, the rungs creaking as she hurried down. Sunset lowered herself to the lip, expecting to feel deadly talons tearing into her at any second, when suddenly a colossal bellow of rage ripped through the air.

Sunset glanced around and saw the two Deathclaws fleeing back around the corner. Terror gripped her like a vice as the ground shook, and the winged Deathclaw stomped into view, pink flames washing out of its mouth as it roared again. Time seemed to slow as the monstrosity turned its head to Sunset.

"Oh… well fuck," Sunset managed to squeak. She screamed as the Deathclaw let out another earth-shaking roar, and let herself fall into the sewer as it lunged at her. Pain lanced through her legs as she hit the ground, but she ignored it and dove aside just as the sewer was bathed in a raging pink inferno.
> Chapter 95 - Insult and Injury
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The mess hall was silent as the grave. It was almost unheard of for things to be this quiet, especially given how many soldiers were currently in there, sitting at tables with uneaten food in front of them, but Lieutenant Simpson supposed that it was only to be expected under the circumstances.

Today had been a difficult day, in more ways than one. The memorial service for the soldiers that had fallen in defence of the satellite uplink station had finished about twenty minutes ago. That alone had been somber enough, but the actions of the Enclave's higher ups had set everyone on edge.

It was traditional for the President and members of Congress to preside over Enclave memorial services where possible, along with all available high-ranking military officers when the service was for fallen soldiers. Even in hard times, such as the current struggle with the Brotherhood of Steel, the brass would come out in force to pay their respects to the dead.

Lieutenant Colonel Strong had flown in specially to perform the eulogy as head of the Enclave military. Senator Lily and Senator Devall had been present, too, along with Doctors Shoichet and Strong, all of whom had come in with the Lieutenant Colonel, and even the notoriously recalcitrant Senator Prince had said a few words.

Neither Acheson nor Major Owens had turned up. 

The blatant lack of respect was beyond insulting. Worse, the sheer indifference to the grief of the fallen's families, while still demanding that even more soldiers sacrifice their lives in their precious war, was galling in the extreme.

Lieutenant Simpson was loyal to the Enclave. He, and each and every soldier under his command, would gladly lay down their lives in defence of their country, their government, and their values; but when the brass began publicly spitting on the very values they were meant to uphold, that was when the problems started.

It probably wouldn't have been such an issue if knowledge of the growing rift in the Enclave's leadership wasn't so widespread. Every single person in the Enclave knew about the power struggle going on between the Exodus team and Acheson's cronies. Everyone also knew how Acheson, Lily, and Owens had been the driving force behind rejecting the Brotherhood's offer of a peace treaty. 

There were plenty of people in the Enclave who agreed with the war, but now that Lily had thrown her support behind the Exodus team, public opinion was beginning to shift. The fact that the Exodus leaders were the only ones to show up to the memorial was bound to shift things even more. 

Footsteps rang out across the hall. Simpson looked up just in time to see Felton, one of the Vertibird pilots, halt in front of him, his eyes red and his cheeks streaked with tears. "Where were they?" He asked tightly.

"Where were who?" Simpson asked, though he already knew the answer.

"Don't bullshit me," Felton hissed. "Acheson and Owens. Where the fuck were they?"

Simpson swallowed his sigh. He had known that someone would crack, and as the highest ranked soldier in the room, he would be the one who had to deal with it. Keeping his tone calm and respectful, Simpson looked Felton in this eye and explained, "I'm sure that they would have wanted to be there, but they are both probably extremely busy with-"

Felton slammed a fist on the table. "I said don't give me that shit! I lost my son at Project Purity, I lost my cousin at the skirmish at Raven Rock, and now I've lost my brother at that fucking station! All of the damned Exodus were at the memorial, so Owens and that goat-fucking egghead have got no fucking excuse!"

Murmurs and whispers of agreement filled the air as the other soldiers quietly weighed in. Simpson fought the urge to swallow. The room was a powder keg and Felton was in the process of lighting a match. Simpson knew that he should probably stop him, but he couldn't even begin to think of how. Hell, he wasn't even sure that he wanted to.

The sound of the door creaking open grabbed everyone's attention. Simpson silently gave thanks for the temporary reprieve, only to feel his heart leap into his throat as Doctor Shoichet stepped into the mess hall, carrying three tiny glass cases. 

Every single person in the room held their breath as she looked around, paused when she spotted Felton, and walked over to them. "Major Felton?" 

"That's me. What do you want?" Felton asked roughly.

"We received a package from the Brotherhood of Steel shortly before we flew out for the service. I'm helping the Lieutenant Colonel deliver the contents to the kin of the fallen." Doctor Shoichet held the cases out to Felton. He took them almost mechanically, his eyes widening as he looked at them. A single holo-tag was nearly displayed inside each of the cases. It didn't take a genius to work out that they had once belonged to Felton's deceased relatives.

"I'm afraid that's all I have for now," Doctor Shoichet said quietly. "The remains of the fallen have been cremated, but the Brotherhood is keeping their ashes safe until they can be returned to their families when the war finally ends. Until then, I hope that these can at least bring you some closure."

Felton sniffed loudly. He tried to open his mouth to say something, but instead of words, he choked back a sob, his throat bobbing as he closed his mouth again, fresh tears dripping off his chin.

Simpson stared at the pair, utterly gobsmacked. There was clearly a vast amount that the Doctor wasn't saying, starting with how she had a line of communication with the Brotherhood of Steel, but he couldn't deny that the Brotherhood's gesture was a political masterstroke. 

A quick glance around the room showed that the rest of the soldiers were just as shocked as Simpson was, and many of them had reached exactly the same conclusion: If their enemies could show such respect for the dead, then why couldn't their leaders? If their foes clearly weren't the savage knuckle-draggers that the history books claimed them to be, then why were they even fighting?

Lieutenant Simpson was loyal to the Enclave. He knew that he should keep his head down and let his superiors sort out their differences themselves; they were his superiors, after all. But he also knew that sometimes, someone had to draw a line in the sand.

Right now, that someone was him.

Simpson pushed his chair back and stepped out from it, drawing every eye in the room. He faced Doctor Shoichet, took a deep breath, and looked her in the eye. His boots clicked loudly as he snapped a crisp salute.

Silence reigned for a second, then the room was filled with the loud scraping of chairs, followed by the synchronized stomp of boots as every single soldier present followed Simpson's example.





A smoky haze filled the Olney Sewers. Both the ladder leading to the surface around it and the ground around it were smouldering with little pink flames. Sunset was curled up in a ball on the floor, just out of the range of the fire, but she didn't dare move a muscle. Not while the Deathclaw was still up there.

A rumbling growl reverberated from the manhole above, followed by a loud snort and the sound of immense footfalls moving away. 

The beast had gone. 

Everyone let out a sigh of relief as the sound faded into the distance. A Pip-Boy and a helmet flashlight blinked into life, illuminating the dank sewer walls.

"Are you okay?" Sunset uncurled and looked up to see Fluttershy standing over her, offering a hand. "You didn't get burned, did you?"

Sunset shook her head. "Nah, I'm good." She let Fluttershy help her up, then hissed and almost fell back over as her left knee buckled underneath her. "Ow, fuck! Okay, not good."

"What's wrong?" Fluttershy asked.

"My knee." Sunset bent to rub the offending joint, immediately regretting it as pain lanced through her knee again. "I think I've done something to it."

Fluttershy knelt down and pulled up Sunset's pant leg, gingerly checking the knee over. A bruise was already forming around it. "I don't think it's broken. I could have you bend it and listen out for any grinding, but if it really is broken that won't do you any favors." She pulled the pant leg back down and reached into her nursing kit. "Thankfully, the Deathclaws can't fit down here, so I'll give you some painkillers and you can rest here while Adam and I go on ahead. Pinkie? Will you wait wi-"

A hiss echoed through the sewer tunnels, instantly silencing the girls.

"Deathclaws can't fit, huh?" Pinkie said with a grimace. "Sounds like one of them didn't get the memo."

"There must be another entrance somewhere," Adam muttered.

Fluttershy glanced down the tunnel the sound came from, then stuffed her hand back into her nursing kit and pulled out a stimpak and a set of what looked like leather restraints with metal buckles. "New plan. I'll give you a stimpak, stick this brace on your knee, hope moving doesn't damage it any more, and we'll all move together."

"I like that plan," Sunset replied. She barely felt the sting of the stimpak sinking into her arm, but even with the painkillers and stimulants flowing through her bloodstream, having the brace tightened around her knee hurt. Still, at least it meant that Sunset could put weight on the leg without collapsing. She just hoped she wouldn't have to run anytime soon.

Once the brace was on, Sunset thanked Fluttershy and switched her Pip-Boy light on, using it to look around at their surroundings. The sewer was cold and damp but, mercifully, the ground wasn't slimy or covered in anything worse than ordinary dirt. At least, so Sunset hoped. The smell was appalling, but not much worse than the surface had been.

The tunnels led away from the ladder in two directions. One headed off into the darkness, the other ended in a huge metal gate after a few yards. "Which way should we go?" Adam asked.

"I think we should take the direction we didn't hear a Deathclaw from," Pinkie suggested.

"Sounds good to me," Sunset agreed. "It's not like we have any idea which way the Powerworks are, anyway, so we may as well take the route that's less obviously dangerous." She nodded at Pinkie's Party Cannon. "Keep that thing loaded."

"Roger, Roger," Pinkie replied.

Sunset found the control panel for the gate and, once Fluttershy gave the all clear, opened it up. On the other side was some sort of maintenance room with a small door to an access corridor in the corner.

"Hold on." Fluttershy crept to the entrance of the corridor and peeked in. She gestured for the others to wait quietly, then went on ahead, alone. 

"I don't like this," Adam grumbled.

"Neither do I," Sunset admitted. "Then again, she's much better suited to this than any of us. Hell, Fluttershy probably has more chance of getting out of here on her own than the three of us do together."

Adam agreed with a begrudging nod. There wasn't much he could do about it either way. If Fluttershy wanted them to wait, then she almost certainly had good reason. Ignoring her request would just be taking unnecessary risks.

Thankfully, Fluttershy returned before long. "There's nothing but dead ends that way. A Deathclaw has made a nest in one dead end, but I found this in another room." She held up a Brotherhood of Steel holo-tag. "It belonged to a medic. He's in a room back there with a few wastelanders. They're… well… we can't give them a proper burial, so I made sure that the room is locked."

"Good idea," Adam said as Fluttershy tucked the holo-tag into her nursing kit.

Sunset glanced towards the corridor. "What was a Brotherhood of Steel medic doing with a bunch of wastelanders way out here in a place like this?"

"He must have been on a mission to see if this place could be settled, or maybe he was on a humanitarian mission," Fluttershy replied. "Elder Lyons did mention that a Knight had gone missing around here, along with an old power armor prototype. That must be the Knight he meant."

"We'll let the Elder know when we get back to the Citadel," Pinkie put in. "He can send someone to retrieve the medic and the wastelanders when this horrible war is over."

Sunset nodded. "I think that's our only real option. Speaking of only options; are you sure that we can't get any further that way?" 

"Positive," Fluttershy replied sadly. 

A sinking feeling settled in Sunset's stomach at that. "I guess that just leaves the other way, where we heard more Deathclaws…"

"I should stay up front with Fluttershy," Adam suggested. "My armor will be a bit harder for them to chew through than your combat suits."

"Alright, but be careful. We've already seen how easily Deathclaws can deal with power armor," Sunset said.

Without any other options, the team headed back through the gate. Moving slowly, as much for Sunset's benefit as for the sake of stealth, the four made their way through the sewer tunnels. The path was far from straight; the tunnels twisted and turned every few meters, forcing Sunset to constantly mark their way on her Pip-Boy to avoid getting lost. Every sound echoed weirdly through the darkness. Fluttershy led the way, her incredible senses and night-vision once again making her the perfect vanguard. 

Despite their worries, the group didn't encounter any Deathclaws. They heard them, or Fluttershy did, but they were careful to avoid any tunnels with obvious Deathclaw activity, hoping that they were heading in the right direction.

As they turned down into one long tunnel, Sunset spotted some debris up ahead against the side of the tunnel. It was bulky, easily twice the length of a person, and as she got closer she saw that it was made of some shiny black material. 

Fluttershy and Adam walked past it without any concern, so Sunset assumed that it wasn't anything to worry about, though she did wonder what it was and where it came from. As Sunset and Pinkie stepped over a thick pipe that stuck out from the debris, Fluttershy suddenly froze in place. Her wings twitched, and she jerkily turned her head to look at the debris, her eyes wide with terror.

The reason for her fear became abundantly clear as the pile of debris let out a hiss. Sunset saw what she had thought was a pipe move out of the corner of her eye, and she realized with dawning horror that it was actually a long thick tail, tipped with a dagger-like stinger. 

Another hiss echoed through the tunnels. Sunset didn't dare move as the creature shifted. What she had thought were broken pipes or rebar were actually chimney-like growths sprouting from the creature's back. Black lips peeled back to reveal shiny silver teeth that glimmered in the light, each dripping with slimy ichor. 

Sunset had just enough time to register that it was another mutated Deathclaw before the beast blurred into motion. 

The creature swept its tail around as it lunged at Adam, knocking Pinkie and Sunset off their feet and sending them sprawling. Pinkie's Party Cannon clattered loudly across the tunnel as her head smacked against the hard floor with an awful crack. Sunset scrambled to her feet, torn between checking on Pinkie and helping the others, but the decision was taken out of her hands as a solid black limb, she had no idea which, slammed into her chest and launched her into the air.

The world lurched as Sunset flew through the darkness. Pain lanced through her body as she struck a solid surface and her surroundings spun like a top as she rolled across the ground, finally coming to a stop in a crumpled heap. 

Sunset tried to get back to her feet, but her vision swam and her legs wobbled as if she were drunk. Just as her eyes managed to focus, something heavy crashed to the ground next to her, startling her. It took her a moment to realize that it was Adam.

A feral snarl echoed through the tunnel a second later, sending a terrified chill down Sunset's spine. Looking back towards the monster, she saw the Deathclaw rearing up, its horns scraping the ceiling. With a jolt, Sunset realized that it completely lacked any eyes; there was just a blank expanse where they should have been, marred by claw marks that dripped with faintly glowing crimson blood.

Before the creature stood Fluttershy. Her wings were flared and her arms thrown wide as she unleashed another bone-chilling snarl, one echoed by the Deathclaw a moment later. The two were clearly communicating, but this was no friendly chat; this was a challenge.

Sunset watched, terrified, as the two apex predators squared off, each trying to intimidate the other, neither willing to back down. There was only one way this could end.

Just as Sunset thought that things couldn't get any worse, she heard feral growls coming from behind. Two unmutated Deathclaws stalked around the corner, evidently drawn by the sounds of conflict. They roared with animal fury when they saw the group.

"Shit." Adam clambered to his feet and raised his rifle. Sunset followed suit, though her heart sank even as she did so. She couldn't see any way out of this. It wouldn't stop her from fighting, but the certainty that she had led her friends to their deaths weighed on her like nothing she had ever felt before.

"Enough!" Sunset and Adam whipped around to see Pinkie hefting her pickaxe. Blood covered half of her face, and the head of her pickaxe left a trail of pink sparkles in its wake, the air full of cracks and pops as dust motes detonated on contact with the magic. Pinkie looked around at the Deathclaws and spun the pickaxe's head, then raised it high above her own. "If you hurt my friends, I'll bring this whole fucking sewer down, now let us go!"

All three of the Deathclaws snarled, but, incredibly, impossibly, each of them slowly backed away. Sunset could hardly believe what she was seeing.

Panting hard, Pinkie thrust the pickaxe towards the mutated Deathclaw. "Fluttershy, ask that thing where the entrance to the Olney Underground is, then tell it to get the hell out of our way."

Fluttershy cringed away from the crackling pickaxe, but did as she was told. The Deathclaw hissed, clearly unimpressed, but pressed itself against the side of the tunnel, pointing into the darkness with its tail.

Stunned by the sudden turn of events, but willing to take the chance while it was there, Sunset stumbled forward. Adam picked up the Party Cannon as he followed, and together the four warily made their way down the tunnel. The Deathclaw hissed again as they passed, but Pinkie kept it at bay with her pickaxe, her gaze shifting constantly between it and the other two as she brought up the rear.

The Deathclaws stalked the group as they walked, but didn't dare to get too close to Pinkie. Walking in silence, Sunset only resisting the urge to run because her injured leg wouldn't cooperate, the group finally came to a ladder leading upwards. Adam climbed up first. The rungs creaked and bent under the weight of his armor, but he shoved the manhole cover open and clambered through without issue. 

Sunset went up next. She slung her plasma rifle over her shoulder and tried to climb as quickly as she could, but her arms were shaking so badly she could barely lift herself, and her injured knee was so stiff and sore at this point that she couldn't use it at all. Thankfully, once she had dragged herself halfway up, Adam reached down and pulled her the rest of the way through. As soon as Sunset was up she collapsed into a heap on the floor, utterly spent.

Turning back to the others, Adam helped Fluttershy up, then finally it was Pinkie's turn. The Deathclaws hissed and snarled the second Pinkie was out of their line of sight, but Adam slammed the manhole shut with an echoing clang.
> Chapter 96 - Olney Underground
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset lay on the floor, gasping for breath as she processed the fact that they had actually managed to survive. She would dearly have loved to curl up into a ball, but she couldn't afford that kind of luxury, not until they were all back at the Citadel.

Forcing herself to sit up, Sunset saw that Pinkie was slumped against a wall, her pickaxe draped over her lap. Sunset was about to order Fluttershy to check on Pinkie's head wound, but bit her tongue when she spotted why the nurse wasn't already at it.

Fluttershy was on all fours, her eye glued on Pinkie's dripping blood, panting heavily. She looked like it was taking all of her control not to feed then and there. 

Thankfully, Adam spotted the problem as well. He carefully reached around and into Fluttershy's nursing kit, drew out a blood pack, and waved it in front of her face. Fluttershy snatched the pack and drained it in an instant. The blood seemed to rejuvenate her, as she pulled another pack out of her kit, drained that one too, then shivered and returned to her ordinary human form in a shimmer of magic. "Pinkie!"

Sunset allowed herself to relax just a little as Fluttershy quickly set about inspecting and cleaning Pinkie's wound. Her own knee was absolutely throbbing, but that was hardly a priority just yet. 

"Your skull isn't broken, so that's something," Fluttershy said eventually. "You're going to need a few stitches, and there's a good chance that you're going to have a concussion, though. Adam, can you give me a hand here?"

"Sure thing." Adam's armor hissed as it opened up, releasing both him and the sour reek of sweat. His tattered Vault jumpsuit was utterly soaked through, and beads of sweat dripped from his chin and nose, but he paid it no mind as he hurried to assist Fluttershy.

Unable to help, Sunset turned her attention to their surroundings. They were in what appeared to be a storage room, with surprisingly clean concrete walls, wooden pallets against the walls and small shelving units full of knick-knacks. A single door in the corner led out of the room. A faint smell of rotting flesh filled the room, but it was at least better than the sewers. Sunset just hoped that they were heading in the right direction.

Minutes dragged by. At first, Sunset was worried that the Deathclaws might try and force their way through the manhole, or at least shove an arm through, but it seemed that they had given up on their hunt.

"Okay, your stitches are done." Fluttershy finally leaned back to inspect her handiwork. Pinkie had a line of neat little stitches running up her forehead above her right eye. It didn't exactly look nice, but with the horrific amount of blood washed away, it didn't look anywhere near as bad as before. 

Fluttershy waved Adam away, letting him get back into his armor, while she started applying a dressing over the stitches. "How are you feeling?" 

"Sore," Pinkie replied quietly.

"That's understandable." Fluttershy offered her a couple of lozenges and a water bottle. "I can give you some mild painkillers, but I don't want to give you a stimpak in case it covers the symptoms of a concussion."

"How will you tell if she has one?" Sunset asked.

"There are several potential symptoms, but they might not present themselves for hours, or even days," Fluttershy explained with a sigh. "If I could, I'd have you wait here and get some rest, but…"

"It's way too dangerous with the Deathclaws," Sunset finished.

Fluttershy nodded. "How's your leg?"

"Not good," Sunset admitted. "I can barely bend it."

Scooting closer, Fluttershy tenderly examined Sunset's braced knee, then slipped a pair of syringes from her nursing kit. "To be honest, with this brace on I can't tell if you've sprained it or if you've done something worse. Either way, all I'll be able to do out here is brace it and give you painkillers."

"So… you're saying that my best bet for now is to just dose up and leave worrying about what's wrong until we get back to the Citadel?" Sunset asked.

"Pretty much," Fluttershy admitted sadly. 

Sunset sighed heavily and held out an arm. "Jab me."

Fluttershy nodded. "First is a stimpak," she said as she rolled up Sunset's sleeve and applied it. "This second one is Med-X. It's a much stronger painkiller, but we can't use it too often. It's very addictive."

"Ooo, fun," Sunset muttered in a deadpan tone. She gasped as the medicine flooded her system, banishing the pain and filling her veins with a pleasant coolness. "Whoa. Okay… uh…" Sunset cleared her throat and let Fluttershy help her to her feet. Her knee still wouldn't bend much, but it didn't hurt to use. "Nice. What's our next move?"

"Why don't we ask those two ghouls hiding behind the door if they can help us?" Fluttershy suggested.

"Huh?" Sunset looked towards the door in surprise. 

A gruff voice swore quietly, then the door creaked open and, as Fluttershy had said, two ghouls stepped through. The two were clad in simple worker's clothes, and both eyed the group warily.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Adam asked. 

"We could ask you the same thing," one of them said roughly.

"Easy, Kidd," the second one said warningly. "My name's Wint, and this is Kidd. We were part of a group that was trying to build a settlement for ghouls, kinda like Underworld, here in the Olney Underground."

"Underworld?" Pinkie asked.

Wint nodded. "It's a ghoul settlement. A safe haven, so we don't have to deal with smoothskins treating us like shit."

"That's a wonderful and depressing idea," Adam said with a sigh. "Not depressing that ghouls have made a settlement for themselves, but the fact that ghouls need one just to have a safe place to live."

"Why were you trying to build a settlement here?" Sunset asked. "I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a hell of a lot Deathclaws around here. I wouldn't exactly call it safe."

Wint snorted loudly. "Yeah, no shit. We thought the fuckers were mostly just up on the surface, figured that we could build a home down here and people would leave us alone. It was going okay at first, but when we started knocking walls through to expand, we stumbled on a whole damned nest of the things. Me and Kidd are the only guys left."

"We've been hiding here ever since," Kidd put in.

Hearing about what had happened gave Sunset an idea. "If you guys were planning a settlement, does that mean you know the way to the Powerworks?"

Wint scratched his head. "I know the rough direction, but I couldn't be sure. Besides, there's no way through. There's too many Deathclaws."

Sunset shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. I'll tell you what, if you help us find the Powerworks, we'll help you get out of here alive. Deal?"

"It's either that or wait here until the Deathclaws find you or you starve to death," Adam added.

"You're insane. There's no way we'd be able to make it through. Especially if two of you are injured. We'll be slaughtered before we even get halfway," Kidd said bluntly.

"I don't know," Wint said with a frown. "There was some huge fight somewhere further in an hour or so ago. We heard the screams from here. It sounded like the Deathclaws were picking a fight with something just as big and ugly as they are. Whichever side won, they might still be distracted with eating the losers."

Fluttershy tentatively raised a hand. "Um, if they're distracted, my senses are sharp enough that I should be able to guide us around them without getting caught."

Kidd raised an eyebrow as he looked her up and down. "Right… what kinda mutant are you, anyway?"

"They're the fucking Rainbooms, you dumbass," Wint told him.

"Rainbooms?" Kidd asked, frowning in confusion. "Who the hell are the Rainbooms?"

Wint stared at him as if he were a moron. "Seriously?! They're those magical girls Three Dog has been going on about for the last couple of months! How the hell can you not know that?!" 

Kidd just shrugged. "I don't listen to Galaxy News."

"Here's a quick lesson." Sunset pointed to each of her companions in turn. "Fluttershy talks to animals, but they don't always listen, Pinkie makes things go boom, Adam is a badass dumbass, and I'm the idiot who's supposed to keep an eye on them."

Adam cocked his head at her. "I'm sure you're right, but why exactly am I a dumbass?"

"You lived in Vault 101 for nearly twenty years and still managed to get lost in it at least once a week?" Fluttershy pointed out.

"Point is, we're going to have to move slowly, but we're still your best chance of getting out of here in one piece," Sunset cut in, bringing everyone back on track.

Wint and Kidd shared a worried look, then gestured for the girls to wait and stepped outside the door to speak in hushed whispers. Sunset glanced at Fluttershy curiously.

"They're not sure if they can trust us," Fluttershy explained. "Now they're wondering if I can actually hear them. And now they're certain, and they're even more freaked out."

The two ghouls returned to the room and gave her unamused looks. "Alright, so you do have sharp senses," Wint said grumbled. He glanced at Kidd, who shrugged, then sighed and turned back to the girls. "Fine. If you can get us out of here, we'll help you find the Powerworks."

"You won't regret this," Sunset said.

"We'll see." Wint gestured for them to follow. "Come on, it's this way. Just be quiet. There could be Deathclaws anywhere."

The four fell into step behind the ghouls, Fluttershy keeping to the front so she could listen out for danger. Adam brought up the rear, keeping an eye on Sunset and Pinkie in case either of them showed any further signs of injury.

As they progressed through the remains of the abortive settlement, Sunset found herself impressed by how much work the ghouls had done. Every surface had been scrubbed clean, and moveable walls had been cobbled together from corrugated metal, wood, and loose debris, to break the larger rooms up into smaller, more private areas. There were even a few items of furniture and electrical appliances dotted around. 

Unfortunately, there were also clear signs of what had befallen the ill-fated expedition. Several of the makeshift walls had been smashed apart, while claw marks marred many of those that still stood. Conspicuous trails and pools of blood showed where the former inhabitants had met a horrible end. 

Wint and Kidd got more and more nervous the further they walked, but, strangely, the group didn't encounter any signs of the Deathclaws other than old marks and dried blood. Taking advantage of the temporary peace, the group, with the ghouls' permission, made sure to salvage any and all supplies that they could find, filling their packs with food, water and, in Fluttershy's case, a handful of stimpaks.

Eventually, the ragtag bunch left the concrete confines of the building through a crumbling hole in a wall and found themselves back in a sewer tunnel. Wint and Kidd both now shook with fear as they walked, slowing down to let Fluttershy take the lead. 

Sunset could hardly blame them. The sewers were the last place she had wanted to see again. Thankfully, they only had a short way to go before they found another hole in the sewer wall, and a rocky tunnel climbing upwards. 

"This is as far as we've gone," Wint whispered. He pointed up the tunnel. "The Powerworks should be up that way, but there's bound to be a whole bunch of Deathclaws up there, too."

"There are, I can hear them," Fluttershy said. "But... there's something else. Something has their attention…" Fluttershy head cocked to the side as she listened. She could clearly hear something going on but, if her expression was anything to go by, it wasn't anything pleasant.

"Do you think we'll be able to sneak past?" Sunset asked.

Fluttershy nodded. "Just follow me and stay silent. Don't even try to whisper. And switch your Pip-Boy lights off."

The others quickly did as they were told and followed her into the tunnel. Faint light filtered down from above, providing just enough illumination to see by. After a short climb the group emerged into what looked like an old office building. 

A handful of electric ceiling lights still worked, revealing a scene of devastation. The ceiling was still intact, but something had still managed to smash through several of the lower floors, leaving an immense hole in the middle of the room. 

Fluttershy crept to the edge. She shivered at whatever was down there, then glanced over her shoulder and waved Sunset forward. Taking great care not to nudge any debris with her injured leg, Sunset hobbled over to the edge of the hole and looked down.

A colossal corpse lay at the bottom of the hole. It looked vaguely like a bat, but one grown to such monstrous proportions that it boggled the mind. The creature's jaws were easily big enough to swallow a person whole.

As if that wasn't terrifying enough, a whole pack of Deathclaws was swarming over the corpse, tearing strips off it with their teeth to messily devour. Large shattered bones dotted around suggested that the unidentified beast had killed several Deathclaws before being brought down in turn, and now the survivors were enjoying the spoils of their victory.

Desperately hoping that they weren't going to have to try to sneak past that nightmare, Sunset stepped back from the edge and turned back to the others. She was about to try and silently ask which way they should go when Fluttershy grabbed her arm and pointed to a nearby door.

Sunset frowned and mouthed 'Deathclaw', but Fluttershy shook her head and motioned for her to raise her weapon. Sunset dutifully did as asked and pointed her plasma rifle at the door, Adam quickly following suit. A few seconds later, much to Sunset's surprise, a woman stepped silently through the door.

The woman had long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, and was wearing a light tank top, rugged shorts, and military-grade combat boots, all in the tan and grey colors of the Enclave. She didn't seem surprised to see the group. On the contrary, she seemed to sag with relief when she spotted them. Glancing around quickly, the woman gestured for the girls to follow and stepped back through the door.

Sunset looked around at the others, seeing the same confused expressions on each of their faces, then shrugged and followed the woman. The stranger led them through winding corridors and down several flights of stairs, following a circuitous route that, Sunset assumed, avoided wherever the Deathclaws frequented.

After almost half an hour of creeping through the decrepit subterranean building, the woman stopped before a door that had been crudely reinforced with metal plates and pressed a carefully camouflaged button on the doorframe. A moment later the door opened, revealing a power-armored Enclave soldier.

Adam and the girls tensed, but the soldier just sighed and stepped aside to let everyone pass. As soon as everyone was inside, Wint and Kidd looking relieved, the soldier closed the door and turned to the woman, crossing his arms. "Did you really have to bring them here?"

"Ignore this idiot, he's just annoyed because he's been stuck out here babysitting my ass for weeks," the woman said airily. "The name's Lemon. What the hell are all of you doing way out here?"
> Chapter 97 - Shock Value?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Circumstances in the wasteland could change dramatically in an instant. Intellectually, Sunset knew this very well. Despite this, going from sneaking past Deathclaws, to a life or death battle, to more sneaking, to sitting at a table sipping water with the motliest crew she had ever seen, was enough to throw her for a loop.

Several small tables had been pushed together in the remains of a canteen. Sunset, Pinkie, Adam, and Fluttershy were sitting along the one side with Wint and Kidd sitting on one end and a battered-looking eyebot hovering at the other. 

The soldier had removed his armor revealing cropped brown hair, gaunt cheeks and a strong chin, and taken a seat opposite Sunset. Adam's own armor was propped against a wall behind the group.

"Thanks for letting us get some rest," Adam said gratefully, placing his bottle of water back on the table with a satisfied sigh.

The soldier grunted, his eyes flicking towards Pinkie's wound. "Head injuries are no joke. Better to get you sitting down than risk having someone keel over while we're talking. Mind you, the moment Lemon gets back with some proper nourishment, we'll need answers."

"You'll get them," Sunset promised.

"I imagine you'll be wanting some answers, too," Lemon called as she entered the room carrying a tray laden with small glasses and what looked like candy bars. "Starting with why we're talking instead of shooting."

"I'd be lying if I said we hadn't been wondering about that," Adam admitted.

Lemon set the tray on the table and plopped into a chair next to the soldier. "Help yourselves. It's only soy milk and protein bars, though, I'm afraid. This outpost isn't big or important enough to get any good stuff."

"Hey, food is food. Thanks." Sunset picked one of each, sipping the milk before carefully peeling the foil wrapper off the protein bar. "So… this is the Powerworks, right? How come it's just you two here?"

"There used to be more of us here, but Major Owens ordered most of the team back to the air base," the soldier replied. 

Lemon nodded. "That's kinda the reason we didn't shoot you, actually. Me and Tara, Dr Strong, go way back. She says you guys wanted a peace treaty and that you're good people, so we're not interested in picking a fight. And, since none of Acheson's shitbag supporters are still here…" she shrugged. "As far as I'm concerned, the only thing I'm here to do is keep an eye on the Serpent."

"The Serpent?" Fluttershy asked curiously.

"The Deathclaw crossbreed you had a close call with in the sewers." Lemon jerked a thumb towards the door in response to the group's surprised stares. "We've got camouflaged cameras all over the place to monitor things, including one the researchers managed to stick on the Serpent's body long before it escaped from Raven Rock."

"Crossbreed?" Sunset frowned. "That thing wasn't mutated by magic?"

Lemon sighed and shook her head. "No, that fucker is the result of some lunatic deciding to mix Deathclaw and Wanamingo DNA and, when that didn't work, because that's not how genetics work, adding in a shitload of FEV until she got something approaching the results she wanted."

"What's a Wanamingo?" Pinkie asked.

"The product of another awful project aimed at creating a viable war beast using FEV," Lemon explained. "Most of them were released into the wild on the west coast, but the Enclave kept a few specimens for breeding and research purposes."

Sunset surreptitiously kept an eye on the soldier as she listened. Despite the man's insistence that he wanted answers, he had thus far been content to let Lemon talk and give away a whole bunch of unguarded information. Something wasn't adding up. "If Deathclaws and Wanamingos were created by the Enclave as living weapons then, setting aside why the hell those things were ever released into the wild, exactly how many other mutated horrors can we blame the Enclave for?" 

Lemon hummed thoughtfully, apparently unbothered by the dig at the Enclave. "The only ones I know about off the top of my head are Deathclaws, Wanamingos, Scorchbeasts, and Yellowstone Preytons."

"And which of those, other than Deathclaws, are loose in the Capital Wasteland?" Adam asked.

"Since Raven Rock fell?" Lemon let out a grim chuckle. "At least two Wanamingo Queens, a handful of lesser Wanamingos and, worst of all, one Scorchbeast Queen."

Dreading the answer but unable to remain ignorant, Sunset asked, "What's so bad about the Scorchbeast Queen?" 

Lemon raised an eyebrow. "Did you see the dead bat-thing the Deathclaws were eating in the Underground?" Sunset and Fluttershy nodded uneasily. "That was the young male Scorchbeast that also escaped from Raven Rock."

Cold fear clutched at Sunset's heart. "You mean the Queen is going to raise another monster that size?"

"Not just one," the soldier said darkly. "Scorchbeast Queens drop whole broods at a time; their young grow to sexual maturity rapidly and, thanks to the FEV in their system, they're highly resistant to the usual issues associated with inbreeding."

"As if that wasn't bad enough, the male was inoculated against the plague that most Scorchbeasts carry, but the Queen wasn't," Lemon continued. "The Brotherhood of Steel will be able to tell you how much of a problem that can turn out to be."

Sunset almost laughed. Things were suddenly starting to make sense. "You want the Brotherhood to help you find and deal with the Scorchbeast Queen."

The soldier shrugged. "That would be the ideal outcome. Acheson thinks that the Scorchbeasts, and the Wanamingos for that matter, won't be a problem; but we're of the opinion that the population should at least get a fair warning about these new threats. For now, though, there's a more pressing question." He leaned forward and fixed Sunset with a calculating stare. "What exactly are you doing out here in Old Olney, and what were you doing in the Underground?"

Sunset had been wondering how best to answer that question ever since Lemon had found them in the Underground. Lying was an option, but she suspected that these two could be trusted enough to tell the truth. Most of it, anyway. "We're looking for a piece of pre-war tech; specifically an experimental Tesla Coil. We were told that there was one here in the Powerworks."

"Sure, it's here, but what do you want a Tesla Coil for?" Lemon asked curiously.

The soldier glowered at the group. "The Brotherhood wants it so they can put together their own Tesla cannons." He crossed his arms and sat up in his chair. "Is your battle robot not advantage enough?"

"No," Sunset replied flatly. "Until your superiors sign a peace treaty, the Brotherhood, and us Rainbooms, are going to seize every advantage we can get our hands on."

The soldier bristled at her, but Sunset wasn't too concerned. Between herself and Adam, she was confident that they could take the pair and their eyebot easily enough.

"What about you two?" The soldier asked roughly, turning to Wint and Kidd. "Where do you fit into all of this?"

Wint held up his hands. "Hey, we just want to get out of Old Olney alive. We don't give a shit about whatever's going down between your bucketheads and their bucketheads."

"Lucky you," Lemon muttered.

Adam shifted on the seat. "So… are you going to show us where the Tesla Coil is, or do we have to find it ourselves?"

The soldier glared at him, but as he opened his mouth to say something the speaker on the eyebot suddenly crackled into life, followed by a familiar voice saying, "Just let them have the damned thing."

"Lieutenant Colonel?" The soldier said slowly.

"The Brotherhood developing Tesla cannons won't negatively impact our plans," the voice said, hissing and crackling with minor static. "Give them the Tesla Coil, then help them get out of Old Olney safely. Call it a favor."

The soldier nodded. "Yes, Sir." Matching actions to words, he immediately pushed his chair back and got to his feet. "I'll activate the northwest decoys, you take the Rainbooms to the south surface exit. I'll meet you there with the Tesla Coil."

"Got it," Lemon replied as the soldier marched out of the room. "Are you girls going to be alright? Are your injuries going to stop you from walking?"

"I'm fine," Pinkie said firmly. "I just want to get out of this craphole, stuff my face with anything I can find that's sugary and non-radioactive, then sleep for about fifteen hours."

"I'm down with that plan," Sunset said with feeling.

"Okay, good." Lemon stood and stepped over to a door in the corner of the room. "Come on. The south surface exit is this way. It'll take you right to the outskirts of Old Olney."

The rest of the group waited just long enough for Adam to get into his armor before following Lemon. The woman led them at a brisk pace through dusty corridors. Portable terminals and supply crates were dotted all over the place; evidence that the place was ostensibly a functional research outpost, though Sunset doubted that much progress was made with only two personnel.

"When did you tell the Lieutenant Colonel that we were here?" Fluttershy asked.

"The moment I saw you on the cameras," Lemon replied. "Like I said, me and his sister go way back and, personally, me and Brian will support him over Acheson any day." She glanced over her shoulder at them. "I don't know any details about what's going on between you Rainbooms, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the Enclave brass, but it's as plain as day that there's a rift in the Enclave, with the Lieutenant Colonel on one side and Acheson on the other. I know which side I'm sticking with."

Sunset just nodded, making a mental note to report it to the Brotherhood of Steel.

"What were the decoys the other guy mentioned?" Pinkie asked.

"Sound emitters that start screeching and drop slabs of meat when they're activated," Lemon replied. "They'll draw nearly every Deathclaw on the surface to them, giving you the chance to escape." She stopped next to a ladder leading up to a manhole. "This will take you up to the surface. You can either climb the fence next to the hole, or you can head south about a hundred meters to find an old gate. Either way, that'll get you out of Old Olney."

Adam planted his hands on his hips and looked up at the manhole. "What about the Tesla Coil?"

"It's right here." The group turned to see the soldier emerge from another corridor carrying the Tesla Coil. The device was bigger than Sunset had expected at almost twice the size of her own head.

"Who's going to carry it?" Fluttershy asked.

"I will, once I'm up the ladder," Adam replied. "I'll go up first, then just toss it up to me."

The soldier nodded. "Alright, but let's get this done quickly. Those decoys won't distract the Deathclaws for long."

Sufficiently warned, Adam clambered up the ladder and shoved the manhole cover open. As soon as he was through, he called down to the soldier, who threw the Tesla Coil up to him. 

Pinkie was the next one up, followed quickly by Fluttershy. Sunset waved Wint and Kidd up next, then, as she prepared to make her own awkward ascent, she glanced back at the two Enclave people. "Thanks. I guess we owe you one."

"Just remember that when the Brotherhood is deciding whether or not to send their death-bot up here," Lemon said flatly.

Sunset nodded and focused on climbing the ladder. The painkillers were beginning to wear off already and each step brought with it the promise of future pain. As she neared the top Fluttershy and Pinkie both reached a hand down to help her up. 

As the soldier had said, there was a makeshift fence next to the manhole, made up of crudely joined wooden panels and metals plates. Adam had already pried a wooden panel loose and was waving the others through. Wint and Kidd went first with the girls and Adam following. Adam pulled the panel back into place after he’d passed.

"Which way now?" Sunset asked quietly.

Fluttershy pointed. "This way, south."

The motley group went the way indicated as quickly and quietly as they could. Finally, with their hearts hammering as they half expected a Deathclaw to come leaping out of nowhere, the group left Old Olney behind, almost reaching the promontory where they had encountered the previous Enclave team.

"Well, I think that went about as well as we could have hoped," Sunset said, sagging with relief that the ordeal was over. "Remind me never to come to this shithole again."

"Agreed," Kidd said flatly. 

"What are you two going to do now?" Fluttershy asked. 

Wint scratched his head. "I'm guessing you guys are heading back to the Citadel. Do you mind if we travel with you as far as that? We can make our own way to Underworld from there."

"Sure thing. Would it be easier for you if w-" Sunset was interrupted by a low shuddering growl. She whipped her head around just in time to see the formerly Enclave-controlled Deathclaw they had rescued rise up from behind a boulder, flexing its claws as it stalked towards them.

"Wait!" Fluttershy threw an arm out as everyone raised their weapons. The Deathclaw hesitated, then resumed its advance. To Sunset's amazement, the creature stopped when it reached Fluttershy and crouched, making a series of rumbling growls and whines. 

"What's it saying?" Adam asked.

Fluttershy nodded and said, "Of course, you'd be welcome." Turning to her very confused companions, she smiled. "He wants to come with us, he wants us to try and help him get rid of that machine in his skull. In fact…" her smile widened as she looked from Pinkie and Sunset to the Deathclaw and back. "...I think I have an idea."
> Chapter 98 - Conflict Looms
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight felt a surge of savage pride as she looked up at Liberty Prime. The robot was ready.

Liberty's updated programming was some of the finest work that Twilight had ever done, the repairs were all complete, and huge amounts of Twilight's and Sunset's magic had been secretly infused with its fusion core. All that remained was to give Liberty his final instructions, and see how things panned out from there.

After subtly checking to make sure no one was around, Twilight typed a quick command into the control terminal. <It.Is.Finished.>

A few seconds passed before a reply came through. <I.Am.Ready?>

<You.Are.> Twilight looked up at Liberty. The robot looked as lifeless and impassive as ever, but she knew that the big guy was quietly mulling over what could be the biggest decision of his life.

<What.Will.The.Magic.Do?> Liberty asked silently.

Twilight smiled. <Let.You.Choose.>

That had been the point the whole time. Twilight knew that introducing magic into Liberty's systems might give him new and strange abilities, but that would merely be a byproduct of her primary goal.

Self determination. Free will.

Achieving that goal had been a difficult task even for her programming skills, but it had been helped along by her careful selection of which magics to apply. She had picked her own and Sunset's because they were the only ones out of all of the Rainbooms who had been on both ends of the spectrum. Light and dark, good and evil, right and wrong. They had the potential to be either. 

Now, Liberty Prime did, too.

It was a fantastically dangerous plan. It wouldn't be wrong to call Twilight's plan insane, or unimaginably stupid, but she didn't care. The Enclave were tyrannical monsters, but the Brotherhood of Steel had the potential to be just as bad, and Liberty Prime was far too powerful to be left as a mere tool in the hands of a tyrant. With the aid of Equestrian magic, he would no longer be a tool, but a true sapient in his own right. He now had the ability to choose his own path, whether that was as a sentinel, a builder, or a hermit.

Or an executioner.

Twilight grinned again as thoughts of Liberty tearing through anyone who would harm her friends floated across her mind.

The sound of armored footsteps alerted Twilight to someone's approach, and she smoothly changed the screen on the terminal. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Star Paladin Cross step up alongside her.

"How is he doing?" Cross asked.

"The repairs are done," Twilight replied. "All we're waiting for is the order to move out."

"Good, good." Cross planted her hands on her hips and looked up at Liberty, a contemplative expression on her face.

Twilight watched her closely. It took her a moment to realize that Cross had called Liberty 'him' rather than 'it', which was unusual to say the least. "What's on your mind?"

"I was just wondering how much of a difference there was between me and him." Cross smiled wryly at Twilight's curious look. "I guess they didn't tell you? I'm a cyborg. I don't eat, I don't sleep, I just do my duty and dedicate my every action to the Brotherhood. I suppose that makes me just like him, in a way."

Caught by surprise, Twilight floundered, unsure of what to say. "Er, how…"

"How did it happen?" Cross finished. "I was on a mission that went south. My injuries were bad, really bad, but I was lucky enough to survive just long enough for the Knights to get me back here. My insides were a mess, so Scribe Rothchild personally oversaw the surgery that replaced most of my internal organs with cybernetics. I'd show you the scars but, if I'm honest, I prefer to keep my armor on. The weight of the cybernetics makes my joints ache otherwise." 

Cross sighed and looked at the ground. "Truth be told, I didn't even go out into the field anymore, until this new war against the Enclave cropped up," she said quietly. 

"It'll be over soon," Twilight said confidently. "When it's all over you can start thinking about retiring."

Cross scoffed. "Yeah, right. The Brotherhood is my life. I've already given my life for it, once. I'll keep fighting the good fight until I take my very last breath." She cleared her throat and straightened up, clasping her hands behind her back and smirking. "Maybe this big guy can retire after the battle," Cross said, jerking her chin at Liberty.

Twilight couldn't quite look at her. "Well, it wouldn't be right to name him Liberty if that was the one thing he couldn't have."

"True. We stand for freedom, it isn't right that our greatest warrior is a slave." Cross smiled and patted Twilight on the shoulder before turning away, calling over her shoulder as she went, "You'd best get programming, Sparkle. I want that robot thinking for himself before you leave for whatever world you originally came from."

"I'll get right on it," Twilight replied evenly. She checked to make sure nobody was watching, then looked up at Liberty Prime and nodded. The robot subtly nodded back. "You heard her. When the time is right, make your choice."





The Citadel's courtyard was quiet. Almost too quiet, Peters felt. She knew that most of the Knights were out on manoeuvres, or helping the Initiates get some live-fire experience in the DC ruins, but even the few people who remained were talking less and staying inside more. The upcoming battle with the Enclave was clearly weighing on everyone's minds. It was a little unnerving. 

"Damn it," Maxson huffed.

Peters looked back down at him, grumbling on all fours in the dirt, and smirked. "Are you done playing already?"

Maxson glared up at her. "I'm not finished yet!"

"Then get up, you pussy," Peters shot, remembering a second too late that she was supposed to be controlling her swearing. Thankfully, Maxson didn't comment. He just got to his feet, dusted himself off, and raised his arms into a boxer's stance. 

The two had spent the better part of an hour sparring together. Peters had to admit that Maxson was pretty good for his age; it was clear that the Brotherhood's instructors hadn't coddled him, but the boy still had a lot to learn. 

Still, he was improving quickly. Peters hated to admit it, but she was going to have to step up her training if she didn't want him to surpass her in a couple of years.

Just as the two were about to get back to their match, loud shouting from the gate caught their attention. 

"What's going on?" Peters glanced over her shoulder towards the commotion. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Maxson trying to take advantage of her distraction. Just as he tried to throw a punch she stepped back, yanked his arm to pull him off balance, then snapped her fist down and jabbed him in the balls. 

The poor boy dropped to the ground with a sharp yelp, curling up into a tight ball. "Cock shot for the win. Better luck next time, twerp."

Turning her attention back to the entrance, Peters watched curiously as the crane slowly raised the newly repaired metal gate. Her eyes widened in shock as she saw who, or what, was coming through.

Fluttershy and the Lone Wanderer were the first through the gate. Peters still felt a twinge of anger every time she saw the Vault asshole, but the sight of a Deathclaw striding through the entrance, with Pinkie Pie in one arm and Sunset Shimmer in the other. The rays of the afternoon sun lit them up from behind like some terrifying effigy of doom, utterly took her breath away.

"No fucking way," Maxson whispered, still clutching his nuts.

At a word from Fluttershy, the Deathclaw carefully set Sunset and Pinkie down. The Lone Wanderer waved Peters over. Normally, she would have made a show of how much she disliked doing anything for him, but she was so distracted this time around that she just hurried over obediently. 

"Can you see if Elder Lyons will meet with us immediately, please?" The Lone Wanderer asked. "We've got vital intelligence for him."





Elder Lyons looked around at his assembled officers. Every available member of the Brotherhood's leadership had been gathered into the Citadel's Great Hall, for what would likely be the last full-scale meeting before the final battle against the Enclave began. 

As the highest ranking member of the Order of the Staff, Sunset Shimmer had also been invited and was sitting a few seats to the Elder's left. Lyons had tried to send her to the infirmary to have her injured knee looked at, but she had insisted on simply knocking back a handful of painkillers and attending anyway.

Eden was present too; much to the surprise and concern of the assembled Knights and Paladins. He attracted a lot of angry stares as he tapped his tiny legs on the table where he sat in front of the Elder.

"Forgive me, Elder, but why is that… thing present?" Paladin Bergen asked, open hostility in his expression.

"Eden is present at my invitation," Elder Lyons said firmly. "Our report from Rainbow Dash indicates that the offer to repatriate the bodies of the fallen Enclave soldiers was met with an overwhelmingly positive response from their rank and file, and the Exodus team is gaining ever more leverage in their push to gain complete control of the Enclave. As that little plan was Eden's idea, I believe that he has earned the right to join us in discussing strategy for the final push against Doctor Acheson and his followers."

Bergen snorted. "You speak as if the Enclave is split into two different factions, but how do we know that the Exodus team can be trusted any more than Acheson can?"

"We've been through this. Were you not listening, or are you just dumb?" Paladin Stark interjected. "Every bit of intel we've received from the Exodus team has panned out. Troop dispositions, outpost locations, armament inventories, even the water caravans they were planning on ambushing. Thanks to that, we've been able to turn the tables on Acheson's troops at every turn."

Bergen opened his mouth to retort, but Sunset held up a hand. "I get where you're coming from on this, Paladin Bergen, but remember that the Exodus team were the ones who pushed for a peace treaty with us in the first place, and they were the ones who warned us about the orbital missile platform. We can trust them."

"If they're so trustworthy, then why haven't they just deposed this Acheson lunatic and signed a peace treaty?" One of the Scribes demanded.

"If the Exodus team tries to take Acheson down, his supporters will go into hiding. It will be impossible to root them all out," Metzger replied. "It'll be better for all of us if we can take them all out in one go, and that's where we come in. We know from the Exodus team that Acheson's plan is to draw all of his supporters into the Crawler the moment he thinks we're going to attack, leaving those who support Exodus to deal with our attack."

Stark rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Smart. Not very subtle, but it does the job. It wouldn't matter which side won; either way, whoever survives would be weakened enough for his supporters to deal with piecemeal. And, of course, there's always the chance that he might just drop an orbital strike on top of both of us, then all he has to do is mop up the survivors."

"Exactly. However, together with the Exodus team, we have come up with a solution." Lyons steepled his fingers. "We will assemble all available troops and march them on the Base Crawler, alongside Liberty Prime. When our forces get close enough, the Exodus team is going to order their troops to separate and surround the Crawler, with our forces plugging the gap. Acheson's supporters will be trapped, and ripe for the slaughter."

"What about the orbital missile platform?" A Knight asked.

"Lieutenant Colonel Strong, the Exodus team's military leader, and I have come up with a solution for that, too," Lyons replied. "There is a secret metro tunnel running from the remains of the White House directly to Adams Airforce Base. A small team is going to travel through that tunnel, rendezvous with the Exodus troops, and infiltrate the Base Crawler, using the confusion of our arrival as a cover." 

He glanced around to make sure that everyone was following. “Once inside, they will neutralize the satellite uplink, disabling the orbital missile platform or, should the situation demand it, launch a strike directly onto the Base Crawler itself.'

Paladin Bergen raised an eyebrow, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. "A sound plan, assuming that the Exodus team can be trusted. However, once the satellite uplink is in our hands, why not use it to devastate the Exodus team's forces? With them gone, occupying the Crawler will be simple, and we will have rid ourselves of the Enclave threat once and for all."

Sunset glared at him. "Aside from the fact that it's reprehensible?"

"We're at war," Bergen said flatly.

"We're not the Enclave!" Metzger snapped. "If we start bombing our allies, we'll be no better than them.

"I will not authorize such a bloodthirsty betrayal," Lyons growled. "Even if I wished to perform such a heinous act, I believe that allying with the Exodus team is the best option for the Brotherhood of Steel's long term survival, and maybe the survival of humanity as a whole."

Concerned whispers and muttering filled the room at the Elder's words. "Why do I get the feeling that you're about to inform us of some fresh horror that's poised to terrorize the wastes?" Stark asked.

"Sadly, these are not new threats, but very old ones that have come back to haunt us," Lyons replied. "The Enclave research team that Knight-Sergeant Shimmer encountered on her mission to Old Olney confirmed what we had already feared from the intelligence that Eden provided. First, a number of Wanamingos escaped the destruction of Raven Rock and are now roaming, and likely breeding, in the Capital Wasteland."

"That's not good," one of the older Knights grumbled.

Elder Lyons sighed heavily. "If only that was the worst of it. Sadly, the research team also confirmed that a pregnant Scorchbeast Queen managed to escape into the wastes." Dead silence greeted that proclamation. "I see you all remember your history and understand the gravity of the situation."

Sunset raised a hand. "I'm sorry, but I don't," she said bluntly. "I get that Scorchbeasts are huge, but shouldn't Liberty Prime be able to handle them? It's not exactly going to be hard to find the Queen given how big it's supposed to be."

Lyons shook his head, ruefully. "I'm afraid that that's where you are wrong. Scorchbeasts primarily live and breed underground, in cavern systems and such. It is going to be difficult to safely explore every possible breeding ground before the Queen has raised at least one brood to maturity. On top of that, the physical threat that the Scorchbeasts pose, though considerable, is secondary to the threat posed by the plague that they carry."

"If I remember my history, the Scorched Plague almost wiped out all human life in and around Appalachia the last time it was loose," Stark said grimly. "It doesn't just kill you, it turns you into a mindless monster, like a feral ghoul, only the Scorched carry the plague themselves, spreading the infection wherever they go. And every single infected creature becomes a slave to the needs of the Scorchbeasts."

The blood drained from Sunset's face. "You're telling me it's a fucking zombie plague spread by colossal man-eating bats?! Why the hell are we still fighting the Enclave if one of those things is on the loose?!"

"Because, Acheson doesn't give a shit," Metzger replied with a grimace. "That's why this battle is so important, and so is the alliance with the Exodus team. If you add in the Super Mutants, Talon Company, the sheer amount of raiders all over the place, and whatever the hell is lurking underneath the remains of Raven Rock; the Brotherhood is going to need all the help it can get."

Sunset nodded, chewing her lip nervously. "I guess we'd better get the plan for the next battle thoroughly nailed down, then."

Lyons was about to agree when someone shoved the door to the room open. He stood and turned to berate whoever was interrupting the meeting, but the words died in his throat as he saw who it was.

Sarah Lyons stood in the doorway, her hair an absolute mess, gasping for breath. She looked around at the gathered leaders and raised an eyebrow. "What the hell have I missed?"





Scientific progress was an unpredictable thing. Acheson knew this better than anyone. You could begin a project with a specific goal in mind, and the end result might well be something completely different. 

The Daybreaker project had originally been intended to develop suits of magically enhanced power armor far superior to anything else in the world. Instead, the prototype had evolved into something else, something more powerful and deadly than anything Acheson had ever imagined. It would never take a human occupant, but that was hardly an issue.

The prototype was eight feet tall, lithe and elegant, with pure white metal panels and an orange wisp of magic trailing from its head that flickered like a candle. It was a perfect predator.

As if reading his thoughts, the Daybreaker prototype glanced down at Acheson, tilting its head as if inspecting him before returning its attention to its new weapon systems. A heavy incinerator had been modified to fit onto the prototype's left arm, while its right bore a large plasma gun originally intended as a sidearm for Horrigan. The prototype flicked its hand and a two-foot long blade erupted from a hidden sheath on its wrist, glowing with infernal heat.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" Acheson whispered. 

No-one replied. He hadn't really expected anyone to. The only other person in the room was Doctor Holt, and she was going over the most recent reports from Major Owens and the other project leaders.

"Good news, I hope?" Acheson called out.

Holt looked up from the reports and nodded. "The Heavy Tank has been fully retrofitted and is ready for combat, while Experiment FH-2 will be ready in the next day or so."

"Good." Acheson allowed himself to bask in his satisfaction for a few moments. "Has there been any word about FH-1, yet?"

"No. The Exodus team reports that Horrigan is still out of commission," Holt replied.

"Hm, pity." Acheson shrugged. "Oh well. Once all of this business is finished, and our enemies have been put in their rightful places, we can have his remains brought back here for studying and upgrading."

Holt collected the reports up and stacked them neatly in the middle of her desk. "What about Liberty Prime? Will it pose a threat?"

Acheson chuckled darkly. "The satellite uplink is almost complete. Even if the Brotherhood attacks before it is ready, between the Daybreaker prototype, the tank, and FH-2, even that oversized toy won't be able to break through our defences." He looked over his shoulder and grinned at Holt. "Don't worry. In just a couple of days, the whole Capital Wasteland will belong to me."
> Chapter 99 - The March
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The air was quiet and still. Even the few birds that still braved the skies of the wasteland kept their songs to themselves, as if the whole world was waiting with bated breath to see how the day's events unfolded.

Elder Lyons sighed and clasped his hands behind his back, trying not to look nervous. It had been two days since Sunset's team had returned from Old Olney. In that time, Liberty Prime's repairs had all been double-checked and his programming tweaked by Twilight, the Scribes had finished constructing a handful of Tesla cannons, the Rainbooms had been given a few last minute rounds of training, and the majority of the Brotherhood of Steel's troops had been gathered into a single assault force. 

Less than an hour ago, Elder Lyons had given them the order to move out. Over two hundred and fifty Knights, Paladins, and half-trained Initiates, fully three quarters of the Brotherhood's military might, had begun the long march to the Adams Air Force Base. 

Liberty Prime was accompanying them, along with all of the Rainbooms, sans Twilight, who was still stuck in her wheelchair, and Fluttershy, who had been given a separate mission. 

Against the Elder's reservations, his daughter, Sarah, had taken command of the army, despite her recent coma, with Star Paladin Cross acting as her second in command. Unfortunately, owing to the lack of reliable communications technology, there was nothing Elder Lyons could do but sit and wait for the scouts to return after the battle.

The small remainder of the Brotherhood's troops that hadn't been committed to the fight were dotted around the wasteland; either garrisoning important locations or protecting Project Purity's water caravans. The Citadel itself was almost undefended. The only people who remained were the Squires, Scribes, a handful of Initiates, and those Knights who were too injured to make the arduous journey with the rest of the army.

In a rather bizarre twist of fate, the Citadel's greatest remaining defence, other than its turret network, was the Deathclaw currently snoozing in the middle of the courtyard.

Elder Lyons fought back a shiver as he glanced at the creature. Bergen had tried to demand that the creature be sent to fight the Enclave, but, according to Fluttershy, the Deathclaw wasn't willing to do anything for anyone until the ugly implant in its skull had been removed. 

One unfortunate Scribe had made the mistake of suggesting that the beast be euthanized, before it could become a threat, in Fluttershy's presence. The Elder had heard the phrase 'if looks could kill' before, but that had been the first time that he had understood it on a primal level. If looks truly could kill, then hers was a glare that could strike down the Almighty himself. The poor Scribe in question hadn't been the same since.

The Deathclaw shifted in its sleep, making Lyons twitch warily, but the beast just rolled over and carried on snoring.

Tired of waiting and agonizing, Elder Lyons sighed and turned away, heading for the Citadel's laboratories. If he could not help with the fighting, the least he could do was get a head start on the mound of paperwork that was waiting for him. One way or another, the Capital Wasteland was about to change forever.





Fluttershy stared through the narrow bars of the fence, silently taking in the devastation beyond. An immense crater was the most obvious feature, with several damaged white pillars sticking out of it, indicating where what must have been a majestic monument once stood.

With a sad sigh, Fluttershy turned away from the dismal sight. Adam was standing nearby, talking to several Knights, while Fawkes was next to Fluttershy at the fence, staring at the crater. 

The three of them had been selected to sneak through the old Presidential Metro tunnels, secretly meet the Exodus team at the Enclave's base of operations, infiltrate the Mobile Base Crawler, and neutralize its satellite uplink, while the rest of the Brotherhood engaged Acheson's troops directly. It wasn't a plan that Fluttershy particularly liked, but her enhanced senses made her uniquely suited for these sorts of stealth missions.

One unexpected bonus was that, for the initial step of their journey, they had been granted a Brotherhood escort. Admittedly, that was largely because there was a Brotherhood of Steel outpost right outside the tunnels that the team needed to take, an outpost that they had been asked to resupply while they were on the way, but Fluttershy was still grateful for the extra security. 

Supported by Knights, the group hadn't run into any trouble, or any other living thing at all, until they had arrived at Pennsylvania Avenue, the site of the Brotherhood's outpost, and former home of the President of the United States.

"So, this is all that remains of the White House?" Fawkes placed a hand on the fence, looking at the giant crater with a melancholic air. "I read that it was beautiful, once, but it was thanks to the pride and greed of those within that the world is in the parlous state that we must now endure." He sighed heavily. "We must never allow such evil to rise again."

"We won't," Fluttershy said firmly. "That's what this battle is about, stopping that kind of evil before it can grow beyond control."

Fawkes just sighed again. Fluttershy knew that he thought she was being naïve, but at this point, a few lingering scraps of naiveté were all that she had left to cling to.

"Alright, we're good to go," Adam said as he stepped over to join the two, small chunks of debris crunching under his armored footsteps. "The Knights here should now have enough supplies to hold this outpost until our main forces return from the Air Base."

Fluttershy nodded, looking around at the outpost curiously. It was little more than a makeshift camp surrounded by sandbag walls. "Why does the Brotherhood even have an outpost here? Is it a strategic location or something?"

"Nah, it's mostly just pride," Adam replied. "This is where the old government used to reside, and, given that the Brotherhood of Steel was founded by members of the old military, keeping control of this area is a symbolic gesture more than it is a tactical consideration."

"Okay." Fluttershy double-checked her nursing kit out of habit, then made sure her sword was secure in its scabbard. "Which way do we go from here?"

Adam pointed to a nearby manhole cover. "Through there. That'll take us down into the old Presidential Metro, and from there we can hopefully find a working train that'll take us directly to the Enclave's base."

"Is it safe?" Fluttershy asked.

"Sadly, no. The Knights say that there's a bunch of hostile robots down there. They would have destroyed them, but they decided there was no point since the robots do just as good a job of protecting the place as the Brotherhood would. Luckily, they've given us plenty of these." Adam held a handful of pulse grenades out to Fawkes and Fluttershy. "These will help us deal with most of the robots down there."

Fluttershy took hers and tucked them into her pockets, silently glad that she had actually paid attention when the Brotherhood instructors had taught the Rainbooms how to use them.

"Are there any threats other than the robots?" Fawkes asked.

"I don't know," Adam replied. "The Brotherhood doesn't think so, but they haven't explored very far into the tunnels, so we'd best keep our eyes open."

"That's what I'm here for," Fluttershy put in.

Adam nodded and strode over to the manhole cover. "Fair enough, but I'm going first just in case. I've got armor, we may as well make use of it." He quickly wrenched the cover off and dropped into the darkness below.

A wary expression flashed across Fawkes' face. "Are we sure that this is the correct path to our destination?"

"It is," Fluttershy confirmed with a giggle. "I made sure to note down the exact directions we need to take before we left."

Fawkes visibly relaxed. "I am glad. Very well, ladies first."

Fluttershy smiled and followed after Adam. When she reached the bottom of the ladder, she was surprised to find herself in what looked like an ordinary maintenance corridor. Fluttershy supposed that she was being foolish; of course it would only be a regular maintenance corridor, but, for some reason, she had expected to find something a little grander.

As Fawkes stomped loudly down the ladder, Fluttershy gasped and clasped Adam's arm. "We need to be quiet, there's people down here with us!"

"People?!" Adam whipped up his plasma rifle. "Who? Where?"

Fluttershy held a hand up to her lips, and gestured for the two to follow. She was wary at first, worried that they were about to run into raiders, or worse, but as she listened to the faint sounds of conversation, understanding blossomed. 

The three crept stealthily through the corridor until they found a small open door on the right. Peeking in, Fluttershy spotted five men sitting around a table in what appeared to be a makeshift camp. Five empty sets of power armor stood along one wall, while their occupants sat around drinking clean water and playing poker.

"And that's a straight flush, read it and weep!" One of the Enclave soldiers grinned as he dropped his hand on the table, prompting the others to curse and throw their own cards down carelessly.

"Um, hello?" Fluttershy ventured quietly.

The soldiers practically leapt out of their own skins. They scrambled to their feet, reaching for their sidearms, then let out annoyed sighs when they saw who it was.

"Holy shit, you scared the bejeezus out of me!" One of the soldiers huffed.

Another soldier, apparently the squad leader. Straightened up and tucked his chair under the table neatly. "It's about time you got here. I assume you're the Brotherhood's infiltration squad?"

"That's us," Fluttershy replied. "Um, sorry."

The soldiers stiffened as Adam and Fawkes stepped into the light, but made no other comment on the presence of a Super Mutant. "Who are you? And what the heck are you doing here?" Adam asked.

"Lieutenant Colonel Strong sent us, we're with the Exodus team," the squad leader replied. "We've been waiting here for almost seven hours now."

"We would've been here sooner if we hadn't had to deal with a damned feral ghoul infestation," one of the soldiers grumbled.

The squad leader shot him a glare. "Quit grousing about the ghouls and get your armor on." He cleared his throat as his men started getting ready. "Anyway, the ghoul problem has been dealt with, the Presidential robots have been reconfigured to treat us as friendlies, and the metro is fully operational. Now that you're here, our orders are to escort you directly to the Adams Air Force Base."





The tension in the conference room was so thick it could be cut with a knife. The leaders of the Exodus team had all gathered in the residential sector of the air base to discuss last-minute preparations. It was almost time for all subtlety to be cast aside, and everything had to be perfectly timed. To this end, every scrap of intelligence and planning that the Exodus team had collected was spread out on a table between them.

Lieutenant Colonel Strong looked around at each of his fellow conspirators in turn. Becky and Tara were poring over the latest reports, Agent Drops standing guard two paces behind them, while Senator Devall was reading through an attaché delivered by one of his contacts in the maintenance crews. Senator Lily was standing aside, eyeing the proceedings carefully as she idly fiddled with an odd necklace.

"Something on your mind, Lieutenant Colonel?" Lily asked with a slight smirk.

Andrew grunted and looked back down at his reports. "I'm just concerned about our deployment, especially given Major Owens' sudden shift in tactics."

"I'm sorry?" Devall looked over in alarm. "I wasn't aware of any changes, has something happened?"

"Owens had an idea that's actually tactically sound," Andrew replied. "Instead of bringing all of his and Acheson's supporters into the Base Crawler, he has redeployed a handful of his troops directly into the path of the Brotherhood of Steel's forces. He'll be leading them personally."

Devall frowned curiously. "Is that a… good plan?"

Andrew shrugged. "Under ordinary circumstances it would be. Owens has also moved all of the Deathclaw units into warehouses on either side of the route that the Brotherhood will most likely take. He's intending to draw the Brotherhood troops in, ambush them with Deathclaws, then have our own Exodus soldiers flank them while they're distracted. If we were all actually working together for the Enclave as a whole, it would be a slaughter."

"But we aren't, so our troops can be the hammer that squashes Owens against the anvil of the Brotherhood," Lily put in, rolling her eyes. "Even were that not the case, apparently, both you and Acheson have forgotten the devastatingly powerful robot the Brotherhood are undoubtedly bringing to this fight." She arched an eyebrow. "Unless, you think that Acheson has come up with a way of defeating it?"

That was an excellent question. Unfortunately, it was one that Andrew didn't have an answer for. "I don't know. Owens isn't one to admit when he's outmatched, but he still sounded a little too confident about his ability to withstand the Brotherhood's assault." Andrew shook his head slowly. "I don't like it. Acheson has something up his sleeve, and I'm willing to bet that old tank has something to do with it."

"The heavy tank they've been retrofitting?" Becky asked in surprise. "That thing is a pre-war relic, it didn't even have a functioning engine at first. Do you really think it's going to be a problem?"

"Liberty Prime was a pre-war relic, too, as is most of the Brotherhood of Steel's power armor," Tara countered. "Don't forget, Acheson has been pumping it full of magic as well, we don't know what it's capable of anymore." She grimaced as she looked over the reports scattered on the table. "And I've got a horrible feeling that Acheson has something else cooked up for us to deal with. I doubt this is going to be as easy as we hope."

Lily scoffed. "Oh, please. How many troops does Acheson even have on his side?"

"Altogether? A single platoon," Andrew replied. 

Lily burst into laughter. "A single platoon? Compared to the four we have on hand? What's that, two or three hundred men?"

"Three hundred?!" Andrew gave her an incredulous look. "Try eighty!"

"Eighty?" Lily cocked her head to the side curiously. "I thought a platoon consisted of fifty or more troops?"

"A century ago, certainly, but we haven't had enough troops to fill full-sized platoons in decades!" Andrew spat. "Why do you think I was pushing so hard for this peace treaty? The Enclave is hanging by a thread, Senator. If we suffer substantial losses in this battle, it won't matter which side wins, the Enclave will be crippled either way."

The blood drained from Lily's face, leaving her looking even more pale than usual. "I stand corrected. We can't afford to leave anything to chance."

Andrew nodded. "On that, we agree. We'd better warn the Brotherhood that Acheson and Owens might have something up their sleeves. Has ED-E linked up with their troops yet?"

Tara turned to a terminal in the corner. "Yeah, he's with them now. Their leader is Sentinel Lyons."

"The same woman that led the assault on Project Purity," Andrew noted. "Open an audio channel, I'll speak with her directly."

Tara typed a command into the terminal. "I've told ED-E to ask her about a dialogue. As soon as she responds, I'll open a channel. In the meantime, our squads have returned from the Presidential Metro line. They've brought the Brotherhood's infiltration squad with them."

"Good. As soon as the rest of the Brotherhood forces are in position, we'll begin the operation." Andrew glanced at Becky. "Can you rendezvous with the infiltrators and bring them up to speed? I'll coordinate the battle from the command post upstairs."

Becky nodded. "On it. I'll try and make sure that Horrigan behaves himself with them, too." She grabbed a satchel from under the table and hurried out of the room, Agent Drops following silently in her wake.

As soon as the two women were out of the room, Andrew turned his attention back to the Senators. "Have the preparations been made for the treaty?"

"They certainly have," Devall replied. "Senator Prince is on board, and I have it on good authority that our selected representative will be accepted by the majority of the Enclave's civilian population." He gave Andrew a calculating look. "Of course, for this plan to work, we need Acheson to die today."

"It'll happen," Andrew promised. "That scumbag dies today, even if I have to throttle the fucker myself."





Living in the Capital Wasteland had given Sunset a new appreciation for all sorts of things that she had once taken for granted. This long march, however, had hammered home a message that she had thought she already understood: The value of a well-made pair of boots. 

The march had been long and arduous, and Sunset was certain that she wouldn't have managed it if the Brotherhood hadn't provided her with a pair of military-grade boots. Her own pair, as good as they were, had been thoroughly wrecked by her journeys around the wastes.

"Hey, you doin' okay?" Someone asked.

Sunset blinked in surprise and looked around to see Applejack watching her. "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks. Just distracting myself with stupid stuff. You?"

"Yeah, Ah'm good," Applejack replied. "The Knights are sayin' that we're almost there, so you might wanna get your head on straight."

"Right, thanks." Sunset shook herself and clapped her hands on her cheeks to try and wake herself up. She stretched, working her shoulders to get the blood flowing, then glanced at the stripped-down minigun strapped to Applejack's back. "How did your training with that thing go?"

Applejack shrugged. "Not too bad. Ah'd hardly call myself an expert, but Ah reckon Ah can at least shoot the darn thing without blowing a hole in someone's back accidentally."

"Good to hear," Sunset said with a smile.

"Hey, Sunset! Sentinel Lyons wants to talk to you and the Rainbooms up front!" A Knight called out. 

Sunset waved to the Knight to let him know she'd got the message, turned to pass the message on to the rest of the girls tagging along behind her, then jogged towards the front of the Brotherhood's forces. The army was marching in a great column, spearheaded by Liberty Prime, the Lyons' Pride, and the Wonderbolts, and the sheer amount of dust the force was kicking up on its march was appalling.

Passing through the ranked up Knights, Sunset found Sentinel Lyons walking with her squad alongside Liberty Prime. Each step the robot took shook the earth, and Sunset couldn't help but feel a little uneasy about walking alongside something so much bigger than her. A single misstep could spell disaster. Pushing the thought to the back of her mind, she pressed on until she was within earshot of the Sentinel, noticing at the last moment a modified Enclave Eyebot hovering along next to her. "Sentinel Lyons? You wanted to speak to me?"

Lyons glanced at her, nodded, and pointed ahead. A series of warehouses and hangars could be seen about half a mile ahead. "We've got word from the Exodus team that Acheson's officer, Major Owens, is planning to draw us in through those buildings ahead and ambush us with Deathclaws on either side. The Exodus team is going to help us deal with the ambush, but I want the Rainbooms right behind the Wonderbolts and the Lyons' Pride as we go in, just in case they've got some magical shenanigans in store for us."

"We'll be ready," Sunset assured her. 

"Good." Sentinel Lyons gestured to one of her Paladins. "Kodak, I want you to go back and select a few squads to spread out on each flank. Have them link up with the Exodus troops, neutralise any Deathclaws they find and secure their handlers. There shouldn't be many, if any, of Acheson's soldiers around, but tell them to keep an eye out anyway. And tell Cross to get up here. Her new magic hammer will be pretty damned useful against any soldiers we do encounter."

"Yes, ma'am!" Kodak nodded and hurried off, forgoing the usual salute since they were in the field. 

Sentinel Lyons rolled her head around, wincing as joints popped. "Man, comas suck." When she was done, she straightened up and squared her shoulders, then raised her voice as she addressed the nearest Knights. "Alright, people, this is it. If we win this battle, we end a war that has been waged on and off for decades. Now let's get in there and show this Acheson asshole what the Brotherhood of Steel is made of!"

"WHAT HAPPENS AFTER?" Everyone looked up in surprise as Liberty Prime suddenly stopped in his tracks. Sunset stared at him in disbelief. His unexpected question had quashed the confident cheer of the Knights before it could even begin, and brought the entirety of the column to an abrupt halt. The fact that Liberty had even asked a question had thrown Sunset for a loop. 

"Is this some new feature you girls have programmed into him?" Lyons asked uneasily, evidently just as confused. 

"If it is, this is the first I've heard of it," Sunset replied. "Applejack?" 

Applejack shook her head rapidly. "Don' look at me."

"You don't think Twilight went crazy and gave Liberty Prime a mind of his own so he could choose whether to help us or slaughter everyone where they stand on a whim, do you?" Pinkie asked.

"Don't be ridiculous, Twilight wouldn't do something like that," Sunset replied, though her certainty dropped even as she said it. "Would she?"

Liberty shifted on his feet, making everyone flinch, and turned to look down at Sentinel Lyons. "WHAT. HAPPENS. AFTER?" He repeated slowly.

"A-after the battle, you mean?" Lyons asked. Liberty nodded once. "Well… we sign a peace treaty with the Exodus team, we hash out some agreements on how to proceed, then we work together to make the Capital Wasteland a better place."

Liberty stared impassively down at Lyons. Sunset tensed, ready to bolt at the first sign of hostility, but, after apparently considering her words, Liberty straightened and turned to face the Air Force Base. "I SEE. THEN IT IS TIME." He took one step forward and pointed at the distant warehouses. "ACHESON'S TIME IS OVER. LIBERTY IS HERE, YOUR DOOM HAS COME."





Acheson smiled as he looked around his workshop. His technicians had all left save for Doctor Holt, taking batches of magical crystals and fluid to different sections of the Base Crawler. They would prove exceedingly useful when the orbital strike was finally ready.

The Brotherhood of Steel was on its way. Unbeknownst to them, they were marching directly towards a humiliating and ignominious death, followed swiftly by the pathetic weaklings who supported Lieutenant Colonel Strong and the Exodus team.

Just as Acheson was mentally congratulating himself on his planning skills, Holt looked around from her terminal, a tense expression on her face. "Doctor? We might have a situation."

"What is it, Doctor Holt?" Acheson asked calmly.

"Horrigan, Doctor," Holt replied. "Our eyebot spotted him outside the command post assigned to Lieutenant Colonel Strong."

Acheson grinned. "So they were holding out on us. No matter. In fact, this could work to our favor, allowing us to test our newest toy and eliminate a threat all in one go. Is FH-2 ready?"

Holt shivered. "Yes, Doctor."

"In that case, let's alter our plans. Send FH-2 out with instructions to eliminate Horrigan, followed by every single member of the Exodus team's leadership." Acheson crossed his arms and glanced at the Daybreaker prototype. "What about the tank? Has the pulse cannon been fitted?"

"Fitted, tested, and operating at full capacity," Holt replied. "The tank is ready to deploy as soon as Liberty Prime gets within range."

"Good." Acheson stepped over to another terminal and typed in a command. The Daybreaker prototype shifted in apparent surprise as its restraints slowly began to unlock. "As for you, it is time to prove your worth. Find the Brotherhood troops, including the Rainbooms, and slaughter every last one of them."
> Chapter 100 - Who Dares Wins
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset scanned her surroundings with nervous intensity as she advanced, ready to whip up her plasma rifle at the first sign of an attack, her fellow Rainbooms right on her heels. They were advancing down a wide road between two rows of huge warehouses, towards what the Exodus team had sworn was Major Owens' barricade.

There was hardly any cover. The Enclave had evidently made sure that anything that could provide even a modicum of protection had been removed. It wasn't much of a problem for the power-armored Knights, but the Rainbooms were left horribly exposed. Thankfully, Rarity made up for the lack of cover by summoning chest-high square gemstones for the girls to briefly lurk behind while they checked for targets. 

Applejack and Pinkie kept their eyes on the alleyways between warehouses, making sure to point their weapons anywhere except towards a friendly soldier. Each of them had practiced religiously with their new guns, the stripped-down minigun and Party Cannon respectively, over the last couple of days.

Liberty Prime was ahead of the Rainbooms, leading the as-of-yet unopposed assault, flanked by the Wonderbolts on one side and the Lyons' Pride on the other. Star Paladin Cross was right behind the girls, clutching the the magical hammer they had taken from the relay station and directing the mass of Brotherhood Knights that made up the bulk of the Brotherhood's attack force. 

Sunset made sure to carefully check the door of every warehouse she passed. Those in front were doing so as well but, given the fact that Enclave-controlled Deathclaws were being kept somewhere in the collection of warehouses, she was more than willing to double-check. As if hearing her thoughts, loud gunfights suddenly broke out in the warehouses on either side of the road; the crackle of laser weaponry mingling with animalistic roars.

"Sounds like the flankin' troops have found the Deathclaws," Applejack said darkly. "Let's hope they don' have too much trouble with them."

"Hopefully," Sunset agreed. She tapped a hand to her Geode and raised her voice as she called out, "Alright, girls, pony up!" Magic rippled through her body as she and the rest of the Rainbooms drew their magic out. "Keep your eyes open, we could run into anything out here!"

"OBSTRUCTION AHEAD," Liberty's voice boomed out suddenly. Looking forward, Sunset spotted a huge energy barrier blocking the road ahead. "PROBABILITY OF MISSION IMPEDIMENT: ZERO PERCENT."

A flicker of relief washed through Sunset as Liberty defaulted to his usual cheesy lines. She was going to have to have some strong words with Twilight about whatever the hell the nerd had done to the robot, but right now she had bigger problems.

Thankfully, the energy barrier wasn't destined to be one of them for long, as Liberty blasted the pylons generating it with his lasers. The pylons were soon reduced to slag by the punishing firepower, and the energy field dissipated soon after, revealing a wide clearing ahead.

"What the hell?" Lyons blurted out.

The soldiers that the Exodus team had sworn were waiting for them were nowhere to be seen. In their place was some sort of battle tank; a squat metal monstrosity with a blocky turret on top, bearing a pair of long-barrelled cannons. Dozens of foot-long Tesla coils decorated the tank's body, each crackling with dark purple energy, and a tall pair of spiky antennae sticking up from its exhaust glowed with a faint white light.

"That don' look good," Applejack muttered anxiously.

The Lyons' Pride and the Wonderbolts halted to let the Liberty pull ahead, drawing a mini-nuke from his back as he strode forward. "MODIFIED M49 PATTON MAIN BATTLE TANK," Liberty noted. "OBSOLETE." He threw the nuke, and a second later there was a colossal flash and a boom that shook the earth. 

To Sunset's horror, when the smoke cleared the tank was entirely unharmed. A sparkling dome of purple magic surrounded it, matching the bright glow now adorning its miniature Tesla coils.

Sarah took a step back, eyeing the tank with concern. "We need to break that thing. Liberty, hit it again! Rainbooms, support h-"

A loud crackling sound drowned out the Sentinel's orders as electricity arced from one of the tank's antennae. The electricity raced from the antenna down to the barrels of its cannons, then, with a deafening hiss and a blinding flash, the cannons fired at Liberty.

Instead of an explosion, there was an awful crackling sound, as if reality itself was being twisted and crumpled. Liberty stumbled, lightning cascading up and down its body. "ERRO-zz-UNKNOWN PULSE-zzzz-THAT'S-zzz-OT ENOUGH TO -zzz-OP ME."

Liberty slowly reached around for another nuke, his arm jerking and twitching uncontrollably, as the tank's second antenna started to glow. Sunset's breath hitched as electricity once again ran down from the antenna to the tank's cannons. She closed her eyes just as the guns fired, but the sound of the shot still almost drove her to her knees.

Half terrified of what she was about to see, Sunset opened her eyes. Liberty Prime was swaying unsteadily on its feet. Lightning coursed violently all over its body, making its limbs twitch and shudder. Liberty straightened up, clenching its hands into fists, then let out a metallic groan and keeled over, slamming face-first into the asphalt.

Shock and horror paralyzed the Rainbooms and the Brotherhood alike. Sunset stared at the fallen robot in stunned disbelief, unable to process what she was seeing. 

"Shit, get in cover!" Sentinel Lyons' shout snapped Sunset back to her senses. She looked ahead in time to see the tank's turret swivelling around, coming to rest aiming directly at the Lyons' Pride. "Look out!" 

The thunderous boom of the cannons' firing was near-instantly drowned out by a colossal blast as an explosion tore through the Lyons' Pride. Hot air and debris from the blast pelted Sunset, who ducked instinctively. Forcing herself to look, Sunset's blood ran cold when she spotted the shattered remains of three Knights sprawled on the ground.

Loud metallic creaking filled the air as the tank's turret started to turn again, prompting everyone to scatter. 

Sunset turned and sprinted towards the nearest warehouse door. Desperate to get out of sight of the tank, she wrenched the door open and dove inside, heedless of any potential ambush. A pair of huge metal shipping containers stood in front of her, and Sunset ducked around them just as another blast rent the air. 

Bracing herself against the side of a container, Sunset noted with some relief that the other Rainbooms had managed to safely follow her, along with several Knights. The tank fired again, but, fortunately, it didn't target the warehouse, seemingly still battering any Brotherhood troops still out in the open. 

Taking a moment to gather her wits, Sunset took several deep breaths, half-expecting the tank to blow a hole in the warehouse at any moment. The unmistakable sounds of combat could be heard from the far end of the warehouse. It took Sunset a second to realize that the containers she was leaning against had probably contained Deathclaws, which were probably engaging the flanking troops at that very moment. 

"Uh, Sunset?" Pinkie ventured quietly. 

Sunset glanced at her, then blinked in surprise as she noticed that several Knights were gathered around her as well. "What the hell was that thing?" One of the Knights asked. "Was that magic?"

"That fucking tank took down Liberty Prime, how the fuck are we supposed to best that thing?" Another spat desperately.

"Have the Exodus team betrayed us?" A third asked.

The Knights' muttering got louder and more desperate by the second. Sunset could hardly blame them. Liberty Prime had stood inviolate against everything that the wasteland had to offer; seeing him defeated so easily had shattered the Brotherhood's morale like glass. They couldn't be allowed to stay like that, though, or they were all going to end up dead. Someone needed to motivate them, and fast.

"Where's Sentinel Lyons and Paladin Cross?" Sunset asked quickly.

"Her and the Wonderbolts took cover in the warehouse on the other side of the street," a Knight replied. "I don't know about Cross. You don't think the tank got her, do you?"

Everyone flinched as the tank fired again outside. Sunset swore under breath, then straightened up and squared her shoulders. "Well we can't just sit here and wait for it to blow our asses off. Rainbow, take a quick flight and scout the area outside. I want to know exactly what we're facing. The rest of you, let's get away from the door in case that tank tries to bring the building down on us."

Rainbow disappeared in a blur as Sunset swallowed her fear and walked further into the warehouse. More shipping containers were scattered around haphazardly, turning the warehouse into a veritable maze, not to mention a potential deathtrap if they ran into any Deathclaws. Sunset led her erstwhile crew away from the door at a snail's pace, keeping her head on a swivel as she moved. A series of walkways criss-crossed the air above their heads, providing a potentially valuable vantage point, but they couldn't find any stairs that would give them access.

It didn't take long for the group to run into a dead Deathclaw and several dead scientists; evidently members of the ambush team. As she stepped past another shipping container, Sunset's heart leapt into her mouth as she almost walked straight into a power-armored soldier. She almost shot the man on reflex, only to stop herself at the last second as she realized that he was one of the Knights from the flanking squads.

"Knight-Sergeant Shimmer? What's going on?" The Knight asked, looking at her followers with confusion.

"The Enclave had some kind of magically enhanced tank waiting for us instead of the troops we were expecting," Sunset replied. "It took down Liberty Prime." The Knight did a double-take, but Sunset cut him off before he could say anything, "We don't have time to panic, what's the situation in here?"

"Uh…" The Knight hesitated, but a sharp glare from Sunset made him straighten up and focus. "The Deathclaws and their handlers have already been dealt with, but a team of Enclave soldiers is trying to counterattack from the direction of the Base Crawler. I was just replacing my armor's fusion core so I could rejoin the fight." 

"They must be the troops that were supposed to be waiting for us," Sunset noted. "Acheson must have changed his tactics when he realized that we were working with the Exodus team. I guess that explains why the tank isn't risking firing at the buildings." A sudden blur and a rush of wind made her flinch, though she hid it well as Rainbow reappeared next to her. "Tell me you have some good news."

Rainbow grinned. "You bet your ass I do. For a start, Liberty isn't dead." The relief that washed through everyone upon hearing that was palpable. "He keeps trying to move, but that lightning that the tank hit him with is keeping him down. Those antennas that the lightning came from are still glowing, so I'm guessing that if we can take them out…"

"Liberty will be able to get back up," Sunset finished. "The only problem there is getting through its shield, even Liberty's nuke didn't crack it."

"I'm not so sure about that, the shield is flickering like crazy," Rainbow countered. "On top of that, there's a lot of steam coming out of the engine, and the tank hasn't budged an inch from where it started."

"Makes sense," Applejack put in. "Holdin' Liberty Prime down while keepin' a shield like that goin' must take a huge amount of power, especially since they're usin' the guns, too. Ah'm guessin' whoever's inside the tank has their hands full just keepin' the darn thing from overheatin' or overloadin'."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "So if we hit it hard enough we might be able to overwhelm it. In that case; Rainbow, I need you to find Lieutenant Colonel Strong and get him to send some Vertibirds our way. They can take it out with an air strike."

Rainbow shook her head. "No can do. The Exodus Vertibirds are already busy dealing with some of those souped-up versions we saw at the relay station."

"Crap." Sunset frowned as she thought. "Okay, new plan. We'll clear out the last of the Enclave soldiers, link up with the Exodus ground troops, then hit that fucking tank with everything we've got. Once we've taken it down, Liberty can help trash the rest of the enemy Vertibirds. Rainbow, find Sentinel Lyons and let her know what we're doing. If she's got a better plan, come back and let us know, if not, help her deal with any enemy soldiers on her end."

"Got it!" Rainbow snapped a salute before disappearing in the blink of an eye.

"Applejack, Pinkie, I need you to find a way up to those walkways and provide fire support. Rarity, go with them and use your magic to give them some cover," Sunset ordered, sounding far more confident than she felt. "Don't use your magic to get up there, you'll be way too exposed and draw too much attention to yourselves. The rest of you, let's find some assholes to shoot."

The Knights shouted their agreement and charged ahead, following the lone member of the flanking team while Applejack, Pinkie and Rarity headed off in search of a way up to the walkways. Sunset kept pace with the Knights, trying to make her way to the edge of the warehouse so she'd at least have a wall protecting one flank, the sounds of battle drawing ever closer.

As she crept around the corner of one shipping container, carefully stepping around the broken corpse of a Deathclaw, Sunset narrowly avoided getting crushed by an Enclave soldier as he fell. He slammed to the floor right next to her, smoke pouring from a charred hole in his helmet. 

Sunset grimaced and stepped back, eyeing the way ahead carefully. She had reached the edge of the warehouse. A row of offices lined the wall, apparently for administrative personnel. Enclave soldiers and Brotherhood Knights were battling furiously in and around them, strobe flashes of crimson and green lighting up the area as energy weapons discharged in close quarters. A dull whine filled the air as Applejack added the power of her minigun to the fight from somewhere above, and loud blasts accompanied by flashes of pink showed that Pinkie had joined in, too.

A bolt of plasma splashed against the container Sunset was lurking against, making her jump. Realizing that she was in a precarious position, she dove into a commando roll and sprinted to the nearest office, hoping to join up with the Knights she could see in there. Vaulting over an armored corpse, Sunset skidded into a crouch behind a desk and risked a quick peek at her surroundings. 

The door leading to the nextdoor office had been smashed off its hinges, and someone had knocked a huge hole through the wall separating them. A pair of Knights flanked each, trading fire with the Enclave soldiers beyond. Staying crouched behind the desk, Sunset rested her plasma rifle on top of it and aimed carefully, trying to target any weak points in the enemy's armor. 

Two of her allied Knights fell; one dropping like a ragdoll as a laser bolt found its way through his armor's neck joint, the second screaming as plasma melted his elbow, but between Sunset and the remaining two they managed to finish off the Enclave soldiers in the room ahead. "Are they done?" Sunset called out.

One of the Knights nodded. "The room is clear." She gestured to her injured companion. "Keep an eye on him. We'll keep pushing ahe-" The Knight was cut off as an orange beam punched a hole clean through her chest. A second beam scythed through the other Knight before she had even hit the floor, tearing through power armor like it was paper. 

Sunset snapped her plasma rifle up, preparing to fire and dodge in an instant. Another orange beam flashed from the far room and put the injured Knight out of their misery. A figure stepped through the doorway, and Sunset had a brief glimpse of a man in an officer's uniform, clutching a plasma pistol that glowed with an infernal orange light, before she sent a storm of plasma fire straight towards his chest. 

The officer dodged aside at the last second, the plasma bolts liquefying the metal doorframe and sending rivulets of molten steel dripping to the floor. Sunset crouched, once again taking advantage of the dubious protection offered by the desk. She spotted movement out of the corner of her eye as the officer squatted next to the hole in the wall. Both fired at the same time, the officer's shot punching through the desk and missing Sunset by inches. She blinked to clear her eyes, but the officer had already ducked back behind cover. She had missed again.

"Miss Shimmer," the officer called out. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

"I wish I could say the same!" Sunset dropped to the floor and crawled on her belly to the edge of the desk, pointing her plasma rifle at the door. As she had expected, the officer whipped around the doorway and snapped off a shot at the desk, missing her by a mile. He realized his mistake just as Sunset pulled the trigger. The officer threw himself back behind the wall just in time for the plasma bolt to miss him by a hair's breadth.

Sunset swore and tried to clamber to her feet. Just as she got her legs beneath her, a series of orange beams tore through the wall and desk alike as the officer fired blindly. Sunset scrambled away from the desk, barely avoiding getting shot, but she dropped her plasma rifle in her haste to get away.

Terror speared through Sunset. She knew she had a split-second to get the rifle back before the officer came back through the door and fired again. Acting on some buried instinct, Sunset snatched up a rock and whirled to face the door. She charged just as the officer stepped into view. 

Time seemed to slow as he brought his weapon up. She flung the rock in desperation, and by some miracle it smacked him in the forehead just as he pulled the trigger, throwing off his aim and sending the beam soaring harmlessly past her. 

Sunset tackled the officer before he could fire again. The two crashed to the ground with Sunset on top. She lashed out with a fist, cracking him in the nose, then slammed his arm to the ground as hard as she could. He dropped the pistol, but before she could capitalize on it he slugged her in the cheek with his other hand, knocking her off him.

The officer reached for his pistol, but Sunset surged to her feet and kicked it away before he could grasp it. She whipped around just in time for him to roll away and rise to his feet in one smooth motion, his hands rising into a fighter's stance. "Not bad, but it's about time someone brought Acheson your head."

Sunset spat on the floor and raised her hands, beckoning for him to come closer. The officer obliged, stepping forward and snapping a fist at her face. Sunset blocked it and countered with a strike of her own.

The two ducked and weaved, trading blows as they each tried to find an opening. Sunset could tell instantly that the officer was a skilled fighter, well-trained in unarmed combat, but he was no Harkness. Deflecting one overly ambitious punch, she stepped in and slammed a fist into his lower ribs. He lashed out with a vicious haymaker in response. Sunset ducked under it and jabbed the officer in the ribs again, then straightened up and drove her knee into the officer's groin with all of her strength. As he doubled over she snapped her hand forward, smashing the heel of her hand into his nose. 

The officer staggered back, face dripping with blood. Sunset stepped forward, intent on finishing the fight, then jerked back as the officer whipped a knife out of his belt and swiped wildly at her face. She backed away as he slashed at her, giving ground step by step. The officer pressed his attack, snarling with rage, until Sunset suddenly made her move. 

As the officer readied another swing, Sunset stopped retreating and skipped forward. Caught off-guard, the officer didn't have time to react as she grabbed his wrist and yanked it, overextending his arm, and swung her other arm up at his elbow. A loud snap echoed through the room as his elbow dislocated. The officer screamed, his knife slipping from his grasp. Viper-swift, Sunset caught the falling blade and, in one sharp movement, buried it up to the hilt in his throat.

Shock and fear flashed across the officer's face. Sunset wrenched the blade out of his neck and kicked him away, a red tide pouring from the mortal wound as he collapsed to the ground. 

Sunset watched as the man clutched at his neck, desperately trying to stem the flow of his own lifeblood. She shivered at the sight and turned away. Realizing dimly that she was gasping for breath herself, Sunset walked back into the other room, picked up her plasma rifle, and strode back to the dying officer. She looked down at the man, writhing in his own blood, and thought back to the Knights that he had killed, and the wounded ally that he had callously slaughtered. As she looked, Sunset noticed a little name tag sewn into his uniform. MAJ Owens.

A green flash lit up the room. The officer's body twitched once, then lay still.

Sunset stared at the lifeless corpse for several seconds, a whirlwind of emotions raging inside her, then turned to walk away. Just as she took her first step, a handheld radio crackled into life on the officer's chest. "Major, this is Acheson. The Daybreaker prototype is on its way to your location. It should be there momentarily."

"What now…?" Sunset huffed. She didn't have the faintest clue what Acheson was talking about, but the name 'Daybreaker' was something she was sure she had heard Princess Twilight or Starlight mention at some point, and not in a positive context. Sunset sighed heavily. She was already exhausted, but the fight was clearly far from over. 

Leaving the office, Sunset was mildly surprised to see the Brotherhood Knights calmly moving around, accompanied by a handful of Enclave soldiers, calling out for medic's and checking that everyone was accounted for. One of them paused as he spotted Sunset. "Knight-Sergeant Shimmer! The Exodus troops are here, and we've finished mopping up the last of Acheson's soldiers. All that's left is to coordinate our assault on the tank."

"Not yet," Sunset replied grimly. She cupped a hand to her mouth and shouted out, "Everyone, stay alert! Acheson has sent some new nightmare our way and it's going to be here any sec-"

The last of her words were drowned out by an immense explosion. The gathered soldiers whipped around in surprise as a ball of fire blossomed behind them. An awful whooshing sound filled the air, followed by agonized screams and terrified yells as more flames billowed over the tops of the nearby shipping containers. 

Sunset flinched as something powerful shoved a container aside. The figure vaguely resembled a suit of power armor, though it was easily eight feet tall, lithe and elegant, with gleaming white armor plates and a rippling flame-like topknot. Its eyes blazed like miniature suns. Lit up from behind by a raging inferno, the Daybreaker looked like an avenging angel rising out of the depths of Tartarus itself.

A storm of lasers and plasma bolts greeted the monstrosity as every available soldier turned their weapons on it. The Daybreaker paid them no mind. It looked around, almost appraisingly, then casually raised its left arm. Sunset shouted a warning as she spotted the flamethrower mounted on its arm, but it was too late.

The source of the whooshing sound was revealed as the flamethrower spewed forth a searing torrent of molten power. It was not mere fire, but a magically enhanced inferno that consumed everything in its path. Daybreaker swept the jet of blazing death in a wide arc, cooking those it touched inside their own armor. 

Sunset scrambled away, watching in horror as swathes of troops were killed in a matter of seconds. The few who survived ran, unable to stand against such horrific power in such a confined space. The Daybreaker looked around impassively, until it locked eyes with Sunset. "Target, locked," the monster hissed in a disturbingly silky voice.

As Daybreaker raised its arm again, a shining pink projectile soared out of nowhere and smashed into its chest. The explosion knocked Daybreaker off balance. Sparks flew as a river of bullets crashed into it, along with razor-edged shards of crystal. Sunset growled and fired her plasma rifle at it as quickly as she could, aiding her fellow Rainbooms' efforts.

It wasn't enough. The Daybreaker hissed and pointed its right arm up at the walkways. Some kind of plasma weapon was mounted on this arm, its barrel glowing white-hot as it charged up. The torrent of shots stopped just as the weapon fired. It discharged with a dull boom that rocked the room, firing a blinding yellow bolt that smashed the walkway above and sent chunks of it raining down on those below. 

"No!" Fear coursed through Sunset at the thought of whether her friends had managed to dodge the shot or not. Reloading her plasma rifle purely from muscle memory, she fired again as she screamed at the monster, "Hey, fuckface! It's me you want!"

Daybreaker snapped its head around to glare at Sunset, who felt her spirit quail beneath its wrathful gaze. Now that she had its attention, Sunset turned and dodged behind a shipping container, yelping as magical flames washed around it. 

Sunset fled, running for dear life as the Daybreaker stalked her through the warehouse. It alternated between weapons, blasting containers aside with its plasma cannon and bathing the paths between in flames, forcing Sunset to dodge like a rat in a maze just to keep herself ahead of it. Scattered gunshots indicated that her allies were trying to take the Daybreaker down, but nothing they had was powerful enough to even make it break stride.

As she swerved around another container and found herself facing the warehouse entrance, something suddenly yanked Sunset aside just as a yellow bolt gouged a trench into the ground where she had been standing. Pinkie pulled her against the side of the container, giving her a quick look over. "Are you okay?"

"So far." Sunset risked a glance back around the corner. The Daybreaker had been locked in place by a thick growth of crystals that had encased its body up to the waist, but from the way the crystals were cracking as the monster struggled, they weren't going to hold it still for long. Sunset ducked back and glanced at Pinkie. "Are you and Applejack okay?" 

"I'm fine, Applejack is trying to find a bigger gun," Pinkie replied. She dug around in her hair, the tips of which were smouldering, and pulled out the faintly glowing bottle of Nuka-Cola Quantum she had picked up in the wastes. She stuffed it into her Party Cannon and smiled grimly. "In the meantime, let's see if this bitch is thirsty."

Raising her Party Cannon, Pinkie strode out from behind the shipping container and pointed it at Daybreaker. "Happy Birthday! Now open up and say AH!"

Daybreaker looked up just the bottle smacked it straight in the face. The explosion that followed made the very earth quake under its power. The world flashed pink for an instant, then, with a deafening roar, a wave of power knocked Sunset down even through the container. Pinkie, standing in the open, was lifted off her feet by the force of the blast and hurled against the warehouse wall.

Sunset felt, rather than heard, the echoes of the explosion fade away. A piercing ringing filled her ears, and her vision swam as she sluggishly tried to get to her feet. She braced herself against the container and tried to keep herself steady. As her vision slowly cleared, she looked over at Pinkie. Her friend was lying in a crumpled heap against the wall, unmoving.

Heavy footsteps echoed through the warehouse. Sunset felt a thrill of fear run through her, and she looked up just as the Daybreaker strode into view, glaring down at her. The monster's armor had been warped and mottled by Pinkie's attack, but its stride was steady and its burning gaze clear.  

Trembling with fear and the aftereffects of the explosion, Sunset could only stare as Daybreaker slowly pointed its plasma cannon at her. Just as she found herself staring down the barrel, she spotted something on the periphery of her vision; an armored figure leaping from the remnants of the upper walkways.

Lightning flashed as Cross slammed her magical hammer into the Daybreaker's head. The Star Paladin landed heavily on her feet as the monster staggered away, the ground cracking beneath her feet. Sunset watched, awestruck, as Cross straightened up and pointed at Daybreaker with her hammer. "Your time is over, fiend."

Daybreaker hissed and raised its flamethrower. Cross dove into a roll, swinging her hammer up as she rolled to her feet and batting the weapon aside. Her backswing sent Daybreaker reeling. 

Bellowing Brotherhood of Steel scripture, Cross unleashed a hail of blows that would have felled a Behemoth, lightning flashing with every strike. Daybreaker fell back before the relentless onslaught. Every time it raised a weapon or tried to retaliate, Cross effortlessly deflected and countered it. 

A thunderous blow crushed Daybreaker's flamethrower. Burning fuel and magical flames spurted out of the wrecked weapon, but Cross ignored them even as they singed her armor and blistered her skin. The Paladin was unstoppable. Finally, she swung her hammer in a low arc into Daybreaker's leg, forcing it to one knee. Whirling like a dervish, Cross struck the monster hard enough to knock it sprawling.

Cross advanced on Daybreaker as it clambered shakily to its knees, raising her hammer above her head. "Now, you die!"

It happened in an instant. 

Cross was about to bring down her hammer, ending the fight in one final strike, when something extended from Daybreaker's arm. With a sudden display of shocking speed the monster lunged, punching Cross viciously in the chest. It took Sunset a second to register the glowing blade sticking out of Cross' back.

Blood dripped from Cross' mouth as Daybreaker stood, lifting the unfortunate Paladin into the air and holding her up like some form of grisly trophy. Daybreaker hissed as its plasma cannon charged, ready to shoot her at point-blank range. 

Cross bared her teeth, her face full of grim determination, and brought her hammer down on Daybreaker's head. 

The impact made Daybreaker stagger. On reflex, it fired the plasma cannon, blasting Cross off the blade and launching her body through the air. The sound of her crashing to the floor, her hammer flying out of her lifeless grasp, rang hollow through Sunset's soul.

Daybreaker shook its head slowly. Its armor was battered and broken, but still it rose to its feet and squared its shoulders, looking around for its next target. Sunset tried to shoot it, only to realize that she had dropped her gun at some point. Thinking quickly, a final, lunatic idea popped into her head just as Daybreaker spotted her.

The tank.

Desperation gave Sunset strength. She waited for Daybreaker to aim its cannon at her, then dove out of the way just before it fired. The bolt singed her back as it sailed past and blew a huge hole through the warehouse's wall. 

Seizing her opportunity, Sunset lunged for the door and wrenched it open, hoping to get outside before the cannon recharged. Just as she darted through the door, something smashed through the doorway and knocked her clean off her feet, debris clattering to the ground around her.

"Going somewhere?" Daybreaker crooned.

An armored foot roughly rolled Sunset over onto her back. Daybreaker stood over her, glaring down at her in obvious anger. "Target, locked." All of the breath was knocked out of Sunset as Daybreaker planted a foot in her chest. "Die, Rainboom."

"Hey! Ah ain't done with you yet!" Sunset managed to turn her head enough to see Applejack standing just inside the warehouse, swinging Cross' hammer in wide circles above her head. Coruscating arcs of lightning followed in the hammer's wake, as if it gained power as it gained momentum. Sunset felt Daybreaker tense as Applejack glared at it. "Eat this!"

Daybreaker raised its arms protectively as Applejack released the hammer. 

It needn't have bothered. The hammer didn't even go anywhere near Daybreaker. Instead, Applejack hurled it out of the hole in the warehouse's wall, and it soared like a meteor until it hit something with a colossal boom.

Daybreaker seemed almost surprised that it was still alive. It looked at Applejack, tilted its head, then pointed its plasma cannon at her. "Fool." Applejack barely got out of the way before the cannon reduced the ground she had been standing on to a crater. "I shall deal with her next, but first…"

Sunset choked as Daybreaker looked down at her again, putting more weight on its foot to slowly, agonizingly, crush the life out of her. Spots appeared in Sunset's vision as she felt bones grind. She even felt the ground rumble beneath her as if something massive was moving. Sunset didn't realize that she wasn't just imagining things until the weight suddenly vanished from on top of her.

"YOU WILL DO NO MORE HARM." Sucking in deep breaths, Sunset almost cried with relief as Liberty Prime straightened up, Daybreaker clasped in one mighty hand. 

Daybreaker tried to aim its cannon at its captor, but Liberty simply fired his lasers at the monster's shoulder, keeping up the barrage until Daybreaker's arm was blown clean off.

Battered, broken, and missing a limb, Daybreaker could do nothing more than hiss defiantly as it dangled in Liberty's grasp.

"I SEE. YOU HAVE MAGIC, TOO." Liberty sighed as it looked at the monster in its hand. "MAGIC IS POWERFUL. IT HAS GIVEN ME THE ABILITY TO FORGIVE. TO LIVE, AND LET LIVE." Daybreaker twitched as Liberty brought it close to his face. "BUT I CAN CHOOSE NOT TO."

Metal screeched and sparks flew as Liberty crushed Daybreaker in his fist. It didn't even have a chance to make a sound in protest as it was crumpled up like a paper ball, then casually tossed aside.

Gathering her breath and whatever remained of her wits, Sunset hauled herself to her feet. Glancing around, she saw that the tank had been reduced to a smouldering wreck. Smoke billowed from every seam, and the front end of it had been thoroughly smashed in. Sunset thought that she could see the handle of Cross' hammer sticking out of it.

"JUSTICE IS COME," Liberty spouted, making Sunset flinch. He stepped between her and the tank, then hurled a nuke at the wreckage. His immense leg protected her from the explosion and the resultant debris. With a satisfied nod, Liberty turned and looked down at Sunset. "AID YOUR FRIENDS. I SHALL ANNIHILATE THE REST OF... ACHESON'S…" He trailed off as he looked up at the sky. "WARNING. SATELLITE UPLINK DETECTED. ORBITAL STRIKE IMMINENT."





The Enclave base was a hive of activity. Most of the soldiers and scientists running around ignored Adam, Fluttershy and Fawkes entirely, though a few understandably did a double-take when they saw a Super Mutant wandering around with a gatling laser. Adam quietly wondered if it was only the fact that an Enclave squad was escorting them that had prevented any violence towards him.

"How far is it to the Base Crawler?" Fawkes asked, unconcerned by the looks he was getting.

"Not far," one of the escorting soldiers replied. "We've just got to find Doctor Shoichet first for your briefing, then you'll be escorted to the Crawler." 

The soldiers led them further through the base, until finally they came to a squat concrete structure. "The Doctor is in here. Go on in."

Adam nodded his thanks and hauled the oversized door open. Inside, several tables had been pushed together and covered haphazardly in terminals and sheets of paper. Two women were standing by the table. Adam recognized one of them as Doctor Shoichet from their brief interaction in Raven Rock, but his eyes were immediately drawn to the massive figure looming over them like a living statue.

Horrigan stiffened and clenched his fists as he saw the trio enter. "Mutie."

"Don't even think about it," Shoichet said quickly. "They're on our side."

Horrigan snarled and whipped around to face her. "You expect me to work with mutants?" 

"He's with the Brotherhood of Steel. We've discussed this, Horrigan, they're our allies," Shoichet replied evenly.

"The Lieutenant Colonel told me about working with the Brotherhood." Horrigan cracked his knuckles and glared at Fawkes. "But no-one said anything about working with mutie scum."

"It's your choice," the other woman cut in. "You can pick mutants, and work with us, or you can pick traitors, and work with Acheson. Pick which one you hate more. If you want me to keep patching your ass up every time you get it kicked, though, I'd suggest working with us."

Horrigan growled and clenched his fists, green mist leaking from his joints as his armor creaked. Adam tensed, preparing himself for a fight, but Horrigan snorted and stomped past them to the door. "I'm waiting outside," he spat.

Doctor Shoichet sighed with relief as Horrigan slammed the door. "Nice work, Sienna. That went a lot better than expected."

"I figured he would back down," Sienna said with a shrug. "I'm just glad he caved that easily. My other option was to remind him that Liberty Prime was here and perfectly willing to kick his ass again."

"He wouldn't have liked that," Shoichet muttered. She shook her head and shifted her attention to Adam and the others. "Sorry about that. Horrigan is fanatically loyal to the Enclave, but he's not the most rational guy. We've had to introduce him to the changes Exodus is making bit by bit. The last thing we want is for him to decide that we're all traitors and go on a rampage."

"Fair enough. We all have to work with assholes at some point," Adam said with a smirk. "So, what's the plan?"

Doctor Shoichet gestured for the three to come over to one of the terminals. "This is a map of the Base Crawler. We can extend the access ramp remotely, so we'll get the three of you in position then, as soon as the Brotherhood of Steel begins their assault, we'll open it up. Horrigan will lead a squad inside to deal with Acheson's soldiers, Deathclaws, and any other bullshit he has come up with. While he's doing that, the three of you will take these maintenance access corridors."

"You'll need this to access them," Sienna cut in, handing Adam a keycard. "Make sure that you don't lose it."

"Once you're inside, follow these corridors up," Shoichet continued, tracing a path on the screen with a finger. "When you reach this floor, you need to take this door. That will put you right outside Acheson's workshop, here." She pointed to a large room on the map. "Unfortunately, the best way to get up to the satellite uplink is through his workshop, and he will almost certainly be lurking in there while the fighting is going on. Teach that shitbag a lesson, then head up through this access stairwell. That'll take you directly up to the uplink control terminal. Have you got all of that?"

Adam nodded. "Ramp, card, corridor, stairs, workshop, shitbag, stairs, satellite. Got it."

"Um, could I download that map to my Pip-Boy, just in case?" Fluttershy asked.

"Sure, come here." Shoichet helped Fluttershy download the map, then pressed a sheet of paper into her hands. "This is a command override code for any terminals connected to the Base Crawler's mainframe. Tara came up with it herself. If Acheson manages to get the uplink working, use that to shut it down."

Fawkes raised an eyebrow. "You seem strangely flustered. Is everything alright?"

Shoichet let out a dry chuckle. "Sorry, the Brotherhood of Steel arrived sooner than expected, so we need to get you guys in position quickly before they begin their assault."

"Speaking of which, you'd better haul ass now if you want to actually do that on time," Sienna deadpanned.

"Right, right." Shoichet rushed over to the door and pulled it open. "Come on."

Adam, Fluttershy and Fawkes glanced at each other, then followed her outside. Horrigan was stomping back and forth in front of the building, grousing under his breath. The nearby soldiers were pointedly ignoring him, though Adam noticed that all of them had shifted to give him plenty of space to pace in.

"Alright, Horrigan, time to get to work," Shoichet called out. He paused and glared at her, but she held up a hand. "I know you don't like it, but if we want the Enclave to survive, then this is what we have to do. We're on the clock, so get your ass over to the Base Crawler as quickly as you can. You can take your anger out on Acheson's cronies."

Still clenching his fists, Horrigan looked from Shoichet, to Fawkes, then back again. Finally, he let out an irritated huff and started stomping away. He called back over his shoulder as he walked, "Fine. Just don't get in my way, mutie."

Adam desperately wanted to hurl some vile insult in defence of his friend, but he bit his tongue. They couldn't afford to fight amongst themselves.

Horrigan stomped along quickly enough that the three Brotherhood members and the squad of Enclave soldiers were forced to jog to keep up. The group attracted far more looks as they moved now, but they made good time as everyone they encountered scrambled to get out of Horrigan's way. 

The group followed Horrigan until they reached a huge concrete building. Rounding a corner at the base of it, Adam stopped and gasped as he got his first glimpse of the Mobile Base Crawler.

The Crawler was vast. It wasn't as big as Rivet City, but it was large enough to at least be comparable. It was shaped like a colossal metal box, dotted with pipes, vats and giant storage tanks. It looked like someone had taken a refinery, or a factory, and propped it up on huge sets of caterpillar tracks. A massive satellite tower sat on top of it, completing the image of a moving research station. Adam could hardly believe that a vehicle could get so big.

"Do you get the feeling that Acheson is compensating for something?" Fluttershy asked quietly.

Adam chuckled, earning a reproachful glare from Horrigan. "Keep up. We need to be ready to move as soon as we get the order."

The two realized with a jolt that they were standing out in the open, in full view of any enemies on board. Luckily, an encampment had been set up just ahead, with prefabricated metal walls ringing it. Horrigan and the others were already heading towards it, so Fluttershy and Adam hurried to catch up.

"What is this camp for?" Fawkes asked, crouching behind one of the walls. The camp contained little more than a portable table, a few supply crates, and a bulky two-way radio. "It feels a little… conspicuous." 

Horrigan snorted as he sat down next to a wall. “Emergency communication center, for directing the civilian residents on the other side of the base to evacuate if the Base Crawler is overrun, or so Acheson thinks. Lieutenant Colonel Strong actually set it up so we could rest and top up our supplies before the assault begins." He gestured to the supply crates. "If you idiot wastelanders need ammo, grab it fast."

"Thanks, but we came prepared," Adam replied. "Maybe if you had been prepared when you came to the Citadel, Liberty Prime wouldn't have slapped you around like a crappy piñata."

One of the soldiers let out an amused snort, but quickly shut up and baulked as Horrigan glared at him. "I don't know who you think you are-"

"Adam, but Galaxy News calls me the Lone Wanderer," Adam replied brightly. "This is my girlfriend, Fluttershy, and my best bud, Fawkes. We're the ones who are going to take down Acheson and bring peace to the Capital Wasteland. You got a problem with that, ass-wipe?"

Fawkes and Fluttershy both tensed, clearly expecting Horrigan to retaliate, and Adam silently cursed his big mouth, but the big soldier just looked at the three of them in turn. He seemed almost confused as he held his hands up and looked at them, then down at his legs. 

"It's the rig all over again," Horrigan said quietly. The others shared confused looks, even the Enclave soldiers, but Horrigan didn't notice. "The rig, the Brotherhood of Steel, even the Chosen One and his little whore, it's all the same… except…" 

Whatever was going through Horrigan's mind, it was interrupted as a voice crackled out from the radio, "The Brotherhood of Steel has engaged Acheson's ambush parties. We are opening the ramp now: Begin your infiltration."

Horrigan clapped and got to his feet with surprising agility. "You heard the boss. Let's move!" Without a backward glance he turned and shoved the metal wall out of his way, stomping towards the Crawler. Green mist poured from his armor's joints as he unshackled the power he kept hidden.

Adam checked his plasma rifle and started after him, pausing just long enough to make sure that Fawkes and Fluttershy were following. The soldiers brought up the rear. 

Hurrying across the ground, the group passed by several sandbag emplacements and makeshift barricades, all manned by Enclave soldiers who made no attempt to stop them. Adam felt a certain amount of relief that the Exodus team's influence was holding up, though that feeling wilted as Horrigan led them past a set of colossal treads and under the Base Crawler.

It was odd. Adam had spent almost his entire life underground, living in a cramped and confined environment, but here, beneath the oppressive bulk of the Crawler, he began to feel claustrophobic. Something about the sheer size of it, not to mention the fact that it could move, made him feel like a bug beneath the foot of a giant.

Fortunately, the group didn't have far to go. A narrow ramp had descended from the bottom of the Crawler, leading up to a heavy metal door on the underside. Horrigan stepped onto it without concern, but just as Adam made to follow the door at the top slammed open.

The creature that stepped out was the stuff of nightmares. In shape, it looked like a Deathclaw, but its whole body was encased in bulky power armor. Scarlet light blazed between its joints, giving it the aspect of a demon come to claim the souls of the damned. White letters stenciled onto its chest spelled out 'FH-2'.

"What the hell is that?" Adam muttered.

"ONE OF ACHESON'S TOYS," Horrigan thundered, flexing his arms and striding to meet it.

The FH-2 roared and charged down the ramp with terrifying speed, closing the distance in the blink of an eye. It collided with Horrigan with incredible force, actually driving him back a few paces. The two wrestled in place, each trying to force the other back, when Horrigan finally managed to get an arm free. He jabbed the creature in the jaw, shoved it back, then threw a mighty punch that knocked it off its feet.

Screeching in pain and fury, the FH-2 surged back to its feet, only for Horrigan to grab it by the neck. He grabbed its shoulder with his other hand and, in a shocking display of strength and brutality, tore the creature's head off in a welter of blood and sparks.

"PATHETIC." Horrigan tossed the head aside, then shunted the rest of the corpse off the ramp. "IF THAT'S THE BEST ACHESON HAS, HE'D BETTER RUN."

Adam stood and stared in slack-jawed silence. The hell-beast had been little more than a minor inconvenience to the walking catastrophe that Horrigan had become. Adam's respect for Applejack rose sharply, knowing that she had actually gone toe-to-toe with that freak.

"A truly terrifying entity," Fawkes noted quietly. 

"Yeah," Adam agreed. "Uh, come on. We'd better get in there."

Staring uneasily at the blood dripping from the ramp, the rest of the group followed as Horrigan lumbered up and into the Crawler. 

The inside of the Base Crawler was dark. Small lights in the ceiling provided wan illumination, but it still took Adam a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. When he could see properly again, he saw that they were in a small antechamber, with a crackling energy field blocking the way ahead.

Horrigan stepped through the field with an amused chuckle, slapping the generator as he passed to shut it down. Passing through, the group found themselves in a wide room, packed with all sorts of equipment and crates. Horrigan stalked between it all, laser fire pattering off his armor as he hunted down and squashed the defenders, a mix of combat robots and terrified scientists.

Adam was about to follow after Horrigan when he felt someone tug on his armor.

"The maintenance corridor is this way," Fawkes said, pointing to a door off to the side.

"Oh, right." Coughing to cover his embarrassment, Adam hurried over to the door and pulled out the keycard, holding it over a little scanner next to the door. A soft chime sounded, and the door opened automatically. Inside was a narrow corridor, barely wide enough for Fawkes or Adam in his power armor.

"This is not going to be pleasant," Fawkes grumbled. "Still, I suppose it will be better than following that monster around, and getting shot at by robots."

Fluttershy gulped as she headed inside first. "Come on, the faster we move, the more people we might be able to save."

Silence fell as the door slid shut behind the trio. The corridor was long and winding, and the three passed several doors as they walked, but Fluttershy kept them on the right course, checking the map periodically. 

To Adam's great surprise, they actually ran into several maintenance staff on their route, but none of them seemed particularly bothered to see the intruders. Some of them gave resigned sighs and just stood aside to let them pass, others disappeared through the nearest door while muttering about 'not being stupid enough to get involved', and a few even wished the three luck in dealing with Acheson.

Eventually, the three came to a staircase that climbed up a tall, narrow shaft. "Man, I hate stairs," Adam grumbled. 

"At least there's no one else on them," Fluttershy offered.

"After so long trapped in a cell, I actually quite like stairs," Fawkes put in. "They give me a chance to work my legs properly."

Adam sighed heavily. "Whatever. Let's just get this over with."

The stairs seemed to go on endlessly. Rivet City's stairwells were almost certainly longer, but every floor was decorated with signposts, furniture, and all sorts of odds and ends, not to mention often full of people. Here in the Crawler, there was nothing but floor numbers and the occasional toolbox.

Eventually, Fluttershy stopped at a particular landing and pointed to a door. "That's where we need to go. Acheson's workshop is just through here."

Adam nodded. "Okay. I'm going first this time." He stepped up to the door and glanced back at Fluttershy. "Is anyone on the other side?"

Fluttershy shook her head, so Adam pushed the door open.

The corridor on the other side was wider and taller than any of the ones downstairs.  Adam crept along the corridor, keeping his plasma rifle up and ready, but Fluttershy had been right. The place was deserted.

Moving down the corridor, Adam halted in front of a large door. He gestured to it curiously and looked at Fluttershy. She checked the map, then nodded and whispered, "That's the workshop."

Adam and Fawkes both checked their weapons, then Adam gently pushed the door open.

The workshop was the definition of organized chaos. Desks and worktables were spaced randomly around the room, each piled high with reports and tools, while armor frames and racks of power tools lined the walls.

A man and a woman were standing at a desk near the back of the room. The woman gasped and ran to a corner when she spotted the trio. Adam felt a flash of anger as he recognized her as Doctor Holt, from his father's science team, but he quickly turned his attention back to the man.

Acheson was almost seven feet tall. He was wearing a heavily patched pair of shorts, and a bizarre network of wires and cables that connected his thick gloves to a bunch of interlinked circuit boards on his torso. Acheson's body was almost as muscular as Fawkes', an oily magical sheen rippling over his skin with every movement he made. Empty vials littered the desk in front of him. "How curious, I was expecting Horrigan," he said in a deep, powerful voice. 

Adam and Fawkes both opened fire at the same time. Acheson flicked his wrist and the desk was lifted in an orange glow, floating in front of him like a shield. The barrage of laser and plasma fire shredded it in seconds, but by the time the dust cleared, Acheson was out of sight. 

"He's over there!" Fluttershy shouted and pointed. Adam raised his gun, only to be knocked off his feet by an orange beam that dented his breastplate.

Fawkes bellowed with rage and fired his gatling laser, obliterating everything between himself and Acheson, but the doctor crossed his arms and summoned a gleaming orange orb around himself.

Clambering to his feet, Adam noted with satisfaction that Fluttershy had disappeared before joining Fawkes in blasting Acheson. The doctor's protective shield shuddered under the combined barrage. Acheson grimaced as the two poured on the firepower, sweat beading on his forehead as he strained to keep up the shield, until both weapons suddenly ran dry.

Determined not to give him a chance to recover, Adam and Fawkes swiftly reloaded. It wasn't fast enough.

"My turn." With a grin, Acheson dismissed the shield and thrust out his hands. Adam and Fawkes tried to dodge the incoming magical beams, but their reflexes weren't fast enough and both were knocked to the floor. With a flick of his wrists, Acheson snatched their weapons in his magic and tossed them away, easily disarming the pair. "There. That makes things easier."

Adam rolled to his feet, only for another beam to sweep his legs out from under him. He growled and looked up, only to freeze as he spotted Fluttershy sneaking up behind Acheson, a needle clamped in her hand. She was almost within striking distance.

"Behind you!" Holt screamed.

Terror seized Adam as Acheson whipped around. Fluttershy jabbed at his chest with the needle, but he managed to catch her wrist just before it pierced the skin. "Nice try." 

Acheson made a clasping hand with his free hand and his magic seized Fluttershy. He casually flicked his wrist, throwing her bodily against the wall.

Adam roared and surged to his feet, charging at the doctor, but Acheson used his magic to grasp his legs, tripping him. 

"You shall die for that!" Fawkes leaped at Acheson, throwing a mighty right hook.

Acheson caught it in one meaty fist. Magic flickered around his arms as he punched Fawkes in the chest, launching him across the room. The hapless companion had barely come to a halt before Acheson struck again, thrusting his arms out and launching a coruscating blast of magic that smashed Fawkes against the far wall.

"No!" Adam made to rise again, ready to pull Acheson apart with tooth and nail if he had to, but it was futile. He had barely taken a single step before orange magic wreathed his armor's joints. With a violent wrenching motion, Acheson crushed the joints of Adam's armor, sending him crashing to the floor one last time

"You truly are foolish," Acheson huffed. "Perhaps you did not hear me when I said that I was expecting to deal with Horrigan. One Vault brat, a twisted Super Mutant and the weakest of the Rainbooms aren't going to be enough to stop me."

Adam swore and glared up at him, his mind whirring as he desperately tried to think of a way out of their predicament. He just needed time. "If you think you can beat Horrigan, you've got another thing coming."

Acheson chuckled as he sauntered towards Adam. "My boy, Horrigan will be easy." He pointed back to where he had thrown Fluttershy. "First, I'm going to kill you, then I'm going to drain your little skank's magic. When Horrigan gets here, I'll rip every last drop of magic out of him, then I'll laugh as I tear him limb. From. Limb."

"You'll still have Liberty Prime to deal with, or have you forgotten about that?" Adam spat.

"True," Acheson mused, stroking his beard. "Then again, the satellite uplink is ready, and the missile platform is loading its entire payload as we speak. I think a comprehensive orbital barrage should be enough to level your pathetic Brotherhood of Steel. Then the Enclave shall be free to take its rightful place as the rulers of this misbegotten world." He stopped in front of Adam and held his hands up, as if gesturing towards himself. "With God at its head."

Adam started to panic. He tried to move his arms in a desperate attempt to at least put up a fight, but stopped when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. The fate of the wastes would be decided in the next few seconds. All Adam had to do was keep Acheson's attention on him. "You call yourself a god, but when the nicest person in the world decides that the world is better off without you, then the only place you belong is in Hell."

Acheson threw his head back and laughed. "Jesus, you think highly of yourself, don't you?"

Adam smiled grimly as he muttered, "I wasn't talking about me."

Acheson was still laughing when Vampire's Edge erupted from his chest. 

"You're no god." Acheson twitched as the blade was ripped out of his body, then dropped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. Fluttershy stood over his body, bat-wings flared as she flicked blood from her sword. "You're nothing but scum."

Adam's mind stalled at the sight. He looked from his vampire girlfriend to Acheson and back again in mute shock. When he finally found his voice, he croaked out, "Are… are you okay?"

Fluttershy breathed in deeply, then let it out slowly. "I'm fine." She seemed to come to her senses after that, shaking her head and dropping down next to Adam. "What about you, are you injured? Where does it hurt?"

"I'm not hurt, don't worry." Adam shook his head, urgency blooming in his chest as he remembered some of Acheson's last words. "You have to find the uplink terminal before they can fire the satellite. You have to stop it!" Fluttershy hesitated, trying to stammer about how she had to heal him and Fawkes. "There's no time!" Adam said urgently. "You have to save the Brotherhood! Go!"

Fluttershy blinked twice, then gave a grim nod and darted off, disappearing far faster than Adam would have believed possible. He stared at the door she burst through for several long seconds after she had gone. 

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Adam forced his battered armor to move, dragging himself across the floor towards Fawkes. He couldn't do anything more to help his girlfriend, but he would be damned if he didn't at least try to find out if his friend was still alive. It took what felt like an age. Without the benefit of the strength it provided, his armor was nothing more than dead weight. Worse, one of the impacts had damaged the release mechanism, meaning he couldn't even get out of it.

Inch by inch, Adam dragged himself along, until finally he found Fawkes buried among a pile of mangled metal. "Fawkes? Hey, buddy, if you're alive, say something. If not, say something else."

"Something else." Adam felt a giddy sense of relief as the metal shifted and Fawkes poked his head out. "Fear not, I am in incredible pain, but I am alive. Unlike a certain Enclave bastard."

Adam chuckled and let his head drop to the floor. "Groovy."





The world was a blur as Fluttershy hurtled through corridors. Her blood sang as she pushed her mutated body to the limit. Killing Acheson felt like a stain that she would never be able to wash away, but at the same time it felt strangely freeing, liberating, in a way she had never felt before.

Dashing along, Fluttershy sensed someone ahead long before she saw them. As she sped around the last corner, she spotted a technician standing at the bottom of the stairs. The poor man barely had time to squeal in fright before she had dodged past him and started up the stairs.

Killing Acheson was one thing, but she felt no sudden desire to slaughter someone simply for being in her path.

The stairway was too cramped for Fluttershy to run at full speed. Her blade drew sparks as she accidentally knocked it against the walls in her hurry to reach the top. As she neared her destination, she sensed someone else, a woman, above, typing away on a terminal.

Snarling, Fluttershy burst into the control room and scrambled around to the terminal, intending to lunge at the woman and shove her away from it. She caught a brief glimpse of a woman in an officer's uniform as she rounded the corner, and the scoped revolver clasped in one hand, before a loud bang echoed through the room and agony tore Fluttershy's world apart.

Fluttershy stumbled, the scent of fresh blood filling her nostrils. Her blood. She looked down in surprise to see a red stain spreading across her uniform over her abdomen.

"Holy shit! I thought I heard something, but what the fuck are you?!" Fluttershy looked up to see the officer staring at her as if she was a monster. She snarled, vampiric instincts taking over, but the officer took a step back. "Fuck off, you freak!"

Several more gunshots set Fluttershy's ears ringing even as excruciating pain exploded through her stomach. She dropped to her knees, her hands instinctively flying to her gut. Black and red spots flashed across her vision as she gasped for breath.

"Whatever you are, it's time to go to sleep." The officer pressed the gun against Fluttershy's forehead, and calmly pulled the trigger.

A loud click echoed through the control room.

Fluttershy growled and glared up at the officer, pain and desperation rising up from her core and bringing a red wrath along with them. 

The officer's face went white. "Oh, shi-"

With an animal snarl, Fluttershy snapped her wings and lunged at the officer, tackling her to the ground. The woman desperately tried to fight her off, but she wasn't anywhere near strong enough. Slapping her hands aside, Fluttershy gripped the officer's hair, yanked her head back, and buried her fangs in the woman's throat.

Blood filled Fluttershy's mouth, lighting up every nerve in her body like electricity. It was intoxicating, a wave of ecstasy that crashed through her mind and wiped away all conscious thought, orders of magnitude greater than merely supping from blood packs.

All too soon, the officer's struggles stopped, and her heartbeat faded. Fluttershy sucked deeply, drawing out whatever dregs she could. When she was done, she lay on top of the corpse, gasping for air as the electrifying sensation slowly left her body.

Seconds passed, or maybe it was minutes, Fluttershy couldn't tell. When she finally came to her senses, she gasped and shoved herself away from the dead officer. She expected a wave of horror and shame, the crushing guilt of having lost control of her hunger, but nothing came. 

Shock. Right, you're in shock. After all, you did just get shot and… wait, I got shot! 

Fluttershy pawed anxiously at her stomach, but the pain had gone entirely. Her wounds had healed.

Unable to process what the hell had just happened, Fluttershy shoved everything to the back of her mind and focused on what she had to do. She pulled herself to her feet, kicked the corpse's leg out of her way, and stepped up to the terminal. The screen showed that a full orbital bombardment was prepared, and gave a list of targets. Liberty Prime was right at the top.

Fluttershy closed the program and shut the terminal down. The battle for the Base Crawler had been won. 

The war was over.
> Chapter 101 - From The Ashes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Light drizzle fell over the Adams Air Force Base; a fitting backdrop for the subdued scene on the ground.

Hours had passed since the battle ended. Most of the fires had either burnt themselves out or been extinguished, leaving only a few thin plumes of smoke rising into the air. 

The defeat of Acheson, Daybreaker, and the prevention of the orbital strike had ended most of the hostilities. Most of Acheson's surviving supporters, bereft of leadership and surrounded on all sides, had quickly capitulated. Those few fools who tried to continue the fight were systematically hunted down and destroyed by Liberty Prime, Horrigan, and the Exodus troops. 

With the fighting over, all that remained was to rest, create a tally of the dead, and start picking up the pieces. Under most circumstances, it probably would have been a tense affair, given the violent history between the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel and the tenuous nature of their new alliance, but most of the soldiers were past the point of caring. 

Daybreaker's rampage, though brief, had inflicted terrible losses on both the Brotherhood and the Exodus forces. That, coupled with the knowledge that Acheson had been intending to blow them all away with one final strike, had left most of the fighters simply glad to be alive. The troops generally kept to their own faction. Whenever the two sides did interact, people were more interested in taking care of the wounded and grieving over lost loved ones than dredging up old hatreds.

Sunset wondered how long this fragile calm could last. She, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy were sitting on mismatched chairs in one of the untouched hangars, trying to eat what they could force down while they waited for news on Pinkie. The party addict had been rushed into surgery by Exodus medics as soon as they had heard what had happened, and the girls hadn't heard a word since. 

Rainbow had gone to wait for her with instructions to bring news as soon as she heard anything. 

Fluttershy had turned up an hour or so later. The holes and bloodstains on her uniform around her abdomen and lower back prompted a great deal of concern from the others, but Fluttershy brushed it off, insisting that she was fine and that she didn't want to talk about it. She had simply grabbed some food from the makeshift grills the Brotherhood had set up and sat down in the ring with the other Rainbooms.

"Where are Adam and Fawkes?" Applejack asked.

"Adam is giving a report to Lieutenant Colonel Strong and Sentinel Lyons," Fluttershy replied. "Fawkes is helping to move the bodies of the dead now that the medics have checked him over."

"Medics? Was he hurt?" Rarity asked quickly.

Fluttershy cocked her head noncommittally. "He has a few bruised ribs and a pretty nasty cut across his back, but apart from that he's okay."

As Rarity sighed with relief, Sunset idly wondered if they had glossed over the mention of Fawkes helping to shift corpses because they didn't want to think about it, or if they had just become that jaded. A second later, Sunset realized that she herself was apparently jaded enough that she was more concerned about the others’ lack of reaction than her own. The wasteland had changed her in ways that she wasn't ever going to be proud of.

Fluttershy glanced over at Sunset as a thought occurred to her. "Speaking of reports, have you given yours to Sentinel Lyons?" 

"Yeah, she came and found me earlier," Sunset replied. "I was hoping that one of the Paladins could do it for me, but since I'm the highest ranked member of the Order of the Staff, I had to do it myself."

"If you didn't like that, then you're gonna hate what else Lyons wants you to do." The girls looked around as Rainbow walked in and dropped into a chair next to them. Adam slouched in a second later, wearing his tattered jumpsuit and leather jacket. He kissed Fluttershy's head and sat in the chair next to her.

"Okay, good news first, Pinkie's going to be fine." Rainbow grinned as the others sagged with relief. "She had some internal bleeding, but thankfully it wasn't anywhere near as bad as what happened to this idiot." She ruffled Sunset's hair, earning a scowl. "The docs have fixed her up, and they say she should come around from the anaesthetic in a few hours."

Sunset tried to flatten her hair back down, then grimaced as she saw the ash and muck that came away from it. "That's the good news, so what's the bad news?"

Rainbow smirked. "It's not bad news for us, just you. Elder Lyons is coming here tomorrow to sign the peace treaty with the Enclave, and he wants the heads of each Brotherhood branch there with him to negotiate. You're head of the Order of the Staff, so that means you have to be there, too."

"Awww, nuts," Sunset muttered.

"Yeah, it sucks to be you, and speaking of things that suck…" Rainbow glared at Fluttershy. "What the hell is this I hear about you getting shot?"

The other girls all whipped their heads to her in shock. "You got shot?!" Sunset cried incredulously.

Fluttershy sighed and glared sidelong at Adam. "Why did you tell her?"

"He didn't, Fawkes did," Rainbow countered.

"And don't go blamin' Fawkes for it either, sugarcube,'' Applejack growled. "Why the heck didn't you tell us that you got shot?"

"I'm fine, it isn't a big deal," Fluttershy replied airily.

"Bullsh-, ahem, I mean… pardon me, darling, but having been shot myself, I have to disagree with you there," Rarity retorted.

Fluttershy sighed heavily. "It turns out that I can heal some surprisingly serious injuries as long as I consume enough blood afterwards. I'm just lucky that the bullets didn't hit my spine."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Bullets. As in plural?"

"You do see the holes and bloodstains all over her uniform, don't you?" Applejack said flatly. She frowned as something suddenly percolated through her skull. "Hold on, there's holes and blood on your back, too. Did the bullets go right throu-"

"Enough," Sunset cut in firmly. "Fluttershy, you don't have to talk about it right now, but I expect to hear the full story at some point, okay?" She waited for Flutters to nod before continuing, "Good. Now, can we please swap to a less mind-blowing topic while I'm trying to eat? What's Liberty Prime up to?"

Adam glanced back out of the door, as if he could see him. "Sentinel Lyons has him helping clear away the wreckage from the fight, but I figure she's doing that as much to impress the Exodus team as she is to fix things up."

"Probably," Sunset agreed. 

"Oh, while I remember, the Lieutenant Colonel suggested that Elder Lyons should bring Twilight with him tomorrow," Adam added. "He's offering to fix her up and get her back on her feet."

The girls all cheered at that. "Alright, we're finally going to have the whole band back together!" Rainbow exclaimed gleefully.

Right in time for me to find out what the hell she did to Liberty Prime, Sunset thought. 

Rarity smiled softly. "It's nice to know that this dreadful war will finally be over and done with for good by the end of tomorrow. I suppose that just leaves us with the question of what to do next?"

"What do you mean?" Rainbow asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" Rarity arched an eyebrow. "What are us girls going to do once the treaty has been signed?"

Every eye in the group immediately turned to Sunset. She sighed and put her empty plate down. "First things first, we'll take some time to rest and recuperate. I'm going to give the Exodus team all of our research on magic tomorrow, so they can hopefully get started on building a portal for us. While they're doing that, when we feel up to it, I guess we'll have to start searching the wasteland for anything that might help us find a way home."





"That's right. Yeah. You're sure? Damn it. Okay, make sure the rest of the level is secure, then start taking inventory of everything in the workshop. I don't want any more nasty surprises from whatever else that lunatic was working on." Becky put the phone down and sighed heavily, slumping in her chair.

"I hope you aren't about to tell us that Acheson is actually still alive?" Devall said testily.

"No, that asshole is definitely dead. Stabbed right through the heart," Becky replied. "Unfortunately, the magic rig he was wearing has disappeared, and so has his assistant, Doctor Holt."

Senator Prince arched a perfectly maintained eyebrow. "Weren't the Vault boy and the Super Mutant in the room with them? Surely they should have noticed something?"

"Apparently, they were both stuck in armor and debris respectively, and trying to get themselves loose. They didn't notice Holt until she was gone." Becky sighed again and let her head drop to the table. "The cleanup crew are going to let security know. We'll find her."

"And hopefully put a bullet between her eyes when we do," Senator Lily said flatly. "In the meantime, have the remains of FH-2 been transported to my laboratory yet?"

Devall rolled his eyes. "They're on their way even as we speak. Don't worry, you can pick over its corpse to your heart's content soon enough. Just be sure to pass on everything that you learn to the rest of us," he added sharply.

"But of course. I wouldn't dream of keeping my new allies out of the loop," Lily replied with a disturbingly innocent smile.

Becky scowled at her. The four of them were sitting in one of the Air Force Base's conference rooms, going over reports and deciding how the Enclave should move forward now that the battle was over. Tara was there, too, her nose buried in a binder full of magical research that had been found in the Base Crawler, while Agent Drops was standing behind Becky watching the proceedings like a hawk, as if she expected an attack at any second. Becky wished she would pick someone else's shoulder to lurk over.

Everyone looked over in surprise as Tara sighed and threw the binder on the table with a disgusted huff. "Unbelievable. I knew that Acheson liked to play fast and loose with safety protocols, but from some of the tests he performed here it's a wonder the base is still standing. We should get our tech representatives up here and go through some basic safety procedures immediately."

Lily chuckled softly. "That would be a very good idea, if we actually had any tech representatives left."

Becky perked up at that, staring at the Senator in surprise. "What do you mean? What happened to all of them?"

Devall sighed and started counting them off on his fingers. "Our Vault-Tec representative, Doctor Turner, mutated and is locked up beneath Project Exodus. Our RobCo representative was killed in the destruction of Raven Rock. The Dunwich Corporation rep went loopy and is stuck in the psych unit, and the General Atomics rep…" He cleared his throat. "There's no polite way to say it. She had an accident while engaged in, er, auto-erotic asphyxiation."

"She choked while she stroked," Lily said with a giggle, earning reproachful glares from the others. 

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't her brother a representative as well?" Prince asked.

Devall winced. "He was, but… well, he was the one who found her dead, then maintenance tech found him…" Devall shuddered. "Suffice to say, the brother has been arrested, and the maintenance tech is in the psych unit."

"Talking about Doctor Shult and her brother?" Andrew asked as he walked into the room. He grimaced at the nods from around the table and dropped into the nearest chair. "Man, that was a mess. Speaking of messes, I'm worried about Horrigan."

"What's wrong with Horrigan?" Tara asked anxiously.

"He's been acting weird," Andrew replied. "He hasn't said a word since the battle ended, and he just walks away when anyone tries to speak to him or gives him an order. I've sent Sienna to try and find out what's wrong. She seems to be the only person who can get through to him."

Justifiably concerned about Horrigan's sudden odd behaviour, but eager to put off dealing with it for as long as possible, Becky decided to change the subject. "What about the Brotherhood of Steel? Has everything been arranged for the treaty?" 

Andrew nodded. "Their Elder will be coming here tomorrow to sign the treaty. He's bringing a Squire and the heads of each branch of the Brotherhood with him for the signing, so there'll be five people in total."

"Are we taking the same number?" Becky asked.

"We are indeed," Devall replied. "However, given the current lack of authority figures in the Enclave, the Senate, that is, the three of us and Lieutenant Colonel Strong-" he nodded to Andrew, "-have agreed to some emergency appointments. First, Doctor Strong has joined the Senate in Acheson's place as our science advisor."

Becky grinned at her. "Congratulations!"

"Thanks," Tara replied, though she didn't look particularly enthused. "To be fair, the only reason I accepted is because no-one else is willing to step up at such a critical juncture, especially given that the science advisor is being placed in charge of all magical research for the Enclave."

"I'm sure you'll do fine," Devall said with a small smile. "Doctor Strong shall be joining myself and her brother at the meeting with the Brotherhood's leadership. Also present will be Agent Drops, who will be escorting the Enclave's new President."

"Wait, President?!" Becky exclaimed. "When did that happen?!"

Devall chuckled in a way that wasn't particularly reassuring. "We've been laying the groundwork for some time now. Ever since the fall of Raven Rock, actually. Naturally, the inauguration ceremony is going to have to wait until after the signing of the treaty, but the Senate has voted unanimously to grant our chosen candidate full Presidential authority from, well, this very moment."

"Of course, the candidate will also bear the full responsibility for their actions as President from this moment forth," Prince added. "The Senate realizes that this is an incredibly difficult situation to deal with right off the bat, but we trust that you will find the right way forward."

"Hang on, what do you-" An electric jolt ran down Becky's spine as she realized what they were saying, followed by an awful crushing sensation as she realized the scope of the task ahead of her. The constant presence of Agent Drops at her shoulder recently suddenly made a lot more sense.

Lily grinned evilly, leaning back in her chair and flicking a hair out of her face. "Congratulations, Madame President."
> Chapter 102 - Peace Treaty
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset stood in the dim room with her arms crossed, glaring down at the accused. The rest of the Rainbooms were standing around the edges of the room: A silent jury waiting to give their verdict. 

In the middle of the room, sitting in her wheelchair and looking thoroughly bewildered, was Twilight. "Uh, girls? What exactly is going on here?"

"We want answers, Twilight, and we're going to get them," Sunset said ominously.

Twilight winced. "Um, is this about Liberty Prime?" Sunset just gave her a flat glare. "Right. So… you figured out that it was me?"

"We figured that you had somethin' to do with it," Applejack put in. "You spend more time with that robot than you do with anything else. There's no way in heck you didn't notice him gettin' full of magic."

"The only thing we weren't sure of was whether or not magic got to him and you just didn't tell us, or whether you put it there yourself." Sunset leaned forward slightly as she hissed, "But you just answered that for us."

"Why did you do it, Twi?" Rainbow added. "Don't get me wrong, Liberty Prime with magic is fucking awesome, but that could have really gone tits-up in a hurry."

Twilight squirmed under the combined stares of the others. "True, but it all worked out in the end, didn't it?"

"Only after Liberty put us all on the spot by asking Sentinel Lyons what was going to happen after the treaty was signed," Sunset countered. "I get the feeling that he could have easily turned if he didn't like what he heard."

"I had faith that he wouldn't," Twilight replied. She held a hand up as Sunset tried to argue. "I know, it was risky, but him following the Brotherhood had to be his choice. If I had just programmed him to follow orders blindly, there's every likelihood that magic would have eventually given him a choice anyway. And I don't think he would have been happy about being treated as a slave for so long. I figured letting Liberty choose for himself at such a critical moment was less dangerous than risking him rebelling against his masters at a later date."

Sunset kept up the glare as she mulled over Twilight's words, but finally relented with a sigh. "I see what you're saying, but keeping us in the dark was not cool. Liberty Prime is way too powerful to just spring that kind of shit on us out of nowhere. Hell, you're lucky that Sentinel Lyons isn't looking too deeply into this."

"You're right, I'm sorry." Twilight had the good grace to look remorseful. "I just… you have all been out there risking your lives and I've been stuck at the Citadel unable to help."

"We understand where you're coming from, darling, truly," Rarity insisted. "Just, keep us in the loop next time."

Sunset nodded. "As for the wheelchair; the Enclave is prepping surgery already, so hopefully that's about to get sorted. AJ, can you take her?" Applejack quickly agreed, so Sunset turned to Pinkie, "You should get back to your recovery room, too. I doubt the medics are happy about you being up and about so soon after surgery, no matter how well it went. I'll come and see you all once the treaty has been signed."

The girls all shared good luck wishes and parted ways. Sunset made her way towards the conference room in a nearby building, wishing she felt anywhere near as confident as she had sounded. Both the Brotherhood and the Enclave had been preparing for this treaty for some time, but that didn't mean it was a done deal, especially given the demands that the Brotherhood, and likely the Exodus team, too, had.

A squad each of Enclave soldiers and Brotherhood Paladins stood guard outside the conference building. Technically, the Paladins outranked Sunset, given that she was only a Knight-Sergeant, but they still saluted her as she approached, before one of them offered to show her to the meeting room.

The building was surprisingly well-lit. Ever since the battle had ended and she had gotten a good look at the Air Force Base, Sunset had been impressed by how clean and well-maintained the Enclave facility was. Even the Citadel, as scrupulous as the Brotherhood maintenance teams were, couldn't compare. Sunset supposed that was just how much of a difference greater resources and bleeding-edge technology made.

Finally, the Paladin led Sunset one last corner and into the corridor outside the conference room. Elder Lyons, Sentinel Lyons, Scribe Rothchild and Squire Maxson were already waiting for her.

"It's about time," Sentinel Lyons huffed. "We were wondering whether or not you were going to show up."

"Am I late?" Sunset asked.

"No, you are just barely on time," Elder Lyons replied. He nodded to the conference room door. "Now, let us make history."

The Paladin opened the door and stood aside for them to enter. The group filed in one after the other, Elder Lyons first, and the Paladin closed the door behind them.

Five members of the Exodus team were already inside, sitting at a large circular table. Sunset recognized some of them, but others were new to her. They stood as the Brotherhood entered. 

"Welcome to the Adams Air Force Base, Elder Lyons. It's good to finally meet you." Becky greeted him with a nod. "My name is Rebecca Shoichet, I'm the new President of the Enclave." Sunset's eyes nearly popped out of her head in surprise, and she had to force herself to listen as Becky gestured to her fellows. "These are our head of sciences, Doctor Tara Strong, her brother and our military commander, Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Strong, our civilian representative, Senator Trevor Devall, and my bodyguard, Agent Bonnie Drops."

Elder Lyons nodded back. "It's a pleasure to meet you all. I am Elder Owyn Lyons of the East Coast Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel. This is my daughter, Sentinel Sarah Lyons, my assistant, Squire Arthur Maxson, our lead scientist, Head Scribe Reginald Rothchild, and our head of magical research and defense, Knight-Sergeant Sunset Shimmer."

Becky's eyebrow twitched, but she gestured to the seats around the table. "Please, sit."

The assembled leaders all took their seats. Still reeling from the revelation that her counterpart was the new President of the Enclave, Sunset almost forgot to sit down herself, and quickly dropped into a seat.

"If it's alright with everyone, I'll note down everything we agree on, then write out an official treaty document once everything is done, plus a copy for the Brotherhood to keep," Devall offered, holding up a wad of papers and a pen.

"That is acceptable," Elder Lyons said with a nod.

Becky clasped her hands on top of the table. "Alright, first things first: Both sides agree that we want a permanent end to the fighting between our factions, correct?" Everyone present nodded or voiced their agreement. "Good. To that end, I think the first point should be an agreement that our troops will not raise arms against each other, either in the field or elsewhere. And that we won't interfere with each other's operations in the Capital Wasteland."

"So long as said operations don't threaten the function or safety of either side, or the peace of the Capital Wasteland," Sentinel Lyons added.

Both Becky and Elder Lyons nodded. "I'll add in 'directly or indirectly' to that," Devall noted as he wrote it down.

"I suppose it's too much to hope that that will be the end if it?" Tara asked.

"Regrettably, yes," Elder Lyons replied. "There is also the matter of recompense for the damage caused by the Enclave's unprovoked assault on the Brotherhood of Steel and the assets of its allies."

Lieutenant Colonel Strong frowned at him. "The Brotherhood of Steel had no presence at Project Purity during the first assault. And if we're talking recompense, how abo-" 

"We're not going down this road," Becky cut in quickly. "The Brotherhood and the Enclave have been at each other's throats for decades: Trying to balance the books and rectify every slight is going to be impossible. This treaty isn't about who did what, it's about wiping the slate clean and having a fresh start, together."

Sentinel Lyons snorted, but Elder Lyons held up a hand to quell her. "That's an admirable sentiment, Madame President, but the fact remains that the Brotherhood of Steel provided protection and support for the settlements of the Capital Wasteland for years, both of which were stripped away as a result of Enclave aggression. That problem was then exacerbated to an incalculable degree by the proliferation of Equestrian magic across the wastes, again as a direct result of Enclave interference. Reparations must be made."

The Exodus members didn't look happy about that, but none of them tried to gainsay him. "What did you have in mind?" Becky asked cautiously.

Elder Lyons crossed his arms and straightened up in his chair. "The Brotherhood of Steel wants control of the Mobile Base Crawler and all of the research and resources stored on board."

"Don't be absurd," Devall said flatly.

"You're out of your fucking mind if you think we'd agree to that," Lieutenant Colonel Strong shot.

"Given the amount of damage that rampant magic has caused across the wastes, I hardly think it's much to ask at all," Rothchild countered. "If the Brotherhood is to clean up the Enclave's mess, the least you can do is provide the technology, resources and magical research we need to do that."

Lieutenant Colonel Strong scoffed. "Or we could use said resources to clean up our own mess. We hardly need your help for that."

"And let the Enclave pretend that it's swooping in to save the wastelanders where the Brotherhood can't? Not a chance," Elder Lyons shot.

"There is a third option," Sunset cut in loudly, stalling the argument. She felt a flutter of panic as all eyes turned to her, but she swallowed her nerves and said calmly, "Elder Lyons is right that the Enclave is going to have to make some concessions, but full control of the Base Crawler is a huge ask. Aside from that, dealing with the magic loose in the wastes is way too big for either side to manage alone."

Sunset paused to take a breath before continuing, "So, here's my compromise: Make the Base Crawler a joint operation. Pool your resources, share everything we've all learned about magic, and collaborate on all magical research conducted going forward. It's a win-win situation, especially given that we've recently discovered something about magic that is very pertinent to Project Exodus’ original mission."

Tara and Becky both pricked their ears up at that, but Lieutenant Colonel Strong still looked skeptical. "You seriously expect us to just hand over-"

"You're not handing anything over, you're sharing," Sunset retorted. "And yes, I do expect the Enclave to make some level of compromise here. Spin it however you want, but the biggest problems facing the wastes at the moment can all be traced right back to the Enclave." 

Lieutenant Colonel Strong glared at her. "The Exodus team, my sister, risked their lives to help you escape-"

*Which they wouldn't have had to do if the Enclave hadn't attacked us in the first place," Sunset countered. "The original Exodus team does not make up the entirety of the Enclave, so don't pretend that their actions make up for the misdeeds of the rest of it. You may be in charge now, but the only people here who have proven that they're looking out for humanity's best interests are Doctor Strong and President Shoichet. If you want the wasteland to trust the rest of you, this is how."

Silence fell in the wake of her speech. Sunset thought she caught Agent Drops and Senator Devall eyeing her with respect, but she was distracted as Becky spoke up, "The magical research is one thing, but what about the Bradley-Hercules Missile Platform? The control terminal for it is in the Base Crawler."

"That's easy," Sunset replied. "When Twilight gets out of surgery, I'll have her reprogram the terminal so that it needs two command codes before an orbital strike can be launched. One code will be given to the Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel, the other will be given to the President of the Enclave."

"So the only way to use it will be if we both agree on a target," Elder Lyons concluded. "A wise decision," he murmured appreciatively.

Becky frowned and crossed her arms, tapping a finger on her bicep as she considered. "I'll agree to the compromise on one condition. Give the Enclave an equal stake in Project Purity, and joint responsibility for water distribution."

Sunset could see what she was after. Distributing the clean water across the wastes would go a long way towards repairing the Enclave's reputation among the wastelanders, which in turn would strengthen their position and open up new possibilities for recruitment, among other things.

Half-expecting the Brotherhood leaders to put up some form of argument, Sunset was surprised to see Elder Lyons and Rothchild whispering quietly to each other. After a swift discussion, Elder Lyons turned and nodded to Becky. "That will be acceptable."

Sunset fought the urge to sag with relief. The biggest hurdle was dealt with. At least, she hoped that that had been the biggest one.

"On the subject of magic, we should discuss Raven Rock," Sentinel Lyons said.

"If we're going to be pooling our magical research, we should probably set up a joint operation dedicated to mining the crystals from the mountain," Becky suggested. "However, I'd recommend that we leave that until things have settled a little."

"I couldn't agree more," Rothchild put in.

Sunset allowed herself to relax as the discussions moved on to less tense matters. Most of it revolved around logistical issues and the minutiae of sharing custody of assets, though the Enclave did agree to provide the Brotherhood of Steel with reliable communications technology in exchange for accurate geographical information on the many settlements and danger spots of the Capital Wasteland.

Eventually, when the meeting began to draw to a close, Senator Devall swiftly drew up two copies of the treaty between the Enclave and Brotherhood. Everyone present checked each copy over for good measure, then signed at the bottom. One copy was given to Becky, one to Elder Lyons, and just like that, the meeting was finished. After decades of intermittent warfare, a definite peace had finally been reached between the Enclave, and the Brotherhood of Steel. 

Now, they just had to make it last.

With everything finished, Sunset filed out of the room with the rest of the Brotherhood leaders, then heaved a great sigh once the door had been closed behind them.

"Nice work there, Sunset," Sentinel Lyons said brightly. "I didn't expect that to go anywhere near as smoothly as it did."

"Indeed." Elder Lyons held his arms up and stretched, then let out a contented sigh as he relaxed. "The Brotherhood is going to be very busy from here on out, but we have made a step in the right direction, today. One of the first things we need to do when we get back to the Citadel is arrange rewards for those who have gone above and beyond over the course of this war."

Sentinel Lyons nodded and smiled. "I'll leave that to you. Right now, I'm going to go and see if there's anywhere I can go to have a warm bath. My muscles have been aching ever since I got out of that damned coma."

Elder Lyons chuckled as his daughter left, swiftly followed by Scribe Rothchild, who muttered something about checking on Liberty Prime. Taking a deep breath, Lyons turned to Sunset. "Speaking of rewards, I believe I'll be dishing out some promotions when we get back to the Citadel. Rainbow Dash's recent heroics are more than enough to earn her a promotion to Knight-Sergeant. Please inform her to be ready for the ceremony when we get back."

"Of course, Elder," Sunset replied.

Lyons smiled softly at her. "I've also heard that you did a very good job of directing our troops yourself during yesterday's battle. In light of this, I'd like to give you something." 

Squire Maxson produced a small box from his robes and handed it to the Elder. Lyons opened the box and held it out to Sunset. Inside was a plasma pistol tucked into a simple holster. It was lit from within by a distinctive orange glow. There was no doubt that it was the same devastating weapon that had once belonged to Major Owens.

Sunset hesitated, but Lyons just nudged the box towards her until she reached in and tentatively took the pistol out. Satisfied, Elder Lyons handed the box back to Maxson, then reached out and clasped Sunset's shoulder with a hand. "The Brotherhood rewards those who deserve it, and few have done as much for the Brotherhood in recent years than you. You have earned my respect, and you have more than earned my trust. Excellent work, Knight-Captain."
> Chapter 103 - Elements of Fallout
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sun shone down on the wastes, bathing the Citadel's courtyard in soft sunlight. Sunset stood alone near one wall, looking at a small bronze plaque that glowed in the gentle light. A large magic-infused hammer leaned against the wall beneath it.


STAR PALADIN CROSS


FOUGHT FOR US TO HER LAST BREATH


AND GAVE HER LIFE TWICE


THAT THE BROTHERHOOD MAY LIVE


MAY SHE REST IN PEACE


A month had passed since the battle at the Air Force Base, yet Cross' death still weighed on Sunset's mind. The Star Paladin hadn't given up and, even in the face of certain death, had still struck one last blow in a final act of stubborn defiance. It was both inspiring and humbling.

Cross' sacrifice certainly hadn't been in vain. The Brotherhood and the Enclave were still understandably wary of each other, but their tentative alliance was still holding up, and interactions between the two factions had largely been smooth.

Strangely, despite the tension between their leaders, the Brotherhood personnel had integrated with the Enclave researchers at the Base Crawler with incredible ease. Sunset suspected that it was largely down to sheer curiosity. The Brotherhood Scribes and the Enclave scientists were both bringing different kinds of research to the table, and each were intensely interested in what the other side had to offer.

Project Purity was also running like a well-oiled machine. The two factions had both stationed a significant number of troops there for defensive purposes, and the Enclave was taking pains to ingratiate themselves with the Rivet City security and science teams that helped with organisation. The Brotherhood and Enclave were also splitting duties when it came to water distribution, with the Brotherhood handling local deliveries, occasionally escorted by Liberty Prime to dissuade bandits and raiders, while the Enclave used their Vertibirds to handle deliveries to the more far-flung settlements.

All in all, stability was slowly returning to the wasteland now that the war was over; a fact that was only possible thanks to the sacrifices of soldiers like Cross. Sunset was a little disappointed that Cross' remains weren't buried with the plaque; she had been cremated and her ashes stored within the Citadel, but the fact that the Brotherhood had gone out of their way to create a small memorial for her was touching.

Taking a deep breath, Sunset reached out and touched the handle of the hammer. "You gave your life to save mine. I won't forget that. Me and the girls are going to be focusing on finding a way home, but I swear, we're going to do our damnedest to make sure the wasteland is a better place before we go."

Sunset snapped a crisp salute before turning away. The rest of the Rainbooms were waiting for her near the Citadel's gate. She smiled as she spotted Twilight standing with them, struggling to get her new combat armor settled comfortably.

"Hey, Sunny," Pinkie called. "Ready to go?"

Sunset nodded. "Yeah. Are you all prepared?"

Everyone voiced their assent, though Twilight looked a little confused. "Um, just out of curiosity, where exactly are we going?"

"Project Purity," Sunset replied as she moved to the head of the group. She waved for the gate to be opened before continuing, "Apparently, something went wrong with the last shipment of water to Megaton, so the Enclave is going to drop another batch up via Vertibird, and we're going to hitch a ride up there with it to see if we can find out what went wrong."

"Probably raiders," Applejack said. "We know that there's a raider camp in the nearby ruins."

"Or that awful wretch Moriarty did something to it," Rarity suggested.

Sunset shrugged. "We'll find out soon enough."

"Adam is coming with us, too," Fluttershy put in. "He's going to meet us at Project Purity."

Rarity perked up. "Does that mean that Fawkes will be joining us?"

"Nah, he's helping the mining team up at Raven Rock," Rainbow replied.

"That's a shame." Twilight grimaced and tried to shift her armor around again. "How do you girls manage to use this stuff? It's a lot heavier and more awkward than I expected."

"Just be thankful that the Enclave fixed you up enough to wear it, darling," Rarity told her. "Getting shot at is not a pleasant experience."

Pinkie glanced at her curiously. "How did they fix you? I was still in recovery when you went under the knife."

Twilight rolled her shoulders one last time, then sighed heavily. "They called it a Bio-cell Skeleton Matrix. Essentially it's some sort of organic scaffolding that holds my muscles and ligaments and things together. It takes some of the strain of movement off them, and slowly breaks down as everything heals. It's very advanced, and, according to the Enclave doctors, it's still experimental."

"Um… fun?" Pinkie said uneasily.

"It's better than the wheelchair," Twilight said with a shrug. She looked at the souped-up plasma pistol on Sunset's belt. "What about you? Did you figure out how to work that thing?"

Sunset glanced down and patted the pistol. "More or less. It seems to take specially crafted crystals infused with my magic as ammunition. The only problem is that Major Owens must have been using corrupted crystals, because the ones I have been using run out of ammo way too quickly."

"How bad is it?" Rainbow asked.

"One shot at full power drains a whole crystal cell, meaning I have to reload," Sunset replied. "I can lower the power setting, which gives me more shots, but they're nowhere near as powerful."

"The computer always cheats," Pinkie muttered.

Rainbow gave her a confused look, then shook her head and looked back to Sunset. "Have you figured out what you're going to call it?"

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I've got Flashburn," Rainbow said, patting the sword for emphasis. "Pinkie has the Party Cannon and her Pinkaxe, Fluttershy has Vampire's Edge-"

"Ah'm callin' this Brutal Honesty," Applejack added, holding up her minigun.

"So, what are you calling your guns?" Rainbow asked.

Sunset hummed as she pondered. She had actually put some thought into it before, not that she would ever admit it. "For the pistol, I was thinking Nova."

"Not bad, not bad," Rainbow mused. "And the plasma rifle?"

"That…" Sunset trailed off. She had considered several, but none of them felt right. It almost felt like she didn't have the right to name it. "I'll ask Harkness if he ever gave it a name the next time I see him." She blinked as a random memory flashed through her mind. "I'll ask him what he meant by 'doggystyle', too."

Rarity choked and looked away, blushing furiously. Fluttershy and Twilight both blushed too, while Applejack raised an eyebrow and Pinkie and Rainbow just looked confused.

"I'm almost afraid to ask, but... what context was that word used in?" Rarity asked.

"The kinda context that Fluttershy thinks about whenever she sees a certain armored idiot," Applejack muttered, though she snapped her mouth shut and wilted under the blistering glare Fluttershy gave her.

Twilight adjusted her glasses. "M-maybe you just talk to Harkness about it?"

Rainbow raised an eyebrow, a slow smirk spreading across her face. "It's something to do with fu-" She winced as Applejack slapped a hand across her mouth.

"Not another word," Applejack growled. "Twi's right, Sunset. Speak to Harkness. Either that or use your Geode on him, an' figure out what you're gonna do about it from there."

Sunset frowned curiously, trying to figure out what they knew that she didn't, but she was distracted as Pinkie asked, "Speaking of Geodes, how many more do you think we're going to find around the wasteland?"

Rarity grimaced. "Hopefully? None."





Pia scratched her head as she looked down at her sleeping daughter. Chandra's Geode was safely tucked away in a lockbox under the bed, close enough that it wouldn't randomly start a fire, but far enough out of her grasp that she couldn't accidentally spit out a fireball just because she had a nightmare.

Thankfully, such nightmares were rare. In fact, ever since she had gotten the Geode, Chandra had hardly been afraid of anything at all, not that she had been a particularly nervous child before. Indeed, the little girl had always been adventurous, to the point of recklessness, much to Pia's concern. Adding in a magical necklace that granted wings and the ability to conjure flames out of thin air had only exacerbated Pia's worries.

Sunset had suggested experimenting with the Geode, ensuring that such experiments were conducted as safely as possible. Her rationale had been simple; if they knew what the Geode drew on for power, it would be easier to train, and therefore easier to control.

Unfortunately, Pia couldn't figure out what the Geode was drawing on for the life of her. It certainly wasn't powered by Honesty, or Loyalty, or anything even remotely similar to the Rainbooms' Geodes. Instead, it was almost as if the thing was the physical embodiment of Fire itself.

What that meant for Chandra's future, Pia could hardly even begin to imagine.





Senator Lily swished the wine in her glass, enjoying the way the deep red liquid sloshed around, then took a light sip, savouring the flavour. It was a good vintage. Satisfied, she leaned back in her chair and let out a long, contented sigh. 

Everything was going perfectly.

Closing her eyes, Lily felt the perceptions of dozens of undead creatures filtering through her mind, feeding her information bit by bit. If she concentrated, she could look through the eyes of one of her puppets as if they were her own. 

The most recent of her successful reanimations was currently standing guard over her newly assigned laboratory downstairs. Properly reattaching FH-2's head had been incredibly tricky, but resurrecting the beast as a zombie had been incredibly easy. The magic already inside the creature had meshed nicely with Lily's own.

Of course, keeping the truth of her powers hidden, as well as the fact that she had a Geode, wasn't so easy, but Lily had managed to convince the other scientists that she had simply reattached FH-2's head, and the combination of FEV, robotic enhancements and magic that Acheson had pumped into it had done the rest. She was an excellent liar when she wanted to be.

Lily took another sip of wine and allowed herself to bask in her success. She had the power of Death right at her fingertips. All it would take was a few more steps, and death was something that she would be able to avoid for the rest of eternity.





The man grunted as he landed flat on his back.

"For fuck's sake, I thought you Talon Company assholes were supposed to be tough," Lightning spat. She snorted and turned away, snatching a water bottle from a nearby table and chugging it down. The sound of someone clapping, loudly and slowly, caught her attention.

"Very good, Lightning," Commander Jabsco said gruffly. The leader of Talon Company had greasy black hair, piercing blue eyes, and an apparently powerful build, though it was hard to tell under the moulded metal armor he wore. "I knew I made the right choice fixing you up."

Lightning rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, if you want me to suck your dick, you're going to have to do better than that."

Jabsco chuckled and crossed his arms. "Maybe later. I'm more interested in something else right now."

"Yeah, and what's that?" Lightning asked sourly, half-expecting a comment about other parts of her anatomy.

"When my operatives found you, bleeding to death from a ghoul bite, with a dead glowing one at your feet, they could have killed you," Jabsco said, his tone indicating that he had prepared this little speech beforehand. "At first, when they told me your story, I wondered why they had bothered bringing someone so weak back to our organisation. Then I heard about the magic, the way it had… changed certain creatures, and I realized just how poten-"

"Look, ass-munch, if this is your way of saying you want to fuck me, get your armor off, get your fists up, and fucking earn it," Lightning spat.

The Talon Company guards on either side of Jabsco raised their weapons, but he just waved them off. "Actually, I was hoping that we could recruit you. You could do great things for Talon Company, and we could do great things for you."

Lightning shook her head. "That's a nice offer, but I only go for-"

"The biggest challenges," Jabsco finished. "So I've heard. However, I believe our goals in this regard are aligned. You see, a certain group of young women has been causing some problems for us recently, interfering with business and such."

Lightning instantly realized what he was getting at. "You want the Rainbooms dead."

Jabsco nodded. "And I want you to do it. Of course, you'll need some proper training first." Lightning opened her mouth to tell him where he could shove his training, but she stopped as he held something out to her. "You'll also need some practice with this."

A grayish-blue necklace dangled from Jabsco's outstretched hand. Strangely, Lightning felt like it was somehow calling out to her."

"We found this thing when we found you," Jabsco explained. "Everyone who has tried to use it so far has died. Horribly. I think you might be able to get some real use out of it though."

Lightning stared at the necklace. Excitement rippled through her. Somehow, she knew that this thing would give her strength just like what the Rainbooms were said to possess. With power like that at her disposal, there would be nothing stopping her from becoming the greatest hunter the world had ever seen. The necklace glowed brightly, as if reacting to her Ambition.

Slowly, savouring the anticipation, Lightning reached out for the necklace. The moment her hand closed around it she felt a jolt of electricity crackle through her body. Her hair lengthened until it was almost down to her waist, and a pair of feathery green wings erupted from her back. Lightning grinned and slipped the necklace over her head. "Alright, Commander, you've got yourself a deal."





A cacophony of noise filled the corridors of Vault 87. Shephard ignored all of it, stomping quickly towards what was left of the Vault labs. It was frustrating, being one of the only Super Mutants to retain any real intelligence. 

The vast majority of Super Mutants lost most of their intelligence upon their transformation, as the huge increase in mass and strength came at the cost of their minds. Super Mutants tended to get bigger and tougher as they aged, without any known upper limit on just how big they could get, but this came with a commensurate loss of even more brainpower. 

Thanks to that, the biggest and oldest Super Mutants, the colossal Behemoths, had the mental acuity of an angry badger, and about the same level of linguistic capability. On the other hand, the youngest and smallest Super Mutants were often the brightest, not that that was saying much, but didn't have the might or the experience to lead the warbands and the raiding parties. Therefore, it was those in the middle, the elite Brutes and the experienced Masters, who directed the actions of their lesser brethren.

Then there were the Overlords. Most of them were well on the way to becoming Behemoths, though many of them still had enough of a spark in their minds to be able to lead in a pinch. 

Every single one of them was little more than an idiot toddler before Shephard. It was infuriating. To add insult to injury, the only other Super Mutants to have kept their intelligence, Fawkes and the runt Uncle Leo, had been so bent on spreading peace and tranquility that the others were now suspicious of any Super Mutant with too much intelligence. Thanks to their feeble ideologies, Shephard had been spending just as much time stamping out backstabbers as hunting down fresh humans for making more Super Mutants.

As for Tiberius, the only reason that poor fool was still alive was because Shephard made a point of ripping the arms off of anyone who so much as looked at him wrong. The fact that he was the Vault's best chance at finding a way to get more FEV also helped keep the others off his back.

Thankfully, the new magic had given Shephard something of a reprieve. 

Stomping through another corridor, Shephard finally found the lab they was looking for. A single Super Mutant was sitting in there, tinkering away with something on one of the workbenches. The young Super Mutant had spiky purple hair, and a set of spiny purple wings sticking out of his back. 

"Is it ready yet, Zap?" Shephard grunted without preamble.

Zap looked up, blinking owlishly until he realized who was talking. "Oh, Shephard, yep. Almost, yep, almost. Zap got the magic thingamajig fixed properly, yep, and I've resized the glove bit for you, yep, so now Zap's just putting more crystals in there to see what kinda power they give it, yep."

Shephard nodded and lumbered over to a bench in the corner. Zap was one of the many Super Mutants who had been further mutated by wild magic. Unlike most of their fellows, however, Zap, and the others who had been struck by the same type of magic, had regained something of their former intelligence. Zap in particular had somehow been blessed with a keen mechanical intuition, and a knack for putting together impressive magical equipment.

Admittedly, some of Zap's experiments had gone haywire and sent magically enhanced hell-beasts rampaging through the Vault, but extreme violence and horrific deaths were something that Super Mutants were bred to handle.

Shephard had immediately pilfered Zap for use as a personal weaponsmith. With magical armaments and the power of the Geode, Shephard was intending to become unstoppable. 

First, the Vault 87 Super Mutants would be brought to heel under a single banner, then the Capital Wasteland would be conquered. Breeding camps would be set up so that humans could be farmed, creating a constant supply of new Super Mutants. Then, once the Capital Wasteland had been thoroughly subjugated, Shephard would set sights on the entire North American continent.

The Geode around Shephard's neck glowed, powering up in anticipation of the coming war.

There was just one problem. The Rainbooms.

Shephard had been impervious to all forms of weaponry ever since the Geode had chosen its bearer. Pain itself had almost become a distant memory. 

Then the pink Rainboom had come along. Her magic hadn't been strong enough to even char Shephard's skin, but it had still hurt. That was unacceptable. The Geode needed to be stronger. Shephard needed to be utterly invincible.

There was only one option that Shephard could think of.

Snarling, Shephard ripped the Geode from its neck and slapped it onto a nearby table. Next, the Overlord picked a large knife up from the table, took a deep breath, and plunged the knife into the skin over their breastbone. 

Grimacing through the pain, Shephard sliced open a wide gash above the breastbone, then tossed the knife aside and snatched up the Geode. Thinking hard about the coming war, and imagining the desperate battles that would entail, Shephard forced the glowing Geode into the bloody pouch carved out in its chest.

Power immediately surged through Shephard's body. Dark green magic healed the bloody wound, sealing the Geode in its new home in Shephard's heart. Foul green magic coursed through veins, nerves, and muscles, agonizingly reforging them until they were utterly unbreakable.

Half-blinded by agony, head filled with dreams of conquest, Shephard rose on shaking legs and let loose a roar that shook the very foundations of the earth.





Raven Rock was beautiful. Sunlight sparkled off a whole rainbow of different-colored crystals, creating a radiant skyscraper that could be seen for miles around. But as beautiful as the exterior was, it was as nothing compared to the interior.

Gentle magical light emanated from every surface, refracting infinitely from every surface until each corridor and hall was filled with a kaleidoscope of color. Every time a crystal was touched it let out a soft tone which echoed in the close confines, joining with notes from the other side of the mountain to create a constant orchestra that was as hauntingly beautiful as it was utterly disorienting.

A woman stood in the lowest of the halls. In form, she appeared to be young, barely out of her teens, with flowing black hair that reached down to her waist. The woman was entirely naked, save for her pale blue Geode, though that didn't bother her in the slightest.

Surrounding her were creatures of all shapes and sizes, each formed from the crystallized remains of the former inhabitants of Raven Rock. Foul rotting fiends that had once been corpses stood patiently next to ruby Deathclaws and emerald Super Mutants, while once-human simulacra knelt respectfully. Shades and wisps floated above them all, trailing glittering dust in their wake.

"It is almost time," the woman said quietly.

None of the creatures answered. They would neither move nor speak until their Queen told them to.

The woman smiled, glad to see the order and serenity she had brought to the mountain. Soon, she would spread those gifts to the world.

Closing her eyes, the woman felt for Eden's mind, finding him sitting on a table in the Citadel as the other leaders spoke around him. The former President was entirely unaware of the woman's observation, and he had swallowed the lie about her heritage without any trouble, spreading it to all those who would listen.

These facts pleased the woman. She knew that it was only a matter of time before people came searching for her, especially now that the Brotherhood and the Enclave were no longer at war, but she still had a little breathing space before the problems occured. 

Just as the woman was about to turn to other matters, she caught a name through Eden's ears. Her breath hitched at the sound of it.

A Senator.

Her mother.

The one who abandoned her.

An awful sucking sensation tore at the woman's chest, an emotion so strong and so raw that it was painful in its intensity. The woman hunched over and clutched at her chest. Despair threatened to drive her to her knees, her Geode glowing as it fed on the emotion that birthed it.

"No." The woman forced the pain down and locked it away in the back of her mind. Hopelessness. Despair. These things were rampant all over the world. Even the heroics of the Rainbooms were little more than a bandaid pressed over a gushing wound. Only the woman could end the suffering. Only she could bring peace, and unity, and an end to the pain. "And then they will all love me." The woman straightened up, her breath hissing through her teeth. "I'll never be left alone again. And mother shall pay."





"Life isn't fair. That is one of the very few guarantees that we have in this existence. For us ghouls, this is a truth that is stamped across every inch of our bodies for the whole world to see and smell. We are all painfully aware of this truth."

Several ghouls nodded, though most of the crowd simply watched silently. Caliban didn't mind. His followers were few in number, but they were growing by the day.

"In my case, the reality of this situation may be even more unfortunate than your own. You that some rare few among us possess different physiologies. I have seen myself that some of you are what the smoothskins call Glowing Ones. I… I am something even more unusual." Caliban held his arms up and allowed the baggy sleeves of his patchwork robes to fall back, exposing his arms. Most of the watching ghouls gasped as they saw the flame-like aura wreathing his arms. "The ignorant smoothskins call me a Reaver. They fear me, cast me out, even from places that otherwise tolerate ghoul-kind."

More than a few of the watching ghouls gave him looks of sympathy. Reavers were rare. As far as Caliban knew, he was the only Reaver to have actually retained his own mind, rather than turning fully feral. Unfortunately, Reavers were as dangerous as they were sparse. Even power-armored soldiers weren't safe from their ferocious assaults. 

"You can imagine the fear that the smoothskins feel when they see me," Caliban continued. "However, I do not blame them. They are frail, where I am strong. Their reaction is only natural. It was during my travels that I discovered the truth that is Atom."

At least half of the crowd watching almost immediately lost interest. "I know, I know, you have heard all of this before," Caliban said quickly. "But I have come here, to Underworld, not to peddle the theories of smoothskins, but to show you absolute proof of Atom's blessing."

Caliban lowered his arms. He took a deep breath and reached inwards, secretly drawing power out of the Geode hidden beneath his robes. Radiation immediately poured forth, suffusing his body with energy. Caliban's hood hid his face, but the sudden storm of radiation made his entire body glow with an intense yellow-green light, then flashed out to envelope the entire room as if a dam had burst and released a veritable tide of power. 

The watching ghouls practically jumped out of their skins, many of them crying out in shock. None of them would be negatively affected by radiation, such was one of the few blessings of ghoulification, but Caliban didn't blame them for reacting the way they did.

When the ghouls had finally calmed down, they all looked at him with newfound fear, respect, and awe.

Caliban was glad that the radiation had rendered his skin almost perfectly translucent. It meant that those watching couldn't tell that he was grinning. "With your help, my friends, we can spread the blessings and power of Atom throughout the wastes! No more shall our kind be forced to skulk in the shadows, but we shall walk freely in the loving light of Atom!"





Chains rattled as Blades was dragged through dark corridors. Pain coursed through every part of his body. He had no idea how long it had been since he had been returned to the fortress of the Red Flags. All he knew was that he had been handed to the enforcers, thrown into a cell, and then the interrogation had begun.

Blades hadn't even tried to hide anything from them. He had heard too many stories of the Red Flags' enforcers to even try, so he answered every question they asked, from where he had been, what he had done, and who he had encountered along the way. Sometimes they had believed him, and let him back to his cell unmolested. Sometimes they hadn't.

Finally, out of nowhere, the enforcers had come to the cell and told Blades that one of the bosses wanted to see him.

Blades looked up as the enforcers came to a halt before a set of double doors and knocked politely. As they waited for someone to answer, Blades idly wondered which of the bosses it was. He was probably boned either way, but there was a chance that he would be able to talk his way out of this alive.

The doors opened with a creak a moment later, revealing a large dimly lit room. The floors were covered with fluffy Yao Guai skin rugs and opulent fabric hangings on the walls. A huge roaring fireplace dominated one wall, providing the only illumination.

Terror gripped Blades as he realized that this was Shí Yáng's personal audience chamber. Shadowy figures lined the room, each of them a member of the Red Flags' inner circle. Blades could just make out two silhouettes in front of the fireplace. One of them was almost certainly Shí Yáng herself, while the other was almost certainly a bodyguard of some sort, not that she would need one.

"Ah, Blades. Bring him forward." The enforcers hauled Blades into the middle of the room and forced him to his knees. The two silhouettes stared down at him, sending a shiver down Blades' spine.

"It has been a long time, Blades," Shí Yáng said quietly. It always surprised Blades how such a powerful woman could sound like an innocent, bright-eyed young woman. "You have no idea how much it hurt me when you betrayed my trust the way you did."

"I-I didn't betray you," Blades insisted weakly. "I s-saw and easy mark, and I-"

"You and your gang attacked a Brotherhood of Steel supply run, despite knowing full well that staying out of the Brotherhood's way is the only reason that the Red Flags have managed to grow as much as we have," Shí Yáng interrupted. "And then, when your foolish plan failed, you had the audacity to try and run."

Blades flinched, but he tried to project some confidence into his voice as he said, "I had no other choice. Hell, we'd be having a different conversation if the attack had worked."

"Whether the attack was successful or not is irrelevant," Shí Yáng retorted. "The key point is not getting on the Brotherhood's bad side. All of the Red Flags follow the same laws, Blades. You broke them, and didn't even have the courage to own up to it." There was a snapping sound, as if someone had unfolded a fan. "The laws must be upheld. Those who break the laws must be punished."

An icy weight dropped into Blades' gut. "N-no… please."

"Silence," Shí Yáng hissed. "Our newest member shall handle your punishment. Nirik, you may take him."

One of the silhouettes shifted, and a purple necklace around its throat suddenly blazed with infernal light. Violet flames burst into life around its arms and legs, and wreathed its neck. Even its hair and eyebrows ignited with purple fire while its eyes themselves burned like white suns, yet somehow its skin remained black as pitch.

Wrath and heat seemed to wash off the Nirik in waves. Blades tried to move, to fight or run or away, or something, but terror held him rooted to the spot. All he could do was kneel there and watch as the Nirik advanced on him with a snarl.
> Chapter 104 - Holy Water
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vertibirds were by far the best way to travel across the wastes, Sunset was certain of it. Sure, they were noisy, and pretty cramped, and when they didn't reek of sweat they stank of oil and whatever vile chemical the Enclave used for cleaning, but the speed and safety they provided vastly outweighed any other considerations.

"We're coming up on Megaton now," the pilot called back. "Get ready to land."

"Roger!" Sunset glanced around at the others. The rest of the Rainbooms were crammed into the crew compartment, along with Adam and an Enclave fireteam.. "Alright, girls, you heard him. Check your gear and make sure everything is still secure."

Rarity shot a wary look at the heavy barrels strapped down at the end of the crew compartment. "Who's going to check that those are secure?"

"Don't worry, we checked them before we left," one of the Enclave soldiers assured her. "They're not going anywhere."

"Not unless someone shoots the Vertibird down!" Pinkie said loudly and proudly, earning herself a glare from the others.

Smoothing over the awkward moment, Sunset turned to Adam. "Alright, we've got the gist of what's going on, but do you have any details for us?"

Adam shrugged. "Scribe Bigsley sent a shipment of Aqua Pura to Megaton a couple of days ago, but a letter came through yesterday saying that it hasn't arrived and demanding another one."

"Aqua Pura?" Twilight asked.

"That's the name the Scribes gave it to differentiate it from pure water, which is used for science experiments instead of drinking," Adam replied. "Anyway, the Knights who delivered it are adamant that it was handed over to a group of Megaton citizens waiting outside the gates." He shook his head. "That shipment should have lasted a week. A month, if they rationed, plus whatever they get from their own purifier. Bigsley wants us to figure out where the shipment went while these fellas-" Adam jerked his head at the Enclave troopers, "- deliver this shipment."

Sunset opened her mouth to reply, then shut it and settled for a nod as the Vertibird started to descend. Vertibirds tended to land with a bump, and she had no interest in accidentally biting off her own tongue.

The ramp for the crew compartment opened almost as soon as the Vertibird touched the ground. The Rainbooms were the first ones off, checking around for threats out of habit, then the Enclave soldiers unloaded the water barrels with practiced efficiency.

Hardly anyone was around. The only people in view, other than Stockholm lurking in his usual guard post above the gates, were a handful of people gathered around a battered protectron. Bizarrely, the protectron was wearing a cowboy hat that would impress Applejack, and sported a shiny sheriff's badge on its torso. All of them were staring at the Vertibird with a mix of curiosity and apprehension.

Sunset glanced back at the Enclave troopers. "You guys get that water unloaded and take it into the city. Make sure you give it all directly to the sheriff: Lucas Simms. We'll try and figure out what happened to the last batch."

"Got it," one of the soldiers called back.

Feeling an odd sense of nostalgia, Sunset waved to Stockholm and made her way up towards the group. "Where did the robot come from?" She asked quietly as she walked. 

"It must be Deputy Weld," Applejack replied. "It guards the gates and welcomes visitors. Apparently, it was in for repairs the last time we were here. Ah guess they fixed it."

"Huh." Sunset shoved the odd robot to the back of her mind as she strode up to the group of people. "Hey, guys. Mind if we ask you a few questions?"

"Are you the Rainbooms?" One of the men in the group asked flatly.

Sunset's eyes twitched at the man's ignorance. "Yeah. Anyway, we were hop-" 

"Are you really angels sent by Atom?" The man interrupted.

"Shut up, you dumbass." A woman shoved him aside and stepped forward. "Sorry about him; he hasn't long moved here from Canterbury Commons and he didn't believe that you really existed. What do you want to know?"

Sunset threw an irritated look at Applejack, annoyed that the silly 'angels of Atom' rumors were still flying around, before replying with a sigh, "First of all, we're not angels, and second, we heard that a shipment of water went missing around here a few days ago. We're here to try and find out where it went."

Everyone in the group sagged with audible relief. "So are we," the woman replied. "The Brotherhood and the Rivet City caravans are usually pretty good with deliveries, but for some reason the most recent shipment never turned up."

"The Knights who brought it swear that they handed it over to a group of Megaton citizens outside the gates," Applejack told her. "Do you have any idea what might have happened to it? Could someone have smuggled it in, or hidden it, or somethin'?"

"What about Stockholm, did he see anything?" Sunset asked.

The woman frowned and crossed her arms. "Stockholm was off-duty at the time, but Deputy Weld did report a bunch of former citizens wandering around outside. And then there's this." She pulled a sheet of paper out of her pocket and gave it to Sunset.

"What is it?" Twilight asked.

Sunset raised an eyebrow as she read it through, her temper rising with every word. "It's some kind of pamphlet. 'Good people of Megaton, your salvation is at hand. We are the Apostles of Eternal Light. To heal this wounded city, we are willing to provide any and all supplicants with cleansing holy water. Come to our monastery in Springvale, and Brother Gerard will minister to your every need. We will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the Water of Light.'"

"The Apostles of Eternal Light?" Rainbow muttered. "What is that, some new cult?"

"That almost sounded like something from the Bible. Like the verse that my mother used to love," Adam said in a hollow tone. Fluttershy leaned into him reassuringly.

Sunset scowled and crumpled the pamphlet in her fist. "It sounds to me like some assholes stole the water and are trying to use it as some sort of bargaining chip to gain new followers." She looked up at the woman, who took a fearful step back at the look on her face. "Where did you get this?"

"T-the Apostles have been posting and handing them out all around town," the woman replied. "They've been handing out samples of their so-called holy water from their monastery as well."

"Do you have any?" The group whispered amongst themselves, and someone quickly produced a bottle and passed it to Sunset. She eyed the water suspiciously. It was sparklingly clean and clear, just like the water from Project Purity. 

A label had been wrapped around the bottle, covered in religious scripture written in elegant calligraphy, but another label could just be seen underneath. "Hang on." Carefully peeling off the label, Sunset's scowl deepened as she saw that the label beneath said 'Aqua Pura' in bold letters, with the symbols of the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave stamped on it. "It looks like we found what happened to the last shipment."

"Let me see that." Fluttershy took the bottle and held her Pip-Boy over it.

"What are you…" The words died in Sunset's throat as Fluttershy's Geiger counter started ticking insistently.

"Those rat bastards," Applejack growled. "Are you seriously tellin' me that those cultists are stealing the clean water and replacing it normal radioactive crap?!"

Fluttershy shook her head. "No. This water is much more radioactive than the ordinary water you'll find laying around in the wastes." She poured the water out onto the ground and looked grimly at the others. "They're irradiating the water deliberately."

An appalled silence greeted her proclamation. 

"You've got to be kidding me," Rainbow muttered under her breath.

"What the hell are they trying to pull, doing somethin' like that?!" Applejack snapped.

Rarity bit her lip and looked up at Megaton's gate uneasily. "You don't think they might be part of the Church of Atom, do you?"

"If they are, then Confessor Cromwell is going to get a visit from me that he is not going to like." Sunset looked around at the small group of locals. "The Enclave boys have brought some more water for the town. Can you make sure that Lucas Simms signs for it?"

"O-of course," the woman replied.

Sunset nodded. "Good. We'll be back later to make sure everything's going smoothly, but first we're going to go and have a chat with these Apostles." She turned and gestured for the Rainbooms to follow. "Come on, girls."

The others followed as Sunset strode purposefully away from Megaton. 

"What's the plan?" Applejack asked.

"Go to Springvale, find the monastery, and hope that the Apostles can be convinced to stop whatever the hell they're doing peacefully," Sunset replied.

"And if they can't?" Fluttershy asked tentatively.

Rainbow brandished Flashburn meaningfully. "Then we see how reasonable they are when they're missing a few members."

"As boorish as it sounds, I'm with Rainbow on this," Rarity put in. "We have been through far too much in the name of bringing clean water to the wastes to allow these monsters to continue."

"Let's just hope that they can be convinced," Adam said quietly.

Silence fell as the group made their way over the rocky terrain towards the nearby town ruins. When they came out from amongst the boulders, the first thing everyone spotted was that the nearest skeletal shell of a house was looking far less abandoned than the last time they had passed through. The building itself hadn't been touched, at least as far as Sunset could see, but a crude wooden fence had been erected around it and reinforced with corrugated metal.

Walking around to the front of the building, the group found a man standing guard in the empty gateway. He was wearing the patchwork clothing typical of a wastelander, and was bald save for a small ring of vibrant ginger hair and a matching goatee. His right forearm was covered by a bulky metal contraption that resembled a glove.

"That looks like a power fist," Pinkie said quietly.

"A what?" Applejack asked.

"Doubles the users Strength but reduces their Initiative to 1," Pinkie explained cryptically.

"I don't care what it does, if he uses it on us, he's dead," Rainbow growled.

The man glanced around at the sound of the group approaching, then did a double-take when he saw who was coming. "The Angels of Atom?! You have returned! Oh, what a blessed day thi-"

"We're looking for the Apostles of Eternal Light," Sunset interrupted roughly.

"You have found them," the man said brightly. He swept an arm out to indicate the ruined building behind him. "This is the monastery of our modest order."

Applejack squinted at him. "Ah think Ah remember you. Weren't you one of the Children of Atom?"

The man nodded and grinned, ecstatic at having been recognized. "I was, yes, until our blessed leader, Mother Curie, received a vision from Atom, explaining the truth of how to honour his welcoming Light. Now, I, Brother Gerard, humbly guard the purity of our holy monastery, and provide our holy water to any and all who are athirst. I always hoped that you would return, and bless our order with the grace of your approval."

"Well, you're shit outta luck," Rainbow spat. "What the hell do you think you're doing, stealing water from Megaton and poisoning it?!"

Gerard blinked in surprise. He looked around at each of the others in turn, then turned back to Rainbow, blank confusion in his eyes. "It is not poison, but the blessed light of Atom."

"It's radiation, you fuckwit!" Sunset snapped. "I don't give a shit what you Apostles do to yourselves, but where the hell do you think you get the right to steal clean water from a settlement full of people who don't share your beliefs?!"

"I…" Gerard stepped back, his eyes flicking around as if expecting someone to leap to his defence. Finally, he stepped aside and gestured for the group to pass. "M-maybe you should speak to our leader."

"Oh, we're going to have words with her, alright," Rarity hissed. 

The girls passed through the gate without issue, but Gerard held a hand up as Adam tried to pass. "F-forgive me, but I cannot allow anyone else to pass unless they have proven that they possess the Light of Atom."

Fluttershy glanced back, then scowled at the cultist. "You mean you want him to irradiate himself?" She asked in a dangerous tone.

"I'm sorry, but it is part of our rules," Gerard replied meekly. "We should not allow him to even converse with us unless he has partaken of our holy water first, to cleanse his tongue of unclean speech."

Rainbow smirked. "He's had Fluttershy's tongue in his mouth, if that counts as enough of a blessing for you."

Fluttershy's cheeks burned, but Gerard just looked confused. "He… has? I don't understand, unless…" His expression softened as he came to a sudden conclusion. "I see, you lowered yourself to resuscitate this poor man in a time of need?"

That was enough to make Rainbow snort with amusement, while the others either winced or, in Sunset's case, glared at her impatiently. "More like she likes playing tonsil tennis with him," Rainbow snorted. She glanced at Fluttershy. "Hey, that's a point. You haven't blessed him by sucking his dick yet, hav- ow! Motherfucker!"

Rainbow rubbed her arm where Fluttershy's fist had made a swift and sudden connection.

"You deserved that, you knucklehead," Applejack muttered.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry," Rainbow replied. "Anyway, are you letting Adam in, or not?"

Gerard just stood with his mouth open, apparently utterly thrown off by what he had heard. As if taking pity on him, Adam sighed and shook his head. "It's fine, you girls go on ahead. Honestly, I'd rather not go down there, anyway."

"Are you sure?" Fluttershy asked, her cheeks still tinged with pink. 

Adam nodded. "Yeah, I'll go and check on Silver while you deal with this mess." He said a quick goodbye, then turned on his heel and strode away, heading further into the ruined town.

"Who's Silver?" Pinkie asked.

"Someone he met when he first left the Vault," Fluttershy replied. "How do we get into the monastery?" She asked Gerard.

The man jumped as if startled. "I… uh… just go through the trapdoor to the cellar. Our members gather down there."

Sunset didn't bother replying as she strode into the ruined house. She spotted the trapdoor in a corner, but when she tried to pull it open, she found that it was locked tight.

Gerard gasped and reached into his pocket. "Oh, I have a key. One mo-"

Waiting wasn't something Sunset was prepared to do. She had already wasted enough time getting into the monastery, she sure as hell wasn't going to let a locked door get in her way. Pulling her plasma rifle off her shoulder, Sunset blasted the lock a couple of times to make sure it was broken, then wrenched the trapdoor open.

"Nice," Rainbow murmured appreciatively.

Sunset slipped her plasma rifle back over her shoulder and, ignoring the scandalised look Gerard gave her, descended the ladder beyond. The cellar was brightly lit, with clean wooden walls that were in surprisingly good condition. Several benches had been laid out in rows before a pulpit, like a miniature church. 

A handful of ghouls were sitting in the benches, and an old woman with short white hair stood behind the pulpit. Disturbingly, a pair of feral ghouls, one glowing one, and one with skin that burned with a flame-like aura, stood on either side of the woman like a dark honor guard. All of the assembled cultists looked up in surprise as the girls entered the room.

"Oh, you have come, at last!" The woman placed a hand on her chest and smiled serenely. "I knew this day would come eventually." She looked out at her gathered ghouls and proclaimed loudly, "Look, blessed ones, our Angels have returned to bless-"

"Don't even start," Sunset cut in. "We're not your angels, we're not here to validate your beliefs, and you can be damn sure we're not here to give you our approval. Are you Mother Curie?"

The woman hesitated, taken back by the sudden aggression. "Yes, that's me. Marie Curie the Third. What explanation do you desire, your divi-"

"You can start by telling us why you stole the shipment of water that was meant for Megaton," Sunset interrupted again.

"Stole?" Mother Curie looked utterly bewildered by the accusation. "I swear by my life, I did no such thing."

Applejack raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms, the minigun across her back clanking as she shifted. "That's funny, 'cause we came up here lookin' for stolen water, and we found your so-called holy water in the bottles that it was delivered in. Care to try that again?"

The ghouls muttered and whispered amongst themselves, apparently unaware of this detail, prompting Mother Curie to say quickly, "The water was a gift to our order! I didn't steal it, and I can prove it." She gestured towards the benches. "Please, why not take a seat while you hear my tale."

"I'll stand," Sunset growled

"I'll sit, if that's alright," Twilight said. "My back is killing me."

The other girls spread themselves out across the benches, leaving only Sunset, Rainbow and Applejack standing. When they were settled, Mother Curie sighed and placed her hands on the pulpit, though her calm façade was slightly ruined by the anxious glance she shot at Sunset. "Ever since I was small, I knew I was destined for great things, but I suppressed this knowledge, quietly allowing fate to guide my path."

"You're not helping your case," Sunset said flatly, understanding all too well how easily such conviction could send someone down a dark path.

"It is true, I sought no station beyond what life gave me," Mother Curie said earnestly. "And life led me to the Children of Atom. But even then, something felt off. One day, I fell asleep during one of the good Confessor's sermons, and it was then that Atom sent me a vision."

Sunset fought the urge to groan. She had half a mind to actually ask Princess Luna to visit the wastes, if they ever found a way home, and teach people the difference between visions and dreams.

"In my vision, Atom told me the truth of his will," Mother Curie continued blithely. "The great Division, that dire belief that we are all meant to break apart, is nonsense. It is only in Atom's warm and welcoming Light that we are-" 

"Get to the point already," Rainbow huffed.

Mother Curie flinched. "Of course, you already know the truth of the Light. How foolish of me. I tried to convince Confessor Cromwell of this truth as well, but he wouldn't have it. The very next day, the truth arrived on our doorstep in the form of your divine Graces."

"Oh for-" Twilight cut herself off and took a deep breath. "Look, we get it, you had a philosophical disagreement with Cromwell. But what does this have to do with the water?"

"It was Atom's will, he chose me," Mother Curie insisted. "A few days ago, this truth was made clear. As I meditated outside, pondering the best way to spread enlightenment to all across the wastes, Atom's angels of war appeared before me."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. Neither she nor any of the other Rainbooms had been anywhere near Megaton in a couple of months.

Seeing that Sunset was curious, Mother Curie seemed to relax. "When these angels heard that I was from Megaton, the seat of Atom's worship, they provided me with barrels full to the brim with Aqua Pura; water that was clearer and cleaner than anything I had ever seen before. They told me to spread the water among my people, and of course, I knew immediately what they meant." 

"The Brotherhood of Steel," Applejack muttered, bringing a palm up to her face and shaking her head.

"Indeed," Mother Curie said happily. "The Aqua Pura was so clear and free of impurities, I knew at once that it would make a perfect vessel for Atom's glorious Light."

"So, instead of taking the water off to Megaton and distributing it among the residents, your people, you decided to bring it down here and pump it full of radiation. Is that about right?" Twilight asked.

Mother Curie cocked her head to the side. "But… spreading enlightenment through our holy water is the will of Atom. This truth was proved irrefutable when I added the crystals containing your divine angelic Light to the holy wat-"

"You added our magic to radioactive water?!" Sunset exclaimed incredulously.

"Y-yes?" Mother Curie stammered. "Was that wrong?"

"Yes, it was wrong!" Sunset snapped. "You better not have been handing that shit out to everyone as well!"

Mother Curie shook her head rapidly. "We haven't, I swear! The holiest waters are kept only for our most enlightened members." She gestured vaguely to the ghouls on the benches.

Sunset sighed heavily. "Well, at least that's one less thing to worry about." Relief flashed across Mother Curie's face, and Sunset quickly spoke up before she started getting any more ideas, "You're not out of the woods yet. You still have to answer for the water you stole."

"Stole?" Mother Curie looked confused again. "I just told you, Atom's angels of war gave us the water-"

"Because they thought you would take it to Megaton, you moron!" Sunset struggled to resist the urge to give her a good slap. "We fought alongside the Brotherhood to get the purifier up and running. We put our lives on the line, and a lot of Knights died so the wasteland could have water that was free of radiation. You adding radiation back into the water is at best a giant middle finger to everyone who died!"

The blood drained from Mother Curie's face as the message finally sank in. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

"Try turning on a radio, dumbass," Applejack shot. 

Mother Curie sank back against the wall, tears welling in her eyes as her worldview took a savage beating. Sunset sighed and rubbed her temples. As dangerous as the woman's actions had been, she wasn't malicious. She was just a misguided old coot who was genuinely trying, in her own bonkers way, to try and help the people of the wastes. "Look, if you and your followers want to keep on doing whatever it is you do with Atom's Light, that's fine. But stop using the Aqua Pura for it. Find something else to use as a vessel. Hell, I'll even let you keep whatever magic you have as long as you promise to restrict it to certain members only."

Mother Curie looked up at her hopefully. "Our path is not wrong?"

"Irradiating Aqua Pura is wrong, but apart from that, who am I to judge?" Sunset gave her a sharp look. "I'm serious about the magic, though. Don't mix them together, and do not let anyone near it unless it's actively calling for them. Understand?"

"Of course," Mother Curie replied earnestly. "I shall see to it that the remaining Aqua Pura is returned to Megaton, as well."

"Good. Just remember, if any more of it goes missing and finds its way down here, the Brotherhood will not be happy." Sunset turned and strode back towards the ladder. "Come on, girls. We're done here."
> Chapter 105 - Not So Subtle
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Twilight sighed as she sat on a chair in the Diviner room. Everyone else involved in the search for the missing girls was sitting in chairs around her: Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna, Starswirl, Sonata Dusk and, for some random reason, Trixie Lulamoon. Micro Chips was sitting at the Diviner's control terminal, as usual.

"Um, what exactly is Trixie doing here?" Twilight asked.

"You're not the only friend Sunset has outside the Rainbooms," Trixie shot. She thrust a finger at Sonata. "And what is she doing here?!"

"Trixie is here because she kept sneaking in to keep an eye on the Diviner and, frankly, I got sick of kicking her out," Luna explained. "Besides, she did help Sunset out during the Memory Stone incident; so, I suppose she has a right to hear what's going on." 

Celestia looked like she disagreed with that, but didn't comment. Instead, she glanced at Sonata. "Trixie makes a good point, though. What is Miss Dusk doing here?"

"She's going to serve as an intermediary between us and Adagio Dazzle." Twilight held a hand up as the others started asking questions. "Hold on, I'll explain everything."

As quickly and succinctly as she could, Twilight explained what she had learned in her discussion with Adagio.

Celestia crossed her arms, frowning slightly. "So this, Mandible, is a… changeling?" 

Twilight nodded. "Not long ago the former changeling leader, Queen Chrysalis, managed to usurp control of Ponyville, and the portal, for a short period of time. That must be when Mandible came through here."

"But why?" Luna asked. "What would they want with this world?"

"Adagio says that Mandible was sent here as a scout, to see what we were hiding in this world and if it was valuable," Twilight replied. "Just in case, I've sent a message to Thorax, the new leader of the changelings, to see if he can find out anything about Mandible or her mission."

Starswirl hummed and stroked his beard. "Whatever her original task, it's clear that Mandible's current goal is to return to Equestria." He glanced at Sonata, who hadn't stopped glaring at him from the instant she spotted him. "The question is, can we trust the Sirens to uphold their end of the bargain? They are hardly what I would call trustworthy."

"We just want to go home, you old fart," Sonata huffed. "We helped Mandible 'cause she said she'd help us. That didn't work, so now we'll help you instead, duh."

"I think we can trust them in this case," Twilight put in quickly. "The Sirens may not be reformed, or even friendly, but we have what they want, and we can be trusted to give it to them if they help us out. Adagio isn't stupid, she knows that her best chance of getting back to Equestria is through helping us."

"Well, why not start with telling us where Mandible is?" Luna said earnestly.

"That's the problem," Twilight replied with a sigh. "We have an address, but Mandible is very rarely there. It's going to be tricky to apprehend her."

Starswirl shrugged. "This should come as no surprise from one that Chrysalis trusted so. In the meantime, we should focus on getting the Diviner working safely."

"Agreed." Twilight nodded curtly. "How are things going so far on this end?" 

"Fairly well, so far," Starswirl replied, smiling faintly. "The crystals you borrowed from Princess Cadence have been calibrated and tuned. All that remains is to finish off the new safety features, then connect the crystals and begin testing."





The Enclave needed to be completely and utterly scoured from the face of the planet. After a single month of being President, that was the biggest conclusion that Becky had come to. To be fair, the job did come with some perks: silk bed sheets, a memory foam mattress, coffee made from actual beans, and the food was glorious. 

Instead of reconstituted protein, dusted with nutrient powders, Becky was being offered real meat, from real animals raised in hidden Enclave facilities from around the country. She had almost shed a tear the first time she had tried a proper steak in a peppercorn sauce. As far as Becky was concerned; her new personal chef was a god in human form. Even better, she had actually had a chance to taste chocolate, the rarest of delicacies in the wasteland.

Unfortunately, none of this made up for the fact that actually running the Enclave was a complete and utter nightmare.

The sound of someone opening the door unannounced immediately got Becky's hackles raised, but she relaxed as she saw Tara step inside. "Hey," Tara said as she closed the door behind her. "How's it going?"

Becky sighed heavily. "Oh, just putting out fires and dealing with idiots every minute of every day." She planted her elbows on her desk and dropped her head into her hands. "I'm still getting a huge amount of backlash from certain elements because of how I handled the peace treaty. They think I made the Enclave look too weak. Then there's the issue of trying to convince the other Enclave bastions around the country that yes, I am indeed the new President, and I need accurate production reports. Every department we have is squabbling over resources. And, to top it all off, we still haven't found Doctor Holt yet."

"Really? I didn't have her pegged as a wasteland survivalist," Tara said with surprise. "She looked like more of a squishy scientist to me. And I'm pretty sure I know how to spot those, given that I see one in the mirror every day."

Becky shook her head. "The thing is, she's smart, and she has the T.I.R.E.K. suit. One of our Vertibirds did actually catch up to her a couple of days after the battle, but she used the suit to bring it down and escape."

"Casualties?" Tara asked immediately.

"None, thankfully," Becky replied. "I sent two Vertibird transports and two gunships after her immediately afterwards, but they lost her trail in the ruins near where she brought the first 'bird down. It's raider territory, belonging to a group called…" She flicked through the many sheets of paper on her desk until she found the right one. "Eagle Union. Right now they're in the middle of a bitter turf war with another gang calling themselves The Red Flags, so that whole area is a chaotic mess."

"She's in the wind, then," Tara said sadly. 

Becky nodded. "I've informed the Brotherhood of Steel and Elder Lyons has agreed to make his troops aware in case she makes her way into the Capital Wasteland, but at this point I think it's moot. I doubt we'll find her now until she decides to reveal herself."

Tara stepped around the desk and patted her shoulder. "Well, I've got some good news for you, at least."

"Oh yeah?" Becky arched an eyebrow.

"Yes." Tara grinned. "The research notes we received from Sunset are legit. Frankly, the idea that this world has always had a background magical field is fucking insane! But the math checks out, and Project Exodus is already working on putting together designs for a portal. We should have a working prototype ready over the next couple of days."





Sunset didn't even bother glancing at Brother Gerard as she and the rest of the girls swept past him. She was about to ask the others where they thought would be the best place to wait for Adam when she saw him lumbering up the road towards them.

"Good timing," Fluttershy said happily as he strode up to them. "Is Silver alright?"

"A little malnourished, but I think she'll be okay. I left her some food, anyway." Adam jerked his chin at the Apostles' monastery. "What about them? How did it go?"

"We sorted things peacefully," Sunset replied. "They aren't going to irradiate any more water, and they're going to give the water they haven't irradiated yet back to Megaton. Speaking of, let's head back and give our report to the Enclave troops."

The others fell into step as Sunset led the way back towards the settlement at a much more sedate pace now that her temper had burned out.

"What do we do next?" Twilight asked. "Are we going back to the Citadel for further orders?" 

Sunset shook her head, a slow smile forming across her lips. "Actually, we already have our next orders. Now that the missing water has been located, we are to search the wastes, at our own pace and discretion, and seek out any equipment that may help the Exodus team construct a portal back home."

The rest of the group looked at her in surprise. "So… we can do what we want?" Pinkie said slowly.

"We have to report any new magical developments we find to the Brotherhood, but yeah, pretty much," Sunset replied. "The only difference is you." She nodded to Adam. "Your orders are to travel the wastes and do what you can to help the people of the wastes. Elder Lyons thinks letting you move around independently will be better for both you and the wastes than just folding you into a squad."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but that's a lot of freedom for a base Knight," Rainbow said with a tentative glance at Adam.

"Technically, he's under my command, but in practice it means he's free to go off on his own if someone needs help and we're busy with a magical mishap." Sunset gave Adam a stern look. "Provided that you take someone with you who's both trustworthy and knows how to read a damned map."

Adam chuckled softly. "Fair enough. I gotta admit, I'm kinda looking forward to being able to take it easy for a change."

"You ain't the only one," Applejack huffed. "Heck, Ah thought we'd be able to rest up as soon as the treaty was signed, instead of spendin' a month trainin', studyin', and bein' run ragged by the people in charge."

"At least it's done with for now, darling," Rarity put in. "Frankly, I'm just glad that we might all actually get some time to ourselves, for a change."

Adam glanced at Fluttershy. "You never know, we might actually get a chance to go on a date or something. You know, normal couple stuff."

Fluttershy smiled serenely. "That would be nice."

The group chatted amicably as they made their way over the rocky terrain back to Megaton. Soon enough, they arrived back at the settlement. The Enclave soldiers were waiting patiently by the Vertibird. They straightened up as the girls approached.

"Did the water delivery go okay?" Sunset asked.

"Yes ma'am," the squad leader replied. "We handed it over to Lucas Simms in person, as requested."

"Good job. Would you guys mind letting Elder Lyons know that we've dealt with the reason for the missing water, and that it shouldn't happen again?" The soldiers quickly agreed, so Sunset snapped a crisp salute. "Thanks guys. Have a safe trip."

The soldiers returned the salute, said their goodbyes, and hurried back onto the Vertibird. Less than a minute later they were airborne and heading off into the distance.

"Alright, let's see how much Megaton has changed since we were last here," Sunset said.

Applejack groaned as they walked towards the gate. "Ah just remembered we're gonna have to sleep in the darn common house again, aren't we?"

"Ugh, typical. I was enjoying only having to share with one person at a time," Rarity huffed.

You're just upset that you won't be sleeping alone with Applejack tonight, Sunset almost said aloud. The two had been practically joined at the hip over the last month, only separating when studying in different classes; yet somehow, despite how blindingly obvious they were to everyone else, the pair still weren't actually dating. Not yet, anyway.

As they wandered up to the gate, Sunset waved again up at Stockholm, who waved back then turned and called down to someone inside the gate. Seeing that gave Sunset the oddest feeling of déjà vu.

"Welcome to Megaton," Deputy Weld drawled as they approached. "Friendliest... town... around."

"Unless you run into Moriarty," Rarity muttered.

Feeling strangely apprehensive, Sunset pushed forward and opened the gate, holding it open for the others behind her.

At first glance, Megaton hardly looked like it had changed at all. The buildings and walkways were just as ramshackle and rusty as always. On closer inspection, however, Sunset spotted small patches dotted around that gleamed in the sunlight, where tiny sections of metal had been restored to their former glory.

"Hey, there's Sheriff Simms!" Pinkie exclaimed loudly, pointing needlessly to the man hurrying up the stairs out of the crater to greet them. She hopped up and down, waving madly as she called out, "Hi, Sheriff! We're back!"

Simms grimaced and practically sprinted the last few metres to the group. "Stop waving and keep your voices down!" He hissed. "What kinda trouble are you girls planning on causing here this time?"

"Trouble?" Sunset asked, trying to figure out what exactly they had done wrong. Granted, the last time they were here they had gotten wrapped up in Mr. Burke's schemes, but that hadn't exactly been through any fault of their own. "We aren't planning any trouble. After everything we've been through recently, more trouble is the last thing we want."

"Well, you could've fooled me." Simms glanced around suspiciously, then turned and gestured for the group to follow. "C'mon. Let's get you out of sight before someone sees you."

Sunset looked back at the others, concerned by the Sheriff's less than friendly demeanor, but they just shrugged. The fact that Simms was leading them away from the main thoroughfare into the crater, instead taking them through the maze of alleyways that wound their way through the crater's edge, only added to her suspicions.

"Uh, Sheriff? Have we done something to upset you?" Sunset asked.

Simms glared at her out of the corner of his eyes. "What the hell did you tell the Church of Atom the last time you were here?" 

"The Church of Atom?" Sunset asked blankly. She didn't know what she had expected, but it wasn't that. "Nothing that I can remember. I mean, they did see me and Rainbow pony up accidentally, and they kinda mistook us for angels or something, but we tried to straighten things out with them."

"Ah spoke to them personally," Applejack added. "Ah told them straight up that we ain't angels. Ah, uh, ain't sure whether or not they believed me, though," she admitted.

Simms snorted. "Oh, some of them believed you, alright. It's them that have been giving me a string of headaches over the last few months." He stopped suddenly and whipped around to level an icy glare at Applejack. "I want you to look me in the eye, right now, and swear to me that you didn't try to manipulate or control the Children of Atom in any way."

Applejack tipped her hat back and met his glare with a steely look of her own. "Ah swear, on my life, and my friends' lives, that we didn't try to do a darn thing to those Atom folks."

"They let us rest in their church after Sunset was injured fighting raiders, but we hardly even spoke to them. They just left us alone," Rainbow insisted. "That was how they saw us pony up, we never even knew that they were watching. After that, Applejack tried to tell them that we're not angels, and then we left for the D.C. ruins. We haven't seen or spoken to them since."

Simms glared at each of the girls suspiciously, clearly deciding whether or not he should trust them, but finally he sighed and shook his head. "I don't know if I should be relieved or annoyed by that."

"What exactly is going on?" Twilight asked firmly. "Religious zealotry isn't much of a thing anymore where we come from. Did some of the cultists lose their faith and get angry or something?"

"No-one lost their faith. Hell, they went the opposite damn direction," Simms replied. "After you girls left, a whole bunch of people split off from the Church of Atom."

Sunset nodded. "The Apostles of the Eternal Light, we ran into them in Springvale. Side note; they won't be stealing any more of your water, and they should be bringing some of what they did take back fairly soon."

Simms' eyes widened in surprise. "Is that so? Well, I owe you my thanks for that, but the Apostles were only one group that separates from the Church. The other group stayed here in Megaton. They're friendly with the Children of Atom, but between the two cults, they've damn near turned this town upside down. It's about all I can do to keep the lot of them in check."

"That doesn't sound good," Rarity noted. She glanced around worriedly. "As a matter of fact, where is everyone? I realize that these are back alleys, and not the sort of place polite people usually frequent, but surely we should have run into someone by now."

Simms let out a humorless laugh. "Most of the town has turned out to hear Joshua's first speech outside your new temple."

"Hang on, temple?" Sunset gave him a look that was half bemused, half wary. "What temple?"

Simms sighed heavily and turned away. "Come on. I guess you'd better see this."

Curious, and more than a little concerned, the group followed the Sheriff until they came out onto a walkway overlooking the crater in the center of town. 
 
Sunset immediately saw that a new building had been constructed opposite the Church of Atom. Several storeys tall, the temple looked like it had mostly been constructed from the same scrap metal as the rest of Megaton, with sections of steel, concrete, and even wood that must have been brought in from elsewhere in the wastes. Probably Springvale, Sunset assumed. There were doors on several levels connecting to the many walkways of Megaton, but the main entrance was on the ground; a huge set of double doors with a set of shallow metal steps leading up to it.

Six people were lined up at the top of the steps; two women and one man standing perfectly still on either side of the doors. A crowd had gathered about the base of the steps. Even more people were lining the walkways and balconies around the crater, but, thankfully, none of them seemed to have spotted the Rainbooms, yet. Everyone seemed to be waiting expectantly for something to happen.

"That's the Temple of Harmony," Simms explained. "It's run by a new group calling themselves the Disciples of Harmony."

"The group that split off from the Church of Atom?" Sunset asked, largely to distract herself from the horrible suspicion boiling in her gut.

Simms nodded. "The Church of Atom helped build it, so their 'Angels' would have proper accommodations, and they’re allowed in to leave offerings and pray, but the Temple itself is run by, and home to, the Disciples. Those six at the front? I think they're all priests and priestesses."

Before anyone else could say anything, the front doors creaked open and a young man stepped out. He had long hair tied back in a ponytail and was wearing the same sort of threadbare robes worn by the Children of Atom. Sunset noted with a jolt that he was wearing a shining red magical crystal on a delicate necklace.

"That's Joshua," Simms pointed out. "He's the head of the Disciples, and the one who convinced the Children of Atom to help him build a temple."

A hush fell over the crowd as Joshua raised his arms. He smiled at them all, then called out in a strong voice that rang through the crater, "Friends, residents, visitors, my fellow believers! This is an auspicious day!" He threw an arm back to take in the temple. "Today is the day we finally open the doors to all who would join us, and consecrate this great temple in the name of our embodied Goddesses of Harmony!"
> Chapter 106 - The Temple of Harmony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Did… did he just call us goddesses?" Applejack asked.

Pinkie shook her head. "Worse, there was definitely a capital ‘G’ in there."

Sunset groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Great. Just great. How the hell are we supposed to deal with this?"

"That's up to you," Simms replied. "Make no mistake though, this is your mess. I'll be holding you girls personally responsible for any trouble those crazies cause, so try to keep them under control, alright?"

"Whoa, that ain't fair!" Applejack butted in. "Ah get that we screwed up, but you can't blame us just because those weirdos got their wires crossed!"

"No, the Sheriff is right," Sunset said firmly. "Those people must have put a lot of effort into building that temple, not to mention a fair few caps; the least we can do is take responsibility for that."

Applejack grumbled under her breath, but she relented with a muttered, "Ah guess."

"You're all fucking crazy!" Sunset frowned and looked over the railing at the shout. It took her a moment to spot who had shouted; a shaven-headed drunk wearing all black leather and clutching a bottle of beer.

"That's Jericho," Simms said with a huff, scowling at the drunkard below. "He's a good shot, when he ain't blind drunk, and he helps keep Megaton safe, but he has a habit of causing more problems than he solves."

Sunset grimaced as Jericho hurled more obscenities at the Disciples, but several members of the crowd got him to shut up, so she put him to the back of her mind. "I guess we'll wait until the service is over, then go down and tell them the truth and hope that they don't take it badly."

"If they even believe us this time," Fluttershy noted. 

Twilight sighed and shook her head. "It's a shame. That temple would have served as a decent base of operations while we searched through the wastes."

"Maybe they'll still let us use it after we've told them the truth?" Pinkie said hopefully. "I mean, they've already built the thing, so…"

"I doubt it," Adam said quietly.

"Not to mention that such a situation would feel… wrong," Rarity added.

Sunset nodded. "This whole issue is an ethical minefield."

Simms gave her a searching look, then turned and jerked his chin towards Joshua. "Just speak to them. If they're fine letting you stay there after you've told the truth, and you don't try and turn them into your own private army or something, then you may as well set up shop in there. It'll beat sleeping in the common house."

"Good point." Sunset crossed her arms and frowned thoughtfully. "Whatever happens, it'll be best if we're subtle about it. Going down there in front of that crowd will just cause havoc, so I think we should wait until the crowd has dispersed and find a side door."

Even as she said it, Sunset saw something glinting out of the corner of her eye. Jericho had apparently finished his beer and was reaching back to throw it at the Disciples. Sunset leaned forward, about to shout a warning as the bottle arced towards Joshua's head, when she felt a gust of wind and a multicolored blur shot forward.

Rainbow caught the bottle just at the last second before it struck Joshua. She straightened up, armor sparkling in the light, and turned to glare at Jericho. "Not cool, asshole."

The crowd went wild at Rainbow's dramatic entrance. Even the people who had been listening to the Disciples with skeptical expressions were now very clearly rethinking their stance, while the Disciples themselves looked as if they were on the verge of passing out from sheer shock and joy.

Sunset groaned and crouched behind the railings, hoping that no-one below would think to look up.

"So much for subtlety," Applejack huffed. 

"She was only trying to stop Joshua from getting hurt," Fluttershy protested quietly.

Applejack sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Ah get that, and Ah ain't sayin' she shouldn't have done it, but it's made our job one heck of a lot harder."

"Well, I'm afraid you're going to have to deal with it, now," Simms said bluntly. "But, whatever you do, make sure that you're nice to those folks. They may be crazy, but they've done a whole lot of good for this town."

Sunset nodded slowly. "We'll be as gentle as we can." She straightened up a little and peeked over the railings. The crowd was still going nuts, half of the people cheering and half chattering in surprise, while the Disciples were fawning over Rainbow, who was blatantly embarrassed and trying desperately to hide it. "I suppose we'd better get down there and give her a hand. Is there a quick way down from here?"

"Sure is, just around the corner." Simms gestured for the group to follow. "Come on, it's this way."

Still reeling from the shock of what had happened in their absence, the group followed Simms along silently. They encountered a handful of people, most of whom reacted with shock or tried to call out to the girls, but Simms made sure to brush them aside and send them on their way with a warning to keep quiet. Soon enough the group arrived at a narrow, winding staircase. 

The noise of the crowd only increased as the team descended. A hundred different thoughts and ideas whizzed through Sunset's head, but no easy answer to the current predicament came to mind. Rounding the last corner, the girls hesitated as the crowd came fully into view.

Fortunately, no-one was looking in the Rainbooms' direction. All of the crowd's, and the Disciples', attention was focused on Rainbow Dash. 

"Come on, I'll see if I can get you through this crowd," Simms said as he pressed forward.

"I'll bring up the rear," Adam offered. "That should keep people from pressing in."

Sunset took a deep breath to calm herself and glanced back at the others. She almost smiled as Fluttershy hurriedly ensconced herself in the middle of the group, and gave them what she hoped was a reassuring nod before turning and following after Simms.

It took a few tries for Simms to get the attention of the people at the back of the crowd, and it was a few seconds longer before they realized what he wanted and why, but when they did, the response was electric. The knowledge that the rest of the Rainbooms were there spread through the crowd in a heartbeat and suddenly every eye and voice in the crater was directed at the girls. 

Sunset had been in front of crowds before, usually as part of a band, but even so; the sheer intensity of the crowd was intimidating. She didn't let it show on her face, though. Sunset just kept her eyes on the back of Simms' neck, and maintained a carefully composed expression as she walked. Thankfully, the crowd parted like water before them, and no-one was foolish enough to attempt to touch any of the girls.

Simms stopped at the base of the temple steps and turned around. "Alright, this is your stop. And remember, be nice."

"We will." Determinedly avoiding looking up at the Disciples, Sunset held out a hand. "Thanks so much for dropping this in our laps the second we get back."

Simms snorted and shook her hand. "Call it payback for dumping this shit in my lap the moment you left."

"Touché." Sunset braced herself, stepped around the Sheriff, and finally looked up at the Disciples. To her surprise, all of them were kneeling with their heads bowed and their eyes closed.

Rainbow rubbed her neck awkwardly as the group climbed the steps. "So, uh, I'm sorry about-"

"It's fine, Rainbow," Sunset cut in, clapping a hand to her shoulder. "It's better than letting someone crack this guy's skull for no reason." She looked down at the people kneeling before her. "Er, please... stand up."

The Disciples hurriedly got to their feet. The ones at the back kept their eyes down, but Joshua bowed and looked up at Sunset. "Your Graces, we had hoped that you would one day honor our temple with your presence, but we didn't dare hope that you would arrive for the opening. Truly, you bless us more than words can say."

"R-right." Sunset glanced awkwardly back at the crowd still staring at them. "Uh, do you mind if we talk somewhere more private."

"Of course." Joshua looked over his shoulder at the other Disciples and gave them some hushed instructions before turning back and bowing again to the Rainbooms. "My fellow worshippers will show you inside. I shall follow in but a moment."

Sunset quietly thanked him and followed the other Disciples into the temple. Inside, the group found themselves in a wide antechamber with mismatched chairs and tables dotted along the walls. Multi-colored light flickered through the cracks in a set of double doors just ahead. Sunset heard Joshua begin to address the crowd just as the temple doors closed, muting the sounds from outside.

"Huh, that's neat," Applejack said, glancing back at the doors. "How do you keep the sound out like that? Thick doors, or…?"

"It's magic," Sunset replied. "This place is full of it." Indeed, she could sense Equestrian magic pulsing all around her, and she could feel a massive quantity emanating from the room ahead, as surely as a blind man could feel the heat of the sun.

"This is our welcome room," one of the priestesses said quietly. She had short light-brown hair, mousy features, and couldn't have been any older than the Rainbooms. She flinched as the Rainbooms all looked at her, but spoke a little louder as she explained, "It's for those who simply wish to come in and rest for a while." She glanced anxiously at Adam. "I hate to put you on the spot, but would you mind waiting here? We aren't really supposed to let anyone except the Disciples or the Children of Atom in until the temple is officially open."

Adam just shrugged and pulled his helmet off. "Sure thing. At least I'm not getting asked to irradiate myself this time."

The Disciples all stared at him quizzically, but let it slide without comment. "Er, anyway…" The priestess turned back to the girls and bowed. "This way, please." 

Muttering quick apologies to Adam, which he brushed aside with a smile and a wave, the Rainbooms followed as the Disciples opened up the doors and led them further into the temple. As soon as they entered the next room, the girls stopped and gasped, looking around in awe.

The room beyond was clearly the main place of worship. A tall pedestal crafted from scrap metal, half again as tall as Sunset and twice as wide, dominated the room. Sitting on top of it was a huge, wide-rimmed cauldron. A roaring, multi-colored inferno blazed inside it, the flickering tips of the flame rising six feet into the air.

"This is the Hearth." The Rainbooms looked back to see Joshua entering the room. "The first embers of it came from the Church of Atom, who generously shared it with us, and we have added more over time." 

"It's beautiful," Sunset said honestly. Dragging her eyes away from the Hearth, she saw that the room they were in was wide and tall, with staircases on either side of the room that led up to walkways and doors to other parts of the temple. A small number of priests and priestesses were hurrying around carrying out chores, though each of them stopped in their tracks and bowed low the instant they saw the girls.

Sunset was impressed, but she couldn't help but feel concerned at the tiny wisps of magic she saw flitting around the room. "I have to ask, where did you get the magic from? And the Church of Atom, for that matter."

Joshua smiled brightly, as if he had been hoping that she would ask. Sunset listened intently as he explained how, when Three-Dog had first played the Rainbooms' music over the radio, it had somehow activated the residual magic she and Rainbow had left in the Church of Atom when they had ponied up. Every one of their songs that Three-Dog played grew the magic even further. The Church of Atom had shared it with the Temple of Harmony, and both had added to their stockpiles using any magic that came their way, either through the explosions that had spread it across the wastes, or through crystals bought or donated from travellers.

When Joshua's explanation was finished, Sunset found that she couldn't look him in the eye. A tremendous amount of time and effort had been put into building the temple, not to mention a considerable quantity of caps, all thanks to a colossal misunderstanding.  

"Excuse me, darlings, quick question, what happened to the houses that used to be here?" Rarity asked.

"Regrettably, they were taken down to provide space and materials for the temple," Joshua replied. "Worry not, your Graces, no-one was forced out of their homes. Most of them were either empty, or belonged to members of either the Church or the Temple, who were happy to offer up their lodgings as tribute. The few who were less happy were at least willing to trade for houses elsewhere in Megaton."

The knowledge that people had given up their homes, even willingly, to help build this temple was like a further twist of the knife to Sunset. A small part of her wanted to simply walk away and leave the Disciples to their delusions, at least they would be happy that way, but she couldn't do it. They had to know the truth. "Look, Joshua, there's something we have to tell you."

Joshua smiled sadly. "If I may, is this the part where you tell us that you are not goddesses?"

A jolt ran through Sunset's body. "You knew?!" She spat incredulously.

Joshua chuckled softly. "Knew? No. But we suspected that you might say so." He looked up at the magical flames, the necklace he wore glowing faintly. "The arrival of your Graces changed everything in this world. Hope and friendship have taken root in the most barren of places, and your Graces have set in motion changes to the world that will be more dramatic, and absolute, than even the Great War."

"That's stretchin' things a bit, ain't it?" Applejack asked.

"Is it? We have heard from Three-Dog of how Rivet City has grown, and how the wastes are evolving," Joshua countered. "Given time, we have no doubt that the changes set in motion here will one day spread across the world." He bowed low. "Many people do not believe in your divine nature, even your Graces yourselves may not believe, but we do; and we are here to spread your message of harmony across the wastes."

"We have a message?" Rainbow muttered.

Pinkie shrugged. "We did help broker peace between the Enclave and Brotherhood."

"And we imagine that there is much more that your Graces wish to accomplish," Joshua continued. "We also took the liberty, though we don't wish to impose, of furnishing rooms for each of you, should you wish to rest between your journeys around the wastes."

Sunset winced internally. "That's very thoughtful, but…"

"Actually, would you mind if we could just discuss things amongst ourselves for a moment?" Twilight cut in.

Joshua nodded. "Of course, your Grace. We shall wait over here."

As Joshua and the other Disciples stepped out of immediate earshot, Sunset turned a baleful glare on Twilight. "You had better not be about to suggest what I think you're about to suggest."

Twilight met her glare evenly. "I know that this is an ethical mess, but this temple would make a good base of operations while we explore the wasteland."

"I hate to say it, but she has a point," Rainbow put in. 

Fluttershy shook her head. "Maybe, but we can't take advantage of their hospitality like that."

"Hear hear," Rarity added.

Sunset scowled and crossed her arms. "AJ, Pinkie, what do you think?"

Applejack rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly. "Ah don't know. Using the temple as a base sounds temptin', but takin' advantage of their faith like that just don't feel right." Pinkie just nodded in agreement.

"There is another benefit to us staying here," Twilight said quietly. "The Disciples aren't going to accept that we aren't gods no matter what we say or do-"

"That's the truth," Applejack grumbled.

"-so if we stay here we can at least keep an eye on them," Twilight continued. "We've already seen what religious fanaticism can do in this world, thanks to the Apostles of the Eternal Light. Staying here means we can nip any dangerous zealotry in the bud before it can do any damage."

Sunset hummed thoughtfully. "That's not a bad point," she admitted. "Still, these people seem reasonable enough. I doubt they'll cause any problems if we leave them alone."

"And their magic?" Twilight asked pointedly.

Sunset looked up at the magical flames blazing merrily away. As much as she hated to admit it, Twilight made a good point. The Brotherhood of Steel had even given them the task of reporting on, and keeping an eye on, any new magic in the wastes. Sunset still had reservations, though. "There's no way that staying here is ethical."

"It's a moral quagmire, I admit," Twilight replied. "Honestly, I don't like this any more than you do, but we have to look at this practically. The Disciples are going to keep this temple running either way, they have a huge amount of magic that we're going to have to keep an eye on, and we need a safe place to stay when we're away from the Citadel or Rivet City. Staying here checks every box."

An annoyed huff was Sunset's only response. She kept her gaze firmly on the Hearth, trying to puzzle out what the best option was. Finally, she gave up and looked around at the others. "We'll vote on it. Do you think we should stay here?" 

The others shared looks, some resigned, some worried, but one by one they all nodded. "Ah don't reckon we have much of a choice," Applejack said in a resigned tone. "Ah don't like it, but there's way too much magic here for us to just leave alone, and we can't exactly just take it away from them."

Sunset sighed and shook her head. "I guess that settles it." With the decision made, she turned and walked back to the Disciples, who all lowered their heads as she approached. "I guess we're staying, for now."

Even with their heads lowered, the ecstatic expressions on the Disciples' faces were clear. "You honor us!" Joshua exclaimed loudly, looking up. "Please, come! We shall show you to your rooms."
> Chapter 107 - Ups and Downs
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset was reluctantly impressed. The whole top floor of the temple had been set aside for the Rainbooms, with a separate room for each of them and a shared bathroom right at the back. It was easy to tell who's room was whose, as each door had been crudely painted with each girl's Cutie Mark.

"How did you know about our Cutie Marks?" Sunset asked. "The symbols on the doors," she elaborated in response to Joshua's confused look.

"Ah." Joshua nodded in understanding. "That was actually Primrose's doing." He gestured to the priestess that had spoken to them earlier, the only other Disciple to have joined the Rainbooms upstairs. "She saw them in her dreams, and we felt sure that they had some meaning to your Graces."

Sunset looked at her in surprise. "You saw it in your dreams? Does that mean you have magic?"

Primrose blushed at the sudden attention. "A little, I think, your Grace. I was chosen by one of the wisps when they soared across the wastes. Ever since I've had… visions, of a sort."

"Huh. That's pretty cool," Sunset admitted.

"Incidentally, your Grace, Primrose has been assigned to be your personal handmaiden while you are here," Joshua added.

Sunset's head whipped around. "Whoa, hold up a second! Staying here is one thing, but I'm not accepting servants or slaves! I'm drawing the line there!"

"Slave?" Joshua tilted his head in confusion. "I assure you, your Grace, Primrose is no slave. She has been looking forward to this duty ever since we asked it of her."

"It's true, your Grace," Primrose said earnestly.

Sunset pinched the bridge of her nose and resisted the urge to snap at someone. "Fine, but the moment you start offering to feed me or help me wash I'm putting my foot down."

"Splendid." Joshua nodded and turned to the others, giving them an apologetic bow. "Forgive me, I wish I could say that we have handmaidens ready for all of you, but Primrose is the only Disciple with both the drive, diligence and, frankly, the competence to perform such a role."

"Not at all, darling," Rarity replied, looking quietly relieved that she didn't have to deal with her own personal zealot. "So, er, these are our rooms?"

"Yes, your Grace." Joshua swept an arm out to encompass the corridor. "Now that you are here, no-one is allowed in these rooms without your permission. The bathroom is for your Graces' use only."

Sunset made a mental note to check on the hot water situation at some point, having no desire to deal with cold showers, and made her way to her room near the end of the row. "Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to chill for a bit, then I'll head into town and see if I can find any leads on weird tech."

Joshua asked what she meant by weird tech, but Sunset curtly asked Twilight to explain what they were after. Hopefully, the Disciples would be able to point the girls in the direction of another potential SDT device, but Sunset doubted that they would be that lucky. Opening the door marked with her Cutie Mark, Sunset stepped inside and took a moment to inspect her new digs.

The room was surprisingly spacious. A single bed was tucked in one corner, with a small set of drawers next to it. A battered wardrobe sat on the opposite wall alongside a skeletal frame for holding armor. A rough outline of Sunset's Cutie Mark had been sewn into her blanket, and tiny red wisps of magic danced merrily in the corners of the room.

"Huh, not bad," Sunset admitted quietly.

"We were going to put in windows, but we thought it would get too cold in the winter months," Primrose explained. Sunset turned around slowly, wondering why the hell the woman had followed her, only to remember that the Disciple was also her new handmaiden. "Would you prefer that we put windows in, your Gra-"

"Sunset. Just call me Sunset. If you really need to be formal, then just call me Miss Shimmer or Knight-Captain," Sunset insisted. "Anything but 'your Grace', okay?"

Primrose bowed slightly. "Of course, your Gra- er… Miss Shimmer?"

"Better. And no, I'm fine without windows, thanks." Sunset dumped her pack and plasma rifle next to the bed and stepped over to the armor frame. "If you're staying in here, close the door, please."

Primrose dutifully closed the door. She hesitated as Sunset started stripping her armor off. "Um, should I help you with that?"

"Nah, I've got it," Sunset replied. "What you can do for me is tell me anything you know about any magic that's in Megaton; how much there is, where it's coming from, where it's going, and what people are doing with it."

"Oh, of course." As Sunset removed her armor and arranged it on the frame, Primrose detailed everything she knew about Megaton's magic stores. Unlike Rivet City, Megaton hadn't put a ban on magical trade, but so far not much of it had passed through the hands of the residents. Aside from the Temple of Harmony and the Church of Atom, the only person in town who had anything more than a tiny crystal or two was a woman named Moira. Even Moriarty hadn't been able to get his grubby hands on anything significant, though, apparently, that was not for lack of trying.

Sunset grumbled under her breath. Of course Moriarty would want magic. She sighed and put it to the back of her mind. As long as he didn't get hold of anything powerful, it shouldn't turn into an issue. She made another mental note to ask Simms to keep an eye on Moriarty and, satisfied that her armor was properly stored, finally went and sat on the bed. "Oof, that's better. Is there any way of locking these doors, or…?"

Primrose nodded. "There should be a key in the top drawer next to the bed." Sunset quickly checked, and was surprised to see a little brass key with a ruby sparkling in the handle. "We're fairly certain that it's infused with your magic, your Gra- Miss. Just tap the lock on the door and it locks itself, then tap it again to unlock it. We made one for each of you." She frowned pensively. "At least, we hope they'll work. For some reason, Joshua and I are the only people who can get them to work at the moment."

"Neat." Sunset tucked the key in her pocket. She was about to ask what other magical accoutrements and quirks were lurking around the temple when someone knocked the door. Primrose answered, speaking in hushed tones to whoever was there, then thanked them and closed the door again. "Who was it?"

"One of our newest initiates, delivering a message from Moriarty," Primrose replied, distaste evident in her expression. "He wishes for you to meet with him. Should I tell him to come here himself, or should we just give him a flat refusal?"

Sunset sighed and got back to her feet, trying not to lament the fact that she couldn't even get two minutes to herself. "No, it's fine. I'll go and see what that slimeball wants." 





Fluttershy wasn't sure how she felt about the temple. It would be handy to have a stable place to stay outside of the Citadel or Rivet City, and having people being nice to them was a huge improvement over suspicion and hostility. Unfortunately, having the Disciples fawning over her every movement was too much for Fluttershy, and that was before considering the ethical minefield that came with simply staying there.

Having enhanced senses certainly wasn't helping matters. Fluttershy was getting used to hearing things she shouldn't, or didn't want to, from classified discussions and private conversations, to toilet visits and intimate encounters. The Citadel and the Adams Air Force Base were pretty much the same in that regard. The Temple, however, had something that made the constant flow of background noise a lot harder to ignore.

Prayers.

Fluttershy had no issues with prayer in and of itself. It wasn't something she believed in, but she had nothing against those who did. The problem was when those prayers were directed to her. Even as she walked back through the temple with Twilight, Pinkie and Applejack, Fluttershy could hear people in other rooms offering up prayers and adulation for the Rainbooms, both as a group and individually. Some of them were directed to her specifically.

Being the object of worship for a group of people was embarrassing, but that wasn't what Fluttershy was finding troubling.

"You Grace, my daughter is sick. I beg you, please, find it in your heart to help her."

It was a private request. A whispered plea from a desperate young woman to her new goddess, one who was listening far more directly than the Disciple would have ever imagined. 

Fluttershy was torn. She didn't mean to listen, didn't want to hear, but she couldn't help herself. The woman's child was deathly ill, and she couldn't afford to take the girl to see Doc Church. Fluttershy was certain that the doctor would treat the girl either way, allowing the woman to pay him back a little at a time, but she didn't seem to know that. Fluttershy's heart went out to the poor woman, but the truth of her situation niggled at her mind.

Convincing Doc Church to see the daughter would be easy. Fluttershy even considered simply paying the doctor herself, using the caps she got from the Brotherhood of Steel, but interfering would set a dangerous precedent. 

If the woman found out what Fluttershy had done, it would lend weight to the idea that the girls were goddesses, something that needed to be avoided. Even simply asking the doctor to keep her interference anonymous wouldn't help. In fact, it would probably make things worse, given that the woman's prayer would be answered seemingly by divine providence.

With her head going in circles, Fluttershy decided to turn her attention to another, equally pressing, and equally private, matter. 

Adam was sitting at one of the tables, sipping a glass of water and chatting with a Disciple while he waited patiently for the girls to return. His empty armor was tucked away in the corner of the welcome room. Adam immediately perked up as the girls entered the room, and Fluttershy fought back a giggle as an image popped into her mind of a puppy happily greeting its owner. The Disciple made to scramble to his feet, but Applejack held up a hand to stop him. "Settle down, big guy, we're just heading outside for a bit. Is the crowd still out there?"

"N-no, your Grace," the Disciple replied. "Joshua and Sheriff Simms dispersed them for now."

"That's a relief," Pinkie sighed. "Don't get me wrong, I love an audience, but that was just awkward."

"Yeah, you're telling me," Applejack grumbled.

Adam stood up and stretched. "So, what's happening now?"

"Looks like we're stayin' here for a while," Applejack replied, much to the Disciple's delight. She tilted her hat back and looked around wistfully. "At least these guys ain't hurtin' nobody, like the Acolytes were."

"That's always a bonus," Adam said with a wry smile. "What's the plan for now, then?"

"Sunset is resting," Twilight replied as she picked a speck of dirt off her glasses. "Rarity and Rainbow are staying here to see if the Disciples can give us any leads to old or unusual technology, and the rest of us are going to ask around in town."

Adam half-raised a hand. "Actually, speaking of technology, Pinkie, you have experience with explosives, right?"

The others all looked at him warily, concerned about the sudden direction the conversation was taking. Pinkie nodded slowly. "Yeah, I had the Enclave and Brotherhood teach me some stuff in case I run out of Nuka-Cola. Why?"

Adam grinned. "I was thinking we could do something about the live atomic bomb sitting in the middle of the crater. Fancy giving me a hand?"

"Ooo, good idea!" Pinkie said brightly. "I'm in!"

"Me too," Applejack added. "Ah wouldn't mind gettin' a proper look at that thing."

Twilight sighed and shook her head. "I suppose I'd better come along, too. You'll need someone with half a brain to make sure you don't blow yourselves up."

"If we wanted only half a brain I'd have asked Rainbow Dash," Adam said with a smirk.

"Don't let her hear you say that," Applejack chuckled. "Right, let's go take a look at that bomb."

"Actually, I'd like to have a word with Adam before you go," Fluttershy cut in quickly. "Um, if that's alright."

Applejack gave her a quick sidelong glance, then put her hands on Twilight and Pinkie's backs and nudged them towards the exit. "Sure thing, sugarcube. We'll see you down by the bomb."

That's not a sentence I could ever have imagined being said so casually, Fluttershy thought. 

The Disciple looked from Fluttershy to Adam and back, seemed to realize that the following talk was intended to be private, and stepped over to an innocuous section of the scrap metal wall. He glanced at the door sheepishly, then, to Fluttershy's great surprise, pressed some hidden switch and the section of wall swung silently inwards, revealing a narrow staircase. "I should not leave the welcome room unattended, now that we will be opening up the temple to all, but if you wish to speak privately, then this passage will take you up to one of the upper walkways. The power armor will be safe here until you return."

"Wow. Um, thank you," Fluttershy said sincerely. 

"How many of these secret passages are there?" Adam asked as he stepped inside.

"Enough," the Disciple replied vaguely. "Only those of the Temple are supposed to know of these, so I humbly ask that you speak of them to no-one."

Fluttershy nodded. "We'll keep them secret. Go on, Adam."

The two of them hurried up the stairs. Fluttershy heard a faint click as the door closed behind them, but she suspected that it would have been silent to an ordinary human. The staircase twisted and turned until, finally, it came to another secret door. 

Adam pressed a button on the wall, and the door opened inwards. A small antechamber was on the other side, with two doors leading off from it, one of them locked with a heavy deadbolt. A priestess was sitting at a small round table, playing solitaire with a battered old deck of cards.

"How did the opening go?" The priestess asked without looking up. "Have we gotten any more new members?"

"Uh, kinda?" Adam said. 

"Kinda? What do you mean?" The priestess looked up, then choked and scrambled to her feet the moment she spotted who she was talking to. "Y-your Grace?! I, well, we, uh-"

"Um, we were told that there was a place we could talk privately up here?" Fluttershy said quietly, cutting off the woman's dithering.

The Disciple nodded jerkily. "S-sure. Um, there's the meditation room through- oh, wait, Mickey's in there. One moment, your Grace, I'll ask him to leave."

"Please don't," Fluttershy cut in quickly. "I don't want to disturb anyone." She pointed at the bolted door. "What's through there?"

"That's one of the exterior walkways, your Grace," the priestess replied. "We keep that door locked whenever we have vulnerable members getting settled in.

"That'll do," Fluttershy said. Adam obediently hauled the deadbolt across and opened the door, stepping aside for Fluttershy to exit first. "You can lock the door after us," Fluttershy told the priestess. "We'll get back in through the main door."

Stepping through, Fluttershy found herself on a narrow walkway overlooking one of the paths down into the crater. She leaned against the railings, resting on her arms and looking down as people went about their daily lives below. 

Adam joined her a moment later. "So… what do you want to talk about?"

Fluttershy swallowed hard. She had been so sure that she needed to get this confession off her chest but, now that it came down to it, she wanted nothing more than to simply shut up and run away. Steeling herself, she said in a monotone voice, "FEV. You know I'm infected."

"Of course," Adam replied. "We talked about it before."

"Yeah." Fluttershy cringed, trying hard to spit out what she had to say, but terrified that what she was about to admit would drive a permanent wedge between the two of them. Unable to force herself to say it directly, and cursing herself for her cowardice, Fluttershy approached the subject as obliquely as she could. "Well, one of the things FEV does is constantly repair the cells infected with it, including damage done to the DNA in each cell."

Adam nodded. "Yeah, it's part of the reason why Super Mutants are so damned tough. It's also why they're near enough immortal."

"Not just Super Mutants, the same applies to all FEV mutants." Fluttershy breathed in slowly through her nose and closed her eyes, bracing for one last push. "FEV repairs DNA damage in every cell it infects, even if the cell isn't actually damaged, like human haploid cells."

"Haploid… that's the ones with only one set of chromosomes, isn't it? Adam hummed thoughtfully. "But the only haploid cells humans have are- oh." Fluttershy flinched as he made the connection. "Sex cells. They only have one set of chromosomes, so they can connect with other sex cells, but the FEV reads the lack of chromosomes as damage and repairs it, causing infertility. I read about it in Vault 87." Adam sighed heavily. "And I'm guessing you're telling me this because Equestrian magic hasn't stopped that from happening."

Fluttershy shook her head, keeping her eyes closed. "No. I haven't, um, I haven't had a… cycle, since I first transformed. I tested myself after the peace treaty was signed, and… and that confirmed it. I'm sterile."

Fluttershy waited, eyes jammed shut, wondering what Adam was going to say, or whether he would even say anything. She flinched when she felt him place a hand on her back. "I… to be perfectly honest, I have no idea what to say here. At the risk of asking a stupid question; are you okay?"

"I don't know," Fluttershy admitted. "I've never really seriously thought about having kids before. I'd have liked the choice, at least, but I guess I don't get that anymore." She sighed and opened her eyes, looking down at the ramp below. "I just thought you should know, in case you do want kids someday. I don't want you to waste your time on someone who can't give you what you want."

Adam huffed a laugh. "I'd hardly call time spent with you time wasted, but I get what you're trying to say." He stepped closer and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "I'm not particularly bothered by it. I'm honestly more worried about how you are feeling about it. As far as I'm concerned, if we ever get to that point, and we decide we do want some brats of our own, there's more than one way of going about it."

"This isn't something you can be blasé about," Fluttershy countered. "You should take some time to think it through."

"Think it through?" Adam leaned forward enough that he could look Fluttershy in the eye. "You do remember that I grew up in Vault 101, right? You saw the posters, the Overseer was seriously pushy about people having kids. He pressured everyone constantly to reproduce from the moment they hit adulthood. I had no choice but to think about whether I wanted children every single day. My opinion on this isn't flippant or spur of the moment, I promise you."

Fluttershy smiled and leaned into him, letting him pull her into a hug. She knew that their relationship was more than a little odd, in so many ways, but he was there, and that was all that mattered to her. Just as Fluttershy was about to finally give into the urge to wrap her arms around him, maybe letting a few relieved tears slip in the process, she heard someone approaching on the walkway. "Someone's coming." 

Adam caught her tone and let her go, his hands drifting to his jacket pockets where he undoubtedly had some weapon stashed, while Fluttershy let her hand casually rest on the hilt of Vampire's Edge. After what had happened with Burke the last time she was in Megaton, she wasn't about to let herself get caught off-guard. 

Unhurried footsteps came closer, until finally a man came around the corner. He appeared to be a typical Megaton resident clad in a simple t-shirt and pants. Fluttershy noted that he wasn't carrying any obvious weapons, but she didn't dare to relax just yet. His scent let her know that he was nervous, but whether that was because he thought he was talking to a goddess, because he was plotting something nefarious, or because he was simply the anxious type, was impossible to tell.

The man stopped when he saw the two. He glanced briefly at Adam, offering him a nod in greeting, then turned to Fluttershy. "Hi, Miss, uh, I mean, your worshipfulness. Uh, is that the right phrase?"

"Just call me Fluttershy," Fluttershy said quickly. "Um, can I help you with something?"

"Uh, yeah." The man nodded nervously. "Sorry to bother you, but I heard that you can talk to animals. Is that true?" Fluttershy nodded. "Well, you see, my Brahmin has been unwell for the last week and I was kinda hoping that you could maybe see if you can find out what's wrong with her?"

Fluttershy almost laughed. "I'm not much of a vet, but I'll see what I can do."

"You will?" The man's countenance brightened instantly. "Thank you, Miss, old Ness has been with me for over a decade, now, I hate to see her sick like this."

Adam raised an eyebrow, confusion written all over his face. "Do you want me to come with, or…?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "It's fine, you have a bomb to deal with." She tapped her chin as a thought occurred to her. "Actually, it would probably help if I brought Applejack with me. She has a lot more experience with cattle than I do."

"I'll send her along," Adam promised.

"Have her meet us by the clinic, I keep Ness just next door," the man said brightly.

Fluttershy reached up and pecked Adam on the cheek. "I'll see you soon. Good luck with the bomb." She turned to the man and nodded. "Lead on." Fluttershy felt a weight lift off her shoulders as she followed after him. She and Adam would need to revisit that conversation at a later date, but, for now, she was glad that he hadn't just ran off screaming in the other direction. 

A moment later, Fluttershy realized that she had come to a conclusion to her other problem as well. It was a good thing they were going to be next door to the clinic, it appeared she had a sick little girl to talk to the doctor about.





Moriarty's hadn't changed, at least as far as the exterior went. It didn't even have any shiny patches where rogue magic might have touched it. As she walked up to the door Sunset absently patted her combat knife and Nova pistol, both safely secured on her hips. She had left her plasma rifle and armor up at the Temple, but she wasn't foolish enough to go wandering around town without some kind of protection again.

Inside, the bar was just as dank and dingy as Sunset remembered it. Just as crowded, too. Gob, Moriarty's ghoul slave, was hurrying around cleaning tables and removing empty beer bottles. Almost instinctively, Sunset glanced over at the corner Burke had once sat in, what felt like a lifetime ago. A pair of wastelanders were sitting at the table, drinking and chatting merrily.

Shoving dark memories to the back of her mind, Sunset looked for Moriarty. As expected, he was standing behind the counter, serving beers to locals. He hadn't spotted her yet. Her target spotted, Sunset strode towards him, a wave of silence spreading in her wake as people realized that she was there.

Moriarty noticed the hush falling over his tavern. He looked up just as Sunset reached the bar, then threw his arms wide and gave a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Well, look who it is! One of the almighty Goddesses herself, come to grace this humble saloon with her presence."

"What do you want, Moriarty?" Sunset asked bluntly, in no mood for his games.

"Straight to the point, is it? Alright then, missy." Moriarty fixed her with a glare. "You owe me a sackful of caps for the information you took from me."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sunset lied smoothly.

Moriarty scowled and lowered his voice. "Don't play dumb with me, girlie. You refused my generous offer in return for information on where your Vault friends ran off to, but mysteriously found out exactly where they were headed anyway, and then I hear over the radio that you can read minds. It doesn't take a fake deity to put two and two together."

Aware that every eye in the bar was on them, Sunset gave Moriarty a look of utter contempt. "In case you hadn't noticed, you don't have a monopoly on information around here. Plenty of other people knew where James and Adam were headed, and none of them were anywhere near as selfish and greedy as you."

"Nice try, lass, but I know for a fact that I was the only one who knew where James was going." Moriarty gave her a nasty grin. "Normally, I'd take offense to such thievery, and such blatant dishonesty, but I'm a generous man, so here's what I'll do. You bring me a thousand caps, for the invasion of privacy, you see, and I'll pretend this whole miserable incident ever occurred."

"You aren't getting a single cap out of me," Sunset said sharply.

Moriarty planted his hands on the counter and leaned towards her. "I'm giving you fair warning. Pay up, or goddess or not you'll discover that I am not someone you can fuck with."

Sunset matched his glare, stepping forward and leaning on the counter until they were almost nose to nose. "If you think I'm even remotely afraid of you, you've been sampling too much of your own stock." She pulled away and smirked as she said loudly, "Tell me, do you sample the beer before or after you've pissed in the still?"

Several of the patrons spat out mouthfuls of whatever they were drinking as angry murmurs filled the room. Moriarty's glare turned murderous. "You're making a dangerous enemy, Shimmer."

Sunset snorted. "The only thing dangerous about you is the swill you're serving. We're done here. If you ever have a legitimate reason to speak to me, leave a message at the Temple and I'll consider letting you know when you can drag yourself up there for an audience. Until then, stay the hell away from me and my friends, or I'll tear your business apart, piece by shit-stained piece."

Just as Sunset turned away, she saw Moriarty snarl and reach into his pocket out of the corner of her eye. Someone shouted a warning, but Sunset had already whipped around and grabbed his wrist, forcing the gun up towards the ceiling a split-second before it fired. 

People dove for cover as the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling. Sunset ignored it and punched Moriarty in the face with her free hand. As he reeled she yanked the gun out of his hand and tossed it aside, then slammed his wrist against the counter. Quick as a flash, she ripped her knife out and drove it through the back of his hand. Moriarty screamed and tried to pull his hand away, but the knife kept him pinned to the counter, drawing another scream out of him as bone scraped and tendons snapped.

"That was dumb." Sunset picked up Moriarty's fallen gun and gave him a quick look over, just to make sure he didn't have any other weapons on him, then quickly glanced around to make sure the stray bullet hadn't hit anyone. Satisfied that the situation was under control, Sunset flicked the gun's safety on and leaned down to speak to Moriarty. "I hope you've learned your lesson, because if you ever try and pull that shit again, you're getting face-fucked by bladed objects. Are we clear?"

"Fuck you!" Moriarty snarled, tears streaming down his face.

"What the fizzedy-uck is going on here?" Pinkie asked, somehow popping up from behind the counter next to Moriarty.

Sunset smiled. "Nothing much, just a quick lesson in manners."

Pinkie raised an eyebrow as she stared at the blade poking out of Moriarty's hand, then shrugged. "Okie dokie lokie! Anyway, Adam sent me to find you. Sheriff Simms is giving him a house as thanks for helping to disarm the atom bomb, and then he told us that if we want to know about any weird technology, we should probably speak to a lady called Moira. We're going to see her now. Wanna come?"

"Sure thing," Sunset replied, trying to mentally gloss over the fact that the idiots had been messing around with an atomic bomb. She waved the gun in Moriarty's face. "I'm keeping this." 

Pinkie hopped over the counter and skipped over to the door. Sunset made to follow her, then stopped and turned back around as she remembered something. "Whoops, almost forgot." Moriarty howled again as she yanked the knife out of his hand.
> Chapter 108 - The Wasteland Survival Guide
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey, can you hold this for me a second?" Sunset handed Pinkie her new pistol as they walked. 

"Sure thing!" Pinkie double-checked the safety just in case as Sunset started cleaning the blood from her knife. "What happened with Moriarty?"

Sunset sighed. "Nothing much. He figured out that I read his mind when we were first here and tried to threaten me into paying him a thousand caps for the info on James."

"And… that's why you stabbed him?" Pinkie asked slowly.

"Come on, seriously?" Sunset sheathed the knife and gave her an annoyed look. "I wouldn't have stabbed him just for that. I did it because the asshole pulled a gun on me. That gun."

Pinkie shrugged and handed the gun back. "Had to check. It is Moriarty."

Sunset chuckled. "Fair enough. I'd better warn the others, just in case the maggot tries to get revenge somehow." She tucked the gun into her pack and put Moriarty to the back of her mind. "Okay, so, who's Moira?"

"She runs a general store just around the corner called Craterside Supply. Apparently, she also likes performing weird experiments on the side." Pinkie explained. "The Sheriff says that Moira's a bit cuckoo, but that she's also really good with machinery, and she keeps track of all sorts of old technology. If anyone in Megaton can tell us where we might find an SDT, it's her."

"Let's hope so. In the meantime…" Sunset cast a suspicious glance at Pinkie. "What exactly did you do to the atom bomb?"

"We disarmed it," Pinkie replied simply. Seeing that Sunset wasn't satisfied with that answer, she grinned awkwardly and skipped ahead to the next corner. "Oh, look, we're already here!"

Sunset scowled, but let it go for the time being. Following Pinkie around the corner, Sunset spotted their destination. It was far from inconspicuous. The nose of a rusted old airliner had been secured on top of a ramshackle building to serve as its second storey. Metal letters spelling out 'SUPPLY' had been stuck on top of that, and the words 'The Craterside Supply' had been painted on several separate sections of the building in white paint.

Adam was already waiting on the walkway out front, along with the rest of the Rainbooms.

"Hey, did you find anything useful?" Rainbow called out.

"Nothing we can use," Sunset replied. "You?"

"Only that we should speak to the woman who runs this place," Applejack said, jerking a thumb towards Craterside Supply. "We were just waitin' for you to show up before we went in. Now that you're here, let's find out what Moira knows."

"Groovy!" Adam was the first one to the door. He held it open like a gentleman as the girls filed in after him. 

Inside, Craterside Supply looked like a cross between a convenience store and a workshop. Shelves full of all kinds of random items lined one wall, from boxes of ammunition and medical equipment to garden gnomes and teddy bears, with a short counter in front of it all, while the wall opposite was covered with tools and mechanical parts of every description. A rough-looking man in leather armor was leaning against a workbench, and a woman wearing patched and stained overalls was fiddling with a tiny piece of clockwork on the counter. Both looked up as the group entered.

"Oh, hey, you're the Rainbooms! And you're that stray from the Vault!" The woman abandoned her trinket and straightened up, her features alive with outright curiosity. "I'm Moira Brown. I run Craterside Supply, but what I really do is mostly tinkering and research. What can I do for you? Does the Temple need more appliances, or are you here for something more decorative?"

Sunset smiled, relieved that Moira at least wasn't immediately jumping down her throat about something. "Actually, we're looking for a specific piece of equipment. Very rare stuff. We were told that you might be able to help us?"

"I sure hope so!" Moira replied brightly. "I've got all kinds of rare and unusual stuff here. I've even got a bunch of those magic crystal thingies that have been popping up lately, but I had to stop experimenting with them after they made my waffle iron angry. And racist. Well, more racist." Her face fell momentarily, but she quickly perked up and leaned forward to rest her elbows on the counter. "Anyway! What are you looking for?"

Sunset glanced at Twilight, who nodded and pulled a folded photo out of her pocket. She unfolded it and handed it to Moira. "We call it an SDT, short for Signal Detector Thingy," Twilight explained. "We know of two so far, but one was destroyed. We were hoping that you might know of somewhere we might find one?"

Moira stared intently at the photo, humming loudly as she thought, but after a few seconds she shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I've never seen anything like it. It doesn't resemble any technology I've ever seen before. Is it pre-war?" Twilight nodded. "Any idea what company made it?"

"Not a clue," Sunset replied. "The Enclave knows something about it, but it's apparently highly classified, so I think it must have been some kind of government project."

"Huh, neat." Moira planted her hands on her hips. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I can help you. I'd suggest looking at old ruins owned by companies that had ties to the government, like RobCo or the National Guard compound, but I'd guess that most of them have been pretty well picked over by scavengers already."

Sunset sighed. "I guess we should at least give them a check over. Thanks anyway."

"Hey," Adam called out suddenly. He pointed at something on the wall. "Where'd you get the Vault suit?"

Following his finger, Sunset blinked in surprise at the sight of a modified Vault 101 jumpsuit hanging on the wall behind the counter. Several thick leather plates had been added for additional protection, along with a heavy pauldron on the left shoulder, but its provenance was unmistakable.

Moira cocked her head as she looked up at the suit. "I'm pretty sure I remember a girl coming into town with it about ten, twelve years ago. She didn't know a thing about the wastes, and I knew she'd get herself hurt without some sort of protection. So, I offered to armor her Vault suit." Moira sighed sadly. "Never saw her again. Probably died out there, poor thing.

"Aww, that sucks," Pinkie said quietly.

"Yeah. In a way, she actually gave me the idea for a book I've been thinking about writing. I've just never had the time to get around to it." Moira suddenly gasped and clapped her hands together. "Hey, I've got a great idea!" She spun around and looked wildly from Sunset to Adam and back. "Why don't you help me research the book?"

Sunset just stared at her blankly. She opened her mouth to remind Moira that they had their own business to attend to, but Twilight got there first. "What kind of book?" 

Moira grinned. "Well, it's a dangerous place out there in the wastes, right? People could really use a compilation of good advice. Like a Wasteland Survival Guide! For that, I need an assistant, or eight, to test my theories. I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt because of a mistake. Nobody's ever happy when that happens." A wistful look entered her eye. "No… then they just yell a lot. At me. With mean, mean words."

Sunset felt a sudden flicker of apprehension. Moira's tinkering hobby suddenly seemed to have a bit of a 'mad scientist' vibe to it, and Sunset couldn't help but wonder exactly what sort of accidents Moira had caused that got people hurt. The fact that the victims had been well enough to yell at her afterwards was only a cold comfort. 

"That actually sounds like a good idea," Adam said, apparently blissfully unconcerned by Moira's past. 

"Seriously?" Sunset asked flatly.

"Are you kidding? It's a fantastic idea!" Twilight gushed. "A well-written and thoroughly researched guide for surviving out here in the wastes would be invaluable! A book like that would have made our lives a lot easier out here!"

Sunset sighed and rolled her eyes. This argument had been lost the moment Twilight heard the word 'book'. "Fine. Adam, you can help research the book, but the rest of us really need to search the Capital Wasteland for another SDT."

"Actually, that's the best part!" Moira cut in. "Parts of the book will require my assistants to go out into the wastes to verify my theories. So you can help me with the book and search for your SDT all at the same time!"

Something told Sunset that getting this survival guide written was going to be a lot harder than Moira was implying, but she set it aside. Difficult jobs were par for the course in this wretched reality. "Alright, I'm in. What do you need us to do?"
> Chapter 109 - Wasteland Survival Guide: Food and Medicine
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moira smiled and ducked behind the counter, then popped back up a moment later to drop a thick binder on the countertop. "Let's see…" She flicked through the binder until she found what she was looking for. "Here! Okay, the first chapter will have to be about surviving day-to-day dangers. Things like where it is and isn't safe to find food, the dangers of radiation, and how to avoid and even profit from dangerous landmines."

"Sounds… fun?" Applejack said unsurely.

"It does, doesn't it?" Moira replied brightly. "Which do you want to do first?"

Adam shrugged. "Finding food doesn't sound too bad." He glanced around at the others. "What do you think?"

"Sounds good to me," Sunset agreed. It certainly sounded less unpleasant than the other two options. "Okay, so you want us to go out into the wastes and find food?"

"And medicine," Moira confirmed. "Everyone needs them once in a while, right? So they need a good place to find them!" She tapped the page in her binder. "There's an old Super Duper Mart not far from here. I need to know if a place like that still has any food or medicine left in it."

"Isn't that the one we passed when we first headed into the DC ruins?" Rainbow asked.

Applejack nodded. "Yeah, where we met those ghouls."

Rarity frowned curiously. "Won't any food in there have rotted a long time ago?" 

"Going by the amount of preservatives people stuffed into their food pre-war, not likely," Pinkie replied. 

"Either way, it's worth a look," Sunset put in. Scavenging in a local supermarket wasn't something Sunset had expected to be doing anytime soon, but it seemed an easy enough job. She glanced at Moira. "You just want us to check whether or not there's any food and medicine in there, right?"

Moira nodded vigorously. "That's right. Food is most important, but see if you can find medicine, too. And if there's nothing to find, just come back in one piece, okay?"

"Got it." Sunset gestured to the others. "Alright, girls, let's get going. We'll pick up anything we need from the Temple and head straight out."

Moira waved enthusiastically as the group left. 

Getting back to the Temple was surprisingly simple, much to Sunset's relief, thanks to a long ramp outside Craterside Supply that led directly down into the crater. It also meant that the group was in plain sight of half of Megaton as they descended. Sunset was slowly starting to get used to the staring and the hushed whispering, but it still made her somewhat uncomfortable.

A Disciple was waiting in the Temple's welcome room when the group arrived. He bowed low as the girls stepped inside. "Welcome back, your Graces."

Sunset greeted him casually, noting that Adam's power armor was safely tucked away in a corner. "Right; Adam, suit up. The rest of us will grab our gear and meet you at the gate."

"Roger." Adam actually snapped a half-decent salute as Sunset pushed open the doors to the Temple proper. 

Several Disciples were going about their routines in the main chamber. They bowed when they saw the girls, stepping aside so as not to get in the way as the group made their way upstairs. Waiting at the top of the stairs, as if she had known they were coming, was Primrose.

"Welcome back," Primrose said with a bow. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Not right now," Sunset replied. 

Primrose stood aside as the girls split off towards their own rooms, then fell into step behind Sunset. "I hope Moriarty didn't cause any problems, my lady."

Fighting the urge to reprimand the handmaiden for being so formal, Sunset shook her head. "Nothing I couldn't handle." She paused in front of her door as a thought occurred to her. "Actually, I'm pretty sure I've just jumped to the top of his shit list, so ask everyone in the temple just to keep an eye out. I'd hate it if he takes his temper out on the Disciples."

"I'll let everyone know," Primrose promised. 

"Thanks." Sunset unlocked her door, marveling again at her little magic key, and stepped inside, holding the door open for Primrose. "We won't be staying long, sorry. We're just getting our gear, then we're heading back out into the wastes."

Primrose nodded. "Would you like me to help you into your armor?"

"Thanks, but I've got it," Sunset replied. "We shouldn't be away for more than a few hours. We're just checking out the Super Duper Mart for Moira."

"Moira?!" Primrose exclaimed. She blushed as Sunset turned to raise an eyebrow at her. "F-forgive me. Moira is a good person, but her experiments can be a little… unstable."

Sunset smiled sourly as she slipped her armor on. "I figured as much. Thankfully, we're just helping her with research for a book. No experiments."

Primrose let out a sigh of relief. "That's good. Oh, I wished to ask, would you be happy with me entering your room to clean while you are absent?"

"Won't you need a key?" Sunset asked.

"Er, I actually have a spare," Primrose admitted sheepishly. "I just didn't want to use it without permission."

Sunset shrugged and tightened the straps on her armor. "Sure, if you're ok with it." She fetched her plasma rifle and slung it over her shoulder. "Alright, I'm off."

"Would you like to see your offerings before you leave?" Primrose asked.

A sudden feeling of foreboding settled in Sunset's gut. "Offerings?"

"Many of the Disciples brought gifts for each of your Gra- er, each of you, as have many of the Children of Atom and other believers from around the wastes," Primrose explained. "There are several set aside for you downstairs. Would you like to see them?"

Sunset's eyebrow twitched. Taking up residence in the Temple was one thing, but accepting random gifts from total strangers on the basis of some misguided faith was a whole other can of worms. Picking up on her discomfort, Primrose continued in a low voice, "I know this might feel weird, or even wrong, but you have helped a lot of people since you arrived in the wastes, both directly and indirectly. People just want to give something back, and help keep you safe."

We've also hurt a whole bunch of people since we got here, Sunset thought, though she couldn't bring herself to say it. Instead, she just sighed and said, "We'll take a look tonight. For now, me and the girls have got a job to do."

"As you wish, my lady," Primrose replied with a bow.

After giving her equipment a quick check over, Sunset headed back down to the welcome room. Rainbow and Applejack were already there, waiting impatiently, but the others arrived in short order.

Leaving Megaton was easy enough. People stared, most of them relatively subtly, but thankfully no-one was brave or stupid enough to get in the girls' way. Adam was surrounded by a gaggle of residents by the gates, but they got out of the way swiftly as the Rainbooms approached.

"Are they scared of us or something?" Pinkie asked.

"Pretty much," Adam confirmed. "Half of them thought that the stories about your powers were just propaganda, even with the rest of the wild magic floating around. Since Rainbow went ahead and confirmed what you can do earlier, they're a little concerned about how to deal with you."

Applejack snorted, looking around at the residents who were warily looking on. "As long as no one tries to pick a fight with us, we ain't plannin' on causin' any trouble," she said loudly.

"I don't think that's helping," Twilight put in quietly.

"Let's just get this over with," Sunset huffed. She waved up at Stockholm in his nest, then led the way out through Megaton's gates. 

True to form, Adam immediately turned North and took the lead. "Okay, let's go!"

"Wrong way, nitwit," Rainbow said with a snigger. "We want to go East instead."

"Oh, right." Adam glanced around, somehow managing to appear embarrassed even in his armor. "Uh, why don't all of you lead the way?"

A powerful wave of nostalgia hit Sunset as the group tramped up the hill to their right. Last time the girls had gone this way, they had been fresh from their first battles with raiders, and yet, even with Rarity getting shot, they had had barely any idea of how truly dangerous the wastes really were. 

That naiveté had been quite thoroughly beaten out of them over time.

Much like last time, the trip to the Super Duper Mart was uneventful. A sleepy mole rat hissed in annoyance as the group's passage woke it up, but Fluttershy quickly soothed it and had it return to its nap.

As the group crested the hill and started down the other side, the Super Duper Mart coming into view at the bottom, Fluttershy held a hand out to stop everyone. "Hold on, there's someone on top of the building."

Everyone quickly got into cover, getting out of sight. Sunset crouched and held a hand up to shade her eyes as she stared down at the Mart. Sure enough, two people were patrolling the Super Duper Mart's roof like sentries. 

"They both have wings, and it looks like they both have rifles, too," Fluttershy noted. 

"So they've got some magic crystals, and they've figured out to use them." Sunset squinted, but she couldn't make out any details. "What do you think? Wastelanders? Or raiders?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "I'm not sure. They're dressed pretty, um, roughly, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything."

"Want me to do some aerial recon?" Rainbow asked.

"No, there's too much chance of them spotting you, and I'd rather avoid a fight if I can help it." Sunset pointed to a ruined overpass just beyond the Mart. "Run around the perimeter and see if you can get up there without getting spotted. That should give you a perfect vantage point to check out the parking lot and the entrance."

Rainbow nodded. "On it." There was a rustle of wind as she darted off. Less than a minute later, pebbles rattled as she returned. "Definitely raiders. They're stringing some poor guys up on the canopy. Hopefully they're dead already, but I'm not certain."

"Great," Sunset muttered. 

"There were raiders here the first time I came through," Adam offered. "Do you think it's the same group?"

"No, when we came through there were just a few ghouls camping out," Sunset replied.

Adam hummed thoughtfully. "Maybe the raider group we saw moved on, then came back? Or maybe another group has taken their place? Either way, this is probably going to turn into a fight."

"Probably," Sunset admitted. "Still, I think we should try and avoid a battle if we can. They may just be a bunch of half-wit raiders, but all it'll take is one stray bullet to really ruin our day."

"Yes, I know that feeling all too well," Rarity grumbled, flexing her arm. 

"Okay, so… how are we going to do this?" Twilight asked. "Do we fight? Or do we go back and tell Moira that the place is infested with raiders?"

"Why not both?" Applejack suggested. "If they're raiders, Ah'm guessin' they ain't exactly masters of strategy. Rainbow, reckon you can take out those guys on the roof without raisin' a stink?"

Rainbow shrugged. "I can take one out, sure, but I might not be able to get the second one before they make a noise. Depends on which way they're looking when I go in."

"I can tell you where they're looking," Fluttershy told her. "Just be ready to fly, and I'll tell you when they're facing opposite directions."

"Alright, just make sure none of them are looking this way, either," Rainbow reminded her, drawing Flashburn and ponying up.

Fluttershy nodded and stared intently at the building. Seconds ticked by slowly, then Fluttershy raised a hand. "Get ready… go!"

Rainbow disappeared in a multi-colored blur. "One down… two down," Fluttershy counted off. "She's giving us a thumbs up, so I don't think the raiders in the parking lot have noticed."

"Good." Sunset straightened up and readied her plasma rifle, gesturing for the others to follow. "Let's get down there and see what we're dealing with. If we have to take the raiders out to get inside safely, then we do it quickly and quietly. No guns if we can help it. Twi, Rarity, that means your magic will be best for this."

"Very well, darling," Rarity replied.

Twilight looked down at her hands, a purple aura flickering into life around them as the group stalked down the hill. "Is this the sort of thing you girls were doing while I was stuck in that wheelchair?"

"Pretty much," Sunset admitted. "At least this time it's only raiders. Not Deathclaws or power-armored soldiers. And hey, we've got you with us this time, so we've got another advantage." She glanced at Twilight uneasily as a thought occurred to her. "Uh, actually, you should probably leave this but to us." Sunset winced as Twilight gave her an indignant look. "Well, I mean, you haven't actually, y'know… killed anyone before."

"I'll be fine," Twilight insisted in a low tone.

Sunset wasn't entirely convinced, but she let it go as the group reached the back of the building. They edged around and along the side, making sure to stay as quiet as possible, until Fluttershy stopped them. She held up five fingers and whispered, "Five raiders. Just around the corner." 

The other nodded in understanding. Glancing up, Sunset saw Rainbow looking down at them from the roof. The two nodded to each other, then Sunset gestured for Rarity to move to the front of the group. Twilight scowled and joined Rarity at the head of the group as well. 

Seeing that she wouldn't be dissuaded, Sunset shrugged and held up three fingers for the others to see. She dropped her fingers one by one and, when she reached zero, stepped around the corner with the others.

The raiders were laughing and jeering at a trio of corpses they had strung up on the canopy using thick chains and hooks. None of them so much as looked around as a pair of razor-sharp crystal spikes embedded themselves in two of the mens' skulls. Before they had even hit the floor another pair of crystal spikes took out the next two raiders. Just as the final raider realized that something was wrong, Rainbow dropped down behind her and lopped her head off with one sweep of Flashburn.

Twilight stared in blank confusion, her arms half-raised. "What just happened?" 

"Exactly what we planned, dear," Rarity replied. 

Adam chuckled at Twilight's expression. "You'll need to work on your reflexes if you want to keep up." He patted her gently on the shoulder. "Don't worry, it just takes practice."

"Practice can wait, right now we've got a supermarket to ransack," Sunset cut in. "Fluttershy, is there anyone inside?"

"There's no one right inside the entrance, but…" Fluttershy crept to the nearest door and gently pulled it open a couple of inches. She listened for a few short seconds, then closed it again. "There's a bunch more inside. I'm not sure exactly how many, but they definitely outnumber us."

"No surprise there." Sunset glanced around at the others, thinking quickly. "Do you think we could sneak in and out without getting caught?"

Fluttershy shrugged. "I'm not sure. Maybe?"

"It's worth a shot," Sunset decided. "Rarity, Flutters, you're with me. We'll sneak inside and try to find the food and medicine for Moira. Applejack, Pinkie, you two wait out here in case any more of them show up. The rest of you, if you hear any fighting inside, storm the place and sweep it aisle by aisle." 

The others agreed, taking up positions around the entrances. Sunset checked her weapon over quickly, glanced at Rarity to make sure that she was good to go, then nodded for Fluttershy to open the door. Silent as death, the three ghosted into the building.

Just inside the entrance was a tiny little atrium, with a vending machine and a bench. Beyond that was the main section of the Super Duper Mart. Long rows of thick gondola shelves made up over a dozen aisles. Many of them had wooden slats placed against them forming ramps up, or across the aisles, forming bridges across them. Barely any of the ceiling lights worked, leaving the interior shrouded in darkness.

Sunset could see the shadowy figures of raiders walking around the aisles and on top of the shelving, and she could hear more deeper in the store, laughing and arguing, utterly unaware of the intruders. "We need to avoid as many of them as possible," Sunset whispered. "Which way?"

Fluttershy gestured off to the right. The three slipped into the room and crept right, taking cover among the row of dilapidated cash registers. Just past the last register was the counter of what must have once been a storage area or collection point. As the trio reached the last register Fluttershy halted them, evidently sensing that someone was approaching. 

The trio waited with bated breath. After almost a minute of waiting, Fluttershy let out a breath and gestured for the others to follow before silently clambering over the counter and ducking into the store room. Sunset followed her, rolling over the counter as quietly as she could, and Rarity vaulted over a second later.

The storage area was thankfully devoid of raiders. Several metal boxes were stacked on top of an island unit in the middle of the room, while more rested on skeletal metal shelving units in the corner. A fridge sat somewhat conspicuously next to the shelves. The girls set about ransacking the unit and boxes, finding a nice little supply of ammunition and stimpaks to add to their own stash, then turned their attention to the fridge. 

Bingo. Sunset grinned at the sight of a whole feast's worth of food crammed into the fridge. "They must have taken everything off the shelves and thrown it in here. Either way, that's one done. Now we just need to see if there's any medicine," she whispered.

"That'll probably be in a first aid kit in a back room," Fluttershy told her. "If they moved all of the food for safe keeping, I doubt anyone would leave something so valuable as medicine just lying around on the shelves."

Sunset nodded. "Alright, let's see what we can find. Fluttershy, you first."

With their first objective clear, the trio left the storage area through a door near the fridge, finding themselves right at the edge of the supermarket. Almost immediately, the three came across their first major obstacle. 

A pile of shopping carts had been haphazardly thrown together right in the way of the nearest two aisles. While the raiders likely weren't paying any real attention to their surroundings, it was too much to expect that they wouldn't investigate the noise of someone kicking aside a bunch of carts. 

With no other options, the girls were forced to go through the next aisle in, far too close to the sounds of rowdy conversation for Sunset's liking. Fluttershy proved invaluable, pinpointing where the wandering raiders were with her enhanced senses and guiding the other two around safely. There was one near miss as a raider sneezed, turning around abruptly, but luckily he didn't spot Rarity quickly ducking back behind a shelving unit.

Eventually, the girls managed to reach the rear of the store without incident. Another small counter could be seen at the back, leading into another 'employees only' area, but even Sunset could see the raider calmly strolling up and down behind the counter, puffing on a cigarette. Worse, the shelving came to an end well before the counter, meaning the girls would be horribly exposed as they tried to get over the counter. 

Of course, killing the raider from a distance would be easy, especially with Rarity's magic, but Sunset couldn't be sure that someone wouldn't hear his body hitting the ground, and that was if they managed to kill him silently with one go. As Sunset racked her brain, trying to figure out a way of taking the raider down silently, Fluttershy took matters into her own hands.

There was a brief flicker of magic as Fluttershy vamped out, then she darted towards the counter. She easily cleared it in a single bound. Sunset held her breath, half-expecting to hear the sound of combat, but her fears proved ill-founded as Fluttershy reappeared by the counter and waved the others over.

As they climbed quietly over the counter, Sunset grimaced at the sight of blood dripping from Fluttershy's claws. The raider lay dead in a corner, his throat brutally torn open. Turning her attention away from the raider, and deliberately ignoring the altogether disturbing look of hunger in Fluttershy's eyes, Sunset set about exploring the little area they were in.

Small tables were dotted around the area, and a coffee machine on one of them suggested that this might have once been a break room. Several metal boxes and battered ammunition crates had been stacked around the other tables. A quick search revealed a small stash of extra supplies for the girls, along with, intriguingly, a key with a tag marked as for the 'Super Duper Pharmacy'.

"There must be medicine here after all," Fluttershy said quietly.  

"We just have to find it," Sunset whispered.

Pressing on, the girls passed through a staff door and found themselves in a back corridor. They were clearly in the employee sections of the supermarket now, as the faded posters on the walls were no longer adverts for products and instead mentioned staff bonuses and responsibilities. 

A short way further in the girls found an old fire exit blocked by rubble. As they passed it, Fluttershy suddenly held up a hand to stop them. Whatever she could hear, it evidently wasn't good, as her expression hardened by the second. "Five people in the next room," she said in a clipped tone. "At least one of them is a slave." She flexed her claws as she looked up at Sunset. "They haven't been treating her very nicely."

Sunset immediately caught her meaning. She breathed in deeply through her nose, then let it out slowly through her mouth. "And here I was hoping that we could get through this using just stealth. Alright, time to go and pick a fight."

"It's not a fight, darling, it's a lesson in interpersonal relationships," Rarity put in.

Sunset snorted and strode ahead. The other two immediately fell into step behind her, and as one Sunset and Rarity ponied up, all pretense at stealth cast aside. Just around the next corner they found a door to the room that Fluttershy had mentioned. Long counters lined one side of the room, opening up into the shop floor, indicating that it was intended for employees interacting with customers. A computer terminal sat on a little table opposite the counter, next to another door.

Five people were in the room, as expected. Two of them looked to be slaves, judging by the heavy metal collars around their necks and the fact that their only clothes were tattered loincloths. One of the slaves, a boy no older than fifteen or sixteen, was frantically scrubbing filth off a metal breastplate in the corner. The other, a woman, was cowering against the wall as a hulking brute of a raider sneered and spat insults at her. The last two raiders were leaning against one of the counters, sucking something out of small inhalers. Something told Sunset that it wasn't asthma medication.

None of the people in the room noticed as Sunset walked in, raised her plasma rifle, and blew the biggest raider's head open. The two at the counter whipped around, and immediately fell as a pair of baseball bat-sized gemstone spikes slammed into their chests.

The slaves stared at the girls in a mixture of shock and terror. "You two, get on the ground and stay there!" Sunset commanded, feeling a twinge of shame as they quickly obeyed. She hated the thought of ordering them around, but it was the best way for them to avoid getting caught in the coming firefight.

That firefight wouldn't be long coming. The raiders in the aisles were already shouting out queries, and Sunset could see several shadowy figures approaching down the aisles and across the top of the shelving units. She suspected that the only reason they weren't attacking yet was because the abysmal lighting made the girls unrecognisable from a distance.

Sunset swore under her breath. "We need to get the attention of everyone outside."

"Consider it done." Rarity raised a hand and a large circular gemstone materialised in front of her. She flicked her wrist to set it spinning like a saw blade, then thrust her arms forward and sent it whizzing lethally through the air. The gemstone messily bisected one of the raiders atop the shelves before crashing into the far wall hard enough to release a deluge of dust from the ceiling.

"Be careful!" Fluttershy hissed. "We don't know if there are more slaves out there!"

Sunset ducked behind the counter as the nearest raiders opened fire. "Simple, the ones shooting at us probably aren't slaves!" She popped up, shot an oncoming raider in the chest, then ducked again and scampered a few meters across to the left. "Don't forget to keep moving! These counters won't stop bullets!"

Rarity squawked as a bullet chose that moment to tear through the counter next to her, missing her by an inch. "Duly noted!"

The two traded fire with the raiders. Luckily, the surprise attack from behind had confused them, and they attacked in a disorganized mess rather than as a coordinated unit. Green, purple, and blue flashes from the front of the store spoke of the arrival of Adam and the others. 

Caught between two hostile teams in a place they thought safe, the raiders went from surprised anger to panic. Sunset saw more than one of them try to run away, or throw their weapons down and cower on the floor with their hands above their heads.

As Sunset picked off another raider foolish enough to make himself a target, a sudden blur made her flinch and whip her weapon around.

"Don't shoot! It's me!" Rainbow cried, backpedaling swiftly.

"You fucking idiot, I nearly shot you!" Sunset snapped.

"Right, my b-" Rainbow yelped and ducked as a bullet spanked off her armor. "Damn it!"

Sunset quickly put a bolt of plasma through the offending raider and dropped to the floor. "What's going on?"

"I was just making sure none of you were injured," Rainbow said quickly. "You all alright?"

"We're fine, I think," Sunset replied. She glanced at Fluttershy, who was keeping the slaves laying down safely in a corner. "We found a pair of slaves the raiders had, and there might be more out there, so keep your eyes open."

Rainbow glanced at the trio in the corner, her eyes narrowing as she saw the state of them. "Fucking assholes. I'll go check." She dashed off with a flash. Sunset glanced into the shop floor just in time to see a heavy gemstone spike pitch another raider off her feet. Before Sunset could find another target, Rainbow reappeared at her side. "There's another two in the toilets, but they're safe for now. There's none on the shop floor."

"Good," Sunset replied. A clatter of bullets caught her attention, but it was cut off by a crackle of plasma and, as if a switch had been flipped, an oppressive silence fell. 

"Is that all of them?" Rarity asked.

Fluttershy got up and hurried over to the others at the counter. She cocked her head as she listened, then shook her head. "There's three surviving raiders, but it sounds like Adam and Twilight have them captive. Look, there they are."

Sunset looked up to see Adam and Twilight approaching, with three unarmed raiders being dragged along behind them in a purple aura. As they reached the counter, Twilight hauled the raiders forward and dumped them unceremoniously on the floor. "Is that everyone?"

"Not quite," Sunset replied. "We found a pair of slaves here, and there's two more in the toilets. Fluttershy, can you go and fetch them?" Fluttershy nodded and made to do as asked, but Sunset stopped her with a hand. "You might want to de-vamp, first." 

"Oh, right." Fluttershy pulled a blood pack out of her kit and drained it, shifted back to normal, then, for no apparent reason, decided to pony up before trotting off to find the slaves.

Sunset sighed and shook her head. "Rarity, have you got any spare clothes for these two?" She gestured to the almost naked slaves still cowering in the corner.

"Of course I have clothes, darling," Rarity replied, as if it had been the dumbest question in the world, which, Sunset supposed, it might have been. Rarity pulled her pack off and stepped lightly over to the slaves. "I'll see what I can do about those collars, as well."

"Y-you can't!" The boy stammered, shaking uncontrollably. "They're bombs, if you try to take them off they'll explode!"

Appalled silence filled the room. Sunset gritted her teeth and turned to Rainbow. "Get Applejack and Pinkie in here and let them take a look. The rest of you keep an eye on those raiders while I check for medicine in the back." She stepped over to the door, readying her plasma rifle, and cautiously turned the handle, but it turned out to be locked. A quick check revealed that it didn't even have a keyhole. "Typical. Twi, can you see if that terminal unlocks the door, please?"

"Sure." Twilight got Adam to help boost her over the counter, then hurried over to the terminal. "Yeah, it's an electronic lock. Here." 

A loud clunk echoed through the room as the door unlocked. "Thanks." Sunset readied her plasma rifle again and carefully opened the door.

Beyond was evidently some kind of store room. Rows of skeletal metal shelving piled with boxes filled most of the room. Sunset slowly moved further in, sweeping her plasma rifle around as she checked for any targets. As she reached the back wall the rows opened up on her right. Just past them lay a small clearing, with a dusty desk and a robot charging pod pressed against the wall. A padlocked first aid box hung on the wall above the desk.

"Gotcha." Sunset shouldered her plasma rifle and hurried over to the desk, pulling the pharmacy key out of her pocket. "I hope this works." Her spirits lifted as the padlock unlocked easily. "And what's inside… jackpot!" 

Faded packs of painkillers, decongestants, and cough syrup sat next to stimpaks and assorted chems that other occupants had added over time. 

Sunset was about to start stuffing the meds into her pack when she heard a soft whine from behind. She whipped around, her plasma rifle instantly up and ready. No immediate threats jumped out at her, but she didn't dare let her guard down. 

A slight movement in a dark corner of the room caught Sunset's attention. Edging around a wrecked shelving unit, she tensed at the sight of someone crouched in the corner, clutching something to their chest. "I can see you back there. Come out into the light, slowly, and no funny business."

The figure shifted and got to their feet. As they shuffled slowly into the light, Sunset realized that it was a young girl, barely into her teens, wearing the same ragged loincloth and explosive collar as the rest of the slaves. She was clutching a tiny baby to her chest. The slave was shaking uncontrollably, staring at Sunset as if she were some kind of monster.

Sunset immediately slung her rifle over her shoulder. "Sorry, I thought you were a raider." She took a step towards the girl, but the girl shrank back away from her, clutching the baby protectively.

"P-please! Don't hurt us!" The slave said anxiously.

Sunset stopped and held her hands up to show that she was unarmed. "It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you." She tapped a finger on her chest. "I'm Sunset. What's your name?"

The slave stared at Sunset warily. "Darla," she answered timidly.

"Darla. Nice to meet you." Sunset smiled and gestured to the baby. "And this little one?"

"Tina," Darla replied.

"Tina, that's a pretty name," Sunset said honestly. "Is she your little sister?"

Darla backed away another step, turning slightly so Tina was further from Sunset. "My daughter," Darla said quietly.

Sunset tried to keep a warm smile on her face, even though Darla's words felt like a punch to the gut. She couldn't stop herself from asking in a dull monotone, "Is one of the raiders the father?" Darla just nodded faintly. "Do you know which one?"

Her voice barely above a whisper, "Darla replied, "No."

"Okay." Sunset held a hand out, trying to coax Darla forward. "Come on, you're free now. Let's get you some food and clothes then get you somewhere safe."

Darla hesitated, understandably wary, but the promise of food or sanctuary overrode her caution and she shuffled over to Sunset. 

Placing a gentle hand on Darla's shoulder, Sunset couldn't help but notice that the poor girl was icy cold, and her concern for the baby shot up even further as she guided the pair out of the room. "Rarity? I need another set of clothes, and anything you have that would be safe for a baby."

"A baby? What do you-" Rarity gasped at the sight of Darla and Tina. "Oh my- right away!" She instantly snatched her pack up and started rummaging around in it while Fluttershy hurried over.

Leaving the utterly stunned Darla to the tender care of Rarity and Fluttershy, Sunset glanced over at the other slaves. The two from the toilets, an old man and another girl around Sunset's age, had been retrieved, and all four had been clothed in an assortment of simple pants and t-shirts. Their explosive collars lay forgotten on the floor in the corner. 

Satisfied that they were safe, Sunset stepped over to where the other Rainbooms and Adam were standing by the counter. The surviving three raiders were kneeling together in the muck on the shop floor, their hands bound behind their backs by gemstone handcuffs.

"That baby, it's hers, isn't it?" Rainbow asked quietly. 

Sunset nodded grimly. "And the father was one of the raiders. She doesn't know which one, though," she said in an undertone.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "How can she not know? Unless…" Her expression clouded over as she realized the answer. 

"Yeah." Sunset clenched her fists so tightly her knuckles hurt. "I found medicine in the back. I want everyone to gather up as much of the supplies, weapons, and ammunition from here as we can. Use some of the metal boxes if you have to. Destroy anything we can't carry. We'll take the liberated slaves to the Temple and have the Disciples take care of them until they're healthy to go their own way." She glanced back over her shoulder. "Rarity? Can you raise a thick wall up between us? Just some extra privacy for the baby, y'know?"

"Of course." One elegant gesture later, and a thick wall of opaque crystal blocked the slaves and their carers from view.

"What's that about?" Rainbow asked.

Sunset clambered over the counter. "I didn't want to scare the baby when I did this." She snatched up a heavy tire iron that one of the raiders had dropped and launched herself at the captives. Terror flitted across their faces as they realized what was about to happen, but none of them had a chance to move before Sunset was on them. She laid about herself like a madwoman, dealing each of them a savage blow to the head to knock them down, then reaching down to continue her onslaught on their prone forms.

By the time Sunset was finished, the gore-soaked tire iron was bent beyond all recognition. Her chest heaving with effort and spent emotion, Sunset tossed the tire iron away and straightened up, wiping blood and sweat from her face. "Alright, let's get to work."
> Chapter 110 - Wasteland Survival Guide: Radiation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hearing the gates of Megaton slam shut was both a balm and an annoyance. On the one hand, it meant that the wastes, and all of the attendant bullshit, was safely locked outside. On the other, it also meant that the Rainbooms were back to being the center of attention, and Sunset wasn't sure whether or not she could handle that at the moment.

In an attempt to distract herself, Sunset glanced back at the liberated slaves. The boy was looking around with awestruck curiosity, while three of the others kept their heads down, as if expecting a reprimand simply for not being utterly docile. Darla was glancing around furtively, clinging to Tina as if she was a lifeline. Thankfully, the baby was moving around and grizzling in the spare shirt Rarity had given her. Given how cold and unresponsive she had been, Sunset had feared that Tina wouldn't survive the trip.

"They'll be okay," Applejack said quietly. "For now, what are we doing with these supplies?"

Sunset glanced sidelong at her, still marveling at the fact that the farmer was balancing four metal boxes full of supplies and weapons on her shoulders. Adam had another two tied to the back of his armor, and Twilight was carrying another four in her magic. 

Shaking her head to bring herself back in the moment, Sunset cleared her throat and replied, "We'll drop them and our new friends off at the Temple, then sort through everything tonight. Some of the ammunition and supplies we'll keep for ourselves, the rest can go to the Temple. Any excess weapons can be sold to Megaton through Simms or, if he isn't interested, we'll see if Moira wants the lot wholesale. Any profit can be split between us and the Temple."

"Sounds good to me." Applejack nodded at something ahead. "Let's go and see what Joshua says."

Looking up, Sunset realized that they were right at the foot of the Temple. "Huh, okay." 

A queue of people was waiting outside the Temple. All of them watched the group, with varying degrees of subtlety. Ignoring them, Sunset led the way up the steps and inside, only to find Primrose and a handful of other Disciples waiting for the group in the welcome room.

"Welcome back, my lady." Primrose ducked her head in deference. "Forgive me, but Joshua felt it best if we opened up the Temple to the residents now that you had all gotten yourselves settled, though we are only letting a few people in at a time for the moment."

"Fair enough," Sunset replied. "We're not staying long, I'm afraid, but… I kinda have a favor to ask." She glanced back at the former slaves, aware that she was about to make a pretty awkward request. "Would the Temple be able to look after these five for a little while? Just until they're healthy and happy enough to go their own way?"

Primrose nodded. "Of course, Miss Shimmer. I have already taken the liberty of preparing accomodations for them, and one of the other Disciples has agreed to help out as a wet-nurse for the baby."

Sunset stared at her in amazement. "How did you know…?"

"Just a hunch," Primrose replied with an enigmatic smile. 

"A hunch?" Sunset raised an eyebrow. She was about to enquire more, when a tiny sneeze from Tina reminded her that they had more important things to do. "Well, good work. I'd appreciate it if you could send word to Doc Church for me, ask him if he'll come over and check on the baby, just to be safe. I'll cover the bill."

Primrose nodded. "Of course. The doctor is actually here already, seeing to the daughter of one of the Disciples, so that shouldn't be a problem."

"That's a relief." Sunset turned to the slaves. "Okay, the people here will look after you until you're fit and well, then you're welcome to go and do whatever you want. You're free."

The boy and girl both thanked her profusely, tears of relief forming in their eyes. The old man, on the other hand, looked as if he didn't quite understand what was going on. Sunset had to wonder just how long he had been a slave for. Darla, naturally, was still looking around at everyone suspiciously and trying to keep Tina safely coddled away.

As the slaves were led into the Temple by the waiting Disciples, Applejack grunted and shifted the boxes on her shoulders. "Right, that's sorted, so what are we doin' with these here supplies?"

"We'll drop them in my room for now," Sunset replied. She quickly outlined her plan to Primrose.

"I'll send someone to speak to the Sheriff," Primrose promised. "Is there anything else I can do?"

"No, that's it, thanks." With the arrangements made, Sunset had everyone drop the supplies in her bedroom. Even Adam was allowed in to help, though, once he was done gawping at the flaming cauldron, he was asked to leave his armor in a corner so as not to damage the stairs.

Once everything had been squared away, the group left the Temple behind and made their way back up to Craterside Supply. Of course, getting there without getting stared at was impossible, but Sunset did her best to put it out of her mind. 

Moira was waiting behind the counter when the Rainbooms arrived. She looked up eagerly as Adam held the door open for the others. "So, how's the scavving been? Got the food and medicine from that Super Duper Mart?"

Adam nodded. "It wasn't easy, but we managed to find both."

"Really? You did?" Moira's face lit up as she realized that Adam wasn't lying. "You did! Well, all right! Tell me all about it!"

"It sucked," Rainbow said flatly.

"That's an understatement," Rarity huffed.

Moira cocked her head to the side, confused, so Sunset explained, "A large gang of raiders was using the Mart as some sort of base. They were fairly well- equipped and successful, too, going by the fact that they had their own slaves and even a few magic crystals."

"They kept their best gear in the pharmacy out back," Adam added. "The place was surprisingly well defended."

Moira hummed thoughtfully. "I guess I'm not the only one who thought about those old stores. If they managed to acquire a well-protected stash, though, then maybe there's other hidden treasures around the wastes, protected by all sorts of monsters!"

"It makes sense," Sunset put in. "Places like that offer shelter from the elements, a safe place to sleep, a defensible location in case of emergency, and an excellent place to find and store supplies. Any wasteland group would be interested in a base like that, but only the strongest would be able to hold it for any length of time."

"You make some very good points. I'll make sure to put them in the book." Moira smiled at the group. "Well, keep any of the food and medicine you found. I just traded for a big shipment, myself. Here-" she fetched a plate of iguana bits off one of the shelves behind her and placed it on the counter, "-take a bit, my treat. The taste kind of… grates after a while. Oh!" Moira dove under the counter, then popped back a moment later with an odd little box in her hands and plonked it on the counter. "You can have this, too!"

Sunset inspected the little box curiously. It had what looked like vents on one side, and a little fan on top. 

"Is that an old food sanitizer?" Adam asked. 

"Yep!" Moira beamed. "Just carry it with you and it should automatically make most food and drink more, um… better."

Twilight leaned in to give the little sanitizer a closer look. "That's impressive. How does it work?"

"I'm not sure. One second, I've got an instruction manual around here somewhere." Moira ducked back down to rummage under the counter.

"Does it also scrub radiation from food?" Sunset asked, grabbing Fluttershy's wrist as she reached for an iguana bit. 

"No, it just cleans away any bacteria and stuff," Moira replied. She looked up from under the counter, frowning curiously. "Why?"

Sunset grimaced. "We can't eat radioactive food. Not if we want to avoid increasing our chances of getting cancer even more."

"Cancer? But most wastelanders are naturally… oh." Moira's eyes widened as something clicked in her mind. "Three Dog was telling the truth. You girls are from a different reality!  That's so cool! It's going to make the next part of the wasteland survival guide a lot harder, though."

"Uh, how come?" Applejack asked warily.

Moira straightened up, sliding the food sanitizer's instruction manual across the counter to Twilight. "I want to study radiation poisoning up close. I know lots about it from books, but I never seem to get a live sample. Not for long, anyway."

"Unchecked radiation poisoning does sound rather fatal," Rarity said quietly. 

"Hey, it didn't kill me back at Vault 87," Rainbow cut in. 

"You were incredibly lucky," Fluttershy shot. "And don't forget just how much Radaway I pumped into your arm on the way to Raven Rock."

Rainbow winced and nodded, subconsciously rubbing the crook of her elbow where the needle had been put in.

"Now hold on just a tick." Applejack fixed Moira with a suspicious look. "Are you tellin' me that you want one of us to go out and get radiation poisonin' for the sake of this book?"

"If you wouldn't mind, it would really help with my research," Moira replied. "Not a deadly dose, of course, I can fix you up before that!"

"Yeah, that's not happening," Sunset said bluntly. 

Moira slumped over the counter, her cheery mood popping instantly. "Awww, phooey." 

Fluttershy raised a hand tentatively. "Um, I think I can do it." She blushed as everyone immediately shifted their attention to her, but pressed on, "Well, um, the FEV should make me immune to cancer, and the negative effects of the radiation, so… oh, wait."

"You have FEV in your body?" Moira asked, curiosity perking her right back up.

"It doesn't have to be one of you girls though, right?" Adam asked, glossing over the FEV revelation. "If we can find a wastelander, someone helpful who will have that natural resistance… to…" He looked around at everyone warily. "Uh, why are you all staring at me?"





Sunset fought the urge to giggle. Several residents stopped to stare in bafflement at what the group was doing, but most of them bailed rapidly the moment they spotted Moira.

"This is not cool," Adam huffed. The hapless volunteer was currently stripped down to his underwear, sitting cross-legged and hunched over in the pool of sketchy water that surrounded Megaton's resident atomic bomb. "It's freezing out here, and this water feels weird."

Rainbow snorted. "Come on, it's not that cold."

"It's November," Fluttershy retorted.

"Yeah, but the water must be warm from all of that radiation." Rainbow grinned maliciously. "If you want to warm him up, you can always strip down and join him in there." Fluttershy just shot her a glare.

Sunset sighed and gave Rainbow a half-hearted swat. "Stop messing with her, you pervert, or I'll tell the Disciples that you enjoy collecting artistic representations of dicks."

Rainbow shuddered. "Alright, I'll behave. I had enough of that crap back at Rivet City."

"Oh?" Sunset smirked and arched an eyebrow. "What happened between you and dicks in Rivet City?"

"Nothing," Rainbow insisted. "How long is this gonna take, anyway?"

Fluttershy sighed. "A while. This would be a lot easier and more controllable if we had a radiation trap, but…"

"Oh, hey, I've got one of those in the store!" Moira noted brightly.

The others turned to stare at her. "You have a radiation trap back up at the store?" Sunset asked in annoyance.

Moira nodded. "Yep! It's up with the… ooohhh, yeah, let's use that."





The gentle hum of the elevator was oddly soothing to Tara. It was her first time back at Project Exodus since the treaty, and she was looking forward to seeing how the new portal technology was faring. Becky was still stuck at the Adams Air Force Base, thanks to her new position, but Tara didn't let that get her down.

A soft chime rang out as the elevator reached the bottom. The doors creaked open, and Tara smiled as she spotted Sienna waiting for her. "Hey, it's good to see you."

Sienna nodded. "Likewise. How did everything go back at Command?"

"We've got the resources we requested," Tara replied, allowing Sienna to escort her towards the main office. "Any equipment we need, we'll get. We've also got the Rainbooms scouring the wastes for another SDT, just in case."

"Do you think they'll find one?" Sienna asked.

Tara shrugged. "Who knows? It's worth looking, in any case. Given that the first one they knew about was destroyed when the first portal opened, I'd rather have spares available just in case." Sienna nodded sagely. Tara kept her voice deliberately even as she added, "Horrigan is also going to be reattached to Project Exodus. He'll be arriving tomorrow."

"Good. The Super Mutants have been quiet recently, but I'll feel better having that big lug here to keep our backs safe." Sienna scowled. "Especially given the most recent development."

"What development?" Tara asked quickly.

Sienna glanced sidelong at her. "You remember Michaels?"

"The Sigma trooper that got infested by magic and has been in a coma since the Rainbooms blasted him," Tara replied. "Of course I remember him. Why? Is he awake?"

Sienna nodded. "Awake, and mutated."





"Uh… Adam? Are you okay?" Sunset asked tentatively. 

Adam just gave her a mordant look. "I've been better." He coughed wetly, and Fluttershy anxiously rubbed his back.

The group was back at Craterside Supply. Moira, Fluttershy, and Adam had all disappeared upstairs to find the radiation trap, and had reappeared a couple of hours later, with Adam looking like death warmed up.

"He'll be fine, he just needs some rest," Moira said brightly, earning a glare from Fluttershy. "The radiation poisoning is all cleared up, meaning my own little radiation cure works. That's good news. It's just, um..."

"What happened?" Applejack asked flatly.

Moira winced. "My radiation cure may have had a little side effect. A teeny, tiny…"

"She mutated him," Fluttershy hissed.

"She what?!" Sunset exclaimed.

"It seems to be benign!" Moira put in. "At least, so far."

Sunset groaned and rubbed her temples. "What kind of mutation are we talking about?"

Fluttershy gently brushed a stray hair out of Adam's face. "Luckily, it seems to be something beneficial. The tests Moira ran to make sure that the radiation cure was working also showed that Adam's cells were somehow absorbing the radiation and using it to repair themselves."

"Wait, so radiation fixes you, now?" Pinkie gasped loudly. "Does this mean that you and Fluttershy match?! Aww, your mutations echo each other, that's so cute!"

"It'd be nicer if having radiation poisoning didn't suck ass," Adam huffed. "It heals my cells, and makes me feel like absolute crap, all at once."

Moira chuckled nervously. "Yeah, sorry about that." She trotted over to a shelf and pulled off a mixed box of assorted Rad-X and Radaway, pressing it into Adam's arms. "Here. Take a few radiation chems, as my little way of saying 'I'm sorry I twisted your DNA like a kitten with a ball of yarn'."

The look on Fluttershy's face was slowly ticking a little too closely to murderous, so Sunset decided that it was best to end the conversation there. "It's getting late. Let's head back to the Temple, and we can get some more work done on the survival guide tomorrow, okay?"

"Good idea," Rarity agreed quickly.

"Yeah, I think that's a good plan," Adam said with a nod. "I finally get to check out my new house, too."

Sunset smiled, glad to have a decent excuse to leave. "Okay, Fluttershy, drag your boyfriend up to his house. The rest of us will wait for you at the Temple."

The group said their goodbyes to Moira, some of them distinctly frosty, and headed outside. Fluttershy and Adam split off to walk along the edge of the crater, while the others walked down the ramp that led most directly to the Temple. Sunset hung back slightly, letting the others go on ahead. "I know you've seen him in his underwear now," she whispered, "but if you're going to repay the favor, please be quick about it. Okay?"

As planned, Fluttershy twitched, her enhanced hearing picking up what the others missed. She glared over her shoulder, a luminous blush just visible on her cheeks, prompting Sunset to giggle and hurry to catch up with the others.

Once again, as if she had had yet another 'hunch', Primrose was waiting when the girls entered the Temple. 

"Okay, seriously, how do you do that?" Pinkie asked. "Do you have a Prim Sense?"

"Uh…" Primrose blushed as the few residents in the main room turned their attention towards the group. "Forgive me, but may we discuss this elsewhere? I have the offerings and the supplies you brought ready for inspection, if you wish?"

Sunset nodded, trying to hide the fact that she had completely forgotten about the offerings. "Sure. Lead the way."

Primrose bowed and took the girls up to the second floor. Sunset looked around with interest as the group moved through a narrow corridor. Various rooms off the corridor contained people meditating, studying, or working on magical crystals. 

"Just in here," Primrose said suddenly, holding a door open for the Rainbooms.

The room was wide and sparse, with the only decorations being the Rainbooms' cutie marks painted on the walls, and a metal box on a raised dais that almost looked like an altar. Rarity's cutie mark took pride of place behind the altar. The boxes of supplies the girls had brought back from the Super Duper Mart were stacked in one corner, and a whole bunch of other items were laid out in front of the dais on animal skin rugs. A pair of Disciples bowed as the group entered, each of them bearing purple bands around their upper arms.

"This is the Altar of Generosity," Primrose explained. "All offerings left by the good people of the wastes are brought here."

Rarity coughed delicately. "I assume there are more altars dotted around the Temple?"

"Yes and no," Primrose replied. "There are several sections around the Temple dedicated to each of the seven Aspects of Harmony, but not all of them are altars. Eventually, the plan is to have each of the dedicated sections maintained and organized by Disciples who specifically dedicate themselves to that Aspect, or Goddess, but we don't have enough members just yet." She gestured to the offerings. "Would you like my assistance, or would you prefer privacy?"

"You should stay," Sunset told her. "We'll get through all of this quicker if we work together and, as much as I hate to say it, most of this stuff probably stuff we aren't going to be able to use. May as well catalogue it all and let the Temple keep and use whatever we don't take."

Primrose dipped her head. "As you wish. Where should we begin?"

"Uh, pick a box, I guess?" Sunset suggested. 

"What are we looking for?" Applejack asked. 

Sunset shrugged. "Anything we can use, I guess." She looked at the spread of items before her. Imperishable food, Nuka-Cola, alcohol, tools, ammunition, magical crystals, household items, medical articles, caps, and assorted bric-a-brac. "Try for anything we might need in the wastes. 5mm ammo for the minigun and, if we're lucky, any microfusion cells. We'll split medicine, magic crystals and caps between us and the Temple. All of the food can stay with the Temple, they'll need it more than us."

Rainbow nodded and cracked her knuckles. "Okay. Let's do this."
> Chapter 111 - Wasteland Survival Guide: Minefield
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waking up in the Temple of Harmony was a disorienting experience, not least because it was the first time that Sunset had slept in a room by herself for a while. Looking around with bleary eyes, Sunset instinctively reached for her Nova pistol before she remembered where she was.

"Right… temple…" Sunset yawned and checked to make sure that Primrose wasn't lurking in the room somewhere. Satisfied that she was alone, Sunset got up, dressed herself, visited the toilet and made her bed as her mind slowly kicked itself into gear. 

Breakfast came next, a simple meal consisting of a magically infused apple from Rivet City and an Enclave nutrient bar, washed down with a bottle of lukewarm Aqua Pura. Just as she started putting her armor on, someone knocked on the door. "Come in."

"Miss Shimmer?" Primrose opened the door just enough to poke her head in. Seeing that Sunset was awake and decent, she pushed the door fully open and bowed low. "Good morning. Did you sleep well?"

"Well enough," Sunset replied, deciding not to mention that she hadn't slept well since the last time she was under anaesthesia.

"Would you like me to prepare breakfast for you?" Primrose asked.

Sunset shook her head. "I've eaten. Is anyone else awake?"

"We're all up, we're just waiting on you, you lazy git," Applejack called from the corridor.

"They are indeed all awake, Miss Shimmer," Primrose said evenly, trying hard not to smile. "I assume you do not desire a shower before you go?"

"No, I already had one last night. I don't sweat that much in my sleep." Sunset finished tightening the last straps of her armor, slipped on her Pip-Boy and backpack, and grabbed her weapons before heading out into the corridor. 

As Applejack had said, all of the Rainbooms were waiting in the corridor. Unexpectedly, however, none of them were wearing their armour or carrying their weapons except Fluttershy and Rainbow. "What's going on? Why aren't you ready to go?"

"We didn't know that you would be ready to go," Applejack retorted. 

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Didn't we agree to meet Moira at opening time?"

"I told you," Rainbow said with a smirk. 

"Enough gloating, Rainbow, it's too early in the morning for that crap." Sunset pinched the bridge of her nose before addressing the others. "Go get your armor on, and make sure that you've all had breakfast. I'll meet you downstairs."

Fluttershy, Rainbow, and Primrose fell into step behind Sunset as she made her way downstairs. It was barely eight in the morning, but the lower levels of the Temple were already bustling with Disciples going about their daily business. Sunset greeted them curtly but politely as they stopped and bowed.

When they reached the Temple's main chamber, with the great cauldron burning merrily away, Sunset was relieved to note that the Disciples hadn't yet opened the doors for the day. The less gawping strangers she had to deal with, the better. "How are the freed slaves doing?" Sunset asked as she leaned against a wall.

"Baby Tina is doing well," Primrose replied, assuaging Sunset's greatest fear. "Darla was more than a little suspicious at first, but she did eventually allow our designated wet nurse to take care of Tina for a while, and she managed to get some much-needed sleep. The young man is also doing well." 

"What about the other two women?" Fluttershy asked. 

Primrose hesitated. "They're about as well as could be expected, really. Both of them were forced to… perform… for the raiders, but thankfully neither of them are pregnant or have any transmitted infections. We're doing what we can to help them." Prim sighed and shook her head. "The older man, Joaquin, is also having difficulty. As far as we can tell, he has been a slave for most of his life. As a result, he's having some trouble adjusting, or even comprehending the fact that he's free."

"That's rough," Rainbow said soberly.

"At least they're safe now." Fluttershy glanced up at the cauldron's magical flames. "We just have to make sure to help everyone we find who's stuck in the same situation.

Rainbow nodded and patted Flashburn's hilt. "Damn right."

Settling into a grim silence, Sunset was glad to see the others coming down the stairs before the mood could get even darker.

"Ready to go?" Applejack asked.

Sunset nodded. "Let's get this over with."

Bidding farewell to Primrose, the Rainbooms left the Temple and made their way back up to Craterside Supply. Not many people were out and about yet, much to Sunset's relief. To her great surprise, however, Adam was waiting for the girls outside the store, free of his armor. "What took you girls so long?" He asked with a cheery grin.

"I figured we'd have to send Fluttershy to your house to show you the way," Sunset replied.

"Nah it was easy," Adam countered. "Just a quick twenty minute walk." He turned to the door and gestured for the girls to follow. "Come on, let's see what the next task is."

Sunset smirked and leaned in to mutter to Fluttershy, "He's getting better with directions."

"His house is barely a five minute walk from here," Fluttershy replied quietly. Sunset had to clamp a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.

Moira was busy stacking some things on shelves when everyone entered. "Be with you in juuust a second." She placed the last few items on a shelf and turned, dusting her hands off on her overalls. Her face lit up when she saw who was visiting. "Hey, it's you guys! Ready to finish off the first part of the book?" 

"That depends," Sunset replied. "If I remember rightly, you said something about avoiding landmines?"

Moira nodded enthusiastically. "That's right! Landmines are one of the few dangers out there that you can profit from. Disarm it before it blows, and you can sell it for plenty of caps."

"Ah'd hardly call that a good way to make a livin'," Applejack said gruffly. "Good way to get yourself killed, more like."

"The more landmines that get disarmed, though, the better," Pinkie put in. "And the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave kinda have bigger issues to deal with right now."

Applejack scowled and crossed her arms. "Good point."

"That's where the Wasteland Survival Guide comes in," Moira continued. "I want to help people learn how to deal with landmines, whether that means disarming them or just avoiding them in the first place."

"Sounds good to me. What do you need us to do?" Adam asked.

Moira stepped behind the counter and pulled out her file. "I've heard stories about a ghost town that's just full of mines. Traders just call the place 'Minefield'. Sounds like the place for fieldwork!" She flicked through the file, then put it on the counter and turned it so the others could see. A hand drawn map filled half of the page. Moira pointed to a little dot marked 'Minefield'. "Here. I want you to get in, get back, and tell me all about it."

Rainbow frowned at the map. "How far in do you want us to go?"

"Good question." Moira flipped the file back around and skimmed her notes, humming thoughtfully. "There's supposed to be a playground in the center of town. Try getting there, if you can." She smiled sweetly at the group. "Also, I'd be really grateful if you could bring back a mine for my studies."

"That sounds dangerous as all hell," Sunset said flatly.

"On the plus side, if there really are that many mines, then at least we aren't likely to run into raiders or Super Mutants," Twilight offered.

"That's right," Moira agreed. "Everyone avoids the place, saying it's a ghost town, but since ghosts aren't real, you can just focus on the landmines."

Sunset gave the map a dark look. Minefield wasn't exactly close to Megaton. "There's every chance we'll run into trouble when we're heading either there or back. Plus, I'd really like to know who bothered to set up that many mines in the first place, and why."

"Apparently, the town used to be called Ridgefield, until slavers cleared it out, but no-one I've spoken to knows where all of the mines came from." Moira gave Sunset a downcast look. "Does this mean you won't go?"

"No, we'll go," Sunset replied with a sigh. "Who knows, maybe someone is trying to protect some kind of old tech that we can use."

Moira beamed and clapped her hands. "That's the spirit! Go out there, dodge those mines, and make it back here in one piece. I'm sure you'll have some great stories to tell when you get back!"

"As long as none of us lose any limbs," Sunset muttered. "Come on, girls, let's get walking. Adam, fetch your armor and meet us outside the gate. Fluttershy, go with him and keep him on track."

Ignoring Adam's half-hearted grumbling, Sunset and the others went on ahead to the gate. More people were up and about than before, but the outer gates were still closed, so the girls had to shout up to Stockholm to get him to open up. As the turbine roared into life and raised the outer gate, Sunset idly wondered when and where Stockholm actually slept. 

A chill breeze greeted the girls outside the gates. The sight of thick black clouds on the horizon, pulsing with occasional green flashes, was more than a little worrying.

"That don't look good," Applejack said grimly.

"I suppose I'll be performing my duties as a gazebo again later," Rarity huffed. "Which way is Minefield?"

Sunset jerked her chin straight ahead. "Up North. It's actually almost on the way to Old Olney. I think we should head to Meresti Trainyard first, so we can at least take cover in the metro if those clouds catch up with us. We'll take stock when we get there."

Applejack nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

A few minutes later, Adam and Fluttershy turned up. After a quick inspection of their equipment, the group got underway. They headed through Springvale first, giving the old raider camp in the concrete building a wide berth, then continuing on until they reached the remains of the river and turning Northwest. After that, the group followed the curve of the river at a distance, making sure to avoid any potential mirelurk nests. 

The journey was actually quite peaceful, if one ignored the threat of radioactive weather, right up until the group ran into a robot.

Fluttershy heard it before it came into view. The squad was making their way up a rocky incline when her head suddenly snapped up and she hissed for them to get into cover.

"What do you sense?" Sunset asked under her breath.

"A robot," Fluttershy whispered. "Big, heavy, and I think it has wheels. It sounds like one of the Enclave's sentry bots, but… it's much more creaky and unsteady than the ones at the Air Force Base."

Twilight scurried over to the pair. "It could be an old military model. A lot of old robots are still rolling around, but most of them are degraded and can't tell friend from foe anymore."

"That tracks with what we've seen before." Sunset glanced at Fluttershy. "Where is it?" 

Fluttershy pointed to the top of the incline, about forty yards ahead. "Just up there. It's moving perpendicular to us."

"Got it." Sunset turned to the others, using Enclave combat signs to indicate that she wanted Twilight and Rarity to follow, while the others were to take up supporting positions.

Creeping up the incline, Sunset readied her plasma rifle as she heard rickety wheels crossing broken tarmac. She pressed her back against a boulder as she reached the top and peeked out cautiously.

The robot was definitely a sentry bot. It had a bulky torso supported on three solid legs in a pyramid configuration, each tipped with wheels. One of its arms ended in a gatling laser, the other in a boxy missile launcher. The robot's faded green paint job indicated that it was indeed an old military model. Luckily, the dilapidated thing was trundling along blissfully unaware of the girls stalking it.

Sunset gave Rarity a nod, and a moment later a mass of gemstones erupted from the ground beneath the sentry bot, encasing its legs and trapping it in place. Twilight was up next. She ran up to the back of the robot before it could react, used her magic to wrench its rear panel open, and plunged her hands inside. Scant seconds later, the robot let out a soft hum as it powered down.

"Nice work, girls." Sunset checked to make sure that the coast was clear, then called out to the others to let them know that it was safe, "We're clear!" She shouldered her plasma rifle and stepped over to Twilight. "Think you can reprogram it?"

"Not without a terminal," Twilight replied. "If it's still here when we come back, we can bring it back to Megaton and I'll see what I can do."

Sunset nodded. "Good enough for me. Alright, let's keep moving."

As the group moved on, Sunset couldn't help but marvel at how much she and her friends had changed since they had arrived in this world. Admittedly, most of the changes she had noticed were bad: Sunset doubted that she would ever get a good night's sleep again without chemical aid, but everyone was braver, more confident, and more practiced with their powers than ever before.

Moving on, the group reached Meresti Trainyard without any further issues. A small group of raiders was holed up in the shack outside, exactly where the scumbags that had shot Rarity had set up shop, but the men made a quick exit the moment they spotted the Rainbooms approaching.

"That was easy," Rainbow muttered.

"Don't jinx it," Rarity shot.

Sunset immediately checked around for any potential threats, just in case. Fortunately, the area was clear. Fluttershy didn't look concerned either, and Sunset had learned to trust her enhanced senses. Satisfied, Sunset looked back at the approaching black clouds. They were drawing steadily closer, but not enough that they would be overhead before the group reached Minefield. "What do you think, should we take cover here? Or keep moving?"

"How far away is Minefield?" Adam asked.

"About the same distance from here as Megaton is," Fluttershy replied.  "As long as there's cover in Minefield, we should be fine."

Pinkie grinned. "If not, our fashion-friendly umbrella has already offered her services!"

Rarity rolled her eyes. "Yes, Pinkie, I have." She checked her Pip-Boy map and started walking around the edge of the Trainyard. "Come along. I'd rather not put off becoming a human parasol for as long as possible, if you don't mind."

Skirting the edge of the Trainyard, the group came across a relatively intact road that wound its way up a shallow slope, heading in roughly the direction they needed to take. Boulders and piles of debris appeared more frequently the higher they climbed. The top of the incline was blocked off by a line of rocky cliffs, crowned with the devastated remains of an overpass. 

Luckily, the road snaked between the worst of the obstructions, until finally it reached a narrow gorge that ran right through the cliffs and out on the other side. The group advanced through the gorge cautiously, aware that it would be a perfect spot for an ambush, but nothing occurred as they emerged on the far side of the cliffs.

The landscape ahead sloped downwards this time. Huge pylons were dotted across the hill, with long-dead power cables dangling between them. Beyond that, just past a junction in the road, was a large cluster of old houses and other buildings.
 
"That must be Minefield," Sunset noted.

"It is," Fluttershy confirmed. "I can see some landmines from here."

Rarity let out a resigned huff. "Wonderful. Well, let's get this over with, shall we?"

"Don't worry, girls, I've got this," Pinkie said brightly, skipping down the hill towards the town. The others shared a look, shrugged, and followed after her.

Most of the buildings in the down were thoroughly ruined, little more than skeletal husks, but a few were relatively intact. On Pinkie's advice, the group followed the road into the town, hoping that the landmines would be easier to spot on patchy tarmac than loose rocks.

Fluttershy wrinkled her nose as the group entered the town. "Ew, this whole place reeks of explosives."

"You can smell explosives?" Rainbow asked in surprise.

"Well, we were told that there were landmines here." Sunset stopped in her tracks and baulked as she spotted the first of said mines. "Oh… fuck."

Dozens of landmines were spread out all over the road, with more on the sidewalks and dessicated grass verges, and almost certainly even more tucked in bushes or behind cars out of immediate sight. 

Applejack tipped her hat back and stared at the death trap awaiting them. "This place kinda lives up to its name, huh?" 

"Should I just detonate all of those mines from a distance?" Twilight asked. "It would probably be safer."

"The explosions would also probably draw every raider, predator and scavenger within a five mile radius," Sunset replied. "We'll keep that as plan B. Besides, Moira wants one." She glanced at Pinkie. "Will you be able to disarm one?"

Pinkie nodded enthusiastically. "Can do! Just stay back and watch." Suiting actions to words, she slowly crept up to the nearest mine, carefully shifting her weight from one foot to another. "Most landmines used in this country are proximity mines, set off when they detect rhythmic vibrations nearby."

"Rhythmic vibrations?" Rarity frowned. "If that's true, wouldn't rain set them off?"

Pinkie shook her head. "Nope. They only detonate when they sense vibrations of certain strengths or frequencies, so rain won't set them off, but footsteps will. So…" As she got closer to the mine, Pinkie got down on her elbows and knees and crawled forward at an excruciatingly slow pace. "I just have to shift my weight slowly and gently."

Everyone else held their breath as Pinkie reached the landmine. She gently reached out and fiddled with something on the mine, then sighed and looked back over her shoulder. "Okay, I've disabled the proximity sensor, so you can come and take a look. Just… don't get too close to any of the other mines."

The others cautiously stepped closer, staying well clear of the other landmines. Pinkie gently picked up the landmine and sat up as they gathered around, pulling a butterfly knife out of her hair. She explained what she was doing as she started prying bits off the mine. "I'm just removing a few components to make it safer to handle. This way I won't accidentally set it off when I hold it upside down."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you are seriously cool when you're this serious," Sunset told her.

"I know, right?" Rainbow agreed. "Plus, taking apart a landmine like this is badass."

A small smile lifted Pinkie's cheeks. "It's just stuff I learned from the Enclave." She flipped the mine over and pointed to a circular component with four little spokes, all covered in black rubber. "This is the pressure plate."

Rainbow nodded sagely. "If you step on a landmine, that's the bit you need to keep the pressure on so you don't blow up."

"That's just crap that the movies made up," Pinkie said flatly as she deftly cut the rubber off the pressure plate. "If you step on a landmine your torso and limbs are getting a divorce, and there's nothing you can do about it." She ignored Rainbow's dumbstruck look and stripped away the last of the rubber. Beneath it was the metal plate itself, painted red, with a tiny silver dot in the center.

"And this little pin is the party pooper." Pinkie pointed at the silver dot with her knife. "Press this pin, and there's going to be some really nasty confetti flying around." She peeled the pressure plate off carefully, revealing a metal button right under the pin. "See? Foot goes on mine, mine squashes plate, plate squashes pin, pin presses button, button sets off explosives."

Sunset leaned closer, enthralled by how intricate and yet deceptively simple the mechanism was. "How are you going to disarm the button?"

"I just need to remove a couple more pieces," Pinkie replied. She worked quickly and efficiently, pulling the bottom panel of the mine off and removing various components from inside and stuffing them into her pockets, until finally all that was left was a yellowish block that filled half of the mine's interior.

"What is that?" Rarity asked.

"It smells like the explosive," Fluttershy said.

Pinkie nodded. "Yep. TNT. It's actually pretty safe to handle now that the reducer and all the other fun stuff has been taken out. I'll just put the panel back on because TNT is toxic and causes skin irritation." She quickly reattached the bottom panel, minus the dangerous gubbins, and casually stuffed the landmine into her pack.

"Okay, that's awesome," Rainbow put in.

"It's awesome, but getting through the whole minefield like this is going to take forever." Sunset crossed her arms as she surveyed the road ahead. "Rainbow, get in the air and see how far away the playground Moira mentioned is."

"On it." Rainbow ponied up and launched herself into the air. "It's not far," she called down. "It's only about a hundred meters up the road. There's a lot of mines between here and there, though."

Sunset swore under her breath. "I don't like this. We're going to be sitting ducks out here if anyone, or anything, comes looking." She glanced at Pinkie. "How fast can you disarm a mine?"

"Not much faster than I just did," Pinkie replied. "Honestly, that's the first real mine I've actually disarmed, all of the others were just training duds. I'm not exactly comfortable rushing it just yet. I like surprises, but I like still being around after the surprise is done."

"You're not the only one." Sunset frowned as she thought. She quite liked the idea of just having Twilight toss landmines into each other to clear a path quickly, but that seemed like a sure-fire way to draw unwanted attention. 

Armor creaked as Adam shifted on his feet. Do you think I should just get close enough to set the mines off myself? My armor should be able to take the blast as long as I'm not too close."

"Too risky, and too noisy," Sunset replied.

Twilight hesitantly raised a hand. "I think I have an idea. As long as Pinkie shows me what to do, I might be able to use my magic to disable the proximity sensors on the mines. Then all I have to do is move them off the road, and I'll be able to clear us a path quickly and safely."

"Nice thinkin', Twi," Applejack said appreciatively.

Sunset nodded. "Works for me. Okay, Pinkie, think you can show Twilight what she has to do?"

"Sure thing!" Pinkie carefully crawled over to the next mine. Twilight watched and listened intently as the party girl turned explosives expert disabled the mine's proximity sensor, explaining the steps as she went.

Once the little demo was over, Twilight nodded and turned to the next nearest landmine. She extended her arms, a purple aura surrounded the mine, and it immediately started beeping loudly. Everyone ducked as Twilight yelped and hurled the mine away with her magic. Two explosions tore through the air, the flung mine setting off another one in the distance.

"Welp, I guess everyone around knows that we're here now," Sunset sighed. "Screw it, just toss the damn things."

"Should I throw them anywhere in particular?" Twilight asked.

"Hold on a second," Applejack cut in. "Isn't using magic kinda defeating the object of what Moira wants? Other folk don't have magic like we do."

Sunset rolled her eyes, pulled her plasma rifle off her shoulder, and blasted the nearest landmine until it exploded. "Ordinary people can do that though," she said as the echoes of the blast died down. "We'll just get to the playground, make a note of how the mines are placed, especially any hidden ones we find, then get the hell out of here."

Applejack smirked. "Fair enough. In that case, try tossing the mines so they hit other ones. May as well clear as many of these darn things as we can while we're here."

With Twilight at their head the group made steady progress, every few steps punctuated by at least one or two explosions as mines were picked up and tossed at others further down the road. It didn't take long for the group to find the playground Moira had spoken of; a scorched and rusted set of swings, a merry-go-round, and a slide that had been warped by intense heat. Sunset felt a wave of relief at the fact that there weren't any smaller than average skeletons lying around.

"Alright, this is it." Adam looked around and nodded, apparently satisfied. "Should we turn back, now?"

Sunset stepped over to the merry-go-round and stroked one of the bars, hoping that all of the children that used to use it had managed to escape the nuclear fire that claimed their world. "Yeah, let's go."

Just as she turned to leave, Fluttershy's head snapped up and she whipped around to stare at a half-ruined concrete building. "Hold on, I think I hear-"

Rainbow suddenly cried out in shock and dropped out of the sky just as a loud gunshot echoed through the town. 

"Sniper!" Adam yelled.

Sunset darted towards Rainbow as everyone else scattered for cover. She didn't hear the insistent beeping of a landmine until something tackled her off her feet. The blast peppered the area with shrapnel.

"Idiot," Rainbow grunted. She clambered off Sunset and hauled her to her feet. 

"Are you alright?" Sunset asked as the two dove behind a nearby car.

"I'm fine," Rainbow replied. "Armor took the hit. It just shocked me." She glanced over the top of the car. "Where's the shoot-"

Another shot rang out, accompanied by a sharp clang from the engine of the car. Sunset and Rainbow shared a terrified look. "Run!" 

The two broke out into a sprint. Sunset felt Rainbow grab her, and the world spun as another bullet smacked into the car.

Heat and sound slammed the two out of the air as the car's engine went off like a bomb. Sunset yelped as she crashed onto cracked paving slabs. She forced herself up and looked around for Rainbow, only for another shot to smack her in the back. Luckily, her armor took the blow.

Sunset whipped around, making sure she wasn't near any mines, when a terrified yell caught her attention. She looked up just in time to see a man fall from the top floor of the ruined concrete building. A second later a blast came from the foot of the building, throwing up a cloud of red mist.

Fluttershy stepped into view on the spot the man had fallen from, vamped out and clutching a heavy rifle. 

"Is it over?" Sunset called out.

Fluttershy waved a hand. They were clear. 

With a heavy sigh, Sunset shouldered her rifle and set about finding the others. It didn't take long. Rarity had secured herself, Applejack, Pinkie and Twilight in a glittering gemstone dome in the middle of the road, effectively shielding all of them from the sniper. Rainbow had a limp from twisting her ankle in the fall, but was otherwise alright, while Adam had somehow managed to get himself tangled in the chains of the old swings. 

"You idiot," Rainbow said flatly.

"Yeah, yeah." Adam flexed his arms and snapped the chains. Fluttershy arrived a moment later, gliding down from the concrete building with the sniper rifle still in her arms. 

"Any idea who that was?" Sunset asked. "Or why he was shooting at us?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "I don't have a clue, but he has quite a lot of supplies up there. Do you want me to bring them down?"

Sunset nodded. "Sure. Get Twilight to give you a hand. We'll bring the gun as well, we might be able to make some money off of it."

"Actually, um, I was thinking of keeping it," Fluttershy said quietly. "If one of you can teach me how to use it."

Sunset stared at her in surprise. She knew that Fluttershy had already killed on more than one occasion, but something about teaching her friend to use a gun just felt wrong. On the other hand, this world seemed to be trying its level best to kill the Rainbooms. The girls needed every advantage they could get. A vampiric sniper with enhanced senses certainly sounded like a powerful asset. "I'll teach you later. For now, let's just get those supplies and get the hell out of here before those rain clouds show up."
> Chapter 112 - Wasteland Survival Guide: M̶o̶l̶e̶ ̶R̶a̶t̶s̶ Breakdown
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset sighed and leaned against the side of an old railcar. Her thoughts were an absolute mess. Things had been bad enough during the battles against the Enclave, but the last two days had somehow managed to be an absolute nightmare and Sunset wasn't sure how much more of it she could take. The only high point was the fact that she and the others had successfully avoided the radioactive storm.

After leaving Minefield the night before, the Rainbooms had tried to travel back to Megaton as quickly as they could. Unfortunately, even though they made good time, the group had barely managed to reach Meresti Trainyard before the storm broke overhead, and they had been forced to seek shelter with the Family. 

Vance and his wannabe vampires were of course more than happy to let the group stay the night, in return for spending several hours interviewing both Fluttershy and, when they realized that he was her boyfriend, Adam. The only problem, as far as Sunset was concerned, was the constant talking about blood.

It was all too much. Sunset had had enough of blood. She had gotten through the night somehow, but hearing the same ridiculously edgy rhetoric over breakfast had been too much. Ditching the crowd, Sunset had left the Family's hideout and gone outside into the Trainyard for some fresh air.

Luckily for Sunset, fresh air was in abundance. The skies were still horribly overcast, and the ground was still soaking wet and dotted with puddles. 

The sound of crunching gravel snapped Sunset back to reality. She straightened up and whipped around, bringing up her plasma rifle just as someone stepped around the nearest train car. "Don't move!"

"Whoa, don't shoot! It's me!" Rainbow cried out, holding her hands up.

Sunset sighed and lowered the gun. "Sorry."

"It's cool," Rainbow replied, dropping her arms. "I'm just glad you didn't shoot first. Dodging at that range would have been tricky."

"Can you actually dodge plasma and bullets?" Sunset asked.

Rainbow joined Sunset against the train car. "Plasma's easy, the bolts are slow. Bullets, I don't know if I'm fast enough. I mean, I might be, but the trouble is actually seeing the damn things. They're small, fast, and there's always hundreds of them. It's like getting attacked by a swarm of super-fast hornets." She sighed and kicked at a pebble. "Super speed is nothing like the way it is in the movies."

"It's still cool as all hell, though," Sunset offered. 

"Damn right." Rainbow grinned, but her expression quickly turned somber as she looked sidelong at Sunset. "Are you okay?"

Sunset opened her mouth to say that she was fine, but the words wouldn't come. She sighed and shook her head. "I'll manage."

"You sure?" Rainbow asked.

"No," Sunset replied with a grim chuckle. "It's not like I've got much of an option, though, is it?"

"I guess not," Rainbow replied. "We've seen a lot of nasty shit over the last couple of days."

Sunset nodded. "It's probably going to get worse over time."

"Is that why you're out here?" Rainbow asked.

Shrugging was almost too much effort. "All their talking about blood and darkness… I couldn't take it. I've seen enough blood over the last couple of months."

Rainbow looked down at the floor, and for a moment Sunset thought that that was the end of it. Then came the words she didn't want to hear, "The raiders?" 

"They're not the first people I've beaten to death," Sunset said harshly.

"First ones who weren't a threat, though," Rainbow countered, sending a knife through Sunset's heart. "I'm not judging you. Hell, if I'd known what they had done I would've been the first one to put them out of our misery, and you know damn well that Applejack would have turned them into finger paint without a second thought. I'm just…" Rainbow sighed. "I know that kinda shit screws with your head. If you need to, I don't know, talk or something, I'm here."

Sunset nodded. "I know. Thanks."

The two slipped into a companionable silence. Sunset shifted slightly to try and settle her armor more comfortably; the bullet she had taken in the back the day before had left a slight dent that she hadn't managed to hammer out properly yet.

After a while, the sounds of conversation approaching alerted the pair to the arrival of the rest of their friends. "Hey, we wondered where the two of y'all had gotten to," Applejack called as they stepped out into view.

"Just getting some fresh air," Sunset told her. "All ready to go?"

"Sure are! The Family were even nice enough to refill Fluttershy's juice box for her," Applejack replied. 

Rarity's nose wrinkled. "Do you have to call it that?"

"I quite like it," Fluttershy put in. "It sounds less grisly than blood reserves."

Rainbow smirked and opened her mouth, but Sunset shut her up with a nudge before she could say anything crude. "Alright, let's get moving," Sunset said, straightening back up. "Remember, there's a raider camp around the corner, so keep your guard up. They didn't dare to attack us yesterday, but that doesn't mean they won't today."

The others voiced their assent and readied their weapons. Fluttershy hefted her new sniper rifle with confidence. The Family had practically fallen over themselves to assist when she had asked them to teach her how to shoot. Sunset doubted that Fluttershy would do particularly well yet: There was a big difference between a sniper rifle and the rickety hunting rifles she had practiced with, but having extra firepower on hand was reassuring. Sunset just tried not to think about what the wasteland had done to the person who bore it.

When they were ready, the group set off. The reclusive raiders from the day before were still in their little camp, huddled around the fire, but they were content to simply watch the group warily, wisely not trying to pick a fight. Applejack questioned the decision to leave them alone in turn, but Adam talked her down. Sunset was more than a little relieved. She didn't want to go picking any fights unless they had proof that someone was causing trouble.

One thing the group hadn't anticipated was how much of a difference the weather would make to their journey. Even though it was no longer raining, the previous night's downpour had turned the dusty wasteland into a muddy quagmire. Every step the girls took was treacherous, alternating between cloying and lethally slippery. Naturally, Adam ended up flat on his back within ten minutes of leaving the Trainyard, even with the advantage of his armor.

Worse was the fact that the rain had brought more radiation with it, and more than once Sunset heard her Geiger counter making a little more noise than was comfortable. Fluttershy was quick to distribute doses of Rad-X, little medicine capsules that helped protect the body against radiation, but the constant threat cast a pall over the party.

On the plus side, the Rainbooms didn't directly encounter any dangerous creatures or hostile people on their way back to Megaton. This was largely thanks to Fluttershy, who managed to alert the group before they stumbled across a wasteland nightmare enjoying its dinner. 

As Fluttershy led them around at an inoffensive distance, Sunset caught a glimpse of a giant scorpion with an albino exoskeleton, quietly picking at the corpse of a mutated bear. The bear looked terrifyingly tiny in the scorpion's claws.

Shortly afterwards, the girls found the sentry bot that they had disabled. It seemed to be in fairly good condition for its age, so the group decided to bring it back to Megaton and see if they could reprogram it to protect the town alongside Deputy Weld. Twilight fiddled with the settings as much as she could without a console, and eventually managed to get it to roll along without shooting every living thing in sight.

Finally, splattered with mud, the group arrived back at Megaton. Bringing a sentry bot into town caused a bit of a stir. Stockholm waved the group through once they had convinced him that it was safe, but having the rickety thing trundling around with them brought even more attention to the group than usual.

To save the Disciples a certain amount of stress, Adam offered to store the robot at his house until it could be reprogrammed. Sunset had intended to hand the robot straight over to Simms, but, since the sheriff was nowhere to be seen, she accepted Adam's offer.

Adam's house was surprisingly nice. Two stories tall and made of the same scrap metal as the rest of Megaton, it came with a quirky Mister Handy robot named Wadsworth as a butler. Though Sunset could swear that she heard it insulting her under its breath when her back was turned...

Once the sentry bot was safely stowed away and shut down, and Adam's armor stored in a spare room, the group made their way back up to Craterside Supply to give Moira their report. Unfortunately, when they arrived, Moira was nowhere to be seen.

"Uh…" Sunset glanced over at the paid guard standing in the corner. "Where is she?"

The guard shrugged. "As far as I can tell, arguing with her kitchen appliances." Before anyone could ask what he meant, a small explosion upstairs knocked flakes of rust from the ceiling. The guard just sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Crazy bitch is gonna get herself killed."

"What the hell is she doing up there?" Sunset asked. Her question was answered by a loud skittering sound, followed by a bizarre knee-high creature darting out of a back room on four spindly metallic legs. "Is that a… waffle iron?"

The mutated appliance hissed and hurled itself at the guard, who yelled in fear and tried to pull his assault rifle off his shoulder. Before the creature could attack, a crystalline spike flew from Rarity's hand and impaled it, nailing it to the floor. The creature burbled as it died, leaking a foul purple ooze all over the floor.

Moira hurtled into the room a second later. She skidded to a halt when she saw the dead waffle iron monster. "Oh, you got it. Nice job."

"You said you weren't experimenting with magic shit anymore!" The guard snapped.

"I'm not, I swear!" Moira replied quickly. "It turns out that little thing has been eating the crystals when I wasn't looking. I caught it just now, and I think that's why it tried to escape."

Applejack shook her head slowly. "Just when you think you've seen everything, this reality throws even more crazy shit at you."

"The world is full of strange and wonderful things," Moira said sagely, though she grimaced as she looked down at her former appliance. "Some more wonderful than others. Anyway, I'm glad that you're all okay!' Moira brightened up as she hurried behind the counter. "When you didn't come back yesterday, I started to worry that I'd gotten you all blown to smithereens!"

Rainbow snorted. "It'll take more than some landmines and a sniper to get rid of us."

"A sniper?" Moira asked blankly. She waved a hand as Sunset opened her mouth to answer. "Well, you're all fine, so it doesn't matter. Did you manage to get to the middle of minefield? Oh, and did you bring me a spicy little present?"

"We did, and we did," Pinkie replied, pulling the disassembled landmine out of her pack and placing all of its bits on the countertop.

Moira beamed as she shifted through the pieces. "My very own landmine! Just what I've always wanted. Well, always since I sent you out on this, anyway."

"I'll teach you how to put it back together and take it apart safely, if you want," Pinkie said.

"Oh, yes please!" Moira replied. "While you're at it, I want to hear all about what it was like going through Minefield. Tell me everything!"

Sunset let the others do the explaining. She had had enough of talking for the moment. With the others distracted, Sunset's mind began to wander. She mostly wondered about Darla and Tina, hoping that they were doing well in the Temple, and making a mental note to see if she could pick up a rattle or something for the baby.

The sound of a folder slapping shut tore Sunset out of her reverie. She hadn't even noticed Moira taking notes. 

"And that's the first chapter done!" Moira said enthusiastically. She tucked the file back under the counter and fetched a small box up instead. "I know you're probably sick of explosives after all of that, but as a token of my appreciation, I wanted to give you some of these spare frag grenades I picked up, along with a few stimpaks as a little 'thank you' for helping me get this far!"

"Alright, grenades for everybody!" Rainbow exclaimed, holding up the box.

"I'll just take the stimpaks," Fluttershy put in quietly. Sunset was relieved to see that her vampiric friend hadn't gone loopy enough to start grasping for high explosives, at least.

Adam weighed one of the grenades in his hand, then tucked it into a pocket before turning to Moira. "What's on the itinerary for the second chapter?"

"The second chapter's going to be a bit trickier, I think," Moira replied. She reached for her file, realized that she had put it away, and quickly hauled it back out. "It'll cover how to handle creatures out there, for better or for worse."

"If you think we're gonna get up close and personal with Deathclaws for you, you've got another thing comin'," Applejack told her bluntly. 

Moira winced and shook her head. "I'm pretty sure a guide on how to deal with Deathclaws would just be the words run, hide, and pray, written in really big letters. No, I'm thinking more along the lines of repelling mole rats, learning about mirelurks and, when all else fails, how to handle being injured."

"Ugh, we have plenty of experience with that last part," Rarity said, rubbing her left bicep gently.

"That's great!" Moira chuckled awkwardly as everyone frowned at her. "I mean, it's not great, obviously, but you know what I'm getting at. What I'd really like, though, is a live sample to work on-"

"Okay! Repelling mole rats, that sounds fun," Adam interrupted, much to Sunset's relief. "How exactly are you planning on doing that?"

Moira turned and started sifting through the piles of junk on her shelves. "I've actually made a chemical repellent stick, so people can just shoo them off if they start burrowing in and causing tro- oh, here it is!" She whipped out a solid stick, about the length of her forearm. The end of it was smeared with a toxic-looking green goop. "I just need to test it before I put the recipe in the book, and that's where you come in."

Fluttershy's nose wrinkled in distaste, and she flapped a hand in front of her face to try and dissipate whatever she could smell. "What is that stuff?"

"It's just a little mixture of my own concoction," Moira replied cryptically. "Mostly it's made up of Jet, Psycho, a splash of-"

"Jet and Psycho?" The glare on Fluttershy's face would have given Horrigan pause. "You're using two different kinds of powerful amphetamines in an animal repellent?!"

Some deeply buried survival instinct clearly kicked in inside Moira's head, as she took a step back and subtly lowered the stick out of sight behind the counter. "I-it's only a small dosage of each, so it shouldn't be-"

"Small for a human constitution, or a mole rat's?" Fluttershy asked pointedly. The look on Moira's face showed that she had indeed miscalculated, and was deeply regretting it already. "I thought so," Fluttershy hissed. Quick as a flash, she stepped over to the counter and whipped a hand forward to pinch Moira's ear. Ignoring the pained squawks and protests, Fluttershy tugged Moira from behind the counter and started marching her towards a back door. "Come on. We're going to go upstairs and see if we can come up with something that won't be horribly dangerous. Adam, Twilight, we'll need your help."

Everyone stared in mute shock as the pair disappeared into a back room. 

"Uh, what the hell just happened?" Rainbow asked.

"Moira did pretty much the one thing that's guaranteed to piss Fluttershy off," Applejack replied. "Potentially threaten a cute little animal."

Rarity let out one of her characteristic scoffs. "I would hardly call mole rats cute."

"It's Fluttershy, she'd probably try and cuddle a pack of Deathclaws if they didn't keep trying to eat us." Twilight sighed and stepped over to the door, gesturing for Adam to follow. "The rest of you may as well go and relax. This is probably going to take a while."

"Fair enough. Have fun." Sunset scratched her head and turned to the remaining girls. "I guess… we can just do what we want for a while?"

Rarity sighed and flicked her hair. "In that case, I think I'll go and speak to the Disciples. I want to learn a little more about what exactly everyone does there."

"Ah'll come with you," Applejack put in immediately.

"I'm going to see if I can find Lucy," Pinkie said. "I want to make sure that her and Ian are okay."

Sunset nodded. "Fair enough. What about you, Rainbow?"

Rainbow hummed and glanced at the door, evidently considering something. "When they're finished with that repellent, Moira is still going to want us to test it for her, right? I'm gonna go and see if I can find one around the outskirts of Megaton so we haven't got to bother searching later. See you soon!"

"Wait!" Sunset tried to stop her, but Rainbow had already sped out of the door at top speed. "Typical. How long do you think it's going to be before that idiot remembers that Fluttershy is the only reason mole rats don't attack us on sight?"

"Probably when she tries to pick one up and it tries to bite her," Applejack replied.

"Sounds about right." Sunset shrugged and put it to the back of her mind. "It's a good thing she can handle herself. Come on, let's drop our stuff off at the Temple and do… whatever."

The route between Craterside Supply and the Temple was becoming increasingly familiar to the girls by this point. Even the constant stares were simply a fact of life by now. 

Surprisingly, Primrose wasn't waiting when the girls arrived at the Temple. Briefly acknowledging the stream of people who greeted them as they climbed the stairs, the girls separated when they reached their rooms.

Sunset stripped her armor off and hung it on the stand, then placed her plasma rifle on her bedside table. Next came a much-needed shower. It was only when Sunset was standing back in her room, clad in clean clothes and toweling her hair dry, that she realized that she had a problem. She had no idea what to do with herself.

Free time wasn't something Sunset had had in abundance recently. Anytime she had managed to find a spare hour or two, she had spent it either studying, napping, or putting in some extra training. None of those were particularly appealing options at the moment. 

An answer to the predicament arrived in the form of a particularly loud stomach growl.

"Right. Food." Decision made, Sunset turned on her heel and headed back downstairs, intent on finding lunch. Her plan was made much easier as she spotted Primrose leaving a room on a lower floor. "Hey, Primrose. Primrose!"

The Handmaiden turned, her eyes wide. "Lady Shimmer! Forgive me, I didn't know that you were back."

"It's fine," Sunset replied, hurrying down the stairs to her. "I was just about to go looking for some food. Is there anywhere in Megaton that sells non-radioactive food?"

"Oh, uh, sure," Primrose replied. "I can get one of the Disciples to cook a meal for you, but if you'd rather eat out then the only place in Megaton is the Brass Lantern. Don't worry, the food is good, and yes, the food is radiation free. Just avoid the Nuka-Cola."

Sunset let out a soft sigh of relief. "Awesome. Hey, do you want to come with me? My treat."

The look of regret on Primrose's face was tragic. "I would love to, but I'm afraid I've already promised Joshua that I would come with him to deal with the Sheriff."

"Oh, about the weapons we brought back?" Sunset asked.

"Er, yes and no," Primrose replied uneasily. "Actually, the Sheriff isn't happy about the proposal, especially given the disagreement he and Joshua had before."

Sunset stopped and looked at her curiously. "What disagreement?"

Primrose turned to Sunset, but couldn't quite meet her eyes. "All of the businesses in Megaton give a small percentage of their profits over to the town, to pay for equipment and the upkeep of the town's water purifier. The Church of Atom contributes, too, using a percentage of the donations they receive.'

"That sounds fair," Sunset said.

"It is. Well, I think it is, anyway," Primrose agreed. "The problem is that, well, Joshua refuses to allow the Temple to contribute in the same way."

The words put Sunset's temper into a slow burn. "Why not?" She asked evenly.

Primrose bit her lip, her nerves starting to show. "Joshua believes that the Temple exists for the Goddesses, and that, since you're actually physically embodied in this world, then all of the donations should go directly towards making you all comfortable."

"Nope, not happening," Sunset cut in. "Tell Joshua that the Temple will contribute the same percentage that the Church of Atom does. Religion does not trump law."

Surprisingly, Primrose actually looked relieved at Sunset's order. "Of course, Lady Shimmer. I'll tell him." 

"Thanks. Ok, I'm gonna go and see how the Brass Lantern checks out." Sunset waved as she left the Temple. "Later."

As Sunset walked down the steps outside the Temple, ignoring the stares of the people queuing up outside, she realized that she had made a small error. Namely, she had no idea where the Brass Lantern was. 

"Excuse me?" The nearest woman in the queue almost jumped out of her skin as Sunset addressed her. She pointed to herself nervously, her eyes practically popping out of their sockets. "Yeah, you. Do you know where the Brass Lantern is?" The woman nodded jerkily and pointed across the crater. "Okay, thanks."

Leaving a small hubbub in her wake, Sunset strolled over to the building indicated. It was a large single-storey building with a counter that, as Sunset approached, she realized served as an open air dining area, with a fridge and register both tucked behind it. A small sign marked 'The Brass Lantern' sat beneath a set of much larger neon yellow lights displaying Chinese calligraphy.

A young woman was working the counter, serving customers and calling orders out to someone inside. "Do I just pick a seat, or do you have your own system?" Sunset asked.

"Sit wherever you fancy, I'll be with you in just a second!" The woman brought over a small menu on a clipboard. "Here's our full menu, would you like-" She did a double-take when she realized who she was speaking to. "Hey, you're the leader of those Rainbooms!"  

"Yeah, that's me," Sunset replied as she perused the menu.

"I'm Jenny Stahl. My older brother owns this restaurant." Jenny glanced around, then leaned in close. "I've got to ask, what exactly are you girls? I've heard people from Arefu saying that you're aliens, Three Dog says that you're magical girls from another dimension, and half of the crazies in this town think you're either angels or goddesses. Which is it?"

"Right now, I'm a customer," Sunset said firmly. "Depending on how good your iguana soup is, maybe a repeat one."

Jenny nodded. "Message received." She stepped to the door and called out to someone inside. "Andy! One iguana soup special!" She waited for affirmation from inside, then nodded and turned back to Sunset. "That'll be out in a minute or two. Want anything to drink? We've got clean water, brahmin milk, Nuka-Cola, and a small selection of wines."

The last option caught Sunset off-guard. "Wines?" 

"Yep! They're listed on the bottom of the menu," Jenny added. "Our latest batch of red is particularly good."

"Uh…" Sunset floundered for a moment. She had never even considered alcohol as an option. It just wasn't something she had ever tried before and, if she was honest, she hadn't ever imagined doing so. "I… I've never tried wine before."

"Oh, then you have to try the red!" Jenny grabbed a bottle and glass from next to the fridge. Sunset tried to object, but Jenny had already unscrewed the cap and poured out a glassful of the deep red liquid. "We import this directly from a supplier in Rivet City."

Sunset eyed the glass warily. "Is it radioactive?"

"Not in the slightest," Jenny replied. "We make sure that most of what we sell here is safe and edible, and some of it even tastes good!" She put the glass down in front of Sunset just as the restaurant's door opened and a man stepped out, holding a lightly steaming bowl of soup. "Perfect timing, Andy!"

The man just wordlessly handed Jenny the soup and disappeared back inside.

"And here's your soup!" Jenny plonked it in front of Sunset. "Go ahead, see how it tastes." She turned away to deal with another customer, calling back over her shoulder, "And let me know what you think of the wine!"

Sunset let out a slow breath as Jenny walked away. She wasn't particularly enthused about eating on her own, but she was determined to at least try and relax. 

First, the soup. Iguana soup had quickly become a personal favourite when she had stayed in Rivet City. It was time to see how Megaton's offering fared in comparison.

Sunset wasn't disappointed. 

The soup wasn't as creamy as it was in Rivet City, and there was something missing from the recipe that she couldn't quite grasp, but it was also lighter and sweeter. Sunset didn't enjoy it quite as much as Rivet City's version, but it definitely came in a close second.

Next came the wine.

Sunset hesitated before reaching for the glass. She had never really pictured her first time trying alcohol, but even if she had, she never would have imagined that it would be like this.

Gently lifting the glass, Sunset swilled it a couple of times, watching the deep red liquid swish around. Next, she gave it a light sniff. It smelled mostly fruity, but there was a distinct undertone that she couldn't place. Tentatively, she took a sip.

It wasn't tasty. There was a pleasant fruitiness to it, but it was largely overpowered by a strong flavor that almost made her grimace. Still, after months of nothing but water and brahmin milk, chilled if she was lucky, the wine was an interesting departure.

Despite expectations, the time passed quite pleasantly. Sunset quietly made her way through the soup, including a bowl of seconds, and polished off the bottle of wine along the way. Jenny chatted with her in between serving other customers, keeping the conversation light and casual. 

Finally, when she was finished, Sunset settled the bill. "Not bad. I'll be coming here again."

"I'm glad to hear it!" Jenny replied, sweeping up the caps. She glanced up at Sunset, and her expression quickly changed as she spotted something over Sunset's shoulder. "What the hell are you doing here. You know you're not welcome anymore."

"I ain't here for you, this time. I'm here for this bitch," a voice said roughly.

Sunset looked around to see a tall man clad in filthy leather armor standing over her. He was bald save for a scruffy beard. It took her a second to recognize him as Jericho, the asshole who had thrown a bottle at Joshua when the Temple first opened. 

Typical. Can't even have five minutes peace, Sunset thought. She stood and turned to face him, idly wondering why she was swaying slightly. The floor was probably unstable. "And what exactly do you want with 'this bitch'?"

"I hear you've been causing problems," Jericho grunted. He reached out to grab at her chest. "I'm here to give you a mess-"

Sunset grabbed his wrist before it could make contact and twisted it savagely, making him cry out in pain. Before he could recover she lashed out and smashed his nose with the heel of her hand. A sharp kick to the abdomen knocked him to the floor.

Jericho snarled and surged to his feet, only to freeze as he found himself staring at the business end of Sunset's Nova pistol.

"I'm only going to say this once," Sunset hissed. "Try any bullshit like this again, and they'll be burying what's left of you in a fucking bucket. Is that clear?"

Jericho just clutched his nose and shuffled away towards the clinic, grumbling under his breath.

"That's what I thought." Sunset holstered her Nova pistol, fumbling it once before she got it in. She turned back to Jenny and tried to apologize for the disturbance, but the woman just waved it off.

"Don't worry about it. Seeing you break that dickhead's nose has made my whole day." Jenny fetched another bottle of wine and held it out. "Here. On the house."

"Oh, thanks." Sunset took the wine, nodded to Jenny, then made her way back around to the Temple, unscrewing the bottle as she went. Her good mood from the meal had already been thoroughly quashed by the confrontation, and the way the world seemed to tilt every other step wasn't helping matters. 

People tried to speak to Sunset as she entered the Temple, but she just waved them away so she could focus on the wine as she climbed up to her room. Just as she reached the last staircase leading up to the Rainbooms' floor, a Disciple stepped out of a nearby door. He quickly bowed when he saw her. "Your Grace! Forgive me, I didn't see you there."

Sunset took a swig from the bottle and cast a critical eye over the Disciple. He was a little taller than her, with large forearms, windswept brown hair, and a chiseled jawline. Something about his powerful frame and subservient attitude stoked a fire in Sunset's core. "You'll do."

"Your Grace?" The man grunted in surprise as Sunset grabbed his robes and yanked him down into a clumsy kiss. He staggered as she pulled away, looking vaguely as if he had been clubbed across the head. "Y-your Grace?!"

"You've got two choices," Sunset said, quietly but firmly. "You can forget that this ever happened and go about your day, or you can follow me upstairs and have some real fun."

The Disciple tried to stammer something out, but Sunset just stepped past him. She paused when she reached the stairs up to the next floor and looked back over her shoulder. No-one else was around. "The choice is yours." She pulled her top off and planted a hand on her hip, smirking at the Disciple. "But don't spend too long thinking about it."





Leaving the confused man behind, Sunset  swept up the stairs and strode towards her room. She grinned as she heard hurried footsteps coming up the stairs behind her. Sunset unlocked her door, dropped her top by the frame so it wouldn't swing and lock, then sat on the bed and put down the wine before taking her boots off. It took her a few tries, as she kept fumbling the knots for some bizarre reason, but she managed to get them both off just as the Disciple tentatively pushed her door open.

"Close the door." The man quickly obeyed. Sunset threw her socks away, then stood up and turned away from him. She smiled as she took her time undoing her bra and letting it fall to the floor, then shuffled her pants and underwear down her legs before stepping carefully out of them, giving the man a little show. Finally, Sunset turned back to him and planted her hands on her hips, sticking her chest out and cocking her hip to the side. "Well? Are you going to stand over there with your mouth hanging open or are you going to get over here and fuck me?"

The man hesitated, staring at Sunset as if he couldn't believe his eyes. Sunset herself was caught between excitement, nervousness, and impatience. All of her emotions were sent into a sudden whirl as the man finally ripped his top off and advanced on her.

Sunset immediately backed into the bed, her stomach feeling as if it were full of rampaging butterflies. To her surprise, the man dropped to his knees before her and grabbed her legs, hitching them up over his shoulders and dipping his head. 

"What are you-" Sunset's breath hitched as his tongue found her most sensitive spot. She gasped and moaned, his tongue eagerly dancing around her intimate area and melting any coherent thoughts. Sunset laid back, entwining her fingers through the Disciple's hair as his hands ran over her body, one hand gripping her thigh tightly while his other reached up to squeeze her breast.

All sense of anything but the feel of what the man was doing to her body fled Sunset's mind. She writhed beneath his onslaught, losing herself in a world of carnal pleasure. Heat and tightness were building deep within her core, pushing her to drive herself against his mouth, groaning and gasping as he rolled her nipple between his fingers.

Finally, something exploded in Sunset's depths, and a wave of pleasure so intense it was almost painful dragged a primal moan from her throat. She curled up on herself as her climax rocked through her, each wave driving a wedge of sensation into her mind.

Slowly, the heights of sensation dwindled. As if noticing that her climax had passed, the Disciple pulled away from her and stood, leaving her panting. Her heart hammered in her chest as the man undid his belt and dropped his pants, letting his not inconsiderable length spring free. 

Sunset instinctively spread her legs, biting her lip in anticipation as the Disciple lowered himself once more. He gently pressed his lips just above her mound, then traveled upwards, kissing her body with every inch he climbed until he reached her neck. 

As the man nibbled at her collarbone, Sunset felt something solid press against her entrance. The Disciple pushed, and Sunset hissed as she felt a sudden sharp pain. "Ow, ow! Go slow!"

"S-sorry!" The Disciple pulled away, propping himself up on his hands. Surprise and fear flickered across his face, followed by dawning horror as he realized what was happening. "Is this your first time?"

Sunset clamped her legs around him as he tried to move away. "Don't stop! Just… just take it slowly, okay? Let me adjust."

The man obediently moved back in, tenderly nuzzling her neck. Sunset grabbed the back of his head to hold him there, mainly so he couldn't see her wince and grit her teeth as he pushed, stopping after every slight movement so Sunset could get used to it. Only when she felt his hips press against hers did she relax and let out a breath.

That had been more painful than Sunset had expected, despite what she had learned at sex ed classes. As she waited for the pain to subside, she amused herself by nibbling on her Disciple's ear and tracing circles on the small of his back with her fingertips, while he in turn braced himself with one arm and let the other roam up and down her body.

When the pain had dropped to a much more bearable level, Sunset started gently rolling her hips, indicating that she was ready to continue. The Disciple picked up on the hint, making small thrusts in time with her movements.

Pain and pleasure mixed as the two slowly picked up the pace. Soon, Sunset was panting again as her Disciple drove into her, rocking her whole body with every push. She hitched her legs up higher around him, trying to grab him as tightly as possible, when he started cursing under his breath. At first, Sunset thought that something was wrong, but then he growled and swore loudly as he gave a final few short, powerful thrusts.

Sunset's mind was thoroughly blank as her Disciple stopped moving. Dimly, she realized that it was over. Other senses ticked in one by one, as if each part of Sunset's body was lining up to give a report on what was up. Her chest was heaving, her heart was thundering in her own ears and she was entirely soaked with sweat. 

All of this was exacerbated as the Disciple pulled away and sat back on his haunches, leaving behind a painful tingle in her groin that straddled the line between pleasant and horrible. 





"Wow," Sunset huffed. "That… okay… wow."

The Disciple looked at her warily. "Your Grace?"

Those annoying words helped drag Sunset out of the swirling fog in her mind. "I'm okay, that was… phew! That was intense." She swallowed and sat up, looking around at the room as if she had never seen it before. "Uh… right. You should probably, uh, get back to whatever it was you were doing."

"Are…" The Disciple shifted awkwardly. "Are you-"

"I'm okay," Sunset said quickly. "No, seriously, I'm fine. I just, I'd rather not have anyone else find out about this." She winced as she realized how that sounded. "I just mean-"

"I get it," the Disciple replied with a nod. His face suddenly went white. "Oh, Harmony. Primrose might actually kill me." He scrambled off the bed, then paused and looked back at her hesitantly. "I should go. Are you… going to be alright?"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "I'm fine. Go on, get your ass out of here before Primrose catches you and we're both in trouble."

"Right." The Disciple dressed quickly. When he was ready, he turned and bowed to her. "Your Grace." 

Sunset just nodded and watched as he left the room. She sat on the bed for several long seconds, then stood and started gathering up her clothes. Her top was first, so she could close the door properly. It wasn't until Sunset was pulling on her underwear, sending another throbbing tingle through her core, that the full weight of what she had just done crashed down on her. She looked around, taking in her scattered clothes, the bottle of wine, and the bloodstained bedsheet, then dropped onto the edge of the bed, burying her face in her hands. "Fuck."

It was all too much. Sunset felt like she was just constantly bouncing from one terrible mistake to the next, with regular interludes for extreme violence.

A quiet knock at the door was the last thing Sunset wanted to hear. She brushed her hair out of her face and tried to compose herself; she was not about to let Primrose or the other Disciple see her breaking.

The door slowly creaked open, and Fluttershy stuck her head in. "Sunset?'

"Fluttershy?!" Sudden panic gripped Sunset at the thought that her friend might have actually heard what had just transpired. "I mean, uh, hi! What's up?"

Fluttershy stepped inside and closed the door. "I was just coming to tell you that we've finished the repellent and gotten our next task, but…" She gave the bed an uneasy look. "Um, what… what happened?"

"Oh, it's nothing," Sunset replied, hoping desperately that the blood would mask any other smells in the room. "My monthly just started a bit early, y'know."

"No, it didn't," Fluttershy said flatly. Sunset grasped for anything that might throw her off, but Fluttershy just looked her in the eye and said gently, "I can smell him."

Sunset deflated. "Of course you can." She looked at the floor, shame burning her cheeks.

Fluttershy took a tentative step forward. "Did he, um, did he f-force himself on…"

Sunset laughed bitterly. "No. As per usual, this fuck-up is entirely my own doing." She planted her elbows on her knees and rested her head on her hands. "Now the whole fucking Temple is gonna know I'm nothing but a messed up slut."

"Don't say that," Fluttershy chided. Sunset didn't hear any footsteps, but suddenly Fluttershy was sitting at her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "You've just had a rough couple of days."

"When? You mean when I found the rape victims?" Sunset asked sarcastically. "Or maybe when I got shot by a sniper? Oh, how about when I committed a fucking triple murder?" She dug her nails painfully into her scalp. "Or how about just now when I lost my fucking mind and fucked a random stranger?!" Sunset's voice broke on the last words. She despised herself for showing weakness this way, but she couldn't prevent the tears from coming. Her whole body shook as she tried to hold everything in.

It was a battle she had no chance of winning. Especially when Fluttershy had no intentions of letting her.

"You can't blame yourself for any of this," Fluttershy said quietly. Sunset tried to contradict her, but Fluttershy wasn't having it. "I'm serious. Yes, you've made mistakes, some of them pretty big, but that's only fair given the amount of bullshit this world has dropped on you."

Hearing Fluttershy say bullshit with such venom was enough to make Sunset look up at her in surprise. Flutters blushed, but didn't look away. "All of us are dealing with a mountain of trouble thanks to this world, but I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that me and you have been hit with more than most."

Sunset tried to refute that. "What? No, I… the others… Rarity got shot! And Twilight was injured by that-"

"All of us have been injured," Fluttershy cut in. "The difference? I'm sterile now." Sunset blinked in shock. "The FEV did it," Fluttershy explained. "And that's just the start of the problems that the virus has caused me. And you? You almost died, and that was well before we joined a military organization."

"Thanks for the reminder," Sunset said with a shudder.

"That's exactly what I mean, though," Fluttershy pressed. "Ever since we voted you in as leader in Vault 101, you've been the one to take the brunt of everything. Every time anything goes wrong, you're the first in line to deal with it. Whenever more responsibility comes along, it's you who shoulders the burden. Hell, you're a high school student, and yet somehow Elder Lyons decided that you were essential for helping to hammer out a peace treaty between two factions that have been at war for decades!"

Sunset opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. Just the fact that Fluttershy, of all people, was being so assertive, was enough to throw Sunset for a loop.

"On top of all of that, you're the only one who doesn't have any form of outlet for your emotions," Fluttershy continued. "Rainbow trains early every morning, when she thinks the rest of us are asleep. Rarity does fashion stuff every chance she gets. Applejack tinkers with her equipment and spends half of her time ogling Rarity when she thinks we aren't looking-"

"Those two are going to end up together soon," Sunset noted.

"They'd better, before one of them gives themselves a wrist injury," Fluttershy huffed. She blushed at Sunset's surprised look. "I've said before, I hear things, and that blood behind us is pushing my vampire buttons." She cleared her throat. " As I was saying, Pinkie cooks and plans parties. Twilight studies, and I feed on blood and, um…" Fluttershy coughed and looked away. "I've also considered, um, other things." She glanced back at Sunset. "But you haven't been doing anything. I've been trying to think of a hobby for you for a while, but nothing came to mind. Um, if you're going to start getting drunk regularly-"

"I'm not drunk!" Sunset exclaimed indignantly.

"You're tipsy, at least," Fluttershy countered. "You're slurring your words, for a start, and I could smell the wine mixed with your breath from the end of the corridor."

"Oh." Sunset breathed into her hand and tried to sniff it, then realized that she was just being daft. "Well, that part isn't exactly my fault. I didn't try to get drunk. I just wanted food."

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you tell me what happened after you left Craterside Supply. Tell me everything."

Explaining everything was easy enough, at first. Fluttershy definitively agreed with Sunset that the Temple should pay its dues to Megaton. When she heard about Sunset accidentally getting pushed into buying a bottle of wine at the Brass Lantern, though, she sighed and shook her head. "No wonder you ended up tipsy. That wine is strong, you're not used to drinking, and on top of that all you've eaten today is an apple, some nutrient bars, and soup. You were near enough drinking on an empty stomach."

"How do you know so much about booze?" Sunset asked suspiciously.

"Half of the problems in Vault 101's clinic were alcohol-related," Fluttershy replied.

"Oh. Okay." Sunset let that slide and continued her explanation. Fluttershy was shocked to hear that Jericho had tried to attack Sunset, and promised to keep an ear out for any trouble he might try to cause. When Sunset reached the part where she seduced the Disciple, however, she trailed off, both girls blushing furiously.

Fluttershy scratched her cheek in a vain attempt to hide her flush. "Well, um, at least things weren't as bad as they could have been. I have to admit, I think both of you were in the wrong, though."

"What do you mean?" Sunset asked. "I shouldn't have come on to him like that. He thinks we're goddesses, there's no way he would have refused. I took advantage of him."

"And he took advantage of you," Fluttershy replied firmly. "You were obviously drunk and, goddess or not, you were very clearly in a vulnerable position. You were both idiots."

"Fair enough," Sunset admitted. "What now?"

Fluttershy sighed. "Right now, I'm going to get you a morning after pill, and a packet of condoms." Her cheeks turned an even brighter shade of red, but she talked over Sunset's refusals. "I'd rather you have them than not. At least then you have a safe outlet. Just please, please, be careful who you sleep with." 

"I will," Sunset replied, deciding not to argue any further. After what had almost happened with the Scribe before, she was forced to admit that Fluttershy had the right idea. "I should probably apologize to that Disciple, too." 

"I'll do that, I'll need to make sure that he doesn't have any std's anyway." Fluttershy glanced sidelong at Sunset. "You probably shouldn't have sex with him again. It's pretty, um, ethically questionable?"

Sunset nodded. "Noted." She chuckled softly. "What would I do without you?"

"Catch gonorrhea or something," Fluttershy shot, though she smiled as she said it.

Sunset couldn't help but snigger. "Okay, that's harsh." She stood and stretched, wiping her eyes. "Alright, crisis over. What did you say the next task was?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "No way. You're still tipsy."

"I'll sober up," Sunset countered. "Besides, the last thing I need right now is to be stuck here worrying about what might happen to you lot out there in the wastes."

Fluttershy bit her lip as she considered. Finally, she sighed and relented. "Fine, but I'm pumping you full of a stimpak and whatever chems I can think of to counteract that alcohol."

"I thought I'd already been pumped full of enough fluid for one day," Sunset quipped, making Fluttershy choke out a laugh. "Okay. You do what you need to do while I get dressed." 

"Deal." Fluttershy stood and started rummaging through her nursing kit, then stopped as a thought occurred. "Um, actually, while we're here, do you have any, um, tips?"

"Tips?" Sunset asked.

Fluttershy's eyes just darted between Sunset and the bed meaningfully.
> Chapter 113 - Wasteland Survival Guide: Mirelurks
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Exodus portal was glorious. It was an immense steel construct, located in the old retrofitting hangar. The bulk of it was made up of a colossal steel ring, big enough for one of the Delta IX rockets to fit through comfortably, with a wide ramp leading up to it. The rest of the machine was a mess of cables, terminals, and huge computer banks, all dotted with magical crystals. Two man-sized glass vials stood atop one of the largest banks, each full to the brim with glowing magical fluid.

Tara could hardly believe her eyes.

"As far as we can tell, it should work," Sienna told her. "All that's left is calibration, and that should go a lot quicker now that you're here to help Evans and Pickering."

"Perfect," Tara breathed. "What about the Delta IX's? Are we still converting one of those?"

Sienna nodded. "Slowly. We've been prioritizing the portal itself, for obvious reasons."

Tara smiled, satisfied that everything was on schedule and going according to plan. "Good." Okay, let's go and see Michaels." As the pair turned and headed towards the medical bay, Tara asked, "Are there any other issues I should know about?"

Paper rustled as Sienna flicked through the sheets on her clipboard. "Just a few small things. The Brotherhood of Steel wants any information we can provide on the Boogeyman."

"The what?" Tara asked, baffled.

"I believe it's the animated power armor that escaped from here after the battle with the Rainbooms. The one Vincent chased off," Sienna explained.

Tara shuddered. "The one that spoke to us through our electronics?"

"Yes," Sienna replied. "Apparently, it has resurfaced again in a settlement called… the Republic of Dave. A group of wasteland vigilantes calling themselves the Regulators are trying to deal with it, but they're already struggling to deal with a sharp increase in activity from both the Super Mutants and Talon Company. They've asked the Brotherhood for help."

"Hmm, I know that Becky severed the Enclave's ties with Talon Company at Elder Lyons' request. They must have found themselves another sponsor." Tara frowned thoughtfully. "Send the Brotherhood everything we know about the Boogeyman, and tell them to ask Rivet City if they have any further information, since that's where our scouts last saw it." 

Tara waited for Sienna to note it all down before continuing. "Also send a message to Becky and ask if she can give the Brotherhood our intel on Talon Company. As for the Super Mutants, I'm not sure that there's much we can do about that."

"There hasn't been much activity around here, lately. Maybe they've abandoned the ruins and are moving into the wastes proper instead?" Sienna suggested. 

"We'll mention it to Vincent and have him confer with Andrew," Tara replied. "They're the military experts, let them handle the Super Mutants."

"Gladly." Sienna checked her notes again. "Aside from that, the repairs and fortification of the surface building are almost finished, and Doctor Turner has started talking to himself." She sighed and shook her head. "At this point, I don't think there's much we can do for him. His mutations appear to be irreversible. I believe it may be in everyone's best interest to just keep him sedated, or even just euthanize him."

Tara let out a sad sigh. "I'll think about it. I know he's a blinkered idiot, but he did step in as my mentor after Professor Oliver left. I don't want to give up on him just yet."

"Okay," Sienna said simply. 

Silence fell as the two made their way through the Exodus building. Technicians and scientists passed them in droves, a far cry from back when Project Exodus had first been formed.

"He's just in here." Sienna broke the silence outside one of the medical rooms. 

Inside, Michaels was sitting up on a simple hospital bed. It was the first time that Tara had seen him properly since he had tried to prevent the Rainbooms from escaping Project Exodus. His head was clean-shaven, but his skin was pale and waxy, and being in a coma for so long had reduced his muscular build to skin and bone.

"Sergeant," Sienna greeted as she walked in. "How are you feeling?"

Michaels looked up slowly. He scowled the moment he spotted Tara. "I've been better."

"Do you remember anything from before you were knocked unconscious?" Tara asked.

"I remember you helping those mutant freaks escape," he said flatly. 

Tara gave him a cold look. "Those 'freaks', as you call them, aren't mutants, and they're also a big part of the reason that the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel are finally at peace."

"Seriously?!" Michaels exclaimed loudly.

"Yes," Sienna deadpanned. "There's a lot that you've missed out on, so try and show a little respect from now on."

Michaels looked from one woman to the other, as if expecting one of them to deny it. He stiffened when he realized that they were actually telling the truth. "Yes, doctors."

Tara nodded. "Don't worry. I can imagine how unsettling this must be. I'll have someone sent down to bring you up to speed on everything that's happened recently." She glanced at Sienna. "For now, I think it's time I checked on Turner."





Sobering up wasn't easy, it turned out. Still, after a second shower, a rushed meal of apples and dehydrated meat, a change of clothes, two stimpaks, and a morning after pill, Sunset felt clear-headed enough to head back out into the wastes.

Fluttershy was less than enthused about it, but she relented so long as Sunset promised that she would follow any and all instructions. That, or Fluttershy would declare her medically unfit for duty and force her to spend a week in convalescence.

As soon as Sunset was ready, the two left the Temple and headed for Megaton's gates. 

"What did you say the mission was, again?" Sunset asked.

"Mirelurks," Fluttershy replied. "There's supposedly a big nest of them in the Anchorage War Memorial, on the riverbank in the downtown ruins. Moira wants us to plant an observation module in one of their egg clutches so she can study their behaviour. Preferably without killing any of them."

Sunset grimaced. "Mirelurks. Great. This is going to be fun."

"Just remember, you promised that you'd stay back and let the others handle any fighting," Fluttershy said warningly.

"I know, I know," Sunset replied. "Don't worry, I'm not planning on accidentally shooting someone." She breathed into a cupped hand and tried to sniff it. "Do I even smell drunk anymore?"

Fluttershy pursed her lips and gave her a critical look. "Well, you're not slurring your words much anymore. I can still smell the wine on your breath, but I don't know if the others will be able to."

Sighing heavily, Sunset dropped her hands to her side and decided that Fluttershy was probably better placed to judge her health than anyone. Thinking about Fluttershy's enhanced senses brought another subject to Sunset's mind. "Uh, sorry I didn't have any tips about… y'know."

"It's fine," Fluttershy replied quickly, her cheeks suddenly taking on a crimson tinge. "Please forget that I asked. The smell of the blood and everything else just got to my head."

"Right." Sunset glanced sidelong at her. "So… you're considering taking things further with Adam?"

Fluttershy's blush grew worse. "Yes, no, I don't know. I'd… um… I'd like to, but it feels like it might be a little bit too fast. We haven't even had a chance for a proper date yet."

"Fair enough. I'm afraid I can't help you much there, I'm not exactly in a position to preach restraint at the moment," Sunset admitted with a faint blush of her own. 

"It's okay," Fluttershy replied. "His name was Chris, by the way." Sunset just gave her a blank look. "The Disciple." Fluttershy looked around to make sure no one was listening, then leaned in and lowered her voice, "Um, the one you..."

Sunset blinked in surprise. "Huh. Chris. I should probably remember that. Seeing him around is going to be awkward enough as it is, not knowing his name would probably make it even worse."

"Probably," Fluttershy agreed quietly. 

The two fell quiet as they stepped through the gates and into the wastes. Adam and the others were already waiting, all in their armor and ready to go. Sunset assumed they had come back for it when she was in the shower.

"Finally." Applejack tipped her hat back to stare curiously as Sunset. "What the heck did you do to have to take another shower?"

Sunset shrugged. "Meh, got drunk and decided to bone down with one of the Disciples," she said flippantly. Fluttershy squeaked and blushed, but, as expected, the others all reacted with either amused or irritated disbelief. 

"Really, darling, you shouldn't joke about such things," Rarity chided. "You're starting to sound like Rainbow Dash." 

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rainbow asked indignantly.

"It means you're an incorrigible pervert, dear," Rarity replied, turning and heading in the direction of the Super Duper Mart.

Rainbow scowled as the group followed. "You don't complain about Applejack being a pervert."

"Ah ain't a perv," Applejack growled.

"It's because you're so blatant, Dashie," Pinkie said brightly. "At least Applejack tries to be subtle about it."

Applejack nodded curtly. "That's right, Ah- hey!"

The girls laughed as they made their way up the hill outside Megaton, though they quickly turned their attention to what they were doing. The ground was still somewhat slippery, forcing the group, especially Sunset, to concentrate on keeping their footing.

When they reached the top of the hill, Sunset was surprised to note that Rainbow and Rarity continued making a beeline directly for the Super Duper Mart. "Uh… where exactly are we going?"

"The Anchorage War Memorial," Pinkie replied. "It's pretty much just across the river from that sweet old lady we met on the way to Old Olney."

"Old lady?" Sunset gasped as she remembered. "Oh, Grandma Sparkle!"

Twilight's head snapped up at that. "Grandma who?!"

"All of your relatives in this world are Enclave," Sunset reminded her. "I doubt she's anything to do with your family."

"Fair point." Twilight sighed softly. "Anyway, we figured that, since none of us really wants to try and swim across the river, we'll take the bridge by the Super Duper Mart then go South from there."

Sunset nodded. "Sounds like a plan. Let's just make sure that there aren't any more raiders in the Mart waiting to ambush us."

"I don't see anyone on the roof," Fluttershy put in. "I think we're clear, but we should keep our eyes open anyway."

Rarity glanced warily at Sunset. She coughed delicately before saying slowly, "Speaking of raiders-"

"I don't want to talk about it," Sunset said bluntly. "It was a shitty thing to do, and I regret it. Let's just leave it at that."

"Fuck regret, those monsters deserved it," Rainbow said savagely.

"That may be so, but we ain't judge, jury, and executioner," Applejack countered. She glanced at Sunset. "Still, Ah can't blame you for losin' your temper like that. Ah probably would've done the same thing in your position."

Sunset didn't answer. She had had more than enough of that subject. "Alright, we're getting close to dangerous territory now, let's stow the chatter."

It was a blatant attempt to end the conversation, but it was true enough that no-one commented. 

The area around the Super Duper Mart was, thankfully, devoid of any threats. Keeping their eyes peeled, the group crossed the small bridge just beyond it. A battered road on the far side led up into the main DC ruins but, when Fluttershy informed the group that she could hear people up that way, they decided to abandon the road and follow the river instead. There was a much bigger risk of encountering Mirelurks that way, but that was pretty much the point of the trip. 

A short walk later, the group came to the metro station they had passed through on their way to Galaxy News Radio. Sunset wasn't sure whether or not the fact that the dead raiders had been removed was concerning. 

"At least we don't have to go traipsing through those tunnels again," Rarity said with feeling. 

Fluttershy nodded, shifting her gaze to the river. "We might have a different problem, though." She nodded to a partially hidden set of steps. Sunset couldn't see where they went, but it was a good bet that they led to a jetty on the river itself. "There's three people down there."

Every member of the group immediately raised their weapons. "Raiders?" Adam asked.

"I can't tell," Fluttershy replied. "It sounds like they're… fishing?"

Sunset snorted. "As long as they leave us alone, they can fish all they want."

"How nice of you." The sound of a voice crackling out from a speaker made everyone jump. 

Fluttershy gestured with her rifle to a nearby car. "Under there." Looking carefully, the others could just about see a radio set, cunningly camouflaged with chunks of debris. "They must have headphones, or I'd have heard our voices coming out from the other end."

"Then you're some sort of witch creature," the voice said flatly. "But yes, we do have headphones, just in case outsiders like you try to sneak up on us, or get past without paying the toll."

Two women climbed up the steps. Both were wearing simple pants and patchwork tops, and both had their weapons, a shotgun and an assault rifle respectively, held ready. A second or two later a third woman appeared behind the others. Sunset's stomach lurched when she noticed that the third woman was casually lugging a missile launcher.

"That might be a problem," Applejack muttered.

"We're the Bridge Keepers," the woman with the missile launcher called out. "I'm Flynn, and if you want to pass, you're going to have to pay the toll."

"We didn't have to pay a toll the last time we came through here," Rainbow growled.

Flynn arched an eyebrow. "Yeah, well, times change. We moved in last month, and now there's a toll. Consider it a small charge for keeping the Super Mutants from setting up ambushes on the bridge."

Sunset glared at the woman. She wasn't feeling particularly inclined to just let these raiders extort her friends, but at the same time she didn't think a fight would be a good idea. "How much is the toll?"

"Forty caps, five per head," Flynn replied instantly. She smirked at the surprised looks on the girls' faces. "What? We're mercenaries, not extortionists. A lot of traffic comes through here; caravans, scavengers, you name it. Super Mutants used to like ambushing people on the bridge. We put a stop to it. You can't blame us for wanting a little bit of recompense, now, can you?"

"The Brotherhood of Steel comes through here regularly, too," Rainbow chimed in. "Do you really expect us to believe that they pay the toll as well?"

Flynn grinned at her. "We don't charge the Brotherhood. Every time they come through here they make sure to blast any Super Mutants that are in the area. Makes our job easier, and the scrubs who come through after still pay the same toll whether it's us that does the fighting or the Brotherhood."

Sunset laughed and shook her head. She could almost admire the audacity of the women. They were clearly scamming a whole bunch of people, but at the same time they were actually providing a useful service when the Brotherhood wasn't around. Cheaply, too. Still, Sunset wasn't about to pay if she didn't have to. "You do realize that we are with the Brotherhood of Steel, don't you?"

"Is that a fact?" Flynn asked. The girls all pulled out their Brotherhood holo-tags and held them up. "Huh, looks like Three Dog was telling the truth." She spat on the floor. "Fair enough. You can go through, just make sure that you make a mess of any Super Mutants you find along the way, yeah? Ammo for this bitch isn't cheap." Flynn patted her missile launcher affectionately. "I'd rather not use it unless I have to."

"We'll see what we can do," Sunset replied in an airy tone. "Come on, girls. Let's keep moving."

Leaving the Bridge Keepers behind, the squad continued following the line of the river. A short way further on, down a gentle slope, the group came across the scene of a battle. 

A pair of old trucks were dumped end to end at the entrance to a street. Both were scorched and melted in places from powerful energy weapons, and the remnants of shattered barricades dotted what little space remained between them. Looking past the trucks, the girls could just make out the charred corpses of a handful of Super Mutants.

"I'm glad we didn't have to fight those things," Pinkie said, peeking through a hole in one of the trucks.

"I know, right?" Sunset agreed. "The Brotherhood must have been through here recently. Look, there's boot prints from power armor in the dirt."

Rainbow tapped them both on the shoulders. "You know, if you turn around, you might even see what we came here for."

"Really?" Sunset turned to see another much taller concrete embankment surrounded by debris, a short way further along, on the other side of the river. A weathered bronze statue could just about be seen on top of it. "Uh… aren't we on the wrong side of the river?"

"Damn it, Benny," Pinkie muttered.

Applejack groaned and put a hand to her face. "Moira swore that this would be the best way."

"It might be." Fluttershy pointed at the base of the embankment. "Look, there's a sandbar that leads right to it. We could walk across and climb over that debris to the back entrance that Moira mentioned. There's just one problem."

"Mirelurks?" Adam asked.

"Mirelurks," Fluttershy confirmed. "Four of them, and something else… it's swimming with the mirelurks, but I have no idea what it is."

Adam nodded and got down on his knees. "I think I have a plan. Who has the observation module?" Twilight got the boxy little camera out of her pack. "Groovy. Okay, Rainbow, I think you should try and distract the mirelurks by flying around above them. Next-" 

The girls watched as Adam started scratching out what looked like a game plan in the dirt, rattling out instructions as he did so. Sunset stared at him for a moment, snapped her fingers at Twilight and pointed at the observation module, and almost dropped it when it was thrown her way. 

Pretending that it hadn't happened, Sunset tossed it to Rainbow. She was gone in a blur an instant later. A few seconds passed before Rainbow reappeared. "Okay, the module is placed," she announced.

"And then Apple- wha?" Adam looked up curiously. He looked around each at the girls in turn, tilted his head when he realized that the module was gone, then his whole body seemed to sag in defeat. "Oh. Okay. I guess my plan wasn't needed."

"It was a good plan, fishcake," Fluttershy said gently, patting him on the helmet.

Bewilderment stalled Sunset's mind. "Did she just call him fishcake?"

"She certainly did, darling," Rarity replied, watching the pair with interest.

Sunset let out a relieved sigh. "Thank Celestia. I thought I really had drunk too much wine for a second." She ran a hand through her hair and shook her head. "Come on, let's get back to Megaton. We can save the gossip for when we're safely behind metal walls."

"Good idea," Rarity agreed. As everyone started making their way back the way they had come, she sidled up to Sunset and whispered in her ear, "We can also discuss matters involving you, wine, and a certain Disciple, can't we, dear?" Sunset whipped her head around, her throat closing up at the thought that she had been rumbled. Rarity just met her gaze evenly. "You let a little too much slip there, Miss Shimmer. I think you and I need to have a very serious discussion."
> Chapter 114 - Wasteland Survival Guide: Injuries
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The path up to Craterside Supply should have been relaxing, boring. The last familiar leg of a journey before reaching home. Instead, Sunset spent it, just as she had the rest of the trip, worrying herself sick about whatever grilling Rarity had in store for her.

When the group entered the store, they were surprised to see Moira hunched over the worktable, tinkering away on what appeared to be a hat, though it sounded as if at least part of it was made out of metal.

"Hey, Moira!" Applejack called out, grabbing her attention. " We set up that observation thing for you."

"I saw, thanks!" Moira replied brightly as she nodded to a terminal that she had set up next to the counter. "The footage so far has been really good. I haven't been able to figure out whether or not they have a society of their own yet, but I will!"

Everyone just gave her blank looks. Sunset tried to think of an appropriate response to such a bizarre statement, but nothing came to mind. Thankfully, Applejack came to the rescue, quickly changing the subject, "What are you workin' on, there?"

Moira grinned and turned back to the hat. "I was observing the mirelurks, when their shells and camouflage gave me an idea." She finished whatever she was tinkering with and held up the hat. It was a fedora, in a strangely unobtrusive gray color. "And, voila! Reinforced, neutral-colored headgear. It'll protect you and help you blend into the background all at once."

"Functional fashion, I approve," Rarity said with a nod.

"In that case, it's yours!" Moira tossed the hat to Rarity. "Consider it part of my thanks for setting up that observation module."

"My my, you're very welcome, darling." Rarity put the hat on and pulled out a hand mirror to inspect herself. "Hmmm, not bad. All I need now is the right coat, and I'll have a lovely 'wasteland noir' ensemble."

Sunset was surprised to see Rarity so happy with such a blandly colored hat, though she supposed that regularly getting shot at might have altered the fashionista's sense of practicality.

Seeing that her gift was well-received, Moira walked back behind the counter and pulled a heavy box off one of the shelves. "The rest of my thanks is in here." She pulled out one of the contents and showed it off. It looked like some sort of miniature computer that slotted over the wrist, though it bore only the vaguest resemblance to a Pip-Boy. "I managed to pick up four of these Stealth Boys. They're yours, if you want them."

"What do they do?" Sunset asked, picking one up to inspect it. 

"They generate some sort of stealth field," Moira replied. "It makes the person wearing it almost invisible."

"Are you serious?! That's amazing!" Sunset exclaimed as the others loudly voiced their astonishment.

Moira smiled and indicated the little control panel on one of the Stealth Boys. "They don't last long, but you can adjust how strong the field is, which also affects how long they last."

"That's incredible technology!" Twilight picked one up and began inspecting it with terrible intensity. "How does it work?"

"I don't really know," Moira admitted. "I know how to use one, but I don't have a clue about the science behind them. I've actually got another one upstairs that I'm going to examine later."

Trying not to smile at Twilight's frustrated expression, Sunset patted her on the back. "Don't worry, Twi, I'm sure the Brotherhood or the Enclave will be able to tell you more. For now, we should probably figure out which of us is getting one of these."

The group talked amongst themselves, discussing who should take one of the Stealth Boys. It didn't take long for them to decide that one each should be given to Fluttershy, Rarity, Twilight, and Applejack.

With that out of the way, Sunset checked the time. It was getting late but, depending on what exactly Moira wanted them to do, she figured that they had time for another quick trip. "Okay, what's next on the agenda?"

Adam grimaced. "Wasn't it something to do with injuries?"

"That's right!" Moira replied eagerly. "I never get the chance to study someone who's severely injured. Not without them crying to be fixed right away or trying to bleed out and all that."

"How awful of them," Fluttershy muttered, with only a hint of sarcasm.

Moira didn't catch it. "I wouldn't say that they were awful, getting hurt is a little unpleasant, but it would be nice if they could at least let me have a proper look at them before I patch them up. It's really hard to fix someone and take notes at the same time."

Sunset resisted the urge to roll her eyes, or say something scathing. "Why don't you ask Doc Church if you can shadow him while he works on patients?"

"I've asked a few times, but he always says no, in increasingly mean ways," Moira replied sadly.

Pinkie looked around at the others warily. "I hope you're not about to suggest that Adam should jump off the walkway outside."

"Is that necessary?" Adam asked.

"Don't be stupid," Fluttershy hissed.

"I've got a better idea," Sunset offered. "Rainbow, I need you to go back to the Citadel. The Brotherhood always has more injured people than it can handle. Ask Elder Lyons if he'll allow Moira to shadow the medics on the condition that she helps them out with basic nursing duties."

"On it, Knight-Captain!" Rainbow snapped a salute before disappearing in a blur.

Moira whooped and clapped enthusiastically. "That was super speed! I've been wanting to see that ever since I heard about it on the radio! How does it work? How does she manage to deal with friction? Oh, what about the massive shifts in momentum when she turns?"

"It's magic, darling, though I'm sure she can explain it when she gets back," Rarity told her, though Sunset suspected that the last part was bullshit. "For now, I'd like to borrow Fluttershy and Sunset for the rest of the night. There's some fashion ideas that I very much want to discuss with them."

A chill ran through Sunset's spine, even more so when Moira just nodded cheerfully. "Sure thing!"

"Marvelous." Rarity swept her hair around as she turned and stepped over to the door. "Ah, everyone? I'd appreciate it if we weren't disturbed for the rest of the night. I'd like to take measurements and such, you know how it is."

Applejack doffed her hat. "You got it, Rares. See you in the mornin'."

Sunset glanced at Adam, then shifted to Pinkie when she realized that he and Fluttershy were non-verbally saying goodnight. "When Rainbow gets back, if Elder Lyons agrees to the request, ask her to drop Moira up to the Citadel for me, would you?"

"Can do!" Pinkie snapped a surprisingly crisp salute.

"Come along, dears!" Rarity pressed.

Dreading whatever was about to come, Sunset followed Rarity and Fluttershy out of the store and back to the Temple. The ever-present queue was smaller than usual; business obviously starting to wind down for the day. 

Inside, Sunset felt a glimmer of hope at the sight of her handmaiden chatting with a handful of Children of Atom at the base of the brazier. "Primrose! How did the discussion with Sheriff Simms go?"

"I'm afraid that's going to have to wait," Rarity cut in, throwing Sunset a subtle glare. "We have something rather more urgent to discuss. Go on upstairs, I shall be up in just a few minutes."

With her last attempt at stalling swatted aside, Sunset resigned herself to the inevitable. Her only solace as she climbed the stairs was the fact that Fluttershy was there with her.

Moving on autopilot, it was only as Sunset opened the door to her room that she realized that it perhaps wasn't the best place for a chat. 

"That's strange," Fluttershy muttered.

"What is?" Sunset asked, pulling the door closed.

Fluttershy cocked her head to the side. "Your room doesn't smell of blood anymore."

It took Sunset a second to realize what she meant. When it sank in, Sunset shoved the door back open. Sure enough, her bed was sporting clean sheets and a fresh blanket. "Awww… crap."

"What's the matter?" Fluttershy asked quietly.

"The sheets are clean," Sunset groaned. "Primrose knows."

Fluttershy shrugged and stepped past her into the room. "You never know. She might just think your monthly cycle started."

"With the way her hunches work, I doubt it," Sunset grumbled, stepping inside and closing the door.

Fluttershy sat on the edge of the bed. "Well, I think she'll keep quiet about it, anyway." She noticed the half-empty bottle of wine on the bedside table and picked it up to inspect it. "I don't think Primrose is the type of person to spread gossip like that without your permission."

"I hope so," Sunset said quietly. She started stripping her armor off as she walked over to its rack. "Do you want to drop your armor in your room before Rarity gets up here?"

"Oh! Good idea!" Fluttershy put the wine back and scurried quickly out of the room. 

Left to her own devices, Sunset changed into a pair of pajamas; specifically, a pair of loose shorts and a tank top in Enclave tan and gray, and sat on the bed, waiting for her judgement to fall. She briefly toyed with the idea of having a little more wine to settle her nerves, but that felt like too much of a bad idea.

It wasn't long before Fluttershy returned, wearing identical pajamas. Rarity herself arrived barely a minute later, wearing a set of fluffy pajama pants and a tankini that Sunset had never seen before and, strangely, struggling to carry two thick blankets, two pillows, and a heavy-looking backpack. Fluttershy and Sunset quickly got up to help her.

"Phew! Thank you," Rarity said with a huff as she carefully placed the backpack on the floor. Glass clinked loudly inside. "Fluttershy, could you kindly confirm something for me? Are these walls soundproof?"

"They are," Fluttershy replied instantly.

"Wait, really?" Sunset asked in surprise.

Fluttershy nodded. "Yes. Scents seep through the cracks in the doors, but something about the magic keeps sounds from getting out." She tilted her head in thought. "I assume magic is why the doors don't let someone in unless they have a key or we invite them, too."

"That's all very fascinating, darling, but I believe we have something more pressing to discuss." Rarity folded one of the blankets on the floor, sat elegantly on it, then steepled her fingers and looked seriously at Sunset. "Alright, Sunset, I understand that this conversation is probably the very last thing that you want-"

"Then don't make me have it," Sunset said bluntly.

Rarity shook her head. "You're not getting out of this that easily. I'm worried about you, Sunset. The fact that Fluttershy is evidently aware of what happened is, I admit, a little bit of a relief, but I still have concerns." She glanced briefly at Fluttershy before adding, "After what happened here, and what almost happened with the Scribe, I think those concerns are justified."

A lead weight dropped into Sunset's stomach at the mention of the Scribe. "How do you know about that," she asked breathlessly, ignoring Fluttershy's confused look. 

Rarity coughed delicately. "I caught the unpleasant brute trying to boast about it to the other Scribes. Don't worry-" she added quickly at Sunset's horrified expression, "-none of them believed him, and I personally made sure that he won't go maliciously spouting such things again. Not if he wants certain parts of his anatomy to remain intact, anyway."

"Thanks," Sunset said quietly.

"Don't mention it, dear, I wouldn't dream of letting such a brute get away with something like that," Rarity replied. "I didn't say anything back then because I thought you had enough to deal with, after everything that happened at Project Purity. And besides, Metzger stopped you that time. Given your, er… imperfect choice in men, however, you can understand why I'm concerned this time around."

Sunset just nodded slowly. She wasn't in the mood to explain everything yet again, but she supposed that she owed Rarity that much. Seeing Sunset's reticence, Fluttershy raised her hand. "Um, if you want, I can explain it for you."

"No, but thanks, Flutters." Sunset drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Okay, here's what happened."

Rarity listened carefully and silently as Sunset explained everything that had happened, from leaving Craterside Supply, up to when Fluttershy had turned up, sparing only the details of the act itself. Fluttershy took over after that, telling Rarity who the Disciple was, what he had said, and what advice and drugs she had given Sunset herself afterwards.

When all was said and done, Rarity sighed and crossed her arms. "Well, it's not as bad as I had feared. Morally, it's a bit of a mess, of course, but so is almost everything else in this rotten world. Don't worry, nothing said here tonight shall go beyond these walls."

"I appreciate it," Sunset told her. She rubbed her neck awkwardly. "Honestly, I was expecting you to press me for details, or judge me, or something."

"I would never," Rarity replied in a scandalised tone. "What I am doing is what a good friend should." She reached into the backpack and, to Sunset's absolute shock, pulled out five bottles of wine. "Now, the three of us are going to drink these, you're going to spill every last detail of whatever is causing a mess inside your mind, you're going to bawl your eyes out, which of course means Fluttershy and I shall as well, and we're going to get everything out of our systems in one go. Then, we're going to have a girls night in, gossip to our heart's content, and fall asleep here after getting as close as possible to shit-faced. Is that acceptable?"

Sunset just stared at her in wide-eyed disbelief. "You swore."

"And it never leaves this room," Rarity reminded her. "Come on, girls. Let's get drinking."





Primrose was worried. She was often nervous these days, what with having seven embodied Goddesses sleeping above her head, but this was different. 

Something was wrong. 

To be fair, there was a bunch of stuff wrong in the Temple at the moment. Primrose had thought nothing of the bloodstain on Lady Shimmer's bed, at first, but the strange urge to punch Chris in the face every time Prim saw him was giving her another suspicion. On top of that, Joshua was still upset that he had to pay Simms, and Jericho had been lurking around on and off like a creepy stalker. Unfortunately, none of those things felt like they were the biggest issue.

Primrose always trusted her hunches. She had had them ever since she was a little girl, and they had only gotten stronger and clearer since she had been struck by magic soaring through the sky. They were the reason Primrose had come to Megaton in the first place, only a month ago, and they were the reason that she was standing at the base of the Flame of Harmony, waiting for whatever problem was about to walk through the front door.

As if on cue, someone shoved the doors wide open. Three Talon Company mooks strutted through the doors. The Disciple posted in the Welcome Room tried to stop them, but one of the mooks pushed him back.

The lead mook, a woman with a filthy blonde ponytail, smirked as she looked around. "Heh, nice place you've built here. Real fancy."

"Can I help you?" Primrose asked politely.

The woman grinned. "Sure. I'm Lightning. We're here to pay our respects to the Rainbooms on behalf of Talon Company."

Primrose knew exactly what Lightning meant when she said she wanted to 'pay her respects'. Prim briefly considered warning the Goddesses, but Lady Rarity had been quite insistent that they not be disturbed unless it was an emergency. Three Talon Company losers were no emergency. "I'm afraid our Goddesses are indisposed at the moment. They have been very busy recently."

"That's fine, we're old friends," Lightning replied easily. "We'll just go on up and say hi."

The three tried to head to the stairs, but Primrose stepped in the way. She had a hunch that the Goddesses were not on good terms with Talon Company, and besides, she wasn't about to let three random armed strangers walk about the Temple as they pleased. "As I said, the Goddesses are not taking visitors at the moment. I ask that you leave."

"She has a point, Light," one of the mooks muttered. "The Commander didn't want us down this way, anyway, and starting trouble in Megaton ain't gonna end well."

"Quit your bitching, you fucking pussy," Lightning snapped. She glared at Primrose, raising an arm to shove past her. "Get out of my way, you-"

Primrose calmly punched her in the throat.

Lightning staggered back, clutching at her throat as she gagged and coughed. The other two mooks reached for their guns, only to freeze as they found themselves staring down the business end of a .44 magnum. 

"I would rather not cause you any further harm," Primrose said evenly. "However, if you insist on misbehaving, I'll be forced to show you exactly what one of Alistair Tenpenny's former bodyguards can do."

The name hit home, as Prim had known it would, and the mooks eyed her with a newfound wariness. Lightning snarled, one hand still massaging her throat. "You just fucked with the wrong person, bit-"

"I think you're the one fucking with the wrong people." Primrose felt her heart leap as Rainbow Dash stepped into the Temple. "Now, how about you-"

A loud bang echoed around the room, and Lightning suddenly screamed and stumbled, dropping a gun that no-one had seen her draw and clutching at her hand. Blood poured from her fingers. 

Rainbow glanced down at her glittering armor in surprise. "That bitch just tried to shoot me!" 

The two mooks tried to draw their own weapons on her, but Rainbow whipped out Flashburn and blurred into action. The first man's head hit the floor a second later. Rainbow stabbed the second mook in the gut, then withdrew her blade and lopped his head off in one smooth swing. Finally, she pointed Flashburn at Lightning. "Just me and you now, bitch. What the hell do you-"

There was a blur and a crackle of electricity followed by the slamming of the front door, and suddenly Lightning was gone.

Rainbow looked from the spot where Lightning had been to the door and back. "She has super speed. Oh, damn."

Primrose shook her head slowly, utterly stunned. "She wielded the power of the Goddesses. How could she…?

"She must have a Geode," Rainbow finished. "I'd chase her, but she could be halfway across the wasteland by now. I need to warn the others about this."

"Should I tell Lady Shimmer?' Primrose asked.

Rainbow shook her head. "No. She's got enough crap on her plate for now, I'll tell her myself in the morning."

"Very well, Lady Dash." Primrose looked down at the smouldering gun, deciding to leave the magic to the Goddesses and latching on to the more mundane mystery instead. "What happened to her gun. Was that you, Lady Dash?"

"Nah." Rainbow gingerly picked up the gun and inspected it. "Looks like a few bullets tried to cycle into the chamber all in one go and got stuck. She must have tried shooting me using her super speed, the gun misfired, and rapid cycling made a bullet explode."

"That shouldn't happen," Primrose said, remembering everything she knew about guns.

Rainbow grimaced and held the gun out to show it to Primrose. "If the gun had been properly maintained, it would have been fine. This thing is filthy. It looks like it hasn't been cleaned or maintained in months at least." She put the gun back on the floor carefully and wiped Flashburn on the clothes of a dead mook before sheathing it. "I'd better go and let the girls know what's happening. Simms, too, I guess. Make sure all of the other ways into the Temple are locked down for the night. I doubt Talon Company will come back, but I don't want to take any chances."

Primrose nodded and bowed as Rainbow disappeared in a blur. She called out orders to the other Disciples, telling them to seal all other entrances and to clean up the bodies. As people hurried to obey, Primrose turned and strode purposefully up the stairs. As a Handmaiden, her first duty was to her Goddess, and there was no way she was going to risk letting an enemy get to Lady Shimmer. She would stand guard outside the Goddess's room all night by herself if she had to.





Pain tore through Lightning as she rocketed back towards Fort Bannister. Her hand was a mess. She banked hard, still getting used to her magical wings, and soared down into the Fort's courtyard.

Lightning touched down outside the command building just as Commander Jabsco stepped through the front door.

"What the hell happened to you?" Jabsco asked.

"The Rainbooms," Lightning spat. "Them and their fucking cultists."

Jabsco glared at her. "I ordered you to stay away from the Rainbooms until your training is-"

"I had one of them!" Lightning shot. "At least one of those bitches would be dead already if it wasn't for your shitty guns! Now shut the fuck up and fetch me a medic."

"You need to remember who is in charge here," Jabsco growled.

"No, you need to learn," Lightning retorted. "I'm the one with the magic. I'm the one with super speed. And you're-"

She choked as Jabsco lunged, wrapping an armored fist around her throat. "I'm the one who gave you that magic," he reminded her. "Super speed? Please. You strut around like you own the place but you can't even use that power properly yet. You'd better learn how, and you'd better learn some respect to go with it, or I'll take that power away." He shoved her away from him, smirking as she coughed and rubbed her much-abused neck. "Luckily for you, you're going to get plenty of chances to prove yourself. Talon Company has found itself a new benefactor."

Lightning fought to keep herself from glaring up at him. It wasn't worth challenging Jabsco. Yet. "Who is it?"

As if they had been waiting for her to ask, a massive figure ducked out of the command building. Lightning stiffened as a hulking Super Mutant stepped out of the shadows. "This is Shephard," Jabsco said  with a grin. "He has his own reasons for wanting to take down the Rainbooms, and, just like you, he has a Geode, too."

Lightning's eye was drawn to the awful  blood-smeared scar over the Super Mutant's breastbone. 

"I've heard a lot about you, Lightning," Shephard said in a surprisingly soft voice. "Come, we have much to discuss. A new war is coming, and this time it is we who shall reign supreme!"
> Chapter 115 - Wasteland Survival Guide: Rivet City's History
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset stirred slowly. Her head felt strangely foggy, even more so than it usually did in the morning. Cracking her eyes open, she slowly raised her head, hoping that things would stop swaying soon.

An absolute lunatic was strolling around the room, tidying up the detritus of the day before. "Good morning," Fluttershy said in a sickeningly chipper voice.

"Morning," Sunset managed to mumble. "Where's Rarity?"

Fluttershy nodded to a corner of the room. There sat Rarity, wrapped up in a blanket, sipping a bottle of water, and squinting at the opposite wall.

"Now that you're both awake, here." Fluttershy handed both girls a plateful of sliced apples each. Given the brilliant violet sheen of their skins, Sunset suspected that they were magical. "Eat these. They'll make you feel better. I'll get you some water, too."

Neither Sunset nor Rarity spoke as they ate their unusual breakfast. Slowly, the combination of fructose, magic, and whatever medicine Fluttershy had slipped into the water all worked together to get Sunset feeling somewhere close to human.

When it appeared that the two were capable of holding a conversation, Fluttershy decided to herd them into the showers. That plan hit a minor bump when the girls opened the door, only to find Primrose waiting for them outside with bags under her eyes. 

"Good morning, Ladies," Primrose said with a grim nod. "I'm afraid I have some unfortunate news."

Sunset resisted the urge to groan loudly. "What's happened?"

Quickly and efficiently, Primrose explained how three members of Talon Company had tried to force their way upstairs, and how one of them had a Geode that gave her speed similar to Rainbow Dash's. She then went on to summarize what precautions had been taken once the interlopers had been dealt with.

When Primrose was done, Sunset gave in to the urge to groan and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why didn't anyone tell us about this last night?"

"We were asked not to disturb you unless it was an emergency," Primrose replied. "Since Lady Dash managed to handle the incident without too much trouble, we felt that it didn't constitute an emergency."

Sunset shot Rarity an annoyed glare, easily deducing who had demanded privacy. "From now on, if something like that happens, tell us immediately."

Primrose bowed obediently. "As you wish, Lady Shimmer."

"That's three new Geodes that we know of." Fluttershy but her lip anxiously. "Um, isn't both the Super Mutants and Talon Company having one each a big problem?"

"It's a huge problem." Sunset heaved a sigh, feeling her plans for a shower vanishing like mist. "We have to let the Brotherhood and the Enclave know. Where are the rest of the girls?"

"Applejack is downstairs, and I believe the others are at Craterside Supply," Primrose replied.

Sunset tried not to swear at the prospect of having to go and see Moira so soon after waking up. She wasn't in the mood to deal with cheeriness. "Okay, we'll go and find them. Go get some sleep, you look like you didn't sleep a wink.'

Leaving the grateful Handmaiden behind, the three girls made their way downstairs. It was slow going, as Sunset felt her stomach lurch with every downward step, and a quick glance revealed that Rarity was having the same issue. The faint pulse of Equestrian magic all around did help Sunset keep her wits about her, though.

Applejack was waiting in the Temple's main hall, staring up at the magic brazier. She didn't even notice the arrival of the girls until they were standing right next to her. "Oh, hey! Didn't see you there. Uh…" Applejack tipped her hat back and raised an eyebrow as she got a good look at Sunset and Rarity. "What the heck happened to you two? You look like you had a bit too much hard cider last night."

"It wasn't cider, it was wine," Sunset replied. She held up a hand in response to Applejack's querulous look. "I just had to get some shit out in private, I'll explain everything later."

"Don't fret, sugarcube, Ah get it." Applejack leaned in and lowered her voice as she asked, "Did Primrose let you know what happened last night?"

Sunset nodded. "Talon Company, yeah. We need to warn the-"

"Brotherhood and the Enclave," Applejack finished. "Yeah, we figured. Rainbow considered flying straight to the Citadel this mornin', but we convinced her to wait until you woke up. Come on, they're up at Moira's."

Walking past the early visitors to the Temple, Sunset assumed that the worst thing she would face outside would be the ever-present stares from ill-mannered residents. That was, until Applejack opened the door.

"Holy shit, it's cold!" Frosty air slapped Sunset in the face the instant the door opened, then surged into her lungs just to make sure it had her attention.

"Yeah, it's a cold one this mornin'." Applejack blew out a cloud of warm breath. "Winter's definitely on it's way."

"It's freezing," Rarity hissed, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering violently.

Fluttershy held her arms up, frowning curiously as she inspected them. "That's strange. I can feel the cold but… I don't feel cold. Does that make sense?"

"Rub it in, why don't you?" Sunset ground out. Silently cursing the benefits of FEV-induced vampirism, she led the way as quickly as she could up to Craterside Supply, stuffing her hands beneath her armpits to try and keep them warm.

The blast of warm air as Sunset pushed the door to the store open was unbelievably welcome, as was the sight of Rainbow Dash holding up a blazing Flashburn, using her blade's magic to efficiently heat the surrounding area. The rest of the Rainbooms were huddled around her, as were Adam, a handful of other customers, and the store's guard.

"There you are!" Twilight called out as the group entered. "We were wondering when you were going to show up."

Sunset apologized quickly. "Sorry, we stayed up late. We heard about what happened with Talon Company. Is everyone okay?"

"We're all good," Rainbow replied. "We were just talking to Moira about the next step in the Survival Guide."

A dull moan from the counter caught Sunset's attention. Moira was sitting with her head on the countertop, wrapping in what looked like four or five blankets. She was a far cry from her usual chipper self. "What happened to her?" Sunset asked.

"The Brotherhood of Steel kept her up all night with nursing duties," Twilight replied with a mildly amused smirk. "Apparently, they had her doing everything from drawing blood and stitching up wounds to dressing plasma burns and helping attach new cybernetics. She did say that she got plenty of notes, though."

Sunset shook her head. "Right… Anyway, the next part of the Guide is going to have to wait. We have to let Elder Lyons and President Shoichet know about Talon Company."

"Actually, we can kill two birds with one stone," Adam piped up. "Moira wants us to go to Rivet City and learn how it was founded. She figures that learning how successful settlements grow could be useful for people trying to settle further out in the wastes, and she already has Megaton's history. We can stop at the Citadel on the way."

"Or I can do it myself," Rainbow cut in. She deactivated Flashburn, getting grumbled complaints from the others, and looked at Sunset. "Want me to fly down and get this over with quickly?"

Sunset shook her head. "No. You've been down to the Citadel and back on your own already, it's too risky to keep you out there without backup, especially now we know that there's someone else out there with super speed. We'll all go."

"That's not a great idea," Fluttershy told her. "Neither you nor Rarity are in any real condition to fight if it comes down to it. A small strike team would be better."

"Good point." Sunset crossed her arms and pondered her options. "Okay. Rainbow, take Adam, Pinkie, and Twilight with you. Head straight to the Citadel first, then go on to Rivet City. See if Elder Lyons can get word through to Three Dog as well. The wasteland should be warned about the new Geodes in town."

"Yes, Knight-Captain!" Rainbow snapped a crisp salute.

"The rest of us can coordinate with Simms and make sure that Megaton is as secure as it can be," Sunset continued. "I don't want to take any risks with whatever other rogue magic is out there." She looked around at each of her friends in turn, unhappy about splitting the group up, but accepting the necessity of the situation. "Alright girls, move out!"





The mirelurk hissed and swiped with a claw, forcing Rainbow to skip backwards to avoid losing her head. She ducked under the next attack, stepping smoothly under the mirelurk's guard, then lunged forward and rammed Flashburn into the mirelurk's unprotected face. The mirelurk burbled as it died. 

Ripping her blade out of the foul-smelling corpse, Rainbow looked around to see how the others were faring. She was just in time to see Pinkie blow the last mirelurk to pieces with a shot from her Party Cannon.

"Is everyone okay?" Twilight asked.

"We're good," Adam replied, reloading his plasma rifle. "I need to pick up some more ammo, though. How far are we from the Citadel?"

Rainbow pointed with Flashburn to the nearby bridge. "It's just past there. Careful, raiders sometimes camp out under the bridge."

The others nodded grimly, but the group were glad to find that the underside of the bridge was completely abandoned. Pressing on, they soon found themselves joining a squad of Knights on their way back to the Citadel from Project Purity.

Rainbow asked around for Elder Lyons the moment she got inside the Citadel, but no-one knew where exactly he was. Eventually, after being directed to three different sections, she discovered that he was overseeing the installation of long-range communication equipment with a team of Enclave engineers up on the roof. 

Leaving Adam to requisition more ammunition from the armory, and sending Pinkie with him to make sure he didn't get lost, Rainbow and Twilight headed up to the roof to deliver their report. They finally found the Elder watching the engineers setting up a large satellite dish. He looked around as Rainbow called out. "Knight-Sergeant? Is there a problem?"

"I hate to say it, but yes, sir," Rainbow replied as she saluted. "We've found another Geode, this time with Talon Company. It gives the woman wearing it super speed just like mine. We figured you'd want to know."

Elder Lyons sighed heavily, the cold air turning it into a billowing cloud. "Only the naïve would think that ending the war with the Enclave would be the end of our problems, but I confess that I expected things to get a little easier afterwards. Instead, new problems just seem to keep cropping up."

"This new one is a pretty big one," Twilight put in. "This is the second Geode we've encountered in the wrong hands. You've seen what Rainbow Dash can do, with that power in Talon Company's grasp-"

"They will be a considerable threat," Lyons finished. "I am aware, Miss Sparkle. In fact, the situation is more troublesome than even you know. According to reports from Galaxy News Radio, an ongoing conflict between the Super Mutants and Talon Company ended sometime last night, apparently peacefully. I don't think I need to tell you how concerning an alliance between the two factions could be." He crossed his arms and turned back to the satellite dish. "Unfortunately, dealing with the two of them is going to have to wait."

The two girls shared a surprised look. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" Twilight asked.

"Yes, Scribe Sparkle, I am," Elder Lyons replied, though he didn't sound it. "Talon Company and the Super Mutants are dangerous, especially with their Geodes, but they are not much of a threat to the Brotherhood of Steel just yet. We have to prioritize."

"With respect, Elder, I thought the Brotherhood of Steel was dedicated to protecting the ordinary people in the Capital Wasteland," Rainbow pressed. "If you don't nip this problem in the bud, soon, we're going to be seeing a lot more dead wastelanders around here."

"Nipping problems in the bud is exactly why we can't afford to deal with the Super Mutants or Talon Company just yet," Elder Lyons countered. He glanced back over his shoulder at the girls. "There is something powerful lurking beneath the ruins of Raven Rock."

Twilight gasped in recognition. "The creature Eden mentioned? The one created from Melchior's remains?"

Lyons nodded. "There is also a report from Horrigan of another creature, a woman, who wields powerful magic and also dwells beneath Raven Rock. We believe that the two may be one and the same, given that the woman has displayed an ability to control the mutated monsters of the mountain, a power once shared by Melchior himself."

"Hold up a second, who's Melchior?" Rainbow asked.

"I'll tell you later," Twilight replied. 

"Regardless, this is our highest priority at the moment," Elder Lyons cut in. "If this woman really can control mutated wildlife, then we need to confirm her intentions and, if need be, stop her before she gets her hands on a magical deathclaw or a Scorchbeast. We'll be coordinating with the Enclave to send in a task force over the next few days for that exact purpose." He shifted his shoulders to settle his robes more comfortably. "Was there anything else?"

Rainbow shook her head. "No. We just figured you know about the new Geode."

"You made the right decision. Thank you, girls. You're dismissed." Elder Lyons turned his attention back to the satellite dish as the girls left the roof.

With their primary task done, the girls found Adam and Pinkie on their way back from the armory and started on the way to Rivet City. A squad of Knights on their way out for patrol offered to escort the group as far as Project Purity, much to their relief.

As they walked along the now-familiar route towards the Memorial, the girls once again huddled around Flashburn, Rainbow pondered what the Elder had told them. "So… this Melchior guy? He had magic?"

"Not quite, he had psychic powers," Twilight replied. "Melchior was a Super Mutant who lived on this country's west coast decades ago, long before we ever arrived. His powers let him control mutated wildlife."

"He sounds kinda like Fluttershy," Pinkie said.

Rainbow shook her head vigorously. "Fluttershy doesn't control animals, she just talks to them. They do what she asks because she's nice to them and they like her. That's why you sometimes get one or two asshole creatures that don't listen."

Twilight nodded. "That's right. Melchior didn't have that problem. He used his powers to control their minds, forcing them to do what he wanted."

Trying not to imagine how dangerous such a person would be with Equestrian magic under his belt, Rainbow asked, "How do you know so much about him?"

"Me and Sunset have been studying the Brotherhood and Enclave's records of psykers, people with psychic powers, to try and figure out anything we can about this world's natural background magical field," Twilight replied. "The scary part is that Melchior was not the most dangerous psyker the wasteland has ever seen."

"Who was?" Pinkie asked before Rainbow could stop her.

Twilight shuddered. "Someone who called himself the Master. He was mutated by very prolonged exposure to FEV, which made him phenomenally intelligent, incredibly charismatic, and gave him horrifically powerful psychic abilities. Apparently, the Master's powers were so great that they would leak out constantly, causing intense nausea and absolutely nightmarish hallucinations in everyone who got anywhere near him."

"That sounds pretty damn horrible," Adam muttered.

"That's not even the worst of it," Twilight insisted. "He used his powers to make people face their darkest fears and break them. Then he'd use limited mind control and his own charisma to have them worship him as a god and saviour. He even founded a group called the Unity; an organisation dedicated to turning all of humanity into Super Mutants under his command."

"Whoa…" Rainbow counted herself extremely glad that she wouldn't have to fight something like that. Facing off against soldiers and monsters was pretty awesome, but mind control was just cheating. Not to mention terrifying. "How did they stop him in the end?"

Twilight smiled wryly. "His physical mutations were extensive. He managed to get himself situated in an old Vault, and actually grew into the machinery inside, but it meant that he couldn't actually move. He had to use other people as pawns. Luckily, someone used some kind of psychic protection to get into the Vault and face him, then blew it up with a nuclear bomb for good measure."

"Huh, I wish I was that badass," Adam said flatly.

"Dude, you're already an ass-kicker," Rainbow assured him. "Anyway, back to Melchior. Do you really think that whatever's beneath Raven Rock has got the same powers as him?"

Twilight shrugged. "I don't know. Horrigan is the only person to have gone inside Raven Rock and come back out with his mind and body still intact, and he says that there's some woman down there who can control the creatures inside. That sounds close enough to be concerned. Horrigan did say that she helped an injured soldier, but we need to know more."

"Yeah, I hear you," Rainbow sighed. "Still sucks about Talon Company, though."

"How did they even get into Megaton?" Adam asked. "I can't imagine Simms being happy with having them around."

Pinkie shook her head. "He wasn't, he was furious when he found out that they had got in. He asked Stockholm about it, but apparently they had a contract that let them in, signed by Simms himself. The sheriff was busy breaking up a brawl near the armory so he couldn't tell Stockholm that it was fake."

Rainbow scowled. "That's pretty lucky timing for them."

"It's not luck if it was planned," Adam said darkly.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "But who would have the resources, the nerve, and a good enough reason to stage a brawl just to distract Simms long enough for Talon Company to get in?"

The four paused in thought for a moment, then huffed and said in unison, "Moriarty."

"Son of a bitch!" Rainbow spat.

"It's clever," Twilight admitted. "It'll be incredibly difficult to pin it on him without solid proof, and you can bet that he made sure there isn't any. As for motive, well, everyone in Megaton knows what happened between him and Sunset."

Adam glanced sidelong at Rainbow. "I'm surprised you haven't killed him just for that."

Rainbow coughed and looked away. "I was going to, right after one of the Children of Atom told me, but Simms overheard and stopped me. He said that he couldn't allow it because Sunset had already dealt with the issue. I didn't want to cause any more problems for you guys, so…"

Pinkie patted her on the back. "Don't worry, Dashie, we'll find a way to put that meanie in his place."

"I hope so." The four moved on to less serious topics as they reached Project Purity. Seeing Liberty Prime again, stomping around as he waited for his next caravan, brought a smile to Rainbow's face. Something about giant battle-robots shaking the earth with every step just spoke to her soul. Sadly, the group couldn't stick around for long. Rivet City was waiting.

The road leading from Project Purity up to Rivet City was surprisingly tidy compared to the last time the girls had gone that way. The tarmac was still cracked and broken, but the usual debris had been cleared away to make the journey that little bit smoother.

"I wonder if people are going to start repairing the road now that it's getting used regularly by the water caravans," Twilight mused.

Rainbow shrugged. "Who knows?" She turned off the road and headed towards a makeshift metal bridge that led to Rivet City's broken bow. She stopped and looked back when she noticed that the others weren't following. "What's up? Where are you going?'

"Where are you going?" Twilight retorted.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Uh, to speak to Pinkerton? The guy who helped found Rivet City?"

"Wait, he founded it?!" Twilight asked incredulously. "Why didn't anyone tell me?!"

"I thought we did," Rainbow replied honestly.

Adam held up a hand. "Isn't that the scientist who helped you find an android or something?"

Rainbow nodded. "Yeah. He lives in the broken bow of the ship. We got in last time using Rarity's magic from the flight deck, but look." She pointed at a door in the bow. The makeshift bridge ran right up to it. "I figure that door should take us near his quarters. He has to have some way of getting supplies in and out."

"What about the mirelurks?" Pinkie asked.

"We can handle mirelurks," Rainbow replied. "I'm more worried about whatever traps Pinkerton has set, and that's where you come in."

Pinkie grumbled under her breath, but they all followed Rainbow nonetheless. The bridge creaked loudly under the weight of Adam's armor, putting everyone on edge, but, thankfully, the bridge held. Rainbow breathed a sigh of relief, only to swear viciously when she discovered that the door was very solidly locked.

"Hold on, I've got this." Twilight eased around Rainbow and pressed a hand to the door. Her Geode glowed for a second, and the door unlocked with a satisfyingly loud clunk.

Inside, the bow was just as dark and dank as Rainbow remembered. Pinkie went in first, silently disarming landmines, trip wires and rigged grenades as they advanced cautiously. It didn't take long for them to find the button that opened Pinkerton's room.

Rainbow made sure that her hands were already above her head as the red dot of a laser sight settled over her chest, glittering off her armor.

"Oh, it's you lot again," Pinkerton grumbled.

"Nice to meet you too, you crotchety old fart," Rainbow shot back. "And it's just four of us, today."

Pinkerton snorted and stepped aside for the girls to enter, lowering his modified assault rifle, then whipped it back up as Adam lumbered into the room. "Who the hell is this lummox?"

"That's Adam, he's a friend," Rainbow said quickly. "He's the Lone Wanderer that Three Dog talks about on Galaxy News."

"Ah, that guy." Pinkerton nodded and lowered his weapon again. "Alright, get your ass inside so I can close the door." He waited impatiently for everyone to get in, then closed the door and turned to give the group the stink-eye. "Seems like I can't get any peace these days. First you girls, then Harkness comes to see me again, then that Chinese girl comes wanting yet another face-shift, and now you lot are back again. Well? What is it this time? Another android you want me to help you find?"

Rainbow shook her head. "Actually, we're here to help out another egghead friend."

"Book research," Twilight clarified. "We were hoping you could tell us about how Rivet City was first founded."

"Hmph, I don't have either the time or the inclination to stand here and yap about those backstabbers topside," Pinkerton spat.

Twilight hummed thoughtfully, then slipped her pack off and started rummaging around inside. "How about you tell us in exchange for something?" She pulled out a handful of holotapes. "Here. Copies of all of the research we've accrued on how Equestrian magic, our magic, works in this world."

"You just carry that stuff around with you?" Rainbow asked.

"Why wouldn't I?" Twilight asked bluntly.

Pinkerton's eyes snapped to the holotapes instantly. "Alright, missy, you've got a deal." He sat down on a nearby stool and gestured for her to take one, too. "Remnants of the Naval Research Institute cleared the mirelurks off this wreck about forty years ago. We were looking for lab-space, and this bucket of bolts just happened to have a well-preserved science bay on it. Everything else just grew up around that lab once we got it up and running. The science team was run by one H. Pinkerton."

"Hold on, you were in charge? How did you end up here?" Rainbow asked.

The grimace that flashed across Pinkerton's features told her that she'd accidentally trodden on a sore spot. "Eighteen years ago, those ambitious backstabbers Li and her little team showed up. She came in with her big 'Project Purity' pipe dream, and my whole staff started working with her, those traitors!"

Rainbow bit the inside of her lip to keep from chewing him out over not assisting such an important endeavor.

"She even took my seat on the council," Pinkerton continued darkly. "By then I was happy to leave it behind, but hell if I'm leaving the city I made great!"

"Do you have any hard evidence of all this?" Adam asked. 

"Of course I do! A good scientist always keeps track of their data!" Pinkerton exclaimed. He stood with a huff and strode over to a filing cabinet, muttering under his breath the whole time, rifled through the cabinet, then whipped out a few sheets of yellowed paper and slapped them into Rainbow's hands. "Here. They probably don't even remember, but I kept the records of that first council meeting. Take them, if that'll shut up any doubters."

Twilight nodded and held out the holotapes. "As promised, all of the research on magic in this world, as collected by us, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the Enclave. That's everything, unless Miss Nalaar has come up with anything else since the last time we saw her."

"I got myself a radio after you were last here, so I heard that you'd managed to help end the war between those reprobates. Nice work." Pinkerton checked the labels on each of the holotapes, smiling at each one. "Who's Miss Nalaar, by the way? Some Enclave scientist?" 

"Actually, she's been the science representative for Rivet City since Doctor Li left to work on Project Purity," Twilight replied. She either ignored or didn't notice the arrested look on Pinkerton's face. "Still, I'm surprised that Rivet City is only forty years old."

Pinkerton coughed and put the holotapes on one of his work benches. "Yes, well, the Capital Wasteland was different back then. The Brotherhood of Steel was still concentrated on the West Coast, the Citadel was occupied by a powerful raider gang, and Canterbury Commons was just a little rest stop for the roving trade caravans. Megaton was the only real safe haven."

"Oh! Oh! What about Ridgefield?" Pinkie asked suddenly, bouncing on her toes and waving her hand in the air. "Do you know what happened to it to make it become Minefield?"

"Minefield?" Pinkerton shook his head. "I heard rumors about a place that used to be called Ridgefield, but that happened before we set up shop here in Rivet City. They say slavers rode into town one day and nabbed everyone except one kid. Rumor says that the kid lured the slavers back and slaughtered them all with a sniper rifle and a whole mess of landmines." 

Rainbow felt a lead weight drop in her stomach at his words. The way they had ended the sniper up in Minefield suddenly felt a lot less justified. "Do you know what happened to the kid in the end?"

"Hell if I know, the whole story was probably just local superstition," Pinkerton replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me, it seems I have some fresh research to sink my teeth into."

The group allowed themselves to be ushered out of the room by the impatient old coot. Rainbow glanced around at the others. The grim expressions all of them were wearing told her that they were all thinking the exact same thing. 

"We can't tell Fluttershy," Pinkie said firmly.

"No shit," Rainbow said as she led the group back through the bowels of the ship's bow. "That goes for you too, Adam."

Adam nodded. "I get it. I don't like not telling her, but knowing would crush her. Besides, if you shoot everyone you see on sight, sooner or later you're going to get taken down yourself."

Pinkie stuffed her hands in her pockets and scowled at the floor. "I hate this world."

"Well, the Enclave are working on that portal, so hopefully we won't be here much longer," Twilight put in. "With any luck, this time next week we'll all be sitting in Sugarcube Corner, eating ice cream and talking about our therapy sessions." Several burbling hisses floated up a nearby staircase, prompting her to let out an aggravated groan. "Will you mirelurks just fuck off? We're trying to have a moment here." Twilight clenched her fist and the stairs crumpled like paper. "Ugh. Come on, let's get the hell out of here before anything else horrible happens."
> Chapter 116 - Wasteland Survival Guide: RobCo
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The brazier burned as brightly as ever. Sunset almost felt like she could lose herself, staring into the blazing multi-colored flames.

"Lady Shimmer?" Sunset turned as Primrose called out to her. "Tina and Darla are both currently asleep. Would you like to see them anyway?"

"No, let them sleep," Sunset replied. "As long as they're doing well, that's all that matters. Are the others alright, as well?" 

Primrose nodded. "They are all eating well, and are slowly getting stronger. They should start gaining weight soon. I suspect that Joaquin, at least, will stay with the Temple, but as to the others, I cannot say."

"That's fine, as long as they're healthy." Sunset turned her attention back to the brazier. She had expected Primrose to head off and attend to some other part of the Temple, but the handmaiden just stood there, rubbing her arm awkwardly. "If you need something, just ask."

"I don't- I mean, it's not…" Primrose huffed and shook her head. "Forgive me, Lady Shimmer. I'm just…" She paused and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly through her nose. "I wished to speak about… Chris."

Sunset closed her eyes. "I was wondering when you were going to say something about that," she said evenly. "It won't be happening again, don't worry."

A shadow passed over Primrose's face. "He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"Of course not," Sunset insisted. She sighed and glanced around to make sure that no-one was listening. The other Disciples were all too busy with their work, and the few Megaton residents inside were keeping a respectful distance. "It looks like that kind of thing is turning into a coping mechanism for me. Doing with Disciples again is out of the question, though. There's no way any of you would realistically refuse, and that's not fair."

Primrose gave her a curious look. "But… you have every right to take a concubine from your followers. Everyone here is devoted to you-"

"Which is exactly the problem," Sunset cut in. "None of you can properly consent when any one of you would say yes just to make me happy, whether you're in the mood, or even into women, or not. Even if we put some sort of system in place where I tell everyone that it's fine to say no, none of you would say it." She shook her head. "No. The only ethical choice is finding my kicks elsewhere."

"I understand," Primrose murmured.

Sunset glanced at her in surprise. Primrose was staring at the floor, her expression wistful. A sudden suspicion bloomed in Sunset's mind, but before she could even begin to come up with a way of addressing it, someone opened the Temple doors.

"Sunset? Perfect!" Rainbow stepped up between the pair and threw her arms around their shoulders. "Feeling any better?"

"Much," Sunset replied. "How did the mission go?"

Rainbow shrugged. "Meh, not too bad. Moira's napping on her desk, but there's a butt-load of ammo in the store for us, and the guard says that she's going to speak to the merchants in Rivet City about giving us an extra discount."

"Cool. So… I guess we wait until she wakes up before the next mission?" Sunset asked.

"Nah, we snuck a peek at her file," Rainbow replied. "She wants us to go to a robot factory and install some widget into the mainframe, then do something with a control system or something. I don't know, Twilight has the details."

Sunset smirked and raised an eyebrow. "So we're finally going somewhere that might actually have an SDT? Should I grab the others?"

"Nah, it's fine. We've got this," Rainbow replied. "You stay here until you're in top form. We'll talk about whatever the heck happened last night later."

"R-right." Sunset watched glumly as Rainbow turned and walked away, waving back just before she stepped out of the doors.

Obviously seeing that her charge wasn't happy, Primrose cleared her throat. "Would you like to speak to Joshua? He has been having trouble organising visitors to the inner Temple."

Sunset just sighed. "Sure, I'll see what I can do to help."





Rainbow stretched as she walked out of Megaton's gates. Adam, Twilight and Pinkie were all waiting for her just down the slope.

"How are they?" Adam asked.

"I only saw Sunset," Rainbow replied. "She's not happy about getting left behind, but I think it's for the best this time around."

"Probably," Adam agreed. "Okay, which way do we go?"

Rainbow pointed southwest. "That way. It shouldn't be too far, but keep your eyes open anyway. Let's get moving." She loosened Flashburn in its sheath as she led the way up a nearby rocky slope.

Buoyed by the ease of their recent trip to Rivet City and back, Rainbow confidently strode up the hill towards the remnants of an old overpass. The bitterly cold breeze made her shiver, and she was just deciding whether it was worth lighting up Flashburn for warmth when Pinkie suddenly yelled, "Get down!"

The Party Cannon fired with a high-pitched thoom and a bright pink explosion blew apart the top of a nearby boulder, making everyone flinch and duck away from the stones it dislodged. 

"What the hell, Pinkie?!" Rainbow hissed. She was about to launch into a tirade when the half-shattered corpse of a van-sized scorpion slid off the boulder with a loud thump. "Oh, shit. Well spotted."

"That's a radscorpion!" Adam stepped over to the corpse and cautiously prodded it with an armored foot. "What the shit? Was that thing invisible? When the fuck did we get invisible giant radscorpions?!"

Rainbow turned to stare at him. "Uh… didn't we tell you about those?" He just shook his head slowly. "Whoops, sorry. Anyway, thanks, Pinkie. I'll be more careful."

A little shaken by the near miss, the group continued on more cautiously, Rainbow wisely choosing not to risk drawing attention by igniting Flashburn.

The other side of the hill was just as rough and boulder-strewn as the first. Worse, the group came across occasional small cliffs that they were forced to either climb down or circumvent in order to proceed. Stopping at the top of yet another short cliff, Rainbow swore and ducked as a bullet spanked off her breastplate. "Shit! Where did that come from?!"

"Down there!" Adam replied sharply, punctuating his words with a short burst from his plasma rifle.

Squinting, Rainbow saw three raiders taking cover behind boulders further down the hill. One of them was taking potshots at the group with a hunting rifle. Even as she watched, one of Adam's shots blew his head into several gory chunks.

"That's one down!" Rainbow ripped Flashburn from its scabbard, but before she could pony up and launch herself at the remaining pair, one of the raiders stepped out from behind the boulder and raised a missile launcher. "Motherfu-"

"Everybody move!" Rainbow and Adam both looked back at Twilight's shout, then yelped and dove aside as a colossal boulder crashed down the hill under the influence of her magic. It soared off the cliff and landed with a phenomenal crash before carving a path down the hillside, leaving naught but devastation in its wake.

Rainbow stared in stunned amazement as the echoes of the boulder's passage faded away. There was no sign whatsoever of the raiders' remains. She glanced back at Twilight, who just shrugged at her. "We needed them gone. Now they're gone."

"Right…" Rainbow tried to think of something to say in response to such callousness, but thought better of it. "We should probably get out of here before anything comes to investigate that noise."

Once they found a way around the cliff, the group decided that they may as well follow the trail of carnage left by the boulder. It took them several minutes to find the wayward boulder itself, sitting incongruously at the edge of a woodland formed from the burnt-out husks of ancient trees. 

Seeing the remains of the woodland was somehow worse than the city ruins, as far as Rainbow was concerned. Imagining all of the little critters that had almost certainly been incinerated by the nuclear bombs put even more of a downer on her mood. True, some creatures did survive, in the form of a flock of bedraggled crows, but being silently watched by the scruffy birds was more than a little bit creepy.

"Hold up a second," Pinkie whispered. "Listen."

The others immediately did as she asked. Rainbow could just about make out a faint crunching sound, along with an odd mechanical grinding that almost sounded like tank treads. She gestured to the others, using Enclave hand signals to convey that they should advance warily. Creeping forward, moving from tree to tree, the group stopped when they spotted the source of the sound. 

A bizarre robot was trundling around in the woods. It had a cylindrical body, almost like an oversized soda can, with rough treads for locomotion, but the weirdest part was the glass dome it had for a head, containing what looked like a brain floating in a bluish fluid. The number 112 was stenciled on its body in faded yellow paint. Given that the weird construct hadn't spotted them, the group waited until it had trundled away before they moved on.

"Why the hell are we seeing so much crazy shit today?" Rainbow asked.

"We usually have Fluttershy using her advanced senses to help us avoid all of the crap," Adam replied. "I guess this is what happens when we don't bring her along."

Rainbow heaved a sigh and took the lead once again. When the group finally made their way out of the woodland they found themselves at the foot of a rocky slope, topped with another dilapidated overpass. 

When they reached the top, they spotted the tower hotel they had seen before in the distance. Directly between them and the hotel was a large concrete building. 

"That must be the factory," Rainbow said.

"I'd assume so, going by the massive RobCo sign on the side of the building," Twilight noted dryly.

Rainbow just scowled sidelong at her and set off without another word. Thankfully, nothing random jumped out to attack the group as they approached the building. There were several delivery bays in the wall closest to them, but the shutters for each of them were down and securely locked.

"I can open them, if you want?" Twilight offered.

Rainbow shook her head. "Too noisy. We really should try and avoid drawing any more attention to ourselves. Let's see if we can sneak in through the front door.

Creeping around the building, the group found an accessible entrance on the far side. Rainbow gently pushed the door open, cursing silently as it creaked, then felt her heart leap into her throat at the sight inside.

A bunch of Protectron robots were standing on plinths around the foyer, all of them staring at the door. It took Rainbow longer than she cared to admit to notice that they were all inactive.

"That's creepy," Pinkie muttered.

"Just a bit," Adam agreed. He gestured to the various doors leading off from the foyer. "Which way?"

Rainbow hummed and looked around at the various options, only for a faint scratching from behind one door to grab her attention. Everyone tensed up, only to relax as a curious mole rat to step into the room.

"Hey there, little one," Adam said softly. He shouldered his plasma rifle and got down on one knee, extending a hand towards the mole rat. "It's okay, we're not going to hurt you. We're just passing through."

"Uh, Adam? You do realize that you're not Fluttershy, right?" Twilight warned him.

"It's fine, Fluttershy has been teaching me how to engage with animals," Adam replied. "Also, the Enclave discovered that magical crystals can be melted down and used to plate other materials, just like you would with silver or gold, and they still keep their magical properties." The others watched in astonishment as the mole rat slowly waddled over to him, then nuzzled his armored glove. "Fluttershy let me use some crystals bearing her magic to plate the gloves and vambraces of my power armor. It looks like it's enough to let the wasteland critters know that we're friendly."

Pinkie smiled and shook her head. "Well, I guess that makes things a little easier.”

"It's fascinating!" Twilight gushed. "It's incredible seeing just how many applications these crystals have, even for people who don't have magic of their own!"

Rainbow cleared her throat loudly. "Yeah, it's pretty neat, but don't forget we have a job to do."

The quick reminder was enough to get everyone back on track. Picking a door, the group set about exploring the depths of the facility, unexpectedly finding themselves escorted by the mole rat. 

Given how much they had dealt with on the way to the factory, the search itself was pretty anticlimactic, at least in Rainbow's opinion. The only things the group encountered were dozens of mole rats, and an obscene number of radroaches around the place. Rainbow had expected at least a few hostile robots in the robot factory, but every Protectron they encountered was either inactive or damaged beyond repair.

Naturally, the robot factory hadn't escaped unscathed by the wild magic of the wasteland. At least two mole rats had apparently been touched by magic, going by how they were cheerfully burrowing through steel and concrete as if it were wet soil. 

One Protectron had been affected by magic, too. The faded red goop around its joints suggested perhaps Sunset's magic. Disturbingly, the Protectron had apparently found a quiet restroom and, from what Twilight and Adam could gather, shot itself in the head.

On a more positive note, the group found a whole bunch of useful supplies, including ammunition, first aid kits, a spare Stealth Boy, and a Big Book of Science that Twilight practically drooled over. 

After well over an hour searching, the group finally found the mainframe in a room upstairs. 

Twilight grinned and cracked her knuckles. "Okay. Time for me to get to work." She pulled the processor widget she had gotten from Moira out of her pack and quickly got to installing it. With that done, she glanced back at the others. "Okay, Moira's notes said something about harnessing old technology while we're here. Should I see if I can reprogram the Protectrons?"

"Go for it," Rainbow replied. "Just make sure they don't shoot us."

"Or the mole rats," Adam added.

Twilight nodded and started typing away. The others waited patiently at first, but as the minutes dragged on, they started to get restless.

"How long is this going to take, exactly?" Rainbow asked.

"I have no idea," Twilight replied. "The system is only giving me three options for the Protectrons' behaviour; kill all vermin such as the mole rats, kill every person inside and around the building, or blow each other to bits. I'd pick that last one, but we or the mole rats might get caught in the crossfire." She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. "I've managed to put them all on standby for now, but I'm trying to write a new program that will just have the Protectrons patrol the area, only shooting anyone who shoots them first. It's going to take a while."

With their question answered, the other three settled themselves in for a long wait. Adam stepped out of his armor and left it in a corner to save its fusion core. They passed the time by chatting, playing with a deck of cards that Pinkie produced, eating their rations, cleaning out the nearest restroom to make it usable, and petting the odd mole rat that came sniffing around. Rainbow lit up Flashburn to provide plenty of heat. The cold was bitter, even indoors.

Finally, after well over an hour, Twilight sighed and stretched. "It's done. Now we just have to hope that there aren't any bugs."

"I'm sure it's fine," Adam told her, eagerly getting back into his armor. "Come on, let's get back to Megaton."

"No arguments here," Rainbow said brightly. Gathering up their things, the group made their way back down to the entrance. Several Protectrons were clanking around by this point, but they did little more than greet the group and continue their patrols, blithely ignoring the mildly confused mole rats. 

Outside, a small surprise was waiting to greet them. It was snowing.

"It's beautiful," Pinkie said quietly, holding a hand out to catch a falling snowflake. "Huh, it's not radioactive, either."

Rainbow bit her lip and looked around. The gentle snowfall was indeed beautiful, the pure white snowflakes standing out perfectly against the dirt backdrop of the wasteland, but the snow was getting heavier with every passing second, and it brought new dangers with it.

Crossing the wastes was soon going to get a lot more difficult.





Moonlit snowfall on Megaton was a hauntingly beautiful sight. Even as cold as it was, Rarity couldn't help but admire the view as she strolled through the town's alleys and walkways. Still, it was cold, which was the whole reason she was out in the first place.

The Sheriff, the Disciples, and the Children of Atom were taking it upon themselves to distribute blankets and warm food to the common building, as well as checking in on the town's most vulnerable residents to make sure that they were prepared for an early winter this year. 

Naturally, Rarity refused to sit around in the warm Temple while others worked, and she had offered to help with distribution. Sunset and Applejack were organising the offerings they had been brought, setting aside anything that could be given back to the community, while Pinkie, Twilight and Rainbow focused on warming themselves up after their foray into the wastes. Fluttershy had been leery of letting Rarity take to the streets on her own, but had relented on the proviso that she be allowed to keep an ear out for any trouble.

Much to Rarity's relief, and Fluttershy's as well, she was sure, the rounds had been entirely uneventful. Rarity had checked on a lovely old couple who were a touch too enthusiastic about the Enclave, a much younger couple with a newborn baby, and the old gentleman who looked after Megaton's water purifier. All of them were healthy, happy, and well prepared for the sudden onset of winter.

All that was left to do was to return to the Temple. Humming softly to herself, Rarity ambled through Megaton, enjoying a brief moment of peace by herself, right up until something slammed into her skull.

The impact sent Rarity sprawling. Her vision swam and her limbs flopped uselessly as her brain tried to reorient itself. Slowly, dimly, she became aware that she was being dragged through the snow. Next, she noticed that she had a rag stuffed into her mouth and her arms tied behind her back.

Whoever was dragging her came to a stop just as Rarity regained enough of her faculties to try and struggle.

"Don't even try it," a harsh voice growled in her ear.

Rarity tried to turn her head to see her attacker, but the alleyway he had dragged her into was far too dark. Whoever it was, they hunched over her like a lover about to deliver a tender kiss. Rarity tried to scoff through her gag and flexed her hands, trying to summon up a gemstone to relieve the vile brute of his legs, but the magic wouldn't come.

"Missing something?" The voice hissed, amusement evident in their tone. "Yeah, I know about your fucking necklaces. That little tidbit is gonna make me rich, but first…" Terror filled Rarity as her assailant shifted and started loosening her pants. "I've been paid to give you girls a message, and I'm going to make sure that you get it. You think you can come to this town-"

The soft crunching of snow grabbed the attacker's attention, but before he could do more than draw breath a shadowy form tackled him off Rarity with a feral snarl. The two scuffled on the ground for barely a second or two, then the man let out an agonized yell, groaning and gasping with pain as Rarity's rescuer stood upright. 

A Pip-Boy light blazed into life, revealing Fluttershy in her full vampire form. Underlit, standing in front of dark scrap metal with snow swirling all around her, the young woman looked like a figure out of nightmarish legend.

Snarling once more at the attacker, Fluttershy knelt down and pulled the rag out of Rarity's mouth. "Are you alright?" Rarity just nodded. She didn't trust herself not to throw up if she tried to speak just yet. "Good. The others won't be lo-" A loud wham rang through the air, and the metal beneath their feet suddenly shuddered and groaned as if something heavy had landed on their level. "Did she just jump up here from the Temple?!" Fluttershy spluttered.

Looking up, a wave of relief brought tears to Rarity's eyes as Applejack careened around the corner. "Where is she?!" 

"She's here," Fluttershy began, only to flinch and hiss with irritation as Applejack charged over and slid to her knees beside Rarity, spraying snow everywhere.

Rarity barely had time to process what was happening before Applejack snatched her into a rib-cracking hug. "Ah got you, you're okay. Fluttershy, what hap- she's bleedin'! Why the merry fuckin' shit-biscuit aren't you fixin' her up?!"

"Get out of the way and I will," Fluttershy hissed.

Ignoring the two as they bickered and swore, Rarity just rested her head against Applejack's chest. The farm girl hadn't even bothered to put armor on before charging out into possible danger, but Rarity was thankful for it. Between the impossibly powerful arms holding her tight, and the rhythmic heartbeat pounding right next to her ear, Rarity felt safe enough to let a few tears slip. Even the sting of antiseptic and a stimpak couldn't drag her out of her newfound safe space.

When Fluttershy was done, she snipped the bonds holding Rarity's wrists. Rarity hissed and wriggled her hands, trying to get some feeling back into them, only to yelp as she found herself getting swept up into a princess carry. "Ah know, Ah'll put you down later, but for now that's a nasty cut you've got on your head."

"It's quite alright, darling," Rarity replied, though she couldn't tell if the strange light-headedness she was feeling was from the medicine or blunt force trauma. Probably both. Glancing around, she flinched at the sight of her attacker lying face-down in the snow, still whimpering and clutching his back. "Who is it?" She whispered.

"Jericho," Fluttershy replied.

Rarity's breath hitched. "The man who attacked Sunset!"

"Wait, he did what?!" Applejack turned a murderous glare on the prone man. "Hold Rarity for me. Ah'm gonna have some words with this guy."

"You don't have to," Fluttershy told her. "We're about to get some answers." She raised her voice and called out, "We're over here."

As if on cue, Sunset and Sheriff Simms came walking around the corner. Simms took one look at the scene and grimaced. "What the hell is going on here? What's all this ruckus?"

"Jericho attacked Rarity," Applejack replied darkly. "Apparently, he attacked Sunset, too. Ah was just about to start pulling bits off of him until he started givin' some answers as to why."

"Don't you dare." Simms stepped over, waving the nearby Disciples and Children away, and knelt next to Jericho. "What did you do to him?"

Fluttershy flexed her claws and looked away. "I severed his spine. It was the easiest way to stop him without killing him."

Simms shook his head. "Jesus Christ. Someone help me get him to Doc Church. I'll question him in the morning."

"I've got a better idea." Sunset stepped forward and crouched next to the two. She placed a hand on the back of Jericho's head, and her eyes lit up with the telltale glow of her magic. When she stood again, her expression was grim. "Moriarty. He hired Jericho to attack me and Rarity."

"That motherfucker!" Applejack spat. 

"Hold on a second!" Simms cut in quickly. "You using your magic is one thing, but I'm gonna need more than just your word to go on if I'm going to get to the bottom of this. Like I said, help me get him to the doc, and I'll question him in the morning."

Sunset nodded. "Fair enough, but if he doesn't talk, I'm going to deal with Moriarty myself." She glanced at Rarity. "You go back to the Temple and rest. I'll be back soon. Applejack, Fluttershy, look after her."

Applejack just nodded and turned away, crunching through the snow as she headed towards the Temple. Rarity could hear people asking what had happened, but Applejack brushed them off with little more than a grunt and a glare. 

When they reached the Temple, the sudden warmth made goosebumps rise all over Rarity's body. The trio stood in front of the brazier for a few minutes to warm up, deflecting any questions the Disciples asked, before making their way upstairs when they were sufficiently heated up.

By the time she was back in her room, Rarity was already nodding off. The combination of spent adrenaline, a head injury, warmth, and medication, all combined to make her thoroughly exhausted. Fluttershy pulled her bedsheets back, and Applejack carefully placed her on the bed.

"There you go, you get some rest. We'll put your Geode in the drawer, here," Applejack said quietly. "Ah'm gonna go for a walk, just to clear my head, but Ah'll be back soon."

"M'kay." As Rarity faded into sleep, she felt something soft brush against her forehead.





Moriarty was annoyed. That was hardly unusual lately, now that the Rainbooms were back and messing up the powerbase he had been carefully crafting. Moriarty had been the real power in Megaton for years, maintaining his place through the power of booze, ownership of the town's only whore, and the careful collection of all kinds of information.

That was the real reason behind Moriarty's success. Alcohol and sex kept him rich, but trading information, and controlling the flow of it where necessary, gave him influence. Together, money and influence made him untouchable, even by holier than thou idealists like Simms. 

The Rainbooms threw all of that out of whack. The Children of Atom were bad enough; reasonable people, though not particularly interested in beer or poon, but the Disciples were another matter entirely. They were growing in numbers and influence so quickly it was upsetting the balance of Megaton, and slowly lowering the number of customers Moriarty saw daily. 

Worse, the Rainbooms themselves had managed to damage Moriarty's custom even further with their ridiculous allegations that he urinated in his beer still, and through spreading the rumor that he had tried to swindle them when they first arrived in town. It didn't matter that the rumors were true, what mattered was the fact that people were actually starting to give a shit. 

With his profits dwindling and his influence starting to slip, Moriarty had decided that he needed to act. Admittedly, trying to shoot the Rainbooms' leader in front of everyone had been a mistake, but Moriarty learned from his mistakes. 

Challenging the girls directly was out of the question. They were too powerful and too influential. There were, however, less direct methods for Moriarty to teach them a lesson in humility. Not everyone in Megaton was under their spell.

Unfortunately, Jericho had managed to fuck up almost right from the get-go. 

Moriarty still found it hard to believe that a hardened ex-raider could get his ass handed to him by a drunken young girl who should have been exhausted from a trek across the wastes. After that debacle, Jericho had refused to touch the girls, even with the promise of his tab being wiped clear.

Still, Moriarty hadn't given up. Instead, he had reached out through his contacts and called in a favor with a bounty hunter he once knew. Lightning had jumped at the chance to clear her debt and take on the Rainbooms all in one go. Moriarty had needed to take a couple of small risks to distract Simms, but he felt that it would be worth it when Talon Company came in and dealt with the Rainbooms for him. 

Discovering that even Lightning had run off with her tail between her legs drove Moriarty up the wall. In the end, he had few other options than to go back to Jericho. 

The price had been high. A clear tab, free beer and discounts on the town bicycle, and the knowledge that the Rainbooms' power came from their necklaces. Moriarty was almost certain that Jericho would sell that information about the necklaces at the first opportunity, or even try to steal one himself, but it was worth it. If Jericho didn't deliver the goods this time, Moriarty would make sure that a certain unpleasant incident between him and the bitch at the Brass Lantern went public.

Someone hammering on the back door dragged Moriarty out of his reverie. He sighed and locked his terminal, then heaved himself out of his chair. "Fuck off back to sleep, Gob," Moriarty spat as the ghoul crept out from under the bar's counter. "I'll deal with this wanker."

Moriarty patted his new pistol as he walked to the back door. He didn't have any deliveries tonight, either legitimate or illicit, so it was most likely Jericho, but one couldn't be too careful. "You'd better have some good news for me, you sack of shi-"

The second Moriarty opened the door a fist crashed into his stomach, driving the breath out of him, then another smacked him in the face, knocking him senseless.

He awoke in a cold, dark room. Moriarty spluttered and gasped, and he realized that someone had splashed water in his face. Pain tore through his shoulders and wrists. Looking up, he saw that his hands were chained to the ceiling, stringing him up like a side of Brahmin. "What the fuck?"

"That's my line." 

Moriarty flinched and looked around to see Applejack standing in the corner of the room, illuminated by a shaft of moonlight spearing through a crack in the ceiling. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" He spat.

"You've been a bad boy, Moriarty," Applejack said evenly, taking her hat off and placing it on a dusty old desk. "Ah'm here to make sure you pay for your actions.

The theatrics scared Moriarty more than he was willing to admit. "You're making a fucking huge mistake here, missy," he growled, trying to sound more intimidating than he felt. "Do you have any idea who you're dealing with?"

Applejack snorted. "Ah don't think you know who you're dealin' with. You'd better wise up, quick. Or don't, Ah don't really care either way. Like Ah said, Ah'm just here for the bill. Oh, and by the way, Ah wouldn't try screamin' or nothin' if Ah were you, or else…" She held out a chunk of metal at around crotch height. Moriarty recognised it as the head of a sledgehammer. He almost wet himself when she squeezed, squashing the solid metal as if it was a sponge. "Do Ah make myself clear?"

"What do you want?" Moriarty asked fearfully.

"Ah told you, y' moron, Ah'm here to make you pay for what you tried to do to Sunset and Rarity," Applejack replied.

Moriarty felt cold sweat dripping down his back. "I don't know what you're talking ab-"

"Sunset read Jericho's mind," Applejack cut in. "Right after Fluttershy sliced through his spine."

Terror flooded through Moriarty as Applejack rolled her shoulders. "I-i'm sorry! I'll give you whatever you want! You want money? I've got plenty! I can make you rich! Hell, you want booze? Men? Women? I can get you anything you want!"

"You think you can buy me off?" Applejack growled. "Ah don't know if you've heard, but Honesty is kinda my thing."

"Honesty?!" Moriarty exclaimed. "What the fuck is honest about this?! You've kidnapped me, chained me in some shack in the ass end of Megaton, threatened me, and you think you're fucking honest?!"

"Almost as honest as you, apparently." Applejack pulled her necklace off and placed it on the desk next to her hat. "You're right. There ain't much that's honest about this, but let me be real honest with you about somethin'." She stomped over and grabbed the front of Moriarty's shirt. "You ain't leavin' this room alive."

Moriarty didn't even have time to yell before her fist slammed into his stomach.
> Chapter 117 - Wasteland Survival Guide: Knowledge
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack sat alone in one of the Temple's refectories. Mismatched tables and chairs filled the room, set aside for people to eat communally. They were one of the few parts of the Temple that outsiders were permitted to enter, with appropriate permission, and she was anticipating a visitor from outside the Temple fairly soon. 

Thankfully, the Disciples were keeping everyone else away from the refectory for the time being. Applejack didn't doubt that they would inform the rest of the Rainbooms the second they woke up, but she could hardly blame them. Applejack herself had barely slept a wink, kept awake by pain and guilt, though the latter had little to do with what she had done and everything to do with how much trouble it was going to cause her friends.

As if summoned by the mere thought of her, the door opened and Sunset stepped inside. She took one look at Applejack's knuckles, so bruised and swollen she couldn't even move her fingers, and sighed heavily. "Yeah, she's here," Sunset said to someone just outside the room. "Twi, can you and Pinkie go and check on Rarity? We'll handle this."

Applejack just stared at the table as Sunset, Rainbow, and Fluttershy entered the room. Fluttershy cursed under her breath and dumped her nursing kit on the table, rifling through it as Rainbow and Sunset took seats opposite.

"The Disciples have heard some interesting stuff around town this morning," Sunset began. "Apparently, Moriarty has gone missing."

"Right," Applejack said quietly. Instead of giving anything away, she just focused on not wincing as Fluttershy got to work on her hands.

Rainbow scowled and leaned forward.  "Look, just tell us what happened, AJ. We know something went down."

"Y'all ain't dumb. Ah reckon you can figure it out," Applejack replied. She hissed as Flutters stuck a stimpak in her arm.

Sunset sighed and shook her head. "Moriarty is dead, isn't he?"

Applejack lowered her head, hoping that her hat would cover her eyes. "Yeah."

"And you did it?" Rainbow asked.

Applejack was about to nod when Sunset cut in, "Of course she didn't, and Applejack doesn't lie, so we don't need to ask her." 

"Right, silly me," Rainbow said, quickly getting the point.

"What?" Applejack looked up to see the others nodding grimly to each other. "But, you all know that Ah-" 

"Hurt yourself after you helped Rarity get to bed last night," Sunset said firmly. "You must be in a lot of pain, and pain makes people say dumb things, so if people ask you silly questions you should keep your mouth shut."

Applejack glared at her. "But-"

"That's an order, Knight," Sunset replied with a glare of her own.

"Just do what you're told or I'll fucking sedate you," Fluttershy added menacingly.

The growled threat from the sweet little vampiric nurse struck Applejack more than anything else, as much for the swearing as the actual threat itself. When Fluttershy got mouthy, you knew something wasn't right. That, or she was behind on her blood consumption. Either way, Applejack decided not to push her luck.

With her capitulation, Sunset and Rainbow sighed and slumped over. Applejack felt terrible. Not because she had killed Moriarty, his death didn't weigh on her conscience in the slightest, but because of the hassle and worry she was causing her friends. "Ah'm sorry, girls."

"Don't be," Sunset replied. "It's not like I can really say much, and that asshole deserved it after what he tried to do to Rarity."

"How is she?" Applejack asked.

"Not great," Sunset admitted. "Everything seems to have caught up to her this morning. She's not exactly having a meltdown, but she's not on top form, either." She ran a hand through her hair. "I think you and Rarity should sit out Moira's requests today. In fact, we should probably get you up to your room before-"

A soft knock on the door interrupted her. "Too late," Fluttershy muttered.

The girls all looked up as the door opened and Primrose looked in, an uneasy expression on her face. "Sheriff Simms is here. He wants to speak to you, Ladies."

"Of course he does. Okay, send him in." Sunset settled herself into a nonchalant pose, giving Applejack a glimpse of the old alpha bitch of Canterlot High just in time for Simms to enter the room. Fresh snow dusted his hat and coat.

The Sheriff looked around at each of the girls until his gaze settled on Applejack's hands, not betraying any emotion beyond a slight narrowing of his eyes. "It seems you all had a busy night last night." 

"I'd say a rough night," Sunset replied evenly. "If you want to speak to Rarity, she's upstairs, but we can call her-"

"You know she's not the one I need to talk to," Simms said pointedly. "Moriarty's body was just found outside the walls. He had been worked over something fierce, and mole rats had been at the corpse, but it was definitely him."

Sunset shrugged and stared up at him with a neutral expression. "Sounds like he walked into some of that, what did you call it, wasteland justice?"

Simms snorted, his attention still focused on Applejack's hands as Fluttershy bandaged them. "I'd tell you to cut the shit, but Jericho told me an interesting tale this morning. Turns out, Moriarty hired him to give you girls a message to stop messing up his business, especially you, Sunset, and Rarity. I'd consider Jericho himself a suspect, if he still had the use of his legs."

"I'm not apologizing for that," Fluttershy said quietly. "I'm just sorry that I was forced to do it."

Simms shook his head. "You're not in trouble, you were protecting your friend." Applejack didn't like the emphasis that he put on you. "I do wonder who it was who got to Moriarty first, though." 

Applejack looked up to see him staring her in the eye. Simms wasn't dumb. He knew exactly what Applejack had done, he was just waiting to see what she did. Hesitating for just a moment, Applejack stood, making Sunset and Rainbow tense up, but she shook her head. "Don't. I ain't interested in kickin' up fuss. So, what happens now, Sheriff?"

Silence fell as everyone waited for Simms' answer. After several long seconds, Simms sighed. "I don't see that there's much I can do. It looks to me like Moriarty went outside for some illicit deal or other and got ambushed. The wastes are dangerous like that." He gestured to Applejack's hands. "Best stay inside until that's healed. Wouldn't want folks to see it and get the wrong idea."

Applejack nodded as the others signed with relief. "Thanks, Sheriff, that's good advice," she said gratefully. "Ah guess Ah owe you one."

"You're damn right, you do. If you want to pay it off, here." Simms pulled a note out of his pocket and put it on the table, sliding it across to Applejack. "Go to this location. I know some folks there who'd be happy to have your help." He straightened up and doffed his hat. "I'd best be going. Try and stay out of trouble."

The instant the door closed behind Simms, Rainbow let out a breath and sank down in her chair. "Thank fuck for that. I thought I was going to have to figure out a way to bust you out of jail." 

"Yeah, that was good of him," Sunset agreed. "What's that note he gave you?"

Fluttershy picked it up and unfolded it. "It's a map leading to a place called Regulator HQ."

"Huh, weird." Sunset stood up and stretched. "Well, whoever the Regulators are, they can wait until we're done with Moira's book. Flutters, do you mind staying here and keeping an eye on Applejack and Rarity for us?" 

"No problem," Fluttershy replied.

Applejack cleared her throat loudly as Sunset and Rainbow prepared to leave. "Ah just, uh, Ah wanna say thank you, for not bailin' on me."

"Pfft, you know I wouldn't do something like that, and Sunset isn't that much of a bitch," Rainbow replied.

"Oh, fuck you," Sunset huffed. 

"Nah, I'm good," Rainbow retorted. She dodged a retaliatory swipe and darted out of the room, calling back over her shoulder, "Later, AJ!"





The snow hadn't stopped at all, making the trip up to Craterside Supply incredibly treacherous, especially when the girls got particularly high up. They found Adam waiting for them outside the store, blowing into his hands to warm them up. "How's Rarity doing?" He asked.

"About as well as can be expected, really," Sunset replied.

"Yeah, that's fair," Adam said softly. "Fluttershy and Applejack staying to look after her?" Sunset just nodded, deciding that he didn't need to know details just yet. "Groovy. Alright, shall we finish this thing off?"

"If this really is the last bit," Rainbow grumbled as Adam pushed the door open.

Moira looked a lot more chipper this morning than previously, leading Sunset to assume that she'd finally gotten enough sleep. She had also set up a couple of space heaters, turning Craterside Supply into a heavenly bastion of warmth compared to the snow-filled crater outside.

"Hey, I was wondering when you'd all show up!" Moira said by way of greeting. "Are you ready for the last part of this section?"

Sunset resisted the urge to swear loudly at the implication that there were more sections to go. "Sure. What's the next task?"

Moira grinned at her. "I want you to go to the library!"

"There's a library?!" Twilight exclaimed excitedly.

Moira nodded eagerly. "Books are where the old world kept its knowledge, and libraries are where it kept the books, and there's supposed to be one in Arlington."

"That's just around the corner from the Citadel," Rainbow noted. 

"Good," Sunset said. "The less distance we have to cross in this snow, the better."

Moira opened her folder and spread out a small map for the girls to look at. "The library should be about here. See if it's still there, and if you can download the records from its computer. Information dumps like those would be invaluable for rebuilding humanity! If you can't get those, then even just the card catalog would be useful."

"We'll find the archives," Twilight said bluntly.

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Alright, I guess we're going to Arlington. We'll head past the Citadel. It'll be safer than going the long way around."

Saying a quick goodbye to Moira, the group stopped off at Adam's house to pick up his armor, then headed out of Megaton.

Stepping through Megaton's gates, the group paused as they saw the scale of the task ahead. Snow blanketed the ground, deep enough to reach Sunset's shins, and yet more was still falling from the sky. Travel was going to be difficult. 

On the other hand, aside from the cold and the treacherous footing, the snow had one big saving grace, at least as far as Sunset was concerned. Climbing carefully to the top of the hill outside Megaton, she paused and gasped at the glorious tableau spread out before her. The blasted ground had been thoroughly covered in a layer of pristine snow, turning it from a depressing image to a sparkling vista brimming with mystery.

Still, Sunset didn't drop her guard. She knew as well as anyone that the veneer of beauty didn't make the wastes any less dangerous. Quite the opposite, in fact. Despite the group's concern, though, the journey to the Citadel proved to be fairly uneventful. The snow appeared to have driven most of the wildlife and wastelanders alike to ground, and the few raiders that were abroad didn't dare to pick a fight with such a well-known and dangerous team.

When they found themselves on the approach to the Citadel, the group discussed whether they should bother going inside or not. 

"I could really use some more ammunition," Sunset put in. "I know you picked some up on your way to Rivet City yesterday, but I've still only got enough for about three reloads." 

Adam shook his head. "I got as much as they'd let me take. The quartermasters are being stingy since they've got that big operation to Raven Rock coming up."

"Typical." Sunset heaved a sigh. "Alright, I guess that means we're carrying on." 

The Knights guarding the Citadel's entrance called out in greeting as the group passed. The team replied in kind, but carried on past and headed south, turning around to the west as they followed the perimeter of the Citadel.

"According to Moira's map, the library should be somewhere in this general direction," Sunset said. "Anyone have any ideas on how to find it?"

"Look around until we get lucky?" Adam suggested.

"I suggest we divide the area into separate sections and search each one systematically," Twilight put in. She glanced around as the group walked past the edge of one building and stopped in her tracks, then pointed off to the left. "Or we could try that building right there."

The others looked at the building she pointed at. It was a concrete box, much like every other building in the D.C. ruins, but it was also lined with decorative pillars, and had intricate bas-reliefs running along the edge of the roof. Decorations like that were usually reserved for government buildings, museums, and libraries. 

"I think you're on the right track," Sunset said.

At the base of the building, the group came across an odd steel cylinder, about seven feet tall. At first, Sunset thought it was some sort of telephone booth, or even a public toilet cubicle, but as she got closer she spotted signs on it indicating that it was a fallout shelter, operated by Pulowski Preservation Services.

"Is that seriously a bomb shelter?" Rainbow asked.

"Apparently." Sunset frowned when she spotted a little coin slot next to its sealed door. "It's coin operated? Seriously? What's the fucking point in that?!" She spat incredulously. "It's not like the company is still around to collect the money from these damn things!"

"Why don't we just see what's inside?" Pinkie racked the coin slot and, astoundingly, the door slid right open. A skeleton was hunched over on the floor of the shelter, along with a couple of boxes of bullets, a copy of Guns 'n' Bullets magazine, and a single 10mm pistol.

Letting pragmatism take over, Sunset collected up the bullets, trying to ignore the single bullet hole in the skeleton's temple. She also grabbed the magazine, just in case it had any tips on weapon maintenance.

"We've got company," Pinkie said suddenly. Everyone turned to see her pointing up at a ruined building opposite.

A single raider was standing in an upper-floor window, aiming a gun at them. It was too far away for Sunset to tell what weapon he was using, but she could tell that he was hesitating, which had probably saved one of their lives. There wasn't any cover close enough for them to dive behind before he pulled the trigger.

Without a word, everyone who had weapons drew them, hoping to intimidate the raider into backing down. Lacking a gun of her own, Twilight raised a hand and a purple aura seized a nearby car. The metal creaked loudly as it was lifted several feet into the air. That was enough for the raider, who rapidly withdrew his gun and scampered out of sight.

"Asshole," Rainbow muttered. 

Safe once again, Twilight dropped the car with a crash and the group followed the perimeter of the building, looking for an entrance. It wasn't long before the group found a pair of Brotherhood Knights standing guard outside a door.

The two saluted the instant they spotted the girls. "Rainbooms? We wondered what the noise was. What are you doing here?"

"We're looking for the Arlington Library," Sunset replied. She jerked her chin at the door. "Is this it?"

"Yes, ma'am," one of the Knights replied. "We're part of a small joint task force hoping to retrieve the old archives stored inside."

"We could really use some backup," the other Knight admitted.

Sunset huffed a laugh. "Well, you're in luck. It turns out we're after the archives, too. Who's in charge?"

"Scribe Yearling," a Knight replied. "She's just inside."

Thanking the Knight, the group opened the door and stepped into the lobby. 

Ordinarily, the large circular counter where ancient receptionists worked would have been the main feature in the high-ceilinged room. Now, however, that distinction went to the five Brotherhood Knights and two Enclave soldiers gathered around it. A single Scribe stood incongruously in the middle of them all, with tousled brown hair and a battered laser rifle dangling from her robes. Scattered gunfire echoed from deeper within the building.

One of the Enclave soldiers spotted the group first and muttered something to the others, who all looked around. The Scribe's eyes widened at the sight of the group. "The Rainbooms and the Lone Wanderer? What are you doing here?"

Sunset noted from the woman's insignia that she was a Senior Scribe, a rank higher than her own of Knight-Captain, and saluted accordingly. "Senior, we're hoping to gain access to the library's archives and it's card catalog. The Knights outside said you were after the same thing, so we figured we'd offer our help."

The Scribe let out a drawn-out breath. "Your timing is impeccable. I'm Scribe Yearling, Order of the Word, I'm in charge of this garrison. If you want the card catalog, it's on the terminal right here, but it appears that it's lost its connection to the central computer. We've been trying to get through to said computer, but the library is occupied by a powerful raider gang. They've got some dangerous magic on their side."

"Their minigun emplacement is the main issue," a Knight grumbled. "Fucking thing can't penetrate our armor, but it's got some magic in it that makes our armor's joints seize up when it hits. We were just considering trying to flank them but, until you showed up, I didn't think we had the numbers to pull it off."

"Well, you do now," Sunset told him confidently, though inside she was cursing the thought of facing yet more raiders, this time armed with magic. "First things first, Twilight, download the card catalog. Next, where's the minigun emplacement?"

The Knight pointed to a door on the other side of the room. "Through there. The corridor splits into two, then reconnects at the entrance to the library's main book room. The emplacement is set up at the top of a set of stairs covering the door. We can't push through."

Sunset nodded. A quick check of the Knights' insignia's showed that none of them were ranked higher than Knight-Sergeant or, in the Enclave's case, Corporal. She was the highest ranked actual soldier present. "Okay, I have an idea." Sunset glanced over at Scribe Yearling, who was supervising as Twilight downloaded the card catalog onto her Pip-Boy. "Senior Scribe, permission to assume tactical command?"

"Granted," Yearling replied immediately. "I'm a librarian, not a soldier."

With the formalities out of the way, Sunset straightened up and looked over her new subordinates. "Alright, I want two Knights to stay here and guard Scribe Yearling, the rest of you are with us. Us Rainbooms will take out the minigun, then we'll split into two teams. Do any of you know exactly where the central computer is?" Three of the Knights and one of the soldiers held up their hands. "I want one of you to accompany us, we'll push for the archives directly. The rest of you will focus on clearing the building section by section, until every hostile is neutralized. Is that clear?"

The others quickly assented, standing tall and readying their weapons. 

"I think Twilight should stay here with Scribe Yearling," Rainbow put in. "This is a bit big for her first real firefight."

"I'm coming with you," Twilight said in a tone that brooked no disagreement. She glared at Sunset, who just sighed and shrugged. 

"Fine, but be careful, and stay behind me." Sunset gestured for the Knights to proceed. "Come on, let's take these bastards down."

Leaving Scribe Yearling behind with her designated guards, the much stronger group headed through the door at the back of the room and split up at the fork the Knight had mentioned, with the Rainbooms and Enclave soldiers going left, while the Knights and Adam went right. A handful of Nuka-Cola vending machines were spaced out throughout the corridor, all of which Pinkie ransacked on sight. 

It didn't take long for the group to find where the corridors rejoined. As the Knight had said, there was a large doorway right where the corridors met. Another Knight and an Enclave soldier were already waiting for both teams there, trading fire with people inside the room ahead. 

"Hey, we've brought backup," one of their accompanying Knights called out.

"What have we got? Where's the minigun?" Sunset asked quickly.

The pair looked back and did a double-take when they saw who the backup was, but they recovered quickly. "It's directly opposite this door, on the second level," the Enclave soldier replied. "It's got some sort of magic shield, so our guns don't affect it."

"Typical," Sunset muttered. "Pinkie, you're up. Wait until I give the signal."

"Got it," Pinkie replied. 

Sunset glanced around the troopers and saw Adam with the other Knights lining up on the other side of the door. She gestured for Pinkie to take up a position by the doorframe, then signalled for Adam and he Knights to draw the enemy fire in Brotherhood combat signals.

The Knights nodded and immediately stepped out of cover, blasting away at the raiders inside. Almost instantly, a loud whine filled the air as hundreds of bullets clattered against the Knights' power armor. Instead of shattering in a shower of sparks, the bullets exploded in puffs of grey dust that clung to what they struck.

With the gun emplacement distracted, Pinkie took the chance to step out of cover, aim her Party Cannon, and launch a bottle of sugary death. The resulting blast knocked a tide of dust from the ceiling. 

Pinkie ducked back behind the wall just in time to avoid a storm of bullets. "The minigun's down, but I think we upset the rest of the raiders!"

"Good!" Sunset grinned. "You heard her, people, now get in there and sort those assholes out!"

As one, the power-armored troopers roared and charged into the room, bullets spanking off their armor as they laid waste to the startled raiders. The Rainbooms waited for the Knights and soldiers to get the attention of everyone else before entering the room themselves.

The scene inside was one of utter bedlam. They were in a large room, with dozens of short, wide bookcases spread out on the lower floor, and a staircase in the corner led up to a second floor balcony. A few scattered raiders were still shooting on the balcony, but most of them were already dead or dying. A smoking pile of slag dripping off the balcony showed where the minigun used to be. A few more seconds was all it took for the Knights and soldiers to put the last of the raiders down.

"That was easy," Rainbow said flatly. 

"Yeah, well, now comes the tricky part," Sunset said roughly. "Grab one of the Knights and let's make a push for those archives. And remember, there's going to be shots of all kinds flying around all over the place, so make sure you don't go diving into combat recklessly."

"I'll be careful, I don't particularly fancy getting shot," Rainbow promised as she flagged down a Knight. 

The team quickly regrouped once they were certain that the raiders were incapacitated. Sunset reiterated her plan, ordering the Enclave soldiers and most of the Knights to clear the building section by section, while Adam and one last Knight were to join the Rainbooms in their hunt for the central computer.

With the plan ready, the Knight led the Rainbooms through a door on the lower floor. "The media archives are this way," she told them. 

A short corridor on the other side led to a set of stairs. Muffled gunfire echoed through the walls, but the path the girls were on was strangely undefended. Just as they reached the top of the stairs, the Knight held a hand up to halt the group and knelt down. "Pressure plate," she said quietly. "Must be a trap somewhere."

Sunset readied her plasma rifle and crept up the last couple of stairs to peek carefully around the corner. A long corridor stretched out before her. A single side door led off from it, and at the far end a pitching machine was set up as a weak trap. 

Looking carefully, Sunset could just make out the tip of a gun barrel poking out around a corner near the pitching machine. She almost laughed at how obvious the ambush was, but another flaw caught her eye. The pitching machine was tilted at an angle. Too much of an angle to hit anyone coming up the stairs. 

Following the angle, Sunset saw that the machine was actually tilted to fire at the wall, ricocheting balls off it to land in the centre of a large tire leaned against the opposite wall. She fought the urge to slap a palm to her forehead. The pitching machine had, presumably, originally been set up as a trap, but some idiot had moved it to turn it into a toy. The raiders were either incredibly stupid, or arrogant beyond reason.

With a grin, Sunset used Brotherhood hand signals to convey that an ambush was waiting ahead, then quickly outlined her plan. It was simple, really. 

Pinkie swapped places with Sunset. She peeked around the wall, then stepped into the corridor and raised her Party Cannon. When she was ready, she very deliberately stamped on the pressure plate. The pitching machine rattled as it kicked into life. Raiders whooped and yelled, but their cries were cut off almost instantly as Pinkie fired at them.

The echoes of the blast hadn't even begun to fade as Pinkie slipped back into cover, letting Adam and the Knight take the lead. Together, the two marched side by side down the corridor, efficiently dispatching any raiders that were still dumb enough to continue fighting.

Sunset waited a few seconds before leading the Rainbooms into the corridor. She couldn't see past the power-armored pair, but the reek of death filling the air told her exactly how the raiders were faring.

Just as Adam and the Knight walked past the side door it was yanked open, and more raiders charged out of it. The first swung a baseball bat at the Knight ineffectively. Before anyone else could react, Rainbow appeared right next to them, Flashburn blazing as she hacked away at her opponents. The one-sided fight lasted barely a few seconds.

"This room's clear!" Rainbow called out. She turned back to the others, but one of the apparently dead raiders at her feet suddenly grabbed her ankle. He had a grenade in his other hand. 

Time seemed to freeze as Sunset screamed a warning. Almost in slow motion, a purple aura surrounded the raider's arm, then wrenched it off in a welter of blood and hurled it into the side room, slamming the door behind it.

The explosion rocked the door on its hinges.

Rainbow let her breath out in a whoosh. "Holy shit. Nice save, Twi." She jammed Flashburn through the raider's head just to make sure he was down permanently. 

"See, I can be useful," Twilight said pointedly.

"We never said you can't, you're just less experienced than the rest of us," Sunset replied, a little concerned about how easily Twilight was handling such extreme violence. "Also, Rainbow, what the hell have I said about making sure that the enemy is dead?"

"I thought he was! His fucking guts are hanging out, for crying out loud!" Rainbow countered.

The Knight looked down at the corpse. "He was probably on something. It's pretty common for raiders to use dangerous chems to make themselves stronger or tougher. Some Knights do it too, actually."

"Shit." Sunset ran a hand through her hair. "Okay, from now on, make sure you stick an enemy in either the heart or the head. It's the only way to be sure."

Rainbow nodded and yanked her sword out of the raider's head. "Got it."

Leaving the miniature battlefield behind, the squad rounded the corner and headed up another set of stairs only to find themselves hindered again, this time by a handful of landmines. 

Sunset scanned the corridor ahead as Pinkie got to work clearing the mines. The stench of rotten flesh filled the air, accompanied by the frenzied buzzing of flies, making her wish that she had a mask or something to cover her face.

When Pinkie was done, the group pressed on cautiously. Maggot-ridden corpses had been laid out on mouldy beds or dangled from the ceiling in chains, revealing the source of the smell and the flies. In several places the floor had fallen through entirely, making the path ahead treacherous. 

The reason for the lack of raiders was revealed as the group rounded yet another corner. A wide room lay at the end of the corridor, filled with a whole mess of computer banks and printing presses, many of which had been knocked on their sides and reinforced with barbed wire and wooden planks to form makeshift barricades. Two machine gun turrets were attached to the ceiling, and at least a dozen raiders were hunkered down in the room.

"Aw, shit," Rainbow muttered. 

The girls all dove back around the corner as a storm of bullets tore apart the space where they'd been standing. Even Adam and the Knight were forced back by the sheer volume of fire. The Rainbooms dropped to the ground as the raiders' kept firing, the occasional bullet punching through the concrete wall in puffs of dust.

"What now?" Pinkie asked.

Rainbow spat on the floor. "Wait for them to reload, then I'll run in and fuck up their day."

Before Sunset could disagree, a loud crash brought the gunfire to an abrupt end. The group shared confused looks. Sunset gasped as a towering figure lumbered around the corner.

The creature technically looked like a man, but it stood head and shoulders above even Adam in his armor, and that wasn't counting the black horns that curled up from its head. It was topless, revealing an obscenely muscled torso, and had little more than a shredded pair of shorts covering its lower half. Glowing gray crystals were set in its belt.

A minotaur, Sunset realized with a jolt.

Adam snapped his weapon up, but the minotaur shoved him off his feet, making Sunset and Pinkie dive aside to avoid getting squashed. Sunset rolled and whipped her gun up, only to hesitate when she saw a purple aura surrounding the beast. Veins bulged as the minotaur struggled against the magic holding it.

"I don't like bullies." Twilight strode up to the straining minotaur, holding him still with casual ease. She smiled nastily up at him. "Still, I suppose I should thank you. You've given me the opportunity to prove just how useful I can be. Now die." Twilight twisted her wrist and, with a horrific crunch, the minotaur's head flopped onto its shoulder. 

Sunset watched in horror as Twilight strode calmly into the line of fire, using her magic to levitate the dead minotaur in front of her like a meat shield. Sunset dove after her friend, intent on getting her back behind cover, but it was too late. 

Thrusting her arms forward, Twilight launched the corpse into the room full of raiders, knocking aside barricades and people alike. She made a grasping motion, then used her magic to rip the turrets from the ceiling and hurl them at the shocked raiders.

Paralyzed by shock and horror, Sunset could only stare in mute disbelief as Twilight advanced on the raiders. Wherever her power touched, carnage reigned. One raider found his assault rifle grabbed by magic and yanked around, spraying his comrades with bullets before a twist of a wrist pulled its barrel up and forced the unfortunate man to blow his own brains out. Barbed wire snaked around the neck of another, twisting and tightening as it hauled the raider up and hung her from the ceiling.

"What the hell are you doing?! Stop!" Pinkie yelled.

Twilight raised her hands and encased the remaining raiders in her magic before glancing back over her shoulder. "What? You were going to kill them all anyway. This is more efficient."

Sunset blasted the raider still struggling in the barbed wire, putting her out of her misery. "This isn't efficiency, you're torturing them! What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

"Wrong with me?!" Twilight snarled. "I had to sit and watch the rest of you go into battle, putting your lives on the line against monsters like these, while I sat in a wheelchair and waited to find out whether one of you had been injured, or raped, or worse! No more! These people are what's wrong, and I'm going to give every one of these sick bastards what they deserve!" She clenched her fists tightly, crushing the skull of every raider in her magical grip into a gory paste. "That's efficiency."

Twilight turned on her heel and strode up to the flabbergasted Knight. "Which way are the archives?" The Knight pointed a shaky hand towards one of the side doors. "Thanks."

"Twi, wait!" Sunset tried to grab her shoulder as she walked away, but a purple aura pushed Sunset gently away. 

"Don't try to stop me," Twilight said firmly. 

The others all stared after her as she stormed through the door. They shared an uneasy look, not quite sure what had just happened, then barrelled through the door after Twilight. 

Upstairs was even worse than the previous level. Dismembered corpses had been arranged in twisted poses everywhere, and many of the walls had gaping holes in them, leaving a carpet of dried gore and debris all over the floor. The raiders had apparently given up their attempts at organized ambushes, instead opting to just stand and hold each hole or doorway as best they could.

Twilight strode through it all, blissfully unconcerned by the stray bullets that zipped past her. Every raider she came across had their weapon ripped from their hands, then either their heads crushed by magic or their bodies broken apart by flung debris.

"Twi, get in cover!" Sunset snapped, shooting a raider who was trying to flank them.

"I'm fine!" Twilight called back. "I've got this, so stop-"

"Behind you!" Adam shot a raider who lunged out of a hole that Twilight had just passed, making him stumble and miss with the heavy sledgehammer he was swinging. The hit didn't put the raider down, but before he could attack again Twilight whipped around, snaring him in her magic. She snarled and ripped the man apart at the waist, flinging the halves of him aside in an explosion of blood and entrails.

Twilight smirked, utterly caked in gore. "See? I can handle mys-" She staggered as someone shot her in the back.

Sunset put the offending raider down with two shots of plasma to the chest, then sprinted over to Twilight just as she sank to her knees. "Are you okay?!"

"I got shot," Twilight said quietly, as if she couldn't quite believe it.

Sunset inspected her armor, her blood running cold as she saw the smoking hole in it, then ordered the others to cover her while she stripped off Twilight's armor to check the wound. "It's alright, I've got you, I- oh, for fuck's sake." Sunset almost cried with relief when she saw the bullet protruding barely half a centimeter through the inside of the armor. 

"Am I going to die?!" Twilight yelped.

"No, you fucking idiot, you've just got a scratch." Sunset used her knife to poke the bullet back out of the armor, then helped Twilight get it all back on. "You're a lucky bitch. Remember, you aren't combat trained like the rest of us, so calm your tits and stay the fuck behind me!"

Twilight just nodded shakily. The brush with death had apparently knocked some sense back into her.

Satisfied that Twilight wasn't about to go on another psychotic rampage, Sunset snatched up her plasma rifle and rejoined the fight. "Pinkie, make sure this idiot doesn't get herself killed! Knight, get us to that central computer!"

Together, the group pushed forward, making their way through the upper floor step by bloody step. The raiders were getting more desperate the more they were pressed. More than once several of them tried to mob Adam and the Knight, attempting to drag their assailants down through sheer weight of numbers. Rainbow proved herself invaluable at those times, wailing on the mobs with Flashburn while Sunset and Pinkie worked together to pick off stragglers.

Finally, after what felt like hours, the Knight yelled out, "We're almost there! The computer is in the next room!"

Pressing on, the group rounded a corner and saw the aforementioned room ahead of them. Another makeshift barricade had been constructed inside, layered with wood and barbed wire. At first, Sunset thought that the room was devoid of enemies, then a terrifying figure rose to its feet from where it had been kneeling behind the barricade.

The figure was clearly the leader of the raiders. It was clad in a patchwork set of power armor that looked like it had been nailed together from several different suits. The armor had been daubed with blood, leaving it crimson and reeking of death, and scraps of metal rebar had been welded to the helmet to give the impression of horns. "I am Ghoritch," the figure rumbled, its voice somehow reverberating through the air. "Your blood shall be a worthy tribute."

"Get fucked!" Sunset blasted the monster relentlessly, swiftly joined by Adam and the Knight. Pinkie raised her Party Cannon, but Sunset stopped her. "No! You might destroy the central computer!"

Ghoritch growled. "Pathetic." He raised his arms and a sphere of blood coalesced in front of him. Another gesture sent the orb hurtling towards Pinkie, who barely managed to jump aside in time. The blood splashed against the wall and ate through it like acid.

"Alright, fuck this!" Sunset dropped her plasma rifle and whipped her Nova pistol out just as Ghoritch created another sphere of blood. The blast from the Nova pistol lit up the whole room like a miniature star.

The blood Ghoritch had conjured fell to the floor in a splash. Ghoritch himself looked down at the gaping hole punched clean through his chest, slumped to his knees, then finally keeled over and lay still.

"Damn…" Adam glanced at Sunset. "Why don't you use that thing all the time?"

Sunset grimaced at the steam leaking out of the Nova pistol's ammo chamber. "It takes one shot per crystal, and I've only got three crystals. They recharge, but that takes an hour or so at least, so it's not exactly practical." She eased the crackling red crystal out of the ammunition chamber, popped it in a special insulated pocket sewn into her pants, then slipped in a new crystal. "Is everyone okay?"

The others all replied in the positive. 

"We're clear," the Knight said with a sigh. "All we have to do now is find the central computer and wait for the others to catch up."

Sunset nodded and led the group into the room. It didn't take long for them to find the terminal they were looking for, tucked away in a corner. "Okay, Twilight, you're up."

"Right," Twilight said sheepishly. "Um…"

"We'll talk about what happened back at Megaton," Sunset said heavily. She leaned against a shattered desk and ran a hand through her hair, not caring about whatever muck was caked in it. "Everything else can wait until we're out of this shithole."
> Chapter 118 - Wasteland Survival Guide: Dangers of Magic
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The journey back to Megaton was quiet and somber. The weather didn't particularly help, as the snow had gotten even heavier during the group's time in the library. 

Sunset's thoughts were a mess. Her own recent lapses in judgement were bad enough, but seeing the other girls start to snap was like having a knife twist in her gut every time. Applejack's loss of temper was at least understandable, after what had almost happened to Rarity, but Twilight's outburst had been callous, even sadistic. The wasteland had clearly affected her far more than any of the others had ever expected.

As the group reached the top of the last hill before Megaton, Sunset came to a halt. The others stopped and looked back at her curiously. "You okay, Sunset?" Adam asked.

Sunset nodded and rubbed her temples. "Yeah, just trying to get my head on straight."

Twilight winced. "Is this about earlier?"

"Partially, but it's more than that." Sunset sighed heavily and kicked up a puff of snow. "The Exodus team is already working on a portal. Our research was the last piece of the puzzle that they needed, all that's left for them to do is to actually build the damned thing and get it working. We're so close to getting home, so why are we fucking things up so much?"

"What do you mean? We haven't fucked anything up recently?" Twilight replied.

Sunset gave her a sardonic look. "You hung someone alive from a ceiling using barbed wire. You don't think that's just a little fucked up?"

A flash of guilt crossed Twilight's face. "I… might have gone a bit overboard. Can you really blame me, though, after everything that's happened?"

"I'm not in a position to blame anyone for shit like that, but that's exactly my point," Sunset insisted. "Over the last few days it's as if we've all gone completely fucking insane. The only reason we're even out here is to keep ourselves busy while we search for a piece of equipment that'll hopefully be completely redundant anyway, but for some reason half of us have still managed to lose our tempers and ended up committing horrific crimes."

"We have good reasons for what we do," Twilight countered. 

"Do we?" Sunset asked. "Adam, you're pretty much the benchmark for goodness in this world, what do you think?"

Adam cocked his head to the side curiously. "What do you mean, half? Who else are you talking about?"

"Applejack murdered Moriarty last night," Pinkie said in a flat tone.

"Seriously?" Adam asked incredulously.

Sunset nodded. "Her knuckles are a mess, so we think she beat him to death with her bare hands. She didn't even use her Geode."

Adam sighed, shouldered his plasma rifle, and took his helmet off. "Personally, I think the whole situation is fucked up. What Applejack did is sort of justified, I'd say, but only because of how much influence Moriarty has in Megaton. Even with Jericho's testimony, Simms wouldn't be able to do much to touch Moriarty. I don't like it, but killing him off is probably going to make a whole lot of people a lot safer. As for what you and Twilight did…"

"Just give it to us straight, Adam," Sunset told him.

Adam hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. "Okay. You both royally fucked up. Don't get me wrong, I get why you did what you did. It's understandable, given the amount of shit you've both been through, but you still need to get your heads on straight." He jammed his helmet back on. "No more killing unarmed people unless it's unavoidable, and try to kill people as cleanly and painlessly as possible. Capiche?" Adam waited for both of the girls to nod before turning back to Megaton. "Good. Come on, let's get inside."

"And let's try not to commit any more atrocities while we wait for the portal to get up and running," Sunset added in an undertone.

The group was only a little surprised to see Stockholm still up in his usual nest, huddled up underneath a large patchwork umbrella. He opened up the gate, then waved the girls through before closing it down again.

Megaton was practically deserted. The relentless snowfall had driven most of the residents under cover, leaving only the few with urgent errands still moving around. 

"One second," Adam called as the girls turned towards the walkway to Craterside Supply. "You, uh, might want to change your clothes first."

Sunset looked down at herself, then around at the others. All of the girls were in something of a state, with muck and blood splattered liberally over them, but Rainbow and Twilight were utterly horrific to look at. Both were coated from head to foot in gore from the battle against the raiders, and not even the constant snow had managed to cover it up.

Deciding to spare Moira the sight of other people's innards, the girls headed to the Temple while Adam went to drop his armor off at his house. As expected, Primrose was already waiting in the main room for the girls to arrive, accompanied by half a dozen Disciples who immediately helped the girls out of their armor and took it away for cleaning. 

Applejack and Rarity were both in their own rooms, so the girls checked in with Fluttershy to make sure everyone was okay before allowing themselves five minutes each for a warm shower, followed by a change of clothes and a quick meal. With that out of the way, the girls left Flutters and Primrose in charge and headed up to meet Moira.

Fortunately, not many people appeared to have made the trip up to Craterside Supply, meaning that the snow on the path hadn't been too heavily compacted. Even better, Moira still had her space heaters going, which was a godsend even after such a short walk in the snow. 

Moira herself was flicking through her file on the counter when the group arrived. She perked up the moment she spotted them. "Is the library there? Are there books? Can I go borrow one?"

"The library is still standing," Sunset replied. "Twilight has the archives downloaded onto holotapes."

The look on Moira's face as Twilight pulled said holotapes out of her pack was one of unfettered joy. "Really? A whole library's worth of data, right there? That's great news!" She eagerly took the holotapes and stroked them affectionately before grinning at the girls. "So, what else did you find? Tell me all about it!"

Twilight gave her an incredulous look. "What else?! That's an entire library's archives there! Don't you realize how valuable that is?! I even copied a full set for myself!"

"Of course I realize how valuable it is, that's why I sent you out in the first place!" Moira replied in a scandalised tone. "I suspect that you and I are the only people in the wastes who understand just how truly precious this collection truly is!"

"Hey!" Sunset piped up.

"That's just rude," Adam grumbled.

Moira wasn't paying any attention. She had already gone back to staring lovingly at the holotapes. "Oh my goodness, when I'm done with this, I'll have to work on copying all this information. That could take a while, you know." Rainbow cleared her throat loudly, making Moira jump and hurriedly shove a small tray towards the group. "Oh, but here's a book of mine and some caps for your research." She smiled brightly. "Think of it as pay for a civilization worth of overdue books."

Sunset glanced in the tray. A fat pouch full of caps sat on top of some sort of self-help book called 'Lying, Congressional Style!'. "Is that the end of the book, or…?"

"Oh, no, sorry," Moira replied. "It was originally going to be, but I figured I should probably put in an extra section dealing with the new magic in this world; the dangers of it, what it's doing to the wildlife out there, and what we can do with those magical crystals that keep popping up."

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "I guess you want our help with that?" Moira nodded enthusiastically. "Well, you're in luck. We've done a whole bunch of research on how magic interacts with this world's radiation, and how dangerous it can be when it's misused. Want to see it?"

"Absolutely!" Moira practically yelled. 

Without needing to be told, Twilight started pulling more holotapes out of her pack. "I hope you're not busy, this is going to take a while."





Holding cells were rarely pleasant things. The cells in the Exodus building, however, were particularly spartan, with little more than a cot and a steel toilet in a tiny concrete room. 

Turner supposed that he was lucky. He was at least being given three hot meals a day and a blanket, which was more than the Communist spies these cells were originally built for were offered. He was even given books, which helped to stave off the boredom. "It's not enough though. No, not enough. Where's the research, hm? Where's the learning?"

A noise outside the cell door made Turner look up eagerly. "Is it time for another test? More experiments, more learning, more magic, all mine."

The metal plate covering the little viewing slot was slid open, and an unfamiliar set of eyes looked in. These eyes had known magic, Turner's own mutated eye could tell, but they hadn't touched it in some time.

"Doctor Turner? What the hell happened to you?!" A voice hissed.

Something about the voice was familiar to Turner. "Who are you?"

"Michaels, of Squad Sigma," the voice replied. "I heard that you were mutated and locked up, but what happened to you?"

"Betrayal, of course," Turner told him. It was technically true, after all. "Doctor, sorry, President Shoichet and her little entourage set in motion a chain of events that led to the destruction of Raven Rock. Horrigan and I managed to escape but, as you can see, I did not get away unscathed."

Michaels' eyes hardened. "Is it true that they've allied with the Brotherhood of Steel? That they're letting those mongrels have access to our Base Crawler?"

That last part was news to Turner, but he kept his surprise off his face. His mind whirled as he tried to think of a way to turn this situation to his advantage. "It is. President's Shoichet's bond with the Rainbooms has led to a great many changes in the Enclave."

"Shit." Michaels glanced away. When he looked back, his tone was low and hurried. "I can't stay here long, someone will come back any second. What can I do to stop these traitors?"

"Not much yet, be patient," Turner replied. "The Exodus team is still working on creating a path to the Rainbooms' home reality."

Michaels nodded. "The portal."

"They're building a portal?" Turner hoped that the excitement in his voice would be misconstrued as urgency. "They are further along than I thought. This could be our chance. Do nothing for now, but when the time comes, you'll know when, come and find me. We shall show these upstarts their place in one potent act."

"Got it," Michaels said curtly. "I'll keep an ear to the ground. For the Enclave."

"For the Enclave indeed," Turner muttered as Michaels closed the viewing slot. "And for the advancement of knowledge…"





Excitement coursed through Tara's body, making her movements jittery and her voice quaver. "Are you sure that everything is ready?"

Doctor Evans nodded. "We've double, triple, and quadruple checked everything. All safety features have been tested thoroughly, as have each and every one of the components. We're as ready as we're ever going to be."

Tara looked up at the portal anxiously. It was almost time. "Get everything set up so we can begin testing the moment we get the go-ahead, and send word to President Shoichet. Tell her the portal is ready."





Darkness filled the ancient forest. Where once the way ahead had been clear, only obscured in the distance by the surrounding foliage, now everything was in turmoil, tossed about in the upheaval caused by powers beyond mortal control. As if the howling wind wasn't bad enough, blood rained from the sky in a nightmarish downpour, obscuring the path and clouding even the Sight.

Bloomseer Poplar pressed on through the murk. The lake of blood had risen to her knees now, as it had by this point every night recently, but tonight she was not alone. The new power soaking into the wasteland, and into the forest, had granted the Bloomseer a connection with the spirit of the forest itself, and opened her eyes to truths beyond her imagining.

Seven shining wisps, the souls of the otherworldly visitors who had been stranded in this world, careened through the forest at a terrible speed, one of them locked in a spiralling dance with a glittering breeze that alone had the power to make the world tremble. Everything they touched trembled and shifted into new configurations. A handful of other wisps fluttered along in their wake, growing more powerful and prominent with each passing moment.

Poplar struggled to keep up with them, but the blood was too deep and too thick for her to move as fast as she'd like. Pushing forward, she felt a thrill of fear as she saw the break in the canopy just ahead.

'Go on, Poplar. I am with you,' the Great One whispered in her ear. 

The voice helped to give the Bloomseer strength. Shoving her fears aside, Poplar gritted her teeth and stepped out from under the trees. Stars above glittered like rubies, but they were now almost eclipsed by the twin crescent moons, one wrapped in inky darkness as always, the other protectively circling its own little star. 

A terrifying roar shook the earth, and a colossal beast soared between the two moons. Poplar gasped at the sight of it. What she had once mistaken for wings were revealed to be great billowing clouds of power, pouring off the creature in waves. 

With a shudder, Poplar made to plunge back into the forest on the other side of the break. Before she could, however, a sudden breeze rippled through the trees. Something was wrong.

Poplar looked around wildly, trying to see anything through the sheets of gory rain. The ground shuddered beneath her feet, and the breeze was drowned out by a low rumble that rapidly grew to a dull roar that made the whole forest tremble. 

Seized by fear, Poplar tried to turn and run only to slip on something beneath the surface. Only by grabbing hold of a tree trunk did she manage to avoid falling into the blood. The salvation was short lived, as the tree creaked and slowly tilted over dragging the Bloomseer with it. Just before she was dragged under entirely, Poplar caught a glimpse of two of the wisps falling and disappearing beneath the blood.
> Chapter 119 - Wasteland Survival Guide: Wild Wasteland
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Explaining the mechanics of how magic worked to a complete newbie for what felt like the hundredth time was… boring, at least as far as Sunset was concerned. Adam, Pinkie, and Rainbow had already departed for the Temple, leaving just Sunset and Twilight to give Moira a rundown.

Luckily, Twilight found the process to be particularly enjoyable, meaning Sunset was able to simply sit on a stool and let her mind wander, only chiming in whenever she felt like it. Letting her mind linger on the events of the last few days was intolerable, however, so Sunset tried to think of something else. 

As she watched Twilight and Moira eagerly discussing this world's natural background magical field, and how Equestrian magic interacted with it, Sunset's thoughts drifted to the odd relationship between Becky and Tara. 

It wasn't as if she didn't understand the attraction: Twilight's intellect and dorky nerdiness were certainly appealing, but Sunset had never seen her as anything more than a friend. Evidently, Becky had seen something more. A lot more, if some of the comments Becky had made at the Adams Air Force Base were to be believed. Sunset smirked at the thought of what Becky would think of Tara in Brotherhood field uniforms. They were hardly flattering clothes when it came to one's figure.

"Uh… Sunset?" 

Twilight's voice slowly percolated into Sunset's skull. She blinked, then blushed furiously as she realized that she had been absently staring at her friend's backside while smirking. "What's up? Are we done?" She said quickly, trying to gloss over the awkward moment. 

Twilight raised an eyebrow, but let it slide. "Yes, we're done. We were just going to ask if you think we should try the next task today or not."

"That depends on what the task is," Sunset replied.

Moira checked her file. "Next is magical creatures, how they've been changed and how to deal with them. I've already got some stuff on how Super Mutants, feral ghouls and Deathclaws have been affected, thanks to the Brotherhood of Steel, but I suspect that there's other beasties out there that we haven't encountered yet." She leaned forward and planted her elbows on the countertop. "I've heard traders saying that they've seen some really weird creatures up near the Greener Pastures disposal site. I was hoping that you could take a look for me."

Sunset considered for a moment. Traveling through the snow was going to slow them down. "How far away is the site?" 

"Not far from Old Olney," Moira replied. She turned the file towards them and pointed to a spot on her map. "See?"

A quick glance revealed that the disposal site was indeed just a short way southwest of Old Olney, near what Moira had marked as a diner. "We should be able to make it," Sunset said. "What do you want us to do, exactly?"

Moira hummed thoughtfully. "I'd prefer it if you could get into the disposal site itself, have a poke around, and find out what sort of creatures we're dealing with, but it's supposed to be very radioactive there. It is where they used to dump toxic and nuclear waste, after all."

"That'll be risky for us," Twilight put in. 

"I know," Moira replied with a dejected sigh. "In that case, I've heard that there are some unusual creatures hanging out in the nearby diner, too, so if you can just check that out and tell me what you find, that would be great."

Sunset stared at the map, considering their options. "We'll bring Fluttershy with us. She's better with animals than anyone else, and she'll be able to tell us whether it's safe to have a look in the disposal site."

"Either way, we're going to have to leave soon if we want to get back before dark," Twilight pointed out.

"Good point." Sunset sighed and stood up. "Alright, let's grab the others and get moving."

Saying a quick goodbye to Moira, Sunset and Twilight made their way carefully down to the Temple. Rather worryingly, the snow still wasn't easing up. 

"If this gets any heavier, we're going to be stuck here in Megaton until a Vertibird comes around," Sunset noted.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Twilight said quietly.

To the girls' surprise, both the Temple's welcome room and the main hall were full of residents and Disciples, the former seeking somewhere warm to socialise now that Moriarty's was out of commission for the time being, and the latter doing their best to accommodate them.

"Lady Shimmer!" Primrose pushed through the crowd to get to the pair. She blushed as she spotted Twilight as well. "A-and Lady Sparkle, of course. I'm sorry it's so crowded, but we didn't feel right forcing people to stand outside in such inclement weather."

"It's fine, you made the right choice," Sunset replied. "Are the rest of the Rainbooms here?"

Primrose nodded. "Yes, Lady Shimmer. They are all in Lady Rarity's room save for Fluttershy, who is in her own room with, er, Adam."

Sunset's eyes widened at that little revelation, but she managed to keep herself from smirking. "Ok, we're going to be heading back out in a minute, is our armor ready?"

"I'll have it brought up to you," Primrose replied. 

"Awesome, thanks." Sunset carefully made her way through the crowd, making sure that Twilight didn't get hemmed in behind her. Thankfully, it was far less crowded once they got upstairs to the areas where non-Disciples weren't permitted.

When they reached the top floor, Sunset bit her lip in an attempt to resist the urge to knock on Fluttershy's door, and walked over to Rarity's instead. 

As expected, everyone was inside except Adam and Fluttershy. Applejack, Pinkie, and Rainbow were all sitting cross-legged on the bed, while Rarity herself was sitting at a table using a bulky old sewing machine that she had evidently brought from the Citadel, though how she had managed to fit the thing in her pack was anybody's guess. A wardrobe sat open next to the table, displaying all sorts of garments from the outfit Rarity had first worn to the wastes, to Brotherhood uniforms and dresses, to thin strips of fabric that could charitably be called underwear.

Sunset took it as a good sign that Applejack was sneaking subtle glances at those particular underclothes. At least she wasn't feeling too down on herself. "Hey, are you all okay?" Sunset asked.

"Us three are fine," Applejack replied. "What about you, Rares?"

"I'm well enough, thank you." Rarity sighed and turned to face the others, flexing her left fingers in their glove. "I apologize for not being on top form this morning, I was just feeling a little delicate after last night."

"That's more than understandable," Sunset replied. Now that she was here, she was having second thoughts about dragging everyone away from Rarity and Applejack when they were down and out. Still, she had to ask. "So, Moira has a new task for us. The only problem is that it's a fair distance away, so we'll have to leave now if we want to get back before dark. Is anyone up for it, or should we put it off for tomorrow?"

Rarity stood and stretched. "Actually, I'd like to come along, if that's alright?"

"Are you sure?" Applejack asked, giving her a surprised look.

"Absolutely," Rarity replied. "I'm sorry, darling, but I need to get out and feel some fresh air on my face, or I'm going to go crazy."

Applejack nodded and grumbled her acceptance, prompting Rainbow to throw an arm around her shoulders. "Don't worry, I'll stick around here with you so you don't get too bored," Rainbow said brightly. "Plus, we'll have Fluttershy, so that'll be three of us."

"Actually, Fluttershy is going to be pretty much essential for this job," Sunset cut in in an apologetic tone. "We're looking out for magical wildlife, so we'll need her abilities. Once she's done with Adam, anyway."

The others giggled and blushed, though their mouths all snapped shut as the door opened and Fluttershy stepped in, followed by Adam. "Oh, hello, is everything alright?" Fluttershy asked.

Sunset struggled to keep a straight face. "We're all good, what about you two?"

"I'm okay, thanks, but Adam has a bit of a nasty bruise," Fluttershy replied blithely.

Rainbow coughed as she tried to hold back a laugh. "Maybe you shouldn't be so rough with him, next time, unless he likes it that way."

"If so, Ah've got some rope you can borrow," Applejack added, earning snorts and choked-back laughter from the others, along with confused looks from Adam and Fluttershy.

"What are you talking about?" Adam asked.

Pinkie grinned and rummaged around in her hair. After a second, she pulled out a pie and a can of whipped cream, shook up the cream, then stabbed it into the pie and sprayed it full. Sunset just stared at her in blank confusion, but Applejack and Rainbow both burst into fits of astonished laughter, while Rarity and Fluttershy both turned crimson.

"We were not doing anything like that," Fluttershy said in a voice of determined calm. "Adam received a nasty bruise from getting rattled around in his armor after he was attacked by a magic mutant. I tended to it, gave him some painkillers, and had my scheduled portion of blood while I was in my room. You perverts."

Adam did a double-take at the last couple of words. "Hold up, what did they think we were doing?"

"Fornicating," Rarity replied quietly.

"Which is probably a posh way of saying fucking," Rainbow clarified. Adam blushed furiously and tried to stammer out a denial, making her grin widely. "Yeah, no, there's no way those two have boned yet."

Applejack snorted. "None of us have done anythin' like that yet." Sunset, Fluttershy, and Rarity all pointedly avoided looking at each other. "Besides, boyfriend or no, Ah still don't reckon that Flutters'll be the first to have a bedroom rodeo."

"I'd appreciate it if we could steer this conversation away from bedroom activities," Fluttershy said through gritted teeth. Adam nodded vigorously, though Sunset noted that he was shuffling to stand further behind Flutters and hunching over slightly.

Pinkie shrugged. "You never know, Fluttershy might be second, but she can't be first, that was Sunset."

"How the fuck do you know about that?!" Sunset blurted out before she could stop herself.

The silence that followed was deafening.

Applejack slowly arched an eyebrow. "Uh, Sunset? Have you-"

"We need to leave asap if we want to get back before dark," Sunset cut in quickly. "Fluttershy, we're going to be studying animals, so we'll need your help, and Rainbow and Applejack are staying here, so who else is coming?"

Adam, Twilight, Rarity and Pinkie all immediately voiced their assent. "Hold on, you can't just drop a bombshell like that and leave!" Rainbow exclaimed, Applejack nodding along in eager agreement.

"Too late, it's a long journey and we've got to get back before dark," Sunset said loudly as she turned to the door. "We'll see you two later!" She hurried out of the room and back downstairs before anyone else could even move. Luckily for Sunset, she ran into Primrose and a couple of other Disciples bringing her and Twilight's armor up for them. They helped Sunset put hers on at top speed, and agreed to let the others know that she would be waiting in the welcome room for them. 

Embarrassment stung Sunset's cheeks. She couldn't believe that she had outed herself like that, instead of just brushing it off as Pinkie being random. Thankfully, her demeanor must have been giving off the impression that she wanted to be left alone, as none of the residents or Disciples dared to come anywhere near her, despite how crowded the Temple was.

It didn't take long for the others to come downstairs, all clad in their armor save for Adam. Rarity had also thoughtfully provided gloves and scarves for everyone, and she offered Sunset a pair as she entered the room. 

"Thanks," Sunset said gratefully.

"Don't mention it," Rarity replied. "So, where exactly are we off to?"

Sunset showed them the marker in her Pip-Boy map. "There's a diner just southwest of Old Olney. If it's safe enough, we're also to try and check out the Greener Pastures disposal site just slightly to the west. Apparently, odd creatures have been sighted at both locations. Moira wants us to check it out and see if they've been affected by magic."

"The old diner between Old Olney and Greener Pastures?" One of the locals asked, clearly eavesdropping. "You want to be careful up there, the trade caravans call it the Grisly Diner. It's a raider hotspot."

"Really? Huh, thanks, we'll be careful." Sunset smiled and nodded in appreciation before turning back to the others. "You heard him, we might be walking into another raider hideout, so keep your eyes open out there."

With the basic plan outlined, the group left the Temple and headed up to the gates, Fluttershy and Adam making a quick detour to his house to pick up his power armor. The town gates were already open to allow a trade caravan in, forcing the group to stand aside to give the pack Brahmin room to pass. The caravan guards, intent on getting themselves and their animals somewhere warm as soon as possible, didn't seem to even notice the girls.

As soon as they were out of Megaton, Sunset led the group towards Springvale and past the Holy Light Monastery. Unlike the journey to Old Olney, the Rainbooms were intent on following as straight a path as possible to their destination, only making detours to avoid any threats that Fluttershy detected. Such threats were, admittedly, few and far between thanks to the weather, but the ability to avoid problems altogether was something the others were incredibly grateful for.

Even so, the journey wasn't easy. The snow was only getting heavier as time passed, until the group was wading through drifts that reached up to their knees in places. Only Adam had an easy time of it, his power armor allowing him to soldier on as if the rising snow was no more hindrance than a mild breeze. After an hour of struggling, the girls gave up and simply followed in the trenches he left behind, calling out directions to make sure he stayed on the right track.

Eventually, the squad found themselves climbing a gentle slope up towards a small stereotypical old timey diner, clearly the Grisly Diner they were looking for. 

"Alright, everyone, keep your eyes peeled," Sunset warned them. "Fluttershy, can you sense anyone?"

Fluttershy nodded grimly. "Eight people, as far as I can tell. There's five lurking in cover just to the west, and another three hiding just behind the diner. I think they're planning on ambushing us as soon as we go inside."

"Copy that." Sunset subtly glanced over at a collection of snow-covered boulders about fifty yards to the west. "If they've prepared an ambush, then they must know we're here, though the question is how?" She frowned suspiciously at the undisturbed snow in front of the diner's door. 

"No footprints," Rarity noted, clearly thinking along the same lines.

"Exactly. Something screwy is going on," Sunset muttered.

Pinkie bit her lip anxiously. "Uh, aren't we supposed to be looking for freaky animals?"

"Remember the minotaur at the library?" Sunset asked. "The raiders might be the animals."

"Ew, good point," Pinkie said with a grimace. "Okay, what's the plan?"

Sunset gave a nasty grin. "Simple, we spring the trap, and if those fuckers are stupid enough to actually attack us, then we assault the ambush."

"Sounds good to me, but they'll probably have booby-trapped the diner," Adam put in. "Me and Fluttershy will head inside, the rest of you get ready to take care of any idiots who try to attack us."

"Got it," Sunset replied. She knelt down and braced her plasma rifle against her shoulder, Pinkie doing the same with her Party Cannon, while Twilight and Rarity took up ready stances so they could unleash their powers at a moment's notice.

Seeing that they were ready, Fluttershy slung her sniper rifle across her back and drew Vampire's Edge instead. Sunset nodded once to them as the pair stalked towards the diner, then turned her attention back to the boulders the raiders were lurking behind.

For several long seconds, the only sound was the crunching of snow beneath feet, then Fluttershy suddenly hissed in warning, "Landmine!" Swift footsteps kicked snow aside, followed by a series of muffled blasts as a handful of landmines went off.

The noise almost made Sunset look around, but she forced herself to focus as whoops and cheers rang out from the boulders. Five raiders, each of them sporting a set of feathered wings, leapt up into the boulders and brandished their weapons. The moment of posturing cost them dearly as Pinkie fired her Party Cannon.

Blood, limbs, and dislodged snow flew in all directions. When the air cleared, only two stunned raiders were still moving. Rarity and Sunset put them down with ease.

Shouts from the diner snatched Sunset's attention and made her whip around, just in time to see Adam take out the last raider by blasting right through the thin walls of the diner.

"Well, that was nice and easy," Rarity said cheerfully.

"Yeah, for a change," Sunset agreed. She walked over to one of the dead raiders and nudged the corpse with her boot. His wings were laid out slightly differently to a pegasus', and he had curved talons jutting out from where his fingernails should have been. "Griffons. Can't say I was expecting that."

Pinkie and Rarity stepped up next to her. "It seems you were right about the raiders being the animals," Rarity said. "I can imagine that the local caravans were terrified when these brutes started attacking."

"I wouldn't call them brutes," a familiar voice called out, making everyone whip around and raise their weapons in startled surprise. A young woman was leaning casually against the diner wall, drinking Nuka-Cola through a straw. Her curly mess of violently pink hair was a dead giveaway as to whose otherworldly counterpart she was. "They were some of my best customers."

"Diane Pinkamena Pie," Pinkie said in an even tone.

"Oooo, looks like someone remembers me from our last meeting outside Little Lamplight," Diane said cheerfully. She flicked a lock of her hair and grinned. "Lookie lookie, after last time, I started finding these really weird crystals that were talking to me, but without actually talking, and when I gathered up enough of them, they did this!" She flicked her hair again. "Isn't that crazy?"

Pinkie nodded slowly. "Yeah. Real crazy," she replied in an even tone. Sunset noticed with a jolt that although Pinkie didn't have her Party Cannon up and ready, she was still keeping it pointed directly at Diane's face, a little too obviously for it to be unintentional.

"What do you mean, they were customers?" Adam asked suspiciously. 

"I'd sell stuff and they'd buy it, silly!" Diane replied, still grinning widely.

Rarity crossed her arms and scowled. "These people were raiders, and they just attempted to ambush us!"

Diane gave a nonchalant shrug. "They've never been mean to me. Oh well, I've still got Andale and Little Lamplight, so I won't put in a complaint this time. Hey, do you guys mind if I get first dibs on the stuff they've left behind?" She jabbed a thumb towards the diner's entrance. "I kinda need to offset my losses."

"Sure, go nuts," Sunset replied.

"Can do!" Diane exclaimed loudly.

Sunset shook her head and turned away, checking her Pip-Boy map. "Come on, girls, let's check out Greener Pastures."

The others quickly agreed and moved to follow her.

"Oh, Pinkie?" Everyone turned at Diane's call, only to snap their weapons up when they saw her standing right next to Pinkie, holding a submachine gun in one hand and pressing it against Pinkie's head. "Look! I can do that too!"

"I suggest that you lower that gun," Rarity snarled. "Now."

"Okie dokie lokie!" Diane casually whipped the gun away and stuffed it into her hair. "Oh well, I guess I'll see you guys again sometime soon! Bye bye!" Still beaming, she turned and skipped back to the diner, humming a jaunty little tune as she went.

Sunset lowered her rifle and placed a hand on Pinkie's shoulder. "Hey, you okay?"

"I'm fine, let's just get the fuck out of here," Pinkie replied quietly. "Which way?"

Sunset nodded and decided to let it slide for now, "Almost due west," she replied, pointing down a nearby slope. A thick bank of fog sat incongruously in the middle of what looked like a valley, looking almost like a cloud had decided to drop down to earth. 

Fluttershy frowned at the sight of it. "That doesn't look right. Do you think it's more magic?"

"Probably," Sunset admitted. "If so, I guess that must be what's mutating the local wildlife. Come on, let's take a closer look."

Despite the potential danger ahead, everyone walked quickly down the slope towards the ominous bank of fog.

As they walked, Fluttershy sidled up to Sunset, glancing worriedly back over her shoulder. "That wasn't right. How did she manage to sneak up on us? I couldn't even hear her heartbeat until she spoke."

"She's bad news. Really bad news," Pinkie put in. 

"I believe you," Sunset said truthfully. "There's definitely something weird going on there." She sighed and shot Pinkie a guilty look. "Still, I hate to say it, but she's not our problem right now."

"That's fine," Pinkie replied. "Trust me, the less we have to do with her, the happier I'll be."

The girls quietened down as they approached the unusual fog. Sunset could feel Equestrian magic roiling around in it, each step making it clearer and clearer to some sense that she couldn't quite describe. As if to punctuate her thoughts, a faint green light flashed within, proving that magic was indeed at work within the fog.

"That doesn't look promising," Rarity muttered.

"No. No it doesn't," Sunset agreed. Just as she was about to plunge into the fog, her Pip-Boy started ticking wildly, making her backpedal as quickly as she could. "Crap! I forgot that this place is radioactive."

The others backed away warily, except Fluttershy. "I guess this is where I come in," she said almost casually.

"What are you talking about?" Rarity asked.

Fluttershy just shrugged. "I'm technically a more specialised Super Mutant. Radiation isn't a problem for me."

"You're not going in that fog alone," Adam said flatly. "I'm coming in with you."

"Like hell you are. Radiation may heal you to an extent, but you're not immune to radiation poisoning, and we don't have time to wait fifteen minutes for the Rad-X to kick in." Fluttershy cocked her head to the side, listening intently. "Besides, I don't think we have to go in. Something is coming to us."

Sunset raised her plasma rifle, ready to engage any monster that came barreling out of the fog, only to be surprised as an oversized fly buzzed lazily into view. It's body was an astonishingly bright blue, and it had a sickeningly bloated abdomen.

"Ugh, a bloatfly," Adam grumbled. "They're horrible things. They hunt by literally firing their own barbed little larvae up to a dozen feet or so, and they're usually perfectly happy attacking people. I've never seen one that color before, though."

The group watched curiously as the bloatfly, contrary to what Adam said, completely ignored the lot of them and settled down on a snow-covered rock. It scampered awkwardly down into the ground, then started eating something that had clearly been buried by the constant snowfall.

"I don't think this one is interested in attacking," Pinkie said.

Sunset shook her head. "Nah, I think we're- what the hell?!"

Apparently done with its meal, the bloatfly climbed back onto the boulder. Its proboscis bulged and flexed obscenely then it vomited up a thick wad of foul brown goo. Even as the group watched in horrified fascination, the goo rippled and changed shape until it morphed into another bloatfly, identical to its parent in every way except color.

"That's not a bloatfly, it's a fucking mutant parasprite!" Sunset exclaimed.

Rarity took a few tentative steps back. "That's not a good thing, is it?"

Sunset shook her head. "No. Back in Equestria, those things eat everything that's edible and reproduce at a terrifying rate, not stopping until they've consumed every single scrap of food in the area. We need to warn people to stay the hell away from this place."

"On a related note, we should probably leave as soon as possible. Now, in fact," Fluttershy suggested, backing away from the fog quickly enough to worry the others. "There's more of them coming. A lot more."

The group shared a dumbfounded look, then turned and belted up the hill as quickly as they could move. Sunset glanced back over her shoulder as she ran. A colossal swarm of parasprites slowly came into view, massing right at the very edge of the fog, but not moving any further. A little flash of relief flickered through her at the revelation that the parasprites apparently didn't want to leave the fog, but it was quickly stifled by a much darker realization. 

If the parasprites ever did decide to leave the fog, and displayed a liking for the same kind of food as their bloatfly cousins, then the wasteland was in deep shit.
> Chapter 120 - Wasteland Survival Guide: Crystal Finish
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset stepped outside the Temple doors and stretched in the morning sun. It had finally stopped snowing, at least for the moment, and a break in the clouds was letting a little light and warmth through. Admittedly, the bright light reflecting off snow and metal forced everyone who dared step outside to squint or risk snow-blindness, but that hadn't stopped people from taking advantage of the brief respite to run some errands.

Glancing up towards the tavern, Sunset smiled as she saw that the sign had been altered, with the word 'Moriarty's' painted over with 'Gob's' in big white letters. Since the not-quite-unfortunate demise of its previous owner, and in the absence of any written will, Sheriff Simms had decided that the establishment would be passed down to its oldest employee.

"What are you thinking?" Fluttershy asked. 

Sunset turned to see the rest of the Rainbooms filing out of the Temple behind her. "Not much. Just getting a breath of fresh air. AJ, how are your hands?"

Applejack flexed her fingers experimentally. "Well Ah ain't gonna be strummin' the bass anytime soon, but they'll do."

"Please tell me that wasn't a euphemism," Twilight muttered.

Rainbow smirked at her. "If she needs help strumming, all she has to do is ask Rar-ow! Fucking bitch tits!"

"Ah can still give you a dead arm, you foul-mouthed strumpet," Applejack growled, rubbing her knuckles.

"Enough," Sunset cut in as Rainbow stuck her tongue out. "Rainbow, are you still good to go to the Citadel?"

Rainbow nodded and rolled her shoulders. "Yeah, yeah, just gotta warn them about the parasprites, right?'

"And let Elder Lyons know that music might be effective as a means of containment or control. That's how Equestria's Pinkie dealt with them," Sunset reminded her. "Make sure he passes the message on to the Enclave, and they can decide amongst themselves whether they're going to go with opera or ordnance. And don't forget to keep an eye out for that other speedster."

"I will," Rainbow promised. "I'll make sure I have my super speed switched on the whole way there and back, so my reflexes are maxed out. That skank won't get the drop on me again."

"Good girl. If we're not in Megaton when you get back, just wait here at the Temple for us," Sunset told her. 

Rainbow nodded again. "Got it. Later!" There was a quick flash of light as she ponied up followed by a blur as she soared into the air and away.

The girls stared after her for a few moments, but the cold quickly convinced them to hurry on up to Craterside Supply. Adam was waiting outside the store for the group . Inside, as always, Moira was standing behind the counter, intensely scrutinizing her file. "Oh, hey!" She said brightly when she spotted the girls. "I was wondering when you were going to get back."

"We actually got back last night, but the store was already closed," Sunset replied. 

"Sorry, I closed up early last night." Moira eagerly snatched up a pen and a clipboard. "Okay, did you check out the diner? What about the disposal site? Tell me everything!"

Sunset and leaned against the counter. "The diner didn't have any weird animals. It was just raiders who had managed to get their hands on some magic. The disposal site, though… that was something else."

"What do you mean?" Moira asked.

Together, the girls explained about the parasprites, and told her to spread the word that, should more creatures matching their description be sighted, the Brotherhood and the Enclave must be notified as quickly as possible.

"Fascinating, and a little concerning," Moira said as she noted it all down. "And with that done, I think it's time for payment!" She reached under the counter and lifted up a small box containing a handful of what looked like oversized stimpaks and a pair of tin cans with wires sticking out of them. "Here. I had these super stimpaks imported directly from the Mojave Wasteland." 

"Super stimpaks?" Fluttershy picked one up gingerly. "I've heard of these. They're supposed to be effective, but dangerous if not used carefully."

Pinkie plucked one of the tin cans out of the box. "What are these?"

"Nuka Grenades," Moira said proudly. "I made them myself. Be careful with them, I'm told they go off with a pretty big bang."

"All yours, Pinkie," Sunset said quickly, before anyone suggested that they give one to Rainbow Dash. "So, what's next on the agenda?"

Moira grinned. "You know those magic crystals that are popping up all over the wasteland? Well, I was hoping that you could help me figure out how to use them properly, and we could put that in the book. It would help keep people from making the same dangerous mistakes that I made when I was experimenting with them."

"Ah don't know. Ain't that information a little dangerous to be spreadin' around?" Applejack asked. "What if raiders get hold of it? Or worse?"

Twilight shrugged. "It's a fair point, but pretty much all of the information in this survival guide could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Plus, some raiders have already figured out how to use the crystals. At least this way people are less likely to hurt themselves with them."

Sunset was inclined to agree, but telling the world how said crystals could be used to enhance weaponry just seemed to be asking for trouble. She doubted that the Brotherhood of Steel or the Enclave would be particularly happy about it either. A compromise was in order. "We can tell you how to know which crystals are safe to use, and how to pony up with them, but that's it. You'll probably be best off saying that experimenting beyond that is dangerous, or you might get the Brotherhood of Steel breathing down your neck."

"Fair enough. It's a shame, but I see what you're getting at." Moira flipped to a blank page in her file and held her pen up expectantly. "Ready?"

"Actually, if you don't need me for this, I'm going to head out to the Holy Light Monastery," Adam cut in. "One of the Children of Atom told me that the Apostles were hoping for a word."

"I'll come with you," Fluttershy said quickly.

Once the pair had left, Sunset sighed and turned back to Moira, who was staring at her pointedly. Explaining how the crystals worked wasn't too difficult, especially with the rest of the Rainbooms chipping in with their own experiences of ponying up.

When Moira had finished writing everything down, including the many warnings the girls gave her of the dangers of the crystals, she stood up and braced herself against the counter, staring down at the file in awe. "It's finished. My Wasteland Survival Guide… it's finished."

"Really?" Sunset asked. Moira just nodded slowly.

Applejack coughed awkwardly. "You, uh, don't need us to go and get it printed for you, do you?"

"No," Moira replied with a shake of her head. "I was originally going to ask you to get the manuscript to the old Hubris Comics building for me, but I managed to make my own arrangements instead."

"Wow." Sunset looked down at the file with an odd mix of relief and disappointment. "I guess... that's that, then?"

Moira nodded. "That's that. All I have to do now is polish up the manuscript and get it printed. Oh! And your rewards! One second!" She darted out from behind the counter and disappeared into a back room, only to reappear a few minutes later carrying a heavy-looking box and a particularly large bomb. She hefted them onto the counter and patted dust off her hands. "There. The last of the magic crystals that my toaster didn't eat, and my mini-nuke. I was saving it to dig a well, but it mostly just makes me nervous."

"Did you just say a mini nuke?!" Pinkie asked incredulously. "I found one of those in the Super Duper Mart. I've been keeping it next to my bed! Where I sleep!"

"Yeah, I wouldn't do that if I were you," Moira told her. She patted her file affectionately. "Still, I can't believe that we've actually finished the guide, and it's all thanks to you. I'll make sure to put in the book that all of you were instrumental in getting this done, and I'll keep the first copy aside as a gift for you as soon as I get it printed."

Sunset smiled at her, glad to have finally gotten something right since arriving back at Megaton. "I'm just glad that we were able to help." She directed Applejack to grab the crystals and the bomb, then said her goodbyes to Moira and headed out of the store. It had already started to gently snow again. "Okay. What next?"





A tense mood filled the Citadel's Great Hall. Elder Lyons fought back a faint feeling of nausea and looked around at the gathered Brotherhood leadership, silently lamenting those who had fallen at the air force base, and appraising the new faces around the table who were replacing them.

Eden skittered around on the table in front of Lyons, drawing wary looks from many of those present. "No Maxson today?" 

"No, I sent him and Squire Peters with the Wonderbolts to reinforce the Galaxy News outpost," Lyons replied. "It's about time the lad got a taste of what the wasteland is like."

"They're going to be meeting an Enclave fireteam there, so he's probably going to get a taste of diplomacy as well, given Three Dog's feelings on the Enclave," Sarah added.

Paladin Bergen grimaced. "Shouldn't the Wonderbolts be staying here to assist with the assault on Raven Rock?"

Several of the other Knights nodded and murmured their agreement, prompting Sarah to speak up, "We don't want to commit all of our strength to this one assault, just in case something goes wrong. Rest assured, I will personally be leading the Lyons' Pride on this assault, and we'll have plenty of additional troops there to back us up."

"What of Liberty Prime?" One of the Scribes asked. 

"Liberty Prime will continue protecting the water caravans," Elder Lyons replied. He raised his voice as several of the assembled leaders voiced their disapproval, "The cramped confines of the mountain would render Liberty Prime almost useless, so he would be better used protecting our interests elsewhere in the wastes."

"And the Rainbooms?" A Knight piped up. "We're going to be facing magic. Why aren't they here?"

Elder Lyons shook his head. His response to that exact question had been well-rehearsed. "The Rainbooms are not going to be with us forever. We have to learn how to fight magic without their aid. Besides, the Enclave is going to be sending troops of their own to supplement our strike force. President Shoichet has promised that Horrigan will be placed at our disposal." He smiled grimly at the shocked looks on the others' faces. "I don't think I need to tell you how much of an asset that, ahem, soldier will be."

"How long until we are ready to strike?" Bergen asked.

"President Shoichet is currently overseeing an important experiment at the Exodus building," Elder Lyons replied. He felt his pulse quicken at the thought that the Enclave was, at that very moment, preparing to test their interdimensional portal. "Therefore, she will be sending her forces to meet ours here tomorrow at noon. That is when we will march on Raven Rock."





Deep in the bowels of Raven Rock, a young woman sat on a throne of glowing amethyst, secretly watching the Brotherhood of Steel's meeting through the clueless eyes of Eden. She sighed heavily when she heard that the Brotherhood and Enclave would finally be sending troops after her. "Oh well, I suppose it was only a matter of time."

The woman stood, and the magic of the mountain pulsed as she related her psychic command through it to every crystalline creature and spirit that lived within. "The time has come. Go to the Citadel and await my command." 

An orchestra of chiming notes filled the mountain as the mutated inhabitants all moved as one to fulfill their new orders. The woman fingered her Geode idly as she walked through the tunnels towards the surface. "The Rainbooms are a threat, but they may also be the key to success. I believe that they are still at the settlement known as Megaton. Perfect." A wicked smile worked its way across her face. "I shall deal with them personally."
> Chapter 121 - Déjà vu
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tara waited nervously in the Exodus building's courtyard. Security had been ramped up considerably, with two dozen soldiers stationed around the courtyard, and Horrigan himself standing guard beside Tara.

The Exodus building was absolutely buzzing with the news. Barely a handful of the personnel assigned to the outpost had any idea of what was actually going on in the sub-levels, but they knew that it was something important. It had to be, there was no other reason for the President herself to come and inspect it in person.

Thankfully, at least as far as Tara was concerned, the few civilian personnel who weren't otherwise engaged were being kept inside and away for safety reasons.

A dull roar announced the approach of the President's Vertibird, flanked at a safe distance by two dedicated gunships. The gunships split off and moved to sweep the perimeter as the President's Vertibird slowed to a hover over the courtyard. Everyone present tensed as the Vertibird descended cautiously, until finally it landed with a gentle bump and lowered its crew ramp.

Agent Drops was the first to disembark. Her suspicious gaze swept over the courtyard twice before she turned back and gestured to someone within. 

Tara felt the heat rise in her cheeks as Becky strode down the Vertibird's ramp. It had only been a day or so since they'd last seen each other, but something about the over-the-top manner of Becky's arrival, not to mention the very fetching three-piece suit that she was wearing, made Tara's heart beat just a little bit faster. 

"Doctor Strong," Becky said by way of greeting, maintaining a professional attitude for now.

"Madame President," Tara greeted, barely managing to keep her voice even. Following standard protocol, she gestured for Becky to come inside. "Please, this way."

The two fell in step as they headed into the building, shadowed by Agent Drops. Horrigan waited until his charges were safely inside before turning and heading towards the cargo elevator.

Neither woman spoke as they walked through the building. Tara briefly wondered if something was wrong, but it wasn't long before she realized that Becky was simply holding herself back until she was out of sight of potential trouble.

When they reached the elevator to the sub-levels, Agent Drops had Tara enter first, followed by Becky, and finally herself. The second the doors closed Becky sighed with relief and slumped over. "Jesus this job is a pain in the ass."

"How was your flight?" Tara asked.

"Boring," Becky replied with a huff. "Still, it makes a change from putting out fires all fucking day. Has communication between here and the Citadel been set up yet?"

Tara nodded. "Yes, we finished getting the radio transmitter set up last night."

"Good, that's one less thing to worry about." Becky took a deep breath and glanced at Tara. "Okay. Tell me. How is the portal thing going? Is it actually ready?"

"It's ready," Tara replied with a grin. "We've quadruple checked everything, from our plasma variance equations to our wiring connections, and we've added in every kind of safety feature we can think of. We're ready."

Becky nodded and broke into a slow smile. "Okay. Let's do this."





"It's quiet. It's always quiet here," Turner mumbled to himself. He was idly flicking through the pages of the most recent book he had been given, a battered old copy of The Magician's Nephew, and wondering how the creation of the interdimensional portal above was going. "Soon? Maybe. Patience… yes. Must be patient."

Almost as soon as he thought it, the sound of the cell door being unlocked made Turner jump. He managed to school his warped features into an expression of mild curiosity just as the door creaked open.

"Doctor Turner?" Michaels whispered loudly as he stepped inside. He was a scrawny thing, a skinny shadow of his former self. "The President is here, she's overseeing the activation of the portal. It's time."

"Excellent!" Turner tossed the book aside and stood up quickly. "We have to do something about that. Can you get me up to the portal unseen?"

Michaels shook his head. "The portal is too busy and too heavily guarded. They do have a separate control room for it, though. I should be able to get you to that without too much trouble."

"Oky doky. Lead on, sir!" Turner said eagerly. 

"Quietly," Michaels hissed. 

"Right, right," Turner muttered apologetically. 

The two crept through the seemingly deserted corridors of the Exodus building. Turner was initially suspicious of the lack of people around, but he soon realized that the majority of the building's personnel would naturally be dealing with the portal. It was, after all, the reason for the team's existence.

Slowly, the pair made their way up from the cell block to the main hangar level. Every now and again, Michaels would stop and drag Turner into a side room as a scientist went wandering past, but the pair were lucky enough to avoid getting spotted. 

After an interminable amount of time spent sneaking around, Turner was relieved when Michaels finally pointed to an inconspicuous door just ahead and whispered, "That's the control room, I overheard Doctor John talking about it with one of the techs earlier."

Turner nodded and whispered back, "We'll need to take control of it quietly. Can you do that?"

Michaels just smirked and drew a bloody knife from his sleeve. He put a finger to his lips, crept to the door, then quickly swept it open and lunged inside. There were brief sounds of a scuffle and a muffled cry of pain, followed by silence. Turner idly wondered how many Exodus personnel Michaels had already killed as he sauntered into the control room.

A whole network of terminals and computers had been set up inside. Two scientists were lying on the floor in spreading pools of their own blood, while Michaels was leaning against one of the computers and cleaning his blade. "What now?" The soldier asked.

"I'll see what I can do from here," Turner replied. "Can you keep watch? Make sure that no-one comes in here."

Michaels nodded and sheathed his blade. As he made to step past Turner, the doctor suddenly lashed out with his mutated hand. The corrupted magic within easily tore through Michaels' head like a hot knife through butter, splattering gore around the room and making him drop to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Oh, that was a little more effective than expected," Turner said brightly to himself. "My apologies, soldier, but this portal might just be the biggest discovery in history, and I refuse to let petty politicking stand in the way of scientific progress."

Turner gently nudged Michaels' corpse aside and stepped over to the terminals. "Now then, let's see…" He started typing away, eagerly devouring every scrap of information he could on the coming experiment. 

"Excellent work, Doctor Strong, I'm impressed," Turner muttered to himself. "What's this?" He grimaced at what he saw. "Oh, no, this won't do! Look at all these safety protocols and emergency shutoffs! Good grief, Tara, what are you thinking? How are you going to make any progress if your equipment shuts off at the first sign of a blip?!" Turner sighed heavily, then cracked his knuckles. "Not to worry, I know how to fix this."





The portal hangar was oddly quiet. Dozens of scientists and technicians were scurrying around, making last minute checks and confirming data, but every conversation was conducted in hushed whispers, as if they were afraid that speaking too loudly might disrupt their equipment.

Becky could hardly blame them. 

Standing before the portal was a truly awe-inspiring experience. If all went well, this machine would be able to punch a hole in time and space, opening up a doorway to a completely different reality.

Of course, Becky wasn't standing directly before the portal; Agent Drops was leery of letting her even be in the same room with it, given the potential dangers. Instead, she was standing with Tara, Vincent, Agent Drops, and Horrigan, behind a protective barricade of reinforced steel and layers of reinforced ballistic glass. A terminal and an intercom had been set up on a desk for Tara to use. Similar systems had been placed around the room at set intervals for everyone else to duck behind as soon as the experiment started.

"I still think we should have a squad down here for security," Agent Drops said sourly. "We can't be certain that something hostile will manage to slip through the portal."

Becky sighed and rolled her eyes. The agent was only doing her job, but it still rankled at times. "The Lieutenant Colonel already said that our troops are better placed outside, keeping the surface secure. Besides, if something comes through that's powerful enough to get past Horrigan, a single squad isn't going to be able to stop it."

"More soldiers would just get in my way," Horrigan rumbled.

"I highly doubt anything will come through anyway, given that we're not actually opening a portal today," Tara cut in.

Becky nodded, but Agent Drops looked around at Tara in surprise. "You're not?"

Tara shook her head and gave a slightly sad smile. "As much as I would love to, no. All we're doing today is activating the machine on a very low setting to see if it all works properly. The SDT-1 is a delicate piece of equipment, so we may only get one shot at actually opening a proper portal. In light of that, we feel that it's wisest to test the machine in stages, incrementally increasing the power each time, and thoroughly reviewing every tiny scrap of data we get before we even consider full power."

"And that's before we even get into the safety precautions," Becky added. "They are all ready, right?"

"Ready, checked, and tested," Tara confirmed. "The main portal controls are in a completely separate shielded room, to prevent excess magic from affecting the terminals and preventing a manual shutdown. Said controls are designed to shut the portal down if something even remotely seems off. If something does go wrong, we have systems in place to physically sever every single power cable and magical fuel line connected to the portal, which can be activated either from the control room, from the terminal here, or using the manual lever that Doctor Evans is standing next to over there." Tara gave Agent Drops a serious look. "Safety has been our number one priority here."

Becky felt a little relieved at the sight of Agent Drops' mollified expression. She was about to ask Tara about the specifications of the portal when a waving technician caught her eye. "What does he want?"

Tara glanced and broke out into a grin. "That's the sign that everything's ready." She looked around to make sure that everyone was safely behind their protective barriers, then leaned down to the microphone. "All operators, confirm that your stations are green." A series of confirmation messages popped up on the terminal. "Alright, we're going into Test Phase. Control room, switch electricity on."

A soft hum filled the room as the machinery around the portal was switched on. A swarm of blinking lights came to life all over the machine, making it look almost like a bizarre Christmas tree. 

"All operators, confirm that your stations are green," Tara said again. When she got all of the confirmation messages, she glanced at Becky, practically vibrating with excitement. "This is it!" Tara turned back to the intercom. "Control room, initialise magical generators, maintain power at 1%."

The magical crystals studding the machinery all began to glow softly, and a pale white light seemed to flicker around the ring itself like ghostly flames.

Tara's eyes were glued to her terminal. She let the equipment stay active for a mere thirty seconds, then nodded and said through the intercom, "Experiment successful. Control room, deactivate all systems and run cool down protocols." She straightened up and beamed at Becky. "That's it! It worked!"

"That was… actually pretty cool," Becky said, though she suspected that others would have considered it underwhelming. "Okay, I'm sorry to love you and leave you, but I've got an assault on Raven Rock to prepare for, and for some reason the Brotherhood wants me to help set up a bunch of radios and an outpost at the old Greener Pastures disposal site." She gave Tara a quick hug and looked over at the portal. "Say, should that still be humming and glowing like that?"

Tara followed her gaze and frowned. The crystals and the flickering light were slowly getting brighter. "No, it should have switched off instantly." She glanced at the terminal, then lunged for the intercom. "Control room, deactivate all systems!"

"What's going on?!" Agent Drops demanded.

"The power level is going up," Tara replied. "Vincent, find out what's going on in the control room! All operators, activate failsafes!" She typed a command into the terminal and looked up at the portal, the blood draining from her face. "It's not working?!"

The intercom suddenly crackled into life. "Sorry, Doctor Strong, but I can't let this experiment fail just because you're a little too timid."

"Turner?!" Becky and Tara spat in unison.

"Don't worry, Tara," Turner said brightly. "I'll fix it for you."

The gentle hum suddenly became a dull roar that shook the ground as multi-colored lightning arced around the ring. 

"It's at full power!" Tara yelled. "Evans! Pull the leve-"

"Too late!" Agent Drops grabbed Becky and Tara and forced them to the ground. Becky caught a quick glimpse of a writhing black mass bursting into existence in the center of the ring before she hit the ground. A split second later a colossal explosion shook the building and plunged the hangar into darkness.





Canterlot High was nice and peaceful for a change. Vice Principal Luna welcomed it. The last couple of days had been an absolute nightmare, and the presence of a bonafide changeling had made the two heads of the school understandably paranoid.

Luna sighed as she walked towards the Diviner room. She had just seen off Starswirl and Princess Twilight, who were heading back to Equestria to pick up more crystals on account of some problem with calibration. Hopefully, the issues with the portal would be fixed soon, and the Rainbooms would be back safe and sound. 

As she rounded the corner to the Diviner room, Luna heard raised voices coming from within. Very distinctive voices. She frowned and pushed the door open, not having to look to know what was going on. "Will you two please stop arguing?!"

Sonata and Trixie were both standing in front of the Diviner, arguing again. They flinched and turned to look at Luna then jabbed a finger at each other. "She started it!" They yelled in perfect harmony.

"I don't care who started it, neither of you are supposed to be in here!" Luna huffed. "What are you even doing here in the first place?" She immediately regretted her question as both girls started talking over each other. "Alright, alright. Trixie, what are you doing here?"

Trixie glared daggers at Sonata before answering, "The Great and Powerful Trixie was just feeling a little… not herself, and decided to make sure that the Diviner was secure. That's when I found her already here."

Luna held a hand up to silence the coming retort. "And Sonata? What are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to see the portal," she said simply. "I miss home, and this is the closest I can get to it."

Such a simple and innocent answer momentarily threw Luna off. "Right, well, as I said, neither of you are supposed to be here. Come on, out."

Trixie snorted and stepped right up to the Diviner's mirror, crossing her arms and lifting her chin. "Trixie is going nowhere until Princess Twilight gets back. She wants to know how long it will be until her friends get back."

"I understand that you miss the girls, we all do, but this isn't helping," Luna told her. "Come on, you can wait in my office if you really-"

She was cut off as the Diviner suddenly let out a faint hum. Luna's heart leapt into her mouth and she threw herself between the mirror and Sonata, fearing that any residual magic in the Siren might get her dragged towards it. 

Barely a second later the hum faded away, leaving Luna panting in a cold sweat. She heaved a sigh and placed a hand over her chest, trying to calm her suddenly pounding heart. "What on earth? I thought the Diviner was switched off?" Luna shook her head and remembered her priorities. "Both of you get out, now. It's not safe."

"R-right," Trixie said anxiously. Just as she turned away, a bellowing roar thundered out from the Diviner. A split second later a thick black cloud erupted across the surface of the mirror.

Luna didn't even have time to shout a warning before something slammed hard into her back.
> Chapter 122 - Moons of Fallout
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset stood with Primrose near the top of the Temple's main staircase, looking down at the brazier blazing away below. "It really is kinda beautiful, isn't it?"

"It is," Primrose agreed. "I feel like I could watch it for hours, sometimes."

"Is it just pure magic, or have you added some kind of fuel to it as well?" Sunset asked.

Primrose shook her head. "No, it's entirely formed from magic. The first embers were brought from the Helix Glow in the Church of Atom, and we add a portion of any magic we acquire to it every evening."

"Huh." Sunset briefly considered asking what the heck the Helix Glow was, but decided against it. 

The pair quickly settled into a companionable silence, content to simply watch the Disciples and visitors below going about their day. Watching the sheer number of people who came to pay their respects, Sunset suddenly found herself feeling self-conscious, especially since many of the people who came and delivered gifts were residents that she regularly saw around Megaton.

Just as she was considering running and hiding in her room, Sunset saw Adam, Fluttershy, and Rainbow enter the Temple. 

"Oh, all three of them are together?" Primrose glanced at Sunset. "Would you like me to inform the others, Lady Shimmer?"

"Yeah, please," Sunset replied. "Thanks, Prim."

"Not at all, Miss Shimmer." Primrose bowed and hurried upstairs to find the rest of the Rainbooms. 

Sunset smiled and settled herself against the railings as she looked down at the three new arrivals. A passing Disciple apparently told the trio where the others were, as they all nodded and started making their way up the stairs. When they were about halfway up, Fluttershy suddenly smiled and looked up to wave at Sunset, as if she had expected her to be there. Sunset just waved back, belatedly marveling at how impressive her friend's enhanced senses were.

"Hey, I was wondering when you were going to get back," Sunset said as the three finally reached her. "Did you run into each other on the way back?"

Rainbow nodded. "Yeah, I spotted these two coming back from the Monastery when I was circling around, so I figured I'd come in with them. Also, I haven't seen any sign of that other speedster. I think she's laying low."

"Good. Hopefully she's managed to get herself eaten by a Deathclaw or something, but I doubt we're that lucky." Sunset straightened up and stretched. "Either way, the Wasteland Survival Guide is finally all done and dusted. Moira is going to give us a copy when she gets it all printed." She glanced up at the stairs leading to the girls' bedrooms. "We've got our next objective too, if you're up for it. Applejack wants to head over to the Regulator HQ that Simms mentioned so she can set her record straight."

Sunset looked back at the others just in time to see them share an uneasy look.

"Actually, um, we've run into a little bit of a problem," Fluttershy ventured. 

Resisting the strange urge she felt to groan with frustration, Sunset forced herself to ask calmly, "What problem?"

"We picked up a radio transmission from Vault 101," Adam replied. "From Amata, specifically. She says that the Overseer has gone completely nuts, and she wants our help."

Sunset's first gut reaction was to tell them to screw off, but she almost immediately changed her mind. Amata had gone far out of her way to help the Rainbooms, the least they could do was hear her out, and Adam deserved some closure too. "Okay, as soon as the others come down, we'll go and see what she has to say." She smiled wryly. "You never know, by the time we get back we might even get a message from the Enclave saying that the portal is ready. That would be poetic."

As soon as she said it, Sunset felt a strange pulse in the air. "What the…?"

"What's wrong?" Fluttershy asked.

Sunset shook her head. "I'm not sure." She frowned and turned to stare at the wall, her senses still tingling. "I thought I just felt a surge of Equestrian magic from somewhere." She sighed and turned back to the others. "Probably just the magic in the walls acting up."





Luna groaned and raised her head. Alarms were blaring, louder and deeper than the school fire alarm, and she could hear people shouting somewhere nearby, but the room around her was utterly pitch black. A sudden thrill of fear flickered through her at the thought that she might have been blinded, but Luna forced it down. Her back felt odd, too, unfamiliar sensations coupled with an odd feeling of weight combining to make her feel strangely unbalanced.

Pushing herself to her feet, Luna struggled to piece together what had happened. She remembered the Diviner activating, then Sonata had slammed her in the back, shoving her towards the portal and the other person standing in front of it. She didn't know whether the lack of any pain was a good sign or not.

Silently cursing the darkness, Luna fished her smartphone out of her pocket and switched on its flashlight. It didn't illuminate much, but it was enough for her to spot two figures lying on the ground next to her. "Trixie?! Sonata?! Are you both alright?!"

"I think I scraped my knee," Sonata replied, sounding more annoyed than hurt.

Luna nodded, satisfied that she was fine, and looked down at Trixie. "Trixie? Are you alright? Miss Lulamoon, answer me!" 

"Ow." Luna felt a wave of relief as Trixie raised her head and blinked in the torchlight. "What happened?"

"I think we were sucked into the portal," Luna replied. She decided not to mention her suspicion that it was the residual magic in Sonata that had dragged her in, accidentally knocking the other two through on her way. The last thing the Vice Principal needed was for the girls to start throwing blame at each other. "Are you injured?"

Trixie sat up and shook her head. "I don't think so." She picked up her hat and stuck it on her head, then frowned and squinted into the darkness. "Where are we?"

Just as Luna opened her mouth to say that she didn't have a clue, the alarms suddenly stopped. Unfortunately, any relief she felt at that was marred by the fact that she could still hear unseen people talking anxiously nearby. 

"We've got company," a deep voice rumbled loudly, making the three flinch. A second later a bright light burst into life a short way away. Luna instinctively stepped protectively in front of the girls as the light approached, noting with concern that it was at least twelve feet off the ground, and accompanied by impossibly heavy footsteps. She fought the urge to quake as a massive humanoid wearing what could only be described as a futuristic suit of full plate armor stomped into the light of her phone, the bright light coming from its helmet. "Hmph, looks like more Rainbooms."

"Rainbooms?" Luna blurted out despite herself.

"Step aside, Horrigan, let me through!" An oddly familiar voice rang out. The giant shifted to the side, making way for a woman to step into the light. "Oh, balls."

Luna glanced warily up at the giant, Horrigan, before turning her attention to the woman. She had shoulder-length brown hair and was wearing an impeccably tailored suit, and there was something about her face that niggled at the back of Luna's mind. Whoever she was, she was clearly in charge. "Who are you? How do you know the Rainbooms?" Luna asked.

"That's… a long story," the woman replied.

"And one that we're not telling here," another voice said firmly from beyond the light. "Madam President, I must insist that we get you somewhere safer immediately," they added, cementing Luna's belief that the woman in front of her was in charge.

The President glared over her shoulder into the darkness. "I'm not going anywhere until I know what state the portal is in." As if in response to her rebuttal, there was a loud clang and the area was suddenly bathed in blinding light. "Finally. Right, how's the… oh, god damnit."

Still blinking from the sudden illumination, Luna turned to see what the President was staring at. A huge metal ring stood at the top of a short metal ramp, connected to heavy banks of machinery and computers that vaguely resembled the Geode Diviner, though much bulkier and retro-looking. Unfortunately, both the ring and its accompanying machinery were blackened and twisted, as if they had been scorched by intense heat.

"Let me guess, that's the portal that brought us here?" Luna asked flatly.

"I'm afraid so," the President replied sadly.

Sonata groaned loudly. "Seriously?! I'm stuck in some dumb other world again?!"

"And, surprise surprise, it's your fault, again!" Trixie snapped.

"This one isn't my fault!" Sonata shot back.

"Girls, this isn't the time," Luna cut in firmly. She was about to turn back to the President when she spotted something odd out of the corner of her eye. Trixie's hair was at least a foot or two longer than usual and, with her hat lying on the floor, two animal-like ears could be seen poking up from the top of her head, sure signs of the magic the Rainbooms usually wielded. "Trixie? What…?"

Trixie looked up at Luna curiously, and her eyes almost popped out of her skull. "Vice-Principal?! When did you get wings?!"

"Wings?" Luna turned on the spot like a twit, then realized what she was doing and glanced over her shoulder instead. Her jaw dropped when she saw a set of magnificent dark blue wings extending from her own back. "I… how?"

"The excess magic in the portal must have ponied you up," the President said, almost to herself.

Luna nodded slowly, staring absently at her new appendages. "Magic… right…" A sudden realisation made Luna gasp and snap her gaze to Sonata, but the Siren was strangely unchanged.

"The Raingoons broke my amulet, remember?" Sonata said in a tone that dripped with acid.

Luna nodded again, not bothering with an apology. The Dazzlings had brought that particular misfortune upon themselves. Taking a deep breath to compose herself, Luna turned back to the President, determinedly avoiding looking at Horrigan. "Alright, Madam President, who are you people? Where are we? Why did you bring us here? And how do you know about the Rainbooms and their magic?"

The President looked between the three visitors curiously, then sighed heavily. "I'll answer all of your questions, but first let's get somewhere a little more comfortable." She gave the ruined portal one last wistful look before turning and walking away, gesturing for the others to follow. "This way."

Following a group of complete strangers deeper into an unknown complex, one of whom appeared to be an oversized sci-fi villain, didn't exactly seem like a good idea to Luna, but her options were limited. She looked back at the girls. Trixie was looking anxiously between the strangers and Luna herself, while Sonata's expression was it's usual blank self, though whether that was due to confusion or apathy was anybody's guess.

Luna sighed softly. "Come on, girls. Stay close to me."

Sonata and Trixie both nodded, the latter sweeping up her hat before falling into step behind their Vice-Principal.

The President, flanked by Horrigan and another woman, led the trio through the large room, which Luna now noticed looked like some sort of warehouse filled with metallic barricades facing the portal. Scientists were gathered around the barricades, most of them either eyeing the newcomers with surprise or poring over notes, though a few were simply staring at the portal despondently.

"Tara, come with me," the President called out as they passed a huddle of scientists. One of them, a blonde woman with glasses and an agitated expression that reminded Luna of Twilight Sparkle, split off and hurried to join the group. "The rest of you, I want a report waiting for me as soon as physically possible. And get a squad down here to look for Vincent and Turner!"

As the other scientists scattered to obey, the President marched purposefully towards a set of huge metal doors leading out of the warehouse. The yet-unnamed woman, Luna assumed she was a bodyguard of some sort, pressed a button in the wall and the doors slowly slid open.

The three newcomers gasped at the scene that greeted them. Another warehouse lay on the other side of the doors. Unlike the first one, this one was dotted with all sorts of metal crates and storage containers, but the trio's eyes were immediately drawn to the massive pillar of swirling multicoloured lights rising up in the middle of the room. A short metal fence with a small gate cordoned off the base of it, while the top rose up and out through a hole in the ceiling. A melodious tune, like thousands of crystal bells, emanates from the pillar. There was no doubt in Luna's mind that Equestrian magic was at play.

Without looking back, the President made a beeline for the pillar and leaned on the fence, looking up into the kaleidoscopic morass. Tara quickly stood next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder as Horrigan and the bodyguard took up flanking positions on either side of the pair. 

"This is more comfortable?" Luna asked suspiciously.

"It's open enough that no-one can eavesdrop on us without being noticed," the President replied without looking back. "Given the circumstances of your arrival, I'd say it's probably safer to stay here than go wandering through the corridors further on."

"What does that mean?" Trixie asked.

The bodyguard threw the President a pointed look. "It means what we should be doing is heading to the elevator and getting Potus back to HQ. There are plenty of scientists either here or there who are perfectly capable of debriefing our new visitors."

"Not a chance, Agent Drops," the President countered firmly. She took a deep breath and turned around to look at Luna. "Right, your questions. I can only give you a brief rundown for now, but I promise you'll get more details soon. First of all, we're an organisation called the Enclave, of which I'm the President. Essentially, we're the last remnant of this country's former government, parts of the military, and certain business conglomerates."

"The remnants?" Luna frowned. "Was there some sort of rebellion or something?" She kept her tone carefully neutral. Looking back on what she knew of history, any coalition of corporations and government officials that was toppled by the people tended to thoroughly deserve it, and weren't usually the sort of people you could afford to offend.

Surprisingly, the President just laughed. "God, no. Things would probably be easier if there had been." Her expression quickly soured. "There was a nuclear war around two hundred years ago. The vast majority of the world's civilisations were wiped out, and the environment has largely been reduced to an irradiated wasteland."

Luna felt a shiver run down her spine. "I hope you're just trying to make a bad joke."

"I wish," Tara said quietly. "You'll see for yourself when you head up to the surface."

"The surface? Are we underwater?" Sonata asked curiously. 

"Underground, actually," the President replied. "This is an old pre-war facility we reoccupied with the express purpose of building a portal to your world."

Luna nodded, trying not to look at Horrigan or the holstered weapon on Agent Drops' hip. "Of course, that begs the question of why?"

"Research, at least initially, though now we're trying to get the Rainbooms home, too." Tara ran a hand through her hair. "As you just saw, something went wrong."

An awful sense of déjà vu flickered through Luna's mind. "You weren't planning on bringing us through." It was a statement rather than a question, but both Tara and the President shook their heads anyway. "Why do I get the feeling you're about to tell me that the portal was sabotaged?"

"It wasn't. Well, not as such," Tara replied.

The President sighed heavily. "An over-eager scientist, one who was actually incarcerated for his excessive and unethical experiments, somehow escaped his cell and disabled the safety protocols on the portal while we were testing it." She grimaced and glanced around the room. "We're still not sure exactly what he did and how, and he's actually still at large, hence why we're waiting here until our security operative checks back in."

"That makes sense," Trixie muttered uneasily, and Luna couldn't help but agree with her. Wandering through a maze of corridors with a mad scientist on the loose sounded like a good idea for a video game, but a nightmarish experience in real life.

"Where do the Rainbooms come into all of this?" Sonata asked flatly. 

Luna glanced at her, surprised that she wasn't calling them the 'Raingoons' for a change. 

"That… is a long story," the President said in a weary tone.

"And one we don't have time for," Horrigan rumbled, startling the three visitors. "Vincent is here."

The President immediately whipped around, the others swiftly following her gaze. A young man with cropped black hair, wearing a crisp military uniform, was striding towards the group. Much like the others, Vincent seemed oddly familiar to Luna, but she couldn't quite figure out why.

Vincent's eyes widened when he saw the new arrivals, but that was the only outward sign that he'd even noticed them as he strode up to the President and saluted. "Madame President, Doctor Turner has been apprehended."

"Good," the President said with clear relief. She turned back to Luna and the others. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I've spared all the time I can for the moment. Doctor Strong will take you to the common room so you can get some rest, and she'll be happy to answer any questions you have."

"Assuming I know the answer, anyway," Tara added.

Luna just nodded calmly and allowed the scientist to lead her away, glancing over shoulder to make sure that Trixie and Sonata were following. "Stay close to me, girls. You don't want to get lost."

"Any more than we already are," Trixie mumbled. 

"Don't worry, I'm sure that we'll get everything fixed soon," Luna assured her. Truth be told, she was quite proud of how well Trixie was handling the situation, even if her usual swagger was nowhere to be seen. Regular exposure to the Rainbooms' bizarre antics seemed to be helping to lessen the shock of what had happened. It was certainly helping keep Luna from freaking out, though she couldn't wait to get a chance to examine her new wings in private. Sonata seemed to be holding up well, too, though this was the second time that she had been through something like this.

With a subtle breath, Luna straightened her shoulders and focused on where they were going. No matter how well it looked like the girls were managing, Luna was the adult of the three, and it was her job to keep them all safe. Maintaining a calm front was going to be a big part of that. She just hoped that she could keep it up long enough.





Becky watched the new arrivals walking away with mixed feelings. As soon as they were out of sight down a corridor, and the door shut tight behind them, she walked over to a nearby steel crate, picking up a loose crowbar from the one next to it. "Motherfucker!" She brought the crowbar down on the crate as hard as she could. "Stupid! Fucking! Asshole!" Becky kept up a stream of profanities, punctuating each one by slamming the crowbar into the crate. 

Finally, after she had vented the worst of her anger, Becky tossed the mangled crowbar aside, panting heavily. "Where's Turner?" She growled.

"Dead," Vincent replied flatly. "I found him in the control room with the bodies of Michaels' and the control team. He was just about to leave when I arrived. He demanded that I let him pass so he could interview some new guests, I assume he meant those girls you were with just now, and when I ordered him to stand down he tried to force his way past. I had to put him down."

Becky nodded. "Are you positive that he's dead?"

"Mozambique Drill, he's not getting back up from that," Vincent insisted. 

"Good," Becky said viciously. "Do we have any idea how he escaped?"

"I can't say for sure, but the control team were clearly killed quickly and efficiently with conventional methods, while Michaels was killed by some sort of magic," Vincent replied. "Best guess, Turner must have convinced Michaels to let him out, then killed him once he'd gotten what he wanted."

That made sense to Becky. Michaels had, after all, been the one who had tried to stop the Rainbooms' escaping, what felt like a lifetime ago. 

Agent Drops quietly cleared her throat. "Madame President, do you really think it's wise to let Tara handle our new guests alone?" 

"She'll be fine," Becky said confidently. She had recognised the three visitors the moment the lights came back on, thanks to her brush with Sunset's memories. The fact that Sonata Dusk was with them was a surprise, but Tara would undoubtedly get to the bottom of that. "Right, I'm going back to the portal. On the off chance that the SDT-1 has miraculously survived, I want-"

The sound of the elevator doors at the far end of the warehouse sliding open grabbed everyone's attention. A soldier hurried out of it and, seeing the group, made double time over to them. A sick feeling started pooling in Becky's stomach. No-one was supposed to come downstairs until called unless it was an emergency.

"Madam President!" The soldier saluted sharply as he reached the group. "Apologies for the interruption, but we've had an urgent transmission from the Adams Air Force Base. All contact has been lost with the personnel at the Raven Rock outpost."

Becky fought down the urge to scream. Her inner circle was one thing, but she refused to let the rank and file see her as anything other than unflappable. "I'll contact Elder Lyons immediately. Horrigan, please go and find Sienna and send her to help Tara. Vincent, go to the portal room and make sure that everyone is following protocol, then come and find me. Let's try and avoid any more catastrophes today."





Trixie looked around anxiously as she and the others followed the scientist through the facility. Aside from the initial pair of massive warehouses, the entire complex seemed to be made up of monotonous concrete corridors. Without a guide, any visitor would swiftly become hopelessly lost.

Something felt off. Trixie supposed that that was only natural, after all, she had just been sucked into a portal and dumped into a completely different world. Still, something definitely wasn't right about this place. For a start, everyone Trixie had met so far seemed suspiciously familiar and, while she couldn't be certain, she had an odd feeling that the President had recognised her.

The guns weren't helping matters. It made sense to Trixie that a President's bodyguard might carry one, and a soldier was a no-brainer, but Trixie had also spotted a subtle bulge in the President's suit that she would have confidently bet was a concealed weapon. Somehow, she doubted that Horrigan, the giant robot-thing was just an oversized construction worker, either. Wherever the three were, this place wasn't safe.

Trixie shook her head and tried to shift her train of thought. Despite what she had been told, she didn't want to even think about what sort of world they were in. One thing at a time. Portal. People. Facility. No need to think about anything beyond that.

To try and take her mind off things, Trixie took a quick mental inventory of everything she had on her. Aside from her phone, she had her handkerchiefs, trick wands, lockpicks, fake flowers, a healthy supply of smoke bombs, several firecrackers, sparklers, and the last of the fireworks that Principal Celestia had demanded be removed from school premises. 

Trixie glanced shiftily at Vice Principal Luna and hoped desperately that they weren't about to get searched by security or something. The last thing she wanted right now was a lecture.





This world had potential, Sonata decided. Sure, the people here were shady government types, and the land above was, apparently, a mess, but she could work with that. 

The main draw was the fact that this world clearly had massive amounts of Equestrian magic. Sonata had already absorbed as much of the excess flowing through the portal as she possibly could, stuffing it deep down inside herself so no-one would notice and try to take it from her again. Next, she was hoping to get a closer look at the giant magic pillar-thingy.

Without her amulet, Sonata couldn't draw magic out of other people, nor could she use it to control them or toy with their emotions, but that wasn't going to stop her from grabbing whatever she could. She just had to make sure that the Raingoons didn't find out.

And remember not to call them Raingoons out loud. People seemed to like them here.

As they walked through the boring corridors, Sonata looked around idly, hoping she would spot some magic crystals or something similar. It would make things much easier if she could make another amulet for herself.
> Chapter 123 - Exposition
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The common room is just in here." Tara opened one of the many near-identical doors and stood aside for the trio to enter.

Luna nodded her thanks and stepped into the room, tensing herself for any surprises. To her relief, the common room turned out to be a typical, slightly dull-looking canteen.

The room was long and wide. Several tables with attached benches stretched the length of the room, while propaganda posters, workplace safety announcements and menus lined the walls. At the far end of the canteen was a small worktop with a sink, some cupboards, a couple of vending machines, and a fridge-freezer. 

"Sit wherever you like," Tara told them. "The rest of our personnel are all busy at the moment, and Becky, I mean, President Shoichet will probably redirect them all elsewhere for dinner, so feel free to relax."

"Right." Luna highly doubted that any of them were going to relax, but she dutifully took a seat in the middle of one of the benches. Trixie and Sonata settled in on either side of her.

Tara closed the door and turned to face the trio. It was clear by her expression that she was as out of her element as everyone else in the room. "So, um… oh, food! Uh, do you want any food? Or drinks?"

"What have you got?" Sonata asked instantly.

"How can you be hungry?!" Trixie snapped.

Sonata rolled her eyes. "Because I haven't eaten lunch yet. Duh."

"Food would be a good idea," Luna cut in, stopping the argument before it could start. "Bad times always feel worse on an empty stomach."

"That's true." Tara strode towards the refrigerator. "I'm afraid we don't have anything hot, just cereal and, um… oh, that's about it." She frowned at the almost-empty fridge. "That's right, we didn't bring the supplies down today because we were too busy setting up the portal experiment. Cereal it is!" Tara fetched a few boxes of various cereals and several bottles of milk and water, plonking them on the table and settling herself opposite the trio. "Help yourselves, and I'll try and explain everything that's happened. Um, if I can figure out where to begin."

Luna raised an eyebrow as Sonata immediately poured three different types of cereal into a bowl with milk. In an effort to put Trixie at ease, Luna reached for a box that looked like it might be healthier than the others, only to baulk as a surreptitious glance at the ingredients revealed that it had a sugar content roughly equivalent to that of cotton candy. She tried not to grimace as she filled a bowl anyway. "Proper introductions might be a good place to start."

Tara chuckled awkwardly. "Good point." She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. "I'm Doctor Strong, head scientist of the Enclave, but you can just call me Tara. I'm assuming that the three of you are from Canterlot High School?"

"You guessed right," Luna replied. She felt a little relieved; the fact that this otherworldly scientist knew of CHS lent credence to their assertion that they knew the Rainbooms in some way. "My name is Luna, I'm the Vice-Principal of CHS, and these are Trixie Lulamoon and Sonata Dusk." Luna gestured to each girl in turn.

Tara's eyes widened when Sonata was mentioned. "Wait, aren't you one of the sirens that attacked the Rainbooms?!"

Sonata just shrugged, not even looking up from her bowl of oat milk-coated diabetes. "That was ages ago."

"It's a long story," Luna cut in. "Your turn. How exactly do you know the Rainbooms?"

"That's… also a long story, and not one that paints the Enclave in a very good light," Tara replied quietly. "Still, things are improving, and a great deal of that is thanks to the Rainbooms." She sighed heavily. "I suppose it's best if I start with a little background. You've already heard about the nuclear war."

Trixie scowled into her bowl. "I'm trying not to think about it."

"I don't blame you, but it's a fact of life for everyone in this world," Tara told her. "Some elements of the old world's governments foresaw the coming war, and the devastation it would cause, and took steps to secure their future. One of the main ideas proposed was creating subterranean shelters to protect portions of the populace, who would emerge when the world was safe and rebuild."

That sounded like a good idea to Luna, though she couldn't fathom how the Rainbooms factored into this. Just as she was about to ask, the door suddenly slammed open, making the four of them jump out of their skins. 

Whipping around, Luna saw a young woman sagging against the door frame, gasping for breath. She had jet-black hair tied back in bunches, and a pair of pink-rimmed glasses that didn't suit the lab coat she was wearing at all.

"Sienna?! What are you doing here?!" Tara asked frantically.

"Vincent told me what happened, he said the President wants me to check on the visitors," Sienna panted. "And you should call me Doctor Bohn around strangers. It's more professional."

Tara rolled her eyes. "This is Doctor Bohn, the chief medical professional for this facility. She's a sarcastic pain in the neck with the bedside manner of a sociopath, but she's actually a pretty decent person."

"I'm also one of the only sane people in the Enclave," Sienna said flatly. "Are any of you women injured?" The three replied that they weren't, Sonata simply shaking her head as she had already gone back to her food. "Good. That makes my job easier." Sienna walked over and dropped onto the bench next to Tara. "I assume you're running through explanations."

"Yes, I was going to tell them how we met the Rainbooms, but I figured they should have a bit of background to everything first," Tara said. "Beginning with the Vaults."

Sienna snorted. "Make them hate the Enclave right from the start. Good plan."

"They're going to hear everything from the Rainbooms anyway, we may as well be open about it," Tara shot. "And we are doing better," she added tersely.

Sienna shrugged. "Fair point. Continue."

Tara sighed heavily. "As I was saying, here in the United States, that's the old name of our country, a company called Vault-Tec built massive underground shelters called Vaults," she continued. "Other countries around the world had similar ideas; the United Kingdom had the Shire Settlement Program and the Morrison Shelters, France had the Catacomb Network, Germany revived their Flaktürme complexes, Korea had the Burrows, and so on. The idea, as I said, was to protect enough of the population that they could rebuild after the war." 

"Did it work?" Sonata asked bluntly.

Tara grimaced. "I can't speak for other countries, but here in the US, the circumstances surrounding the Vaults were a lot darker than they appeared."

Luna gave her a cold look. "Let me guess, they were reserved for those people who had the wealth and influence to buy their way in?"

Sienna's answering laugh was caustic. "Not even close. You see, Vault-Tec was, and still is, part of the Enclave, but the founders of the Enclave weren't originally interested in rebuilding."

"They weren't?!" Trixie stared at the woman in stunned disbelief, a feeling that Luna shared.

"Rebuilding was seen as too difficult and risky, so the Enclave came up with a different idea," Tara explained, sounding remarkably like a college lecturer. "Project Exodus. A plan to abandon the world entirely and escape into space, find a new planet, and colonise it."

"Creating a utopia populated exclusively by 'the very best that humanity has to offer'." Sienna snorted and crossed her arms. "That quote alone should give you an idea of what the Enclave was all about, at least until very recently. They still peddle that crap to our children."

“That’s on the President’s list of things to change. It’s not ideal, but she’s got her hands full with everything else at the moment,” Tara admitted. She noticed the distinctly frosty expressions that Luna and Trixie were wearing and cleared her throat, quickly changing the subject. “Anyway, the early Enclave knew that, if they wanted to travel through space, they would first need to have an idea of how people might react to difficult circumstances in a cramped and confined environment. Of course, their scientists soon came to the conclusion that travelling to other planets was impractical in the extreme, but the unpredictable nature of resetting an irradiated wasteland meant that such data would still be valuable, especially if the surviving subjects of such experiments could also serve as a reservoir of undamaged human DNA.” Tara sighed and closed her eyes. “That’s how they came up with the idea for the Vault Experiment.”

Luna listened, both sickened and enthralled, as Tara detailed how the Vaults had been designed, not as sanctuaries, but as part of a massive sociological experiment. Some operated as advertised; protecting their inhabitants until the world was safe enough for them to emerge, then serving as a base upon which a new settlement could be built, but they were the lucky few. The vast majority of the Vaults were each designed around a unique and inhumane experiment, ranging from the relatively practical to the outright sadistic. The Enclave themselves had ridden out the end of the world by retreating to their own special facilities, including an offshore oil rig. 

Next, Tara described how, much to Luna’s surprise, some people had actually managed to survive the nuclear apocalypse despite not being in a Vault. Many of those survivors had even managed, against all odds, to found their own settlements and factions in the wake of civilization’s demise. 

One of the many factions that rose to prominence was a group of military remnants calling themselves the Brotherhood of Steel. Luna had to appreciate their taste in names. Unfortunately, as Sienna pointed out with thinly-veiled venom, the Enclave was just as twisted and bent on control as it had ever been and, after over two hundred years, they decided the time was ripe to retake what they saw as rightfully theirs. Naturally, the Enclave and the burgeoning Brotherhood of Steel came into conflict, and began a war that lasted on and off for decades. 

Then the Rainbooms arrived. The Diviner dropped them into a Vault, one that, Luna thanked her lucky stars, had simply been given an order to never open under any circumstances, rather than one of the more twisted Vaults. Her relief was short-lived, as Tara went on to explain how the Rainbooms had escaped, wandered across the Wastes, and finally came into contact with the Enclave.

“You kidnapped them?!” Luna spat angrily.

“Believe me, that was never our intention,” Tara insisted. “We put a request in with our previous President for a meeting to be arranged with the Rainbooms, and he turned the responsibility of facilitating that over to our military leader. At the time, that was a man named Colonel Autumn.” 

“A bull-headed tyrant who firmly believes that might makes right,” Sienna scoffed. 

Tara nodded. “Colonel Autumn didn’t seem to realise that we wanted to open a peaceful dialogue with the Rainbooms, and decided to go in with full force and subdue them before delivering them to us. Don’t worry, they weren’t injured,” she added quickly, seeing the expression on Luna’s face.

“Why did you even want to talk to them in the first place?” Trixie asked.

Sienna gestured vaguely around the room. “When we discovered that travel between alternate realities was possible, Project Exodus was immediately revived. The top brass were ecstatic to find a world that wasn’t plagued by war as ours is.”

Luna stared at the women incredulously. “You can’t honestly believe that any of the governments in our world would even consider allowing a group like the Enclave to come to our world?!”

“The version of events our brass gave you would have been heavily sanitized,” Sienna said in a bored tone. A slow smirk spread across her face. “Still, thanks to the Rainbooms, things quickly got very interesting.”

The two doctors went on to tell of daring escapes, horrific battles, conspiracies, and magical experiments, all culminating in a military coup and an all-out deathmatch between the Brotherhood of Steel, the remnants of the Enclave, and those who realigned themselves to stand with Project Exodus. Naturally, the Rainbooms were right at the heart of all of it.

“You’re telling me the Rainbooms were actually forced to fight in a real battle?” Luna asked quietly, torn between horror and cold fury.

Tara and Sienna shared an awkward look. “I hate to say it, but yes,” Tara admitted. “However, it’s thanks to them that this war is finally over, and the Brotherhood and Enclave are finally working together for the good of the wasteland. That’s part of the reason that we’ve been prioritising work on the portal-”

“Which is now broken,” Luna said flatly. “Thanks to an Enclave scientist.”

Sienna raised an eyebrow. “There’s not much we could have really done about Turner. He was locked away, and the guy who let him out had spent the last few months in a coma. Even if we had the manpower to spare, we’re hundreds of meters underground in a secure facility and neither of them were believed to be capable of anything. Our guards were better used protecting the surface entrance and the President. We couldn’t have seen this coming.”

Luna very much wanted to argue, but it was pointless. “Where are the Rainbooms now?” She asked with a sigh.

“I’m pretty sure they’re currently at a settlement called Megaton, it’s one of the bigger settlements in the area,” Tara replied. “They’re technically supposed to be searching for extra equipment in case something goes wrong with the portal, but I imagine they’re probably just trying to take it easy after everything that has happened.”

“There’s irony for you,” Sienna muttered. “Still, the President is probably going to send them a message as soon as physically possible, so they’ll probably be hammering on the front door before long.”

The overload of information was too much for Luna. She wanted nothing more than to storm out of the building and find the Rainbooms herself, but she didn’t have the faintest clue of how to begin. Besides, if the world truly was as dangerous as the women were saying, then she couldn’t drag Trixie and Sonata out into it, and leaving them with these strangers certainly wasn’t an option.

“How do we know you’re not lying?” Trixie asked, beating Luna to the punch.

“You don’t,” Sienna replied bluntly. “Not yet, anyway. As soon as the Rainbooms arrive, they’ll tell you everything, with more detail than you’ll probably want. You’ll just have to trust us for now.”

Luna frowned. Something wasn’t adding up. “Trusting you would be a lot easier if we had more details. I know that the Rainbooms are good, but I find it hard to believe that even they could manage to get so much accomplished in only a few days.”

Bewilderment flitted across Tara’s face. “A few days? The Rainbooms have been in this world for about three or four months.”

“What?!” An icy claw seized Luna’s heart. They were lying. They had to be.

Tara suddenly looked horrified. “Time dilation. Oh my god, there’s time dilation!” She leapt off the bench, her hands shaking uncontrollably. “Oh, this is bad. This is really bad! The equations weren’t… oh my fucking god! I have to let Becky and the Rainbooms know!”

Without so much as a backwards glance, Tara tore out of the room, leaving the others behind in appalled silence.





The snow was starting to pick back up again. Sunset was starting to wonder just how much snow the average winter brought in this region. If it continued at the rate it had been, there was a good chance that the Rainbooms were going to end up snowed in inside the Vault. 

Sunset glanced around at the others as she walked. All of the Rainbooms had agreed to accompany Adam on his return to Vault 101, and each of them was fully armed and wearing every scrap of armor they had. Ostensibly, it was because the journey to the Vault was risky, despite how close it was to Megaton, but that was merely an excuse. The reality of the situation was that all of them, Adam included, expected trouble with the security team if they went in dressed the same as they did when they left. Hopefully, the security team wouldn’t be stupid enough to pick a fight with what was clearly a team of heavily-armed combat veterans.

If she was honest, Sunset was slightly looking forward to an argument. After struggling against deadly foes like raiders, Super Mutants, and the powerhouse that was the Enclave military, facing down a bunch of untrained bullies armed with batons and a handful of tiny pistols would be a nice change of pace. As Rainbow pointed out, the girls would finally be in a confrontation where their opponents were hilariously outmatched. The only thing that kept Sunset’s aggressive anticipation in check was Adam. 

It was impossible to tell what Adam was feeling. He had requested that they avoid Springvale on the way to Vault 101, mostly so they didn’t have to deal with the Holy Light Monastery again, but he hadn’t uttered a single word since. Even now, he was striding along silently at the head of the group, using his power armor to forge a path through the snow for the others to follow.

On the bright side, with Adam at the fore, it didn’t take long for the group to reach the road leading up the hill towards the Vault. An odd sense of nostalgia filled Sunset as she strode past some of the battered old cars. She smiled softly as she remembered wondering whether any of them would be intact enough to drive, and her surprise when Pinkie had casually tossed her Pip-Boy at her. Even simply turning off the road and making their way up the hill gave Sunset mixed feelings, which only intensified as they passed the old promontory from which the girls had first surveyed the wasteland.

A short distance further on, Adam finally came to a stop. A rickety old wooden door sat half-buried by snow in the rockface before him. 

“Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked him quietly.

Adam nodded curtly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. Let’s do this.” He rolled his shoulders, then strode purposefully towards the door.
> Chapter 124 - Underground Again
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Months,” Luna muttered half to herself, too shocked to even be rattled by Tara’s foul language. 

Sienna nodded, watching the three nervously. “We figured that it would be the same in your world. I don’t think the Rainbooms ever mentioned anything about time dilation.”

“It’s not possible,” Trixie said quietly. She was staring blankly at the table, her food barely touched. “It can’t be possible.”

“I’m afraid it is. The Rainbooms turned up in Vault 101 about three or four months ago,” Sienna told her firmly, though not unkindly. “They wandered for a few days, ended up in a place called Rivet City for a couple of weeks, then spent a fair while stuck in the war between us and the Brotherhood. That all ended just over a month ago.” Sienna rubbed her temples. “Hell, if this had happened a few days ago, they would have been here to greet you.”
 
Almost reluctantly, Luna glanced at the door, trying to make sense of everything. Thinking back on it, she remembered Sunset mentioning that the time difference between Equestria and CHS could get a little wonky, especially when the portal wasn’t used for a while. But for it to be off by that much was unprecedented. 

“It makes sense,” Sonata said suddenly, still quietly munching on her cereal.

“What does?” Luna asked.

Sonata swallowed her mouthful and shrugged. “The Raing- Rainbooms being stuck here for months. That gross little changeling told us that Starswirl disappeared, like, a thousand years ago. I haven’t been in your dumb human world that long.”

The words felt like a hammerblow to Luna. It was bizarre enough that Sonata Dusk, of all people, was providing useful information, but the fact that it corroborated what the Enclave was saying had a particular sting to it. Unlike the Enclave, Luna couldn’t imagine any reason that Sonata had to lie. It would actually work out better in the siren’s favor if the Enclave were lying.

“If they really are telling the truth, then you’re in a lot more trouble than you already were,” Trixie hissed as she glared at Sonata, her thoughts clearing running along the same line as Luna’s.

Sonata just gave her a blank look. “Wait, why am I in trouble?”

“Because you Dazzlings are the ones who sabotaged the portal in the first place!” Trixie spat.

“Uh, no we’re not,” Sonata said, genuine confusion in both her expression and her voice. “We just answered the changeling’s dumb questions about the Rainbooms. The changeling and the other Sunset were the ones who messed around with the portal.”

Sienna held a hand up to stop the brewing argument. “Hold on a second, you mean there’s three Sunset Shimmers, too?”

That number didn’t sit right with Luna. She knew that there were two Twilight Sparkles and Sunset Shimmers, but she hadn’t heard about there being three of anyone. “What do you mean, three?”

“There’s three of a bunch of people that we know of,” Sienna replied. “There’s the pony Twilight, Rarity, and Sunset, there’s the Twilight, Rarity, and Sunset from your world, and there’s a Twilight, a Rarity, and a Sunset from this world. They’ve got different names, though.”

Luna wasn’t sure how much more surprise she was capable of feeling. “What are their names?” She asked weakly.

Sienna hummed as she thought. “If I remember rightly, the Rainbooms said that this world’s Rarity lives in Rivet City. Her name’s Tabitha. As for the other two…” She smirked ever so slightly. “Our Sunset is currently trying to clean up a certain portal mishap while sending a message to the Rainbooms, and our Twilight just ran out of the room in a panic.”

A look of realization flashed across Trixie’s face. “Is that why you look like-”

“Don’t call me Sugarcoat,” Sienna said bluntly.

Luna reeled as she suddenly understood why everyone looked so familiar to her. Right there was the moment that she finally reached her limit. It was just too insane. Either the Enclave women were phenomenally good liars to come up with such a ludicrous story on the fly, or they were telling the truth. Luna resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn’t know which was the case until the Rainbooms actually showed up. “What do we do until the Rainbooms get here?”

“Pretty much whatever you want, as long as it involves staying down here in the basement,” Sienna replied. “The President probably won’t want you going up to the surface until the Rainbooms are here. Everyone down here has security clearance and can be trusted. Upstairs, not so much.”

Trixie scowled at her. “So, we’re prisoners?”

The look Sienna gave her was withering. “That depends on whether you believe that we’re trying to contain you, or protect you. I’ve heard the others saying that your world is a nice place. This world is not. We have people like Horrigan to protect us for a reason.” She stood up and brushed the creases out of her lab coat. “Come with me. If you want to feel less like prisoners, let’s go and wait by the magic pillar. I’m pretty sure I won’t get executed for that.”





Tara belted through the corridors as quickly as she could. The revelation that there was significant time dilation between her world and the Rainbooms’ world had shaken her to her core, sending cold dread at what the portal might have unleashed shuddering through her veins. The President had to be warned immediately. 

As she rounded a corner at top speed, a horrifying sight made Tara skid to a sudden stop. 

A man was staggering along the corridor. He had a fist-sized smouldering crater in his chest from what Tara guessed was a plasma shot, and a similar one where his face should have been, but the bulging mutations on his arm made him instantly recognizable. 

“Doctor Turner?!” Tara exclaimed. 

Turner turned towards her, giving her a clear view of cauterized and melted tissue through the hole in his face. Even more disturbingly, yellow tendrils were pushing through the damaged flesh, quivering and pulsating as they reached across the wound. A low moan emanated from Turner’s ravaged jaw.

“What the fuck?!” Tara stared in abject horror and disbelief at the shambling corpse-thing, then shook her head angrily. “Damn it, I don’t have time for this bullshit!” She whipped a hidden taser pistol out of its holster under her lab coat and fired at Turner’s chest. He dropped instantly, his whole body spasming as the electrical current coursed through his nervous system. 

Tara gave Turner a prolonged jolt, just to make sure that Turner was thoroughly incapacitated, then plucked the wires out of the taser and put it away before drawing a laser pistol instead. “You know what? I’m actually glad that Becky made me carry these.” She stepped over to Turner’s prone form, then calmly and deliberately fired a single shot into each of his joints. “I don’t know how you survived with those wounds, but I can’t let you go wandering around unsupervised and, frankly, after what you pulled I want you dead.”

Bright red flashes lit up the corridor as Tara emptied the rest of her magazine into Turner’s face. “Now, stay dead,” she spat as she slipped her laser pistol back into its holster. 

With Turner dealt with, though probably only temporarily, Tara returned her attention to the task at hand and sped off through the corridors once again. It didn’t take her long to reach the main hangar. Tara almost sagged with relief as she spotted Horrigan and Vincent waiting at the base of the magical pillar of light. Hearing her footsteps, the two turned towards her. “What’s wrong?” Vincent asked worriedly, her expression clearly giving away her anxiety.

“Two... things,” Tara panted. “One... Turner is... alive.”

Vincent’s eyes widened in surprise. “What? But, I shot-”

“He’s alive!” Tara snarled. Vincent baulked and hurried off to find Turner, prompting Tara to shout after him, “Head to the common room, you’ll find him!” She waited until Vincent called back to her that he’d check, before turning to Horrigan. “Where’s the President?”

“Upstairs, contacting the Brotherhood of Steel,” Horrigan replied. “Is there a problem?”

Tara nodded grimly and strode towards the elevator, calling back over her shoulder, “I think we might have a serious issue on her hands. I need to contact her this instant.”

“Hold on a second.” Tara glanced back and glared, wondering why Horrigan would ask her to wait when she was clearly in a hurry. To her surprise, he dropped to one knee and held two fingers to the side of his helmet. “I had a radio transmitter installed in my helmet, and there’s signal relays in the elevator shaft. You can contact her from here.”

“Fantastic!” Tara eagerly hurried back to Horrigan’s side. He reeled off a bunch of military jargon to whoever was waiting on the other side, then held a hand up for her to wait. 

Each second felt torturously long to Tara, but it was only a couple of minutes before Becky’s voice crackled out from a speaker in Horrigan’s helmet, “Tara, What’s going on? Is there an-”

“Time dilation,” Tara interrupted. “There’s a significant difference in the flow of time on either side of the portal.”

Becky swore and ordered someone to secure the area she was in. “Damn it, Tara, this shit is highly classified. Can’t it wait unti-”

“The portal wasn’t designed with time dilation in mind!” Tara cut in again. "That means that the equations weren’t accurate, and the power requirements-”

“Tara, slow down!” Becky demanded. “I get that this is important; it’s going to suck for the Rainbooms, but you’re talking as if this is an immediate problem, and if it is, you need to tell me why.”

Tara nodded and pinched the bridge of her nose, gathering her racing thoughts. “Okay, okay. Look, the SDT detects all sorts of signals, including Equestrian magic, which is how we were able to get coordinates for the portal to lock on to. The problem is, we needed to adjust the coordinates according to any time dilation. We allowed for a small amount of leeway either way, but nowhere near enough for how much difference that there was.”

“Okay, I’m following you, but why is that a problem right now?” Becky asked.

“When the Rainbooms arrived, their portal connected to the SDT itself, and it had only a small quantity of power compared to what we had on hand, and a small quantity of magic,” Tara explained.

“Yeah, that’s why the Rainbooms were dragged through. The portal seized any nearby magic to try and stabilize itself,” Becky recited. “Why is this significant?”

Tara fought the urge to snap at her. “It’s significant because we had a considerable reserve of magic, and every tiny quantity that the portal used was bombarded with radiation to make it multiply exponentially as it passed into the portal, turning that reserve into a massive amount, much more than the SDT should have needed to account for the difference in time dilation.”

“Right… so the SDT used up all that magic to overcome the time dilation, and the excess is what melted the portal, is that what you’re saying?” Becky asked.

“No,” Tara replied, desperate to get Becky to truly understand. “If the excess magic had simply built up in the portal, we would have had another eruption of power like the one at Raven Rock. But if the portal had too much power, then why did it drag Luna and the others through when it connected to CHS? It should have only done that if there wasn’t enough magic left for the portal to sustain itself!”

There was a pause from the other end as Becky digested the information. “So, the portal had too much magic, but it didn’t dump it all in our world, and it didn’t have enough to hold the portal open in CHS, so… where did all of the excess magic go?” A pregnant pause followed. “Did we just blast all of that magic into Equestria?” Becky asked anxiously.

“Thankfully, no, we made adjustments to the portal so it wouldn’t connect to Equestria itself.” Tara bit her lip nervously. “Unfortunately, it’s very likely that our world, CHS, and Equestria, aren’t the only three realities out there. I’m just doing the math off the top of my head at the moment, but I think we might have just fired Equestrian magic into dozens of different realities.”

An appalled silence was all that remained in the wake of her explanation. Finally, Becky started giving out orders at high speed, “Get all non-essential personnel up to the surface, now, including our new visitors. Horrigan, guard the portal room in case something decides to investigate where the magic came from and comes looking. I’ll get hold of Elder Lyons again. We need the Rainbooms.”





The dramatic return to Vault 101 was derailed almost immediately. Adam reached for the door handle, but the snow stopped him from pulling it open. He braced himself to put some force into it, but instead of yanking the door open, he ended up ripping the handle out of the door. Everyone stared at it in bemusement.

“Uh, do you need a hand there, fella?” Applejack asked.

“I’ve got it.” Adam tried to prise the door open using the new hole he had made, but it still wouldn’t budge. With a huff, he took a step back, then launched himself shoulder-first at it. The flimsy wooden door gave way like a wet paper towel beneath his power-armored form.

Sunset snorted softly. “That’s one way of doing it.” She carefully pushed through the trench Adam had left in the snow and stepped through the doorway. The rocky tunnel within looked much the same as it did in the vague memories Sunset had of it from the last time she had desperately sprinted through, save for the smattering of snow and splinters that Adam had brought in with him. 

The man in question was brushing debris from his armor. “I guess it’s a good thing that the Vault didn’t actually need that door.”

“They do need our help, though,” Fluttershy said as she entered the tunnel with the other girls. 

“Yeah, about that.” Rainbow brushed snow from her clothes and nodded further into the tunnel. “How exactly are we going to get through that without breaking it?”

Sunset looked down towards the far end of the tunnel. The wan sunlight trickling in just about illuminated the immense cog-shaped door of Vault 101 set into a concrete wall. A yellow ‘101’ was stenciled right in the middle of it. 

“Don’t worry, Amata sent us the password,” Adam replied. He straightened up and strode down towards the door. The girls followed, stoically walking past the skeletal remains of those unfortunates who had tried and failed to get into the Vault after the bombs fell. 

Next to the door, strangely devoid of skeletons, was a control panel that Sunset hadn’t noticed before. It had several dials and a single lever on it, but no keypad or other obvious method of inputting a password. Before anyone could point that out, Adam whipped out a knife and used it to pry open a small panel next to the lever, revealing the necessary keypad. He deftly inputted the password and pulled the lever.

An alarm immediately started blaring. There was a metallic scraping sound, then a horrific grinding screech as the door was dragged inwards and rolled aside, revealing the interior of the Vault.

The entrance chamber looked just as dank and grimy as Sunset remembered it. No-one was there to meet the group, which was mildly suspicious given the amount of noise they had made. Just as the group was about to enter, Fluttershy called out in a loud whisper, “Wait. I can smell dead bodies in there.”

Sunset felt her blood run cold, remembering how Officer Gomez had tried to protect the girls from the other security officers in this very room. Thankfully, there was no stench of rotting flesh, so she knew that Gomez hadn’t been killed all that time ago, but that was cold comfort. “Where are they?”

“One by the control panel, up there, the other in a side room off to the right,”Fluttershy replied. “One at least three days old, the other I’d say about a week or so.”

Pinkie shivered and looked around warily. “Uh… aren’t they probably going to be people that we know?”

“Probably,” Adam growled. He stomped down the path towards the control panel, the girls following close behind. Soon enough, they spotted a body slumped next to the railings by the control panel. A pair of bullet wounds could be seen in his chest. 

In an effort to spare Adam’s feelings, Sunset stepped around him and over to the body. “I’ll see who this is. Rainbow, Applejack, check the side room.”

“On it,” Rainbow replied. 

Sunset carefully crouched next to the dead Vault dweller and, as respectfully as she could, lifted his head so she could identify him. “Shit. It’s Jim Wilkins,” 

“Isn’t that the man you used to play Grognak with when you were children?” Rarity asked Adam. He just nodded slowly in response, his helmet hiding whatever expression he was making.

With a mumbled apology, Sunset closed Wilkins’ eyes and folded his hands over his chest. She hadn’t known him well, but he had always been polite and courteous whenever she had encountered him while wandering the Vault. 

“Steve Armstrong is back there,” Rainbow said somberly as she and Applejack returned from the side room. “I can’t say for certain, but from the wounds he’s got, it looks like radroaches got him.”

“He had a Stealth Boy on him, but no weapons,” Applejack noted. She shook her head and looked down at Wilkins’ body. “What the heck is the Overseer playin’ at, leavin’ the two of them here like this?”

It was Twilight who answered first, “The two of them were probably trying to escape. If Steve had a Stealth Boy, then there’s a good chance that the Overseer doesn’t even know that he’s out here. As for Jim…” She adjusted her glasses and shrugged. “Either the security officer that killed him was too lazy to bring his body back in, or the Overseer deliberately made them leave his body here as a punishment and a warning to anyone else who tried to leave. Either is equally plausible.”

“Was the secret tunnel to the Overseer’s office open?” Adam asked.

Applejack glanced at him in surprise. “There’s a secret tunnel?”

“That’s probably a no, then,” Pinkie said with a soft snort.

“Good.” With a quick glance at Wilkins, Adam turned towards the door that led deeper into the Vault. Sunset spared the body a look, too, before she and the others fell in behind him. She was starting to lose track of how many people she didn’t quite know who had been killed in this world.

Just as Adam shoved the door open, the group discovered a surprise lying in wait, as a panting security officer skidded to a halt in front of them. He backpedaled a few steps when he spotted Adam. Sunset realized, with his helmet on, Adam probably just looked like some random power-armored nightmare here to terrorise the Vault population. To the security officer’s credit, he straightened up and drew a small pistol. “Stop right there! I don’t know how you got in here, but-”

“Hi, Officer Gomez! Long time no see!” Pinkie cut in brightly.

Sunset felt a mix of relief and amusement as Gomez paused in his threat. He glanced at the girls, then back at Adam, then back at the girls again. “Hold on… Wait a minute! It’s you!” The girls all grinned as Gomez lifted the visor of his security helmet. “I hardly recognized all of you, what with all of that armor and gear! But does that mean…?” He glanced at Adam meaningfully, and sighed with relief when he removed his helmet to reveal his face. “Whoa, you damn near gave me a heart attack there, boy. Guess that explains how you got that door open. You’ve got more experience with it than most everyone down here combined.”

“We heard that there was trouble brewing down here,” Adam said, not bothering to mention that it was Amata who had sent a message out. “What’s going on?”

Gomez winced and glanced over his shoulder, as if checking for eavesdroppers. “Yeah, things have gotten a little, um, tense, since you all left. We thought that it would die down a bit after a few incidents, but it turns out it was just warming up.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sunset asked.

It was clear from Gomez’ expression that he didn’t really want to discuss it, but the glare from Adam told him that he wasn’t getting out of it. “A lot of the residents, led by Amata, want to open the Vault up to the outside world. Of course, the Overseer is trying hard to suppress it, and he’s got a lot of residents backing him, not to mention almost all of the security team.”

“And what about you?” Rainbow asked pointedly.

“I just want what’s best for my son,” Gomez replied. “I thought that he would be safest if the Vault stayed closed, but after everything that’s happened, I’m not so sure any more.” He glanced over his shoulder again. “Look, this isn’t your problem anymore. The Overseer would go ballistic if he heard that any of you had come back here and gotten inside somehow. Just turn around and leave, now, and I’ll pretend this conversation never happened. You’ll be saving yourself a lot of trouble.”

Applejack snorted. “Ah think you’ll find that we can handle anything the Overseer can throw at us. We’re comin’ in.”

Gomez looked at the girls warily, his gaze finally settling on Adam. “I don’t recommend it. When the Overseer finds out that you’re back, he’ll-”

“Fuck the Overseer,” Adam cut in firmly. “Take us to Amata. We’ll figure out what to do after that. If the Overseer has a problem with it, he can come and tell us himself.”

With a heavy sigh, Gomez nodded and lowered his security visor. “Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Come on, the rebels have barricaded themselves in the lower levels.”
> Chapter 125 - Grim Reveals
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna wasn’t sure what to make of Sienna. The doctor worked for the Enclave, yet seemed to harbor a genuine dislike for them which was both intense and obvious. There was a possibility that it was all an act, of course, but somehow Luna didn’t think so. Dismissing the concerns as irrelevant for the moment, the Vice-Principal turned her attention instead to trying to memorize the route they were taking through the maze of corridors.

“Tara said that the Rainbooms were in battles, right? Like, with actual soldiers?” Trixie said tentatively. “None of them were hurt, were they?”

“If it was a proper battle, then there were probably a lot of soldiers hurt,” Sonata noted.

“I was talking about the Rainbooms!” Trixie hissed.

Sonata blinked slowly. “Huh, I guess they might have hurt some soldiers, too.”

“I’m sure that the girls are fine,” Luna said reassuringly. She had to admit that she was concerned about certain hotheads in the group, but the others were smart and sensible enough to keep them out of harm’s way. 

The wince that Sienna tried to repress shattered Luna’s certainty in an instant. “Well, they’re all still alive, but not all of them managed to get through completely unscathed,” the doctor admitted.

“What happened?” Luna demanded.

Sienna sighed heavily. “Most of it wasn’t actually from the battles. Like we said, the wasteland is dangero- holy shit!” The group turned a corner and stopped abruptly as they walked into a scene from a nightmare. 

A figure was crawling along the corridor towards them. It resembled a man, but its joints were all broken, causing its extremities to drag along uselessly behind it as it crawled, and where its face should have been was nothing more than a ruinous mess of smoking and charred tissue. One of its arms was abnormally swollen and jaundiced.

“What in the ocean depths is that?!” Sonata exclaimed.

Luna felt the blood draining from her face as the creature slowly looked up at her. Sickly yellow tendrils emerged from the hole in its face, like oversized maggots. Luna quickly stepped in front of the girls. 

Before anyone else could react, there was a sudden loud blam and the back of the creature’s head exploded outwards, splattering gore everywhere. Luna desperately flung her arms out to try and block the horrific sight from the girls. The sound of Trixie vomiting loudly behind her felt like a spike being jammed through her soul. 

“Looks like Becky and Tara definitely aren’t getting any donated sperm from that guy,” Sienna said calmly.

Luna slowly looked around to stare incredulously at the clearly insane doctor, who was casually reloading some sort of sawed-off shotgun. “What in the name of the darkest cells of Tartarus do you think you’re doing?!”

“Protecting you three,” Sienna said flatly. “That was Turner, the guy who sabotaged the portal, and considering that he could somehow still move while missing half of his brain, I’d say that there’s some sketchy shit going on, wouldn’t you?”

“So you immediately default to murder?!” Luna spat.

Sienna gave her a flat glare. “Would you prefer it if I let him grab one of you? That freaky arm of his is magic, and not a pleasant type. Every test I have run has shown that it has a very nasty effect on biological tissue, but if you want to test that out yourself, be my guest.” She glanced back at the corpse. “Oh, look, here’s your chance.”

With a tense knot in her stomach, Luna looked back at Turner’s body. To her horror, his mutated arm shifted and stretched, then a large, bloodshot eye opened up in its bicep. 

“Yep, gonna see that shit again in my nightmares,” Sienna said in a surprisingly calm tone.

As Luna was trying to make sense of this impossible situation, the sound of heavy footsteps rapidly approaching echoed through the corridors. A few seconds later, the soldier from before came tearing around the corner. He skidded to a halt when he saw the bizarre scene. “Shit, how the hell is that guy still alive?!”

“Fuck knows,” Sienna replied. “I blew what was left of his brains out, but I think that just slowed him down. Do you have anything on you that can put him down permanently?”

The soldier shrugged. “I can see if a plasma grenade will work, but…” He scratched his head. “I’ll just drag him back to his cell for now. The President can work out what to do with him later.”

Luna stood and watched as the soldier grabbed Turner’s leg and slowly dragged him away down a corridor. Shock, horror, and fear fought for priority in Luna’s mind. She was having difficulty believing what she had just seen, even with the gory evidence splattered over the floor.

“Right, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the main hangar.” Sienna tucked her shotgun away under her lab coat and adjusted her glasses, supremely unconcerned by the horrific occurrence that had just taken place. “As I was saying, this world is dangerous. If you think that was bad, wait until you see what other crap is lurking around out in the wastes. The Rainbooms have dealt with much worse things than Turner.” She glanced back and gestured for the trio to follow. “Come on, there aren't any other freaks lurking around down here that I know about.”

The thought of trying to escape from this awful place flickered across Luna’s mind, but she quickly dismissed it. Even if she could find a way out without the Enclave stopping her, she didn’t have the faintest clue as to where she could go or how to find the Rainbooms, not to mention the fact that it was entirely possible that the Enclave were telling the truth, and the outside world really was as dangerous as they said. Sticking around was the only option for the moment. 

Unable to see any way out of their predicament, Luna turned and wrapped an arm around Trixie, who was staring wide-eyed at the spot where Turner had been laying. “It’s alright, we’ll find a way out of here as soon as we can,” Luna whispered. “Come on, let’s get away from this place for now.”

Trixie just nodded weakly. Sonata, surprisingly, didn’t seem bothered by what had happened in the slightest. She was just staring at the corridor Turner had been dragged down with an expression of mild curiosity.

With a little bit more gentle coaxing, the two girls joined Luna as she followed Sienna once more, walking along in grim silence.





Sunset felt a little odd as she walked through the corridors of Vault 101. The nostalgia was expected, but walking into the Vault from the entrance was a novel experience for her. At least it all looked much the same as it had before, though she hadn’t really expected it to change that much since they had left.

As the group walked along the last corridor into the atrium, angry voices floated in from up ahead. Gomez stopped suddenly. “Uh oh.” He glanced back at the others. “Wait here. This doesn’t look good.”

Sunset frowned as Gomez walked to the atrium door. The Rainbooms shared a concerned look, then blatantly ignored Gomez and quietly padded up to the door behind him.

As soon as she looked into the atrium, Sunset realized that her initial thoughts that the Vault hadn’t changed were completely wrong. The walls were dusty and grimy, the usual bright lights had been dimmed significantly for some reason, and several metal tables had been overturned to form a makeshift barricade around the atrium entrance. A single security officer was standing behind the barricade, clutching a pistol in his shaking hands. One of the Tunnel Snakes was standing in the shadows a little further into the atrium. It took Sunset a second to realize that it was Freddie, Officer Gomez’s son.

“That’s it, old man! We’re opening that door, and to hell with the Overseer’s rules!” Freddie snarled.

“You know I can’t do that, Freddie,” the security officer countered. “Now get back down below, before I have to do something we’ll both regret.”

“What? You gonna lock me up like they did to Brotch?” Freddie raised a fist, revealing that he was carrying a knife. “You can’t cage a Tunnel Snake, man, ‘cause we rule!”

Gomez stepped forward to intervene, but before he could say anything the other officer raised his pistol and shouted, “Stay back!” Gunshots echoed through the atrium as the officer fired several shots, sending Freddie scurrying down one of the side corridors towards the cafeteria.

“Taylor, stop shooting! Damn it!” Gomez spat.

The officer whipped around, and Sunset recognized him as the security team’s oldest member; a geriatric old fart with a ring of wispy white hair and more wrinkles than Granny Smith. “Gomez? I didn’t mean to-” Taylor let out a yelp the moment he saw the group waiting and fired wildly at Adam, making the others dive for cover.

Adam let out an annoyed huff and stepped forward, smoothly snatching the pistol out of Taylor’s hands before crushing it in an armored fist. “What the hell are you doing, you old coot?”

“No, don’t hurt… wait.. Adam?” Taylor took a step back and squinted at the Rainbooms. “And you outsider girls?” His expression shifted into an angry grimace. “What the hell are you all doing back here? Don’t you know enough to stay away?”

“Don’t give us that shit,” Sunset growled. “You almost shot Freddie.”

Taylor shot Gomez a guilty look. “I-I didn’t mean to, I swear! I just wanted to scare him!”

“Guns are only somethin’ you scare people with when they’re in their holster. The moment you take it out, it’s somethin’ you kill people with,” Applejack said darkly. “Anyone who don’t understand that shouldn’ be carryin’ one.” 

“He’s not carrying one now.” Adam dropped the lump of crumpled metal on the floor. “Now stand aside. We’ve got business with Amata.”

It looked for a moment like Taylor was going to argue, but he quickly thought better of it and got out of the way. “You shouldn’t be here. You don’t belong here, none of you do,” he muttered spitefully.

Adam just snorted and stomped over to the table barricade, then casually kicked them out of the way rather than go around, causing the blood to drain from Taylor’s face. 

Gomez just sighed and walked ahead to lead the way, while the girls fell into step behind them. Pinkie was the only one who bothered pausing long enough to say anything to Taylor. “You know, next time you have to deal with a bunch of people with big guns and short tempers, try not being a dick.” The old fool could only stutter as the group left him behind. 

As they crossed the atrium, Sunset glanced up towards the Overseer’s office. There, glaring down through the round window with his arms crossed, was the Overseer himself, looking for all the world like a disapproving feudal lord surveying his domain. Sunset just snorted and looked away, raising her middle finger in his general direction until they passed out of his line of sight.

Gomez didn’t look up or back at all as he strode straight for the door that Freddie had disappeared through. Sunset could hardly blame him; any sane parent would want to check up on their kid after seeing them get shot at. 

“I’m surprised you didn’t knock Taylor’s teeth out,” Rainbow said flatly as they headed downstairs, getting enthusiastic nods from Applejack and Rarity.

“I was tempted, believe me,” Gomez replied tightly. “Everything has gone crazy down here since you all left. Some of the security team even tried to organize an assault on the rebels against the Overseer’s orders. It probably would have worked, too, if Stanley hadn’t secretly reprogrammed Andy to act as a sentry for them, but that still ended up with four more people dead.” He shook his head angrily. “I get that the Overseer is trying to protect the Vault from the dangers of the wasteland, but at this rate there’s not going to be anyone left in the Vault to protect.”

“We’ll fix this,” Adam said grimly.

The group fell silent as they reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the cafeteria. It was obvious that a vicious fight had occurred in there; tables were overturned and bullet-ridden, the jukebox was lying shattered in a corner, and scorch marks marred almost every surface. Sunset guessed that this was where Andy had fended off the security team’s assault.

Continuing on, Gomez led the group through the door at the far end then, to the girls’ surprise, turned right and headed up towards the clinic. 

“Where the heck are we goin’?” Applejack asked. “Couldn’t we have just used the door from the atrium to go straight to the clinic? Why are we goin’ the long way around?”

“The rebels have barricaded it,” Gomez replied. He glanced at Adam in his power armor. “I daresay you could have gotten through it, but the rebels need all the security they can get at the moment.”

Sunset didn’t like the implications of that. If the security team had attacked against the Overseer’s orders, and yet the rebels were still in danger, then it seemed likely that the Overseer had near enough lost control of his security force altogether. His authority was likely hanging by a thread. 

As the group turned into the corridor to the clinic, they found a bunch of metal shelves and cupboards stacked against the walls in sequence, turning it into a series of choke points that only one person could fit through at a time. Sunset had to applaud whoever was in charge of the rebels’ defences.

“Who goes there?” A sharp voice called out. Sunset recognized the voice, but she didn’t quite believe her ears until she saw Butch step around the first choke point. “Holy shit! I never thought I’d see you assholes again.”
> Chapter 126 - Discomfort
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The melodious chiming of the magical pillar was surprisingly soothing. Luna stared up at it, watching the thousands upon thousands of wisps swirling in barely discernible patterns. It was beautiful. Luna knew, of course, that she was only trying to distract herself from what had just happened, but, for the moment she allowed herself the luxury. Staying strong for Trixie and Sonata was obviously important, but giving herself enough time to build that strength was just as crucial.

Subtly taking a deep breath, Luna glanced at the two girls. Trixie was staring morosely at the base of the pillar, clearly having trouble processing what she had seen. Sonata, on the other hand, looked completely unfazed, leaving Luna wondering whether she genuinely just didn’t care, or if she had a truly legendary poker face. 

“I managed to find Tara,” Sienna called out. Luna looked around to see her hurrying out of the hangar containing the portal. “She’s busy inspecting what’s left of the portal, and the President is up on the surface sending a message to the Rainbooms, but Horrigan has requested that a squad get brought down here to help keep an eye on Turner. You don’t have to worry about him escaping again.”

“I’m more concerned about your complete lack of concern for traumatizing my students,” Luna replied acidly.

Sienna crossed her arms and gave her an unamused look. “Look, I get that your world is a cozy place where death and destruction are practically unheard of, but this world is not. Go through the elevator at the end of the room, walk a hundred or so yards out of the building, and you’ll run into eight-foot tall mutants who will cheerfully rip your students’ arms off and eat them in front of you, and that’s if you’re lucky. I’m sorry if the three of you are struggling with what just happened with Turner, I really am, but the Rainbooms have been dealing with way worse shit than that on a regular basis. Trust me, it’s better to be traumatized than dead.”

Luna didn’t know how to respond to that. She wasn’t even sure if there was a sane response. It was half-tempting to demand that Sienna take her upstairs and prove her claims, but the possibility that it was all true was too horrifying. Besides, whether the Enclave were lying or not, Luna couldn’t leave Trixie and Sonata alone down here.

“You said some of the Rainbooms were injured,” Trixie said suddenly. She looked up, a bleak expression on her face. “How badly?”

“That’s… a difficult question,” Sienna replied, which only increased Luna’s apprehension. “They’re all alive, and they’re fit and healthy enough to go exploring the wasteland, but anything beyond that is confidential, I’m afraid.”

“Figures,” Trixie muttered.

Sienna hummed, then clapped her hands together. “Tell you what, how about I see if I can get permission for the three of you to take a look through the security cameras? That way you can get a good look at the surface for yourselves.”





The towering pillar of swirling magical lights was amazing. Sonata had only ever seen that much magic once, and this time it looked much better, mostly because it wasn’t being launched directly at her face this time around. 

Glancing surreptitiously at the others, Sonata noted that Luna and the doctor were arguing, while Trixie was still moping over the Raingoons not being around and the weird mutant guy getting shot. She didn’t get what all the fuss was about; sure, dead bodies weren’t exactly fun, but it wasn’t as if he was actually properly dead yet, and he was the moron who had screwed up the portal. Still, there were advantages to being lumped in with the prudes.

Sonata looked up at the pillar. Lots of wisps in varying shades of blue were slowly congregating around the trio from CHS, with a handful of orange and pink ones floating around Luna as well. It was all ripe for the taking.

After a quick glance to make sure that no-one was paying her any attention, Sonata sneakily opened her hand and concentrated on the magical wisps that were calling to her specifically. A couple of them cheerfully split off from the pillar and darted straight into her hand. Sonata swiftly absorbed the magic and whipped her hand back, shooting the others an innocent look. None of them had noticed.

Struggling to contain her smirk, Sonata opened her hand again and got back to quietly siphoning off as much magic as she could.





“It takes a lot of balls coming back here, after everything that happened.” Butch grinned. “I gotta say, though, it’s a good thing you did.”

“I saw what Taylor tried to do, is Freddie alright?” Gomez asked.

Butch nodded. “He’s fine, it’ll take more than that to faze a Tunnel Snake. I’ll take it from here, you better get back before the Overseer starts yanking your chain again.”

Without so much as a backward glance, Gomez abruptly turned and walked away, disappearing without another word.

“What the hell happened down here, Butch?” Adam asked roughly. 

Butch grimaced and shook his head. “You’d better head on in and speak to Amata. I’ve gotta keep a close eye on this corridor, in case the security assholes try another attack while Andy’s down doing maintenance.” He stepped aside and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “She’s in the clinic.”

“Got it.” Adam carefully stepped around the choke points, making sure not to accidentally knock any of them with his power armor. Sunset glanced curiously at Butch as she walked past, but he had already gone back to watching the corridor behind them, his switchblade clenched tightly in his fist. The sight of Butch being responsible, not to mention the fact that he hadn’t acted like an asshole, concerned Sunset more than anything else she had seen in the Vault so far.

The entrance to the clinic was just on the left after the last chokepoint. As soon as he saw it, Adam suddenly stopped in his tracks. Sunset could hardly blame him for hesitating; she couldn’t even begin to imagine what thoughts were going through his head as he stood before his father’s former lair.

“Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked quietly.

Adam nodded and cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” he replied gruffly. He took a deep breath to compose himself, then sighed and opened the door.

Several Vault residents were gathered inside. Every one of them looked over and stared in shock as the group walked in. A familiar friendly figure pushed through the others, a gleeful smile on her face. 

“Oh my God, you’re all back! You actually got my message and came back!” Amata exclaimed excitedly.

“We came back as soon as we heard you were in trouble,” Adam told her, smiling softly. 

“We weren’t gonna leave you hanging,” Rainbow added.

Amata sagged with relief. “Oh, thank you! Everything’s gone crazy since you left, and now that you’re all back, you can help set things straight.”

Looking around, Sunset saw that the other rebels present were all around Amata and Adam’s age group, though she was surprised to see some of the older residents there, too. All of them looked worse for wear, and more than a few were sporting nasty bruises and cuts. Random supplies and bits of equipment were stacked haphazardly around the walls, including what looked like armor and gear stolen from the security team, and a bunch of mattresses were pushed together in the corner. It was clear that the rebels were making do with whatever they could get their hands on.

“What exactly has been happening down here?” Sunset asked. “We heard that the Overseer had gone nuts, and Gomez mentioned that the security team tried to attack you, but no-one has given us any details. Fill us in, and we’ll see what we can do to help.”

“Of course. One second.” Amata turned and sent one of the rebels to find Stanley and Andy, then gestured for the group to join next to the old clinic bed in the corner. “I can’t believe how much you’ve all changed. Especially you.” Amata ran her eyes over Adam’s power armor. “Where the hell did you get that?”

“Outside,” Adam replied simply. “Right, what happened? I want to know everything that’s gone on since we left.”

A grimace of pain flickered across Amata’s face for a moment. “It was… bad. My fath- the Overseer was furious that James and the rest of you had all left. The fact that I learned the truth about the Vault being opened before just made him even angrier.”

“Did you confront him about it?” Applejack asked.

“Of course I confronted him,” Amata replied tersely. “It was bad enough that he had decided to close the Vault and lie to everyone who was too young to know the truth, but the fact that he was willing to let people die just to protect that lie is unconscionable. Most of the other people my age got angry when they learned the truth, too, and that’s when we started pushing him to open up the Vault again.”

Rainbow frowned and scratched her head. “I don’t get it. If people want to leave, then why not let them leave? I mean, he’s happy to kill them anyway, isn’t kicking them out easier?”

“We don’t want to leave!” Amata insisted, though she immediately looked pensive. “Well, Butch does, but he’s too much of a coward to leave on his own. The rest of us just want to open the gate up and see what’s out there. Old Lady Palmer told us all about this settlement nearby called Megaton. If we opened the Vault, we could trade with them to make our lives easier, or we could even let some people in to bolster our population. The Vault is doomed either way if we don’t get some new genetic stock within a few generations.”

The growl that Applejack let out made the other residents shiver. “Yeah, that’s why the Overseer was fine with lettin’ us stay here instead of kickin’ us out the second we arrived. He wanted breedin’ stock.”

“Asshole,” Amata muttered. “Anyway, the Overseer soon started cracking down on those of us who wanted freedom. It was crazy, he let the security team get away with pretty much anything as long as they were keeping us in line. That’s when we all banded together. I tried sending a message out to you after a few weeks, but you never came back.” She clearly tried to keep her voice even, but it still took on an accusatory tone.”

“We’ve been busy running all over the wastes, it’s been hectic up on the surface,” Sunset told her. “What happened next?”

Amata scowled. “Some members of the security team had had enough. They organized and tried to attack us against the Overseer’s wishes. Thankfully, thanks to you helping him out-,” she nodded to Applejack, “-Stanley has had more free time these days. He found out about the team’s plans and reprogrammed Andy to defend us against them. We never would have stood a chance if he hadn’t.”

“What did the Overseer do when the security team disobeyed him?” Rarity asked. “Surely he didn’t take that lying down?”

Every Vault resident within earshot winced. “He was angry, but there wasn’t much that he could do about it,” Amata said quietly. “It turns out that the security team were being stirred up by Allen.”

“Officer Mack’s dad?!” Pinkie exclaimed, getting a nod from Amata. Sunset wasn’t particularly surprised. She hadn’t spoken to Allen Mack much, but their few interactions had been marked by thinly-veiled hostility on his part. From what other Vault residents had told her back when the Rainbooms had lived here, he was even more of a nasty piece of work than his son.

“Anyway, Allen and the Overseer had a huge argument after that,” Amata continued. The Overseer tried to have Allen thrown in a cell, but half of the security team backed him up. The whole Vault has been in a tense standoff ever since. Luckily, since the attack, Officer Gomez has been secretly helping us out, bringing us information and supplies whenever he can.”

Twilight crossed her arms, a thoughtful expression on her face. “One question; we’ve been moving back and forth from the local area for a while now, so how come we didn’t get your message until today?”

“The Overseer discovered the message and switched the Vault’s external radio off. Christina only managed to sneak in to switch it back on this morning.” Amata sighed heavily. “And that’s it. That’s everything.” She looked around at the group pleadingly. “I know this isn’t really any of your business anymore, but will you help us?”

“Of course we will, you twit,” Rainbow replied. 

Adam humed thoughtfully, then shrugged and opened up his armor, rolling his shoulders once he’d stepped out of it.

“Uh, what are you doin’?” Applejack asked.

“I’m going to go and speak to the Overseer, see what that old coot has to say for himself,” Adam replied. “Flutters, are you okay to come with?” Fluttershy nodded eagerly. “Thanks. The rest of you should probably rest a bit. I want to try and find a solution that doesn’t involve breaking teeth, and if we all turn up at the Overseer’s office together it might spook him into doing something drastic.”

“Shouldn’t you really keep your armor on for that, darling? You’ve already been shot at once,” Rarity pointed out.

Adam snorted. “I’ll be fine. We can handle these posers.”

Sunset nodded and glanced at Amata. “In that case, we’ll stay around here. If the security team tries to attack again, they’re going to have one hell of a shock.” She patted her Nova Pistol meaningfully.
> Chapter 127 - Another One Bites The Dust
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Enclave sucked. That was the simple conclusion that Trixie had come to. The Enclave, their world, and everything about it sucked more than all of the magical messes that CHS had dealt with combined. 

Trixie couldn’t get the image of Turner’s head erupting out of her mind. She had seen a few horror movies before, but there was a huge difference between seeing cheesy special effects on a screen, and seeing the real thing right in front of you. To be fair, Trixie found it easy enough to understand why the Enclave wanted to leave. Any world where a medical professional’s first instinct was the use of deadly force was a world that no sane person would want to stay in. 

Thankfully, Vice-Principal had decided against checking the surface using the facility’s security cameras. Trixie couldn’t deny that she had initially felt a little curious as to what a real post-apocalyptic wasteland looked like, but the shooting had utterly quashed any semblance of enthusiasm. 

Since her idea of using the cameras had been shot down, and she couldn’t think of anything else to distract the trio with, Sienna had taken them back to the cafeteria to let them try to relax and process their situation, a decision that Trixie very much approved of. Once she had rinsed the taste of vomit out of her mouth in the cafeteria’s sink, Trixie excused herself and followed Sienna’s directions to the nearest restroom. She didn’t really need to go, but rather was desperate for some peace, quiet, and solitude. 

The restroom was, surprisingly, less spartan than the rest of the facility. There were mirrors over every faucet, a small ham radio in one corner playing jaunty little tunes, a trashcan in another corner, a dispenser for sanitary products and, Trixie blushed when she spotted it, a dispenser for intimate lubricants and fertility treatments. That blush only deepened when she spotted fresh posters on each of the toilet stalls of a man in a red, white and blue jacket and top hat, with the caption: UNCLE SAM NEEDS YOU! Do your bit to help the Enclave repopulate our world!

Trixie quickly ducked into one of the stalls. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that there weren’t any posters inside, then put the toilet seat down so she could sit comfortably. Finally alone and unsupervised, Trixie groaned and rested her head in her hands. 

It wasn’t long before silent tears were slipping down her cheeks.





Fluttershy had never noticed before just how much Vault 101 reeked. It had almost certainly smelled a lot better before all of the current drama kicked off, but right now her nostrils were filled with the foetid stench of rotting garbage, old blood, and radroach waste. She quietly hoped that it only smelled so bad because of her enhanced senses. Thankfully, the fact that Rarity hadn’t so much as wrinkled her nose as they walked suggested that that was probably the case.

Together with Adam, Fluttershy left the clinic and made her way back through the choke points. She glanced sidelong at Butch as she passed. She wasn’t even remotely afraid of the loud-mouthed thug anymore, but she still wasn’t quite sure that she trusted him, even with his apparent change of attitude towards the group.

“Are you alright?” Adam asked suddenly.

Fluttershy looked up at him. His expression was calm and collected, but she could hear his heart hammering away in his chest much faster than usual. “I’m okay. Are you?”

“I guess so.” Adam sighed heavily. “It’s just weird being back here. I’d say it’s nostalgia, but things have changed so much that the place is barely recognizable to me.”

That was understandable. Fluttershy tried to think of something that might lift his spirit, but all that came to mind were weak platitudes, so she changed tack. “If we can sort this mess out peacefully, would you like to move back here?”

Adam shook his head vigorously. “Not a chance. There’s a whole world out there, I couldn’t just settle down here in the underground again. I might see if I can rest here every now and again, just to keep in contact, but my place is outside.” He shook his head again, melancholy slipping into his voice. “It might not be what dad wanted for me, but that’s where I belong.”

Fluttershy gently placed her hand on his back. “He’d be proud of you,” she said, getting a sad smile from him.

As the pair emerged back into the atrium, Fluttershy tensed up. “What’s wrong?” Adam asked, immediately noticing her sudden shift. 

“There’s people around. Quite a lot of people,” Fluttershy replied. She could hear their muffled voices coming from a room nearby, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. “They’re gathered in one of the rooms down there.” She nodded towards a nearby corridor. “They weren’t there when we came in.”

Adam glanced over at Taylor, who was still at his post by the entrance, scowling at the pair. “It’s probably the security team, they’re bound to know we’re here, or maybe the other residents are getting together to discuss our return,” Adam mused. He shrugged and kept walking. “Hopefully it’s the latter, but if it’s the former, I think we can trust the girls to hold the fort.”

“I’m more concerned about them turning the security team into mulch,” Fluttershy said flatly. “Does Vault 101 even have anything bigger than a 10mm pistol?”

“Hmm, I think the Mack’s might have an assault rifle,” Adam replied. “Officer Mack and Wally kept bragging about how their ancestors brought it with them when they first settled in the Vault, but I’ve never actually seen it.”

The thought of an assault rifle in the clutches of the Macks was a nasty little surprise. Fluttershy was confident that the others would be able to handle it easily enough, but she was getting a sneaking suspicion that at least one of the Macks was going to end up six feet under by the end of the day.

As they made their way through the Vault, Fluttershy noticed that none of the usual residents were abroad in the corridors. Whether that was because of the tension between factions, an enforced lockdown by the Overseer, or simply because word of the Rainbooms’ return had spread, was anybody’s guess.  

It didn’t take long for the pair to reach the Vault’s upper level, though the number of broken and barricaded doors meant that they had to take the scenic route. Fluttershy frowned and cocked her head to the side as they reached the atrium’s upper walkways. “Oh, I hope that isn’t what I think it is,” she muttered.

“What is it?” Adam asked. 

“Four people are following us,” Fluttershy replied, listening intently. “Two of them are wearing boots, not shoes. They must be members of the security team.”

Adam glanced back the way they had come, then looked over the walkway’s railing. “We may as well wait for them. If they’re looking for trouble, they may as well find it here.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Fluttershy took a deep breath and closed her eyes, concentrating on the law she had adopted from the Family. 

The Law of Family: Kill not our kindred; slay only the enemy.

Fluttershy didn’t like the idea of violence, she doubted that she ever would, but if the security team were determined to pick a fight with her and her friends, that made them the enemy. If they couldn’t be talked down, then there was only one other option. A few seconds later, Fluttershy opened her eyes just as the four followers emerged onto the walkway. 

Officer Mack was at the front of the little group. His helmet visor was up, revealing a sadistic grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and he had a 10mm pistol clutched in one hand. Fluttershy felt her predatory instincts stir at the sight of him. He was the one who had murdered Jonas; the first death that Fluttershy had had to deal with in this miserable world.

Resisting the urge to immediately vamp out and slake her rising bloodlust, Fluttershy tore her gaze away from Officer Mack and looked at the others with him. Officer Wolfe was standing next to Mack, bearing both an identical pistol and an identical twisted grin. Behind them, surprisingly, were Wally Mack and Pepper Gomez. Wally, Officer Mack’s younger brother, had ditched his old Tunnel Snakes jacket and was tightly gripping a cracked baseball bat, while Pepper, Officer Gomez’ wife, was holding a large kitchen knife. Fluttershy presumed that Pepper wasn’t as amenable to the Rainbooms as her husband was.

“Hey, long time no see,” Adam said calmly, though he was glaring at Officer Mack as much as Fluttershy had been. “We’re just on our way to have a chat with the Overseer, did you need us for something?”

Officer Mack chuckled maliciously. “I almost couldn’t believe it when Taylor said that you little shits were back.”

“And I can’t believe a lot of the crap going on back here,” Adam retorted. “For a start, they’ve still got a scumbag like you on the security team.” Mack opened his mouth to say something, but Adam ignored him and turned to Pepper. “You surprise me, though. I get why Tweedle Dum, Tweedle Dee, and Tweedle Dipshit are here, but what about you, Mrs Gomez?”

Pepper tightened her grip on her knife and glared at the pair. “It’s all your fault, yours and that idiot father of yours.” Fluttershy fought the urge to snarl at the insult to James. “The Vault was safe, but thanks to all of you leaving, those rebels want to risk everything and contact the outside, just because they’re bored!” Pepper shook her head. “I don’t want to do this, but I can’t let you risk my son’s safety.”

“You do realize that Taylor already tried to shoot him earlier today, right?” Adam pointed out, making the blood drain from her face. “The biggest danger to the Vault right now are these posers.” He jerked his head towards the security officers. 

“I think I’ve had enough of you running your mouth,” Officer Mack sneered. “It’s payback time.”

Fluttershy tensed, ready to whip her sword out at a second’s notice, while Adam straightened up and squared his shoulders. “Pepper, you’ve always been good to us, and Wally, this is over your head, so I’m going to give you one chance. Walk away. As for you.” He cracked his knuckles and fixed Officer Mack with a glare that would give a Super Mutant pause. “You’re going to pay for what you did to Jonas and Amata.”

Officer Mack leered at him. “Did you know that they cried?” He said with vicious glee. “Cried like little babies when I beat them, especially that little bitch, Jonas-”

That last jab obliterated what little remained of Fluttershy’s control. Wings erupted from her back, a feral snarl escaping her throat as she leapt at her prey. Officer Mack didn’t even have time to react as Fluttershy raked her talons across his throat. Before he could even clasp his hands to the gaping wound in his neck, Fluttershy stepped to the side and backhanded Wolfe with a fist. He fell to the floor instantly, his helmet dented in far enough to show that the blow had been fatal. Mack followed a heartbeat later, weakly pawing at his throat.

Movement caught Flutteshy’s eye, and she snapped her head up to fix Pepper and Wally in her sight. The two of them were staring at her wide-eyed, holding their weapons in a white-knuckled grip as their terrified heartbeats thundered in Fluttershy’s ears; weak little prey-things ready for the slaughter. 

Before she could lunge for them, a hand gently touched Fluttershy’s shoulder. Quick as a flash, she shrugged it off and spun around, letting out a warning snarl, only to see Adam holding his hands up placatingly. “Easy, Flutters,” he said slowly. “That’s the two biggest assholes down, how about we let the other two think about their mistakes, huh?”

Fluttershy growled and looked back at the other two. It took a tremendous effort of will, but finally she managed to hiss and tear her gaze away from them. She covered her mouth and nose with a hand. “I need to get out of this corridor.”

“She’s a monster,” Pepper said suddenly, her voice quavering with fear. Fluttershy glanced back to see her cowering against the wall, her knife forgotten, while Wally dropped his bat and fell to his knees, staring at the corpse of his older brother. The sight of the blood pooling on the floor stoked Fluttershy’s thirst, and she quickly looked away. 

“The only monsters here are dead on the floor,” Adam countered. “If you don’t want more to follow, then stop picking fights with the people who are trying to help. He put an arm around Fluttershy’s shoulders and gently tugged her away. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Fluttershy let herself be guided slowly away from the scene. The urge to go back and unleash hell, to feed indiscriminately, was still thundering through her veins, powerfully enough that it was all she could do not to sink her fangs into the neck that was so tantalisingly close to her own. When the two entered the last corridors before the Overseer’s office, she slipped out from under Adam’s arm and rifled through her nursing kit for a blood pack.

“Are you okay?” Adam asked.

Fluttershy drained the blood pack in a second, savouring the tingle that flowed through her body. With the edge taken off her thirst, at least for the moment, she sighed and tried to organize her thoughts. “I shouldn’t have killed them.”

“If it’s any consolation, the only reason I didn’t do it myself is because you got there literally a split-second before me,” Adam told her. “At least you didn’t go for Wally and Pepper. They’re idiots, and an asshole in Wally’s case, but they probably don’t deserve that.”

“I nearly did go for them,” Fluttershy replied tightly. Even now, after downing a pint of blood, her body was still aching for more. 

Adam shrugged. “Nearly killing them is better than actually killing them.”

Fluttershy sighed. “I suppo-” She glanced over her shoulder as she heard lots of faint footsteps and voices crossing the lower floor of the atrium. 

“What is it?” Adam asked, instantly on guard.

“About ten people, I think,” Fluttershy replied. “It sounds like they’re heading down towards the clinic.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” Adam glanced down the corridor they needed to take, then back at Fluttershy. “Should we head down there and see if we can stop them?”

Fluttershy almost said yes immediately, but she managed to hold herself back. Stalking through the Vault’s corridors when she was vamped up wasn’t likely to be safe for anybody, especially if she ran into another hostile group, and she didn’t feel anywhere near calm enough to switch back to her ordinary form just yet. “No, the girls can handle it. We need to speak to the Overseer.”

Adam nodded. “Fair enough. Let’s go.”

With the decision made, the two headed through the last few corridors to the Overseer’s office. When they arrived, they found Officer Gomez sitting on a chair in the waiting room outside, nursing a cup of coffee. His eyes practically popped out of his head when he saw Fluttershy, and he quickly put the coffee down and scrambled to his feet. “What the hell?”

“We need to speak to the Overseer,” Fluttershy said in a tone that brooked no refusal. 
> Chapter 128 - Defensive Measures 101
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset watched Adam and Fluttershy go with mixed feelings. She understood that having everyone barge into the Overseer’s office wasn’t exactly the most diplomatic move, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but wish that she could punch the smarmy asshole in the face. Then again, if the security team tried anything funny, she would settle for giving them a sharp lesson in interpersonal relations. In the meantime, there was work to do.

“How many rebels are there altogether?” Sunset asked. 

“Huh?” Amata blinked dumbly, tearing her gaze away from the door. “Oh, uh, this is most of us. There’s a couple of us holed up in the classroom around the corner, and Stanley and Andy are downstairs doing maintenance, but that’s about it.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Uh, is it really a good idea to have them both down there instead of up here?”

“Don’t worry, Stanley and Andy are essential to keeping the Vault functioning; the security team won’t risk hurting them,” Amata replied.

“I doubt that very much,” Sunset muttered. “Besides, I think what Rainbow means is that Andy is your biggest and best line of defense. Can you really risk not having him up here protecting all of you?”

Amata hesitated before shaking her head. “It’s fine. We’ve got Butch on lookout, and we have all of this stuff we salvaged from the security team’s last attack.” She gestured at the piles of armor and equipment around the clinic. “If anyone comes, Butch can hold them off long enough for us to get ready and help, then all we have to do is get someone through to get the word to Stanley and Andy.”

The sheer amount of flaws in that plan almost made Sunset’s head spin. It appeared that the rebels only had the barest minimum of tactical awareness between them. 

“Do you have some sort of secret tunnel out of here?” Pinkie asked, looking around at the walls eagerly.

Amata just gave her a blank look. “I don’t think there are any secret tunnels in the Vault, other than the one that goes from the Overseer’s office to the entrance.”

“So there’s only one way in or out?” Pinkie frowned and put her hands on her hips. “Couldn’t you have built one of the barricades so you can open it easily from this side? That way you’d at least have somewhere to run if everything went wrong.”

“And another thing, if Butch is your sentry, why isn’t he wearing any of this security armor?” Rarity put in. “I for one understand just how drab it is, but safety first, darling.”

“He-he said he didn’t need it,” Amata said weakly.

Applejack sighed and rubbed her temples. “Let me get this straight. You’re sayin’ that you’ve only got one person on watch, all of this gear but none of you are actually wearing it just in case, and you’ve got no backup plan in case everything goes tits-up.” Amata bit her lip nervously. “On top of that, you’re up against assholes who are armed, armored, motivated with a grudge against all of y’all, they’ve all had basic self defense trainin’ at the very least, and the only way y’all can contact the only thing capable of stoppin’ them is to try and break through when they attack?”

Amata rubbed her neck awkwardly. “This is why I called for help. We’re not natural fighters like Adam or born wasteland survivors like you girls. We can’t do this on our own.”

“For the record, we’re not from the wasteland, either,” Sunset pointed out. “I’d tell you where we’re really from, but I’ll leave blowing your mind until after we’ve sorted this mess out. In the meantime…” She glanced at the others. “Rarity, AJ, I want you two to give give Butch some backup. Take one of those security outfits for him to wear. If he refuses, just punch him in the dick until he either puts it on or comes crawling back in here.”

“Gladly,” Applejack said with a grin.

“If the security team does attack, seal the corridor and give us a shout,” Sunset continued. “If it comes to a worst case scenario, just shoot the fuckers. The rest of us will stick here and try to tidy this place up a bit.”

Amata watched as Applejack and Rarity dutifully grabbed a suit of security armor and headed back out of the clinic. “The outside really has changed all of you, hasn’t it? I mean, you practically seized up the first time I swore, and you’re just…”

“Yeah, it’s a bad habit we’ve picked up recently.” Sunset absently placed a hand on her Nova Pistol as various memories of the last couple of months floated through her brain. “One of several.”

Amata glanced wistfully at the door, curling a stray hair around one of her fingers. “Adam looks more determined than ever. Has he changed much?”

Sunset kept her expression neutral. “I’m sure he’ll tell you, if you ask him. Or his girlfriend will.” Amata whipped her head around, her mouth dropping open in surprise. “Either way, instead of standing around chatting, let’s do something useful. Gather everyone you’ve got who’s willing and able to fight. We’ll fit the armor for you and see if we can teach you all how to use a weapon without accidentally killing each other.”

It was plain that Amata wanted to discuss Adam some more, but Sunset and the others managed to divert her focus to getting the armor and weapons divvied up. To Sunset’s annoyance, Amata herself refused to take any armor until it was pointed out that, as the face of the Vault’s little rebellion, anyone who wanted to quash it would be gunning for her head. 

Just as Amata was reluctantly putting her armor on, Butch stumbled into the clinic, groaning and clutching at his groin. “Applejack punched you in the little tunnel snake, huh?” Pinkie said with a smirk.

“Pff, as if his little snake has ever been near anyone’s tunnel,” Rainbow shot.

“Well, you never know,” Twilight pointed out as she adjusted her glasses. “Don’t forget, he does like to surround himself with leather-clad young men.” 

Sunset barely managed to keep herself from giggling, an endeavor not helped by Butch’s angry glare. “You should have just put the armor on,” she managed to say in a relatively even tone. “Go sit down until you can walk properly, then you can join in with the rest of us.”

Turning away from the bruised bully, Sunset and the others set about giving the rebels some very basic self defence training. It didn’t take long for the girls to realize that such training was even more needed than they had expected; most of the rebels had never so much as thrown a punch in their lives, and it clearly showed. Old Lady Palmer walked into the clinic shortly after they started and, in a surprising twist, joined in with the teaching. She was far too old and worn to actually fight, but proved to have an impressive grasp of the finer details of bare-knuckle brawling.

Only a few minutes later, the clatter of gunfire echoed through the corridors. “Hey, y’all, we got assholes out here!” Applejack shouted out.

“That didn’t sound like a pistol,” Sunset mused as she snatched up her plasma rifle. “More like an assault rifle or something.”

The rebels all blanched in fear, but the Rainbooms just readied their weapons and calmly made their way out to the choke points. As Sunset expected, Applejack and Rarity were safely ensconced behind one of the choke points, while the corridor just beyond was completely blocked off by a wall of shimmering crystal. Muffled shouts could be heard from behind it. “What’s going on?” Sunset asked.

“Allen Mack and a few security officers, here to cause trouble,” Applejack replied. 

“That wretched brute apparently managed to get his filthy paws on an assault rifle,” Rarity grumbled, confirming Sunset’s suspicion. “I know it’s not quite what you ordered, but I took the opportunity to lock our assailants in crystal shackles before I put this wall up. I do hope that’s alright, darling.”

Sunset nodded. She had been a Knight-Captain for a little while now, but it still sometimes felt odd having her friends treat her like a superior. “It’s fine. Good thinking.” 

“Whoa…” The girls turned to see Amata staring wide-eyed at the crystal wall. “What on earth is that?”

“A defensive measure,” Sunset replied evasively. She didn’t have time to go over the details of magic or the Rainbooms’ true provenance at the moment. Turning back to Rarity, she took a deep breath and raised her plasma rifle. “Okay, open up.”

The others readied themselves as Rarity waved a hand. The crystal wall vanished instantly. Just as she had said, Allen Mack was standing on the other side along with five security officers, each of them with their feet and upper bodies encased in crystal. All of them were squirming as they tried to free themselves.

Sunset glared at Allen. He was wearing the standard Vault jumpsuit, with a tattered old baseball cap covering his close-cropped brown hair, and he had the aforementioned assault rifle clutched awkwardly in his crystal-covered arms. He looked up when he realized that the wall had disappeared, his features twisted by fear and anger. “You! What the hell have you done to us?!”

“Restrained you.” Sunset slung her plasma rifle over her shoulder and calmly strode over to him, ignoring his threats and protests as she yanked the assault rifle out of his immobilised hands. She wasn’t particularly good at completely field stripping an assault rifle, but she knew how to remove enough components to render it unusable, letting the pieces clatter to the floor as she finished with them. 

As the other Rainbooms relieved the security officers of their weapons, Amata stepped up alongside Sunset. “Why did you break it? We could have kept it away from and stored it in case we needed it.”

“It can be put back together,” Sunset assured her. “Besides, from what I’ve seen, your rebels are barely able to hold a basic pistol without accidentally shooting themselves, I’m not letting them have a fully automatic weapon until I’m well out of range.” With her piece said, she crossed her arms and stared down Allen. “Now, do you have any kind of excuse for the shit you just tried to pull, or are you just going to be a brazen asshole about it?”

Allen snarled at her. “You freaks don’t belong here! We never should have let you, that damned doctor, or his little brat stay here, and you should never have come back! What goes on in this Vault is none of your fucking business!”

“Brazen asshole, got it.” Sunset rolled her eyes. “Let me guess, seeing all of us come back armed to the teeth spooked you, so one of your cronies spotted Adam and Fluttershy going to speak to the Overseer, you decided to take the initiative and attack while the big bad Lone Wanderer was busy.” Allen spewed more insults and threats, so Sunset just talked over him. “Since Andy kicked your asses last time, I assume you have someone keeping an eye on him and Stanley or you never would have dared try this again. Either that or you’re a complete moron.” She glanced at Rainbow. “Hey, Dash? Do you mind heading down to the reactor level and checking on Andy and Stanley?”

“On it!” Rainbow disappeared in a multicolored blur, leaving Amata and the security officers she was standing in front of gaping in shock. 

Allen, still unable to move, hadn’t seen her speed off. “What do you think’s going to happen now? You think you just get to waltz in and out of our Vault whenever you damn well please?”

“Yes,” Sunset replied bluntly. “I also know that you and your little posse are going to hand over all of your weapons and armor, and then you’re going to go back to your quarters and sit still like good little children.”

“Who the hell do you think you are, trying to give us orders?” Allen snapped. “We’re not doing a single damn-”

“No, you see, this is not a negotiation,” Sunset cut in. “This is the part where you shut the fuck up and do as you’re told while Adam and Fluttershy negotiate with the Overseer. You know, your boss.”

Allen scoffed loudly. “You think that old fool is going to be the Overseer for much longer? I am the one with the power down here.”

A blazing lance of orange light flashed over his head, turning the dim corridors as bright as day for a split second before it bored a hole through the metal ceiling of the Vault. Allen and the security officers cowered as much as they could in their glittering restraints. Sunset lowered her Nova pistol, replaced the smouldering ammunition crystal, and slipped it back into its holster. “You think you have power? You’re nothing more than a thug with a superiority complex. Your options here are simple. You either do as you’re told, here and now, and we’ll leave peacefully once we’ve finished talking around the Overseer.” She leaned in close to his face, lowering her tone dangerously, “Or you keep pissing me off, and I show you what real power looks like.”

The blood drained from Allen’s face in an instant. His jaw worked as he tried to muster up some courage, but a few seconds later he just nodded fearfully. 

“Smart move,” Sunset growled. 

There was a flash of color as Rainbow suddenly reappeared, making all of the Vault dwellers flinch. “Andy and Stanley are fine, some security officers had just locked the doors to the room they were working in. They let the pair out pretty quick when I showed them Flashburn.” She glanced around, taking in the looks of abject terror on the security teams’ faces. “What did I miss?”





The Overseer’s office was just as clean and tidy as Fluttershy remembered it. Compared to how the rest of the Vault was faring, it was actually a little galling to see. The Overseer himself was still standing at the window that overlooked the atrium, his hands clasped behind his back, watching impassively over the Vault. 

“So, you’ve returned,” he said quietly.

“We were asked to come back,” Adam replied as Gomez closed the door behind them. “Certain residents happen to think that this place is in chaos.”

The Overseer didn’t so much as blink. “They aren’t wrong. Things have been… difficult, since you left. Not that I suppose either of you care.” 

Adam crossed his arms and glared at him. “If we didn’t care, we wouldn’t be back here.”

The Overseer snorted. “And why are you back here? Hm? Come to kill me? Or have you brought Fluttershy to try and talk me down?”

“Little bit of column A, little bit of column B,” Adam admitted. “Depends on how much of an arrogant asshole you want to try and be given that the Vault has pretty much collapsed under your leadership”

“It only collapsed after all of you left,” the Overseer huffed. 

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. “So you can’t keep the Vault together without all of us here? We know damn well that James didn’t let the radroaches in, he just took advantage of the chaos they caused, so don’t try and pin that on him, and you can hardly blame us girls for leaving when you tried to use us as babymakers.”

As if surprised to hear her talking like that, the Overseer finally turned to face the pair, then reeled in shock at the sight of Fluttershy’s vampiric form. “What the hell- what are you?!”

Fluttershy smirked at him. “Oh? Haven’t you heard of vampires before?”

“Vamp…” The Overseer looked as if he was about to keel over from sheer fright.

“It’s caused by FEV, a virus we encountered in another Vault,” Adam explained quickly, deciding that giving the Overseer a heart attack probably wouldn’t help with diplomacy. “Don’t worry, the infection can only be transmitted through blood, so the Vault is safe.” The Overseer’s eyes flicked to the blood still dripping from Fluttershy’s fingers. “That’s not hers.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” The Overseer hissed.

Fluttershy idly inspected her fingers. “Well, it’s Officer Mack’s, meaning your daughter is a little safer than she was earlier, so I would say yes.” She tilted her head as a thought occurred to her. The Overseer seemed to shrink in on himself as she gave him a furious glare. “Weren’t you the one who had Mack beat her when we all left the Vault?”

“I didn’t want to do that, but I had to protect the Vault!” The Overseer insisted. 

“That’s funny, because you were having her beaten to try and find out where I was, or did that slip your memory?” Adam said acidly. “I wasn’t a threat to the Vault-”

“You attacked the security team!” The Overseer snapped.

“Because they attacked me first!” Adam retorted. “So either you’re bullshitting, or the security team hasn’t had any respect for your authority from day one.” He scowled and shook his head. “Either way, that’s old news. We need to discuss what’s going to happen from here on out.”

The Overseer stared at the two, looking from one to the other worriedly, then finally walked back to his desk and sat down. “Fine. I assume you want to open the Vault up? Expose all of us to all kinds of different dangers that the Vault is designed to protect us from?”

“You know as well as I do that the Vault’s were designed as experiments, not sanctuaries,” Adam reminded him. “This one was never intended to open, but the people who decided that were twisted and evil.”

The Overseer nodded. “Yes, the Enclave, I’m aware. They actually contacted us shortly after you left.” Fluttershy blinked in surprise. “We were offered supplies, lodgings, and protection, in exchange for opening the Vault up to them. Naturally, I refused, as I don’t trust them any more than I trust you. At that point their leader, one Colonel Autumn, tried to demand that we allow the Enclave access to the Vault, and threatened retribution if we didn’t. Do you still want to tell me that it is even remotely safe to open the Vault door?”

“Colonel Autumn isn’t actually with the Enclave any more,” Fluttershy put in. “He was deposed along with President Eden. The Brotherhood of Steel actually have him in custody at the moment.”

“So another person is in charge, I fail to see how that changes things,” the Overseer countered.

Adam rolled his eyes. “It changes things because the new leaders aren’t assholes. You did the right thing not opening the Vault for Autumn, the guy was a dick, but the new President is actually a decent person. She’s interested in rebuilding the wasteland, not conquering it.” 

The Overseer frowned thoughtfully, so Fluttershy gave him another little push. “Besides, you’re going to have to open the Vault soon no matter what you do. You just don’t have a big enough population to remain genetically viable for more than another generation or two.”

“That wouldn’t have been an issue if you had stayed,” the Overseer griped.

“You know that’s a fallacy, so don’t bother playing that card,” Adam shot. “Even if the Rainbooms had somehow decided to stay, and even agreed to your gross little idea for breeding, that would only have bought you another generation or two at most. Face it, Alphonse, the Vault is doomed unless you start interacting with the outside world.”

The Overseer’s eyebrows twitched at the use of his first name, but he didn’t retort. Fluttershy wasn’t sure that there even was anything for him to counter with. Still, he hadn’t given up yet either, and even if he did, there was no guarantee that he would stick to it. “I think it’s time you passed your title on to someone else.”

“Amata isn’t ready,” the Overseer said immediately. 

Fluttershy was relieved that he had instantly thought of Amata, rather than Allen Mack, but Adam just snorted. “She’s organising the rebels, isn’t she? She has the respect of at least half of the Vault, and she already has experience with leadership. Plus, she’s tough enough that she won’t take any crap from any wastelanders who do try to pull one over on her.”

The Overseer ran a hand through his hair and grimaced. “Be that as it may, convincing some of the residents to accept her as a leader won’t be easy. Allen in particular will almost certainly work to undermine her and, as much as I hate to admit it, he has a considerable amount of influence over certain members of the security team.”

“She can handle Allen,” Adam assured him. “Worst case scenario, just kick the asshole out of the Vault, if he hasn’t already gotten himself killed.” The Overseer gave him a suspicious look, prompting him to shrug. “We heard a bunch of people heading across the atrium towards the lower levels. We’re pretty sure it’s the security team trying to launch another attack.”

“What?! Why didn’t you say anything sooner?!” The Overseer surged to his feet, panic etched across his features. “I have to put a stop to this! They’re going to-”

Adam held his hands up. “It’s fine, the girls can handle anything this Vault can throw at them, they won’t let Amata get hurt,” he said quickly. 

“You can’t be sure of that!” The Overseer spat.

Adam just gave him an amused look. “Trust me, you have no idea what the Rainbooms are capable of.”

The Overseer glanced at Fluttershy, then slowly shifted his gaze to a certain fist-sized dent in his desk. “I think maybe I do.” He dropped back into his seat with a heavy sigh and rested his head on his hands. “A second attack against my orders. Have I really failed so badly as an Overseer?” He sighed again, then said quietly, “You win. I’ll step down as Overseer and have Amata take my place.”





Luna almost jumped out of her skin as the cafeteria door slammed open. Whipping her head around, she saw a soldier outside, wearing what looked like a smaller version of Horrigan’s armor. 

“What’s going on?” Sienna asked quickly, rising to her feet.

“There’s been a development,” the soldier replied. “The President is being evacuated, and she’s ordered that the visitors are to be evacuated with her. I can’t give you any more information than that at this time.”

Sienna swore under her breath. “This had better be just a precaution because of Turner or I’m going to slap someone.” She turned to the three visitors in question. “You’d better get moving. If they’re evacuating the President then they won’t want to be waiting around.”

Luna gave a curt nod and stood up. “You heard her, girls, let’s go.”

Trixie and Sonata both looked confused and, in Trixie’s case, a little scared, but both obediently got to their feet and followed Luna out of the room. The soldier turned without a word and led the trio quickly through the corridors. 

“Is this a precaution because of Turner?” Luna asked quietly.

The soldier shook his head. “I’m sorry, Miss, but I can’t discuss it here. The President will fill you in when we get upstairs.”

Faint suspicion bloomed in Luna’s mind, but she kept quiet for the moment. The possibility that they were about to see the outside world filled Luna with both anticipation and dread. Anticipation because she was looking forward to getting outside and seeing the sky, rather than being cooped up in subterranean tunnels, and dread because, if the President had been telling the truth, then the group was about to see exactly what a post-apocalyptic wasteland looked like.

Emerging back into the hangar with the magical pillar, the soldier turned and led the group away from both the pillar and the door to the next hangar. It took Luna a moment to realize that he was heading towards a small elevator. The doors opened as soon as he pressed the button, and the soldier waved the trio in before getting in himself. The sheer size of his armor left very little space for any of the three to stand in once the doors had closed.

“Sorry about the tight fit, but we’re in a hurry,” the soldier said apologetically as the elevator started moving. 

Luna felt her heart rate rise at first, but as the seconds ticked over into minutes, and the elevator kept on moving with no sign of stopping, she felt herself starting to calm down. After a while, with no sound other than the rumbling of the elevator itself, she was surprised to find herself becoming bored. “Just how far beneath the surface are we?”

“I haven’t got a clue, to be honest,” the soldier replied. 

“It’s just like being down in the Deeps again,” Sonata mumbled. “Much brighter here, though.”

Before anyone could ask Sonata what she meant, the elevator finally stopped. The doors opened slowly, revealing brightly-lit concrete corridors. 

“This way.” The soldier stepped out of the elevator and led the way down one of the corridors. Turning a corner at the end, Luna was dismayed to see another elevator waiting for them. “This will take us up to the roof. Don’t worry, it’s a much shorter trip.”

“Thank goodness,” Luna mumbled under her breath. 

True to his word, the trip in the second elevator was much shorter than the previous one, and only a minute or two later it jolted to a stop. Luna shivered as the doors opened and chill air wafted into the elevator. The soldier immediately stepped out and moved out of the way for the trio to exit, offering them their first glimpse of the outside world. 

Luna was surprised to see that it was snowing heavily. Squinting to see through the flurries, she could see that the roof was covered in snow thick enough to reach her thighs, save for a few trenches that were being dutifully shovelled clear by more soldiers in powered armor. Beyond them, Luna could just about make out large concrete buildings surrounding the one they were on. Clearly they were in the middle of some sort of urban environment. Her heart sank as she realized that almost all of the buildings were severely damaged in some way, with many of them having gaping holes that revealed the snow-covered interiors. The Enclave had been telling the truth.

“Over here!” Luna looked around and spotted someone waving to them. Some sort of tiltrotor aircraft was sitting behind them, a ramp at the rear sitting open and waiting. “Come on, let’s go!”

Luna glanced back at Sonata and Trixie. Trixie had pulled her cloak around herself and was shivering violently, but Sonata, surprisingly, was just looking up at the snow with an expression of mild amusement. “Come on, girls. Quickly.”

The three hurried along one the shovelled trenches towards the aircraft, eager to get out of the cold. It turned out that the person waving them in was Agent Drops, who guided the trio up the ramp before following them in, slapping a button to close the ramp the instant she was up. 

Seats lined the sides of the aircraft’s interior. President Shoichet was sitting on one furthest away from the ramp, and gestured for the new arrivals to take the seats opposite. Agent Drops helped three get settled and put on their safety harnesses, then took the seat next to the President and shouted to the pilot, “Everything’s secure, take us up!”

A high-pitched whine filled the air, swiftly building to a dull roar as the rotors kicked in. Trixie and Sonata both gripped their harnesses as the aircraft slowly rose into the air, juddering slightly, then shifted and started moving forwards.

“We’re away, Madam President,” the pilot called through an intercom.

The President visibly relaxed, then looked up at Luna and the girls. “I’m sorry about this. Something came up and we’re having to put that facility on lockdown as a precaution. We’re going to head to the Enclave’s main base of operations; it’s safer there, and we’ll be able to coordinate things from there a little easier.”

“What happened?” Luna asked.

The President shared a look with Agent Drops, then shrugged and turned back to Luna. “I contacted the Citadel, the base of the Brotherhood of Steel, and requested that they send the Rainbooms to us as quickly as physically possible.” Seeing the look of concern on Luna’s face, she quickly added, “They agreed, and they’ve already sent a squad out to fetch them, don’t worry. The problem is, when I contacted them a second time to discuss another matter, they suddenly cut the connection off halfway through the conversation, and we haven’t been able to contact them since.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Trixie noted.

“No, and worse, we lost contact with one of our other outposts, a place called Raven Rock, a short while ago,” the President continued. “Contact was reestablished less than half an hour ago, but none of the personnel at the outpost can remember what they were doing during the intervening time. A handful of them have died, and no-one has any idea why.”

Luna grimaced. “That’s appalling, but what does that have to do with the portal facility?”

The President sighed heavily. “One of our recon teams spotted some sort of army on the march. The description matches that of creatures we’ve encountered at the Raven Rock outpost, and some of the members are recognisable as former Enclave personnel. They aren’t heading towards any Enclave facilities, but we can’t take any chances.”

A lead weight dropped in Luna’s stomach. “Where are they heading?” She asked, though something told her she already knew.

Scowling, the President confirmed her fears, “The Citadel.”
> Chapter 129 - Unity
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Vault’s main entrance was deathly quiet, with only a faint drip of water breaking the silence. Sunset liked it that way. 

Thankfully, the abandoned dead bodies had finally been taken away by Applejack and Fluttershy, who had taken them to rest somewhere more dignified. The rest of the Rainbooms, along with the entirety of the Vault population, were gathered in the Vault’s atrium to hear an important announcement from the Overseer. 

Sunset had to admit that she was impressed. She had expected there to be a much longer period of negotiation, maybe some tense meetings between the opposed parties, but when faced with Adam and Fluttershy the Overseer’s resolve had collapsed like a house of cards. The fact that only about three or four people in the whole Vault actually supported him had probably contributed to that.

Now, with the security team forcibly pacified and the Vault on the brink of genetic stagnation, the Overseer had finally given in and accepted that they had to interact with the outside world. Sunset had of course been asked to attend the address he was giving, where he would officially hand power over to Amata, but the prospect of some peaceful solitude was too just enticing to pass up. Besides, there was more drama going on in the sidelines than Sunset was willing to deal with. Officer Gomez was utterly appalled about the fact that his wife had willingly joined the attempt to lynch Adam and Fluttershy, while Allen Mack had flown into a rage upon learning that his eldest son had been killed. Sunset had actually felt a little bad for him when Rarity had used her powers to restrain him again.

The sound of the door opening behind her made Sunset turn around. To her surprise, Allen Mack stepped into the room, followed by Adam in his power armor, Amata, Officer Gomez, and the rest of the Rainbooms. “Uh, hey guys. What’s going on?” Sunset asked. 

Applejack adjusted her hat before replying, “We’re all done here, figured it was time to head on back out.”

“Really? That was fast.” Sunset glanced at Amata. “Are you sure you don’t want us to stick around a little longer, just in case?”

“We’ll be alright,” Amata replied, her gaze flicking shiftily around at each of the Rainbooms. “We’ve got Andy and that assault rifle now, so I don’t think anyone will try kicking up a fuss for the time being.”

The way she was looking at each Rainboom with a subtle mix of curiosity and awe made Sunset wonder if someone had told her the truth about their origins, but she decided to let it lie for the time being. Instead, Sunset jerked her chin towards Allen. “What about him? What’s he doing here?”

Allen clenched his fists and glared at her, earning himself a warning look from Amata. “My father’s last act as Overseer was to banish him from the Vault, a punishment I wholeheartedly agree with,” she explained. 

“If you think I’m going anywhere with the freaks that murdered my son...” Allen began.

“You don’t have a choice, now keep your mouth shut or I’ll shut it for you,” Adam growled. 

Amata snorted and turned back to Sunset. “We were hoping that you could take him with you when you go. Not far, just enough to make sure that he actually leaves instead of lurking around the Vault entrance.”

Sunset nodded. “Sure, that’s fine with me, but what about you?” She looked up at Adam. “Are you sure you don’t want to stick around for a while and catch up?”

“No, I’m good.” Adam glanced at Fluttershy, who smiled warmly back at him. “This isn’t where I belong anymore. My place is out there in the wastes.” He shrugged. “The war may be over, but I’m willing to bet that there’s a whole bunch of people out there who still need help. I’d rather be out there doing something about it than sitting here with my thumb up my ass.”

“Fair enough.” Sunset offered her hand to Amata. “In that case, I guess this is goodbye for now.”

Amata smiled and shook her hand. “For now, but you’re welcome to come back here whenever you want. Just try not to bring any outside problems in with you.”

“We’ll try,” Sunset replied with a chuckle. She glanced around at the others, then pulled the lever to open up the Vault. Sirens blared and metal squealed as the massive Vault door was pulled inwards and hauled aside. A brisk breeze wafted in from outside. “Alright, everyone,  let’s move.”

Sunset took the lead as they headed out of the Vault and out of the tunnel, while Adam brought up the rear, giving Allen the occasional shove to make sure that he moved. The temperature dropped rapidly  as the group neared the doorway to the outside until, shivering with the cold, they emerged once more into the wasteland.

“Damn, I forgot how cold it is out here!” Rainbow hissed.

Sunset huffed a laugh and looked back at Allen. He was shivering and rubbing his arms roughly, but at the same time he was looking around in wide-eyed wonder. She could hardly blame him. As cold as it was, the thick blanket of snow turned the wasteland into a hauntingly beautiful vista. Unfortunately, as beautiful as it was, the fact that it had started snowing again meant that travel was about to get even more difficult. “We’ll head back to Megaton first,” Sunset said. “We’ll grab some more supplies in town, then see if we can make our way to the Regulator HQ.”

“If the going is too rough, we can always drop in on the Family in Meresti again,” Twilight noted.

“Sounds good to me,” Sunset agreed. “Adam, after you.”

Adam nodded and stepped to the front, handing the duty of shepherding Allen along to Applejack and using his power armor to bulldoze a trench through the snow for the girls to follow. The route that the group had taken on their trip up the hill was still clearly visible, but having Adam act as a living snow-plow would make things a little easier in any case.

“What are we going to do with our little tagalong?” Rarity asked as the group headed down the hill once more.

Sunset glanced back at Allen, who was struggling to walk through the snow without falling over. She realized with a mild jolt that it was his first time ever even seeing snow, let alone trying to walk through drifts of it. “I don’t particularly want to dump him on the Disciples. I’d suggest making him work up at the Saloon, but it wouldn’t be fair to make Gob deal with him, either. Maybe we can palm him off on Sheriff Simms?”

“What the heck?” Sunset almost walked into Adam as he stopped abruptly. Peering around him, she was surprised to see a certain Super Mutant lumbering up the hill towards them, his makeshift Brotherhood armor dusted with snow. “Hey, Fawkes! Up here!” Adam called out, waving down to him.

Fawkes looked up and waved happily. 

“What the fuck is that?!” Allen exclaimed. He yelped as Applejack slapped him upside the head. 

“A friend, so watch your mouth, or Ah’ll wash it out with soap,” she said firmly. 

Any response was drowned out by the crunch of snow as Fawkes approached, holding his arms out wide in greeting. “It is good to see you all once again, my friends. I hope you are all well.”

“We’re fine, buddy,” Adam replied cheerfully. “What’s up? What are you doing all the way out here by yourself?”

Fawkes swiped the worst of the snow from his shoulders. “The Enclave contacted Elder Lyons and urgently requested the presence of the Rainbooms at their Exodus facility. As the majority of the Brotherhood forces are preparing for tomorrow’s mission to Raven Rock, I volunteered to come and find you.” He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Megaton. “I fear I may have accidentally spooked the gate guard at the nearby settlement. However, to my good fortune, he deigned to offer directions as to your location instead of shooting on sight.”

“Oof, I bet Stockholm is wondering if someone spiked his water,” Pinkie said with a giggle.

“He did seem very surprised to see a Meta Human who was not immediately hostile,” Fawkes noted, letting out a low chuckle himself.

“What do the Enclave want to see us for?” Sunset asked.

Fawkes shook his head. “I am afraid I do not know. However, I was told that it was very urgent. They have requested that you make your way to the Exodus facility post-haste.”

“That don’t sound good,” Applejack muttered.

“Unless they’ve got the portal up and running?” Rarity put in hopefully. 

“That’s extremely unlikely,” Twilight said bluntly, quashing any hopes before they could start. “We should hurry over and see what they want before we start letting speculation run wild.”

Sunset nodded. “You’re right.” She patted Adam’s shoulder. “What are you going to do? Are you coming with us?”

Adam looked back at the girls, glanced at Fluttershy, then sighed heavily. “I’d like to, but there’s something I want to look into first.”

“Canterbury Commons?” Fluttershy asked, getting a solemn nod in return.

Sunset thought back to the local geography she had studied with the Brotherhood. “Isn’t that a settlement way off to the Northeast of here?”

Adam and Fluttershy both nodded. “Yeah, it’s supposed to be one of the bigger ones behind Rivet City and Megaton,” Adam replied. “Me and Fluttershy heard over the radio that they were having trouble with a pair of costumed nutcases, back when we went to check on the Holy Light Monastery.”

“It’s in roughly the same direction as the Regulator HQ, so we were going to see if we could stop in after we cleared Applejack’s record,” Fluttershy added. She looked anxiously up at Adam. “Um, I wish I could go with you, but-”

“If the Enclave needs the Rainbooms, then it’s probably magic that they need help with, and they might need all of you. It’s okay, I get it,” Adam told her. “You go help the Enclave out, and I’ll see what I can do about the mess in Canterbury Commons.”

“I shall assist you,” Fawkes said quickly. “You will need at least one person capable of reading a map.”

Adam sighed heavily. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He looked back over his shoulder, then walked back to Allen and grabbed his arm, dragging him to the front of the group. “You can come with us as well.”

“G-get your hands off me!” Allen spat. “You can’t make me march in this weather! I’ll freeze!”

Fawkes titled his head to the side curiously. “Who is this fellow?”

“An asshole,” Adam replied. “I’ll give you the details on the way.” He shoved Allen in front before turning back to Fluttershy. Kneeling before her, he took her hand and pressed it to his helmet’s forehead. “I’ll see you as soon as I can.”

“I look forward to it,” Fluttershy replied. Her cheeks were burning red, and somehow, Sunset didn’t think it was just because of the cold. 

Adam nodded and got back to his feet, then strode quickly down the hill, waving as he went. “See you later, ladies!”

Fawkes sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I had better catch him before he gets lost, as I very much doubt he knows the way.” Quick as a flash, he snatched up Allen and tossed him over his shoulder, ignoring the former Vault resident’s protests. “Farewell, my friends.”

The Rainbooms waved goodbye as the mismatched trio made their way down the hill. A loud thump was carried through the wind a few seconds later, followed by a cheerful ‘I’m okay!’.

“He forgot that snow is slippery, didn’t he?” Sunset asked.

“I think so,” Fluttershy replied with a sigh.

“How the hell did that guy survive childhood?” Applejack asked flatly. 

Sunset just shook her head. “I have no idea.” She glanced around as Pinkie tapped her on the shoulder. “What’s up?”

“Uh, shouldn’t we be following them, or are we going to find our own way down?” Pinkie asked.

The other Rainbooms blinked dumbly as they processed what she had said, then alternated between swearing and putting a palm to their foreheads as they realized that they were going to have to travel through the snow without their power-armored plow.

“I don’t know about you, darlings, but I think I’ve had enough of trudging through the snow for a moment. Stand back, please.” Rarity ponied up, then spread her arms wide and raised them with a dramatic flourish, summoning an elegant crystal staircase that headed down the hill in a more direct route towards Megaton than the road. “There. That should be a little easier.”

Relieved that they didn’t have to forge a path through the snow, the girls were quick to praise her and climb carefully down the stairs. Instead of creating one large staircase that stretched all the way to the bottom of the hill, Rarity created short, winding stairways, summoning a new section whenever they reached the bottom of the current one. This served the dual purpose of saving her energy, and making sure that the snow didn’t have time to pile up on the stairs enough to become a hazard. When they reached the cliff, she created an elaborate circular staircase that led safely to the bottom.

With the descent out of the way, the girls were back to forging a path through the snow. However, to make things easier, Rarity summoned a wedge-shaped crystal that she propelled along the ground like a plow, while Twilight used her magic to grab huge piles of snow and toss them aside, along with the occasional boulder. 

Despite the snow, it didn’t take long for the girls to make their way back to Megaton. The sight of Stockholm in his nest, bundled up beneath his patchwork umbrella, was relieving to see. Apparently, Stockholm was just as relieved to see the girls, as he leaned over when they neared and called down to them, “It’s a good thing you’re here! There’s something weird going on!”

“If you’re talking about Fawkes, he’s perfectly benign, don’t worry!” Twilight called back.

Stockholm shook his head and pointed into the town. “Not him, something’s going on in town! You’d better speak to the Sheriff!”

Sharing a concerned look, the Rainbooms hurried in through the gate. The snow had kept most residents indoors, but at least a dozen or so people were gathered together at the bottom of the crater, right outside the temple. Simms, Primrose, and Joshua were right in the middle of the crowd, discussing something.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Sunset called out as the girls approached. “Stockholm said something weird was happening.”

The residents all looked relieved when they spotted the Rainbooms. “Thank God you’re here,” Simms said with a heavy sigh. “There’s something really freaky going on up at the Saloon.”

Sunset looked up at the Saloon. Other than the name change, she couldn’t see anything different or out of place about it. “What do you mean?”

“I mean anyone who goes anywhere near it at the moment starts feeling sick, or seeing things that aren’t there,” Simms replied. “I damn near puked my guts up when I tried to go up there. And no-one inside will come out or even respond, no matter how hard we try to get their attention.”

“I hate to say it, but I’ve got a hunch that something very bad is going on up there,” Primrose added.

Rainbow shivered and looked up at the Saloon uneasily. “You don’t think it’s Moriarty’s ghost, do you?”

“D-don’t be ridiculous!” Applejack snapped. “There ain’t no such thing as ghosts!”

“Given how crazy everything else in this world has been, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Pinkie put in quietly, getting anxious glares from almost everyone nearby.

Sunset frowned, thinking hard. She didn’t think it was likely that the Saloon was haunted, but Primrose had a hunch that something bad was going on, and that was more than enough reason to be worried. “Ghosts or not, we’d better check it out. The rest of you stay here.” Ignoring the worried looks of those around her, as well as her own fears, Sunset headed towards the ramp that would take her up to the Saloon’s level. The crunch of snow told her that the others were right on her heels.

Just as Simms had warned, Sunset started feeling sick as they climbed towards the building. It started off as a mildly unpleasant sensation in her gut, but it built the closer they got, until it got to the point that every step sent a wave of nausea through her. A quick glance revealed that the others were all feeling the effect just as badly. 

“What the hell?!” Rainbow exclaimed, making the others stare at her in surprise. She stared in disbelief down an empty alleyway for a few seconds, then shook her head to clear it. “Sorry. Thought I saw something.”

As they resumed walking, Sunset noticed the other girls occasionally flinch or do a double-take, even if all they were walking past was a blank wall. Finally, they stepped out onto the walkway that led to the Saloon’s entrance. Almost as if on cue, all of the other girls suddenly shivered. 

“What was that?” Sunset asked curiously. 

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” Twilight said in a deadpan voice. “Let’s keep walking.” Each of the others just nodded in unison. 

Watching them carefully, Sunset nevertheless did as suggested, leading the way around to the entrance. There was nothing obvious or untoward about it, but she still felt nervous as she reached for the handle and slowly opened the door.

Inside, the Saloon didn’t look any different than usual. Gob was serving drinks behind the counter, Nova was standing by the radio smoking a cigarette, and there were plenty of patrons sitting around drinking and chatting happily. Sunset would have thought that it was just any other day at the bar, if it weren’t for a worryingly familiar energy she could sense from somewhere nearby. Equestrian magic was at play. “Spread out and see what you can find out,” she said quietly. “I’ll see if Gob has noticed anything.”

Suiting actions to words, Sunset stepped over to the bar. Gob looked up as she approached. “Hey, what can I do for you?”

“Have you seen anything weird going on in here?” Sunset asked bluntly. “Simms says there’s something weird happening up on this level.”

Gob shook his head. “Nope. There’s nothing strange going on here.” He glanced around as someone called for a drink. “Sorry, I’d better get back to work.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. That had been a little bit of an abrupt dismissal, but it didn’t seem like he had been lying. As she was pondering what to do next, she noticed someone sidle up alongside her. 

“You’re Sunset Shimmer, aren’t you?” The speaker was a young woman, around Sunset’s age, with long black hair that reached down to her waist, and pale gray eyes that sparkled with curiosity. 

“That’s me,” Sunset replied, glancing around the room again. “And you are…?”

“Unity,” the girl replied. “I’m new in town.”

Sunset nodded. “Right. This may be a weird question, but have you seen anything odd around here?”

“You mean other than the temple, the church, or the atomic bomb?” Unity shrugged. “I spent most of my life working in Raven Rock’s laboratories, so my definition of weird might be a little skewed compared to everyone else’s.”

“You’re Enclave?” Sunset asked, now giving the girl her full attention.

“I used to be,” Unity replied. “Now, though, I’m looking to complete my mother’s research, and finish what my father started.” In response to Sunset’s curious look, she smiled. “Have you ever heard of the Mariposa Military Base?”

That was the last name that Sunset had expected to hear. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. It’s an old facility on the west coast of this country.”

Unity nodded. “That’s right. Well, a few decades ago, my mother went there as part of an Enclave research team. While they were investigating the ruins, she discovered a hidden storage room. Inside were several vials that turned out to be gametes, sex cells, and a research log, all of which belonged to one of the base’s former inhabitants.”

Sunset grimaced, suddenly getting a sneaking suspicion as to where this was going. “Melkhior.”

Unity’s laugh sounded like tinkling glass. “I don’t think Melkhior was ever smart enough to try something like that. No, they belonged to the Master.”

A shiver ran down Sunset’s spine at the mention of that old monster. The thought that that psychic FEV abomination had stored some of his own sperm for future purposes was terrifying, especially when one considered that he had tried to raise a Super Mutant army to conquer the world. The only thing silver lining was the fact that FEV rendered sex cells sterile, meaning that the stored sperm was effectively useless. 

“I see you recognize the name.” Unity smiled wryly. “According to the research notes, the Master stored his gametes when he realized that his body was mutating to the point where it wouldn’t be able to make them anymore. Maybe if he had bothered to examine them before he stored them, he would have realized that his plans weren’t as viable as he believed, but that’s all ancient history. The point is, my mother found them, and kept them, keeping their existence hidden from the rest of the Enclave.”

Sunset knew that she should be focusing on finding out what was going on in the Saloon, but hearing about the hidden intrigue within the Enclave had her enthralled. “Hold on, surely your mother would have realized pretty quickly that the gametes weren’t fertile. Why did she bother keeping them? Why did she even bother hiding them in the first place?”

Unity shook her head, annoyance flickering across her features for just a second before the smile was back. “My mother loves her secrets. She is also one of the world’s leading authorities on FEV research. She has no real interest in Super Mutants, as far as I can tell, but she has used the FEV to create treatments that slow the aging process and prolong her life. She’s obsessed with cracking the secret to living forever.”

With a jolt, Sunset realized that she knew exactly who Unity’s mother was. “Are you telling me that you’re Senator Lily’s kid?!”

Unity smirked. “Before she changed her name, she went by Doctor Liliana Vess. Anyway, she kept the gametes, and experimented on them relentlessly until, eventually, she succeeded in creating a viable embryo.”

“The Master has a child?!” Sunset spluttered. She anxiously looked around, hoping that no-one realized what they were talking about and started a panic, but strangely enough, nobody was paying the pair even the slightest bit of attention. 

“In a manner of speaking,” Unity continued. “The child was still a creature of FEV, and didn’t exactly resemble what you might call a ‘normal’ child. Still, it grew and developed slowly. “A flash of disgust marred Unity’s expression. “Until mother abandoned them when Raven Rock was destroyed.”

Sunset frowned, apprehension filling her mind. “Wait a second, you’re talking about the thing that’s still lurking under Raven Rock. I heard that that creature was a spawn of Melkhior, not the Master.”

“Ah, yes.” Unity smiled innocently. “I am sorry that I had to lie to Eden about that, but I couldn’t risk the Brotherhood of Steel sending an expedition until I was strong enough to deal with them. It was scary enough having to deal with Horrigan when he entered Raven Rock. I’m just glad that he left after I healed his colleague.”

The blood drained from Sunset’s face as cold dread coiled in the pit of her stomach. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. 

Unity nodded to herself, her eyes glazing over as her thoughts turned inwards. “I’ve learned much from the minds of others since I’ve left Raven Rock. Magic will help overcome the obstacle of mortality that my mother so despises, and with my powers I can even command the actions of others, allowing me to fulfil my father’s dream.” Her gaze suddenly sharpened as she stared at Sunset. “The only person who seems to be immune to my mind is you. Why is that, I wonder?”

Sunset clenched her jaw. Mind control was a topic she was intimately familiar with. “What do you mean, you can fulfil your father’s dream?” She asked quietly.

“It’s simple, really. I’m going to end despair,” Unity replied with another smile. “I’ve already acquired the loyalty of everyone in this room, including your friends, and I can use the crystal beings of Raven Rock to extend my range even further. With enough time, I’ll be able to bring together the whole world together in perfect unity.” Her grin widened. “No more fighting, no more arguments, no more misery. Just everyone working together in perfect harmon-”

In the blink of an eye, Sunset whipped out her Nova Pistol and blasted a hole in her forehead. Unity collapsed to the floor with a surprisingly loud thunk, and suddenly everyone else in the Saloon was groaning and gasping for air as if they had run a marathon.

“What the fuck was that?!” Applejack spat. Sunset didn’t answer. Instead, she just sagged against the counter, letting her shoulders slump as the tension drained from her body. “Hey, whoa there, are you okay, sugarcube?”

Sunset nodded and looked up at her. She could see the others looking around fearfully out of the corner of her eye. “I’m fine, I think.” Sunset sighed heavily and shook her head. “Fetch the Sheriff. He’ll want to know what-” She was cut off as Applejack suddenly grabbed her wrist, then slammed a fist into her belly. Sunset doubled over, gasping for air. Someone snatched her Nova Pistol out of her hand and tossed it away, then several pairs of hands grabbed her arms and pinned her against the counter, while someone looped an arm around her neck to hold her in place.

Immobile and in pain, Sunset could only watch in abject terror as Unity calmly stood up. The wound in her head was rapidly healing, multi-colored crystal swirling and expanding inside her head until it filled the hole and turned flesh-colored, leaving no evidence that she had ever been shot in the first place. 

“That was rude,” Unity said flatly. “I was going to try to convince you to join me, since your mind appears to be incompatible with my powers, but I suppose that just isn’t going to happen. No matter.” She pointed an arm at Sunset and raised an eyebrow. Unity flicked her arm, and Sunset felt herself hurtle through the air. She slammed through the Saloon’s door and rolled until she crashed into the railings of the walkway outside. 

Sunset shook her head, trying to clear it and get her bearings, and forced herself to her feet. Before she could even begin to ready her plasma rifle, she felt an invisible force smash her through the railings and dangle her in the air, holding her precariously over a drop right to the bottom of Megaton’s crater.

“You have a choice,” Unity said as she strode calmly out of the Saloon, her arm extended towards Sunset. “I can rip your arms off, rendering you helpless, and you can serve me as an advisor, or I can just drop you right here and-”

The choice was snatched away as a single gunshot rang out in the clear air. Unity’s head snapped back, sparks flying from the impact, and Sunset’s stomach lurched as the power holding her up suddenly disappeared. 

Cold wind whipped past Sunset’s ears. She let out a terrified scream as the ground hurtled towards her, only for something heavy to slam into her just before she hit the ground, knocking her sidewards and sending her tumbling across the snow-coated ground. 

The whole world was spinning wildly. Even after she skidded to a halt, it was several seconds before Sunset could even begin to work out the difference between up and down. Pushing herself shakily to her hands and knees, Sunset looked around to see Rainbow lying in the snow a few feet away, ponied up and wiping snow from her face. “Thanks for the save,” Sunset called out.

“No problem.” Rainbow got to her feet and whipped out Flashburn, glaring up at Unity. “What is that bitch?”

“What the hell is going on?! Are you two alright?!” Simms exclaimed as he and several other residents came hurrying over.

Sunset allowed Primrose to help her up. “We’re fine. That bitch up there is psychic. Mind control, telekinesis, the whole works.” She looked up at Unity, who was covering her head with an arm as another bullet cracked into her chest. “She’s got everyone in the Saloon under her control.”

“Aw hell no. That shit isn’t gonna fly here in Megaton.” Simms shrugged his assault rifle off his shoulder and brought it up in one smooth movement, sending a barrage of bullets up at Unity. Primrose and a handful of the others joined in, pulling out a variety of guns and opening fire without hesitation. Unity staggered under the onslaught and backed out of sight. 

“I’ve got her!” Rainbow snarled.

“No!” Sunset lunged and grabbed her hair just as she tried to leap into the air, yanking her back down with a yelp. “We can’t risk you getting mind controlled again! If she gets her claws in your mind properly, we’re all screwed!”

A sudden worryingly familiar whirring sound grabbed Sunset’s attention.

“Stockholm!” Sunset whipped around at Simms’ shout. Her stomach dropped as she saw that the metal walls around Stockholm’s nest had been shredded like paper.

“Uh oh. Guys, we have a big fucking problem!” Rainbow yelled.

Every muscle in Sunset’s body tensed as she looked back up at the Saloon. Applejack was standing by the ruined railings, pointing her minigun at the group with a blank expression on her face. “Get in cover! Get in fucking cover, now!” Sunset screamed.

Everyone scattered as Applejack opened fire. Minigun rounds churned the ground, kicking up puffs of snow and frozen dirt. Sunset slipped and scrambled out of sight down an alleyway. She knew that Megaton’s rusty metal walls wouldn’t offer even the slightest bit of protection against such a heavy weapon, but she hoped that being out of sight would make her at least a little less likely to get turned into finger paint.

Thankfully, the deadly fusillade only lasted for a few seconds. Sunset doubted that Applejack had run out of ammunition so quickly, which meant she had either backed away for some reason, or she was busy looking for targets.

A quick glance revealed that, by some miracle, no-one was lying dead in the snow, so Sunset risked peeking out from behind cover. Applejack was out of sight. “Anyone got eyes on AJ or the psychic bitch?!” Sunset demanded loudly. A chorus of negative responses echoed through the crater. Cautiously, scanning every possible avenue of attack, she stepped out of the alleyway. Rainbow soared up into the sky, taking care to stay well out of possible mind control range, then dove back down to land next to Sunset, trembling with barely-suppressed rage. “Unity’s escaping over the back wall. She’s taking the rest of our friends with her.”

“Shit.” Sunset gritted her teeth and pressed her fists to her forehead, trying desperately to figure out what her next move should be. Her entire world had collapsed in the span of only a few minutes.

Crunching snow announced the approach of one of the residents. “I realize that this magic crap is your arena, but would someone please tell me what the hell just happened?” Simms asked roughly. 

Sunset fought down the urge to blow up at him. “I’ll explain everything later, but right now, we have shit to do. Rainbow, I need you to head to the hill behind the school in Springvale and see if the Enclave outpost is still there. Tell them what’s happened, then get your ass to the Citadel as fast as you can and warn Elder Lyons.”

“Got it.” Rainbow disappeared in a blur and a puff of snow. 

“Sheriff, you should check on everyone in town and make sure no-one was hurt. Minigun bullets will tear through this old metal like its paper, and ricochets are no fucking joke,” Sunset continued. “Get Primrose and the Disciples to help you out.”

“What are you going to do?” Simms asked.

Sunset clenched her fists and strode towards the ramp back up to the Saloon. “I’m going to find my pistol, then I’m going to try and think of a way to fuck that bitch up permanently.”

Residents looked warily out of their doors as Sunset passed, asking in hushed voices what had happened, but she ignored all of them. The urge to sink to the ground and scream to the heavens was almost overwhelming. All that kept her putting one foot in front of the other was the knowledge that her friends needed her, she didn’t have the time or the luxury to let herself go to pieces. 

The Saloon was buzzing with conversation when Sunset arrived. The chatter died almost instantly when everyone saw her, then a second later every patron rushed towards her and started apologising profusely, fervently explaining that they hadn’t been able to control themselves, as if they were mere spectators watching what their own bodies were doing. Frankly, Sunset wasn’t in any mood to care, and she brushed their concerns away with as much politeness as she could muster. One of the patrons at least had the good sense to fetch her Nova Pistol for her, which Sunset took with a muttered thanks before turning and walking back outside. 

With her pistol back and the major factions of the Capital Wasteland warned, Sunset walked slowly back down towards the temple, reloading her pistol as she went and pondering Unity’s boasts about her power. The idea that she could extend her psychic abilities through any of the crystalline creatures living under Raven Rock was terrifying. Of course, Sunset didn’t have any proof that Unity was capable of such a thing, but it hadn’t felt like she was trying to be deliberately intimidating. She didn’t need to. 

Sunset weighed the Nova Pistol’s ammunition crystals in her hand. She briefly feared that Unity might be able to extend her power through them as well, given that they had originally been mined from Raven Rock, but if that was the case, then she would have almost certainly have done so much sooner. Either Unity was lying, or something about the refining process interfered with her channelling abilities, or she had been telling the truth when she mentioned that it only worked through crystal beings instead of just the crystals themselves. As that thought went through her mind, a sudden, terrible realization brought Sunset up short. 

Eden.

The former President was one of Raven Rock’s crystal beings, and he was currently spending a lot of time acting as an advisor to Elder Lyons himself. Unwitting spy, saboteur, and amplifier, sitting right in the middle of the Citadel. Right where Sunset had just sent Rainbow Dash. 

Sunset sank to her knees, the strength leaving her body as the sheer enormity of what was happening finally hit her. 

A new Master had risen, and she had already made her first move.
> Chapter 130 - Reeling
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Adams Air Force base was an impressive sight. Standing on the roof of a tall concrete administration building, Luna looked out over the sprawling complex below. Trucks and jeeps rumbled along heavily salted roads, splashing melted snow everywhere, while civilians and power-armored soldiers travelled along smaller paths between deep drifts and Vertibirds followed set routes overhead.

“This is actually kinda cool,” Sonata said cheerfully. “I’ve never been on a real military base before.”

Luna raised an eyebrow and looked back at her. Sonata was eagerly leaning over the parapet, watching everything going on with an intensely interested expression. Even Trixie was looking around curiously. The trio had been ushered off the Vertibird the moment they had landed, then told they could either stay inside in a waiting room, or wait outside in the fresh air. All three of them had preferred the idea of being outside, especially given that the Enclave had provided them with thick coats to ward off the chill. The fact that the rooftop they were lurking on was covered by a gazebo to keep the snow away was also an added bonus.

“This is so weird,” Trixie muttered. 

Luna nodded. “You can say that again.” Only a short while ago, the three had been standing in a classroom on a warm summer’s day. Now, only a few hours later, they were huddled together at a military HQ in a winter snowstorm. Calling it jarring would be a gross understatement.

Trixie looked at the floor and kicked at a loose stone. “Do you think the Rainbooms are going to be alright?” She asked quietly. “I mean, you heard what the President said about an army marching towards them.”

As much as Luna wanted to reply that they would, of course, be fine, she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it. Trixie needed reassuring, but she neither needed nor deserved to be lied to. “I hope so. They’ve managed this long, so I think they should be able to stay out of trouble.”

“Besides, that army hasn’t got anything to do with them,” Sonata added. The others looked at her curiously, prompting her to explain, “The army is going to some place called the Cita-whatsit, but the President said the Rainbooms are in some place called Megaton. If they know that the President wants to speak to them, like, really bad, won’t they just come and find her straight away?”

Luna let out a soft snort, impressed despite herself. “That’s actually a pretty good point. We don’t have any reason to believe that the Rainbooms are anywhere near that army, so if all goes well, they should be perfectly fine.”





Becky had never wished that she was having a nightmare so desperately as she did right now. She was currently sitting in one of the Air Force Base’s meeting rooms, staring at two horrifying reports from the Springvale outpost, and one from a spy in the Citadel that was, if anything, even worse. Lieutenant Colonel Strong, Senator Prince, and Senator Devall were all sitting around the table as well, all waiting on the arrival of one last Senator; one who had a hell of a lot of explaining to do.

As if summoned by angry thoughts, there was a knock on the door, and Senator Lily strode in. “I apologize for being late,” she said as she closed the door and sat down with a huff. “Some idiot knocked over a glass jar full of an unknown substance, then freaked out and activated the emergency quarantine procedures in the labs next to mine.”

“Is everything clear over there?” Colonel Strong asked immediately. 

Lily snorted. “The beaker turned out to contain a sample of real oak-aged bourbon one of the researchers had imported from a settlement near our Frankfurt food-production facility. So aside from one devastated scientist, everything is fine.” Colonel Strong and Senator Prince both winced in sympathy. “So, what’s the emergency?”

Resisting the urge to snap at her, Becky glanced once more at the reports, though there was no way she could forget what they said. “The Citadel has fallen.” 

The others all gasped and reeled in shock. 

“I saw the report about the army from Raven Rock, but the Citadel is a fortress with almost the entirety of the Brotherhood of Steel currently garrisoning it!” Colonel Strong exclaimed. “They should have held out for a few days at the very least!”

“Unfortunately, they didn’t even get a chance to put up a fight.” Becky finally allowed herself to glare at Lily. “And the reason for that is almost entirely down to you.”

“What?!” Lily stared at her in blank surprise. “What are you talking about? I haven’t done a damned thing to the Brotherhood of Steel!”

Becky leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Tell me, when were you planning to inform the rest of us that you were keeping the child of the Master, the psychic nightmare of the West Coast, locked up in a lab in Raven Rock?”

Lily’s face, already pale, turned white as a sheet as the others gawped at her in stunned disbelief. “What does that have to do with the Brotherhood of Steel?” She asked quietly.

“You mean it’s true?!” Colonel Strong slammed his fist on the table. “Damn it, do you have any idea how dangerous such a creature is?!”

“I think you’ll find that I know better than anyone else in the Enclave,” Lily replied coolly before turning back to Becky, a tense expression on her face. “I assume from the fact that you know of her existence that she didn’t die in the destruction of Raven Rock. Unfortunately, I have exactly no ideas as to what she could possibly be doing now, or what she has to do with the Brotherhood of Steel. What happened, Madam President?”

Becky noted the Senator’s use of the word ‘she’ rather than ‘it’, so, despite the impertinence of the question, she explained everything that Rainbow Dash, and then Sunset Shimmer shortly afterwards, had reported to the personnel at the Springvale outpost. When she was finished, the others just sat in horrified silence, each struggling to process what they had just heard.

“So… Eden survived the destruction of Raven Rock?” Prince asked weakly. 

“That’s hardly our main concern at the moment!” Devall snapped.

“I know, I know, I’m just beginning with the least awful part of all of this,” Prince replied.

Becky sighed and nodded. “Eden survived, somehow, and has apparently been acting as a combination of a prisoner and an advisor of the Brotherhood of Steel this whole time” She turned a cold glare on Senator Lily. “So, care to start explaining yourself?”

Lily just shook her head, staring blankly at the table. “It’s… it’s not possible.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that!” Strong demanded. “For all we know, you’ve been planning this for decades!”

“If I had been planning this, do you really think I would still be sitting here talking to a half-wit like you instead of trying to take advantage?” Lily hissed. “You want answers? Fine. Yes, I discovered the Master’s gametes stored in the Mariposa Military Base all those years ago. You know full well that I’ve been trying to unlock the secrets of immortality through FEV, and the Master was an utterly unique specimen. I couldn’t pass up such a golden opportunity.”

Devall stroked his chin thoughtfully. “If I can just pause you there for a moment, why exactly did you keep the existence of such specimens hidden from the rest of the Enclave?”

Lily snorted and gave him an unamused look. “Do you really have to ask? What do you think Acheson would have done if he knew that we had a viable sample of the Master’s DNA in our possession?” The others collectively grimaced at the thought of that power-crazed monster getting hold of such potential power. “Exactly,” Lily said simply. “As for how dangerous the creature was, it took me fifteen years before I was able to create a viable embryo, using one of my own eggs, I might add; we didn’t have Assigned Procreation back then, so messing around with my own ovaries was a lot easier to do. Even when I finally managed to create an embryo, she wasn’t even remotely close to human.”

“Y-you gave birth to it?!” Prince spluttered.

“Of course I didn’t, I grew her in an amniotic vat followed by an incubator,” Lily replied. 

Becky frowned at her. “When you say not even close to human…”

“She was a blob,” Lily said bluntly. “A pink shapeless blob with a handful of tentacles and one eye. And before any of you start whining about the ethics of experimenting on a child, I didn’t. I measured her brainwaves regularly, and tried everything I could to help her develop as normally as was physically possible in such a situation. I had no intention of using her in my experiments until she was old enough and, frankly, intelligent enough to consent to it properly.”

“That’s an awful lot of dedication for such a long-term plan,” Prince noted.

Lily rolled her eyes. “Some of us think further ahead than our next wank, Senator. Besides, she is technically my daughter, so I tried to take care of her as well as I could. I taught her to understand English even if she couldn’t speak, I told her stories, I gave her a basic education, and I even just… played with her. Of course, leaving her locked up in a dark cell for days on end when I couldn’t sneak away would have been cruel, so I put her in stasis whenever I wasn’t around. Despite what everyone seems to think, I’m not a monster.” Lily sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, she also inherited some small measure of her predecessor’s psychic abilities. The little shit kept trying to mind control me. Thankfully, I had this prototype.” She tapped her tiara. “It’s actually a psychic inhibitor, the only working prototype I managed to find from the Master’s old experiments. It protects me from her powers.”

Thinking back, Becky remembered that Lily had only started wearing the thing in public after they had come into contact with the Rainbooms. 

“You didn’t want to take any chances around Miss Shimmer, I see,” Devall said, clearly coming to the same conclusion.

“Correct. In any case, I was here at the Air Force Base when Raven Rock was destroyed, and no-one else in the Enclave knew about her, not even Eden, so I assumed she had been killed in the blast.” Lily glanced at Becky. “For all I knew, she was dead. Horrigan’s description of a young woman with magical healing powers doesn’t match the little one I raised in the slightest, which is why I never bothered mentioning her before. If you don’t believe me, bring Sunset Shimmer here, and she can take a walk down memory lane with me herself.”

“I’ll take you up on that, she’s being brought here via Vertibird as we speak,” Becky assured her.

Strong hummed and crossed his arms. “Alright, so we know what was lurking beneath Raven Rock, and what it’s currently up to, but how can we be sure that the Citadel has fallen? I don’t doubt Sunset’s word, but she doesn’t have proof.”

Becky grimaced and shoved the spy report over to him. “No, but we do. As soon as we lost the connection to the Citadel, I authorized the deployment of a spy to find out what was going on.” The others perked up at the mention of a spy. “ED-E was equipped with one of our new enhanced Stealth Boys and instructed to head to the Citadel. Five minutes before this meeting began, he confirmed that the army from Raven Rock had reached the Citadel, and that the Brotherhood of Steel weren’t making any effort to expel them whatsoever. The base turrets have been destroyed, and a handful of Knights are dead, but footage indicates that the Brotherhood didn’t give any resistance beyond that.”

“Shit,” Prince muttered. 

“That’s a polite way of putting it,” Strong said quietly. “Unity poses a clear and present threat not just to the Enclave, but the whole god-damn Wasteland, especially when she has the Rainbooms and the Brotherhood of Steel under her control. How are we going to proceed with this?”

Becky glanced back down at the reports. “We need to take her out as quickly as possible. I’d authorize an air strike against her as she travels across the wastes, but we would almost certainly end up killing several of the Rainbooms if such an attack was successful, and I’d rather not risk that unless as a last resort.”

“So, a precision strike, then.” Strong nodded slowly. “If Unity is heading to the Citadel, would ED-E be able to take her out?”

“His weapon systems aren’t anywhere near powerful enough. If they were strong enough to damage her head, we could take the chance that the Brotherhood might react quickly enough to subdue her, but we don’t think that they are,” Becky replied. “I considered Liberty Prime, given that he’s currently escorting water caravans and hasn’t been affected, but Unity will have reached the Citadel by then, and he won’t be able to fight effectively while she’s there.”

“A strike team, then.” Strong glanced at Lily. “How quickly can you make enough of those Inhibitors for a full strike team?”

Lily grimaced and shook her head. “The components aren’t easy to come by, or I’d have made a bunch of them already to boost my reputation. I might have enough parts to make one for Horrigan. It’ll take a few days, but he’ll stand a better chance than anyone against Unity. I’ll lend you my Praetor, as well.”

“Your Praetor?” Devall asked curiously.

“The power-armored Deathclaw that I inherited from Acheson, the one Horrigan defeated aboard the Base Crawler,” Lily explained. “I finally decided on a name for it.”

Strong shook his head. “I’d say I appreciate the offer, but the evidence indicates that Unity will be able to mind control a Deathclaw just as easily as anything else.”

“She won’t be able to mind control this one, you have my word,” Lily replied with absolute confidence. “I could explain the details, but I would rather discuss this with Sunset Shimmer present.”

Meaning that she had been messing around with magic in some way, Becky presumed. “Fair enough, that can wait for now. In the meantime, I want you to make one of those Inhibitors for Horrigan as quickly as physically possible. Having said that, there’s a chance that even Horrigan might not be able to destroy Unity himself. Getting shot in the face with Sunset’s Nova Pistol barely even slowed her down.”

Devall cocked his head to the side. “I get the feeling you have some thoughts on this?”

Becky had to admire his keen intuition, even in such stressful situations. “I was thinking that we could station Liberty Prime outside the Citadel’s gate, along with every single Vertibird gunship and bomber we can spare. That way, all Horrigan has to do is get Unity outside the Citadel, and we can hit her with everything we’ve got. Reduce her to ashes.”

“That could work,” Strong muttered, nodding slowly to himself. “Given that we’re dealing with magic, though, what do we do if it doesn’t work? She’s already survived the blast that destroyed Raven Rock.”

“There was a lot more magic involved there,” Becky replied. “Don’t forget, Horrigan was able to defeat one of the crystal Deathclaws from under there with a single punch. If Unity somehow does manage to survive, however, there is one backup plan I can think of.” She took a deep breath, steeling herself to say what was on her mind. “The Exodus team has managed to make one of the old Delta IX rockets flightworthy again, and they have several thermonuclear warheads in storage, notably, a B83.”

Strong’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “A B83?! That thing makes the one sitting in Megaton look like a fucking firecracker! You can’t be suggesting…”

“In the event of a worst-case scenario, we’ll remove the G.E.C.K from Project Purity and evacuate all personnel out of the blast zone, recommend the same thing to Rivet City’s Council, then strap the B83 to the Delta IX and point it at the Citadel,” Becky said grimly. “We’ll nuke the bitch.”





The plan had only been in motion for a matter of hours, and it was already starting to fall apart at the seams. Unity scowled as she waded through drifts of snow that reached her thighs. Her magically crystallized body wasn’t anywhere near as weak as the ordinary flesh it appeared to be, so neither the cold nor the effort bothered her in the slightest, but the indignity of it was wearing on her nerves. Worst of all, she couldn’t even risk using her powers to blast the offending white mess out of her way.

Unity had never imagined that keeping so many people under control would be this difficult. The Citadel had been brought to heel easily enough, thanks to Eden’s unwitting support, but it was taking all of Unity’s concentration just to keep the crystal monsters and the Brotherhood personnel from killing each other, and that was before she factored in the difficulty of controlling the Rainbooms.

That thought made Unity’s scowl deepen. Sunset Shimmer’s unexpected resistance to her powers was a considerable wrinkle in her plans. She suspected that it was something to do with the nature of Sunset’s own abilities, but there was no way to probe the Rainbooms’ minds for clues without risking a bloodbath at the Citadel. 

The Revenants in particular were horrendously difficult to keep on a leash. The undead monstrosities had proven effective against Horrigan, but they would take advantage of even the slightest lapse in focus to vent their bloodlust on whatever was closest to them. Simply pausing and admiring her first real view of the outside world had weakened Unity’s control enough for the vicious little beasts to kill several of the miners harvesting crystals from Raven Rock’s surface. Getting shot in the face twice, once by Sunset, and once by that annoying Megaton guard, had resulted in a brief but furious brawl at the Citadel, one that Unity was having immense trouble keeping from breaking out again.

Unity allowed herself a small sigh. Things would get easier once she got to the Citadel herself. Now that she realized just how much she had been relying on the power boost provided by Raven Rock’s inherent magic, she could work on constructing some sort of crystalline beacon or amplifier to project said magic over a wider range, just like a radio tower. Being closer to her erstwhile army would also make controlling it that much easier. 

Now that she thought about it, Unity realized that constructing such beacons all over the wasteland would be a fantastic idea. That would free up enough of her concentration that she would be able to fight at full power while still being able to control her subjects. 

Such power would undoubtedly be essential for dealing with the Enclave. Sunset Shimmer had almost certainly gone running to them as soon as she had had the chance, giving Unity’s hated mother a chance to create more wretched psychic inhibitors to use against her own daughter. On the bright side, Sunset’s decision to send Rainbow Dash to the Citadel had been an unexpected bonus, allowing Unity to snatch her up once again. 

Glancing back at the Rainbooms trudging through the snow behind her, Unity grinned. With them brought to heel, and a beacon allowing her to use her powers to the fullest, and her own last resort weapon in the form of her Geode, not even the vaunted Liberty Prime would be able to stand against her.
> Chapter 131 - When It Rains...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Vertibird ride to the Adams Air Force Base was torturous. Fear and anger twisted Sunset’s stomach into knots, leaving her barely able to sit still. Images of Unity forcing her friends to do terrible things flashed across her mind, making her blood boil, but the fact that she couldn’t do a single thing about it was worse than anything else Sunset had felt so far. 

To try and distract herself, Sunset started picturing a series of punishments; all of the dark and vengeful torments that she wanted dearly to unleash on Unity if she could ever get the chance. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her, given her own history, but Sunset couldn’t bring herself to appreciate it. She didn’t even bother trying to dress her desires up as a need for justice; she wanted revenge, pure and simple. 

The pilot’s announcement that they were about to land snatched Sunset from her grim reverie. She waited for the Vertibird to touch down, then quickly gathered up her pack and plasma rifle and strode down the ramp before it had even finished descending. 

Sunset barely got a glimpse of the rooftop helipad, meticulously cleared of snow, before an Enclave aide hurried up to her. “Knight-Captain Shimmer! I apologize for the urgency, but the President has requested your immediate counsel. Please come with me.”

Offering little more than a curt nod, Sunset allowed herself to be whisked away and escorted through the building. The two walked along in silence, ignoring every soldier and civilian they passed, striding quickly through a miniature maze of corridors and stairwells. Finally, the aide stopped outside a heavy door guarded by Agent Drops. 

“Knight-Captain, I’m glad you’re here.” Agent Drops gestured to the door behind her. “The President is waiting inside for you, but before you go in, she has asked me to request that you not assault the person in there with her.”

“It’s Senator Lily, isn’t it?” Sunset asked flatly.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Agent Drops replied with a nod. “The President believes that Senator Lily’s expertise could be particularly useful in the current predicament, so no punishment is to be levied towards her until the issue at hand is resolved.”

Sunset scowled, but nodded briskly. “Fine.”

“Excellent.” Agent Drops turned and knocked on the door, then gently pushed it open. “Madam President, Knight-Captain Shimmer is here.”

“Send her in,” came a voice from inside.

Agent Drops stood aside and ushered Sunset in before closing the door behind her. The room inside was little more than a meeting room, with a table in the middle of it and old portraits on the walls. Eight chairs were placed around the table, but Senator Lily and Becky had chosen to stand on either side of it, each turning as Sunset entered the room. 

“Hey, it’s good to see you,” Becky said with clear relief. “I just wish it was under better circumstances. Are you okay?”

“Not particularly,” Sunset growled, glaring at Lily. Everything that had happened at Megaton and the Citadel could be traced back to her reckless experiments, and the urge to beat her to a pulp was almost overwhelming. The Senator tensed at the blatant hostility in her voice.

Becky sighed and shook her head. “Look, I get why you’re angry at Lily, but she’s going to be one of our biggest assets against Unity, so please at least try to be civil until we’ve dealt with that particular threat. You can knock her teeth out afterwards if you still feel like it.”

“Deal” Sunset said instantly. Lily’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth to interject, but Sunset turned to Becky and cut her off, “What are we going to do about Unity? Please tell me we have a plan, or something.”

“We actually do,” Becky replied, much to Sunset’s relief. “Before we get into that, though, here’s how we stand.” She gestured to a report lying on the table. “You were right about Eden; Unity has used him to get almost every member of the Brotherhood of Steel at the Citadel under her control. The Citadel’s defense grid appears to have put up a fight, but that’s the only coordinated resistance that Unity’s forces faced from them.”

The fact that Becky had mentioned ‘almost’ all of the Brotherhood staff didn’t escape Sunset’s notice, nor did the casual specification of coordinated resistance. “Did some of the Brotherhood make it out?” She asked as she picked up the report.

“Sort of. We initially equipped ED-E with magically-enhanced stealth tech and deployed him as a spy, that’s how we confirmed that the Citadel was compromised, but a pair of Knights somehow managed to resist Unity’s control and grabbed a Squire each before running out the front door.”

“Seriously?” Sunset flicked through the reports to see if she could identify the Knights, hoping that they were perhaps elite members of the Lyons’ Pride. Her eyes widened when she saw that ED-E had reported the fleeing troops’ insignia. “Those two aren’t Knights, they’re suits of armor animated by magic. They’re part of the Order of the Staff.”

Becky shared a surprised look with Lily. “That makes a little more sense,” Becky noted.

“It tilts things further in our favor, too. This is proof that Unity can’t control machinery,” Lily added. “Liberty Prime will be a viable countermeasure against her.”

“You’re happy sending a superweapon after your daughter?” Sunset hissed scathingly before she could stop herself. 

Lily shrugged. “If she’s posing a colossal threat to the wasteland, then yes. There are other factors at play here, but perhaps we should focus on stopping Unity before she causes catastrophic damage to what’s left of humanity in this region?”

“Things aren’t exactly black and white here,” Becky put in.

Sunset took a deep breath to try and centre herself. “Okay. Where are the animated armors now? Did Unity’s forces try to get them back?”

“One of our Vertibirds spotted the armors heading towards Project Purity. They should arrive there fairly soon.” Becky nodded to the report. “As for Unity’s army, the shock of seeing the armors wander off must have surprised her to a certain extent, as the Brotherhood and the monsters started fighting amongst themselves soon after the armors left. Unity regained control quickly, but it’s a sign that her powers aren’t as potent as we feared.”

“Did any Knights get hurt?” Sunset asked anxiously. 

Becky nodded grimly. “Unfortunately, yes, but they managed to take down a couple of the monsters in return. Some of the monsters just killed each other as well, ignoring the Brotherhood completely, which is a good thing for us.”

It hardly felt like much of a good thing to Sunset, but she would take what she could get. “What about Unity? Do we know where she is?”

“Heading towards the Citadel. We considered launching an airstrike against her, but the chances of accidentally killing one of the Rainbooms is just too great,” Becky replied. “Aside from the fact that they’re your friends, their magical abilities are too valuable to just write off.”

Sunset nodded gratefully. “In that case, what’s the plan? How are we going to do this?”

“A strike team,” Lily answered immediately. “I have in my possession a piece of equipment that renders the wearer immune to psychic manipulation, and I’m going to spend the next few days making an extra one for Horrigan. When it’s ready, we’ll have you infiltrate the Citadel and create a distraction, then Horrigan will follow up and attack Unity directly in an attempt to get her outside the Citadel. Once she’s outside, we’ll have Liberty Prime and our Vertibirds hit her with everything they’ve got. We’ll reduce her to ash.”

“Of course, the moment we distract Unity, she’s going to lose control of her army and all hell will break loose. You, Horrigan and the Brotherhood are going to be in for one hell of a fight,” Becky explained. “I know it’s risky, but I think it’s our best shot at getting as many survivors out as possible, especially since you’ll have the rest of the Rainbooms and the majority of the Brotherhood of Steel at your back once Unity is distracted.”

The thought of being stuck in the middle of the mad melee that would inevitably ensue when Unity lost control sent a shiver down Sunset’s spine, but it was better than the alternative. “Keeping her distracted won’t be easy, especially when you add in how quickly she recovers, and don’t forget that Unity’s telekinetic, too. Will Horrigan be up to it?”

Becky shrugged and shook her head. “Honestly? I have no idea. The only thing that has been able to go toe to toe with him so far is Liberty Prime, but we don’t have any real idea of what Unity is actually capable of.” She glanced sidelong at Senator Lily. “Having said that, Lily has offered the use of her Praetor for this operation; the enhanced Deathclaw that Acheson created. She assures me that Unity won’t be able to mind control it, but refused to elaborate until you were present.”

The two counterparts stared expectantly at Lily. She looked between the two, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath in and out, as if she was psyching herself up for something. “I may have been keeping a little… secret, from everyone.”

“That doesn’t fucking surprise me,” Becky huffed. “What is it this time?”

Lily hesitated, looking as if she wanted to be absolutely anywhere else at that moment. Finally, after some pointed encouragement from Becky, she reached down her top and pulled out a necklace. It was jet-black, with a matching stone that bore a stylised impression of a skull.

Becky’s eyes almost popped out of her skull. “That’s… tell me that’s not…”

“A Geode,” Sunset finished breathlessly. “When the fuck did you get that?!”

“After the first big explosion of magic that spread magic around the wastes,” Lily replied. “I initially kept it secret to keep Acheson from trying to get his paws on it. Then, after he was defeated, I simply kept it quiet so I could keep experimenting with it uninterrupted.”

“And what exactly does it do?” Sunset asked harshly.

Lily sighed and tucked it away again. She didn’t meet the eyes of the others as she said quietly, “It allows me to reanimate the dead as zombies.”

Stunned silence filled the room. 

“What… the actual… fuck?!” Becky spat. “Are you seriously telling me you’re some sort of fucking necromancer or some shit?!”

“Pretty much,” Lily admitted bluntly. “I can also use it to see through the eyes of anything I reanimate. That’s how I’ve been finding out things, such as your meeting with Rainbow Dash in the Exodus building all that time ago, by using zombified rats as spies.” 

Sunset sank into one of the chairs. She wasn’t sure how much more insanity she could take in such a small amount on time.

Becky pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned. “The Praetor is a zombie, isn’t it?” When Lily admitted that it was, Becky sighed heavily. “So it’s a magical robo-zombie Deathclaw. Sure, why not?” She shook her head and looked at Sunset. “What do you think? Will Unity be able to mind control it?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Sunset replied weakly. “She’s already controlling those weird corpse-things that attacked Horrigan, but that report you just showed me says that those are the ones she’s having the most trouble with, so… maybe?”

“She won’t be able to wrench control of it from me, not if she’s trying to control everything else and fight Horrigan all at once,” Lily insisted. “What I will need, though, is to borrow Sunset for the next few days. I want to make absolutely sure that my psychic inhibitor works against mind magic as well as native psychic powers, and given that she’s the only other person we know of who has any knowledge of mind control, I’d appreciate her help in making the extra one for Horrigan.”

Becky glanced at Sunset. “Are you up for that?” Sunset just waved a hand as if to say ‘whatever’. “Okay, Lily, you go on ahead and start putting together a new psychic inhibitor, but we are going to have a very serious discussion about your fucking experiments and secrets once this crisis has been averted. Sunset, I need you to just stick here for a minute, okay?”

Sunset just nodded as Lily strode out of the room. Becky made sure that Lily was gone, asked her aide to fetch some ‘new arrivals’, then left the door open and came back to sit at the table with a huff. “Today might just be the one of the craziest days I’ve ever had.”

“Yeah.” Sunset glanced at the door, then fixed Becky with a serious look. “Do you honestly trust her? You already know what shit she’s pulled in this past, and now we learn that she’s been hiding a fucking Geode?”

“I’m not happy about it, believe me, but let’s deal with one catastrophic problem at a time,” Becky replied with a sigh. “Lily may be the indirect cause of this situation, but I’ve heard her side of the story, and I can at least understand the decisions she made. She’s going to answer for using zombies as spies, but that can wait. I don’t want to deal with a zombie apocalypse on top of everything else that’s going on at the moment.” Becky’s expression suddenly turned pensive. “Having said that, there is something important I need to discuss with you before we do anything else.”

“Don’t like the sound of that,” Sunset said warily. 

Becky ran a hand through her hair and sighed. “Yeah, I’ve got bad news, and I’ve got news that’s sorta good and bad, I think? It depends on your perspective.” Sunset just stared at her until she continued. “It’s about the portal.”

That simple sentence made Sunset’s heart rate spike again. “Don’t. Whatever it is, I don’t want to know until we’ve dealt with Unity and rescued my friends.”

“I’m afraid that’s not really an option,” Becky told her. “We set the portal up and got ready to test it, but when we activated it, well…”

Sunset bristled. “If you’re about to say that some asshole sabotaged it-”

“No. Well, not exactly.” Becky took a deep breath before explaining, “Turner managed to escape from confinement and kill the scientists monitoring the experiment from the control room. Tara had installed several safety measures to ensure that the portal would receive only a tiny amount of power for the initial tests, largely to preserve the SDT-1 so it didn’t get destroyed like the one James had when you Rainbooms first arrived, but Turner deactivated them. He then proceeded to set all of the portal’s systems to full power.”

“Shit,” Sunset muttered. “What happened? Did the portal work?”

Becky cocked her head with a conflicted expression. “It did, but only for a few seconds before everything overloaded. We’ve got Turner back in confinement pending interrogation and, most likely, execution, but the damage was already done.”

Sunset was reluctant to give voice to her next question, but it slipped out almost against her will. “The SDT…?”

“Gone,” Becky admitted sadly. “All that’s left of it is dust and a couple of slivers of metal.”

The truth was like a punch to the gut. “So… there’s no way home?” Sunset asked quietly.

Becky sighed heavily. “I don’t know. Tara is trying to salvage every scrap of equipment and data that she can, but unless we can find another SDT, then things are going to be difficult at best.” She glanced at the doorway. “That’s the bad news. As for the other news-”

“No, I don’t even want to know, okay? I don’t want to fucking know!” Sunset surged to her feet and kicked the nearest empty chair, sending it crashing against the wall. “I’ve fucking had it with this world! Every time something good happens, we end up with a boatload more shit getting thrown in our faces! I’ve had it! I can’t take any more of this fucking shit!” She kicked her own chair away and slammed her palms down on the table, glaring at Becky, who was looking anxiously from her to the door and back. “Fuck the portal! We’re going to rescue my friends, we’re going to rescue the Brotherhood of Steel, and I’m going to have my Disciples skullfuck the corpse of the bitch that’s taken them!”

The sound of something hitting the floor made Sunset whip around with a snarl, only to be brought up short at the sight of who was standing in the doorway. Somehow, impossibly, Vice-Principal Luna was standing there, utterly stunned. Lurking behind her, even more impossibly, were Trixie Lulamoon and, for some god forsaken reason, Sonata Dusk. 

“They were dragged through when the portal activated,” Becky explained quietly. 

Sunset stared at them in absolute shock. Seconds passed in silence, until Sunset suddenly started chuckling. The others gave her terrified looks as her laughter grew, until finally she dropped to her knees, cackling hysterically as tears streamed down her cheeks.
> Chapter 132 - Eclipse
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dead silence filled the room. 

Everyone was sitting around the table save for a doctor, who was busy giving Sunset a brief check-up. Luna watched anxiously as he worked.

Seeing Sunset have a complete meltdown had stunned everyone in the room. Luckily, the President had foreseen that one of the visitors might have an adverse reaction to the meeting and had a doctor on standby who had quickly been summoned and immediately given her a sedative. Once she had calmed down a little, the doctor had helped strip off the heavy-looking armor Sunset was wearing, taken off the bizarre computer she was wearing on her wrist, then finally removed her top revealing a gray and tan t-shirt before guiding her back into a seat. As soon as Sunset was sitting down, the doctor had given her a quick check-up, made her take some tablets, and was now measuring her pulse on her wrist while counting down on his watch.

Luna could barely recognize the girl sitting in front of her. Sunset was far leaner and more muscular than she had been what seemed only a few days ago, her arms were covered with small scars and barely-healed scratches, and another particularly nasty-looking scar marred her right temple. Her hair was lank and unkempt, her cheeks were hollow, and she had thick bags under her eyes that spoke of great difficulty in sleeping. If it weren’t for the hair and skin, Luna would have sworn that she was looking at a completely different person to the Sunset she knew.

“Is she going to be okay?” The President asked.

The doctor sighed and gently put Sunset’s hand down on the table. “She needs rest and fluids, but she should be fine from a physical standpoint. Mentally, I’d recommend a full psychiatric evaluation, counselling, and an introduction to cognitive behavioural therapy at the very least.”

“Which we aren’t currently equipped to sufficiently provide.” The President tapped the desk as she thought. “Thank you, doctor, you can go now. I’ll have my aide send you details of where Sunset will be staying in case we need you again.” The doctor nodded and left, closing the door behind him. “That could have gone better,” the President muttered. “How are you doing, Sunset?”

Sunset just shook her head and slumped over to rest it on the table. 

“What happened?” Luna asked the President tightly. “You said that the Rainbooms were fine.”

“They were when I last spoke to them, but the wastes are dangerous, and things can change very quickly. On top of that, the spread of magic is making things more unpredictable than ever,” the President replied. 

Luna could understand that feeling all too well. Even so, she had seen the Rainbooms in action on more than one occasion, and it was hard to believe that there was any magical mishap that they couldn’t handle. “What happened to the other girls? Who is Unity?”

“That is a long story,” the President said with a sigh. She glanced at Sunset, who was still slumped over in silence, then launched into what Luna could tell was a truncated explanation of who Unity was and what she had done.

“Wow, she sounds like a mean piece of work,” Sonata said when the explanation was done, without so much as a trace of irony in her voice.

“That’s exactly what you tried to do!” Trixie hissed.

Sonata scoffed loudly. “Uh, no, we didn’t want to rule, we just wanted adoring slaves who would do whatever we wanted. Totally different. Duh.”

“It’s what I tried to do, back at the Fall Formal,” Sunset put in suddenly. She slowly raised her head and glared suspiciously at Sonata. Her eyes were glazed and a little unfocused, but her expression was sharp. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“Because your stupid portal broke again,” Sonata shot. 

The President raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been wondering about that myself. Weren’t you and the other Sirens enemies of the Rainbooms?”

Sonata shrugged. “Yeah, but we lost. The only reason we bothered helping that dumb changeling and the other Sunset trash the portal was because they were going to help us get back to Equestria.”

“Wait.” Luna fought the urge to slap a palm to her forehead as Sunset straightened up, her eyes narrowing and her voice dropping dangerously, “You sabotaged the Geode Diviner? You’re the reason that we were dumped in this world?”

“Uh, I guess so?” Sonata replied blithely. “I mean, I don’t think that was part of the plan, but-” She was cut off as Sunset suddenly lunged across the table, grabbed the front of her top, and pressed a large knife against her throat hard enough to draw blood. Luna just sat and stared, too stunned to move.

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t gut you like the bottom-feeding shit that you are,” Sunset said in a terrifyingly calm voice.

Sonata’s eyes practically popped out of her head. “I, uh, I don’t want you to?!” She yelped desperately.

“I said a good reason,” Sunset growled. 

The look of abject terror in Sonata’s eyes finally snapped Luna back to her senses. “Don’t hurt her! She’s been helping us!” Sunset didn’t move an inch, so Luna pressed on, “It was a changeling who sabotaged the Diviner; someone named Mandible. Adagio said the plan was just to put the Diviner out of commission, not open up a portal. As soon as the Sirens heard what happened they sent Sonata secretly to pass information to us.”

“I-It’s true!” Sonata squealed. “No-one was supposed to get hurt, I swear!”

Sunset scowled, apparently weighing their words in her mind, then finally shoved Sonata back into her seat and sat back down. “Fine, you get a pass for now, but if you ever, ever, fuck with me or my friends again, you die screaming.” With that dire proclamation, Sunset stood up, swaying slightly as she stepped away from the table. “I need to get started on those inhibitors. Where’s Lily?”

“Not a chance, the doctor said you need to rest,” the President said firmly.

Sunset turned to glare at her. “I can’t just sit around while-”

“Sunset, you’re fucked,” the President cut in. “You’ve had a nightmare of a day, you can barely even stand up straight, and the only reason you can even form coherent sentences instead of having a breakdown in the corner is because the doc just gave you a sedative and a dose of Mentats. We’ve set aside a residence for Luna, Trixie and Sonata, and there’s a spare bed there so you can stay with them. Go there, catch up, get some sleep, then we’ll see how you are in the morning. You aren’t going to help anyone if you collapse or have a nervous breakdown.”

“She’s right, take some time to recuperate, then go at this with fresh eyes, alright?” Luna added. 

Sunset tried to glare at them, but she ended up just sagging and staring at the floor. “Okay.”





Sunset closed her eyes and tried not to think about anything, instead choosing to focus on the feeling of the snow whipping past her. It was easy enough. Whatever kind of sedative the doctor had given her was keeping a lid on the worst of her emotions, making her feel oddly detached from her own body, though the implications of why the Enclave would have such a drug were far from pleasant. 

Luckily, the President had prepared a jeep to take the group to their new home, saving them the arduous task of trekking through the snow to the residential area. Sunset had jumped into the front passenger seat, largely to put off the inevitable questions for as long as possible. 

“Here you go,” the driver said suddenly, bringing Sunset back to reality with a bump. She hadn’t even realized that the jeep had stopped. Allowing herself a small sigh, Sunset thanked the driver and got out, swung her pack over her shoulder and snatched up her plasma rifle, then looked up at the building next to them. It was a detached house, rather than a semi or terrace, which made Sunset believe that it would usually be reserved for the Enclave’s higher-ups. 

“Hold on, I’ve got the key,” Luna said gently as she stepped past. She unlocked the door and stepped inside to hold it open for the others. Warm air rushed out to greet them.

Sunset looked around as she entered, checking for threats and exits through force of habit. The house had a small hallway with a few doors leading off to other rooms, and an elaborately carved staircase that headed up to the second floor. “I’ll go and dump my stuff in a bedroom,” Sunset grunted. Keenly aware of the gazes of the others, she shuffled upstairs. 

There were two similar sized bedrooms on the second floor. Each of them had a pair of beds, two wardrobes, and a single chest of drawers. Sunset picked one of the rooms and Propped her plasma rifle up against the chest of drawers. Next, she threw her pack on one of the beds, stripped off her damp Brotherhood uniform and got into a clean set of Enclave lounging clothes in the form of simple shorts and a tank top. Her armor had been left with the President for the technicians to check over. 

As tempted as she was to simply clamber into bed and pass out, Sunset knew that she had to speak to the others. With a sigh, she quietly padded downstairs. 

Luna and the others were in the lounge. It was well-apportioned, with a squishy couch and a pair of matching chairs all gathered around a blazing fireplace. Sonata and Trixie were both on the couch, while Luna was standing next to the fire. Sonata flinched and reached up to touch the scabs on her neck as Sunset entered, but Sunset just ignored her and dropped into one of the empty chairs. 

“Are you okay?” Luna asked tentatively. 

“No. No I’m not,” Sunset replied calmly. She was mildly thankful for the sedative at that moment. Instead of feeling like she was about to cry, or scream, or rage out, she just felt hollow. Empty. She couldn’t even muster up the energy to be angry at Sonata.

“The President told us about the war,” Trixie put in quietly. “Is that where you got those scars?”

Sunset absently glanced down at her arms. “Some of them. I think half of them came from just dealing with raiders and other assholes.”

Luna frowned and crossed her arms. “I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but… what happened to you girls in this world? As Trixie says, we heard about you being involved in the war, but the President said that you girls were fine. Is this world really that bad compared to ours?”

“Bad?” Sunset looked up at her in blank surprise. She glanced at Sonata and Trixie, who were both watching with wary expressions, then turned her attention back to Luna. “Rarity got shot.”

The others gasped and reeled in shock. “Is she okay?! What happened?!” Luna demanded.

“It was months ago,” Sunset replied, almost in a daze. “A man shot her in the arm. She can’t move her fingers properly without a prosthetic glove now. Twilight got slashed by a Deathclaw, so she has some weird implant thing in her back to help her walk and heal. Applejack has PTSD from when Horrigan tried to squash her, and I think Rainbow might as well, but I’m not sure. Me and Pinkie both had to have surgery because we almost died from internal bleeding and, uh… what else? Oh, yeah, Fluttershy got mutated by a virus and now she’s a vampire. That was after raiders kidnapped her and tried to rape her, but before an asshole tried to rape Rarity in Megaton.” 

An appalled silence fell in the wake of her revelations. 

“That’s awful,” Trixie said in a horrified tone.

“You’re joking, right?” Sonata asked warily. “It’s just a bad joke?”

“Why the fuck would I joke about shit like that?” Sunset countered.

Sonata stared at her in wide-eyed shock. “So… um… I’m sorry? That sounds really rough.”

Luna reached out and grabbed the mantelpiece over the fire to steady herself. “The President said that this world was bad, but I never imagined it would be so…” She shook her head slowly, then looked over at Sunset. “I’m so sorry, Sunset. I can’t believe you’ve been stuck in a place this terrible for so long.”

“It’s not your fault,” Sunset replied automatically. She blinked in surprise as a thought occurred to her. “Huh, it’s not my fault either.”

“I-I did say I’m sorry! And I meant it!” Sonata exclaimed, pressing her hands to her neck protectively. 

Sunset rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to kill you. Not yet, anyway. I’ve done enough killing.” She lowered her gaze to the floor. “Too much killing.”

“You… you were really forced to fight in the war?” Luna asked tentatively. 

“Not just the war,” Sunset said heavily. “This world is dangerous. More than you can imagine. We’ve had to fight and kill just to survive, all of us have. And we’re going to have to keep doing it until we can find a way back home.” She pressed a hand to her head, then slowly stood up and trudged to the door, deciding that she had had enough conversation for the day. “I’m getting food. You want anything?”
> Chapter 133 - Durasteel Dodgeball
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Unity felt a small wave of relief as she stepped into the Citadel’s courtyard, but it was soured by the various complications she had had to deal with.

The revelation that two sapient suits of power armor even existed was an unpleasant surprise, and the fact that they had managed to escape with two Squires was irritating beyond belief. Add in the difficulty of keeping the Brotherhood of Steel, the crystal monsters, and the Rainbooms under control, and Unity was beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t have just left the army at Raven Rock and conquered the Citadel by herself. On the plus side, now that all of her new subjects were gathered in place, it would be much easier to keep them on a tight leash. 

Striding slowly across the courtyard, Unity looked around at each of her people, dipping deeper into each of their minds in turn to see what she could glean beneath the initial resistance. Most of it wasn’t particularly useful; flashes of loved ones, families, pets, minor grievances, friendly hangouts, alcohol, chems, sex, even radio shows. Some, however, were more productive, such as outpost locations, trade and water routes, settlement populations, and other nuggets of strategic information. 

Much to Unity’s concern, she found several memories of Horrigan in real combat. The knowledge of what he was really capable of was disturbing to say the least. Defeating him would be simplicity itself if he could be mind-controlled, but Unity suspected that her mother would probably build another of those awful inhibitors to make his mind untouchable. 

Scowling, Unity considered ways of overcoming Horrigan until she noticed a strange thought crossing one of her subjects’ minds. Fluttershy was staring intently at something as she obediently followed her master. Curious, Unity dove into Fluttershy’s senses and noticed a faint buzzing sound coming from an empty spot near the wall. It sounded almost like a tiny set of thrusters. 

With a jolt, Unity realized that something was spying on her, most likely using a Stealth Boy or some similar technology. Whatever it was, she couldn’t sense its mind in the slightest. She quickly snatched up a nearby toolbox with her telekinesis and whipped around to hurl it at the hidden spy. The toolbox sailed through the air until it smashed harmlessly against the Citadel’s wall, but something invisible let out a surprised series of beeps and chirps. Out of nowhere, a volley of scarlet lasers flashed out and struck Unity in the torso. Her body was still crystalline, despite its appearance, so the lasers simply refracted off in dozens of directions without so much as a mild sting, but it was still a surprise. 

Unity raised an eyebrow as the air rippled and an eyebot shimmered into view. “That explains why I couldn’t sense your mind. You don’t have one.” The eyebot beeped in what sounded almost like indignation, but Unity ignored it and concentrated her thoughts on her subjects. “Destroy it.”

Almost every being in the courtyard reacted immediately, but before any of them could so much as raise their weapon or take a step towards it, the eyebot disappeared in a purple flash. 

“Going invisible again won’t hel-” Unity bit her tongue as something heavy and solid landed on her head with a loud clang. She immediately reached out with her thoughts and snared every mind within range in an iron grip, unwilling to risk anything breaking out from her control. Clenching her fists, Unity looked up just in time to snatch a glimpse of the eyebot as it rammed into her face at high speed, pitching her off her feet. Again, she was forced to redouble her efforts on keeping her subjects under control. 

With a growl, Unity used her powers to launch herself to her feet, ready to grab the eyebot with her powers and crush it into a shiny golf ball, only to see it rocketing out of the Citadel’s gate far faster than any eyebot should have been able to move. Unity sprinted to the gate, but by the time she reached it, the eyebot had already vanished from sight. 

“I think he got away,” Rainbow said sardonically.

Unity let out an angry snarl, subconsciously scattering snow and grit as her powers leaked out. The eyebot’s attacks hadn’t even been enough to hurt her, let alone actually cause damage, but she couldn’t stand the idea that a spy had been able to waltz in and out of her domain without any repercussions whatsoever. 

Besides, getting beaten by an eyebot of all things was embarrassing in the extreme. 

Several minutes passed before Unity finally managed to get her smouldering temper under control. At the end of the day, the spy wasn’t a huge problem. She would have to make sure that no others managed to sneak in, obviously, but Fluttershy could handle that, and she doubted that the eyebot had seen anything of particular importance. Sunset Shimmer had probably already warned the Enclave, anyway. What mattered was how to deal with them when they inevitably came.

Unity considered her options as she turned and stalked across the courtyard. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that making the Enclave come to her was probably the best idea. The Citadel was a fortress, after all, and any soldiers that managed to get close enough to be a threat would also be close enough for her to control. The only real threats were going to be Horrigan and Liberty Prime.

As she reached one of the doors to the Citadel’s interior, the sight of one of the dead Revenants made Unity pause in her tracks. She looked around, taking in the bodies of the few crystal monsters that had died during her brief lapses of concentration, then grinned as dark inspiration struck. The corpses were still magical, and they were made of the same material that Raven Rock itself was; material that a powerful enough crystal being would be able to reshape and absorb, granting them the power and mass of the deceased monster.

Unity nodded and sent out a mental command for her subjects to gather every dead crystal monster and pile them up together. Once that was done, she stepped into the Citadel and headed towards the stairways that led down to the incarceration cells. It had been far too long since Unity had had a chat with Colonel Autumn.
> Chapter 134 - Coping
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The lounge was quiet, with only the crackling of the fireplace breaking the silence. Luna stared into the flames, almost mesmerised, as she looked back at the day’s events once again. 

Seeing Sunset, and hearing everything she and the others had been through, had shaken Luna in ways she didn’t think she would ever understand. She had initially considered reproaching Sunset for her sudden vile language, but that idea seemed laughable now. A little bit of swearing was the least that could be expected from someone after being trapped in a world this dangerous for months on end.

Guilt gripped Luna like a suffocating weight in her chest. Intellectually, she knew that the Rainbooms’ situation wasn’t her fault. The only ones to blame were Mandible and the other Sunset, and, she hated to admit it, the Sirens as well, albeit to a lesser extent.  Emotionally, however, Luna couldn’t help but blame herself. These girls were her students. They had been in her care when everything had gone wrong, and had spent the last few months in a living nightmare because she hadn’t been able to protect them. Even if there wasn’t much, if anything, that Luna could have done for the others, she had been the one to grab Applejack when the portal had been sabotaged. She would never forgive herself for not being able to keep a grip on her when the girls needed it.

Tearing her gaze away from the flames, Luna turned her attention to the other two girls who had been dragged to this world thanks to her failure as a teacher. 

Trixie was sitting on one end of the sofa with her head in her hands, while Sonata was curled up on the other, her arms wrapped around her knees. Sunset had already gone to bed, muttering about sleeping pills. Sure enough, when Trixie had tried to check on her only a few minutes later, she had been out cold, though Trixie hadn’t dared to actually try and shake her in case she reacted violently to being woken up.

Luna wanted to ask the girls if they were alright, maybe offer some words of comfort and reassurance, but nothing was coming to mind. Weak platitudes weren’t going to help them after seeing Sunset so thoroughly broken.

With a sigh, Luna turned back to the fire. There was only one thing she could do to try and make things safer for the girls. As soon as she had a chance the next morning, Luna vowed that she would get someone to train her to use a gun properly.





Trixie couldn’t believe what she had seen. Sunset Shimmer was strong, resolute, intimidating, and above all, confident. There was no way that she could be so… beaten. 

Even when she had been defeated at the Fall Formal, forcibly transformed from a demon back into a human and left smouldering in a crater, Sunset hadn’t been so subdued. Miserable, tear-stained, filthy, and scared, yes, but that had been nothing compared to how she was looking now. To Trixie, it looked as if Sunset’s very soul had been ripped out of her body, leaving behind a hollow husk that hadn’t quite realized that it was dead yet. It was almost impossible to reconcile what she was to what she had become.

That, more than anything, had cemented in Trixie’s mind just how terrible this world really was. 

The reality of her situation impressed itself further and further on Trixie’s mind with every passing moment. She was stuck in an alternate world, filled with all kinds of unspeakable dangers and monsters, and the only way of getting home had been completely ruined. Trixie was terrified. If even the smartest and most incredible people she knew had been battered beyond recognition by this world, then what chance did a half-baked stage magician stand?





Things weren’t going well, as far as Sonata was concerned. She had been dumped into a bizarre world with a pair of annoying creatures before, but this was way different. For a start, the Sirens had never been violent with each other, no matter how much they had mouthed off and argued. 

Sonata gently rubbed the scabbed line where Sunset’s knife had dug into her skin. That had been way too close for comfort. Sonata had expected that this human world would be near enough the same as the other one. Lame, but maybe a little cooler thanks to the nuclear war and stuff. Having seen what it did to Sunset, though, she decided that she didn’t particularly want to see any more of it. 

Unless it had more magic.

Or powerful artifacts. 

Or other Sirens. 

Sonata frowned slightly as she considered her options. She’d have to see what she could possibly get her hands on, then try and figure out herself whether it was worth the risk. She fought back a sigh. This sort of thing was Adagio’s job.

Giving up on her calculations for now, Sonata suddenly realized that she had a much more pressing concern she should be focusing on. “I call dibs on the other bedroom.”

“Other bedroom?” Luna asked curiously, turning away from the fire again.

“Uh, yeah? The one that doesn’t have the girl who wants to kill me in it?” Sonata explained bluntly.

Luna’s eyes widened as she suddenly cottoned on to that particular problem. “Of course. You can sleep in the room with me, Trixie can sleep with Sunset. Is that alright with you, Trixie?”

Trixie just nodded slowly. 

“Good. That’s a relief.” With her chances of surviving the night now looking more reasonable, Sonata sighed and allowed herself to relax a little. 





Doctor Mercer’s office was almost offensively bright compared to almost every other part of the base complex. Then again, Mercer was one of the most accomplished doctors in the Enclave, and his skills were in higher demand now than ever before, so Becky didn’t see any issue with allocating him a little extra electricity and some decent light bulbs.

“Miss Shimmer is not capable of combat,” Mercer said flatly, his tone at odds with his normally deep and resonant voice. “I do not even need to give her a complete examination to see that. She has endured too much trauma. At this rate, even such simple tasks as getting out of bed or getting dressed are going to be beyond her. I recommend transferring her to the psychiatric unit for the foreseeable future.”

Becky gritted her teeth. As much as she wanted to acquiesce to his recommendation, she couldn’t. Sunset was just too important to the ongoing situation with Unity. “That’s not acceptable. If it were any other time, I’d allow it, but right now her input and abilities will be invaluable. Is there anything you can do to keep her going?”

Mercer gave her a conflicted look, then sighed. “There’s a regimen of drugs I can put her on. It’s effectively a cocktail of antidepressants, antipsychotics, Mentats, and a handful of other bits and pieces. I’ll warn you, though, the side effects are… unpleasant. We usually only use it on our most traumatised soldiers.”

“Will it work?” Becky asked.

“To an extent,” Mercer replied reluctantly. “Miss Shimmer will be functional, at least enough to suit your purposes, but the chances of her regaining any semblance of normality…” He shook his head. “There is a possible alternative, which is effectively the same drug but with a couple of things taken out and replaced with measured doses of Sunset’s own magic taken from our production lines, but it is very experimental. We’re testing it on active personnel and children who have night terrors, or who were exposed to some of Acheson’s less ethical magical experiments.”

The thought of Acheson exposing children to whatever Mercer considered to be unethical magical experiments made Becky clench her fists in anger. “What sort of side effects does it have?”

“Mostly the same as the ordinary version, though the researchers have noted a slight increase in demonstrated empathy among the patients,” Mercer explained. “As for the long-term effects, we have absolutely no idea. All we can do is cross our fingers and hope that God is merciful.”

Becky fought the urge to grimace. The fact that she was even considering such things, let alone having a conversation about it, made her sick to her stomach, but she couldn’t let her emotions get in the way. Sunset deserved better, but she was only one woman. As President, Becky had the safety of the Enclave and, with the Brotherhood compromised, the entire Capital Wasteland to consider. There was only one option. “I need Miss Shimmer on her feet and coherent as soon as possible. I’ll have her sent to you in the morning. Give her the experimental version, as much as it takes.” 
> Chapter 135 - Fall
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Citadel’s penitentiary section was far smaller than most of its other areas. As far as Unity could tell from the minds of her subjects, before the bombs fell Chinese spies were usually held in top-secret black sites for interrogation. Along with actually innocent immigrants of Chinese descent who were unlucky enough to be suspected of espionage, and other Asians who, in the eyes of the ignorant, simply looked Chinese. American traitors were usually executed either quietly or with great public fanfare, depending on whether the reason would be good for propaganda or not.

As a result, the Citadel, or Pentagon as it was known before the war, tended to only hold those few terrorists, insurgents, and peaceful protestors who had dared get too close and somehow managed to survive the inevitably excessive security response. Since said survivors were incredibly rare, the government had decided that a handful of cramped cells would be more than sufficient. The Brotherhood of Steel had never bothered to expand them either, as imprisoning raiders almost always proved pointless and capturing live Super Mutants was far more trouble than it was worth.

Even the war with the Enclave hadn’t changed things much. Any Enclave personnel that were taken alive were interrogated and either ended up defecting, executed for war crimes, or were returned to the Enclave as part of a prisoner swap once the war had ended. 

In the end, only one prisoner remained. Unity didn’t know if the Brotherhood had refused to release him, or if the Enclave hadn’t even bothered asking. Either way, she didn’t care. She could feel his mind as she stalked towards his cell; a dour mix of humiliation, muted anger, and resignation. 

The door was made of thick steel, with a couple of small slots for observing the prisoner or shoving a trayful of food through. Unity slid open one of the slots and peered inside. 

Colonel Autumn was lying on a rickety cot in one corner of the room. He was wearing a simple gray t-shirt with matching pants, his hair and stubble had grown out in an untidy mess, and his bare arms were covered in fresh scars that spoke of invasive surgery to repair shattered arms. A simple steel toilet was the only other decoration in the spartan room.

“You know I’m not going to talk, so say what you’re here to say and fuck off,” Autumn said bluntly.

Unity huffed a laugh and shut the viewing slot. She considered summoning whoever had the cell’s key and having them open the door, before deciding against it and reaching out with a hand. The lock was no match for her power; metal groaned and creaked as she calmly ripped the mechanism apart, then hauled the door open. 

Autumn looked up, confusion and nausea marring his expression as Unity stepped into the room. “Who the hell are you?” He asked in a remarkably even tone. Unity had to admire his courage. 

“You don’t remember me?” She asked coyly.

To her surprise, Autumn just looked her up and down, then sighed and sat up straight, swinging his legs over the side of the cot, clutching at his stomach as the proximity to her psychic might affected him. “You bear a striking resemblance to Senator Lily, so at a guess I’d say you were related to her somehow. Did that old witch somehow have a child that I didn’t know about, or were you conceived through Assigned Procreation?”

The realization that Unity had subconsciously made herself look like her detested mother sent a wave of conflicting emotions flowing through her. She scowled as she replied, “The former, in a manner of speaking, though I certainly wasn’t conceived in any normal manner.”

“Good. You’re not one of mine, then,” Autumn put in.

A memory of an intimate encounter with Unity’s mother floated across Autumn’s mind, and Unity instinctively shoved the memory from his thoughts, making him twitch and hold his head. She was suddenly the slightest bit grateful that her mother had taken to wearing that wretched psychic inhibitor. “I did not know that you and Senator Lily were… intertwined that way.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea, it was merely a casual relationship,” Autumn replied gruffly. He looked up at Unity again and narrowed his eyes. “Who exactly are you? Are you with the Brotherhood of Steel or the Enclave?”

“Neither anymore,” Unity told him. “I was raised in Raven Rock, up until recently, which is actually where you and I first met.” Autumn raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing her. “I don’t blame you for not remembering. It was some time ago, and I wasn’t in this form. In truth, you didn’t actually see me in person, and I don’t think you really understood who was talking to you.”

Autumn frowned, his thoughts racing as he tried to figure out what she meant. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you remember the time you marched down to the sub-basements because you heard about the stored samples of Scorch Plague in the secret labs?” Unity grinned as Autumn suddenly realized what she was referring to with a jolt. “Yes, that was me.”

“That’s impossible,” Autumn said flatly.

Unity shrugged, then reached out with her power to plant her words directly into his mind, ‘I assure you, it is entirely possible.’

The blood drained instantly from Autumn’s face. “You’re a telepath?! Just like Sunset Shimmer?!”

‘Not quite’, Unity told him. “My abilities are far more powerful than hers.” As raw terror twisted both his expression and his mind, Unity continued, “That was the first time I managed to deactivate the stasis field my mother kept me in when she was absent. You have no idea how thrilling it was to sense a different mind, to see thoughts and feelings unlike any I had seen before. I had to reach out to you.”

“I thought I was hallucinating!” Autumn barked. “That whole sub-level was locked down and I was quarantined for three weeks because of you!”

“Well, small sacrifices must be made in the pursuit of our goals,” Unity said calmly. “I learned that from you. The depths of your mind fascinated me; such emotions, such drive, such ruthless dedication to your cause. Through you, I saw what was achievable with power and resources. You inspired me.” A wave of concern wafted from Autumn as he suddenly wondered why no-one from the Brotherhood was present. “The Brotherhood isn’t a problem anymore. Soon, the Enclave won’t be either. I am going to succeed where you and President Eden failed. This wasteland, this country, and this continent, will belong to me.”

Something died in Autumn’s eyes at her words. He looked down at the floor, his thoughts all coming down to one simple question. “What do you want with me?”

Unity smiled softly. “I just wanted to thank you for giving me the tools and vision I needed to pursue my father’s dream.” Autumn shivered as her power slid into his mind. It was harder than Unity expected to command him without losing her grip on one of her other subjects, but it wasn’t long before she managed to assume control. “Your thoughts will no longer be your own, but I felt that you deserved to be lucid when I thanked you.” 
> Chapter 136 - Secret Machinations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I’m back,” Sunset called out weakly as she entered her new residence and closed the door.

Luna appeared a moment later in the doorway to the kitchen, looking concerned. “Are you alright? What did the doctor say?”

“He gave me some meds,” Sunset replied quietly. Faint colors swirled in the corner of her vision every time she moved her eyes, and every inch of her skin felt as if it was covered in popping candy. “I’m supposed to take the rest of the day to rest and let my brain acclimatize to them.” She started to climb the stairs to the bedroom, letting whatever Luna was saying drift into one ear and out of the other. Every step sent an odd crackling sensation through her knees and thighs.

Once she was in her bedroom, Sunset methodically went about storing her weapons and equipment, then stripping off her armor and uniform before pulling on some simple Enclave pajamas, trying to ignore every unfamiliar tingle and spasm that the movements caused in her body. When she was done, she carefully pulled her blanket back and sat on the edge of the bed. Only then did Sunset realize that Luna had followed her upstairs. “How are you feeling? Is the medication helping at all yet?”

Sunset took a deep breath and looked down at herself. Her sense of touch was in overdrive, but her head felt strangely clear. It was as if every thought she had was passing through at a remove, like a fish calmly swimming along behind glass, though there was definitely something lurking down in the dark corners of her mind. “I... don’t know. I think so?”

Luna stepped over and squatted down to peek into Sunset’s eyes. “Your pupils are huge. Did the doctor tell you what sort of side effects the medication has?”

“He gave me a leaflet.” Sunset waved vaguely towards her discarded uniform. “It’s in one of the pockets. I’m going to try and get some sleep.” 

“Of course.” Luna dutifully checked the pockets until she found the little slip of paper. “Alright, get some rest and we’ll see you when you get up.”





Luna anxiously read through the details of Sunset’s medication as she walked back downstairs. She thought she recognized some of the medications in the concoction as being antidepressants she’d encountered before, but most of them were completely alien to her. Some of them had what appeared to be brand names in brackets next to them, such as “Mentats”, “Sertrazine”, and “Psycho”, but even that didn’t really help much. 

Concern for her student warred with anger at the Enclave leadership for putting said student through enough trauma to need such an unsettling mixture in the first place. The fact that Sunset’s input would be invaluable when dealing with magic, not to mention that Sunset herself would flat-out refuse to sit on the sidelines when her friends were in danger, didn’t make the situation any easier to deal with.

With a conflicted huff, Luna stuffed the leaflet in her pocket and retreated into the lounge. Trixie and Sonata were already sitting on the sofa waiting for her. “Is she alright?” Trixie asked.

“The doctors gave Sunset some medicine. I’m sure that it’ll help,” Luna said evasively. She didn’t entirely believe that, given just how many pills Sunset had been given, but she wasn’t about to vent her concerns to the girls. She quickly sat on one of the other chairs to address them properly, eager to deflect their attention. “What about you two? How are you feeling?”

“Worried that a certain someone is going to try and kill me,” Sonata said bluntly. 

A pit formed in Luna’s stomach at those words, especially as Trixie looked away nervously. No high school student should ever have to have such a visceral problem right at the forefront of their mind. Still, Luna kept her expression neutral and gave a slow nod. “That’s understandable, given what we’ve learned, but we’re safe here. The President herself said that keeping us out of harm’s way is one of her top priorities.”

“What about the Rainbooms?” Trixie countered weakly. “If even they aren’t safe, then how safe can we be here?”

Luna barely managed to keep herself from wincing. “The Enclave is going to get the girls back safe and sound.” She was mildly impressed at how confident she managed to make herself found. “As soon as they’re back here with us, I’m going to make sure that they stay out of trouble until the portal back home has been fixed. I won’t have anyone sending them on dangerous errands across the wasteland, and I certainly won’t let anything happen to the two of you, no matter what it takes. I promise.”

Neither of the pair looked particularly convinced, but they both nodded anyway.

“What are we going to do now?” Trixie asked.

“That is a very good question.” Luna stood up and stretched. “For now, I think it would be best if the two of you stay here. I’m going to go and see if there’s anything we need to do while we’re here, and find out if there’s any amenities like a grocery store or something. While I’m at it, I’m going to see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

Trixie looked up at her anxiously. “Isn’t it dangerous out there?” 

“I’m just going to go to the checkpoint down the road. I’m not going anywhere near the outskirts of the base, and this zone is all residential buildings, so it should be perfectly safe,” Luna assured her. “Will you both be alright here on your own?” The two nodded again. “Good. I hope I won’t be long, but I can’t guarantee that. If anyone from the Enclave comes to collect you for any reason, please leave a message saying where you’ve gone.”

After making sure that the two were as secure and settled as was possible under the circumstances, Luna fetched the thick boots and heavy coat the Enclave had given her and ventured out into the cold. 

The snow had piled even higher overnight. The roads and a few footpaths were still clear thanks to plenty of grit and constant maintenance, but the drifts everywhere else reached up to Luna’s chest. Pulling her hood up against the still-heavy snowfall, Luna glanced around to get her bearings, making a note of the street layout, then headed in the direction of the nearest checkpoint. 

If she kept her head down and just focused on the path ahead, Luna could almost make herself feel like she was going for a wintry walk along one of Canterlot City’s promenades. Unfortunately, the illusion was broken every time she had to step out of the way of a power-armored maintenance worker; bulkier and more cumbersome than the military types, with red warning lights on the shoulders and bright yellow patches adorned with reflective strips, and carrying huge handheld grit-dispensers or heated shovels and plows.

After ten minutes of trudging along the slush-laden paths, Luna finally came to the security checkpoint. It was little more than a blocky steel hut next to a simple swing gate. As Luna approached, a young boy who couldn’t have been older than sixteen stepped out of the hut and greeted her. To his credit, he didn’t so much as bat an eyelid at her skin, which most of the people in this world found particularly interesting. “Good morning, Miss. Do you need something?”

Luna nodded. “Actually, I was wondering what exactly myself and my students are supposed to do while we’re here. Also, I wanted to know how we go about picking up groceries and essentials.”

“Groceries are easy, just speak to the Quartermaster’s office. The phone in your residence should have a button to call them on.” The boy scrunched his face up thoughtfully as he pondered her other question. “I don’t know what the higher ups want you to do, though. I’ll have to contact my superior. We’re all just cadets here.”

Luna tried not to think about what sort of state the Enclave was in if they were using young cadets to man their security checkpoints, and instead took a deep breath to gather enough courage to make her next request. “While you’re at it, I realize that this may be a foolish question, but I was hoping I could have someone teach me how to use a gun.”





Silence filled the Diviner room, broken only by the sound of Micro Chips typing away as he meticulously pored through vast quantities of data. 

Princess Twilight stared up at the Geode Diviner as Micro worked. She had mixed feelings, if she was going to be honest with herself. The fact that the portal had opened again, from the other side instead of due to sabotage this time, must mean that Sunset and the others were working hard to find their own way back home, but losing Trixie and Vice-Principal Luna soured her excitement somewhat, and explaining Sonata’s disappearance to Adagio wasn’t likely to be pleasant. Still, Twilight supposed that she was lucky. If Wallflower hadn’t been lurking in the Diviner room, then they wouldn’t have learned that the portal had opened again anywhere near as quickly.

“Um, Princess?” Micro glanced over his shoulder at her. “I think we have a problem.”

“What is it?” Twilight asked anxiously as she hurried over to him.

“I’ve been going over the magical signatures the Diviner picked up, trying to identify the signature of the world the Rainbooms were sent to as you suggested,” Micro explained. “Unfortunately, I’ve come across a complication. There’s a lot more than just one magical frequency.”

Princess Twilight frowned thoughtfully, but she wasn’t perturbed for long. “Actually, that might be a good thing. If the world they were sent to has magic, then it should have a background magical field for it to draw from, just like Equestria. All magic in Equestria is slightly different, but it is all supported by the background magical field, meaning there are slight similarities in the magical frequencies. Discord’s is different, but I think he does that deliberately just to be contrary. In theory, we just have to compare the frequencies the Diviner picked up, then we can use the similarities to triangulate the exact metaphysical coordinates for the worlds the girls were sent to!”

Micro adjusted his glasses and looked back at the screen. “I have no idea who Discord is, but I suspected that your theory about the background magical field may be correct after my conversations with Starswirl. As such, I altered the algorithm the Diviner uses to detect magical frequencies, then ran a simple macro to collate all of the vaguely similar frequencies. It should have gathered them into two or three groups.”

“Equestria’s, the other world’s, and possibly this world’s if the introduced Equestrian magic triggered the creation of a background magical field here as well,” Twilight noted.

Micro nodded. “Exactly. However, that is where we have the problem.” He frowned and stared at the screen. “The Diviner didn’t detect merely two or three worlds, it detected over two hundred.”

“What?!” Twilight exclaimed. “How are there so many?!”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you and Starswirl might have some ideas,” Micro said flatly. 

Twilight sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “First we’ll have to check the frequencies manually to make sure that the computer is right, then-”

A knock at the door interrupted the pair. They both glanced back just as Muffins opened the door and poked her head in. “Hey, Twilight! Principal Celestia says she wants to speak to you in her office if that’s okay?”

“Alright, I’ll go there now,” Twilight replied reluctantly before turning back to Micro. “Sorry, we’ll have to figure something out when Starswirl gets back with more crystals. See if you can get started on checking the frequencies.”

Leaving Micro Chips to the enviable task of rooting through reams of similar magical frequencies, Twilight quickly made her way through the halls of Canterlot High. It had been a while since she had been to the office, but it didn’t take her long to find it. 

When she knocked and opened the door, Twilight was stunned to see Tempest Shadow sitting comfortably in a seat opposite Celestia. “You!” Twilight snarled.

“Wait! She’s not the one you’re thinking of!” Celestia cut in sharply. 

Twilight hesitated, confused, then tensed up as Tempest got out of her seat. The woman was wearing an impeccably tailored black suit. It took Twilight a moment to notice that Tempest was also missing her left arm below the elbow, as the sewn-up sleeve attested. 

“Princess Twilight, it is an honour to finally meet you. I’m Agent Berrytwist, here on behalf of the government.” The Agent bowed formally, then gestured to an empty seat next to her. “Please, sit down. There is much we need to discuss.”
> Chapter 137 - Plausible Deniability
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Twilight’s eyes never left the Agent as she sat down. This world’s government, or at least this particular country’s, had never attempted to initiate contact with her before. Given that this world had originally lacked magic, Twilight hadn’t believed that they even knew about her. 

“I’m sure that this is a surprise of sorts to you,” Agent Berrytwist began. 

“It’s certainly a surprise to me,” Celestia cut in.

Agent Berrytwist nodded. “Indeed. We have taken pains to avoid letting anyone know that we are aware of Equestria’s existence, but I assure you that we have been aware for quite some time.”

Twilight wasn’t sure whether to be surprised or suspicious. “Alright, Agent Berrytwist. What do you want to talk about?”

“Several things. But perhaps it would be best if I brought you up to speed, first,” Agent Berrytwist replied. “The government has suspected the existence of a parallel reality for decades. There are odd sites all around the country; places where equipment, animals, and even the occasional over-adventurous tourist goes missing. When they returned, those tourists always spoke of a terrifying forest full of darkness and bizarre creatures.”

“The Everfree Forest,” Twilight supplied without thinking.

Agent Berrytwist cocked her head to the side. “Interesting. It seems there are more parallels than we suspected. Anyway, until a few years ago, the government was content to simply cordon off these locations and label them as nuclear waste storage facilities, or the site of terrible chemical accidents. The people who returned were compensated and convinced to remain quiet.”

“What changed?” Twilight asked curiously.

“Sunset Shimmer did,” Agent Berrytwist said flatly. “Having a young teenage girl suddenly appear in our city out of nowhere and start trying to make a life for herself certainly raised some eyebrows, especially among the police and social services.” She smiled sardonically at the surprised looks on Twilight and Celestia’s faces. “We may not be perfect, but we do pay attention to things like that. The government kept a very close eye on the portal outside this school after that, but since no-one else came through, we decided that there was no particular threat. We tried to enrol Miss Shimmer in the fostering system initially but, as she was vehemently opposed to the idea, we arranged an apartment and benefits for her. An agent in the guise of a social worker also made periodic checks on her until she was old enough to fend for herself.”

Celestia frowned and tapped the desk absently. “I knew that Sunset was an orphan, but I didn’t realise that the government had been so heavily involved in her case. It certainly makes sense though, given her background.” She looked over at the Agent. “Is that when you learned about Equestria?”

Agent Berrytwist shook her head. “Not exactly. Miss Shimmer’s arrival provided proof that there was a parallel world, but we didn’t intend to press her for specifics of it. So long as there was no credible threat to the public, we were content to sit and watch.”

“That seems astonishingly blasé,” Celestia said suspiciously. 

“Perhaps, but we were also aware that we could be dealing with a veritable hornets’ nest. No-one had died or been seriously injured by the portal, so we decided that monitoring it was a better idea than poking it with a stick,” Agent Berrytwist replied. “Plus, the more attention we pay to it, the more likely it is that someone will notice and either panic, or try to exploit it.”

That seemed fair to Twilight. It was certainly how the other Princesses had operated on occasion in the past. Naturally, it didn’t always work out, but there were plenty of instances where leaving something well enough alone would have saved a lot of trouble. Twilight was sure that she’d never forget the havoc that Rarity had caused around Ponyville thanks to a cursed book.

“What about the Fall Formal?” Celestia put in. “Why didn’t you get involved then?”

“At first, we didn’t quite know what was going on,” Agent Berrytwist admitted. “Miss Shimmer suddenly began taking several short trips through the portal, on what we now believe were reconnaissance missions. Only a day or so later, your crown was spat out of the portal, followed by Miss Shimmer, and then you yourself, your Highness.” The Agent nodded to Twilight. “You already know what happened after that. By the time we realized that there was a problem, you and your new friends had already dealt with it.”

Celestia crossed her arms and gave Agent Berrytwist a skeptical look. “What about after the Fall Formal? Surely you should have kept a closer eye on things after everything that had happened?”

Agent Berrytwist slowly arched an eyebrow. “We did. The building crew you hired to help repair the school entrance certainly arrived quickly, and they were remarkably cheap, weren’t they?” She smirked at the stunned look on Celestia’s face. “Not to mention the extra janitor you hired in the aftermath. He’s very efficient, isn’t he? Well, it turns out he’s also very good at installing hidden cameras in the corridors and, say, lab rooms that contain certain unusual machines.”

The trio of little revelations left Twilight and Celestia reeling. Seeing that they were too shocked to talk, Agent Berrytwist continued, “We have been keeping tabs on everything that happened since. Every time a problem has arisen involving magic, we made preparations, but sat in the shadows and waited to see if it was something you girls could deal with yourselves. That way, we save on resources, we pick up new data about magic and Equestria, and we are able to come up with extra backup plans we hadn’t considered before. All we have to do is handle social media so everyone believes that the incidents are merely the work of talented film students, then subtly influence the locals to keep their little open secret, and we have perfect plausible deniability if everything goes public. After all, who would ever believe that magic was real?”

Celestia sighed and massaged her temples. “I can’t tell if that’s genius or just insane.”

“That would depend on who you ask. Personally, I’d say that it was both,” Agent Berrytwist said with a humourless laugh. “We did actually try to intervene with Wallflower Blush, but between the Memory Stone and her natural knack for avoiding attention, we were unable to help in that situation.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” Twilight conceded. “Why get involved now, though? Is it because of the new portal? Or is it Mandible?”

Agent Berrytwist couldn’t entirely hide her grimace. “We have been doing all we can to catch the changeling ever since she arrived.” Her lips curled as she said ‘changeling’ as if the word itself tasted foul. Twilight suspected that the woman hadn’t appreciated having her identity borrowed. “We’ve been observing the Sirens and the native human Sunset Shimmer, but the changeling hasn’t been back yet. So far, the little wretch has managed to evade us entirely, but for the moment she has become a secondary concern.”

“Is this because of the disappearance of my sister and the other students?” Celestia asked calmly.

“Partially,” Agent Berrytwist replied with a nod. “I had severe concerns when the Rainbooms went missing, but was ordered to stand down as they were the most qualified people to handle it, and they already had the best assistance from Equestria. The disappearance of an unrelated teacher and student, however, is something that we cannot ignore. On top of that, our hidden cameras and sensors we installed detected a surge of ionising radiation during the brief period the portal was opened earlier today.”

“Radiation?!” Celestia yelled. “Shouldn’t we be evacuating the school?! Why would you wait until now to mention that?!”

The Agent held her hands up in a placating manner. “The radiation only lasted for a moment, and Miss Blush has already been directed to her doctor for what she believes is a checkup after exposure to some suspect plants at the gardening show she attended. It’s only as a precaution,” she added quickly at the looks on the others’ faces. “The dosage and time of exposure were both too small to have any affect on her health. Between the disappearance of other members of the public and the potential for more outbreaks of radiation, we can no longer turn a blind eye to what occurs here. We respectfully request that Equestria continue providing as much assistance as it can, but as of this moment, the government will be officially taking full control over the Geode Diviner.”
> Chapter 138 - Trixie's Resolve
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trixie groaned softly. She was curled up in a ball on the couch, with her arms wrapped around her knees. With Sunset asleep, Luna gone, and the street outside being chillier than the mythical Windigo, there wasn’t much else that could be done. There was food, but Trixie had already eaten and wasn’t particularly in the mood to force herself, especially when ice cream was conspicuously absent.

“I’m going to go out for a bit,” Sonata said suddenly. Trixie looked up just in time to see her get up from the other end of the couch and stretch. “Don’t eat all of the Sugar Bombs. Those are tasty.”

“What? But, hey, wait!” Trixie scrambled to her feet as Sonata casually strolled out of the room. “You can’t go out!”

Sonata paused in the doorway and glanced back with a blank look on her face. “Why not?”

“Because Luna told us to stay, remember?” Trixie hissed. 

“Pfft, she’s not my teacher anymore,” Sonata shot. With a smirk, she turned and walked over to the coat rack by the entrance. “Besides, what’s she gonna do? Put me in detention?”

Trixie glared at the siren’s back. “Luna is still the responsible adult here, we should listen to her.”

“I’m older than her,” Sonata countered simply as she started pulling on the cold-weather gear the Enclave had lent her. 

A retort died on Trixie’s lips as she realized that, being a magical monster from Equestria, Sonata might actually be telling the truth there. Shaking her head, Trixie rallied quickly. “Either way, Luna is a Vice-Principal, meaning she’s in charge here. You can’t just-”

Sonata groaned loudly and fixed Trixie with a thoroughly annoyed look. “Listen, Twixie, you’re not Adagio, so I don’t have to do whatever you dumb little humans say. I’m getting out of here before Miss Crazypants wakes up and tries to stab me again!”

“Don’t call her that!” Trixie snapped. “And you’re the dumb one. Sunset is staying here with us, so she’s still going to be here when you get back, you moron!”

“You’re the moron!” Sonata zipped up her oversized coat and reached for the door handle, but Trixie darted forward and grabbed her shoulder. “Hey, let me go!”

“No! Luna said to stay here!” Trixie insisted. “You can’t just leave me here on my own!”

Sonata slapped Trixie’s hand away and rounded on her. “It’s not like you were doing anything anyway! Why don’t you do something useful instead of just sitting around and sucking your thumb?!”

“Like what?!” Trixie half-shrieked.

“I don’t know, figure something out!” Sonata shot. “You came second in the Battle of the Bands, you can’t be that useless!”

“That was a singing competition! One that you rigged!” Trixie retorted. 

Sonata rolled her eyes and groaned loudly again. “Ugh, you are so dumb. Didn’t you always keep going on about how you’re a great and powerful magician? Practice some magic tricks or something.”

“How is stage magic going to help the Rainbooms?!” Trixie demanded. 

Sonata shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re your friends, you figure it out.” She wrenched the door open and gave Trixie a contemptuous look. “I thought you stupid Canterlot Wondercolts were supposed to be all about the power of friendship and all that dumb mushy stuff” Sonata smirked viciously. “Oh well, I guess you just suck at being a friend. Enjoy sitting around and moping while your friends are in danger.” She giggled as she stepped outside and slammed the door. 

Trixie stared at the door, utterly dumbstruck, as a few errant snowflakes whirled around her ankles. Sonata’s words had hit harder than any insult she had endured before. 

In a daze, Trixie wandered back into the lounge and dropped onto the sofa. “I’m not a bad friend,” she muttered to herself. “I’m not. Stupid Sonata. What does she know about friendship?” Trixie noticed that her hands were trembling and clamped them on her knees to try and stop them. “I’m not moping,” she insisted to herself. “There’s nothing I can do to help. It’s not my fault, I’m a magician, not a soldier. How are card tricks supposed to help in a war?!”

Trixie sat bolt upright as a realization flashed across her mind. She wasn’t a fighter, but cardistry wasn’t the only trick up her sleeve. Sleight of hand, misdirection, illusion, and a small arsenal of smoke bombs and fireworks were up there too. With a little practice, and maybe a bit of tweaking, Trixie knew that she might actually be useful. There wasn’t anything she could do about a war with magical monsters, but her skills could certainly help when it came to surviving in a dangerous world. 

“I’ll show you!” Trixie spat, Sonata’s smug expression burning in her imagination as she surged to her feet. “I’m not going to let some idiot fish insult me. The Great and Powerful Trixie will not stand for it!”
> Chapter 139 - Luna's Resolve
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna raised the laser pistol and slowly exhaled as she took aim. 

“That’s right,” the Enclave instructor said quietly. “Take your time, focus on just hitting the target for now. Speed and accuracy will come with practice.”

Replying would just throw off her concentration, so Luna didn’t bother. Instead, she just steadied her hands and lined the pistol’s sights. Three sharp cracks rang out one after the other. 

“Not bad. Nice grouping,” the instructor congratulated Luna as she lowered the pistol. 

Three bright red marks shone on the man-shaped target at the end of the range, just above and to the right of the breastbone. “Should I try and aim more to my right, or even for the head?” Luna asked, trying to ignore the shiver that ran down her spine at those words. She roughly shoved away the thought that someday soon it might not be inanimate targets she was shooting at.

The instructor shook his head. “There’s no need to worry about that sort of thing until you can hit the target consistently with a good grouping. Ninety nine percent of the time you’re better off getting two good hits to the center of mass than taking a risk on a headshot. Still, you’ve done well for your first time handling a gun. The live models have a tiny bit more recoil compared to these training lasers, but I’m sure you won’t have any issues when you progress to using them. For now, though, I think we’d best call it a day. Hand me the gun.”

Luna nodded and passed the training pistol to him, making sure to keep it pointing at the floor away from their feet as she did so. She followed along as the instructor went and locked the gun away, then signed a log book to say that she had returned it, but all the while a small thought was niggling at the back of her mind. “If you don’t mind my asking, why is everyone so eager for me to get firearms training?” The instructor gave her a curious look, so she quickly added, “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, I’m just surprised that there weren’t any checks, or objections, or… I don’t know, something?”

“Beats me,” the instructor said simply. “You’re aligned with the Rainbooms, so I imagine that has something to do with it. All I know is that you’re cleared for training with all of our basic firearms, you’ve been granted access to the exercise yard, and you’re being added to the rosters for survival and tactical training.” 

“Tactical training?” Luna noted with surprise. “Am I going to be trained as a soldier?”

The instructor raised an eyebrow at her. “I assume so, at least in the most basic sense. We’ve been told to cram as much practical knowledge into your head as possible, along with Miss Dusk and Miss Lulamoon too, if they agree to it.” 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, they’re just students,” Luna said firmly. “It’s awful enough that the Rainbooms had to go through this sort of thing, but Trixie especially is not used to dealing with real threats, magical or otherwise.”

“The three of you don’t have magic like the Rainbooms?” The instructor asked curiously. 

As much as she wished otherwise, Luna only had one answer to give. “No. As far as we know, the Rainbooms are the only people in our world who have any magic. There’s a chance that there’s more out there, but if so, we haven’t found them yet.” She didn’t bother trying to explain about the Geode Diviner and its purpose.

The instructor frowned thoughtfully. “Why don’t you try asking the science people if you can have a look at some of the magic crystals we’ve been digging up from Raven Rock? You never know, you might be able to get yourself some magic using them, just like the ‘Booms.”

“Magic crystals?” Luna blinked dumbly. She had never even considered trying to get magic of her own. For a start, there had never been any indication that it was even possible, but if the Enclave had magic crystals, even if they were weaker than the Rainbooms’ Geodes, there was still a chance that it might work. “I think I’ll do that. Oh, on second thought.” Luna crossed her arms as a potential problem occurred to her. “It’s a good idea, but under no circumstances should we let Sonata know about those crystals.”
> Chapter 140 - Sonata's Resolve
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The air outside was pleasantly cool and crisp. As a Siren, adapted to the crushing pressure and freezing temperatures of the ocean depths, Sonata found the climate at the surface to be hilariously mild, and even in her human form was not particularly bothered by the cold. In truth, she would have happily ditched the winter gear if she could, but there was no point in taking risks with her health. And besides, wearing it would draw less attention than not. Sonata usually craved attention on a fundamental level, like most Sirens, but right now she needed to keep her head down. 

Glancing up and down the street, Sonata idly pondered which way she should go. Deciding that avoiding Luna was probably a good idea, she turned and headed in the opposite direction to the nearest checkpoint, just in case the teacher was still lurking around there. 

Sonata had barely gotten a few yards from the house before a pitch-black four-by-four pulled up alongside her. She stared suspiciously as an officer wound down the window and leaned out. “Do you need to get somewhere?”

“Oh, uh… no?” Sonata answered awkwardly. “I’m just going to see if, uh, there’s anything I can do to help out?” She forced out a giggle, hoping that she would be left alone. 

The officer frowned, and Sonata was certain that he was about to try to order her back to the house or something, but the next words out of his mouth were the last thing she ever expected to hear, “I’m just delivering some crystals to the eggheads. Do you know anything about magic? We could really use-”

“Yes, I know magic!” Sonata cut in eagerly. “Do you want me to help? I can help!”

“Well, alright then.” The officer grinned and gestured to the passenger seat. “Hop on in, I’ll take you right over.”





The magic lab was like a giant candy store for Sirens. A great big candy store with every form and flavor of sweets a Siren could ever ask for. Sonata looked around excitedly, wondering what she should sample first. 

There were crystals of all sizes; from boxes full of little fingernail-sized ones, right the way up to an amethyst slab the size of a station wagon. On top of that glorious sight, there were vials and containers of pure magic in liquid form just lying around on the desks, glowing with every color of the rainbow and plenty more besides. Sonata couldn’t resist a smirk as she imagined Adagio and Aria pitching a fit at the sight of all the magic sitting around for the taking.

“As you can see, this is where we store and attempt to categorize our samples of magic before we send them off for experimentation or refinement,” one of the bespectacled scientists explained in a reedy voice.

Sonata had mostly ignored everything the man had been telling her so far, but his last word grabbed her attention and made her whip her head around, accidentally slapping a passing technician with her ponytail. “You can refine it?!”

“Oh, absolutely,” the scientist replied eagerly. “It took a little bit of trial and error, only one fatality, but we were able to figure out a way of removing impurities from the samples and condensing the remaining material.” The scientist adjusted his glasses and glanced around. “We also managed to convert some of the magic into gaseous and even plasmoid forms, but they’re incredibly unstable, so we have to store them separately in the interest of safety.”

Sonata opened her mouth to ask to see some of the refined product, then snapped it shut with a huff as the scientist added that they were stored separately as well. “I guess just this stuff is fine for now.” As she wracked her rarely-used brain for a way to filch some of the crystals without getting caught, Sonata asked, “What did you want help with, anyway?”

The scientist picked up a vial containing a faintly glowing yellow liquid. “Classification, if you don’t mind. The Rainbooms have helped us figure out a system to work out what manner of pony the magic came from, and if they’re powered by such abstract concepts as Loyalty or Honesty, but lots of these samples don’t match any of the criteria at all. Do you think you could help with that?”

“Well, I don’t know about that Loyalty or Honesty stuff that the Raing- the Rainbooms mess around with, but figuring out which creature it belongs to is easy.” Sonata plucked the vial out of the scientist’s hand and, ignoring his squawk of protest, popped the stopper off and took a sip. 

“W-what are you doing?!” The scientist spluttered. 

Sonata savored the tingle of magic on her tongue for a moment before she swallowed. “Seeing what creature it’s from, duh.” She blinked as she suddenly remembered something. “Oh, yeah, drinking raw magic is, like, super dangerous, so you probably shouldn’t do it. Even Adagio and Aria can’t do it without their amulets.”

“I- who are…? But… but you can drink it?” The scientist asked weakly. 

“Yep! I used to do it as a party trick back home, it just gives me funny-smelling gas.” Sonata considered just downing the whole vial so she could have all of its magic, but she quickly decided against it. Even the dumb Enclave people would get suspicious if she did that. Handing the vial back, Sonata added, “By the way, that’s Diamond Dog magic.”

The scientist silently took the vial back, staring at it blankly. All of a sudden, he placed it on a desk by itself and shouted for someone to bring him some glass mixing rods and gather the other scientists around. A few minutes later, Sonata found herself surrounded by a small crowd of sciency people, all clutching vials or clipboards and watching her eagerly. The first scientist dipped a glass rod into his vial and offered it to her, a glob of deep crimson magic stuck to the end of it. “Would you try this one, please?”

“Sure.” Sonata was a little disappointed that she wasn’t able to take swigs from the vials, but she took the rod anyway. She gasped as a sharp and smoky taste filled her mouth. “Whoa, dark Hippogriff magic. I haven’t seen that in a long time.”

As Sonata handed the rod back, another scientist immediately held out another one, kicking off a bizarre taste-testing session as the others handed her sample after sample to try. It was a smorgasbord of different flavors. Sonata enjoyed the selection, savoring each little tidbit as she identified magic from Hippogriffs, Griffons, Buffalo, something spicy that she suspected belonged to a dragon, and even a sample of Windigo magic. 

Eventually, the scientists decided to take a break and note down all of their findings. As most of them began to disperse, the one who had initially greeted Sonata gestured to one of the boxes of crystals. “Out of curiosity, do you think you could help us with those later?”

“I can’t eat crystals, I’m not some stinky dragon, but I’d still really like to look at them.” Sonata tried to put on her best attempt at an innocently curious expression. It must have worked, as the scientist eagerly told her that she was more than welcome to examine them immediately. 

Most of the boxes were unexpectedly disappointing. It looked like there was a fair amount of magic even in the tiny crystals, but, no matter how many of them Sonata checked, none of them seemed suitable for making another amulet with. All of the crystals were either too fragile, too flawed, or simply so full of their own latent magic that crafting a Siren amulet from them would be ridiculously tricky and time-consuming.

“Is something wrong?” The scientist asked.

Sonata sighed and rolled her eyes. “These crystals are pretty cool, I guess, but they’re just not me, y’know?”

The scientist adjusted his glasses and gave her a searching look. “Are you trying to get a crystal for yourself?”

“Well yea- uh, I mean, no?” Sonata winced as she realized that she had just managed to give herself away. 

She grinned awkwardly, trying to just gloss over the sticky moment, but the scientist surprised her again when he asked, “Don’t you already have magic?” 

Sonata stared at him blankly. “I used to but I, uh… lost it.”

“I see.” The scientist nodded and puffed out his chest. “In that case, let’s see what we can find! Do you have any clues as to what we’re looking for?”

The offer brought Sonata up short. She did have the fragments of her old amulet in her pocket; she carried them just about everywhere out of some unwanted sense of sentimentality, but revealing them to strangers felt somehow risky. After a few moments, Sonata relented and drew a small pouch out of her pocket. She felt oddly solemn as she pulled out a fragment of the shattered ruby. “This is my old amulet. Do you have anything like this?”

The scientist leaned in to take a closer look, then turned to look around the room. “The red ones are on the shelf over there, let’s take a look.”

Sonata put the fragment away as she followed after the scientist, only to get distracted halfway across the room by a faint humming sound. It was low, and pleasantly melodic, but no-one else seemed to be paying any attention to it. Sonata looked around for a radio, but her eyes instead fell on a small box on a nearby table. Someone had scribbled ‘Unidentified - Veined’ on the side of it in black marker. 

Tentatively, as if she was afraid that the song would stop if she startled it, Sonata crept over to the box. Inside were a handful of crystals of various colors, but her eyes were immediately drawn to one tucked in the very corner of the box. Sonata picked it up and held it up to examine it in the light. It was tiny, barely the size of her little fingernail, and was a beautiful deep blue color shot through with bright red veins that sparkled like ruby. 

“Have you found something?” The scientist asked, coming up behind her. “Ah, that’s a pretty little thing, isn’t it? Does it ring any bells for you?”

“It’s perfect,” Sonata replied tightly. It was a struggle to keep a maniacal grin off her face. She didn’t have to taste the magic to know that this little crystal was made of pure Siren magic. Her magic. 

“In that case, it’s yours.” Sonata gaped in shock at him, but the scientist just shrugged. “Consider it a little payment for helping us out. Besides, the Enclave could use as many allies with magic as it can get.”

This time, it was utterly impossible for the Siren to stop a smile from spreading across her face, but a sudden thought snapped her back to her senses. “Thanks, but, um, could I ask you a favor?” The scientist nodded. “Could you keep all of this a secret from Luna? She worries about her students, and I really don’t want to worry her,” Sonata lied easily. 

The scientist gave her a conspiratorial smirk. “Of course. I’ll have to make a note in our records that we’ve given you the crystal, but I’ll make sure that the team keeps quiet about it. Just be careful, okay?”

“Thanks so much! You’re the best!” Sonata beamed and clasped the crystal tightly between her hands. “I’m just going to go to the ladies room for a minute, I’ll see you soon!” She said a curt goodbye and hurried to leave, hardly able to believe her luck. The thought that the Enclave scientists would be stupid enough to simply hand her magic had never even crossed her mind, no matter how lax they were about safety. 

As soon as she reached the restroom, Sonata checked that it was empty, then ducked into a cubicle. Wild glee filled her as she sat down and stared at the little nugget of pure power in her hands. It was too small to make into an amulet on its own, but there was a chance that she could either get her hands on more, or even use the fragments of the old amulet to make a setting for it. 

Grinning like a psychopath, Sonata fished the pouch out of her pocket and tipped the fragments into her hand. As she pondered how best to arrange the fragments into a setting to hold the new crystal, the crystal pulsed and several of the smallest fragments leapt from her hand to stick to it. Sonata watched in astonished silence as the old fragments melted and seeped into the crystal, new veins burrowing through it until the fragments had disappeared entirely, leaving the crystal just a little bigger than it had been.

Sonata blinked dumbly as she tried to figure out what had just happened. She gently pressed the crystal against the other fragments, but nothing happened. Sonata desperately combed through her memories, trying to remember the last time she had crafted an amulet. “I shaped the crystal,” she whispered to herself. “I threaded the necklace, I attuned the stone to my- wait, this thing’s already ready for me!” 

Proud of the fact that she had dredged something useful out of the depths of her mind, Sonata nodded and looked at the crystal with fresh eyes. Even as she watched, faint wisps of green, the magical essence of conflict and discord, materialised around the crystal. 

“The magic inside it must have called to whatever was left in the fragments of the old amulet. Ha! I’m not the dumb one! Suck it, Aria!” Giddy with her success, Sonata tucked the fragments back into their pouch and gazed lovingly at her new crystal. 

If she was right, and she had a funny feeling that even Adagio would admit that she was, then the crystal wouldn’t accept the rest of the fragments because it just wasn’t big enough. Assuming that she could find more of them, however, and figure out a way to meld them together, then Sonata was sure that she would be able to easily make an amulet more powerful than any she had ever used before.
> Chapter 141 - Sunset's Resolve
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waking up in the morning was one of the hardest things Sunset had ever done. She always felt sluggish when she first woke up, but this time it was even worse than usual; a thick haze blurred her thoughts and made her feel oddly exhausted. Slowly, Sunset remembered that the doctor had warned about this particular side-effect, but she also remembered that it would only be temporary until her body adapted to the medication. 

Sunset grabbed her pillow and curled up around it, content to either fall back asleep or just bask in a mildly befuddled fugue, until her head finally cleared enough to remember what had happened with her friends. The unpleasant memory of her friends’ plight provided the motivation she needed to start moving. 

With a miserable groan, Sunset heaved the blanket aside and hauled herself out of bed. A shower was briefly considered and decided against, largely because she just didn’t have the energy for it. Instead, Sunset put on a clean Enclave uniform and glanced at Trixie’s empty bed. Guilt gnawed at her again at the fact that more innocent people, with the possible exception of Sonata, had been dragged to this horrific excuse for a world, but at the same time she couldn’t help but hope that someone was downstairs so she didn’t have to be alone.

With a quiet sigh, Sunset took her meds and headed down to the kitchen. After acquiring breakfast; cereal with actual cow milk instead of brahmin, she wandered into the lounge to find Trixie sitting on the sofa, frowning at an impressive spread of fireworks and stage magic paraphernalia spread out on a coffee table. “Morning,” Sunset said sleepily.

Trixie looked up and smiled awkwardly. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

She winced as soon as she said it, as if she realized a second too late what a dumb question it was, but Sunset just shrugged and settled onto the other end of the sofa. “Still breathing, which is something. Luna and Sonata not here?”

“No, they left early,” Trixie replied. “Luna went to see if she could learn more about things here, like how the utilities work and what sort of rationing is going on, and Sonata said something about discussing Siren stuff with a scientist.” She held a hand up to forestall Sunset’s question. “Don’t worry, Luna already told some army guys that Sonata needs to be kept away from magic.”

“Good.” Sunset jerked her chin towards the coffee table. “What’re you doing?”

Trixie blushed faintly and turned her attention back to her collection. “I know its stupid, but I’m just seeing if there’s some way of improving anything I have here so it could be, y’know, useful.”

“You’re not going off into the wasteland to fight. You’re staying right here where it’s safe,” Sunset said flatly. 

“Believe me, that’s exactly what I want to do. I’m a magician, not some weird sorcerer from another dimension.” Trixie clenched her hands together tightly. “Then again, it’s not like there’s really a choice. You say that this place is safe, but you also said that the Citadel was supposed to be safe, and look what happened to that place.” She looked up at Sunset, almost pleading. “Is anywhere in this world really safe?”

As much as she wanted to insist that there was, Sunset couldn’t bring herself to say it. Even in Megaton, the epicenter of an entire cult venerating the Rainbooms, there were still people willing to threaten or attack the girls, despite their ever-growing reputation. Even the Temple itself wasn’t completely safe, as Talon Company had demonstrated. “I’ll have a word with the engineers for you. They might have some ideas.”

Trixie just nodded, clearly picking up on what Sunset hadn’t said as much as what she had. She idly prodded one of the little firecrackers on the table before asking quietly, “You’re going to fight Unity, aren’t you?”

Sunset paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth and lowered it back to the bowl. “Sort of. I’ll be part of the rescue team, but it’ll be Horrigan who actually takes on Unity. He’s the only one strong enough to stand a real chance of putting that bitch down for good. Well, Liberty Prime could definitely do it, but he’d probably level the Citadel in the process, so he’s Plan B. All the rest of us will be doing is keeping the crystal monsters off Horrigan’s back until Unity is dealt with.”

“What if she manages to control them both?” Trixie asked anxiously. 

“That’s not likely,” Sunset reassured her with a shake of her head. “She doesn’t seem to be able to control robots, and Liberty has some of my magic rattling around in his head, so he should be completely immune to her powers, and Senator Lily is working on a psychic inhibitor to protect Horrigan.” Sunset grunted and picked up her spoon again. “Speaking of which, I should probably finish this and get going. The sooner we put the inhibitor together, the sooner we can give Horrigan a crystal piñata for Hearth’s Warming.”

Trixie nodded and leaned back into the sofa with a huff. “Why can’t the magic problems in this world be like the ones back home?”

Sunset smirked darkly. “Right? They were a lot less lethal.”

“That, and most of them had a reason for what they were doing,” Trixie put in with an annoyed scoff. “Sure, most of them were probably bad reasons, but that’s still better than nutcases who just want power and control.” She grimaced and added, “Like Sonata and her Dazzling buddies.”

Trixie’s words gave Sunset an uncomfortable feeling, though she couldn’t put her finger on why. It was true that most of the villains the Rainbooms had faced in CHS had had some motive for doing what they did, no matter how understandable or not said motive was. The same could be said of most of the people Sunset had faced down in the Capital Wasteland. Money, influence, glory, even things as basic as clean water, as lofty as the survival of humanity, or as debased as simple sadism, the people in this world were willing to kill for all sorts of reasons. In a way, it even made sense, given that such things often meant the difference between life and death here in the wastes. 

The more she thought about it, the more Sunset realized that the only people she didn’t really know the motives of were the Sirens. Did they have some reason for trying to control everyone, or did they simply feel the same entitlement to power that Sunset herself once felt?

A jolt ran through Sunset as she realized that she had no idea what Unity’s motives were either. She couldn’t remember the woman mentioning it. Or maybe she had and shock coupled with the nausea caused by being too close to Unity’s powers had driven it right out of Sunset’s mind. 

In the end, it was unlikely to make a difference. The Rainbooms still needed rescuing, and Unity still needed to be stopped. Even so, Sunset now knew that shooting Unity back at Megaton had been a mistake. She should have tried harder to negotiate and reason with her, instead of being so quick to shoot first and ask questions later. This world had had more of an effect on her than she had thought. Sunset allowed herself a grim smile. This mistake, at least, could possibly be rectified. It was incredibly unlikely that Unity could be talked out of her quest for domination, but it was a chance worth taking. 

At the very least, it would serve as a good distraction.
> Chapter 142 - Lily's Resolve
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lily scratched her head as she checked through her notes on the psychic inhibitor. As she had expected, scaling one up to fit Horrigan was going to be tricky. No matter what the President had said about providing all of the necessary resources, the fact remained that several of the components Lily needed to make a big enough inhibitor were incredibly rare, or were made out of equally rare materials. 

With a sigh, Lily leaned back in her chair and rubbed her forehead. She had already sent a request to the President that any local Vaults be searched for the necessary parts. Anything that couldn’t be sourced after that would have to be replaced with materials infused with Sunset Shimmer’s magic, assuming that the Rainboom was in any fit state to help out.

“It looks like there’s nothing more I can do until I get a reply from the President,” Lily mused to no-one in particular. A loud knock at the door made her look around and, to her surprise, Colonel Autumn’s successor strode in. “Lieutenant Colonel Strong? To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I need to talk to you,” he replied gruffly as he strode over with an intense look in his eyes.

Lily slowly arched an eyebrow. The man was certainly easy on the eyes, but if he had certain ideas in his head then he was going to have to work for it. “Oh? What about?” 

“Your Geode,” Strong said flatly as he stopped in front of her and crossed his arms, glaring at her neckline. 

“Taking your military duties seriously, I see.” Lily gave him a condescending smile. “Such a good little soldier.”

“Don’t mock me!” Strong snapped. “Hiding something like that is a serious-”

“I’m sure it is,” Lily interrupted. “However, the President has promised that my little omission will be ignored until after the current crisis has been dealt with, and, to be perfectly candid, you don’t have the clout to decide otherwise.” Strong opened his mouth to argue, but Lily cut him off, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that you have some skill at politicking; you never would have become the head of Raven Rock’s security if you didn’t, but you’re in the big leagues now. You may be the commander-in-chief of the Enclave’s military, but I’ve been practicing skullduggery and the finer points of cloak and dagger since before you were born.”

Strong glared at her. “That doesn’t make you exempt from consequence.”

Lily chuckled softly. “Of course it doesn’t, but between my Geode and my knowledge, I’m invaluable right now. Besides, the President knows where my loyalties lie. Now, if you don’t mind, you’re interrupting my research.” She waved a hand as if to shoo Strong away, but he didn’t move.

“Your Geode isn’t the only thing I came here to discuss,” Strong grumbled. 

“Well, spit it out, man! I don’t have all day,” Lily exclaimed.

Strong spared her an irritated scowl before looking over to the corner of the lab. Lily didn’t need to follow his gaze to know that he was staring at her Praetor standing guard. “That’s the Deathclaw that Acheson modified, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Lily replied. It also happened to be the only Deathclaw that the Enclave still controlled since Fluttershy demanded that their control implants be removed, a fact that had thoroughly annoyed some of the other scientists. 

“Do you really think it’s wise to send it to the Citadel?” Strong asked. 

“I don’t see why not. The intelligence we’ve seen suggests that Unity can’t control the dead, so my Praetor is safe from her most dangerous power. In fact, I’d actually say that my Praetor will prove every bit as useful as Horrigan on this mission,” Lily told him.

Strong stared at her incredulously. “Horrigan tore that thing’s head off without even breaking a sweat.”

“That’s just because Acheson was a fucking idiot,” Lily said with a huff. “Deathclaws are intelligent, but you can’t just slap a bunch of magical upgrades into some power armor and expect them to know how to use it all right off the bat. Luckily for me, undead Deathclaws are just as easy to train as controlled ones.”

Concern flashed across Strong’s face. “What kind of upgrades did Acheson give it?

Lily smirked at him. “As my Praetor is a private Senatorial bodyguard, not military, I don’t have to tell you a damned thing about it. I assure you, though, it will not disappoint.”
> Chapter 143 - Becky's Resolve
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Phenomenally stressed was slowly becoming Becky’s default state. Taking up the reins of the Presidency right after the end of a war via a controversial peace treaty had been bad enough, but heading a critically weakened Enclave during what was arguably its darkest hour, against an opponent unlike anything they had ever faced before, was almost unbearable. 

In a vain attempt to retain some semblance of sanity, Becky decided to spend the morning digging through the mountain of paperwork that had built up. Normally, she preferred to go out and get her hands dirty, but a quiet morning spent resolving simple problems with a pen would surely make her feel better. Or at least numb her brain a little.

Unfortunately, it seemed that even paperwork wasn’t interested in being boring today.

The bad news had started right off the bat with the technicians’ response to Senator Lily’s request for parts and equipment. They didn’t bother sugar-coating it; they just bluntly stated that the Enclave didn’t have all of the bits she needed and to look elsewhere. Luckily, one of the technicians had been nice enough to add a note explaining that some of the Vaults might have the necessary parts. 

Becky couldn’t spare enough soldiers to send them out digging for treasure, but if Vault 101’s new Overseer was as open to contact with the outside world as Sunset had mentioned, then trade was potentially an option. 

The next few forms and requests were standard bureaucratic garbage, but just as Becky was getting lulled into a false sense of security, she stumbled upon a pair of reports about the Enclave’s newest guests. First was simply confirmation that Luna was being trained in basic weapon handling, with a little note at the bottom saying that Sonata Dusk was to be kept as far away from magic as possible. The second was a notice from the scientists that Sonata was currently inside the compound’s biggest magic storage area and had been given a magic gemstone of her own. She had also emphatically requested that Luna not be informed of such.

Becky’s temper flared at the thought of her scientists’ blatant disregard for any sort of security protocol. She knew that she couldn’t really blame the scientists; the Rainbooms had almost unrestricted access to the Enclave’s magical research, and Sonata was potentially a valuable source of specialist magical knowledge. But Becky’s brush with Sunset’s memories had given her an innate distrust of anything related to the Sirens. 

Thinking quickly, the President turned to her terminal and typed an urgent message to Whitley. ED-E would be perfectly suited to keeping Sonata under stealthy round-the-clock surveillance. The plucky eyebot would also be able to handle any attempted treachery quickly, quietly, and with a minimal amount of mess.

With one potential problem neatly accounted for, Becky made the mistake of letting her guard down as she reached for the next document, only for her blood pressure to shoot back up. t was an exhaustive report from Doctor Mercer about Sunset’s magically enhanced medication, and the mundane variety it was based on, bizarrely nicknamed Naptime. 

Becky skimmed through the first parts of the report; details about who invented it, when, and what ingredients it contained. It wasn’t until she reached the section about what Naptime was actually for, along with its side effects, that she perked up and started really paying attention. 

Nausea filled Becky as she read, with each successive line somehow making it worse. Mercer hadn’t been lying about how nasty a drug Naptime was. In small doses over a short term, it was known to be beneficial to children with night terrors, but the positive effects ended there. 

Apparently, it had originally been developed to give to heavily traumatized soldiers in the field, keeping them combat-capable instead of breaking down and becoming a burden on their unit. Naptime wasn’t a cure, it was just a stop-gap measure that shut down a person’s trauma long enough for them to get the job done. It was the mental health equivalent of getting stabbed and just taking painkillers instead of applying a bandage.

With an awful sinking feeling in her stomach, Becky flipped to the last section of the document, which contained case files on each of the soldiers who had been prescribed Naptime. Naptime itself didn’t cause any serious physical harm, but none of the soldiers prescribed it had lived longer than a month after stopping treatment. Even the ones who kept taking it continuously didn’t last longer than a year at most. 

As if to add insult to injury, the very last file contained a decades-old note stating that Naptime could only be prescribed with Presidential permission going forward, after a Senator lost both of his sons to it. 

Becky silently closed the file and slumped in her chair. Her head spun as conflicting feelings warred within her mind, guilt being a prominent one. In a vain effort to ease her conscience, she turned back to her terminal and filled in an executive order, giving Sunset the highest priority right alongside the President when it came to medical treatment. After everything that had happened, Becky would be damned if she was going to spare a single resource when it came to getting her counterpart home alive.
> Chapter 144 - Horrigan's Resolve
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When not on a mission, it was a soldier’s duty to train in preparation for the next one. Horrigan had had that simple fact beaten into his head so thoroughly over the years that it was second nature to him. Of course, given his unique abilities, Horrigan spent almost every waking moment on some sort of mission, even if it was mostly just guard duty these days. 

Horrigan had assumed that the days spent preparing for the assault on the Citadel would be much the same, so he was surprised to learn that he wasn’t currently in demand. Leaving the Air Force Base to protect another facility wasn’t an option until Senator Lily had finished a new psychic inhibitor for him and most of the scientists who usually ran tests on him were all based at the Exodus building. Even the President didn’t need extra security for the time being, so Horrigan found himself in the unusual position of having some time to himself. It wasn’t until he decided to head to the training yards that Horrigan realized he had a problem.

It wasn’t actually possible for him to train.

One of the drawbacks of being absolutely massive was the fact that almost everything had to be tailor-made to accommodate said bulk. The old Poseidon Oil Rig, where Horrigan had originally been stationed, had had almost an entire level dedicated to meeting his unique requirements, from exercise and combat training to medical care and armor maintenance. Adams Air Force Base, on the other hand, didn’t have any such specialized facilities.

Devoid of any other options, Horrigan was reduced to trudging through the snow-covered streets in a foul mood. His upgraded life-support systems kept his cardiovascular system in peak condition, so there was no need to do any endurance training, and running would be especially pointless thanks to his bionic legs. Horrigan supposed that he could do some weightlifting, but he was already capable of casually bench-pressing a Vertibird transport, and that was before his new magical strength was taken into account. Besides, the engineers had gotten unbelievably mad the last time he had benched a Vertibird and accidentally broken it.

Even combat training was out of the question for the moment. The engineers didn’t have the time to build a gun big enough for Horrigan to use just yet, and sparring was utterly impossible unless he could find an opponent he could slap around without turning them into a grease stain. Liberty Prime would fit the bill nicely, but the giant deathbot had been urgently redeployed to Project Purity just in case Unity decided to stage an assault.

Horrigan growled and clenched his fists. The thought of Unity being such a threat infuriated him, not least because he missed his chance to destroy her back in Raven Rock. Granted, her mind control powers would certainly have prevented him from actually fighting her anyway, but that hardly made Horrigan feel any better. Add in the possibility that it was her mind control that had convinced him to decide against attacking her in the first place, and he was more than looking forward to melting the bitch with his magical flames, just like her rotten minions.

Armor creaked as Horrigan jerked to a stop in the middle of a snow drift. He silently cursed himself as he realized that there was something he could practice. Horrigan slowly raised his hand and stared at his palm. With a little focus, he was able to make an emerald-green flame flicker around his fingers. Exercise and combat training were out, but there was nothing stopping him from testing the limits of his magical powers. 
> Chapter 145 - Unity's Resolve
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The snow was beautiful. It was inconvenient, disruptive, and deceptively dangerous to ordinary biological beings, but Unity had to admit that it was beautiful. 

There was just something about seeing thousands of tiny white flakes gently falling from the sky to settle in smooth blankets across the landscape, coating the world in a thick layer of glittering perfection, that was utterly entrancing. Even the irradiated grey-green waters of the Potomac somehow looked enchanting and mystical instead of toxic. The only things that could spoil the view were the Vertibirds hovering ominously over the ruins on the other side of the river. 

Unity sighed and turned away from the window. Elder Lyons was standing dutifully behind her, flanked by his daughter and Colonel Autumn, with the spindly form of Eden perched on his shoulder. All three of the humans had blank expressions on their faces. “How are the preparations coming along?” Unity asked. She already knew the answer, of course, but she found that she enjoyed the mundane theatrics of asking a question verbally and having someone answer.

“Everything is as you ordered,” Elder Lyons replied in a haggard voice flecked with phlegm. “The remains of your fallen crystal followers have been broken down and spread through the courtyard, as you commanded, and the rest of your loyal army is stationed around the Citadel in case of infiltration.” 

He finished his little report with a hacking cough that made Unity purse her lips. The old man was clearly ill, but she couldn’t figure out why. Even the medics had been too incompetent to help. They kept diagnosing the Elder with a nasty cold, and that he needed warmth and rest, so Unity used her powers to make his brain think that he was nice and toasty no matter the weather, and made sure that he had little to do beyond stand around impressively and occasionally talk. However, despite her best efforts, Lyons’ health was deteriorating rapidly. Unity was beginning to understand why her father had wanted to improve all humans with FEV; ordinary humans were infuriatingly fragile.

Turning her attention away from the sick old man, Unity glanced at Sarah and the Colonel. “Do you still agree that staying here and waiting for the Enclave to come to me is a good idea?”

Both of them nodded. “The Enclave deployed sentry bots to the purifier as part of our agreement with them, and Liberty Prime will have been stationed there since your takeover of the Citadel,” Sarah Lyons replied in a toneless voice. “There are limited avenues of attack from the ground. Without artillery or air support, a ground-based attack force will be exposed and vulnerable. Your army would suffer heavy losses since you cannot mind control the robots as you do us.” 

“Guide. I guide you. I’m a messiah, not a tyrant,” Unity stressed irritably. She let out a disgusted groan and gave the group a mental command to meet her in the courtyard, then strode past them and headed towards the inner wall. 

It wasn’t fair. Unity was working so hard to create a perfect world for humanity, free from fear or war or despair, and yet most of the wretched humans were struggling so hard against her powers that she almost wondered if they didn’t want paradise. The Rainbooms were the worst of them all. Rainbow Dash in particular was a nightmare, fighting against Unity’s control with every waking breath, but she wasn’t the only one being difficult. Two of the Rainbooms in particular were entirely smitten with each other, but when Unity had used her abilities to try to get the pair to consummate their attraction, they had both resisted to a phenomenal degree, trampling on Unity’s kindness and forcing her to stop or risk losing control of the others. The girls were truly ungrateful brats.

Unity put the annoyances from her mind as she entered one of the unused offices overlooking the courtyard. Heedless of the fact that the office was on the third floor, she stepped over to the glassless window, hopped up on the sill, and calmly dropped to the courtyard below. Solid concrete cracked beneath her feet as she landed. 

Unity used a little mental effort to blast dust off her body, then glanced around at her surroundings. She noted with satisfaction that the courtyard had been mostly cleared of snow, save for a light dusting over the ground that had been carefully patted down to an almost icy consistency, and the empty crates that had once contained samples of magic had been stacked carefully around so they didn’t get in the way. A rhythmic pulsing below her feet told Unity where the magic had been buried, along with the remains of the few crystal beasts that had perished.

A cold smirk twisted Unity’s lips at the thought of all that magic hidden beneath the snow. It functioned as an amplifier for her powers, allowing her to devote some of her energy to fighting without compromising her control over her army, and would also serve as a secret weapon should Horrigan be deployed against her. Unity idly tapped the other secret weapon that dangled from her neck. She hoped she wouldn’t have to use it, but if push came to shove, her Geode would prove to be a devastating tool in her arsenal.

In the event of a worst-case scenario, Unity even had another trick up her sleeve. It would make her almost unstoppable, no matter what the Enclave or Brotherhood threw at her, but the drawbacks meant that she could only use it as an absolute last resort.
> Interlude - Sunset's Isekai
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset Shimmer huffed as she strode through the snow, her breath turning to fog in the chill air. It had been months since she and her friends had been dumped in the Capital Wasteland but, despite everything they had dealt with, from violent raiders and hostile mutated wildlife, right up to the travails of a desperately-fought war, this was the lowest point that she had ever reached. 

Kicking angrily at a patch of snow, Sunset swore under her breath and headed towards the nearest checkpoint. The Adams Air Force Base had such checkpoints all over the place, mostly staffed by overly eager young cadets whose uniforms were much too big for them, but luckily Sunset had high enough clearance that none of them dared to stop her. The fact that she stood out clearly thanks to being one of the only brightly-colored people in this washed-out world also meant that she didn’t have to bother with trivial details like presenting her holotags for identification.

Once she was past the checkpoint, Sunset turned down the street to the house she was sharing with Luna, Trixie and Sonata. She didn’t particularly feel like going to the house, mostly because the urge to stab Sonata if she was there was almost overwhelming, but just as she was considering just wandering off somewhere, Sunset spotted something out of the corner of her eye.

It was a door. Normally, a door wasn’t anything to be suspicious of, but this one was so out of place that Sunset had to wonder if her new meds were making her hallucinate. 

A lovingly-worked door, constructed with some golden-red wood, was nestled in a stone archway. A crystalline version of Sunset’s own cutie mark adorned the door, glittering in the light of a vintage gas lamp that hung next to it. The door probably wouldn’t have looked so out of place if it wasn’t sparklingly clean compared to everything else in the Wasteland, not to mention the fact that it was apparently built into the side of a steel-walled armory that had definitely not had such a door when Sunset had passed it this morning.

Suspicion bloomed in Sunset’s chest. The Enclave had been messing around with Equestrian magic already, she knew that, but none of their experiments had involved anything at all like this. Not that she knew of, anyway. 

Sunset glanced up and down the streets, but no-one else was in sight. She briefly considered heading back to the checkpoint and radioing for a squad to investigate, or maybe even Horrigan, but she quickly decided against it. It was her cutie mark, after all, so whatever this thing was, it was probably meant for her. 

Just in case, Sunset patted her sides, making sure that she had her Nova Pistol and combat knife safely holstered and ready for use. She idly wished that she had her plasma rifle too, but she wasn’t interested in going back to the house to get it. 

“Well, I guess it’s not like things can get any worse,” Sunset muttered to herself. With a fatalistic shrug, she stepped over to the door and turned the handle.





Chill air practically slapped Sunset in the face as she stepped back out of the interdimensional bar. She shivered and looked back at the door, but it had already disappeared. “That was… weird. Nice place though.” Sunset stared at the now-blank steel wall. If it weren’t for the warmth in her stomach from the hot chocolate, she would have almost believed that it was a hallucination, and there was one other thing.

Sunset fished the little business card out of her pocket. It was a simple little thing, just a silver card with Sunset’s Isekai engraved on it and a cocktail glass decorated with her cutie mark in the corner as a logo. 

“There you are, we were getting worried!” Sunset looked up to see Luna crunching through the snow towards her. “Was there some trouble with the inhibitor?”

“Nah, it’s going okay so far,” Sunset replied as she slipped the card back into her pocket. Her older counterpart had been right, she could get through this situation, no matter what it took. The thought of having Pinkie’s reaction to that place made her smile softly. Sunset’s head snapped up as she suddenly realized something. “Whoops, I forgot to tell her about how Fluttershy’s a vampire now!”

“Huh?”
> Chapter 146 - Planning
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset’s heart pounded in her chest as she made her way to the briefing room. Several days had passed since the Citadel had fallen, but now the wait was over. Today was the day. In just a couple of short hours, the mission to retake the Citadel would be underway.

After a short walk through one of the base’s command facilities, Sunset finally reached the briefing room door. The soldiers standing guard outside nodded respectfully and stood aside to open the door for her as soon as she approached. Sunset returned the gesture before heading inside.

The meeting room turned out to be a large garage, containing the crumpled remains of the tank Acheson had deployed during the battle for the Air Force Base. Sunset supposed that it was probably the only place available that was big enough for Horrigan to stand in. She didn’t imagine it would be particularly private, though. Following the sound of voices around to the other side of the mangled tank, she was gratified to see Becky, Horrigan, Senator Lily, and the Praetor already there waiting for her.

“Excellent, you’re here,” Becky said by way of greeting. “Sorry about holding the briefing in here, but it’s the only room in the base that’s shielded from magic, radiation, and all forms of electromagnetic energy.”

“It’s fine,” Sunset replied curtly.

Becky gestured for her to take a place next to the others, then took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Okay, as you already know, you four are going to make up the strike force tasked with liberating the Citadel and defeating Unity, one way or another. Over the last few days, we’ve finished Horrigan’s inhibitor-” she glanced up at the crown-like construct now gracing his helmet, studded with tiny magical rubies, “-and, after consulting with yourselves and a select few members of my staff, I’ve fine-tuned the plan of action to give you the highest possible chance of success.”

“Good to know,” Horrigan rumbled. “What’s the plan then, Madam President?”

“It’s simple enough in theory, but pulling it off probably won’t be easy.” Becky glanced at Sunset. “First, Sunset, you’ll head in through the front door.”

“That sounds like suicide,” Lily said flatly.

Sunset shook her head. “Unity seems like the type who likes to run her mouth, so I think she’ll at least let me live long enough to hear what I have to say. Once I’m in, I’ll try to get Unity to stand down, or at least open her up to negotiations.”

Lily gave her a pensive look. “Do you honestly believe she’ll listen to you?”

“Not likely, but I have to try,” Sunset replied. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

“Either way, while Unity is distracted, the rest of you will infiltrate the Citadel using Stealth Boys,” Becky cut in before turning to Lily. “I’ll need you to find the biggest cluster of Revenants you can, while Horrigan and the Praetor take up positions overlooking the courtyard. Sunset will keep her comm channel open so we can all monitor the situation closely.”

Sunset looked down at her Pip-Boy. The Enclave’s engineers had upgraded it with a new built-in multi-channel communication system, allowing her to transmit as well as receive messages from now on. Thankfully, it also had a little detachable microphone that could be tucked under Sunset’s chest armor, enabling her to use it hands-free.

“As soon as things start to go sour between Sunset and Unity, the three of you will have to work quickly,” Becky continued. “Lily, you use your magic to try and wrest the Revenants from Unity’s control, and have the Praetor start tearing chunks out of the crystal monsters.” Becky glanced up at Horrigan. “That should give you a perfect opportunity to get the drop on Unity herself.”

“I’ll grind her into dust,” Horrigan growled, punctuating the statement by smacking a fist into his palm.

Becky nodded grimly. “Don’t forget to incinerate the remains as quickly as possible, even the dust. Sunset’s Nova Pistol goes through power armor like a blowtorch through wax, but even blowing a hole the size of a baseball through Unity’s skull just slowed her down for a few seconds. She regenerates fast.” Becky waited for Horrigan to nod in understanding before turning back to Lily. “Once you’ve done what you can with the Revenants, I want you to head to the Citadel’s morgue and see if there’s any deceased Knights there. If there are, reanimate them and have them join the fight.”

The thought sent a shiver down Sunset’s spine, and even Lily looked a little perturbed. “Don’t you think the Brotherhood might find desecrating their dead a little ghoulish? I can’t imagine that they’ll be happy with it.”

“You’re going to need all the help you can get, and the dead are the only reinforcements that Unity won’t be able to control. The Brotherhood can complain after we’ve won,” Becky said bluntly. “I’d send you some Deathclaws if I could, but they’ve all had their control units removed.”

“That’s another reason we need to get Fluttershy back as soon as possible,” Lily added. “Those things are all docile for the moment, but when they begin to properly recover from the surgery we’re going to have a very angry pack on our hands.”

Becky winced at that idea. “Speaking of Fluttershy, her and Pinkie are going to be the biggest obstacles to our infiltration thanks to their uncanny senses. Keeping Unity too distracted for her to notice will be crucial.”

“I’ll keep her focus on me, don’t worry,” Sunset assured her.

“You do realize that it's going to be carnage when Unity loses control of her forces, right?” Horrigan asked.

“It’s more than likely,” Becky admitted. “From what we can gather, Unity is struggling to keep the Brotherhood and the monsters under control as it is, so she should lose control the moment you get a good hit in. Unity will have to choose between splitting her focus and trying to fight you while regaining control of her army, or just focusing all of her energy on you.”

Horrigan snorted. “Either way, I can take it.”

“I hope so,” Becky added quietly. “In any case, we’ll have Liberty Prime take up position by the bridge near the Citadel, along with several Vertibird gunships. If Unity does become too much for you, then toss her outside and let them nuke her into oblivion. Do not let your pride get the better of you here.”

“I won’t,” Horrigan promised.

Lily cleared her throat loudly. “Wouldn’t it be better to have Liberty Prime join the attack with us? The big brute could probably crush Unity by itself.”

“Not without leveling half of the Citadel in the process,” Becky countered. “Aside from being the Brotherhood’s headquarters, the Citadel is also one of the most important remnants of our old pre-war government. I won’t willingly trash it while there’s still a chance to save it.” 

Horrigan hummed thoughtfully. “The problem is that this whole plan hinges on Unity being in the courtyard. What if she isn’t? Do we try to hunt her down inside?”

Becky grimaced, but nodded anyway. “You’ll have to. If you get discovered before you manage to break Unity’s control, then you’ll have to fight through both the crystal monsters and the controlled members of the Brotherhood. That’s a situation we want to avoid at all costs.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, apparently psyching herself up. “If this plan fails, we’ll have no option but to launch a nuclear strike at Unity.”

“Won’t the radiation from the bomb just make her and the monsters more powerful?” Lily asked almost conversationally. “I don’t particularly fancy another Raven Rock incident.”

“That won’t happen,” Sunset answered confidently. “The explosives that destroyed Raven Rock were smaller yield and more spread out, plus there was a lot more magic stored in the mountain than there is in the Citadel. Even with her magic, the yield of the bomb the engineers are preparing will be enough to completely atomize Unity.”

“Along with everything between the Citadel and Rivet City,” Becky added. “We’ve already got people preparing to evacuate personnel and materials from Project Purity and Rivet City itself, but the loss of both clean water, a whole settlement, and the majority of the Brotherhood of Steel, will be a catastrophic blow to the Capital Wasteland.” She swallowed hard. “As for the strike team…”

There was no need to finish her sentence. Escaping the blast would be effectively impossible, except maybe for Rainbow Dash. Failure meant death.

“We won’t lose,” Sunset said firmly. The other two quickly voiced their agreement. 

Becky gave them all a respectful nod. “Then make sure you’re got your gear together, and get ready to go. You leave in one hour.” 
> Chapter 147 - Calamity From The Skies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Snow crunched loudly as Sunset pushed through it. The stuff reached up to her thighs by now, making her wonder just how heavy winters usually were in this world. She almost wished that the Vertibird could have dropped her off closer to the Citadel, but that risked making Unity even more suspicious, so Sunset was forced to deal with forcing a path through the deep snow and hoping that she didn’t trip over something. Ruining the mission by doing something as stupid as breaking an ankle would just be too much.

Thankfully, the fact that the Brotherhood had been working to maintain the road between Project Purity and the Citadel meant that all Sunset really had to worry about was the end of the bridge over the Potomac. Getting down the slope in thick snow proved to be a nerve-wracking experience, requiring her to grip the remains of the old wall tightly and move down one step at a time to avoid slipping onto her ass.

Following the road up to the Citadel was just as unpleasant. The snow wasn’t quite as thick as it had been on the bridge, possibly due to heat rising from some sort of generator in the sewers below, but every step closer made it that much more likely that Unity was watching through her sentries’ eyes. 

Sunset could feel the Citadel looming over her as she trudged up towards the gate. No clamor rose to indicate that her approach had been noted, but there was every chance that she had been spotted and the guards were just remaining silent, all warnings and orders transmitted telepathically by their controller. As if to confirm her suspicions, when she reached the entrance Sunset saw that the gate had already been raised. Either she was expected, or Unity didn’t care about security in the slightest. Both options seemed equally plausible.

The snow had mostly been cleared from the Citadel’s entrance corridor, though whether that was a good sign or not was up for debate. As she cautiously walked through the eerily silent entrance towards the doors at the end, Sunset checked her Pip-Boy, hoping that the others had infiltrated the Citadel without being spotted; Lily and her Praetor from the south, Horrigan from the north. Two simple lines of Enclave code flashed up on the screen. The others were in position.

Sunset paused by the door. She quickly checked over her equipment, making sure that she had everything she needed, then finally took a deep breath to calm herself and pushed the door open.

An army was waiting inside. 

Dozens of Brotherhood Knights were arranged in the courtyard, many of them taking up defensive positions behind large metal crates, makeshift barricades, and even the assault course. Scattered amongst them were hugely-muscled emerald humanoids that might have once been Super Mutants dotted around the courtyard, suits of animated Enclave power armor that shone like volcanic glass, a handful of ruby Deathclaws that towered over everything else and, terrifyingly, a giant radscorpion that glittered like a diamond in the dim light. There were even a few human-looking former Enclave personnel that, if Horrigan’s report was to be believed, were also secretly crystalline monsters. As if that wasn’t enough, there were easily fifty of the dreaded Revenants prowling or crawling around, many of them missing limbs. Even so, the foul trail of contaminated stone and concrete they left behind as they moved showed that they were not to be taken lightly. 

Unity was standing proudly right in the center of the courtyard, on top of the trapdoor that Liberty Prime was raised and lowered out of, looking infuriatingly smug. The Rainbooms were all lined up behind her, as if to spite Sunset. Rainbow’s tight expression showed that she was trying to fight her mind control, but it was a futile effort on her own.

“Sunset Shimmer,” Unity called out sardonically. “I was wondering when you were going to finally show up.” She lazily waved a hand. “Kill her.”

“W-wait! I’m not here to fight!” Sunset exclaimed quickly as the Knights all raised their weapons. 

Unity raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Are you here to beg for my forgiveness, or are you here with some feeble trick to try and rip your friends from my protection?”

“I don’t have any tricks up my sleeves,” Sunset replied half-honestly. She placed her plasma rifle on the ground, followed by her Nova Pistol, knife, and a couple of grenades, then calmly stepped over them with her hands raised. “I’m just here to talk.”

“That’s rich,” Unity scoffed. “The last time I tried to talk to you, you shot me in the face. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just repay the favor right here.”

Sunset swallowed anxiously. Unity was holding more of a grudge than she had expected. “Look, I know we got off on the, uh, wrong foot, but I’m here to fix that mistake.”

Unity rolled her eyes theatrically. “You can keep your ridiculous lies. Have you got more invisible Eyebots hovering around? Or are you preparing to bombard the Citadel with Vertibirds? Perhaps Horrigan is about to burst through a wall and throw something at me?” She snorted loudly. “Not that it matters. All you’ve earned by coming here is a quick death.”

The Knights raised their weapons again, prompting Sunset to step back and hold her hands out. She desperately hoped that the others were ready to jump in. “Hold on, you at least have to tell me why you’re doing all of this.”

“I don’t have to tell you a damned thing.” Unity threw a hand forward and Sunset felt her whole body lock up in the grip of potent psychic power. “Enough of this, just d- what on Earth?”

Unity and Sunset both looked up as a flurry of tiny black wisps erupted from seemingly nowhere. The wisps spread out over the courtyard, then suddenly lanced down and speared into each of the lurking Revenants. The monsters all twitched and shivered as the magic entered their bodies. Barely a split second later, the air beside one of the emerald Super Mutants rippled and the Praetor materialized out of thin air, viciously biting the head off the Mutant before it had even finished appearing. 

Sunset felt the power gripping her wane, but before Unity could react further, a huge shadow leapt from the roof of the Citadel. 

Horrigan grunted as he landed right on top of Unity, flattening her beneath his feet. His armor blazed into life the moment he hit the floor, acid-green mist pouring from his joints and eldritch script covering every inch of him as emerald flames seethed around his legs and feet, scorching the ground. “Your turn to burn, bitch!”

The courtyard instantly erupted into pure bedlam. All of the people and creatures crammed into the round space reacted with immediate violence as they regained control of their minds, and within a heartbeat the courtyard was filled with a chaotic melee. 

Sunset whipped around and snatched up her plasma rifle, snapping it up defensively. Not a moment too soon, either, as a former Enclave officer charged at her, gem-like claws erupted from its fingers. Sunset fired several shots into the creature’s chest but it just kept coming. Just as she was about to dive aside, something bright blurred past the creature and it fell to the floor, its head bouncing away disturbingly. 

“You’re fucking insane, you know that!” Rainbow exclaimed loudly from next to Sunset. Flashburn was blazing merrily in her hand. “Right, what’s the plan?”

“Horrigan kills Unity, we kill everything else!” Sunset replied as she quickly gathered up the rest of her weapons.

Rainbow looked over to Horrigan, who was grinding his flame-wreathed foot into whatever was left of Unity. “Looks like he’s got his part down.”

Just as Sunset opened her mouth to agree, a thick crystalline tentacle emerged from the ground behind Horrigan and smacked him away from Unity. He landed and rolled to his feet just as Unity rose from the smoldering crater he left behind.





Horrigan grunted with effort as he rolled to his feet. That hit had been a lot more powerful than he had expected. He was both annoyed and impressed to see that Unity was already standing back up, her burns and injuries disappearing as she regenerated. 

“Well played, you treacherous brutes, but you’ve already lost,” Unity hissed coldly. She raised an arm towards Horrigan, and he felt himself slowly lift into the air as his armor was tightly compressed. At the same time, the crystal monsters and the Knights nearby suddenly became more sluggish and docile. 

It was such a feeble effort that it was honestly insulting. “Pathetic.” Horrigan made sure that none of his allies were in the way, then thrust his arms forwards and sent twin jets of green fire screaming towards Unity. The sudden assault broke her concentration.

Horrigan didn’t give her a chance to recover. The second his feet touched the ground, he launched himself into a sprint. Unity didn’t even realize the danger she was in until he was already upon her. With a triumphant shout, Horrigan wrapped his blazing fist around her scrawny body and raised her up high, then slammed her into the ground as hard as he could. Concrete shattered beneath the devastating blow. He lifted her up and rammed her into the ground again, but before he could finish the job he spotted another crystal tentacle forming out of the corner of his eye. 

Just as the tentacle swung at him, Horrigan squared his stance and snapped the hand holding Unity out at it. The hapless mutant was walloped by her own weapon, shattering it in the process. “Nice try!” 

Horrigan chuckled and tossed Unity in the air, then caught her by the legs and slammed her into the ground again. He repeated the trick, flailing her around like a little ragdoll and slowly digging a crater in the floor, then used her to slap aside a Super Mutant that got too close. “Playtime’s over!” 

“For you.” Horrigan yelped as something wrapped around his leg and pulled him off balance. A second later something solid slammed into his side and knocked over, making him lose his grip on Unity. Horrigan looked up just as two crystal tentacles lanced down and wrapped themselves around his arms. Tearing them apart was child’s play. Seeing that Unity was pushing herself to her knees nearby, Horrigan surged to his feet and threw a mighty punch at her head just as she held a hand out.

Horrigan’s fist stopped in mid-air. 

Unity slowly turned to look at him. “You want to see what I’m really capable of?” She twisted her hand, and Horrigan’s arm was wrenched around painfully. Unity raised her other hand and he found himself lifted into the air again. “You’ll regret this.” She thrust her free arm forward and a freight train of psychic power slammed into Horrigan. 

The world spun as Horrigan was hurled through the air. He landed hard, tumbling end-over-end. Blood, metal, and shards of crystal obscured his vision as he plowed through warriors from both groups before finally sliding to a halt. Before he could move, Horrigan felt his armor locking up around him. It creaked worryingly as he was once again pulled into the air. A mass of crystal tentacles burst out of the ground and grabbed him, snaring each of his limbs and holding them fast. 

“The stories about you are true, you really are a powerful opponent.” Unity grinned. “Too bad it’s not enough to save you.”

“You talk too much.” Horrigan opened a hand and focused his magic into his palm, causing a ball of emerald fire to spark into life. He flexed his shoulders, easily breaking the tentacles’ hold on him, then hurled the ball at Unity. She cupped her hands, caught the magic with her power barely a foot away from her chest and, with a strained grimace, fired it back. Anticipating the move, Horrigan flicked his other arm forward and hurled a second magical attack at her, this one a razor-edged disc of fire. The disc easily sliced through the ball and struck Unity square in the chest. 

The ensuing explosion rocked the whole courtyard. 

The tentacles holding Horrigan all slackened, and he didn’t waste any time tearing the last of them off as he was lowered to the ground. A quick glance revealed that Unity had been blasted into the wall of the Citadel. Her arms and one of her legs had been completely blown away, and what was left of her body was covered in burns, but she was regenerating astonishingly fast. 

Horrigan noted sourly that tiny tendrils were reaching out of the ground and connecting to Unity, pulsing as magic was transferred into her battered body. He grimly realized that there were probably buried magical crystals all over the courtyard for her to manipulate. That was unexpected, but nothing that he couldn’t handle. 

In an effort to strike before she could fully regenerate, Horrigan broke into a sprint towards Unity. Unfortunately, she saw him coming, and swept her remaining arm in a wide arc. Razor-sharp stalagmites burst out of the ground in front of Horrigan, but he slapped them aside, bulldozed a grappling Revenant and former Enclave officer that got in his way, and hurled himself at Unity just as she finished regenerating.





The ground quaked as Horrigan and Unity continued their duel. Sunset swore and skipped aside as a chunk of concrete was dislodged from the Citadel wall and crashed down right where she had been standing. She risked a glance upwards to see if anything else was likely to fall, then broke back into a run and skidded to a halt behind a pile of crates. “If those two keep that shit up they’re going to bring this whole fucking complex down!” 

“You wanna try and stop them?” A nearby Paladin called out sarcastically as he lobbed a grenade at a squabbling group of Revenants. 

“Fuck no!” Sunset peeked around the crates to see if she could see her friends. Rainbow could be seen as a blur, darting around and hacking wildly at enemies, while pink explosions all over the place showed that Pinkie was up and fighting, but there was no sign of the others. 

Turning her attention to the battle overall, Sunset could see that things were hanging in the balance. The crystal monsters were outnumbered and fighting each other as much as anyone else, but the laser weapons used by most of the Brotherhood were utterly useless against them, forcing the Knights to resort to their fists or whatever else they could get their hands on. The ruby Deathclaws in particular were reaping a grim harverst. To Sunset’s surprise, and sincere relief, she spotted the crystal Radscorpion hauling a dead Super Mutant into the Citadel’s interior. Apparently, it wanted to eat its meal in peace.

That was when Sunset saw it; a flash of purple magic by the assault course, followed by a ball of crumpled black metal getting launched across the courtyard. “Stay safe, Paladin!” 

“You too!” He called back as Sunset broke out of cover and sprinted towards the assault course. She vaulted over a dead Knight, narrowly avoided getting squashed by a suit of possessed armor that Horrigan had slapped aside, then swerved around a wooden climbing wall and almost ran headlong into Rarity, making her jerk back in surprise.

“Good grief, I almost killed you!” Rarity exclaimed. 

“Maybe next time,” Sunset gasped as she looked around. A Super Mutant was writhing on the floor, encased in Rarity’s magic, while Twilight was using her magic to compress a pair of Revenants together into a ball. Alarmingly, Applejack was sitting with her back against a crate, sweating profusely. Fluttershy was crouched next to her, one hand clasping her blade and the other checking AJ’s pulse. “Is she okay?”

Rarity nodded, though her face was tense. “It’s just a panic attack, brought on by seeing him again.” Sunset didn’t need to ask who she was referring to.

“I’ve dosed her with Psycho,” Fluttershy added. She flinched as a magical bolt struck the ground next to her. “It’s not ideal, but in a life-or-death situation.”

“Drugs are better than death,” Twilight said flatly. She tossed the thoroughly crushed Revenants away and reached out an arm to tear the Super Mutants head off with her magic. 

Fluttershy nodded grimly, then her head snapped up and she hissed in warning. “Get away from the wall!”

Sunset and Rarity both darted away from the climbing wall on reflex. Mere seconds later, the two were forced to cover their eyes as something smashed the wall to flinders. Ignoring the splinters in her arm, Sunset looked again quickly, then barely dove aside in time as a ruby Deathclaw raked the ground she had been standing on. Sparks flew as it gouged deep furrows into the concrete. 

The Deathclaw let out an ear-piercing roar and rounded on Sunset. She fired desperately up at it from the ground, but even her plasma rifle barely scratched it. The beast raised its claw again just as a yard-long crystal spike struck it in the side of the head. 

It didn’t even flinch. 

Sunset gritted her teeth and kept firing even as the claw descended. Just before it hit, the Deathclaw was caught in a purple aura.

“That’s my friend you’re fucking with,” Twilight snarled. She hauled the Deathclaw away from Sunset and pressed her hands together, trying to crush the monster in her magic. 

“Break its neck!” Sunset yelled.

“That doesn’t work on these things!” Twilight shouted back. Sweat dripped down her face as she strained to kill the struggling Deathclaw. With a snarl, the creature slashed its claws across the ground, flinging grit and chunks of concrete at Twilight and breaking the deadlock. 

Free of Twilight’s magic, the Deathclaw screeched furiously and hurled itself at her, only for something massive to ram into its side and knock it sprawling. Sunset couldn’t resist a grin as she recognized their savior.

Crimson mist boiled from the joints of the Praetor’s armor as it let loose a thunderous growl. 

The ruby Deathclaw got to its feet and roared in challenge, brandishing its claws, before lunging at its new opponent. 

The Praetor met it head on. Sparks flew as the two clashed horn-to-horn, and the ruby Deathclaw was forced backwards. Quick as a flash, the Praetor slammed its head into the Deathclaw again, then wrapped a claw around its throat and yanked it down. Spines all down the Praetor’s back began to glow scarlet as it opened its jaws. With a piercing shriek of superheated air, the Praetor spat a blinding beam of coruscating magic down the Deathclaw’s throat, melting it from the inside out. Within a few heartbeats, all that remained of it was a bubbling lumpy mess on the floor. 

“Holy shit!” Sunset exclaimed loudly. 

With its opponent thoroughly destroyed, the Praetor simply turned, spotted its next target, and bounded off after it.  

“What the fu-” Rarity’s question was cut short by a thunderous crash. A quick glance showed that Unity had managed to hurl Horrigan against one of the interior walls, bringing down a deluge of masonry.

Twilight grimaced and used her powers to put together a makeshift barricade using crates and pieces of the assault course. “Is he going to be alright against Unity?”

“He’s fine,” Sunset replied as a foul green fireball erupted out of the mess and knocked Unity clear across the courtyard. 

“Darn it all, what the hell is goin’ on here?!” The girls looked back to see Applejack clambering to her feet and readying her minigun. “Where’s that mind-screwin’ bitch?! Ah’m gonna rip her arms off an’ shove ‘em so far up her ass she’s chokes on ‘em!”

“That job’s taken already!” Sunset took cover behind the new barricade and fired off a shot at a possessed armor harassing some Knights. She swore and ducked as it returned fire with a laser rifle. “Alright, girls, shoot anything that looks like it belongs in a morgue or Rarity’s jewelry box!”

As one, the others hefted their weapons and added their firepower to the fight. Their help was sorely needed; despite the number of Knights and crystal monsters initially present, there were now only a handful of fighters left, concentrated around the outskirts of the courtyard to try and avoid Unity and Horrigan. A gruesome carpet of shattered crystal and gore-soaked metal provided a grim reminder of what happened to the rest of them. 

Sunset had just taken down a stubborn suit of possessed armor when her Pip-Boy’s new radio crackled into life, “Knight-Captain, this is Lily. I’ve reached the morgue, but we have a problem.”

A quick tap of the microphone under her armor let Sunset reply. “What’s going on?”

“It’s a mess down here,” Lily replied. “Most of the Scribes and Squires inside the Citadel are already dead. I’ve raised everything I can, but I’m going to have to use them to escort the survivors out, there’s just too many crystal things down here.”

“So, no reinforcements?” Sunset asked, trying not to picture corpses of Squires, or the zombies created from them.

“I’ll come back with the zombies once the survivors are safe, but getting out of here in one piece isn’t going to be as easy as getting in,” Lily told her. “You’ve got one coming up to you, but somehow she’s ignoring my commands, so I can’t say for sure that sh-” 

Her last transmission was cut off by a terrific explosion as someone dared to fire a Fatman, sending debris and shrapnel everywhere. Sunset swore and ducked back behind a crate. “Get back here with the zombies as quick as you can, we’re dropping like flies out here! And repeat what you said about the last zombie!”

Another loud crash drowned out the first of whatever Lily was saying, but the last of it came through clearly, “-ound her in stasis in some secret room in the morgue, could be hostile! She’s in the courtyard now, over by some sort of hammer under a plaque!”

“A hammer?” Sunset frowned, bewildered. “That sounds like the memorial fo-” Her jaw dropped as she looked over at the memorial in question. “That’s impossible! We were told that she was cremated!”

“Well, someone lied to you!” Lily countered. 

“Get down, you twit!” Sunset got a faceful of fluffy hair as Pinkie tackled her to the ground, just in time to avoid a stray bolt of plasma. “What were you even looking at?! What-” She glanced over to where Sunset had been staring and gasped loudly. “Holy shit, is that Cross?!

As the girls watched, Star Paladin Cross gripped the haft of her hammer and swung it in a wide arc before settling it on her shoulder. Her skin was pale and sunken, her armor was heavily patched, and her eyes were entirely jet-black, but there was no mistaking the old warrior. Glancing around, Cross spotted the girls, scowled, and broke into a run towards them. A crystal Super Mutant tried to intercept her, but a quick swing of the hammer shattered it into tiny pieces.

“Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Cross growled as she approached the pair. 

Sunset flinched as the ground beneath their feet shook. “That’s a long story, involving mind control.” She snapped off a shot at a former Enclave technician before continuing, “For now, just kill anything that isn’t Brotherhood, Horrigan, or a power-armored Deathclaw.”

“Right.” Cross looked around at the battlefield impassively. “Where’s Elder Lyons?”

“In the Great Hall with Sarah. Unity wanted to make a big show of organizing a new council once the Enclave had been beaten back,” Pinkie replied. 

Cross nodded and turned away. “You deal with this circus, I’ll get the Elder.” Before anyone could stop her, she sprinted off towards the nearest door, bashing aside any enemy that got in her way.

“I wish this was a circus,” Pinkie muttered as she turned her attention back to the fight. 

“Yeah, me t-” Sunset’s agreement was cut off as another colossal boom shook the Citadel.





Horrigan was flagging. He was giving his all, but it just wasn’t enough. No matter how many times Horrigan tore Unity apart, smashed her to pieces, or incinerated her crystalline body, he could never keep her down long enough to finish the job. It stung his pride, but this was a job for Liberty Prime. Unfortunately, even getting her outside the walls was proving beyond his abilities.

Almost on cue, Unity snatched a dead Knight in her power and hurled it at Horrigan. He sidestepped it and launched a fireball at her before diving into a commando roll. Unity caught the fireball, but before she could throw it he rolled to his feet and hit her with an almighty uppercut. The blow pitched Unity off her feet. 

Horrigan followed up by diving at her, aiming to grab Unity and hurl her clean through the walls of the Citadel. She countered by thrusting her arms out and hitting him with a wall of solid air. Horrigan floated in place for a moment, then was thrown back as her power overcame his. He was back on his feet in a second, but so was she. 

Unity snarled and raised her arms out to her sides. Horrigan balked as chunks of masonry floated into the air, along with the corpses of the dead Knights, metal crates, and the broken remnants of barricades and assorted debris in an awe-inspiring display of psychic power. “It’s time we ended this farce,” Unity hissed. 

“Bring it.” Unity huffed and thrust her arms forward, hurling everything she had at Horrigan. There was no way that he could dodge it all, so he didn’t bother trying. Instead, Horrigan lowered his stance and tried to simply weather the assault. He slapped away anything he could, pulverizing car-sized slabs of concrete, but some of it got through. Every hit that Horrigan endured felt ten times heavier and harder than it should have. Eventually, the devastating barrage came to an end.

Pain wracked every part of Horrigan’s body. He lowered his arms, but Unity was nowhere to be seen. 

“Behind you!” Rainbow yelled in warning. 

Horrigan reacted too slowly. He tried to whip around, but invisible power swept his legs out from under him. “Now, you’re mine.” Unity hissed in his ear. She used her power to haul him to his knees, then yanked his arms out to the side and pulled them back in some perverse imitation of a crucifixion. Horrigan fought against her grip, but dozens of crystal tentacles burst out of the ground and wrapped around his limbs and neck, keeping him down.

“I don’t know what my mother did to keep you from my righteous embrace, but you should never have let her do it,” Unity spat. “Your armor may be tough, but let’s see what happens when I mess with what’s inside.”

A sensation of creeping cold spread throughout Horrigan’s insides. He strained to free himself, but his muscles weren’t responding the way he wanted them to. Agony tore through him as psychic power gripped the joint where his spine met his legs and twisted. Horrigan grunted and tried to flail around, desperately attempting to escape, but there was nothing he could do. As the pain mounted, Horrigan roared in agony and impotent rage. 

All of a sudden, the power released Horrigan and the tentacles snapped away, letting him slump to the ground. 

Fighting through the pain, Horrigan looked back at Unity. A rainbow-colored blur was attacking her from all directions faster than the eye could see, each pass leaving another burnt gouge in Unity’s body. The wounds were healing as fast as before, but the blur was striking so quickly that her regeneration couldn’t keep up, chipping away at her piece by piece. 

“Enough!” Unity flung her arms out to the side and a wave of force blasted out from her in all directions, knocking away everything anywhere near her. 

Horrigan could feel the power wash over him, but it was too weak to move him. The one who had been attacking Unity, however, wasn’t so lucky, and Horrigan was surprised to recognize Rainbow Dash getting blown away. 

“Ungrateful wretches!” Unity snarled. A searing beam of magic scythed through the air at her, but she spun around and caught the beam in her power, straining as she gathered it all together into a crackling ball. With a harsh grunt, she hurled the magic back at the attacker. The flash of impact briefly illuminated the Praetor before it was blasted through the Citadel wall. 

“Is this the thanks I get?” Unity hissed, her voice dripping with venom. “I’m offering a world free of war, free of pain, free of despair, yet all you knuckle-dragging meatsacks do in return is fight against it like spoiled children!” She straightened up and lifted her chin arrogantly, the very image of Senator Lily when she was younger, and something began to glow softly on her chest. With a jolt, Horrigan realized that it was a Geode. “Fine. If you don’t want peace, then feel despair!”

The Geode flashed, and an awful feeling of crushing depression seized Horrigan. All of his thoughts shut down, the darkness closed in around him, and the sucking feeling in his chest was so intense that it was painful. There was no point in fighting. There was no point in doing anything. 

“You see? This is what my fellow experiments felt, entombed beneath Raven Rock. Their misery, their pain, their shattered hope, it all trickled down to me,” Unity intoned in a haughty voice. “This is what I am trying to remove from the world. This is what you misguided fools are trying so hard to defend. Stand with me, and I will take away your pain. Join me, and I will take away your sorrow. Submit to me, and I will make this torment end.”

“I call bullshit,” Sunset called out clearly. Horrigan slowly raised his head at the sound of her voice. Her and Pinkie were the only two still standing aside from Unity. They were both clearly bone-tired, but they were on their feet. The rest of the Rainbooms and the remaining Knights were all either slumped on their knees, or completely prone on the ground. Even the crystal monsters were down, their color fading as if it were being leeched away.

 “You aren’t interested in taking away people’s sorrow or their pain, you’re just using it as a tool,” Sunset continued implacably. “You said it yourself; submit, and you’ll stop hurting people. You’re not an altruist, you’re a tyrant.”

Unity gave her a glare that could curdle milk. “What does it matter? I am offering an end to all human suffering, you feeble mortals should all be begging me to rule you!” 

“We’d prefer our freedom, thanks,” Pinkie replied. “Sure, this world has some serious issues, but turning people into mindless drones isn’t the answer. Suffering is part of being human.” She smiled sadly as her Geode glowed and she ponied up. “Sometimes, you just have to smile through the pain.”

Sunset nodded and ponied up as well. “You find yourself a reason to keep going. Something that gets you out of bed in the morning.”

“Just keep moving,” Applejack said through gritted teeth as she got to her feet, ponying up too. “Put one foot in front of the other, one step at a time.”

Somehow, incredibly, each of the other Rainbooms slowly stood up, each of them taking on their magical forms. Even Rainbow tottered to her feet. Blood was leaking from her ears, but her stance was steady as she glanced at the others and let her wings out. 

Unity scoffed and clasped her hands, seizing all of the girls in her power. “Did you really think I was just going to stand by and let you do whatever it is that you’re building up to? Unfortunately for you, keeping you girls under control is just too much hassle, but please, if you have any other ideas for ignoring your pain, do feel free to enlighten me before I squash you like bugs.”

Horrigan clenched his fists. He didn’t particularly like the girls, but their sheer stubbornness was impressive. There was no way he could let it end like this.

Pressing his face into the ground, Horrigan cast his mind back to the last time he had felt such despair; back when his mother had died, and her drunken excuse for a husband had managed to weasel his way out of accepting responsibility for it. Horrigan had found a way to get himself through that darkness, and deliver much-deserved retribution. “You find something bigger than yourself, and dedicate your life to it.”

“What?” Unity looked back over just as Horrigan surged to his feet and lunged at her. Her eyes widened, but Horrigan was on her before she could react. He dove on top of her and wrapped her in a bear hug before forcing out as much of his power as he could, wreathing his entire body in an emerald inferno. Unity screamed and tried to use her power to knock him away, but Horrigan held on firm as his armor heated until he felt his own skin begin to blister and char. 

As Unity writhed in his grasp, Horrigan looked over at Sunset Shimmer. “Do it! End this once and for all!”

Sunset nodded grimly. All seven of the girls’ Geodes glowed so brightly it was painful, then brightly colored beams arced out from each one and merged in the air high above the Citadel. The magic swirled and coalesced until it was a shining orb of glittering rainbow-lights. Horrigan fancied that he could see angelic wings stretching out from it. Unity flailed and screeched desperately, but she couldn’t escape this time. Finally, the magic finished building and lanced down towards the ground like a thunderbolt from heaven.

“For the Enclave,” Horrigan whispered as the bolt struck home, and plunged him into darkness.





Elder Lyons coughed wetly and sagged in his chair. The Squire who had been left to attend to him was cowering behind the chair, and all but one of his bodyguards were dead. Eden, meanwhile, was anxiously tapping his legs on the desk in front of Lyons; the only crystal being that hadn’t attacked as soon as Unity’s grip was broken.

Over by the door to the Great Hall, Sarah was firing into the corridors with a pair of plasma pistols, desperately holding off the marauding crystal monsters. The Elder wished that he could help her, but even standing up was beyond him at the moment. 

“Okay, the coast is clear, for now at least.” Sarah glanced back into the room, and Lyons winced at the sight of the jagged cut running down the side of her face. “Squire, I need you to help get my father to the infirmary.”

“No, we-” Lyons couldn’t even finish his sentence without coughing up specks of blood and phlegm. 

Sarah gave him a look that was both anxious and stern. “We’re getting you to the infirmary and I am finding you a medic. Elder or not, that is not negotiable.”

The sounds of combat out in the corridor made the three flinch. Sarah cautiously peeked out, then skipped back as a crystal Super Mutant went flying past in pieces. She raised her pistols and the Elder gripped the arms of the chair tightly as they waited for a new threat to make itself known. 

“Elder! Sentinel! Am I glad to see you both alive!” A familiar voice rasped as a figure appeared in the doorway. 

“Star Paladin?!” Sarah exclaimed incredulously. “I didn’t think the medics had finished putting you back together yet!”

Cross shook her head. “I don’t think they did, but you’ll have to ask the Enclave or Knight-Captain Shimmer for details later. Right now, our priority is getting the Elder to safety.”

Both the Squire and Sarah nodded in agreement. “We need to get him to the infirmary,” Sarah said quickly. “Hopefully there’s at least one medic still alive down-”

“N-no!” Lyons insisted. “My office. Get me to… my off…”

“You need medical attention! Unity has pushed you so far it’s a miracle that you’re still alive!” Sarah snapped. 

Lyons shook his head, ignoring the way it made his vision swim. It was imperative that he made them understand just how much danger they were in. “My office, or… or the wasteland i-is… doomed.”

“He is right, our fate is hanging by a thread,” Eden put in.

Sarah looked like she was going to argue, but Cross cut across her, “Unless he’s going senile, then we must follow the Elder’s orders. Sentinel, you help him walk. Squire, carry Eden and keep an eye on our rear.”

Hearing Cross take charge gave Lyons a warm feeling of nostalgia, despite how much his bones ached. Unfortunately, the feeling only lasted until Sarah helped him to his feet and put his arm around her shoulder, at which point his left arm exploded into agony, as if it was being squeezed in a vice. Lyons knew enough to realize what was most likely happening to him, but he did his best to hide the pain as his daughter half-carried him out of the door. “H-hurry.”

The corridors were, thankfully, clear save for the corpses of crystal beasts and Brotherhood personnel alike. Elder Lyons felt a dim sense of grief at the sight of so many dead Knights, Scribes, and even Squires, but pain and urgency left little room to mourn their loss. Those few survivors they encountered were ordered to get out of the Citadel and rendezvous at the bridge or, in the case of any crystal monsters, smashed by Cross.

“Something is happening outside,” Eden said suddenly. “It seems that the Rainbooms have struck Unity with a particularly powerful magical attack.”

Sarah glanced back at him curiously. “How do you… never mind. If the Rainbooms are all engaging her together then the battle is as good as won, which means we can get you to the infirmary,” she added with a glare at her father.

“No,” Lyons insisted, the effort making him cough up wads of blood and sputum. “My o… office.”

“Why are you so adamant on going to your office?” Sarah asked in exasperation. “You’re too old to keep pushing yourself like this, you need a med-”

“The Rainbooms aren’t going to be enough to stop Unity. I don’t think there’s any being on Earth that can, not even Liberty Prime,” Eden interrupted. “She has a backup plan, one that she couldn’t resist sharing with the good Elder and I as the so-called ‘leaders’ in her new regime. Our only hope of stopping it is for Elder Lyons to contact the Enclave, and it has to be him, no-one else. I just hope the transmitter isn’t broken.”

Sarah frowned, but she didn’t respond as she started putting the pieces together. 

A short walk later, the group finally arrived at Elder Lyons’ private office. Cross shoved the door open and strode in with her hammer held high. “It’s clear,” she called a second later. 

The others quickly followed Cross in. Lyons directed Sarah to sit him in his chair and enter the password on his communication terminal. “Thank… you…” He said quietly when she was done. “Now… y-you must… g-go.”

Sarah shook her head vehemently. “I’m not leaving you here! Contact the Enclave, then we’ll-”

“Sarah… please,” Lyons cut in. He finally gave into the pain and clutched his left arm tightly before giving her a pleading look. “Yo… you are the E-elder, now.”

Her face fell as she realized what he was saying. Or, perhaps, as she finally faced what she had been trying to deny. “You’re not planning on saving the Citadel.”

“It honestly pains me to say this, but it is beyond saving,” Eden said softly. “Could you pop me on the table, please. I shall stay as well. I should have died beneath Raven Rock. It seems fitting that I pay my dues here.”

“If you want to pay your dues, then live and pay them,” Cross said simply. 

Lyons nodded slowly, though the effort nearly made him fall off his chair. “G-go. Get as f-far away from… the Citadel as… as you can.” 

Sarah shook her head again stubbornly. “No. No! There has to be someth-”

“If there was, we’d be doing it, but the wasteland must come first.” Cross grabbed Sarah and shoved her out of the door, then did the same with the Squire and Eden before looking back at Lyons. “Elder Lyons, it was an honor.”

Lyons watched them leave with a mixture of sadness and relief, but he didn’t have time to wallow. The pain in his arm was more intense than anything he had ever felt, his vision was darkening, and simply remaining conscious was taking an effort of sheer will. Time was running out. 

A simple press of a button activated the encrypted transmitter that the Enclave had installed. Lyons was afraid for a moment that the battle outside had damaged it, but after just a couple of seconds there was a crackle as the recipient answered. “Elder Lyons?! This is President Shoichet, is everything alright over there?!”

“Activ-vate… Skyfire… P-protocol,” Lyons forced out weakly. “Br… Bradley Hercules… Code… Grogar.”

“Bradley- are you serious?! Elder Lyons, please confirm status!” Becky yelled into the radio. “Elder? Elder Lyons, please respond! Damn it, what the hell is going on over there?!” 





The courtyard was oddly quiet now. A thick pall of dust had been kicked up by the Rainbooms’ magical attack, making it hard to see more than a few meters in any direction, but Sunset could just about make out the outlines of surviving Knights climbing to their feet. The last of the crystal monsters were lying on the ground, apparently lifeless. 

Unity and Horrigan were completely obscured from sight in the middle of the courtyard.

“Is it over?” Pinkie asked anxiously. 

Sunset shook her head slowly, her shoulders still tense. “I sure hope so, but I’m not calling it until I see what’s left of her.”

“Of course it’s over, ain’t nothin’ that can stand against our magic when it’s like that!” Applejack exclaimed brightly. “Mark my words, she’s either dead, or curled up in a ball and cryin’ like Sunset was back when we hit her with the magic of friendship!”

The reminder of that old incident grated on Sunset’s frayed nerves, but she kept her mouth shut and glanced over at Rainbow. The trickle of blood from her ears was anything but reassuring. “Hey, Dash, you okay?” Sunset called out. 

Rainbow didn’t reply. She raised a hand to her forehead, then touched her ear gently. She seemed surprised that her fingers came away bloody and started clicking them loudly next to her ear, an expression of mounting horror forming on her face.

A sudden sound of shifting masonry made Sunset spin around, but it was just the Praetor clambering out of the hole in the wall where Unity had blasted it, red light still pouring from the joints in its armor. “Damn, that thing is tough.” She flinched and swore as her Pip-Boy radio crackled into life a second after she relaxed.

“Sunset, are you there?!” Becky asked anxiously. 

“I’m here, what do you need?” Sunset replied.

“I just had an emergency transmission from Elder Lyons, and he did not sound good. He didn’t say much, apart from giving me a highly sensitive code, and now he’s not responding at all,” Becky explained quickly. “Is Unity behind this? Is she still standing?”

Sunset turned back to where Unity and Horrigan had been. “We hit Unity pretty hard. I think she’s done for, but we’re waiting on visual confirmation.”

Metal clinked as Fluttershy stepped forward and raised her sniper rifle. “She’s not.”

“She’s not?!” Sunset glanced sidelong at Fluttershy, then snapped her plasma rifle up as the dust cleared enough to reveal a figure in the center of the courtyard. 

Her whole body was pitted and charred, but Unity was still upright. She had her arms stretched up and out, as if she had tried to ward off the blast, and her legs had morphed into a tangle of spindly stilts, drawing power out of the crystals in the ground. Horrigan was lying unconscious behind her.

“She fuckin’ tanked it?!” Applejack blurted out incredulously. 

“Hit her again!” Sunset yelled. 

Unity snarled and threw her arms out in a wide circle. Her body pulsed with light and a wave of invisible power rippled out from her, knocking everyone in the courtyard off their feet. Looking around with an expression of pure hatred, Unity raised her hands and clenched her fists, lifting every broken shard of the dead crystal monsters in her power and drawing them closer. 

Sunset watched in horror as Unity started absorbing the dead beasts; her body twisting and mutating into an immense amorphous mass as she added their mass to her own. “Horrigan is out of commission, but Unity is not down, I repeat, she is not down,” Sunset yelled into her Pip-Boy. “We can’t stop her! Liberty, we need you in here!”

“No, we have another option!” Becky countered. “I’m firing a the full payload of the Bradley-Hercules platform, so get the fuck out of there! You’ve got one minute!”

The blood drained from Sunset’s face as she realized what code Lyons had given the Enclave. “Everyone start running! Get the fuck away from the Citadel, right now!”

“You’re going nowhere!” The voice seemed to dig itself directly into Sunset’s mind instead of her ears. Looking up, she saw a misshapen head push grotesquely out of Unity’s body. Everyone else in the courtyard shivered and twitched, then turned to stare at her and raised their arms in forced adoration. “You belong to me, you all belong to me. The Wasteland shall have a new Master, and my reign shall be eternal.”

Sunset sagged and let out a defeated sigh. She had given it her best shot, but Unity had come out on top. As her gaze dropped, Sunset noticed that Unity had grown right on top of the trapdoor that Liberty Prime was usually raised and lowered out of. She grinned wildly and raised her Pip-Boy to her mouth as one final idea popped into her head. “Hey, big boy, I need a basketball dropped directly through your old hoop. Capisce?”

A quiet affirmative was the only response. Unity was still monologuing, assured in her own superiority, when the mini-nuke arced up into the air, reached its peak, and dropped down in an almost perfectly straight line directly onto her head.

The ensuing explosion shook the Citadel to its core. Searingly hot air washed over Sunset and made her Geiger counter squeal in protest, but the bomb had done its job. The ground under Unity, already battered and weakened by her fight with Horrigan, cracked and, with a crash that almost matched the sound of the mini-nuke, finally collapsed. Unity let out a piercing mental shriek of shock and rage as she dropped into the Citadel’s basement laboratory. The courtyard shook from the impact as she hit the ground below.  

“Fucking run!” Sunset screamed. She got a brief glimpse of the Praetor loping towards Horrigan’s body before she turned and pelted towards Rainbow. Sunset didn’t bother speaking, she just pointed at Twilight and jabbed a finger towards the gate. Rainbow nodded and disappeared in a blur of color, leaving Sunset to sprint to the exit. 

Knights on all sides joined her in a mad dash to escape. They didn’t know about what was coming, but Sunset knew that seeing her running like hell would inspire the lot of them to do the same just as a precaution. 

One of the Knights got to the doors first and rammed them open with a shoulder. Everyone else piled in behind and belted down the exit corridor, grabbing and dragging up anyone who fell. Sunset paled as she remembered the waist-high snow outside, but the Knights simply charged straight into it, using their power armor to bulldoze a path and spraying snow everywhere. 

Sunset felt a twinge of relief as she sped out of the Citadel. The other Rainbooms were ahead of her, following the road down towards the bridge, and for a second she dared hope that everything was going to be fine. 

An impossibly loud scream tore through the air, driving spikes of pure agony into Sunset’s mind and driving her to the floor. She looked back instinctively, half-expecting to see Unity smashing through the gate, but instead she saw the Praetor speeding towards her with Horrigan over its shoulder. The Praetor snatched Sunset up as it passed. The impact drove the wind out of her, but as it lifted her she got a perfect view of hundreds of bright lights blazing in the sky above; the Citadel’s doom writ large above the world.

Sunset’s stomach lurched as the Praetor suddenly dove forward. The first missile streaked down into the Citadel just as she plunged into ice-cold darkness. 
> Chapter 148 - Pyrrhic Victory
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

An eerie silence lay over the Wasteland, as if the earth itself was shocked at what had just transpired. 

Everyone who had managed to escape through the gate was gathered on the old bridge over the Potomac. No-one was talking. Even Liberty Prime wasn’t saying anything, instead just maintaining a silent vigil as he surveyed the horizon. It was probably just as well; most of the Knights weren’t in any condition to set up a perimeter, let alone defend themselves if the need arose. 

Sunset was sitting on the hood of an abandoned car, shivering violently and coughing up droplets of water after her unexpected dip in the river. The Praetor had undoubtedly saved her life by getting her underwater, shielding her from the worst effects of the orbital bombardment, but the sudden submergence had almost drowned her. Thankfully, she had managed to get rid of most of the water she had taken in, and the Praetor was dutifully standing next to her, radiating heat from its armor to keep her from freezing to death in her wet clothes.

Glancing around, Sunset spotted Lily and Pinkie both sitting on Horrigan’s unconscious form, Twilight was leaning against Liberty Prime’s leg, and Fluttershy was calmly tending to Rainbow Dash. Applejack and Rarity were leaning against the wall a little distance away, both looking miserable and awkward. The rest of the Knights, along with a handful of Scribes and Squires, were either looking back at the horrible mess that they had left behind, or staring at the floor to avoid seeing it. Reluctantly, as if her body didn’t quite want to cooperate, Sunset followed their gaze back down the road.

The Citadel was gone. Parts of the outer walls were still standing, but little else remained beyond some smoldering rubble piled around a smoking crater. Unity had been stopped, but the cost had been immeasurable. 

Snow crunched as the last few people walked up onto the bridge. 
  
Grief and exhaustion lined Sarah’s face. She was doing a good job of trying to keep her expression neutral, projecting an air of stoic resilience for the sake of her subordinates, but there was no hiding the tear-streaks that cut little tracks through the blood and grime of battle. Cross kept pace beside her, with Eden hitching a ride on her shoulder, a slight frown the only outward indication of the absolute whirlwind of emotions that she must have been feeling.

Sunset couldn’t help but wonder what the Brotherhood was going to do now. The vast majority of their personnel, military and otherwise, had all been gathered at the Citadel when Unity had taken over. Now, including the Rainbooms, there were barely fifty survivors recuperating on the bridge. There was a small number of other Brotherhood troops stationed at certain outposts around the wastes, but it was still a grievous blow. 

Sarah glanced back at the burning ruins of the Citadel, sighed, and turned back to the others, raising her voice so they could all hear her, “Alright, people, let’s regroup at Project Purity. We can figure out what we’re going to do next there.”

It wasn’t much of a plan, but Sunset supposed that it was better than nothing. She gratefully let the Praetor pick her up and place her on its shoulder, Liberty picked up Horrigan and one of the more heavily-wounded Knights, and the group began the long trudge back to Project Purity.





The mood in the meeting room was worryingly somber. Becky had gathered Andrew, Senator Prince, and Senator Devall together to discuss the situation with the Brotherhood. It had barely been an hour, but the news that the Citadel had been destroyed was already spreading through the Enclave like wildfire, and Becky wanted to try and get ahead of the rumors and solidify her position before some idiot tried to take advantage of the situation.

“Horrigan wasn’t enough in the end, then,” Andrew said quietly. 

“Unfortunately not,” Becky replied. “As far as we can tell, he did attempt to force Unity outside so Liberty Prime could deal with her, but she was just too powerful.” 

“Are we sure that she’s dead?” Devall asked anxiously. 

Becky nodded. “Our Vertibirds are surveying the remains of the Citadel. They’ve found some crystal fragments, but they’re all inert. She’s done for.”

Devall sighed with relief. “I suppose we should be grateful that Elder Lyons was willing to hand over his half of the Bradley-Hercules code so readily. He saved a lot of lives there.”

“Yes, it was a noble deed,” Prince added. “Unfortunately, the Brotherhood has been critically weakened by this turn of events, and there are already whispers among the civic sector that we should use this opportunity to wipe them out entirely.”

Devall winced and lowered his gaze. “I hate to admit it, but I had people asking me if that was your intention while I was on the way over here.”

“Of course it’s not,” Becky said firmly. “Elder Lyons was no fool, he would have known that there would be elements in the Enclave that would want to take advantage of the Brotherhood’s weakness, but he still chose to trust us in favor of taking down Unity. The least we can do is live up to that trust.” She let a slight smirk play about her lips. “Besides, the Brotherhood may be weakened, but Liberty Prime is still completely unscathed, and the Enclave no longer has any way of combating him. If any personnel still want to attack the Brotherhood of Steel, tell them they may take their grievances to the walking superweapon at their earliest convenience.”

That got an amused snort from Andrew. “So we’re all in agreement that we’re not going to backstab the Brotherhood of Steel. In that case, what are we going to do?”

Becky frowned and hummed thoughtfully. “I suppose the first thing we should do is contact Sentinel Lyons, or Elder Lyons now, I guess, and see what the Brotherhood wants us to do. Ideally, I think the best way forward would be for the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel to integrate fully into each other, but I doubt they’d go for that.”

“Not unless their pride has been utterly crushed, and I believe the new Elder will be more stubborn than that,” Prince put in.

“I agree, in which case we’ll just offer whatever we can.” Becky wrote down each point as she thought of them. “They’ll need a new base of operations, facilities and resources for maintaining both Liberty Prime and their power armor, food and medical supplies. Anything else?”

“A new source of ammunition; either trade-based or manufacturing their own,” Andrew added.

Prince leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin as he considered. “Perhaps we could offer the Brotherhood a trade; technology and supplies, in return for granting us greater responsibility for Project Purity and the water caravans. They would see benefits to be had by joining the Enclave, and we would be able to vastly improve the wastelanders’ perception of us. Even if the Brotherhood don’t come to join the Enclave fully, we’ll still be forging a stronger alliance.”

“Not to mention strengthening the Brotherhood will benefit us if we face similar outside enemies further down the line.” Becky nodded and added it all to her notes. “Alright, I’ll contact Sarah Lyons and request a meeting. I imagine there will be a fair amount of backlash from some of our own personnel, so I’m relying on you three to help me keep things stable.”

“We’ve got your back,” Andrew told her confidently. 

Devall raised an eyebrow. “Incidentally, what about Senator Lily?”

“That, I’ll decide along with Lyons,” Becky replied. She scowled at the thought of everything the Senator had unwittingly caused. “At the very least, she needs to bear responsibility for all the damage her secrets and lies have caused.”





Small flames still burned in the cratered remains of the Citadel. They likely wouldn’t last much longer given the cold and the way the snow was picking up again, but for now, they were stubbornly burning away. The crackling of the flames covered up the faint sounds of masonry scraping as something tiny pushed its way through the debris. The little creature looked like a mouse-sized amoeba, extruding tiny appendages to pull itself through the gaps in the shattered remains of the complex.

Unity silently cursed the Brotherhood, the Rainbooms, the Enclave, and every other aspect of this wretched surface wasteland. She had barely survived the terrifying bombardment that had been unleashed almost directly on top of her head. As it was, she was once again trapped in the form of a shapeless blob, smaller than she had ever been, and her powers had been reduced to the merest shadow of their former selves. 

The worst part of the situation was the fact that the Enclave were still surveilling the remnants of the Citadel. Unity could hear the Vertibirds circling overhead, and there were almost certainly going to be Brotherhood and Enclave soldiers alike arriving soon, coming to pick over the ruins with a fine tooth comb. 

Unity had to escape before they arrived. Escaping, however, was easier said than done. 

Moving too quickly was a bad idea. A lot of the rubble was balanced precariously enough as it was, and the Vertibirds were probably inspecting every single pebble that shifted. Unity was terrified that the hovering watchers might have some sort of magical detection equipment as well. She had managed to keep hold of her Geode by simply engulfing it with her tiny body, but even that wouldn’t help much if the Enclave found her in this state. 

And so, Unity crept. She stayed under the surface of the debris as much as she could, picking her way through the cracks and crevasses, all the while making her way up and out of the crater. 

The area near the top of the crater was the most nerve-wracking. There was much more debris to hide under, but being that much closer to the Vertibirds grated on Unity’s nerves. The urge to just bolt for cover was almost overwhelming, but Unity forced herself to stay calm, moving slowly and cautiously towards what little remained of the outer walls. She froze in fear as a Vertibird stopped almost directly overhead. The Vertibird stayed in place for almost a full minute, each second of which Unity spent in a state of almost total panic, but finally the Vertibird moved on and left her behind.

Sighing internally, Unity moved into the shadow of the wall, found a suitable crack to slip through, and pushed on until she was out of the Citadel entirely. Shattered buildings and mounds of debris rose above her, all covered in a thick layer of snow; a nightmare for ordinary humans to cross, but a veritable haven for a creature in Unity’s predicament. She paused to listen out for Vertibirds before she scuttled into the nearest building and slipped into the massive piles of debris. 

Unity wasn’t sure whether the next part would be tricky or not. Hiding in the old city ruins around the Citadel would be easier than in the Citadel itself, but the Vertibirds would almost certainly be on the lookout for any suspicious movement in the surrounding area. The thought of being shot at by Vertibirds, or worse, getting targeted by another orbital bombardment, was enough to give Unity the chills.

Still, despite Untity’s concerns, the journey through the ruins was almost entirely uneventful. She did have a minor scare when she stumbled upon the diamond radscorpion, having apparently escaped the destruction of the Citadel, but the creature was thankfully occupied with its meal of an emerald Super Mutant. 

Unity was quick to leave the creature in peace. 

Finally, after a unbelievably tense trip, she emerged from the ruins and into the wasteland proper. Unity only knew that she had left the ruins because the piled debris covered in snow turned into a flat road covered in snow, but she was still glad to be out of it and free. 

Now that she was away from the Enclave, all Unity had to do was make her way back to Raven Rock; crossing the vast expanse of the wastes, avoiding predators and pursuers, then finally sneaking past the Enclave and Brotherhood cordon in the process. Oddly, Unity wasn’t particularly worried about this final journey. It would take a ridiculously long time, but the deep snow would actually work to her advantage. All Unity had to do was burrow through it like a mole. After all, the cold wouldn’t bother her in the slightest, and she would be utterly hidden from view, meaning that she was safer now than she had been since leaving Raven Rock in the first place. 

Secure in the knowledge that she was out of danger, Unity set off on her journey. Raven Rock glowed like a beacon to her magical senses, so there was no danger of her getting lost, and the vast reserve of magical crystal there would allow her to reconstitute her form in no time. 

Lost in dreams of regaining her power, Unity didn’t realize that she was being stalked until a dark purple aura flashed into life around her and snatched her out of the snow. She caught a brief glimpse of purple eyes shining in a bowl-shaped helmet, but before she could react the power flashed again, and the world around her disappeared entirely. 
> Chapter 149 - An Elder, a Zombie, and a Rainboom...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was something to be said for the simple pleasures of a towel and dry clothes. As soon as the survivors of the Citadel assault had reached Project Purity Sarah Lyons had asked Sunset to join her in the main office, but Sunset had at least been permitted to get out of her soaking wet uniform and dry off first. A shower would have to wait until the debriefing was over.

Brotherhood and Enclave personnel alike saluted or nodded in respect as Sunset passed on her way to the office. She responded politely to each of them, though she made sure to keep each interaction as short and silent as physically possible.

A single Initiate was standing guard outside the office when Sunset arrived. The salute he gave before opening the door was a little sloppy, but she was too burnt out to bother chiding him for it. Sarah, Lily, and Cross were already inside waiting for her, sitting around a desk. Dried blood caked one side of Sarah’s face.

“I have concerns,” Cross said simply. 

“I’d be worried if you didn’t,” Sunset replied. She helped herself to a chair and glanced at Lily. “What have you told them so far?”

Lily just shook her head. She looked almost as haggard as Sarah. “Everything; Unity, my Geode, the Praetor, our plans for stopping Unity, everything.”

Sunset gave her a skeptical look. “Really? How has no-one killed you?”

“It’s on the table,” Cross growled. “Being raised from the dead is nothing new; been there, done that, but looking through my eyes to spy on the Brotherhood is unconscionable. I will not be a living eyebot for the Enclave!”

“For a start, you’re not alive, you’re a zombie,” Lily countered. “And as I have already stated, since the Brotherhood no longer has the resources to put you back together properly, my magic is the only thing keeping you walking and talking. Your only options are to let the Enclave take a look at you, or stay as a zombie and trust that I have no intention of using you as a spy.” 

“You expect us to trust you when you’re the reason that all of this happened in the first place?!” Cross exclaimed incredulously.

Lily snorted and threw Sarah an annoyed glare. “Trust? If you want trust, then perhaps you should explain to Miss Shimmer why you lied about cremating your delightful little Star Paladin!”

“That’s simple, it was about morale,” Sunset interjected. “Cross is idolized by the lower ranks. If the brass let everyone know that they were trying to bring her back using cybernetics a second time, they’d get their hopes up, and failure would crush morale entirely. Tell everyone that she died an honorable death, however, and at worst you create an inspiring martyr, and at best you have a legendary hero coming back from death itself to fight again. Morale will rise, and it’ll give the Knights hope that if they just fight hard enough, then maybe they don’t have to be afraid of dying, either.” Sunset shrugged. “I’m a big girl. I can handle being lied to if it’s safe and for the right cause.”

The other three women all stared at Sunset in surprise, so she took the opportunity to make a suggestion to Lily, “Why don’t we make another psychic inhibitor for Cross? That should prevent her being used as a spy without interfering with your magic.”

Lily arched an eyebrow and hummed thoughtfully. “That should work. Let’s not bother with messing around, though.” She took her own inhibitor off and held it out to Cross. “Put this on, then I’ll try to spy through you. And, since you’re not going to believe a damned word I say either way, we’ll have Sunset read my mind and prove that I’m telling the truth. Is that acceptable?”

“You’re being oddly cooperative,” Sarah said suspiciously, the first words she’d uttered since Sunset had arrived. 

Lily sniffed and flicked a stray hair out of her face. “Despite everything she did, Unity was still the closest thing I’ve ever had to a daughter. Forgive me if I’m feeling a little devil-may-care at the moment.”

Something about her candor clearly struck a chord with Sarah. She nodded once at Cross, who immediately took a deep breath and put the inhibitor on. 

Lily checked that it was on properly, then closed her eyes. A shimmer of power ran through her body as large jet-black wings sprouted from her back, her hair lengthening and purging the dirt until it was a glossy onyx river that cascaded down her back. Sunset was sure that it was just the thrum of magic she could sense that was making her heart beat a little bit faster.

“There, even at full power, I can’t sense a damned thing through her.” Lily held a hand out towards Sunset. “Would you kindly do the honors?”

Sunset shook herself and touched Lily’s hand. A storm of images flitted through her mind, until she finally let go. “She’s telling the truth. The inhibitor works.”

Cross and Sarah both sagged with relief. “Good,” Sarah said weakly. “In that case, Cross, can you arrange a squad from the Project Purity garrison and send a message to Rivet City? Inform the Council of what’s happened, and ask them if I can meet with them as soon as possible. When the squad gets back with their reply, send another one to Galaxy News and bring Three Dog up to speed.”

“Of course.” Cross stood, saluted, and marched quickly out of the room. 

Sarah glanced at Lily, but the Senator held a hand up to cut her off “Don’t bother telling me to fuck off, I’ll go and contact the President.”

Without another word, Lily swept out of the room, leaving just Sunset and Sarah inside. As soon as the door closed, Sarah sighed heavily and slumped over in her chair. “This is a fucking mess.”

“Yeah,” Sunset mumbled in agreement. 

“The Citadel is bad enough, but we’ve barely got any personnel left,” Sarah continued. “Including everyone stationed here and at other outposts, we’ve probably got only a hundred people at most. Rothchild is dead, and so are all of our proctors, most of our Squires and Scribes, and most of our lower-ranked Knights.” She sat up straight and ran her hands through her hair. “The Lyons’ Pride made it out of the Citadel okay, and the Wonderbolts were stationed at Galaxy News, so we can at least protect our own holdings, but that’s about it. Unity has crippled us.”

“So, we need a recruitment drive?” Sunset asked.

Sarah let out a humorless chuckle. “I guess so. We’ll take a few days to regroup first, though. After everything that’s happened, everyone needs a break. We’ll keep busy with menial stuff. For now, go and see your friends. I’m sure you’ve missed each other.”

Sunset nodded wearily and stood up. She turned as she reached the door, but Sarah forestalled her, “If you’re going to offer sympathy, I appreciate it, but I just want to focus on getting the Brotherhood back on its feet for now.”

With another simple nod, Sunset left and closed the door behind her. Exhaustion was beginning to weigh heavily on her, and the various cuts, bruises, and splinters she had picked up during the battle were beginning to throb, but she refused to do anything else until she had spoken to her friends.

As it turned out, Sunset was so focused on her determination to find her friends that she didn’t notice them waiting as she entered the Jefferson Memorial’s foyer. She finally realized and jerked to a stop just as they all looked up at her. 

Rainbow was the first to step forward. She had thick gauze over both ears, and she was a little unsteady on her feet, but her eyes were clear as she stepped over and clapped her hands to Sunset’s shoulders. “Lily just told us what happened. That was the dumbest, most awesome fucking plan I’ve ever heard of,” Rainbow said a little more quietly than usual. Sunset grunted as she was pulled into a tight hug. “Thanks for having our backs.”

Sunset suddenly found herself squashed in from all sides as the others crammed in for a big group hug. She tried to say something, to ask how everyone was, but she couldn’t get the words out. After a couple of attempts she gave up and just rested her head on Rainbow’s shoulder, finally allowing herself to relax.





“Hey there, chiiildren, you’re listening to Galaxy News Radio with me, Three Dog! We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you a special live update from the middle of the D.C hell-hole. 

Brace yourself, children; this one’s rough.

If you’ve been following my broadcasts for the last few days, you’ll know that the Citadel had been occupied by some former Enclave experiment calling herself Unity. This psychotic freakshow was planning on using some sort of sick mind control to turn the whole Capital Wasteland into her own personal slave army. As if we didn’t have enough crap to worry about. 

Thankfully, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, the Enclave decided to stick to the peace treaty. In fact, they even sent in a strike team alongside the Rainbooms to try and take Unity out earlier today, and a messenger from the Brotherhood of Steel turned up here not even half an hour ago with good news and bad news from the operation.

The good news is that Unity has been officially and thoroughly wiped from existence, and the Brotherhood of Steel has been liberated. 

The bad news is that the Citadel has been completely reduced to rubble, and the Brotherhood itself was badly mauled by Unity’s monster army. 

Obviously, this is going to have repercussions across the whole Capital Wasteland. The Brotherhood’s new Elder, Sarah Lyons, has assured me that the Brotherhood is going to keep distributing the water from Project Purity, but they’re going to be focusing most of their efforts on protecting important locations around the wastes while they build their numbers back up. 

All of this means that, for the time being, the Enclave is going to be taking the Brotherhood’s place in patrolling the wastes. Lucky us.

I’m not gonna lie, this all seems more suspicious than a crate of pure water just sitting in the middle of the road, but the Brotherhood says that we should trust the Enclave this time around. I don’t like it, but I guess we don’t have much of a choice. Just be careful out there, folks. President Shoichet might talk a fine game, but this is the Enclave we’re dealing with here. 

At least the Rainbooms and Liberty Prime are still alive and kicking, and it looks like Rivet City is going to be putting up the Brotherhood, so things aren’t totally going to hell. 

Until next time, chiiildren! This is Three Dog, awoooo, and you’re listening to Galaxy News Radio; your voice in the darkness. Or at least, the radiation.”
> Chapter 150 - Steel Rivets
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Am I hallucinating?” Sunset asked as she stared, awestruck, at what lay ahead.

“I don’t think so?” Sarah replied, though she too was clearly amazed at what she was seeing. “I’d heard the reports, but seeing it in person is… wow.”

Rivet City was almost unrecognizable. Nearly the entirety of the aircraft carrier’s structure had been restored somehow, replacing crumbling rust with gleaming steel, and that was only the beginning of its changes. The metallic trees growing from the city had spread and multiplied to the point that it looked like the ship was slowly turning into a forest, with branches and thickets reaching out from various parts of the hull, and what looked like an entire woodland rising out from the flight deck. Between the occasional pulses of magic in the trees and the reflection of snow on steel, Rivet City literally shone like a beacon, and the constant movement of the cloud of metal debris floating above it all glittered beautifully. 

Sunset couldn’t help but marvel about how the city had gone from being a broken down old weapon of war to something that looked like it belonged in a young adult high fantasy novel.

Sarah shook herself and glanced back at the others. Aside from her and Sunset, the only other people present were the Lyons’ Pride, acting as escort. “Alright, enough gawking. We’re not going to get anything done if we just stand around here with our mouths open.” 

“Yes ma’am!” Sunset and the Pride followed as Sarah led the way towards the bridge structure. 

The weather must have reduced the usual flow of traffic to and from the city to a trickle, but there was evidently enough activity for someone to bother hiring a whole team of people to shovel snow off the road. A squad of security officers was keeping a watchful eye out for any dangers.

The reactions the people had to seeing the Brotherhood Knights was less warm than Sunset had hoped. Some of them nodded respectfully, some gave looks of sympathy or relief, but several of them just completely ignored the group, or even snorted and muttered darkly as they passed. Many of the people giving the Brotherhood the cold shoulder were ones that Sunset recognized as having loudly proclaimed how grateful they were to the Brotherhood in the past. It infuriated her, but she kept her mouth shut. 

Thankfully, both the boarding structure and the bridge were clear of snow and ice. There were four security officers guarding the city entrance, two of whom stepped forward as the group approached. “Elder Lyons, we were told to expect you soon.”

Sarah stiffened at the use of her new title, but she kept her composure. “I have an appointment with the Council. May we wait inside?”

“Of course, the waiting room has already been prepared for you,” one of the security officers replied. “As always, I’m afraid your escort will have to wait in a separate waiting room. Refreshments will be provided for them.”

“Yeah, we know the drill. Thanks.” Sarah was first through the door. Once everyone was inside, the Pride split off to find their usual waiting area, while Sarah and Sunset headed upstairs with one of the security officers. 

Sunset had forgotten just how many stairs there were in Rivet City, not to mention how cramped the corridors were. Toddling along behind someone in power armor certainly didn’t help with the latter. On the plus side, the interior of the aircraft carrier was somehow even more breathtaking than the exterior. 

Almost every metal surface gleamed as if it was fresh out of the factory. Metallic vines wound themselves around the handrails, leafy branches made of steel sprouted from the walls, and every other panel sported intricate crystalline whorls or rainbow-colored etchings. As if that wasn’t enough, there were sparkling butterflies in every possible color flitting around in what could only be described as a lackadaisical manner. There were a few rare patches where the metal walls were still rusted, but they were being tended to by technicians using some odd turquoise paste that was almost certainly magical. 

Finally, after more stairs and corridors than Sunset had seen in a while, the pair arrived at the waiting room. “I’ll inform the councilors that you’re here,” the security officer said as he opened the door for the women. “They shouldn’t be long.”

The two nodded their thanks and stepped inside. It was a simple, plain room, with a small table and a few comfy-looking chairs for visitors. A couple of glasses sat on the table next to a jug of water. Sunset relaxed at the sound of the door closing behind her and dropped into one of the chairs. “Why do I get the feeling that some of the people here don’t like us anymore?” She asked irritably as she pulled off her winter gloves and tossed them onto the table. 

Sarah just stomped over to one corner, got out of her armor, then shambled over to slump in the chair opposite Sunset. “Some people only like you if you’re powerful, or if you’re useful without directly affecting them.” She poured herself a glass of water and chugged it before continuing, “I suspect that Bannon is going to be one of those people. He agreed to at least hear us out, but anything we ask for will come with a significant price tag.”

“I haven’t dealt with him much before, but yeah, he seems like one of those guys who only cares about profit and influence,” Sunset agreed. “Negotiating with Harkness and Pia will be much easier. I’m pretty good friends with both of them, and they’re both pretty open-minded. Harkness will be interested in anything that’s likely to make life safer for the residents here, and Pia is very grateful for all the help we’ve given in terms of tech and food production. Just don’t mess with her little daughter.”

Confusion flickered across Sarah’s face, but only for a moment. “Oh, yeah, her daughter is the one with the Geode.” She shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t particularly like the idea of leaving something like that unguarded and in the hands of a child, but there isn’t much I can do about it without antagonizing the people of Rivet City. We’ve got bigger issues to deal with at the moment.”

Sunset nodded and leaned back in her chair. She briefly cast about for something to talk about, but it was Sarah who spoke first, “While I’ve got you here, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

“What is it?” Sunset asked, wondering if this was about her medication.

“Once this meeting is done, I’m promoting you to Paladin,” Sarah said bluntly. 

Sunset looked over at her in surprise. “Really?! Why?”

“Because you’ve done more than enough to earn it,” Sarah replied. “I’ll bump the rest of the Rainbooms up a rank, too, and I’m planning on doing the same for Adam and Fawkes as soon as they get back from… wherever the hell they are.”

“I… wow. Okay, thanks.” Sunset was surprised at the sudden promotion, but she wasn’t about to argue about it. “As for Adam and Fawkes; they were heading to a place called Canterbury Commons, but that was several days ago, now. Either way, Fawkes has a good sense of direction, so they should be fine.”

Sarah gave her a curious look, but before she could ask anything there was a polite knock at the door and a security officer poked his head in. “Elder, Knight-Captain, the Council will see you now.”

The two women nodded and followed the officer, leaving Sarah’s power armor behind. Sunset was mildly concerned about leaving it unattended, but Sarah was insistent that no-one would be able to use it but her. A short walk later, the two were at the Council Room.

Sunset felt a little nostalgic as she stepped inside. The walls were shiny and clean instead of rusted and old, but Bannon, Pia, and Harkness all looked much the same as they had been the last time she’d seen them. Bannon was just as polished, Pia was wearing the same stained old lab coat over her overalls, and Harkness still had his well-worn uniform and armor. There was even the same little recorder in the middle of the table. The three of them rose from their seats as Sarah and Sunset entered.

“Elder, Knight-Captain, it’s good to see you both again,” Harkness greeted them, gesturing to two empty chairs opposite. “It’s a shame it’s under such difficult circumstances.” 

“Likewise,” Sarah replied as everyone sat down. “I appreciate you agreeing to meet us on such short notice.”

“Of course, we owe the Brotherhood and the Rainbooms a lot!” Pia said earnestly. 

Sunset expected Bannon to cut in; Pia’s words were hardly wise from a negotiating standpoint, but he merely gave a noncommittal tilt of the head and glanced at Harkness. “I imagine that our allies are just as busy as we ourselves are, so perhaps we should get this meeting underway as quickly as possible.”

Harkness raised an eyebrow at him, apparently just as surprised as Sunset, but he dutifully pressed a button on the recorder. “This is the third supplementary council meeting regarding yesterday’s incident at the Citadel. In attendance are myself, Chief Harkness, as the security representative, Bannon as the civilian representative, and Pia Nalaar as the science representative. Also present are Elder Sarah Lyons and Knight-Captain Sunset Shimmer as representatives of the Brotherhood of Steel.”

“The message you sent yesterday stated that you were willing to offer temporary accommodation for some of our personnel,” Sarah put in. 

“It did, and we are sticking to that,” Harkness assured her. “Having said that, Rivet City has grown considerably over the last couple of months, both in terms of population and economic stability.”

“Food production has gone through the roof since the trees started growing,” Pia explained. “It’s gotten to the point that we’ve had to hire a whole team just to harvest our crop on a daily basis. Our storage rooms are filling up with apples faster than we can eat, sell, and even export the damned things. It’s a good problem to have, but…”

Harkness nodded grimly. “Unfortunately, between that and the amount of people who have moved in, space is at even more of a premium than it was before. We can house some of your personnel, but it won’t be many, and I’m afraid that we’ll need the Brotherhood to assist with maintenance and security duties while they’re here.”

“We’ll help out however we can, that’s perfectly fine, but how many people can you take?” Sarah asked.

“Twenty with armor. Thirty or maybe forty if we don’t need to make room for storing and maintaining their power armor,” Harkness replied.

“We could fit more if we let them stay in the upper decks as well,” Pia added with a sharp look at Bannon.

Bannon just rolled his eyes. “As I’ve said before: The rooms in the upper decks are the most expensive and sought-after in the entire city, and are only available to those who can pay the higher rates. Only the Council itself is exempt from that rule. I have no issue with preparing a room in the upper decks for the esteemed Elder,” he nodded at Sarah, “but I doubt that the Brotherhood has enough resources for more than that.”

“The Brotherhood has done a lot for us,” Pia began.

“And we have done a lot for them,” Bannon countered. “Let’s not forget that most of our science team abandoned us and is still working at Project Purity, and our brave security officers are risking their lives to help distribute the Aqua Pura to the other wasteland settlements. Our resources are increasing, but the amount of space we have is currently not.”

Harkness shook his head and gave the visitors an apologetic look. “I hate to say it, but I don’t think we can just open up the upper decks, either. It would cause too much friction with both the upper deck residents and the lower deck residents.”

The lack of space was a blow, but not an unexpected one. Sarah had come prepared. “I’ll accept any space we can get, but if it’s a matter of payment, I’m more than happy to have some of my Paladins assist with training the security teams, and our Scribes would naturally be willing to accelerate your science team’s research.”

“Not to mention the Rainbooms,” Sunset added. “You already know how much help I can be with studying magic, and Twilight is amazing with physics, robotics, and computers. Hell, I imagine that Fluttershy and our surviving medics would be more than happy to help out in the clinic if it comes down to it.” She fixed Bannon with a look. “We may not be bringing caps in directly, but it’ll save the Council from having to hire extra people for the time being.”

Bannon hummed and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “That seems reasonable enough. Very well, I’ll agree to allow the use of more upper deck rooms on a temporary basis under those terms. Are we all in favor?” Harkness and Pia both nodded and voiced their agreement for the recorder. “Excellent, a unanimous vote. Now that that is out of the way, we have a proposal for the Brotherhood of Steel.”

“A proposal for us?” Sarah asked warily. 

“You don’t have to agree to it, but it would help us out a great deal, and we would make it worth your while,” Harkness said reassuringly. “Put simply, we’re looking to expand Rivet City.”

Pia nodded and held up a clipboard. “The bow of the ship would be an obvious first choice for this, but we also want to build up the area around the bridge platform.”

“That’s ambitious, but it sounds like a good idea,” Sunset remarked.

“Definitely,” Pia agreed. “That said, it’s such a massive project that we’re having trouble getting enough resources and manpower together to actually do it. We need construction equipment and materials, heavy machinery for shifting debris, furnishings for whatever we build, laborers to do the work, and supplies for everything on top of all of that.”

“Which is where the Brotherhood comes in,” Sarah noted. 

Pia dropped the clipboard and smiled reassuringly. “We’re not expecting miracles. This sort of thing isn’t going to be done overnight, but having power-armored help will get things done a lot quicker and safer.”

“In return, if the Brotherhood helps us, we’re happy for you to use parts of the new expansion for your own purposes,” Harkness added. “A new HQ, training areas, labs, whatever. We’ll even help you build it.”

Sarah glanced sidelong at Sunset, but all she could offer was a shrug. After a few moments’ consideration, Sarah sighed and turned to the others. “Okay. Give us a few days to regroup, then we’ll assist with Rivet City’s expansion.”
> Chapter 151 - Sobering Thoughts
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The flight deck was refreshingly peaceful. There was only a light dusting of snow, though whether that was because of the magic all around or just good maintenance was difficult to tell, and the few people up there were all either security officers or residents just taking a stroll. It was the perfect place to get some peace and quiet, not to mention a little fresh air.

Sunset leaned against the railings and looked out over the wastes. The view was spectacular. Snow was falling thickly, obscuring everything further away than the riverbank below. Sunset could just about make out the team of workers shoveling snow on the far side of the river and, beyond them, the towering silhouettes of the downtown D.C. ruins. The contrast of pristine white snow against dark concrete gave the scenery a haunting, melancholic beauty.

Footsteps crunching through snow let Sunset know that someone was approaching, but she didn’t bother reacting even as they leaned against the railings next to her.

“I thought I might find you up here,” Harkness started. 

“It’s quiet,” Sunset said simply. 

“That it is.” Harkness quietly cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about what happened at the Citadel. That can’t have been easy for you.” When Sunset didn’t reply, he asked gently, “How are you coping?”

Sunset shook her head, not taking her eyes off the buildings ahead. “Medication and wishful thinking.”

Harkness hesitated before he spoke again, “There’s nothing wrong with getting medicated if you need it. How are the other Rainbooms doing?”

“Not great. We haven’t really spoken about it. I guess we just aren’t really up to it right now.” Talking about the Citadel was the last thing Sunset wanted to do at that moment, so she decided to try and change the subject. She glanced sidelong at Harkness, noting that he was dressed in his usual uniform as if he wasn’t bothered by the cold. “What about you? How have things been?”

“So far so good,” Harkness replied. “It has been a little awkward since I regained my memories, but overall I’d say that the experience has been positive. I’ve even been able to work with the Railroad again. Subtly, of course, but I’ve managed to make their work at least a little easier.”

That was news to Sunset, who raised an eyebrow at him. “Have you managed to rescue more people from the Institute?”

“Not as such. The Commonwealth is too far away for me to affect anything directly, but I've been able to quietly funnel extra resources into the Railroad, as well as helping to set up safe-houses and sounding out potential sympathizers,” Harkness explained. “I’m told that there’s an operative escorting another liberated synth down here, but I don’t know any details.”

“That reminds me,” Sunset spoke up as a thought occurred to her. “I can’t imagine that Pinkerton will be happy about the city expanding into the bow of the ship.”

Harkness snorted. “I’ve already spoken to him, and he’s not. As a matter of fact, the old coot complained like hell and tried to refuse to give us permission. I tried to talk him around by pointing out that he could join the science team and get access to the magical research that they’ve been doing. But then the cheeky asshole had the gall to demand that he be reinstated as Rivet City’s science representative and be put in charge of the entire science team.” A dark scowl flashed across Harkness’ features. “I put my foot down at that point. Pia is doing a damned good job, I’m not going to kick her down just to satisfy Pinkerton’s fragile ego.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Sunset said honestly, grateful that Pia wasn’t about to get cast aside. “What are you going to do about Pinkerton, then? Is he going to stay in the bow?”

“It seems that way. I’ve promised that he’ll be left alone in his little lab if he stays, but he won’t be permitted to experiment with any of the magic we bring with us into the bow,” Harkness told her. “Pinkerton will have to earn that privilege.”

Before either of them could say anything else there was a loud rumble from below as the bridge extended. Sunset peered down over the edge to see who was arriving. Even with the snow and their drab armor, it was easy to make out the shockingly bright hair colors of her friends, accompanied by what looked like the Lyon’s Pride and half of the surviving Scribes and Squires. “That’s the rest of the Rainbooms. Did the Council let Doctor Preston know that Rainbow was coming in?”

Harkness nodded. “I saw to it myself. What about you? Are you injured?”

“Nothing serious. Just cuts, bruises, and a few nasty splinters. The medics patched it all up.” Sunset straightened up and stretched. “I’d better go down. See you later.”

“Before you go, there’s something you should know,” Harkness said quickly. “Over the last few weeks we’ve seen a huge increase in residents and visitors who follow those cults from Megaton, the Church of Atom or the Temple of Harmony.” Sunset groaned loudly, earning an amused smirk from Harkness. “We’ll have to discuss this properly today, but for now, go and see your friends.”




 
Rainbow was having trouble. She still couldn’t hear anything beyond the odd bout of tinnitus, and her ears were still in agony despite the stimpak and the Med-X she had been given. 

Worse than the pain was the thought that the deafness might be permanent. Rainbow hated the cliché, but she had never truly understood how much she relied on her hearing until it was gone. That had become abundantly clear just on the walk over to Rivet City. Rainbow could feel the snow crunching beneath her feet, and the metal of the bridge vibrating as everyone crossed it, but all of the other sounds one would normally expect just weren’t there.

Back home, deafness wasn’t such a huge issue. Sure, it sucked, but Rainbow knew plenty of people who had hearing aids or cochlear implants, and they all got on with their lives just fine. Here in the Capital Wasteland though, where a big part of staying alive was figuring out where the danger was coming from before it got you, being deaf was a potentially fatal handicap. A safe settlement like Rivet City was ideal for someone with a non-mobility related disability but, Rainbow, being benched while all of her friends went out and risked their lives in the wastes was unacceptable. Especially with another speedster on the loose.

Rainbow sighed heavily as she started up the stairs towards the clinic. A hand on her shoulder almost made her jump out of her skin, and she looked up to see Twilight watching her with concern. The egghead mouthed something that made Rainbow raise a disbelieving eyebrow. “Uh, no offense, Twi, but what the fuckballs does me being gay or not have to do with the current situation?”

Twilight slapped a palm to her forehead, then repeated what she had said, but this time adding in a quick point at Rainbow and a thumbs up. “Oh, heh, that makes more sense. Yeah, I’m okay, I just want to get to the doc and get this over with.” Glancing around at the others, Rainbow suddenly noticed that a few of the Rainbooms were missing. “Hey, where did Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy go?”

Once again, Twilight started mouthing something, but Rainbow couldn’t follow it in the slightest. Thankfully, Pinkie came to the rescue, holding out a sheet of violently pink paper covered in neon green drawings. The first drawings showed Applejack and Rarity barking at each other, while the second had Fluttershy pulling an angry face with her fangs out. “Uh, Applejack and Rarity need to talk, and Fluttershy is feeling all vampire-ish?” Rainbow asked.

Pinkie nodded proudly.

“Fair enough.” Rainbow paused as Twilight opened the door out of the stairwell, then dutifully followed as her and Pinkie headed into the corridors. 

Much to Rainbow's surprise, Sunset was already waiting outside the clinic. Sunset didn't bother trying to talk. Instead, she just extended a fist. Rainbow grinned and gave her a fist-bump, then turned to the door of the clinic and took a deep breath. "Okay. Let's do this."





The shiny new interior of Rivet City was beautiful, but Rarity was too distracted to appreciate it. 

Everything had gone to hell after the Rainbooms had returned from Vault 101. Mercifully, Rarity only remembered flashes of her time under Unity’s control, mostly just standing around posing or shifting broken crystals around, but one thing she remembered vividly was what that monster had tried to force to happen between herself and Applejack. Neither of the girls had really had an opportunity to talk about what had happened. Rarity didn’t even have the faintest idea of how to start such a conversation, but the moment she had seen Applejack split off from the group, Rarity had excused herself and followed along. 

Wherever Applejack was going, she was going there quickly, brusquely brushing off anyone who tried to get her attention. Rarity followed silently, afraid that she would be sent away as well.

Despite how much things had changed, it didn’t take Rarity long to figure out that they were heading for the labs. Sure enough, Applejack soon opened a door and stepped through into the upper level of the main lab. She glared left and right, non-verbally letting the nearby technicians know that they suddenly had jobs to do elsewhere, then leaned against the railing and looked down at the lab below. 

Her heart pounding, Rarity steeled herself and stepped up alongside her. She took it as a good sign that Applejack didn’t immediately tell her to go away. “Hey. Um… I think we need to, er, talk.” 

“Probably,” Applejack muttered.

Rarity winced and almost chickened out, but her and Applejack both deserved better than that. The problem was how to go about this. The mental link Unity had forced upon them had shown the girls everything they thought about each other; mushy feelings, sweet images, considerations of how to tell the other, and even sexual fantasies and the deepest kinks that they could barely admit even to themselves. In a way, Rarity and Applejack had never been so deeply connected before, but instead of being liberating, it had created a wall between the two that Rarity wasn’t sure she could overcome. 

When she realized that the silence was beginning to drag on, Rarity cleared her throat and decided that there was no easy way to do it. She just had to open her mouth and see where it got her. “So, ahem, I know that what Unity did was unconscionable, and the things she showed us were, well, embarrassing-”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Applejack growled. 

Rarity nodded and took a breath, scared at what her next words might bring. “It… it wasn’t a lie though, was it?”

Applejack pulled her hat down to cover her eyes. “No. No it wasn’t.” She shook her head slowly as a whirlwind of conflicting emotions savaged Rarity’s heart. “That’s probably why she did it.”

It took a moment for Rarity to realize what Applejack meant; that Unity had tried it as some sort of sick manipulation tactic or something, but before she could gather her thoughts enough to answer Applejack muttered softly, “I wonder how many others she got?”

“Others?” Rarity asked.

“Others like us. People who like each other,” Applejack said, her tone hardening as she clenched her fists. “We can’t have been the only people she tried to force together. How many Knights or Scribes did she try it with who didn’t manage to resist? How many Squires?”

Hearing that felt like a punch in the gut to Rarity. She hated to admit it, but she had never even considered the possibility that Unity would have tried to force other people to do the same thing. The idea of people being forced into intimate relations together, or worse, some poor young Squire with a precocious crush who suddenly found themselves being forced under a much bigger and older Knight, was revolting in the extreme. Being almost forced into that position was bad enough; Rarity wasn’t sure how she would cope if it had actually happened.

Some dark part of Rarity’s mind wondered if some of the people they had lost at the Citadel were ones who had been broken by their experiences, and just not bothered trying to escape or fight back. Suddenly Rarity’s concerns about what Unity had revealed didn’t seem quite so urgent.

With a sigh, Rarity hung her head and sagged against the railings. 

“Sorry,” Applejack said quietly. “Ah know we should probably talk about, y’know, us and stuff, but… Ah can’t right now. Not yet.”

“Of course, darling,” Rarity replied. “Of course.”





Fluttershy needed blood. She hadn’t had any since leaving Vault 101, and almost her entire supply had been given to injured Brotherhood personnel while she was under Unity’s control. On top of that, all of the stress of the mind control, the battle, and the ensuing use of her magic had brought Fluttershy’s vampiric instincts right to the surface.  

At first, Fluttershy had decided to simply hold out until she got to Rivet City’s clinic, buy a few blood packs, then find a quiet spot to satisfy her cravings. Unfortunately, she had underestimated just how much the city would affect her. 

The cramped corridors of Rivet City absolutely reeked of humanity. There were the expected tangs of oil and metal, along with the tingling scent of dozens of different kinds of magic, but all of that paled in comparison to the miasma of bodily fluids and functions, even traces of blood, that swirled so thickly that Fluttershy was almost sure that she should be able to see it. Layered over the smells was a cacophony of conversations from every direction, all underscored by a constant thrum of beating hearts echoing through the narrow corridors. A forbidden feast just waiting for someone to dine.

Fluttershy had to go. Her hunger was going into overdrive, and it was all she could do to keep herself from leaping on the nearest person. She clamped a hand over her nose and mouth, then indicated to Pinkie that she was leaving and headed off down a side corridor, trying to find somewhere quiet away from everyone where she could calm down. The broken area where the bow had split off from the rest of the ship seemed like the best option; only maintenance workers and security officers usually went that way, and rarely at that.

Luckily for the residents of Rivet City, Fluttershy’s enhanced senses also made it easier for her to find the deserted corridors and stairways. That meant that she had to take a long and winding path through the ship, but it got easier the further she got away from the marketplace and the residential areas. Only maintenance workers and patrolling security officers came this far out on a regular basis.

As Fluttershy was stalking through the corridors, near an old munitions store, she heard a loud bang and a sudden yelp of pain, immediately followed by a string of colorful curses. It sounded like a maintenance worker had managed to hurt themselves.

Without thinking about what she was doing, Fluttershy clutched her nursing kit tight and hurried towards the sound, intent on helping out. It only took a couple of seconds for her to realize that she was making a terrible mistake, but just as she stopped and went to turn away the scent of freshly spilled blood reached her nostrils. 

The smell almost shattered Fluttershy’s resolve. She staggered away, covering her nose again, but it was too late. Fluttershy’s Geode flashed, her fangs and claws lengthened, and leathery wings burst out of her back as her vampirism fought to take over.  

Using the last of her crumbling self-control, Fluttershy hurled herself back and sped away from the maintenance worker. She careened through the maze of corridors at a breakneck pace, missing the walls by a hair’s breadth as she tore around corners while using her wings and arms to maintain as much speed as she could muster. 

Finally, one of the doors to the broken section of the ship came into view. Fluttershy had heard that they were all locked, but she didn’t care as she wrenched the wheel-handle around and shoved the door open. She had barely slammed the door shut behind her when the raw fishy stench of mirelurk punched her in the face.

Fluttershy stopped in her tracks and wrinkled her nose. Even in her vampire form, mirelurks smelled appalling. She stepped towards the broken edge of the ship, barely three feet in front of her, and looked down. 

The bow of the ship was mostly just as rusted and weathered as it had ever been. In some places, however, metallic branches and roots had grown out of the main body of Rivet City and reached across the gap, as if the ship was trying to slowly put itself back together. Below that, the river was calmly lapping against the lower levels of the ship. Mirelurks could just about be seen idly swimming around in it. 

Fluttershy grimaced and looked away. She needed to find blood somehow, and quickly, but there was no way she could go back inside Rivet City to get some. There was no way Fluttershy could put innocent people in danger like that. Then again, people weren’t likely to complain if she targeted someone who was not innocent, and the metro tunnels under the D.C. ruins were known to occasionally hold raiders. 

Guilt coursed through Fluttershy the moment she thought it, especially when she remembered that Squire Peters used to be one of those same raiders. 

As the vampiric nurse wrestled with the conflicting sides of her own nature, the sound of a falling chunk of masonry in the ruins to the north caught her attention. 

It was probably nothing, but Fluttershy’s instincts told her that it was worth checking out. Stealthily. She couldn’t see the ruins from where she was standing, but her vampiric strength and agility made it easy for her to climb up the damaged side of the ship, seeking a better vantage point. 

A couple of decks up, Fluttershy found a suitable hole in the hull that she could look through without being easily seen in turn. 

There was nothing obvious to be seen at first. The workmen had finally given up trying to shovel away the endless snowfall and were heading back to the bridge, but that was it. It was possible that one of them had thrown something, but Fluttershy didn’t think so. 

As the bridge extended to let the workmen back in, there was a tiny flicker near the top of one of the ruined office buildings, like a light reflecting off of glass. 

Fluttershy hissed softly and shrugged off her sniper rifle. She had no intention of shooting, but the telescopic sight would be more effective than even her enhanced eyes. Flutters rested the sniper rifle in the hole and pointed it towards the flicker that she had seen. She sucked in a sharp breath as she spotted a man observing Rivet City’s bridge through a pair of binoculars. The black armor he was wearing was instantly recognisable. 

Talon Company. 

Murderers.

Prey.

Fluttershy gently set her sniper rifle down, she could easily come back for it when she was done, then climbed back down the ship until she was on the deck closest to the water. Mirelurks looked up at her and burbled angrily, but she ignored them. 

With a snap of her wings, Fluttershy leapt off the deck and flew behind the bow, making sure that she was out of sight of the ruins. Once she was past the bow, she banked and swooped in a wide circle, crossing the river, then flapped hard and rose until she was soaring over the ruins themselves. 

It didn’t take long for Fluttershy to find the building that the Talon Company mercenary was in. In fact, as she approached, she heard the heartbeats of three people. One was the man she had seen observing the bridge to Rivet City, another was grumbling about the cold a floor below, and the third was walking off on his own for some reason. His aim became clear when he stopped, unzipped something, then sighed with relief as the sound of tinkling water echoed through the building. 

Fluttershy hissed and glided down to land silently on the roof of the building. There were holes all over the place, and there were plenty of cracks where sharp claws could find purchase, allowing a skilled predator to stealthily climb down without anyone hearing. 

Within seconds, Fluttershy was standing next to a hole in the floor above the Talon Company mercenaries, the poor fool who had emptied his bladder utterly unaware of the beast stalking him in the shadows. She bared her teeth and dropped through the hole, landing in a silent crouch right behind the man. 

The man coughed and did his fly back up, then turned to head back to his colleague. He had no idea that he was in any danger until needle-sharp fangs buried themselves in his throat.





The Vertibird shuddered slightly as it turned towards Project Purity. Becky barely noticed. She was too busy mentally reviewing everything she needed to discuss with Elder Lyons and, possibly, Rivet City Council. 

First, the President intended to stop off at the purifier and debrief Senator Lily. Then, while another Vertibird carried Horrigan’s unconscious form back to the Exodus building, Becky would head up to Rivet City and hold what she hoped would be a fruitful discussion with her counterpart in the Brotherhood of Steel. Even if it wasn’t, there was to be another meeting taking place at the settlement, one that Becky was privately glad that she wouldn’t be present for.  

Glancing around the crew compartment, Becky saw that Luna, Trixie, and Sonata were all looking tense, though whether that was because of the turbulence, or the impending reunion with the Rainbooms, was impossible to tell.





Adam was confused. That wasn't exactly unusual, but this was one of those occasions where he couldn't just accept it and try to muddle things through.

Snow crunched as Fawkes stepped up alongside him, a rescued young boy named Brian Wilks sitting on his shoulders. Both looked confused and more than a little afraid. Adam could hardly blame them.

Taking a few more steps forward, Adam took his helmet off and stared, dumfounded, at the wreckage-ringed crater where the Citadel used to be. Enclave and Brotherhood troops alike were picking through the debris. "What the fuck happened here?!"
> Chapter 152 - Gathering the Rainbow
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The corridor outside the clinic was, mercifully, completely empty. Sunset closed the door to said clinic, then sighed and sagged against the nearest wall. Rainbow, Twilight, and Pinkie were all still inside, all digesting the news that the doctor had given them. 

Sunset was never sure what to say when someone was hurt. Sometimes, it was relatively obvious, but more often than not nothing came to mind beyond empty platitudes, and Sunset was pretty sure that Rainbow wouldn’t appreciate them in this case, even if she could hear them. Fluttershy was always better at this sort of thing. 

“Um, are you alright?” Sunset looked around, then smiled softly. As if in answer to her thoughts, Fluttershy was standing in the corridor, looking mildly worried. 

Sunset opened her mouth to reply, then did a double-take as she saw the state that the young nurse was in. Her right arm was utterly soaked in blood, and more of it was liberally splattered over the rest of her. She even had a new weapon slung over her shoulder. “I’m fine, what the fuck happened to you?!” Sunset exclaimed.

“Oh, um, nothing much,” Fluttershy replied evasively, a slow blush creeping onto her cheeks. “I… may have run out of blood and had to go find some, and, well, I found a Talon Company squad spying on Rivet City’s entrance. One of them had enough magic to put up a fight. Do you have any sapient creatures in Equestria that have feathers and talons?”

“Sounds like either a griffon or a hippogriff. You weren’t injured, were you?” Sunset let out a relieved breath as Fluttershy shook her head. “Good.” She gestured to the new weapon over Fluttershy’s shoulder. “I’m guessing that’s where you got that?”

Fluttershy nodded and unslung the weapon, revealing it to be a combat shotgun bearing Talon Company’s logo on the barrel in white paint. “I was going to give it to Pinkie, so she has a weapon she can use without nearly blowing herself up everytime she pulls the trigger. They also had a laser pistol, a couple of knives and grenades, and a couple of other bits and pieces. I’ll sort through them later.” She patted her nursing kit, and Sunset had a momentary flash of how weird it was to be casually discussing looting corpses with Fluttershy. The moment quickly passed when Fluttershy’s eyes flicked to the clinic door. “How is Rainbow doing?”

Sunset sighed and glanced at the door as well. “Could be better. The doc says that her ears are ruined, and they’re not likely to heal on their own. She’s completely deaf.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Fluttershy said sadly. “Is there anything Doctor Preston can do for her?” 

Sunset could only shrug helplessly. “Doc says he has some implants that should help, but he’ll have to operate to put them in, and she’ll still have to wear hearing aids even with the implants.”

“What about the-” Fluttershy was interrupted by a security officer hurrying around the corner. 

Relief flashed across his face as he spotted the girls. “Knight-Captain Shimmer!”

“Paladin,” Sunset corrected, earning a surprised look from Fluttershy.

“Oh, sorry.” The security officer dithered for a second, then cleared his throat and straightened up. “Er, Paladin Shimmer, Chief Harkness asked me to let you know that the President of the Enclave has arrived for an emergency meeting with the Council and Elder Lyons.” The officer held a letter out to her. “The President also asked that we give you this.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow as she took the letter. “Does the Chief want me at the meeting?”

“He said it’s up to you, but the Enclave President said that you’d probably prefer not to,” the security officer replied. 

Confused and more than a little curious, Sunset opened the envelope and unfolded the letter inside. It was a short message, handwritten by Becky, but it made a heavy weight drop in Sunset’s stomach nonetheless. “Shit.”

“What is it?” Fluttershy asked, her voice tense.

“Something I haven’t had a chance to prepare for yet.” Sunset tucked the letter away and fixed the security officer with a serious look. “I need a meeting room big enough for ten people, as quickly as possible. Do you have one available?”

To his credit, the officer didn’t ask what she needed such a big room for. “The Merchants’ Committee has a room set aside for discussing things with the Merchant Representative. They’re in session at the moment, but Bannon is going to be at the Council meeting, so they should be leaving any minute now. That’ll be big enough.”

Sunset nodded and turned to Fluttershy. “Do you and the rest of the girls know where that is?”

“Rainbow and Rarity will,” Fluttershy replied, clearly intensely curious. “Pinkie probably does as well.”

“Perfect. Okay, round everyone up, have them drop their stuff off at their rooms, and get them over there as quickly as you can. I’ll head over there first.” Sunset quickly glanced back at the security officer. “Can you take me there, please?”

“Of course. Follow me.” Sunset gratefully fell into step behind the officer, her head whirring as she tried to figure out how to contain the coming addition to the week’s clusterfuck.

The room for the Merchants’ Committee did indeed turn out to be empty. It was situated on what could most accurately be called the middle deck, right between the wealthy upper decks and the less well-off lower decks. It had several tables inside all pushed together to form one long one, with rows of chairs on either side, easily long enough to sit ten people on either side. Sunset couldn’t help but notice that the Merchant Representative’s chair at the head of the table was a sumptuous armchair, considerably nicer and more comfortable than the others. Bannon really didn’t miss any opportunity to show off his wealth and status.

“Will this room do?” The security officer asked.

“It’s perfect, thanks,” Sunset replied. “Would you mind going back to the Enclave group for me, please? They’ve brought some people with them that we need to talk to.”

“Do you want them brought here?” The officer waited for her to agree before nodding and leaving.

Left by herself, Sunset dropped into the Representative’s chair and let herself just melt into it. The armchair was as comfortable as it looked, almost on par with the ones the Enclave used, but she was mainly using it so she could try to prevent any attempted murders on one of the people who was about to arrive. 

As the seconds slowly ticked over into minutes, Sunset realized that she might be left alone with her thoughts for longer than she was comfortable with, so she quickly pulled out her Nova Pistol and started tinkering with it to try and occupy herself. Just as she was wondering if she could find a more efficient configuration for its plasma inductors, the door opened and the rest of the Rainbooms filed in. All of them looked anxious, curious, or a mix of the two, and for some reason Applejack had a terminal tucked under one arm.

Sunset jerked her chin towards it as she holstered her pistol. “What’s that for?”

“It’s for Rainbow,”Twilight answered. “I’ve gotten a lot of practice at typing using my magic, so I’m going to type out everything we say so Rainbow can keep up with our conversations.”

Sunset felt her heart lift a little at the consideration. “That’s a great idea! Good thinking!”

“I still think it’s a little weird that those things are battery-powered,” Pinkie said absently as Applejack dumped the terminal on the table. “How long do those fission batteries last, anyway?”

“In a terminal like this, they’re rated for up to fifty years of daily use, but they can last a few centuries if you don’t use the thing that often,” Applejack told her. She tipped her hat back and turned to Sunset. “Anyhow, what the hell is goin’ on? Ah know that Becky has arrived, but what do you want us all to gather here for?”

“It’s… complicated,” Sunset replied awkwardly. She gestured to the seats. “Everyone sit down for the time being and I’ll explain until they get here.”

“They? Are we waitin’ for someone?” Applejack asked. When Sunset didn’t answer, she frowned and did as she was asked. 

The rest of the Rainbooms quickly sat down and looked at Sunset expectantly. No last-second flash of insight occurred to give her an easy way of telling them what had happened with the portal, so she just took a deep breath and went with her gut. “You know that the Exodus team was working on their own portal?” The others nodded, their expressions varying from doubtful to cautiously optimistic. “Well, it turns that out they managed to put together a complete prototype, and began testing.”

All of the others exclaimed loudly at that little reveal.

“Does this mean we get to go home?!” Rarity demanded.

Sunset tried to control her expression, but Twilight noticed her hesitation and sighed. “No, something went wrong. Did the dialing sequence fail?”

“No, it actually worked pretty well, apparently,” Sunset replied quickly, though her face fell a second later. “The problem is that Doctor Turner was broken out of confinement by a rebel, and he interfered with the experiment.”

Applejack swore and clenched her fists so hard her knuckles turned white. “Ah swear, if you’re about to tell me that that asshole sabotaged our way home, Ah’m gonna rip him apart like a pissed-off fox in a chicken coop,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Oddly enough, we think he was actually trying to help,” Sunset told her. “Tara’s plan was to test the system on a very low setting, so she could make sure that the systems were all working together properly and see if anything needed tweaking.” The grim looks on the others’ faces told Sunset that they all recognized the similarity to what had happened with the Diviner. “Turner thought that that way of doing things was too inefficient, so he secretly disabled the safety systems and pushed all settings up to maximum, which, of course, fried the circuits and wrecked the portal. The Exodus team are confident that they can rebuild it easily enough, but the SDT-1 was vaporized. We’ll have to find another one.”

“Great,” Twilight muttered. She took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes, then put them back on and sighed heavily. “Maybe we can still salvage something from this. If I can look at the data the Exodus team got from the failed experiment, I might be able to figure out what went wrong with the Geode Diviner in the first place, so we don’t eventually end up getting dragged into this world again.”

Sunset scowled and shook her head, her temper rising again from just thinking about what had truly happened. “I know what went wrong with the Diviner, and it didn’t have a fucking thing to do with any of us making a mistake.” As calmly as she could manage, Sunset explained what she had learned about Mandible, the human Shimmer, and their sabotage of the Geode Diviner. 

When she was done, the rest of the Rainbooms just sat in appalled silence. It was Fluttershy who eventually spoke first, “So this was all caused by the, um, human you, and a… changeling?”

“And the Dazzlings helped them,” Rainbow spat. She snarled and cracked her knuckles menacingly. “I swear, when we get back to CHS I’m going to wring their fucking necks.”

“Not if I get to them first,” Twilight cut in before turning to Sunset, “What I don’t understand is how you know all of this?”

“Someone else got dragged through from CHS,” Pinkie said grimly. 

Twilight shook her head vigorously. “Don’t even joke about something like that. Besides, it’s not possible. No-one else at CHS has magic.”

Sunset coughed quietly, making everyone stare at her in horror and disbelief. “Actually…”

Before she could explain any further, there was a loud knock at the door.
> Chapter 153 - Moons of Rivet City
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Project Purity was unlike anything Luna had ever seen before. It was housed in what must have once been a grand old building, built from stone with huge pillars lining the entrance, but the war and subsequent settlers had clearly left their mark. Metal framework had been installed in sections where the stone had been blown away, and immense steel pipes stretched out of the entrance and over or under a huge metal catwalk, dumping pure, clean water into the adjacent river. 

Luna, Trixie and Sonata were all standing on said metal catwalk, watching as people went about their work. There were several Enclave soldiers and scientists around, but there were also a few people wearing pale gray varieties of powered armor, more than a few clad in dark red robes like old-time scholars or monks, and also a handful of people wearing a much lighter type of combat armor and carrying simple machine guns. From what the Enclave had told her, Luna assumed that they were from the Brotherhood of Steel and security officers from a settlement called Rivet City; the two main factions who worked together to get the purifier up and running in the first place.

“What’s that?” Luna turned to see Trixie pointing at something in the river below. 

“Some sort of weird horseshoe crab?” Sonata suggested.

Pulling her hood tighter around her head in an attempt to keep the snow away, Luna stepped up alongside them and peered into the water. There was some sort of creature swimming in the river, with only its pale blue shell breaking the surface. Sonata was right that it looked like a horseshoe crab, but it was way bigger than it should have been, and Luna had always thought that they crawled along the bottom of the riverbed rather than swimming on the surface. 

A passing woman wearing a scarlet robe chuckled and shook her head. “I still find it weird that you Enclave types have never seen wasteland wildlife before. Those are what we call mirelurks.”

“Mirelurks?” Luna echoed curiously. 

The woman stopped and nodded. “Yeah. You’re not actually that far wrong, they’re descended from horseshoe crabs that were mutated by radiation after the bombs fell.” She stepped over to the edge of the catwalk and looked down at the mirelurk swimming lazily around. “Most of the mirelurks in this stretch of the river are dying off, we think they can’t survive in water that isn’t irradiated, but it looks like there’s some that are adapting to it. We’re safe up here, but be careful if you have to go anywhere near the riverside. Those things are lethal.”

“Thanks, we’ll be careful,” Luna assured her, privately hoping that she would never have any reason to go near the riverside.

The woman made to turn away and go about her business, but she did a double-take as she got a glimpse of Luna’s face under the hood. “Wait, your skin… are you another Rainb-”

“On your way, Scribe,” a powerful voice called out through crackling speakers.

The Scribe almost jumped out of her skin and hurried off, squeezing past two power-armored Brotherhood soldiers who were walking side-by-side toward the group. 

Luna felt herself tensing as the two approached, but then they parted to reveal a squad of Enclave troopers behind them. President Shoichet and Agent Drops were both safely ensconced in the middle of the group. 

“Get behind us please, ladies,” one of the Brotherhood soldiers said, the speaker in his helmet crackling as he spoke. “We’ll take you to the perimeter safely.”

“The perimeter?” Luna asked.

“It’s not currently safe to land a Vertibird close to Rivet City, so we’re going to have to walk,” the President explained. “These Paladins have offered to escort us to the city limits.”

Luna was more than a little concerned about the implication that the journey might be dangerous, especially given that she had Trixie and Sonata to think about, but she kept quiet and simply ushered the two girls into the middle of the group with the President. 

“Is it far from here?” Trixie asked, eyeing the falling snow dubiously as the group set off. 

“It’s just up the road,” one of the Paladins replied. “If it wasn’t snowing so heavily, you’d be able to see the bow of the ship from just at the end of this walkway.”

Sunset had already mentioned that Rivet City was actually a settlement founded aboard a beached aircraft carrier, but Luna was still having trouble picturing just what such a settlement would look like, and figuring out the logistics of fitting so many people onto a ship and keeping them supplied was enough to make her head spin. 

With a shake of her head, Luna put such thoughts from her mind and concentrated on where she was putting her feet. The people in charge of Project Purity had gritted the walkway thoroughly, but there were still enough traces of icy slush around to make footing treacherous. The ramp at the end of the walkway was particularly tricky to get down without slipping.

The moment they stepped off the walkway, the group found themselves in thigh-deep snow. Luna was silently thankful for the power-armored troops in front carving deep furrows for the others to walk through. 

“Damn it, what’s with this snow?” Agent Drops cursed as the snowfall thickened until visibility was reduced to barely ten yards. “Is it usually this bad in the Capital Wasteland?”

“No, this is the most snow we’ve had since the Brotherhood first set up shop here,” one of the Paladins replied. “It’s making travel a nightmare, but it’s also making it much less likely that we’re going to be ambushed by Super Mutants or raiders on the way over to Rivet City, so we shouldn’t complain too much right now.”

Luna agreed that avoiding ambushes was desirable, but the idea that there could be groups in the area that would do such a thing was more chilling than the weather. 

Silence fell, save for the crunch of snow underfoot as the group continued on. Agent Drops looked deceptively calm and unconcerned, but Luna noticed that her hand never strayed far from her gun holster, and she was subtly looking around a little too much for someone who was trying to be nonchalant. The fact that all of the soldiers were now keeping their weapons up and ready reinforced the sense that danger could be lurking anywhere just out of sight. 

Soon enough, the path started to slope upwards. Luna took the opportunity to remind the girls to watch their steps. A hidden rock or hole could prove just as dangerous as a hidden enemy under the wrong circumstances, but even a twisted ankle was something to avoid if at all possible. Trixie was so bundled up that her response was muffled, but Sonata nodded and cheerfully agreed, snow gathering in her hair as she ambled along with a vapid smile on her face. The siren looked for all the world as if she was out for a casual stroll. 

“Aren’t you cold?” Luna asked.

“Nope,” Sonata replied brightly. “I like snow, and the cold reminds me of home.”  Her tone was happy enough, and the sirens had done some awful things in the past, but Luna still felt a twinge of pity for her. Homesickness wasn’t pleasant. 

A loud metallic creak off to the right caught everyone’s attention. Squinting hard, Luna could just about make out a dark mass rising above the group. 

“It’s just the sound of the bow settling. It isn’t rooted to the ground like the rest of the ship yet, so it shifts slightly every now and again,” one of the Paladins explained. 

Continuing on, the dark metal of the bow was soon replaced with far cleaner-looking steel. The snow was too thick for Luna to make out much, but she assumed that it was the main body of Rivet City. The ground leveled off a short way further on. Barely moments later, a large squat structure loomed suddenly out of the snow ahead. 

The structure appeared to be made out of battered old steel. Around the base of it, several small shelters had been cobbled together out of what looked like scrap metal. A handful of people wearing some sort of combat armor were gathered around burning oil drums in the largest shelter. They all looked up as the group approached, then one of them sighed and reluctantly stepped away from the fire. “Hey there. You two Brotherhood guys can go on up, but what business does the Enclave have here?”

One of the Paladins stepped forward and raised a hand in greeting. “President Shoichet and her entourage are here to speak to Elder Lyons and the Rivet City Council. Us two are just here to provide an escort.”

“Fair enough.” The guard turned to face the Enclave personnel, clearly not interested in the Enclave’s new leader. “I don’t know if any of you have been here before, but we have strict restrictions on who we let in. Your soldiers will have to wait out here with us.”

“That’s fine,” President Shoichet replied, though Luna noticed that Agent Drops tensed up slightly at the suggestion. Ignoring her bodyguard, the President addressed her troops, “You heard him, wait here and get some rest until we get back.”

As the soldiers relaxed and stomped towards the various shelters, the guard beckoned to the women and gestured for them to follow him.

The guard led the smaller group into the structure and up a ramp inside. The ramp wound up through a few floors, all of which had even more guards inside chatting and working on paperwork of some sort. When they reached the top of the structure, which was mercifully clear of snow, the guard pressed a button on an intercom and spoke quickly into it. 

While the guard was speaking, Trixie sidled up to Luna and whispered anxiously, “Why won’t they let the soldiers up with us?” 

“I assume it’s for security reasons,” Luna whispered back. “I doubt the residents here feel comfortable letting in lots of armed strangers.” Trixie nodded, apparently mollified, so Luna turned her attention back to their surroundings. She looked around curiously, wondering how exactly they were going to get aboard the ship. Her question was answered seconds later as, with a faint whir of machinery, a gleaming metal bridge slowly shifted into view through the snow and slid into place against the structure.

“Alright, if you all head across, the officers on the other side will let you in,” the guard said. 

President Schoichet thanked the guard and took the lead across the bridge, forcing Agent Drops to hurry after her while the others followed at a slightly more sedate pace. At first, Luna felt a little worried that the bridge would flex horribly under their weight but, to her relieved surprise, it turned out to be a lot more stable than expected. A trio of guards were standing next to a pair of doors at the end of the bridge. All of them stared in blatant curiosity at Sonata, then eyed the other two, who had their hoods up, with naked suspicion. 

“We’re visitors from the Enclave, here to speak to your Council and Elder Lyons of the Brotherhood of Steel,” the President announced, snapping the three men out of their thoughts.  

“Do they know that you’re coming?” One of them asked.

“Elder Lyons was informed that I would be coming soon, so she will be expecting me,” President Shoichet replied. “As for your Council, they weren’t originally going to be part of this meeting. However, given that the Brotherhood of Steel is now more closely tied to Rivet City, and we are going to be discussing urgent military matters, I believe that they will want to be part of the discussion. Also, I’ll need this letter delivered to Sunset Shimmer as soon as physically possible.” She pulled a letter out of her pocket and held it out to the guards.

The three guards shared a concerned look. “I’ll take them to the security lounge,” one of them offered. “Murray, get on the intercom and have Chief Harkness meet us there; he’s got the authority to get the other councilors together if he thinks it’s necessary, then get that letter to Knight-Captain Shimmer. Ladies, this way, please.”

Agent Drops bristled at the guard’s less than respectful tone, but the President silenced her with a look and fell into step behind the man as he opened the door into the city.

Once inside, all of the women gasped in awe at the sight of the magical phenomena that filled the interior. The guard looked back at them with a stern frown, only for his eyes to almost pop out of his skull as he saw Luna and Trixie taking their hoods down. “The three of you really are-” He snapped his mouth shut, then sighed and directed the group past a narrow staircase in the middle of the room to a door opposite. “Come on, the T-Port to the tower is this way.”

“T-Port?” Agent Drops pressed.

“Teleporter,” the guard replied flatly as he led the way through cramped corridors. “We’ve got magic teleporters all over the ship to make traveling easier.”

Luna felt a thrill of excitement at the prospect of using a magical teleporter. Her eagerness vanished just as quickly as she realized that Sonata was about to have access to the magic as well. A quick glance showed that, thankfully, the thought didn’t seem to have occurred to the siren yet. Luna considered warning her not to do anything, but decided that it would be smarter not to give Sonata the idea in the first place and resolved to just keep an eye on her.

After a short walk, the guard stopped outside a door marked with a stylized purple star. He reached for the handle, but before he could touch it someone opened it from the other side.

“Oh, sorry, Officer Gregory. Didn’t see you there.” A young man wearing patchwork clothes stepped through the door with a quick apology, then froze in shock when he saw Luna, Trixie and Sonata.

“On your way, Jimmy,” Officer Gregory said firmly. 

Jimmy ignored him entirely. “More Goddesses?”

Officer Gregory frowned at him. “They’re not-”

“Are you more Sapphire Knights?” Jimmy asked eagerly, to Luna’s complete bewilderment. “Were you summoned by the Shimmering Goddess when she called down her wrath upon the Citadel?”

“Jimmy! We need to use the T-Port, so shift your ass!” Officer Gregory snapped. Jimmy apologized profusely and practically ran away down the corridor, making the officer sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose.

“The local cultists are probably going to go fucking feral after this,” he muttered.

Luna stared down the corridor after the odd man. “What was he-”

“It’s best if you speak to Chief Harkness first,” Officer Gregory said quickly, holding the door open and gesturing for the women to enter.

Luna wasn’t happy about being brushed off like that, but there was little that she could do about it for the moment, so she just bit her tongue and shooed the girls in after Agent Drops and President Schoichet. 

The T-Port turned out to be a large room, with a glowing purple circle that reminded Luna of Twilight’s magic covering the floor at the far end. A row of road work signs formed a makeshift fence in front of the circle, along with what Luna was shocked to realize was a battered old traffic light. A security officer was standing next to the traffic light, a technician was sitting at a desk on one side of the room typing away on a terminal, and a row of empty chairs sat opposite; presumably in case a queue formed. Both occupants of the room did a double-take when they saw the group.

“I’ve got a priority transfer for T-Port 3,” Officer Gregory said without preamble as he entered the room.

To her credit, the technician immediately got to work typing commands into her terminal. “Current charge is seventy four percent; enough for one trip of six people but we’ll have to refuel afterwards.” A few seconds later the traffic light switched from red to green. “T-Port 3 is clear and ready. You’re good to go.”

Officer Gregory gave a satisfied nod and stepped onto the circle. “Okay, everyone join me on the circle. Make sure that your arms and legs are completely within the boundary.”

Agent Drops scowled and turned to the President, but her expression brooked no argument as she stepped confidently onto the circle. Luna waited until Sonata and Trixie were safely situated before joining them herself, her heart beating just a little faster in anticipation. She had barely stepped fully into the circle before there was a loud bang and the world flashed purple.

The sudden transition made everyone except Luna and Officer yelp in surprise. Admittedly, the only reason that Luna didn’t cry out was through sheer luck rather than any fortitude, but she wasn’t about to tell any of the others. Blinking to clear the last few purple spots from her eyes, she saw that they were in an almost identical room, except the technician was an old man with dark brown skin and iron-gray hair. Out of the corner of her eye, Luna saw Agent Drops relax and slowly take her hand away from her sidearm

“Enclave and more Rainbooms? This is turning into one hell of a weird day,” the waiting security officer noted. 

“Tell me about it,” Officer Gregory grumbled. “If you see the Chief, let him know that we’re in the lounge.”

The technician and security officer both agreed, so Officer Gregory led the group out of the room and into the corridors outside. Luna braced herself for a trek through the corridors, or at least a meeting with more oddballs, but Gregory just took the group to the room right next door to the T-Port. Inside were several mismatched sets of tables and chairs, a fridge, and a handful of electrical appliances on a counter in the corner. Half a dozen security officers looked around as the group entered. 

“You must be the visitors I was told about.” One of the officers said as he stood up from one of the tables, making Officer Gregory straighten up. “Thanks, Greg, I’ll take it from here. You can rest for a minute then head back to your post.” Agent Drops visibly tensed as the officer stepped over to the President and offered his hand. “I’m Chief Harkness, head of Rivet City Security and a member of our Council. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” the President replied with an easy smile. “I’m President Shoichet of the Enclave. I’m afraid I have some important matters to discuss with both the Council and Elder Lyons of the Brotherhood of Steel.”

Chief Harkness nodded and stepped back, letting Agent Drops relax a little. “Yes, my officers relayed it to me through the intercom. I’ve already sent runners to the other Council members and Elder Lyons.” He glanced at Luna, Trixie, and Sonata. “I’m going to assume that you three are from the same reality as the Rainbooms?”

“Did Sunset tell you about us?” Luna asked, mildly surprised.

“Call it an educated guess,” Harkness replied. “The Council Room is ready, so we can wait there for the others to arrive if you wish, but I’m afraid the room isn’t big enough for all of us plus the Rainbooms.” 

Luna glanced sidelong at Becky, who gave her a subtle nod. This was something that they had discussed beforehand. “Myself, Sonata and Trixie would actually prefer to meet with the Rainbooms separately, if that’s alright?” Sonata grimaced at the suggestion, but her attempts to get out of it, reasonable as they were under the circumstances, had been shot down in the Vertibird. Even after Sunset’s reaction, Luna believed that the Rainbooms deserved the benefit of the doubt.

“Meeting the Rainbooms separately would definitely make things easier.” Harkness looked to the President. “Do you need Knight-Captain Shimmer to attend the meeting with the Council?”

“Not unless she wants to,” President Shoichet replied. 

“Not likely this time around, but we’ll give her the option.” Harkness turned to one of the security officers near the fridge. “Hey, Danvers, get Murray on the intercom and tell him to let her know about the Council meeting. If she wants to attend, that’s fine, but I doubt she will.” He waited for Danvers to do so, and she relayed back that Murray was on his way to the clinic to deliver the letter and wouldn’t be long. 

Luna felt a twinge of fear at the mention of the clinic. “Is Sunset injured?”

“She wasn’t when I spoke to her earlier today, so I assume that she’s checking up on Knight-Sergeant Dash,” Harkness replied, though that far from allayed Luna’s concerns. Seeing her expression, he held a hand up and explained before she could cut in, “I don’t know the full details, but I can assure you that it’s nothing life-threatening in any way. You have my word.” 

Being forced to rely on the word of a stranger didn’t particularly sit well with Luna, not when it came to her students’ health, but there wasn’t much that she could do about it for the time being. Besides, Sunset had vouched for Harkness’ integrity. “Alright, where should we go to meet the Rainbooms?”

Harkness opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again and hummed thoughtfully. “We’ll figure something out once we hear back from Murray. For now… should we postpone the meeting, or would you three prefer to wait here, and I’ll escort President Shoichet to the Council Room?” 

“We’re fine with that,” Luna replied. She glanced at the President, who gave her a nod. 

“That would probably be best, I’d rather not put this meeting off for too long,” she added. “The Brotherhood’s circumstances require addressing as soon as possible.”

Something in the President’s words or her tone made Harkness stiffen slightly. “We’ll head there right now. It shouldn’t take long for the others to arrive. Danvers, make sure our guests are comfortable while they wait.” Danvers eagerly agreed as Harkness stepped over to the door. President Shoichet offered Luna and the girls a quick goodbye before she and Agent Drops followed the security chief out of the room. 

The suddenness of the departure left Luna a little wrongfooted, but she quickly pulled herself together when she realized that all eyes were now on her. Thankfully, Danvers barked at the other officers to go back to minding their own business before offering seats and refreshments. The only radiation-free drinks available were chilled water, but it was better than nothing. 

Unfortunately, despite Danvers’ remonstration, the other security officers were still sneaking glances at the three visitors. Even Danvers herself was subtly watching them over her drink. Luna sighed internally and decided that talking was better than being ogled in silence. “So… how old is this place?” 

What followed was a lengthy and occasionally baffling conversation with the security officers. The security officers offered up information about Rivet City, other nearby settlements, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the wasteland itself, while the visiting trio told them about their own world, CHS, what the Rainbooms were like before they were thrown into the wasteland, and what they knew of the Enclave. 

The security officers were all intensely interested when they discovered that Sonata was from Equestria itself, but Luna stopped her from telling them too much despite her own interest in the subject, largely to protect the siren from accidentally incriminating herself in some way. Danvers was keeping the officers from discussing certain things as well, saying that it was best if the Rainbooms explained them, but Luna picked up enough to gather that a cult had grown up around the Equestrian magic that was now spreading through the wasteland. The thought was more than a little worrying. Fanaticism was dangerous.

Eventually, Officer Murray arrived back at the lounge, sighing heavily as he entered. 

“What took you so long, did you wander around the whole ship?” Danvers teased. 

“Near enough. T-Port 7 is down, and there’s maintenance going on in the main stairwell near the clinic. I had to take the long way around,” Murray replied with a huff before turning to Luna and the girls. “I spoke to Kni-, I mean, Paladin Shimmer, and she’s gathering the Rainbooms for a meeting now. Do you want me to take you down there?”
> Chapter 154 - Moons and Rainbows
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna’s heart pounded as she approached the door to the meeting room. The Rainbooms were waiting on the other side, finally within reach, but the prospect of seeing how badly the wasteland had changed them was enough to set Luna’s nerves on edge. Glancing back, she saw that Trixie was looking pensive, while Sonata was trembling anxiously. Luna could hardly blame her after what had happened when they first found Sunset. 

“They should all be here by now,” Officer Murray said simply. “I’ll leave you ladies to it.”

Luna offered him a quick thanks as he walked away, taking care to keep her voice and body language as neutral and calm as she could in an attempt to reassure the girls. Bracing herself for what she might find within, Luna knocked on the door and pushed it open. Seven familiar faces looked up at her in surprise as she stepped into the room.

“Vice-Principal Luna?!” Twilight exclaimed as she shot to her feet. “And Trixie too?! How did you get pulled through the portal?!”

Luna couldn’t help a brief flicker of relief at the sight of the Rainbooms all together, apparently uninjured save for some small bandages here and there and a set of gauze dressings over Rainbow’s ears. “That’s… something of a long story,” Luna replied with a glance at Sunset.

“I was just about to finish bringing them up to speed,” Sunset said. Her voice was calm, but her eyes were flicking warily from Luna to the door and back. Thankfully, none of the girls seemed inclined to attack Sonata in the way that Sunset had. 

“This is fucked up,” Applejack said dourly, pressing a hand to her forehead.

Rarity winced and shot Luna an apologetic look. “Yes, darling, but perhaps we should, er,  refrain from using profanity in front of a teacher?”


“It’s alright, Rarity,” Luna assured her. “If even half of the stories of what you girls have been through are true, I’m not going to give you grief over a little bit of swearing.”

Looking at the girls, it was clear that the stories were unfortunately all too real. Just like Sunset, all of the Rainbooms were leaner and more muscular than they had been at school, with the sole exception of Twilight, who was much the same save for perhaps a little more definition in her arms. Rarity, naturally, looked a little more neat and tidy than the others, but even she had thick bags under her eyes, sunken cheeks, tatty hair that looked like it hadn’t been brushed or cleaned in days, and was wearing a stained gray uniform that was liberally streaked with blood, mud, and sweat. Luna also noted the strange mechanical glove that covered Rarity’s left hand, and the nasty vertical scar just above Pinkie’s right eye.

Worse than their appearance was the girls’ clear lack of reaction to the arrival of the others. Rainbow was muttering darkly under her breath, and even Pinkie seemed to be struggling not to look entirely miserable, but the others just looked… defeated; as if they had endured so much pain and loss recently that they were becoming almost numb to it. Either that or they were at breaking point. The fact that none of them could even muster up the energy to be angry at Sonata showed just how exhausted the Rainbooms were. 

“Um, Vice-Principal? I have a question.” Fluttershy half-raised a hand, as if they were back at CHS. “Who’s waiting outside the door? They smell scared.”

Luna raised an eyebrow, trying to figure out why Fluttershy was talking as if she had a nose like a dog, until the young woman’s words sank in and she whipped around in fearful realization. The only reason the Rainbooms weren’t taking a shot at Sonata was because the siren hadn’t actually followed Luna and Trixie into the room.

“Someone who’s showing a little more sense than usual,” Sunset said grimly. She glanced at Luna, then cleared her throat and addressed her fellow Rainbooms, “Okay, girls, someone's about to come through that door, and I need you all to stay cool and not freak out when she does, clear?” The others stared at her curiously, but Sunset just raised her voice and called out, “You may as well get in here and get this over with.”

There was a moment’s pause, then Sonata timidly stepped through the door, anxiously twisting her ponytail. The second she appeared, the room erupted into bedlam. 

Most of the Rainbooms leapt to their feet with angry shouts and curses. Before Luna could react, Twilight’s magic burst into life around Sonata’s throat, while Applejack whipped a knife out and reached back as if she were about to toss it, Rarity summoned a swarm of barbed crystal needles, and Pinkie pulled some sort of military shotgun out of nowhere and leveled it at the hapless siren. Most terrifyingly of all, magic rippled across Fluttershy’s body as her nails lengthened into claws, bat-like wings erupted from her back, and she let out a feral snarl that displayed appallingly sharp fangs. Luna found herself frozen in fear and shock at the sudden nightmarish displays of aggression in the room.

“What the fuck did I just say about staying cool?!” Sunset snapped. 

“You expect us to play nice with this shit-stirrin’ bitch when she and her friends are the reason we’re stuck in this hell-hole?!” Applejack shot.

“Indirectly, and the Dazzlings are trying to make things right on the other side, so yes, I expect you all to play nice,” Sunset countered. “Besides, I already nearly slit her throat when she first arrived here, so she knows her situation.” Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie all grumbled as they put their weapons away and sat back down, but Twilight didn’t listen. Instead, she clenched her hand and tightened her magical grip on Sonata’s neck, making her splutter and gasp for air. “Twi, let her go!” Sunset demanded. 

“No!” Twilight spat. “She deserves this! She deserves to feel everything we’ve been through and m- ow, ow, ow!” Twilight released her magic as Rainbow grabbed her wrist and squeezed the pressure points on either side, pulling her slowly but firmly back down into her seat. “Okay, alright! I’ve let her go!” Rainbow released her and she rubbed her wrist vigorously. “Geez, why aren’t you angry about this?” Twilight glanced at Rainbow, who just gave her a blank look and pointed at the computer on the table in front of her. “Oh, right. Sorry.”

Luna was relieved that Twilight had backed down, but Fluttershy was still standing and flexing her claws as she snarled at Sonata, prompting Luna to step protectively in front of the siren. 

“You okay, Flutters?” Sunset asked warily. “Got a blood pack on you?”

The mention of a blood pack confused Luna for a moment. Realization dawned as Fluttershy sat down and pulled a blood-spattered transfusion pack out of a bag next to her chair, then turned to horror as she bit into it and drained it in one swift draught. A second later there was another flash of magic as she returned to her normal human form. “I got some from Talon Company,” Fluttershy said as she tossed the crumpled pack onto the table. 

“When did you see Talon Company?” Rarity asked casually, utterly unconcerned about the fact that her close friend had just turned into a vampire and back. 

In an effort to try and keep her wits about her, Luna tuned out what the Rainbooms were saying and turned to check on Sonata. “Are you alright?”

“She tried to kill me,” Sonata murmured quietly, softly massaging her throat. 

“Sorry, but things in this world have been difficult.” Luna, Trixie and Sonata all flinched as Fluttershy spoke from right next to them, though they hadn’t even noticed her leaving her seat. Luna couldn’t suppress a shiver as she realized that the Rainboom’s uniform was splattered with blood. Fluttershy ignored her and held a hand out to Sonata. “Here, let me take a look.”

Sonata backed away and shook her head vigorously, her eyes wide. “No way! I’m not letting a vampony anywhere near my neck!”

“It’s vampire, not vampony, and I’m not going to bite you,” Fluttershy admonished gently. 

“Wait, hold on, time out for a second!” Trixie cut in suddenly. “Can someone please slow down and explain what’s going on?! Fluttershy’s a vampire, Pinkie has a gun, Rainbow’s using a computer, and Twilight nearly went full-on psycho killer! What the heck happened to all of you?!” Her chest heaved with emotion as everyone turned to stare at her. 

Sunset sighed and gestured vaguely to the chairs. “Everyone sit down and try to chill. Fluttershy, check Sonata over. She’s not going to bite you,” she added as Sonata opened her mouth to protest. Sunset ran a hand through her hair and sighed again before looking up at Trixie. “Remember how I reacted when I first saw you three again? All seven of us have been pushed to that point by now. And girls, I know we’re all angry at the Dazzlings, but Sonata isn’t even close to being our biggest problem right now. Besides, she’s stuck in this world as much as we are. I think that’s punishment enough.”

The other Rainbooms all nodded and mumbled their agreement, which Luna found more concerning than she was willing to admit, but she shrugged it off as she guided Trixie to a seat and sat down next to her. It was time to take some responsibility. “Well, first things first, I’m relieved to see you all alive and healthy. I’m sorry that we haven’t been able to find a way to get you home sooner.”

“There’s nothing you could have done,” Sunset assured her.

“Especially with time dilation as a factor,” Twilight added. “By my calculations, it should have taken at least another year before temporal issues became relevant. I never considered that the difference would be so drastic in this world.”

“No one could have known,” Luna agreed. She didn’t have the first clue about how magic worked, but she had at least gleaned that much through conversations with Sunset and the Enclave over the last couple of days. 

Applejack raised a curious eyebrow at Twilight. “Ah gotta admit, Ah’m surprised that y’ain’t more freaked out about this.”

Twilight just shrugged. “If even the older and more experienced version of me didn’t consider it, I think I can give myself a pass this time. Besides, think of all the extra studying we’ve been able to do! My next physics test is going to be a cakewalk, and Fluttershy is going to breeze through her biology lessons. Even you might be able to get some good grades.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Applejack asked with a scowl. 

“It means you’re thick as shit, ass-muncher,” Rainbow said bluntly. 

“Look who’s talkin’, you feather-brained shit-wit!” Applejack shot back.

Rarity groaned and rolled her eyes. “For goodness’ sake, you two, that’s quite enough.” 

Luna subtly looked around at each of the Rainbooms in turn, taking note of the various bruises, scars, and barely-healed cuts that each of them were sporting. Her gaze lingered on the dressings around Rainbow’s ears, but she couldn’t think of any tactful way to question her about it. Unfortunately, Rainbow chose that moment to look up from the computer, and spotted where Luna was staring before she could look away. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” Rainbow said a little too quietly as she returned her gaze to the computer. 

“It’s not nothing, Dash,” Applejack countered firmly, though not unkindly. 

Rainbow let out an annoyed huff. “Whatever, so I’m deaf, it’s no big deal. The doc can fix it.”

The purpose of the computer, and the odd purple glow flitting across the keyboard, suddenly became all too clear to Luna. 

“It definitely goes in the list of your most badass moments, though,” Sunset put in with a slight smirk. “I don’t think there’s many people who can say that they saved Horrigan’s ass.”

“Or that they managed to get a hit in on Unity,” Pinkie added. 

Rainbow snorted, the ghost of a smile playing about her lips. “Sure, there’s only… what, Sunset, Horrigan, ED-E, and Liberty Prime?”

Seeing the girls building each other up should have been a weight off Luna’s shoulders, but it was plain to her that it was just a smokescreen; a coping mechanism meant to keep them from completely going to pieces. The Rainbooms weren’t optimistic teenagers with a high-schooler’s concerns anymore. All Luna had to do was look at them to see that they were now scarred young women, overwhelmed by seeing too many horrors in too short a time. Their innocence had been well and truly shattered. 

Fluttershy suddenly heaved a great sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sorry, everyone, but I need to get out of here and get some rest. This last week has been…”

“Kinda makes you wish we were just dealing with feral ghouls and a couple of dumbasses with baseball bats again, doesn’t it?” Pinkie said quietly. She threw Luna and Trixie an apologetic look as she stood up. “I’m gonna go and get some rest, too, if that’s okay?”

“Of course it’s okay,” Luna replied quickly. “I can’t even imagine what things have been like for you girls these last few months. Take all the time you need.”

Applejack stood and stretched next. “Ah think Ah’ll go an’ see how the apple harvest is comin’ along, maybe share a few recipes.”

One by one, the Rainbooms apologized and left, until only Sunset, Rainbow, and the three new arrivals remained. Finally, Rainbow stood as well. Luna was surprised to see that her Pip-Boy, unlike the others’, appeared to be made out of glittering sapphires. A second later Luna felt an awful jolt as she spotted what was very clearly a sword scabbarded at Rainbow’s waist. 

“I guess I’ll go speak to the doc and see how quickly he can fix my ears.” Rainbow glared at Sonata, who instinctively shrank back into her chair. “Just so you know, I stayed cool back there because Sunset asked me to, but if you ever, ever, try to screw us over again-” there was a multi-colored blur and Rainbow was suddenly standing behind Sonata with her sword drawn, resting the flat of the blade on the siren’s shoulder, “-and you’ll be dead before you even realize that you’ve fucked up.”

“O-okay! I’ll behave!” Sonata spluttered, apparently forgetting that Rainbow was deaf,but the Rainboom had already sheathed her sword and swept out of the room without a backwards glance. 

Sunset sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “That actually went better than I expected.”

“They all tried to kill me!” Sonata spat as she trembled in her chair.

“Threatened. They threatened to kill you,” Sunset corrected. “If they had tried, you’d be dead. Hell, I’ve seen Twilight squish a man’s skull like a grape just by snapping her fingers, you’re lucky she just went for choking you out instead.” The image of some poor soul’s head imploding in Twilight’s magic made Luna feel distinctly ill, but Sunset continued talking as if such a horrifying occurrence was nothing out of the ordinary, “I’m a little surprised that none of them stuck around to talk or make sure that you’re all okay, but this is a pretty big thing to dump on them after everything they’ve been through, so they probably need some time to get their heads on straight. Don’t take it personally.”

Luna quickly gathered her wits and shook her head, careful not to let her queasiness show on her face. “Of course, we understand completely.” Trixie nodded slowly, though whether that was because she agreed or because she was just on autopilot was anyone’s guess, while Sonata was too busy shaking with fear to be paying any attention. Luna couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Sonata and the other Dazzlings had caused havoc at CHS, but she didn’t deserve regular death threats.

Sunset checked something on her Pip-Boy and shrugged. “I haven’t got a clue how long Becky is going to be stuck in a meeting with the Council, so how do you three fancy a tour of Rivet City while we wait?”
> Chapter 155 - Deal
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Becky was finding it increasingly difficult to hide her awe at the sheer amount of magic that was packed into Rivet City. The Enclave had a fair amount of magical equipment, and a whole bunch of material in its labs, but even that was dwarfed by what was on display here. Somehow, the people of this settlement had managed to rapidly integrate stunning magical advances into the very fabric of daily life. It seemed that a trade deal with Rivet City would be more profitable for the Enclave than originally thought. 

Just as Becky resolved to impress the benefits of such a deal upon the Council, Chief Harkness informed her that they had arrived at the meeting room and politely held the door open for the ladies to enter. 

Agent Drops went inside first, then gestured for Becky to follow. Three other people were already waiting inside, seated around a square table with a holo-recorder placed between them. The first two were a man and a woman, both dark skinned and dark haired, but where the man was wearing a nicely tailored suit, the woman was clad in a thick leather trench coat that was so stained and patched it was impossible to tell what the original color had been. Becky recognized them as Bannon and Pia, Rivet City’s Merchant and Science representatives respectively. The last person was a young woman with a blonde ponytail, a sweat-soaked Brotherhood of Steel uniform, and a dour expression that looked like it could have been carved from granite. This was undoubtedly the new Elder Lyons. 

“Sorry we’re late, I wasn’t expecting all of you to get here so quickly,” Harkness apologized quickly. 

“Clearly,” Bannon noted sourly, regarding Becky with a calculating stare. 

Harkness ignored him and closed the door before gesturing for the President to take a seat. “Everyone, this is President Shoichet of the Enclave. President Shoichet, these are Representatives Bannon and Pia of Rivet City, and Elder Lyons of the Brotherhood of Steel.”

Becky dipped her head in acknowledgement and took the offered seat, with Agent Drops taking up position behind her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” Becky said as Harkness went to his own chair and pressed a button on the holo-recorder. She glanced at Elder Lyons. “First of all, allow me to offer my condolences for your loss. Your father was one of the bravest and most honorable men I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.”

“I appreciate it, but you can skip the niceties,” Lyons said gruffly. “You wanted to speak to me, so why don’t you just tell me what the Enclave wants?”

“And what you want with Rivet City,” Pia added in a frosty tone. 

Becky could practically feel Agent Drops tensing up at the less than friendly welcome, but it was only to be expected. The Enclave’s reputation around the Capital Wasteland was abysmal. Changing that wasn’t going to be easy. 

“Alright, straight to business.” Becky turned to Elder Lyons. “I’m aware that the loss of the Citadel is going to have something of an impact on the Brotherhood of Steel’s operations in the Capital Wasteland,” she began, deliberately understating the situation in case the Elder was trying to put up a strong image in front of the Council. “Ideally, I’d be able to offer whatever assistance possible to help you rebuild, but, and I hate to admit this, there’s elements in the Enclave leadership that want to take advantage of the Brotherhood’s bad luck.” 

“Is that supposed to reassure me?” Lyons asked.

“I just want us to all be on the same page,” Becky replied simply. “I’ve got a handle on them for the moment, but it’ll be better for all of us in the long run if I can pacify them as soon as possible. So, my main concern is this…” She leaned forward, placed her elbows on the table and clasped her hands in front of her face. “What minor concessions can I ask for that won’t add more burdens to your people, but that I can still spin as significant benefits to the hardliners, in return for Enclave aid?”

Lyons frowned hard, clearly trying to figure out what Becky’s angle was. “Call me suspicious, but I get the feeling there’s something else you’re after here? What’s the catch?”

“There is no catch,” Becky replied with a casual shrug. “The Enclave and the Brotherhood have both been weakened by the recent battles. It’s in our best interests, and the interests of the Capital Wasteland as a whole, if our factions work together to rebuild instead of trying to compete.”

“How incredibly magnanimous of you,” Pia noted, her voice dripping with sarcasm. 

“It has nothing to do with being nice or charitable, it’s self-preservation,” Becky shot. “The Super Mutants have been quiet recently, but we’re also hearing rumors that they’ve made an alliance with Talon Company. If that’s true, then there’s a good chance that either that Shepherd monstrosity that Sunset warned us about is organizing the mutants, or, even worse, there’s some faction or magical nightmare out there that’s powerful enough to force the Super Mutants to ask for help. Neither of those scenarios are something that the Enclave or Brotherhood are able to handle alone at the moment.”

The Councilors all looked anxiously at Elder Lyons, who crossed her arms and shook her head slowly. “We barely had the manpower to handle the Super Mutants before the war and our battle with Unity. Liberty Prime is in pristine condition, and is obviously massively powerful, but he’s just one robot. Hell, I’m wary about sending him after any major targets without Rainboom support in case he encounters anything else as powerful as Unity.” Pia and Harkness shared a worried look, but Lyons ignored them and glanced at Becky. “You say you want to help us, so what are you offering?”

“What do you need?” Becky asked.

Lyons stared her down for a few seconds, then finally sighed and sagged in her chair. “What don’t we need? Rivet City has offered us shelter, food, and space to construct a new HQ in exchange for assistance with expanding the city. But we still need facilities and equipment for servicing, repairing, and upgrading our power armor and Liberty Prime, medical supplies in bulk, training facilities, and probably a hundred other things I haven’t thought of yet. We don’t even have a way of manufacturing the quantity of ammunition that we need anymore. I’ve heard of a group operating in old Pittsburgh that could get us the munitions we need, but our cap stores were all destroyed with the Citadel, and we don’t have anything to barter with.”

The list of things the Brotherhood needed was extensive, but it was all stuff that Becky and her advisors had already predicted and, more importantly, planned for. Frankly, she was more concerned about how unstable Lyons was feeling if she was freely admitting all of this. “The Enclave can help with power armor, training facilities, and ammunition easily enough. Medical supplies will be a little more tricky, but I’m sure that we can scrounge up an auto-doc and a small but regular supply of biogel.”

“An auto-doc?” Pia noted under her breath.

Becky nodded, sensing an opportunity to entice the Council as well. “I’m afraid the Enclave can’t spare one for Rivet City as well, but we can offer communications technology, construction grade power armor, and I can also see if we have any old point defense systems and turrets that’ll fit on this old tub.”

“And what do you want in exchange for all of that?” Lyons asked suspiciously. “You talk a lot, but what you’re offering doesn’t come cheap.”

The Elder’s obvious distrust was, oddly enough, a relief to Becky. “I have some suggestions,” she replied. “For a start, the Enclave wants a larger presence at Project Purity, including greater responsibility for its defenses. We’d also like to station troops at the Washington Monument, the former site of the White House, and Galaxy News.”

Lyons frowned as she considered. “Doctor Li won’t be happy about increasing your presence at the purifier, but she’ll just have to accept it. I’m fine with you having troops at the Washington Monument and the White House, but as for Galaxy News…  I’ll have to talk to Three Dog first.”

“That’s fair. If there’s no opposition, we can install the necessary equipment for servicing power armor at Project Purity and Galaxy News for both Enclave and Brotherhood use,” Becky replied, glad that Agent Drops was secretly recording the whole conversation for later. “Finally, I’d like to request that the Brotherhood of Steel hand responsibility to the Enclave for all water deliveries to settlements that are further out from the purifier than Megaton.”

The suggestion made Elder Lyons grimace. Becky didn’t blame her; pretty much every major wasteland settlement was further out than Megaton. The Enclave was already taking most of the deliveries to Girdershade and the Republic of Dave, the most remote settlements in the Capital Wasteland, but taking over deliveries to all of them was a whole other matter. It would certainly be easier for the Brotherhood if they could concentrate their efforts in a smaller area, but giving up those deliveries would significantly weaken their reputation across the wastes, as well as risk undermining the Brotherhood's authority and Lyons’ own capability as a leader. It wasn’t a decision to be made lightly.

Becky could see the Elder wavering, but she decided to work on the Councilors before trying to sweeten the deal. The three straightened up as she turned her attention to them. “As for Rivet City, all I ask is that some of our scientists be permitted to spend time here and trade information on magical research with your own science team.” Becky leaned back slightly in her chair and affected a casual air as an idea occurred to her. “Of course, in addition to a few suits of construction grade power armor, the Enclave will be happy to provide trained operators to teach your workers how to use and maintain them efficiently. Speaking of power armor…” She glanced at Elder Lyons. “As a result of the incidents at Raven Rock and the Base Crawler, we’ve been left with more suits of military power armor than we have soldiers to use them. I’d be happy to donate some of our X-01 suits to the Brotherhood of Steel instead of just mothballing them.”

“Giving them your old cast-offs? How… generous,” Bannon noted. 

Becky ignored him. What he was saying may have looked true to an outsider like him, but those knowledgeable in military matters would know that even battle-scarred suits of standard Enclave X-01 power armor were far more advanced and powerful than the two-century-old T-45, T-51 and T-60 models that the Brotherhood were having to make do with. Added to everything else, it was a very handsome offer in return for, essentially, PR opportunities. Judging by her expression, it was clear that Lyons could see it too.

With a heavy sigh, the Elder nodded curtly. “Alright. It’s a deal.”
> Chapter 156 - Time Out
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The clinic was thankfully devoid of patients when Rainbow arrived. Doctor Preston was the only person around, sitting in his chair and hastily typing things out on his terminal. He turned, smiled when he saw who it was, and gestured for her to join him at a different terminal on a nearby desk. The doctor quickly typed out a simple question, ‘How are you feeling?’

“Meh, could be better,” Rainbow replied. She had seen plenty of instances in movies where hearing impaired people spoke really loudly after losing their hearing, and she was trying to carefully regulate her voice so she didn’t accidentally do the same thing. “I was kinda hoping to talk to you about this operation for my ears.”

Doctor Preston nodded sagely and said something, typing his response on the terminal for Rainbow’s benefit. ‘Of course. Undergoing surgery can be intimidating at the best of times. Take as much time as you need to come to terms with things and psyche yourself up.’

“Actually, I was kinda hoping that we could get this over and done with as soon as possible,” Rainbow cut in, interrupting him just as he started typing another question. “Is there any way I could have the operation today? Now, even?”

The doctor let out a silent exclamation, followed by some equally silent talking, then realized what he was doing and turned to the terminal. ‘This will be a significant operation. It won’t involve any of your major organs, but there are always risks with surgery, and you’ll have to be under anesthetic for several hours at least. Are you sure you want to jump straight in?’

“Absolutely. One hundred percent,” Rainbow said flatly. She had had enough of dealing with all of the crazy shit that this world had thrown at her. Adding the arrival of Luna, Trixie, and a Dazzling to the mix was just too much. A few hours of oblivion sounded like absolute heaven right then, and the chance of being able to hear again afterwards was the icing on the cake. “How soon do you think we’ll be able to do it?”

Doctor Preston frowned and went back to his main terminal. Peeking surreptitiously over his shoulder, Rainbow saw that he was checking his inventory of medicines, equipment and, to her surprise, a short list of new nurses and assistants that he had clearly picked up since the last time she had seen him. 

Finally, the doctor got up and went back to his backup terminal to type out a simple question, ‘When did you last eat?’

“Uh… I had breakfast about four hours ago, I think,” Rainbow replied. 

Doctor Preston crossed his arms and pursed his lips as he thought. Rainbow held her breath, forcing herself not to try and pester him into doing it, when finally he sighed silently and typed out his answer, ‘Go and sit in the waiting room opposite here, and don’t eat or drink anything else at all until I say so. I’ll gather my assistants and prepare the operating room. We should have everything ready within the hour.’





Applejack kept her head down as she strode to the lab, partly to try and keep people from trying to talk to her, and partly to try and hide her angry expression from everyone. It seemed to work either way, as hardly anyone dared to try and get her attention as she walked.

Things were bad. In truth, things were always bad in the Capital Wasteland, but the last week had been especially awful. Unity had taken everything that Applejack valued and either corrupted or crushed it entirely. Independence, family, friendship, honesty, consent, all of it was tarnished. Even the feelings she had for Rarity, hidden desires that she could barely even admit to herself, had been poisoned, perhaps fatally. 

The last thought brought a bitter grimace to Applejack’s face. Gritting her teeth, she picked up the pace through the last few corridors, then wrenched open the door to the lab with enough force that the hinges squealed in protest. A bunch of people inside turned to see who had caused the noise, and immediately turned back to whatever they were doing when they saw the expression on her face.

Applejack took a deep breath to try and get her temper under control, adjusted her hat, and headed over to one of the engineers that she recognised. As she approached, she saw that he was tinkering with what looked like a valve from a water pump. “Hey, Isaac, what’re you workin’ on?”

Isaac glanced over his shoulder and gave her a small smile. “Welcome back, AJ.” He held the valve up to show her. “We’ve been having an issue recently with condensation from these trees evaporating in here, forming tiny magical clouds up on the ceiling, then dropping multicolored rain down on us. We’re trying to put together a new system to collect the rain, but most of the parts need a bit of fixing up before we can put them in.”

“Wait, you’ve had indoor rain?!” Applejack exclaimed, distracted from her dark thoughts by the bizarre revelation.

“Yeah, this magic is throwing more and more random crap at us the more it grows.” Isaac sighed and ran a hand over his near-shaven head. “It’s giving us more pros than cons though, so I can’t complain all that much. What about you? I heard about the Citadel being destroyed, but most of the rumors about how it happened are completely insane. What really happened out there?”

Applejack grunted and shook her head tightly. “Ah’d rather not talk about it.”

Her tone clearly registered, as Isaac just nodded and said, “Fair enough.” He looked over at something in the corner of the room. “Well, if you want to avoid crazy, you might want to leave before that guy spots you.” Applejack followed his gaze and did a double-take at what she saw.

There was a man sitting cross-legged on a large exposed root right in the corner of the room. His bare torso was covered in orange stripes and whorls that stood out sharply against his dark brown skin, and he had leaf-shaped shoulder guards made out of a dull reddish metal. On a closer look, Applejack saw that the simple shorts he was wearing appeared to be made out of a similar material. “Who the heck is that guy and what is he doin’?” She asked.

“He calls himself Malus, he’s one of your 'Disciples' from the new Shrine of Harmony in the upper decks,” Isaac replied simply. “He comes here every day to meditate and try to commune with some ‘Great One’ that he can sense through the trees or something.”

“Sounds like he’s a few bushels short of a tree,” Applejack said bluntly. 

Isaac grinned. “Oh, he’s completely nuts, but he keeps to himself, and him and the other Disciples did manage to come up with the magical armorweave that he’s wearing using steel from these trees. That stuff is seriously fucking useful, so I’m not going to complain if he wants to sit quietly in here and dream about trees.”   

Applejack had to admit that the idea of getting her hands on some magical armor was pretty tempting, but she wasn’t in any mood to deal with another Disciple of Harmony right at that moment. She was still more than a little thrown off that the fanatics had built another temple of sorts in Rivet City. “Ah wouldn’ mind havin’ a word with him later, but right now Ah just want some peace and quiet.” 

“Good luck. The city is buzzing with speculation about what really happened at the Citadel,” Isaac told her.

The prospect of hundreds of people pestering her, or gossiping and pointing behind her back, was enough to get Applejack’s back up once again. She was looking around the lab, wondering where she could go on the ship that would guarantee some privacy, when her eyes fell on the Cutie Mark-encrusted door that led to the rooms where Doctor Li performed her original tests on the Rainbooms’ magic. “Has anyone been in those rooms since they started spewin’ magic?” Applejack asked, nodding towards the door.

Isaac gave her a curious look. “No, Pia won’t let anyone in because there’s so much mag-”

“Perfect.” Ignoring his protests, Applejack strode confidently over to the door and wrenched it open. Clouds of multicolored magic billowed out of the door, making Applejack pony up instantly, but she stepped through and slammed the door shut before anyone else could be affected or try to stop her.

The corridor inside looked like something out of a fantasy movie. Vines and apple-laden branches covered the walls and ceiling, while knee-high grass carpeted the floor and thousands of butterflies flapped lackadaisically through the air. Everything in the corridor, from the tiny specks of dust each butterfly left in its wake to the largest and thickest branches arching across the ceiling, was glittering and sparkling in every color imaginable. 

“Whoah, Nelly.” Applejack tilted her hat back and stared at the sight in slack-jawed astonishment. 

After a few minutes, she shook herself and carefully set off down the corridor. The butterflies casually floated out of Applejack’s way as she walked, until she found the room where her own magic had been tested. The tree that had first formed from her magic, the one she had affectionately named Little Mac, had grown so much that its trunk was now over a meter thick and reached from the floor to the ceiling. There was no sign of the old computer terminal it had once sprouted from. 

“Not bad, Little Mac.” Applejack stepped over to the tree and sat between two thick roots with a sigh. “You don’ mind me restin’ down here for a spell, do you? Things have been crazier than a cockerel in a crate lately.” She shifted a little to nestle herself in a little more comfortably, then pulled her hat down over her eyes and tried to put everything else out of her mind.





Under normal circumstances, Rarity had no problem with being the center of attention. Unfortunately, these were far from ordinary circumstances.

She hadn’t noticed it before, but as she hurried away from the meeting room, Rarity realized that almost everyone she passed was staring and whispering to their neighbors. Some of them were being more subtle than others, but they were all easy to spot. Luckily for Rarity, Tabitha’s boutique was only a short walk from the meeting room, so she just kept her head down and walked faster. A couple of minutes later she found herself outside the boutique. Glancing once at the railsign on the door, Rarity rapped sharply on the door. 

“Just a moment!” Came a familiar voice from inside. A minute or so passed, during which Rarity tried to ignore the handful of people walking past, until finally the door opened. “Welcome to the Seaborne Boutique! Where every gar- Rarity!” Rarity choked as she was pulled into a rib-cracking hug. “Oh, you poor darling! I heard about what happened to the Citadel, that must have been just awful!” Tabitha let go suddenly and practically pulled Rarity into the boutique. “Come in, come in! Let’s get you sitting down and find you a drink!”

Rarity allowed herself to be swept inside. She was mildly surprised to see Claire, Tabitha’s little sister, and Victoria, one of the Railroad agents in the Capital Wasteland, both peeking out from the back room.

“Come on through, we were just having a quiet chat!” Tabitha pulled Rarity into the back room and guided her to a chair. “There you go, you just get some rest and try to relax. Claire, fetch her some water!”

“Um, thank you,” Rarity said as Claire handed her a bottle of pleasantly chilled pure water. 

Victoria coughed quietly and said in a slightly too casual tone, “I should probably get back to work, I’ll come back once my shift is finished.”

Rarity couldn’t help feeling a little guilty as Tabitha and Claire waved their colleague out of the shop. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt-”

“Nonsense, you didn’t interrupt,” Tabitha assured her. “Victoria just has to report to our superiors. The presence of the Rainbooms here will stir things up a little, so we’ll have to tread carefully for a bit, but that’s not important right now.” She slipped into a chair opposite. “How are you feeling? Are you alright?”

Rarity let out a humorless chuckle. She tried to make a casual joke about the continuous clusterfuck of the last week, but her throat closed up before she could say a word. Tabitha saw her hesitation and glanced back at Claire. “Fetch the good wine for us, Sweetie, then lock the door. We’re taking the afternoon off.”





Snow crunched as Fluttershy landed roughly on the very edge of Rivet City’s broken off bow. She kicked more of the fluffy white stuff away, then sat on the very edge of the ship and folded her feathery wings, letting her legs dangle off the edge.  

Fluttershy had been intending to head towards the clinic and see if she could purchase any spare blood packs, but the residents she passed were paying a lot more attention than usual. That, coupled with the unmistakable sound of Rainbow following shortly after, made Fluttershy change her mind. Excess attention wasn’t something that she liked at the best of times, and she was certainly in no mood to discuss the wasteland’s latest delivery of awful bullshit.

And so, Fluttershy had hurried to the nearest exit, ponied up, and flown over to the bow. It was probably a bit of an extreme measure just to get some peace and quiet, but she didn’t particularly care. Pinkie had gone in search of Mister Lopez, Applejack was looking for apples, Rarity had gone to see her counterpart, Rainbow was at the clinic, and Twilight was heading to the ship’s bowels for some reason, so the other Rainbooms were all accounted for. No-one else would bother coming over to this derelict section. 

Fluttershy breathed in deeply and allowed herself to relax. Various scents wafted up to her through the still air; the musty odor of rust, the tang of metal and magic, even the faint reek of the mirelurks lurking in the water below. If she strained her ears, Fluttershy could even just make out the sound of someone in power armor pushing through the snow up by Rivet City’s entrance bridge. Probably someone from the Brotherhood of Steel or the Enclave. 

Alone with her thoughts, Fluttershy curled up and looked out over the horizon like an angelic sentinel.
> Chapter 157 - Waffling
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trixie wasn’t entirely sure what to think as Sunset led her, Sonata and Vice-Principal Luna out of the meeting room. She had half-expected the rest of the Rainbooms to freak out or have a breakdown, much as Sunset herself had when she first saw the trio again, but their reactions had been strangely… muted. It was more than a little disturbing.

“Okay, where to start?” Sunset mused. “The market is closest, but that place is going to be crowded as all hell. Are you okay with that? Hm, on second thought, we’d better make sure that Harkness is cool with me giving the three of you a tour.” She gestured for the trio to follow. “Come on, we’ll get permission from security, then I’ll show you all the sights.”

“Will the others be okay?” Trixie ventured awkwardly. 

Sunset gave her a nod and what was clearly supposed to be a reassuring smile. “They’ll be alright. Losing the portal sucks, and having the three of you dragged into this world as well is kind of a kick in the gut, but we’ve been through worse. They just need a little time.”

Having been through worse hardly invalidated the stress they were under, but Trixie didn’t want to press any further. For now, she decided to just trust that Sunset knew her friends well enough to know their limits. 

“I have to admit, Rivet City is much more impressive than I was expecting,” Luna noted. “Is this all thanks to Equestrian magic?”

“Oh yeah,” Sunset replied with a chuckle. “This old boat was a major rustbucket when we first came here. The maintenance crew had to put in a ridiculous amount of work just to keep the place from falling apart.”

Trixie felt her expression twist as the two settled into conversation. She couldn’t understand how they could be so casual about the state that the Rainbooms were in, especially considering how the girls had reacted to seeing Sonata. Even Sunset hadn’t reacted as forcibly as Twilight had.

Unreasonably annoyed, Trixie opened her mouth to say something, only to hesitate when she saw that Luna had unconsciously balled her hands into fists. Trixie felt a twinge of guilt as she realized that Luna was obviously just as worried, she was just just putting a brave face on things. It was just what you’d expect from a teacher. Still, an explanation for how the other Rainbooms had reacted would be nice.

“They probably didn’t all want to go nuts and look crazy and weak like Sunset did, duh,” Sonata whispered to her.

Trixie blushed as she realized that she had accidentally muttered what she was thinking under her breath, but that didn’t stop her from fixing the siren with an angry glare and hissing back, “Sunset isn’t crazy or weak!”

Sonata let out a faint snort. “Of course she’s crazy, she tried to kill me! They all did!”

“They wouldn’t have if you and you stupid siren sisters hadn’t started this mess in the first place!” Trixie retorted.

“Girls,” Luna cut in firmly. The two flinched as they realized that they had been overheard, and quailed under the disapproving glare that the Vice-Principal was giving them. Trixie felt another blush creeping up her cheeks when she saw that several passing residents had also stopped to stare. To her surprise, Sunset just sighed and carried on walking, paying the peanut gallery no mind.

“It’s not her fault, Trixie. Seriously, it isn’t. The only person I blame is Mandible.” Sunset glanced back at the two. “Don’t get me wrong, there’s going to be some very strong words for Adagio when everyone gets back-”

“That didn’t work out so well for you last time,” Sonata interrupted blithely. Her face paled as she realized her mistake a second too late.

Sunset broke out into a terrifyingly unsettling grin. “That was before we were forced to kill people on a regular basis.” She smirked and turned back to focus on where she was going. “Besides, I hate to admit it, but she’s not wrong about the others. I don’t blame them for wanting to spend some time alone. Having said that-” Sunset glanced back over her shoulder at Sonata, “-while you’re in this world, you’re my responsibility. Play nice, or I’ll knock your damned teeth out. Understand?”

“I-I understand!” Sonata spluttered. 

Trixie saw Luna pursing her lips, evidently uncomfortable with Sunset threatening Sonata again, but she stayed quiet. Satisfied with Sonata’s answer, Sunset turned her attention back to the path ahead and carried on. 

Despite everything, Trixie found herself feeling sorry for the siren. She was selfish, power-hungry, and dumber than Bulk Biceps even on her best day, but being threatened with violence and death because of a situation she had never intended to cause was just too much. Guilt gnawed at Trixie for some of the things she had said to Sonata, but she didn’t have the faintest clue how to go about apologizing, especially with Sunset within earshot and probably still mad.

Stewing in her emotions, Trixie put her head down and plodded along behind the others. 





Luna wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep up her stoic and unfazed facade. She had known that the Rainbooms were going to react with anger to Sonata, but the sheer aggression the girls had displayed, even Fluttershy, had been terrifying to see. Not to mention how ruthless and vengeful Twilight had seemed.

The impact of Fluttershy’s transformation was more than Luna had expected, too. Sunset had warned her about it, but being told about something and witnessing it in person were two very different things. 

Shaking her head to banish the mental image of Fluttershy as a bloodthirsty nightmare, Luna took a deep breath and struck up another casual conversation with Sunset, asking about how Rivet City managed to support itself when it came to things like food, clean water, fuel for its generators, and basic household necessities. 

“Food is easy enough. Rivet City has a functional hydroponics lab, making this the only settlement in the Capital Wasteland that can grow its own fresh fruit and vegetables,” Sunset explained. “Hell, it’s the only place around here where anything green grows.”

“Wait a minute, you mean there’s no plant life in the wasteland?” Luna asked incredulously.

Sunset shrugged. “There’s a few species of mold, mushrooms, and lichen that can draw sustenance from the radiation in the soil and what little nutrients the rains bring, but that’s about it, and even those are hard to find and mostly inedible.”

That little bit of news hit Luna harder than it should have. She had heard that the wasteland was barren, but somehow she had assumed that the settlements would have maintained farms, greenhouses, or even just tiny little vegetable patches. A lack of fresh greens raised serious concerns about the local diet. “If they can’t grow vegetables, how do people in the other settlements stay healthy? Does Rivet City supply them all?” Luna asked.

“Rivet City does export some food, but traders occasionally bring in preserved stuff from more fertile areas outside the Capital Wasteland, and there’s a handful of people around who make dietary supplements, but the people who can’t afford any of that just… don’t,” Sunset replied with a sigh. “I’ve heard that scurvy is a serious problem in some of the further out settlements, although hopefully that’ll get alleviated a little now that Rivet City’s production has increased. As for fresh water, Rivet City has its own small purifier. Almost everything else is either scavenged from the wastes or made from scrap.”

“Scavenged?” Luna raised a curious eyebrow. “Surely everything usable has been found already over the last two hundred years?”

Sunset chuckled softly. “Yeah, that’s what I thought at first, but it turns out pretty much the opposite has happened. The wasteland is dangerous. Most ordinary people try to avoid venturing outside the settlements unless they absolutely have to. The only real exceptions to that are traders, mercenaries, and couriers, and even they stick to the quickest and safest routes. There’s a few scavengers around who make their living by selling the stuff they find off the beaten track, but the most dangerous places often haven’t been touched since the bombs fell. And that’s all before you get into raider stashes and stuff.” 

Luna felt her heart sink as Sunset spoke. The more she learned about this world, the worse and worse it sounded. She tried to think of a more light-hearted subject she could talk about, one that was less likely to segue into an anecdote about how abysmal life was in this world, but nothing came to mind. 

As Luna brooded over how she could protect the girls, the four finally found themselves at the main stairwell by the entrance. Just as she set foot on the stairs, the sounds of a scuffle breaking out behind caught her attention. 

Two security officers staggered through the door after them, dragging a struggling man in a blood-spattered but clearly well-tailored suit. More blood poured from his nostrils. 

“Cretins!” The man spat. “You don’t know who you’re fucking with!”

“And we don’t care.” Luna winced and stepped back in shock as one of the security officers drew a metal baton and cracked it across the back of the man’s skull, dropping him to his knees. The other officer opened the main door, letting in a blast of freezing air, then the two bundled their captive out, spoke quickly to the officers waiting outside, and quickly closed the door back up.

“What did he do?” Sunset asked.

The officer gripping a baton tucked it back into his belt and brushed a few flakes of snow from his armor. “Caught him trying to buy magic articles without getting permission from the Council. He was just going to get a warning, but the dumbass tried to argue with us and put up a fight when we ordered him out of the marketplace.”

“Dumbass,” Sunset agreed, apparently unconcerned by the near-random violence. “Anyway, I’ve actually been looking for a security officer. I want to know if it’s okay for me to take these three on a tour of the ship.” She jerked a thumb towards Luna and the girls.

Both officers did a double-take when they spotted the visitors. “Whoa, so the rumors about new Rainbooms are true?”

“I’m not a Rainboom, I’m a Dazzling!” Sonata snapped in indignation.

Confusion flashed across the officers’ faces, so Sunset added, “They’re not Rainbooms, but they are from the same world as us, so I’d appreciate it if you could help keep them out of trouble until they’ve got a grip on how things work around here.”

“Uh, sure, of course, but you might want to hold off on that tour for now,” one of the officers replied. “Rumors are flying around the ship like wildfire, and those damned Disciples of Harmony are already stirred up like a giant ant’s nest. The last thing we want is a bunch of them spotting you and going feral on us.”

“Disciples? Why are there a bunch of Disciples here?” Sunset asked. 

The officer raised an eyebrow. “They’ve set up a new temple in the lower decks. Hadn’t you heard?”

There was a loud slap as Sunset’s hand hit her forehead. “Shit. Okay, new plan, I’m taking the three of you up to the security lounge and we’re staying there until Harkness comes to give us the full details.”

Luna glanced sidelong at her. “About this temple. Is it-” Her question was interrupted as the outside door opened and a wave of cold air made everyone shiver. She looked over as someone in a suit of deep blue Enclave power armor stepped inside, a bright yellow ‘101’ stenciled across their chest, then froze up in fear as a huge yellow-skinned humanoid creature lumbered in after. The thing had to half-crouch to fit through the door alone, and the few parts of it that weren’t covered in rough metal plates were massively muscled. Even Bulk Biceps would look like one of the mythical Breezies compared to the beast standing before Luna.

“Sunset! We just saw what happened to the Citadel, what the fuck happened?! Is everyone okay?!” The armored man asked anxiously.

“Everyone’s alright, Adam, don’t worry,” Sunset assured him. “Rainbow took an injury, but she’s the only one, and she’s going to be fine. The rest of us are just a bit shaken.”

“It is good to see you well,” the massive humanoid said in a surprisingly cultured voice. “I must confess, as formidable as you girls are, I feared the worst when I laid eyes upon the remains of the Citadel.”

Sunset smiled up at him. “Thanks, Fawkes. It’s good to see you.”

Luna had to fight the urge to step in front of the girls protectively as Fawkes turned to look down at them. Thankfully, Sunset spoke before Luna could embarrass herself. “Oh, yeah, it’s sort of a long story, but these three got dragged through from the same world as us Rainbooms. Fawkes, Adam, meet Vice-Principal Luna, Trixie Lulamoon, and Sonata Dusk. Ladies, these are Adam and Fawkes.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you all,” Fawkes said with a polite dip of his head. “Regrettably, proper introductions must be postponed for now, as we must bring our young charge to his family.” He stepped aside, and Luna felt a jolt as she spotted a young boy no older than ten lurking behind him, covered in snow and shivering. “This is Brian. We believe he has a relative here in Rivet City by the name of Miss Weatherly.”

For a moment, Luna was tempted to ask why a child had been made to travel in such terrible weather, but a glance at Sunset’s expression made her reconsider. “He’s from Canterbury Commons?” Sunset asked. 

Adam shook his head. “No, Grayditch.” He sighed heavily. “It’s another long story.  We’ll catch up soon, but first we’d better get him home. See you later.” Adam gave the visitors a nod, then made to step past them and head deeper into the ship.

“The Weatherly Hotel is upstairs,” Sunset said flatly. Adam paused in his tracks, prompting Sunset to sigh and turn to Fawkes. “It’s up these stairs here. There’s signposts, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding it.”

Luna watched, mildly confused, as the mismatched trio thanked Sunset and made their way up the stairs.

“Uh… who…?” Trixie began lamely.

“Fawkes is the most decent person in the wasteland, bar none,” Sunset replied in a tone that brooked no argument. “As for Adam, he’s a goof who could get lost in an empty room, but he’s a nice enough guy. “I guess that’s why Fluttershy’s dating him.”

“She what?!” Trixie exclaimed loudly





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> Chapter 158 - Apples and Ant... Boy
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Sleeping in Rivet City was much more comfortable now that the ship was stable. The metal superstructure didn’t groan as often or as loudly as it had before, and the increased wealth flowing into the city was clear from how much the quality of the furnishings had improved; even in the rooms assigned for visiting guests in the lower decks. Sunset had to wonder just how impressive the upper deck rooms and the hotel suites were in comparison.

Unfortunately, one thing the lower deck rooms lacked was en-suite bathrooms, so Sunset and Applejack had to hunt down one of the communal areas to perform their morning ablutions. Having a shower while trying to ignore the people who were not-so-subtly staring was an unpleasant experience, but the girls were too grimy to consider going without. 

Once they were clean, the two hurried back to the room they were sharing. The Rainbooms had been paired off into rooms until other arrangements could be made, with Rainbow Dash instead spending the night in the clinic to recover from her surgery. Sunset had been more than a little surprised when Applejack had asked to bunk with her instead of Rarity, but she knew better than to question it. 

Finally, clean, dry, wearing freshly washed and repaired uniforms and after a quick breakfast of Brotherhood rations, Sunset and Applejack fixed each other with determined looks.

“You ready to get this over with?” Applejack asked.

“We’ve got to deal with it at some point,” Sunset replied. She sighed heavily and went to fetch her Nova Pistol. “Let’s get going.”

Together, the two reluctantly left their room and made their way down to one of the lowest decks of the ship, just on the water line. The corridors down here were deserted. Every surface was a gnarled mass of roots and branches, with only some flickering gemstones set in the walls and a handful of glowing butterflies providing any light. As if that wasn’t ominous enough, most of the open doors that the pair passed were half-flooded and filled with the distinctive odour of mirelurks. 

“There’s cracks to the outside down here, Ah learned about ‘em back when Ah helped out with maintenance,” Applejack muttered, her voice strangely magnified in the silent corridors. “They’re too small for any mirelurks to get in, but the maintenance teams still have to check on them every few hours, just in case.”

“I just want to know why these weirdos thought that setting up shop down here was a good idea,” Sunset grumbled, narrowly avoiding smacking her head on a low-hanging branch.

Applejack snorted. “Ah guess we can ask them now.” She pointed ahead to a closed metal door. Her Cutie Mark was painted on the door, glowing faintly in the dim light.

“It looks like you’ve got some fans,” Sunset noted flatly. 

“Pretty sure we all do at this point. Besides, they probably have everyone else’s marks somewhere around here,” Applejack countered, though she sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than anyone. “Alright, here goes nothin’.” She took a deep breath and, with just a moment’s hesitation, knocked on the door.

The door squealed as it was hauled open, revealing a young Disciple who bowed deeply to the girls. “Welcome to our new temple, friends. How may we help-” The young man straightened up and froze in shock when he realized who he was actually speaking to. “Y-your Graces?! We weren’t ex- P-please, come on in.” He stepped back and held the door open for the two.

Inside, the temple was small, but surprisingly cozy, with dozens of softly glowing gemstones in the metallic canopy above providing a gentle illumination. The floor was covered by ankle-high grass, and a few tree trunks grew out of the floor and reached up to the ceiling like supporting pillars. The girls were surprised to see that there were lots of iguanas running loose in the temple, basking on branches or scampering through the grass. Apples were growing everywhere. 

About a dozen Disciples were pottering about inside the temple, all of whom looked up as the two Rainbooms entered. 

“Don’t mind us, we don’t want to cause a fuss, we just want to speak to whoever is in charge here,” Sunset said immediately, hoping to head off the worst of the groveling the Disciples were so fond of. To her surprise, most of them actually did as they were told, simply offering a bow to herself and Applejack before getting back to whatever they were doing. Only one split off from the others and approached the pair. 

“Hey, you’re the guy Ah spoke to yesterday!” Applejack said brightly. “Said your name was Malus or somethin’, right?”

Malus smiled and gave a respectful nod. “I am honored that you remember, and it is an equal honor to meet you as well, Lady Shimmer.” He noted Sunset’s raised eyebrow and, apparently misjudging her expression, began to explain, “I realize that my chosen epithet may seem rather… ominous, but it is-”

“The name of the genus that includes domesticated orchard apples. Yeah, I know,” Sunset cut in, having learned that particular factoid back when she and AJ had first become friends. She had also already recognized the man from the description Applejack had given the night before, and she wasn’t about to let him mansplain anything to her right off the bat. 

Malus at least had the good grace to look embarrassed. “My apologies. I assumed that knowledge of life’s bounties was the domain of Lady Applejack.”

“Never assume anything when it comes to us,” Sunset told him firmly. “Anyway, there’s a couple of things we wanted to talk to you about, starting with how things are run here.”

“Of course,” Malus replied quickly. “We call this temple the Orchard Temple. Overall, we operate much as the First Temple in Megaton, and consider ourselves subordinate to them. The Orchard Temple is, of course, far smaller, though the number of believers here in Rivet City has been growing rapidly since the magic of harmony has spread throughout the ship...” He cleared his throat and gave Sunset a somewhat sheepish look. “I hesitate to admit this, but the Orchard Temple is primarily dedicated to Lady Applejack.”

Sunset snorted in amusement. “I gathered that from the name and the Cutie Mark on the door. I’m not bothered by it in the slightest, so don’t worry,” she added quickly. “Just make sure that you and your Disciples behave yourselves, don’t break the law, and no forced conversion or trying to use government to enforce your faith on others. The same rules as the temple in Megaton.”

“Of course,” Malus replied immediately. 

“Good. In that case, there’s only one more thing I urgently need to discuss with you.” Sunset took a deep breath before speaking again, “I’m pretty sure you’ve all heard about the three new arrivals from our world.”

Malus nodded gravely. “The arrival of three more Goddesses caused an incredible stir among the Disciples, but my associates and I convinced the more zealous of our followers to grant them some space until, or if, they choose to come to us.”

“I appreciate it,” Sunset said, surprised but grateful that he had already taken care of one of her biggest concerns.

“Alright, now that all the heavy stuff’s out of the way, I’ve got a request,” Applejack cut in. “Ah know that the Council is hammerin’ out the details of the new relationship between Rivet City and the Brotherhood, but once that’s sorted, Ah was hopin’ Ah could get a look at that armorweave y’all have been workin’ on.”





Fluttershy listened intently as she hurried through the corridors of Rivet City’s upper decks. There tended to be only a few people abroad in this area, even during the busy mornings and evenings, but she was hoping to avoid everyone that she could right at that moment. 

Luckily for Fluttershy, all of the people who were most likely to ask what she was up to were occupied elsewhere. Sunset and Applejack were investigating the new temple. Rainbow Dash was still recuperating in the clinic, struggling to shrug off the effects of the anesthetic. Rarity had dragged Fawkes to the Seaborne Boutique. Twilight was helping some Knights and power-armored Enclave workers to clear away snow and debris on the riverbank in preparation for Rivet City’s expansion, and Pinkie Pie was apparently scouring the marketplace for useful trinkets. Even Luna, Trixie and Sonata were busy, enduring a crash course in Rivet City law from the security officers.

All of that only left one person unaccounted for. 

Of course, tracking someone down was child’s play for Fluttershy’s enhanced senses, even in a place like Rivet City that was packed full of hundreds of overlapping scents and sounds. This time, however, something wasn’t right. The scent was different. Fluttershy closed her eyes and breathed in deeply through her nose. 

Warm water, soap that was fragrant yet slightly metallic, and the faint salty tang of sweat that lacked the sourness of bacterial growth. He had just gotten out of a hot shower. Underneath that was the coppery bite of fresh blood, probably a shaving accident, the subtle ozone tinge that separated wasteland-born humans from Vault dwellers or the Enclave, and something else. Something burnt and earthy, that had never been present before, yet was somehow strangely familiar.

Frowning, Fluttershy hurried through the last corridor until she reached one of the upper deck residential rooms. She knocked gently and pushed the door open as quietly as she could.

“Fluttershy!” Before she could react, Fluttershy found herself swept off her feet and crushed against a solid chest by powerful arms, the scent she had been following overpowering everything else. She blushed as she realized that she was being pressed against bare skin. “I was just about to get ready to come and find you!”

“On your own? We would have had to send out a search party,” Fluttershy joked. 

Adam chuckled and put her down. “Fair point.” He closed the bedroom door before turning to fix her with a concerned look. “I heard about what happened with Unity, are you alright? Were you hurt?”

“I-I’m fine,” Fluttershy stammered. She had seen her boyfriend without a shirt on before, in almost entirely chaste situations, but she’d never been pressed up against him in a state of undress like that before. 

Adam clearly didn’t notice that she was flustered as he asked blithely, “Are you sure? I don’t want to overstep, I just…”

“It’s okay. Things have been… difficult, but I swear I’ll be-” Fluttershy’s eyes almost popped out of her skull as she saw a large dark bruise over Adam’s breastbone, along with several smaller ones spread uniformly over his entire rib cage like a deliberate pattern. “W-what the?!” Fluttershy stepped in close, no longer bothered by his lack of covering, and gently inspected the biggest bruise with her fingertips. She gasped in surprise as she realized that they weren’t bruises, but bony growths pushing out from his skeleton. “What is this?”

Adam let out an awkward laugh. “So, uh, funny story, I may have done something a little, uh… reckless.”

“You do reckless things all the time and get cuts and bruises, not things like… are these mutations?!” Fluttershy hissed. 

Adam raised an eyebrow. “I mean, I did get mutated getting irradiated for Moira’s survival guide, remember? But, yeah. These are mutations,” he admitted with a sigh.

Fluttershy instinctively reached for her nursing kit. “How much radiation were you exposed to? Have you taken any Radaway?”

“It’s not from radiation this time,” Adam cut in, holding a hand up to stop her. “After we dealt with the problem at Canterbury Commons, we heard on the radio that a settlement called Grayditch had suddenly dropped out of contact with the rest of the Wasteland, so me and Fawkes went to take a look. Turns out there was some wacko mad scientist who was trying to genetically engineer giant ants so successive generations would get smaller and smaller until they were back at normal pre-war sizes.”

“That’s… weird,” Fluttershy noted. “I know ants reproduce quickly, but any selective breeding or genetic tampering like that should still take decades before it shows any real reduction in size.”

Adam nodded in agreement. “Right, which is why the scientist tried to speed things up using FEV and a splash of Equestrian magic, but instead of making them smaller he ended up making them tougher and gave them the ability to spit fire.” Fluttershy repressed a groan as the ‘mad scientist’ moniker suddenly made a lot more sense. “Yeah, that’s pretty much the reaction I had,” Adam said. “The ants ended up eating or driving out most of the residents except for a little kid. Me and Fawkes helped the scientist get the ants under control again, then brought the kid here to live with a relative.”

Helping a child in distress was obviously a noble thing to do, but there was a key part missing from Adam’s story. “That doesn’t explain how you ended up mutating again,” Fluttershy pointed out. 

He cleared his throat and looked away as she fixed him with a suspicious look. “Well, uh, you see, the scientist has actually figured out a way to give humans some of the same attributes as the ants, and as thanks for getting the ants under control, the scientist kinda, maybe, offered to-”

“You let a mad scientist play around with your genetic structure by injecting you with an untested mix of FEV, mutant ant DNA, magic, and any number of other chemicals?” Fluttershy asked flatly. 

“Technically it’s not the first time, if you count Moira,” Adam insisted. “Also, it was actually two mixtures. One to make me stronger, and one to improve my senses.”

Fluttershy frowned as she tried to figure out how any of that would even work, given that an ant’s strength was tied to their size and surface area, and their sensory organs bore only the most passing resemblance to a human’s, but she gave up when she remembered that this world operated on different physical laws than her home. And that was before you counted the bizarre effects that magic had on everything. With a sigh, Fluttershy shook her head and decided to just be thankful that Adam hadn’t been given an ant’s respiratory system and asphyxiated. This world wasn’t often that forgiving with that sort of thing. “How can you be so smart and at the same time be such a dumbass?”

“I’m a nineteen year old male, that’s pretty much the dictionary definition.” Adam smirked and puffed his chest out a little. “Besides, I think black looks good in me.”

“You should probably rephrase that,” Fluttershy said coyly. 

Adam huffed a laugh. “Yeah, Rainbow would have a field day with a joke like that.”

“It does look good though.” Fluttershy fell silent and bit her lip as she realized what she had said. The atmosphere in the room changed almost instantly, filled with more tension and charge than she had ever felt before. A strange scent wafted through the air, a hormonal reaction that she had encountered several times when walking through a settlement.

“I… uh…” Adam coughed and stepped away, blushing furiously. “I should probably get dressed.” He took a deep breath and walked back to the bed. “You wanna go up to the top deck? Should be a, uh, y’know, cold breeze or something. Should be nice.”

Fluttershy didn’t respond. She had time, privacy, and she was done with restraint. This world was too dangerous to care about that anymore. She hesitated for just a moment, then reached up and flicked the room’s light off. (Spicy scene)

“Uh, Flutters?” Adam said warily as the room was plunged into darkness. 

Fluttershy glanced anxiously at him. To her eyes, every detail of the room was etched out in shades of gray, but it was clear that Adam couldn’t see anything at all in the pitch darkness. That was enough to boost her confidence just a little. With her heart pounding in her chest, Fluttershy kicked off her shoes, then slowly pulled her top off and let it fall to the floor. Her bra followed a moment later. 

Adam turned his head at the sound of rustling fabric. Despite knowing that he couldn’t see her, Fluttershy had to fight the urge to cover her chest and squeal. Steeling her nerve, she silently padded over to him. Adam flinched at her touch, fingers caressing his chest, but he quickly recovered and brought his hands up to her sides. Fluttershy shivered as he touched bare flesh. He settled his hands around her waist and made to pull her closer, only to stop and run his hands up to her lower ribs. He sucked in a breath as he registered the lack of cloth. “Flu-”

“Shh.” Fluttershy pressed a finger to his lips, then leaned in to replace it with a kiss. She pressed her body against his and he slipped his hand into her hair as the kiss deepened, only for Fluttershy to pull away suddenly. Confusion flickered across Adam’s face, but Fluttershy laid down on his bed and scooted over so he could fit. 

The creak of the bed must have been enough to get her point across, as Adam quickly laid down next to her and reached out. Fluttershy eagerly shifted into his arms and kissed him. The two were soon completely intertwined, Adam’s hand running up and down her back and sides, but never quite going anywhere exciting. 

Fluttershy waited patiently for him to make a move, savoring the embrace as he worked up the nerve to push things a little further, but his hands never roamed any lower than the waistband of her pants, or any further up her front than her bottom ribs. Eventually, her patience ran out. As his hand slid up her back once more, she shifted position just enough that her breast brushed against his arm. Adam paused at the contact, and for a moment Fluttershy thought that he might pull away, but then, finally getting the hint, his fingers traced their way under her arm until he gently cupped her breast.  

The touch was electric. Fluttershy’s heart pounded as Adam caressed her, tentatively at first, but soon growing bolder and firmly gripping her as he kissed her hungrily. His confidence must have grown quickly, as he suddenly let go and plunged his hand down the seat of her pants to squeeze her backside. 

Fluttershy loved every second of it. Every touch excited her more, stoking the heat in her core until she was silently begging things to go further. 

Acting on impulse, Fluttershy reached down and placed a hand between Adam’s legs. His breath hitched the moment she touched him. He felt utterly solid beneath her palm and, though she didn’t have any real frame of reference for how large a man could get, it was enough to push her excitement even higher. Stunned by her own audacity, Fluttershy gave him a gentle squeeze, then started running her hand up and down his length. 

Adam made an appreciative noise in his throat and pulled her closer, his kissing becoming slower and less focused. At first, Fluttershy thought that he was just distracted by what she was doing, but then he slipped his hand out of her pants and tugged at her waistband in the front instead. 

Fluttershy’s heart pounded so hard it was almost painful. She knew what Adam was hinting at, but she didn’t know how far he would take things if she did it. A line was about to be crossed. The thought should have terrified her, but all she felt was a dizzying rush of arousal, anticipation, and a reckless desire to take anything he offered and pay it back double. 

Shivering with excitement, Fluttershy removed her hand from Adam and shifted so she could undo her pants. She heard Adam breath in sharply at the sound of the button and zipper coming undone, and fought back a grin as she pushed her pants down and kicked them off, leaving herself in nothing but her underwear and socks.

Adam was immediately all over her, kissing her passionately and pawing at her bare thigh. Fluttershy gleefully let him toy with her body as he pleased. Her excitement only grew as Adam suddenly pushed himself up onto his knees and propped himself up with an elbow, not once breaking off the kiss as he did so. His hand came up to her chest again before slowly, torturously, trailing down her torso and slipping into her underwear.

Fluttershy twitched as Adam brushed her most sensitive area. He ran his fingers up and down her lips, exploring her with almost lazy strokes. Fluttershy purred at his touch. Her thoughts idly turned to Vault 101’s pleasure manual, written in an attempt to improve their flagging birth rates, but just as she wondered whether or not Adam had read through it, his fingers found her nub, and all other thoughts flew out of her head. 

He gently flicked his finger from side to side, making her twitch with every motion, then used two fingers to stroke it in soft, steady circles.

Fluttershy melted as he settled into a rhythm. She writhed beneath him, moaning even as she kissed him. As she squirmed, Fluttershy reached down to his groin again and, with a little difficulty, undid his belt and pants. She tried to reach down inside, but the angle and the lack of stretch in the cloth made it almost impossible to get in. Thankfully, Adam got the hint. With a groan that sounded torn between eagerness and reluctance, he removed his hand from Fluttershy’s underwear, scrambled off the bed, practically tore off the last of his clothes and clambered back on the bed as quickly as he possibly could. 

Neither hesitated as they reached for the other; Adam slipping his hand down Fluttershy’s underwear and getting back to work, while she wrapped a hand around his shaft and began running her hand up and down his length. Soon the two of them were breathing heavily, each working in concert to pleasure the other. 

Fluttershy had no idea how much time the two spent together. She tried to focus on her hands, on what she was doing to Adam, but his persistent rhythm kept dragging her attention back to a single point between her legs, and the mounting pressure building deep within her core. The rising heat made her shudder and gasp uncontrollably until, finally, something gave way. Fluttershy curled up in a ball and cried out as waves of ecstasy slammed through her body, each more intense than the last. 

Finally, after seconds that felt like hours, the pleasure subsided, leaving her mind blank and her body pleasantly tingling. Awareness slowly returned to Fluttershy. It took several seconds for her to realize that she was drawing shuddering breaths, as if she had run a marathon, and several more to realize that she was soaked with sweat. Adam’s hand was still between her legs, his fingers stilled. 

“Are you-” Adam’s question was cut off as Fluttershy thrust her tongue into his mouth. Filled with determination, she clasped the back of his head with one hand, while the other firmly took hold of his member and started stroking. Her technique was amateurish and inexperienced, but she paid close attention to his breathing and his thundering heartbeat, trying different things and seeing what made him groan and shiver, until she settled on crudely pumping her fist up and down. 

Adam tried to speak, but Fluttershy cut him off by kissing him with renewed passion. Suddenly he growled and shifted, placing his arms on either side of her and propping himself up as he rocked his hips in time with the movements of her hand. Soon, his breathing turned ragged, and his arms started to shiver and shake until, with a deep groan, his whole body went rigid and his member pulsed in Fluttershy’s hand. Something warm and wet splattered over her torso. She stopped moving and just held him, each spasm leaving more droplets over her body and hand. 

Sated and spent, Adam sagged, his head dropping to Fluttershy’s shoulder as the tension left his body. She watched him in the dark, admiring the way his chest heaved and his arm muscles shifted so he didn’t collapse on top of her entirely. Releasing him from her grip, Fluttershy let out a satisfied sigh and, glad that he couldn’t see her face, allowed herself a proud, gleeful grin. (Spice over)
> Chapter 159 - Initiate Scoots
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Squire Peters shivered as she trudged through the deep snow. She had dealt with winters in the Capital Wasteland before, but this was by far the harshest she had ever seen. It didn’t feel right. Normally, Peters would have bitched about it endlessly, but doing that now would probably earn her a rebuke and a lecture later on about the importance of staying vigilant and not causing distractions when in the field. 

Determined to avoid that particular pain in the ass, Peters rolled her shoulders and quickly scanned her surroundings. Her, Squire Maxson, the Wonderbolts, and Star Paladin Cross were making their way slowly from Galaxy News to Rivet City, following a clear route through the ruins that Liberty Prime had smashed open weeks ago to make the trip easier between the outpost and the Citadel. All of the buildings on either side had been trashed too, to discourage ambushes. The new route had proven so useful that the Brotherhood, and the handful of scavengers who tried their luck downtown, had taken to using it exclusively instead of risking the danger-infested metro tunnels. Unfortunately, the clear route also provided absolutely no cover from the snow and the cold. 

“Why is the snow so fucking bad this year?” One of the Wonderbolts muttered. 

“Zip it, Hill. You’re supposed to be setting an example for the Squires,” Paladin Metzger shot. 

Peters struggled to keep a smirk off her face. She had a lot of respect for Metzger and her Wonderbolts. The squad had kept her and Maxson safe at Galaxy News while all hell broke loose at the Citadel, repeatedly proving how badass they were against occasional Super Mutant raids and a feral ghoul horde that vomited forth from the subway tunnels one night. Still, Peters thought it was nice to know that they were as pissed off about the snow as she was.

“The snow is much worse than usual. The Scribes believe there’s a good chance that the spread of Equestrian magic has something to do with it,” Cross noted. “Don’t let your guard down.”

Nodding in silent agreement, Peters flashed her a subtle glance. The Star Paladin had died, had literally been impaled and shot through by a hulking magical monstrosity. Then she had been resurrected as an undead freak by an unbelievably sketchy Enclave senator during what was absolutely going to become one of the most legendary battles in the history of the Capital Wasteland, and everyone was expected to just be… okay with it. A bunch of other Brotherhood troops had been resurrected as well but, apparently, none of them had retained their intelligence like Cross had, so they had been released from the magic and buried with dignity at the Citadel Ruin. 

Peters didn’t like it.  

“I’ve heard that the Super Mutants have been a lot less active recently, even here in the downtown ruins,” Maxson ventured, breaking her train of thought. “Could they finally be dying out?”

Cross hummed thoughtfully as she eyed their surroundings. “It’s possible. The Rainbooms managed to damage the MetaHuman supply of FEV when they infiltrated Vault 87 with Knight-Sergeants Fawkes and Smith, but we don’t know how much they had stored, or indeed if they have a method of producing more. We can’t dismiss the Meta’s as a threat yet.”

“Even if we could, there’s still feral ghouls, Talon Company, raider crews, and all kinds of wildlife we’ve got to watch out for,” Peters added. “Keep your eyes open, twerp.”

Hill snorted loudly, making Maxson grimace with embarrassment, but any further retorts were shut down by a terse word from Metzger.  

The rest of the journey went by in relative silence. The group didn’t encounter any other signs of life whatsoever, not that Peters had really expected to. She knew from experience that all but the craziest or most desperate raider crews hunkered down during heavy snow. And the lack of travelers meant that even Super Mutants didn’t usually bother hunting in severe weather, even if they were perfectly capable of it. They tended to spend winter throwing themselves at struggling settlements and encampments instead. 

As the group was on the last leg of their trek, making their way up the road to the embarkment building, Peters was surprised to see a bunch of different power armored people working to clear away debris from the surrounding area and sort any useful scrap into piles. Several of them were Brotherhood of Steel, but at least as many were wearing a completely different mark to the others that lacked any of the usual Brotherhood identifiers. Twilight was working alongside them, using her magic to strip ancient vehicles down into their constituent parts. Peters couldn’t help but watch in awe as she casually dismantled an entire coach like it was a simple kid’s puzzle. 

“That’s not military power armor. Are they Enclave?” Metzger asked. 

Cross nodded. “They’re construction and maintenance suits. The Enclave is even offering to trade some to Rivet City itself.”

“Jesus Christ, it must be nice to have so much power armor that you can use it for goddamn maintenance,” Hill spat.

“If it makes you feel any better, the Brotherhood is trading for some of their old military suits, including T-60’s and X-01’s,” Cross told him. “As Paladins, you’ll be first in line for all the best new gear.”

“Awww, yeah,” one of the other Wonderbolts said appreciatively. 

The Wonderbolts became more talkative now that they were in the shadow of Rivet City, but Peters noticed that none of them let their guard down until they had crossed the bridge and were all safely aboard. As soon as the door closed Cross turned back to the others. “Good job, people. Wonderbolts, report to Chief Harkness in the tower, then you’re free to take some time to rest. Maxson, Peters, come with me.”

Peters barely heard her. She retained just enough awareness to follow along with Maxson, but her attention was well and truly stolen by her fantastical surroundings. The Knights had swapped stories about how the Rainbooms’ magic had changed Rivet City, and Three Dog never missed an opportunity to read out reports and messages from people about how spectacular the city had become, but even the most exaggerated tale just didn’t do it justice.

“Did the Rainbooms really do all of this?” Maxson asked, awestruck.

“Not directly,” Cross replied as she hunched to fit her power-armored bulk through a door. “The same wave of magic that hit the Citadel hit here, too, but the radioactive water, a bunch of reckless experiments and a little guidance from the Rainbooms afterwards helped encourage the growth you see before you.” She paused and looked at the walls with a wry smile. “I have to admit though, things have progressed a lot since I was last here. It’s incredible just how quickly this magic is growing and spreading.”

Peters raised a hand to her throat and stroked the little crystal that had been affixed to her holotags. So far, all she had been able to do with it was give herself a tiny set of useless wings, but she couldn’t help but wonder if her magic would grow just like Rivet City’s had. Even if it didn’t, she couldn’t help but feel excited about being connected to something so awesome. 

The magic wasn’t the only thing that caught Peters’ eye. Between her time as a raider and her new life with the Brotherhood of Steel, Peters couldn’t remember what it was like to just be a normal civilian, living in an ordinary settlement. Safe. Secure. Not having to fight, swindle, or fuck just to get a decent fucking meal. 

A faint sense of resentment set in as Peters walked through the city. The residents were wandering around without a care in the world, not having to worry about getting mauled by wild animals, or constantly looking over their shoulder in case one of the stoned psychos they hung out with decided to stab them on a whim. Half of them would probably be dead in a day if they got kicked out of their pretty little city. Peters knew that she wasn’t really being fair, but she couldn’t help it. Lady Luck could be an absolute bitch sometimes. 

“I don’t know what crawled up your ass and died in the last five minutes, but check your expression, we’re about to see the Elder,” Maxson said under his breath.

Peters bit her tongue before she could spit out a vile retort. She sighed heavily, then straightened up, composed herself, and gave Maxson a curt nod in thanks. “How much further?”

“We’re here,” Cross replied as she came to a sudden halt outside a door. 

Peters frowned, wondering why the hell there weren’t any guards posted outside, but she kept her mouth shut. Her unspoken question was answered when they entered. The room was surprisingly spacious, or it would be if it didn’t have half a dozen Knights in it, twice as many Scribes, and a handful of bulky computers resembling those that used to be kept in the Citadel’s archives.

“Cross, over here.” Peters looked around to see Elder Lyons sitting at one of the terminals with Sunset Shimmer, waving the three over. “I’m glad to see you made it. Did you have any trouble on the journey?”

“None whatsoever,” Cross replied. 

“Good. I don’t think things are going to stay peaceful for long, but I’ll take whatever grace we can get for the moment.” The Elder nodded respectfully to Cross. “I’ll take this from here, go get some rest.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Cross snapped a crisp salute and left immediately. 

Peters felt a little apprehensive standing before two of the most powerful women in the Capital Wasteland, especially after all of the bullshit the two had been through recently. That sort of stuff was more than enough to put someone in a bad mood, and powerful people had a tendency to take out their frustrations on those who didn’t have power, whether they deserved it or not. Neither Sunset or Sarah carried themselves like that sort of bitch, but it was hard to shake off lessons learned from years of experience. 

As if to confirm her fears, Elder Lyons placed her elbow on the table and clasped her hands before fixing Peters with an uncomfortably serious look. “I’ve got some questions about your background, if you don’t mind answering.”

For one gut-wrenching moment, Peters was certain that she was about to be kicked out of the Brotherhood on account of her past as a raider. “What do you want to know?” She asked, drying to ignore how dry her mouth suddenly felt. 

“You’ve been in combat before, right?” The Elder asked. “I don’t mean a punch-up over some random thing, but a real, honest to god gunfight as part of a team against another armed group.”

Peters was caught flat-footed by the question, but answered honestly, “Uh, yeah, I’ve been in a few, but most of the time I was just stuck at the back to provide cover fire or sent around the flanks.” It would have been easy for Peters to lie and say that she had been right at the forefront of every raid, exaggerating how badass she was, but there didn’t seem to be much point here. There weren’t any assholes that needed impressing or warning off.

Despite her lack of exaggeration, Elder Lyons nodded with satisfaction. “Good. Hand me your holo-tags.” The request threw Peters off even more, but, reluctantly, she pulled her holo-tags over her head and placed them in the Elder’s outstretched hand, the attached gemstone rattling with every movement. Lyons stuck the tags in a port in the terminal, typed in some sort of command, then pulled them back out and handed them back. “There, I’ve officially promoted you to Initiate. We’ll hold a proper ceremony in a day or two, but your new rank applies as of this moment.”

Peters stared down at the holo-tags in her hand in blank shock. “Uh… what?”

“You’re an Initiate,” Elder Lyons repeated. “Paladin Shimmer will be your Proctor as part of the Order of the Staff. However, since she and the Rainbooms will be spending a lot of time on operations out in the wastes, most of the time you’ll answer directly to me. We’re still working out the details of trade with the Enclave but, depending on how things go, we should be able to issue and train you with a suit of power armor within a week or so.”

“Power armor?” Peters felt a rush of excitement at those words. She had been longing for the day that she could swagger around in a T-45 suit like a walking tank, but she never dreamed that it would be happening so soon.

Maxson stepped forward and reached for his holo-tags as well, only to be forestalled as Elder Lyons held up a hand. “Sorry, Maxson, but not today. I’m uncomfortable enough sending a fifteen year old into combat, there’s no way I’m sending in a ten year old. Keep training, prove yourself over the next few years, master your training, show me that you can follow orders, and you’ll rise through the ranks before you know it.”

Maxson deflated, clearly disappointed, but nevertheless gave a resigned nod. “Yes, Elder.”

“Congrats on the promotion, but now comes the shit part, Initiate,” Sunset cut in, shattering Peters’ daydreams. “Do you remember a guy by the name of Devan?”

The mere mention of that name felt to Peters like a bucket of icy water thrown in her face. She put her hands behind her back to hide the fact that she was clenching them so tightly it was painful. “Yeah, I do. How do you know him?” Peters asked, struggling to keep her tone as respectful as she could. 

“After we discovered that you’re a counterpart of a friend of ours back home, Rainbow realized that we had a lead on some other possible counterparts, so I did a little digging,” Sunset replied. “Devan’s name came up in my search. From what I’ve heard, he hasn’t shown his face around here in years, but he does have a few old acquaintances still living here. Some of them knew your parents.” Sunset crossed her arms and watched Peters carefully. “Before he disappeared, he told some of them that he had found you and your parents all dead, and that he was the one who buried your bodies.”

“That fucking lying cunt!” Peters exclaimed viciously. She opened her mouth to tell them exactly what that lying filth had really done, but she froze when she noticed that the whole room had suddenly gone very quiet. It took a second further for her to realize that she was leaning over the table aggressively, her fists shaking at her sides, and that she had just spewed some fairly vile language in front of the Brotherhood’s Elder. She blushed and forced herself to straighten up. “Uh, sorr-”

“I don’t give a damn about your language right now. Just tell us what you know of him,” Elder Lyons said flatly. 

Peters nodded gratefully and made an effort to keep her tone more polite, “Devan wasn’t there when my parents died. Deathclaws got ‘em, those fuckers don’t usually leave enough behind to bury. The only reason I survived was because I was filming the whole fucking scenario from a nearby hideaway.” 

Sunset and the Elder both winced in sympathy. Awful memories stirred in the back of Peters’ mind, but she shoved them back and stubbornly continued, “Anyway, I tried to get back home to Megaton afterwards, and ran into Devan on the way. He had always been a friend of the family, so I told him what had happened. I knew I had other relatives out there somewhere, so I asked if he could help me find them, but when I asked he shook his head and said…” Peters cleared her throat and lowered her gaze to the floor. “He said that they had expected something like this to happen eventually, that they didn’t want to deal with my parents’ dumb mistakes. They paid him to take me to Paradise Falls if my parents ended up dying and making their brat someone else’s problem. That son of a bitch would have made me a slave if I hadn’t put a bullet in his leg and ran like fuck.”

The two women listening both sighed heavily. “Paradise Falls.” Elder Lyons huffed and turned to Sunset. “Looks like Sister was telling the truth, Devan was a slaver.”

Peters snapped her head back up. “Wait a minute, who’s Sister? And what do you mean about Devan being a slaver?” 

“Sister is one of Devan’s old aquaintances,” Sunset replied. “I’ve suspected that Devan was a slaver for a while, but I only managed to confirm it when I spoke to Sister earlier today, and you right now. I wanted to bring all of this up with you before, but with all of the shit that’s been going on with the Enclave and Unity I haven’t had a chance.”

The revelation that her old betrayer might actually have been a slaver the whole time made Peters’ head spin. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to get her thoughts in order and piece everything together in her head. “If he was a slaver, then he was just doing his job, right? So why would he bother telling people that I was dead?”

“Because he lied to you,” Sunset said grimly. “Devan was never paid to get rid of you. My best guess is that he stumbled across you in the wastes, assumed you’d be an easy mark when he heard that your parents were dead, and took the opportunity to make some quick caps. He must have spread the lie that you were dead to cover his ass after you slipped through his fingers.”

Peters slowly lowered her hand and stared at Sunset as a terrible realization dawned. “So… my relatives…?”

“Two aunts, both living together alive and well here in Rivet City, and both believed that you had died all those years ago until I spoke to them,” Sunset explained. Peters was lost for words. She felt like the floor was falling away beneath her feet, and the sting of Devan’s betrayal burned as freshly as it had back when her parents had died. Seeing her expression, Sunset gently said, “They would love to meet you, but they wanted that to be up to you. What do you think? Do you want to meet them?”

Peters didn’t have a clue. She had spent years thinking about what she would do if she ever found her relatives, but it had always been through the lens of revenge. The prospect of meeting them in a peaceful setting was almost entirely alien to her. If she was honest with herself, Peters had, on her darkest days, occasionally imagined what it might be like to have a real family again, but she had never even dreamed that it might actually come true. 

“For fuck’s sake, Scoots, are you seriously going to say no?” Maxson asked incredulously.

“Call me Scoots again and I’ll rip your dick off,” Peters hissed. She shook her head and drew in a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “You’re right, though. I… I do want to meet them.”

Sunset nodded and stood up. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Wait, now?!” Peters yelped. 

“If Elder Lyons will allow it,” Sunset replied with a glance at the Elder, who just nodded back. “Perfect. Would you rather I come with you, or should I just tell you where they live so you can go at your own pace?”

Peters shook her head vigorously. “No, let’s get this over and done with.”

Sunset nodded again and headed towards the door. Peters followed in her wake, her mind reeling as she tried to come to terms with what had just happened. One simple conversation had almost entirely shattered everything that she thought was the truth. 

“Where exactly do they live?” Peters asked, in an attempt to distract herself from her own feelings with a normal question. 

“They’ve got a room in the Weatherly Hotel, halfway across this deck,” Sunset told her. “Hopefully they’re in. If not, we’ll just have to-” She was cut off as she opened the door and stumbled across two middle-aged women grilling a Scribe who must have been returning from an errand. 

“I’ve already told you, I have no idea who your niece is,” the Scribe said in a long-suffering voice. “I’m happy to ask the Elder about her on your behalf, but I cannot let you in there without authorization.”

One of the women puffed herself up and planted her fists on her hips, as if she was about to give the poor Scribe the scolding of a lifetime, only to suddenly switch tack when she spotted Sunset. “Oh, Lady Shimmer! We’re trying to find out if Maddie is safe after what happened at the Citadel, but we can’t get anything out of these Brotherhood mooks.” She punctuated her last word with a glare at the Scribe. 

“Uh, about that…” Sunset stepped aside and glanced awkwardly at Peters. “Initiate Peters, these two are Jackie and Holly. They’re, uh, they’re your aunts.”

Stunned silence reigned for several seconds. Peters and the two women stared at each other in shock, neither making a move, until finally one of the women cautiously half-raised her arms. It was clear that she was hoping for a hug, but Peters couldn’t get her legs or mouth to work one way or the other. She was rooted to the spot. 

Seeing the hesitation from the three of them, Sunset rolled her eyes, snatched the front of Peters’ uniform faster before she could even blink, and practically threw her at the two women. One of them let out a loud ‘oof’ as they collided, but Peters still felt two pairs of arms crush her tightly, as if they never intended to let her go. She tensed up, everything moving too fast for her to keep up, but the sensation of being held, by someone who wasn’t trying to force themselves on her, slowly softened her up. Hesitantly, Peters reached out to hug her aunts back. 
> Chapter 160 - Improvements
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the last couple of days, Rainbow had spent her time moping around in the clinic. Her surgery had been a success, and her shiny new implants had been put in without any issues. There were even a couple of badass patches of bare metal visible right behind her ears where the implants were a little too bulky to fit under the skin. 

The only problem was the fact that, as the doctor had warned, Rainbow still couldn’t hear anything with any clarity. Everything just registered as dull buzzing or droning. It was better than nothing, but there was no way that she could go wandering around the city like this, let alone try and head out into the wastes. She had learned a little American Sign Language with the help of one of the nurses, but not enough to hold a proper conversation with. 

And so Rainbow had moped. Thankfully, Doctor Preston had been happy to let her laze around in the clinic, largely because he wasn’t too busy at the moment, what with everyone staying indoors due to the weather. 

Sprawled out on a clinic bed, Rainbow flinched and whipped her head around as she saw the door open out of the corner of her eye. She relaxed when she realized that it was just Doctor Preston coming in. “Hey, doc. Any news?”

The doctor smiled and nodded. His words came across as a low hum to Rainbow, but she didn’t need to hear to recognize the items he held up. “Are those my new hearing aids?!” She asked eagerly. The reply was another nod and more indecipherable mumbling, but instead of being irritated by it this time, Rainbow sat up and hurriedly pulled her hair back away from her ears. “Alright! Come on, I’m sick of not hearing anything!”

With yet another obliging nod, Doctor Preston stepped over to Rainbow’s side, put one of the hearing aids on the bedside table, and raised the other to her ear. The feeling of the aid getting squished into her ear was a little weird, but it wasn’t too bad until a high-pitched squeal punched into her brain, making her wince and yelp. Thankfully, the noise only lasted for a second before going mostly quiet again.

“That’ll be the aid syncing with your implants, it should only last a moment,” Doctor Preston said as he picked up the second hearing aid. Rainbow practically exploded with excitement at the sound of his voice, but she forced herself to stay perfectly still until the second hearing aid was in. “There. Can you hear me?”

“Perfectly!” Rainbow exclaimed, reveling in just how crisp and clean the sound was. 

“Excellent.” Doctor Preston grinned and stepped back. “How about the fit? Any pain or discomfort?”

Rainbow shook her head. “Nope, you did an awesome job with the molds!”

“I’m glad to hear it. All that’s left to do now is give the aids a quick test to make sure they’re working at their full range, and if all goes well then you’re good to go,” the doc explained. 





The top deck of Rivet City was truly breathtaking. It had largely been hidden from view by the thickly falling snow when the Enclave party had arrived, but now that the snow had stopped she was actually up on the deck, Luna could hardly believe her eyes. 

Huge metallic trees rose up out of the ship to tower over the surrounding city ruins. Above the treetops, random chunks of scrap metal floated around sedately in a purple aura that bore a shocking resemblance to Twilight’s magic. The floor of the deck itself was mostly covered in deep snow, but where it had been cleared away Luna could see a carpet of burnished ankle-high metallic grass; soft blades of steel, copper, brass, and probably other metals that she couldn’t identify all mixing together to create a beautiful stippled effect. Dozens of crystalline obelisks reached out through the grass and snow, in a kaleidoscope of different colors, ranging in height from a mere three or four feet to well over ten feet tall. 

“It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?” Sunset asked. 

Luna looked over at her, casually leaning against a thick malachite obelisk. “It certainly is. I can hardly believe just how powerful your magic really is.”

Sunset just shrugged. She pushed away from the obelisk and shuffled over to lean on the railings around the edge of the deck. “Our magic isn’t that powerful, not on its own. There’s a subtle quirk in this reality’s laws of physics that makes some things work a little differently in this world compared to CHS, radiation being the most obvious part. Mix a large dose of our magic with massive amounts of this world’s ionizing radiation, and you end up with something like this.” Sunset gestured vaguely at the trees and floating metal. 

“That’s… a little concerning,” Luna admitted. “I suppose I should just be thankful that the radiation from the war has decayed enough to allow safe travels outside, relatively speaking.”

“Yeah, to an extent. I’d still make sure to take a radaway if you’re outside for more than a couple of hours though,” Sunset said in a tone that was as casual as it was chilling.

Just as Luna was about to ask why they weren’t hunkered down in a shelter permanently if there was even a slight chance of ambient radiation being a problem, a hollow boom echoed from somewhere off in the distance. “That sounded like it came from Project Purity,” Luna noted, a slight tremor in her voice betraying her worry. 

“No, it was too close for that,” Sunset assured her. 

The two cautiously leaned over the railings to look back towards the bow of the ship. There, hovering over the ruins near the bow, was a black shape that Luna recognized as a Vertibird. As she watched, there were several flashes and a plume of snow and dust puffed up from within the ruins. The sound of rippling explosions reached their ears a second or two later. 

“Looks like someone’s trying their luck against the Enclave,” Sunset said in a surprisingly calm tone. “It’s probably Super Mutants or a band of raiders.”

“Why would anyone try to attack a Vertibird? What do they gain from it?” Luna asked. 

Sunset snorted loudly. “Any number of reasons. If it’s raiders, it could be that they’re desperate for supplies since there aren’t as many travelers to prey on thanks to all this snow. Or they could be trying to prove how tough they are and make a name for themselves, or it’s some lunatics picking a fight for shits and giggles.”

“Please tell me that that’s just a particularly tasteless joke,” Luna pressed, though she felt sure that she already knew the answer. 

“I wish it was,” Sunset said grimly. “I know one girl who only joined a raider crew because it was her only chance of survival, and I’m sure that there’s a few others out there in the same situation, but they’re a minority. Most raiders are twisted psychopaths who rape, pillage and murder anyone who crosses their path just because they think it’s fun.”

The last word was spat with such venom that Luna had to wonder if Sunset was speaking from experience, a thought that chilled her to the bone. Driven by an urge to change the subject, and a certain sick curiosity despite how scared she was of the answer, Luna asked, “What about Super Mutants? Why would they attack a Vertibird?”

Sunset grimaced. “To eliminate a threat, sow fear among their enemies, and drag off any survivors to infect them and turn them into more Super Mutants.” As Luna digested that horrible little revelation, Sunset sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “The Super Mutants haven’t been all that active lately, and some people are suggesting that they’ve run out of the FEV they need to replace their losses, but I don’t think so. The fuckers still had plenty of that crap left when me and the girls infiltrated their Vault. I know we damaged their stocks, and we killed a fair number of Mutants, but we didn’t do that much damage.”

A vivid mental image of the girls fighting against a whole mob of creatures built like Fawkes flashed across Luna’s mind and made her blood run cold. Even with the benefit of powerful magic, facing off against such monsters, especially in a cramped underground facility, sounded like an absolute nightmare scenario. 

“How have you managed to survive in this world?”Luna slapped a hand across her mouth as she realized what she had just said. Thankfully, Sunset just smiled wryly. 

“It hasn’t been easy,” she admitted. “Almost everything out there in the wasteland can and will try to kill you, including the wasteland itself. Lucky for us, though, we’ve now got the training, the equipment, and the experience we need to survive out there.”

“Why do you even need to go back out there, though?” Luna asked anxiously. “You’ve helped the people of this world with their problems, you’ve taught them about magic, you’ve even fought in their wars! I understand that you need to find a special part to rebuild the portal, but the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel have soldiers. Power-armored soldiers. You girls have magic, but you’re still high-schoolers. Why do you have to keep risking your lives?”

Sunset sighed heavily. “It’s not that simple. There’s too many threats out there for the Enclave or Brotherhood to just drop everything and scour the wasteland for us. Besides, we don’t know where, or even if, there’s another SDT waiting to be found. We’ve got to do this ourselves.” She sighed again and leaned on the railings, a wistful look on her face. “Don’t worry. I don’t have any intention of dying until I’ve got everyone back home in one piece.”

Before Luna could say anything to that odd statement, someone called out from behind, “Hey, how’s it going?” 

Luna and Sunset both turned to see Fluttershy walking towards them, hand-in-hand with a young man who had deathly pale skin and a mess of jet-black hair. He was wearing a heavily patched blue jumpsuit under a slightly tattered leather jacket, and had a pair of weapons slung over his shoulders. It took Luna a moment to realize that this must be what Adam looked like outside his armor. 

“We’re good, just discussing the crap out there in the wastes,” Sunset replied. “What about you guys?”

“We’re fine,” Fluttershy replied with a small smile. 

Luna did a double-take when she spotted that the usually meek young woman had a sniper rifle slung over her back and an actual sword scabbarded at her waist. Sunset didn’t seem to see anything unusual about it, as instead of commenting on it, she instead asked conversationally, “So what took you so long getting back here from Canterbury Commons? Was it rougher than you thought out there, or did you manage to get lost even with Fawkes babysitting you?”

Adam chuckled and shook his head. “Neither of the above. Canterbury Commons was weird as hell, that’s for sure, but while we were on our way back we heard Three Dog reporting about Grayditch, so we headed there to see if we could help out. I had to turn my radio off when we were down in the metro tunnels, which is why we didn’t hear about what happened at the Citadel.”

“Um, quick question, what happened down there?” Fluttershy asked, pointing over to where the Vertibird had been engaging a mystery enemy. The Vertibird itself was nowhere to be seen, but several thin plumes of smoke rising from the ruins showed where their targets had been.

“Someone had a minor disagreement with a Vertibird,” Sunset replied. 

Frowning, Fluttershy unslung her sniper rifle and stepped over to the railings, then peered down the scope towards the site of the skirmish. She scanned the area for a few seconds, then sighed and lowered the rifle. “I can’t see who it was. You don’t think it was someone trying to attack Rivet City, do you?”

“It’s possible, but not likely. Not unless it was a scouting party or something,” Sunset said calmly. Something must have shown on Luna’s face, because Sunset smiled reassuringly at her and added, “ Don’t worry, Rivet City is the biggest and most heavily-defended settlement in the Capital Wasteland, and that was before the Brotherhood of Steel moved in. It can take care of itself.”

“Oh, that reminds me!” Adam shrugged off one of the rifles and held it up so the others could see, “I found this in Grayditch. It’s a Chinese assault rifle, they’re a little sturdier and more effective than the US-made ones. I was gonna keep it as a backup weapon, but then I saw you newbies and I realized you might not have a gun yet, so, here.” 

Luna stared blankly as he held the gun out to her. “You were talking to me?”

Sunset crossed her arms and glared furiously at Adam. “Luna and the others are staying either here or at the Adams Air Force Base. They aren’t going out into the wastes under any circumstances, so they don’t need a gun.”

“Sorry, Sunset, but I think Adam has the right idea,” Fluttershy cut in. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but think about it. How many times have we gotten into trouble even in the safest places? Remember what happened with Burke? And Jericho? Even you had trouble with a slaver right here in Rivet City.”

Sunset opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again with a scowl. She was silent for several long seconds, clearly trying to come up with a counter-argument, but finally she sighed and turned to Luna. “It… might be better for you to be armed,” Sunset admitted begrudgingly. “There’s plenty of people here who can train you, if that’s what you want, but don’t think even for a second that this is something you have to do.”

“It’s alright, I assumed that it might come to this at some point,” Luna said confidently, though inside she was bordering on total panic. She had trained with a little laser pistol with the Enclave, but this was a whole other kettle of fish, and seeing the miniature battle occurring so close to what was supposed to be a safe settlement had made things all too real. Swallowing her fears, Luna reached out and took the gun with a nod of thanks.





“Could you just hold this arm out to the side for me, darling?” Tabitha asked. 

Rarity obediently stretched out her arm for her counterpart. She was currently being fitted for a stylish new trench coat, designed to fit under her usual armor, made out of newly-developed armorweave donated by the local Temple of Harmony. She also happened to be thoroughly enjoying herself. “I wish I could spend more time like this. Fashion truly is my passion, even if it is for something as base as warfare.”

“I hope you can get home soon and throw yourself back into it properly. Trading fashion secrets and trends between realities sounds fabulous!” Tabitha gushed. She looked over to one corner of the room and grinned. “In fact, I think there’s going to be a new trend sweeping through the more fashion-conscious wastelanders over the coming weeks.”

Rarity followed her gaze and smiled at the sight of Fawkes admiring himself in the mirror. He was wearing a simple ensemble consisting of black pants, a gentle cream dress shirt that complimented the tones of his skin, and an expertly-stitched brahmin-leather waistcoat over the top of it. Rarity had designed it herself. It had been tricky getting the cut right; heavily-muscled people had a tendency to look utterly ridiculous if the tailoring wasn’t done just right, but her experience in making suits for Bulk Biceps paid dividends in that regard. 

The effect was dazzling. All Fawkes needed was a set of nice cufflinks and perhaps a pocket watch, and Rarity would happily describe him as dashing. 

“Does everything fit comfortably, Fawkes?” Tabitha asked. 

Fawkes flinched and whipped his head around, then self-consciously cleared his throat and patted his waistcoat. “Everything is perfect, Miss Germaine. I can not begin to thank the both of you for this.”

Both fashionistas scoffed in perfect unison. “There’s no need to thank us, dear,” Tabitha assured him. “With everything you’ve done for the wasteland, a nice outfit is the least we could do.”

Rarity was relieved to see Fawkes relax and actually offer up a small smile. Most of Rivet City’s residents were understandably wary of the Super Mutant in their midst, no matter how much the Brotherhood and the Rainbooms vouched for him. Tabitha was one of the few who had accepted him wholeheartedly. She had been so impressed with him, in fact, that she had eagerly told him about the Railroad and its purpose. 

“Speaking of doing things for the wastes, I have something I’d like to run by you both,” Tabitha said suddenly. 

“What is it?” Rarity asked as Fawkes looked over curiously. 

Tabitha checked that the door was closed before answering, “In light of the Brotherhood’s current problems, we’re considering revealing the existence of the Railroad and its purpose to them. We’ll offer small-scale military support and access to our intelligence network, as well as potential recruits from the synths we rescue, in exchange for non-intervention in our work, and protection in the event that the Institute sends someone sniffing around again. What do you think?”
> Chapter 161 - The Good, the Bad, and the Siren
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The courtyard of the Exodus building had been meticulously cleared of snow by its maintenance crew, but the Vertibird still kicked up a hurricane of flakes as it landed. Becky covered her eyes as she disembarked and hurried to the relative comfort of the main building. It could hardly be called warm, but it was better than outside. 

As she strode purposefully to the basement elevator, Becky fired off instructions to the aides who were following her, “Tell the armory that I need a complete list of how many suits of power armor we have that we can comfortably spare by 0900 tomorrow. Did they get back to us on how many .50cal rounds we had in storage?”

“Only around a thousand still in useable condition,” one of the aides replied. 

“It’s better than nothing. Have them packed up with the AA gun and sent to Rivet City with tomorrow’s crystal shipment. And make sure that the upgrades for the Rainbooms’ Pip-Boys are sent with it,” Becky told him. “Also, tell Medical to ease off on the magical biogel research and expedite production of the Scorched vaccines instead. The report that the Brotherhood received from the Regulators about strange goings on around Vault 112 are a little too familiar for my taste. Do we have any updates on the altered Deathclaws?”

One of the aides checked their clipboard. “The last of the Deathclaws had their control modules removed last night. They’re all recovering well, and the regimen of positive reinforcement coupled with clothes imbued with Kindness magic for the trainers is so far keeping them non-violent, though not particularly co-operative.”

Becky snorted softly. “I don’t think we can blame them for being grouchy. Either way, as long as they’re not eating anyone, and Fluttershy isn’t going to be breathing down my neck, I’ll call it a good outcome.” The sight of the elevator ahead gave her a small sense of relief. “I’m heading downstairs now. Remind the scientists stationed at Rivet City to send daily reports, or I’m sending Tara to kick their asses into shape.”

The aides all assured the President that they would and dispersed as she stepped into the elevator, Agent Drops following behind. Only when the doors had closed and the elevator was moving did she let out an exhausted sigh and sag against the wall. “How did past presidents find time to keep up with all of their scheming and backstabbing on top of all the rest of this shit?”

“They had more staff, and they usually didn’t bother forming diplomatic ties with any outside parties or factions,” Agent Drops replied. “That, and more than a few of them were habitual users of performance-enhancing chems.”

Becky chuckled humorlessly. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me as much as it should.” She straightened up and placed her hand on her hips to stretch out her back. “Okay, is there any news that I should know about?”

Agent Drops nodded. “The perimeter around the Greener Pastures site has been completed, so the parasprites aren’t going to be a problem. Also, Lieutenant Colonel Strong received the first report from the fireteam stationed at Galaxy News. Three Dog is still complaining loudly about Enclave presence there, both on air and off, but on the plus side he has admitted, begrudgingly, that you, quote, ‘might not be a total dick’.”

“That’s the nicest thing he’s ever said about me,” Becky noted. 

The rest of the elevator ride was spent in idle chatter. When they finally reached the bottom, Agent Drops stepped out first as always, then Becky took the lead when her bodyguard was sure that it was safe. 

The basement was much busier than usual, with technicians and maintenance workers hurrying about carrying all sorts of things. Becky supposed that they were busy clearing away the unsalvageable scrap from the portal and bringing in spare parts. Of course, their efforts would be futile unless another SDT-1 could be found, but even a half-working portal would be better than none at all. 

“Alright, let’s do what we came here for.” Becky drew in a deep breath to compose herself, then asked a passing technician to tell Tara to head down to Horrigan’s maintenance room. To her surprise, the technician told her that Tara was already down with Horrigan, so Becky nodded her thanks and headed for the main corridors. 

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Agent Drops asked quietly as they walked. 

“I sure as hell hope so,” Becky replied. The oversized brute had been in a vegetative state since the fall of the Citadel. Horrigan might have been a raging psychopath, but he was straightforward, loyal to a fault and, frankly, he composed a large part of the Enclave’s remaining strength. His loss would be a terrible blow. 

The two fell silent as they passed more personnel. Becky had no idea how much any of them knew about Horrigan’s precarious state, but she wasn’t about to risk damaging their morale any further. Luckily, the number of personnel passing by diminished the deeper into the facility they went, until finally it was just the two women walking alone. 

Sienna and Tara were both waiting in Horrigan’s room when Becky arrived. They turned as soon as they heard the door open, but she only gave them a perfunctory nod before looking over at Horrigan. 

The Enclave’s greatest soldier was propped up in his repair frame, utterly lifeless. “How’s he doing?” Becky asked.

“Nothing has changed,” Sienna replied in a flat monotone. “Most of his vitals are perfectly normal, but no matter what we do, his brain activity is almost non-existent.”

“Even infusing him with magic didn’t work?” Agent Drops asked.

Tara shook her head despondently. “We’ve tried giving him samples of his own magic from before the battle in every variation and dose that we can think of, but nothing works. It’s as if his body is rejecting the magic.”

“What about using different magic?” The other three looked at Becky in blank confusion, so she elaborated, “Well, that rainbow blast that the Rainbooms use is meant to purge dark or corrupted magic, right? Horrigan was resurrected in the first place by a combination of a bunch of different kinds of magic, so maybe he needs a boost with just the good stuff?”

Tara and Sienna shared a dumbfounded look, then both sighed heavily. 

“I swear, if this actually fucking works…” Sienna muttered as Tara rushed out of the room to find other magic. 

“Will you honestly be upset to have him back?” Becky pressed.

Sienna scowled at her. “No, but I will be annoyed that this fucking Equestrian magic apparently runs on some fairy-land happy-go-lucky crap. I spent ten years studying to become a medic, and now I’ve got to deal with this baby-brained bullshit.”

“You need to get laid,” Agent Drops said bluntly.

“I’ve got batteries, what I need is a drink and some fucking sleep,” Sienna countered. 

“You can have both as soon as we’ve tested this,” Becky assured her. 

At first, the group waited patiently, but as the minutes dragged by, the three women grew increasingly restless. All in all an hour passed before Tara finally returned, carrying a metal box that held seven different colors of magic. 

“What took you so long?” Sienna asked grumpily. 

“Sorry, I had to do a bunch of paperwork to get hold of most of this,” Tara replied. “Every drop of magic here is being strictly monitored while we rebuild the portal.” She dumped the box on an empty table and set about preparing the magic, emptying each bottle into special vials connected to Horrigan’s armor via tubes. As soon as the last vial was filled, Tara nodded with satisfaction and hurried over to the control terminal. “Here goes nothing.”

The whole group watched with bated breath as the liquid magic flowed through the tubes and into Horrigan. Nothing happened at first, but, slowly, a faintly glowing mist started to seep from the joints in his armor, though this time it was a deep, sparkling blue instead of acid green.  

“It worked! I’m starting to see an increase in brain activity!” Tara excalied eagerly. 

Sienna squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fuck me sideways.”





Commander Jabsco had seen his fair share of snow over the years, but this winter was something else. He watched impassively as his subordinates exhorted the slaves to tightly pack the snow around the chain-link fences around the fort, sealing the gaps in the perimeter walls with barricades of solid ice. Jabsco didn’t particularly like snow, it slowed business down, but he wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to shore up the fort’s defenses, even if only temporarily.

“Commander? The Overmaster is here to see you.”

Jabsco rolled his eyes and turned to see his second-in-command leading Shephard to him. He repressed a shudder at the sight of the hulking Super Mutant and asked sardonically, “Given yourself a new title, have you?”

“It is appropriate,” Shepherd replied in its shockingly soft voice. “All of the Super Mutants of the Capital Wasteland are now united under my command.”

“I bet you had to crack a few skulls to get that to happen,” Jabsco said with a snort. 

Shephard nodded. “A few, but that is not why I am here.” It crossed its arms and fixed Jabsco with a look that made him want to run screaming. “Keep Lightning out of the tunnels beneath the D.C. ruins.”

“What? Why?” Jabsco asked incredulously. “She’s our best weapon against those damned ghouls. We’re having enough trouble keeping their battles from spilling out into the Mall as it is. The last thing we need is them swarming the Capitol Building, or worse, those damned red things laying siege to it.”

“She’s too reckless, and it’s starting to become a liability,” Shepherd countered. “If she gets infected by either side, then we’re going to have bigger problems than holding the Capitol Building. I’ll send another Behemoth to the Mall, so don’t worry about the ghoul war spilling out of the tunnels, just get that fool out from under our feet before she puts us all in danger.”

“Can you even spare another Behemoth? What about the assault?” Jabsco asked.

Shephard chuckled dangerously. “Evidently, I’ll have to lead that myself.”





Rivet City’s lowest decks were, quite simply, a Siren’s playground. The metal trees and their limbs were so thick and numerous that simply moving through the corridors was a challenge, but magic pulsed through the walls, the floor, and even the air itself. Every breath Sonata took made her insides tingle. Any magic-munching beast or shoggoth would be able to live comfortably down here, but it wasn’t enough for her. Not nearly enough. 

Sonata had wanted to come down here for days, but this was the first opportunity she had had. Luna had wandered off somewhere with Sunset, Trixie had fallen asleep in their room, and the rest of the Rainbooms were busy with whatever dumb stuff they got up to. It was the first time that the Siren had been unsupervised since they had left the Air Force Base. 

After a quick glance around to make sure that she was alone, Sonata squeezed between two thick brass tree trunks and paused to get her bearings. Somewhere just ahead, she could hear water sloshing around. Sloshing meant a current or some other movement, so at least the water wasn’t stagnant. More importantly, the faint sound she had been hearing for the last few days, one that no-one else seemed able to hear, was slowly getting louder and louder.

Grinning, Sonata moved on, clambering through the corridors until finally she found herself at the top of a heavily overgrown stairwell. Deep, faintly glowing water obscured the bottom of the stairs. 

“Huh. I guess I’m swimming.” Sonata started down the stairs, then stopped just before reaching the water as she realized that she didn’t have a change of clothes. She hesitated for a moment, considering her options, then shrugged and stripped down to her underwear, leaving her clothes in a pile at the top of the stairs. 

Sonata hissed as she put her first foot in the water. It was surprisingly cold, even by her standards, though not enough to bother her too much. She lowered herself up to her chest into the water and looked around as she acclimated. The deck wasn’t fully submerged, but the mess of roots reaching down from the ceiling and disappearing into the water would make navigating tricky. 

Once she was acclimated to the cold, Sonata’s next problem was figuring out which way to go. She pushed out into the room, doing a gentle breaststroke as she searched through the maze of roots. 

One door had been pushed open and bent out of shape by a thick tree limb. Sonata dipped her head underwater so she could swim under the root, only to hear the same song that she had heard from her tiny magical crystal ringing clearly through the water, coming from somewhere behind. Twirling around, Sonata pushed off a root and eagerly swam in the direction of the song. On the other side of the room she found another door, this one open wide and clear of any roots. 

The corridor beyond was mostly uncluttered. There were several roots along the sides, but the middle was clear save for a few thin things that were bent and warped. 

Beyond the corridor, Sonata came up for air in a long room lined with strange machinery. Weakly flickering lights provided only the barest level of illumination. Idly wondering what the fishy smell was, she ducked back underwater and swam to the end of the room, following the song. There, at the end, she saw something glinting in a pile of mud and odd white shapes. Sonata quickly grabbed the shiny thing and surfaced. 

The crystal was perfect. It was almost the size of her palm, deep blue and shot through with sparkling ruby-colored veins, exactly like a larger version of the one she had picked up at the Enclave’s headquarters. Pure Siren magic in solid form. 

Hypnotized by the crystal, Sonata almost didn’t notice the dark shape looming up out of the water in front of her. She watched, uncomprehending, as the shadow let out a weird burbling clicking sound, like some sort of oversized crab. Realization struck at the very last second, making Sonata yelp and throw herself backwards right as the mirelurk thrust a claw at her, missing her nose by mere inches. 

Sonata shrieked and flung herself away, swimming harder than she had since she left Equestria. She had no doubt that the mirelurk was following, most predators didn’t give up that easily, so she didn’t dare to slow down as she sped through the corridor and into the stairwell. Sonata dodged between the tightest gaps between roots, hoping that going around would slow the mirelurk down. As soon as she reached the steps she grabbed the vine-encrusted rail and hauled herself out of the water. 

Glancing back as she ran, Sonata saw the mirelurk push through a gap in the roots and charged after her. 

Sonata squealed in fright and belted up the steps, pausing just long enough to snatch up her clothes, then sprinted full-pelt down the corridor. Metal rang as the mirelurk gained on her. When she finally reached the brass trunks that nearly blocked the corridor, Sonata tossed her clothes through before squeezing between them herself. Barely a second later there was a loud bang as the mirelurk crashed into them. 

Gasping for breath, Sonata looked back at the mirelurk angrily shoving its claw through the gap in a vain attempt to reach her. “That was close.” Sonata chuckled and gathered up her clothes before giving the mirelurk a victorious smirk. “Hah! Nice try, you dumb crab!”

In response, the mirelurk slammed itself bodily into the trunks, making Sonata yelp and scamper away back to a safer deck.
> Chapter 162 - Winter Wasteland
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset felt a quiet sense of melancholy as she looked around at the assembled Rainbooms. It was the first time the girls had gathered together for an expedition into the wastes since the portal had been destroyed and, while they were hiding it well, it was plain to see that none of them were happy about it. Sunset knew that they had all been secretly hoping that they would be home by now, but bad luck and the actions of one corrupted asshole had fucked things up for them. 

With a sigh, Sunset reassured herself that at least the Rainbooms were more prepared and better equipped than ever. 

Everyone was wearing their combat armor, while Rainbow was wearing her crystallized version with Flashburn sheathed at her side and her knives strapped to her boots. Fluttershy had her sniper rifle and Vampire’s Edge, Pinkie had the Party Cannon and her new shotgun, and Applejack was hefting her prized minigun. Sunset herself had her plasma rifle slung over her back and her Nova Pistol at her hip. Only Rarity and Twilight weren’t carrying any obvious weapons, though Rarity was wearing the hat she had gotten from Moira and a new trench coat under her armor, making her look like a post-apocalyptic private eye. 

The Rainbooms all looked around as Elder Lyons entered the room, followed by Adam and Fawkes. 

“Good, you’re all here.” Lyons gestured for Adam and Fawkes to join the girls, then drew herself up and looked around at each of them. “Alright, you all know why you’re here. The Brotherhood has managed to regroup over the last week or so, but we’re still critically low on manpower. Recruiting from here in Rivet City isn’t going to do much to bolster our numbers in the short term, even with Three Dog encouraging people to join us, so we’re going to have to search elsewhere.”

“And that’s where we come in,” Sunset finished. 

Lyons nodded curtly. “Exactly. There’s an organization here in Rivet City that I’m in talks with about recruiting from outside the Capital Wasteland, and I’m planning on sending an envoy to the Brotherhood Outcasts, but-”

“The Outcasts? I thought they were only interested in hoarding old tech?” Adam cut in.

Lyons raised an eyebrow at the interruption, but didn’t comment on it. “They are, but access to Liberty Prime, Enclave tech, and our own research on Equestrian magic should be powerful bargaining chips,” she explained. “Moving on, Fawkes, I want you and Adam to head to Underworld and see if any of the residents are interested in joining us.”

“The ghoul settlement? Sure thing!” Adam replied with a grin. 

Despite Adam’s clear enthusiasm, Fawkes looked pensive about the idea. “As eager as I am to invite the residents of Underworld to join us, I am concerned that certain other members of the Brotherhood will not appreciate this course of action. Many Knights and Paladins were resistant to my inclusion. I do not imagine that they will be any more welcoming of ghouls into their ranks.”

The Elder’s face twisted with irritation. “Some of our more… conservative members are against this, but frankly they can get fucked. We desperately need troops, and I’m not going to let a handful of dumbass bigots jeopardize the future of the Brotherhood. Just let anyone who’s interested know that they might face some shitty behavior from some of the bigger assholes.”

“Will do,” Adam assured her. 

With that out of the way, Lyons turned to Sunset. “As for the Rainbooms, I know that the Regulators want to have a word with you, so you can go and meet with them first. Ask them if there’s anything they are willing to do to help us out while you’re there. After that, you’re free to investigate any sites where you believe you might find the missing part for the portal. Having the people see you out and about in the wastes should at least reassure them that we’re not finished just yet.”

“We’ll do what we can to help anyone who needs it.” Sunset would have preferred it if they could just focus on finding a way home, but she knew that there was no way that any of them could ignore someone in dire need of help. 

Lyons gave them all an appraising look, then snapped a salute. “Good luck out there, all of you.”

Everyone returned the salute before filing out of the room. The group was largely silent as they made their way through Rivet City. Something must have shown in their expressions, as every resident that they passed quickly got out of their way, none of them daring to address the squad.

Rivet City’s bridge was already extended when the group got outside. The snow had, mercifully, stopped for the moment, but the clouds above were low and heavy with the threat of more. Traveling through the thigh-high drifts that covered the ground wasn’t going to be easy, but waiting for it all to melt was just not an option. 

It wasn’t until the group had crossed the bridge and stepped out of the embarkment building that Adam finally broke the silence, “Which way are you girls going to go?”

“We’re going to skirt the edges of the D.C. ruins first, then we’ll see what the terrain looks like and decide what to do from there,” Sunset replied. “What about you two?”

Fawkes pointed to the nearby metro tunnel entrance. “We shall venture that way. Underworld is located in the Mall, and Adam’s Pip-Boy map indicates that the tunnels are the most expedient way to get there.”

Sunset nodded. “Sounds good. Just be careful, when we came through that way we caused a massive cave-in.”

“We appreciate the warning.” Adam hefted his plasma rifle and offered the girls a nod. “Look after yourselves out there. See you soon, Flutters.” 

After exchanging brief goodbyes, the two groups went their separate ways. 

For the Rainbooms, the going was easy at first. Constant power-armored traffic between Rivet City and Project Purity, coupled with the efforts of the clearing teams, meant that there was a clear path down from Rivet City to the riverbank. 

When they reached the river, just before the walkways surrounding the Jefferson Memorial, the girls turned north and followed the river along the edge of the ruins, keeping to Rivet City’s side of the waterway. The snow was a little deeper along this route, but the relatively regular patrols of Brotherhood Knights had left a trench that could be followed without difficulty. 

Just like the last time the girls had wandered through the ruins, the girls fell into a somber mood as they passed ancient relics of a happier, more peaceful time. Old trash bins and lampposts poked up out of the snow, and at one point they found a collection of old payphones in booths with screens that were apparently used for video calls, and even the desiccated remains of large potted plants that would have once provided a splash of greenery in the old city. 

It didn’t take long for the Rainbooms to reach the path that Liberty Prime has smashed through the ruins to Galaxy News. Beyond that point, there clearly hadn’t been any foot traffic for a while, as the road alongside the river was covered with thigh-deep pristine snow. Rarity and Twilight used their magic to clear a path through, but even with their help the group was still forced to slow down. 

One thing Sunset was surprised about was the complete lack of Super Mutants they encountered. She knew that they were less active than usual, but she was sure that there would be at least a handful lurking in the area. Even Fluttershy couldn’t pick out any sign of them beyond the smell of old camps and the faint sound of conflict echoing from deep within the ruins. 

In fact, the girls didn’t find any signs of life whatsoever, aside from the occasional mirelurk drifting through the river, until they found a raider camp built from scraps of metal and plywood. Thankfully, the raiders were all wrapped in blankets and huddled around a small fire, neither willing nor particularly able to fight. Sunset felt uncomfortable leaving them be, but murdering them in cold blood wasn’t an option. In the end, the raiders gave the girls information on other raider gangs that might be in the area, and in return Rainbow used Flashburn to make their fire a little bigger and warmer. 

Some way further on, the girls found a building that was clearly occupied. There were wooden walls built around it, but what made it obvious that people were living there was the sound of loud music thumping away inside, accompanied by the equally loud sounds of at least two people who were clearly in the middle of something intimate. None of the girls were eager to interrupt, so they quickly moved on. 

Eventually, the Rainbooms left the main bulk of the D.C. ruins and entered a more open area, with only a few big buildings spaced out relatively evenly. Even these enormous concrete edifices soon gave way to a handful of bombed-out old houses. Beyond the last of the houses was a large hill, crowned with the collapsed remains of an old overpass. 

“Well, ain’t that somethin’,” Applejack said, tilting her hat back to get a better view. 

The view from the top of the hill was spectacular. Rolling slopes stretched out ahead of the girls, entirely covered in untouched snow that glittered even in the wan daylight, broken only by the dark shape of a factory way off in the distance. 

Closer at hand, down to the groups’ right at the bottom of the hill, was the empty shell of an old concrete building. A little further on from it, the distinctive form of a radio tower reached up out of the snow.

“Do you think we could extend the range of our radios if we got that thing working?” Rainbow asked. 

Twilight shrugged. “Maybe, but I don’t think we should waste our time with something like that until the snow has gone.”

“Definitely not,” Rarity agreed. “I have no intention of staying out in this cold for even a second longer than I have to.”

“I’ll second that. Let’s keep moving,” Sunset finished firmly. 

As they continued on, the girls noted gratefully that the terrain was near enough as smooth as the snow made it look. They were still careful to take their time and push forward warily, but the lack of debris or craters allowed them to make good progress at first. The further they got across the snow fields, however, the more the temperature plummeted for no apparent reason, until the girls were shivering even through their heavy winter gear. 

“What the hell is going on? Why’s it getting so fucking cold?” Rainbow demanded. She pulled out Flashburn and ignited it, providing the group with a welcome burst of heat, but even the blade’s magical flame couldn’t completely banish the biting chill that pervaded the area.

“This ain’t natural, it can’t be,” Applejack muttered as she rubbed her arms for warmth.  

Fluttershy, trailing just behind Twilight and Rarity at the front of the group, tightened her grip on her rifle and glanced back at the others. “The cold isn’t our only problem.”

“What can you sense?” Sunset asked, immediately on guard. 

Flutters jerked her chin towards the next slope. “I can hear something breathing, just ahead of us. I haven’t got a clue what it is, but it’s big.”

Pinkie bit her lip anxiously. “Should we go around?”

“Going around will take time, and it’ll be just as risky,” Twilight put in.

“I could always just speed over and see what it even is,” Rainbow offered. 

The other Rainbooms all turned to Sunset, clearly expecting her to make the final decision. She sighed internally and hefted her plasma rifle. “We’ll see what it is, first. If it’s a threat, then we either avoid it or kill it, depending on what it does.”

Her simple plan was met with nods and murmurs of assent from the others. They all readied their weapons and, taking up formation behind Rarity and Twilight, cautiously edged forward. Sunset couldn’t suppress a loud gasp when they reached the top of the slope. 

A massive creature was lying stretched out on the snow ahead. It bore a vague resemblance to a horse, but it was almost entirely transparent, the back half of its body trailed off into a diaphanous cloud of icy mist, and it was easily the size of a city bus. 

“A windigo,” Sunset whispered fearfully. 

“A who-go?” Pinkie asked in confusion.

“A windigo,” Sunset repeated quietly. “A winter spirit that feeds on conflict and hatred.”

The others all glanced at her in shock. “You mean one of them monsters from the old Hearth’s Warming myths?” Applejack asked incredulously. 

“They aren’t myths in Equestria,” Sunset told her in a haunted tone. “They almost wiped out the three most populous pony tribes back in pre-Equestrian times.”

Applejack gave the windigo an appraising look. “Well, like this one ain’t up to causin’ trouble at the moment. Looks like it's asleep.”

Twilight cocked her head to the side curiously. “I don’t remember reading anything in the legends about them needing to sleep. Actually, considering that it’s the middle of winter in a reality like this, shouldn’t this be the time when it’s most active?”

“Maybe it’s overfed?” Pinkie suggested. 

“That… huh.” Sunset crossed her arms and frowned as she considered the possibility. Windigo usually spread a thick layer of ice wherever they went when feeding, turning even the lushest and most vibrant regions into a frigid wasteland, but this one only seemed to be making things a little colder than normal. Of course, there was always the chance that windigo simply worked a little differently in this reality, but Sunset wasn’t sure. “You might be onto something there, Pinkie.”

Fluttershy tentatively raised a hand. “Um, maybe we can just politely ask the windigo to head north where it’s naturally colder?”

Sunset wanted to point out that trying to have a reasonable discussion with a windigo was absurd for a whole host of reasons, but before she could so much as open her mouth the windigo suddenly stirred and let out a low moan that sounded like the north wind come to life. 

“Oh, um, we’re sorry. We didn’t mean to bother you,” Fluttershy said earnestly. 

“What did it say?” Sunset demanded.

“She says that her and the others are planning to leave as soon as winter is over and the weather starts to get warmer,” Fluttershy replied. “Also, she wants us to stop being so loud so she can rest.”

The fact that there were other windigo loose in the wasteland was terrifying. On top of that, Sunset was utterly baffled by the fact that a windigo, a monstrous spirit that fed on strife, had effectively just asked for some peace and quiet. It seemed that Pinkie had been right about the overfeeding. “Okay, you heard her. Let’s, uh, let’s go.”

Confused beyond belief, but relieved to have somehow avoided a fight, the Rainbooms cautiously walked past the windigo, taking a wide berth just in case. The more distance they put between themselves and the spirit the more the temperature rose, until it was back to a more natural level of cold.

“That was fucking weird,” Rainbow said flatly.

“Tell me about it,” Sunset agreed. “Of all the crazy shit that has happened, a peaceful windigo was the last thing I ever expected to fucking see.”





Sonata was annoyed. 

She had been trying to find an opportunity to join her new crystal to her broken amulet for days, but between Luna, Trixie, and the Raingoons, she had barely had a second to herself. 

Even the toilets and showers weren’t safe. At least one of the others always seemed to be somewhere within listening distance, and Sonata wasn’t sure how much noise the amulet would make when it was fixed. The first time she had made one, it had immediately drawn out her voice upon being completed. There was no point in repairing the amulet only to have it taken away the moment it was done. 

To make matters worse, the security team had been watching Sonata like a hawk ever since she returned from fetching her new crystal. Sunset swore that they hadn’t been given details, but they had been told that she was to be kept away from magic at all costs, and the fact that she had been awol for a little while was enough to put every single security officer on guard. Sneaking back down to the bottom decks was going to be impossible. 

The only upside so far was the fact that the Rainbooms were leaving on some mission into the wastes. Luna and Trixie had both gone up to the flight deck to watch them leave, so Sonata had a few minutes where she could sit in a common room without the two of them standing over her shoulder. She had considered taking the opportunity to leave the city and find somewhere secluded in the nearby ruins, but Luna had made it clear that she would come and find her the moment the Rainbooms were gone. 

“It’s not fair,” Sonata huffed. 

“What isn’t?” Someone asked. Sonata jumped out of her skin and looked around to see a young man in a tatty but clean set of clothes sitting next to her. He smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Diego, the acolyte for Saint Monica’s.” Sonata just gave him a blank look, prompting him to continue, “It’s a church, here in Rivet City. One of the last ones left.”

“Tryin’ to convert a goddess to Christianity?” An old guy called out from the other side of the room. “Given up on Staley’s daughter already, have you?” He added with a cackle. 

Diego blushed and stammered out, “I-I was just trying to see if sh- uh, if Miss D-Dusk needed any help!”

The old man snorted loudly. “Bah, she’s just mopin’ ‘cos the Rainbooms have fucked off and left her here.”

Sonata was enjoying the fact that she had been recognized as a goddess, so it took a couple of seconds for the old man’s words to get through her skull. “Huh? The Rainbooms are gone?” She asked, cutting off Diego babbling something about having faith in friends.

“Yeah, about five minutes ago,” the old man said with a nod.

“But where are Luna and Trixie?” Sonata asked bluntly.

“I saw them up on the flight deck just before I came down here,” Diego replied. “I suppose they’re probably still up there.”

The old man grinned at him. “Eyein’ up random women on the flight deck, eh? Naughty, naughty.”

Sonata ignored the two as the bare bones of an idea started to come together in her mind. The Rainbooms had left, and Luna and Trixie were still upstairs, which meant that she had an opportunity. 

“I gotta go, thanks, bye!” Sonata said rapidly as she leapt to her feet and ran to the door. She wrenched the door open, sprinted down the corridor, and scrambled down the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her, eliciting loud curses from the surprised residents who had to dive out of the way. 

When Sonata finally reached the entrance, she paused just long enough to smooth her hair and compose herself before opening the door and walking out as innocently as possible. 

Two security officers turned to her as she stepped outside. “What are you doing?” One of them asked.

“I’m just going to get some air,” Sonata replied naturally. 

She tried to walk past them, but the one who had spoken stepped in front of her with a suspicious expression. “Without your cold weather gear?” He pressed.

“The cold doesn’t bother me,” Sonata told him honestly. 

The man still didn’t budge. “If you just want air, why don’t you go up to the flight deck?”

Sonata froze as her plan suddenly met a problem. Luckily, the other officer came to her defense, “To be fair, there’s more snow on the flight deck than there is over there. I doubt there’s a problem with letting her over the bridge. Besides, where could she possibly get her hands on magic out there?”

The officer in her path sighed and stepped aside. “Fine. Just be careful, and don’t go out of sight of the water registration officers. Just because we’ve got new recruits doesn’t mean we can spare people for a search party.”

“Okay, I’ll do that!” Sonata lied easily. She walked briskly across the bridge, trying to look natural while also trying to get as far out as possible before Luna came charging after her. 

At the other side, Sonata was half-expecting someone to demand that she be accompanied by a security officer, but all of the personnel there were either too busy or too cold to pay her much attention. A female officer warned her to stay in the cleared parking lot nearby and not to go too far, and she was left to her own devices. 

The maintenance teams had actually done a pretty good job of clearing the parking lot. All of the debris had been shoved to a pile on one side, a bunch of broken down old cars with really odd designs had been lined up on the other, along with an old bus, and the snow had been roughly shoveled away and dumped into the river. 

Sonata looked around, wondering where the best place to hide and fix her amulet would be. Squeezing into one of the old cars or the bus could work, but heading into the ruins seemed like it might be a better idea. 

As she wandered further and further away from the embarkment building, Sonata spotted what looked like a steel and glass awning or covering of some kind, out in the snowy area that hadn’t been cleared yet. A closer look revealed that it was very much a covering for a set of steps that led underground, into what looked like an old subway station. Perfect.

Glancing over her shoulder to make sure that no-one was watching, Sonata grinned and hurried down the steps. 
> Chapter 163 - In The Metro Of Madness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sonata looked around curiously as she ambled through the station. Flickering lights overhead provided only the faintest illumination, but it was more than enough for the keen eyes of a Siren. 

It was obvious that the place hadn’t been used properly in a long time. A faint smell of rust was just about noticeable, and the floor was covered in a thick layer of dust, save for where it had been disturbed by two pairs of oversized footprints. Sonata remembered Fawkes’ massive boots and wondered if he had passed this way with Adam. She amused herself for a little while by looking at the faded posters on the walls, including one that had some guy in Brotherhood armor asking people to lend ‘Uncle Sam’ a hand, but she soon got bored and set about finding somewhere quiet to fix her amulet. 

Annoyingly, the ladies’ toilets were completely caved in, and going in the mens’ just felt weird. There weren’t even any neutral or non-binary restrooms in sight. 

A short way further in, Sonata found the doorway that led into the main part of the station. 

The station was nice and spacious. It would have been better if there weren’t piles of debris, cobbled together barricades and walls of sandbags dotted around everywhere, and if the stench of rot wasn’t even stronger here, but not everything in life could be perfect. 

“Oh, perfect!” Sonata grinned as she spotted what looked like an old information booth of some kind made out of steel, complete with an intact door that could be pulled to for some privacy. Just as she hurried towards it, however, she heard the clatter of dislodged stone and a low moan from somewhere down below. 

Sonata looked around in confusion. It took her a second to realize that there were concrete walls on either side of the path, meaning that she was on top of a mezzanine above the tracks. She stepped over to the nearest wall and peered down into the gloom. There was clearly more debris down on the tracks and platforms, but it was too dark to make out any details. “Hello? Is anybody down there?” Sonata called out.

A loud, rasping groan answered her.

“Are you hurt or something?” Sonata sighed and rolled her eyes as whoever it was just groaned again. She considered just ignoring it and leaving them to their problems, but thought better of it when she imagined what the Rainbooms might do if they learned that she had ignored someone who sounded injured. “Ugh, fine.”

Sonata searched until she found a broken-down old escalator and started down towards the platform, grumbling under her breath the whole time. 

The sick reek of decay grew stronger the further down she got until it almost brought tears to her eyes. “Ugh, gross. Why does it stink so ba-eep!” Sonata yelped as she stepped off the bottom of the escalator and immediately slipped on something that squelched under her foot. She looked down, desperately hoping that she hadn’t just stepped in dog poo or something. 

It wasn’t dog poo. 

Sonata cocked her head in confusion at the sight of the weird knobbly tube-like things piled by her feet. They looked almost like intestines, but that couldn’t be right. As she stared blankly at the mess on the floor, convincing herself that they absolutely weren’t once part of a living creature, Sonata realized with horror that the tubes were connected to something large and lumpy nearby. 

The body looked like it had been decomposing for a while. Its skin was flaking and peeling away from its muscles, disgusting fluids coated what was left, and it lacked any hair whatsoever, not to mention the ragged hole in its belly where its guts had spilled out. Before Sonata could fully process what she was seeing, the sound of approaching footsteps caught her attention. She looked over her shoulder, searching under the mezzanine, and her heart leapt into her mouth as a figure emerged from the shadows. 

It was human, or had probably been at one point, but now it was every bit as decayed and noisome as the corpse at Sonata’s feet. The creature was naked aside from a tattered old pair of pants and, horrifyingly, was carrying an equally rotten dismembered leg in its arms. Gore dripped from its mouth. 

Sonata’s breath hitched as she suddenly remembered Sunset’s stories about feral ghouls. “You’re, uh, you’re friendly, right?” She asked shakily. 

The ghoul snarled and dropped the leg before launching itself at Sonata. She squealed and tried to run back up the escalator, but she slipped on the spilled guts again and fell painfully to her knees on the metal steps. The ghoul was on her before she could get back to her feet. 

Sonata barely managed to get her hands up in time as the ghoul pounced on her. She caught its arms, only for it to immediately snap at her face with its teeth. Every movement crushed her further against rusted metal as she struggled to keep the monster at bay. 

In desperation, Sonata released one arm and slugged the ghoul in the side of the head. The creature slipped off-balance, and Sonata took the opportunity to slam its skull into the side of the escalator. It barely flinched. Undeterred, She kept it up, ramming the ghoul’s head against the metal framework until she heard a wet crack and the creature went limp. 

Silence fell almost immediately, broken only by Sonata’s labored breathing and the thunder of her pulse in her ears. She took a moment to catch her breath, then shoved the ghoul aside and stood up, wrinkling her nose at the dirt, blood, and rotting gunk that covered her clothes. Aria probably would have come out with some snarky one-liner, or kicked the heck out of the corpse for good measure, but Sonata wasn’t particularly feeling it. Between the danger, the smell, and the fact that she now needed fresh clothes and a shower, she was rethinking her plan to fix the amulet right away. 

Just as Sonata gave up and decided to return to Rivet City, she heard metal clang up on the mezzanine. Her head snapped up, and her blood ran cold at the sight of another monster standing at the top of the escalator. 

It looked vaguely like another ghoul, but there was no natural process that could create a mutation like this one. It was skinny to the point of being skeletal, but even hunched over it stood over seven feet tall, with unnaturally long arms that reached down just past its knees. Worst of all were the creature’s eyes. They were pure darkness, so deeply black that they were clearly visible even in the dim light, as if reality itself had somehow ceased to exist within its eye sockets. The monster’s head lolled around as if it were only loosely connected to its neck, but those terrible eyes remained locked on Sonata no matter what the head did. 

Sonata knew that she should run. Every fiber of her being screamed at her to get away, but with the ghoul-thing blocking the path back to Rivet City, her options were limited; get past it, or risk the metro tunnels. The decision was made for her as the creature let out an ear-piercing shriek and launched itself down the escalator.

Sonata screamed and ran as fast as she could. She sprinted towards the nearest tunnel, dodging around piles of debris and more dead ghouls as she heard the scrape of claws on stone from behind. As soon as Sonata got into the tunnel she dove to the floor and scrambled under a metro car. Barely a second later an emaciated arm thrust underneath and snatched at her, missing her by inches. 

The monster snarled in anger at being cheated of its prey. Sonata rolled out on the other side and turned to run, only to see that the path behind was blocked by fallen masonry, while only a little further ahead the entire tunnel had caved in. She dithered for a moment, trying not to panic as the monster crawled after her, when she spotted an open door in the car. Sonata darted to it and clambered inside, then hopped on a moldy chair and vaulted out of a window on the other side. 

Ignoring the pain that shot through her legs as she landed, Sonata quickly scanned her surroundings. Shadowy figures were gathering back in the station, presumably more ghouls, or there was a side door a short way further down the tunnel. 

There was only one real option. 

Sonata ran through the door and slammed it shut. Inside were a couple of odd machines and another open door on the other side of the room. Weirdly, the faint sound of firecrackers was wafting through the open door. Scared and confused, Sonata dove behind one of the machines and curled up into a ball, trying to make herself as small as possible. 

A second or two later the door was smashed off its hinges, forcing Sonata to clamp a hand over her own mouth so she didn’t cry out in surprise. She heard the monster that had been chasing her barrel through the room and straight out the other side without so much as slowing down. Sonata didn’t dare to move, just in case the beast came back. Her caution was justified as, shortly afterwards, she heard a lot of hissing and shuffling as what sounded like a whole group of ghouls traipsed through the room. Something about the firecrackers going off in the distance must have annoyed them, as they all snarled and charged off in the direction of the noise as soon as they heard it. 

Sonata cowered silently behind the old machine, not daring to move a muscle as she listened out for any more ghouls. After a while of hearing nothing but the firecrackers and ghoulish screams from deeper in the tunnels, she risked a peek out from behind the machine and, satisfied that there was nothing else in the room, Sonata crept back to the tunnel and cautiously looked out. 

Her caution proved justified, as she spotted two more monsters like the one that had chased her lurking in the station, doing something to the dead ghouls. Sonata tried to figure out a way of sneaking past them, but nothing came to mind. The way back to Rivet City was blocked. 

Sonata scowled and ducked back into the small room. Getting out of Rivet City had been easy when she had found a chance, but now that she wanted to go back it was proving to be almost impossible. As much as she hated the idea, the only option Sonata could think of was to head further into the metro and see if she could find a way back to the surface. First though, she needed something to defend herself with.

Fixing and using the amulet was a no-go; the risk of attracting a horde of ghouls was too great, so Sonata quickly searched the room for anything useful. Unfortunately, the only half-useful thing she managed to find was a screwdriver. It would have to do. Clutching her tiny weapon, Sonata crept out of the other door. 

Beyond was another tunnel. Broken-down metro cars were lined up as far as could be seen in either direction. The sounds of firecrackers and angry ghouls came from the right, but there was something about the left path that just felt… off. Sonata couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but her instincts were telling her that whatever was lying in that direction was something that she did not want to meet. Even so, the idea of casually walking towards a group of angry ghouls was just plain dumb, even by Aria’s standards. 

Sonata frowned as she thought, not used to being the one who had to come up with plots and skullduggery. The pressure of coming up with something before more ghouls came through certainly didn’t help matters. 

Even getting inside the metro cars and sneaking through them one by one wouldn’t work, as a quick check revealed that the connecting doors between the nearest ones were rusted shut. As she sighed and turned away, Sonata had a sudden flash of inspiration. She stared blankly at the thick metal connectors that linked the cars, slowly piecing together whatever it was that was forming in her mind, then finally looked up at the top of the cars. 

There was too much debris underneath the cars to crawl under them safely, but crawling across the top shouldn’t be too difficult. 

Sonata grinned and clambered up on top of the connector between the nearest cars. Getting on top of the car itself was harder; there weren’t really any convenient places to put her hands and feet, nor was there much room between the roof of the car and the tunnel ceiling, but after a bit of struggling she managed to get herself up there. 

Crawling along the top of the subway cars proved to be a bit more challenging than Sonata had expected. She didn’t have enough room to crawl properly, so she had to drag herself along on her belly, climbing back down and up every time she reached a gap between cars was an absolute pain, and there was more dust up there than she was comfortable with, but it was worth it. As expected, small packs of ghouls came hurrying through the tunnel every now and again, all heading towards the sound of firecrackers that were slowly getting closer. Sonata froze each time the ghouls went past, remaining still and silent until they had gone. 

Eventually, Sonata saw the tunnel abruptly end up ahead. The ceiling had collapsed and almost completely flattened the car in front. At first, she was afraid that she had crawled all this way for nothing, but as she got closer she was relieved to see that there was a gap underneath a huge slab of concrete, large enough for someone to walk through if they crouched.

With just a quick look to make sure that no more ghouls were coming, Sonata awkwardly clambered off of the metro car and ducked under the slab. She navigated a path under more wrecked concrete, crawled up a pile of debris on the other side, and cautiously peeked over the top.

The place must have once been a station, but the entire ceiling had collapsed at some point along with a large part of whatever building was up above it, burying the floor below under a mess of shattered concrete. Even the mezzanine had been almost completely crushed, replaced by a huge mound of debris that reached up towards the exit corridor. Dead ghouls were sprawled all over the place, while a handful of live ones crouched here and there, feasting on something that Sonata didn’t want to think about. One of the ghouls glowed with a sickly yellow hue. Even as she watched, the ghoul let out a sudden pulse of light and a few of the fallen ones around it started to stir.

Sonata had seen enough. She ducked back down and tried to pick her way across the treacherous ground towards the exit corridor as carefully, and quietly, as she could. Thankfully, the ghouls were distracted by their vile meals, so Sonata was able to pass by without getting spotted. Just as she reached the bottom of the mound leading up to the corridor, the sudden sharp crack of more firecrackers made her flinch and snap her head around. 

A group of armed people with mismatched clothes and apparently crimson skin were advancing out of a half-buried tunnel at the other end of the station, shooting at every ghoul they could see. Sonata paled as she realized that the noises she had been hearing hadn’t been firecrackers, but gunshots. 

The ghouls reacted immediately, snarling and hurling themselves at the new arrivals in a bloodthirsty mob. Sonata watched, transfixed, as the two groups tore into each other with appalling savagery. She assumed that the crimson people would be able to slaughter the ghouls thanks to having guns, especially as more of them were emerging from the tunnel to reinforce their friends, but the half-rotten creatures attacked utterly without fear, and the pulses that the glowing ghoul let out allowed those that got shot to keep fighting regardless. 

A shiver ran down Sonata’s spine as she spotted the monster that had chased her earlier crawling out from under a wrecked escalator. The monster glanced at the fight, then reared up and let out an ear-splitting shriek that made even Sonata’s bones rattle. A cacophony of snarls and shouts broke out from all sides, as if in answer. Moments later, more ghouls emerged from hidden and half-buried tunnels all around the station; a trickle at first, then a flood, until the area around the crimson people was awash with a sea of flesh-eating nightmares. There were even a few ghouls that moved in a blur, leaving clear magical trails in their wake. 

The sight of ghouls with magic reminded Sonata that she had left Rivet City for a reason, and that she was currently kneeling on a pile of concrete out in the open like a moron. Right as she realized that, the monster turned and the two of them locked eyes. “Uh-oh.”

Sonata whipped around and belted up the mound of rubble as fast as she could move, giving up on stealth entirely. Loose chunks shifted beneath her feet, but she somehow managed to remain upright. As she approached the top, Sonata saw that the mound didn’t actually reach right up to the corridor, instead peaking and descending again so it hit the wall about six feet below the edge. She’d have to jump for it. 

At the last second, Sonata leaped up and caught the edge of the floor, but before she could pull herself up something grabbed her ponytail and dragged her back down. She cried out in pain as she was slammed onto her back, narrowly avoiding cracking her skull on exposed rebar. Her blood froze as the monster stood tall over her, hissing loudly, its unnatural eyes boring into her soul. 

Sonata tried to scramble away from it, but the monster pounced on her and grabbed her forearms, pinning her to the slab below. She fought to escape, but it was too strong for her to budge. As she struggled beneath it, the monster tilted its head back and opened its mouth wide. A horrifically oversized tongue pushed out of the mouth, pulsating in a way that was somehow obscene. To Sonata’s horror and disgust, the tip of it peeled open like the petals of a flower, revealing what could only be described as an enormous yellow slug. The slug writhed in the air, then shifted to point itself right at the siren’s face.

“Get lost, you freak!” Sonata managed to get a leg up and shove the creature off her. It tried to get back on top of her, but she got both legs up and kicked it full in the chest, knocking it back down the mound. The monster was back on its feet in a flash. It growled and crouched, ready to launch itself after its prey again, when an immense shadow suddenly dropped from the ceiling.

Dust and grit rained from the ceiling as a colossal bat-like creature slammed to the ground right on top of the monster, causing a miniature avalanche of debris. Sonata panicked and scrambled to her feet as the mound started to collapse beneath her feet. Desperation gave her strength as she jumped for the corridor. She managed to catch the edge again, and this time nothing pulled her back as she hauled herself up and lurched into the corridor. 

Sonata didn’t dare to look back as she sprinted through the corridor, burst through the rickety gate at the end, raced up the steps outside, and emerged into a hellish warzone.





Sunset raised an eyebrow as she looked down from the top of a snow-covered cliff. A large shack lay not too far from the bottom, a ramshackle structure partially built out of wooden slats and scrap metal. A brahmin paddock was marked out next to it by a wooden fence, with the brahmin themselves resting in a cobbled-together shelter in the corner to avoid the snow. A couple of people wearing distinctive trenchcoats and hats were tending to them. 

“Looks like we’ve found the Regulator HQ,” Applejack noted. 

“So what are we waiting up here for?” Rainbow asked bluntly. “Let’s get down there already.”
> Chapter 164 - Mall Mutant Mauling Mayhem
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna could hardly believe what she was hearing. She had left Sonata on her own for an hour at most, and yet the siren had somehow convinced the security officers at the city entrance to let her outside, given those on the other side of the bridge the slip, and then apparently just disappeared entirely. 

“I know you said that the Dazzlings were dangerous, but how much of a threat is Sonata likely to be on her own?” Harkness asked. 

“Without her magic or the other Dazzlings, probably not very, but that’s not the point,” Luna replied, keeping most of the sharpness out of her tone. “Either she didn’t listen or she didn’t understand when we were told how dangerous the wasteland is, so right now I’d say she’s more of a danger to herself than others. We need to find her.”

Harkness sighed and shook his head. “That’s going to be easier said than done. Between our bigger population, the changes around the city, and the recent change in the Council itself, I don’t have any officers to spare for a search party. I can ask the Brotherhood or the Enclave for help, but I’m fairly sure they’re in the same boat. Pun not intended.”

Before Luna could do anything more than throw him an annoyed glare, the door opened and a security officer rushed in. “Chief, one of the guys checked around the edge of the cleared lot and found faint footprints in the trail that the Wanderer and Fawkes left through the snow. It looks like Miss Dusk followed them into the metro system.”

“The metro? Why the hell would she go down there?” Harkness wondered aloud. 

“There could be any number of reasons, but at least now we know where she is so we can send someone to get her,” Luna added with a pointed look at the Chief. 

“It’s not that simple,” Harkness insisted, clearly annoyed. “The tunnels beneath D.C. are a goddamned maze. No-one has really been down there since Liberty Prime opened up a path topside, so we don’t even know how dangerous they are these days. I can’t spare a team to go searching through the metro any more than I can spare one to go picking through the surface ruins.” Luna opened her mouth to argue, but he quickly cut her off, “I’m sorry, I understand how frustrating this is, but I can’t offer what I don’t have. The Council can offer a reward for any citizens who are willing to search for Miss Dusk, that’s the best we can do right now.”

Luna balled her hands into fists, hating what Harkness was saying but unable to counter it. Seeing that she was done arguing, he turned and ordered his subordinate to call the Councilors to an emergency meeting, but Luna wasn’t finished yet. “What if I go and look for her?”

“You what?” Harkness glanced back at her in surprise. 

“I’ll look for Sonata,” Luna repeated. “She’s my responsibility, and I’ve been shown how to use the assault rifle that Adam gave me. Trixie will be safe here, or I can ask the Enclave to take her in, so there’s no reason that I can’t go and look for Sonata myself.”

“You don’t have any idea of what you might be facing out there,” Harkness told her. 

“Neither does Sonata, the difference is that I have a gun,” Luna countered, sounding far more confident than she felt. 

Harkness gave her a hard look, but she matched his glare until finally he sighed and turned to his subordinate. “Go and see if Seagrave has anything useful he can spare for her, we’ll stick it on the Council budget, then fetch a set of medium-size combat armor and meet me at the entrance.” He looked back at Luna as the officer hurried away. “I can’t spare a team, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting you go down there in nothing but a winter coat.”

“Thank you,” Luna said gratefully. 

“Don’t thank me for letting you try to get yourself killed.” Harkness crossed his arms and jerked his chin towards the door. “Get your gun and anything else you need, then meet me at the entrance. 

Luna nodded and swept out of the room without another word. She strode along the corridors purposefully, but her head was a mess as she tried not to think about how monumentally stupid she was about to be. Luna could practically hear Celestia chiding her yet again for being too reckless. With an annoyed huff, she shoved the useless thoughts to the back of her mind and picked up the pace. 

It didn’t take long for Luna to reach the large suite that her, Trixie and Sonata had been sharing on the Enclave’s coin. Trixie looked up from her desk as Luna walked in. “Did they find her?

“No, she left the city. They think she went into the nearby metro system.” Luna stepped over to her wardrobe and threw it open. As she quickly threw on her winter gear, she added, “The security team doesn’t have anyone to spare, so I’m going to go and look for her.”

“Wait, you’re going outside?!” Trixie exclaimed loudly. 

Luna finished zipping up her winter coat and grabbed her assault rifle before closing the wardrobe and turning to face Trixie. It was only then that she saw the disassembled article on her student’s desk. “Why do you have a firework?”

“I was just fiddling with the weight distribution, it’s nothing,” Trixie replied quickly.

“It’s hardly nothing, Miss Lulamoon!” Luna insisted, bringing out her Vice-Principal voice. “You shouldn’t be messing around with fireworks, you could ge-”

“Seriously?! You’re literally holding a gun!” Trixie shot back. 

Having her own unintentional hypocrisy thrown at her felt like a slap in the face to Luna. “It’s not the same,” she said firmly once she’d collected herself. “Sonata needs help, and I’m the only one here at the moment who can do anything about it. I know she’s done some horrible things in the past, but even she doesn’t deser-”

She was interrupted by a sudden sharp knock at the door. “Vice-Principal, are you in there?” Harkness called loudly. Luna frowned and opened the door. She was about to ask why he was in such a hurry, but one look at his grim expression made the words stick in her throat. “We’ve just got word from one of the Brotherhood of Steel outposts,” he said evenly. “I’ve got some bad news.”





Sonata stared in fear and awe at the literal battlefield that stretched out before her. A sprawling maze of trenches, barricades, gun emplacements, and huge mounds of rubble spread out in all directions, bordered by tightly-packed squat buildings. The ever-present snow had been thoroughly churned up by combat, marred by mud, soot and, in many places, blood. 

“I’m tellin’ you, I ‘eard somethin’,” a gravelly voice insisted. 

Sonata panicked for a second, then dove behind a suitable pile of rubble and peeked through a crack. The hulking beasts that lumbered into view a second later made her profoundly glad that she was hidden. They resembled Fawkes, if a little shorter, but where Fawkes was clean and annoyingly articulate, these two were covered in all sorts of filth and clearly even dumber than Aria. Both were also carrying sledgehammers that were liberally splattered with blood. Super Mutants. 

“Where is it, then?” One of them asked loudly.

The other sniffed and looked around. “I don’ know. That’s why we’s lookin’.”

As the two slowly got closer, Sonata decided that she should probably slip away before they discovered her hiding place. Too late, she heard heavy footsteps approaching from behind, and she yelped in fear and surprise as something clamped her arms to her sides and lifted her into the air. “I found a Rainboom! Quick, grab her sparkly!”

The two Super Mutants looked up and whooped at the sight of Sonata kicking and struggling. She panicked as the two charged at her, but to her surprise they dropped their hammers and pawed roughly at her neck and chest. “Hey, let me go! Bad touch!”

“She doesn’t ‘ave a sparkly?” One of the Mutants noted curiously. 

“Don’ be stupid, Rainbooms have sparklies!” The one holding Sonata insisted. He shook her like a ragdoll. “You! Rainboom! Where’s your sparkly?”

Between being shaken and having her ribs crushed in the Mutant’s grip, Sonata could barely even breathe, let alone talk. 

“Hang on, ‘old her still.” As the Mutant holding her obliged, one of the others reached up and casually ripped her shirt open. Ignoring her blush and furious spluttering, the creep stared intently at her chest, then shook his head. “No sparkly. What now?”

“Shephard wants Rainbooms, sparkly or not.” Sonata grunted in pain as she was slung over the Super Mutant’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “Back to camp!”

The other two Super Mutants cackled and jeered as the trio set off across the warzone. They stuck to the edge, striding along in the shadow of the buildings instead of entering the trenches. Sonata tried to shift so she could stab her captor with her screwdriver, but she was being jostled so badly that she ended up dropping it. 

“Look, we caught a Rainboom!” Sonata tried to look around as the Super Mutant shouted, but all she got was a vague glimpse of metal barricades and more Mutants, coupled with a vile stench that was somehow worse than the metro tunnels had been. All of a sudden, the Mutant carrying her stopped and dumped her unceremoniously on the floor. “Stay!” He barked before turning to talk to the others. 

Sonata wanted very much to disobey, but for the moment she just rolled onto her knees, hissing as new cuts and bruises made their presence felt. She raised her head to get her bearings, only to freeze in abject horror at the sight of her surroundings. 

Several large nets had been piled up and hung from the wall of one building. Every single one of them was packed with bloody chunks of meat, while crimson gore dripped from them and formed a wide puddle on the floor. Tearing her gaze away from the horrific sight, Sonata saw that they were all in a small alley between two buildings, with metal barricades at the entrance to fortify it a little. In the corner, a campfire built from broken wood and old car tires was putting off billowing clouds of noxious smoke. 

The heavy crunch of hobnailed boots warned Sonata that she was being approached, and she looked up to see a heavily-armored Super Mutant stomping towards her. It wore thick leather headgear and had a mean-looking assault rifle clutched in one meaty fist. It was clear that this was some sort of leader among the Mutants. She cowered as the Mutant leaned over her. “Rainboom. Where sparkly?” It demanded. 

“W-what sparkly?” Sonata stammered. She assumed that it meant her new crystal, but there was no way she was giving that up so easily. 

“Sparkly! Like other Rainboom!” The Mutant pressed. It patted its collarbone as if that was supposed to mean something. “Neck sparkly that make magic!”

Sonata gave him a perplexed stare. “My siren amulet? That broke ages ago.”

“Broke?” The Mutant kicked a loose rock in annoyance and rounded on the others. “Go find Behemoth! Tell it take Rainboom back home to Shephard! Gently!” A handful of Super Mutants immediately ran off to find whatever a ‘Behemoth’ was. “Rest of you, don’t let Rainboom escape! I go back to Capitol Building.” The leader gave Sonata a disgusted look before stomping off again, leaving three Mutants behind to keep an eye on her. 

As soon as their leader left, the Super Mutants casually went about their business. Two of them took up positions by the barricades, while the third tossed his sledgehammer down and started fiddling with a coil of rope tied to his waist. 

Sonata felt a shiver down her spine as she guessed what the rope was for. The fact that she had been taken to a second location was bad enough, she could not let herself be tied up as well. She had to escape, no matter how dangerous it was. Sonata quietly gathered her feet beneath herself, then, just as the Super Mutant unhooked the rope from his belt, she launched herself into a sprint. The Mutant tried to grab her as she ran past, but she managed to duck under his clumsy paw and dart between the other two before they could react. 

Guttural threats chased after her, but Sonata ignored them and just kept on running straight. The remains of concrete walls rose up ahead of her, too tall to climb over, but there was one point where the surrounding dirt was piled up just enough that she might be able to vault over.

It was a close call. Sonata sprinted up the makeshift ramp and jumped at the last second, pushing off the top of the wall with her hands just to give herself a little extra boost. On the other side, Sonata found herself at the top of another slope with a sandbag wall at the top. Another Super Mutant was standing behind them, holding what she realized with a terrified jolt could only be a rocket launcher. 

“Rainboom!” Sonata tried to turn aside as the Mutant raised its weapon, but she slipped and fell on the filthy snow. She rolled down the embankment, each bump bringing more pain until, with an awful lurch in her stomach, she fell off some sort of edge. The world spun as Sonata struck something solid and crashed painfully to the ground. An earth-shattering explosion rent the air less than a heartbeat later, followed by a deluge of dirt and debris. 

A high-pitched ringing filled the air, though it swiftly faded away leaving behind only a strangely rhythmic thumping sound. It took Sonata a few seconds to realize that she was hearing her own heartbeat. She groaned and cracked her eyes open, then rolled onto her side. A quick glance revealed that she had managed to fall into a trench. A half-collapsed sandbag wall next to her was probably what initially broke her fall. 

Adrenaline surged as she heard Super Mutants arguing above, and Sonata quickly pressed herself against the sandbags. There was some sort of bunker nearby, with its door slightly ajar, but before Sonata could dive into it something huge dropped into the trench, missing her by inches. 

“Find the Rainboom!” The Super Mutant commanded, unaware of the siren cowering right behind him. A handful of other Mutants loudly agreed as he slammed the door of the bunker open and barged inside. 

Sonata warily pushed herself to her knees and looked around. She couldn’t see any Super Mutants, but they were certainly out there somewhere in or around the trench. Even Sonata could tell that wandering aimlessly without knowing where they were was a recipe for disaster. Then again, sitting around and waiting for one of them to come back and find her wasn’t an option either. She was going to have to take a risk. 

Glancing around once more to make sure the coast was clear, and fervently hoping that none of the Mutants would come back too quickly, Sonata ducked back behind the sandbags and slipped two pouches from her pockets. One contained her newly acquired crystal, the other her broken amulet. With a shiver of anticipation, she pulled out her new crystal, then tipped out a couple of shards of amulet.

The shards immediately flew from Sonata’s hand and joined with the crystal. Just as before, the shards merged into it, with new veins of ruby spreading through it as it increased in size. Once the shards had been fully absorbed, she tipped out a few more and watched as the process repeated. It didn’t take long before every scrap of the old amulet had been absorbed, leaving only the little crystal that Sonata had gotten from the Enclave. She held her breath as she took the little crystal out of its pouch. The second it was loose, both crystals leapt from her hands and slammed together with a blinding flash and a sound like a thunderclap. 

Sonata blinked to clear her vision, then gasped in awe at what she saw. 

A crystalline torc was floating in the air right in front of her. The centerpiece was shaped like an ammonite shell, ringed with small feathered wings, while the arms were formed into spirals that were decorated with tiny dorsal fins and intricately engraved rune-script. Soft light pulsed faintly within it. 

Guttural yells snapped Sonata back to reality. The Super Mutants had obviously heard the magical fusion, but with an amulet this powerful, controlling them wouldn’t be a problem. All it needed was a little conflict to provide some fuel. 

Sonata grinned and snatched the torc. The instant her skin touched it, her vision was almost entirely obscured by thick clouds of billowing green magic. In just this one small area there was more hostility than the sirens had seen in the entirety of Equestria. It was incredible. There was so much magic, so much power.

Too much.

Caught up in her admiration of such phenomenal power, Sonata didn't notice just how much magic was surging into her through the torc until she had taken in far too much for her to even begin to control. Too late, she tried to slow her intake, but her meager efforts weren't anywhere near enough to stem the tide. 

Sonata tried to let go of the torc before the magic consumed her entirely, but the artifact was stuck firmly to her skin. She screamed in fear and desperation, knowing that she only had seconds at most, when finally she managed to thrust the torc away. 

The magical green clouds vanished instantly. Strangely, loud crashes and thuds filled the air in all directions, but that too faded after a few seconds. Gasping as if she had just run a marathon, Sonata snapped her head up as she remembered the approaching Super Mutants, only to blink in surprise when she saw that her surroundings had changed slightly. The trench wall opposite had been blown out entirely, along with a significant portion of the nearby bunker, leaving behind a muddy furrow that looked like it had been scraped out by a gigantic shovel. Of the Super Mutants, there was no trace. 

“Huh, that’s weird.” Sonata stood up slowly, noting that her sandbag wall had been obliterated as well. “Did… did I do this?” Her eyes were drawn inexorably to the torc lying in the mud a couple of feet away. She couldn’t help but break into a smile at the sight of it. The Torc was more powerful than she had ever imagined, the only problem was how to keep the others from finding out about it. Touching the Torc was going to be a bad idea without some sort of covering.

Sonata racked her brain for a few seconds, then shrugged and carefully used the hem of her top to slip the Torc into her amulet’s old pouch. The contained magic tingled through the fabric, but it wasn’t enough to cause any problems. 

Satisfied, Sonata tucked the pouch into a pocket and turned her attention back to her surroundings. She still couldn’t see any Super Mutants gunning for her, though she did notice a couple of sticky-looking patches of crimson gunk that she didn’t want to look too closely at. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the slightest clue which way to go to get back to Rivet City, so she decided to just get out of the trenches and see what looked familiar. As luck would have it, there was a new slope that would do the job very nicely. Less lucky was the fact that most of the buildings surrounding the area were so trashed and weathered that they were almost identical. 

As she tried to figure out which way to go, the sudden sound of loud shouting made Sonata duck and look around wildly for the source. Relief crashed through her at the sight of two Brotherhood Knights hurrying towards her. That relief turned to ash as she realized that the Knights were desperately shouting warnings about something behind her, something that was making the ground quake beneath her feet. 

Sonata spun around, her hand already going to her pouch, but the sight that awaited her made her freeze in terror.

This was the Behemoth the other Mutants had mentioned, there was no doubt about it. The creature was massive, and it was charging at Sonata at a ferocious pace. She barely had time to draw breath for a shriek before the monster was on her.

Sonata felt her bones creak as the Behemoth swept her up in one meaty fist. It let out a deafening roar, ignoring the Knights entirely, and pulled a man-sized metal cylinder from its belt. Sonata tried to yell for help, but nothing came out as the Behemoth bundled her inside the container and closed its door, sealing her in the pitch darkness.





Sunset raised a hand in greeting to the nearby Regulators as her and the girls trudged through the snow-laden paddock. Thankfully, it looked like the Regulators recognized them, as they simply tipped their hats then got back to what they were doing. 

As the group approached the door, Applejack stepped forward to take the lead. It was her that Sheriff Simms had sent specifically, so having her be first through the door seemed like the right idea. 

“Do we just go straight in, or should we knock first?” Rainbow asked. 

“Well, we were told to come here in the first place because Applejack murdered Moriarty in cold blood, so we should probably be polite,” Pinkie replied blithely. 

“Gee, thanks, Pinkie,” Applejack huffed as she knocked on the door. 

“You’re welcome!” Pinkie said with a bright smile. 

The door creaked open before anyone else could add to the ridiculous conversation. A wiry black man stood on the other side, with a metal plate over one eye and a cybernetic hand poking out from the sleeve of his duster. His good eye widened when he saw the girls. “Rainbooms, huh? We were wondering when you’d show up. Come on in, Cruz’ll want to speak to you.” The Regulator held the door open for the girls and called over his shoulder, “Hey, the Rainbooms are here! Someone let Cruz know!”

“As if we need to bother, what with all of your hollerin’!” A grumpy but strangely familiar voice called back. Sunset felt her stomach drop as a girl, no older than Squire Peters, stomped out of a room inside. She got one good look at red hair tied back in a ponytail with a very distinctive pink bow, before the girl’s eyes practically bulged out of their sockets. “Ashleigh!” The girl dove at Applejack and slammed into the bewildered Rainboom with an audible thud, but she clearly didn’t care as she wrapped AJ in a tight hug.
> Chapter 165 - Regulator HQ
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ah knew those freaks couldn’ keep hold of you! Ah knew it, Ah just knew it!” The girl shouted gleefully.

“Apple Bloom?!” Applejack exclaimed in horrified surprise.

Whatever her sister’s doppelgänger said in response was drowned out by the sound of a bunch of Regulators piling out of other rooms and thundering down the stairs to see what was going on. One of them, a tall heavy-set man with a ruggedly handsome face hidden in the shadows of his broad-rimmed hat, shouldered through the group. He stopped and narrowed his eyes when he saw Applejack. Sunset reached for her plasma rifle just as his hand twitched towards his belt. 

“Keep that gun in its holster, Mac,” an authoritative voice rang out. Sunset looked up to see a heavily tanned woman striding down the stairs ahead, her open trench coat billowing with every step. “You won’t be needin’ yours either, Miss Shimmer. You’ll only get trouble here if you cause it.”

Mac’s frown deepened, but his hand moved away from his belt. “That ain’t Ashleigh,” he growled, his deep voice leaving no doubt as to who he really was.

The girl hugging Applejack looked around curiously. “Are you on Jet or somethin’, Mac? Of course it’s Ashleigh, y’ fuckin’ fool!”

“Apple Bloom!” Applejack grabbed the girl by her shoulders and thrust her out to arm’s length so she could glare at her properly. “Ah don’t care what mess you’re in, if Ah hear you cussin’ like that again Ah’m washin’ your darn mouth out with lye, you hear?!”

Rarity reached out and tenderly touched Applejack’s shoulder. “It’s not her, darling.”

An awkward silence fell, broken only by confused murmurs as the other Regulators tried to figure out what exactly they were watching. Finally, the authoritative woman coughed loudly. “Alright, people, quit starin’ and get back to work. I’ll get to the bottom of this.” As the peanut gallery slowly broke up and got back to whatever they were doing before, the woman called out to the girls, “Rainbooms, come on up here so we can talk in private. Michelle, Big Mac, you too.” She glared around to make sure that her subordinates were doing as told, then turned and strode back up the stairs.

The girl, Michelle, reluctantly detached from Applejack and slunk back over to Big Mac, looking back over her shoulder as he ushered her up the stairs. Applejack herself watched this world’s version of her siblings go with a solemn expression. Sunset wanted to say something positive about finding them safe and well, but Michelle’s words about Ashleigh being kept by ‘freaks’ carried too much weight. At a loss, Sunset just gave her a reassuring pat on the back and said quietly, “We’ll find her, as soon as we’re done here.”

Applejack just gave a curt nod and walked stiffly towards the stairs. The rest of the Rainbooms shared determined looks, already resolved to complete their new mission, then followed after her. 

“What if they punish her for what happened with Moriarty?” Pinkie asked in a whisper.

“They can try,” Rainbow growled. 

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Sunset added in an undertone. Looking around as she walked, she could see that the place was surprisingly spartan given that it was the headquarters of this particular faction, especially considering how many people it was housing. Sunset couldn’t help but wonder if the Regulators had been just as badly mauled as the Enclave and the Brotherhood.  

Once they were upstairs, the woman held a door open for the siblings and the Rainbooms. Inside was a small room containing little more than a desk, a filing cabinet, and a rickety cot along one wall. Someone was bundled up on the cot, snoring loudly. 

As soon as everyone was inside, the woman closed the door and swept around to sit at the desk. “Well, this just got a little more complicated than I was expectin’. Anyways, let me introduce myself properly. I’m Sonora Cruz, head of the Regulators here in the Capital Wasteland. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you girls.” She glanced at Rainbow, an odd expression on her face, then turned to Applejack and tilted her hat back. “You must be Applejack, the one that Lucas Simms recommended to us.”

“Wait, you mean she really ain’t Ashleigh?” Michelle blurted out. 

“Uh, not exactly,” Sunset replied awkwardly. “It’s complicated.”

“From what I’ve heard, the Rainbooms come from some sort of different version of reality, full of different versions of the same people in our world,” Cruz explained, much to Sunset’s surprise. “Kinda like reflections, but livin’ different lives in different places. You girls are all actually high school students back where you came from, aren’t you?”

Sunset raised a curious eyebrow. “We are. How did you know about that? I thought only the general details were widely known so far?”

“You’re not the only people in contact with the Railroad,” Cruz replied simply.

“So… there’s more than one Ashleigh, and this one ain’t from around here?” Michelle frowned and asked anxiously. “But what about our Ash? Does that mean she’s still out there with those… those freaks?”

Cruz gave her a sympathetic look. It was clearly answer enough, as both Michelle and Mac’s faces fell. “I’m sorry, but I figured you two deserved an explanation.”

Mac nodded slowly. “Right. Thanks, Chief. C’mon, ’Chelle, let’s get back to work.”

“Hold on a second, what happened to Ashleigh?!” Applejack demanded. “What freaks are y’all talkin’ about?!”

“Super Mutants,” Cruz replied grimly. “They ambushed and captured her when she was meetin’ an informant. The informant was wounded, but thankfully she managed to drag herself back here and let us know what happened.” Cruz nodded to the person sleeping on the nearby cot.  

That little reveal piqued Fluttershy’s professional interest, as her hand immediately strayed to her nursing kit. “How serious were their injuries?”

“Pretty bad, but we’ve got a doc here on loan from the Republic of Dave who fixed her up,” Cruz assured her. “If you’ve got some medical know-how, then by all means check her over. We had to sedate her to make sure that she stopped tryin’ to get up and move around.”

As Fluttershy stepped over to the cot, Applejack cut in, “Where did the Mutants take Ashleigh? Vault 87?”

Cruz shook her head. “Not likely. Not yet at least. There’s rumors of a bunch of Super Mutants holed up in the old Germantown Police HQ, not far from where Ash was taken, so we suspect that she was taken there.”

“Holy shit!” Fluttershy exclaimed suddenly. She blushed faintly as everyone turned to her in shock, but shook her head quickly. “S-sorry. I just, um, haven’t seen these kind of cybernetics before. Anyway, you were saying about Ashleigh?”

It was clearly an outright lie, but Cruz either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Right. As I was sayin’, I’d lead a team to rescue Ash myself if I could, but I don’t have the manpower to do it without leavin’ a whole bunch of other nasties free to do as they please. Hell, the only reason there’s so many of us Regulators gathered here right now is because we’ve had all sorts of creeps crawlin’ out of the woodwork around this end of the wasteland.”

“That settles it, Ah’ll go and get her myself,” Applejack cut in. 

“Not alone you won’t,” Sunset added, getting emphatic nods from the others. She half-expected Cruz to say something about Applejack’s punishment, or penance, or something along those lines, but instead the Regulator just grinned widely. 

“I thought you might say that.” Cruz got up and opened her filing cabinet. “I’ve got an old map here that’ll show you where the old police station is. Just be careful, that place is a god-damned fortress.”





Elder Lyons fought back the urge to groan and drop her head into her hands. Today was not going well. 

She had been utterly stunned when she received the news that Sonata Dusk had somehow managed to wander over to the Mall, one of the most dangerous areas in the whole Capital Wasteland, and ended up captured by Super Mutants. Barely half an hour later, a garbled radio message had come through from the Washington Monument outpost, saying that both it and the nearby settlement of Underworld were being swarmed by an impossibly large horde of feral ghouls, reportedly well over a thousand strong and growing. Sarah could hardly fathom how there were that many ferals lurking in the ruins, but nevertheless she had contacted President Shoichet, and the two had agreed to send the last of their spare troops to the Mall as reinforcements. 

Unfortunately, fate apparently wasn’t done tormenting the Elder just yet, as quite possibly the last person she wanted to see had just walked through the door.

“What do you mean, you don’t have anyone available?” Luna asked in a worryingly calm tone that was utterly at odds with the murderous glare she was wearing. 

“I’ve just sent the last of my troops into the ruins to help an outpost and a settlement that are both under attack from a freak horde of feral ghouls,” Sarah replied, trying not to let her weariness show. “The only combat personnel I have left in Rivet City are a single Knight-Sergeant and three Initiates, one of whom is standing right behind me.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Peters, who was standing guard alongside Squire Maxson. “Everyone else is spread out around the wastes, either saving lives or trying to drum up some new recruits. I swear, I would help if I could, but I have no-one left to offer. Have you asked the Enclave?”

Luna balled her fists and averted her gaze. “I asked Ambassador Prince and Chief Harkness, they both said nearly the same thing,” she admitted begrudgingly. She took a deep breath, as if gathering her resolve, but Sarah cut her off before she could voice the thought.

“I can’t let you go yourself, either. Sunset is already going to pitch a fit when she finds out that Sonata has been kidnapped. If something happens to you as well there is going to be hell to pay.” Sarah looked down at the inventory reports spread out on the desk in front of her and ran some numbers in her head. “If you want to try and hire some mercenaries to look for Sonata, I should be able to scrape together some funds to pay for them, more if the Enclave or Rivet City Council pitch in, but finding anyone crazy enough to track a Super Mutant Behemoth in this weather is, well…”

“Almost impossible. Most psychos with that kind of stupidity are either already out there helping us, or out there wanting to kill us,” Initiate Peters put in bluntly. “Hell, the main reason people are desperate to get aboard this boat is to avoid shit like that.”

Sarah made a mental note to have a private word with Peters about watching her language as she looked back up at Luna. “I hate to say it, but she’s right. All we can do right now is wait and hope that either one of our teams gets back here soon, or by some miracle some other group decides to help us out.”

It was clear from Luna’s expression that she wanted to argue, but she couldn’t think of any reasonable way of doing so. After a few seconds, she finally sighed and looked away. “Fine. Sorry for wasting your time,” she added bitterly before leaving.

As soon as Luna was gone, Sarah leaned back in her chair and sighed heavily. Being a leader sucked sometimes. 

Ever since she had become the Elder, Sarah felt like she couldn’t get through a single day without something going tits-up. Her father had warned her that being in charge could feel like that at times, but the fact that things were going downhill for the Brotherhood was indisputable. Sarah just hoped that they could get some reinforcements soon. In an ideal world, Cross’ diplomatic mission to the Outcasts would be fruitful, but she wasn’t about to hold her breath. 

Another loud knock on the door echoed through the Elder’s room. Sarah resisted the urge to groan, settling for rolling her eyes and sitting up straight before calling out to the Initiate standing guard outside, “Enter.”

The Initiate opened the door and snapped a quick salute. “Elder, the two potential candidates you wanted to meet are here.”

‘That was quicker than I expected’, Sarah thought. She took a deep breath to steady herself. This meeting could finally be a turning point in the Brotherhood’s fortunes. “Send them in, then close the door,” she said in an authoritative tone. The Initiate nodded and stood aside to let two people in. 

Both men were wearing thick brahmin-leather coats over non-descript patchwork clothes; the sort of thing that would allow them to blend in in any wasteland settlement. The first had shaggy brown hair and a fairly weak chin, while the other thick black hair and dark shadowy stubble. They waited for the door to close before speaking.

“Elder Lyons, thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” the first man said. “Tabitha sent us to see if rails are made of steel.”

Sarah gave a curt nod at his use of the little code-phrase that Miss Germaine had come up with. “I’ve been expecting you. I understand that you’re with the Railroad?”

“I am. My name’s Cutler,” the first man replied. He gestured to his companion. “This is a friend of mine that we helped to escape from the Commonwealth.”

The second man took this as his cue to step forward, and Sarah felt a faint jolt as she realized that the man was in fact one of the rumored synths the Railroad had spoken of. “It’s an honor to meet you, Elder. My former masters designated me as M7-97, but these days I’ve been going by the name of Danse.”
> Chapter 166 - Germantown Police HQ
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rolling terrain stretched out ahead of the Rainbooms. Numerous uneven mounds showed where rocky outcrops were buried beneath the snow, forcing the girls to take a winding path or, with the aid of Rarity’s magic, climb carefully over. 

Sunset kept her head on a swivel, alert for any threats that might appear, but the hilly nature of the terrain meant that Fluttershy’s enhanced senses were far more useful than her own. Glancing around at the others to make sure that they weren’t paying attention to her, Sunset sidled up to Flutters and asked in an undertone, “So, what was really up with the informant back at the HQ?”

“She’s another one of us,” Fluttershy whispered back. Sunset barely managed to keep the surprise off her face as she added, “Given which one of us she’s the counterpart of, and the fact that she needs rest, I figured it was best not to mention it yet.”

“Good thinking,” Sunset said, resisting the urge to look back at Rainbow. Pushing that little revelation to the back of her mind for now, she turned her attention back to the surrounding terrain. 

As the group crested another rise, they spotted a familiar ruined settlement off to the right, north of their route. A quick check of the map confirmed that it was Minefield. The girls unanimously agreed to give the well-named town a wide berth, just in case. Soon, the ground started to rise consistently, the rolling terrain giving way to the steeper slopes of a snow-covered hill. 

A line of rusted pylons crossed the girls’ path across the hill. At the base of one of the pylons, in a shallow dip hidden by snow, the group stumbled across an old electricity substation. There weren’t any obvious threats lurking nearby, so the girls were about to simply keep walking when Pinkie suddenly exclaimed loudly, “Hey, check out that guy!”

Everyone spun around and looked where she was pointing, on edge despite the lack of panic in her voice, only to see a weathered old skeleton, dusted with snow, slumped in a chair beneath a nearby pylon. A flimsy-looking rifle was loosely clasped in its hands, and a faintly glowing bottle of Nuka-Cola Quantum could just about be seen poking out of the snow by its feet. 

“Oh, poor fellow,” Rainbow said quietly. “You don’t think he…?”

Pinkie shook her head as she stepped over to the body. “Nope, there’s no bullet holes in his head, so that isn’t what killed him. Besides-” she gently tugged the rifle out of its hands and held it up, “-this is just a BB gun. Doable, but not easy, and he probably would have dropped the gun after.”

Something twisted in Sunset’s stomach as she saw Pinkie casually looting the old corpse, but the feeling was strangely muted. Once she was done, Pinkie arranged the skeleton to sit, in her words, a bit more comfortably, before the group moved on once again. Shortly afterwards, the girls found themselves climbing up yet another slope, this one topped by the remains of an ancient monorail track, complete with a broken-down monorail hanging off it. Sunset stopped and looked up at it curiously. 

“You want me to go up and take a look?” Rainbow asked. 

Sunset crossed her arms as she considered. “It’ll be a good vantage point, and there might even be some pre-war stuff left up there, but I don’t know how stable it is up there.” She hummed thoughtfully, then glanced at Rainbow. “You and Fluttershy go up there together. If it feels unstable, get away from it as quickly as you can. The rest of us will get out of the way in case it does come down.”

“Roger.” Rainbow ponied up and soared up towards the monorail with Fluttershy close on her tail. Meanwhile, the rest of the girls suited actions to words and walked further along the path of the old track, taking care to stay uphill from where the monorail would impact if it fell. It wasn’t long before the two returned empty-handed. “There’s nothing useful up there, just more skeletons and a rusty old bike.”

“The good news is that we’re not far from the Police HQ, and the route ahead looks mostly safe,” Fluttershy added. “There is a robobrain that looks like it came from Vault 112 rolling around about half a mile to the south. I have no idea how it got here, but it isn’t close enough to be a problem.” She frowned and gave the others a nervous look. “Getting into the Police HQ probably isn’t going to be easy though.”

Sunset took a slow, deep breath in through her nose to prepare herself for the worst. “How bad is it?”

“It’s pretty bad,” Rainbow admitted without any of her usual bravado. “Come on, you should be able to see it from the other side of the hill.” She led the group through the snow to the other side of the hill and pointed at a collection of wrecked wooden and concrete buildings. “It’s in the middle of that complex there.”

There were at least a dozen or so buildings where Rainbow had pointed, and Sunset didn’t like the idea of having to trawl through each of them while potentially battling a bunch of Super Mutants. “Do you have any idea which building is the one we’re looking for?”

This time it was Fluttershy who answered, “I’m not absolutely certain, but looking through my scope I could only see one building that actually looks fortified. “There are a few Mutants patrolling the streets around it, and there’s at least a couple lurking in some of the other buildings, but they’re mostly concentrated around the one.”

“How many did you see altogether?” Applejack asked.

“At least twenty, most of them gathered around the fortified building,” Fluttershy replied grimly. 

Being outnumbered wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t an insurmountable number as long as the girls didn’t let themselves get surrounded, and provided that there weren’t huge numbers of them waiting to pour out of the buildings at the first sign of trouble. On the plus side, the girls had experience in dealing with larger mobs of Super Mutants. 

“We’ll go in quietly at first,” Sunset said firmly. “Fluttershy, you find vantage points in the buildings and cover us. Rainbow, keep her safe. The rest of us will sneak in and take out the Super Mutants as quietly as possible. We’ll see how far stealth can take us, then let loose when the jig is up. Sound good?”

The others agreed and they all quickly set off again. Unfortunately, the group had to stop using magic to clear the snow in their way in case the Super Mutants spotted it, which slowed them down considerably. 

Trudging through the snow with barely any cover was a nerve-wracking experience, each of the girls half-expecting to hear a Super Mutant roar and bullets to start flying, but through some stroke of luck they managed to reach the wooden buildings on the outskirts of the complex. Fluttershy listened carefully for any nearby Mutants, then directed the others down a safe street before flying up to the rooftops with Rainbow. Sunset checked that everyone had their weapons ready before leading them into the complex. 

It was easy to see that the area was being used by someone. The Super Mutants clearly hadn’t bothered clearing the snow away, but their sheer bulk meant that the patrols had turned it into a slushy mud-splattered mess, much better for an infiltrating squad than pristine drifts. Even so, the girls stuck to cover, with Twilight using her magic to wipe out their footprints as they went. 

All too soon, the Rainbooms heard the sound of approaching Super Mutants, prompting them to take cover in the skeletal shell of a wooden building. Two Mutants lumbered past only moments later, chatting casually and not paying the slightest bit of attention to their surroundings despite presumably being sentries. As they walked past the door to the building the Rainbooms were in there was a pair of muted thunks as two crystalline spikes embedded themselves in the Mutants’ skulls. The two jerked and fell, but Twilight’s magic caught them before they could hit the floor and carried them silently into the building. After unceremoniously stuffing the bodies into the remains of a bathroom, the girls continued on cautiously, making sure that the few droplets of blood they’d caused were mixed in with the slush. 

So far so good. 

“Stop for a moment.” Fluttershy’s voice crackled softly through Sunset’s Pip-Boy radio. The girls froze, anxiously waiting for whatever it was that she had spotted. Blood suddenly splattered across an upper window in one of the concrete buildings ahead, then Rainbow appeared and waved down at them. “You’re clear,” Fluttershy assured them. 

A handful of similar moments occurred as the girls pressed forward. Sunset had to wonder whether the snow was lulling the Super Mutants into a false sense of security, or the thug in charge was just sloppy about discipline. Whichever it was, she was grateful for it, as the group managed to make it to the fortified building entirely unmolested.

Fortified was the right word for it. The building was one of the biggest in the area, and a wide perimeter around it was marked out with makeshift metal and wooden barricades, chain link fences, and sharpened steel girders, all wrapped around with lengths of barbed wire. 

Sunset and the other Rainbooms lurked inside a nearby ruin, trying to figure out the best way to get in. There was a single opening in the perimeter, clearly the way the Super Mutants got in and out, but blindly waltzing in through there was almost certainly a good way to get shot. All of the girls except Pinkie flinched as Rainbow and Fluttershy suddenly dropped next to them from a floor above. 

“How bad does it look from above?” Sunset asked calmly, pretending that she wasn’t fazed at all. 

“It’s pretty bad,” Fluttershy replied. “There’s still at least twenty Mutants within the perimeter. A few have wings, there’s a bunch of them with armor, and I think one of them has a flamer.”

“Sounds rough,” Applejack muttered. “Alright, how are we goin’ to kill these assholes?”

Sunset looked out at the ramshackle perimeter wall. It probably wasn’t going to be long before the Mutants started to wonder where their patrols were, if they weren’t already, so the girls were going to have to make their move soon. After spotting what she was looking for, Sunset turned to Rarity. “Hey, how big can you make your constructs?”

The question seemed to take Rarity by surprise. “Er, I’m not certain, in all honesty. Why?”

“Do you think you could punch holes big enough for us to run through in those four places?” Sunset asked, pointing at four weak points in the perimeter.

Rarity risked a quick peek through a window to get a better look. “Yes, I think so, darling.”

“You want us to rush through the holes and surprise them?” Applejack said with an approving nod. 

“Not quite,” Sunset replied. “Rarity will breach the wall and let the crystals disappear, then we’ll use the holes as cover to take pot-shots at any Mutants we can see.”

The others looked at her in a mix of surprise and disbelief. “You can’t be serious?” Rainbow hissed. “Super Mutants may be dumb, but they won’t be thrown off that easily. As soon as they regroup we’ll have lost momentum and the element of surprise.”

Sunset nodded calmly. “You’re right. We’ll probably only have a few seconds before they gather their wits and rush us. That’s when we move to the second part of the plan.” With their interest piqued, Sunset quickly outlined her idea. It was potentially risky but, if it worked, it would make things a lot easier for them to deal with. “What do you think, are you in?” Sunset asked when she was done.

“I’m cool with it,” Rainbow replied instantly, with the others all agreeing a heartbeat later. 

“Alright.” Sunset readied her plasma rifle and glanced at Rarity. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Rarity nodded and closed her eyes. She rolled her shoulders and took several slow, deep breaths, then snapped her eyes open as rose to her feet, throwing her arms up as she did so. Four thick crystalline spikes materialized out of thin air above her head, earning an alarmed yell from a Super Mutant as one finally spotted them, then with a thrust of her arms she sent them hurtling forward. The crystals slammed into the areas Sunset had pointed out with near pinpoint precision before vanishing, leaving behind gaping holes in the makeshift walls and chain-link fences. The moment the crystals had faded from sight, Sunset, Applejack, Pinkie and Fluttershy ran to one each. 

Sunset braced herself against a twisted metal sheet and raised her plasma rifle as she looked inside. There were several tents made of thick green canvas dotted around, as well as the usual bags of severed body parts and mutilated corpses that typified Super Mutant camps. The Mutants themselves already had their weapons raised, but were staring at the damaged walls in dumb shock, not having expected such an attack.

The closest mutant paid dearly for that oversight as Sunset blew its face off with a plasma bolt. Barely a second later there was a bright pink flash and a loud boom, accompanied by the high-pitched whine of Applejack’s minigun and the distinctive bark of Fluttershy’s sniper rifle. Sunset managed to pick off another two Mutants, their metal armor turning to slag beneath her plasma, before the rest of them got their heads together and started properly fighting back.  

As the amount of firepower coming from the Mutants steadily got more intense, and more of them charged out of the building to reinforce their fellows, Sunset ducked back behind the metal sheet and keyed her radio, “It’s time, fall back!”

The four smoothly disengaged and sprinted back to the building they had been lurking in. As expected, most of the Super Mutants tried to pursue them through the new holes in the perimeter wall. Just as the first few made it through, a multicolored blur flashed in front of them and every single one fell, their hamstrings severed. The ones behind tripped over their own fallen allies, causing an angry pile-up as even more tried to push their way through. 

“Now, Twilight!” Sunset shouted into her radio. 

Right on cue, purple magic gripped the ends of the perimeter wall. With a strained groan, Twilight forced the two ends together, scooping up every piece of scrap and detritus that made up the walls and pressing it all together with a cacophony of sound. The Super Mutants gathered around the crystal-ripped breaches barely had time to realize that they were in danger before they were caught up in the mass. Once it was all packed together, the purple magic lifted the mess into the air and started to compress. 

There were a few muted screams of terror and agony, but they soon stopped as the huge amount of metal, wood, and mutated flesh was compaceted into a massive ball. Gore poured from it in a foul deluge as the magic finally released its grip and dropped the ball to the ground. 

Only a handful of Super Mutants were still standing, staring in shock at what had once been the whole side of their perimeter wall and most of their troops. 

Rainbow was the first to take advantage of the situation. The Super Mutant with a flamer, having held back from the mad rush and survived, flinched and looked around as something struck the fuel tank on its back. A second later the tank erupted in a ball of blue fire that utterly consumed its hapless carrier. The blast snapped the other Mutants out of their stupor, but being caught on the back foot without any cover made them easy pickings for the Rainbooms. The battle was over in seconds. 

With the last of the Super Mutants down, Sunset waited for Fluttershy to confirm that there weren’t any survivors before standing up and lowering her weapon.”Nice work, Twilight. That saved us a lot of trouble,” Sunset called back over her shoulder. She turned to see Twilight slumped against the window she had been lurking behind, gasping for breath as if she had just ran a marathon. “You okay, Twi?”

Twilight just held up a shaky thumbs-up. 

“There aren’t any captives out here,” Fluttershy said simply as she walked over. “If the Mutants have anyone, they’ll be inside.”

“I figured as much, but it’s worth checking.” Sunset glanced back at Twilight, who straightened up and nodded to show that she was good to go. “Do we have a way in?” Sunset asked through the radio. 

There was a brief crackle of static before Rainbow replied, “Side door on the left of the building. It’s locked, so either one of the Mutants locked it on their way out…”

“Or one inside locked it after them,” Sunset finished. “We’ll go in that way. Everyone form up at the door.” She was tempted to investigate the old tents around the area, as they looked too well put together for Super Mutant handiwork, but now wasn’t the time. Moments later, the girls were all gathered outside a sturdy-looking, if heavily battered, wooden door. “There’s definitely no more Super Mutants outside?”

Rainbow disappeared in a blur and reappeared a second later. “Not unless you count the dead ones.”

“Only if those fuckers can resurrect themselves or something,” Sunset replied grimly. 

“If they do, we’ll just have to rip ‘em into small enough bits that they can’t get back up,” Applejack growled. “Come on, let’s get this done.” Before anyone could respond she strode up to the door and kicked it wide open, her minigun instantly out and ready. “Get out here and die, assholes!”

Applejack’s voice echoed down a quiet, empty corridor. 

Dusty lights in the ceiling illuminated an utterly filthy floor coated with muck and slush tracked in from outside. A handful of smashed-open doorways led off from the corridor but, aside from a single radroach chewing on something indescribable at the far end, there didn’t appear to be anything alive in there. 

“Huh, I guess we killed them all already.” Rainbow sounded almost disappointed by the idea.

“No, there’s at least two people and one Super Mutant in the room to the left. I can hear their heartbeats,” Fluttershy warned. 

Right after she said it something inside let out a deep-throated roar and barreled out of the nearest left-hand doorway. A grotesquely over-muscled Super Mutant brandished a pair of enormous sledgehammers at the Rainbooms, only to be greeted by a hail of magic and gunfire. Somehow, incredibly, the Mutant managed to weather the storm, blood and flesh being stripped away as it tried to push forward. Thankfully, the Mutant managed only a few paces before dropping to one knee, then pitching face-first into the ground. 

“Damn, some of these assholes are tough,” Rainbow noted.

“Not tough enough,” Applejack spat. 

“Careful, girls, there might still be more in there somewhere,” Sunset reminded them. She waved Rarity up to the front with her and took the lead into the building. She crept up to the nearest door, the one the Super Mutant had barged out of, and risked a glance inside. 

Through some stroke of luck, the room beyond was clearly the station’s jail. The walls were lined with stereotypical cells, with gates made of rusty metal bars, and a desk with an ancient terminal showed where the custody officer would have sat back in the old days. 

“I think they’re in the first cell on the left,” Fluttershy put in. 

“Is someone there?” A tremulous voice called out.

Sunset advanced into the room, keeping her rifle ready just in case. Just as Fluttershy had said, there were two people in the very first cell she came across. The first was a young black woman wearing a set of dirty red overalls, while the other, laying semi-conscious on the cell’s cot, was a strikingly familiar woman wearing a bloodstained Regulator overcoat. 

The first woman’s eyes went wide when she spotted the girls. “Wha- aren’t you the Rainbooms?!”

“In the flesh,” Sunset replied as Twilight stepped forward and used her magic to unlock the cell door. “Who are you? Were you captured with Ashleigh?”

The woman didn’t answer at first as she stared in mute shock at the newly opened cell door. She only returned to her senses when Fluttershy swept past her to check on Ashleigh, prompting Sunset to ask the question again. 

“Oh, uh, no. My name’s Red. The Super Mutants snatched me and Shorty from-” Red gasped and swore loudly. “Shorty! They took him down to the basement not long before you got here! Please, you have to help him!”

Sunset immediately looked back at Rainbow, who straightened up on reflex. “Take Pinkie and Twilight with you and find him. The rest of us will stay here and protect these two.”

“I’ll go too,” Fluttershy cut in. “Ashleigh’s life isn’t in immediate danger, and it’ll be quicker if I help look.”

Sunset gave her a nod of approval, and the four rushed off to seek the basement. She turned to ask Rarity to check the rest of the cells so she could guard the door, only to see that both her and Applejack were already hovering over Ashleigh while Red watched awkwardly from the sidelines. Sunset knew full well just how weird it could be meeting your counterpart for the first time, so she decided to just check the cells herself. 

Most of the cells were entirely bare. Even the ever-present gore bags that characterized Super Mutant camps and outposts were nowhere to be seen. The cells were far from spotless, or even remotely clean, but it was clear that the Super Mutants were committed to using these cells for their original purpose. 

At the end of the room, past the rest of the cells, Sunset found what must have been an old holding cell for keeping lots of suspects ready for processing. As she inspected the cell, she did a double-take whens he spotted something bizarre in the corner. 

It was a Super Mutant, but like none that Sunset had ever seen before. Wearing nothing at all save for a tattered pair of pants, the Mutant was sitting cross-legged in the corner with its eyes closed and its open hands palm-up on its knees, looking for all the world as if it was meditating. As if sensing Sunset’s presence, the Mutant slowly opened its eyes. He smiled when he saw her. “Hello. I apologize for not noticing you sooner, I was deep in meditation, hoping to commune with the newly spreading Life. I am Leo, what is your name?”
> Chapter 167 - Kitchen Nightmares
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset didn’t have a clue how to react. Fawkes was one thing, but she had never expected to encounter a second friendly Super Mutant. Realizing that Leo was still smiling up at her, she replied in a surprisingly even tone, “I’m Sunset Shimmer.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Sunset Shimmer.” Leo stood and stretched, his joints creaking and popping loudly. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Who are you talking to?” Sunset looked around to see Rarity approach, while Applejack was dutifully standing guard at the door. Rarity stopped a little abruptly and blinked in surprise when she saw Leo, but that was the only hint of emotion that she let slip. “Oh my, what have we here?”

“Another prisoner, I guess. He says his name is Leo,” Sunset replied. 

To her surprise, Rarity let out a soft gasp and stared at Leo with intense interest. “Leo? As in Uncle Leo?”

“You know this guy?” Sunset asked.

Rarity nodded. “Fawkes mentioned him. He said that Uncle Leo was the only Meta Human he knew who was a genuinely nice person.”

Uncle Leo’s expression lit up when he heard Fawkes’ name. “You have met Fawkes? I have not seen him since before I left Vault 87. My fellows treated him very unkindly, despite my best efforts. Is he well?”

“He’s doing very well these days,” Rarity replied with a smile. “He left the Vault too, and he joined the Brotherhood of Steel along with us. In fact-” she lowered her voice and gave Leo a conspiratorial grin, “-he and I recently joined a small operation that quietly helps certain oppressed people in other parts of the Wasteland.”

That was news to Sunset, but she didn’t question it. She assumed that the operation in question must be the Railroad, but if Rarity herself hadn’t mentioned it then she surely had a reason for it. Sunset pushed the miniature mystery to the back of her mind and focused on more pressing matters. “If he’s a friend then we can’t just leave him to rot in this cell. Hey, Applejack, swap with me,” she called out.

Applejack gave her a curious look as Sunset took up her post at the door, but dutifully went to see what was going on. A few seconds later the sound of tortured metal being wrenched out of place filled the air. Red let out a terrified squawk, probably shocked at Applejack’s strength or the sight of Uncle Leo lumbering out of his cell, but Sunset kept her attention on the corridor outside as Rarity explained the situation.

“This is turning into the weirdest day of my life,” Red said heavily when she was all up to speed. 

“Yeah, we tend to have that effect on people the first time we meet them,” Sunset said absently.

“Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that you’re real!” Red added hastily. “It’s just, I thought that you Rainbooms were a myth or a hoax of some kind before today. Hell, I can hardly believe that just seven of you managed to take out all of those Mutants!”

Applejack snorted. “We’ve got plenty of experience in dealing with those assholes. Uh, no offense.”

“None taken,” Uncle Leo replied cheerfully.

“Maybe, but it’s still impressive,” Red continued. “That big muscle-thing that was guarding the cells was scary enough, but something about the pink one and its centaur just freaked me out.”

A shiver ran down Sunset’s spine as she looked back at Red. “What pink one?”





The police HQ absolutely reeked. Pinkie prided herself on having a strong stomach, but the stench of unwashed Super Mutants, paired with the unmistakable odor of overflowing toilets, was enough to make even her eyes water. It wasn’t quite as bad as Vault 87 had been, but that wasn’t saying much. 

Despite the awful smell, Fluttershy was completely unphased. She was taking in short sharp breaths through her nose as she led the way through the corridors, somehow able to pick out the scent of a human from amongst everything else. Vampire senses were no joke. 

After a short walk through the station, Fluttershy led the girls down a flight of steps to a rickety old wooden door. “The trail goes through here,” she said quietly.

“Can you hear anything on the other side?” Twilight asked.

The fact that she drew Vampire’s Edge was answer enough. “I can hear a human down there, pleading, but nothing else. I’ll need to get closer before I know exactly what we’re dealing with, so… stealth?”

“Stealth,” Rainbow confirmed with a nod at Twilight, who opened the door as quietly as possible with her magic. Fluttershy took point again as soon as it was open. 

The corridor ahead was deserted. The far end of it had collapsed entirely, leaving only two doors leading off from it. Fluttershy ignored the first, following the trail her senses showed her, but Pinkie glanced inside as she passed. She regretted it instantly. 

The room had obviously once been the police station’s firing range, a concept that Pinkie still found a little odd, but the Super Mutants had taken the idea and pushed it to the furthest extreme. Corpses and gore bags hung from the ceiling, blood dripping from cuts and bullet holes to congeal in a thick carpet on the floor. Pinkie quickly looked away. 

Thankfully, the other room wasn’t anywhere near as bad; just a wide hall held up by broken pillars and strewn with trash. A pair of filthy locker rooms could be seen through doors opposite, while faint pleading could be heard through a third door on the left. 

Pinkie didn’t trust it. If they could hear the captive, Shorty, begging for his life, then they should absolutely be able to hear the brutish Super Mutants that took him, but aside from him the basement was silent as the grave. Fluttershy looked confused and suspicious as well, suggesting that even she couldn’t detect any Mutants. Pinkie didn’t need the fact that every hair on her body was standing on end to tell her something was very, very, wrong. 

Gripping her blade tightly, Fluttershy silently crept towards the obvious door. Pinkie let Twilight and Rainbow go ahead of her. Fluttershy’s senses had been fooled before, but the Pinkie Sense was a tougher nut to crack.

Through the door was yet another short corridor, beyond which was a room with a large boiler visible through the doorway. A low rumble indicated that it was currently working. Fluttershy slipped through the door first, frowned, then gestured for the others to follow. 

Pinkie grimaced as she stepped into a nightmarish parody of a kitchen. There were a pair of ovens and refrigerators, both bearing bloody handprints, and at least two or three naked bodies were spread across the countertops in varying states of dismemberment while an assortment of bones littered the floor. A young man wearing tattered clothes was kneeling in the middle of the room, facing away from the girls and trembling as he begged for his life. 

The girls all looked to Fluttershy, but she was covering her nose and looking away. Pinkie suppressed a shiver as she realized that she was struggling to hold back her predatory instincts in the presence of all of that blood. Seeing that their medic was out of commission for the moment, Rainbow was the one to step over to the man. “Shorty?”

The man practically leapt out of his skin and fell onto his side. Both of his hands were roughly tied together at the wrists. “Wh-who’s there?!” He looked around wildly, and his eyes almost popped out of his skull when he saw the girls. “Holy fuck, you’re the Rainbooms!”

“Most of them,” Rainbow muttered. “You’re Shorty?” She asked again. He nodded and opened his mouth, but Rainbow cut him off, “Hold out your hands.”

Just as Rainbow reached out with Flashburn a gut-wrenching feeling of dread ripped through Pinkie’s stomach. Acting on reflex, she grabbed Twilight’s shoulder and hauled her away from the door. A heartbeat later a bladed gauntlet slammed into the wall right where Pinkie’s head had been. The girls banded together and raised their weapons just as a hulking Super Mutant stepped into the room. 

The new Super Mutant was covered in spiky metal armor, complete with what looked like a crude imitation of a gladiator’s helmet sporting a flamboyant pink mohawk. Several of the spikes were made out of glowing pink crystals. “Aww, I missed,” the Mutant said with a grin, revealing that its needle-sharp teeth were apparently made out of the same pink crystal.

“Too bad” a terrifyingly familiar voice called out. A previously unnoticed door next to the boiler creaked open and Diane skipped through, looking for all the world as if she was out for a pleasant wander through a park. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get another chance, Sergeant Sparkles.”

Pinkie scowled at her dark counterpart. “A little on the nose, don’t you think?” Diane just giggled and raised her hands in an exaggerated shrug. 

“Pinkie, why the fuck is your wasteland version working with Super Mutants?” Rainbow asked pointedly. 

“Sh-she’s the Gore Merchant!” Shorty exclaimed in terror. “She kills people and sells them as food!”

“You can just call her a heinous bitch,” Pinkie said flatly. 

Surprise flickered across Rainbow’s face, but only for a second before her expression became one of resolution. “You mind if I kill these fuckers?”

“Be my guest,” Pinkie hissed. She had barely finished her sentence when a sudden blur rustled her hair. 

For a moment, Pinkie thought that Rainbow had taken Diane’s head clean off, but her stomach dropped when she realized that her counterpart had somehow ducked under the attack. A split second later there came a loud crackling sound and Rainbow toppled over. Diane caught and swept her up over her shoulder in one swift movement, grinning manically. “I love mezzers. Okay, Sergeant, the rest are yours,” she said as she turned to the door.

“No you don’t!” Twilight raised her arms, but the Super Mutant dove in front of Diane and brandished its bladed gauntlets. It opened its mouth to say something, but was forced to leap aside against the wall as Twilight hurled a fridge at it. The second fridge knocked the Mutant sprawling. “Get Rainbow, we’ve got this!” Twilight ordered. 

“On it!” Pinkie darted past the swearing Mutant and sprinted through the door after Diane. She felt rather than saw the frag grenade her target dropped in the pillared room and took cover behind the door frame. 

The explosion had barely died down before Pinkie was on the move again. She tore through the room and burst into the corridor beyond, raising her shotgun ready. Diane was almost at the door to the first floor, but she suddenly launched herself sideways into the firing range just as Pinkie fired. Cursing her counterpart’s Bitch Sense, Pinkie sprinted after her and commando-rolled through the door. 

Diane was nowhere to be seen. Pinkie advanced cautiously, sweeping her shotgun around for a target. She soon found Rainbow dumped in a booth, groaning as she stirred, and rushed over to check on her. 

Just as Pinkie was about to squat next to Rainbow she felt a shiver run up her spine. Quick as a flash, she spun around and lashed out with the butt of her shotgun. Diane skipped back with a yelp as Pinkie smashed the weird box-shaped device she was holding. 

“Aww, my mez-whoa!” Diane ducked as Pinkie tried to blast her head off. Before she could try again, Diane tackled her and lifted her into the air. Pinkie had a brief moment of feeling weightless before her attacker lurched forward and the two landed heavily. “Your turn!” She gasped in pain as Diane jabbed her in the ribs, then ripped her shotgun out of her hands and threw it away. “Now it’s fair!”

“You wish!” Pinkie whipped her knife out and opened up a crimson line on Diane’s abdomen, then used the moment of distraction to bring her legs up and kick her away. 

The two scrambled to their feet, one glaring, the other grinning evilly. “Don’t you know that you shouldn’t play with knives?” Diane asked in a patronizing tone. 

Pinkie snorted. “You’re one to talk. Mom and Pops really fucked up when raising you.”

As soon as the words left Pinkie’s mouth it felt like an electric jolt ran through every part of her body. Distracted by the sudden sensation, she didn’t even have a chance to react as Diane suddenly darted forward and slammed a fist into her cheek. The room spun as Pinkie crashed to the ground. A second later a weight settled on her stomach and strong hands wrapped around her throat. “Never talk about my parents, you weak bitch! Never!”

Almost as soon as the weight had appeared, it disappeared again. Looking up through bleary eyes, Pinkie saw Rainbow standing over her, pointing Flashburn at Diane. Diane herself was standing back, bleeding from a fresh cut across her shoulder. 

“You come round quickly,” she said in a flat tone. Rainbow didn’t answer, earning a cruel smirk from Diane. “That’s fine, I don’t mind playing with both of you again.”

“Three of us.” Diane was forced to twist awkwardly out of the way as the Super Mutant’s disembodied head flew past her and splattered against the far wall. Twilight stalked into the firing range, flexing her fingers and carrying a lot of sharp kitchen implements in her magic. “You’ll need more than big muscles and cheap tricks to take us out.”

Pinkie climbed back to her feet and pulled a bottle of Nuka-Cola out of her pocket, ready for round two. Diane stared blankly at the three, then, to her surprise, just sighed and smiled. “Oh well. You win some, you lose some.” She pulled something out of her hair and, before anyone could react, pressed the detonator. 

With an echoing boom and a loud phweee, a mass of confetti, streamers and balloons erupted out of the walls. The Rainbooms all ducked instinctively, but by the time their vision had cleared Diane had already disappeared.  

“What the fuck was that about?” Twilight asked.

“Just evil me being an evil B,” Pinkie replied. She looked back at Rainbow and asked, “Are you okay? That mezzer thing looked like it packed a punch.”

Rainbow cocked her head, frowning slightly, then sheathed Flashburn and shrugged. “Yeah, I can’t hear a word you’re saying. Whatever that freakshow hit me with has fucked my hearing aids.”

Pinkie and Twilight both groaned. “I’ll see if I can fix them back at Regulator HQ,” Twilight said, more to herself than anyone. “Come on, let’s fetch Fluttershy and Shorty, find the others, and get the hell out of here.”
> Chapter 168 - Big Trouble... in Big Town?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset wrinkled her nose as she surveyed the yard full of mud, brackish blood, and churned-up slush. The Germantown Police HQ was a mess in every sense of the word. Everyone was eager to get the hell away from the place, but they all agreed to stay just long enough for Twilight to fix Rainbow’s hearing aids. There was no point in abandoning the advantage of cover until they were fully prepared. As Twilight worked, the Rainbooms discussed what to do next. 

The priority was getting Ashleigh back to the Regulator HQ. Fluttershy had done what she could, and it turned out that Red had some medical knowledge which had kept her stable during their incarceration, but the woman needed proper medical care in a facility equipped for it. On top of that, neither Red nor Shorty were really fit enough to make the trek across the wastes to their home on their own, even with weapons scavenged from the dead Super Mutants. 

In the end, it was decided that Rainbow would deliver Ashleigh to the Regulator HQ at top speed, while the others escorted Red and Shorty to Big Town. If the Regulators didn’t have the proper equipment or expertise to treat Ashleigh, then Rainbow would drop her to Megaton instead before joining the others. As for Uncle Leo, he was content to simply tag along with the Rainbooms for a while.

“You’re sure you’ll be able to find Big Town?” Sunset asked once Rainbow’s hearing was fixed. 

“You literally just saw Red help me mark it on my Pip-Boy,” Rainbow replied flatly. “I’m not Adam, I know how to read a fucking map.”

Sunset shrugged and turned away with a smirk. “Hey, in my defense, I didn’t even know you could read, so…”

“Oh, screw you,” Rainbow shot as the others chuckled. “Hurry up and hand me Applejack 2.0 so I can get the hell out of here.”

As soon as Rainbow had left with Ashleigh, under strict orders to keep an eye out in case the Talon Company speedster was around, the rest of the group took the opportunity to find a relatively clean building where they could have a quick meal. Red and Shorty both devoured everything that was put in front of them. The Super Mutants clearly hadn’t been very attentive when it came to feeding their captives. Fluttershy quietly ensured that the pair didn’t get too much food and accidentally overload their stomachs. 

“So, Big Town.” Everyone looked up from their food as Rarity spoke. “I’ve heard of it in passing, but I must admit that I know little besides the name. Is it a large settlement?”

Shorty let out a bitter laugh, earning himself a reproachful look from Red. “It’s built for a larger population than it has,” Red admitted. 

“It’d be bigger if the fucking Super Mutants and slavers would leave us alone,” Shorty spat. 

“Y’all get regular raids?” Applejack asked.

“All the damned time,” Red replied. “We’re lucky if we get more than three or four days in a row without seeing a raiding party from one or the other, although I guess we might get a break from the Muties for a while now that you’ve trashed this outpost. Sometimes we manage to fight them off without losing anyone, sometimes we don’t. It wouldn’t be so bad if we had some real way of defending ourselves, but we’ve got nothing.”

Sunset raised a curious eyebrow. “What sort of protection does the place have? Megaton has its massive walls, Rivet City and Arefu can only be accessed by bridges, what about Big Town?”

Shorty shook his head and said bitterly, “We’ve got nothing but crappy fences around a few buildings in the middle of nowhere. Those bastards back at Little Lamplight lied to us.”

“They probably just didn’t know,” Red countered gently. 

Sunset opened her mouth to ask what the hell Little Lamplight had to do with anything, when Twilight gasped in recognition. “So Big Town is where Little Lamplighters are sent when they reach sixteen?”

Red and Shorty both nodded grimly. “Yeah, unfortunately,” Red said.

“They insist that it’s safe, but it’s about as far from safe as you can get,” Shorty added. 

Their words presented Sunset with a dilemma. The Rainbooms, Applejack especially, needed to get back to the Regulator HQ, but abandoning Big Town when it was clearly in dire straits just didn’t sit right with her. Sunset glanced around at the rest of the Rainbooms, only to notice that they were all staring at her expectantly. She allowed herself a brief smile at the thought that they had all come to the same conclusion. “I can’t promise anything, but we’ll see what we’ve got to work with when we get to Big Town and see what we can do to help.” 

The two former captives immediately perked up and started thanking the Rainbooms profusely, but Sunset only paid it half a mind as she gathered up her gear. Once everyone was ready, she checked their orientation with her Pip-Boy one last time, then the group set off near enough due south. 

Crossing the wastes was even slower going, now that the girls had a pair of mistreated captives to escort. Rarity and Twilight once again took up the responsibility of clearing a path through the snow, stoically answering a tide of questions from Red and Shorty while the others kept a careful eye on their surroundings. At least their curiosity was keeping them distracted from the cold.

Thankfully, the snow was keeping the wasteland as deserted as ever. At one point, the group discovered another Super Mutant outpost in an old church, but they didn’t have any trouble getting past it without being seen. 

A short distance beyond the church, the girls found themselves in unpleasantly familiar territory. A river lay before them, deeper than they remembered, with a sturdy concrete bridge over it and a handful of ramshackle buildings on its near bank. 

Thick snow made things look a little different to the last time the girls had passed this way, but none of them could fail to recognize the place where they had first properly fought Blades and his cronies. To her surprise, Sunset found that, rather than regret or dismay, she felt little more than a dulled sense of acknowledgement that bad things had happened here. She assumed it was due to her meds. Even so, Sunset couldn’t repress a shiver as she passed the rocks where she had got her first kills. Even Red and Shorty seemed to pick up on the somber mood, as they stopped asking questions entirely even after the group had crossed over the bridge and left the ill-fated area behind. 

Pressing on, the Rainbooms were surprised when, only a short while later, Red suddenly exclaimed, “There it is, Big Town!” Sunset looked ahead and spotted a tightly-packed collection of battered old buildings. She almost felt guilty as she realized that the Rainbooms had marched past this place a couple of times and never noticed that it was a settlement. “We’ll have to go around the town fence so Dusty can let us in,” Red told them. “This way.”

The others followed as Red directed them through the dilapidated remnants of suburbia until they found the fence she had mentioned. Sunset ran a critical eye over it as they walked. The construction was surprisingly solid, largely composed of thick wooden panels and sheets of corrugated metal with the odd burnt-out car shell providing a buttress. Fortification clearly wasn’t that much of an issue. 

As the group rounded one last corner, they spotted a rope bridge leading into the settlement proper. Sunset assumed that it crossed a ditch or moat of some sort, but it was impossible to tell thanks to all of the snow. A guard was sitting at the far end of the bridge, wearing dirty leather armor and a dented police helmet. The fact that all of the Rainbooms clocked him before he had even noticed them gave Sunset a good idea of why Big Town was really having trouble with attackers. 

Several seconds too late, the guard finally noticed the group. His eyes practically popped out of his skull as he scrambled to his feet. “What the- aren’t you the Rainbo-oh, shit!” 

He reached for his weapon, but Twilight yanked it out of his grasp with her magic before he could even point it anywhere near them. “Uncle Leo is with us. Don’t try that again,” she said coolly, before thrusting the rifle back into his hands. 

“I-it’s okay, Dusty! The Rainbooms rescued us!” Red called out. “This Mutant is friendly!”

“Meta Human,” Rarity corrected, earning a confused look from the former captives. 

Dusty looked down at his gun, back at the group, then back down at the gun again. Finally, he shrugged and slung it back over his shoulder. “Sorry about that. I didn’t think you girls were actually real. Uh, come on through.”

Pinkie cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. “Is he on jet or something?”

“No, you’re just something of a myth around here,” Red told her as they crossed the bridge. “I mean, we hear about you on the radio all the time, but we figured that you were just something that Three Dog cooked up to try and give people hope, like Daring Dashwood.”

Sunset looked around as the group walked through the settlement. People were stopping and staring at the girls and Uncle Leo with wide eyes, which was normal, but everyone around was shockingly young. None of the residents were more than a year or two older than the Rainbooms, and several of them were clearly younger. 

On top of that, the buildings inside the fence were almost as neglected as the ones outside: All of them bearing bullet holes, scorch marks, and deep gouges from melee weapons, while only a few of them had even the most rudimentary of patch jobs. Even the paths were still packed with snow where no-one had bothered to clear it away. These people needed help.

With a sigh, Sunset slung her plasma rifle over her shoulder and turned to Red. “What sort of arsenal does Big Town have? Do you have many weapons?”

Red blinked in surprise. “Not really. We’ve got enough for most of us to have a gun each, but that’s about it” She scratched her head as she thought. “There are a couple of old robots in the scrapyard, but none of us have any idea how to fix them.”

“That’ll do,” Sunset said with a curt nod. “Gather everyone in town, we’re going to teach you all how to defend yourselves properly.” Red and Shorty both glanced at her in surprise before running off to obey. As soon as they were gone, Sunset pointed at a young woman nearby wearing scraggly black clothes and white make-up all over her face. “You, what’s your name?”

“Me? I’m Bittercup,” the goth girl replied, looking nervous at being addressed. 

“Is anyone in town injured?” Sunset asked.

Bittercup gripped her one arm and pulled a forlorn expression. “Timebomb is still in a coma in the clinic. He’s probably going to slip away any time now.”

“That’s one hell of a name,” Sunset muttered. “Okay, Fluttershy, go and see what you can do for Timebomb. Twilight, AJ, see if you can fix those robots. Rarity, I want you and Uncle Leo to relieve Dusty and send him to me. Me and Pinkie are going to teach these people how to defend themselves and look after this place properly.”

As soon as the Big Town residents were gathered, all of them looking confused and a little scared, Sunset set about seeing what they were capable of. Two who turned out to have a slight knack for tinkering were sent to help Twilight and Applejack. The rest, unfortunately, had had jobs back in Little Lamplight that didn’t translate well to defending a town, such as farming cave fungus or filtering potable water from stalactite condensation. Only Dusty actually had experience of infiltrating Vault 87, but even he had never actually had to fire a gun before leaving for Big Town. All of their decent fighters had either been killed or taken by slavers and Super Mutants. 

First of all came gun handling. It was clear from the get-go that none of the residents had any real training with a weapon, and even the benefit of experience didn’t stop Dusty from nearly blowing his own foot off accidentally when Sunset asked him to draw his gun.

When Sunset was fairly confident that the residents knew how to handle their guns, or at least not accidentally shoot each other with them, she started running them through some basic tactics and teaching them how to look after their defenses. While she was overseeing them, Sunset was surprised to hear a voice crackle through her Pip-Boy’s speaker, “Hey, Sunshim, you all good?”

“We’re good, Rainbow,” Sunset replied, gesturing to the residents to keep practicing on their own. “I thought our signal strength wasn’t strong enough to reach here from the Regulator HQ, are you on your way back?”

“Nah, turns out there’s a Vertibird out here. They’re boosting the signal through their own radio,” Rainbow explained. 

“A Vertibird?” Sunset repeated curiously. “Are they delivering water or something?”

“Yeah, to some place called the Republic of Dave,” Rainbow confirmed. “They were supposed to have headed back to Project Purity by now, but apparently they got sidetracked when they found an old robobrain from, get this, Vault 112.”

That was a surprise to Sunset. “Isn’t that where Adam and James had to deal with some mad scientist in a simulation? What the hell is it doing way out here?”

“Maybe they left the door open?” Rainbow suggested. 

Sunset certainly hoped that that was the case. “Whatever it is, we’ll let the Enclave handle it. We’ve got bigger things to worry about than a stray robobrain.”





Shephard was annoyed. So far, the day had been a complete clusterfuck.

First, the cretins stationed in the Mall had captured what they thought was a Rainboom and sent it back to Vault 87. It had taken Shephard all of thirty seconds to deduce that the girl wasn’t a Rainboom. Admittedly, she was from the same place as wherever the other girls came from, but she wasn’t one of their kind, and, more importantly, she didn’t have a Geode, making her effectively useless for Shephard’s purposes. 

As if the ineptitude of minions wasn’t bad enough, a squad of winged scouts had just returned to the Vault with the news that the Rainbooms had single-handedly wiped out the Germantown outpost and its entire garrison. 

“Should we send more troops to Germ’ntown?” The scout asked.

Shephard thought about it, but decided against it. “No, there’s no point. The Rainbooms will just destroy them again.”

“Maybe, but then we can steal their sparklies?” The scout suggested hopefully.

“They are too powerful, we’ll have to give up on that for now.” Shephard ignored the scout’s muttered apologies and considered how to proceed. The Enclave were still the main threat to Super Mutant supremacy in the Capital Wasteland, but the Rainbooms were more dangerous than expected, enough so that allowing them free reign was no longer an option. Then again, neither stealing their Geodes nor just outright destroying them wasn’t going to be easy either.

Shephard frowned and looked over at the new captive. Sonata Dusk was cowering in the corner of the room with her hands tied behind her back, curled up and trying to make herself as small as possible. Almost every patch of visible skin was covered in fresh bruises. Shephard had been intending to just pump her full of FEV with the other captives but, with just a small sacrifice, there was a chance that Sonata could prove to be much more useful. Jabsco would certainly be against this plan if he knew about it, but then, he didn’t really need to be told the details. Not the real ones, anyway.

“Cut off the head, and the body dies,” Shephard mumbled with a grin.
> Chapter 169 - Wasteland Justice
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A large group of Regulators were leaving their HQ as the Rainbooms returned, accompanied by Uncle Leo. Every last one of them did a double-take when they spotted the Rainbooms with a random Super Mutant, but they at least had the presence of mind to keep their weapons holstered when they saw that the girls weren’t concerned. 

“Where the heck is everyone goin’?” Applejack asked.

“No idea,” Sunset replied. Even as they watched, the Regulators split into smaller teams and all went off in separate directions, trudging through the snow with stoic determination. One small team walked right past the girls, tipping their hats in greeting and gratefully stepping into the cleared trench that the Rainbooms had left through the snow. None of them looked at all tense or concerned, at least not obviously so, so Sunset just nodded back and continued on to the HQ building.

Inside, Sunset was surprised to see Michelle sulking on a chair in the corner while Big Mac comforted her. As soon as the Rainbooms walked in, Michelle launched herself out of the chair and slammed full-force into Applejack again. “You saved her! You saved her!”

“Am I the only one getting deja vu here?” Pinkie asked flatly. 

“Nope,” Mac said simply as he strode over. He gave Uncle Leo a suspicious look, then casually grabbed Michelle by the scruff of her jacket and pulled her off Applejack as he addressed Sunset, “Chief Cruz says she wants to speak to you as soon as you get back.”

Sunset nodded, avoiding looking at the petulant teenager dangling from his fist. “Thanks, we’ll head straight up.” 

“I shall wait outside, if that is alright. I do not wish to disrupt your discussion with my presence,” Uncle Leo put in, getting a stunned double-take from Michelle as if she hadn’t actually noticed him until that point.

“Of course, darling. We shan’t be long,” Rarity assured him. Neither Mac nor Michelle looked particularly happy about it, but they didn’t dare gainsay her either. 

As the girls headed up the stairs, Twilight said in an undertone, “You know, I’m a little surprised that they’re not stuck to Ashleigh like glue right now.”

Applejack snorted softly. “Ah’ll bet you anythin’ that they were stuck to her, right up until Michelle got kicked out for gettin’ too excited and not lettin’ her rest.”

“That sounds about right,” Rarity added wryly. 

Voices were coming from Cruz’s office when the girls approached. The door was open, with Sonora at her desk, Rainbow and her counterpart both sitting in mismatched chairs against the wall, and Ashleigh lying on the cot with her arm over her face. All of them looked up when Sunset knocked. 

“Welcome back, ladies,” Sonora said with a grin as she rose from her seat. “I need to thank you for rescuin’ our sister here. I hear that you even dealt a massive blow to the local Super Mutants while you were at it.”

“Yeah, we did some damage to them,” Sunset said absently, but her attention was drawn to Rainbow’s counterpart. She was tall, lean, of African American descent, and had her dark brown hair pulled back in a scruffy ponytail. She had also had both of her arms replaced with bionic prosthetics; one below the elbow, the other disappearing beneath her sleeve. 

The woman noticed Sunset’s gaze and smirked. “Pretty sweet, ain’t they? Name’s Dash.” She jerked a thumb at Rainbow. “Turns out this awesome bitch is like a mirror-me, or something. How cool is that?”

“It’s pretty cool. I wish I’d known sooner,” Rainbow said with an accusatory glare at Fluttershy. 

To her credit, Fluttershy didn’t back down. “Dash needed rest, and she wouldn’t have gotten any if I had told you who she was,” she said bluntly. 

“I don’t need rest, I’m fine!” Dash exclaimed indignantly, though her point was undermined by the fact that she winced curled in on herself when she tried to sit up straighter. 

Sonora glared at her. “You took a bullet to the thigh and got another one stuck in your ribs. You can either take it easy, or I’ll have you sedated again.”

Ignoring how potentially confusing having two Dashes was going to be, Sunset glanced back at Ashliegh, who still hadn’t moved. “What about her? How’s she doing?”

“She’ll be alright, thanks to you lot,” Sonora replied. “The doc checked her out as soon as Rainbow brought her in. She’s got a broken collarbone, a few torn ligaments, and she’s lost a lot of blood from a nasty puncture wound in her abdomen, but the patch job that the girl from Big Town and Knight-Sergeant Fluttershy gave her should help her pull through without too much trouble. The doctor was impressed with your work.” Sonora gave Fluttershy an approving nod.

Sunset assumed that her use of Fluttershy’s rank was a good sign, or at least perhaps a mark of respect. Still, she wasn’t going to let her guard down until she knew what the woman intended for Applejack. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, where was everyone going?” Rarity asked. 

Sonora smiled and leaned forward to rest her elbows on her desk. “I don’t mind tellin’ you, but first, I need to have a quick word with Applejack.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the others, as if they had forgotten why they had come to see the Regulators in the first place. Only Applejack looked unfazed as she stepped forward, but Rainbow cut in sharply before anyone else could speak, “Hold on, you can’t seriously still be planning on punishing Applejack after all of this?!”

“Punishin’? What the hell are you talkin’ about?” Sonora asked, sounding genuinely bewildered. 

The girls were equally as confused. “Well, that’s why Sheriff Simms sent me here, ‘cause Ah killed Moriarty.”

“I know,” Sonora said flatly. “Moriarty has been a thorn in Simms’ side for years, but the asshole had so many of Megaton’s residents under his thumb and covered his tracks carefully enough that Simms couldn’t touch him,” she explained. “Moriarty screwed up with you girls, though. He tried a direct attack on one of you, the rest of you found out and traced it back to him, and Applejack gave him what he deserved.”

“But you… Ah… Ah murdered him!!” Applejack blurted out. 

Dash snorted loudly. “Jesus, you brahmin-fucking southern belles are all as dumb as shit. He fucked with you, so you fucked him up. How the hell is that murder?”

Sonora closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Let me get this straight: You came out here assumin’ that you were gonna be punished, went out and rescued people from a Super Mutant fortress, taught those people how to defend themselves properly, and still came back here to get your punishment?” She gave Applejack a dumfounded look. “Are you tryin’ to win some competition on who can be the most righteous fucker in the wasteland or somethin’?”

“Wha- of course Ah ain’t! What the hell kind of question is that?!” Applejack exclaimed in indignation. 

Sonara let out a dry chuckle. “You and Ashleigh really are the same person. The two of you are so sincere it’s almost painful.” She sighed and looked Applejack in the eye. “No, I’m not gonna punish you. The old laws died with the old world, but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be justice. The wasteland needs people who are willin’ to stand up and defend ordinary peace-lovin’ folk against the scum who’re out to do them wrong. That’s where the Regulators come in, and that’s where Simms and I think that you come in.”

The other Rainbooms all turned shocked stares on Applejack, who looked completely and utterly floored by what she was hearing. “Y’all want me to be a Regulator?” She asked in disbelief. Sonora just nodded. Applejack frowned for a moment as she considered. Sunset wasn’t surprised to see her shake her head a moment later.

“If you’re concerned about having conflictin’ issues with the Brotherhood of Steel, I promise, you’ll have full autonomy,” Sonora assured her. “Besides, I’m willin’ to bet that the main reason that you’re with the Brotherhood is to help the people of the wastes, right?” 

“Not exactly.” Applejack took a deep breath, looking at the floor as she said, “Ah can’t accept because it weren’t a clean kill. It wasn’t justice, it was revenge, plain and simple.”

None of the girls knew what to say to that. Dash and Rainbow both looked like they wanted to say something, but were waiting to see what Sonora’s reaction was. 

“Like that fuckin’ matters,” a weak voice said. It took Sunset a second to realize that it was Ashleigh that had spoken rather than Applejack. The injured woman slowly turned her head to peek out from under her arm. “We’ve all done some dark shit when things get personal.”

Applejack opened her mouth to argue, but Sonora cut her off, “I’ve already heard everythin’ from Simms, and we both think that you’re the sort of person that we could trust as a Regulator. If you don’t want to, or don’t think you’re right for it, we won’t push you.” Sonora nodded towards the door. “All of you are more than welcome to stay the night if you want, so take your time and think it over. For now, though, I’m goin’ to have to ask you to give these two some space so they can get some darn rest before the doc barks my ear off.”
> Chapter 170 - Guiding The Flock
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shephard stood on the top floor of the shattered old building and looked out over the snowy wasteland. The reshuffled plans had been put into motion overnight, now it was time to wait and see how it would all play out. The sound of approaching footsteps interrupted the Overmaster’s musings. 

“The special traps have been set, yep,” Zap said without preamble. 

“Good. And our forces are all in position?” Shephard asked, ignoring the Mutant inventor’s verbal tic.

“Absolutely, yep,” Zap replied. “All ready, yep, all brought back from the downtown ruins, yep.”

Shephard grinned. “Excellent. Our Talon Company puppets are delivering our message and Wilbur’s heart as we speak, so we should expect our guests to arrive relatively soon. Let’s go and make sure that we’re ready for them.”





The river that Rivet City sat in was surprisingly beautiful. The water was an incredibly deep blue, and every now and again the iridescent shell of a mirelurk would break the surface, adding a flash of color to it. Luna didn’t know whether it was because of the purifier at work, or Equestrian magic leaking out of the ship. She had spent well over an hour standing at the city’s entrance, leaning on the railings and staring down into the water. Thankfully, the guards posted there hadn’t complained about Luna’s presence, and the bridge hadn’t needed to be extended for visitors, so she had been able to mope in peace.  

Sonata was still in the hands of the Super Mutants. Unfortunately, although the Enclave and the Brotherhood both suspected they knew where she had been taken, they weren’t certain, and the place itself was reportedly a veritable fortress. The Brotherhood had sent the recently returned Adam and Fawkes out on a reconnaissance mission, but it would likely be hours before they reported back.

The sound of the door opening behind her made Luna look around. Chief Harkness greeted his guards, who gave him a quick and fairly empty report, then he turned to Luna and offered her a smile. “Good afternoon. How are you feeling?”

Luna sighed and looked back down at the water. “I hate this world,” she admitted. 

“The Rainbooms say that regularly. Honestly, I think most of the locals feel the same way.” Harkness leaned against the railings next to her. “There’s no-one better to have on a job like this than the Lone Wanderer and Fawkes. The two of them are badasses on par with the Rainbooms.”

“I’m inclined to believe you, but that’s not going to stop me from feeling terrible for sitting around doing nothing while someone that I’m responsible for is in danger,” Luna told him, sounding a little more bitter than she had intended.

“The last time I checked, getting yourself combat trained is a little more than ‘nothing’,” Harkness retorted. “How are you getting on with the armor?”

Luna rolled her shoulders to settle said armor a little better. She had been given a set from Rivet City’s stores, on the condition that she wear it whenever she went outside, even the flight deck. “I was expecting it to be heavy, but not this heavy. I’m impressed that Twilight is able to hike across the wasteland wearing something like this. She was never the most athletically gifted at school.”

Harkness chuckled softly. “To be fair to her, she has improved a lot since she started training with the Brotherhood of Steel.”

“I suppose I had better get in shape, then. I’d have to abandon my pride as a teacher if we all got back home and I get thrashed in the fun run by Twilight Sparkle of all people.”

“What’s a fun ru-” Harkness’ question was interrupted as the nearby intercom crackled into life. “Hey, guys, I need you to send a message up to the Chief real quick. We’ve got some people on the No Entry list who want to talk to him and Elder Lyons.”

Harkness’ expression immediately became more professional and stoic as he stepped over to the intercom. “This is Chief Harkness. Who have you got there?”

“Talon Company,” came the simple response. 

Luna straightened up and looked over at the embarking station on the riverbank. “Aren’t they the mercenaries working with the Super Mutants?” She asked in an even tone. 

“Allegedly,” Harkness replied before pressing the intercom button again. “Remind Talon Company, again, that they are not permitted in Rivet City under any circumstances.”

“We did, sir, but they say that they have important information to deliver to the Brotherhood of Steel,” the guard on the other end replied. 

Harkness rolled his eyes. “If they think we’re going to let a team in on the off chance that they have intel for one of our guests, a noted enemy of theirs, then they can think again.”

There was silence for several seconds, then the intercom crackled again, “They say they know where the Super Mutants are keeping Sonata Dusk.”

Luna and Harkness shared a shocked look. The local radio station had been told that someone resembling the Rainbooms had been taken by Super Mutants, but they hadn’t given out the name, to prevent people from causing problems with fake tips. The only way that Talon Company could know Sonata’s name was if they had gotten it directly from the Super Mutants. 

“I’ll meet one of them, on the bridge, and they’re to leave their weapons behind,” Harkness said brusquely. He told the guards to extend the bridge, then waited patiently as it slowly swung around towards the embark station. 

Luna squared her shoulders and stood next to him. “I’m coming with you.”

For a moment, Harkness looked as if he was going to refuse her, but he evidently thought better of it as he watched the bridge extend. “Be careful. Armed or not, Talon Company are cold-blooded killers, well-trained and well-armed. They will not hesitate.” Luna nodded grimly. 

Just as the bridge finished extending, three people appeared on top of the station. The first two were members of the security team, but the third was very clearly not. His armor was darker and bulkier than Rivet City’s security armor, and he lacked the distinctive helmet that all of the city’s security officers except Harkness himself wore when on duty. Aside from that, the only thing the man carried was a small sack that dangled from his fist. A thick tar-like substance dripped from it with every slight motion. A second later a maintenance worker stepped onto the platform, wearing a set of power armor purchased from the Enclave. It was clear that security wasn't taking any chances when it came to Talon Company. 

“Remember, keep your wits about you,” Harkness said in an undertone before striding out across the bridge. Luna felt  a little annoyed that he felt the need to remind her, but let it slide as she followed him.   

The two groups met in the middle of the bridge. Up close, Luna saw that the Talon Company mercenary had an eagle’s talon stenciled over his breast in white paint. “I assume you’re Chief Harkness and Vice-Principal Luna?”

“Yes, we are,” Harkness cut in before Luna could say anything. “And you are?”

“Lieutenant Ackerman. I was sent by Commander Jabsco, Talon Company’s military leader,” the mercenary replied. 

“Someone with authority, then,” Harkness noted. “Unless you’re lying.” He held up a hand as Ackerman opened his mouth to retort. “Save it. We already know that Talon Company is working with the Super Mutants, so this ‘Commander Jabsco’ better have given a damn good reason for why we should trust you.”

Ackerman shrugged. “Working with the Super Mutants is just business, and they pay very well.”

“If they pay so well, then why are you willing to tell us where they’re keeping Miss Dusk?” Harkness shot.

“Because caps aren’t worth shit if you’re dead,” Ackerman replied flatly. “Our spies discovered that they’re planning on experimenting on Dusk and using her clean DNA to create stronger and more dangerous Super Mutants. If it works, the Super Mutants will overrun the whole Capital Wasteland. And in case you don’t believe me, here.” He threw the sack down on the bridge between the two groups. “We managed to steal this from their secret lab. Don’t let the black shit touch your skin, it’s toxic as all hell.”

Harkness crouched next to the sack and used a combat knife to carefully open it. Luna suppressed a gasp as the sack fell open to reveal a black human-sized heart. Through some perverse twist of dark science or magic, it was still beating, expelling tar-like liquid with every pulse. 

“We ripped that from a Super Mutant infected with a new variant of FEV. That’s one of the things the Super Mutants have created through mixing FEV and magic so far,” Ackerman explained. “Ordinary Super Mutants are tougher than they have any fucking right to be, imagine how tough the fuckers with hearts like that are going to be.”

“Alright, you’ve made your point.” Harkness straightened up and crossed his arms. “What does Talon Company want out of this? I can’t imagine that you’re helping us out of the goodness of your hearts.”

Ackerman snorted loudly. “We just want some other fuckers to deal with this shit. Those Super Mutants getting bigger, stronger, and have a shitload of magic. Talon Company doesn’t have the firepower for a fight like that. This is something for the pricks with power armor and magic friends to deal with, since they’re so focused on saving the wasteland and all that bullshit.”

“You can mock it, but you’re the ones coming here for help,” Luna shot before she could stop herself.

“You need help shutting your mouth, bitch?” Ackerman spat.

Harkness held a hand up to forestall Luna’s retort. “Insult my guest again, and I’ll snap your jaw before you can even raise your fists. I’ll pass your message onto the Brotherhood of Steel, and they can decide what they’ll do with it. Now, where are the Super Mutants keeping Miss Dusk?”



 

Sunset leaned on a fence as she idly watched the Regulators’ brahmin wander through their snowy paddock. The rest of the Rainbooms were with her, eating breakfast or watching the brahmin, save for Applejack who was inside talking to Cruz. 

“I don’t really like these Brotherhood rations,” Fluttershy said with a conflicted look at her mess tin. 

“They’re not that bad,” Rainbow replied, having already wolfed hers down. “Food is food, y’know.”

“This one tastes like roast chicken,” Fluttershy grumbled.

Pinkie glanced over at her curiously. “What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s mac and cheese,” Fluttershy replied flatly.

The other girls stared at the poor girl’s food with concern, but the HQ door opened before any of them could comment. No-one was really surprised to see Applejack step outside wearing a new Regulator duster under her combat armor.

“You made your decision then,” Rarity noted.

Applejack nodded. “Yeah. Ah mean, we’re all gonna be wanderin’ around the wastes anyway, tryin’ to find one of them SD-whatever’s, so Ah don’t really see a problem with helpin’ folk out along the way. As long as that ain’t a problem for the Brotherhood, anyway.” 

“If the Elder does have a problem with it then she can discuss it with me,” Sunset assured her. “What about Ashleigh? Is she okay?”

Applejack grimaced and shook her head. “The doc demanded that she get plenty of peace and rest, so Ah didn’t get a chance to have a proper talk with her. Ah did have a good sit down with Mac and Michelle, though, so that was nice. Ah’ll just have to make my way back up here at some point so Ah can get time with all of ‘em.” She glanced at Rainbow curiously. “Ah’m surprised that you weren’t inside though, swappin’ stories with Dash.”

The others tried to suppress a round of giggles. “She was, until the other Dash hurt herself and the doctor kicked Rainbow out,” Pinkie explained with a grin. 

Rainbow blushed and averted her gaze, prompting the others to laugh and Applejack to roll her eyes. “You’re your own worst enemy sometimes, huh, Dash?” She chuckled and turned back to Sunset. “Where to now? Back to Rivet City?”

“Not yet. There’s a few Vaults in this area, so I figured we should at least investigate them while we’re out here,” Sunset replied. “First up, Vault 108.”

“Gary,” Pinkie put in randomly.

“If you’re ready to head out, then we can talk about what Sonora said about the Brotherhood’s request for help as we walk,” Sunset continued without pause. 

“Sounds good to me.” Applejack rolled her shoulders to settle her new overcoat a little better. “Lead the way.”

Just as the girls were about to leave, Sunset’s Pip-Boy radio crackled into life, “Paladin Shimmer, this is Murderbird One. President Shoichet and Elder Lyons have ordered us to pick you up for a top priority mission.”
> Chapter 171 - Cut Off The Head...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Got it, let us know if anything changes.” Sunset lowered her Pip-Boy and looked around the crew compartment. The rest of the Rainbooms were watching her expectantly, unable to hear the conversation over the sound of the Vertibird’s engines. “The Super Mutants have managed to get hold of Sonata.”

Everyone reacted with shock and confusion. “How the fuck did they manage that?!” Rainbow exclaimed. 

“They didn’t attack Rivet City did they?” Rarity asked anxiously. 

Sunset sighed and shook her head. “As far as we can tell the dumb bitch managed to sneak out of Rivet City and wandered into the metro network. Knights at a Brotherhood outpost in the middle of the D.C. ruins spotted her getting kidnapped by a Behemoth not long after we left Rivet City ourselves.”  

Pinkie groaned loudly. “Please tell me they didn’t take her to Vault 87.”

“Thankfully, no. Elder Lyons received a tip-off that the Super Mutants are holding Sonata in an old school facility called Roosevelt Academy,” Sunset explained. “Apparently they have a couple of hidden labs there, and are already making progress on improving their stock of FEV.”

“Wait a minute, are they planning on turning Sonata into a Super Mutant?!” Rainbow exclaimed. 

“Hell if I know,” Sunset replied honestly. “Either way, she probably doesn’t deserve to be left in their hands, and we can’t risk them learning anything about magic from her. We’ve got to get in there and rescue her.” The others all nodded, though Sunset wasn’t sure which reason they actually cared about.

Rarity rolled her eyes and gave an exaggerated sigh. “I suppose we don’t really have a choice. Will we at least have support this time?”

Sunset nodded, understanding the sentiment all too well. “Star Paladin Cross is bringing a squad, and the Enclave are sending one of their new mage-ops fireteams. The Academy has three buildings. The plan is to meet the other Vertibirds just outside the perimeter, hit any Mutants guarding the outside in an aerial strike, then each team will take a building and hit them all at the same time.” 

“Can we at least bitch-slap Sonata when we find her?” Applejack asked with a grumpy frown.

“Only if the Super Mutants haven’t already,” Sunset replied. “Also, while Becky and Elder Lyons would prefer if we don’t destroy too much of whatever research the Super Mutants have done, our priorities are to rescue any and all captives and take out as many Super Mutants as we possibly can.”

“In other words, fuck up the bad guys and save the day,” Rainbow called out with a wide grin. 

The others whooped and shouted in agreement. “Just remember to keep your wits about you,” Sunset cut in. “The tip-off came from Talon Company, of all people, so there’s a good chance that this is a trap or some sort of bullshit power play.”

“Wait a minute, we’re doing this on Talon Company’s word?!” Fluttershy spat incredulously.

“I know, I don’t like it either,” Sunset admitted as the others all glared at her. “Elder Lyons said that they provided compelling evidence as to what the Super Mutants are planning, and she thinks this is worth checking out. That doesn’t mean we trust them, though, so-”

“Keep our heads on a swivel,” Applejack finished. She frowned and crossed her arms. “Do we know which building Sonata is being held in?”

Sunset grimaced and waved her hand in a ‘so-so’ gesture. “The intel from Talon Company says that she’s in the Arts and Athletics building but, again, take it with a pinch of salt.”

The rest of the journey passed with the girls idly speculating about what would happen if Talon Company were lying, or, just as concerning, if they were telling the truth. No-one dared to ask what was to be done if Sonata had already been infected with FEV.

All too soon, the pilot called over the intercom, “We’re approaching the LZ. The other birds are already waiting for us, so we’ll move straight in with the aerial assault.” The girls waited in silence after the announcement. A few minutes later, the pilot called through again, “We’ve got Muties ahead, please be aware that the Vertibird may experience some mild turbulence while we blow them to kingdom come.”

Rainbow cheered and yelled out encouragement while the others gripped their harnesses a little tighter. It wasn’t long before explosions and the distinctive whine of gatling lasers could be heard even over the Vertibird’s engines. The gunfight only went on for what felt like a few seconds before the light in the crew compartment turned a dark red. “LZ is almost clear, get ready to disembark!” The pilot called out.

“You heard him, Rainbooms, lock and load!” Sunset hadn’t even finished her sentence before everyone was undoing their harnesses and scrambling to their feet. It only took a few seconds for everyone to gather up their weapons, then they just had to wait as the gunfire stopped and the Vertibird began to descend, the ramp opening up before they were anywhere near the ground.

The instant the Vertibird touched the ground, the light turned green and the Rainbooms piled out of it. 

A huge building rose up ahead of the girls. It looked like it had been a magnificent building once, but now, with its roof and much of the top few floors missing, not to mention the vile add-ons favored by Super Mutants, it was a shadow of its former self. Charred mutant corpses littered the ground around the entrance only a few feet in front of the girls. They lined up around the main door as the Vertibird peeled away and gained altitude once more. With everyone ready, Sunset nodded to Twilight, who used her magic to rip the doors from their hinges and toss them aside. 

A storm of bullets and lasers filled the empty doorway. The Rainbooms waited for it to stop, then Pinkie stepped up and returned fire. The floor rumbled as Pinkie’s Party Cannon did its deadly work. Before the blast had faded, she switched to her shotgun and led the charge into the building. 

Inside, pink smoke rose from the remains of a large circular reception desk. A handful of Super Mutants were still standing around the room, but even as the Rainbooms cut them down more emerged from other doors around the room, forcing the girls to take cover behind pillars and Rarity’s magic. Sunset flinched as a bullet tore a chunk out of the pillar she was crouching behind, then popped out and hit the offending Mutant with three bolts of plasma to the chest.  

“Reloading!” Sunset ducked back behind the pillar as Twilight stepped forward, hurling debris at their attackers. Just as Sunset finished reloading there was a loud crack and something grabbed her shoulder. She flinched and whipped her plasma rifle up, but before she could fire there was another crack and a purple flash, and her whole body lurched with a sickeningly familiar sensation.

“Got you, yep.” The owner of the gravelly voice shoved Sunset to the floor. There was yet another loud crack and a flash of purple light, and she was left in darkness. 

Sunset’s heart pounded as she looked around wildly. A couple of buzzing lights in the ceiling provided very faint illumination, and as her eyes adjusted a low, wide room slowly materialized. There was a large generator in the middle of the room, and dozens of thick concrete pillars in a grid spaced about five feet apart, but there was no sign of any enemies in the room. A quick look behind revealed that there was a doorway, but metal sheets had been welded together to block it entirely. She tried to raise someone on her radio, just in case, but all she got back was static.

Teleportation. Sunset knew more about it than almost anyone she knew, save perhaps the Princesses, but she had never expected to encounter it among Super Mutants, let alone weaponized. 

Shoving those thoughts to the back of her mind, at least for the time being, Sunset stood and raised her plasma rifle. She didn’t know if there was any way out of wherever the hell she was, but anything was better than just sitting around and waiting for death. 

Treading as carefully and silently as she could, Sunset crept around the pillars, keeping her eyes peeled for any threats or a possible way out. She found another doorway, but that one was blocked by some sort of heavy machinery piled across it. The terrifying possibility that the Super Mutants had just dumped her in a sealed room, hidden somewhere deep in the wastes, was slowly seeming more and more likely. 

A muffled yell almost made Sunset leap out of her skin. Whipping around, she spotted a shadowy figure sitting awkwardly against the wall. “Sonata?”

Sonata let out another muffled yell and squirmed on the spot. A closer look revealed that she was cruelly gagged and bound, with thick rope binding her to a fire hose reel in the wall. 

“Hold on, I’ll get you out of there.” Sunset shouldered her plasma rifle and whipped out her combat knife. Instead of wasting time fiddling with knots, she very carefully used the knife to cut through the gag. 

“I-it’s a trap!” Sonata gasped as soon as the gag was gone.

“No shit.” Sunset jammed a hand into the siren’s pocket and pulled out a gorgeous crystalline torc. She had sensed the Equestrian magic inside when she had approached Sonata, but now that she was holding it, she could feel immense power thundering through it, as if she were holding a literal nuclear reactor in her hand. “Care to explain what the fuck this is?”

Sonata paled and started straining against her bonds. “It’s my new amulet. I’ll tell you everything, just please don’t leave me here!”

“Why would I-” Sunset snapped her head around as she heard the machinery blocking the one doorway being shifted, along with guttural grunts of effort. “We’ll discuss this later.” She shoved the torc back into Sonata’s pocket, then quickly slashed through the ropes and helped her to her feet. “If you know any other way out of here, that would be really helpful.”

“There’s a big metal door that way, but those things did something to it,” Sonata hissed, pointing away from the sealed doors. 

“Good enough.” Sunset drew her Nova pistol before throwing Sonata’s arm around her shoulder and helping her hurry in the direction indicated. It didn’t take long to find the door; a heavy-duty mechanical thing composed of three siding metal panels. Sunset smacked the button, but only the center panel moved, grinding and screeching as it slowly sank into the ground. 

One final loud slam echoed from behind as the panel suddenly stopped opening. A moment later, a loud squealing sound started coming from the motors beneath the door panel. Sunset instinctively shoved Sonata through the door a split second before it slammed shut again.

“Come on, come on!” Sunset jabbed the button again, but nothing happened. “Shit.” She pounded a fist on the door in frustration, trying to control her thundering heart as she heard a chorus of heavy footfalls approaching. Pounding the door once again for good measure, Sunset sighed, took a deep breath, and turned to face the inevitable. 

Seven Super Mutants surrounded her in a semi-circle. All of them were bigger and bulkier than the average Mutant, and each of them was wielding a sledgehammer, a stout metal pipe, or a wooden board festooned with nails. “You die now, Rainboom,” the closest Mutant said with a vicious grin.

“Bigger dipshits than you have tried and died,” Sunset said defiantly.

The lead Mutant snorted and raised his hammer. “Get-”

A blast from the Nova Pistol punched a hole through his chest before he could finish. The others stared in blank surprise as their leader keeled over, giving Sunset a chance to swap the pistol for her plasma rifle. She managed to shoot out the knees of two more Mutants before the others gathered their wits and rushed her.

Sunset risked one last shot at the closest one’s face, then ducked under its wild swing and dove into a commando roll just before the others reached her. As she rolled to her feet she dropped a frag grenade and hurled herself amongst the pillars. The blast made the whole room shudder. Sunset didn’t dare look back as she sprinted towards the door the Super Mutants had come through. It was possible that the grenade had done in all of them, but she wasn’t about to take that risk.

As she darted around another pillar, something solid slammed into Sunset’s back, sending pain surging through her shoulder and knocking her sprawling. A metal pipe clanged to the ground next to her. It was pure reflex that made Sunset roll over and start firing backwards. The storm of plasma pulverized the chest of an oncoming Super Mutant. She changed targets before the body had hit the ground, bringing one more down in a hail of green death.

“Shit!” Sunset barely had time to scramble to her feet before the next one was on her. The Mutant bellowed and brought its hammer down in an overhead smash, narrowly missing Sunset as she stumbled aside. It followed up with a backhanded slap that knocked her into a pillar. She shook her head to clear it, then ducked as the Mutant swung again. The hammer smashed a chunk of concrete from the pillar where her head had been. 

Sunset snapped her rifle up and fired before the Mutant could attack again, vaporizing half of its face, only for the rifle to run dry after that single shot. Before she could reload, the Super Mutant lashed out blindly with its hammer. The wild swing caught her in the side and slammed her off her feet. 

Agony tore through Sunset’s whole body. She hit the floor hard, her plasma rifle flying out of her hands and clattering away into the darkness. Every ragged breath Sunset took made the left side of her chest feel like it was filled with broken glass. Even so, she gritted her teeth and pushed herself to her knees. She couldn’t see her plasma rifle, so she reached out and grabbed a discarded metal pole and used it to help force herself to her feet. 

The Super Mutant was just gathering its senses as well, and glared at her with its one remaining eye. Both of them stared each other down, then the Mutant roared and swung at her head. Sunset barely managed to skip back out of the way. She waited for it to swing again before lunging forward, smashing the steel pipe into the weakened part of its skull. Ignoring the rising pain in her chest, Sunset kept swinging, hammering away at the Mutant’s head until it finally keeled over. 

“Got… you…” Sunset forced out. She coughed wetly, tasting blood as she struggled to catch her breath. After glancing around, hoping that she had killed all of her assailants, Sunset stumbled over to where her plasma rifle had fallen, suppressing a groan as she put one foot in front of the other. Just as she was psyching herself up to crouch and pick up the rifle, a huge figure stepped out from behind a pillar. 

The nailboard shattered across Sunset’s breastplate. The force of the impact drove her back, while the pain almost brought her to her knees. 

“Why this fing broken?” The Super Mutant stared at the remains of its nailboard in annoyance, then tossed it away with a huff. Sunset immediately took the opportunity to hurl her pipe at its head and draw her Nova Pistol. She reloaded it in a flash and snapped it up just as the Mutant charged. 

A blazing lance of raw power tore through the Super Mutant’s torso, dropping it to its knees right before Sunset’s feet. She instantly set about reloading it once more, ready to finish the monster off, but the beast grabbed something from its belt and surged to its feet, lashing out before she could react.

Sunset yelled and fell back as the right side of her face exploded with agony. She staggered away and clasped a hand to her eye, finding it slick with blood. 

“Now… die…” Sunset looked up as the Super Mutant advanced, blood streaming from its mouth. Adrenaline surged through Sunset and she whipped her Nova Pistol up just as the monster raised its knife. 

The Super Mutant fell to its knees, a second fist-sized hole burned through its chest, and finally toppled over. 

Sunset stood in place, still pointing her Nova Pistol where the Mutant had been standing. After a moment she swayed on the spot, the pistol slipping from her fingers, and tottered sideways to slump against a pillar. Excruciating agony, worse than anything she had ever felt before, radiated out from her ruined eye, making her entire body shake. With trembling hands, Sunset slipped a needle of Med-X from her belt, discarded the protective cap, and jammed it into her arm. She let out a relieved sigh as the pain went from unbearable to somewhat tolerable, then clamped a hand over her eye to try and staunch the bleeding. 

“Impressive.” Cold fear trickled down Sunset’s spine as heavy footsteps approached, accompanied by slow, mocking applause. She reluctantly looked up to see a massive Super Mutant lumbering towards her. With a sick sinking feeling in her stomach, Sunset recognized the Equestrian magic thrumming in its chest. “It seems I underestimated you.”

“You’re no… not going to… get away with… this,” Sunset gasped, flecks of blood splattering across her lips. “You do-”

“Don’t know who I’m dealing with?” Shephard asked sarcastically. “Oh, but I do. I’ve been planning this for some time. You Rainbooms are all absurdly dedicated to each other. When your friends hear that Sonata Dusk, rescued by you, overheard me saying that they were summoned and their precious leader isolated, beaten, tortured by Super Mutants, all on the orders of Commander Jabsco of Talon Company, how do you think they’ll react?”

Sunset’s heart sank at those words. She could tell from Shephard’s expression that it was a lie, but the girls would have no way of knowing that. 

“Naturally, I’m not fool enough to tell you all of my plans,” Shephard continued. “I have probably said too much already, but I only really need you out of commission for the next day or so, so I’m not too concerned. I just want a quick souvenir before I leave. I assume you don't mind.”

Shephard pressed Sunset against the wall with one hand, eliciting a groan as her ribs shifted in her chest, then wrapped its other hand around her right bicep. Blinding pain lanced through her body a second later. Blood and tears fogged the vision in her remaining eye, so it took her a second to recognize what was now dangling from the Super Mutant’s meaty fist, but even then she couldn’t quite process it. The monster said something else to her, but she didn’t register any of it as she looked down at the empty space where her arm had been. Shock finally set in at that point, and the room spun as Sunset collapsed into blessed darkness.
> Chapter 172 - Restraint
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The tension in the room was unbearable. A garbled radio message had come through to Rivet City about Roosevelt Academy being a trap and Sunset being injured, enough so that the Enclave were taking her to one of their facilities, but Elder Lyons was too busy co-ordinating her troops and preparing a response to Talon Company’s betrayal to go into detail. Thankfully, she had let Luna know that the Rainbooms were returning to Rivet City, so the Vice-Principal and Trixie had rushed to the embarking station to greet the girls as soon as they arrived. Luna had half-heartedly suggested that Trixie wait in the city, but she refused point blank. 

And so, they waited. The guards had offered to let the two play cards with them to help pass the time, but they were both too stressed out to concentrate. Finally, after what felt like an interminably long wait, Luna heard the distinctive sound of Vertibirds approaching. “They’re here!”

Trixie immediately burst out of her seat and sprinted out of the room. Luna shouted a futile reminder to be careful on the ramp outside, only to sigh and follow right behind her. Outside, two Vertibirds kicked up swirls of mud and snowflakes as they slowly descended to the ground. A squad of Knights exited the first Vertibird, but Luna ignored them as the ramp opened up on the second one.

The Rainbooms were covered in muck and blood. Thankfully, none of them looked injured, but their expressions were a mix of worry, misery, and barely contained fury. Sonata was the last one to step out of the Vertibird. She was battered and bruised, and she looked utterly dumbfounded, but she was at least alive and didn’t seem to be severely hurt. 

Luna had known that Sunset was being taken to an Enclave facility, but she still felt a weight drop in her gut when she saw that the young woman wasn’t with them. She didn’t let it show on her face though. Sunset was in good hands, which meant that right now Luna’s biggest priority was the group of girls standing in front of her. Steeling herself, she took a deep breath through her nose and asked, “What happened? Are you all alright?”

“Talon Company fucked us over, that’s what happened,” Rainbow spat as she stalked past.

“It was a trap,” Twilight said with a heavy sigh as they all followed. “The Super Mutants were going to turn Sonata into one of them, but the commander of Talon Company convinced them to use her as bait to draw us out so they could take out Sunset.”

Trixie’s eyes widened in shock. “But, she isn’t- I mean, you stopped them, right?”

The way the girls all grimaced was answer enough. “They got the drop on us, used magic to teleport her away,” Applejack said grimly. “We never would have found her at all if Sonata hadn’t escaped.”

“She saved me,” Sonata said quietly, looking more confused than anything. “She knew she was gonna be trapped, but she pushed me out anyway.” She looked up at Luna as if the concept was completely alien to her. “Why did she do that?”

“Because Sunset is a good person, unlike you!” Trixie snapped. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t left Rivet City! Why did you even sneak out in the first place?!”

“That doesn’t matter right now,” Rainbow cut in, cold fury dripping from every syllable. “All that matters is finding where Talon Company is hiding, and ending them.”

Her demeanor was deeply concerning, if understandable in the circumstances, but Luna realized that she might be able to calm Rainbow down with the answer. “Their main base of operations is a place called Fort Bannister. Elder Lyons is already sending messages out to gather a Brotherhood strike force-”

“That could take days, and that Jabsco asshole will spend the whole time building his defenses, setting more traps, or just finding another place to hide.” Rainbow shook her head. “Fuck that. The Enclave are letting us use that Vertibird for now, I say we get it refueled, stock up on ammo, and take Talon Company out now.”

Luna expected the rest of the Rainbooms to disagree, to say that they should absolutely wait until they have an army at their back before attacking a military base, but none of them said any such thing. With a horrified jolt, she realized that all of them were giving the idea serious consideration.

“They’ll almost certainly have planned something in case we did this,” Twilight pointed out, idly watching as one of the Vertibirds took off and flew away. 

“Yeah, probably,” Rainbow admitted. “Lucky for us though, they don’t know exactly what we’re all capable of. We’ll get the Vertibird to drop us off out of sight of the fort, I’ll deal with their crappy speedster, and the rest of you can just let loose and cause some carnage.”

Applejack nodded grimly. “Those guys have messed with us since we first got to Rivet City. It’s about time we dumped a fox in their coop.”

“Hold on, girls! Shouldn’t you get some rest and discuss this with Elder Lyons or President Shoichet first?” Luna suggested, desperately trying to stop them from doing something unspeakably reckless. 

This time, it was Fluttershy who shook her head and spoke up, “No. I don’t like it, but the longer we let Talon Company carry on, the more people are going to get hurt. We need to end this now, then we can deal with the Super Mutants on our own terms.”

Luna knew that if even Fluttershy was on board with this crazy idea, then there was no way she could stop them. Still, she wasn’t about to give up yet. “You still need to report to Elder Lyons, at the very least. And we do need to discuss with Miss Dusk what exactly she was-” Luna made to gesture at Sonata, only to realize that the siren hadn’t actually followed the group into the embarking station. “Wha- where did she go?” Icy fear gripped her heart as she noticed that someone else was missing. “And where is Trixie?!”





Sonata grunted with effort as she forced her way through the snow. It had been super easy to convince the Vertibird pilot to bring her to Fort Bannister, especially after she had accidentally drawn out the tiniest bit of magic from the torc in her pocket, but even with that little boost he wouldn’t take her too close to the fort in case Talon Company shot them down. Sonata had quickly agreed when she learned about that little possibility.

Still, having to travel the last quarter-league or so to Fort Bannister wasn’t really that big of a deal. Using siren magic again, even just a tiny bit accidentally, was exhilarating. The excitement of being able to use it again soon was enough to make even the bruises Sonata was covered in feel a little less painful. 

As the siren pressed on, it wasn’t long before she reached an old complex of wrecked concrete buildings. Sonata nodded to herself. If the pilot had told her the truth, then Talon Company’s base was only a short way beyond this complex. Sonata eagerly hurried through the ruined buildings until she found the very last one. It was only then that she realized she should probably be a little more stealthy, or she would get spotted before she was ready.

Sonata immediately crouched and tried to push through the snow a little more quietly. Planning out the sneaky stuff was Adagio’s thing, but she figured that it couldn’t be that hard to do. All she had to do was find a window or something that pointed in the right direction, check to make sure that Fort Bannister was where it was supposed to be, then find a suitable corner where she could do her thing from. 

Thankfully, the first two were really easy to do. The building was thoroughly trashed, so finding a good place to peek out from was simple enough. Sonata was a little concerned that she wouldn’t actually recognize Fort Bannister when she saw it but, when she looked through the window, she smirked as she spotted tall ramshackle walls about half a kilometer away, decorated with the white claw she had seen on Talon Company when they were talking with Shephard. Satisfied, Sonata crept over to a corner where she definitely wouldn’t be seen from the fort. 

“What are you doing?” Someone asked sharply. 

Sonata’s heart leapt into her mouth as she whipped around. She was astounded to see Trixie glaring at her with her hands on her hips, wearing her ridiculous cloak and pointy hat over her winter gear. “How did you get here?!” Sonata snapped. 

“I followed you onto the Vertibird.” Trixie stated it as if it was obvious. “You were so busy giggling to yourself that you didn’t even notice.”

“O-okay, but why?” Sonata pressed, trying to cover her embarrassment.

“I asked you first,” Trixie said bluntly. 

Sonata snorted and waved a hand dismissively. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m getting payback on Jabsco and Talon Company.”

Something about that answer was apparently too complicated for Trixie’s feeble mind, going by the confused look on her face. “Payback? How are you going to get payback? Sunset has already been hurt thanks to you messing around and running off, and here you are trying to do the same thing again?! Just how stupid are you?!”

“I’m not stupid!” Sonata snarled. She knew that she probably wasn’t as smart as Adagio, but she didn’t have to take insults from a jumped-up stage magician. “Those Talon Company jerks used me. I’m not going to let some pathetic humans treat me like their tool, and I do owe Sunset for saving me, so yeah, I’m gonna get payback.”

“How are you going to do that without magic?” Trixie retorted. “All you’re going to do is get someone else hurt again, and I’m not going to let-”

Sonata stepped forward and shoved Trixie as hard as she could, making her slip and land hard in the snow. “Just because you’re a weak little coward doesn’t mean I have to be. If you’re too pathetic to stand up for your friend, then you can stand back and watch while I do it for you.”

Turning her attention away from the fallen girl, Sonata rolled her shoulders and reached into her pocket. Power thundered through her body as she drew out her torc. Sonata knew that she was risking absorbing too much magic if she didn’t use it quickly, but even so, she savored the moment as she fixed the torc around her neck. The magic immediately surged, growing almost out of control, but this time she was expecting it. 

Sonata directed the power with practiced ease. Her hair lengthened, pointed ears grew from on top of her head, and diaphanous wing-like fins unfurled from her back as the magic shifted her body to something closer to her natural form. 

It wasn’t enough. Dense emerald fog, the magical expression of dissension and conflict invisible to those without a sense for it, gathered around Sonata like a cloying blanket. There was more than enough power for the siren’s purposes. 

Trixie’s eyes went wide with horrified recognition as a magical projection of Sonata’s true form erupted out of her body.
> Chapter 173 - Shattered Talon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commander Jabsco smirked as he looked down on his subordinates. Thanks to the materials that the dim-witted Super Mutants had provided, Fort Bannister’s defenses were stronger than ever. 

The sections of the perimeter wall that had been damaged in the great war centuries ago had now been rebuilt with salvaged concrete and scrap metal, pillboxes had been built at every gate, and even the building that Jabsco was standing in had been repaired and reinforced enough that he felt almost as safe there as he did in the underground bunker. The fact that it also had a secret panic room built into the bottom floor certainly helped in that regard. Naturally, the balcony that allowed the Commander to look down on his subordinates like a conquering warlord was his favorite addition. 

Of course, the Super Mutants’ assistance had come at a steep price in captives for their foul purposes, but the results were worth it. All that remained to be seen was whether it would be enough to stop the Rainbooms. 

Jabsco scowled at the thought of the magical do-gooders. They were an exceptionally annoying thorn in his side, and he relished the thought of getting rid of them, but Shephard’s plan to have them recklessly attack Fort Bannister gave him chills. 

The plan, admittedly, made a lot of sense. The women had infiltrated Vault 87 before, and their magic gave them an obscene advantage in close quarters such as the Vault’s corridors, whereas Fort Bannister was unknown to them and had plenty of wide open spaces for kill zones. Add to that the fact that the Rainbooms’ leader would already be incapacitated and they wouldn’t be thinking straight, and Talon Company was looking at a certain win. Shephard had even stationed a small force of his most elite troops in the ruins nearby to ambush the Rainbooms from the rear. 

“Do you want this back, Commander?” A gruff voice asked. 

Jabsco looked back at his two bodyguards. One of the burly men was carrying a heavily modified assault rifle, while the other was holding out the missile launcher that the Commander himself usually lugged around at all times. 

“If I want it, I’ll tell you,” Jabsco said scathingly. In all honesty, he felt deeply uncomfortable without it in his arms or on his back, but he was trying to dispel an image of him that had been circulating among the troops that he only carried it to make himself look big and tough. Some were even daring to call him 'Jetting Jabsco', thinking that he was a coward who shied away from combat. The real reason that Jabsco had agreed to Shephard’s plan of crossing the Rainbooms and baiting them into attacking Fort Bannister was to try and quell the growing whispers, among both his mercenaries and his financiers at Littlehorn, that he wasn’t up to the task of commanding Talon Company. Wiping out the Rainbooms would silence all dissent.

A sudden commotion from the south wall drew Jabsco’s attention. The troops down there were yelling and shooting wildly at something, without any semblance of proper discipline. “What the fu-” He was cut off by a colossal crash as something smashed through the perimeter wall, launching chunks of concrete and twisted metal across the fort’s interior and splattering several unlucky mercenaries. Jabsco slowly straightened up and looked over the balcony rail, his heart thundering. His jaw dropped when the dust cleared and he saw what had attacked. 

A massive creature, almost as large as a Behemoth, hovered in the air a few yards off the ground. It had a long and sinuous body covered in fish-like scales, but where the lower half was a deep sea-dark blue, the upper half was far paler, with a large spiny dorsal fin on the back and, bizarrely, the head and forelegs of an old world horse, though with extra little fins on each. Deep blue and crimson veins pulsed with a fiendish light on its chest. 

The monster reared up in the air and tossed its head. “Where is Jabsco?” It demanded in a voice like thunder, making the ground quake. Terror paralyzed Jabsco. He knew that he should move, but he could only stare in fear at the beast as it swept its gaze around the fort, seeking him. 

Thankfully, the rest of Talon Company got their act together much faster. The echoes of the beast’s entrance had hardly died away before the troops retaliated, throwing a storm of lead, lasers and missiles at it while Jabsco’s bodyguards pulled him back off the balcony. 

Taking cover beside the door, Jabsco watched with bated breath as the monster rolled in mid-air and dove behind the nearest bunker. Officers barked out orders, trying to keep it pinned so troops with heavy weapons could flank it, when the monster reared up from behind the bunker and opened its mouth as if to roar. 

A cone of near-invisible power erupted from the beast’s mouth, obliterating the bunker, gouging a furrow through the rocky ground and blasting away the broken bodies of every poor soul caught in its path. A single continuous note could just about be heard over the screams of terror and the rumbling of tortured stone. Thankfully, the barrage only lasted for a few seconds before the beast closed its mouth.

The troops rallied quickly, but the monster threw itself on them before they could coordinate their attacks. Jabsco grimaced as the creature bit, stomped, and swatted away men and robots alike, only pausing long enough to unleash another devastating song that shook the earth. 

Just as the Commander was considering retreating to the panic room with his bodyguards, a bright yellow flash made all three men flinch. “What the hell is that thing?!” Lightning exclaimed, ignoring the glares that the others were giving her. 

“Something you need to go and kill!” Jabsco spat. 

“Get fucked!” She shot back, looking at him as if he were insane. “How the fuck am I supposed to kill something like that?!” 

Jabsco snarled at her as the building shook again. “You’re supposed to be the badass hunter, you figure it out and stop being so goddamned useless! Christ, I’ve taken shits that have achieved more than you!”

Lightning clenched her fists and opened her mouth to retort, then thought better of it and looked back out of the building. The monster was currently tearing apart a pillbox with disgusting ease. “Shit. Fine, but I’m taking this.” She grabbed Jabsco’s missile launcher out of the bodyguard’s hands, ponied up, then launched herself off the balcony and soared into the air.

Despite his words, Jabsco felt a little better as he watched Lightning circle high above the fort. Even if she couldn’t kill the beast, she would at least be one extra body between him and it. 

Lightning suddenly darted down to a sandbagged wall behind the monster. She popped up and raised the missile launcher, but before she could fire there was a blur and a flash and she staggered backwards, the weapon falling from her hands in pieces. 

Jabsco’s heart leapt into his mouth as another warrior appeared from nowhere right next to Lightning. The new arrival had long rainbow-colored hair, striking blue wings that reached out from sparkling sapphire armor, and a sword covered in rippling blue flames. Even at this distance, Jabsco could see the look of horror on Lightning’s face as she recognized the Rainboom. 

The two blurred into action, striking faster than the eye could see, only for Lightning to stagger backwards a second later clutching her arm. A sickening weight dropped in Jabsco’s stomach as the woman turned tail and rocketed into the sky, leaving a trail of crackling electricity in her wake.

“That bitch bailed on us!” One of the bodyguards snapped.

Jabsco just watched in silence as the Rainboom looked up at the monster still tearing through the fort, shrugged, then disappeared in a blur. More Talon Company troops started falling all over the place.

“We need to get to the panic room.” Jabsco’s statement was punctuated by a series of explosions from the southern wall. Sneakily peeking out of the window, he was dismayed to see a Vertibird hammering the distracted guards with its fearsome arsenal, while flashes of pink and purple tore apart sections of the wall itself. “Get me to the panic room, now!” 

The guards immediately turned and led the way to the main stairwell. Jabsco knew that his detractors would call him a coward for this, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t about to risk his skin just for the sake of Littlehorn’s ego. Besides, as long as he survived, he could spin the narrative any way he wanted to. 

As the trio made their way downstairs, they passed several small knots of mercenaries firing at the invaders. The Commander barked pointless orders at those who noticed him, but most of them he just ignored. If they needed him to babysit them while they carried out the plan then they didn’t deserve to survive the conflict. The forces being unleashed outside made the building shudder every few steps. Even so, everything went fine, as far as Jabsco was concerned, until they reached the second floor of the building. 

A small squad was gathered around a couple of windows, providing cover fire while one of their number reloaded a magically-enhanced missile launcher. Jabsco was about to hurry past them when something suddenly smashed through the wall. He stared in blank confusion as he realized that it was half of a wrecked sentry bot, then flinched and ducked back as a hail of bullets utterly shredded the remains of the squad. 

“Fuck!” Jabsco pressed himself against the wall as one of his guards stepped up to the new hole in the wall. 

“Two Rainbooms!” The guard leaned out of the hole and let off a shot burst from his assault rifle. “Get to the stairs, I’ll cover you!”

“Damn it, where the hell are those Super Mutants?!” Jabsco spat as he crouched to move past. 

The guard snorted loudly. “They’re not coming, you dumb cunt! It’s a double-cross! The bastards must be hoping we-” He was cut off as a crystalline javelin punched him across the room and impaled him against the wall opposite. The guard struggled for a second, pulling weakly at the spike in his chest, then slumped over with a wet gurgle. 

That awful sight was the last straw for Jabsco. Abandoning restraint, he sprinted for the stairs and barrelled down them at top speed. His remaining bodyguard yelled for him to wait, but he didn’t dare to slow down as he reached the first floor and hurtled through the corridors to his panic room. He almost cried out with relief when he turned a corner and saw the heavy metal door directly ahead. 

Gasping for breath, Jabsco ripped open the secret panel next to the door and entered the password for it. The door slid open with a loud rumble. 

“Should we bring anyone else in?” The bodyguard asked as he caught up. Jabsco turned to berate him, only to spot something over the man’s shoulder. 

Another Rainboom was staring at them from the end of the corridor. She held a bloody sword in one fist, with more gore splattered all over her hands, front and, most disturbingly, her mouth. Great bat-like wings framed her silhouette. 

The bodyguard turned to see what the Commander was staring at, and Jabsco took the opportunity to dart into the panic room and slam the door shut. It locked with a satisfyingly loud thunk. The abandoned guard yelled and pounded on the door, but Jabsco just stood back from it and ignored the sound. The shouting was followed by panicked gunfire, screaming, and finally an eerie silence. 

Jabsco skipped back in fear as something struck the door with inhuman strength. It struck again a few more times, each impact making the door shudder in place, then silence fell once more. He waited, heart pounding, but nothing else happened. The Rainboom had gone.

Safe at last, Jabsco slumped into a chair and tried to get his breathing back under control. There was a small terminal and radio set-up in the panic room, but he didn’t bother turning them on; he had no interest in hearing his troops getting slaughtered. 

Talon Company was screwed if Shephard had really betrayed them. Jabsco couldn’t do anything about it; the Rainbooms and their pet monster were just too powerful, but that didn’t mean that he had to go down in flames with them. Fresh goons were easy enough to come by, all Jabsco had to do was survive, convince Littlehorn that he had done everything he could, and use their resources to rebuild. Thankfully, the panic room had another hidden compartment inside it that Shephard didn’t know about. It was cramped, but safe enough to ride out this storm.

“You’re Commander Jabsco,” a voice said in an accusatory tone. 

Jabsco sprang to his feet and looked around wildly. He choked as he spotted a Rainboom standing by the door, glaring at him coldly. She had thick winter gear on, along with a ridiculous star-covered purple cape and pointy hat that looked like they belonged in some old-world kid’s book. Pale blue skin and white hair poked out from beneath the thick clothes. “H-how did you get in here?!” Jabsco stammered.

“Magic,” the girl said simply. Jabsco realized with a jolt that she had a knife gripped tightly in one hand. His personal combat knife, Occam’s Razor, though he couldn’t even begin to imagine when she had managed to filch that from him. He instinctively reached to make sure that his pistol was still in its holster, but the girl whipped the Razor up menacingly. “Don’t.”

“Okay, alright!” Jabsco raised his hands to show that he wasn’t a threat. His mind spun as he tried to think of a way out of his predicament, preferably one that didn’t result in him getting imprisoned or exposed. It was only then that he noticed that the girl’s hands were shaking. “Easy, girl, this is all just a big misunderstanding,” Jabsco said in a calmer tone. 

“My name is Trixie,” the girl hissed.  

Jabsco felt a twinge of relief at the confirmation that she wasn’t actually one of the Rainbooms. “Okay, Trixie, look, this is all a mistake. The Super Mutants are playing us all for fools.”

“You set a trap for Sunset.” It was a statement rather than a question.

“It was the Super Mutants’ idea,” Jabsco said quickly. “Shephard, he’s the brains behind all of this. Let me speak to whoever’s in charge, and I’ll straighten everything out, I promise.” The girl hesitated, so Jabsco tried another little push, “Just put the knife down, Trixie, we can be reasonable about this. You’re not a killer.”

Trixie frowned and looked down at the Razor in her still-shaking hand. “You are.”

Jabsco gave her an easy smile. “Yeah, well, who isn’t in this day and a-” He whipped his pistol out of its holster, but the girl threw some sort of smoke bomb at the floor just as he fired. He shot wildly, trying to make sure that he got her, when the side of his neck suddenly exploded in agony. Jabsco staggered away and clamped a hand to his neck. He could feel the stickiness of blood even through his gloves. 

As the smoke cleared, Jabsco spotted Trixie off to the side. She was completely uninjured, but her chest heaved as she stared down at the bloody blade grip in her hands. The two locked eyes as she looked back up. Jabsco snapped his pistol up just as the girl threw something at his face, making him flinch a split second before he pulled the trigger. He realized his mistake just a second too late, the handkerchief floating harmlessly to the ground as Trixie dove at him with the Razor raised high above her head. Jabsco screwed his eyes shut just as the blade came down.
> Chapter 174 - Shephard's Gambit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shephard looked over the gathered Super Mutants with a critical eye. The Overmaster was wearing the new armor and equipment that Zap had created, the warbands were prepared, and the Behemoths had been carefully prodded into position. All they needed now was the signal. 

As if the thought alone had been enough to summon him, Zap appeared out of thin air with a loud pop and a flash of purple light. He was clutching a twisted staff made out of scrap metal, human bones, and glowing purple crystals. “Everything is ready, yep. All troops are in position, yep, and the Rainbooms are breaking Talon Company, yep.”

“And Wilbur’s Heart?” Shephard asked. 

“Is already summoning the others, yep,” Zap replied. 

Shephard nodded with satisfaction. “Good. We lost a lot of Mutants getting that thing from Dunwich, so it had better work.” The Overmaster clapped Zap on the shoulder. “It is time. Lead your forces to victory, but don’t forget to come if I call you.”

As Zap nodded and teleported away, Shephard turned and faced towards the next target. Hiding the bulk of the Super Mutants from enemy spies had been difficult, almost as hard as keeping the other Overlords and Masters on a tight leash, but it was worth it now that their goal was just a short walk away through the ruins ahead. With any luck, Talon Company would be able to take out a couple of Rainbooms in their death throes, but that would just be a bonus. All that mattered was that the girls were distracted. War had come, and by the time the girls noticed it would be too late for them to change the outcome.

Mind filled with visions of conquest, the Overmaster grinned and raised its ax, grabbing the attention of every nearby Super Mutant. “The humans are waiting for us up ahead! Now, we slaughter them all!” 





“Raise your hands above your head for me again.” Horrigan dutifully did as he was asked. Sienna noted something down on her clipboard before looking back up. “And lower them again. Good. Are you still getting any tenderness?”

“No,” Horrigan replied.

Sienna raised an unamused eyebrow. “You certainly aren’t getting any better at lying.”

Horrigan heaved a sigh and rested his head on the oversized pillow he had been given. Sienna didn’t miss a trick, which was part of the reason he had been stuck on a modified cargo trolley in the Exodus building’s basement since the battle at the Citadel. “I’m fine, doc. This isn’t anywhere near as bad as what I felt after going a round with Liberty Prime.”

“So Unity doesn’t hit as hard as the greatest weapon ever seen in human history, big deal,” Sienna said flatly. “She still threw you around like a ragdoll, plus getting hit by a giant magic friendship beam of doom nearly turned you into the world’s most expensive paperweight. You’re tough, but you’re not unbreakable.”

“Yeah, I seem to be getting that lesson a lot these days,” Horrigan noted sourly. 

“Then maybe you should start telling the truth when I’m trying to get you healthy again,” Sienna shot. 

Horrigan would have rolled his eyes if he could. “My sensors say I’m back up at nearly ninety percent. I’m fine.”

Sienna threw her clipboard on Horrigan’s chest and leaned over to scowl at him. “You and I both know that your systems have been out of whack since you were blasted. Have you managed to figure out how your own magic has changed?”

“It’s blue instead of green,” Horrigan replied mulishly. Seeing her scowl sharpen, he sighed and waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t know the full extent, but I have a fair idea. Unfortunately, I can’t test myself properly while I’m stuck down here.” He fixed the doctor with a pointed glare. 

“You can give me that look all you want, you’re not getting out of here until I’m satisfied that you’re perfectly healthy,” Sienna said firmly. Almost as soon as she said it, a shrill alarm started blaring.

“An attack?” Horrigan tried to sit up, but she stopped him with a simple hand on the chest. 

“Not so fast. Protocol says that, in the event of an attack, no-one is allowed to move between the surface and basement without authorization,” Sienna reminded him. “You wait here, I’ll check what’s going on.”

Horrigan considered radioing out for authorization despite her instructions, but, before he could come to a decision, the door to the room suddenly slammed open. He looked up sharply to see a technician barge in. “Sorry, Sigma Leader sent me! He needs to know if Horrigan is ready for combat?”

Sienna raised an eyebrow. “Does Vincent really need Horr-”

“Super Mutants are attacking! Hundreds of them, and they’ve brought Behemoths!” The technician interrupted. 

Horrigan snorted and hauled himself to his feet. “There’s my authorization. I’ll be back once I’ve dealt with these mutie freaks.”





Project Purity was as busy as it ever was, with civilian scientists, Rivet City security officers, Brotherhood Scribes and Enclave engineers hurrying everywhere as they tended to the massive task of maintaining the purifier and distributing the water. 

Star Paladin Cross watched over them all impassively alongside Liberty Prime and the Wonderbolts. She had been sent to rest at the purifier facility until the Rainbooms returned, but something about Talon Company’s actions just didn’t feel right to her. The treachery itself was unexpected, if unsurprising, but Cross couldn’t help feeling that there was something more going on. Some would call it paranoia, but she had learned to trust her instincts. 

“THE DEFENSES ARE STRONG,” Liberty Prime boomed, as if reading her thoughts. 

“You’ve got that right,” Paladin Metzger said with a snort. “It’s like seeing the liberation of the purifier from the other side, with all the energy fields and artillery everywhere.”

“TOGETHER, WE CAN DEFEAT ANY ENEMY. EVEN COMMUNISM,” Prime belted out.

Cross nodded slowly. “Perhaps. When is the next water shipment leaving?”

“IT IS DUE TO LEAVE FIVE MINUTES FROM NOW,” Prime replied.

“Delay it,” Cross said simply. The others all stared at her in surprise, so she explained, “Something doesn’t feel right, there’s more to this Talon Company situation than we’re seeing, I’m sure of it. Until we hear back from the Rainbooms, I don’t want a single caravan, escort or Vertibird leaving this facility.”

One of the Wonderbolts immediately sped off to inform the people in charge of distribution of the change in plans, while another was sent to ensure that all defenses were in top working order. 

“Do you really think Talon Company will try something here?” Metzger asked quietly. 

“Them or the Super Mutants,” Cross replied. “They’ve both gone after our water caravans before, but this is the first time that Talon Company has gone after us so directly. Besides, I’ve fought Commander Jabsco before, there’s a reason they call him Jetting Jabsco. Antagonizing the Brotherhood, the Enclave, and half of the settlements of the Capital Wasteland in one fell swoop is a ballsy move. Too ballsy for that sniveling little cretin.”

Metzger grimaced at her words. “So there’s a chance that either someone put them up to it, or they’re being manipulated too. I’ll contact the Elder and let her know what’s going on.”

Cross just nodded as the Paladin turned on her heel and headed inside. She considered recommending that all non-combat personnel stay indoors for the time being, but she decided against it. There was no point in kicking up a fuss until she was sure that there was a problem. 

Unfortunately, it seemed that not everyone felt the same way, as only a few minutes later an irate Scribe slammed open the doors of the Memorial building and stalked over to her. “Star Paladin Cross, why the hell are you blocking the next water shipment to Arefu?!”

Cross raised an eyebrow at him, surprised and more than a little annoyed at the man’s impertinence. “Is there a problem, Scribe Bigsley?”

“I just told you the problem!” Bigsley snapped. “Delaying the Arefu shipment will throw off our whole distribution schedule!”

“Arefu shipments are handled by the Enclave, so your schedule shouldn’t be affected in the slightest,” Cross countered. Bigsley opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off before he could get a word out, “If the Enclave has questions, I will gladly discuss my concerns with them, but I will not tolerate such insubordination again. Is that clear?”

“Insubordination?! But you’re a z-” Bigsley caught himself before he could finish his sentence, but Cross could guess easily enough what he had been about to say. 

The Scribe wilted beneath her furious glare, realizing his mistake far too late, before she could give him a well-deserved dressing down there was a loud commotion from the nearest crate station. “Star Paladin, we’ve just got word that Super Mutants are attacking the western defenses!” An Enclave soldier called out. 

“How many?” Cross asked, letting the Scribe escape punishment for now. 

“At least fifty, and one Behemoth,” the soldier replied. 

Liberty Prime turned and made to head off. “I SHALL DESTROY THEM.”

“No! We’re much better off having you stay here as a last line of defense!” Cross shouted quickly. Thankfully, Prime stopped and nodded, so she turned back to the Enclave soldier. “Get Paladin Metzger and have her take the Wonderbolts out there. The rest of you, get to your posts and get everything locked down!”

Everyone immediately jumped into action, apparently galvanized by the orders. Cross herself just stood next to Prime, just as still and silent as the robot, while inside she seethed with rage. She had suspected that there were those in the Brotherhood who were reviled by her condition as a zombie, not that anyone had complained when the previous Elder had turned her halfway into a robot. But to have it thrown in her face by an impudent Scribe with an attitude problem was enough to make her blood boil. 

The sudden sound of gunfire from the east snatched Cross’ attention. 

“MORE COMMUNISTS ON OUR FLANKS!” Prime bellowed. 

“Stay here! Defend the purifier!” Cross yelled, already thundering towards the walkway that led around the memorial building. The route between Project Purity and Rivet City was patrolled regularly by Knights and Liberty Prime, so the defenses on that side consisted of only a handful of troops and a few turrets. They would never stand up to a determined assault, a fact which their attackers had clearly noticed.

A small group of troops from all factions joined Cross as she sprinted onto the walkway. She grimaced at the sight of the brave but lightly-armored Rivet City security officers running to join the fight. “There’s no cover out here, so those of you without power armor stay behind those who do!” She ordered. 

The group was barely halfway around the walkway when they saw a pair of Knights falling back ahead, pausing and firing over their shoulders every few steps. Behind them came a howling mob of Super Mutants. 

“Drive them off!” Cross ignored the bullets sparking off her armor as she charged past the retreating Knights and barreled into the midst of the oncoming mob. A wide swing of her hammer took the head of the first Super Mutant clean off, while her backswing shattered a second’s ribcage. The rest of the Mutants piled in, unfazed by their losses, forcing Cross to fight with her body and the haft of her hammer, throwing in a careful swing whenever she found the space. 

Gunfire crackled as some Super Mutants slipped past Cross’ onslaught and got picked off by the rest of the defenders. Trusting the others to do their part, the Star Paladin focused on keeping the bulk of the mob occupied. A few heavy blows slipped past her guard, weapons breaking against her armor, and a few Mutants even managed to get off point-blank shots, but Cross shrugged it all off as she dropped foes left and right.

“I’ll stop you, yep.” A Super Mutant wearing incredibly thick black robes pushed through the others, but before Cross could get a good look at it there was a bright purple flash that almost blinded her. 

Wind whistled past Cross’ ears and her stomach lurched as the ground disappeared from beneath her feet. Her vision cleared just in time for her to get a glimpse of deep water below, right before she splashed into it and sank like a stone. 





Horrigan flexed and rolled his shoulders as the cargo elevator slowly ascended. He knew that Sienna had his best interests at heart; truth be told, he had felt off since the battle with Unity, but he couldn’t ignore his duty. Right now, that duty involved kicking the shit out of a bunch of upstart Super Mutants while Exodus’ civilian personnel were all evacuated to the basements. 

The cargo elevator finally shuddered to a stop in the surface building’s parts warehouse. Horrigan stomped through racks of assorted spare robot parts, mostly rusted and useless, until he found the main shutters. They slid smoothly open at the press of a button.

Things had changed a lot since the last time Horrigan had been outside. Crackling energy fields had been erected on top of what looked like every wall around the whole perimeter, with laser turrets placed at each emitter, and a sheltered walkway had been built around the edge of the building so personnel could move around outside without having to suffer from the elements. Laser fire flashed from the roof of the building, blasting winged Super Mutants out of the sky.

A handful of cadets in old scout armor were quivering behind the nearest wall. They looked around as Horrigan stepped out of the warehouse, and he had to resist the urge to chuckle as they all yelped and tried to snap a salute just a little too late. “What’s the situation?” He asked with just a hint of amusement. 

“Super Mutants are attacking, uh, sir,” one of the cadets replied weakly. “They’re going for the front and back gates mostly, except for the ones with wings.”

“What about the Behemoths?” Horrigan pressed. 

“Two at each gate,” the cadet told him instantly. “The Praetor is handling the back gate since it's tough enough not to get killed by our minefield accidentally, but the front gate is struggling and we don’t have air support.”

Horrigan was glad to hear that the Praetor was still around, especially since he had heard that Senator Lily was under house arrest for her experiments. It was a tougher bastard than he had expected. “I’ll secure the front gate. Get on the radio if anything breaks through the flanks or rear.” Horrigan turned to run towards the front gate before they had finished replying. 

The sounds of combat grew louder as Horrigan approached the courtyard. Just before he rounded the corner to the front of the building, he heard a huge explosion coupled with electrical crackling and the bellowing of a massive creature. Horrigan skidded to a halt by the corner and quickly scanned the area.

Metal pre-fab barricades had been placed at strategic locations around the courtyard, all of which were manned by soldiers and robots, and a pair of bunkers covered in energy field emitters had been set up on either side of the gateway to both defend the entrance and project the gate itself. All of the outer turrets had been destroyed, but the real problem was the severely injured Behemoth kneeling in a shattered section of wall with an energy field emitter clutched in one charred hand. 

Even as Horrigan watched, sustained fire from the defenders brought the beast down for good. Unfortunately, that small victory came at a price, as the lesser Super Mutants used its body as a bridge to get inside the perimeter while the second Behemoth was being goaded into smashing down another emitter. The Enclave mowed down every Mutant that clambered through the breach, but it was clear that they were only seconds from being swamped. 

Horrigan wasn’t about to let that happen. He unshackled his magic, the runic script and mist billowing from his armor now aquamarine instead of the old green, and glared at the Super Mutants clambering over the dead Behemoth to get inside. “Hold the breach as long as you can, I’ll thin them out!”

The firepower from both sides faltered as Horrigan’s magnified voice drowned out all other sound. He used the lull to launch himself into a sprint, crossing the courtyard in the blink of an eye. The first Super Mutant barely had time to raise its weapon before Horrigan slammed into it. He kept up his bull charge, smashing muties aside as he charged over the Behemoth’s corpse, then dove into the sea of mutated flesh on the other side of the breach. 

Now that he was outside the energy barrier, alone in a horde of mutants, Horrigan created a disc of magical flame in his palm and hurled it at the second Behemoth. He caught a glimpse of the monster’s head exploding before the lesser mutants swarmed over him.

Bullets, lasers, magical blasts and everything from lead pipes to massive super sledges bounced off Horrigan’s armor as the Super Mutants all piled on the enemy in their midst. Horrigan just laughed as he fought back. He mulched bodies with every punch, reduced others to ash with gouts of sapphire flame, and casually ripped off the occasional mutated limb just to keep things interesting. 

The Super Mutants didn’t pose any real threat to Horrigan despite their numbers, so all he had to do was keep most of them focused on him while the rest of the soldiers dealt with the dregs. If, by some miracle, the muties managed to wear him out before they all either died or ran away, he was confident that he would be able to fall back behind the energy field and help the defenders hold the breach. 

A winged Super Mutant latched onto Horrigan’s back and tried to haul him into the air, but he was far too heavy for it. It made a satisfying splat as he grabbed its arm and hurled it overhand at a nearby building. One of the bigger and uglier mutants managed to get off a point-blank shot with a tri-laser, but Horrigan calmly punched the bastard’s head off with one hand while patting his smoking chestplate with the other. This was almost too easy.

Right as he thought it, Horrigan heard a loud thoom and a wave of energy knocked the surrounding mutants off their feet, almost making him stumble. 

“Crush the others, this one is mine!” A hulking Super Mutant Overlord stomped towards Horrigan. It was wearing crude armor and gloves made out of scrap metal and glowing crystals, and was carrying a vicious-looking battleax encrusted with more crystals. “You must be Horrigan,” it said in a surprisingly soft voice. “I am Shephard, Overmaster of-”

“I don’t give a shit.” A disc of blazing magic blasted Shephard backwards. Horrigan snorted and got back to butchering mooks, but before he could maul more than a handful of them something slammed into his side and knocked him off-balance. He looked around just in time to see the battleax soar back into Shephard’s hands with its crystals glowing brightly. “You’re tough, for a mutie.”

“I’m full of surprises.” Shephard raised the ax high and charged with a bellowed war cry. 

Horrigan calmly caught the haft of the ax mid-swing, knocked Shephard back with a jab to the face, then walloped the mutie with its own weapon. He chuckled and broke the ax over his knee. “So much for a fucking surprise.” Horrigan tossed the broken halves aside and advanced on the Overmaster. “Time to die.”

“For you!” Shephard lunged forward and threw a mighty haymaker, armored glove blazing with magic. 

Horrigan parried the blow with ease. He delivered a few choice blows to the Overmaster’s ribs and kidneys, then finished with a brutal kick to the paunch that knocked the creep flying. “Pathetic. Now, where was I?” 

Those few foolish Super Mutants that had stopped to watch their leader fight were the first to die as blue fire washed over them. Naturally, that got the attention of the ones charging towards the breach, who screamed in fear and agony as Horrigan tore into them once again. 

He didn’t laugh this time. The pile of Mutant corpses lying in the breach showed that the defenders were going above and beyond, but the sounds of desperate fighting coming through the radio told Horrigan that more than a few had gotten through while he was distracted. That needed to be rectified. Horrigan fought his way back to the breach, intending to block it and hold back the horde single-handedly if need be, only for something to slam into his back and pitch him face-first into the snow. 

An infuriatingly familiar voice called out from behind, “I am not defeated so easily!” Horrigan surged to his feet and glared back at Shephard. Smoke wafted from the Overmaster’s fists, the gemstones in its gloves glowing brighter as the beast lumbered forward and reached back for another haymaker. “I will break you!”

“God-damn cockroach!” Settling into a boxer’s stance, Horrigan easily blocked the punch and unleashed a rapid-fire series of devastating blows. Each was carefully placed to ensure maximum impact without accidentally knocking Shephard out of range. It tried to fight back, but dumb muscle was no match for Enclave training. 

Slapping aside a clumsy swing, Horrigan planted a solid downward jab in Shephard’s kidney. A sharp hook snapped the Overmaster’s head around. Seeing it stagger, Horrigan crouched before launching himself into a colossal uppercut that connected with a resounding boom, snapping the Overmaster’s head back in a spray of spit and blood. 

Shephard tottered for a moment before keeling over backwards. 

“So, you can bleed,” Horrigan spat. He felt a moment of savage glee as he realized that all of the nearby Super Mutants had stopped in their tracks and were watching in shock. “Now, let’s see you die.” 

Shephard blearily muttered something under its breath, faint green light pulsing through the veins in its neck, but Horrigan just snorted and stamped on the Overmaster’s face. “Magic won’t save you now.” With a contemptuous laugh, he threw his arms out and incinerated the nearby Super Mutants while grinding Shephard’s head into the dirt. Shattering the horde’s morale would help the defenders as much as holding the breach. 

Just as Horrigan assured himself that this part of the battlefield was under control, a massive explosion echoed from within the Exodus compound. A second later, every defensive energy field atop the walls started shutting down one by one. Panicked voices crackled over the radio. Most of them were calling for everyone to fall back into the Exodus building, but Horrigan’s blood ran cold as he recognized the voice of the cadet he had spoken to earlier desperately calling for backup: A Behemoth had broken through the defenses on their flank and was attacking the building itself. 

“Shit!” Horrigan immediately turned and belted for the Exodus building. It galled him to leave Shephard alive, but the cadets didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell without him. Instead of climbing over the pile of corpses in the breach, Horrigan vaulted over the perimeter wall and hit the ground running just as another explosion tore through the air. 

A handful of sentry bots still fought in the courtyard, trading fire with the Super Mutants that had slipped through, but the soldiers were covering for each other as they retreated inside. Horrigan could only help by splattering a couple of Super Mutants as he sprinted through the yard. He thundered around the corner of the building, already charging his magic for a strike, then skidded to a halt when he saw what had broken through. 

The Behemoth was like nothing Horrigan had ever seen. It was taller than regular specimens, skeletally thin, with translucent skin that pulsed with a crimson glow. Bony chimney-like growths on its back pumped foul black smoke into the air. Even as Horrigan watched, the smoke suddenly stopped and the pulsing in its chest grew brighter and brighter until, with a roar of superheated air, the Behemoth spat a blinding beam of coruscating power from its mouth. The beam tore through the Exodus building like butter, liquifying concrete and steel alike. 

Early Exodus reports labeled it as the Hell-Belcher, the beast that had slaughtered Squad Sigma. 

As if that wasn’t bad enough, more Super Mutants, winged and otherwise, were using the opening the Hell-Belcher had created to charge into the Exodus warehouse, taking pot shots at the last moving cadet as he took cover behind the racking. Cold fury gripped Horrigan’s heart as he realized that the Super Mutants were going for the charred hole where the cargo elevator had once been, and the melted-open entrance to its hidden maintenance stairwell. The civilians sheltering below would be slaughtered like lambs. 

“Bastards!” Horrigan summoned two blazing magical discs in his palms, but just as he threw them there was a purple flash and the whole world seemed to shift. “What the-?”

The Exodus building was gone. Instead, all Horrigan could see was rolling snow-covered terrain stretching out in all directions. The glittering peak of Raven Rock was just about visible on the horizon. 

“Got you, yep,” a gravelly voice said.

Horrigan whirled around, fists raised, but all he caught was a glimpse of another purple flash. He looked around wildly, hardly believing his own eyes, but, aside from Raven Rock, there was nothing but featureless land in every direction. There was no way he would be able to get back to the Exodus building before the battle was over. “No… No!” 

Overwhelmed by rage and helplessness, Horrigan sank to his knees and roared in impotent fury.





Cross shook with barely suppressed rage as she trudged along what she suspected was the bottom of the river. She had understandably panicked when she had been dropped in the water, bitterly cursing her own stubborn refusal to wear a helmet with her power armor as her lungs filled with water. It was only as she realized that the lack of air wasn’t painful, or even uncomfortable, that Cross remembered that she was actually a zombie.

It seemed that being an undead monstrosity came with a few perks. 

Thankfully, the magical lightning in Cross’ hammer had gone haywire in the water, locking her hand in an iron grip that she couldn’t break if she wanted to, so at least she hadn’t lost it in her initial panic. The sound of muffled explosions cut through the water, so she couldn’t be too far from the battle. Cross just hoped that she was moving in the right direction. Visibility at the bottom of the river was unsurprisingly low. 

Even as the thought came to mind. Cross felt the ground start to rise. She pushed forward with renewed effort, crushing rocks and rubble beneath her feet, until she finally broke the surface. Shaking water from her eyes, she looked around to get her bearings. 

Cross was surprised to see that she had emerged from the river on the Rivet City side, not far from the walkway to Project Purity. About a dozen Super Mutants were still battling the human defenders, pushing them back slowly, but there was also a trio hanging back, all armed with missile launchers. Smoke billowed as they all fired, followed by explosions blasting apart the pipes that fed water into the purifier. 

Seeing them target the purifier confirmed Cross’ suspicions that this was no ordinary raid. Gripping her hammer tightly, she spat up a concerning amount of water and charged towards the Super Mutants. 

The first was still reloading in blissful ignorance when a wide swing took its head clean off. The second turned around at the noise, frowning curiously, and got its face pulped before it even knew it was in trouble, while the last managed little more than a shocked yell before Cross smashed its legs out from under it. One final overhead swing ended the beast permanently. 

With the missile launchers neutralized, Cross checked to see if the other Mutants had noticed her, then glanced over her shoulder to make sure that she wasn’t about to be blindsided by reinforcements. Satisfied, she turned her attention to the mob still trading fire with her defenders. 

There were only a handful of the Super Mutants left standing now, not enough to pose a real threat to the purifier, but Cross wasn’t about to take any chances. Hefting her hammer once more, she launched herself forward. 

The Super Mutants were so focused on their firefight that they didn’t notice their predicament until the Star Paladin was already amongst them. Cross took two down with sharp blows to the head, followed by a tremendous swing that buried the head of the hammer in the chest of a third. The remaining Super Mutants instinctively turned to face the new threat only to get cut down by disciplined fire from the other defenders. 

“Star Paladin?! You’re alive!” The Enclave and Brotherhood troops hurried towards her, with the Rivet City security officers following more slowly. 

Cross tried to ask where the Mutant that had teleported her was, but the water still remaining in her lungs made her voice come out as a gurgle. As she tried to cough up the last of it, earning concerned looks from the others, a bright purple flash made her skip away and whip around. 

A bizarre Super Mutant was standing in the middle of the walkway. It had thick leather robes, tattered bat-like wings, and greasy purple hair tied back in a messy ponytail. In one meaty fist it clutched a crude staff made out of scrap metal, human bone, and glowing purple crystals. The Super Mutant looked around at Cross and its dead fellows with wide eyes. “Not good, yep.”

Every soldier raised their weapons, but the Super Mutant slammed the butt of its staff into the ground and all of them were knocked to the ground by a wave of powerful magic. “You should be dead, yep, and why didn’t the robot move, yep?” With an annoyed huff, the Super Mutant waved its staff and the bodies of the dead Super Mutants shifted as magic pulled all manner of grenades and missiles from their pockets. Another wave sent them flying through the air to explode amongst the pipes leading into the purifier. The Super Mutant nodded curtly, then disappeared in another flash of purple light. 





Sienna fought the urge to swear loudly as another muffled quake from above shook dust from the ceiling. Normally, she wouldn’t have bothered holding her tongue, but Tara had asked her help to corral the personnel that had been brought down from the surface, and she tried to stay at least relatively civil when dealing with scared crowds. Fortunately for her, most of them were distracted by the swirling pillar of magical wisps that dominated the room. 

“Do you think everything’s okay up there?” A shaky voice asked. 

Sienna turned to see a young girl staring up at the ceiling anxiously. She couldn't have been a day older than fourteen, and was wearing the tan and red uniform of the new Outreach Cadets that Becky had set up. God alone knew what the girl was doing at the Exodus building.  “Try not to worry. It’s probably just Horrigan going overboard, as usual,” Sienna assured her. though she wasn’t particularly confident herself. The rumbles sounded like they were coming from directly overhead, and if there was fighting going on in the building above then things were going really badly. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Oswalt, Cadet Oswalt,” the girl replied. 

“Alright, Cadet Oswalt, I’ve got a job for you.” Sienna gestured at the surface personnel milling around who needed to be kept away from anything that was particularly classified. “I want you to help m-”

Muffled gunfire cut her off, soon accompanied by terrified screams and guttural roars that Sienna found horribly familiar. Shrill alarms started blaring only a heartbeat later.  “We’ve been breached?!” Looking around the room, Sienna’s stomach dropped as she realized that there were only two soldiers downstairs to protect the non-combatants. 

“Sienna!” Tara’s voice was understandably strained as she hurried over. “What’s going on? Who set off the-”

Her question was answered as a huge explosion blasted open the door that led to the cargo elevator. Everyone watched in shock and horror as a Super Mutant stomped through the smoke, hefting an oil-streaked flamer. “Burn!” Before anyone could react, the brute unleashed a great gout of chemical fire over the crowd. 

Sienna flinched away from the heat as half a dozen people were instantly turned into human pyres. Their agonized screams were only barely drowned out by the terrified screaming of everyone else, as well as the laughing of the Mutant. The two soldiers quickly moved to intercept it, but more were flooding into the room after it and firing indiscriminately into the panicking crowd.

“Shit!” Sienna whipped out her sawed-off shotgun and turned to Tara. “Get to the elevator, I’ll cover you!”

Tara looked at her as if she were insane. “I can’t just ditch everyone here!”

“You’re the only one who can get that fucking portal working!” Sienna snapped, ducking instinctively as a bullet whizzed by overhead. “Don’t rob Becky of a girlfriend just because you’re stubborn!”

“That’s not fair!” Tara spat, though it was easy to see that the words had stuck. “Fine, bu-” All of a sudden she twitched and let out a sharp gasp. Tara and Sienna both looked down just in time to see a red stain spreading across the front of the scientist’s lab coat. “Oh…”

Sienna barely managed to catch Tara as she fell. A second red stain was spreading across Tara’s back, showing where the bullet had gone in and through. “Shit.” Sienna looked over at the elevator only to see that someone else had already taken it in a bid to escape. They were trapped. “Fuck!” 

Pulling Tara’s arm over her shoulder, Sienna turned away from the combat and barked at Oswalt, “Cadet, help me with her!” The girl jumped and ducked under Tara’s other arm. “Get pressure on that wound! Good, now help me get her to the infirmary.”

“What about the Super Mutants?” Oswalt asked as they shuffled as quickly as they could towards the corridors. 

“Either the soldiers will handle them, or we’re fucked six ways from Sunday,” Sienna replied flatly. “If you want to survive this, then focus on one thing at a time. Doctor Strong is the most important person in this whole building, so let’s save her life for now and worry about everything else later.”

“R-right.” Together, the two shoved their way through the crowd, carrying the barely-conscious Tara between them. 

Oswalt risked a glance over her shoulder when they reached the corridor, but Sienna didn’t bother. The air was filled with screams, gunfire, and the sickly sweet stench of burning human flesh, she didn’t need to see it to know what was going on. Thankfully, through some quirk of acoustics, the noise died away fairly quickly once the pair had turned a couple of corners in the tight corridors. 

Sienna wasn’t surprised to see that a lot of other personnel had fled into the corridors too. She tried to guide those she encountered to rooms with sturdy doors and potential hiding places, but she didn’t dare to slow down with Tara’s life ticking away with every passing second. 

“In here.” Sienna kicked the infirmary door open and practically dragged Tara and Oswalt inside. She felt a spark of relief that the auto-doc was still untouched, nestled in the corner next to a bed. Once Tara was on the bed, Sienna quickly got the auto-doc running and set about cutting open her clothes to get to the wounds. “Thanks, now stay out of the way and watch the door. If you need a weapon, grab something sharp or heavy,” she called out over her shoulder to Oswalt. 
 
Everything else faded into the background as Sienna worked. Her hands flowed constantly from one thing to the next, setting up blood and fluid transfusions, clamping blood vessels and stitching together whatever she could. The auto-doc worked around her with mechanical efficiency, sucking away excess blood and applying biogel along with innumerable other tasks that a surgical team would usually assist with. 

Oswalt tried to say something to Sienna at one point, but she ignored it. It was only when gunfire and harsh laughter echoed through the corridors outside that the doctor’s focus was broken. 

“Lock the door!” Sienna hissed. She snatched up her shotgun as Oswalt did as she was told, then gestured for the cadet to hide under the bed. 

Tense silence fell as the two waited with bated breath. All too soon, Sienna heard the distinctive heavy tread of Super Mutants approaching. She raised her shotgun, determined to defend Tara and the cadet to the last, and tried to get her racing heart under control. 

Sienna flinched as the door was suddenly smashed off its hinges. A Super Mutant stepped through the doorway, clutching an assault rifle. It fell to the ground a split second later with a fist-sized hole blown through its chest. 

“I will feast on-” Sienna blew the second’s head open before it could finish its threat. She reloaded rapidly, but the sudden crackle of laser fire and the loud thump of a body dropping made her hesitate. Her heart hammered painfully in her chest until a familiar little eyebot floated into view. 

“ED-E, you beautiful little bastard!” Sienna exclaimed. ED-E let out a trill of happy beeps in greeting. “I’m happy to see you, but there’s more of those things out there and I can’t leave Tara.” Sienna jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Tara and the auto-doc that was still working on her. “Do you think you can hold them off?”

ED-E beeped loudly and floated aside. Sienna felt her heart leap back into her throat as a misshapen form stepped into view, veins pulsing with a sickly yellow glow. Gore dripped from his hands. 

“Don’t worry, Doctor Bohn, I come in peace,” Turner said, his cheery voice utterly at odds with his monstrous appearance. “I’m not exactly chuffed about having Super Mutants running loose down here, so I’m more than happy to deal with them for you. In return, though, perhaps we could have a little chat later about my accommodations.”





Shephard sat on the steps leading up to the Capitol Building, one meaty hand clamped over what felt like a broken nose. Horrigan had been much much stronger than anticipated. The fact that the soldier was that powerful despite lacking a Geode just felt unfair somehow, as if the Enclave had been cheating somehow. 

A bright purple flash announced the arrival of Zap. The mechanically-minded Super Mutant had proven himself to be the most valuable of Shephard’s underlings by far over the course of the day. If only the rest of them had been half as useful. “Well? How badly did the battles go?” Shephard asked. 

“Could be worse, yep,” Zap replied. “Water purifier pipes are broken, yep. Should take a while to repair, yep. Also, fighting is still happening at Enclave place, yep, but Burny Behemoth is still alive, yep, and lots of Enclave peoples dead, yep.”

Shephard hummed thoughtfully. “That’s actually better than I was anticipating.  And Rivet City?”

Zap nodded and grinned. “Just checked, yep, and looks like Wilbur’s Heart is working, yep. Dunwich monsters are on the move, yep.”
> Chapter 175 - Shadow Over Rivet City
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The river was still beautiful, with mirelurks still gently breaking the surface every now and again, but Luna couldn’t appreciate it. Chief Harkness had tried to suggest that she wait inside in the warm until word came through from the Rainbooms, but she had flat-out refused and opted to wait on the bridge instead. 

It was all just too much. Only a couple of hours ago, Luna had been standing with the security officers, worrying about Sonata and waiting for the Rainbooms to return from Regulator HQ. Then everything else had somehow gone horribly wrong all at once. 

It was bad enough that Sonata’s foolishness had gotten Sunset injured, but to have her go charging off again immediately after having been rescued was galling. The fact that Trixie had joined the Siren on her suicidal quest to Fort Bannister made Luna feel even worse. The young magician was hardly the most rules-conscious student, but Luna had assumed that she would at least be sensible enough not to hurl herself directly into harm’s way. 

“I think I’m getting deja vu.” Luna didn’t answer as Chief Harkness leaned against the railings next to her. “I’ve had the weird heart that Talon Company gave us locked away in a reinforced safe in a secure room. Given Talon Company’s betrayal, I don’t trust it not to be a magical bomb or something. You should come inside. You aren’t going to help anyone if you end up getting sick.”

“I’m hardly helping anyone as it is,” the Vice-Principal countered. She knew that it was a childish response, but it was hardly incorrect. “I can’t protect the Rainbooms from this world’s dangers anywhere near as well as they can themselves, I can come to terms with that, but how am I supposed to-”

A sudden outbreak of yelling and gunfire from near the ruins put the two instantly on alert. Harkness was sprinting to the Embark Center before the first shout had died away, while Luna barely even realized what she was doing as she followed after him a second or two later. She felt a little out of place as she reached the building, joining Harkness and a handful of other security officers, but she still stepped up to the railings alongside them and looked out over the area below. 

Several security officers were running across a snow-cleared parking lot towards the safety of the Embark Center, apparently fleeing from the entrance of a metro station. 

“It looks like we set up that new metro security gate just in time,” Harkness said wryly. 

“Security gate?” Luna asked. 

“The Council voted to have it built as soon as we heard that Sonata had wandered off,” Harkness replied. “It’s just a bunch of scrap metal welded together, but it should be enough to hold back an attack from feral ghouls long enough for us to get everyone back onto the ship.”

Almost as soon as he said it, the horrendous screeching of metal being torn filled the air. 

Luna felt her stomach drop as a horde of humanoid monsters poured forth from the metro station. Most of them looked like typical zombies from a horror flick, though there were a handful mixed in that were glowing with a sickly yellow light. All of them sprinted after the retreating security officers much faster than their rotting frames should have been capable of.

“So much for that!” Harkness slipped his assault rifle off his shoulder and raised it as he barked orders, “Get on the intercom and evacuate everyone to the ship, then tell the city to get ready for lockdown! Luna, you get back inside, too!” He opened fire on the horde below almost as soon as he had finished talking, and was swiftly joined by the other nearby security officers.

Luna took one look at the growing horde pouring out of the metro and sprinted back over the bridge. Now was not the time to argue. “Feral ghouls!” She exclaimed as she skidded to a halt at the entrance. “Chief Harkness wants the city ready for lockdown.” 

The guards nodded and one got on the intercom without hesitation, while another got ready on the bridge controls. Only a few seconds later, the first security officers and construction workers hurried across the bridge from the Embark Center. Luna briefly considered drawing the assault rifle that Adam had given her, currently slung across her back in a vain attempt to make herself feel useful, but she decided against it. She hadn’t practiced with it enough to feel safe using it freely around other people.

As soon as all of the officers and workers stationed on the riverbank were on the bridge, Harkness and his team peeled off and retreated as one disciplined unit. They were barely halfway across when the bridge began to swing back away from the Embark Center. 

Not a moment too soon, either, as the feral ghouls piled onto the roof of the building before the bridge had gone more than a few feet. Some tried to jump onto the bridge and missed, while the rest of them ran heedlessly off the edge of the building and plunged into the river below. The icy water instantly erupted into churning froth as the mirelurks swarmed over the prey that had suddenly dropped into their domain. Luna couldn’t help but shudder as the river swiftly turned red. 

“This ain’t normal,” one of the guards muttered as he watched the awful scene. “Since when do ferals swarm outside in broad dayl- fuck!” He suddenly whipped out his submachine gun. “Reaver!”

Every local immediately stopped and tensed up, even the people who had one foot through Rivet City’s main door. Luna looked around, trying to figure out what they were worried about, when she spotted a unique ghoul standing its ground where the others were all pressing forward. It was wearing heavy-looking metal armor, and its entire body seemed to be wreathed in a flame-like haze. Even as she watched, the reaver pulled something from its waist and hurled it at the gathered security officers. 

“Look out!” Harkness pulled an officer out of the way as a wad of flame-wreathed foulness sailed past and splattered against the wall. The reaver snarled, apparently annoyed that it had missed, and leaped into the river with its fellows. 

Luna watched with morbid fascination as a mirelurk immediately snatched the reaver and tried to drag it beneath the water. Just as she started to relax, assuming that the ship was untouchable with the bridge retracted, she spotted something that gave her a jolt of fear. “They’re climbing the hull!”

The officers looked around at Luna’s shout, then rushed to the railings to get a better look. Harkness swore when he saw that a handful of ghouls had gotten past the mirelurks and were clambering up the metallic roots that covered the ship’s hull. “I want every single security officer at their stations, the city on total lockdown, and the Brotherhood of Steel out here helping to keep these assholes out!” He grimaced and shot down a ghoul that was getting close as he gave his orders. “I’m authorizing use of the turret that we got from the Enclave; have it target any ferals that aren’t on the Embark Center.”

As his officers either scrambled to fulfill his orders or started blasting away at the climbing ghouls, Harkness turned to Luna. “How confident are you with that thing?” He nodded to the weapon slung across her back. 

“Not very,” she admitted. “I’ve practiced a little on the flight deck, but I’m not confident using it in a fight.”

“In that case, if you really want to help, get up to the flight deck and give us fire support from there,” Harkness told her. “That way you can pick them off from the hull or the riverbank without worrying about hitting friendlies.”

Luna nodded and charged through the door that led to the city’s main stairwell, taking the steps beyond two at a time as she hurried to prove herself useful. She didn’t like the idea of killing, but she’d rather be damned than let her students be the only ones to get blood on their hands in this foul world.





The weak siren that croaked feebly over the intercom grated on Initiate Peters’ nerves, but she ignored it as she and Danse escorted Maxson and Elder Lyons towards Rivet City’s entrance. Admittedly, the fact that the Elder was the only one with power armor and was lugging a dirty great gatling laser made it feel like she was the one escorting the other three, but Peters at least appreciated the sentiment. Getting a shiny refurbished laser rifle when she officially became an Initiate certainly hadn’t hurt either. 

“Are they seriously locking down the whole ship because of some dumb feral ghouls?” Maxson asked. 

“Don’t underestimate those walking corpses,” Peters said sharply. 

Elder Lyons nodded without looking back. “She’s right, a ghoul horde isn’t an easy thing to deal with. I’ve seen Knights dragged down through sheer weight of numbers, or poisoned by the radiation that glowing ones pump out, and as for reavers-” Lyons shook her head grimly, “-if even one of those things manages to get on board then we are all in deep shit.”

Even Peters was a little taken aback by the Elder’s words. She had heard stories about reavers from her old raider crew, but she had always assumed they were just tall tales told to try and scare people. 

“What are reavers?” Danse asked curiously. “I don’t recall ever hearing about them in the Commonwealth.”

“If you’re lucky, you’ll never have to find out,” Lyons told him. “For now, let’s see what we’re dealing with.”

It took Peters a moment to realize that they were already at the city entrance. Muffled gunfire could just about be heard through the door, and she fought back a shudder as the thought of feral ghouls massing just beyond it brought back unpleasant memories. Thankfully, no-one noticed her brief moment of weakness as Danse hauled the door open. 

The noise crashed through like a wave as soon as the door was opened. A squad of security officers was holding the small landing area outside, firing down at something below. Peters shivered at the sight of a massive horde of ghouls on the other side of the river, swarming on and around the Embark Center and hurling themselves into the water like deranged animals. Dozens of them fell or were utterly torn apart by heavy firepower from the upper decks, but they just kept coming.

“What’s the situation?” Lyons asked as she strode through the door. 

Harkness spared her a momentary glance before turning his attention back to the ghouls. “These things just started pouring out of the metro system and trying to get on the ship. This timing can’t be a coincidence, but questions are going to have to wait until we’ve dealt with these bastards. Especially since there’s reavers out there.”

Before anyone could comment on that, a sickly yellow blur shot out from among the ghouls on the Embark Center, soared over the river, and slammed into the side of the ship with an audible thud. Peters caught a split-second glimpse of a glowing one clinging to the metallic roots on the hull before it rocketed up towards the flight deck. 

“Shit, those fuckers have magic now?!” Peters spat incredulously. 

“We need reinforcements,” Lyons said calmly as she stomped to the front of the group. “Danse, Maxson, I need you to get a radio message out to the Rainbooms and Project Purity and let them know what’s going on. While you’re at it, find the Enclave ambassador and ask if they can spare a Vertibird gunship. Air support will be invaluable against a feral horde. Initiate Peters, with me!” With her orders given, the Elder hefted her gatling laser and unleashed hell on the opposite bank, scything down ghouls with a storm of scarlet death. 

Maxson scowled and stepped forward, apparently about to argue, but a glare from Peters made him think better of it. She smirked as the boy beat a hasty retreat, then joined Lyons and the security officers. 

A quick look down revealed that Mirelurks were slaughtering most of the ghouls that entered the water, but there were just so many ferals that more and more were making it past them and climbing up the side of the ship. Peters snorted and took aim at one that the others weren’t firing at. The ghoul twitched as the lasers struck it in the chest, then slipped and fell as a bolt blew a chunk out of its shoulder.

“That reaver is back, take it down!” Harkness yelled. 

All of the security officers immediately turned their guns on a ghoul that had just dragged itself out of the water. It was covered in deep wounds and missing its left arm below the elbow, but that barely even seemed to slow it down. Even the storm of bullets didn’t faze it in the slightest. As the reaver got closer, Peters saw Harkness toss something out of the corner of her eye. 

The perfectly-timed grenade exploded right as it hit the reaver, blasting it off the boat entirely. 

“That was fucking awesome!” Peters shouted excitedly.    

“Focus, Initiate!” Elder Lyons snapped. 

“R-right!” Peters hid her embarrassment by shooting down another ghoul that had gotten a little too close for comfort. 

Together, the team worked to try and clear away the ghouls climbing the hull, but the reaver’s distraction had bought time for even more of them to break through the mirelurks. It was almost impossible just to keep them from getting up to the entrance area. The ghouls were unrelenting, never seeming to drop in numbers no matter how many were shot down or savaged by mirelurks. If the battle carried on for too much longer then ammunition was going to become a problem. To make matters worse, despite the team’s best efforts, more and more ghouls were climbing up past the entrance and heading for the higher decks.

“How the hell are there so many of these fuckers?!” One of the officers shouted in frustration. 

“No one knows how many ferals are in the D.C. metros!” Elder Lyons yelled back. “Besides, the damned glowing ones keep healing the others, and there’s something over there that I’ve never seen before!”

Just as she was about to ask what the Elder meant, the sound of the door opening made Peters flinch and whip around on pure instinct. Her newly-trained trigger discipline was the only thing that kept her from shooting Danse in the face as he rushed outside. He barely even spared her a glance as he called out to Lyons, “Elder! Project Purity and the Exodus building are both under siege by Super Mutants, they can’t spare any reinforcements!”

Lyons swore loudly as she reloaded her gatling laser. “What about the Rainbooms?” 

“Knight-Sergeant Pie informed us that they’re dealing with the last few pockets of Talon Company resistance!” Danse replied over the gunfire. “She’s trying to send Knight-Captain Dash our way, but she’s having trouble contacting her!” 

“So we’re on our own,” Lyons muttered quietly enough that Peters barely heard her. The Elder took a deep breath before speaking again, “Get as much ammo out here for us as you can, then get back to Maxson and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid!” As Danse hurried away, Lyons turned her gatling laser on the ghouls once more. “You heard him, people, we’ve got to hold these monsters back for as long as humanly possible! Don’t give these fuckers an inch!”





Luna gasped for air as she charged up the last flight of stairs. She liked to think that she was fairly fit, but sprinting up several flights while wearing armor was easier said than done. When she finally reached the top she allowed herself a few seconds to catch her breath, resting against the railings, then pushed through the door to the outside. 

There were already at least a dozen armed civilians on the flight deck, along with a handful of security officers. All of them were lined up against the railings and firing down at the riverbank. Thankfully, the snow had mostly been cleared away so that people could see where the crystals and metallic tree roots were growing through the floor.

The sound of whirring machinery brought Luna’s attention around to the new turret that the Enclave had installed near the base of the tower; an almost entirely enclosed dome with twin gun barrels sticking out of a slit in the front and a small circular hatch in the side for the operators to enter. It was low-tech compared to the automated laser turrets that the Enclave had all over their facilities, but Luna didn’t doubt that it was one of the biggest weapons that the locals had ever seen. Even as she watched, the turret slowly turned and tilted down as it searched for a target. 

Luna shook her head with a grimace as she realized that she was just trying to distract herself from what she had to do. Slipping her assault rifle off her shoulder, she hurried over to join the others at the railings. She shuddered as she got her first clear look at the riverbank.

Ghouls were flooding out of the metro in appalling numbers. Most of them sprinted towards the Embark Center, either climbing up it or charging past it, but a fair few of them were splitting off from the main horde and diving into the water closer to either end of the ship. Several glowing ones could be seen amongst each group, each of them letting out a bright yellow flash every few seconds. The sheer cacophony of gunfire and animalistic shrieks was surreal and utterly terrifying at the same time.

Luna flinched as the turret suddenly opened fire. Each distinctive cough it let out reverberated through her bones and punched a fist-sized hole through a feral ghoul. Luna felt her gorge rising as blood and gore splattered in all directions, and it took an incredible effort of will to keep herself from throwing up. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to try and calm herself, finding the acrid tang of cordite to be surprisingly inoffensive, then opened them once more and raised her weapon.

It was hard to pick a target amongst the horde. There were so many ghouls that it almost felt impossible to miss, but that was an illusion that the Enclave instructor had warned Luna about. Looking carefully, she spotted a glowing one charging past the Embark Center. 

The assault rifle kicked as Luna gently squeezed the trigger. 

She tensed up, bracing herself for a wave of guilt as a mist of pale green blood puffed from the ghoul’s chest, but it never came. Luna wondered for an absurd moment if she was in shock, then threw her misgivings to the back of her mind and took aim once more. The glowing one was still running, unconcerned by something as minor as a bullet wound, so she kept firing single shots at it until it ran headlong off the edge of the riverbank.

“Don’t bother with single shot, it won’t put those fuckers down unless you hit their head or their heart!” The civilian next to Luna called out. “Short controlled bursts are the way to go, or my name ain’t Flak!”

Luna didn’t have a clue whether or not that was really the man’s name, but she couldn’t see any reason to ignore his advice. She switched her rifle to automatic before taking aim once more. As she looked for targets a sickly yellow blur erupted from the metro, shot past the Embark Center and bounded across the river in the blink of an eye, slamming into the hull somewhere below. 

Barely a second later someone further along the deck let out an agonized scream that was abruptly cut off. Bedlam erupted as people suddenly started yelling and scrambling about, firing wildly in their panic. Luna yelped and stumbled back as a stray bullet tore through Flak’s neck. She ducked behind a nearby copper sapling, her heart pounding, and carefully peeked out. 

A glowing one was viciously mauling the locals, moving so quickly that it was little more than a blur, until it attacked a security officer. By some miracle, the man’s armor held up beneath the assault long enough for someone to slam a sledgehammer into its skull. The ghoul dropped to the floor instantly. Luna looked away just as the hammer fell again, but the sound that followed sent a shiver down her spine.

“Keep your wits about you, you fuckwits!” One of the security officers barked. “If you can’t keep trigger discipline under pressure, then fuck off back inside!” Luna was suddenly incredibly grateful that she hadn’t tried to shoot the glowing one herself. 

A couple of the civilians did actually take the opportunity to turn and run back inside. Others tended the wounded or helped to move the dead while the officers got back to shooting. Luna wanted nothing more than to go back inside as well and curl up in a corner, but somehow she found her legs carrying her back to the railings. 

The horde had somehow grown even bigger over what must have been less than a minute. Thankfully, the defenders seemed to have got their hands on some heavier weaponry, as a torrent of lasers was decimating the ghouls atop the Embark Center. Seeing that the situation wasn’t utterly dire, Luna took a deep breath and raised her rifle, scanning for targets. As she looked, she saw something that chilled her blood. “The dead ghouls are regenerating!”

“It’s the glowing ones, they heal the others with radiation!” A security guard shouted back. “Target them first!”

Hearing that made Luna hesitate for a second, but only for a second before she set about gunning down every glowing one she could spot. At first it was easier said than done; Luna used short controlled bursts like she had been told, but she had only practiced single shots before so the gun kicked a lot more than she expected. Thankfully, she managed to get the hang of it before she burnt through more than one magazine.

Almost as soon as Luna was starting to feel confident, she heard a small explosion from somewhere below. As if that was some sort of signal, more and more ghouls managed to climb up the hull to the flight deck, of both the regular and glowing variety, forcing the defenders to split their attention between the climbers and the main horde. The only silver lining was the fact that no more of them had any magic. 

Unfortunately, a lack of magic didn’t mean a lack of danger. More than once, Luna had to skip back out of the way as a ghoul tried to grab her leg through the railings. After shooting the most recent feral to attempt this, and trying not to shudder at the bloody splatter it left on the floor as it fell, Luna cautiously checked to make sure that none were following after it. She let out a sigh of relief as she saw that the hull directly below her was relatively clear, but when she went back to seeking glowing ones on the riverbank she spotted something new and horrifying. 

“That doesn’t look good,” someone noted, clearly looking at the same thing.

Three creatures stalked out of the metro amongst the rest of the monsters. Luna assumed that they were feral ghouls of some kind, but they towered over the others despite being hunched over, and they were so skeletally thin that their bones poked out through their sagging skin. The creatures’ heads rolled around with every step as if their necks had been broken, but most disturbing of all were their eyes; jet black orbs that looked like gaps in the fabric of reality. 

They weren’t glowing ones, but Luna suspected that they were just as dangerous. She fired at one, staggering it at bullets stitched their way up its torso. It righted itself and tried to run after its fellows, but the defenders near Luna added their firepower to hers, bringing the creature down before it could move more than a few steps. 

“That was easy!” A civilian shouted. 

Luna felt like punching him for tempting fate as the corpse writhed, tripping some of the ghouls that were charging past it. “Hold on, it’s doing something!” She fought the urge to retch as a bunch of what looked like foot-long bright yellow slugs burrowed out of the body and disappeared into the mob. “What in Tartarus are those things?!” Luna anxiously looked around to see where the other two had gone, but they were nowhere to be seen.

“There! On the Embark Center!” Someone yelled. 

Luna snapped her weapon up just in time to see one of the creatures grab a dead ghoul and vomit one of the yellow slugs onto its face. She clamped a hand over her mouth and struggled not to vomit as the slug forced its way into the corpse’s mouth and messily rammed itself down its throat, splashing foul yellowy mucus everywhere. The corpse twitched and shifted a second later, its wounds already healing, while the slug carrier crawled over to the next dead ghoul. 

A security officer yelled orders to kill the new creatures as quickly as possible. Luna followed them gladly, her reluctance overridden by disgust and horror. The creature fell in a hail of bullets, but she made sure to keep firing at the body to kill as many of the slugs as possible. Once every slug was either dead or had escaped, Luna went back to coldly and methodically targeting every glowing one she could find. As she put them down one by one, she noticed the flood of ghouls from the metro abruptly stop. 

Hope flared for a brief moment, only to be shattered as a living nightmare crawled out of the metro entrance and let out the scream of a tortured god.





Peters was struggling. The barrel of her laser rifle was glowing with heat, but for every ghoul that was shot off the hull another two took its place. Even the mirelurks turning the river into a churning crimson nightmare wasn’t enough to keep the ferals back.

Yet another explosion tore through the air as Harkness threw another grenade with perfect timing, blasting apart a cluster of ghouls. As much as Peters hated to admit it, she admired his skill. Him and Elder Lyons were probably the only reason the city hadn’t been entirely swamped already. 

As if the universe had taken offense at her thoughts, the security officer guarding the intercom yelled, “Chief, the ferals have gotten into the city!”

“Fuck!” Harkness spared the man a quick glance. “How?!”

“Smashed in through a weakness in the prow!” The officer leaned in to listen to the intercom. “Security’s holding them off, but it’s touch and go!”

“It’s touch and go out here, god damn it!” Harkness spat. “Have the-” 

His order was drowned out by an impossibly loud shriek; a high-pitched ululating noise that rattled the bones and froze the blood. Even the sky seemed to get a little darker at the sound. 

Peters felt herself shaking uncontrollably at the sound, involuntary tears running down her face for the first time in years as she fought the urge to simply curl up into a ball. A quick glance revealed that the security officers were feeling the same. Only Harkness and Elder Lyons didn’t look scared, but even they had stopped firing and were simply staring blankly at the riverbank. It took the sound of claws scrabbling over metal close by to make everyone realize that they were all standing still like morons, but by then it was far too late.

One of the security officers let out a bloodcurdling scream as something grabbed him and yanked him off the landing. Peters whipped around just in time to a feral ghoul pull itself up, its skin wreathed in a sickeningly familiar haze. “Reaver!”

Everyone snapped their weapons up, but just as everyone fired the reaver launched itself at the officers. The first died before Peters could even register it, toppling backwards with deep gouges through his skull, while the second was practically torn apart under a flurry of vicious blows. 

“Get back!” Lyons swung her gatling laser like a giant club, but the reaver ducked under it with a snarl and hurled itself at the Elder. Lyons didn’t even flinch as she tossed the laser at the ghoul’s head and met its charge head-on. The reaver smashed the laser aside with appalling ease, only for the Elder’s armored fist to slam into its face with bone-crunching force. Peters assumed that the fight was over then and there, but the reaver pressed forward as if it was nothing, clawing at Lyons in a frenzy.

The Elder stood her ground against the onslaught. She kept her guard raised, trying to create an opening as she blocked and deflected the reaver’s attacks, but it was so fast and strong that it was all Lyons could do to fend it off and protect her head. The blood drained from Peters’ face when she saw the Elder’s armor starting to buckle under the raw strength of the reaver’s fury. 

“Hold the others back!” Harkness suddenly leapt to Lyons’ aid in an act of insane bravery, wielding a combat knife in one hand and a steel baton in the other.

Peters balked as she realized that more feral ghouls were already pulling themselves up. Her and the last security officer worked frantically to push them back, blasting them before they could get a foothold on the landing. Thankfully, there were hardly any glowing ones among the ferals, but being cornered by a horde again was enough to make Peters shake with fear and anger. She refused to let them take her out this time. 

Just as she steeled her resolve, a cry of pain made Peters glance back over her shoulder. 

The reaver was pressed back against the wall, with Elder Lyons holding it immobile and Harkness forcing his knife into its neck with both hands, while the ghoul itself had crumpled the armor around Lyons’ abdomen with one arm and was slowly pushing its claws deeper. Even as Peters watched, Harkness twisted his body sharply and tore out half of the reaver’s throat. The reaver twitched as blood sprayed everywhere, and Lyons took the opportunity to slam a quick hook into its jaw before grabbing what remained of its neck and pulling. The ghoul’s head came off in a welter of blood and radioactive gunk.

Lyons let the corpse drop to the floor and staggered back, clamping an arm to her side. Peters froze at the sight of blood leaking from the Elder’s armor. 

“Everybody inside!” Harkness commanded. Lyons looked like she was about to argue despite her injury, but just as she opened her mouth there came a deafening groan of straining metal from the riverbank. 

Peters looked back and almost dropped her weapon as she saw that the ferals on top of the Embark Center had stopped charging off of it and were now just standing still, watching. “What the f-” Her words died in her mouth as a huge arm reached up from behind the Embark Center, braced itself against the top, and an equally huge creature hauled itself up. 

The monster looked vaguely like an oversized ghoul, more than three times the size of an ordinary feral despite the fact that it was missing its whole body below the waist, but it was covered with a pulsating network of jet-black veins. A closer look revealed that the monster had no eyes, just a blank stretch of half-rotted skin. Peters didn’t doubt for a second that this was the creature that had let out the nightmarish scream. 

All of the lesser ghouls moved aside as the monster dragged itself forward. When it reached the edge of the Embark Center, the monster calmly leaned over as if it was looking down into the river. It cocked its head, apparently curious, then slapped its hands down on the metal floor. To Peters’ horror, inky black tendrils slowly grew out of the metal and started reaching across the river. 

“Get inside! Now!” Harkness yelled as he wrenched the door open. Not even Elder Lyons argued this time, instead she just waved Peters and the remaining security officer through before stomping in herself. Harkness slammed and locked the door behind them. “Me and Higgins will hold the door. Elder, you head on up to the Doc, but you, Initiate-”

“I’ll hold the door.” Lyons shoved Harkness out of the way and braced herself back first against the door. “Power armor has the advantage in tight spaces like this. You hold the marketplace entrance, that’ll be an easier place for the ghouls to break through.”

Harkness scowled, but accepted the logic. “Fine. Either way, I need your Initiate to get to the science lab as quickly as possible.”

“What for?” Peters asked quickly. 

“The black gunk that was bleeding out of that thing out there is the same shit that weird heart that Talon Company brought us,” Harkness replied grimly. “I’d bet every cap I have that the heart is what’s drawing them here, somehow. We need to burn it!”

Lyons frowned at him, but Peters jumped in before she could say anything, “Find the heart, burn the heart. Got it.”

Harkness nodded. “Pia has it in the main science lab, go!”

“Sir!” Peters turned and hared off without a second thought. Thankfully, the residents of Rivet City took the lockdown order seriously, as she didn’t encounter anyone other than the occasional security officer as she belted through the corridors.  

Just as Peters turned into the corridor leading to the labs a violent tremor shook the ship, tipping her against the wall. “What the fuck was that?!” She glanced back anxiously, then shook her head and hurried onward. A dozen or so people were already in the science lab when Peters arrived; technicians and scientists who were going about their business as if the lockdown wasn’t their problem. 

“What’re you doing here? Is the battle over?” A familiar squeaky voice asked. 

Peters raised an eyebrow as Maxson hurried over, with Danse trailing him. “”Why are you-? Fuck it, where’s Pia? I need the heart thing that Talon Company gave us, pronto!”

“Y-yes, ma'am!” Maxson immediately turned and bolted off, shouting for Pia like a good little brat. A few moments later he came back with Pia in tow.

“Where’s the heart from Talon Company?” Peters demanded without preamble. 

The question clearly took Pia by surprise, but she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “It’s in a lockbox over there with Olmstead. Don’t worry, it’s sa-”

“Good, we need to burn it. Right now,” Peters said flatly. “Chief Harkness thinks it’s what’s attracting the feral ghouls,” she added in response to everyone’s curious looks. 

Pia swore and shouted over to one of the technicians, “Clarke, bring me a blowtorch, now!” Peters, Danse and Maxson all followed as she scrambled over to a table in the corner of the lab. Two men in lab coats were arguing next to it. “Damn it, Whateley, will you please get back to work?!”

One of the men cocked his head and looked around at the group. His eyes were glassy and unfocused, as if he had just taken a hit of jet. “The heart is calling to me. I can hear the voice of Ug-Qualt-”

“What fucking chems are you on?!” Pia spat as she shoved between the two. She grabbed a heavy-looking lockbox off the table, set it on the floor, and flipped the lid open before backing away from it. 

Peters grimaced at the sight of the oversized organ inside. The vile thing was still beating somehow, pumping out tar-like blood with every pulse. 

“Clarke!” Pia shouted.

“I’ve got it!” Clarke called back. He ran over and pressed the bulky old blowtorch into Pia’s hands. 

“What are you doing?” Whateley asked with narrowed eyes. When Pia lit the torch, he suddenly realized what was about to happen and dove at her with a strangled yell. 

Peters and Danse both darted forward as the two crashed to the ground. Together, they managed to pull the lunatic off of Pia, but he was so strong and was writhing so much that it was all they could do to hold him back.

All of a sudden the room was lit up by a jet of searing fire. The air practically screamed from the sheer heat that was unleashed, forcing everyone to back away or burn. After a few seconds, a tremendous boom rocked the room, followed by the ghostly echo of a despairing wail.

Peters blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision, before pushing herself to her knees and looking over at the lockbox. Flames crackled as it and the heart both burned merrily away. “Whoa…” Peters looked back over her shoulder, wondering where the fire had come from, only to spot a little girl standing proudly with her hands on her hips. She had little red wings sticking out of her back, and her hair looked as if it was made from living flame itself. 

“I burned it for you!” The girl called out cheerfully.

Right at that moment another colossal tremor ran through the ship. 




 
Luna’s hands shook as she shot another ghoul off the hull. She wished that she had a chance to get a few shots off at the monstrous ghoul crawling towards the Embark Center, but there were just too many ferals climbing up the hull for her to risk it. Besides, the AA turret was already pounding the monstrosity, but it was just ignoring the impacts entirely. A mere assault rifle would barely even be an irritation in comparison. 

Just as the thought passed through Luna’s head, the turret fell silent. She risked a glance up at it as the hatch in its side opened. “Out of ammo!” The security officer shouted as he climbed out of it. 

Almost everyone within earshot swore viciously. Without the turret reducing the horde’s numbers on the riverbank, it was going to get a lot harder to hold the city’s exterior against them.

“I hate this world,” Luna muttered to herself. She leaned over the railings and emptied her magazine into a glowing one that was hauling its way up, grabbed a fresh one out of the ammo boxes that runners had been bringing up constantly, and went straight back to shooting ghouls. It was easier, now that Luna could see just how savage and monstrous the feral ghouls were, she just hoped that she would still feel that way once the battle was done and the adrenaline had gone away. If she survived that long.

The sound of creaking metal caught Luna’s attention as the monstrous ghoul clambered up on top of the Embark Center. She tried to watch it out of the corner of her eye, but a trio of ferals climbed up to her position all at once, forcing her to focus on them. 

The fight reached a new level of intensity as more and more ferals reached the flight deck. It was all the defenders could do to hold the horde back, but it was a stalemate that could only last so long before one side caved.

It was the defenders who broke first. 

A loud fizzing sound filled the air, audible even over the gunfire, followed by a thunderous impact that shook Rivet City. Luna glanced down quickly, then did a double-take as she saw a bridge made of thick black tendrils stretching from the Embark Center to the city’s entrance. Ferals were pouring across it in droves, many of them falling or getting knocked off by fellows, while the monstrous ghoul had crossed over and was leaning with its fists against the ship’s hull.

As worrying as the sight was, Luna spared it little more than a passing glance. The last thing she needed in a fight was a distraction. Unfortunately, she got one anyway, as someone on the deck screamed in terror. Luna spun around just in time to see a ghoul yank a resident over the railings and drop them into the river below. The people nearby quickly put the ghoul down, but those couple of seconds were enough for more ghouls to get close enough to attack. 

The defense crumbled almost immediately afterwards. Too many people turned their weapons on the ghouls on the deck, which let more of them reach the top and scramble over the railings. The security officers desperately tried to restore a measure of firing discipline, but it only took a few seconds for the firing line to become embroiled in a mad melee.

Luna jumped back as a ghoul swiped at her. She managed to sidestep the next attack and slammed the butt of her rifle into the side of its head, knocking it back. A short burst of gunfire made sure it didn’t try again. Another ghoul lunged at Luna a second later, forcing her to fire wildly to bring it down. Heart pounding, she risked a quick glance around at the others. 

More ferals were swarming over the railings all over the deck. Many of the defenders were still standing and fighting, but the ghouls were overwhelming them one by one. The flight deck was lost.

Several nearby ghouls snarled as they turned their attention to Luna, prompting her to panic and squeeze her gun’s trigger tightly. The rifle kicked madly, but she managed to control it just enough to drop four or five ghouls before it finally clicked empty. 

“Horseapples!” Luna spat. The first ghoul was on her in an instant, forcing her to use her rifle like a shield to fend off its attacks. She ducked under one particularly wild swing and cracked the ghoul across the knee with the rifle butt, then smashed it in the face, booted it in the gut and turned to run to the door. Another ghoul snagged Luna’s coat and she whirled around, panic lending her strength as she swung the rifle like a club and smacked the ghoul with the barrel. Two more solid hits to the head dropped the ghoul with a sickening crunch. 

More ghouls charged after Luna, and she raised the gun menacingly, determined to fight tooth and nail if she had to. Right before the first feral got in range, something blurred across her vision and the ghoul fell, bisected across the waist. The other ghouls died a heartbeat later with blue flames streaked across their necks. 

“This day is turning into a real fucking mess!” Rainbow stood protectively in front of Luna, her wings outstretched, her sword blazing with azure fire and her crystalline armor shimmering with the reflected light. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this!”

Luna watched, awestruck, as Rainbow blurred into action. The feral ghouls didn’t stand a chance as she carved through them like a hot knife through butter, moving faster than the eye could follow. A carpet of mutilated corpses grew in her wake. 

Seeing her student turn the tide single-handedly, Luna swallowed her revulsion and ran over to the nearest ammo box. There wasn’t any assault rifle ammunition in there but, before she could find another box, a muffled boom came from somewhere within the city, followed by a faint ghostly wail. The ghouls immediately stopped in their tracks, their drive and aggression disappearing as if a switch had been flipped. The defenders were quick to take advantage of the situation, slaughtering the ferals where they stood, but they were only granted a few seconds before the city shook beneath a powerful impact. 

“Oh, come on!” Luna belted over to the railings just in time for another blow to send a tremor through the ship. The monstrous ghoul was still moving, pounding on the hull of the ship with more energy and haste than it had displayed before. 

“What the fuck is that?!” Rainbow exclaimed. 

“I don’t know, but I think someone made it mad,” Luna replied grimly. Even as she watched, the ferals around the beast twitched and started to move again, snarling as they came around. “It looks like whatever messed up the others is wearing off!”

Rainbow swore under her breath. “Security should be able to hold the flight deck now, I’ll see what I can do about the big one.”

“Don’t touch that black stuff, it looks toxic,” Luna warned her. 

“No shit.” Rainbow snapped her wings open and disappeared in a flash. A second later the monstrous ghoul screeched in pain and rocked backwards, a burning blue line smoldering across where its eyes should have been. 

Luna silently wished Rainbow luck and got back to looking for ammo. She finally found some in the third box she looked in, by which point the surviving defenders had butchered most of the ghouls on the deck. Determined not to let things get that desperate again, Luna charged over to the railings and leaned over, ready to pick off any ferals that were climbing up the hull before they could reach the deck. She blinked in surprise when she saw that the hull was almost entirely clear. 

“There aren’t any more coming from the metro!” Someone shouted in relief. “This is the last of them!” 

Unless another horde turns up, Luna thought sourly, though she kept it to herself. 

After picking off the few ghouls still on the hull, a couple of the security officers took aim at the ones still on the bridge with their oversized variant. “Careful where you’re aiming, Rainbow Dash is out there!” Luna snapped, as if the blazing wounds that now crisscrossed the flailing beast hadn’t made it obvious enough. 

The sound of the door slamming open made everyone whip around in shock. A lone security officer stumbled through, clutching at a horrific wound in his side. “They’re… inside,” he said weakly as another officer ran forward to support him. “They… broke through… the prow…”

Horror flashed across Luna’s mind at the thought of these creatures stalking through the city’s corridors. One of the security officers barked orders at the others, organizing a small team to stay on the flight deck while the others cleared the interior, when the ship was rocked by yet another impact, this one accompanied by the sound of torn metal. 

Looking down, Luna was horrified to see that the monstrous ghoul had given up on trying to swat Rainbow Dash, and had instead punched a hole right through Rivet City’s hull. It tried to pull its arm free, only for multicolored lightning to crackle around the hole and shear the beast’s arm off with a deafening crack. 

Luna felt her heart leap as the monster swayed backwards and shrieked in agony. A multicolored blur rocketed past the beast a heartbeat after, slashing it from armpit to shoulder and eliciting another screech of pain and rage.  

“What the hell just happened?! Did Lady Dash do that?!” A resident shouted excitedly. 

The only security officer that hadn’t gone back inside shook his head. “It looked like Rivet City itself wanted a crack at that thing, but how the hell is that little sword managing to hurt it when the damned turret did fuck all?”

“It’s probably the magic, maybe that’s all that can… hurt it…” Luna turned to look around the flight deck. There was an insane amount of magic in the ship and all of the weird things growing through it, so there had to be something that could be used as a weapon against the beast. Finally, Luna’s eyes fell on a pale blue crystalline spike growing near the base of the trees. She’d been told that most of them had been harvested, but this one was easily three feet tall and an inch or so thick with a wickedly sharp point at the tip.

Luna darted over to the spike and tried to pull it out of the deck. It resisted at first, enough that she thought she’d have to smash the base of it, but as she gave it one last heave it ripped free. Tiny crystal roots splayed out from the bottom of it, but it was heavy and solid enough to do some damage.

With her makeshift weapon in hand, Luna ran back over to the railings and waved it in the air as she shouted, “Rainbow! Throw this at super speed! Rainbow!”

The giant ghoul snarled as a blur opened a gaping wound on its cheek, but Rainbow didn’t react to Luna no matter how much she yelled. Luna felt a jolt run through her as she realized that Rainbow probably couldn’t hear her. Hearing aids weren’t designed with super speed in mind, so there was a good chance that all Rainbow could hear at those speeds was incomprehensibly distorted tones. 

“For the love of-!” Luna flipped the spike over so it was point-down and backed up several steps. She took a deep breath, raised the spike parallel to the floor, then charged forward and hurled it like a javelin down at the beast. The spike struck the ghoul in the chest, right over where the heart would be.  

“Good shot!” The security officer shouted as the monstrous ghoul screeched in pain, but Luna just shook her head. The spike was stuck fast, clearly lodged either in or between ribs, but it hadn’t gone deep enough to seriously hurt the creature. The ghoul hissed and reached for the spike with its remaining arm. Just as its fingers were closing around it, there was a multicolored blur and the beast let out a grunt.

Rainbow was curled up in a ball with her feet against the ghoul’s chest. With her momentum spent, she kicked off of the creature before she could fall and soared away. Luna gasped as she realized that the Rainboom had used her weight and momentum to slam the spike through the ghoul’s heart, right up to the roots. 

The monster swayed, letting out a gurgling death rattle, and finally keeled over backwards. With the magic supporting it gone, the bridge disintegrated under the weight and dumped the ghoul into the river below. The water erupted into a churning mess as the mirelurks swarmed over the corpse in a feeding frenzy.
> Chapter 176 - Cleanup
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Teams of Super Mutants worked together to build vats for the new batches of FEV to be cultivated in, under Shephard’s watchful eye. Tiberius was the one actually giving out instructions to the subordinates, making sure that they set everything up correctly, but the Overmaster had to be present as well or the others would just beat the poor little runt into a pulp. 

A bright purple flash suddenly lit up the room. “Boss, I’m back, yep.” 

“Is the fighting over?” Shephard asked. 

Zap nodded as he stepped up alongside the Overmaster. “Last of us at Project Purity and Exodus are dead or ran away, yep. No extra damage done, yep.”

“And Rivet City?” Shephard pressed, interested to know how the humans had handled mutated ghouls. 

“The Dunwich monsters damaged the ship and some got inside, yep,” Zap reported. “Humans won in the end though, yep, since Rainbow Dash came back from Fort Bannister early, yep.”

Shephard raised an eyebrow and turned to the mechanic in surprise. “Fort Bannister has fallen already?”

The fact that Zap actually hesitated before answering was a sign that things had not gone to plan. “I checked, yep. Rainbooms had help from some giant blue monster, yep. None of them dead.” He glowered and crossed his arms. “Fawkes and the Hero of the Wastes got into Vault 87, too. Broke my workshop.”

That wasn’t good, though Shephard had to admit that Zap losing his verbal tic because he was so annoyed was a little amusing. Just as Shephard decided that it was time to decide on the Super Mutants’ next move, the door behind was slammed open and another hulking overlord stomped through. “What do you want, Brok? I’m busy.”

“Don’t care, Brok want speak!” Brok called out in a deep booming voice. 

Shephard fought the urge to simply punch the Overlord out. Brok was massive even for an overlord, but his intellect was just as meager and degenerated as his fellows. The big lummox was usually fairly docile, content to let Shephard do any necessary thinking and focus on important matters like eating and collecting human femurs, but something had apparently gotten under his skin. 

“This had better be important, Brok, I have a lot to do,” Shephard warned.

“You listen to what Brok say!” Brok bellowed, grabbing the attention of every other mutant in the room. “You weak! You lost! You ran away!” The overlord pointed a damning finger at Shephard. “You not Overmaster now! Brok Overmaster!”

Shephard scowled and clenched its fists in anger. Getting beaten by Horrigan had apparently undermined the Overmaster’s authority far more severely than expected. “If you think you’re strong enough to take charge, then let’s see you fight for it.”

Brok grinned and unhooked a tri-laser from his belt. The boxy little guns were deceptively powerful, firing out three loosely grouped beams that were capable of scything through even power armor with ease. “You die now!” All three beams struck Shephard squarely in the face. The sensation was mildly unpleasant. “Gun not work?”

Confused by the lack of damage, Brok pointed the tri-laser up at his own face. The beams blasted deep furrows through his forehead. Such a grievous wound would have crippled or killed a mere human, but overlords were made of sterner stuff. Brok reached up, felt the scorched ruin of his own head, then looked down at his gun in bewilderment. It took him a full twenty seconds for the oversized oaf to connect the dots, until finally he looked back up at Shephard. “You tough.”

“Obviously,” the Overmaster said in a condescending tone. “Make sure you remind the others, I don’t have time to deal with more of these pathetic leadership challenges. Now get out, I’ve got a lot to do.”





A thick blanket of decomposing corpses covered the riverbank. Clouds of flies buzzed over the hellish scene, and the stench was so overpowering that it brought tears to Rainbow’s eyes. 

Technically, she was watching over Rivet City’s work crew as they gathered the dead ferals, ready for burning, but Rainbow suspected that Harkness had given her an easy job so she could get some rest. She had already double-checked to make sure that all of the ghouls were dead, so all she had to do was patrol the area and keep an eye out for any other threats coming towards the city. 

Rainbow wished she had been allowed to scour the ship for stragglers instead. The timing of the attacks by the Super Mutants and feral ghouls couldn’t have been a coincidence, and the more she thought about it, the more she suspected that the Rainbooms had played right into someone’s hands. Hunting ferals in dark and cramped corridors would at least have been a good distraction. Thankfully, a distraction arrived in the form of one of the workers calling out, “Knight-Captain?” 

“What’s up?” Rainbow asked eagerly. 

“We’ve finished gathering the rotters,” the worker replied. “We’re just about to call in for a flamer to be brought out, then we’ll all head back inside.”

Rainbow shook her head and drew Flashburn. “No need, I’ve got this.” 

There had ended up being way too many dead ghouls to stack altogether, so instead they had been piled up into a series of six-foot-tall mounds around the edge of the nearby parking lot. All of the workers were gathered nearby, using snow to scrub the tainted blood and gunk off their shovels and, in the case of two of them, their power armor. 

The faint hubbub of conversation died away as Rainbow stepped up to the first mound. Perhaps someone else would have found something profound to say, but Dash couldn’t think of anything, so she just ignited Flashburn with a whoosh and touched it to the lowest body. Flesh bubbled and ran while muscles and bone started to char before the fire caught properly, but once it had the whole mound was swiftly engulfed in an azure conflagration. 

Rainbow quickly repeated the process with the other mounds. Once they were all ablaze, the workers started packing up and heading back into the ship, but Rainbow stayed behind to watch the ferals burn. She wouldn’t feel comfortable until there was nothing left of them but ash. 

“Sorry to interrupt, Knight-Captain, but there’s something I need to discuss with you,” the worker from earlier ventured quietly.

“What do you need?” She asked, not looking away from the flames. 

“It’s about the big rotter in the river,” the worker replied. “We’re, uh, not sure what to do about it.”

The thought of the giant ghoul made Rainbow want to throw up, but she kept her expression neutral as she reluctantly turned away from the flames. “Let’s have a look at it.” Against her better judgment, she followed the worker over to the edge of the riverbank and peered in. 

Surprisingly, the water was perfectly crystal clear. The downside to that, at least as far as Rainbow was concerned, was that it meant she could see the remains of the giant ghoul in all its grisly glory. 

The mirelurks had already stripped the monster of its flesh and most of its muscle, and were now working on its internal organs. Rainbow noted belatedly that the ‘lurks were slicing off chunks of organ and, instead of eating it, were carrying away towards the broken bow before coming back for more. 

“They’re storing the meat in their nest at the end of the ship,” the worker explained. “I know mirelurks can eat damn near anything; hell, I saw one eat a damned lamprey floater a few years back, but that thing, well…”

Rainbow tried to ignore the ghoul and focus on the mirelurks themselves. They were a lot brighter and more colorful than the ones everywhere else in the Wasteland, probably because of the sheer amount of magic in the water around Rivet City, but she couldn’t see anything that looked like a mutation or illness from eating the monstrous feral. “We’ll have the security team keep an eye on them. There’s not much we can really do about it until Twilight gets back anyway, unless you’ve got a crane stashed around here somewhere.”

“If only,” the worker muttered. 

“Don’t worry about it. Worst case scenario, we’ll get Liberty Prime to drop a mini-nuke in there and do some fishing.” Rainbow turned to head back to the pyres, but paused as she spotted something swimming to the ghoul corpse alongside the mirelurks. The creature was mostly humanoid, save for the fact that it had webbed fingers and toes along as well as fins along its back and limbs, and it had pronounced ridges or gills adorning its thick neck. Rainbow had seen similar creatures back when she had gone inside a mirelurk nest for Moira, but she had never gotten around to asking about them. “Hey, do you know what that thing down there is? Is it some kind of mutant mirelurk, or something?”

The worker looked where she was pointing and nodded. “That’s a mirelurk king. I don’t know if they’re mutated or a separate species that just lives alongside the ‘lurks, but apparently you can find them around most of the bigger nests.”

“Huh, that’s freaky.” Rainbow watched as the mirelurk king swam up to the ghoul corpse and brought its head in close to the ghoul’s ribs. She couldn’t see what it was doing, but every few seconds it shifted slightly, slowly moving around one spot in particular. It was only when it reached in and yanked out a familiar crystal spike that Rainbow realized what it was after. 

The king retreated with its prize, making room for other mirelurks to move in and start widening the hole that the spike had left. Rainbow suddenly understood why Moira had wanted to place an observer in a mirelurk nest. It was fascinating watching the crab-like creatures working together to systematically dissect the giant ghoul, their powerful claws making short work of everything they got hold of. 

When the hole in the ghoul’s ribcage was big enough, one mirelurk actually forced itself halfway into the cavity, dislodging a bunch of foul black muck that almost seemed to melt away when it left the ghoul’s body. Moments later the mirelurk emerged once again clutching a jet-black hunk of meat. 

“Holy shit, is that the rotter’s heart?!” The worker exclaimed loudly. 

Rainbow was too engrossed in what was happening to reply. The mirelurk took the heart a short way away from the body, then a whole bunch of them suddenly swarmed it, tearing the organ to pieces in the blink of an eye. A faint boom sent a ripple through the water, followed by a ghostly wail as the discarded shreds disintegrated entirely. 

“Wait a second,” the worker said slowly. “Isn’t that the same sound we heard when the science team burned some weird heart thing that Talon Company gave us? The technicians were all talking about it earlier.” 

Rainbow couldn’t remember hearing much of anything during the actual fight, but she didn’t see any reason to doubt him. “If that’s true, then where the fuck did Talon Company manage to get their hands on the heart of one of those fuckers?!”

The worker shuddered. “I never even considered that there might be more of those things out there somewhere.”

Before Rainbow could reply, a loud splash caught her attention. The mirelurk king had climbed out of the water onto a particularly gnarled root and was staring up at the duo. It snorted, spraying water out of its nose, then casually tossed the crystal spike up onto the riverbank next to the pair and slipped back into the water. 

Rainbow stared blankly at the crystal spike laying next to her feet. She was sure that it was a darker blue than it had been, and the little roots at the base had been twisted and reshaped to hold what looked like a perfect, fist-sized, faintly glowing pearl. “Uh… what the fuck?” 
> Chapter 177 - Tell Your Tale
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkie watched silently as the pair of Vertibirds soared away, taking the few surviving members of Talon Company to Project Purity for interrogation. The Rainbooms were going to have to rest at the Fort until one could get back to extract them. Once the Vertibirds were out of sight, Pinkie looked back over her shoulder at the large canvas tent where the others were waiting. 

She didn’t want to go in there. 

The Rainbooms had won an incredible victory against Talon Company, crushing the mercenaries despite the fact that it had clearly been a trap, but the grim circumstances behind the battle had left all of the girls either somber or enraged. Sunset’s appalling injuries were bad enough, but the timing of the attacks on Rivet City, Project Purity and the Exodus building were far too well-timed to be coincidence. Someone had planned all of this.

With a heavy sigh, Pinkie turned and trudged slowly towards the tent. As much as she wanted to avoid the uncomfortable atmosphere around the others, she couldn’t just leave her friends alone at a time like this. Speculation would have to wait. Besides, there was a good chance that the others might literally try to tear Sonata apart if someone wasn’t there to stop them.  

The tent was ominously silent as Pinkie approached. Inside, the others had arranged camp beds so that Applejack, Twilight and Rarity were sitting on one, Trixie and Fluttershy were on another, and Sonata was plonked on a stool between them. The four Rainbooms were glaring at Sonata, but Trixie had her head down and was staring at something in her hands. 

“The Vertibirds are gone, they’ll be back as soon as they can,” Pinkie announced as she went and sat next to Trixie. She winced as she realized that Trixie was holding a bloodstained combat knife. 

Applejack nodded and crossed her arms. “Good. That gives plenty of time for Sonata to explain to us just what the fuck is going on.”

Sonata scowled at her. The siren was still just as battered and bruised as before, and was sporting some fresh cuts and bruises that she must have picked up during the battle. “What do you wanna know?”

“For starters, how the hell can you still transform into that damn fish form?!” Applejack demanded. 

“I’m a siren, that’s what we look like!” Sonata exclaimed indignantly.

“Ah don’t give a fuck what you call it, Ah wanna know how the hell you can still do it!” Applejack snapped. “Ah thought we broke your magic necklaces?”

“You did! I couldn’t even start to fix it until I got that chunk of crystal from the Enclave!” Sonata shot back. 

The others all stared at her in shock and confusion. After a moment, Rarity sighed and rubbed her temples. “Why don’t you just tell us everything, starting from how you got a crystal from the Enclave?”

Sonata let out an annoyed huff, but complied anyway. Everyone listened intently as she described helping the Enclave scientist with categorizing magic, discovering that she could repair her amulet, finding a second crystal in Rivet City’s mirelurk nests, then foolishly descending into the metro system to try and fully repair the amulet. 

“So that’s why you snuck out of the city!” Pinkie exclaimed brightly. 

“Yeah, to fix her stupid necklace and stab us all in the back,” Applejack growled.

“I wasn’t going to stab you in the back!” Sonata snapped. “I hid my amulet when it was still broken because I knew you’d take it away, but now that I’ve fixed it, why should I care whether you know about it or not?!”

Applejack snorted loudly. “You seriously expect us to believe that you would’ve told us about it when it was fixed?”

“I told Sunset about it!” Sonata retorted. 

Her sudden declaration caught all of the Rainbooms off guard. Pinkie was about to ask what Sunset’s opinion about it had been when Twilight cut in sharply, “I don’t believe you.”

“Well I do,” Rarity said loudly, forestalling Sonata before she could say anything stupid. 

Applejack gave Rarity a curious look. “Are you sure about that? She didn’t say anything about telling Sunset before.”

“I was trying to tell you, but you all interrupted me!” Sonata cried indignantly.

Applejack grunted, then gave a curt nod. “Fair enough. Let’s hear the rest of it.” She held up a hand as Twilight opened her mouth to argue. “Ah said Ah want to hear the rest of it, so let her finish.” It was clear from the look on Twilight’s face that she was skeptical, but she relented anyway. 

If anything, Sonata’s story got even more insane from that point. She spoke of getting chased by feral ghouls in the metro, being inadvertently rescued by what sounded like a Scorchbeast, then being snatched up by Super Mutants as soon as she escaped the metro. 

The mention of the Mutants searching Sonata for ‘sparklies’ made the Rainbooms share a concerned look. “Bastards must be after our Geodes,” Applejack said gruffly. “Keep talkin’.”

A smug smirk spread across Sonata’s face. “The Mutants took me back to their camp, but I managed to escape from those big dumb freaks.” She gleefully spoke of how she had evaded the Super Mutants, repaired her amulet and made it more powerful than ever before, and immediately used it to demolish the Super Mutants looking for her. The other Rainbooms narrowed their eyes at the mention of the amulet being ‘more powerful’, but Pinkie had a sneaking suspicion that Sonata was fudging some of the details. 

The siren’s expression fell at that moment, making Pinkie wonder if the hostility was getting to her, only for Sonata to explain in a hollow voice how she had been captured by a Behemoth and taken to Shephard. Fluttershy and Rarity gave her sympathetic looks, and even Applejack winced as she described how the so-called Overmaster had questioned her.

The Rainbooms knew how the story went from there. A trap was set, the girls walked right into it, and Sunset paid the price. 

Rarity let out a soft sigh and turned to Applejack. “I hate to say it, darling, but as foolish as Sonata has been, I think we should let this slide.”

“She did come out here to avenge Sunset, just like we did,” Fluttershy supplied. “Plus, you saw how prepared Talon Company was. We would have had a much harder fight on our hands if Sonata hadn’t made a mess of their plan.”

Applejack nodded slowly. “You ain’t wrong. Ah reckon gettin’ interrogated by Super Mutants is enough of a punishment anyhow.” She fixed Sonata with a stern look. “Havin’ said that, Ah’ve got a couple conditions for lettin’ you off the hook: First, if Ah hear you try to call us the Raingoons one more time Ah’m gonna wash your darn mouth out with soap, and if you do double-cross us Ah’m gonna stuff a grenade so far up your ass you’ll choke on it, y’hear?”

“I-I’ll behave, I promise!” Sonata assured her anxiously.

“Second,” Applejack continued, “Ah want to see your new amulet. Right now.”

“It isn’t really an amulet anymore, but sure.” Sonata pulled a velvet pouch out of her pocket. “Have you got a glove or something I can borrow?” Pinkie took out a leather work glove she had brought from Vault 101 and tossed it to the siren. Sonata slipped the glove on and removed something a lot bigger and more elaborate than her old amulet from the pouch. 

Rarity gasped and clapped her hands together. “It’s a torc!”

“Yep,” Sonata said simply. 

Applejack cocked her head in confusion as she looked at the crystalline accessory. “Torque? What the heck does that thing have to do with cars?”

“Not that kind of torque,” Twilight told her.

“It’s super powerful, but there’s so much fighting going on around here that I can’t control it,” Sonata explained. “Not without doing a solid projection and throwing around song-blasts, anyway. Doing that burns through a lot of magic.”

Pinkie and Twilight both nodded, while Applejack frowned in thought. After a few seconds she shook her head slowly. “Ah guess that all makes sense. But where does Trixie figure into all this?” The girl in question hadn’t looked up once during the entire conversation. She was still looking at the knife in her hands, though Pinkie was fairly sure that her attention was somewhere else entirely. 

Sonata glanced at Trixie and shrugged. “She said she followed me because she didn’t trust me. I don’t know where she got the knife from, though.”

“Jabsco,” Trixie said quietly.

“She managed to follow Commander Jabsco into his safe room without him noticing, to try and get him to surrender,” Fluttershy elaborated. “I tried to get in to save her but I couldn’t get through the door. By the time I could tear my way in through the ceiling, Jabsco had already been defeated.”

Rarity sucked in a sharp breath, her expression lined with sympathy. “I know how awful a situation like that can be. It probably doesn’t feel like it at the moment, but you did the right thing.”

“How do you all do it?” Trixie asked without looking up. “How do you do this every day without…”

“Falling apart?” Fluttershy finished. Trixie just nodded. “Most of us did fall apart at one point or another. It isn’t easy, but we’ve all found our own ways to cope, whether they’re healthy or not. This world is evil. The only way to get through this is to do whatever it takes to survive. We don’t really talk about it, mostly because dwelling on it would drive us completely insane, but we’ve all got family and friends waiting for us back home. Surviving is the only option.”

The others nodded grimly, Pinkie feeling a twang of guilt as she remembered her low point when they first arrived at Rivet City only a few months ago. “Don’t worry, Trixie, we’ll do what we can to make sure that you’re not put in a situation like this again,” Pinkie assured her. 

“What about me?” Sonata asked. “I’ve got my magic back, and I don’t have a prob-”

“You’ll stick with Vice-Principal Luna and stay out of trouble unless one of us gives you permission to do somethin’ else,” Applejack growled. 

Sonata groaned and rolled her eyes, but a sharp glare from Fluttershy made her throw on a forced smile and promise that she would do exactly what she was told. 

“Uh, what should I do with this?” Trixie asked, gesturing weakly with the knife. 

Twilight adjusted her glasses as she looked at it. “If you got it from Commander Jabsco, then it’s probably Occam’s Razor. An entry on the terminal in his office says that it was his favorite knife.”

“You should keep it,” Rarity suggested. “Even sticking it in a sheath and never drawing it again would be a better use for the blade than whatever Jabsco did with it.” She stood up and stretched, her joints popping in the cold air. “In fact, I think I’ll gather some materials and make you a sheath now. We’ll just have to clean the blade first.”
> Chapter 178 - Beyond the Horizon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A storm of emotions raged inside Becky as she waited for the elevator to descend. She wanted nothing more than to make a beeline for the Exodus building and check on everyone, especially Tara, but Agent Drops was absolutely refusing to allow it. Becky had considered overriding her as the President, but the Agent had made it clear that she could and would physically restrain her if it became necessary. 

Stuck at the Air Base and slowly going mad with worry, Becky had practically leapt out of her office when the head trauma surgeon had asked to see her at the hospital. 

Finally, the elevator stopped and the doors opened with a ping. Becky strode out before they had even fully opened. A waiting administrator fell into step alongside her and Agent Drops, checking notes on his Pip-Boy. “Madam President, we’ve just received word that Horrigan has turned up at the Raven Rock mining outpost.”

“Thank god. It’s about time we had some good fucking news.” Becky glanced sidelong at the administrator. “Have we heard anything else from the Exodus team?”

The young man nodded quickly. “Yes, ma’am. The last of the Super Mutants have been killed or driven off, and the remaining soldiers are working to secure the perimeter once more. Unfortunately, Doctor Strong hasn’t woken up yet-” Becky’s breath hitched, “-but Doctor Bohn has assured us that she is stable and her life is no longer in danger. The damage to the facility is extensive, so it will likely be a few days before an accurate assessment can be completed.”

Becky nodded slowly. She wouldn’t be able to rest easy until she had seen Tara with her own eyes, but knowing that her better half was alright was at least a little weight off her shoulders. “Have Horrigan transported back to Exodus as quickly as physically possible. As soon as he confirms that it’s secure and gives the all clear, I’ll be heading there myself.”

Agent Drops turned a disapproving stare on Becky as the administrator hurried away. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

“Horrigan used to be Secret Service, he knows his business,” Becky countered firmly. “Right now, we’ve got something else to deal with.” Without another word, she turned down the next corridor and shoved open the door to the trauma center. A nurse was already waiting at the reception desk when the pair arrived. She offered them a quick greeting, entered them into the visitors’ log, then escorted them through the busy unit. 

Becky couldn’t help but look around as they walked. The Air Base’s hospital, expanded and updated when the Enclave had first retaken it, was by far the most advanced medical facility in the Capital Wasteland, perhaps even the world. Bleeding edge technology, both magical and mundane, was being used around every corner. 

It wasn’t long before the nurse showed the President and Agent Drops into what looked like a waiting area. A glass window dominated the far wall, with a handful of chairs and vending machines lining the sides. A woman in crinkled scrubs was standing at the window looking out. 

“Doctor Fran?” Becky asked, trying not to let her impatience show through her tone.

The woman glanced over her shoulder, then turned fully when she saw who it was. “Madam President. I believe this is the first time we have formally met.”

“I apologize for not making time sooner,” Becky replied as she eyed the surgeon. She looked thoroughly exhausted, with thick black bags under her bloodshot eyes. 

Fran waved the apology away with a grunt. “It’s fine, we’re all busy. More importantly, I have an update on our latest guest.” 

Becky tried to ignore the sudden surge of anxiety she felt. “How’s Sunset doing?” She asked as calmly as she could.

“Don’t worry, Sunset Shimmer is alive. Mostly, anyway,” Fran replied. 

The words sent a shiver down Becky’s spine. “What do you mean? Were there complications during the surgery?”

“That depends on your definition.” Fran gestured for the President to join her at the window. Becky hesitated, unsure as to whether she could handle whatever she was about to see, but swallowed her fears and stepped up alongside the surgeon. 

The window looked down on an operating theater. Becky felt a small twinge of relief when see saw that a screen largely blocked the view of the table in the center of the room, and a second screen obscured the patient’s head, but the amber skin of the patient’s neck left no doubts as to who it was down there. An auto-doc and a full surgical team were busy working on her. 

“Miss Shimmer is extremely lucky that your troops found her and cryo-ed her when they did,” Fran said. “Aside from the obvious missing arm and enucleation of her eye, she came with five broken ribs, contusions on her kidney, liver, and skull, and a collapsed lung. On top of that, her cardiovascular system didn’t kick in when we began the defrosting process, so we had to have the auto-doc take over all essential functions for her while we stopped the bleeding.”

Hearing the full extent of Sunset’s injuries made Becky feel sick. “Is she at least out of danger?”

“Oh, she’ll survive, I made sure of that. As soon as I saw that we were going to struggle to patch Miss Shimmer up before she died, I made the decision to remove her central nervous system and place it in a biogel solution to prevent degeneration. That drastically reduced her body’s blood and oxygen requirements, as well as the overall risk she’s facing.” Becky’s blood ran cold as she realized what Fran meant, but the surgeon continued heedlessly, “Right now, the team is working on removing the last bone shards and making sure that everything we can surgically fix is fixed.”

Becky looked at the screen blocking Sunset’s head and shuddered. “Sunset isn’t, well, aware, is she?”

Fran shook her head. “She’s thoroughly sedated, with a neurologist and anaesthesiologist directly overseeing her central nervous system. She’s out cold.”

“Good.” It was a small mercy, but Becky would take what she could get. “How long do you think it’ll take for her to recover?”

“That depends,” Fran replied. “Miss Shimmer is going to need prosthetics, without a shadow of a doubt, so we’ll need to figure out what exactly she needs, decide on materials and any additional functions they’re to have, and construct them to fit her properly. That’s assuming that her body can hold out long enough to get the most urgent ones made. If not, we’ll have to look into robotic housing instead.”

“No, I couldn’t do that to her,” Becky said with a firm shake of her head. “Do everything you can to keep her in her own body. Whatever resources you need, you’ll have. I’ll send you all of the data we’ve gathered from Horrigan and Acheson’s Daybreaker experiment as well.”

Fran cocked her head to the side as she thought. “I’ve heard that Twilight Sparkle is a dab hand when it comes to robotics and programming. Having her input when it comes to prosthetics would be useful.”

“Done,” Becky replied instantly. She’d convince Elder Lyons to lend Twilight out somehow. 

“If it comes down to it, should I involve Doctor Ashford?” Fran asked. “Her Progenitor experiments are showing significant promise in the lab.”

Becky fought the urge to grimace. “Keep that as an absolute last resort. We’ve already got one Rainboom infected with FEV, we don’t want a second one if we can help it.”
> Chapter 179 - True Blue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna anxiously paced up and down the suite she shared with Trixie and Sonata. Three days had passed since the battles across the wastes but, since Elder Lyons was injured, Star Paladin Cross had kept them and the Ranbooms at Project Purity for debriefing. Now, finally, they were being brought back to Rivet City.

A tentative knock on the door had Luna practically dive across the room. She wrenched the door open and sighed with relief when she saw a thoroughly dejected-looking Sonata and Trixie outside. “Thank Harmony, you’re both alright! Get in here and warm up, I’ve got a heater going.”

Trixie hurried in and crouched next to the portable heater Luna had borrowed, moaning softly as she held her hands out to it, while Sonata slunk in and sat on her bed with a sheepish expression. Luna closed the door and eyed the two carefully. Sonata had healed quickly, her bruises mostly faded already, while Trixie looked fine save for some faint shadows under her eyes. They weren’t injured.

“Have you both eaten, or should I have something sent up for you?” Luna asked.

Sonata looked at her in surprise. “You aren’t going to tell us off?”

“I heard that the Rainbooms and Star Paladin Cross had already taken care of that,” Luna replied, though really she felt that getting wrapped up in a real battle was punishment enough, at least for Trixie. “So, food?”

“Star Paladin Cross made us eat before we left,” Trixie replied. 

Luna nodded curtly. “Good.” She sat on the edge of her own bed and fixed the girls with a serious look. “Now, we need to talk.”

“I thought you weren’t going to tell us off?!” Sonata exclaimed. 

“I’m not, but we still need to have a discussion,” Luna told her. “We’ve all seen first-hand now just how awful this world can be.”

Trixie grimaced and wrapped her arms around herself. “We already knew it was going to be bad.”

“True, but I don’t think anything could have prepared us for just how horrific a real battle actually is. It certainly took me by surprise,” Luna admitted. “My point is, you don’t have to bear any of this yourselves. All three of us have been through the same ordeal. I know I say this a lot as a teacher, but I do understand what you’re going through. If you need to talk, or vent, or just want a quiet drink and some company, I’ll be here.”

There was nothing in Sonata’s expression except mild confusion, but Trixie at least gave a solemn nod. Luna wondered what exactly was going through their minds. She wanted to help them, but this was way beyond anything she had learned as a teacher. Just as she was about to get the girls to promise that they wouldn’t do anything so reckless again, not in this world anyway, someone knocked loudly on the door. 

Luna bit back a sigh as she stood up. Justifiably cautious, she braced herself and opened the door a crack. “Rainbow Dash!” She exclaimed as she pulled the door wide open. 

It was actually a little odd seeing Rainbow without her sparkly armor on or her sword strapped to her hip. Instead, the athlete had a steel baseball bat in one hand, some sort of crystal stave topped with a magnificent pearl in the other, and a heavy-looking sack tied across her back. “Hey, just coming up to check on you all and drop this stuff off before the bigwig meeting.”

“I appreciate it,” Luna said truthfully as she let Rainbow in and closed the door. “Um, what is all of that?”

“Gifts from Megaton,” Rainbow replied with a conflicted expression. “The Temple of Harmony and the Church of Atom started a collection as soon as they heard about you three over the radio.”

The reason for her concern was suddenly abundantly clear. “Aren’t they the groups that worship you girls as goddesses?” Luna asked warily. 

“The Temple says we’re goddesses, the Church says we’re angels, and they’re applying that logic to the three of you as well,” Rainbow clarified. “Don’t get any ideas,” she added with a glance at Sonata. 

Luna stared uneasily at the sack. “I, uh… don’t know how I feel about-”

“Taking advantage of people’s faith? Yeah, it’s messed up, but so is everything else in this world,” Rainbow agreed with a fatalistic shrug. “We tried explaining that we’re not goddesses or angels, but the Disciples don’t care either way, so screw it. It’s better than letting them turn into over-religious nutbags. If it makes you feel any better, this first thing is actually a present from the mirelurks outside.”

“The mirelurks?!” Luna stared in pure bewilderment at the stave that Rainbow held out to her. “What is it?”

Rainbow shrugged. “I’m pretty sure it’s the spike you threw at the mutant ghoul. Don’t ask me where the pearl came from, I think the mirelurks added that bit themselves.” She smirked at Luna’s hesitation. “I’ve already shown it to the others. It’s definitely not any of our magic, so it’s probably meant for you.”

Having a magic item of her own was a scary prospect, but one that Luna had secretly been wishing for ever since she had first learned about Equestrian magic. Her heart pounded as she reached out and took the stave. 

Nothing happened. She had expected, or hoped, that something significant would happen when she gripped the stave, but there was nothing. No ponying up, no flash of power, not even a tiny flicker of magic. 

“That was boring,” Sonata noted. 

“It isn’t a Geode, and I’m not a magical creature from a mythical land,” Luna said, trying to hide her own disappointment as she put the stave down on her bed. For a second, she thought she saw the pearl glimmer out of the corner of her eye, but when she looked again there was nothing unusual about it.

The sound of metal and glass clinking together filled the room as Rainbow gently placed the sack on the floor. “You’re not gonna like this next part, Vice-Principal, but there are a few weapons in here. No guns, just this baseball bat and a couple of backup things.” 

Luna raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Why would someone use a baseball bat as a weapon in a place like this? I’m sure it could do some serious damage to whoever gets hit with it, but wouldn’t a gun be far more useful?” Taking a melee weapon onto a wasteland battlefield seemed like a terrible idea without something like Rainbow’s super speed to even out the drawbacks. 

“Not everyone can get hold of a gun,” Rainbow replied with a shrug. “The Brotherhood and the Enclave make sure that all of their troops have access to guns, but they’re the best-equipped factions in the entire Capital Wasteland. I don’t think even Rivet City has managed to stockpile enough guns for all of their security officers. Plus, it’s always good to have something on you that doesn’t need ammo.” 

“Good point.” Luna held a hand out for the bat, mostly because Sonata was eyeing it up eagerly. She gasped as a shiver ran through her fingers the instant she touched it. 

“Feels weird, right?” Rainbow smirked. “The Disciples call it Excalibat. One of their newer members apparently found it in a frozen lake not far from a place called the Republic of Dave.” She checked her Pip-Boy and sighed. “I’ve got to go, the meeting’s due to start any minute. There’s more stuff in the sack, just be careful with it. The rest of the Rainbooms can teach you about the stuff you haven’t used before if you want. See you later!”

The trio said goodbye as Rainbow hurried out of the room. 

“Let’s see what else we’ve got!” Sonata exclaimed eagerly. 

Luna let out an exasperated sigh as she put the Excalibat down and stepped over to the sack. The first surprise was right on top; a polished Pip-Boy just like the ones the Rainbooms wore. Underneath that was a whole bunch of random bits and pieces. 

There were several glass syringes that Luna sincerely hoped were medicinal, a handful of cherry bombs, a bundle of bobby pins, a torch, a few boxy fist-sized objects that she suspected were batteries of some kind, a selection of small paint tins, a Big Book of Science, several glass bottles of water, and a trio of handmade blankets. Finally, right at the bottom of the sack, were what Luna had been dreading; an extendable police baton, and an intimidatingly large combat knife in a leather sheath.

“Oh, I call dibs on those!” Sonata half-shouted over Luna’s shoulder, making her jump out of her skin. 

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Luna spat. 

“Awww, come on!” Sonata whined. “Trixie got a cool knife, and you’ve got Excalibat and that Tide Staff!”

Hearing that Trixie had a knife of any variety was deeply concerning, but it was the last comment that gave Luna pause. “What do you mean, tide staff?”

Sonata rolled her eyes. “It’s a magic stick topped with a pearl given to you by a sea creature. What else could it be?”

Luna was thrown off by the matter-of-fact way she had said it, but swiftly pulled herself together. “In any case, you’re not going out into the wastes again under any circumstances, so you won’t be needing any weapons.”

Trixie winced as Sonata gave a triumphant grin. “Actually, the Brotherhood said they might ask for my help again in future, since my magic is so powerful,” the siren said in an annoyingly smug tone. “So I will be needing those two. Rainbow did say it’s good to have back-ups.”

Resisting the urge to clench her fists, Luna took a deep breath and pulled the sack shut. “We’ll discuss it later. For now, Trixie, what does Sonata mean by you having a ‘cool knife’?”
> Chapter 180 - Transparency
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow couldn’t believe just how nervous she was. She had fought raiders and monsters all over the Capital Wasteland, but sitting down for a diplomatic meeting with representatives from several of the biggest wasteland factions was utterly terrifying. She couldn’t help but respect how Sunset could handle this sort of thing regularly. 

Several tables had been pushed together in a meeting room to make space for everyone. Rainbow recognized most of them, even if Elder Lyons did look a little odd without her power armor, but there were two that she didn’t; a ghoul swathed in thick robes that covered every inch of skin, and a black woman wearing what looked like Brotherhood fatigues that had been dyed jet-black.

“Now that everyone’s here, I think we can start the meeting.” Harkness glanced around to make sure that there weren’t any disagreements, then switched on the recorder on the table in front of him. “This is the first cross-settlement Capital Diplomacy meeting, held here at Rivet City. Present are myself, Chief Harkness, as the Security Representative of Rivet City Council, Pia Nalaar as the Science Representative of Rivet City Council, Seagrave Holmes as the Merchant Representative of Rivet City Council, Elder Sarah Lyons, Knight-Sergeant Adam Smith and Squire Arthur Maxson of the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel, Knight-Captain Rainbow Dash of the Rainbooms, President Rebecca Shoichet and Agent Bonnie Drops of the Enclave, Speaker Caliban of Underworld, Handmaiden Primrose of the Temple of Harmony, Sheriff Lucas Simms as representative of both Megaton and the Regulators, and Defender Anne Marie Morgan of the Brotherhood Outcasts.”

“One hell of a crowd,” Adam noted. 

Elder Lyons nodded. “Rivet City Council and I discussed it with President Shoichet, and we agreed that hosting a meeting like this would be a good way to build trust and cooperation between different settlements and factions, as well as bringing a little transparency to what the Brotherhood and Enclave are doing around the wastes.”

“And convince us to help you fight against the Super Mutants, right?” Simms added shrewdly.

“If possible, but we’re not going to try and twist your arm into anything,” Elder Lyons replied. 

Rainbow shoved her hand in the air and cut in quickly, “Hold up a second. Before we get started on all of the heavy stuff, would someone mind explaining what the deal is with there being Brotherhood Outcasts? Since when has that been a thing?”

“I was curious about that as well,” Caliban added in a raspy voice. 

To Rainbow’s surprise, it was Maxson who replied, “They split off from us years ago, back when our Chapter first arrived in the Capital Wasteland, due to philosophical differences.” Defender Morgan raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. 

“Does this mean you’re inviting the Outcasts back into your ranks?” Primrose asked.

“Do not misunderstand, we left the previous Elder’s command of our own volition, and chose the name Outcasts for ourselves,” Morgan told her. “I’m just here today to listen to what everyone has to say and report it to my superiors. It’s up to them if they want to open a dialogue at some point.”

Harkness cleared his throat loudly. “Getting back to the matter at hand, I’m sure that you’ve all heard about our recent battles with the Super Mutants.” 

The others all nodded. “We’ve heard, but we don’t know any details,” Primrose said with a pointed stare at the Elder. Rainbow felt a chill as she suddenly realized that Prim hadn’t just come for the meeting, but to find out what exactly had happened to her ‘goddess’. Sunset’s situation was probably sending shockwaves through the Temple. 

With a sigh, Rainbow explained how the Rainbooms had been lured into a trap at Roosevelt Academy, followed by Sunset’s defeat and the subsequent retaliation against Talon Company. Becky, Harkness and Elder Lyons took over at that point, telling of how the Exodus building, Rivet City and Project Purity had all been attacked simultaneously while the Rainbooms were occupied.

“So Talon Company is working with the Super Mutants,” Simms noted grimly.

“They were, but not anymore,” Elder Lyons corrected. “We’ve interrogated the surviving members of Talon Company and they’ve confirmed that the Super Mutants’ new leader, Shephard, was the mastermind behind the whole thing. Shephard is the one who came up with the ideas for the trap and the attacks, the one who personally took out Sunset Shimmer, and also the one who provided the mutated heart that attracted the feral ghouls here to Rivet City en masse.”

“Are you sure you can trust them?” Simms asked. “Talon Company are slippery bastards, they’ll lie just for the hell of it.”

Elder Lyons nodded curtly. “We assumed as much, but I had my suspicions as soon as I heard about the attacks on Project Purity and the Exodus building. Talon Company has dealt with the Rainbooms on a number of previous occasions, they knew that antagonizing the girls to that extent was tantamount to suicide no matter how prepared they were.” She glanced at Rainbow, who felt a shiver run down her spine at the thought of how close they had come to disaster. “It turns out that Talon Company was expecting a force of Super Mutants to ambush the Rainbooms from behind, but they never showed up.”

“Shephard hung Talon Company out to dry,” Rainbow continued. “We think he used them to keep us distracted while he focused on his own objectives, and take as many of us down with them as they could.” She shuddered. If Sonata hadn’t thrown a siren-sized wrench in their plans, then Talon Company might have actually managed to take out one or two of the girls. 

Seagrave tentatively raised a hand. “Uh, I know I’m kinda new to being on the Council but, just so we’re clear, what is the Exodus building you keep talking about?”

“It’s a pre-war RobCo facility a few miles from here,” Becky told him. “The Enclave occupied it as a secure location to perform magical research in, with the assistance of the Rainbooms.”

Simms hummed and scratched his beard thoughtfully. “So the Super Mutants went after the Capital Wasteland’s only large-scale water purifier, its biggest settlement, and a magical research facility all in one go while the Rainbooms were distracted? Sounds like this Shephard is one hell of a strategist.”

“No, he’s not,” Defender Morgan and Elder Lyons both said at the same time. Morgan gestured for the Elder to continue. 

“Shephard is intelligent, sure, but just being smart doesn’t automatically make you good at strategy. Splitting his forces the way he did was inefficient, and it meant that each individual force had much less margin for error when it came to achieving their objectives,” Lyons explained. “Plus, if you think about it, Shephard didn’t have any real plan for our heaviest hitters beyond avoiding them. There was no way that Talon Company could have taken down all of the Rainbooms, he used Behemoths to try and draw Liberty Prime out at Project Purity so he could sneak in the back way, and when Star Paladin Cross and Horrigan proved too much to handle all he could do was teleport them away from the battles.”

Caliban’s robes hissed as he shifted in his seat. “I have seen Liberty Prime striding through the ruins, and I’m aware of your Star Paladin, but who is Horrigan?”

“He’s the hardass motherfucker who went toe-to-toe with Liberty Prime and survived, casually rips Deathclaws apart with his bare hands for fun, and shouted so loud that I need prosthetic implants just to be able to hear myself shit,” Rainbow told him. 

Simms grimaced, apparently disgusted by her last words, and glanced at Primrose. “You worship that thing as a goddess?”

“I follow Sunset Shimmer,” Primrose replied flatly, earning a miffed look from Rainbow. 
 
“We’re getting off-topic again,” Harkness cut in. “The point is, we managed to crush Talon Company and repel the various attacks launched against us, but only by the skin of our teeth.” His expression turned grim. “The mirelurks in the river bore the brunt of the fighting here in Rivet City, but we still ended up with forty dead and another thirty-odd injured when the ferals broke through.”

Becky sighed and looked down at her notes. “Sixty dead and over a hundred wounded at Exodus, most of them civilians.”

Elder Lyons gave her a sympathetic look. “Project Purity was lucky, no deaths and only a few minor injuries. The tubes feeding into the purifier were damaged, but that shouldn’t take more than a week or so to fix, so just ration what water you have until we can get it up and running again. Our issue is going to be figuring out how to deal with the Super Mutants going forward.”

“You know where they’re coming from though, right?” Primrose asked. “Super Mutants need FEV to make more of themselves, and Fawkes must have told you where they’re keeping it, so why not destroy their FEV stocks and wear them down through attrition?”

“Already tried that,” Adam put in. “Me and Fawkes just got back from a mission to Vault 87. We wrecked what was left of their FEV vats, but we found evidence that they’re making an upgraded batch at a secret location somewhere else. Fawkes doesn’t have any idea where they might be hiding.”

Defender Morgan raised an eyebrow. “So you’re stuck in the middle of yet another pointless war. I warned you that this would end up happening, Sarah.”

Elder Lyons stared her down. “I wouldn’t call helping to rebuild humanity pointless, Anne.”

“Agreed,” Becky added with a glare at the Outcast. “Anyway, now that everyone’s caught up on recent events, it’s time to discuss how we’re going to move forward. I’d like to say that the Enclave could take the lead in this war, but we don’t have enough troops to defend the more sensitive areas in the Capital Wasteland and hunt down every Super Mutant lair, not alone.”

Simms sighed heavily. “And that’s only going to get worse when the purifier gets fixed and people start begging for water deliveries again. Since you’ve invited all of us here, I assume that even with the Enclave, Rivet City, and the Brotherhood of Steel all working together you still don’t have the manpower you need?”
 
“You’re right,” Elder Lyons admitted grimly. “The Brotherhood is in dire need of recruits, and we’re going to need an enormous amount of supplies to take on the Super Mutants. Rivet City Council has offered whatever help it can spare, and I’m looking into contacting the Pitt to try and secure a regular supply of ammunition, but it’s not enough. We need more allies.”

Seeing a conflicted expression flicker across Simms’ face, Rainbow decided to try and ease his stress a little. “Don’t worry, we’re not expecting the Regulators to drop everything and march over here. We’ve already heard from Applejack that they’re busy dealing with some raider group.”

Simms nodded, clearly relieved. “There’s a big gang called the Red Flags starting to muscle its way into the Capital Wasteland. From what we’ve heard, the smaller gangs are being forced to either join them or risk traveling through the snow to avoid getting destroyed. It’s causing havoc all the way from Megaton to the Republic of Dave.”

Rainbow noticed Becky frowning thoughtfully, but before she could say anything Primrose leaned forward and cut in eagerly, “The Temples of Harmony and the Church of Atom will do what we can to help. We’re already working to gather supplies for the Goddesses, and I’m sure there are plenty of Disciples who would leap at the chance to join the Brotherhood and fight alongside them.”

“As long as they’re loyal and can follow orders, I’m more than happy to have them,” Elder Lyons said gratefully before turning to Caliban. “I know you’ve already spoken to Adam-”

“There are a few in Underworld who are interested in joining your Brotherhood, and I am willing to trade goods with you, but I cannot agree to a true alliance just yet,” Caliban interrupted. “I must be certain that it is best for my people.”

Elder Lyons nodded her understanding, but Defender Morgan looked utterly dumbfounded. “You’re going to let ghouls into your ranks?!”

“We don’t reject people for being unlucky,” Maxson said bluntly. “If the Outcasts don't like it, then you’re welcome to stay as outcasts.” Rainbow and Adam nodded firmly in agreement. 

Morgan stiffened at the sight of their expressions. She looked around at the others, clearly hoping that someone would share her concern, but all she found were harsh stares or simple indifference. “I think I should report back to my superiors,” she said tonelessly. “Unless you have anything else to discuss?”

Becky made a show of checking her notes before replying, “No, I think all that’s left is arranging Vertibird transport for our guests from Megaton and Underworld. They don’t have power armor, after all.”

Without another word, Morgan swept out of her chair and left the room. Simms raised an eyebrow when she was gone. “You guys really don’t like each other, do you?”

“Not in the slightest,” Elder Lyons replied. “President Shoichet wasn’t lying, though; we’ve covered pretty much everything we wanted to cover. This meeting was mostly just about bringing the nearest major settlements up to speed on what’s happening and sounding out whatever help you may be able to offer.” 

“Your transports are ready and waiting, but you’re all more than welcome to rest or explore the city if you wish to before you leave,” Harkness added. 

Primrose, Simms and Caliban all offered their thanks and, in Primrose’s case, a deep bow before leaving the room. As soon as the door was closed Rainbow let out a heavy sigh and slumped in her chair. “Thank fuck that’s over with.”

“It could’ve gone worse,” Lyons said, though without much conviction. “At least we’ve potentially got some new recruits.”

“Just be careful with any you get from the Temples. You need to make sure they know that they’re joining the Brotherhood of Steel, not the Rainbooms.”

Lyons smiled wryly. “At least a third of our troops already venerate you girls in some way or another, so I don’t think recruiting from the Disciples is going to make much of a difference.”

That little revelation was enough to frazzle Rainbow’s brain. As she was processing it, Becky leaned forward to ask a question, “I assume that the Outcasts follow the same creed as the original Brotherhood of Steel on the West Coast?” She smirked in response to Lyons’ stunned look. “Your father wasn’t the first Brotherhood Elder to work with the Enclave, he was just the first one to do so publicly. I’m honestly surprised that anyone from the Brotherhood is dismissive of wastelanders. Hell, if it wasn’t for a wastelander, the Enclave would have wiped the Brotherhood of Steel out thirty years ago.”

“The Chosen One of Arroyo,” Lyons mused. “My father actually fought alongside him back then. He tried to convince the other Elders to change the Brotherhood’s stance on outsiders, but their heads were jammed too far up their own asses to listen.” She chuckled darkly. “The Outcasts might change their tune after today though. I’ve ordered the guards at Project Purity to escort their delegation through the defenses instead of forcing them to go around on their way back to their base.”

Becky grinned at her. “So they can have a good look at the energy fields, artillery, and tesla cannons that you’ve got installed there, right after they’ve convinced themselves that your Brotherhood is weak and vulnerable?”

“They’ll also have the chance to see Liberty Prime up close,” Lyons added smugly. “On top of that, Twilight Sparkle and Applejack are both using their magic to help with repairs on the purifier, so the Outcasts get to see that in action, too.”

Becky perked up at that. “Speaking of Twilight Sparkle, I know it’s a big ask, but I was hoping we could borrow her for a while. Her knowledge of electronics and robotics will be a huge help in getting Sunset back on her feet.”

The thought of Sunset’s recovery requiring robotics expertise was as awesome as it was horrifying, at least as far as Rainbow was concerned. Elder Lyons considered the request for a moment before nodding. “I should be able to spare her. In return, do you think you can fit another two people in the Vertibird taking Speaker Caliban back to Underworld?”

“Of course,” Becky replied. 

“Perfect, there’s reportedly a mercenary group known as Reilly’s Rangers based in the D.C. ruins near there. I want to see if we can secure their services for the Brotherhood.” Lyons turned to Adam. “I want you to be the one who makes contact with them and see if they’re willing to help, along with what sort of compensation they’ll want. I need Fawkes for another mission, so I’m sending Fluttershy with you instead.”

“Groovy,” Adam said with a smile. 

Rainbow tried to come up with a joke about exploring with Fluttershy, or exploring Fluttershy, only to realize that Lyons was now staring at her. “What about you? How are you feeling?” The Elder asked. “If I’m being honest, I’m surprised you didn’t threaten to kick Defender Morgan’s teeth out through the back of her skull.”

Rainbow snorted and crossed her arms. “Assholes who ditch their friends just because they’re helping people aren’t worth my time. Besides-” she looked down at the table to avoid everyone’s eyes, “-someone has to step up while Sunset isn’t around.”

“Well, I hope you’re up for letting out some pent-up rage on the Super Mutants, because I’ve got a top priority mission for you.” Rainbow looked back up at the Elder, her interest piqued. “We can’t trust any plans we make while that teleporting Super Mutant is still around. I have a plan for taking him out, today if possible, but it needs you. Think you can handle it?” 
> Chapter 181 - Starting to Crack...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flashburn hissed faintly as it sliced through the air. Rainbow whipped the blade up over her head and brought it down in a two-handed strike, cutting down an imaginary foe. She had just over an hour left before she was due to leave, leading a strike team into the downtown ruins, and she was taking the chance to get in as much training as she could. 

Unfortunately, the only place with enough space overhead for Rainbow to practice the occasional midair strike was out on the flight deck. She was used to being watched while she trained, it was a side-effect of being awesome, but it was a little weird when at least half of the people watching had skipped past hero worship and were actively coming up with scripture while they watched. Flashburn wasn’t even ignited, mostly to avoid accidentally setting fire to something, but more and more people were stopping to watch with every passing minute.

“Rainbow Dash?” A stern voice called out, making the Rainboom in question flinch instinctively. She turned to see Luna striding towards her with Excalibat in one hand, her weird crystal stick-thing in the other, and an expression that was equal parts curious and disapproving. “What are you doing out here?”

“I’m just training, I’ve got a mission later,” Rainbow replied, somehow feeling as if she had just been caught doing something wrong. 

Luna walked up to her and gave the peanut gallery a meaningful look. “I don’t have a problem with you training- actually, that’s a lie, I have many problems with you girls having to train for combat, but I sincerely hope you aren’t doing it out here simply so you can show off.”

Rainbow shook her head vigorously. “No, I swear! This is just the only place in the city where I can practice swinging a sword while flying.”

Luna eyed her wings curiously. “Is that even practical?”

“It probably wouldn’t be if I didn’t have super-speed, but yeah, it does come in handy sometimes,” Rainbow replied. She held Flashburn up and admired the way it shined even in the dim afternoon light. “I just wish I knew some proper sword fighting skills. Sunset tried to teach me a little, but she says that she doesn’t really know how to use a sword like this.”

“Hm, that makes sense. Sunset has done a little saber-work in the fencing club, but she’s a lot more experienced with a foil or an epee.” Luna looked Flashburn over with a critical eye. “I’m pretty sure that Fluttershy has a jian of some sort, but yours… I’d probably call it a backsword?”

Rainbow’s mouth practically dropped open in shock. “Wait, you know stuff about swords?!”

The ghost of a smile played around Luna’s lips. “I’m no expert, but I am something of an enthusiast. Hasn’t Sunset told you that I help out the fencing club every so often?” Rainbow just shook her head blankly. “Well, I was coming up here to run through drills from a few different styles. They aren’t really meant for baseball bats or, uh, tide staves, but they’re good exercise either way. I’m happy to run you through a couple of them if you want?”

“I’d appreciate it, any training is better than none,” Rainbow replied. She fixed her eyes on Flashburn as she added quietly, “I need to get better. I can’t let the others down again.”

The look that Luna gave her was a sickening mix of pity and understanding but, to Rainbow’s relief, she didn’t comment on it and simply said, “Okay, let’s get to work.”





Rarity hummed thoughtfully as she leafed through her recently-purchased sketchbook. The pages yellowed and torn, but that hadn’t stopped her from filling every relatively intact sheet with designs for clothing and armor. Standard Brotherhood combat armor had served the Rainbooms well so far, but Rarity felt that it was well past time for some upgrades.

Of course, modifying military-spec armor was a little harder than tailoring a dress or a suit, but Rarity was fairly sure that Tabitha or the Brotherhood Scribes would be happy to help, and she could always ask Pia or the Enclave in a pinch. The only real issue was time. Rarity didn’t have a mission at the moment, but Rainbow, Pinkie and Fluttershy did, and she couldn’t very well do anything to their armor when they were using it.

That just left herself, Applejack, and Sunset. Altering Sunset’s armor would have to wait until she was whole again, a thought that Rarity immediately thrust to the back of her mind, and she could hardly put herself before the others, so Applejack it was.

Applejack’s designs were all at the back of the sketchbook. Rarity lingered on some of the sketches she had made that were inspired by raider attire she had seen, amusing herself by picturing a certain someone wearing the outfits that she had thematically dubbed ‘Badlands’ and ‘Painspike’, but she didn’t let herself waste too much time with fantasizing. After the self-indulgent drawings were the more practical ideas.

The Regulator overcoat was Rarity’s first concern. Applejack had mentioned that it didn’t sit very comfortably over her armor, so that needed to be fixed, and of course it needed to be lined with the armorweave developed by the Orchard Temple; Applejack had made sure that Rarity’s own longcoat was made out of the stuff, it was only fair that she repaid the favor. 

After making a note of how much material she would probably need, estimating high in case adjustments needed to be made, Rarity turned to a blank page and wondered what else she could do. 

It was no secret that Applejack preferred to fight using her magic instead of a gun, but she used her stripped-down minigun for the sake of practicality; no amount of strength was as useful as a gun when it came to a gunfight, not unless you had either the speed or the durability to match. 

Rarity wanted to change that. She couldn’t give Applejack super speed or toughness, and power armor was a no-go due to the risk of mutating it any time the girls ponied up, but there had to be a compromise of some kind. Rarity just had to find it.





Metal squealed in protest as it was bent back into shape. Applejack adjusted her stance on the ladder, trying to get the torn metal panels as flush together as she could, then leaned back a little to check her handiwork. The gaping hole the giant mutated ghoul had punched through Rivet City’s hull was almost completely fixed. “Alright, how’s that look?”

“Looks good from down here,” the foreman replied. “Hop on down so Biggs can get up there and weld it.”

“Ah can weld it, if you want,” Applejack told him. 

The foreman muttered something inaudible, then called up a little louder, “I appreciate the offer, but you’ve been out here for six hours straight. Go and take a break.”

“Ah’m fine, Ah can keep goin’,” Applejack said flatly. 

“I thought honesty was supposed to be your whole schtick?” Grimacing as she recognized the voice, Applejack glanced down to see Harkness glaring up at her with his arms crossed. “Fluttershy and Rarity both warned me that you’d throw yourself into work and end up pushing yourself too far. Get down from there and come with me to get some food, or I’ve been told to send Pinkie Pie out here to fetch you.”

Applejack shuddered at the thought of being cornered by Pinkie. The girl could talk the hind legs off of a mule and still not stop until the poor beast drowned itself just to plug its ears, and that was before the Capital Wasteland had chewed through her patience and replaced it with brand new cuss words. Worse, Pinkie might try to discuss recent events and try to talk about feelings, and Applejack was not in the right headspace for that at the moment. “Fine, Ah’ll take a break.”

“Good, Pinkie’s preparing for her mission with Rainbow Dash and the last thing I want to do is distract her,” Harkness said with a nod.

“Pinkie’s goin’ too?” Applejack asked. “Why the heck ain’t the rest of us bein’ asked to do this?”

Harkness shrugged. “The mission is to draw out the Teleporter Mutant, maybe Elder Lyons just wants to be sure of who he’s going to target first.”

“Rainbow and Pinkie do have faster reflexes than the rest of us, they probably stand a better chance of catchin’ that bastard off-guard than anyone,” Applejack conceded as she climbed down the ladder. “How can we be sure that we’ll be able to draw him out, though?”

“The Super Mutants almost certainly have some way of communicating over distance, that’s the only way that teleporter would have been able to react to events at both Project Purity and the Exodus building with such timing,” Harkness explained. He glanced back at a handful of people throwing apples into the river for the mirelurks, a small reward for defending the city whether they knew it or not, then he turned and ushered Applejack back into the ship. “Go on, go get some food. Take a shower too, you smell almost as bad as those damned ferals did. Come find me when you’re done and we’ll get some sparring practice in.”

Applejack stopped sniffing herself and gave him a surprised look. “Sparrin’? Ah thought you wanted me to rest?”

Harkness met her gaze evenly. “You’re not the first person I’ve seen trying to prove that they’re still useful after they’ve been outmaneuvered. Sparring will wear you out quicker than fixing the walls, and it might just help you be a little more ready the next time things go tits-up.”





Pinkie’s concentration was absolute as she soldered another wire onto her latest instrument of death. It was almost finished. All it needed was a few more small components, an appropriate amount of Nuka-Cola Quantum, and a few odds and ends for good measure. It was just a little more potent than Elder Lyons had asked for, but it would get the job done.

A sudden twitchy sensation in her jaw made Pinkie snatch her hands away from the experiment. For one awful moment she thought that she had made a horrible mistake, then someone knocked on the door. “Huh, that’s a new one.” Pinkie carefully put down the soldering iron and stepped over to the door.

A nervous-looking technician was standing outside with a box in his hands. “Afternoon, Miss Pie. Uh, Pia asked me to deliver this to you?”

Pinkie eagerly took the box and peeked inside. “Yes, it’s perfect! This is exactly what I need!”

“Really?” The technician stared at the box curiously. “What do you need it for?”

“Making mean monsters bleed!” Pinkie replied cheerfully. She handed the stunned technician a mirelurk cake from her hair and smiled brightly before closing the door. Taking a deep breath, Pinkie set the box on her table and stared down at the component inside. “Everyone always seems to go for Sunset, ever since Burke” she mused sadly. Pinkie reached into the box and gently stroked the fusion pulse charge. “This time I’m going to take a leaf out of his book.”





Hundreds of butterflies flitted around the room, their pink wings glittering in the light. Fluttershy knelt in the center of the room, dozens of the butterflies resting on her arms and shoulders, with her weapons, armor, one of her Brotherhood-issued tops and a sewing kit spread out in front of her. For the sake of privacy, and in hopes of strengthening her magic, she was using the room where Doctor Li had once made the mistake of trying to analyze her magic. It felt like that had happened a lifetime ago, but in reality only a few months had passed. 

Fluttershy’s heart pounded as she contemplated what she was about to do. It was terrifying, but at the same time she felt that it was something she needed to do. The butterflies felt like an apt metaphor for her life; she was constantly growing and changing, pushing through difficult times and emerging as something new, especially since she had arrived in this world. Now it was time for another metamorphosis. 

Moving slowly so she didn’t disturb the butterflies, Fluttershy started by measuring each piece of her armor individually. That was the easy part. Next, she turned her attention to the top. She carefully cut the top to match each piece of armor, then padded what was left of her lower sleeves with spare cloth before adding ties to turn them into fabric bracers. With that, the clothing was done. 

Additions to the armor came next; specifically, attachments to the back plate for injectors. It was tricky, but after a little fiddling Fluttershy managed to cobble together a sturdy holder on either side of the back plate using webbing and straps. She put a modified stimpak into the left holder, containing a recipe she had designed herself to work with her FEV-enhanced metabolism. Into the right holder she slotted an injector of Psycho. The bulky red injector contained a hideously potent mixture of amphetamines originally developed by the military. Fluttershy didn’t like the idea of using it, but, if faced with another situation like what had happened to Sunset, then it would be a powerful last resort. 

Finally, Fluttershy slipped a pair of blood packs into pockets on her breastplate. They were also a last resort, in a way, to reduce the chances of her losing control of her vampiric urges on the battlefield. 

When she was done, Fluttershy sat back on her heels and sighed. She wished that she could figure out a way of modifying Vampire’s Edge so that the blade stored any blood that it drew, but she couldn’t come up with anything simple and she did not have the gall to ask someone else about it. As for the sniper rifle, she didn’t have even the faintest clue of how to go about modifying that. 

“Okay, I’m done.” Fluttershy stood up, gently shooed away the butterflies that were still on her, and put on her newly-altered top, essentially a sleeveless crop top now, then her new bracers, and finally her armor and Pip-Boy. When she was done, she took a deep breath and turned to face a bare patch of wall that was polished to a mirror shine. 

A dystopian survivor stared back. Fluttershy fought the urge to cringe at the sight of her exposed midriff and upper arms, but she would get used to it. She reached around to her injectors and nodded with satisfaction. All she would have to do was flick off their safety and press a button for them to slam their contents into her back, retracting the needles automatically when they were empty. The blood packs were in easy reach, too, with little tubes attached so she could bite off the cap and suck out the contents without using her hands. Taking a deep breath, Fluttershy reached for her magic and let herself vamp out. 

The survivor was gone. In her place stood a post-apocalyptic predator, toned and lean, a living nightmare as beautiful as it was terrible. Fluttershy drew herself up to her full height, throwing back her shoulders and throwing her wings out wide. That was better. The longer she spent with the FEV in her body the less the cold bothered her, and less fabric meant it was easier to administer injections to herself and she could help herself to any blood that splattered over her arms. Some small part of Fluttershy’s mind was well aware that she had other reasons for changing like this, very few of them healthy, but she ignored it. She needed to feel powerful, and she very much did. 

Nodding grimly to herself, Fluttershy let the magic fade and reverted back to normal. The overinflated image of herself disappeared at once, but she no longer felt the urge to cringe and hide away at the sight of her reflection. Being in her vampire form always boosted Fluttershy’s confidence considerably for a while afterwards. Not giving herself a chance to second-guess it, she slung her sniper rifle over her shoulder, scabbarded Vampire’s Edge at her hip, and marched out of the room. She had a mission to attend to.





Twilight gripped the edges of the sink as if it was a lifeline. She knew that the Enclave had brought her out to the Air Force Base to help with Sunset’s recovery, but the sheer scope of what they were asking, of just how badly Sunset had been injured, made Twilight feel sick to her stomach. 

Thankfully, Sunset’s life wasn’t in any danger. That at least was one less thing to worry about. All Twilight had to do was turn her intellect towards replacing at least a third of her friend’s body with magitech prosthetics using near-untested magical equipment and technology that was simultaneously more advanced and more crude than anything she had ever worked with before. Of course, it went without saying that every decision made during this process would directly impact not only Sunset’s long-term survival, but also her quality of life for the remainder of her existence. No pressure. 

The guilt only made things worse. As horrified as Twilight was by Sunset’s situation, she couldn’t deny that she was fascinated by the opportunity she had been offered. She felt terrible about it, but at the same time the chance to push the limits of this world’s science further than ever before, creating something using components and knowledge from three different realities, was more exciting than Twilight would ever be able to admit. 

There was, however, one small problem. Twilight knew more about electronics than probably anyone else in this reality, and she was certainly a dab hand at robotics, but she was still going to have to learn a lot of new stuff in a short amount of time. Her experience in studying nuclear fusion alongside the effects of FEV had taught Twilight just how difficult it was going to be to split her focus, and this time she could not afford to fail. Just the prospect of it was threatening to send her into a panic. As a result, just this once, she had decided to use a crutch. 

Twilight bit her lip and looked down at the little box on the edge of the sink. Mentats. They were nootropic chems; drugs that improved creativity and memory retention as well as speeding other mental processes. They were also, annoyingly, supposed to be highly addictive. 

Still, Twilight was already smart, she just needed a little boost. She would be careful. If at any point she felt like she was getting addicted or becoming overly-reliant on them, then she’d just lay off them for a while. It couldn’t be that hard. 
> Chapter 182 - Capitol Idea
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow sat quietly as the Vertibird shuddered through some minor turbulence. Her, Pinkie, Fawkes, and two Knights were on their way to the Washington Monument, in the heart of the D.C. ruins, where their mission would properly begin. 

“We’ll be at the Monument in less than two minutes,” the pilot called back to them. The mismatched squad got to their feet and gathered their gear. Soon enough, the pilot called out again, “LZ looks clear, prepare for landing.”

“Keeps your eyes open, guys,” Rainbow warned as the Vertibird descended. “Shephard’s a sneaky fucker. Let’s not get ambushed the second we step outside.”

Despite her concern, the Vertibird landed without issue, and the only thing waiting for them when they disembarked was a pair of Paladins and an Enclave fireteam guarding the entrance to the Monument. Rainbow frowned as she looked up at the giant white obelisk. It was clearly incredibly important to both the Brotherhood and the Enclave, but she didn’t have a clue what it was supposed to represent. Probably a dick or something.

“You might be awesome, but I don’t think that’ll fit in you,” Pinkie quipped. 

Rainbow snorted and turned to look out over the Mall. A deathly silence lay over the war-torn maze of trenches and crude fortifications, though that certainly didn’t mean that it was safe. She took a deep breath and turned to her team. “Alright, people, listen up. Our mission is to draw out Shephard’s pet teleporter and turn him into a grease stain. To do that, we’re going to fight our way down the length of the Mall and storm that.” Rainbow pointed at a huge building at the far end of the mall. “Intel says that the Capitol Building is the biggest outpost that Shephard’s forces have in the D.C. ruins. If we can hit it hard and raise as much hell as possible while we’re at it, we should be able to get the teleporter’s attention.”

“This is going to be very dangerous,” Fawkes noted. 

“You’ve got that right,” Rainbow agreed. “Several of the buildings around here have been occupied by Shephard’s followers, so we’re probably going to get flanked, and there’s a good chance that we could run into some of the feral ghouls or the Scorched that are duking it out in the metros beneath our feet. This could be a rough fight. If any of you have changed your mind and want to bail, you can wait here at the Monument until we get back.”

“I am with you,” Fawkes insisted as Pinkie and the Knights nodded grimly. 

Rainbow nodded back and drew Flashburn. “In that case, let’s get this done.” 

As one, the squad moved forward, keeping their eyes peeled for danger. In order to maintain visibility the group skirted around the top of the trenches instead of descending into them. Being out in the open like that left Rainbow feeling horribly exposed, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. 

Strangely, despite making no attempt to hide their advance, the group didn’t encounter a single living thing, let alone any Super Mutants. It was only when they reached the bunker that Sonata had mentioned, and the crevasse that she had blasted out of the ground with her magic shortly before being captured, that the squad finally found something. 

A handful of dead feral ghouls was strewn around the bullet-ridden entrance to the bunker, staining the snow around them with blood. One of them was a glowing one, but the fact that it was missing its head was a fair sign that it wasn’t about to get up again. 

“At least we don’t have to kill them ourselves,” one of the Knights muttered. 

“But we may have to deal with what killed them, which is likely to be a more difficult prospect,” Fawkes noted. “We must remain cautious.”

“Especially since whatever did it is about to walk out of that door,” Pinkie added, pointing her shotgun at the bunker’s entrance. The others snapped their weapons up just as the door in question creaked open, revealing a nightmarish humanoid creature. 

It had once been a raider, judging by the weird fetishy ‘armor’ it was wearing, but its skin was so infested with lesions and sores that it was a gooey dark pink, save for the few areas where its flesh had ruptured entirely to reveal glowing green crystal pushing out from within. More of the crystals grew out of its skull like a crown of horns. 

Pinkie’s shotgun blasted a cavity the size of a bowling ball out of the creature’s chest before it could even register that they were there. 
 
Rainbow couldn’t suppress a shudder as she watched the corpse keel over backwards. It was clearly a Scorched; humans and animals that were infected with a horrific plague, spread by colossal mutant bats, that basically turned them into mind-controlled slaves of the bats while also slowly fossilizing them. 

“So the feral ghouls and the Scorched have managed to escape the metro system.” Fawkes shook his head, a grim expression on his face. “Either my fellow Meta Humans no longer have the numbers to contain them, or they simply no longer care to. Either way, it does not bode well for the nearby settlements.”

The thought of a zombie war spilling out into the Capital Wasteland made the blood drain from Rainbow’s face, but there was a more pressing concern. “It’s not exactly great for our mission either. If Shephard has pulled his troops out of the Mall, then the plan is screwed right from the start.” She let out a frustrated sigh and glared down at the corpse. “Pinkie, get on the radio and let the Enclave know that they need to put a rush on that Scorched vaccine, then we’ll hit the Capitol Building as planned. If there’s no Metas in there, we’ll have to regroup back at the Washington Monument and see what the Elder wants us to do.”

It only took a moment to relay the situation back to command, then the group resumed their advance. They discovered more bodies as they walked, mostly feral ghouls with a few more Scorched, but that was all. There was nothing in the Mall but the dead. 
 
Pressing on, Rainbow noticed that the closer they got to the Capitol Building, the less dead feral ghouls there were and the more Scorched took their place. Soon enough, the group was standing by a dilapidated wall in front of the building.

Rainbow scowled up at the building towering above. Grand staircases rose up either side of the main façade, presumably to actual entrances. Dozens of Scorched corpses littered the stairs, apparently slaughtered as they attempted to swarm the place. 

“I guess they didn’t like the election results,” Pinkie said randomly. 

“Do you think the Scorched managed to do our job for us?” One of the Knights asked. 

“Unlikely, but possible,” Fawkes replied. “Even so, we must be sure.”

As much as she wanted to get far away from anything involving a plague, Rainbow nodded in agreement. Sunset wouldn’t back down, and neither would she. “We’ve got to get this done, just don’t touch the bodies. That includes you, Fawkes; the Enclave says that even Metas like you might not be immune to the Scorched plague, only ghouls seem to be.”

“Worry not, I shall take care,” Fawkes assured her. 

The thought of setting fire to the corpses with Flashburn floated across Rainbow’s mind, but she wasn’t sure whether or not that might make things worse. It wasn’t worth the risk. Taking care not to step too close to any of the bodies, Rainbow led the way up the nearest staircase and through a set of smashed doors at the top.

Inside was a wide room supported by marble columns. It had probably been fancy as all hell at some point, but now it was a half-ruined mess filled with the remains of Super Mutants and Scorched alike. Just as Rainbow was wondering if the Scorched really had managed to wipe out the Super Mutants, or at least drive them off, she heard heavy footsteps approaching from a nearby corridor. 

A pair of Super Mutants lumbered into room, each carrying several dead Scorched with no concern for the hellish plague that they bore. “Hey, dickheads!” Rainbow called out, making the Mutants stop and stare at her in shock. “What are you doing with those corpses?”

“Rainbooms!” The Mutants shouted dumbly, dropping the Scorched and reaching for their weapons in painfully slow motion. 

Rainbow smirked, confident that any other Super Mutants in the building now knew that they had visitors, then ponied up and ignited Flashburn before launching herself at the duo. She rolled over in mid-air and slammed boots-first into the first Mutant, smashing it off of its feet and away from the plague-ridden bodies. A storm of lasers shredded the other Mutant before it could get a shot off. 

Glancing around the room, Rainbow idly wondered just where the Scorchbeasts had managed to find so many raiders to infect as she waited for the first Mutant to get back to its feet. It quickly sat up and raised its hunting rifle in one meaty fist, spittle flying from its mouth as it roared, but Rainbow calmly slapped the gun aside with Flashburn and delivered a two-handed slash that took the Mutant’s head from its shoulders. 

More guttural shouts came from further inside, though not as many as Rainbow had expected. 

“I think they know we’re here,” Pinkie noted sourly. 

“Good.” Rainbow glanced back at the others. “Remember the plan; back me up while I get that teleporter’s attention!”

The others assented just as the first Super Mutants piled into the room. Rainbow immediately leapt into action, aiming for throats and tendons to drop the Mutants as quickly as possible. Crimson flashes and shotgun blasts let her know that the others were finishing them off behind her. 

Almost as soon as it had started, the fight was over. Just over half a dozen Super Mutants had tried to attack the group altogether. Rainbow didn’t like it. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something was off.

“Does anyone else think that that was a little too easy?” Pinkie asked.

“This whole situation is fishy as fuck,” Rainbow agreed. “Let’s keep moving, and don’t let your guard down.” She kept Flashburn at the ready as she stalked through the door the Super Mutants had charged through. 

On the other side was an enormous rotunda. It was entirely empty aside from a few broken statues around the edges, with flecks of paint drifting down from a faded mural on the domed ceiling high above. A shaft of wan sunlight shone through a hole in the roof. The only other exit from the rotunda was sealed by a crude barricade of scrap metal, razor wire, and half-rusted steel pipes all welded together. 

Rainbow advanced cautiously into the rotunda, looking around for danger or for any hint of what the Super Mutants had been doing in there, when she heard an ear-splitting grinding noise from behind. She whipped around just in time to see another makeshift gate slam down in front of the door with a boom that shook the floor, narrowly missing the Knights and Fawkes. 

“Another fucking trap?!” Rainbow spat. Shephard must have assumed that any Talon Company survivors would offer up whatever information they had, and had prepared accordingly. Then again, that wasn’t necessarily a problem if it served the mission’s purposes. Rainbow looked back at Pinkie, wordlessly reminding her of the plan, then squared her shoulders and took several deliberate steps away from the others. “Hey, is someone gonna come out here and fight me, or are you all just little bitches? I’ve met radroaches that were less pathetic than you lot!”

A faint flash of purple light from behind was all the warning that Rainbow needed. She dove aside on reflex, rolling to her feet and turning in one smooth motion. The teleporter Mutant was standing there, hand still outstretched to where Rainbow had been posturing a fraction of a second ago. Moving faster than the eye could follow, she swung Flashburn right at the Mutant’s neck.

Sparks flew as a turquoise barrier burst into life just before the blade struck home. Rainbow blinked in surprise, prompting the Mutant to smirk at her. “Magic shield works, y-” 

A flurry of powerful blows interrupted the attempt at being smug. None of them got through, but Rainbow persevered, driving the Mutant back as she tried desperately to overwhelm its magic. Just as she thought the shield was about to give way, the annoying creature disappeared once more in a purple flash. 

“Fuck!” Rainbow spat. She brandished Flashburn angrily as she looked around for the teleporter in vain. “Get back here you cocksucking coward!”

“Don’t worry, Dash,” Pinkie said as she stepped up alongside her. “I managed to- uh-oh.” She looked around the room anxiously as she swapped her shotgun for the Party Cannon. “On second thought, we should definitely worry.”

“Worry? What do you-” Rainbow’s question was answered by dozens of purple flashes around the edges of the rotunda. By the time it faded, the group was surrounded by heavily armed and armored Super Mutants, along with at least one Overlord and, floating above everyone in a flickering aura of purple and turquoise magic, the Mutant teleporter himself. 

Fawkes practically growled as he glared up at the enemy above. “You are a fool if you think this will end well for you, Zap.”

Zap grinned down at him. “Wait ‘til you see who else we brought, yep.” He snapped his fingers and, almost instantly, a lightning bolt arced through the hole in the dome and struck the ground with a thunderous boom. Rainbow blinked rapidly to clear her eyes, keeping her sword raised protectively. Her blood ran cold when her vision cleared and she saw Talon Company’s speedster standing in the smoking crater, her arms covered by gauntlets that crackled with barely-contained magical electricity. 

Raw hatred blazed in Lightning’s eyes. “Time to die, bitch.”
> Chapter 183 - Dash's to Ashes, Dust to Dust
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow gripped her blade anxiously as she stared down Lightning. “What the hell are you doing with these chumps? You do know that they sold out Talon Company just for a fucking distraction, right?”

“Fuck Talon Company,” Lightning spat. “All that matters is that I’ve finally got the chance to fuck you up.”

“You say that, but I’ve chased you off with your tail between your legs twice already,” Rainbow shot. 

“You don’t have the drop on me this time!” Lightning snarled, sparks flaring from her gauntlets. “I’m gonna take you down right here, right now, face to face, and prove to the world who’s the strongest in the wasteland!”

Rainbow just glared at her. There was no doubt in her mind that she could take down the upstart speedster, but she wasn’t so sure that the others would be able to deal with Zap and his cronies alone, and she was not about to let another friend get hurt because of a Super Mutant trap.

“Don’t worry, Dashie, we can handle these idiots,” Pinkie put in as if she could read Rainbow’s thoughts.

“Are you sure?” Rainbow asked, not taking her eyes off of Lightning. 

“Sure enough to end this stupid stand-off.” Before anyone could react, Pinkie fired her Party Cannon at the burliest Super Mutant in the room. 

Lightning moved the instant that Pinkie pulled the trigger, launching herself at Rainbow at top speed. Blazing steel and crackling iron clashed just as a pink explosion lit up the rotunda. 

Rainbow parried another punch and took a step back to counter-attack properly. Lightning blocked it and tried to press the attack, but Rainbow let loose with a series of blisteringly rapid strikes to hold her off. Lasers and pink explosions lit up the rotunda as the battle broke out in earnest around them. 

Sparks flew as the women dueled. Lightning’s gauntlets somehow held up against Flashburn’s edge, but the sheer heat of its flames soon had the metal glowing hot. Lightning snarled as she realized her predicament. Desperate, she parried a slash aimed at her throat and threw herself backwards. The split-second she bought herself was enough for her to rocket back up towards the hole in the dome.

“Not this time!” Rainbow crouched and launched herself into the air after her, determined not to let the coward escape. 

The frigid air outside made her gasp as she shot out into it. Something flashed in the corner of her eye, and Rainbow instinctively swung Flashburn just in time to swat aside a knife thrown at her face. “Nice try.”

Lightning was hovering over the Capitol Building’s Mall entrance. Steam billowed from her gauntlets in the icy air. Her mouth moved as she spoke, clearly reciting some dramatic speech, but Rainbow’s hearing aids were so full of static that she couldn’t make it out. “Listen, Dumbass McDick-munch, you couldn’t beat me down there with all those Super Mutants backing you up, so there’s no way in hell you’ll manage it out here all by yourself,” Rainbow said bluntly, hovering above the hole in the roof. “Do the smart thing for once and just give up already.”

Whatever Lightning shouted back was completely inaudible, but it clearly wasn’t a surrender. Rainbow tensed as her enemy rocketed at her once again. She waited until the very last second before letting herself drop slightly and thrusting Flashburn out at Lightning’s face. The woman barely managed to twist aside and divert the blade with a gauntlet, but the tip still gouged a deep furrow in her armor as she shot past. 

Sparks stung Rainbow’s face, but she ignored them as she landed on the roof and spun around, Flashburn at the ready. Sadly, instead of splattering herself across the building’s dome, Lightning was hovering over it, throwing a hateful glare at the Rainboom. 

Rainbow just grinned at her. She hadn’t fought many other flyers, but she had plenty of experience of fighting while flying in general. She wasn’t about to lose to some rank amateur with a chip on her shoulder. “Is that seriously the best you’ve got? Man, at least try and make it a challenge for me.”

The taunt clearly hit a nerve, as Lightning snarled and tried the same dumb flying tackle again. Rainbow waited until the last second then dove to the side, rolling to her feet and lashing out with Flashburn. The blade sheared through Lightning’s hamstring with ease. Rainbow felt a moment of savage glee as she watched her opponent careen out of control. 

Snapping her wings out to slow herself, Lightning threw a glare full of pain and rage over her shoulder, then dove away from the Capitol Building at top speed. Rainbow followed her down and into the maze of trenches that filled the Mall. It took all of her concentration not to crash into anything as the path twisted and turned, made all the more treacherous by patches of ice and snow-covered piles of debris dotted around. Just as Rainbow was catching up to Lightning, the dark speedster took a sharp turn and disappeared into an old bunker, slamming the door behind her. Rainbow kicked the door open and paused on the threshold. 

The interior of the bunker was pitch-black. Flashburn cast flickering blue light over the walls, but even that only illuminated a few feet of the narrow corridor ahead. Rainbow flicked on her Pip-Boy light and edged forward, keeping her blade up and ready for the inevitable ambush. Her hearing aids were still full of static, so she kept her eyes peeled as she advanced. 

A faint glint on the floor ahead made Rainbow tense up. She crept forward, her skin crawling as she prepared for an attack, but the glint turned out to be coming from an empty syringe of Med-X painkiller. A yard or so beyond it was a discarded bottle of Buffout, a powerful and fast-acting steroid that some of the Knights took when training. “Aw, nuts.”

As if on cue, electricity flared in the darkness ahead. Rainbow instinctively threw herself backwards just in time to avoid a gauntleted fist aimed at her face. She backpedaled as quickly as she could, desperately fending off a flurry of crackling punches, but the corridor was too narrow for her to use Flashburn properly. Pressing the attack, Lightning managed to get in a solid punch to Rainbow’s chest and the whole world flared white. 

Everything seemed to spin end over end. Rainbow let out a pained grunt as her back hit the ground, knocking Flashburn out of her hands, but thick slush cushioned the impact as she slid along the floor. Blinking rapidly to clear her eyes, it took her a second to realize that she was back outside in the trenches. Brightly glowing lines spread out across her crystalline armor from where it had borne the brunt of the gauntlets’ magic.  

A flicker of movement caught Rainbow’s eye, and she rolled to the side a split-second before Lightning’s boots slammed into the ground where her head had been. Rainbow scrambled to her feet while her enemy regained her footing. Thinking fast, she turned and flew away down the trench, searching for the right finisher. 

There was no way for Rainbow to tell if she was being followed, but she doubted that anyone so focused on beating her would give up so easily. Swooping around a corner, she grinned at the sight of a frozen pool of filthy water laying at the bottom of a bombed-out section of trench. 

Rainbow landed on the ice and skidded to a halt right in the center of it. She whipped around, hands raised in a defensive stance that Harkness had taught her, but Lightning wasn’t there. Acting on instinct, Rainbow dove into a roll and launched herself back into the air. Lightning missed by inches as she hurtled down from above, her gauntlets crackling as she slammed a fist through the ice and into the brackish water beneath. 

The effect was as swift as it was devastating. Bolts of electricity tore through the rest of the ice, shattering it into a million tiny pieces, while more of it arced through the air and earthed itself in every nearby surface like an overpowered plasma ball. Rainbow shuddered as she felt the air becoming charged even twenty feet above the pool, making her hair stand on end and her hearing aids go completely haywire. It was impossible to make out Lightning’s form in the midst of the miniature thunderstorm. 

“I guess you’re finally living up to your name,” Rainbow spat. She turned to look for Flashburn, but a shift in the charged air dragged her attention back to the pool. Her heart jumped into her throat as she saw a dark figure rise to its feet in the middle of the tempest. 

Lightning’s body was rigid, electricity tracing blinding patterns across her body while sparks cascaded from her skin, and her eyes shone with power. The air itself seemed to shift as she took a step towards the edge of the pool. Her movements were jerky and slow, but Rainbow had no doubt that that would change as soon as she was out of the water. 

“Fucking radioactive water.” Rainbow pulled a grenade from her belt and tossed it down to the pool, but a bolt of raw power arced out and disintegrated it before it could get anywhere near Lightning. She clenched her fists tightly as she realized that she might actually be outmatched. If Rainbow fell here, then Lightning was absolutely going to hunt down the rest of the Rainbooms next, but she didn’t know how she was going to win this. 

Rainbow rose up higher into the air as she desperately looked around for Flashburn, hoping to even the odds a little, when her gaze fell on the Washington Monument. Lying just beyond it was a rectangular artificial lake of some kind, contaminated by debris and wrecked cars. 

A daring plan took shape in Rainbow’s head. It was dangerous and desperate, but she was certain that she was better than Lightning in the air. 

One shot. 

Death or glory.

Rainbow made her decision and looked back down just as Lightning stepped out of the pool. The storm stopped instantly, but electricity still crackled around Lightning’s gauntlets and through her hair as she glared up at the Rainboom. 

“Let’s do this.” Rainbow turned and launched herself at the peak of the Washington Monument. As she reached the top, she threw a couple of grenades at the lake before pulling up and soaring straight up into the sky. A quick glance revealed that Lightning was following. “Alright, the race is on. Catch me if you can.”

Rainbow faced forward and focused on keeping ahead of Lightning, aiming for the skies above. The temperature slowly dropped the higher they climbed, but Rainbow didn’t dare to slow down. It wasn’t long before thin wispy clouds were whizzing past. Rainbow gasped as she plowed through one, splitting it apart and ending up soaked, but she pressed on towards the dark nimbostratus clouds that covered the sky. She idly hoped that her magic wings wouldn’t fail thanks to the thinner air, but all thoughts were blasted out of her mind as she finally plunged into the base of the great snow clouds. 

The cold was unimaginable. Flecks of ice tore at Rainbow’s face and forced her to squint, a thin layer of it spread across her skin and clothes even as she watched, and every breath felt like shards of glass were scraping down her throat and stabbing into her lungs. 

After only a few seconds of the torture Rainbow gave up and drifted to a halt. The ice in the air was more bearable now that she wasn’t barreling through it at top speed, but the danger wasn’t over. Rainbow steadied herself and looked down. Despite the gloom of the cloud’s interior, she could clearly see the glow of Lightning’s gauntlets rapidly approaching, while her own armor was muted thanks to the lack of light. Gritting her teeth, Rainbow hid herself in the darkness and waited, then snapped her hands out at just the right moment. 

Lightning yelled in pain as one of her wings was caught in a vice grip. The woman’s momentum dragged Rainbow along and almost yanked her arm out of its socket, but she ignored the flash of pain and slammed her Pip-Boy into the back of Lightning’s skull. Not wasting a moment, Rainbow pulled her rival into a tight embrace, pinning Lightning’s arms to her sides and squashing her wings between them, then rolled over in the air and dove straight down. 

The two burst out of the cloud in no time at all, picking up speed at an appalling rate. Lightning struggled to break free, sparks flying as she tried to escape, but Rainbow ignored the pain and put everything into her speed. The air seemed to thicken as the pair picked up speed, to the point where it felt like a physical barrier trying to hold them back. Rainbow pushed on regardless, her eyes glued to the Washington Monument and the choppy waters of the lake next to it. 

All of a sudden, the air barrier shattered like glass, and Rainbow felt rather than saw a wave of color blast out from around her. At the last second before she hit the Monument she shoved Lightning away and pulled up sharply, trying to swoop over the lake. Rainbow knew in an instant that she wouldn’t make it, so she aimed for a patch that looked clear of debris and curled up into a ball before she crashed into the water. 

The impact drove all of the air from Rainbow’s lungs. Thankfully, the grenades she had thrown had broken the surface tension of the water, so she sank into it instead of getting splattered. As she pushed to the surface and sucked in a breath, Rainbow noticed that the water was strangely warm, which meant that it was either heavily radioactive, or her trip through the cloud had left her much colder than it. Either way, she needed to get out of it fast.

A nearby pile of debris provided a decent ramp to get out of the water. As soon as she was back on dry land, Rainbow realized that she was shivering violently, and her breath wasn’t misting anywhere near as much as it should have been. She needed heat. The Washington Monument was probably the best bet, so she turned and slowly put one foot in front of the other. As Rainbow trudged through the snow towards the Monument, intending to hug the waiting Vertibird’s engine if she could, she found herself fervently wishing that she still had Flashburn on her so she could light it up for warmth. 

Almost as soon as the thought crossed her mind, Rainbow felt a weird tingle in her hands. Acting on some instinct that she didn’t understand, she held her hand out, only for a blue blur to streak through the air and settle in her grasp. Flashburn ignited the instant it touched her, the heat spreading through her armor and making her shudder in delight. 

“When the hell did you learn how to do that?” The blade didn’t answer, but Rainbow suddenly noticed that a kaleidoscope of colors was reflecting off of all of the snow around her. Looking up, she gasped as she saw a rainbow-colored circle of magical energy expanding over the wastes. “Shit, I thought I imagined that. That’s awesome.” Seeing the aftermath of her battle reminded Rainbow that there was one last thing to attend to. “Alright, Flashburn, let’s go and make sure that that bitch is dead.”

Rainbow flapped her wings to shake off the worst of the water before she took to the air again. The Knights at the Washington Monument waved to her as she passed, but she only gave them a cursory nod as she looked for her enemy. 

It didn’t take long to find a broken wall splattered with blood near the trenches. A splotchy trail of blood marked the debris-studded snow beyond it for a worrying distance, until it came to the end at the base of another old wall. Rainbow couldn’t hold back a grimace when she saw it. 

Lightning was sprawled on her back, one arm reduced to a stump, and the rest of her limbs bent and twisted in entirely unnatural shapes. Half of her head was covered in blood, and more dripped from the gaping hole in the side of her skull. Amazingly, and terrifyingly, Lightning was still alive, her mouth opening and closing as her unfocused eyes drifted around, unseeing. 

Rainbow landed next to her and dropped to one knee. Lightning didn’t make any sign that she noticed. 

“I don’t know what happened to turn you into the person you were, but it’s over now.” Rainbow reached out and grasped the Geode hanging around Lightning’s neck. The chain undid itself as she pulled, a few small sparks falling from it as it welcomed its new owner, but she put it in her pocket for the moment. Rainbow flipped Flashburn upside down and held it over Lightning’s heart in a two-handed grip. Armor and bone parted like butter as the sword was thrust down, and Lightning let out a soft sigh as she finally went still. “Rest in peace.”
> Chapter 184 - Get Wrecked
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Sure enough to end this stupid stand-off.” Pinkie fired at the hulking overlord nearby, vaporizing its upper body and the deadly tri-laser it was carrying. “Screw you, Brok,” she muttered as all hell broke loose. 

Rainbow and Lightning were the main cause of the racket, barely visible inside the storm of magical energy caused by their weapons. Pinkie and the Knights used the distraction they were causing to blast the dithering Super Mutants. There were enough of them that it was almost impossible to miss, each shot from the party cannon blowing apart three or more of them while Fawkes’ and the Knights’ lasers scythed through their crude armor like a hot knife through butter. 

The Super Mutants soon gathered their wits and retaliated, but Pinkie charged at the closest group and dove amongst them. She ducked and weaved around the oversized brutes as they tried frantically to get a hit on her, causing more damage to each other than to anyone else. One tried to smash Pinkie’s with an enormous sledgehammer and instead pulped his neighbor’s skull as she dodged the swing. Others fired wildly at her and ended up blasting chunks out of the walls and the other Super Mutants. All the while Pinkie kept moving, relying on her Pinkie Sense to keep her safe and taking pot-shots at those further away. 

A quick glance revealed that Fawkes and the Knights were holding their own as well. The Super Mutants had no fire discipline whatsoever, and their moronic plan of completely surrounding the Brotherhood squad meant that all of the Mutants were trying to shoot while avoiding fire from both the Brotherhood and their own troops. 

“Got you!” A Super Mutant bellowed from behind. 

“Nope!” Pinkie ducked as her left ear twitched and the bullets meant for her buried themselves in the gut of another Mutant. The shooter swung its gun around after her, but she smashed a Nuka-Cola bottle in its face and darted away. A pink explosion splattered gore across the floor a second later. 

Risking a glance around, Pinkie saw that Rainbow and Lightning had disappeared somewhere, the Knights were still fighting as bullets cracked off their battered armor, and Fawkes was barely visible in the middle of a swirling melee with a mob of other Mutants. 

A twinge in the neck and a brief flash of purple from behind provided a split-second warning. Pinkie dove into a commando roll, snapping up her Party Cannon as she rolled to her feet facing the enemy. Zap was standing over her, still surrounded by crackling purple and turquoise magic, clutching his staff as if he had been about to take a swing with it. “Time to break you, yep.”

“Don’t pretend that you can tell the time,” Pinkie shot, but inside she was panicking. She had already fulfilled her part of the plan while Zap had been occupied with Rainbow, but instead of disappearing like usual the Mutant was sticking around to fight. Killing him now would be way too risky; he had to be chased off somehow. “Don’t you need to be out running errands for Shephard or something?”

“I am, yep.” Zap thrust his staff forward and fired off a beam of turquoise magic, forcing Pinkie to skip aside. The beam vaporized a Super Mutant before hitting the far wall, boring a hole clean through it. “Hm, stronger than anticipated, yep.”

Pinkie grimaced and fired at Zap. She had intended to miss without making it too obvious, but the Mutant used his magic to swat the glowing Nuka-Cola aside anyway, blowing another hole in the rotunda wall. A shiver ran down Pinkie’s spine at the realization that he could have just as easily tossed it at one of her allies instead. 

“Go ahead, you should try that again,” Zap said with a grin, clearly having the same idea.

“I’ve got a better idea.” Pinkie ducked to avoid a wayward bullet and slung her Party Cannon over her shoulder, then charged empty-handed at the Super Mutant. Zap blinked in surprise, but his confusion only lasted for a second as he swung his staff at her. Magic hissed as Pinkie dove under it. As she rolled to her feet, she drew a fresh weapon out of a pocket that was way too small to hold it and swung it at Zap’s legs. The pickaxe smashed into his magical shield with a flash that lit up the room, followed by a hollow boom that threw up a cloud of dust and brought more cascading from the ceiling. 

Pinkie coughed and spluttered as she staggered back from the impact. She hadn’t used her magic pickaxe since the battle at Raven Rock, and despite the new grayish-purple gems embedded in the head she had still underestimated just how powerful it was. 

Someone groaned loudly as the dust started to clear. Zap hauled himself to his feet, leaning heavily on his staff, and turned to glare at Pinkie. He thrust his staff at her once again, only to drop it with a yelp when a line of sparks burst out along its length. 

“Huh, I guess your stick doesn’t work anymore,” Pinkie noted flatly. “You should see a doctor, they might have some pills that can-” 

Zap roared and drew his arm back as if he was about to throw a shotput. Turquoise magic rippled across his body and gathered into a roiling ball ball of energy in his hand, and Pinkie threw herself out of the way as he hurled it with a grunt. The room shook yet again as the ball crashed into the far wall. Snarling angrily, Zap turned and ran for the sealed door, blasting a hole through it with another flash of magic and fleeing into the corridors beyond.

Pinkie briefly considered letting him run, but she had to make sure that he teleported far away from this building. Anything else wasn’t safe. “Sweep the building, I’ll get Zap!” Pinkie shouted to the others before charging through the smoking hole in the door. 

The corridors on the other side were all dark. Purple light glimmered faintly around a nearby corner, so Pinkie hurried after it, taking care not to let her pickaxe touch the walls. The light led her on a wild goose chase through a maze of corridors and stairwells, until finally she saw Zap skid to a halt outside an office on the second floor. He glanced back at her, yelped, and disappeared in a purple flash.

Pinkie slowed to a stop and frowned at the spot where he had vanished, wondering why he had bothered to run when he could have just teleported out in the first place.

“Hey, this isn’t Pelosi’s office!” A voice exclaimed loudly. 

“Huh? Whoa!” Pinkie threw herself backwards just in time to avoid a figure diving out of the closest office. She gritted her teeth and readied her pickaxe when she saw who she was facing. “You again.”

Diane grinned widely. She was wearing nothing but a gore-splattered butcher’s smock and a pair of leather boots and she had a miniature chainsaw the size of a carving knife buzzing away in one hand. A ripper; weapon of choice for psychopaths and spree killers. “Are you messing with the Super Mutants again? That’s so silly! You should really leave them alone, they’re really good customers of mine.”

“Maybe you should target a different demographic,” Pinkie said quietly. Her Pinkie Sense was tingling like crazy, but she held her ground nonetheless. “What are you doing here?”

“Cooking, duh!” Diane replied. “Well, technically I was preparing the food first, and then I was going to start cooking, but then Zap came up here and brought you with him, so I guess that’s going to have to wait until I’ve dealt with you.” She tapped a finger against her chin thoughtfully. “Maybe he was hoping that I could be his trump card. Eh, I’m not an NFT, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Pinkie snapped her pickaxe up as Diane suddenly lunged forward. Sparks flew as the ripper met the pickaxe’s handle, only for Diane to twist and swipe up from a different angle. Pinkie backed away, desperately blocking every attack, until finally she found an opening and swung the pickaxe at her counterpart’s chest. Diane skipped back out of the way, giggling madly. “Careful, if you touch anything with the pointy bits then we’re both going to blow up.”

Pinkie grinned savagely and jabbed the point of the pickaxe into the wall, dragging it down and leaving a deep furrow in the exposed concrete. “I’ve added a couple of neat gems to it. Now it only blows stuff up if I want it to.”

“Ooo, fun!” Diane lunged at her again, but this time Pinkie darted forward, smacked the ripper aside with the pick’s shaft, and fought back with short chopping motions. Diane dodged each strike and backpedaled swiftly; even a weak hit from the business end of a pickaxe was nothing to joke about. “You’re getting pretty good at this, especially for a pony from another world.” 

Pinkie snarled and brought the pickaxe around in a wide arc. Diane ducked away from it and hopped through a nearby door, but when Pinkie charged through after her she saw nothing but an empty office. 

Diane’s voice echoed eerily through the corridor, “Oh? Don’t you want people to know that you’re from Equestria?” 

“I’m not!” Pinkie spat as she stepped out of the office and stalked down the corridor. “Pony Pinkie can take down Storm Beasts ten times her size with nothing more than a plateful of cupcakes. If she was here, the Knights would be scraping what was left of you into a bucket by now.”

“Awww, that doesn’t sound so fun.” Diane sprang out of an office on the left, her ripper snapping up in a tight slash that Pinkie barely managed to dodge, then vanished behind the door again just before the pickaxe smashed into it with a loud thunk. Pinkie yanked the pick free as a voice rang out once more, “Does that mean you haven’t learned anything from Equestria?”

“I’ve learned plenty,” Pinkie replied. She wasn’t sure how Diane knew about Equestria, but she put it from her mind and checked the office anyway just in case. 

“Oh, oh, oh! Did you learn new magic from Princess Twilight?!” Diane asked excitedly. “Or did you learn something from Applejack? No, wait, I bet it was Rainbow Dash!”

Pinkie stepped back out into the corridor and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath in, held it for a moment, then let it out slowly. Opening her eyes again, Pinkie looked up and down the corridor, this time examining her surroundings with a more critical eye. “If you really want to know, I learned from the most important someone that any real Pinkie knows.”

Diane gasped in apparent realization. “Oh, I know! It’s Princess Cele-” 

Pinkie moved the instant she felt her shoulder twitch, slamming the base of her pick into the wall as hard as she could. There was a loud crack as a chunk of concrete fell from the ceiling behind her. She was already spinning when she heard a thump and a yelp, her pick leaving a trail of pink glitter in its wake as she swung it in an upward crescent. Diane doubled over with a grunt as the tip of the pickaxe slammed into her gut and punched out of her back. 

“Maud,” Pinkie spat. She ripped the pickaxe out of Diane’s gut, whirled it overhead, and smashed it into the side of her counterpart’s skull with enough force to pin her to the wall. Diane hung there for a heartbeat, her eyes and mouth open in shock, before the magic flared, splattering bone and brain matter everywhere with a loud bang. 

The headless corpse dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Pinkie stood over it, waiting for the echoes of the fight to fade away, then sighed and slumped against the wall as the tension flooded out of her body. Staring down at the body, Pinkie wondered what had happened to make her counterpart turn into a complete monster. A moment later she realized that she was covered in what was essentially her own ruined brain and desperately tried to wipe it off of her face.

Just as Pinkie managed to get rid of the worst of the foulness, a slow clap echoed through the corridor. Every nerve in her body burst into life as her Pinkie Sense suddenly went into overdrive. 

“And into her own reflection she stared… yearning for one whose reflection she shared…” An icy hand gripped Pinkie’s heart as Diane stepped out of the empty office, this time wearing her usual wasteland gear. “And solemnly sweared not to be scared… at the prospect of being doubly mared.”

Pinkie straightened and raised her pickaxe. She glanced from Diane to the identical corpse on the floor and back again, trying not to quake in her boots as she tried to figure out what was going on. “How are you still alive?! I killed you!”

Diane grinned and planted her hands on her hips. “Nope, just a clone! Did you know that this world has a Mirror Pool too?” She threw her head back and laughed maniacally. Pinkie took a step back, weighing her options, when Diane suddenly darted forward. The pickaxe fizzed and popped as Pinkie swung it around, but Diane ducked underneath it with casual ease and tackled her to the ground. 

“Got you again!” Diane used her bodyweight to pin Pinkie’s arms and pressed a forearm into her throat, pressing down to cut off her breathing. “You’re getting good, but you’re not quite ready yet. Should I put you out of your misery already?” She smirked, then got up and crossed her arms triumphantly as Pinkie gasped for air. “Nah, not just yet. I might need you to finish my new recipe if the other ingredients don’t work.” 

Pinkie tried to stand as Diane turned to skip away, only to gasp and shudder as a wave of energy washed through the building, making both of the women pony up. She glanced in the direction the magic had come from in surprise. 

“Was that a Sonic Rainboom? I can’t wait until I can finally get a good taste of her!” Diane glanced back over her shoulder at Pinkie. “By the way, Zap is way away from here by now, so you should be fine to press the button. Just try not to take out too many of my customers, okay?” With that, she turned and skipped away, humming a bouncy little tune as she went. 

Pinkie scowled and tried to climb to her feet, but her knees shook beneath her and she ended up leaning against the wall to stop herself from falling. As much as she hated to take the advice of a monster like Diane, it was true that she needed to finish the mission. Taking a deep breath, Pinkie pulled the little detonator out of her pocket, flicked off the safety, and pressed the button. 





Various landscapes flickered through Zap’s vision as he teleported to a bunch of different sites one after the other. His power let him instantly travel to anywhere he had visited or seen in person before, but something about the Pink Rainboom made him want to cover his tracks as much as possible. Her powers were too much like Diane’s, and given that the Gore Merchant was the one who had somehow kidnapped the Glimmerwitch from the Red Flags and delivered her to Vault 87’s secret exit in one piece, it seemed wise to be careful. 

Still, the encounter hadn’t been a total failure. There was a fair chance that Diane and Lightning could each deal with their Rainboom opposites, the secret chambers under the Capitol Building were still hidden, and the new technology derived from the Glimmerwitch’s powers worked perfectly. Shephard would be immensely pleased. 

After several more jumps, Zap finally appeared in the middle of a bombed-out chapel, way out in the middle of nowhere. Half a dozen fellow Super Mutants instinctively raised their weapons, then lowered them when they recognized him. “It’s just me, yep. Just checking in and making sure everything is good, yep.”

The other Mutants all cocked their heads and stared at him in confusion until one of the younger ones piped up, “Everythin’s good, boss. Borin’, but no trouble.”

“Good, yep. Get back to what you’re doing then, yep.” Zap stomped over to a small fire burning in the corner of the chapel, eager to rest and get some food, only to realize that the others were still staring at him. “What do you want, yep?”

“What’s that?” One of the younger Mutants asked, pointing at his back. 

Zap frowned and reached around. His fingers brushed against something solid, so he shifted and twisted until he managed to pull whatever it was off of his back. 

It turned out to be a heavy metal box covered in old pre-war wrapping paper. Zap raised an eyebrow, wondering how the hell he hadn’t noticed it before, but curiosity soon got the better of him. He eagerly ripped away the wrapping and popped the lid off. Inside were a few bottles of Nuka-Cola Quantum, a pair of mini-nukes, and a bunch of small pink crystals all connected by a mess of wires and solder. A fusion pulse charge sat right on top of all of it. The words ‘Sunshim’s Regards’ were scrawled across the bomb in bright pink paint. 

Just as Zap realized what he was holding, a little light on the pulse charge changed from red to green. “Oh, shi-”
> Chapter 185 - ShyWanderer Taxi Service
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rivet City’s riverbank was thankfully quiet. The guards and waiting Enclave pilots were glancing over every now and again, but Fluttershy did her best to ignore them and watch the mirelurks below. 

Caliban, the representative from Underworld, had taken the opportunity after the big meeting to explore Rivet City, so his ride home had been pushed back until after Rainbow and Pinkie had completed their mission at the Capitol Building. It wasn’t much of a problem for the city residents, but it meant that Fluttershy was stuck having to stand around in front of people in her new midriff-baring getup without a potentially deadly mission to distract her. Hopefully Rainbow’s mission would be over soon.  

As Fluttershy tossed a small apple into the water for the mirelurks, a wave of multicolored light blazed overhead with a colossal boom. The sudden lights and sounds themselves made her jump out of her skin, but the blast of magic caused a chain reaction of crazy effects all around Rivet City. Fluttershy herself inadvertently ponied up along with several of the nearby guards, the river blazed with all manner of colors as the mirelurks were worked up into a frenzy, Rivet City itself flashed and glimmered like some sort of massive disco ball, and the metallic plants growing through and around it all sprouted fruit or burst into bloom at once. 

“What the heck?” Fluttershy stared in shock at the random phenomenon overtaking the city. Some of the nearby guards, the ones who weren’t freaking out about ponying up, quickly got on the Embark Center’s intercom to make sure that everything was alright on board the ship. From what Fluttershy could overhear of the replies, it seemed that the security officers were already mobilizing to make sure that there wasn’t a panic. 

As she dithered, unsure whether to go inside and try to help or not, Fluttershy heard the ship entrance open and a trio of people exit, one of them wearing a suit of power armor. She eagerly trotted over to wait at the bottom of the Embark Center as she listened to the trio approaching. 

Soon enough, two ghouls stepped out of the building, one swathed in thick robes that covered every inch of skin with only a narrow slit exposing his dark green eyes, and the other wearing well-used leather armor and carrying an equally well-used shotgun. Fluttershy fought not to wrinkle her nose as the smell of decaying flesh stung her nostrils. Adam lumbered out after the pair, a plasma rifle and a missile launcher slung over his back, a laser pistol at his hip, and his helmet tucked under his arm. It was only when Adam’s eyes widened and Fluttershy smelled a rush of hormones that she remembered her modified outfit. 

She blushed furiously, but thankfully the robed ghoul distracted her by speaking up, “Knight-Sergeant Fluttershy, I assume? I am Speaker Caliban of Underworld, and this is my bodyguard, Charon. Forgive my haste, but if this magical surge has touched my home as well as Rivet City then I need to get back to my people.”

“I understand,” Fluttershy replied quickly before glancing back at Adam. “Do you think the City Council will want someone on hand who knows about magic, or…?”

Adam stared blankly at her for a second, then blushed and spluttered when he realized that she was talking to him. “I, uh, yea- no. No. President Shoichet is advising them on it, so Elder Lyons said we’re good to go.”

“What about Rainbow’s mission?” Fluttershy reminded him.

“They contacted the Elder not long after that magic wave hit. It was successful,” Adam replied a little more professionally.

Fluttershy nodded, biting back a sigh of relief. “Good. Um, I suppose we should let the pilots know that we’re ready to go then.”

The pilots were happy to leave immediately, so the group piled into the Vertibird and strapped themselves in. A few pre-flight checks later and they were in the air. 

“I think you’ll like Underworld,” Adam told Fluttershy as they got underway. “It’s pretty quiet, and even me and Fawkes didn’t get stared at all that much despite how much we stood out.”

“Ghouls know what it’s like to be singled out and alone in a crowd,” Caliban said gruffly. “Most of us don’t see any point in inflicting that on others.” His robes rustled as he looked over at Fluttershy. “Are there ghouls in the world you came from?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “Radiation back home works completely differently to how it does in this world.” She cocked her head to the side as she thought. “Come to think of it, Sunset was surprised when she first learned about ghouls back in Megaton, so I’m pretty sure there aren’t any in Equestria either?”

“Equestria? What’s that?” Caliban asked

The rest of the journey passed in amicable conversation about CHS and what little Fluttershy knew about Equestria. Caliban was understandably interested in traveling between different realities, though he was skeptical about how ghouls would be treated no matter what reality they were in.

It wasn’t long before the pilots announced that they were nearing the landing zone just outside the Museum of History, where Underworld was located. The group waited patiently as the Vertibird descended, its ramp already lowering before they even reached the ground, and quickly piled out the moment they felt it land with a bump. The scent of blood hit Fluttershy in the face the instant she set foot off the ramp. As soon as everyone was out the Vertibird took off again, the pilots eager to get away from the dangerous Mall as quickly as possible. 

Fluttershy made sure they were safely gone before turning to face the Museum. It was an enormous building, and going by the large set of ancient escalators in front of it leading down into a metro station, it had once been an important one. Stylized stone faces were carved around the base of the building, while tattered old posters and flags hung from its eaves. A ghoul carrying a particularly clean and shiny laser rifle was standing guard at the entrance. She ambled up to the group as they approached. “Welcome back, Speaker. What’s with the tour bus?”

“They were just giving us a ride home,” Caliban replied. He glanced back at Adam and Fluttershy. “Are you two sticking around, or are you going to head straight to the Ranger Compound?”

Willow raised a splotchy eyebrow. “If they’re looking for those smoothskin mercenaries then we’ve got a pretty mangled one here that Mason’s scav team picked up earlier. Barrows is looking after her in the Chop Shop.”

“That must be whose blood I can smell,” Fluttershy noted.

The ghouls all stared at her in surprise. “You can smell blood?” Willow asked.

“Barrow’s your resident doctor, right?” Adam cut in. “Do you think he’ll let us talk to her?”

“Um, shouldn’t we follow the trail to where she was injured first? If one of them was hurt, then there’s a chance that others were as well,” Fluttershy pointed out. 

Adam paused before nodding. “Good thinking. Can you follow the trail?” Fluttershy nodded back at him. “Okay, then that’s what we’ll do.” He put his helmet on and glanced back at the ghouls. “We’ve gotta go. Thanks again, Caliban.” The Speaker raised a hand in farewell as Fluttershy and Adam turned to the Mall proper. 

Fluttershy immediately took the lead, following the scent of blood away from the Museum of History, along the edge of the Mall for a short way and around to the north. A street or boulevard led the way away from the Mall. Not far along it, near another grand building of some kind, the pair found a patch of compacted and blood-soaked snow. A trail of blood and uneven footsteps led away from the patch and further into the ruins. 

“This must be where the scavenger team found the Ranger and gave her first aid,” Adam said quietly. 

“It looks that way.” Fluttershy let Adam inspect the site and focused on the trail leading away. It followed the street until it disappeared into a ruined building, and going by the amount of blood, the Ranger had clearly been very badly injured. 

Just as Adam rejoined Fluttershy, both of their Pip-Boys let out a sound that meant they were picking up a radio signal. Adam toggled the frequency on his and a second later an anxious voice crackled out of the speakers, “To anyone receiving this message. This is Butcher of the merc company Reilly’s Rangers. We’re in danger and need help. We’re trapped on the roof of the Statesman Hotel by a large contingent of Super Mutants. We are low on ammo and running out of time.”

“You were right, the Rangers are all in trouble.” Adam unslung his plasma rifle and jerked his chin at the trail. “Let’s go kick some Mutie ass.”





Shepherd slammed a fist against the wall in rage. The Glimmerwitch’s tech was supposed to make Zap nigh unbeatable, instead both him and Lightning were dead, and the Rainbooms had barely even taken a scratch. Of course, Shephard had a set of Glimmerwitch tech as well, but it would only be used as a last resort. It was going to take more than one powerful warrior to win this war. The Super Mutants needed to rebuild their numbers, and fast.

Shephard turned to glare at the Mutant that had brought the message. “Bring me Tiberius! I don’t care if his new FEV strain needs more testing, we’re using it!”  
> Chapter 186 - Reilly's Rangers
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The trail of blood was distressingly easy to follow. It threaded a winding path through the ruins, avoiding the worst of the piled debris and sticking mostly to the sheltered areas. Fluttershy couldn’t help but marvel at how far the injured Ranger had managed to travel. 

As her and Adam followed the trail, they came across a handful of abandoned makeshift camps inside the ruined buildings. It looked like they had been built by raiders or scavengers seeking shelter from the harsh weather, but they had all been attacked and ransacked by Super Mutants. 

“Why would the Super Mutants bother with all of this?” Adam asked quietly. 

“They must be trying to build their numbers back up,” Fluttershy replied. 

Adam shook his head. “Can’t be, me and Fawkes trashed all of the FEV vats they had in Vault 87. Unless they’ve managed to synthesize FEV from their own blood, they shouldn’t have any way of making new Mutants.”

“Hopefully,” Fluttershy said, though somehow she still felt uneasy. The Super Mutants had pulled too many tricks out of their sleeves for her to feel confident in victory just yet.

A short way further on, the duo reached the end of the blood trail. Two dead Super Mutants nearby were clearly the reason for the Ranger’s injuries. The scents were all jumbled up, making it a little tricky to pick out the direction the Ranger had come from, but the faint echoes of gunfire from somewhere up ahead rendered that a moot point.

“This way.” Fluttershy loosened her sword in its scabbard as she took the lead, heading towards the sound of combat as quickly and quietly as she could. Adam followed behind, his power-armored footsteps sounding appallingly loud to Fluttershy’s ears, but hopefully it wasn’t enough for the Super Mutants to notice. The sounds of sporadic combat slowly grew closer until the pair came to another street. Advancing cautiously, relying on Fluttershy’s enhanced senses, they pressed on until they could see their destination ahead. 

Two battered buildings, a hospital and a hotel, stood at some sort of intersection directly ahead. A fallen radio mast stretched from one to the other, and a handful of Super Mutants milled around outside. Thankfully, they were too focused on the buildings to notice the duo creeping up from behind. 

“Which one do you think the Rangers are camping out on?” Adam asked quietly. 

As if in answer, half a dozen winged Super Mutants rose up from the roof of one building and swooped down on the other. A hail of gunfire shredded them before they could get close enough to land. 

“I guess it’s that one,” Fluttershy said flatly. 

“Seems so.” Adam looked up at the nearby buildings. “You go high, find a vantage point and give the Rangers some cover fire. I’ll work my way up through the buildings and take out as many Mutants as I can.”

“Right. Radio if you need me.” Fluttershy ponied up and flew up to the roof of the nearest building. She moved carefully from rooftop to rooftop, taking care to stay out of sight of either the Mutants or the Rangers, but she couldn’t find anywhere that gave her a good view of the hotel roof. In the end, she gave up and carefully flew over to the top of the hotel itself. Battered old decorative domes lined the perimeter of the roof, surrounding what had once been either an area for either outdoor entertainment or maintenance, Fluttershy couldn’t tell which. 

Three people were camped out on a raised part of the area near an old fountain and an express elevator. They were dug in behind a bunch of overturned tables, and none of them appeared to be injured, but it was clear that they were all exhausted. One looked like a medic, another an engineer, and the third was toting around a modified minigun. Dead Super Mutants littered the steps leading up to their raised area.

Fluttershy carefully landed next to one of the domes above the Rangers. She de-ponied herself, unslung her sniper rifle, and settled in next to the dome to wait for any Super Mutants to attack. Barely a few seconds passed before she heard an explosion from the street below. 

“What the hell was that?” One of the Rangers asked. 

“Reinforcements?” Another replied hopefully.

Ignoring the chatter, Fluttershy listened out for anything else moving around. She heard Adam smash his way into the hospital next door, followed by the sounds of a terrific firefight breaking out, but she couldn’t sense anything flying around or trying to climb the walls. The Rangers were safe for the moment. 

More explosions tore through the hospital next door. Fluttershy couldn’t help feeling anxious about Adam being right in the thick of it, but she trusted his judgment. Besides, she could hear everything going on in the hospital; if he ended up needing Flutterhsy’s help, she’d know about it before he did. 

The faint sound of footsteps below dragged Fluttershy’s attention away from the hospital. Straining her ears, she could just about make out what sounded like a group of Super Mutants moving inside the hotel. She readied her sniper rifle just as a door slammed open somewhere on the rooftop, making the Rangers flinch and snap their weapons up too. The distinctive beeping of landmines echoed across the roof shortly before a series of explosions. Several Super Mutants howled in agony, but the survivors carried on undeterred. Fluttershy waited calmly until the lead Mutant charged up the steps to the raised area. 

Her first shot punched through its throat in a welter of blood. The Rangers cried out in shock at the unexpected assistance, but Fluttershy ignored them and put a bullet in the chest of the second Super Mutant. It stumbled, snarling with pain and fury, until another shot put it down for good. Recovering from their surprise, the Rangers were quick to take down the remaining Mutants that foolishly charged up the stairs. 

“That’s the last of them,” Fluttershy called down when the last one fell. “Um, for now, anyway.”

The Rangers stared up at her incredulously. “Who the fuck are you?” The minigun-armed woman shouted up.

“She’s a Rainboom, dumbass! I told you they were real,” the engineer shot. “Did Reilly send you?”

Fluttershy shook her head, trying not to blush under all the attention. “We heard your distress call. The Lone Wanderer is here, too. He’s clearing a path up through the hospital.” Just as she said it, another blast tore through the air and she heard the fallen radio mast creaking as something heavy ran across it. “Actually, I think he’s in the hotel now. As I was saying, there is a Ranger being looked after in Underworld, but we decided to prioritize making sure that the rest of you are safe.”

“That’s Reilly! I can’t believe the crazy bitch actually made it!” The minigun woman exclaimed. 

The three Rangers were clearly heartened by the fact that their leader had survived, but Fluttershy’s own relief was short-lived as she heard the roof door creak open again. Instead of a mob of Super Mutants, this time she could only hear two sets of eerily soft footfalls as someone, or something, tried to sneak up on the Rangers. 

Fluttershy raised her sniper rifle again as the footsteps slowly climbed the stairs. Strangely, nothing came into view despite the sounds getting closer. For a moment, Fluttershy thought her mind was playing tricks on her, until she noticed a faint haze-like distortion in the air. She fired on instinct, and was rewarded with a spurt of foul-smelling blood from the middle of the haze. Another shot brought another splash of blood and the haze slumped over as Fluttershy reloaded in a flash. 

Everyone stared in shock as a Stealth Boy clattered across the floor, the haze immediately coalescing into the grossly misshapen form of a centaur. Fluttershy shuddered with disgust at the sight of its hands in place of feet and the multiple tentacle-like tongues dangling from its mouth. 

“Is it dead?” The engineer asked. 

“I think so,” Fluttershy replied. She couldn’t hear any breath or a heartbeat coming from it, but she hadn’t before it had dropped the Stealth Boy either, so she wasn’t entirely certain. 

The minigun-armed woman stomped over and gave it a vicious kick in the ribs. “Yeah, it’s dead. I thought these four-legged fuckers were supposed to be dumber than animals, when the fuck did they learn to use tech like that?” 

“Magic has been causing all kinds of weird shit around the wastes, just roll with it,” the medic told her. He warned the other two to get back behind the tables and looked up at Fluttershy. “Well spotted.”

“Let’s just hope there aren’t any more of them around,” she replied quietly. 

Despite Fluttershy’s concerns, the next few minutes passed without any trouble. She kept her guard up anyway as the sound of vicious combat inside the hotel below came ever closer. Soon enough, the gunfire died down and a power-armored boot kicked the rooftop door open. Fluttershy let out a sigh of relief as the owner lumbered around to the stairs. “Adam’s here.”

The Rangers glanced at her curiously, then snapped their weapons up as a figure in blue Enclave power armor swaggered into view, several ammo boxes clipped to his hips. “Hey, Flutters, nice work. The rest of you must be Reilly’s Rangers, right?”

“What’s left of them,” the medic replied, lowering his weapon. “I’m Butcher. These are Donovan, our repair guy, and Brick, our heavy weapons specialist. You must be the Lone Wanderer.”

“I don’t know why people still call me that,” Adam muttered. He unclipped the ammo boxes and handed them to the Rangers. “I found your fallen squadmate. Sorry I couldn’t bring his body with me, but I cremated it so the Super Mutants can’t mess with it.”

Butcher sighed heavily. “I appreciate it. Now we just have to figure out a way out of this mess.” 

Adam glanced at the nearby express elevator. “I’m guessing that thing’s out of commission?”

“I’ve already tried it,” Donovan replied. “It’s not connected to the main generator, and I don’t have anything that can power it manually.”

Adam held a hand up and fished through the pouches on his power armor. “Got it.” He casually pulled a fission battery out of one pouch and held it out to the engineer. “Would that work?”

“Damn right it will. Give me a few minutes and I’ll have it up and running.” Donovan took the battery and hurried over to the elevator.   

The group waited, impatiently in the Rangers’ cases, as their engineer worked, keeping their guard up just in case. Just as promised, it was only a few minutes before Donovan stepped back and wiped his brow. “Okay, we’re good to go.”

“Groovy. Okay, everybody in. I’ll get in last so I can be first out and give you some cover with my armor,” Adam instructed. “You too, Flutters.”

Fluttershy slung her sniper rifle over her shoulder and ponied up just long enough to float down to the elevator, stepping in after the three amazed Rangers. The elevator creaked ominously when Adam stepped in, making everyone tense up, but it held together well enough as someone pressed the button and it started its descent. 

 “As soon as we hit the first floor, make a break for it,” Butcher told everyone. “Remember our rally point is the Ranger Compound. Don’t stop for anything!”

“If there’s any Super Mutants, we’ll hold them off,”Adam put in. “You guys get back to safety. We’ll find you if we get left behind.”

Donovan let out a nervous chuckle. “You never know, we might be lucky and there won’t be any more Super Mutants downstairs.”

“We’re not lucky,” Fluttershy said grimly. “There’s a group of Mutants in the lobby, at least six.”

Butch gave her an incredulous look. “How the fuck could you possibly know th-” She was cut off as the elevator jolted to a stop and the doors screeched open. A confused Super Mutant turned to stare blankly at them. 

“Boo!” Adam blew a hole in its face with his plasma rifle and kicked the Mutant away before it could even register that it was dead. Roars of fury and scattered gunfire followed that abrupt greeting. Stepping out of the elevator behind Adam, Fluttershy saw that they were on a narrow mezzanine that circled the lobby. Two Mutants were on the mezzanine, firing away with hunting rifles, while the rest were down on the lobby floor.

“I’ll take upstairs, you take down!” Fluttershy vamped out and sprinted for the nearest SuperMutant, ripping her sword out of its scabbard as she went. The Mutant barely had time to react before she slammed the sword through its heart and out through its back. Bowling it over with her sheer momentum, Fluttershy released the blade and leapt off of the falling Mutant, launching herself at its companion. The second Mutant fired and missed as she barreled into it and tore its throat out with her claws. 

Just as she was turning to see how the others were doing, Fluttershy heard the rumble of many heavy-set creatures approaching. “Get ready, there’s more coming!”

“You heard her, get your asses out of here, we can handle this!” Adam shouted. 

Fluttershy hurried to retrieve her sword and stalked over to the corridor she expected the Super Mutants to arrive through. Taking a deep breath, she slipped the needle from the Psycho container on her armor and jabbed it into her abdomen. She shuddered as the stimulants poured through her system, making her muscles twitch, and snarled as a red mist descended.
> Chapter 187 - Hindsight and Hard Liquor
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy stood awkwardly outside the door to the Ranger Compound. She had already drunk a handful of blood packs, but she was having more trouble shaking off the side effects of her vampire form than usual. 

The Psycho had done too good of a job drawing out her vampiric aggression. On top of that, coming down from it had left Fluttershy feeling as sore as she had the first time she’d tried the Enclave’s military fitness program. Even with medication on hand to counter possible addiction, it was clear that the Psycho was a tool of absolute last resort when all other options were exhausted, preferably with a significant supply of blood nearby. 

Thankfully, Adam hadn’t noticed what Fluttershy had taken, and he’d been happy to head inside and speak to the Rangers in her stead. Ostensibly, it was so she could try and wipe the worst of the congealed Super Mutant blood off of her armor, but really she just wanted to try and cool her head in the wintry air. The fact that it also allowed Fluttershy to avoid dealing with the usual questions about magic, the Rainbooms, and being a vampire was just a bonus. That, and it was easier to resist the urge to bite someone if they were safely behind solid steel doors. 

As she was contemplating whether or not to drain her last blood pack, Fluttershy heard heavy footsteps approaching from inside the compound. Sure enough, a few seconds later the door opened and Adam stepped out, carrying his helmet under his arm. Fluttershy greeted him with an anxious smile and tried to ignore the steady thumping of blood running in his veins. “How did it go?”

“Not bad, actually,” Adam replied. “Luckily, none of them are injured, but they’ve asked if we can head around to Underworld and check up on Reilly for them.”

Fluttershy nodded eagerly. She felt a little bad for thinking it, but the sour reek of ghoul-flesh was enough to mute the worst pangs of her bloodlust “Of course, that’s not an issue. What about the Brotherhood’s request for assistance?”

“The Rangers can’t make any deals without Reilly’s say so, and even then they’ve already been commissioned by another client to thoroughly map out the local wasteland and the downtown ruins.” Adam held out a boxy little device with what looked like a tiny radar dish on top. “They were given these geomapper modules to do it with, but I’m thinking we could ask the Brotherhood and the Enclave to provide the Rangers with mapping data in return for assistance against the Super Mutants.”

“That’s a good idea,” Fluttershy agreed. “We’ll see what the Elder thinks when we get back to Rivet City.” 

“But first, Underworld.” Adam stuffed his helmet on and made to set off into the ruins, only to hesitate and glance back at Fluttershy. With a wry smile, she checked the map on her Pip-Boy and started walking in the right direction. “Remind me to see if the Brotherhood or the Enclave have any software that’ll let me integrate my Pip-Boy with my power armor. Having a destination marker on my HUD would probably be a damned sight more useful than the armor’s targeting assistance program.”

Fluttershy nodded and added a note to her Pip-Boy to remind herself. Anything that could help with Adam’s abysmal sense of direction would be a godsend. When she was done, Fluttershy took a deep breath and stretched out her aching back. “Even if the Rangers can’t help us, we managed to earn some goodwill and take out a Super Mutant raiding party, so the trip wasn’t a total loss.”

“True, but I can’t help but wonder what the Super Mutants were aiming for out here,” Adam said. “Either they’ve synthesized more FEV already, or Shephard has something else up his sleeves. Either way, something fishy is going on.”

The thought of it made Fluttershy grimace. She was thoroughly sick of Shephard’s devious plots. The sooner someone found a way to put that wretched monster down, the better. 

As if sensing her dark thoughts, Adam loudly cleared his throat and tried to change the subject, “So, anyway, uh… new outfit, huh?”

Fluttershy felt her cheeks burn the moment he said it. She had been hoping that he would comment on it eventually, but the fact that she was still liberally splattered with Super Mutant blood made her a little less enthused about showing it off. “It’s, um, it’s more practical for me. I don’t feel the cold and I heal too quickly for minor scrapes to be a problem, so the extra fabric was just extra weight. Plus, this gives me easier access to veins and muscles if I need to use a stimpak on myself or something.”

“Easy access?” Adam’s helmet obscured his face, but somehow Fluttershy realized that his glance wasn’t aimed at her face. 

A devilish thought rose from the back of Fluttershy’s mind, in a fit of vamp-induced confidence she blurted out, “Stare all you want, but the armor isn’t coming off until we get back to Rivet City.” She leaned towards Adam and grinned, revealing her fangs. “Unless you ask nicely.

“I-I wasn’t- I mean, I don’t, well… if I ask nic-whoa!” Distracted, Adam somehow managed to trip over his own feet and pitched himself head-first into the snow, earning an unintentional snorted laugh from his companion. 





It looked like Rivet City was finally getting itself back under control, much to Elder Lyons’ relief. She had spent the better part of two hours traipsing all over the ship helping the security team maintain order after the recent magical outburst. President Shoichet suspected that it was caused by something called a Sonic Rainboom; a ‘harmless’ magical wave caused by extreme magically-assisted speed. 

That hadn’t stopped half of Rivet City from going absolutely batshit crazy. Several residents had tried to eat the metallic plants or lick the walls in an attempt to gain magic powers, a bunch of drunks had gotten into a brawl because they thought the barkeep had spiked their drinks, one moronic teenager had had the genius idea to stick his dick in a glowing glass beaker and got the entire science section closed down, and the local Disciples of Harmony had decided that the incident was a blessing from their goddesses and tried to instigate a city-wide festival.

Lyons supposed that she should just be happy that the Rainbooms weren’t present. It had been hard enough keeping the Disciples from bothering Luna, Sonata and Trixie, keeping them away from the Rainbooms as well would have been almost impossible. 

“Elder Lyons!” Someone called out.

Resisting the urge to swear loudly, Lyons glanced over her shoulder to see an Enclave technician hurrying towards her. The Elder tensed, wondering if she should have worn her power armor, but the tech simply stopped next to her and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “President Shoichet has requested a meeting now that everything has quietened down.”

Lyons sighed and gestured for him to lead on. The guest room that the President was staying in was on the same deck as the Brotherhood’s temporary command center, so there wasn’t far to go. Better to see what the woman wanted and deal with it as soon as possible. Agent Drops was waiting outside the room when the pair arrived. She nodded in greeting, opened the door to address the President, then stood aside for the Elder to enter. 

“Elder Lyons, good to see you,” President Shoichet said brightly as Agent Drops closed the door behind her. Lyons was surprised; Agent Drops was intensely overprotective of her charge, yet here she was leaving the President alone with someone who not that long ago would have been her enemy. The President herself was sitting at a table with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses in front of her. She gestured to the chair opposite. “Have a seat, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who needs a break after all of the recent bullshit.” 

It took a second for Lyons to believe what she was seeing, but she took the offered chair and let the President pour a glass each. “I didn’t take you for a drinker.”

“I dabble,” Shoichet replied, pushing a glass over. “Especially when I’ve spent all day putting out fires.”

“That’s fair.” Lyons took a sip and marveled at the taste. It was a lot better than the gut-rot crap the Scribes traded in or brewed on the side. “How is Doctor Strong doing? I heard she was injured in the attack on Project Exodus.”

The President smiled wryly. “She’s doing okay. Well, she’s awake, anyway, but she’s furious at how far the Super Mutant attack put back our plans for the portal.”

“Did they manage to damage the portal?” Lyons asked, eyes wide.

“Not directly, but they killed several of the attached scientists and trashed the equipment we used to mass-produce essential material,” Shoichet replied. Seeing the Elder’s curious look, she explained, “Francium. It’s incredibly rare; our scientists estimate that there’s only a few dozen to a few hundred grams of it occurring naturally in the Earth’s crust at any given time, and even its most stable isotope only has a half-life of about twenty minutes. We can synthesize atoms in the Base Crawler’s lab, but the equipment there can’t produce enough to keep the portal open for more than a few milliseconds, even if we can find another SDT-1. We’re having to go back to our old plan of refitting a Delta IX rocket so it can dimension-hop.” 

Lyons frowned, wondering how the Rainbooms were going to react when they heard of this, then shook her head and chose to focus on something else that had been on her mind. “What exactly is an SDT-1? Are they pre-war tech, or are they from the Institute, another Enclave faction, or what?”

The President sipped her whiskey and glanced at the door. “What I’m about to tell you is classified top secret, so keep it to yourself for the time being. The SDTs aren’t terrestrial, they’re Zetan; alien technology.”

Lyons almost spat out a mouthful of whiskey. “Alien?!”

“Keep your voice down!” Shoichet hissed. “Yes, alien. The one the Enclave owned was found in Josselin in France in the 16th century, then brought back to England by a knight during one of their wars and kept by his family as an heirloom for centuries until they moved to the USA and, eventually, joined the nascent Enclave before the war. In fact, they were one of the original developers of the biogel we use in robobrains and the like.”

“You’ve got to be fucking with me,” Lyons said weakly. She knew that the Brotherhood had stored several strange power cells in the Citadel, cells that some of the Scribes had insisted were alien, but she assumed they were tall tales made up by researchers to alleviate their boredom. “Do you have any proof?”

Shoichet shrugged. “The tech in the SDT matches that found in other artifacts that we’ve confirmed are alien, which raises some concerning questions about how the aliens managed to build something capable of detecting Equestrian magic centuries before it ever came to this reality. Hopefully it was just a fluke.”

“Speaking of magic, how is Sunset Shimmer doing?” Lyons asked, eager to change the subject. 

“She’s still in a coma, but she’s stable,” the President replied. “Don’t worry, I’m throwing every resource in the Enclave at her. Some of the more insular assholes are giving me shit over it, but they can go fuck themselves.”

Lyons let out a humorless laugh. “I know how that feels.”

Shoichet gave her a sympathetic look. “Let me guess, they’re giving you shit for inviting ghouls into your ranks?”

“Among other things,” Lyons admitted. “Hopefully, things will calm down once we’ve built our numbers back up and we’ve secured a steady supply of ammunition from somewhere.” She drained the last of her whiskey and set the glass on the table. “And on that note, I’d better get back to work. As soon as Fluttershy gets back I’m sending her, Pinkie and Cross to Little Lamplight on a diplomatic mission, and I need to figure out who I’m sending to the Pitt to make a trade deal with the ammo dealers there. Any chance you could lend the Brotherhood a Vertibird for the trip?”

The President shook her head. “No can do, sorry, they’re all either already on assignment or in for maintenance. If you;re sending a team to the Pitt, though, the Vertibird collecting crystals from Raven Rock picked up a transmission that you might be interested in.”
> Chapter 188 - The Team
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Snow crunched underfoot as Applejack pressed forward. Thankfully, Adam was forging a path ahead with his power armor, making the trek across the wastes much easier for her and Rarity to handle. They didn’t even have to give him much in the way of directions thanks to some new navigation software in his armor. 

As the trio skirted the edge of the D.C. ruins, Rarity cleared her throat and asked, “Would someone mind telling me what exactly this mission is about? I understand we’re to head to a settlement north of the Capital Wasteland, but I was discussing possible mercenary aid with a trader named Cutler and I didn’t get a full briefing from Elder Lyons.”

Applejack tipped her hat back and looked around for threats out of habit. “Lyons wants us to head to a place called the Pitt and negotiate a trade deal for ammunition for the Brotherhood; apparently, the folks up there are big-time ammo dealers. While we’re at it, she wants us to check out a radio message comin’ from somewhere not far from Raven Rock. Becky reckons it might have somethin’ to do with the Pitt.”

“Apparently it’s being sent out by an ex-slave who escaped from a settlement up north,” Adam noted. “It could be unrelated, but it’s worth looking into either way.”

A pensive frown crossed Rarity’s features. “With a name like the Pitt, I don’t imagine this will be a particularly inviting place.”

“Yeah, Ah don’t reckon it’s gonna be a place you’d pick for your glampin’,” Applejack agreed. “Just gettin’ there is gonna be a pain in the ass. The route the Enclave suggested takes us back past the Super Duper Mart, which you can bet is bein’ used by raiders again. Then, after a quick stop in Megaton, we keep headin’ northwest and try to pick a safe path between the Germantown Police HQ and some place called Paradise Falls.”

“The slaver town,” Adam growled. “I really want to go back and tear that place apart brick by brick, but that’s probably going to have to wait until we’ve finished with the Super Mutants.”

Applejack nodded. “Probably. And this is all before we even get to the radio tower the Enclave thinks the broadcast is comin’ from. On top of that, we don’t even know if the broadcast is just being relayed from somewhere else, or if it’s some sort of trick, or anythin’. Keep your wits about you.”

Rarity grumbled under her breath, evidently rethinking the journey, but soon gave up with a sigh and went back to keeping an eye out for trouble. Applejack couldn’t blame her for being less than amused. Even with Adam making a path and carrying plenty of supplies, it was going to be a very long trek. 

Luckily, the trip out of the D.C. ruins was utterly uneventful. The Super Mutants were clearly concentrating their limited numbers elsewhere, and no other group was dumb enough to pick a fight with the Lone Wanderer and a pair of Rainbooms in the middle of such a harsh winter. The trio weren’t bothered as they headed north, crossed the short bridge across the remnants of the Potomac, and headed out into the wastes. 

As they walked, Applejack realized that this was the first time she had been almost alone with Rarity since the Unity incident. She wasn’t sure if having Adam there as a buffer was a good thing or not, but couldn’t help a cowardly twinge of relief that his presence would at least prevent any awkward conversations about their feelings. 

Thanks to the snow-shoving effectiveness of Adam’s power armor, it didn’t take long for the trio to approach the Super Duper Mart. Adam glanced over his shoulder and asked the girls how they thought they should proceed.

“We should be fine to simply walk right past, shouldn’t we?” Rarity suggested. “Surely no raider gang would dare to attack us as long as we show that we’re leaving them alone?”

Adam shook his head. “Every animal and asshole in the wastes is going to be looking for a warm place to ride out the winter. Any raider gang hiding out in the Mart is going to be the biggest and toughest collection of scumbags this side of Megaton. Personally, I think we should take the long way around.” 

The prospect of extending their snowy trek made Rarity scowl. “What do you think, Applejack? Which way should we go?”

Applejack shrugged. “Why not just take a look and see what’s in there? If there're raiders, and they attack, then it just gives us an excuse to wipe the bastards out and make things a little safer for the locals.”

“Fair point,” Adam said. “Let’s see what’s lurking around bef-” He stopped in his tracks and dropped into a crouch the second the Mart came into view. The girls quickly followed suit. 

“What do you see?” Rarity asked quietly. 

“Radscorpions,” Adam replied. “Lots of little ones and one big albino fucker. Messing with them isn’t worth the hassle if you can avoid it, we’ll take the long way around.” Neither of the girls objected, so the group backtracked and headed half a mile west before getting back on course for Megaton. 

The town hadn’t really changed since the last time the Rainbooms had visited. A handful of residents were sporting Pip-Boys and other kit clearly traded with Vault 101, and there seemed to be a few more Disciples of Harmony and Children of Atom than usual, but the place itself was much the same. The real surprise was waiting in the Temple of Harmony, where the trio were amazed to find Uncle Leo casually chatting with visitors. 

Unsurprisingly, the Disciples were ecstatic to see Applejack and Rarity. They eagerly tried to get the girls to stay for a feast, but laid off when they learned that the trio were on a mission. After a light meal, a rest, and a visit to the crapper, the three got their armor back on and set off once more.

The next leg of the journey was just as quiet as the first. Thick snow blanketed the wastes, save for the rare places where someone, or something, had forced their way through it leaving narrow trenches in their wake. Trudging across the rolling terrain, the group were mildly surprised when Big Town slowly came into view. “We’re makin’ good time,” Applejack said, tipping her hat back and eyeing the settlement with a satisfied air. “Ah was expectin’ it to take us at least another hour to get this far.”

“Are we paying them a visit?” Adam asked. 

Applejack shook her head. “Nah, we’ve got a long way to go, and we don’t want to waste the extra time. There might even be a Regulator or two stationed there if they managed to spare anyone.” She glanced at Adam as something occurred to her. “That reminds me, how did your negotiations with Reilly’s Rangers go yesterday?”   

“Eh, could be better, could be worse,” Adam replied. He explained about their current geomapping contract and his suggestion to Elder Lyons about providing data in exchange for assistance against the Super Mutants. “The Elder said she’ll consider it and send someone back with her reply when she’s decided.” 

The idea seemed like a no-brainer to Applejack, but the final decision was in Lyons’ hands. 

Leaving Big Town behind, the group turned due north, hoping to pass between Paradise Falls and the Germantown area without getting too close to either. Applejack made a point of checking her Pip-Boy regularly to make sure they were on the right track. “We should be comin’ up on the Hallowed Moors Cemetery soon, or whatever’s left of it since the bombs fell. After that, we just need to keep headin’ north for abou- hey!” She almost walked into Adam as he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. “What gives? Is there somethin’ up ahe- … Holy shit.”

The trio stopped and stared in shock at the sight of an immense snow-free crater, almost the size of Megaton, lying right in their path. Applejack cautiously stepped up to the edge of it. Her Pip-Boy’s geiger counter started ticking in protest, but radiation wasn’t all that was coming from the crater. “You smell that? It’s like hot cotton candy.”

“Pinkie’s magic?” Rarity breathed in deeply. “I suppose this must be where the teleporting Meta Human met his fate. Good grief, I knew her magic was powerful, but this is just beyond the pale!”

Applejack nodded absently. “Let’s just hope she doesn’t do anythin’ else on this scale, or we’re gonna have to redraw the maps after every damned fight.” She altered the Hallowed Moors Cemetery on her Pip-Boy map to the Hallowed Moors Crater before getting out of the irradiated area. Taking care to avoid getting too close again, the trio made their way around the edge of the crater and continued on. 

Next came the most tense leg of the trek so far. Applejack was confident that the group could handle any stray slaver crew, and it was vaguely possible that the Germantown Police HQ was empty since the Rainbooms had cleared it out, but a conflict just wasn’t worth the risk so far out from the major settlements. Not without the rest of the Rainbooms present, anyway. 

After quite some time spent advancing in cautious silence, Adam spotted a large complex ahead. It looked like some sort of pre-war reservoir or water treatment plant to Applejack, but the large concrete silos that would presumably have once held water were surrounded by a glittering multicolored haze. Clearly magic was at play. The trio debated for a few minutes as to whether they should investigate, but in the end they decided to simply make a note of it and prioritize the mission. The Brotherhood was going to flounder if it didn’t find a stable source of ammunition. 

The terrain beyond the water place rose swiftly. It wasn’t long before the girls found themselves struggling to climb the snowy slopes, and even Adam was having to watch his step as he plowed through the large drifts. On the plus side, the increasingly rough terrain helped Applejack to get her bearings on the map, allowing her to adjust their course. They had barely been climbing for a few more minutes when their Pip-Boys picked up a new signal with a crackle. 

Adam and Rarity immediately went on guard, eyeing their surroundings warily as Applejack set her Pip-Boy to the right frequency for the broadcast. “To anyone who can hear me, my name is Wernher,” a gruff voice crackled from the speaker. “I come from a settlement to the north. I have information of great value to anyone willing to help me free my people. Please… help us. This message repeats.”

Applejack lowered the speaker volume and glanced at the others. “That sounds like the guy we’re lookin’ for. We must be gettin’ close.”

“You don’t think it could be coming from those satellite dishes, do you?” Rarity asked, pointing west. 

“Ah sure hope not, Ah doubt anyone hidin’ out in there is friendly,” Applejack replied, glancing nervously at a collection of huge radar towers a mile or so away. “Besides, the Enclave thinks the broadcast came from somewhere a couple of miles north of here.”

Adam took the lead again as the group headed northwest. After passing an old electricity substation the trio found themselves in incredibly rocky territory, prompting Rarity to create bridges and stairways with her magic so they could proceed. Even so, it was a grueling hike, and the girls soon found themselves drenched in sweat despite the frigid air. 

Just as Applejack was considering pausing to find shelter and build a fire, the sharp report of gunfire rang out from somewhere up ahead. “Shit!” She ducked and limbered up her minigun. “Is that aimed at us?!”

“No, we’re clear,” Adam replied, “Are we close to where that broadcast is coming from? It could be the guy we’re looking for.”

Applejack stood and checked the map. “It should be right on top of that cliff up ahead. Let’s go!”

Filled with fresh urgency, the trio charged ahead, Rarity conjuring a sweeping staircase as they approached the sheer rocky wall. Adam thundered up first, his weapon raised and ready, followed a heartbeat later by Applejack. 

A clearing greeted the three at the top of the cliff. A half-rusted radio tower reached up from trampled snow, and at the base of it was a man fighting for his life against a group of strangely well-equipped raiders.  

Applejack hesitated, unsure if the group really were raiders, when one of them spotted the trio and took a pot shot at Adam with a terrified yelp. The response was immediate and deadly, Adam and Rarity dropping the last of the aggressors in only a few short seconds. 

The man they’d just rescued stared in shock, apparently surprised that it was over so quickly, but quickly pulled himself together and stepped away from the mast. He had short filthy brown hair, a patch over his right eye, and a set of heavily soiled and patched clothes that Rarity would almost certainly burn if given half a chance. Applejack noticed that he also had a scoped large-caliber pistol held not-too-loosely at his side. The man took a moment to get his breath back before speaking, “Thank you for your help with those guys. They finally tracked me down… I thought I had more time.”

“You’re Wernher?” Applejack asked cautiously. 

The man sighed and nodded. “Yeah, that’s me. The broadcast was risky, I know, but it had to be done. So you know who I am, and you’re obviously a Regulator-” he nodded at Applejack, “-but who are you other two?”

“You’ve never heard of the Rainbooms?!” Adam exclaimed incredulously. 

“That ain’t important,” Applejack cut in quickly. Something didn’t feel right about Werhner, and she really didn’t like the calculating look he was directing at Rarity. “Your broadcast said you needed help freeing your people, so why don’t you get to tellin’ us what the problem is?”

Wernher gave her an oily grin. “I was hoping that someone would come, but I wasn’t expecting one of you righteous heroes of the wasteland to show up.” His face turned more serious as he explained, “I come from a place far to the northwest. It’s called the Pitt.” Applejack immediately perked up. “It’s… well… let’s be honest, the place is a nightmare. Radiation, mutation, disease. But the worst of it: my people, some of the only survivors, are slaves.”

“That’s a problem,” Rarity said flatly. “The Brotherhood of Steel will not do business with slavers.”

It sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than anyone, but Wernher apparently didn’t notice as he shook his head vigorously. “Ashur, the asshole in charge of the Pitt won’t trade with the Brotherhood anyway, especially if they’re in cahoots with the Regulators. The Pitt does most of its business with Paradise Falls; your goody-two-shoes groups have done way too much damage to their bottom line for them to see you as customers. Having said that, I think there’s a way we could help each other out.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “How d’you figure?”

“The Pitt… it gets to you,” Wernher replied heavily. “It’s like a disease in the air and water, you can’t escape it. After a few years it starts to turn people into something less than human.”

“So we’ve heard,” Rarity cut in. “The East Coast Brotherhood passed through the Pitt several years ago, they warned us about the dangers.”

Wernher nodded. “Right, the Scourge, when your power-armored boys swept through and killed anything that tried to put up a fight. That was right around when I was born. Anyway, Ashur and his bastard crew have found a way to cure the sickness. Once they have it perfected, my people won’t stand a chance of escaping, but if you guys come with me and help me get the cure, then Ashur won’t have any choice but to release the slaves.”

“So the cure is a bargaining chip,” Adam noted quietly. 

“And once he can’t use slaves anymore, Ashur will have to hire workers or pay his own men to do his dirty work, which will burn right through his profits. He won’t have the luxury of turning down other customers, no matter who they are, if you catch my drift,” Wernher finished. 

Applejack narrowed her eyes at him. “And how exactly are we supposed to help you get the cure? The Brotherhood has enough on its plate without getting into a trade war with slavers.”

“Ashur won’t know that you’re a Regulator, or that you’re working with the Brotherhood of Steel,” Wernher told her. “The guards won’t let random armed wasters through the gates, but if we disguise you as a slave, and your power-armored buddy if he ain’t too weird-looking, you should be able to slip in with no problem.”

“And what about me?” Rarity asked. 

Wernher snorted and shook his head. “Not a chance. Ashur’s cronies are dumb, but they’re not dumb enough to believe that they’ve got some albino sorceress as a working stiff, no matter how well we disguise you.”

“Excuse me?! I think you’ll find that no-one in the entire Capital Wasteland is as skilled with disguises as I am!” Rarity cried indignantly. 

“Hmph, it’s your head,” Wernher shot. “Just remember that if they rumble you, it won’t just be your life that you’re pissing down the drain.”

The trio shared a concerned look, silently trying to decide whether or not to commit to this. It was insane, but, in the end, it wasn’t really a question at all. The Brotherhood needed supplies. Adam sighed heavily and slung his plasma rifle across the back of his armor. “Alright, Me and Applejack will go with you. Rarity, do you think you’ll be able to carry our excess equipment back to Megaton or something if you use my power armor?”

“Screw Megaton, Raven Rock is much closer,” Applejack supplied. “We’ll escort you there, let the Elder know what’s goin’ on, put together some disguises and head on off to the Pitt.”

“Not so fast!” Wernher said quickly. “You don’t want to ditch your shit just yet. There’s a group of slavers camped out at the train tunnel to the Pitt, west of here, waiting to make a sale to these fuckers on their way back.” He gestured to the dead raiders. “You’ll have to take them out to get past, and you may as well grab your disguises off of the new slaves while you’re there.”

Wernher’s plan was sounding sketchier with every fresh word out of his mouth, but Applejack just wanted to get the job over and done with. “Fine, we’ll hit the slavers first, free the new slaves, get our disguises, head to Raven Rock, then get back to the tunnel. Reckon you can point it out on a map?”

“Sure. I imagine you’ve already got plenty of supplies for the trip, but make sure not to waste anything; the Pitt is a long way from here.” Wernher marked the tunnel location on Applejack’s Pip-Boy before looking back at the base of the radio tower. A threadbare bedroll was rolled up next to one of the struts. “I’ll catch my breath here for a while, then meet you at the tunnel.”

Without so much as a backward glance, Applejack pointed Adam in the right direction and fell into step behind him, placing a hand on Rarity’s shoulder to gently pull her along as well. When they were out of earshot, Rarity whispered to her, “You don’t trust him, do you?”

“Nope,” Applejack said simply. “Do you?”

“Not as far as I could throw him,” Rarity replied, much to Applejack’s relief. “However, at the moment, I’m more concerned about the fact that you’re trying to kick me off this team,” she added sharply.

“Ah ain’t tryin’ to kick you off the team!” Applejack winced as she realized that she had spoken a little more forcefully than intended. 

Rarity scowled, clearly not convinced. “Look, I know that things have been a little, er, awkward, between us lately, but surely it would be better if we talked things through rather than you just trying to get rid of me.”

“It ain’t like that,” Applejack replied, and she was as surprised as anyone to realize that she was actually telling the truth. “Ah don’t trust Wernher, but if he’s tellin’ the truth about the slaves, then tryin’ to disguise you as one of them is just askin’ for trouble. Besides, sure, things have been weird since, y’know, but…” She pulled her hat down low over her face to hide her blush. “Ah’ll feel more comfortable knowin’ that you’re safe here with the Brotherhood instead of trampin’ around some diseased hellhole out in the middle of nowhere.” Applejack braced herself for the inevitable protest that the fashionista was more than capable of handling herself, but it never came. A subtle peek revealed a faint blush creeping up Rarity’s cheeks as well. 

The moment was abruptly doused as Adam loudly cleared his throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s another cliff here. Any chance of some magic assistance?”

“O-of course, darling!” Rarity hurried forward and created another staircase. She was clearly flustered, as the railings were wonky and the steps were all slightly askew. 

More rocky terrain followed, once again making the journey treacherous and slow. Thankfully, Rarity’s magic helped with the worst of it, and it had the added benefit of keeping the girls too focused to talk. 

After another long slog, the trio spotted a collection of ramshackle shelters built from scrap. Several armed wastelanders were huddled around a fire in one of the shelters, while three more people huddled under a blanket in a wire-mesh cage. It was clear even to Applejack’s inexperienced eyes that the latter three were slaves waiting to be sold. 

As the trio approached, one of the slavers happened to glance up in their direction. His eyes flew wide open at the sight of them. “Rainboo-”    

A shower of crystalline needles stabbed into the gang before the others even realized that they were in danger. The slavers screamed and cried out in agony, but Rarity showed no mercy as she methodically threw a razor-sharp crystal into each of their skulls.

“Huh, Ah was just about to let loose with the minigun,” Applejack said casually.

“It’s a good thing I got there first then.” Rarity tossed her hair and strode towards the cage containing the stunned slaves. “After all, I believe these unfortunates are going to need fresh clothes to get to Raven Rock.”

Applejack smirked and followed after her. “Fair point.”

The slaves tried to thank the trio for saving them, but they were too worn down by cold and hunger to muster up much energy. Adam and the girls quickly helped them to settle down around the fire, change out of their rags and into the slavers’ clothes, and have a small meal using supplies that the slavers had stashed around. 

While the slaves ate, Rarity adjusted their rags to fit Adam and Applejack a little better. There wasn’t much to them; merely a length of cloth each that could be wrapped around into a simple skirt, another strip of cloth for wrapping a woman’s chest, rough sandals, a leather harness that went around the ribs and over the shoulders, and finally a filthy poncho to protect against the cold. For the first time in her life, Applejack shuddered at the thought of wearing such a ragged outfit. 

“We’re going to fucking freeze in those,” Adam said with a shake of his head. Applejack opened her mouth to agree, but all of a sudden he whipped around and snapped up his plasma rifle, only to relax again a second later. “Where the hell did you come from?”

Applejack looked around to see Wernher striding towards the group. “I followed you,” he replied bluntly. “I’m very good at staying out of sight when I don’t want to be seen. It looks like your sorceress friend is going to have company on the way back to wherever she’s going, so do you mind if we skip the escort and get under way? Every hour we waste here is another one of my people dead, or worse.”

The way he was laying it on thick got Applejack’s back up, but at the same time she could understand where he was coming from. If he was telling the truth. “What do you think, Rares? The wastes might be all quiet-like thanks to the snow, but that sure as hell don’t mean that they’re safe.”

“I’ll be alright, Raven Rock is only a few miles from here,” Rarity assured her. “I’ll have Adam’s power armor, your minigun, and I imagine that these three won’t mind borrowing the slavers' weapons once they’ve rested up.”

Applejack nodded, glad that Rarity was comfortable with the plan, but now she was having to wrestle with her own anxiety of letting Rares cross the wastes without being able to properly use magic. 

Unaware of Applejack’s internal struggle, Adam sighed and got out of his power armor. Steam wafted from his sweat-streaked clothes as he stretched and shivered. “Man, this sucks already.”

“It’ll suck more once you’ve got those disguises on,” Wernher told him. “I’d get them on now if I were you; you can probably find somewhere to stash your clothes before we get to the Pitt, but there’s a good chance that some scavver will swipe it all while you’re dealing with Ashur’s crew. Leave behind anything you don’t want to lose.”

Applejack and Adam both grimaced. Neither of them liked the idea of putting the slave outfits on, especially in the snow, but it was probably for the best. Giving everyone a stern warning not to try and peek, Applejack shrugged off her minigun, snatched up her disguise, and stomped over to a nearby shelter that offered a little privacy. 

Stripping down was just as awful as Applejack had expected. The slave skirt barely reached halfway down her thighs, the harness restricted her breathing a little, she couldn’t even wear a bra with the chest-wrap, and thanks to how much she had sweated on the trek she was shivering more than a sapling in a storm. The only silver lining was the fact that Applejack’s Geode was easy enough to stitch into the inside of her new skirt, keeping it hidden. 

Gathering her effects, Applejack stepped out of the shelter and rejoined the others. Adam, already changed, was guiding Rarity as she clumsily waddled around in his power armor. 
Applejack fought the urge to stare as she spotted the strange black patches beneath the skin of his joints and ribs. “Hey, Adam, see if any of the slavers has a pack we can fit our clothes in,” she called out. 

“Sure thi-” Adam glanced over and quickly whirled away the second he saw Applejack. “Yep, sure thing! Can you get the minigun and stuff strapped to the armor?”

In the space of a few frigid minutes, the former slaves were armed and Rarity was loaded up like a pack mule. Adam’s weapons were strapped to her back along with the pack containing all of the good clothes, Applejack’s armor was tied across all of it like a bizarre turtle shell, and the minigun was clenched firmly in her hands. 

“Be careful with that thing, it’s harder to use than it looks,” Applejack warned. 

“I can well imagine,” Rarity grumbled. 

Applejack smiled softly. “One last thing.” With a strong sense of melancholy, she reached up and perched her hat on top of the power helmet. “Be careful with that too. Ah don’t want to see any more damage to it than it already has when we get back.”

The helmet hid Rarity’s face, but Applejack still felt her cheeks grow warm as the cold electronic eyes turned to her. Unfortunately, any further conversation was forestalled as Wernher coughed loudly. “Are you finally ready yet? Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Calm your tits. Ah don’t need my pretty coat on to plant my foot up your ass,” Applejack growled. She threw him the angriest glare she could muster, not an easy feat given how much her teeth were chattering, then turned back to Rarity. “Well, Ah guess we’re out of here for a while. Take care of yourself.”

“You too,” Rarity said quietly. 

Applejack just nodded and turned away. Adam had the pack containing their rations for the journey, so the two fell into step behind Wernher as he headed further west. 

The trio emerged from the makeshift shelters right next to a huge concrete train tunnel that backed onto a snowy slope. The main gate was shut, and probably had been for two centuries, but Wernher opened a small door next to it and led the others through. 

Applejack felt goose pimples rise all over her body as she stepped into the slightly warmer air of the tunnel. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw a single set of tracks leading down into darkness, lit only intermittently by burning barrels and flickering ceiling lights. An ancient handcar was sitting on the tracks right next to the gate. 

“This’ll get us to the Pitt,” Wernher said. “It’s a rough trip, but it’ll get warmer the further we get away from the Capital Wasteland. It isn’t anywhere near this fucking cold at the Pitt.”

“Thank fuck for that,” Applejack muttered. She allowed herself one last look back at the door, then took a deep breath and climbed up onto the handcar.





Elder Lyons put her pencil down and rubbed her eyes. She hated paperwork, but ever since becoming Elder she had had more and more of it to do than ever before. Even the Brotherhood getting almost wiped out by Unity somehow hadn’t seemed to put a dent in it.

Just as Lyons was psyching herself up to start on the next piece, a requisition form for certain magical crystals from the science team, someone knocked on the door. She glanced at Maxson standing to attention behind her, then called out to the Initiate outside, “What is it?”

The door opened and Initiate Peters stuck her head in. “Defender Morgan of the Outcasts is back. She says she has a message from her superiors.”

“Send her in,” Lyons said, eager to put off her paperwork for a little longer even if it meant dealing with a different pain in the ass. 

Peters stepped aside to let the woman in before closing the door behind her. Defender Morgan was out of her armor once again, instead wearing the blackened fatigues that the Outcasts were so fond of. Lyons offered her a curt nod. “Anne.”

“Elder Lyons,” Anne said politely. 

Lyons felt herself relax a little. The fact that Anne was following proper Brotherhood protocol was a good sign. “Have a seat.” Lyons waited for Anne to sit before resting her elbows on the table and interlocking her fingers. “So, what do your superiors have to say?”

Anne’s features twitched as she fought not to scowl. “They’re considering your offer of reconciliation. However, before they open formal negotiations, they have a request of you, as a gesture of good faith.”

The audacity of the Outcasts to ask for a favor after stealing a bunch of equipment when they split from the Chapter was galling, but Lyons forced herself to keep her tone neutral, “What sort of request?”

“We’ve discovered a cache of pre-war technology.” Anne grimaced, as if the discovery wasn’t exactly the sort of thing Outcasts dreamed of. “Unfortunately, we need a Pip-Boy to interface with it properly. We tried getting our hands on one ourselves, but…”

Lyons raised an eyebrow at her. She almost blurted out that the Outcasts could easily trade for one with Vault 101, or they might even be able to find one in one of the other wasteland settlements if they deigned to deal with ‘locals’, but she held herself back. “Your superiors want me to find them a Pip-Boy before they’ll negotiate?”

“That’s not all. The technology has fused with the magic that’s spreading across the wastes, and as far as we can tell it’s pretty unstable,” Anne explained. “I saw that the Rainbooms have Pip-Boys of their own, so my superiors have asked if you can send one of them to assist our recovery team as soon as possible.”

“Hm.” Lyons crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, pretending to consider the request. In truth, none of the Rainbooms were around, or she would have gladly agreed. Twilight was assisting the Enclave with Sunset’s recovery, Fluttershy and Pinkie were on a mission to Little Lamplight, Rarity and Applejack were on their way to the Pitt, and Rainbow was on her way to the Republic of Dave to investigate a report of Super Mutant attacks. “How soon is soon? I might be able to spare one of the Rainbooms in a few days, maybe a week-”

“That’s not soon enough,” Anne insisted. “We need them today if possible, or tomorrow at the absolute latest.”

Lyons shook her head. “Not a chance. The Brotherhood are at war, I can’t pull one of our best soldiers off a mission just so they can-” She stopped mid-sentence as a thought occurred to her. Ignoring Anne’s questioning look, Lyons looked through her stack of paperwork until she came across a missive from the Enclave. Luckily, President Shoichet was still at Rivet City, personally making sure that the most recent delivery of equipment was being transferred properly, so it would be easy enough to request a meeting. The tricky part would be getting a certain someone to agree to Lyons’ idea. “I can’t spare the Rainbooms, but I might, might, be able to spare someone else who has experience with magic.” 
> Chapter 189 - A Request and a Railway
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Tide Staff glittered as Luna turned it over in her hands. It was just over three feet long and an inch or two thick, more of a stave than a staff, wickedly sharp at one end while the pearl nestled in the root-like fronds at the other was utterly flawless. Luna was sure that the stave was a darker blue than it had been when she ripped it from Rivet City’s flight deck; a gorgeously vivid sapphire that matched the stripes in her hair. Unfortunately, despite its provenance, it didn’t seem to have any obvious magic. 

With a sigh, Luna set the stave down and looked over at the others. Trixie and Sonata were both sitting on their beds, the former fiddling with what looked like a trick wand, while the latter was lovingly polishing her torc with a dry cloth. The three had essentially been stuck in their room since the coordinated Super Mutant attack, so Luna was glad to see that the girls weren’t going stir-crazy. They hadn’t even argued all that much, which was a real blessing.

Just as Luna was deciding whether or not she was in the mood to get some maintenance done on her assault rifle, someone knocked tentatively on the door. 

“Is it dinner time already?” Sonata asked curiously. 

“Not yet,” Luna replied as she stood and strolled over to the door. She was surprised and a little concerned to see Initiate Peters standing outside. “Good afternoon, do you need something?”

“I’ve got a request from Elder Lyons,” Peters replied evenly. “She wants to speak to the three of you as soon as possible,” 

Sonata looked up with an excited grin. “You guys need my magic?!”

“Why does she want to speak to all of us?” Trixie asked warily.

“Calm down, girls, it’s probably nothing serious,” Luna assured them, though she couldn’t help a flutter of fear herself. She didn’t let her feelings show on her face as she turned back to the Initiate. “We’re not busy at the moment, so we can see the Elder right now if she wants.”

Peters nodded. “She hoped you’d say that. Follow me.”

Luna ushered the girls out of the room, making sure to lock the door behind them, and gestured for Peters to lead the way. Instead of heading to the Brotherhood of Steel’s temporary command room, the Initiate led the three to the nearest T-Port. One priority teleport later and the group were shown out into the corridor with the security lounge.
Walking straight past the lounge, Peters instead led the trio to a room further down the corridor, knocked on the door, then opened it at an order from inside and gestured for them to enter. 

The room beyond looked like some sort of training area, with padded mats on the floor and crates and lockers around the walls. To Luna’s surprise, not only were Elder Lyons and Squire Maxson waiting inside, but President Shoichet and Agent Drops were present as well. 

“I appreciate you all coming on such short notice,” Elder Lyons said as Peters closed the door. “We’re on the clock here, so I’m going to skip right to the chase; we need Sonata’s help.”

“I knew it!” Sonata exclaimed.

Luna arched an eyebrow, hoping that this conversation wasn’t going where she thought it was going. “I assume this is an inquiry about magic that can’t wait until the Rainbooms return?”

“Actually, yes, at least to an extent,” Lyons replied. “Have you heard of the Brotherhood Outcasts.” Luna nodded, having been given a rundown of the recent big meeting by Rainbow Dash before she left for the Mall. “Well, their envoy has just turned up and asked us to lend them someone knowledgeable about magic. I offered the services of one of the Rainbooms when they get back from their missions, but the Outcasts say they need the help by tomorrow at the latest, and the girls will not be back by then.”

Hearing that the issue was an urgent request from a group outside of Rivet City or the Enclave did little to assuage Luna’s concerns. “Surely it would be more appropriate to send one of your Scribes, or one of the Enclave scientists that have been researching magic?”

The President shook her head with a rueful smile. “All of our scientists are currently at either the Exodus building or the Air Base, and I can’t spare any Vertibirds to shuffle them around. Believe me, if I had any transport available, I’d be back at the Exodus building with Tara already, and I’d have Horrigan escort our scientists just to put the fear of God into those Outcast assholes.”

Elder Lyons smirked at that, but her expression quickly turned somber. “As for Scribes, the only ones here in Rivet City are the apprentices who are just beginning their studies on magic; most of the ones who have prior experience with it are either at Raven Rock or helping see what we can salvage from the ruins of the Citadel. I wouldn’t be asking if I had any other options whatsoever.”

“It’s fine, I’ll totally help you,” Sonata said smugly. 

“Excellent! This should help us rebuild the Brotherhood that much faster.” Seeing the look on Luna’s face, Lyons added, “Don’t worry, the location they want Sonata to look at is just to the west of the D.C. ruins, and their envoy brought an escort with them. She’ll be as safe as anyone can be out there.”

Luna wasn’t convinced, but Sonata was well aware of the dangers and had still agreed to go anyway. “Sonata going is one thing, but why did you want to speak to all three of us?”

“A few reasons,” Lyons replied. “First, it’s clear that you hold yourself responsible for Miss Dusk while she’s here, so I feel I should at least do you the courtesy of keeping you in the loop. Second, the Outcasts want to borrow a Pip-Boy for this mission, so I was hoping you could provide the one the Disciples of Harmony gave you.”

“Sure, that won’t be a problem,” Luna said, relieved that this at least was an easy request. “You’ll just have to have someone unlock the biometric lock though, I’ve already keyed it to myself and I don’t know how to undo it.”

Lyons groaned and massaged her temples. “I forgot that the D.C. Vaults had that feature fitted as standard. That’s going to be a problem. I think Scribe Rothchild and his apprentices knew the finer details of Vault-Tec programming, but they were all killed at the Citadel.” She glanced at Shoichet. “I don’t suppose you know how to program a Pip-Boy?”

The President shrugged and shook her head. “I know a little programming, but Pip-Boys are beyond me. The Enclave hasn’t really messed around with them for over a hundred years. We do have a Vault-Tec representative who could probably tell us how to undo the bio-lock, but it’s Doctor Turner, and contacting him isn’t really an option as he’s currently locked in a secure lab experimenting on his own mutations. Not in the time frame the Outcasts have given, anyway.”

A memory of the horrifically mutated scientist in the Exodus building rose up in Luna’s mind and made her shudder. 

“So, does that mean Luna is coming with us, or are you just going to find another one?” Sonata asked. 

“Pip-Boys don’t pop up in markets around the Capital Wasteland very often, which is part of the reason traders are so interested in Vault 101 finally opening its doors.” Lyons turned to Luna with a grim expression. “I know this is a big ask, but would you be willing to go along with the Outcasts as well?”

Luna wanted nothing more than to refuse, but doing so seemed like it would affect diplomatic relations in the wastes, and Sonata or the Rainbooms would probably end up getting wrapped up in it all anyway at some point or another. It would be better to get it over and done with. “Alright, but only on the condition that the Outcasts escort us back here the moment we finish what they’re asking.”

“Wait a minute, you can’t leave me here on my own!” Trixie exclaimed. 

“This is going to be dangerous, Trixie,” Luna said firmly. “You of all people should know how bad things are out in the wastes, staying here in Rivet City is your safest bet by far.” Trixie opened her mouth to argue only to give up and look down at the floor. 

“I suppose this makes the third reason I called you all here all the more important,” Lyons put in. “The Enclave brought some armor for the three of you with one of their supply shipments.”

President Shoichet nodded. “The security team has been screening everything the Enclave ships in, but I asked them to check these crates over as soon as I heard about the Outcast’s request so Sonata could get kitted out before she left.” She stepped over to a trio of shiny Enclave-issue crates by the wall and hauled them open one by one. “Come take a look.”

As curious as she was cautious, Luna looked in the crate the President directed her to. A dull gray bodysuit was folded neatly on top. It was supple and surprisingly soft to the touch, and when she pulled it out Luna noted darker padded sections on the chest and shoulder blades as well as on each of the joints. Heavier-looking, matte-black armor sections were packed neatly beneath it in the crate.

“It’s armor given to Secret Service members when combat is expected,” Agent Drops explained as she sidled up next to Luna. “You put the underarmor on first, that’s the bodysuit you’re holding, and the rest goes on top.”

Luna raised an eyebrow. “If it’s meant for the Secret Service, doesn’t that mean that it’s pretty rare?”

Agent Drops shrugged. “I’m the only surviving active or former member of the Secret Service at the moment other than Horrigan, and this stuff doesn’t fit him. Besides, this particular set is designed for nocturnal operations, which the President thought you might appreciate.” Luna couldn’t help a small smirk upon hearing that. “I can help you put it all on if you want, but you’ll have to strip down to your lightest clothing first. There’s a vest in the crate as well if you need one.”

Torn between nerves at the thought of venturing outside and excitement at wearing genuine military armor, Luna changed into the underarmor and let Agent Drops help her get the armor on. First up was a plated chest piece that completely enclosed her upper torso, a utility belt that went around her waist, and a smaller piece with hinged plates that protected her pelvis. Next came pauldrons and vambraces for her arms, greaves for her shins, plates that Luna was fairly sure were called cuisses for her thighs, and finally tiny plates that clamped over the top of her boots to protect her feet.

“That’s all of it,” Agent Drops said when it was done. “There’s supposed to be a helmet with this, but we couldn’t find it anywhere in storage.”

“It’s fine,” Luna said simply. Looking down at herself, she felt like some sort of dark paladin ready to go and punish those who did evil. Shaking her head to try and clear the ridiculous notion, Luna glanced over at Sonata. 

The siren was wearing a less comprehensive set of armor, with less bulky torso protection and smaller plates over her limbs, all painted with a blue and gray camouflage pattern. Even her underarmor looked to be made of a paler and rougher material than Luna’s.

“Urban scout armor,” the President said simply. “The armory guys tried to find a suit of Secret Service armor for each of you, but we don’t have many complete suits left. Miss Lulamoon has the same set.”

Luna looked around to see Trixie putting on her cape and hat over a suit of identical scout armor. The young magician scowled as she realized she was being watched. “I can at least try it on and get used to it, can’t I?”

Luna wasn’t fooled for an instant. “You’re planning on sneaking out and following us, aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?! I would never do something like that!” Trixie exclaimed in an impressively indignant tone despite having done exactly that once already. She maintained a shocked and offended expression under Luna’s glare, almost convincing the Vice-Principal that she was telling the truth, but after a few seconds she caved and averted her eyes. “I can’t be the only one left behind when everyone is out there in the wastes. I can’t stand it.”

As much as she hated to admit it, Luna understood the sentiment. On top of that, if Trixie was determined to sneak out, then she would almost certainly succeed even if Rivet City Security were tasked with keeping her contained. Luna sighed heavily. “If you’re going to come along, then at least wear a helmet.” 

“I can’t see through it,” Trixie said flatly. Seeing Luna’s expression, she added quickly, “It’s fine, if anything goes wrong I’ll just drop a smoke bomb and get out of the way, I promise.”





Applejack squinted as she tried to see through the darkness. Adam and Wernher were taking the first turn pumping the handcar’s lever, so she was sitting on the front of it to serve as a lookout. 

The last of the burning barrels was far behind the group, leaving just intermittent and weak ceiling lights to provide faint illumination, and the only sounds were the creak of the handcar’s lever and the trundling of its wheels echoing down the tunnel. 

“How long will it take us to get to the Pitt?” Applejack asked. 

Wernher grunted as he pushed the lever down. “It took me almost two days, but with three of us it shouldn’t take more than one. There’s a whole network of tunnels and old highways down here. It’s easy to get lost, and there’s a few dangerous areas we’re going to have to pass through, but we should be able to pick up a guide along the way, and it’s way safer than going above ground.”

“Are you sure about that?” Applejack pressed.

“Positive,” Wernher replied. “The Brotherhood of Steel might have managed it all those years ago, but things have changed since then. You’ve got the Buchanan Rotlands, the giant ant megacolony in Merset, Berk Rings for fuck’s sake, the Red Flags have been building some sort of base in Inchest, and that’s before you get into all of the trogs, wildmen, ghouls, deathclaws, and yao guai that infest the places between.” He hawked up a gobbet of phlegm and spat it onto the floor. “Trust me, this way is better. The Skavvers might be creepy ass mutants, but at least they can be reasoned with.”

Applejack didn’t quite understand everything he mentioned, but she got the gist of it. She sighed and turned her attention back to the tracks ahead. Adam was the next one to break the near-silence, “I assume there’s magic in the Pitt?”

“How did you guess?” Wernher asked. 

“You weren’t all that fazed by Rarity’s magic,” Adam replied. “Most people who see the Rainbooms in action for the first time don’t just shrug it off and call them sorceresses.”

Wernher let out a low laugh. “Fair enough. Yeah, magic turned up in the Pitt a couple of months ago. It freaked the fuck out of all of us at first, especially when it started changing the trogs even more, but we’ve been getting it under control. Ashur and his goons have been trying to figure out how to make magic alloys with the steel the slaves gather.” 

Applejack whipped her head around as a thought occurred to her. “Wait, does that mean there’s magic down here, too?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” Wernher replied cryptically.
> Chapter 190 - Underground, Overground, Wombling Free...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Grab what you need as quickly as you can, girls,” Luna said as she stepped into their room. 

Trixie and Sonata did as they were told, hurrying over to their beds and gathering up their things. Once again, Luna second-guessed her decision to allow Trixie along, but she put it from her mind and headed to her own bed. Stimpaks were the first thing she grabbed, stuffing them into her new utility belt, followed by a few bottles of water, a pack of Enclave ration biscuits, and her new torch. Next came the Pip-Boy and her assault rifle, which were slipped over Luna’s arm and slung over her shoulder respectively. Finally she glanced down at Excalibat and her Tide Stave. 

“Done!” Sonata exclaimed eagerly as she hopped over to Luna’s side. She had her police baton and combat knife both attached to her belt, and her torc just peeked out from under her armor. “Aren’t you ready to go?”

Luna shook her head. “I’m just deciding which one of these to bring.” She sighed and reached for Excalibat. “I suppose this makes the most sense.” 

“Seriously? You aren’t gonna bring the Tide Staff?” Sonata asked. 

“It’s more of a stave than a staff, and no, I’m not,” Luna replied as she slipped a long sock over the end of the bat and used a set of velcroed straps to sling it across her back for relatively easy access. “If I carry too much big stuff it’ll just get in the way, I’ve already got a gun, and personally I think a baseball bat will be easier for me to use than a pointy stick.” 

Sonata gave her a blank look. “Why don’t you just figure out how to use the magic in it while we walk?”

Luna stared at her in shock. “You mean there really is magic in that thing?!”

“Well duh,” Sonata replied in a patronizing tone. She wilted beneath Luna’s glare, and she continued in a far more respectful voice, “The, uh, Hippogryphs used to use Tide Staffs back before we were thrown into your world. Plus, I can sense the magic in it.”

“You could have just said that in the first place,” Luna huffed. She frowned at the stave, trying to figure out how to carry it without it getting in the way. Finally, she had Sonata help her to rig up some more straps so the Tide Stave would sit diagonally across her back alongside Excalibat. It wasn’t efficient or even particularly practical, but it was the best she could manage on a whim.

“I’m ready too,” Trixie announced. She rolled her shoulders to try and settle her armor a little better. “How do people manage with this stuff? It’s heavy.”

Luna didn’t have the heart to tell her that her scout armor was probably considerably lighter than the combat armor that the Rainbooms all wore. “You’ll get used to it. Are you absolutely sure that you want to come with us? This could well be dangerous, and the Rainbooms aren’t going to be there to help this time.”

A determined nod was Trixie’s only response before she strode out of the room. Luna sighed and followed her, making sure to lock the door again just in case. The trio made their way through the corridors, ignoring the stares of residents and visitors alike, until they found Elder Lyons waiting for them at the city’s entrance. 

“You’re all ready to go?” Lyons asked. Luna replied that they were. “Good. Remember, these people may call themselves Brotherhood, but they’re only loyal to an older and far more insular version of our organization. They aren’t interested in the common good. If they give you any trouble whatsoever, or try to force you to do anything you don’t want to do, you’ve all got a distress pulser in your belts. Just press the big red button and Liberty Prime will come to fetch you.”

“Or I can just sing for them,” Sonata offered. 

Lyons raised a curious eyebrow, but thought better of asking as she shook her head. “I don’t even want to know, just do whatever you think is necessary. Defender Morgan is waiting outside with her escort. Good luck.”

Luna thanked her and hauled the entrance door open. As expected, there were three power-armored soldiers waiting when she stepped outside. Their armor was largely the same as that worn by the main Brotherhood save for a rough black and red paint job, and all three of them were pointedly ignoring the Rivet City guards. 

“Hey, Anne, pay attention! These ladies are here to help with your problem,” Lyons called out as she followed the trio outside. 

The Outcasts turned at her call. Only one of them, a dark-skinned woman with brutally short black hair, wasn’t wearing a helmet. She looked the newbies over with an expression that clearly showed her derision. “These are your experts on magic?”

“Sonata knows more about magic than anyone except the Rainbooms, and Luna owns one of the Pip-Boys that you so desperately need.” Lyons fixed Anne with a contemptuous glare. “If you’re not going to treat these women with the bare minimum level of respect, then you’re welcome to fuck off and deal with your own mess.”

Anger clouded Anne’s features, but she kept her tone neutral as she pointed out, “That’s Enclave armor.”

Lyons nodded. “That’s because they’re technically the Enclave’s responsibility, not the Brotherhood’s, but make no mistake, they’re from the same reality as the Rainbooms. Take good care of them. If your people so much as look at them funny, war or not, there won’t be a damn thing I can do to stop the Enclave and the Rainbooms competing to see who can turn the most Outcasts into confetti.”

The Outcasts stiffened at the blatant threat. For a moment, Luna thought that they might change their minds and leave, but Anne just nodded curtly. “We’ll bring them back in one piece.” She abruptly turned away from Lyons and glanced at the trio. “We should get moving. There’s a long way to go and the sooner we get this done the better.” Without another word, the Outcasts turned and stomped away across the bridge. 

“Good luck,” Lyons said quietly. “Remember, if you get into any trouble, just use your distress pulsers.” Thanking her didn’t seem right, so Luna just offered her a nod and set off after the Outcasts with Sonata and Trixie in tow. 

Neither Anne nor her escorts looked around as the three caught up. They simply marched through the Embark Center in silence, once again ignoring the Rivet City personnel, until they reached the bottom and strode away down the road without so much as a backward glance. 

It wasn’t until the ship was well behind them that one of the Outcasts muttered, “Sibley isn’t going to like this.”

“I don’t give a shit what Sibley thinks, Protectors Casdin and McGraw both agreed to this mission,” Anne retorted. “Now stow the chatter until we’re past Project Purity.”

Hearing that there was dissension in the ranks of the Outcasts shouldn’t have been a surprise to Luna, but it still made her even more concerned than she already was. Still, she knew better than to try and poke her nose in where it didn’t belong. 

It didn’t take long for the group to reach the boundaries of Project Purity. Luna noted that the garrison had added an energy barrier and a handful of gun turrets since the last time she had come through. The Knights on guard duty waved the group through without any fuss, though a flicker of annoyance flashed across Anne’s face as two of them split off to guide the group through the purifier’s defenses.

Thankfully, none of the Brotherhood, Enclave, or Rivet City personnel gave the group anything more than a passing glance as they made their way around the Memorial building. Most of them were too busy tending to repairs or keeping an eye out for danger in any case. 

As the group reached the front of the building, they all suddenly stopped in their tracks. “Whoa,” Sonata half-whispered. 

A massive robot standing guard in the middle of the yard, shifting slightly on the spot as it looked around for any possible threats. 

“That’s Liberty Prime?!” Trixie exclaimed. 

“Apparently,” Luna replied in an awestruck voice. She had heard the stories about the Brotherhood of Steel’s walking superweapon, but there was a big difference between hearing stories and seeing it in person. “Suddenly I feel a little more optimistic about all of this.”

The Outcasts all stared up at the robot blankly. “I still can’t believe those traitors managed to get that thing working,” one of them said bluntly, 

“THEY HAD CIVILIAN AID.” All six of the travelers tensed as Liberty Prime slowly turned to look down at them. “KEEP MOVING, COMMUNISTS. AND PROTECT THE MOONS-” he slowly raised an arm to point at the Outcast that had spoken, “-OR I WILL FIND YOU.”

Nobody moved as the shock of being addressed by a giant death machine sank in. The Knights gave the group a couple of seconds to gather themselves before growing impatient. “You heard the big guy, let's keep it moving.” 

It looked like Anne might protest for a moment, her eyes narrowing as she glanced sidelong at the Knight, but she kept her mouth shut and simply marched on. Luna idly wondered about the ‘Moons’ nickname that Liberty had used, but she soon forgot about it as the group were led away from the purifier. 

The Outcasts mostly kept their heads down as they walked. Luna and the other Moons, however, looked around eagerly at the defenses that had built up around the facility. Gun turrets, prefabricated barricades, artillery emplacements and energy barriers dotted the road, all backed up by Enclave soldiers and Brotherhood Knights, forming a nightmarish gauntlet for any enemy force foolish enough to attack. Even the buildings on either side of the road had been reinforced with metallic plates and even more turrets. 

“Impressive, isn’t it?” One of the Knights said, seeing the looks of wonder on the Moons’ faces. “These defenses go all the way to the main bridge near the Citadel Ruins. Even with a Behemoth on their side, the Super Mutants couldn’t breach the first gate. Hell, if it weren’t for that teleporting freak, we wouldn’t have suffered a single casualty in the battle here. Now that he’s dealt with, and we’re fortifying the rear, this place is damn near impregnable.”

“Waste of good tech,” one of the Outcasts muttered.

“Can it, Hobbes,” Anne warned.

Sonata nodded sagely. “Yeah, you probably shouldn’t annoy people who could literally kill you any second.”

“Says the one who learned from experience,” Trixie shot.

“So did you!” Sonata barked back. 

“That’s enough, girls,” Luna cut in. She was privately glad that Sonata had actually learned something, but she didn’t dare to say it out loud. “How far is the Outcast outpost from here?”

Anne glanced at the Knights before looking back over her shoulder. “Not far as the crow flies. We’re going to have to take the scenic route, but it shouldn’t take too long once we’re past the Citadel, or what’s left of it. Less if we stop dawdling.”





“Don’t you think you should’ve warned us that we might need our guns?” Applejack asked casually. 

“Shut up,” Wernher replied sourly as he reloaded his pistol. Two feral ghouls lay dead on the tracks ahead, having appeared from a maintenance corridor and charged at the handcart. “I didn’t see any ghouls in this area last time I came through, and I had a couple of Skavvers with me as guides. Hopefully we don’t run into anything else until we can find someone.”

Applejack shrugged and resumed her job as lookout while the other two got the cart moving again. Two regular ferals were hardly a threat to her or Adam, even without their gear, but there was no point in risking close combat while they had a gun handy. 

“Are you any good with a pistol, or do you just use big guns ‘cause you can’t aim for shit?” Wernher asked.

“Ah can’t say Ah’ve ever used a pistol, but Ah ain’t a bad shot with a paintball gun or a shotgun,” Applejack replied. “Why? You got a spare?”

Wernher pulled out another revolver and handed it to her. “This is my back-up piece. I don’t have any extra .32 rounds, so try not to miss.”

“You got it.” The revolver was smaller than his main pistol, lacking a scope and in need of some proper maintenance, but it was better than nothing. Applejack held it loosely at her side as the cart trundled along. 

The tunnels were actually starting to get more interesting as the trio progressed. There were places where strangely colored veins threaded through the walls like otherworldly ores, crude caves and tunnels dug out of the concrete by who-knows-what, and of course the occasional corridors, sidings and offices for pre-war rail workers. Every now and again the tracks split off into a smaller side tunnel, but Wernher assured his companions that they needed to stay on the main line for the moment.

After a while, Applejack’s mind started to wander. Something about being underground in the perpetual gloom was warping her sense of time; she didn’t have even the faintest idea of how long they had been riding the handcart for.

“Heads up, I think there’s someone up ahead,” Adam said suddenly.

Applejack immediately rose into a crouch and readied the pistol. Adam could take a map to the shitter and still get lost wiping his ass, but Applejack knew better than to question his instincts when it came to avoiding danger. Soon enough, the tunnel opened up into a wide junction of sorts, with several rail lines converging and splitting off again into half a dozen different tunnels. 

Ten well-muscled people were gathered in the center of the junction next to a cart full of scrap. They were all wearing battered old hard hats, threadbare high-vis jackets, and the odd armor plate made out of scrap metal. Two had railway rifles, one was lugging a worryingly large pneumatic hammer, and the rest had a mix of sledgehammers and power fists. “Who are you?” A tall woman with shaggy black hair asked. “Where you going?”

“We’re just travelers passing through,” Wernher replied warily. “We’re heading for the Pitt.”

The woman’s face darkened. “Pitt raider.”

“We ain’t raiders, Ah can promise you that,” Applejack cut in quickly. She lowered her gun and sat back down in an attempt to show that they weren’t a threat. “We just want to get through these tunnels as quickly and peacefully as possible. In fact, we could really use a guide, if you guys are willin’?”

The group glanced at each other, speaking in voices too low for the trio to hear, before the woman turned back to them. “Diamond Dogs too busy to take strangers to Pitt, but can take you to Skavver town. They’ll help.” She sent a couple of her people to man the railway switches. “Get handcart on right track, then follow Diamond Dogs. Skavvers not far.”
> Chapter 191 - So Many Paths, So Little Singing
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Traveling with the Diamond Dogs was safer than Applejack had expected. Aside from the obvious benefits of moving in numbers, the Dogs had incredibly sharp senses capable of detecting danger long before it came into view, and immense strength on par with any powerlifter. Bands of feral ghouls and roving giant ants were all snuffed out by bursts of violence as swift as they were brutal. 

“Is this the way we’re supposed to be going?” Adam asked as the Dogs regrouped after bludgeoning more ferals to death. 

“Hell if I know,” Wernher replied. “I know we’re supposed to take one of the turnoffs from that junction, but I don’t know which one. Either way, the Skavvers will know which way to go. No-one knows these tunnels like they do.”

Applejack glanced back at him. “Are you sure they’ll help?”

Wernher gave a confident nod. “I’ve got a few chunks of magic crystal from the Pitt, it’ll be enough to get us a guide.”

Hearing that he had at least thought ahead enough to bring something to trade put Applejack a little more at ease. It wasn’t caps, but she didn’t know whether or not folks living underground would even use caps. 

“Not far now, just around the next corner,” one of the Diamond Dogs called back. 

Applejack sat up a little straighter and looked ahead eagerly. Wernher had called the Skavvers creepy, but she couldn’t help wondering what sort of settlement people could actually build in an underground rail line. Unfortunately, when the group rounded the next corner, they found the path blocked by a massive wall fashioned from layers of welded metal plates. An assortment of different-sized steel spikes jutted randomly out from the wall.

The leader of the Diamond Dogs barely slowed her pace as she called out, “Diamond Dogs and travelers coming to trade! Open up!”

Barely a moment later, the makeshift barricade split down the middle and swung silently inwards, revealing itself to be a gateway. 

“Okay, that’s kinda cool,” Applejack admitted. 

Beyond the gateway was another identical one. As soon as everyone was through the first gate it slowly closed again, enclosing the group in a worryingly cramped space ringed with spikes, but the Diamond Dogs just waited calmly as if this was normal. Only when the first gate was fully closed did the second one finally open. Applejack couldn’t help but gasp in awe when the handcart rolled through the second gate. 

The tunnel ahead opened out into a vast cavern, with one set of tracks curving around to reach a wide concrete platform that linked the railway to an underground highway. Dozens of platforms and shacks had been built on the floor, the walls, on stilts in the middle of the area, and even dangling from the ceiling on chains. A complicated network of ladders, bridges and cables connected everything together. 

Well over a hundred people were dotted around the strange little settlement. Even more were coming and going through the highway exits, carrying everything from scrap metal to crates of bottled water. Most of them were deathly pale and wearing either practical work clothes or swathed in thick hooded robes that completely obscured their bodies. 

As Applejack watched, a gaggle of robed figures approached the visitors. Most of them went to the Diamond Dogs, speaking with the warmth of familiarity, but two of them made a beeline for Applejack’s group. “Travelers looking to trade?” One of them asked in a raspy voice. 

“Yeah, we need a guide to the Pitt,” Wernher replied, hopping down from the handcart. 

The Skavver bobbed his head and gestured for him to follow. “This way. Show us good stuff and we’ll get you a guide, yes-yes. Boggle will deal with other guests.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow as the two walked away, leaving her and Adam with the other robed Skavver. “Ah’m guessin’ you must be Boggle?”

“Yes, I’m Boggle,” the Skavver replied. “Here to trade as well?”

Applejack glanced at Adam. He shrugged and shook his head, so she replied, “Nah, all we really need is a guide right now.”

Boggle bobbed his head instead of nodding. “Fair.” He gestured to a shack near the platform. “Toilets and food-places that way. All Skav Clans welcome outsiders who don’t cause trouble.”

“Is that why you’ve got at least six hidden guns and…” Adam sniffed loudly. “Two flamers pointed at us?”

It took a second for Applejack to realize what he had said, but, to her horror, Boggle just chuckled dryly. “Observant, for a human. Skav Clans welcome outsiders that don’t cause trouble. If outsiders cause trouble, jezzails make trouble go away, yes-yes.”

Applejack felt her blood run cold. What Wernher had said about the Skavvers being creepy suddenly made a lot more sense. “Ah’m, uh, Ah’m gonna sit and wait with the handcart. 





The ruins of the Citadel looked completely and utterly forlorn. From what Luna had heard, it had once been a proud fortress; a scarred but proud icon of strength and courage in the Capital Wasteland. Now, all that remained were a few skeletal walls teetering around the edge of an enormous crater. 

“I wonder if the traitors left anything valuable behind?” Hobbes muttered. 

“The Brotherhood salvaged everything even vaguely useful or sentimental,” Luna told him. The Outcast soldier had started mouthing off about the regular Brotherhood the instant they were through Project Purity’s defenses, and it was beginning to grate on her nerves. 

Unfortunately, Anne didn’t seem particularly inclined to shut Hobbes up. She just sighed and turned away from the ruins, shaking her head. “Enough dawdling, I want to get to and through the metro as quickly as we can.”

Sonata’s head whipped around so quickly Luna half-expected to hear a snap. “Hey, you didn’t say anything about going through the metro tunnels!”

Anne raised an eyebrow at the siren’s outburst. “What’s wrong with using the metro?”

“Uh, everything!” Sonata exclaimed. “There’s feral ghouls, black-eyed monsters, those weird freaks with red skin, and giant bats!”

The Outcasts snorted and tried to hide their laughter, which prompted Luna to speak up in support, “The monsters Sonata mentioned were present at the attack on Rivet City, too; they’re feral ghouls that have been mutated by magic. As for the people, the Brotherhood and the Enclave call them the Scorched, and the bats are called-”

“Scorchbeasts?” Anne finished. Her expression was skeptical. “Those things went extinct over a century ago, I know my history.”

“You know Brotherhood of Steel history. Your people aren’t the only ones to have encountered Scorchbeasts over the years.” Luna decided not to mention that the creatures had been bred by the Enclave at Raven Rock. “I agree with Sonata, is there any way other than the Metro?”

Anne shook her head. “If we could forge a path through the ruins, I’d say yes, but even power armor can’t handle that much rubble.”

“I’ll do it! Just show me which way we need to go!” Sonata offered eagerly.

Anne glanced from Luna to Trixie and back, as if expecting them to refute Sonata’s claim. When they didn’t, she shrugged and pulled a small folded-up map out of a pouch on her hip. “If we’re taking a direct path, then…” She pointed across the ruins near the remains of the Citadel. “That would be the way, roughly.”

“Got it, everybody stand back!” Sonata confidently strode in the direction Anne had pointed, while Trixie, the only one out of the group that had seen Sonata in action in this world, backpedaled as quickly as she could. Luna figured that Trixie probably had the right idea and joined her in backing away, just in case. 

“You, uh, you might want to cover your ears,” Trixie said in an undertone. 

Luna glanced at her in alarm, remembering full well the power the Dazzlings had unleashed during the Battle of the Bands at CHS, and clamped her hands over her ears. Sonata was already standing at the base of a pile of rubble, performing what looked like breathing exercises. Seconds later, she reached a hand up to her torc and sucked in a deep breath. 

The sound crashed over Luna like a tidal wave. The sheer force of the siren’s song made her very bones vibrate, almost driving her to her knees. As powerful as the sonic attack was from where Luna was standing, it was vastly more so at the point it was actually targeted, waves of physical force pulverizing stone, reducing concrete to dust and blasting nearby debris away like dry leaves in a gale. Eventually, the song stopped and the echoes slowly died away, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. 

“Jesus H Christ,” Hobbes spat. “What the fuck was that?!”

“Magic, obviously,” Trixie replied bluntly. 

The three Outcasts stared at Sonata in stunned disbelief. Luna tried to keep her own expression as unfazed as possible, but she was just as shocked as anyone at the raw power of Sonata’s magic. The fact that it provided a stark reminder of just how much conflict there was even in this barren part of the world. Luna glanced at Trixie, who just shrugged at her. 

“You still think going back to Lyons is a bad idea, Hobbes?” The other Outcast soldier asked. 

“Fuck off,” Hobbes hissed. 

Blissfully unaware of the effect she was having on the others, or perhaps fully aware and enjoying it, Sonata waved at the group with an ecstatic grin plastered across her face. Anne visibly steeled herself before addressing the others, “It looks like our new friend has opened up a path for us. We may as well use it.”

Sonata planted her hands on her hips and threw her head back haughtily as the group approached. “So? How’d I do?”

“Well every bastard from Point Lookout to Arroyo knows that we’re here now, but I guess this means we won’t have to use the metro.” Anne ignored Sonata’s celebratory fist-pump and stared at the canyon smashed through the ruins. As everyone watched, a badly ravaged building collapsed under its own weight, throwing up a cloud of dust and snow. “Keep an eye out for falling rocks,” Anne added drily. 

The group advanced cautiously, keeping an eye out for weakened structures or any hostile beings dumb enough to move towards the deafeningly loud burst of magic. Thankfully, not much of either variety appeared on the trek through the even-more-devastated ruins, even after the group left the area that Sonata had blasted open; just a couple of unstable walls and the occasional feral ghoul that the Outcasts dealt with. 

Soon enough, the group emerged into a war-torn street lined with tall office buildings and the like. “How far out are we?” Hobbes asked. 

Anne raised an eyebrow at him. “You got some place you need to be?”

“We’ve never been able to get through this way before, I’ve lost my bearings,” Hobbes replied evenly. 

“Fair enough.” Anne checked the map again, muttering under her breath as she figured out where they were. “I think we’re past the old Mason District, so Bailey’s Crossroads should be right around the-” She was interrupted by a guttural roar from up ahead, followed by a lone gunshot that sparked off of her armor and made everyone flinch. “Shit! You three, get in cover!”

Trixie was already running towards the nearest building, so Luna grabbed Sonata and belted after her. The door protested on rusty hinges as Trixie slammed it open. Luna shoved Sonata through first, whipped her rifle off of her shoulder and braced herself against the wall to look outside. Bullets and laser fire whizzed through the air as the Outcasts fought back against whoever was attacking them. 

“Who is it? Is it Talon Company again?” Sonata asked anxiously. 

“I don’t know,” Luna replied, trying in vain to spy where the enemy fire was coming from. “If you get a chance to use your magic without catching us or the Outcasts, Sonata, do it. Trixie, just stick to your promise and… Trixie?” She glanced around only to find that Trixie was nowhere to be seen. “Where is she?!”

Sonata just shrugged. She opened her mouth to say something, but Luna was distracted as a monster lumbered down the stairs behind her. It looked vaguely like Fawkes, though it was a little shorter and lacked any of the heavy armor he bore, and it held a blood-stained sledgehammer in one meaty fist. The Super Mutant blinked in surprise as it spotted the duo, but recovered quickly and raised its hammer as it yelled, “Rainbooms!”

“Get down!” Luna snapped her rifle up and fired a short burst into the Mutant’s chest as it made to charge. The creature swayed on its feet but, terrifyingly, glared at her with an expression more of anger than pain. 

“I will brea-” The Mutant shuddered as Luna fired again, emptying her magazine into it until it finally keeled over, dead. 

Sonata gave her an appreciative look. “Nice one. I thought you teachers were all pathetic, but I guess-” The backhanded compliment was cut off as heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs. 

Two more Super Mutants barrelled down the stairs together, one clutching a rifle, the other holding a nail-studded wooden stick. Sonata immediately touched her torc and started singing; a simple yet haunting melody that Luna had heard before, one that slipped into the mind and made you feel like wonderful things could happen if you would only listen. Unfortunately, the Super Mutants were either resistant to the song, or just slow on the uptake, as the one with the gun grimaced and spat, “Dumb noise!” 

The Mutant fired from the hip, the bullet miraculously missing and cracking the wall over Sonata’s shoulder, but it made her stop singing and yelp in fright. Her torc amplified the sound, turning a frightened yelp into a sharp blast that made everyone stagger and set Luna’s ears ringing. Gritting her teeth, the VIce-Principal raised her gun and blasted the gun-wielding Mutant before it could gather its wits, bullets striking every part of its upper body as recoil fouled her aim. 

The second Super Mutant bellowed in rage as its compatriot fell. Luna turned her weapon on it, only for it to click empty right as the beast charged. She backed away as she tried to reload, but she fumbled the magazine in her haste. “Come on, come on!”

“Got you!” The Mutant smashed the rifle out of Luna’s hands with a single swing. She narrowly dodged several more strikes, each aimed at her arms or legs. “Hold still, Rainboom!”

“No!” Luna snapped childishly. She hopped back from the next swing and felt her back smack into a wall. The Mutant grinned victoriously, then suddenly frowned in confusion and turned around. Sonata’s knife was sticking out of its back. The siren herself looked utterly dumbfounded that stabbing hadn’t worked. 

Seeing her chance, Luna pulled out Excalibat and smashed it into the Super Mutant’s knee. The Mutant barely even stumbled. A second swing buckled its leg and dropped it to one ruined knee. Now that the monster was brought down to size, Luna aimed for the head. Her first strike smashed the raised nailboard to kindling but only glanced off of the Mutant’s skull. The next hit slapped into the creature’s palm. 

The Mutant snarled over its shoulder at Luna. She snarled back and yanked on the bat, the sock easily slipping off the end freeing the weapon. Staring in bemusement at the sock dangling from its grip, the Super Mutant didn’t react in time to stop Excalibat from slamming into its temple. Enraged and desperate, Luna laid into the monster, smashing it in the skull until it finally slumped to the ground and stopped moving. 

Everything seemed to go quiet all at once. Gunfire could still be heard outside, but it all sounded strangely muted. It took Luna a few seconds to realize that she was still bent over the dead Mutant. She groaned and slumped back against the wall, barely managing to keep hold of Excalibat. Her arms felt like they were made of molten lead, her lungs felt like they were packed full of broken glass, and her legs were shaking so much it was all she could do to keep herself upright. 

“Uh, are you okay?” Sonata asked cautiously. 

Luna nodded. “Ju… just let me catch my…” Before anyone could say another word, there was a loud bamf and the room was filled with smoke. “What the-”

The sounds of a scuffle echoed through the room; loud grunts and sickeningly loud impacts, making Luna flinch and look around wildly. The smoke cleared just in time for her to see Defender Morgan stamp a Super Mutant’s head into paste in the doorway. 

“God-damn Frankensteins,” Anne huffed. “I think that’s the last of them. Nice thinking with the smoke bomb.”

“R-right.” Luna whipped her head around and was stunned to see Trixie standing in the corner of the room, determinedly avoiding looking at the Super Mutant corpses. 

“Anyone injured? No?” Anne glanced around at each of the trio, then turned and gestured for them to follow. “Let’s get moving. The outpost should be just around the corner, and I think we all want to get there before any more of these assholes show up.”

Luna pushed herself to her feet, ignoring the way her body protested, and looked over at her fallen assault rifle. The barrel was bent at an almost ninety degree angle thanks to the force of the Super Mutant’s attack. “Figures.” Luna shared a weary look with the girls. “Come on, let's get away from this awful place.”
> Chapter 192 - Hangways and Holograms
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ah gotta be honest, Ah was expectin’ this to be a lot tougher than it is,” Applejack said as she worked the handcart’s lever. 

“Yeah, well, keep it to yourself next time,” Wernher muttered. Him and Adam were sitting at the back of the handcart, having some lunch and taking a well-earned rest. The guides they had hired back at the Skavver settlement, a laid-back young woman named Brux and an insanely cheerful ghoul who called herself Rottytops, were sitting at the front of the cart, taking it in turns to use the necessary track-switches to get them where they needed to go.

As they rolled along a particularly winding tunnel, Brux stretched and looked back at the others. “Best take it slow around the next corner.”

Applejack nodded. They had already been through a few areas where the tracks were damaged and worn, and even a section where the Skavvers had actually dug a new tunnel and built the tracks out of scrap, all of which had to be traversed slowly and carefully. “What is it this time? More dodgy tracks?”

“Nah, we’re coming up on the Hangways,” Brux replied calmly. 

Wernher shuddered the moment she said it. “Damn it, already?”

“Yep, we’re making really good time!” Rotty said brightly.  

It took Applejack a second to decide whether or not she even wanted to know, but curiosity got the better of her. “Alright, Ah’ll bite, what are the Hangways?”

“A fucking nightmare,” Wernher said gruffly. 

Rotty’s laughter echoed down the tunnel. “Come on, they’re not that bad. Sure, they’re not as fun as the Hellcanal or Suicide Run, but they’re still pretty good.”

Wernher stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. “Fun?! There’s no fucking ground, the tracks are just held up by struts in the walls and chains dangling from the fucking ceiling! One wrong move and you just drop into the goddamned abyss!”

“That’s why they’re called the Hangways!” Rotty chirped, supremely unconcerned about it. 

“Uh, can someone please explain why we’re going this way?” Adam piped up. 

Brux raised a hand, “I can. The only other ways to the Pitt either take an extra day or two to travel, go through a giant ants’ nest, or go through the Hellcanal, which is super radioactive ‘cause of all the nuclear waste down there.”

“Fantastic,” Adam muttered. 

“Let’s just get it over with,” Applejack said, keeping the cart moving slowly but steadily. What little confidence she had evaporated as the group reached the corner and she got her first look at the Hangways. 

The floor fell away only a yard or so around the corner, leaving a yawning black pit where solid ground should have been. Just as Wernher had said, a rough series of metal struts jammed into the walls were all that held up the tracks, along with thick chains hanging from the ceiling to support the weaker ones. A makeshift walkway ran along the left wall for pedestrian travelers. 

Brux casually slid off of the handcart and strolled over to the walkway. “I’ll get the levers. You guys just take it slow.”

“Right.” Applejack held her breath as she inched the cart onto the hanging railway. The tracks and supports creaked ominously as they took the handcart’s weight, but somehow it all stayed stable. Applejack let out a breath she hadn’t even realized that she was holding as the cart smoothly rolled along. “Well that ain’t so bad.”

“This is the easy bit, wait until we get further in,” Wernher warned. 

Rotty giggled and swung her legs like a kid on a park bench. “Yeah, the first few miles can be a little boring. It depends on how frisky the Diggers are feeling.” She sat up eagerly and pointed at something ahead. “Look! They’ve been up here already!”

Applejack risked a quick glance. She gasped at the sight of a bloody corpse, wearing some kind of mining gear complete with gas mask, tied to one of the hanging chains with barbed wire. Just as Applejack opened her mouth to ask if the Diggers were a raider crew of some kind, Brux whipped out what looked like a homemade plasma pistol and blasted away at the corpse, green flashes lighting up the tunnel. “What the fuck?!” Applejack exclaimed. 

“Gotta deal with them before you get too close,” Brux called back with a shrug. 

“Before we- oh.” Applejack grimaced as what she had taken for a corpse wriggled and squealed, weird lumps rolling around inside its clothes until finally it went still again. The creature seemed to melt as it died, bits of clothing and rotten-smelling viscera sloughing away until the whole disgusting bundle slipped out of its wire and dropped into the abyss. “Well that’s fucking gross.”

“What the hell was that thing?” Adam asked. 

Rotty shrugged. “A Digger. They tie their wounded up and leave them around as traps for the unwary. We think the Diggers are other ghouls who’ve gone crazy or something, but no-one’s really sure.”

Every word out of Rotty’s mouth somehow managed to gross Applejack out even more. “So there’s a chance we’re goin’ to have to deal with more of those things along here?”

“Maybe,” Rotty replied cheerfully. “We’re really more likely to run into radroaches, bloatflies, giant ants, thallids, raiders, or maybe even a trog or two. The Diggers spend most of their time lurking around the old Dunwich Digsite a few levels down, but they do come up to the top levels every so often, so you can never really tell what you’re going to run into. That’s what makes it so fun!” 

As if to accentuate what she was saying, a raspy, gurgling hiss echoed up from the depths below. 





“Not far now,” Anne said bracingly. “The outpost is just through this old building.”

Luna nodded, trying not to let her anxiety show in front of Sonata and Trixie. The group hadn’t run into any more Super Mutants so far, but the earlier attack had the Vice-principal on tenterhooks, expecting danger to strike from any quarter. 

“Huh, look up there, there’s more Outcasts,” Sonata said casually. 

Luna glanced at her then up where she was pointing. Sure enough, staring out of a third floor of the battered old office building ahead were a pair of Outcasts. Anne raised a hand in greeting, getting a curt nod from the sentries in return. “Looks like the outpost is secure. If the Super Mutants did attack, then they sure as hell didn’t make it through our defenses.” 

“So we’ll be safe in there?” Trixie asked hopefully. 

“As safe as anywhere else in the wastes,” Anne replied. She scowled as Hobbes snorted loudly. “You got something to say, trooper?”

He gave a nonchalant shrug. “I just thought all these magical girls were supposed to be badass.”

It took Luna a surprising amount of willpower not to tell him where he could shove his sense of smug superiority, but Anne showed no such restraint as she snapped at him, “Shut the fuck up, Hobbes, you know damn well these aren’t the Rainbooms!”

“Rainbooms or not, I’d say taking down a Super Mutant with a baseball bat is pretty badass,” the other soldier added. 

Hobbes fell silent as he stomped into the building. His face was hidden by his helmet, but Luna didn’t doubt that he was less than happy about being shut down so forcefully. 

The inside of the building didn’t do Luna’s mood any favors either. It looked like it might have once been an office building, but the interior was so ravaged and ruined that it was hard to tell for sure. On top of that, it was clear there had been an attack, as several Outcasts were working together to pile up Super Mutant corpses while others scrubbed at bloodstains or gathered up discarded weapons and armor. The group passed at least one room that had been set up as a field hospital, where a handful of soldiers were being treated by what looked like Outcast Scribes. 

“I guess they’re not just gunning for Lyons’ people,” Anne said quietly.  

Several Outcasts turned to stare at the group as they passed. Anne and her troops were unfazed, as was Sonata, but all of the attention made Luna feel horribly self-conscious. A quick glance revealed that Trixie wasn’t particularly enjoying being gawked at like this either. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the group to get through the building and emerge in a small construction site of some kind. The steel framework of a half-finished building sat at the bottom of a ramp in the middle of the site. 

Anne led the group down the ramp, into the unfinished building, and over to a construction elevator in the middle of it. “Hobbes, Jackson, wait up here. I’ll take these three down to McGraw.” She waited for them to take up positions on either side of the elevator before ushering the trio in. Luna suppressed a shiver as the gate clanged shut behind them. 

“Is the outpost underground?” Trixie asked as the elevator ground into life.

Anne nodded. “It used to be a secret pre-war military research facility headed by one of the most prominent generals in the pre-war US army. Unfortunately, we’re having trouble getting into the facility’s vault to access the tech in there. Assuming there is anything in there.”

“And that’s where we come in,” Luna put in. 

“Exactly. Protector McGraw will give you the details.” A few seconds later the elevator stopped with a bump and a set of heavy steel doors slid open. 

Two more Outcast troops were waiting in the room beyond. One of them scoffed at the sight of the group. “These are supposed to be the infamous Rainbooms? I’m not impressed.”

“Play nice, Sibley,” Anne warned. “And no, they’re not the Rainbooms, they’re another group cut from the same cloth. They go by the Moons.”

“Do we?” Sonata asked. 

Sibley took his helmet off, revealing brutally short black hair and an annoyed frown. “You’re joking, right? You let the traitors send you away with bargain bin magical girls?”

“Says the bargain bin Brotherhood,” Trixie said under her breath. 

“If you don’t need us here, we will gladly go back to Rivet City,” Luna cut in quickly in an attempt to forestall any further insults. 

Unfortunately, that was apparently the wrong thing to say, as Sibley sneered back at her. “We don’t need you. It would’ve been better for us to abandon this place entirely than go begging for help from traitors and outsiders.”

“Stand down, Defender Sibley.” Everyone looked over as another Outcast stomped into the room. This man had blonde hair cut into a stereotypical military flat top, and a far less condescending countenance. “I assume there’s a reason that Sarah Lyons hasn’t sent any of the Rainbooms to assist us?”

“They’re all on assignments and can’t get back on such short notice,” Luna replied simply. “We aren’t as powerful or experienced in combat as the Rainbooms, but Sonata is from the same reality as Sunset Shimmer and knows a thing or two about magic, while Trixie and I are from the same reality as the rest of the Rainbooms and I have one of the Pip-Boys you so desperately need. However, since your people clearly don’t want us here, I would appreciate it if you would arrange an escort back to Rivet City.”

“I feel like I should mention that Liberty Prime personally threatened retaliation if these three are mistreated, sir,” Anne added. “Also, they’re affiliated with the Enclave, not the Brotherhood of Steel.”

That last revelation got a scowl from Sibley, but the newcomer just raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I had noticed the insignia on their armor,” he said wryly before glaring at Sibley. “As for the other issue, Protector Casdin and I both agreed that we would accept help from Lyons’ followers in this regard. I should not have to remind our subordinates how the chain of command works.”

“None of us agreed to work with the Enclave,” Sibley shot. 

“They’re allies with Lyons, and I’m not going to sit here and split hairs over whether allies count or not,” the newcomer countered. “This is our last shot at getting our hands on whatever technology remains in this dump. I’m not going back to HQ until I’ve exhausted every option available to us.” He turned his back on Sibley and addressed the trio instead, “I’m Protector McGraw, the commander of this outpost. I apologize about the mixed reception you’ve been given, but if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you what we’re working with.”

Luna briefly considered calling off the mission, but decided against it. She owed it to the Enclave and the Brotherhood to at least make a decent attempt at whatever this was. 

The trio followed McGraw through a series of well-lit corridors, with Anne bringing up the rear. They encountered several other Outcasts in the outpost but, undoubtedly because they had been forewarned, few of them gave the group anything more than a passing glance. “I’ll get straight to the point,” McGraw began as they walked. “Records indicate there’s some high-value tech in this base, but we can’t get to it. The armory is sealed by a blast door and we can’t get it open.” 

“If it’s down here, I’m not using my magic on it,” Sonata said bluntly. 

McGraw looked back at her with a frown, so Luna quickly explained, “Her power is too destructive and indiscriminate to use in confined spaces like this.”

“I’ll take your word for it. In any case, the blast door isn’t why we need your magical knowledge.” McGraw gave Sonata one more concerned look before turning away. “This facility was built to house a state-of-the-art virtual reality training simulation. We’re pretty sure anyone who completes the simulation program will get access to the armory, but it requires a certain interface.”

Luna saw where he was going with this. “Let me guess, it needs a Pip-Boy, and since the biometric lock is already keyed to me, you’ll need me to go through the simulation for you.”

It was clear that McGraw didn’t like her assumption that his people couldn’t deactivate the bio-lock, but he couldn’t refute it either. “I see you have half a brain, so that’s something.”

“I thought most adults did until I came to this reality,” Luna said airily. “Where’s the simulator?”

McGraw glanced at her suspiciously, but quickly shook his head and pointed to a door at the end of the corridor. “Just through there.”

Inside was a low, wide room that was nowhere near as brightly-lit as the rest of the facility. A huge egg-shaped pod sat in the middle of the room, basking in the crimson glow of dozens of what looked like servers lining the walls. An Outcast Scribe was working on a small terminal in the corner of the room. She had blonde hair that might once have been well looked-after and, going by the slightly frenzied way she was tapping at the keys, seemed to be under a lot of stress.

“Specialist Olin, the help you requested has arrived,” McGraw called out. 

The woman looked around and frowned when she saw the trio. “You’re not the Rainbooms, but going by those skin colors I assume you’re from the same original reality?”

“More or less,” Luna replied. “Is this the simulator?” She asked, gesturing to the pod.

Olin nodded. “That’s right, and I see you’ve got the Pip-Boy we need. Bio-locked?” Luna told her that it was, earning a heavy sigh in return. “Typical. Have you explained everything we need from them, Protector?”

“I explained to Miss, uh…” McGraw turned to the trio as if only just realizing that he hadn’t asked for their names. 

“I’m Vice-Principal Luna, and these are Sonata Dusk and Trixie Lulamoon,” Luna told the Specialist. “I know that I need to complete the training simulation so you can access the armory, but we’re still not clear on why you need magical assistance. To be honest, the chance to try out a virtual reality simulation is pretty exciting.”

Olin looked from her to McGraw and back in surprise. “You are aware that the simulation’s safeties have to be disengaged in order to unlock the armory, right? Dying in the simulation will result in massive cardiovascular feedback that will almost certainly be fatal.” 

A cold shiver ran down Luna’s spine as she realized the true danger of what she was signing up for. “I’m suddenly feeling less excited.”

“As for the magic issue, that’s a little more complex,” Olin continued. “There’s a bizarre shapeshifting entity that moved in here about a month ago. It tends to take the shape of a really messed-up suit of power armor, when it isn’t lurking in shadows or in the electronics, but we haven’t been able to get rid of the damn thing.” 

McGraw nodded grimly. “Whatever it is, none of our weapons can hurt it. Thankfully, it seems more interested in scaring people than actually hurting anyone, but we’d still appreciate having someone with magic around in case it tries to interfere with the simulation run somehow.”

“A local radio station, Galaxy News, did a report on a similar entity that plagued Rivet City for a while, and we believe it may be the same creature. They called it the Boogeyman, if that rings any bells,” Olin added. 

Luna and Trixie both turned to Sonata, but she just shrugged. “Don’t look at me, I’ve never heard of anything like that. The only shapeshifters I’ve heard of are changelings, but those gross little weirdos feed on love, and happiness, and bleh.”

“You worked with a changeling to sabotage the Diviner!” Trixie exclaimed. 

“Yeah, and she was gross,” Sonata reiterated. She suddenly cocked her head to the side as a thought occurred. “Huh, I guess Discord counts, but I’m pretty sure he’s just a made-up old story.”

McGraw looked understandably confused, but Olin brushed the conversation off as if it were unimportant. “Well, that’s what we’re dealing with. Will you help us?”

“Yeah, I’m okay with that,” Sonata said calmly. 

“This isn’t just about you!” Trixie spat. 

Luna massaged her temples to soothe her rising headache. “What does the simulation entail altogether?”

“It’s a reenactment of the Liberation of Anchorage, a pivotal battle during the Sino-American War, though some of the documents I’ve found indicate that General Chase, the overseeing officer, added in some elements of his own invention,” Olin explained. “You’ll have to fight through AI-controlled facsimiles of Chinese soldiers and complete various objectives to reach the end of the simulation.”

“Oh, is that all?” Luna asked with just a trace of sarcasm. She was only a teacher, with some basic women’s self defense and the bare minimum of weapons’ training and actual combat experience, yet these power-armored nutcases expected her to handle what was essentially a military operation against fully trained soldiers. “Is there any way I can leave the simulation if I can’t handle it?”

Olin frowned and looked back at her terminal. “Probably? It’s doable, but I imagine the shock would make you feel violently ill for at least a few hours.”

“Better ill than dead.” Reminded yet again just how out-of-their-depth the Rainbooms must have felt when they arrived in this world, Luna took a deep breath and steeled herself for her next dumb decision. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Fantastic!” Olin gleefully hurried over to a cabinet at the back of the room and pulled out a weird-looking white jumpsuit covered in metal connectors of some kind. “You’ll need to wear this neural interface suit to enter the simulation. It’s adjustable, so hopefully sizing won’t be an issue.”

McGraw raised an eyebrow as he watched the woman hand Luna the suit and excitedly start typing away on her terminal. “Uh, Specialist Olin-”

“Don’t pretend you’re not as eager to get out of this place as I am,” Olin interrupted without looking away from her work. “Now, would you kindly wait outside so our guest can get changed in peace?” She waited for McGraw to leave before stepping over to Luna and helping her get her armor off. “So, Lyons really wants the Outcasts back?”

Her tone was almost casual, but Luna had spent enough time around angsty teens to recognize a subtly loaded question when she heard one. “The Brotherhood wants to build their numbers back up. They’ve been busy, changing the wasteland for the better.”

“You don’t need to bother preaching to me, I want back in,” Olin said flatly. “Hell, half of the troops stationed here have been considering quitting one way or another. Some of the guys were even talking about joining Talon Company until the Rainbooms fucked them six ways from Sunday.” The trio reacted with immediate disgust, prompting her to add quickly, “Don’t look at me! I’d rather join the Church of Atom than work with those assholes!”

Luna eyed her suspiciously. “Why do you want to go back to the Brotherhood?”

Olin sighed heavily. “The Brotherhood of Steel’s original mission was to gather and safeguard all dangerous pre-war technology, keeping it out of the hands of the common folk so the world wouldn’t tear itself apart a second time. Given how many raiders are out there I’d say we were justified. The Outcasts left the first Elder Lyons in the first place because we were committed to that greater good.”

“Committed to the greater good, or committed to feeling superior to everyone else?” Luna asked pointedly. 

Olin opened her mouth to retort, only to close it again and deflate a second later. “Maybe that was part of it, but that doesn’t make me a monster, it just makes me human. In any case, now that Lyons is working with the Enclave and Rivet City to rebuild the Capital Wasteland, I think it’s safe to say that our original mission has failed. Spectacularly.” She shook her head in exasperation. “All that’s keeping the Outcasts going now is stubbornness and wishful thinking. If I’m going to be stuck with a lost cause whatever I do, I’d rather be stuck with the idealists than the idiots who insist the ship isn’t sinking.”

Luna listened patiently to the Specialist as she stripped down and put on the interface suit. By the time Olin was done, Luna was ready. “That was a very pretty speech, nicely done, but I’m not sure how I can help you. The three of us aren’t even part of the Brotherhood of Steel.”

“Technically we’re with the Enclave,” Trixie added. 

Olin stared at the three blankly, as if trying to figure out if they were lying. When she realized that they weren’t, she groaned and put her head in her hands. “For fuck’s sake, that’s just my luck.” After grumbling for a few more seconds, swearing generously, Olin sighed again and headed back to her terminal. A series of panels on the pod slid out and back as it opened up, revealing a steel recliner chair inside. “You can go ahead and get in. I’ll get it running.”

Luna clambered awkwardly into the pod and sat down, not giving herself a chance to reconsider. Her hands were shaking as she gripped the arms of the chair but, seeing Trixie watching her anxiously, she managed to get herself under control enough to flash the poor girl a thumbs up just before the pod closed again with a hiss. The panels on the inside of the pod instantly flashed white before settling into rippling waves in different shades of blue. The strange light made her head feel fuzzy, along with a faint sense of nausea that she hoped would go away quickly.

“Fascinating,” a man’s voice suddenly said right next to Luna’s ear, almost giving her a heart attack. “Bring all three vith you. I vant to see vat zey are capable of.”

“As you wish.” The second voice was a sibilant hiss that made Luna’s skin crawl, but before she could react, black tentacles exploded out from under the chair and wrapped around her body, holding her fast as her vision faded entirely. 
> Chapter 193 - Temple of Cheap Knock-offs
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack was growing to despise the Hangways. The tracks weren’t anywhere near as stable as they should have been, more than once flexing to the point that she was sure they were going to collapse, and the switches to change tracks were more slapdash and rickety than anything on the farm back home. Even the rotten old barn they had torn down last summer had been safer, and that was before you included the traps the Diggers had set up all along the place. 

“I think there’s more Diggers coming,” Brux called out calmly from the walkway. She leaned over the flimsy rail and peered into the darkness below. “Yeah, there’s more.”

“Oh, fuck off!” Applejack snapped. “How many times do we have to kill those ugly bastards?!”

Rotty giggled and glanced back at her. “Just once more, I think. We’re almost out of the Hangways.”

“Thank God,” Wernher muttered. 

“Don’t thank anyone until we’re out of this mess,” Adam spat just as Brux started shooting into the darkness. 

A few seconds later, Applejack heard the distinctive clink of the Diggers’ claws on the walls. She risked a glance over the edge of the handcart, squinting into the dark, and grimaced as the flashes from Brux’s gun revealed the creatures coming after them. 

The Diggers all wore filthy mining gear wrapped with barbed wire, gas masks, and cracked oxygen tanks that constantly leaked a foul-looking yellow gas. Makeshift claws on their hands and feet allowed them to clamber up the walls like cockroaches. 

“Why are so many of these bastards attacking us?!” Wernher spat. “I didn’t even see one when I came this way last time!”

Brux shrugged as she reloaded. “They like magic, and we’re all carrying magic. Seems pretty obvious.” Werhner threw a sharp look at Applejack and Adam, but he didn’t bother saying anything as he whipped out his own gun and started picking off the climbing Diggers. 

Applejack gritted her teeth as she realized that the mutated freaks were after her Geode. It didn’t help that the bizarre battle was taking place while she kept the cart moving at a snail’s pace. Going faster would risk collapsing the Hangways, and trying to shoot the Diggers with one hand while keeping the cart moving with the other was just asking for something to go wrong. All she could do was stick to her job and let the others handle the rest. 

“Uh, guys? I think we’ve got a problem up ahead,” Rotty called back. 

“What no- oh, fuck.” Applejack’s blood ran cold as she saw a mob of Diggers working to dismantle the tracks. There was no way the group could take them all down before they weakened the Hangways enough to stop the cart. “New plan, Brux, get your ass over here! We’re speedrunnin’ this shit!”

To her credit, Brux glanced up, saw the danger, and immediately darted across the narrow support beams to jump on the handcart. “Go!”

“Everyone hold on tight!” Tracks creaked and the lever squealed in protest as Applejack put her back into pumping, launching the handcart forwards. The noise grabbed the attention of some of the Diggers, but none of them reacted quickly enough. Blood and limbs splattered everywhere as the cart plowed through those foolish enough to be standing on the tracks themselves. “Take that you fuckers!”

A series of loud cracks made Applejack’s mood plummet instantly. 

“Shit, the tracks are collapsing!” Wernher yelled. “Move, move, fucking move!”

“Ah am!” The lever mechanism made a horrible creaking sound, but Applejack gritted her teeth and tried to ignore it as she used the slightest bit of her magic to propel the cart faster than it had ever been intended to go. 

Everyone else held on for grim death, the cart shuddering and rattling wildly, as support struts twisted and snapped behind them. The sound of metal clattering down the walls was enough to make Applejack’s teeth rattle, but she didn’t dare to slow down for even a moment. Thankfully, by some miracle, there weren’t any more tight corners or turns in the track, and it didn’t take long for the group to finally rocket out of the Hangways and into an ordinary tunnel. 





“Hey… hey!” 

The voice pierced through the cold darkness like a scream in the night, shredding the peace with a blast of sensation. 

“Wake up. Come on… snap out of it.”

Luna groaned and cracked her eyes open. Bright light blinded her for a second, but her vision soon cleared and she got a glimpse of tall icy cliffs reaching high above. The wind caught faint wisps of snow off the top of the cliffs and sent them wafting down on her. 

“What the heck?” Luna sat up and whipped around at the sound of Trixie’s voice. Her jaw dropped open when saw not only Trixie, but Sonata sitting on the ground nearby as well. Both were wearing fatigues and combat armor similar to that of the Rainbooms, save that they bore wintry camouflage rather than Brotherhood of Steel colors. “Are… are we in the simulation too?!” Trixie yelped. 

“But we didn’t get in the egg thing,” Sonata said, masterfully stating the obvious. She stood up and brushed snow off of herself, then cocked her head with a curious expression. “Who’s that guy?”

Luna turned and felt a jolt in her stomach as she realized that a soldier was standing over her. “That was a hell of a nasty fall you took,” he said with a worried look at her, as if he had been waiting for her to notice him before speaking. “When your chute bunched up like that I thought you were a goner. I hope the other guys made it…”

“Uh, we’re fine?” Sonata told him. “Trixie, you’re fine, right?”

The soldier completely ignored the siren. “I don’t think their patrols spotted us coming in, so at least we still have the jump on ‘em. You still have your gear, so I’m gonna let you make the call. You can go in quiet or guns blazing.”

“My gear?” Luna looked down at herself and realized belatedly that she was wearing winter armor as well, along with a handgun on one hip, a knife on the other, and a strange little box attached to her belt. Somehow, even her Tide Stave was there, stuck point-first in the ground next to her. 

“We’ll still meet at the rendezvous point inside as planned, then we’ll blow those artillery guns to hell,” the soldier continued blithely. “Just watch yourself. The Reds up here don’t take prisoners. Good luck!” As soon as he finished delivering his warning, the soldier hurried to the base of the cliffs and started climbing. 

Luna stared at him blankly for a second before scrambling to her feet. “Wait! What rendezvous point? What guns? Where am I supposed to be going?!” 

The soldier didn’t acknowledge her in the slightest as he climbed to the top of the cliff and disappeared from sight. Luna stared after him, wondering how she was supposed to know what to do from those vague instructions. It took her a few seconds to pull herself together and tear her gaze away. She needed to prioritize. 

Trixie and Sonata were both standing where they had been left, looking around in confusion. 

“What’s going on? How did you girls get in here?” Luna asked. 

Trixie shook her head. “I don’t know. We heard strange voices coming from the egg-thing right after you got into it, then all of the lights went out and something grabbed me. The next thing I knew, I was waking up here.”

“Yeah, same here,” Sonata added. “Do you think that was the Boogeyman?”

“If it was, then why didn’t you stop it?!” Trixie snapped. “That’s literally the only reason you were asked to come along!”

“It’s not her fault,” Luna cut in quickly. “The thing was already lurking in the pod, she couldn’t have known. Besides, I heard two voices in there. I think the Boogeyman is working with someone. Or something. Whatever it was, it asked to bring ‘all three’, so I guess one of the voices must have brought the two of you into the simulation as well somehow.”

Trixie bit her lip anxiously. “Why would it do that?”

“I’m not sure,” Luna replied. She decided to keep what the voice had said about seeing what they were capable of to herself; it would only put pressure on Trixie and probably inspire Sonata to do something dumb, not that she needed much encouragement. 

Still, Luna doubted that getting the two to hunker down somewhere while she completed the simulation would work out. The girls probably wouldn’t allow it, for one, but somehow it didn’t seem likely that the Boogeyman would either, and if it could bring the others into the simulation, it could probably manipulate the simulation, too. “I hate to say it, but I think we’re all going to have to go through this thing together.”

“Uh, how?” Trixie asked. “I don’t have any of my equipment, or any guns like you’ve got.”

Sonata tugged her breastplate forward to check behind it. “I’ve got my Torc, that’s all though.”

“And I’ve got my Stave.” Luna thought hard as she yanked the Tide Stave out of the ground. “It’s possible that anyone who enters the simulation is supposed to get a gun and whatever else, but you two didn’t enter the simulation the normal way, so…”

“Oh, so the Boogeyman can only bring magic stuff through instead of all of our stuff?” Sonata finished brightly. 

Trixie frowned, clearly not convinced. “If that was true, then how are we wearing armor?”

Luna floundered as she tried to think of a reason that wouldn’t terrify the girl. “That’s probably just the simulation giving us all the same generic skin,” she offered. “I’m just glad you weren’t both dropped in naked.” Trixie shuddered at the thought, so Luna took the opportunity to change the subject. “Anyway, what’s important right now is figuring out where we need to go and what we’re supposed to do.”

Neither of the girls disagreed. Sonata shrugged and looked at the other two expectantly, while Trixie frowned and crossed her arms as she tried to come up with something. “Why couldn’t that soldier tell us anything useful?” She grumbled.

The same complaint had floated through Luna’s mind already, but in this case she suspected that it was actually the Outcasts’ fault. “I imagine that the people who were originally put through this program were given more detailed briefings than what we had.” 

With a heavy sigh, Luna planted her hands on her hips and looked around to try and get her bearings. The trio were standing in a rocky culvert of sorts, bordered by the cliffs on one side and tall boulders on the other. “Which way, I wonder?” Luna headed back away from where the soldier had been, clambered on top of a rock that was in the way, and stopped right in her tracks. “Wow. Girls, I think we’re going the other way.”

Before her was an immense chasm stretching off into the distance. The ground disappeared in a sheer drop from the base of the rock, dropping what looked like easily a thousand feet or more to a stony bottom. What’s more, the chasm followed the line of the cliffs near-perfectly, with cloud-wreathed mountains rising up on the far side, revealing that the trio weren’t in a culvert, they were standing on what was essentially a rocky ledge on the side of a mountain. Every now and then, patches of static crackled across the bottom of the chasm or the mountains. 

“The graphics in this thing are actually pretty good,” Sonata noted as she climbed up next to Luna. “Mostly, anyway.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good thing, considering what we’re here for,” Luna said grimly. She glanced back at Trixie, who had taken one look at the chasm and hopped back down off of the rock, and fought the urge to sigh again. “Alright, we know which way to go now, so I guess we should get this over with. Just stay behind me and keep quiet. We’ll try and avoid as much conflict as we possibly can.”

Sonata nodded and hopped off of the rock as well. Luna, lacking the youthful agility of her charges, opted to sit down and slide off instead. The second her boots touched the ground, a wave of static rippled across her vision and the whole simulation went dark for a split-second. “What was that?”

“A glitch?” Trixie suggested hopefully.

Luna glanced around anxiously, but she couldn’t see anything different. “Keep an eye out for anything strange just in case. Just remember to keep behind me and be as quiet as you can.”

At last, the trio set off in single file along the path. It didn’t take long for them to move out of the dip they were in and emerge onto the ledge proper, with the cliffs on their left and a sheer drop on their right. Luna made sure to keep the pace slow so no one tripped over an awkwardly placed rock and fell headlong into the chasm. Metal signs were placed at irregular intervals along the path, somewhat unnecessarily warning of treacherous conditions.

Just as Luna was wondering when they would run into trouble, she stepped around a corner, gasped, and quickly ducked back out of sight. She gestured for the others to keep back, praying that her gasp hadn’t been heard, and cautiously peeked out around the corner.

The ledge ended at a concrete platform just ahead. There was a sandbagged wall around one side along with a couple of metal barrels, but the problem was the soldier standing right at the edge. Luckily, he was looking down into the chasm, away from the trio, but it was going to be tricky to sneak past him without getting spotted. 

“What is it?” Trixie whispered. 

“A soldier,” Luna replied. “Just around the corner.”

Sonata grinned and tried to walk around the corner, forcing Luna to stop her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Uh, blast him with my voice?” Sonata replied blankly. “What? It’s not like they’re real people.”

“Don’t you think others might hear us and come looking if you do that?” Luna asked pointedly. Sonata blinked slowly, then opened her mouth in a silent ‘oh’ as if she hadn’t ever considered that. “Just wait here, both of you. I’ll deal with this.”

Luna waited for the two to nod in agreement before she turned to check on the soldier again. Thankfully, he was still standing around staring across the chasm. Either he was supposed to be a bad guard, or he just had lazy AI scripting. 

Treading with exceptional care, Luna crept around the corner and on towards the platform. As she got closer, she saw  the chasm, but no-one else was in sight. The guard was on his own. 

The thought crossed Luna’s mind that perhaps this had been done deliberately as a relatively easy introduction to the simulation, but she still couldn’t let her guard down. She switched her stave to her left hand and drew her knife from its sheath as quietly as she could and crept slowly closer, not even daring to breathe as she got within arm’s reach of the soldier. Right at the last second, the soldier suddenly sighed and turned around.

A knife slammed into his throat before he could make a sound. Quick as a whip, Luna ripped the blade free and kicked the soldier off of the platform. The corpse turned pale blue and dissipated in a haze of static before it had even dropped over the edge.  

Luna looked around quickly to make sure that there weren’t any other soldiers around. Her heart leapt into her mouth as she saw that the canyon curved around to the left, and that there were several concrete emplacements on the far side, all with full view of the platform that Luna was on. Fear froze her for several moments, but there was no outcry, no sudden sounding of alarms, no sign of any kind that she had been seen. 

Just in case, Luna darted to the sandbags and hunkered down out of sight. A faint ringing sound and a red glow was coming from a large canister of some kind next to her, which was very concerning, but it had a medical symbol on it similar to what the Enclave used, so she hoped that it was benign. Risking another glance at the emplacements, Luna gestured for the girls to hurry over and join her. 

“Is that where the soldier guy wants to meet us?” Sonata asked as she and Trixie crouched behind the sandbags. 

“I have no idea,” Luna replied honestly. “The path ahead is in full view of those things, so let’s just hope there’s no-one keeping a lookout.” She was about to give the girls new instructions when she saw Trixie giving her a strange look. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Trixie’s eyes flicked to where the soldier had been standing a moment ago. “You did that so easily…”

It didn’t take a genius to work out that she wasn’t talking about actual physical difficulty. “I wouldn’t say easy, but it’s certainly reassuring knowing that our enemies here aren’t real. I don’t know if you play video games, but it might help to look at it from that angle,” Luna explained. “Trust me, I wouldn’t be anywhere near as comfortable if I was forced to do the same thing against real people. That’s not something I would be able to shrug off easily.”

“Really? I thought it was easy,” Sonata supplied. “Is this a human thing?”

Luna didn’t know where to even begin with that comment, but Trixie at least looked mollified, so she decided to let it go. “Anyway, you girls stay here for now and keep an eye out for any trouble. I’ll go on ahead and make sure the path is safe.”

“Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you?” Trixie asked.

“I’ll be fine,” Luna replied. “I promise.”
> Chapter 194 - A Bridge Too Far
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The handcart squealed softly as it slowly cruised to a halt. Just ahead, the tunnel finally came to an end as the tracks continued on into the open air. 

“Okay, that’s the Pitt!” Rotty eagerly hopped off of the cart, closely followed by Brux. “Pleasure doing business with you!”

“Likewise.” Applejack offered the two a wave before they turned and headed back into the depths. “Thank fuck that’s over with.”

Wernher nodded and stepped off of the cart too. “At least we made good time, I thought we were going to take a lot longer to get through those tunnels. You’ve got a good set of arms on you for a Regulator.”

“If only Ah could say the same about you,” Applejack shot.

Wernher snorted but didn’t reply as he gestured for her and Adam to follow. Applejack gladly hurried after him, eager for a lungful of fresh air after being stuck in the stuffy underground, only to balk when she actually stepped out of the tunnel. 

Rusted, derailed trains and piles of shattered debris littered the trainyard. A couple of half-ruined buildings moldered nearby, covered in a thick layer of soot, while a pair of smokestacks in the distance belched black smog into skies that glowed with such a bright orange that it looked like someone had set the heavens on fire. Even the air itself tasted like ash and oil. It took Applejack a second to notice that there wasn’t a trace of the snow that had been plaguing the Capital Wasteland. 

“Hang on, someone’s coming,” Wernher said suddenly, throwing an arm out to keep the other two back. Applejack squinted and spotted a trio of raiders striding towards them through the haze, clearly a welcoming party for the group they’d sent to the Capital Wasteland. She flinched as Adam nudged her, then realized that he was pointing out two more raiders standing on nearby roofs, pointing weapons at them. “Let me do the talking,” Wernher said in an undertone. He grinned and threw his arms wide as the raider approached. “Hey, hey! What’re you guys doing here?”

“I might ask you the same thing,” the closest raider spat. “You’ve got a lotta guts, coming back to this place, Wernher.”

“Yeah? Well, I guess that’s the difference between us,” Wernher said calmly. “I got a lotta guts. You don’t.” Without warning, he whipped out his revolver and shot each of the three raiders before they could react. The two on elevated ground fired in retaliation, but Applejack and Wernher managed to put them down before they could get their aim in. 

Adam shook his head. “I guess we should be thankful that those guys are crap shots, but seriously?”

“Well, Ah’m out of ammo for the .32, so grab their guns and you might get a chance to play with the next bunch,” Applejack told him.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Wernher warned. “If the guys guarding the Pitt see you packing heat they’re gonna shoot first and ask questions later.”

Adam raised an eyebrow as he stared pointedly at the dead raiders. “I’m pretty sure they’re going to shoot first either way.”

Wernher shook his head and holstered his gun. “You’re dressed up like slaves, so you should be able to get through the front gate without any issues. Just pretend you’re escaped slaves who got spooked by the dangers out here.”

“What about you?” Applejack asked. 

“I’ve got a hideout not far from here, I’ll wait there,” Wernher replied. He pointed to a chain-link gate a short way ahead, barring the way between a rocky crevasse. “Go through there and follow the road across the bridge until you find the Pitt. You can’t miss it. Once you’re inside, find a slave named Midea. She’ll be able to help you.” He fixed the two with a stern look. “Remember, your goal is to get access to Ashur and find the cure. Once you have it, I’ll contact you.”

Adam nodded curtly. “Got it. Anything else?”

“Just be careful,” Wernher told them. “And good luck.” 

“Yeah, you too.” Applejack sighed, turned, and headed towards the gate with Adam a half-step behind. The gate was rusty but a good shove was enough to get it open, and the pair slowly made their way through the narrow crevasse. 

The other side was just as ruined as the trainyard. There were more bombed-out old buildings, more piles of debris, and in place of derailed trains were dozens of trashed cars and trucks. Thankfully, the road Wernher had mentioned was easily found despite the mess. Adam and Applejack advanced cautiously, keeping an eye out for danger, until they turned a corner and found the bridge.  

It looked like a stereotypical scene found in pretty much all post-apocalyptic stories, as ironic as that sounded. An old suspension bridge, completely choked with abandoned vehicles, crossed over a clearly polluted river and disappeared into a ruined city. 

“Well this looks fun,” Applejack muttered. 

Adam nodded grimly. “And they probably all have live reactors.”

“Probably,” Applejack agreed. “Ah don’t know about you, but Ah reckon we should probably take this real slow and careful.”

“Funnily enough, I was thinking the same thing,” Adam said flatly. 

Together, the two picked their way carefully across the bridge, doing their best to avoid touching any of the cars. Applejack knew that they were probably being paranoid, but there was no telling just how unstable the old reactors in their engines were; better to play it safe rather than risk blowing the entire bridge to kingdom come.

“Hold up, things just got trickier,” Adam said suddenly only a short way onto the bridge. 

Applejack froze in place and glanced over at him. “What’s up?” 

In response, Adam pointed down into a clear space between two nearby cars. A landmine sat half-hidden beneath an old tire. “I get the feeling the people down here don’t like visitors.”

“Nice of Wernher to warn us,” Applejack muttered. She opened her mouth to suggest finding another way around when something whizzed past her ear and ricocheted off of the car behind, followed closely by the bark of a high-powered rifle. “Shit, sniper!”

The two ducked behind the nearest cars. Rusted steel wouldn’t do much against a sniper rifle, but it was better than nothing. Right as she thought it, another bullet tore through the trunk of the car barely six inches from Applejack’s arm. “Damn it, do you see where he is?!”

“High up on the left support strut!” Adam shouted back. He flinched as a shot smacked into the hood of his car. “Think you can throw something and hit them from here?!”

“Nope. Ah got a better idea though.” Applejack charged out of cover and hefted an abandoned motorcycle. Instead of trying to aim for the sniper, she just hurled the bike directly at the support strut itself. The impact did a lot of damage to the concrete, but it was the engine exploding that did the real work, blasting apart the ancient architecture in a shower of masonry and tortured steel. Applejack nodded with satisfaction as she spotted a raider tumbling down with the rest of the mess. 

“Oh, fuck!” Adam’s exclamation snatched Applejack’s attention. A second later the sight of greenish smoke billowing out the car next to him drove a spike of terror into her heart. “We need to mo-”

Applejack didn’t give Adam a chance to finish. She just darted over to him, threw him over her shoulder, and used her magic to sprint across the old vehicles like they were stepping stones. The first explosion almost knocked her from her feet. More followed near-instantly, filling the bridge with an advancing tide of fiery death. The bridge shuddered and shards of metal whizzed lethally through the air as Applejack belted across it and charged into the ruined city beyond. Only when the explosions stopped and the echoes faded did she allow herself to slow down and take a look around.

It was clear from a glance that this place hadn’t been ravaged as much as the Capital Wasteland; the buildings were far less damaged, the roads were in much better condition, and the ever-present craters and piles of debris back in the former capital were largely absent. Looking around carefully, Applejack spotted a chain-link fence topped with spotlights blocking off a side road. 

“Can you put me down now?” Adam asked flatly. 

“Huh? Oh, sure.” Applejack set him on the ground and gestured to the fence. “You reckon that’s where we’re headed?”

Adam dusted himself off and looked over at the fence. “I’d assume so, going by all the people on the other side of it.”

“People?” Holding a hand up to shield her eyes against the lights, Applejack could just about make out dark figures behind the fence. “How in the hell did you spot those guys?”

“I’ve got a good sense of smell,” Adam replied, earning himself a very confused look. “Just let me do the talking. We need to pretend that we’re escaped slaves, and you can’t lie for shit.”

Applejack just sighed heavily. She couldn’t refute it even if she wanted to. Instead, she tagged along as Adam headed over to the fence and tried not to look like a badass Regulator. As they got closer, Applejack saw that there was a gate in the middle of the fence, and at least five raiders all either smirking or glaring at the duo. 

One of them, a diseased-looking man covered in sores and wearing spiky metal armor, took a long drag on his cigar before calling out, “Sounds like you scabs damn near blew the fuckin’ bridge up. Who the fuck are you?”

Adam sighed and put his hands up. “Come on, man, you win, alright? We thought we’d escaped, but we couldn’t get past the fucking bridge. Can’t you just let us back in?”

The raider laughed as if it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. “I love it! Open the gate up, let these fuckers in.” He grinned at the pair as the others hurried to obey. “You’re lucky I don’t fuckin’ paste the two of you. Now get back in there and get to work, or next time I’ll just stake you out there for the Trogs.”





Luna crept along the ledge as quietly as she could. Anyone looking out of the emplacements would see her instantly, but she didn’t have much in the way of options. Cover was practically non-existent on the next part of the trail. 

The path wound around to a steel walkway, then on to a pair of short metal staircases that led up to another concrete platform. This one had another sandbag wall and several steel drums, beyond which was a metal bridge that crossed over the chasm to the lowest of the concrete emplacements on the other side. 

Unfortunately, another soldier was standing right in the middle of the bridge. He was facing away from Luna, but there was no way she would be able to get past him without him noticing. It looked like the best option would be to stab him and toss him over the railings, much like with the first soldier. Luna readied her knife and crept forward but, as if to mock her efforts, the bridge creaked loudly as she set foot on it. 

The soldier immediately shouted something incomprehensible and turned, already drawing his assault rifle. Quick as a flash, Luna sheathed her knife, gripped her Tide Stave with two hands, and charged right at the soldier. He didn’t have time to react before the pearled tip slammed into his skull. His body crashed noisily against the railings before disintegrating. 

As if on cue, gunfire crackled out from the emplacements and sparked off of the bridge, making Luna yelp and dart back to the sandbag wall for cover. More bullets thudded into the sandbags, making her lie flat on her stomach for fear that they would soon tear through it entirely. 

Even as her belly touched the concrete, Luna realized that she was trapped, without even any way of seeing exactly how many shooters there were and where they were firing from. She couldn’t even run back the way she’d come without getting shot at. Fighting against her rising panic, Luna was desperately trying to think of a way out when a deafening wave of sound tore the world apart. 

The raw power of it was like nothing Luna had ever experienced. The ground shook, snow fell from the cliffs, concrete cracked and even the ground and sky started to glitch from the sheer force of the sonic barrage. Luna looked up just in time to see Sonata close her mouth and give a satisfied nod. “That was easy.”

“Sorry, Vice-Principal, but you looked like you needed help,” Trixie added from behind her. 

Luna got to her knees and peeked over the top of the sandbags. The emplacements were all cracked and broken, and there was no sign of any soldiers waiting to start firing again, but she could definitely hear faint shouts of alarm coming from somewhere a little further off. 

“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” Trixie asked anxiously.  

“Maybe-” Luna admitted, “-but we’re not going to sit here and wait for it to come to us. Both of you follow me, but try to stay out of sight. Sonata, I need you to be ready to do whatever it is you just did as soon as I say, and only when I say, got it?”

Sonata shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”

Luna quickly scanned the emplacements to make sure that no soldiers had turned up. Satisfied, she took a deep breath to steady herself and drew her pistol. Her eyebrow twitched when she saw that it had a silencer attached, but she shoved it to the back of her mind and prepared to move. “Ready? Let’s go!”

The three broke into a sprint across the bridge. No crackle of gunfire greeted them, but they still didn’t dare to slow down until they were across. On the other side was a steel stairway that wound up and around the emplacements, hugging the cliff as it went. Luna led the way, moving a little more cautiously so she didn’t accidentally charge headlong into a soldier coming the other way. 

It wasn’t until the trio reached the top that they ran into another enemy. The soldier stepped onto the stairway just as they rounded the corner, only to be dropped by several reflexive shots to the chest. 

Luna froze, keeping her gun up and ready just in case, but no more soldiers turned up. When she felt that it was safe to advance, she climbed the last of the stairs and looked around cautiously. 

The group had emerged on top of one of the concrete emplacements. To the left was some sort of metal bunker built into the cliff, while to the right was another short staircase that led down to a little rocky ledge with a sniper rifle and what looked like an oil canister of some kind. Both the rifle and the canister were glowing an ominous red. 

“What’re those?” Trixie asked. 

Luna shook her head. “I’m not sure. They could be supplies meant for whoever is going through the simulation, or they could be booby traps.”

“I’ll go check!” Sonata eagerly bounded down the steps before Luna could grab her. Teacher and student alike tensed as Sonata casually poked and prodded everything down there, but nothing happened. “I think it’s safe, the gun and the round thing aren’t glowing any more!” 

The siren waved the rifle in the air along with a small circular object. Luna didn’t know what it was, but Trixie apparently did as she gasped loudly. “That’s a landmine, you moron!”

Sonata yelped and threw the mine over the edge of the cliff. “Why didn’t you tell me before I picked it up?!”

“We didn’t see it before you picked it up.” Luna sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to calm her thundering heart once again. “What about the canister? That’s still glowing.”

Sonata glanced at the canister. “You mean that weird ringing thing? I don’t know. It made my legs stop aching after all those stairs, so maybe it’s like a video game health kit or something?”

Trixie muttered insults under her breath, but Luna couldn’t help wondering whether the siren might be onto something. “We’ll check it out quickly, then we’ll get on with the mission.”

It turned out that the strange canister did indeed replenish stamina and nullify pain with just a touch. The canister also let out a faint ringing sound just as Sonata had mentioned, so Luna made a mental note to keep an ear out for any more of them. 

After relieving Sonata of the sniper rifle, more for safety’s sake than anything, Luna led the others back up the steps and into the metal bunker. Inside was clearly a rest area, with tables, chairs, coffee makers, a bunk, and posters depicting Chinese military propaganda. There was also a chinese assault rifle, a couple of grenades, more landmines, and a strange dispenser of sorts in the corner, all glowing red. The dispenser was also letting out the same ringing sound as the health canister, so Luna assumed it was something similar. 

“Don’t touch, Sonata,” Luna said right as the siren went to do exactly that. She ignored Sonata’s unhappy whine and stepped over to the dispenser first. A quick test revealed that touching it refilled the ammunition of any gun Luna was carrying, but taking bullets out of the magazine beforehand to try and get more just resulted in the excess disappearing. 

Luna crossed her arms as an idea started to come together in her mind. “Girls, I think the two of you should hole up here. If you bring the health dispenser in here, then-” Before she could finish her sentence, a crackling wave of red and black static obscured her vision for a second. “What the-” Luna glanced at the others anxiously,”Did you girls see that?”

“Yeah.” Trixie pointed a wavering hand at the door they had come through. “And I can see that too.” Luna whipped around, already fearing the worst, but nothing could have prepared her for what was waiting. 

The door was gone. In its place was a barrier made out of jet-black bones all interlinked and fused together to block the way back. The macabre barricade shimmered in the light, as if it was completely covered in a layer of oil. 

“Okay, that’s creepy,” Sonata said bluntly. “Do we really have to stay here?”

Luna shook her head, trying to ignore the chill running down her spine. The message was clear; whoever the Boogeyman was working with, they wanted the trio to stick together, or else. 
> Chapter 195 - Unsafe Working Conditions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Luna fought the urge to curse as she looked out of the bunker’s rear door. The path ahead, if one could call it that, consisted of a short metal catwalk which joined on to a giant metal pipe that spanned the chasm. A couple of Chinese soldiers were patrolling up and down it as if it was a normal thing to do. Half of a fallen metal bridge was laying on the pipe, making Luna wonder if the simulation’s developers had just wanted to be awkward.

“That doesn’t look good,” Trixie said quietly from behind her. “Do you think you can get them with that rifle?”

Luna shook her head. “This is the first time I’ve ever even seen a sniper rifle in real life, and aiming with one is a lot harder than I expected. I’ll have to try it with the assault rifle.” She silently berated herself for not sounding more confident, but it was hard when she had no idea whether or not she was up to the challenge. 

“Can’t I just blast everyone out of the way?” Sonata asked. 

“Not yet, you’ll just bring even more people down on us,” Luna told her. “Get back a bit and give me some space. I’ll see what I can do.” She waited for the girls to do as they were told before raising her assault rifle. Nervous beyond measure, Luna held her fire until the two soldiers were just about to pass by each other. 

A short controlled burst easily took down the first soldier. The second shouted in alarm and whipped out his own gun, but he didn’t manage to get a shot off before he was brought down as well. Luna kept her gun up, waiting with bated breath to see if anyone came to investigate the noise.  As the seconds ticked by, she slowly accepted that no-one was coming.

“That was easy,” Trixie noted, relief clear in her voice. 

“Let’s just hope things stay that way.” Luna refilled her ammunition from the dispenser before edging out onto the metal catwalk, keeping her eyes peeled for danger. Only when she was satisfied that it was safe did she gesture for the others to follow. “Be careful on the pipe. I don’t think I need to point out just how dangerous this is.”

Together, the trio carefully climbed onto the pipe and made their way across the chasm. Sonata wanted to climb the ruined bridge and see what was up there, but Luna refused; partially on account of how rickety it was, and partially because she could see a stone path on the far side that looked a lot less exposed. Getting pinned down once already had given Luna a much greater appreciation of cover.  

The path zig-zagged its way up the cliffside, turning back on itself several times as it climbed. Luna kept her gun at the ready, obsessively checking for danger, but, despite her caution, it was Trixie who spotted the next threat. “Quick, get down!”

Luna instantly crouched behind the nearest rock. “What is it? What do you see?”

“Another big pipe, way up high,” Trixie replied. “There’s another soldier on it.” Luna was impressed. She had seen the pipe, further along the chasm, but she hadn’t seen the soldier. Just as she was about to peek around the rock, Trixie held a hand out to stop her. “You and Sonata stand out too much against the snow. I’ll let you know when he’s gone.”

It sickened Luna to dump that kind of responsibility on one of her students, but Trixie had a point. Time slowed to a crawl as the three waited impatiently. Luna could practically feel her nerves fraying with every passing second. 

“He’s looking away, go!” Trixie hissed suddenly. 

Luna didn’t need telling twice. She leapt to her feet and darted around the next corner, doing her best to go from cover to cover like a shadow. Every step, Luna half-expected a bullet in the back or an agonized yelp from one of the girls, but somehow the trio managed to make it around a bend and out of sight of the pipe without any problems whatsoever. 

Soon enough, the path came to an end at yet another concrete platform. A series of platforms and metal staircases followed, though there was a distinct lack of soldiers or even any supplies on any of them. Luna found herself getting increasingly suspicious until, finally, they reached a small plateau. A single soldier was guarding a door set into the cliff face.

Luna and the soldier both snapped their rifles up at the same time, but before either of them could fire there was a rapid burst of muffled gunshots and the soldier fell. Luna stared dumbly as the man disappeared in a blue flash. 

“Huh, I suppose it is a little easier. It’s still weird though.” Luna turned just in time for Trixie to hold out her own silenced pistol, having apparently snatched it from Luna’s holster without her noticing. It took the girl a second to realize that the other two were staring blankly at her, making her step back and eye them warily. “What?”

“When did you learn to use a gun?” Luna asked bluntly. 

Trixie shrugged. “Uh, it wasn’t really that hard? Just point and shoot, right?”

As tempting as it was to exclaim that there was a lot more to using a gun properly than just pointing and shooting, Luna held herself back and holstered the pistol. “Good shooting. I’ll teach you correct gun safety later, if we have time. For now, let’s see what’s through that door.”





The inside of the Pitt was worse than Applejack had ever expected. Everything was covered in a layer of soot and grease, all exposed concrete and metal had been corroded by centuries of acid rain, and patches of metal filings and other detritus were dotted in places all over the ground. Even the air somehow tasted oily. Managing even something as simple as going for a stroll without getting a nasty injury or infection was going to be a challenge. 

As bad as the surroundings were, the state of the inhabitants was even worse. Teams of half-naked slaves were hauling scrap, breaking down debris with sledgehammers and pickaxes, and using heavy-duty saws to carve vehicles and other large chunks of metal into more manageable pieces. All of the work was being done under the watchful eyes of patrolling raiders. Everyone, slave and slaver alike, was marked by sores and lesions. It was a miracle that disease wasn’t dropping people left and right. 

“If you ask me, it looks like it is,” Adam said. 

Applejack winced as she realized that she had spoken aloud and looked around to make sure that no-one had heard. Thankfully, it looked like the raiders were too busy to pay attention to what two random slaves were talking about, though that wasn’t likely to be the case for long. “Reckon we should ask one of the slaves how to find Midea?”

Adam nodded. “That’s our best bet. It’s a good thing we’re covered in sweat and muck from the journey over. We should blend right in.” A quick glance revealed that he wasn’t wrong. Applejack allowed herself a small smirk at the thought of what Rarity would say at the sight of her, despite everything the girls had all been through. 

Finding a slave who could help was easy enough. The two asked a woman who had stopped for a water break, who directed them down a nearby alleyway. As they walked deeper into the Pitt, Applejack noticed that there was a whole multi-level network of walkways just like in Megaton, except that these were largely made from old scaffolding instead of just cobbled together from scrap. 

After a few more stops to ask for directions, the duo found themselves outside a door to a particularly decrepit old building. Adam checked with Applejack before knocking politely. 

“Just a minute!” The two waited patiently until a young woman opened the door. She was better dressed than the rest of the slaves, with baggy clothes that covered her entire body and a head wrap that hid her hair, but the dirt and pinched look in her cheeks left no doubt about her status. “Do you need something?”

“Midea?” Adam asked. The woman nodded. “We’ve been told to speak to you about some new work task?” In an undertone, Adam added, “Wernher sent us.”

Midea’s eyes widened and she stepped aside, holding the door open. “Come in, but act natural.”

Applejack didn't know how to act unnatural, but simply staying silent and following Adam inside seemed to do the trick. The room was spartan, with the bare minimum of furniture and flaking paint, but she didn’t have long to look around before Midea closed the door and turned to face the pair. “We’d better keep this quick. They’ll have seen you come in here, so they’ll come looking for you if you take too long coming back out. I have a plan to get at least one of you into Ashur’s palace, but we need to wait. In the meantime, you’re going to have to blend in.”

“Hold your horses, you gotta give us a little more than that,” Applejack interjected. “Why do we have to wait, and how exactly are we supposed to blend in?”

“The guards don’t really take kindly to workers just standing around. You’re going to need to look busy, or they’ll sniff you out pretty quickly,” Midea explained. 

Adam nodded curtly. “So we’ve got to work. Simple enough.”

“Exactly,” Midea replied. “You two don’t look like you belong here, so I’m going to send you out to the old mill to gather steel ingots. It’ll keep you away from the guards.”

Applejack was about to cut in and ask again why they had to wait to get into the palace and get the cure for Wernher, but before she could even open her mouth the door was suddenly flung open. A raider wearing spiky metal armor swaggered in, looking the duo up and down before turning to Midea. “What’s goin’ on here? Who are these scabs?”

Midea flinched and shrank back. The instant that the door had opened her demeanor had shifted to scared subservience. “N-nothing, sir. I was just telling these new workers about the job the foreman posted.”

The raider smirked and gave the two another look over. “Oh yeah? So these are the ones goin’ out to the Steelyard, huh?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve told them what they need to do, th-they know,” Midea told him. “Ten ingots, as fast as they can.”

Ten ingots was news to Applejack, but she kept her mouth shut. She could do a little work before getting the answers she needed. Besides, she was well-suited to heavy labor, so Applejack didn’t mind doing it if it saved a sick and abused slave from having to. 

A twisted grin spread across the raider’s face. “Well then, I hope you also said goodbye.” He laughed viciously, not bothering to explain himself, then snorted and jerked his head towards the door. “Alright, playtime’s over. Get back to work, grinders.” 

Applejack hesitated, wanting to know what exactly she had gotten herself into, but there was no way she could drag the answers out of Midea with a raider watching over them. Biting back the urge to huff with annoyance, Applejack took the lead and headed outside before Adam could get himself lost. Once they were back out in the sickeningly greasy air, she confidently led the way through the winding alleyways and streets. 

“How the hell do you know where you’re going?” Adam asked in exasperation.

“Ah pay attention to my surroundin’s,” Applejack said flatly. “There’s directions painted on some of the walls, Ah guess to make it easier for the poor folks who get dragged here to find their way around.” She pointed to a nearby wall. The word ‘Mill’ had been painted in four-foot tall white letters with a large arrow underneath. “See?”

Adam raised an eyebrow, then slapped a fist into his palm as he clicked. “Right, Midea said she was sending us out to the old mill. I guess that must be where the Steelyard is.”

“Seems likely.” Applejack quickly turned her focus back to looking like she knew where she was going, as if she was entirely used to the place and not an outsider. Eventually, the duo came to a squat building through an old gateway. A painted sign next to the door stated that it was the mill, but Applejack was pretty sure that the burning stench and deafening sounds of industry coming from inside were a dead giveaway.

Somehow, the inside of the mill managed to be worse than Applejack was expecting. Thick smoke billowed out of the building the moment she opened the door, the heat was so intense that she was drenched with sweat after only a few steps, and everything was tinted by a glowing orange haze. Peering through the murk, Applejack saw cages and shelving packed with various metal objects, piles of scrap ready for melting down, enormous crucibles containing molten steel slowly trundling around on rails bolted to the ceiling, and other machines that she couldn’t identify hissing and thumping away. 

Adam said something about a foundry, but Applejack could barely hear him over the insane racket. He tried repeating himself but, with a raider looking over at the two suspiciously, Applejack cut him off and hurried to ask someone for help. After a little shouting and a lot of gesturing, the duo were directed to what must have been the foreman’s office. 

The deafening sound of the mill was slightly muffled as the duo stepped into the office. A lone raider was waiting inside. He had a short blonde mohawk with a matching beard, heavily patched pants, a light sweat-soaked vest, and the same lesions that everyone in the Pitt seemed to have. The raider eyed the duo warily. “Can I help you?” He asked gruffly. 

“We’ve been sent to work in the Steelyard,” Adam replied flatly. 

The raider raised an eyebrow, then broke into a wide grin. “So, I’ve got two lucky scabs gathering ingots today, huh?” Applejack and Adam both nodded. “Ah, I guess enthusiasm’s a little too much to ask. Well, follow me!” The raider opened a door at the back of the office and gestured for the two to follow. 

Applejack kept her guard up as they were led through a series of short corridors. 

“Name’s Everett, I’m the foreman,” the raider said as they walked. 

“I’m Adam, this is AJ,” Adam cut in before Applejack could reply. She realized a second later that her real name would’ve stood out like a sore thumb in this place. 

Everett chuckled darkly. “I doubt I’ll need to remember your names. Most don’t survive their first run out here. Still, who knows, maybe you two’ll be different.” Before either of the others could reply to that grim statement, he shoved open a door and they were met with the sickening stench of death.
> Chapter 196 - REALLY Unsafe Working Conditions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A cold steel corridor greeted the Moons as they stepped through the door. It appeared to be empty save for a couple of steel drums and some Chinese propaganda posters, but Luna knew better than to let her guard down. She glanced back, making sure the others were inside, then gestured for Trixie to shut the door quietly. 

Thunderous gunfire erupted the instant the door closed, scaring the trio out of their wits and making them duck instinctively. Luna fought the urge to swear loudly when she realized that the noise was just echoes coming from further inside. It was hardly reassuring, but at least it was better than getting shot at in such a tight space. 

Ignoring the way her heart was attempting to pummel its way out of her chest, Luna gestured for the girls to follow and cautiously led the way forward. 

As it turned out, the man-made corridors weren’t particularly long, soon transitioning to rocky tunnels instead. The gunfire grew louder with every step forward, but Luna swallowed her fear and pressed on regardless. The gunfire ended abruptly as soon as the trio reached the end of the tunnel. Unsure what she was about to see, Luna gestured for the others to wait and carefully peeked around the corner. 

The tunnel opened out into a tall cave. Two more tunnels split off from it; one to the left and one to the right, while faint sunlight shone down through a hole in the ceiling high above. Unfortunately, a handful of Chinese soldiers were in the cave, gathered around a dead US soldier. 

In an incredible stroke of luck, none of the soldiers were looking towards the tunnel the trio were hiding in. In fact, on a closer look, Luna saw that one of them was walking directly into a wall, his feet sliding across the floor as he walked in place like a buggy NPC in a video game. Smirking despite herself, Luna unclipped one of the grenades on her belt. Pulling the pin out took a lot more effort than she had anticipated, but as soon as it came loose in her hand she tossed the grenade into the middle of the group of soldiers and ducked back out of sight.

The soldiers all shouted the exact same warning in unison. Luna feared for a moment that one of them would throw the grenade back, but her fears were groundless as a terrific explosion tore through the air and echoed deafeningly through the cave. Unfortunately, one grenade wasn’t enough to do the trick, as Luna could still clearly hear at least one soldier yelling loudly in Chinese. Still, something sounded off. Taking a deep breath, she raised her rifle and stepped around the corner. “What the…?”

Only one soldier was still standing: the one who had been walking into the wall. He had his weapon out, and he was running instead of walking, but for whatever ridiculous reason he was still trying to charge through the same solid wall. A couple of shots in the back put the buggy soldier out of his misery. 

Luna gave the cave a last look over, glancing down both of the other exits, before calling back to the others, “It’s clear.”

“That was weird,” Trixie noted, looking out from the tunnel. 

“It was kinda funny when he called you a dog, though,” Sonata added as she stepped into the cave. 

It took a second for Luna to properly register what the siren had said. “Wait, you can speak Chinese?!”

“A little,” Sonata replied with a shrug. “It’s, like, much easier to control people if they can understand what you’re singing.”

Such information would have been good to know a little sooner, but Luna held back from reprimanding her. “In that case, if you hear or read anything useful then let us know.” She gestured down the tunnel to the right. “Come on, there’s health and ammunition dispensers down here.”

Just as Luna had said, the right tunnel was little more than an alcove containing two dispensers, as well as another assault rifle and a collection of explosives on a table. The trio immediately went to the health dispenser to replenish their stamina first. Luna turned to the ammo dispenser, eager to keep her weapons topped up just in case, but before she could touch it a swathe of shadowy tendrils burst out of the ground and wrapped around it. 

“Girls, get back!” Luna snapped instantly, backing away and snapping up her rifle. The shadows thickened and solidified, morphing into jet-black skeletal arms that grasped the dispenser tightly and slowly dragged it into the ground, stone bubbling like tar until the dispenser had disappeared entirely. “What in the name of-”

Each of the three flinched as a wave of static passed over their surroundings. Just as had happened earlier with the door earlier, the walls of the alcove were now covered in a mass of fused and oil-slicked bones.  

“That thing again?” Sonata huffed. “Why did it take all of the stuff?”

Luna shook her head and looked down at her conspicuously empty hands. A quick check revealed that it wasn’t only her assault rifle that was missing. “My weapons are gone, too.” She patted the Tide Stave, tucked awkwardly through her belt. “All I’ve got left is this.” 

“And I’ve still got my torc,” Sonata added after glancing down her top. “Is this still part of the simulation?”

“I doubt it, I get the feeling this is something to do with the Boogeyman, or whoever it’s working for,” Luna replied. A chill ran down her spine as she recalled the ghostly voices she had heard just before entering the simulation. “I think it wants us to rely on our magic.” She glanced at Trixie, who understandably went pale at Luna’s suggestion. 

“But… I don’t have Equestrian magic!” She exclaimed. “I can’t even do my regular stage magic without the props I was carrying!”

More static suddenly rippled across the walls, and a second later the entire cave was plunged into darkness. Luna pulled out her stave, for all the good it would do, but the dark only lasted for a few seconds. Strangely, it didn’t look like anything had changed. “Girls? Do you see anything different?”

“Uh, would you say my outfit counts?” Trixie asked. 

Sonata snorted loudly. “Why would you outfit cou- oh.”

As curious as she was concerned, Luna glanced back over her shoulder. She honestly wasn’t sure whether or not she should be surprised that Trixie’s US Army outfit had been replaced with her Enclave gear, complete with her usual hat and cloak. “Do you have all of your magician stuff?”

Trixie quickly checked her pockets. “Yeah… yeah I think so.”

Luna nodded slowly. That was proof that the Boogeyman really was manipulating the simulation somehow. It clearly wanted the trio to prove themselves somehow, but Luna wasn’t sure that letting it see all of their tricks was a good idea. Not that she really had any tricks in the first place. Tide Stave or no, Equestrian magic was beyond her at the moment. Luna turned to Sonata, hoping that the siren could at least give her an idea of how to get the stave’s magic working, only to freeze when she saw the bones embedded in the wall start to move. 

Dozens of skeletal arms slowly reached out of the foul mass, waving about blindly before grabbing the first object or surface that they touched. More bones grew around them, like vines crawling up a macabre trellis, then when they were thick enough more arms grew from the extensions and the whole process repeated itself again. 

“It looks like we’ve been given a time limit of sorts,” Luna said grimly. “Let’s get moving. I don’t know what that stuff will do if it gets a hold of us, but I doubt it’ll be pleasant.”

Neither of the girls disagreed. The trio hurried out of the alcove, only to find the same gruesome barrier spreading out of the tunnel they had first entered from. Only one path was left open to them.  

The last tunnel was little more than a narrow path, broken up by shallow metal staircases that climbed up a series of small ledges. As the trio walked, Luna turned to Sonata. “Do you have any idea how I can get this stave working?”

Sonata shrugged. “I dunno. Usually with things like that you either have to pull magic from it or push magic out of it.”

“Pull or push?” Luna frowned at the stave. The concept made sense, but she didn’t have a clue how to go about doing it. “How-”

“Look out!” Luna looked up just in time to see Trixie hurl a firecracker into the face of a Chinese soldier. Sonata’s magically amplified voice blasted him off his feet a second later. 
 
The sound reverberated through the tunnel with such force that even the echoes made Luna’s bones vibrate. She grimaced and held her stave like a bat, waiting for the inevitable horde of soldiers coming to investigate. Seconds passed, slipping by as the echoes died away, but no-one came. There was no hue and cry, no piercing sirens warning of intruders, not even the distant sound of someone asking the Chinese equivalent of ‘did you hear something?’

Trixie threw Luna a curious look. “Was that the last of them?”

“I doubt it,” Luna replied. “This is a computer simulation, so… maybe it only spawns soldiers in when we reach certain areas? In any case, excellent work, you two. Let’s keep moving.” That tiny bit of praise was enough to make Trixie stand taller and look visibly more confident, and even Sonata seemed to be pleased with herself. 

Pressing on, the trio soon came to a narrow ramp leading up to a small plateau. There, tucked away in a rocky corner, they came across a steel-lined corridor, clearly the entrance to another bunker. The corridor twisted and turned before passing through a storage room filled with wooden crates and steel barrels. Luna grew more suspicious with every step she took, wondering where all the enemies were, until finally she emerged into a generator room and a body dropped from the ceiling. 

Everyone tensed up immediately, only for the US soldier from the very beginning of the simulation to casually drop down from a vent. “Goddamn this place is swarming with Reds. I almost didn’t make it,” he said by way of greeting.

Luna let out the breath she had been holding and lowered her stave. She waited for the soldier to continue, but he just stared at her expectantly. “Uh, good job?”

“Yeah, I almost bought it out on the cliffs. Didn’t know the Reds were so handy with a sniper rifle,” the soldier said gruffly. “So, what’s the situation? We clear to blow the hell out of this place?”

“I… I guess so?” Luna replied.

The soldier nodded and unslung his rifle. “I got your six.”

“Six what?” Sonata asked. 

“I think he means he’s going to guard our backs,” Luna told her. The soldier didn’t so much as blink or acknowledge the others in any way, so she just shrugged and headed to the door on the far side of the room. As expected, the soldier followed after her, completely ignoring Sonata and Trixie.  

Icy air wafted into the room the moment Luna opened the door. Peering outside, her stomach dropped when she saw that they were very nearly at the top of the cliffs, with only a narrow ledge between the door and a precipitous drop. 

“Woah, watch your step near those ledges,” the soldier warned. “That is a hell of a long fall.”

Luna nodded, unable to tear her eyes away. “You heard him, girls. Be careful.” Gathering her courage, she stepped outside and looked around. 

The ledge ran along the cliffside to the left. A short way below it, another giant pipe reached across the chasm to a metal bunker built into the opposite cliffside, though there wasn’t any obvious way down. Easing her way along the ledge, Luna was relieved when it turned into a rocky passage and emerged onto a slightly wider boulder-strewn shelf.  A winding metal staircase on the far side appeared to be the way down. 

“Eyes on, we got company up ahead!” The soldier said suddenly. 

In an instant Luna and the girls all ducked behind the nearest boulders. “Where are they?” Luna hissed. 

Unfortunately, instead of actually pointing out any threats, the soldier just said again, “I’ve got your six.” No matter what he was asked or how Luna tried to cajole him, he just kept repeating the same pointless phrase every time. 

“There’s at least one guy in that building over on the other side, and there’s two more on a platform just down those stairs,” Trixie half-whispered from just ahead

“Want me to blast them?” Sonata asked eagerly. 

Luna shook her head. “Not yet, I want to try and get this stave working first.” She gripped the Tide Stave in both hands, staring at the pearl on top, and, in a move that had her questioning her life choices, sincerely considered Sonata’s advice. 

Desperately trying to remember everything the Rainbooms had ever said about using their Geodes, Luna closed her eyes and tried to feel the energy inside the stave. Incredibly, despite her initial skepticism, she felt the magic almost instantly; a calm flow that almost felt as though it was sloshing around inside its container. Brimming with excitement, Luna immediately tried to draw the magic out.

Nothing happened. Luna concentrated and tried harder, her brow furrowing as she struggled to pull the magic out of the stave, only to give up when all she managed to achieve was a niggling headache. She supposed that was only to be expected when relying on Sonata Dusk for useful advice. Dejected, Luna gave a half-hearted attempt at pushing the magic instead of pulling, only to jump out of her skin as a bolt of dark blue magic lanced out of the pearl and into the sky. She wasn’t the only one to be surprised, as angry Chinese shouts filled the air. 

“They’re saying they’re going to kill the intruders,” Sonata translated, unnecessary as it was.  

“Good to know, now blast them!” Luna barked. 

Sonata grinned and ran to the top of the stairs. A Chinese soldier reached the top right as she did, then got launched back down them by her devastating magic. There was a chatter of gunfire as the second soldier tried to avenge his companion, but another thunderous note ended his endeavor. 

“That got the attention of the guy in the bunker!” Trixie exclaimed. 

“I’d be surprised if it hadn’t,” Luna said flatly. She inched towards the edge of the ledge and risked a quick look over the rocks. A Chinese soldier emerged from the bunker and charged along the giant pipe, firing up at the group with shocking accuracy given the range and how fast he was running. 

As if one lunatic with a gun wasn’t enough, the US soldier rushed to the edge and fired down at his Chinese counterpart. “I’ve got a present for ya, commie!”

Leaving him to it, Luna turned back to the girls. Both of them were watching her expectantly. “Do you think you could hit that soldier from up here?” She asked Sonata. 

The siren snorted and shook her head. “Uh, no way. He’s too far away. All he’ll get from here is a nice breeze.”

“I’ve got some fireworks that’ll reach, but I don’t know if they’ve got the accuracy for it,” Trixie put in. 

Luna shook her head. Sonata’s magic was one thing, but she didn’t feel comfortable letting Trixie get into a shootout with a soldier with nothing but a few fireworks. “We’ll keep that as a backup plan. For now, I’ll see what kind of range this stave has.” 

Matching actions to words, Luna raised the Tide Stave and looked out over the edge. “Wait, what?” The Chinese soldier was gone. The US soldier was still firing at a spot right in the middle of the pipe, but there was no sign of an actual target anywhere in sight. “Uh, what are you shooting at?”

“I’ve got your six!” The soldier replied unhelpfully. 

Luna fought the urge to swear loudly at him. “Is this because of the Boogeyman, or is the whole simulation just generally buggy as heck?”

“Both?” Trixie suggested.

“Probably.” Luna sighed and glanced back at her. “Do you see any other soldiers around?” Trixie squinted as she looked around, but eventually shook her head. “Alright, we’ll head down, but be-”

“Be careful, we get it,” Sonata finished. 

Luna gave her a hard look. “I hope so, because with the Boogeyman around, there's no guarantee that the Outcasts will be able to pull us out of here until the simulation is finished.”

The reminder of their predicament was enough to get Sonata to take things seriously again. 

“What about that guy?” Trixie asked. 

Luna glanced back at the soldier and shrugged. “Hopefully, he’ll follow us. Just stay out of his  way so he doesn’t accidentally shoot you.”

Thankfully, as the trio headed to the staircase, the soldier at least kept up with them, darting from boulder to boulder and maintaining his barrage of fire against empty air. The staircase turned out to be a series of short flights linking a couple of concrete platforms. At the bottom, on the last platform, two metal catwalks headed off in different directions. One led to the giant pipe, the other followed the curve of the cliff. 

“Which way, Vice-Principal?” Trixie asked. 

Luna glanced at the soldier, debating whether or not it was worth asking him for directions. Somehow, he still had ammunition left, and was still firing away at the pipe. All of a sudden, Luna spotted something falling from the sky out of the corner of her eye. She stared in disbelief as a Chinese soldier dropped out of nowhere and landed with an audible thump on the pipe. He disappeared in a blue flash a second later. 

“Don’t mess with the US,” their guide said firmly as he finally stopped shooting. 

Sonata looked from the pipe to the soldier and back again, clearly confused. “Uh, what just happened?”

“I have no idea,” Luna admitted. “We’ll cross the pipe. If we’re lucky, that Chinese soldier was guarding something useful.”

“We’re crossing that pipe? And here I thought I was the one with a death wish,” the US soldier offered sarcastically. 

As surprising as his input was, Luna wasn’t about to get her hopes up. “Does that mean we should go the other way, or…?”

“I’ve got your six,” came the usual response. 

Luna just sighed and took the lead onto the pipe. Thankfully, no more enemies appeared as the group crossed over to the bunker. The inside was even more spartan than expected, with nothing more than a health dispenser and a table with an old ham radio on top. A heavy steel door was embedded in the interior wall, but a quick check revealed that it was locked.

“Hold on.” Trixie crouched next to the keyhole. “I think I can get this open.”

“I have no doubt that you’re a talented magician, but I don’t think an amateur is going to… be able… to…” Luna trailed off as Trixie casually pulled a lockpicking set out of her pocket, carefully selected a pair of tools from the bunch, and got straight to work on a keyhole next to the door. Less than a minute later there was a faint click and the door slid open. 

“That was easier than I expected,” Trixie said nonchalantly as she put her picks away. “No extra sets of tumblers, no duds, nothing. You’d think the military would have higher standards for their locks.”

Luna couldn’t help but chuckle quietly. “Maybe they just weren’t expecting the soldiers going through this simulation to be particularly good at picking locks. Where did you even learn to do that?”

Trixie shrugged, showing an unusual amount of humility. “I dabble in escapology. I can’t do the really cool flashy stuff yet, so I don’t usually bother including it in my acts, but I can open simple padlocks and stuff pretty easily.”

“Nice work. Okay, back to it.” Luna held the Tide Stave like a spear as she stepped through the door. 

The room beyond was empty aside from a small desk tucked away in a corner. A terminal and a holotape were sitting on it, both letting out a faint ringing sound. The holotape was corrupted beyond use, and the terminal only had one partially degraded file on it, but the bits that were legible looked like they might actually be useful. 

“It looks like this is a translated Chinese document of some kind.” Luna read it curiously, wondering if perhaps lockpicking was something that the developers had anticipated. “Huh, this says that there’s an undefended area around the eastern cliffs. I have no idea where the eastern cliffs are, but, given what kind of simulation this is, I’d be willing to bet that they’re somewhere up ahead.”

“Hey, what’s this?” Trixie pulled a metal briefcase out from underneath the desk, but the moment she held it up a loud tone echoed through the room and the case disappeared in a blue flash, just like the fallen Chinese soldiers. “Um, what? Did I break something?”

The tone hadn’t sounded particularly ominous, but Luna wasn’t interested in taking risks. “Whatever it was, there’s nothing left here now. Let’s get back to the path and try the other route.”

No-one had any objections, so the group left the bunker and crossed back over the pipe, then onto the other catwalk. This catwalk was the longest one yet, a fact that even their soldier commented on as he muttered, “If I live just one more day without seeing another catwalk, I’ll die a happy man.”

Continuing on, the catwalk was soon replaced with a rocky path. A Chinese soldier was lurking between two particularly large boulders, but Luna managed to get the drop on him and kick him off the edge of the cliff before he could raise the alarm. 

A little further on a short bridge led to another rocky path. This one was wider, with large irregular boulders providing plenty of cover. Luna could see a large concrete platform a short way ahead, with a single Chinese soldier standing atop it. She wasn’t the only one, as Trixie warned, “Careful, there’s another soldier on that concrete thing over there.” 

“Yeah, I see h-” Luna was interrupted as two Chinese soldiers emerged from behind separate boulders, shouting and raising their weapons. “Get down!

Luna grabbed Trixie and dragged her into cover just as all of the soldiers opened fire. The racket only lasted for a second or two before Sonata’s magic made its presence felt, blasting through rocks and making the ground itself quake as it vented its fury. The shaking stopped slowly, leaving behind nothing but distant yells, fading echoes in the chasm and a distinct ringing in Luna’s ears. 

“At least my armor works,” Trixie said shakily. 

“Wait, were you hit?!” Icy wrath filled Luna at the sight of a sizable dent in Trixie’s breastplate. “Oh, screw this!” She gripped the Tide Stave tightly as she stepped out from behind cover, looking around for the nearest enemy. Both of the closest Chinese soldiers were gone, obliterated by Sonata’s magic, but two more were charging across a bridge from the concrete platform, firing as they came. 

The first couple of shots from the Tide Stave missed by miles. It didn’t take long for Luna to get her aim in, however, and her next shot punched one of the soldiers clean off of his feet. Bullets hissed past Luna, but she ignored them and hit the second soldier with a shot that sent him careening off of the bridge. A burst of fire from the US soldier made sure that the first trooper didn’t get back up. 

As soon as she was sure that there were no more enemies around, Luna turned back to the girls. “Are you both alright?”

“I-I’m okay,” Trixie replied.

“I’m fine, they didn’t even get close to hitting me,” Sonata declared.

Luna sagged with relief. “Good. From here on, let’s try and stay quiet unless we know where our enemies are.” The girls agreed, Trixie with particular enthusiasm, then they set off across the next bridge. 

The platform had another locked door set into the cliff face. Trixie got through this lock as easily as the first one but, once again, all that was inside was another corrupted holotape and another briefcase that disappeared as soon as the young performer picked it up. Luna was sure that there was some point or reason to the briefcases, but she had no idea what it was, and the US soldier was of no use whatsoever in that regard. 

Moving on, the group followed a winding catwalk to yet another concrete platform, this one bearing a squat military construct that was built right into the cliffside. 

“Through this structure is the entrance to the Artillery Base,” the soldier said as they approached. “I dunno what they got waiting for us, so keep a sharp watch.”

“I don’t suppose you can tell us anything else about this place?” Luna asked half-heartedly. 

“The only good Commie is a dead Commie,” the soldier replied. 

Luna blinked in surprise. “Well, that’s different, still not really helpful though. Or true, for that matter.”

Narrow and empty corridors were the only things the group found in the structure at first. They passed an ammunition dispenser a short way in, but now that the trio didn’t have any guns it was essentially useless. A short walk later, the group passed a nondescript side door before reaching the other side of the structure. Luna felt a shudder of fear when she saw what awaited them. 

A long and narrow bridge stretched out across a wide chasm. At the far side, with a commanding view of the approach, was a huge concrete bunker with a circular pillbox on top. As if that wasn’t bad enough, another pillbox was set just off to the left of the bunker. Anyone who attempted to cross the bridge was going to face a devastating crossfire. Charging in headlong would be suicidal, even to Luna’s untrained eye. 

“Side door?” Trixie asked. 

“Side door,” Luna confirmed flatly. “If we’re lucky, that’ll be the undefended area mentioned on the terminal.”

The group quickly backtracked to said door. As if to spite them, a Chinese soldier was waiting right on the other side of the door. Him and Luna both reacted at the same time, each raising their weapons almost in sync. 

A bolt of blue energy blasted the soldier backwards before he could fire. The unfortunate foe landed heavily, spraying bullets into the air, before another magical shot finished him off. Luna kept her stave ready as she stepped through the door and checked for more enemies.

Behind the door was a huge natural cave. A long metal staircase led up to a tunnel high above the ground, but there was no sign of any other soldiers whatsoever. Luna allowed the girls a five minute rest in the cave, while things were quiet, before heading up the stairs. At the top was a short tunnel leading to another nondescript door. Luna gently cracked it open and snuck a peek outside. 

By some miracle, the group had reached a platform to the right of the main bunker, largely out of sight of the pillboxes and bypassing the bridge entirely. The terminal had been right about the undefended area. 

Looking carefully, Luna realized that they might be able to sneak around to the back of the pillboxes without anyone noticing. She bit her lip as she ran through a plan in her head, then turned to discuss it with the girls. “I have an idea, but we’ll need to be very sneaky to pull it off. Can you manage that?”

“You already know that I can,” Trixie replied bluntly. 

“I can be snmmphf!” Luna clamped a hand over Sonata’s mouth to stifle her indignant screech. 

“The key point of being sneaky is being quiet,” Luna hissed. “Take a look out there and tell me whether or not you can sneak up to the top pillbox, the round thing on top of the bunker, without being noticed, and I need a straight, honest, yes or no answer.”

As soon as Sonata’s mouth was released she meekly stepped to the door and peered through the crack. After a moment, she nodded and said quietly, “I can do it.”

“You’re sure?” Luna pressed. 

“I’m sure,” Sonata replied. 

Luna hesitated, wondering whether Sonata was overestimating herself, but she decided to give the siren the benefit of the doubt. “The plan is simple. Sonata, I need you-” She put an eye to the door and froze as she saw something impossible. 

A little girl, no older than five or six, was sitting on the catwalk outside, calmly swinging her legs over the edge. She was wearing a pretty but old-fashioned dress, and had ribbons tied in her pigtails, but everything about her seemed strangely monochrome. As if sensing that she was being watched, the girl glanced over her shoulder at Luna. The girl smiled and put a finger to her lips. “Don’t dawdle too long, Frau. I don’t like it when things get boring.” 

With that disturbing warning, the girl dissipated like smoke in the wind. 

“You want me to sneak up to the top bunker, right?” Sonata asked, snapping Luna back to her senses. Before she had a chance to reply, or even process what had just happened, there was a loud clatter from further back in the corridor. The trio looked back in horror as the mass of blackened skeletal limbs appeared from around the corner, advancing much faster than it had before. 

“Change of plans, we’re all going to go for the lower bunker together, then Sonata can blast the top one with everything she’s got,” Luna told them. “And stick together, no matter what. Let’s go!”

Gripping her stave tightly, Luna opened the door and slipped out, hurrying across the catwalk as quickly and quietly as she could. The girls and the soldier all followed her lead, moving like ghosts across the catwalk and down the nearby stairs. 

Crossing in front of the big bunker was a nerve-racking experience. There were a couple of awkwardly-placed windows on either side of a big red door right at the base of it, forcing the group to practically crawl under the sill to avoid being seen by anyone inside. Thankfully, their luck held, and the group made it to the back of the lower bunker without being spotted. 

Pausing next to the door, Luna glanced back at the soldier to see if he was going to take the initiative, but he simply stared at her with his usual blank expression. She looked at Sonata instead, but it was Trixie who stepped forward with a determined expression. The young magician pulled something out of her pocket as she stepped past the others, and Luna caught the brief flare of a match being struck. Sparks erupted from the bundle of fireworks just before Trixie tossed them into the bunker and ducked back away. 

A thunderous boom echoed from inside the bunker, accompanied by showers of multicolored sparks that blossomed from every opening. A second later there was an even bigger explosion and an eruption of flame that made the very ground shake. 

“What in Harmo-” Luna snapped her mouth shut and looked up as loud yelling reminded her that there was still the upper bunker to deal with. “Sonata!” The siren just gave her a blank look, prompting her to jab a finger towards the bunker in question. “Blast them!”

“Oh, right.” Luna and Trixie both clamped their hands over their ears as Sonata, given a clear target, inhaled deeply. Her magic was as potent as ever; even with their ears covered, the raw power of it was a whole order of magnitude greater than what Trixie’s fireworks had achieved. Sonata kept the barrage up for just a few seconds before easing off and smirking to herself. “Hmph, piece of cake.”

“Don’t speak too soon,” Luna warned. Despite being hit with a blast that could have reduced the entire CHS campus to rubble, the bunker was completely unscathed. “All of this is simulated. If the developers coded the buildings to be indestructible, then there’s nothing we can do to even scratch them!”

Sonata bristled with rage. “I’m not gonna let some stupid nerds tell me what I can’t break!” Magic glowed beneath her armor as she drew more power from her torc. The air around Sonata rippled as, in a display that Luna had sincerely hoped never to see again, a magical simulacra of her true siren form surged out of her and rose into the sky. 

Static rolled across the sky the instant Sonata powered up. The siren didn’t seem to notice as her enormous body swooped around to hover in front of the upper bunker, every movement leaving strange rippling after-images in her wake. Muzzle flashes appeared in the bunker’s main window, sparking off of Sonata’s scaly form, but the sounds of the gunfire were delayed and oddly crackly, as if the simulation was struggling to handle the extra load. 

“Brace yourself!” Luna cried as Sonata opened her mouth. 

The simulation itself seemed to protest as the siren unleashed her magic. Waves of static marred everything, the ground felt like it was made out of jello, and a deafeningly loud grinding noise blocked out all other sounds. Even their guide was twitching and staticky. 

Eventually, after far longer than Luna was happy with, everything slowly started to stabilize. Looking up, she saw the massive siren-form dissolve and spiral back down into Sonata’s human body. The upper bunker was still technically in one piece, but the surface textures were now so scrambled that it looked more like a random grayish blob than a military structure. 

“Okay, so I didn’t destroy it, but I’m pretty sure it’s broken,” Sonata said, sounding strangely defensive. “There’s no soldiers left in there, anyway, so you can’t say I messed this up!”

“You didn’t mess up, Sonata,” Luna assured her. “I am going to ask you not to do that again, though. I don’t think the simulation can handle you in that form, and I do not want to find out what happens if it crashes while we’re still inside it.”





“Dammit,” Everett muttered. He pulled a torch from his belt and pointed it into the darkness, illuminating a makeshift corridor made out of scaffolding, chain-link fencing, and battered panels of scrap metal. “Fuckin’ generator’s crapped out again.”

Applejack watched curiously as the foreman stepped through the door, strolled over to a portable generator just on the other side, and gave it a solid kick. The generator whined and shuddered as it came to life, and a row of lights along the roof of the corridor flared into life. A split-second later all hell broke loose as a chorus of animalistic snarls and scrabbling claws broke out somewhere outside the makeshift corridor. 

“Go on, fuck off, you ugly shits!” Everett spat. The noise stopped after just a few seconds, leaving behind a faint dripping sound. “Fuckin’ trogs.” He spat on the floor and glanced back at Applejack and Adam. “The damn things have been a nightmare ever since that magic shit blew over a while back. This building is part of the abandoned area around the steelyard, but the generators have been on the fritz for a while, so we had to build this damn tunnel just to keep the trogs from breaking through whenever the lights go out.”

“What even are trogs?” Applejack asked. 

Everett snorted loudly. “You’ll see for yourself when you’re in the steelyard. Come on.” Scowling at his back, Applejack fell into step behind him while Adam brought up the rear. 

Unspeakable shit-smelling foulness dripped from the roof of the corridor, or tunnel as the foreman had called it, forcing the three to tread carefully so they didn’t get covered in it. Applejack wasn’t normally bothered by dirt or even manure, but this stuff was just too much. Thankfully, the corridor wasn’t too long, and the group soon came to a heavily reinforced and barred door. A large metal basket with leather shoulder straps attached sat on the floor next to it. 

“One sec.” The scraping of metal on metal echoed through the tunnel as Everett heaved the bar across. “Okay, the steelyard is on the other side of this door. One of you get this basket on, and remember, you need to grab at least ten good steel ingots and get your asses back here as fast as you can. If you manage it without dying, I’ll see about maybe slipping something your way.”

Applejack dutifully slipped the heavy basket on and tightened the straps. Adam made a half-hearted attempt at a protest, but she shut him down by reminding that she was much stronger than him. After shifting the basket slightly to settle it more comfortably, or as comfortably as she could with the rusty metal pressing against her bare skin, Applejack jerked her chin towards the door. “Right, let’s get this done.”

“If you’re sure.” Adam squared his shoulders and took a deep breath before shoving the door open. 

The first thing Applejack saw was a corpse. The body was brutally mauled and, disturbingly, almost half-eaten, but enough tattered scraps of cloth remained for her to guess that it had once been a slave. A splintered old baseball bat and a thoroughly mangled assault rifle lay where they’d fallen next to the body. 

“Hang on, we’re allowed weapons for this?!” Adam exclaimed. 

“If you can find it, fix it, or earn it, then you can use it,” Everett said flatly. “Good luck.” On that ominous note, he slammed the door behind them and sealed it shut.

Feeling strangely nervous all of a sudden, Applejack rolled her shoulders and tore her gaze away from the dead corpse. 

Towering buildings rose up on all sides. Narrow alleyways slid between them, each packed with torn wire fencing, piles of debris, abandoned shipping containers, the occasional ruined vehicle and a literal carpet of trash. Thick pipes stretched between the top floors of some of the buildings, leaking multi-colored sludge and smoke that Applejack sincerely hoped was just ordinary toxic waste of some kind.  

“You’ve had your tetanus shot, right?” Adam asked. 

Applejack nodded. “Sure, but Ah doubt tetanus is the only thing we’d risk catchin’ off of some of this shit.” She pointed down the street directly ahead, which conveniently had the least amount of trash piled up. “We’ll head this way first. The sooner we get the hell out of here, the better.”

Together, the duo made their way cautiously down the street, keeping an eye out for threats and ingots alike. Through some stroke of luck, they found a blood-stained metal basket just a short way past the corpse, containing a couple of ingots in surprisingly good condition. 

“This must have belonged to that poor bastard back there,” Adam noted as he dropped the steel into Applejack’s backpack. “I was wondering why they’d want us to gather scrap from here specifically when there’s plenty all over the place, but if there’s good quality stuff like this still lying around after two hundred years, then there’s no wonder they’re after it.”

Applejack nodded in agreement. Despite the effects of the Rainbooms’ magic, most of the settlements in and around the Capital Wasteland were still having to make do with corroded scrap metal for repairs and expansion. The rust could technically be removed and the steel recycled properly, but not every settlement had the capability to do that and, even when they did, the resulting batch was always smaller than before, making it an increasingly finite resource. The only things in the wasteland more valuable than good steel were clean water and fresh food. 

As they continued on, Applejack snuck a glance at Adam’s torso. She wasn’t remotely attracted to him, he was the wrong gender for a start, but there was something different about his torso that definitely hadn’t been there before. “Hey, what’s with all that weird black shit under your skin?”

“Huh?” Adam glanced down at his chest and his eyes widened in realization. “Oh, that. That, uh, that’s always been there.”

Applejack glared at him. “Don’t try and bullshit me, dumbass, we both did hand-to-hand trainin’ with the Enclave after the battle at the air base. You whipped your darn top off more than once durin’ trainin’, and you sure as sugar didn’t look like that back then, so spill it.”

Adam scowled and shook his head. “I’ll explain later, this place is giving me the creeps.”

Picking their way carefully through the trash, the two soon came across an old rail yard full of old train cars. There were makeshift ramps and bridges made out of wood and scrap metal, so clearly someone had tried to make the place liveable in the past, but time or trogs had put a stop to that. On the far side, a stairway led up to a raised area packed with warehouses, smoke stacks, and all kinds of odd buildings. 

“Why do I get the feeling this is going to be like finding needles in a giant haystack?” Adam asked. 

The same thought had crossed Applejack’s mind, but she was more concerned about the pools of multicolored sludge and clouds of equally colorful mist she could see all over the place. “Ah ain’t never seen a haystack as foul as this.”

“Yeah, I’ll give you that one.” Adam heaved a sigh and started off towards the edge of the rail yard. “Come on, let’s check those dumpsters first. We can start digging through the damn maze later.” 

Applejack wanted to say that that was a dumb idea but, after so long spent in the Capital Wasteland, she supposed that a dumpster was as good a place to start as any. A minute later, she was happy that she’d kept her mouth shut, as they found a few good ingots half-buried in one of them. The only downside was the fact that someone was going to have to get into the dumpster to get them. 

“Ah got this. You keep watch.” Adam nodded as Applejack hauled herself up and over the side. The dumpster was almost completely full of all kinds of random crap, so she had to take extra care not to cut herself. 

“Hold up, what the hell is that?” Adam said suddenly. 

Applejack straightened up and turned to see what he was looking at. She immediately wished she hadn’t. 

A disgusting-looking creature was waddling along the top of a rail car. It might have been human once, but it sure as hell wasn’t anymore. The creature was moving on all fours, looking almost like a toad, with thick claws on each of its oversized hands and feet. Its skin was all either mottled and leathery or pink and raw, it was incredibly scrawny except for a little round pot belly and, like many mutants Applejack had seen, it had absolutely no hair whatsoever. She tried not to look at the wrinkled ballsack and tiny floppy dick swinging between its legs with every step. .

“I guess that must be a trog,” Adam mused. “Ugly fucker.”

“Ugly is the right fuckin’ word,” Applejack agreed. “No point drawin’ attention when we don’t have any guns. We may as well hide until its-” A scrabbling sound behind her made her turn just in time to see another trog clamber into the dumpster. “Sneaky little-” 

Applejack barely got her arms up in time as the creature leapt at her. She grabbed its wrists, stopping its claws before they reached her skin, but she slipped on the uneven footing and the trog’s momentum bowled her over. She cried out as she landed hard on the basket and rolled onto her side. “You little shit!” The trog snapped its teeth at her, but Applejack crushed its wrists to paste then slugged it in the skull, splattering blood and bone everywhere. 

“Are you okay?!” Adam called out anxiously. 

“Ah’m fine,” Applejack growled as she got painfully to her feet. With a sharp hiss, she yanked a length of rusty wire out of her shoulder and glanced over at the rail cars. “Heads up, we’ve got company.”

Adam swore when he saw that the first trog was making a beeline for them. As if that wasn’t bad enough, three more of them had emerged from somewhere and were charging across the railyard, snarling like animals. “Well that’s just fucking groovy.”

“Yep.” Applejack hopped out of the dumpster and rolled her shoulders. “Just stay behind me, Ah can handle these assholes.”

“Not a chance,” Adam shot. “You’re not the only one with a trick up your sleeve.”

Applejack wanted to ask what he had that could match her magic, but she didn’t have time as the first trog was getting close. “Alright, game on.” She picked a rock up off of the floor, gently tossed and caught it in one hand a couple of times to test the weight, then casually threw it at the trog with enough force that it smashed through the creature’s chest and out the other side in a welter of blood. 

“Not bad,” Adam admitted begrudgingly. Applejack smirked and tried to repeat the feat, but the other trogs managed to dodge the projectile this time. “Looks like these fuckers can learn.”

The idea that these creatures could think, even if only a little, was more surprising than Applejack was willing to admit. She wasn’t done yet though. “Step back a second.” Just as the trogs were getting within spitting distance, she reached back and grabbed the dumpster, the metal crumpling beneath her hands, and swung it around in a wide arc. The disgusting creatures barely had time to realize that they were in danger before the dumpster turned them into nothing but greasy smears. 

Applejack grinned and planted her hands on her hips. “Like Ah said, leave it t-”

“Look out!” Adam shoved her aside before she could even react. A split-second later a set of sharp claws whizzed through the space her head had just vacated. Applejack skipped back a step and raised a fist, but Adam got there first, smashing his palm into the trog’s chest. Somehow, incredibly, the blow stopped the trog in its tracks, making it hunch over and sway unsteadily on its feet. 

Applejack’s fist took the creature’s head clean off an instant later. She checked for any more trogs before turning to Adam. “How in the hell did you do that? That was some kung-fu style shit.”

“I got the Enclave to give me some advanced unarmed combat training, just in case I ever found myself without a gun,” Adam replied. Applejack eagerly opened her mouth to ask, but he held a hand up to forestall her. “I’ll teach you if you want, but it’ll have to wait until we’re back in the Capital Wasteland, unless we manage to find some time alone out here without the raiders breathing down our necks.”

“Deal,” Applejack said promptly. “Right now though, Ah guess we should see if we can’t get the rest of these ingots without gettin’ ambushed by trogs.”

Neither of the pair held out much hope for that, but they steeled themselves anyway and cautiously made their way into the rail yard. Despite their concerns, the duo weren’t attacked by any more trogs, even when they wandered down the cramped spaces between individual train cars. 

Applejack certainly saw plenty of trogs, but the beasts seemed happy enough to just keep their distance and observe the pair as they gathered more ingots. “Ah don’t know about you, but Ah genuinely can’t tell if we should be worried about them or not,” she muttered after a while. 

“Me neither,” Adam admitted. “Hopefully, they’ve seen what we’re capable of, and they’ve decided that we’re just not worth the risk. I doubt we’re quite that lucky though.” He jerked his chin towards a pile of scrap a little way ahead. “There’s some more steel over there, how many does that bring us up to?”

Applejack quickly dug out the ingots and tossed them into the basket. “Eleven. Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

With their objective finished, the two hurried back towards the entrance, keeping a careful eye on their surroundings just in case any trogs tried to get the drop on them again. Every step they took away from the rail yard was a blessing as far as Applejack was concerned. Trogs were easy enough to kill, but the way they had used ambushes and observation was a little too creepy for her taste. 

As they neared the steelyard entrance, Adam stopped and held a hand up. “Do you hear that?”

Applejack paused and listened carefully. She could hear the faint sound of industry coming from the direction of the Pitt proper, but she doubted that that was what Adam meant. Then she heard it; a voice nearby, talking gently and earnestly as if to a scared child or animal. 

The pair shared a curt nod before pressing forward more cautiously. They soon found the source of the voice as they rounded an old shipping container. An emaciated slave was standing in a small fenced-off area, pleading with something to come back with him. Applejack blanched when she stepped closer and saw that he was talking to a trog.  

“Billy, it’s me, your brother John-John,” the slave said pleadingly. “You remember me, don’t you, Billy?”

An icy chill ran down Applejack’s spine at the slave’s words. She tensed up as the trog took a step towards him, but instead of attacking, it cocked its head and simply stared at him curiously. “Jh… Jho…” it attempted in a raspy voice. 

The slave, John-John, choked back a sob as he sagged with relief. “That’s right, Billy, I’m your brot-” The moment was abruptly shattered as Billy lunged forward and tore his brother’s throat out with a swipe of his claws. 

“No!” Applejack charged at the fence, tearing it apart with her bare hands as Billy savagely ripped into his brother’s body. A few seconds was all it took for her to make a hole big enough to fit through, but, by the time she managed it, Billy had already snatched up his meal and fled. “Get back here, damn it! He was your brother! He was your fucking brother!”

“AJ, they’re gone. Shouting is just going to attract more of them,” Adam said firmly.

Applejack rounded on him with her fists clenched. “How can you just shrug that off?! They were family for fuck’s sa-”

“I’m not shrugging it off, I’m focusing on not dying,” Adam shot. “You’ve dealt with feral ghouls before. This is the same sort of situation, trog degeneration is just faster than ghoulification, so it makes sense that they’re more likely to have living relatives around. It sucks, I know, probably better than anyone, but we have to keep our head in the game.” He glanced down the alleyway that Billy had disappeared down. “I can see some more ingots down there. Wait here, keep watch, and try to cool off while I grab them.”





Pinkie waited patiently as the Rivet City Council read through the requisition form she had put together. They had barely finished going through the reports of her last mission with Rainbow Dash, but the sooner she got started preparing for her next one, the better. 

“I don’t see a problem with giving you a workshop, per se,” Harkness began, “but some of these materials you’re asking for are, well…”

“Extremely fucking dangerous,” Pia finished flatly. 

“Not to mention that our resources are tight at the moment, especially when it comes to ammunition,” Harkness added. 

Their response was pretty much exactly what Pinkie had expected, but she couldn’t afford to back down. “I understand, but I’m still going to need every last one on that list. It's important.”

Elder Lyons frowned as she read through the list one more time, then fixed Pinkie with a piercing stare. “Is this related to your report on what you encountered in the Capitol Building?” Pinkie just nodded curtly. “I see.” Lyons put the sheet of paper down and turned to her fellow councilors. “I say we authorize all of it. Putting the workshop in the ship’s bow should allay any safety concerns, and I’ll see if the Enclave can provide some of the materials.”

The other councilors discussed logistics amongst themselves for a minute before giving her a nod. 

“That settles it then.” Lyons straightened up and turned to Pinkie. “We’ll provide you with all of the equipment, provisions and training that you need. Consider your mission authorized.”
> Chapter 197 - Guns of Anchorage
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time they got back to the steelyard entrance, a sick, hollow feeling had settled in the pit of Applejack’s stomach. She tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t go away even as Adam pounded a fist on the door.

Metal scraped loudly as Everett unlocked and opened it. “You got your quota?” He asked flatly. 

“Better, we’ve got fourteen ingots,” Adam replied.

Everett raised a surprised eyebrow. “Is that a fact?” Applejack dutifully showed him the basket, at which point he grinned widely. “I’ll be damned. That’d be a scab record if it was just one of you. Alright, let’s get the goods back to the mill and I’ll see what I can throw your way.” 

“We don’t get a bonus for beating’ the quota?” Adam asked half-heartedly as the duo fell into step behind him. 

The foreman snorted and shook his head. “Make it up to a whole twenty on your next trip, and I’ll see what I can do.” 

“No thanks. Goin’ in there once was good enough for me,” Applejack assured him. 

Everett’s laugh was caustic. “Good luck with that. As soon as the other freemen see your tally, and that you didn’t get injured, they’re gonna be pushing to get you sent in again. You’re betting material now. I’d say the way you’re avoiding the steelyard from now on is if you can hold out until Ashur opens up the Hole again. Then again, you’re probably better off taking your chances with the trogs.”

“Well, shit,” Adam huffed, earning a cackle from Everett. 

Despite everything, Applejack was glad when they got back out of the shit-smelling makeshift tunnel and back into the ordinary corridors of the mill. It didn’t take long for the three to get back to the foreman’s office, still ringing with the sounds of industry, where he took the basket off of Applejack and told the two to wait while he got things squared away. 

“Why does this kind of thing always end up being more complicated than it seems,” Adam asked quietly. 

Applejack just shrugged. “Hell if Ah know. Ah can’t believe Ah’m about to say this, but Ah wish Ah was back in the Capital Wasteland.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Adam glanced out of the office window, checking for slavers. “Before Everett gets back, remember, we’re supposed to be slaves. Keep your head down, and try to act as if you’re actually scared of these assholes.”

“That ain’t gonna be easy when most of them look like they haven’t had a decent meal in weeks,” Applejack replied. 

“Just keep your head down, be polite, and don’t look anyone in the eye,” Adam told her. “Hopefully we can find Midea and find out exactly what the hell she wants us to do before they send us back out into the steelyard. I don’t even want to know what the Hole is that Everett mentioned.”

Applejack nodded in agreement just as the foreman in question walked back into the office carrying a small bundle. “Here, this might help you work a little harder,” he said as he handed the bundle to Adam. Original owner can’t use it anymore, on account of decapitation.”

“Decapitation?” Applejack glanced warily at the bundle. “Caused by that thing?”

“Nah, that’s just a work harness. It’s supposed to work by supporting your muscles, or something,” Everett replied with a shake of his head. “We think a trog named Lucy got to him. Real nasty piece of work, that one,” he added darkly. He went strangely quiet for a moment, then shook his head again and jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the mill. “Anyway, I’ve made a note of your tally so far. Get back in there and get about your business.”

“Actually, one last thing.” Everett raised an eyebrow as Adam gestured to Applejack’s bloody shoulder. “Where can we get some clean water to clean that wound out?”

Everett snorted loudly. “You’re kidding, right? There is no clean water in the Pitt. The boss sometimes imports the good stuff, but that shit is real expensive to get out here, and he sure as hell ain’t gonna give none of it to scabs. Best thing you can do is bandage it up an’ start praying.”





Luna flinched as a bullet struck the crate she was hiding behind. The Moons had entered the enemy compound, stepped into some kind of warehouse full of large metal crates, and were greeted almost instantly by a brutal hail of gunfire. Thankfully, a shouted warning from Trixie had given everyone time to dive behind cover before the bullets started flying. 

“I’m gonna push you bastards right back to the Great Wall if I have to!” Their guide shouted as he returned fire, gunning down a Chinese soldier on a catwalk above. Not to be outdone, Sonata used her magic to blast away two more who were trying to inch closer. 

Luna shook her head and checked on Trixie. Much to her relief, the young magician was nestled between large metal crates, keeping her hat squashed down so it didn’t stick out above them. At the very least, she was getting better at hiding. 

Satisfied that the others were alright for the moment, Luna gripped her stave tightly and risked a glance up at the catwalk. There was only one soldier left up there. He stopped shooting to reload, but a single well-aimed bolt took him out before he could finish. 

More gunfire was immediately directed Luna’s way. The crate held up against the bullets, and she made sure she wasn’t exposed at all, but the drumming of lead on steel was still enough to get her teeth chattering. Just as she was working up the courage to lean out and take a potshot, the distinctive scream of a firework tore through the air. Confined indoors, the resulting boom was almost deafening. 

Glancing around, Luna saw Trixie give her a curt nod. The firework hadn’t been enough to take out any of the soldiers, but now they were back to splitting their fire, which gave Luna more of an opportunity. She gave her student a thankful nod in return and looked up over the top of the crate. Between Sonata, their guide, and herself, they managed to take down the last of the Chinese soldiers with nothing more than a few near misses and some bruises. 

“Don’t mess with the US,” the guide said smugly as soon as the last soldier disappeared. 

“We’re going to have to deal with even more of that, aren’t we?” Trixie asked quietly. 

Luna sighed heavily. “I really wish I could say no, but you’re probably right. You did well back there though, both of you did. Let’s just see if we can keep this streak going.” The girls both nodded, Sonata looking eager compared to Trixie’s muted resignation. 

A quick search of the bottom floor revealed that there weren’t any other exits downstairs. They had to check the catwalks. Luna couldn’t help feeling twitchy as they climbed the stairs, there was hardly any cover on the catwalks at all, but no hidden enemies suddenly jumped out to attack as the group made their way around the room. 

Annoyingly enough, the first door they came across was one of the locked ones. Trixie quickly opened it, acquired the briefcase from the room inside, and the four set off once again. Thankfully, the next one led to a series of corridors that went deeper into the facility. Luna kept her stave raised, moving as cautiously as possible, until they turned one last corner and her jaw dropped. 

The corridor opened out into a colossal cavern. The path and left wall continued on straight ahead to another corridor, but to the right was a sheer drop to the ground easily a couple of hundred meters below, and an empty space so vast it looked like it could fit the entirety of Rivet City inside. A nearby cargo elevator presumably gave access to both the ground below and further levels above. 

“Holy shit,” their guide muttered. All of a sudden he pointed down to the extreme end of the cavern and exclaimed loudly, “There! See ‘em down there? That’s their damn Chimera tanks. Don’t worry, they’re well out of range.”

The mention of tanks was enough to get Luna worrying no matter what the idiot said. Looking down into the gloom, she saw what looked like a road crossing the cavern floor parallel to the level the Moons were on. Hundreds of Chinese soldiers were marching along it in regimented formation, accompanied by several vaguely beetle-shaped vehicles that Luna presumed were the tanks. Thankfully, none of them gave any indication whatsoever that they had seen the little group of infiltrators. 

“Ugh, please tell me we aren’t going to have to fight all of those,” Sonata whined. 

“Sweet Tartarus I hope not,” Luna replied quietly. She turned her attention back to the path ahead just in time to see several more soldiers taking up positions in the far corridor. “Look out, we’ve got company!” 

Luna punctuated her words with a blast from the Tide Stave. The girls dove behind nearby crates as she and the guide gave them cover fire, bullets and spears of light whizzing lethally through the air. Sonata added her own magic to the attack a second later. She was slightly out of range, making it less effective than usual, but it kept the enemy distracted enough for Luna and the guide to take them out.  

With the way ahead clear, the group hurried across the cavern and into the far corridor. A long series of corridors and short staircases followed, twisting and turning with no doors or side corridors at all as it steadily climbed higher. The way was suspiciously devoid of soldiers, but Luna wasn’t about to complain.  

As the group turned yet another corner, there was a sudden low rumble that shook the entire building. 

“That didn’t sound good,” Sonata said quietly.

“No, no it didn’t,” Luna agreed. “That must have been a shot from the artillery. At least, I hope it was a shot from the artillery.”

Trixie looked at her as if she’d gone completely mad. “Seriously? A gun that powerful would have to be massive!”

“Which means it’ll have a minimum range,” Luna countered. “I’d rather get close to a gun that big than a robot or an Equestrian monster that big.”

The blood drained instantly from Trixie’s face. “Do Equestrian monsters even get that big?”

“Oh, they get huge!” Sonata told her almost gleefully. “There’s Ursa Majors, ancient Dragons, the Smooze, Erebus-”

“Let’s just focus on the task at hand,” Luna cut in, regretting having ever opened her mouth. 

Thankfully, the very next corridor provided a distraction for Trixie in the form of another locked door. She made quick work of the lock, grabbed the waiting briefcase, and was back out again in under a minute. 

Yet more winding corridors followed. Unfortunately, this time there were fresh soldiers waiting around almost every corner, turning the next leg of the mission into a hellish running battle that threatened to fry Luna’s nerves completely. Even Sonata was starting to flag when the group finally reached an empty corridor. 

A faint ringing sound pricked Luna’s ears. 

“Finally, a health thingie!” Sonata eagerly wrapped her arms around the glowing dispenser and let out a relieved sigh. “Can we bring one of these back with us?”

Luna chuckled wryly. “I wish we could, Sonata, but I’m pretty sure these things only exist in this simulation.”

“Awwww.” The siren reluctantly let go of the dispenser so the others could get to it. Luna let Trixie have a go before using it herself, enjoying the sensation of her stamina rapidly returning the moment she laid a hand on it. They all rested next to the dispenser for a couple of minutes, allowing themselves to mentally recharge as much as they could, but they didn’t dare to linger too long just in case the crawling wall of bones caught up to them. 

Right around the next corner the group found themselves back in the giant cavern. They were higher up this time, but aside from that everything looked the same. Even the number of soldiers that piled out of the far corridor to face the group was the same as previously. As they broke through those soldiers and pressed on into another labyrinth of corridors, however, the group found themselves facing stiff resistance right from the get-go. There was no dispenser this time around, just a brutal gauntlet of virtual steel tempered with pain and fear that were both all too real.  

The only saving grace was the fact that Sonata’s magic was utterly devastating in such close confines. She was holding herself back a little, mostly so the echoes of her own attacks didn’t bounce back off of the walls and kill everyone, but even those weakened blasts were more than enough to devastate the soldiers and continue reverberating through the corridors. 

Eventually, the group broke through and, yet again, emerged in the cavern. 

“This place again?!” Trixie exclaimed, understandably frustrated.

“Get ready for the soldiers in the next corridor,” Luna warned, keeping her stave raised despite the way her muscles were burning. “We’ll take them down, then we’ll rest here before tackling the next section.”

Seconds ticked by as the Moons waited anxiously for the soldiers to appear. After a while, with no sign of the soldiers appearing, it was Sonata who finally broke the silence, “Okay, for realsies, are these guys coming or not?”

Luna sighed and lowered the stave. “I guess not. Take five, girls. I’ll keep an eye on the corridors.”

Trixie and Sonata both hurried over to the nearest crates and practically collapsed onto them. Luna felt a twinge of guilt as she sank onto a crate herself; neither of the girls, Trixie especially, deserved to be pushed so far in such a dangerous situation. A second later Luna realized what she was doing and shook her head. She couldn’t afford to start brooding just yet.  

The cavern was silent except for the subtly labored breathing of the girls. Their guide looked as if he were out for a morning stroll, but that was hardly surprising given that he wasn’t even technically real. 

As she watched the corridors, glancing from one to the other in turn, Luna noticed a faint crackling sound coming from somewhere below. Curious, she got to her feet and cautiously looked over the ledge. 

The marching Chinese soldiers were gone. In fact, the whole base of the cavern had disappeared from view, utterly subsumed beneath a writhing mass of shiny black forms. Luna didn’t need a closer look to know that the wall of bones had grown, consuming more and more of the simulation as it followed the Moons. “Break time’s over. We need to move.”

The girls were on their feet in an instant. Neither of them even tried to question it, they just fell into step as Luna and the guide strode to the far corridor. 

Instead of a winding path full of soldiers, Luna was surprised to find that the corridor turned and almost immediately opened up into a low, wide room that was packed full of metal racking. Most of it was empty, but a few sections held enormous shells that dwarfed any of the Moons easily. Luna shuddered at the thought of just how big the gun was that could fire such behemoths. 

As if to drive the point home, another low rumble shook the building. 

“Hmm. Looks like the Commies are getting low on ammo for the big guns,” their guide said thoughtfully. “Maybe we didn’t even need to come up here.”

Trixie threw him a caustic glare. “If this stupid simulation is putting us through all of this for nothing I swear-”

A loud order shouted in Chinese interrupted her threat. The group dove behind cover just as the gunfire started, bullets ricocheting lethally off of the racking and the stored munitions. Luna hesitated, flinching every time she saw something hit one of the giant shells, but the guide showed no such restraint as he gleefully returned fire. 

“Be careful what you hit!” Luna shouted over the din. “We don’t want to set off one of th-” She glanced around just in time to see Sonata drawing in a deep breath. “Sonata, no-”

Everything shook as the full power of siren magic blasted through the room like a thunderclap. Luna dropped into a crouch and threw her arms over her head, screwing her eyes shut against the apocalyptic sound even as she braced for the coming explosion. Slowly, too slowly, the attack stopped, the echoes faded away and, somehow, the world was still in one piece.

Luna cracked her eyes open and looked around, hardly daring to breathe. She stared dumbly at the stored shells, wondering how they hadn’t exploded, when suddenly the truth hit her; they weren’t programmed to be actual munitions, just part of the digital scenery like the racking and the walls themselves.

“What’s up?” Sonata asked casually. Luna just glared at her, wondering whether the siren had come to the same conclusion that much faster or if she was just oblivious. Deciding that she wasn’t going to like the answer either way, Luna just stood on shaking legs and gestured for the others to follow. 

Beyond the storage area was another low room with a cargo elevator in the center. Staircases on either side led up to the next floor, but the moment Luna stepped into the room more soldiers sprang out from behind some stacked crates behind the elevator. 
Sonata wiped them out before they could even get a shot off. 

Upstairs brought a return to the gauntlet of corridors. Thankfully, the simulation finally seemed to be running out of soldiers. There were a handful of them spaced out along the route but, aside from another locked door and briefcase for Trixie to deal with, the corridors were largely empty until they finally reached a health dispenser quietly ringing away on a table. 

“Thank Harmony!” Trixie gasped as her and Sonata practically fell against the dispenser. Luna knew exactly how they felt, savoring the sensation of her stamina returning and pain fading as she touched the strange little device. 

“I wish it would get rid of all the sweat too, I’m soaked,” Sonata grumbled. A second later her brow knitted tightly in thought. “Wait, if this is all a video game, how are we sweating?”

Luna raised an eyebrow, surprised and a little glad to be getting an actual intelligent question from her. “It could just be a part of the programming to make things more realistic, like the armor we’re wearing, or it’s because all of the adrenaline is making our real bodies sweat and that’s affecting us in here.”

Trixie shook her head and let out an exasperated sigh. “I get that you’re a teacher, but do you really have to give us lessons right in the middle of this nightmare?”

“This is the first time Sonata has actually tried to learn something, I’m taking the chance while it’s here,” Luna countered. Not to mention the fact that that small interaction was the closest she had felt to normal since arriving in this radioactive dumpster-fire of a reality. “Let’s keep moving. There can’t be that far left to go.”

With her spirits oddly lifted, Luna stepped around the next corner and felt her heart rate immediately skyrocket again. Another munitions storage room was waiting for the group. Unlike the last one, the metal racking here was almost completely full of giant shells. 

The Moons immediately got into cover and prepared to meet the onslaught of soldiers. Once again, however, the simulation had switched things up, as not a single Chinese soldier appeared no matter how long the group waited. 

“I wish this stupid simulation would make up its mind,” Trixie muttered. 

“You and I both,” Luna agreed. She kept cautiously moving forward, half expecting an ambush out of nowhere, but the group didn’t encounter another soul until the corridor finally opened out into an expansive warehouse. 

Metal racking reached from the floor of the warehouse right up to the ceiling high above. It was so densely packed that there was barely enough room for two people to walk between the racks, and every square inch of it was packed to the brim with artillery shells.

The guide sighed heavily. “Yeah, yeah… so I was wrong. Let’s keep moving.” 

Luna rolled her eyes and made to step forward, but Trixie suddenly grabbed her arm and hissed a warning, “Wait! Do you see that?”

“See what?” Luna whispered back, immediately on guard. 

“There.” Trixie pointed to an empty space between some racking. “See? The air is rippling, like a heat haze or something.”

Luna squinted and leaned forward slightly. There was indeed a slight distortion in the air, so faint it was almost invisible. Trixie really was scarily perceptive. “I wonder if it’s a glitch?”

“Do you really want to take that chance?” Trixie asked pointedly. 

Luna blinked slowly at her. “No. No I do not.” Without a second’s hesitation she raised her stave and fired a bolt of magic at the distortion. The distortion flared as it was blasted backwards, crackling and glitching until it resolved itself into a humanoid form lying flat on its back. 

The man, if it was a man, was wearing some sort of gray full-body jumpsuit, with a featureless golden visor covering his face. Luna got a brief glimpse of a straight-bladed sword in his lifeless hand before the body disappeared in a blue flash.

“Invisible soldiers. Great.” Luna ignored the awful chill running down her spine and whispered to Trixie, “Do you see any more of them?”

Trixie nodded slowly. “At least two, I think. There’s one in the alcove over there, and I think there’s one behind the racking just ahead.”

Luna looked where her student indicated, hoping that the other hidden soldiers wouldn’t decide to attack all at once, but she couldn’t see them anyway. She looked up at the munitions sitting in the racking and sighed. Hopefully they were all just as decorative as the others. “Sonata? Do you think you can blast everyone in this room from here?”

A disturbingly vicious grin spread across Sonata’s face as she stepped forward. Trixie shouted a sudden warning, but it was drowned out as the siren unleashed her power. Waves of devastating sonic power buffeted the warehouse, Sonata turning her head to direct her magic into every corner, until the power and its echoes combined were enough to drive the others to their knees. 

The invisible Chinese soldiers weren’t so lucky, as several of them were blown away by the magical storm. Incredibly, two of them actually got to their feet and tried to force themselves forward, but a couple of utterly silent bursts from the guide’s gun were enough to finish them off. It was only when the thunderous echoes finally died away, leaving a ringing silence in their wake, that Luna realized that Sonata had stopped.

“All done!” Sonata planted her hands on her hips and gave a satisfied nod. 

Just as Luna let out a relieved sigh, she spotted another static-laced distortion streaking directly towards Sonata. Luna shot to her feet, intending to shove her aside, but Trixie got there first. 

Sonata choked as she was yanked back by her collar barely a split-second before a translucent sword swept through what would have been her neck. The materializing soldier stepped forward for another swing, but a shot from the Tide Stave made him skip back again. He narrowly deflected the next shot with his sword. 

Luna gritted her teeth and kept firing. The soldier backpedaled, parrying or dodging every shot that came his way, until the guide added his assault rifle to the mix, finally bringing their enemy down in a hail of bullets. 

“Don’t mess with the US,” the guide said smugly. 

Luna wasn’t nearly as confident. She kept looking between the spot where the soldier had fallen, the eerily silent warehouse they still had to traverse, and Sonata, who was massaging her sore throat. Hopefully, her voice was still good to go; it was only thanks to her magic that the Moons had made it as far as they did. Their guide had saved their bacon against the stealth soldier, but Luna was under no illusions as to their chances of survival without Sonata’s power.

“That was too close,” Trixie noted. 

“Yeah. That sucked, but it was nearly, like, super sucky. Thanks.” Sonata gave an appreciative nod to an astonished Trixie before stepping to the front of the group again. “I’m gonna hit the room again, just in case.”

Luna braced herself for the blast, but even so the sheer power of it was still almost overwhelming. This time, the echoes faded without revealing any hidden soldiers, though the Moons kept their guard up all the same. When no invisible soldiers came running at the group, they finally dared to venture into the warehouse. 

Thankfully, as nerve-wracking as it was to creep through the warehouse, wary of every shadow or empty space, the Moons were able to pass unmolested. All of the doors on the first floor were sealed shut, but they did find a metal staircase that led up to a series of winding catwalks high above. 

The walkways proved to be mercifully clear. They stretched over the entirety of the warehouse, but eventually they led to a short corridor and a nondescript door. A health dispenser sat on a table right next to the exit. The Moons eagerly made use of it; after dealing with the invisible soldiers it was desperately needed, and opened the door. 

An icy chill greeted the group as they stepped outside. They were back out on the cliffs. The cliff edge was right in front of them, protected by a metal guard rail, while a narrow rocky ledge allowed passage to the left and right. 

Just as Luna stepped outside a colossal boom shook the ground, knocking dust from the doorframe. Her heart in her throat, she whipped her head around and spotted a massive concrete platform off to the right. An absurdly big cannon was squatting on top of it like some grotesque metal gargoyle. 

“That’s the Front down there,” the guide said grimly. “Those guns are pounding on our guys. Let’s take ‘em out!”

Luna shuddered as she imagined what it must have been like as a soldier during the war, getting shelled by guns as big as that. It hardly bore thinking about. Shaking off such dark thoughts, Luna readied her stave and set off towards the cannon. The ledge was strangely devoid of any soldiers, not that anyone was complaining, and soon came to a short stairway leading down to a plateau.  

The artillery emplacement dominated the area. Tall cliffs rose up behind it, with a small clearing at the base giving access to the rear. A narrow defile at the bottom of the cliffs led elsewhere, presumably to another cannon.

Luna looked up at the massive weapon in wonder. “How in Harmony are we meant to destroy that thing?” Almost as soon as she said it, she heard a loud chime coming from her belt. Glancing down, Luna’s eyes practically popped out of their sockets as she saw what was very clearly a big boxy explosive device on her hip. “That wasn’t there before, was it?!”

“Who cares? Just stick it on the stupid gun!” Sonata snapped. 

“R-right.” Luna unclipped the bomb and turned to inspect the artillery. As if the developers had anticipated her next dilemma, a faint red silhouette appeared right at the back of the concrete platform, showing her where to plant the bomb. The brief moment of relief that Luna felt was quashed mere seconds later as she stepped over to the silhouette and spotted a bunker, likely full of soldiers, lurking on the other side of the artillery piece. The only silver lining was the fact that the bunker’s window wasn’t quite facing the point where the bomb needed to go, so, with a little luck, she’d be able to place it without being seen. 

Just as Luna screwed up her courage and stepped forward a bullet smashed into the concrete next to her head. She flinched and skipped back just as the report of the rifle rang out, echoing off of the cliffs. “Where did that come from?!”

“There!” Trixie threw down a couple of smoke bombs as shouts filled the air. “There’s an invisible guy on the cliff! Get the bomb set before the smoke clears and let's get out of here!”

Luna quickly pressed the bomb against the platform. It stuck like glue, so she tried pressing the conspicuous red button on top of it. The loud beeping that started up was ominous enough for Luna to get the hint. “It’s done, let’s go!” She grabbed the girls and sprinted for the defile she had spotted earlier, ignoring the crackle of gunfire as they burst out of the smoke and not stopping even as they plunged into the narrow rocky corridor. 

The explosion came just a couple of seconds later. It was almost impossible to describe; a blast that shook the earth, turned the mind to jelly and made the air itself scream in agony. Despite its power, the noise only lasted for a few seconds. Soon, all that remained were the echoes rolling through the chasm, and even they faded to naught in just a matter of seconds. 

“Hell yeah! Take that you red bastards!” Their guide shouted suddenly. 

The Moons all stared at each other incredulously. Sonata smirked, snorted, and finally burst out laughing as if he had said something utterly hysterical. Despite everything, Luna found herself smirking as well. The smile was wiped off of her face a second later as another colossal gunshot tore through the air. 

“What the- there’s another one?!” Trixie screeched.

“It seems that way,” Luna said grimly. “Let’s go find it, but keep your eyes open.”

The defile went on for only a hundred yards or so before abruptly reaching another clearing. The second artillery gun sat on a concrete platform, identical to the first, only this time there was no bunker nearby to protect it. Instead, there was just a table bearing a health dispenser placed conspicuously next to the glowing red silhouette where the bomb should go. A wide path on the far side of the clearing appeared to lead to yet another artillery piece, poking out above a rocky bluff. 

“Let’s blow this beast apart!” The guide exclaimed eagerly. 

Luna looked around suspiciously. She half-expected there to be a dozen or so invisible soldiers lurking in plain sight, waiting to ambush unsuspecting souls. “Trixie, do you see anything?” The young magician looked around carefully before replying that she didn’t. “Okay. You two head over to the far path and keep watch. I’ll go and plant the bomb.”

Gathering her courage, Luna took a deep breath and ran over to the gun. She felt horribly exposed, her shoulder blades itching as she waited to feel a bullet between them, but despite her fears nothing whatsoever happened as Luna crossed the clearing. As before, a bomb appeared on her belt as she approached the silhouette. Luna planted the explosive, armed it, and sprinted for the path where the others were waiting. 

Prepared this time, the group huddled down in the lee of a large boulder as the artillery gun made its apocalyptic exit from existence. 

“That’s two. Let’s finish the job,” the guide said when the dust had settled. 

“Does that mean that the next gun is the last one?” Sonata asked hopefully. 

Luna gave a noncommittal shrug. “If we’re lucky.”

Buoyed by their success and the hope that they were almost finished, the group moved quickly and quietly along the path, pausing at each turn to cautiously check for any waiting soldiers. Soon enough, they reached the final clearing and its artillery. Just like the first, this one had a bunker next to it for protection. 

“Trixie, do you see any invisible people?” Luna asked quietly, fully aware of how ridiculous the question was.  

“I’m not sure,” Trixie replied in a whisper. “I think there’s something up on the cliff behind the gun, but I can’t tell if it’s a soldier or just the wind blowing snow around.”

The uncertainty in her voice was enough to set Luna’s teeth on edge. The cliff that Trixie had indicated was too far away for Sonata’s magic, and even if it wasn’t there was still the issue of the bunker. As the group dithered, deciding what to do, a familiar crackling sound from behind sent a shiver down their spines. The Moons all reluctantly looked back over their shoulders. 

The wall of bones had caught up. It was advancing faster than ever before, skeletal limbs growing and reaching out from the writhing mass almost as fast as someone could run. Time was up.

“Trixie, distract whatever’s on the cliff! Sonata, blast the bunker, then both of you run!” Luna didn’t wait for an answer before she sprinted for the gun. 

“Last gun! Blow that thing off the map!” The guide shouted after her. 

Angry yells rang out as soldiers piled out of the bunker, only to be smashed off of their feet by Sonata’s power. A moment later a firework streaked past, sparks scattering in its wake, and exploded against the cliff with a fantastic blue flash. 

The bomb was waiting on her belt when Luna reached the gun. Acting almost on instinct, she slammed it against the concrete and jabbed the red button. 

Just as Luna turned to run a bullet smacked straight into her chest with an audible thud. She stumbled, almost tripping over in shock, but the armor had done its job and she managed to keep her footing as she scrambled away from the gun. A second firework screeched through the air, its explosion providing cover for Luna's mad dash to safety. 

The explosive demise of the final gun sent Luna sprawling. Pain lanced through her knees and hands as she scraped along the rocky ground, but it was nothing compared to the relief she felt as her surroundings began to crackle and warp. Looking up on a whim, a jolt ran down Luna’s spine as she spotted the little girl from before sitting cross-legged a short distance away, grinning at her. 

“How interesting.” The girl’s voice was astoundingly deep and masculine, with an accent that Luna couldn’t quite place. It was the last thing she heard as the whole world went dark. “Keep pressing on, Frau. Entertain me more.”
> Chapter 198 - Paving the Way...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack winced as Adam wiped and bandaged her shoulder with a relatively clean scrap of cloth torn from his outfit. “No clean water,” he muttered angrily. “It’s no wonder they need to keep bringing slaves in.” He finished tying off the bandage and gave a dissatisfied grunt. “That’ll have to do for now. If you start noticing any redness or-”

“Ah grew up on a farm, Ah know what an infection looks like,” Applejack interrupted. “Ah’m up to date on all of my shots too, so that’s one less thing to worry about, at least. What now?”

Adam frowned and turned to look around the street. A few raiders were eyeing the pair suspiciously, but so far no-one had bothered them. “Right now, I say we find Midea and find out what the fuck it is that she wants us to do.”

Applejack nodded curtly. “Sounds good to me.” She rolled her shoulder to check its range before setting off towards Midea’s living area; Applejack refused to call such a glorified slave pen a home. It was surprisingly tricky remembering to keep her head down and act like a slave, but none of the raiders paid any attention to the pair once they started walking, so clearly they were doing something right. 

The duo soon found Midea outside her quarters oiling some kind of heavy-duty power saw. She looked up just as they approached. “Oh, thank god! I suspected that you’d be up to the challenge of the Steelyard, but I couldn’t help worrying.” Midea handed the saw to another slave and stood up, wiping her hands on her ragged clothes. “Come with me. We’ll get some food, and we can talk while we eat.”

“Won’t the guards find that suspicious?” Adam asked quietly. 

“We’re allowed to eat. Also, successful Steelers like yourselves are especially useful, so they tend to get a little leeway with rest breaks and such,” Midea assured him. 

Applejack fell into step alongside her with an incredulous look. “Successful? Ah’d be surprised if any of y’all even survived goin’ out in that crazy Steelyard.”

“Around here, survival is success, and it’s not something that most manage for long,” Midea replied grimly. “Those who do are respected and often feared, at least among their fellow slaves.”

“Why would they be feared?” Adam asked. 

“That’s one of the things we need to talk about,” Midea said cryptically. She led the pair over to an unusually cheery slave woman, who doled out bowlfuls of what Applejack hoped was stew, then over to a few piles of breeze blocks that seemed to do for seating. 

Applejack looked down at her bowl with a grimace. She had eaten plenty of dodgy crap in the wasteland, but this slop was looking to be the worst of the lot. The broth was somehow both transparent and a thick brown color at the same time, while the grayish chunks of meat looked about as appetizing as ghoul-flesh, and almost as fresh. Still, food was food. Even the taste wasn’t that bad, all things considered. 

“I’m not sure you should be eating that.” Applejack glanced at Adam curiously, but he turned to Midea instead. “I heard that there’s no clean water, and I sure as hell don’t see any brahmin around, so what's this stuff made of?”

“You probably don’t want to know, but it’s as safe and nutritious as we can manage under the circumstances.” Midea subtly checked to make sure no guards were watching before saying quietly, “Besides, if you refuse to eat even though you look healthy, the guards will get suspicious.” 

Applejack sighed and shook her head. “It’s fine, Adam, Ah’ll just get the Scribes to give me a look over when we get back to Rivet City. Right now Ah just want to hear what it is we’re supposed to be doin’ here.” 

Midea got the hint and explained quietly, “It’s simple, really. From time to time, Ashur opens up his arena. We call it the Hole. Any slave who wants to can fight against the gladiators. If you win, you get your freedom. More importantly, you get an audience with Ashur. It’s the only way a slave will ever get the chance to talk to him directly.”

“That’s where we come in,” Applejack put in. 

Midea nodded in confirmation. “You fight. You win. And when you talk to Ashur, you take the cure. Wernher has a distraction planned that should give you a chance to grab it and bring it back to me.”

It certainly sounded simple enough, but somehow Applejack doubted that things were really going to be so easy. “When’s the arena due to open?”

“I don’t know, but it should be soon. Maybe in the next couple of days,” Midea replied. “Until then, I’ll arrange somewhere for you both to sleep. I was hoping to have you running errands to keep you away from the guards, but now that you’ve proven yourselves in the Steelyard they’ll probably want to send you back out there. Just… try not to get yourselves killed, okay?”





“Damn fine work you did takin’ out those guns,” a gruff voice said out of nowhere. “Damn fine.”

Luna raised an arm to shield her eyes as her vision went from pitch darkness to blinding light. The light dimmed gradually, but everything was so full of static that she couldn’t see anything. “Wha-? What’s going on? Girls?!”

“Ah, mein apologies, Frau.” The disturbingly familiar voice of the strange little girl made Luna shudder. “Do not fret, your students are fine, I am merely tinkering to make things a little more interesting.” Her accent, if she really was a girl, seemed to shift and switch with every sentence, and the idea that she was tinkering, whatever that meant, was more than enough to make Luna fret. 

Oblivious to Luna’s concerns, or simply ignoring them, the voice hummed an annoyingly upbeat tune as she went about her business. Slowly but surely, the static cleared up and the surroundings came into focus. 

Luna saw Trixie and Sonata first, standing on either side of her and looking just as worried and confused as she felt. As her vision cleared Luna saw that they were in some kind of oversized military tent; the kind used in movies as a field command post, full of terminals, radios, and all sorts of weird and wonderful military tech that she couldn’t even guess the purpose of. Their previous guide was nowhere to be seen.

Finally, the air in front of the Moons flickered and a man appeared out of thin air. He was tall and clearly well-built beneath his overcoat, with iron-gray hair cropped short and a matching mustache and goatee. 

“That would be a digital simulacra of General Chase, the man responsible for this particular simulation,” the strange girl’s voice whispered in Luna’s ear. “Short-sighted and narrow-minded, but useful in his own way.” The voice sharpened as it added, “Of course, if he had properly shielded the cable connection between our two facilities as I instructed then I wouldn’t be stuck in my current predicament, but there we are. Thankfully, that particular miscalculation has been rectified. Now I believe that we have kept the good general waiting long enough. Have fun.”

Luna opened her mouth to demand an explanation, but a loud pop and a burst of static cut her off before she could speak. 

“Unfortunately, while you were up there climbing mountains, we were down here getting our butts kicked,” General Chase continued as if there hadn’t been any interruption. “The Chinese decided to use our Field HQ for target practice and damn near blew us all to pieces. We lost some good men, including my Strike Team Commander, Colonel Patterson.”

Trixie gasped quietly in realization. She looked distinctly queasy as she said, “Hang on, I thought this was just an awards screen or something. We’ve finished the simulation, haven’t we? Th-they’re not going to make us do even more? Vice-Principal?”

“I didn’t call you down here for a pep talk and cigars,” the General said bluntly, though he kept his gaze fixed on Luna. “You’ve earned yourself a field promotion, soldier. As of this moment you’re taking over Patterson’s Strike Team. And before you thank me, you better wait and see what your mission entails.”

It took a surprising amount of willpower for Luna to avoid swearing loudly. Real or not, having a military rank dumped on her was a horrifying prospect, especially with an inevitably life-threatening task tacked on. “What do we have to do?” Luna asked in a resigned tone. 

“There are three hardened targets that stand between us and the Chinese headquarters. That’s where your Strike Team comes in,” General Chase replied. “Follow me over to the situation map and I’ll bring you up to speed.” 

Luna took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth. Shoving her own emotions down, she forced a reassuring smile onto her face before turning to the girls. “It’ll be alright, we’ve just got to keep doing what we’ve been doing. Let’s get this over with and get back to Rivet City as quickly as possible.”

The girls clearly weren’t happy with this turn of events, but they both nodded dully  and followed the General over to a solid steel table in the middle of the tent. A 3D holographic map was projected across the surface of the table. Under normal circumstances, Luna would have been utterly fascinated by it, but her curiosity was smothered by dread at the thought of whatever nightmare she had to drag the girls through next. 

“Okay, pay attention, soldier. I’m only going to go through this once.” Luna snapped out of her funk as the General pointed to a spot on the map. “We’ve set up our new Field HQ down here. The area is pretty secure now that the Artillery Guns are gone.” He gestured to another area and a shining square popped up around it. “The first of the three targets we need to handle is their Chimera depot over here. Be careful on your approach, you’re going to have to get through the Enemy Camp on the way. Once you breach the perimeter of the depot, you need to take out both of the main fuel tanks.”

Sonata cocked her head to the side curiously. “What kind of fuel do chimeras need? Do the Chinese soldiers just have huge tanks full of cheese over there?”

“Your second target is all the way over here,” the General continued without even acknowledging her unhinged comment. The Chinese have set up a listening post set into the side of Calliway Ridge. There are some abandoned mines along the route, so keep your eyes and ears open. It’s a great place for an ambush.”

“Fantastic,” Trixie muttered sarcastically. 

“You need to clear the place of personnel so we can get our intelligence boys in there to start decoding.” The General fiddled with the table’s controls and a third area was highlighted. “Once the first two targets are down, the last obstacle standing in the way is their damn Pulse Field. You need to cross it then cause it to overload so we can mop up the place with the T-51b’s.” He fixed Luna with a stern glare. “Let me warn you now. Unless you have some sort of a death wish, I wouldn’t even go near the field until the first two targets are down.”

Luna bit back the urge to say that one needed a death wish to sign up for this stupid simulation in the first place. 

“Lieutenant Morgan will be your eyes and ears for Operation Anchorage, so get everything else you need from him.” The General straightened up and clasped his hands behind his back. “Uncle Sam’s invested a lot of money turning you into a killing machine… time to pay him back. Dismissed.” The moment he finished talking, there was a crackle of static and suddenly the General was gone, leaving the Moons alone in the tent. 

Sonata stared blankly at the spot where the man had been standing. “Uh… okay?” 

“Who’s Lieutenant Morgan? And Uncle Sam?” Trixie asked. 

“I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure they haven’t invested any money in me, or turned me into a killing machine,” Luna admitted with a shake of her head. She glanced around, looking for any clues as to where Lieutenant Morgan might be, but on seeing nothing useful she sighed and headed for the tent’s exit. “I guess we should take a look outside. If this is the Field HQ then there should be someone we… can… what in Tartarus?”

Something was wrong with the simulation. The Field HQ itself seemed alright, a collection of military tents and piles of crates gathered in a snowy clearing, but the sky and horizon were both jet-black, as if everything outside of the immediate surroundings had simply ceased to exist. To make matters worse, there were no signs of life whatsoever in the camp. The Moons were completely alone. 

“What’s going on? Where is everyone?” Trixie asked warily. 

A coy giggle made the trio whip around. The creepy little girl was back, sitting cross-legged on top of the tent they had started in. 

“What’s a kid doing here?” Sonata blurted out. 

“She’s been following us through the simulation,” Luna replied, not taking her eyes off of the girl for an instant. “She’s working with the Boogeyman, somehow.”

The girl giggled again and spoke in a normal child’s voice, “You don’t need to look so scared, sillies! The system didn’t quite have enough processing power for the game I want you to play, so I just got rid of some of the unnecessary details to free up some space.”

“What game? What are you- hey, wait!” The girl smiled and faded from view, leaving Luna glaring at empty air. 

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Trixie said quietly. 

Luna pinched the bridge of her nose and heaved a sigh. “Well, whatever that girl wants, and I’m not convinced that she is just a little girl, there’s not much that we can do about it at the moment. For now, all we can do is keep moving through this simulation in one piece.”

Sonata tentatively raised a hand. “Uh, what about Lieutenant Morgan? Aren’t we supposed to speak to him?” 

“I get the feeling the Lieutenant was one of the unnecessary details that the girl deleted,” Luna noted sourly. “We already know our targets, so I guess we’re going to have to do this on our own.”

Sonata sighed and rolled her eyes, more aggravated than anything, but Trixie looked justifiably afraid. It was nice to see that at least one of the girls understood the fear of having an unknown entity pulling strings behind the scenes. 

“I suppose we at least have an idea of what to expect this time around,” Luna said, trying to reassure her student, even if only a little. “We’ve gotten this far. Let’s finish this.” It wasn’t much, but it at least got a weary nod out of Trixie. Bereft of any other options, the Moons set about exploring the area.

It didn’t take long for them to find a wide path between two tents that seemed to lead away from the Field HQ. Strangely, the path’s entrance could only be seen when facing it directly, as if it was enclosed by a tunnel of pure darkness. 

Luna struggled to ignore a bone-deep feeling of unease as she led the way along the path. The knowledge that the creepy girl was watching them was part of it but, beyond that, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else stalking them in the darkness. Half-heard whispers seemed to follow the group at every turn, while half-imagined shapes lingered just out of sight. 

“Can I just blast this stupid place to pieces already?” Sonata grumbled. 

“I get how you feel, but no,” Luna told her. “Save your strength for when we come across more soldiers.” The path opened up suddenly as soon as the last word left her mouth, unexpectedly dumping the trio in the middle of a snowy forest clearing. “What the heck?”

Luna looked around in confusion. The sky was still black, and the path they had followed was still a lone strip of color above an empty abyss, but the Moons were now standing on what appeared to be an island of sorts. Tightly packed trees obscured the way ahead. 

“That’s weird. Kinda cool though,” Sonata said. “It reminds me a little of the kelp forests back home in Equestria.”

“How so?” Luna asked, distracted despite herself.

A nostalgic smile spread across Sonata’s face. It was actually refreshing to see an expression on her that wasn’t irritation or blank ambivalence. “They’re just plants that grow in the sea, but if you’re swimming along and not paying attention then you can end up lost in a forest of it before you even know it. Predators sometimes like to hide in them to ambush prey, too.”

Luna fought back a shudder as the parallels to their own situation sprang to mind. “Let’s try and avoid ending up like prey, then. Keep your eyes open.”

The girls were back on guard in an instant. With their heads back in the game, the Moons advanced cautiously into the woods. 

Time seemed to lose all meaning as the trio walked. The trees were identical, all with pale gray trunks and snow-white leaves. Even the ground was white; flat, clean, and featureless, like a sheet of paper. It was unnatural. Of course, Luna knew that the entire simulation was technically unnatural, but up until this point the developers had clearly made an effort to create environments that at least felt real. This forest was different. 

“What was that sound?” Sonata hissed suddenly.

The three stopped to listen intently. Seconds ticked by slowly, until finally a faint sound echoed through the woods; a child, laughing playfully. 

“Is that that weird little girl again?” Sonata asked. 

“I sincerely hope not,” Luna replied. “Which way did it come from? These trees are throwing off my sense of direction.” Sonata pointed and took the lead in what was hopefully the right direction. A short way further on, as far as Luna could tell, the trio found the source of the sound. 

A young child was squatting with their back to the group a little way ahead. They couldn’t have been older than seven or eight, wearing a pair of faded jeans, a black and white striped t-shirt, and a strange white balaclava with an orange bobble-hat perched on top. The child was cheerfully humming away while digging in the snow with something. 

“That’s not the same kid,’ Sonata noted astutely. “Hey, kid! What’re you doing here?”

Luna felt a sudden urge to smack a palm to her forehead. Or the siren’s. “Sonata, don’t be so confrontati- what the…?” She trailed off as the child looked back over its shoulder at the group. 

The helmet turned out to be an oversized clown mask. It had a colorful grinning face sewn into it, but the smile was too wide, the teeth were yellow and shark-like, and thick rivulets of what looked distressingly like blood were leaking from its eyes. As if that wasn’t creepy enough, the child was gripping a bloody carving knife in one small hand. 

“That’s sick. That’s sick,” Trixie muttered to herself, backing away with a look of pure disgust on her face. 

Luna desperately wanted to agree, but she forced herself to look calm as she tried to remember everything she had learned during her short stint as an elementary teacher. “H-hey, kiddo. That’s an interesting toy you’ve got there. Uh, why don’t you put that down and we’ll, uh, find you something new to play with?”

The kid just stared blankly at her. Luna silently cursed herself for such a pathetic attempt, only for the child to stand and turn to face her properly. “Hi there. Do you want to come with us?” Luna crouched a little to get closer to the child’s level. “It’s okay, we’re not going to hurt you.”

Flecks of blood sprayed from the mask’s mouth as the child let out an inhuman screech. Luna took a step back, startled, and the child took the chance to charge at her with its knife held high. 

“Get lost!” Luna’s heart lurched as Sonata darted forward and booted the kid in the face, smashing it off of its feet. “Hah! Take that you little freak!”

“Sonata?!” Luna choked out. 

The siren gave her a confused look. “What? It’s not like the little brat's real.” The brat in question was just getting to its feet when Sonata unleashed her magic, sending it flying through the air to slam into a tree with a crack that was audible even over the siren’s song.

Luna and Trixie both stared in horror as the child crumpled to the floor in a mangled heap. Instead of disappearing like the soldiers had, it simply laid there in a spreading pool of blood. 

Sonata slowly turned pale, looking increasingly uneasy as the body refused to disappear. “That, uh, that’s definitely not a real kid, right? It’s gotta be just another part of the simulation, ‘cause, like, killing real kids is just the worst.” 

Luna rounded on her, ready to tear the impatient idiot a new one, when an awful keening sound came from the corpse. Glancing back, Luna had to clamp a hand over her mouth as she saw the body swelling up like a giant balloon. It exploded a second later, spreading gore and viscera everywhere. She felt her gorge rising at the sight of the mess, only for it to disappear after a few moments, leaving behind a small blue-and-red gem where the body had been. 

“Hah! I told you it wasn’t a real kid!” Sonata exclaimed jubilantly. Luna turned to stare at her in disbelief, but the siren ignored her and skipped over to pick up the gemstone. “Hey, look at this! This is my magic!”

“How can you be so normal after that?!” Trixie shrieked. 

Sonata turned, wide-eyed, as if only just noticing that the others didn’t share her glee. “What do you mean? That thing had a knife, and it wasn’t even a real kid so, like, what’s the big deal?”

“Knife or not, it was still a child, Sonata,” Luna replied, trying to contain both her temper and the contents of her stomach. “Most people would feel at least a little conflicted.”

“Ugh, you humans are so weak,” Sonata said with a roll of her eyes.

Luna was tempted to say something scathing, but it didn’t feel right. She couldn’t really say that Sonata was right, but it wouldn’t be fair to say that she was wrong, either. Besides, Luna was almost certain that this horrific new element to the simulation was one of the so-called games that the creepy little girl had cooked up. And the idea of technically being rewarded for killing what was essentially a child was a whole new level of messed up.

“I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” Trixie muttered weakly. 

Luna gave the girl a worried look. She was genuinely impressed with how strong Trixie’s stomach had proved to be, but there was no doubt that this experience was going to leave a nasty mark in her mind. “It’s going to be alright,” Luna said in the most reassuring tone she could manage. “Let’s just get this mess over with as quickly as we can.”

The others were probably sick of hearing it by now, but neither of them said anything as the trio set off once again. As if the group wasn’t stressed enough, the haunting sound of children’s laughter followed them, faint enough to be a trick of the imagination, persistent enough for them to know that it wasn’t. Thankfully, despite their worst fears, the Moons didn’t encounter any more clown-kids even as the trees finally began to thin out. 

“Heads up, there’s a bunker.” Luna raised her stave at the sight of a familiar concrete structure ahead. As they got closer, she spotted a couple more bunkers and a cluster of military tents; clearly a camp of some kind. “Be ready for anything, girls,” Luna warned. 

The trio were on tenterhooks as they made their way into the camp. Bizarrely, all of the soldiers they encountered were already dead, sprawled on the ground or over desks with vicious wounds in their torsos. 

“Did they all kill each other?” Sonata asked. 

“I don’t think so, those look more like stab wounds than bullet holes,” Luna replied. “Either way, don’t let your guard down. I don’t know why these bodies haven’t disappeared, but I doubt it’s a good sign.”

Together, the three cautiously explored each bunker and tent in turn. It probably would have been quicker to split up, but Luna wasn’t even remotely interested in taking a risk like that. In the very last bunker, at the far edge of the camp, the Moons found another one of the strange briefcases. 

“What are these things actually for?” Trixie wondered aloud as she collected it. 

“Beats me,” Luna admitted. She turned to leave the bunker, then did a double-take when she spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. 

A Chinese soldier slumped over a desk in a corner was stirring, apparently not as dead as he had appeared. Luna blasted him with her stave before he could even get his feet beneath himself. The soldier crashed to the floor with a smoking hole blown into his side, but the corpse didn’t disappear. 

“Get behind something!” Luna barked, expecting another gory explosion. Instead, the soldier shifted his weight, letting out a low moan as he looked up at his attacker. His eyes were glassy and speckled with blood. The Moons watched in horror as the soldier hissed and pushed himself awkwardly to his feet, ignoring his appalling new wound. 

A second shot knocked the soldier back and burned another hole in his chest. He reeled as more magical bolts tore into his body, but even that wasn’t enough to bring him down. 

“It’s a zombie, shoot it in the head, you idiot!” Sonata snapped. 

Luna didn’t need telling twice. A second of careful aiming, a single crisp shot, and the soldier dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. As if on cue, a chorus of low moans broke out outside. Luna glanced at the girls before darting to the door. 

Dozens of zombies were shambling towards the group. More were appearing from inside each of the bunkers and tents, far more than there should have been considering the number of bodies the trio had found. Sonata unleashed her magic with a roar, blasting a swathe of them back, but only a few were broken enough to disappear. The rest either stood back up and resumed their shambling, or simply started crawling towards the Moons instead. 

“There’s too many of them. Run!” Luna took the lead, sprinting away from the camp and plunging into yet another woodland. She led the girls on a winding path through the trees, hopeful that she was going the right way, but mostly just trying to evade the zombies. 

After a short while, Trixie breathlessly called out to the others, “I… I think we… think we lost them…”

Luna slowed to a halt and looked back at the girls. Both were out of breath, but Trixie was clearly having a worse time of it. Just as Luna was trying to come up with some encouragement, she saw dark shapes approaching from behind. The zombies were catching up already. 

“Hey, that’s not fair! How did they catch us so quickly?!” Sonata shouted indignantly. 

“I don’t know, but we can’t stop here.” Luna caught Trixie’s eye and saw what she was thinking written on her face; they couldn’t keep running, either. “We’ll walk from here on. If we can’t outrun them, then we’ll just have to try and keep ahead of them instead.”

Trixie nodded and the trio set off again, this time at a brisk walk. The zombies never seemed to fall behind, no matter how fast the Moons moved, but the pace was far more manageable. In fact, the zombies never seemed to gain on the trio either, which raised the awful possibility that they were being herded somewhere, but Luna kept such thoughts to herself. 

Eventually, an enormous concrete wall loomed out of the woods. A nearby wire mesh gate allowed passage through it. The Moons eagerly hurried through the gate and closed it, then Trixie used her lockpicking skills to lock it behind them. Not a moment too soon either, as the zombies emerged from the trees and pressed against the gate, moaning and clawing at it in a mindless mob. 

“I don’t think that’s going to hold them for long,” Luna warned. “Come on.”

The Moons soon discovered that they were inside a massive walled compound. There were no trees inside, just a series of bunkers, metal prefab cabins, garages, and open-air workshops.Thankfully, there was no sign of any zombies within the compound either. 

“Look! In there, one of those healing things!” Trixie exclaimed as they walked past a cabin. 

“Wait!” Luna stopped the girls before they could run heedlessly towards it. “Don’t let your guard down just because you’ve found a health thing, there could be absolutely anything lurking in there with it. Keep watch while I make sure that it’s safe, then I’ll do the same for you two.”

The cabin turned out to be safe, so the Moons took it in turns to make use of the dispenser. Trixie even found another one of the strange briefcases under the table it was sitting on. 

“Do you think this is the Chimera Depot?” Trixie asked when they were all done. 

Luna nodded. “I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t.” A worryingly loud creak from the locked gate drew her attention for a second. “We need to find those fuel tanks before the zombies break through, or things are going to get tricky.”

“Like they aren’t already?” Trixie grumbled. 

Sonata cocked her head to the side, looking uncharacteristically thoughtful. “I mean, I can probably blow the fuel thingies up myself, but It’ll probably be easier if we don’t have to deal with zombies at the same time, y’know?”

Trixie scowled at her. “That’s not what I- ugh, never mind.” 

Together, the three headed deeper into the compound, keeping an eye out for anything that looked like a fuel tank. It took an embarrassingly long time for Luna to remember that this world was a little different to her own. “Hold on, I’ve just realized, we’re not looking for gasoline tanks, we need to look for something marked as containing radioactive materi- oh.” She was proven wrong instantly as they turned a corner and almost ran into an industrial-sized gas tank. “Never mind.”

“I’ve got it.” The trio hurried to a safe distance before Sonata sucked in a deep breath. Her magic echoed through the compound a second later, reverberating off of the walls and making the ground shake. 

The fuel tank didn’t so much as flex under the strain of the attack. 

“I guess the kid isn’t going to make it that easy for us,” Luna spat. She hesitated for a moment to consider her options, then snapped her stave up and fired at it herself. Strangely luminescent brown gasoline poured out of the fist-sized hole she managed to punch in the tank. “Do you have any fireworks left, Trixie?”

Trixie actually let out a smug snort. “Why mess with a firework when you can just use one of these?” She pulled out a small firecracker, lit it, and threw it into the growing puddle of gas at the base of the tank. 

The pop ignited the haze above the puddle first. Luna feared that it wouldn’t be enough, but the flame soon caught and traveled up the stream in the blink of an eye. She dragged the girls behind a bunker right as a tremendous explosion shook the earth. Shards of steel and gobbets of blazing fuel whizzed outwards, filling the air with flaming death. 

“Whoever came up with all of this is a freaking psycho!” Trixie snapped when the noise had died down. 

“Blame this country’s old government,” Luna told her, though privately she was certain that the weird little girl was behind at least half of the incidents from this particular round. A quick peek revealed that the fuel tank was gone, replaced with little more than a smoking crater. “Excellent. One down, one to go.”

As if mocking her relief, the distinctive sound of metal being bent out of shape followed by a loud crash came from the direction of the gate. Sonata darted back to the corner to take a look. “Uh, the zombies broke through the gate!”

“Of course they did,” Luna huffed. “Use your magic to slow them down if they get too close.” 

“How close is too close?” Sonata asked. 

“Just use your judgment!” Luna said, a little sharper than she had intended. She hurried the girls on, leading them along the winding path through the compound, anxiously searching for the second fuel tank. The zombies kept the same eerie pace behind them.

Finally, the trio reached a gap in the wall; presumably a gate or checkpoint of some kind.  Despite the zombies on their tail, Luna gestured for the girls to wait as she peeked around the corner. She yelped and ducked back a second later. 

“What-” Trixie’s question was drowned out by a barrage of pale blue lasers lancing through the gateway and blasting a bunker to pieces. 

“The fuel tank is protected by a Chimera tank,” Luna said shakily, too rattled to keep her voice steady this time. Sonata’s magic erupted an instant later, wreaking havoc amongst the zombies and making conversation impossible, so Luna risked another look. 

The tank was broad and flat, almost beetle-like, with two great screw mechanisms underneath that apparently provided locomotion. Some sort of jury-rigged pylon arched up over the tank’s back, bearing a small radar dish and a much larger laser cannon. Luna ducked back out of sight just as said cannon opened fire again. 

“What are we going to do?” Trixie asked anxiously. 

Luna gripped the haft of her stave tightly. Attacking the tank head-on was suicide, but there was no way they’d be able to hold off the zombie horde forever. She struggled against rising panic even as she heard the tank rumbling closer. 

“Swap with me!” Sonata didn’t bother waiting for an answer as she grabbed Luna and shoved her towards the zombies. “And shoot them in the head this time!” 

“W-what?” Luna stared blankly at the approaching undead horde. Many of them were dragging themselves on bodies battered and broken by Sonata’s magic, but Luna didn’t get why she had been swapped in. Realization struck when she heard the siren unleashing her magic behind instead. “Sonata?!”

Any reply was lost beneath the crackle of heavy laser fire. Luna desperately wanted to turn and see what was happening, but the zombies were close enough that she could see their bloodshot eyes. She cursed under her breath and fired at the nearest one just as Sonata attacked with her magic again. 





Sonata flinched as powerful lasers slammed into the wall behind her. First, the stupid fuel tank had been immune to her magic, and now she couldn’t even destroy this tank tank in one go. At least she could actually damage this thing; not much, but the tank’s shell had crumpled and dented beneath the power of siren magic. 

It didn’t take long for the lasers to stop firing. Sonata was ready in an instant, leaning through the gateway and blasting the tank with her magic. A little more of the shell crumpled, and the weird radar dish was twisted off-center, but it wasn’t enough. She huffed and slid back out of sight as the tank started firing again. 

“Stupid tank.” Sonata scowled and crossed her arms. Her magic was powerful enough to turn concrete to dust and rip through steel as if it was paper; some dumb little human machine shouldn’t be able to stand against it no matter what any nerdy computer thingy said. It wasn’t fair. 

As she stewed, Sonata slowly realized that something about the lasers sounded… off. As if the tank were firing at a point six feet away from where she was actually standing. Curiosity made Sonata poke her head around the gateway even while the tank was still firing. For some weird reason the tank was pointing its radar dish at her, even though that meant that its laser cannon was aiming the wrong way.

“Oh, I get it! That thing must be how it sees!” Sonata gave a satisfied nod, basking in her own smartness. Lost in her own smug little world, it took her a second to realize that the tank’s turret was turning, bringing the lasers around towards her. Panic seized her and she sprinted through the gateway. 

Sonata cursed herself as she ran. She could have just hid back behind the gateway, but now she was stuck in the open with hardly anywhere to hide and catch her breath. Finally, just as the lasers were scorching the air behind her, the tank stopped firing. 

“Yes!” Sonata skidded to a halt and turned to face the tank. She sucked down air, trying to catch her breath so she could let out a good note, but the tank’s engine let out a deep-throated roar and it started grinding towards her. 

Acting on impulse, Sonata charged right at the approaching tank. At the last second, just before it could squish her, she vaulted up onto the tank’s shell. By some miracle, she managed to get on top without falling either over or off. Struggling to keep her footing, she scrambled across the tank and leapt off of the back end, coughing out a feeble magical shot at the radar dish as she went.  

Sonata’s knees buckled the moment she hit the ground. She stumbled, scraping her hands and knees on the floor, but pushed herself to her feet and launched into a sprint. It took only a second to dive behind the nearest weird metal structure. 

The tank’s screws kicked up dirt as the tank stopped and began to turn. It would have been the perfect moment to blast it with magic, but Sonata just couldn’t catch her breath enough to sing a proper note; a handicap to her magic that she’d never even considered before. Just to be extra annoying, the tank started firing well before it could actually draw a bead on her, carving a swathe of destruction in a wide arc through the area. 

There wasn’t enough time. Sonata knew she wasn’t going to get her breath back before the tank turned around fully; she needed to find more cover, and the fuel tank too, while she was at it. With a plan in her head, Sonata quickly scanned the yard. With an awful sinking feeling in her stomach, she checked again, then looked back up at the structure she was hiding behind. 

It was the second fuel tank. Sonata had never been that great at math or science, but even she could figure out that fuel plus laser cannon equals problem. A problem that she was standing right next to when she really shouldn’t be.

“Aw, crabsticks!” Sonata bolted just as the first laser struck the fuel tank.





Another zombie slumped to the ground with a hole burned into its skull. Luna shoved the next one back and put it down, then risked wasting a second to wipe the sweat from her eyes. She had taken out half a dozen zombies already, and hobbled twice that number in an attempt to slow them down and space the horde out, but no matter how many fell it wasn’t enough. There were just too many of them. 

“Cover your ears!” Trixie yelled. Luna did so just as a bundle of fireworks, all tied together with multicolored handkerchiefs, sailed over her head and landed in the middle of the horde. The blast was muted, but something about the undead mob silhouetted against the explosion of color was oddly beautiful. 

Despite the distraction, Luna didn’t let herself lose focus. The blast had knocked a few of the zombies down and set several smoldering, but it hadn’t actually taken many of them out, and it certainly hadn’t distracted any of them. Still, it had slowed some of the monsters down, which was good enough. 

Luna quickly set about thinning out the ranks of the closest zombies. Just as she was starting to get into a rhythm, a massive explosion shook the ground and drove her to her knees. “That’s gonna suck in the morning,” Luna growled. She snapped her stave up only to see that the zombie horde had frozen in place, as if someone had pressed a pause button or something. 

“Oh ho, that one looked painful ya? Poor little siren!” A masculine voice exclaimed excitedly. 

“Sonata?!” Luna tried to stand up, but for some reason her legs wouldn’t work. She was stuck. “Sonata?! Trixie?! Girls?!”

The voice shifted between that of an adult man and the familiar little girl as it laughed maliciously. “They cannot hear you, frau. Not unless I want them to, and right now I do not want them to.” The voice laughed again before adding mockingly, “Do not fret. In fact, as thanks for a good show, I have gifts for each of you. Then we’ll see how you handle mine and the good Colonel’s obstacles when they’re combined.”

Rooted to the spot, Luna could only watch anxiously as a thin jet-black tentacle pushed itself out of the ground like some vile parody of an earthworm. It wriggled obscenely, revealing a vicious-looking spike at its tip, then suddenly lanced forward and punched straight through Luna’s heart. 
> Chapter 199 - Along the Dark Path...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A loud hammering on the door snapped Applejack awake. “Wake up, you mangy scabs! You’ve got five minutes to get off your asses and back to work before we feed you to the fucking trogs!”

“Charmin’.” Applejack sat up and looked around the room. It was essentially a common room, though the slaves were packed tighter than hens in a bad coop, sleeping on dirty mats under the thinnest, most threadbare excuses for blankets that Applejack had ever seen. Thankfully, something in the room below was keeping the floor warm throughout the night, so there was at least no chance of anyone catching a chill.   

Most of the slaves were stirring quickly. Adam was too, his military training making him used to such rough wake-ups, but some of the others were clearly struggling. It didn’t take a doctor to see that the ones having trouble were sicker than the rest. 

“How’s your arm doing?” Adam asked. 

Applejack peeked under her bandage. There was some slight swelling around the wound, but overall it didn’t look bad at all. She had had splinters that looked worse than that. “It’s fine. Let’s go and find Midea.”

A handful of slavers snapped at the pair to hurry up as soon as they stepped out of the room. They were allowed a quick trip to the toilet, then were hurried out of the building to start the day’s work. A breakfast of more slop came next, despite Adam’s recommendation against Applejack eating it, before the pair headed to Midea’s quarters. 

Or, at least, they tried to head to Midea’s quarters, only to be stopped on the way as someone called out to them, “Hey, hold on you two!”

Applejack glanced around to see a raider woman strutting towards them. Half of her hair was dyed bright pink, the other half of her head was shaved completely, and she was wearing the same sort of spiky metal armor that many of the Pitt raiders seemed to like. She was also grinning like a cheshire cat for some weird reason. 

“You must be the new Steelers that actually filled an order without dying,” the raider said cheerfully. “Everett said you both look too rosy for a place like this. Don’t bother going to your normal workstation, we’re sending you straight back out into the Steelyard to fill another order.”

“Already?” Applejack asked, earning a sharp elbow from Adam. 

The raider just laughed at her. “Yeah already, we haven’t had a scab come back from the Steelyard alive and with a full order since that freaky magic shit blew over! No sense wasting you on dumb shit when we can get you doing something useful. Come on, Everett’s waiting.”

The duo didn’t really have a choice in the matter, so they just shared an uncomfortable look and fell in behind the raider. 

Perhaps because they had an escort, Applejack wasn’t certain, but she noticed that more slavers were paying attention to them than before. Even some of the slaves were sneakily watching when they thought they could get away with it. It was unsettling, to say the least. Out of habit, Applejack reached up to tug the brim of her hat down, only to remember a second later that she wasn’t wearing it. 

The realization hit Applejack like a brick. She hadn’t parted with her hat for this long since she was a little kid, ever since her parents had passed. She hadn’t had a problem with leaving it behind at first; it was a big liability in a mission like this, but right at that moment Applejack felt its absence like it was a hole in her chest. 

“Hey! Keep moving, scab!” Applejack flinched as she realized that she had stopped walking. Adam was watching her with concern, while the raider just looked pissed off. “I mean it, I don’t have all day!”

“R-right.” Cursing herself for a fool, Applejack shrugged off her dark feelings and threw them to the back of her mind where they belonged. The raider rolled her eyes but didn’t say a word as they set off again. As if things weren’t embarrassing enough, Adam kept throwing worried glances at Applejack as they walked, but she stubbornly ignored him right up until they reached the foreman’s office.  

The raider didn’t bother knocking as she barged into the office. “Hey, Everett! I’ve brought those scabs for you!”

Everett was sitting at a desk at the back of his office. He looked up from his paperwork and turned to frown at her with blood-shot eyes. “For fuck’s sake, Squill, I told you it was too early for this bullshit.”

“Ah, quit your bitching,” Squill shot back. “Ashur wants steel, and I want to see what these new Steelers are made of, so get your thumb outta your ass and tell them about the new collection order already!”

The glare Everett gave her plainly showed that he was considering whether or not to shoot Squill and save himself the hassle. After a moment, he squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck me.” He groaned loudly, then heaved a heavy sigh and muttered, “Fine.” Applejack unconsciously stiffened as Everett looked up at her. “The boss heard about your little success yesterday, and he wants a repeat of it. Unlucky for you, though, him and his closest ass-kissers have decided that since there’s two of you, you should be able to fill two orders instead of one.”

“You want us to find twenty ingots in one go?” Adam asked warily. 

Everett nodded grimly. “Like I said, unlucky for you. If you pull it off, though, and manage to prove that you’re valuable around here, maybe that’ll give you some leverage to make your lives around here a little easier..” He grunted as he stood up and stretched. “Aside from that, you know the drill already. Come on, I'll let you through.”



 

Squill made herself comfortable at Everett’s desk while he was gone. She really didn’t get that weirdo. Sure, the fancy fucker got his own office and a job title, but none of that was worth having to piss about with quotas and inventories and shit day in and day out. Fuck that noise. 

The sound of the door opening made Squill look up. Everett scowled when he saw her. “Get out of my chair before I put you in a fucking box.”

“Alright, alright, you miserable fucker.” Squill smirked, enjoying his irritation before she did as asked. 

“I’ve got a fucking job to do, and you sure as hell ain’t making it easier dragging those fuckers here so early,” Everett grumbled. “If Ashur is so fucking desperate to get our steel production back up, then he should give me more to work with than a trickle of half-dead scabs.”

Squill snorted and leaned against the nearest wall. “Hey, I’d go out there myself if I could, God knows how fuckin’ boring things are around here, but Ashur doesn’t want to risk losing any of the crew in case the Blight Kings or the Red Flags try to make another play for the place. Besides, those two sure as hell ain’t half dead.”

“No, and they ain’t scabs either,” Everett agreed. 

“Definitely not.” Squill yawned and crossed her arms. “When are you gonna tell Ashur?”

“Why would I bother telling Ashur?” Squill stared at Everett in surprise, but he just shook his head. “As long as they do the work and don’t cause problems, then I don’t give a fuck who they really are. If they’re dumb or desperate enough to come here as slaves, that’s their problem. They probably ain’t gonna survive the Steelyard anyway now that Lucy has been spotted prowling around again, and there’s a god-damned radstorm on the way..” Everett fixed her with a stern look. “But you already knew about that, didn’t you?”

Squill gave an easy grin and held her hands up in a gesture of fake innocence. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Anyway, I’m bored. If anyone needs me, I’ll be at the first guard tower.”

“Yeah, the one with the best view of the Steelyard, you sick bitch.” Everett huffed and turned back to his paperwork. “Go on, get the fuck out of here. Thanks to you I’m gonna need to find more new Steelers, damn it.”



 

There was surprisingly little pain. Certainly less than Luna would have anticipated from getting stabbed in the chest. She didn’t quite think that she was dead yet though, despite the fact that her vision had gone dark again; mainly because there was something moving inside her chest.  

Luna shuddered as she tried to imagine what the girl had done to her. Her mind whirled with thoughts of alien implantations, horrific ghoul-style mutations, and debilitating cancerous growths. Whatever it was, Luna could feel it expanding with every beat of her heart. It was a bizarre, though not entirely uncomfortable, sensation, like something both cool and soft spreading through her chest. If it wasn’t for how little she trusted the weird little girl, Luna might even have called the experience pleasant. She was so focused on the situation and its dark implications that she was utterly stunned when it stopped abruptly. 

“All done!” The girl’s voice exclaimed happily. 

“What?” Luna blinked in surprise as new surroundings suddenly appeared with a faint pop. She was back on snow-covered ground, kneeling in the shadow of a train tunnel dug into a hillside. A second tunnel entrance was dug into another hillside opposite the first, maybe a hundred yards away and connected by rail tracks. 

Both tunnel entrances were filled from floor to ceiling with debris. Several disconnected freight cars were abandoned on the tracks between, obscuring the way forward, while a wall of ravaged military vehicles stacked on top of each other sealed off any potential route backwards. Just as Luna was wondering where her charges were, she heard an anxious voice calling out from behind, “Vice-Principal?” 

Luna whipped around to see Trixie stepping out from behind a boulder near the tunnel entrance. She didn’t have any obvious injuries, but her cheeks were flushed and she was clutching her chest with a queasy expression. “Trixie! Are you alright?! What’s wrong?!”

“I… I don’t know.” She leaned back against the boulder and let out a deep breath. “One of those creepy tentacle things, it… it…”

“Stabbed something into your chest?” Luna finished. Trixie nodded. “Me too. Don’t worry, we’re going to figure this o-”

A loud huff interrupted the two. A moment later, the strange girl’s voice echoed out from seemingly everywhere at once. “Good grief, you don’t have to get so dramatic over a simple gift.”

Luna looked around, trying in vain to spot the girl. “A gift?” She asked skeptically.

“Of course! I told you I was going to give you one,” the girl replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I saw that you don’t have direct access to magic in the same way that Miss Dusk and your Rainboom friends do, so I embedded suitable magical conductors into each your hearts. Less inherently powerful than a Geode, perhaps, but with fewer of the associated drawbacks.”

“Into our hearts?!” Trixie screeched.

Luna was just as shocked, but she held it in check and focused on a certain other problem. “What about Sonata? Where is she?”

The girl hummed thoughtfully. “I’m not sure what to do about her. Sonata can have some extra magic too, if she wants, but maybe she would prefer to be put back together instead?”

An icy claw that had nothing to do with magical implants seized Luna’s heart. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said, you silly goose! Standing right next to an exploding fuel tank can get pretty messy, especially when it’s that big.” Never before had something as sweet as a young girl’s playful giggle sounded so thoroughly sickening. “What do you think? Would she prefer magic, or having all of her bits put back together in the right places?”

“Put her back together!” Luna snarled. 

“Ah, ah, ah, you didn’t say the magic word,” the girl countered.

Luna gritted her teeth, her hands tightening around the haft of her stave as she felt her temper rising. She had to play nice, for now. “Please will you bring Sonata here in one piece.”

“Oh, okay then. Since you asked so nicely.” There was a loud pop and a blood-soaked mass appeared at Luna’s feet. She barely had a chance to register the tangled mess of streaked blue hair before there was a flicker of static and Sonata sat bolt upright with a wheezing gasp. 

“Starswirl’s bells!” Luna crouched and clasped her shoulder. “Are you alright? Does it hurt anywhere?”

Sonata looked up at her with an indignant scowl. “I nearly died and the first thing you mention is that beard-chewing old fart?!”

Luna sagged as relief flooded through her. “Are you injured?” 

“I don’t think so?” Sonata quickly patted herself down and checked herself over. “No, I’m good.”

“Why in Tartarus would you stand next to an exploding fuel tank?!” Trixie demanded. 

“Because I didn’t know it was a fuel tank, and I didn’t know it was gonna explode, duh,” Sonata replied with a roll of her eyes. She stood up and brushed herself off before looking around curiously. “Okay, that sucked, so what now?”

Luna couldn’t tell if the siren was actually as unfazed as she appeared to be, or if she was just putting on a brave face. Either way, it was impressive. “Next, if I remember correctly, we’ve got to clear out a Chinese listening post.”

“A listening post that’s probably full of zombies and more creepy killer kids.” Trixie planted her hands on her hips and turned her attention to their surroundings. “How come everything is back to being all detailed and… y’know, real-looking?” 

“Oh, that’s simple,” the disembodied voice cut in. “I just deleted the sections that we didn’t need anymore to free up some memory. I’ve managed to co-opt some of the processors from my own facility to supplement the ones here, so the simulation can now handle the changes I’m making without any major compromises.”

Trixie grimaced at the reveal. “So, more zombies?”

“Don’t forget the Pint-Sized Slasher!” The girl laughed excitedly. “Have fun!” As if on cue, a cacophony of shouting and gunfire erupted from somewhere past the freight cars. 

The trio were instantly on guard. Luna gripped her stave tightly, crept to the end of the nearest freight car, and peered around the corner. 

Another set of tracks lay just ahead. Beyond them was a collection of bombed-out buildings on top of a small hillock, protected by several sandbag barricades. The buildings were a hive of activity as Chinese soldiers fought with zombies among the ruins. Even as Luna watched, a mob of zombies dragged a camouflaged soldier off of a metal crate and swarmed over him. Faint blue light flashed a moment later. 

“At least they’re not just after us?” Sonata said hopefully, looking out as well. 

“Maybe, but do we just have to clear out the soldiers, or the zombies as well?” Luna wondered aloud. 

Sonata shrugged. “Does it matter? Just take them all out, just in case.”

“Easier said than done, but I suppose you’re right. We’ll just have to hope that the zombies aren’t constantly reappearing this time.” Luna glanced back at Trixie. The young student was clearly having trouble coming to terms with everything; she needed something to occupy her mind. “Trixie? Do you think you could take a look and see if there are any more of those invisible soldiers around?”

Trixie looked around with a start. “Huh? Oh, uh, okay.” She swapped places with Luna and peeked around the corner, taking her hat off so it didn’t stick out. She looked around carefully before shaking her head. “I don’t see any. There could be some out there, but…”

“That’s good enough for me,” Luna told her. “I would say we should wait and let them wipe each other out, but I doubt-” The second she even suggested it, a horrendous creaking and grinding came from behind. With a resigned sigh, Luna looked back over her shoulder. The wall of wrecked vehicles was slowly creeping forward, as if being pushed by an invisible force. 

“Right. That. Stay close to me. Sonata, you focus on taking down the soldiers as soon as you see them, I’ll concentrate on zombies. Trixie, you keep an eye out for any threats. Do you both understand?” The girls nodded. “Good. Remember not to get caught out in the open.”

Luna made one last check to make sure that no soldiers were looking before slipping out from behind the freight car. She and the girls scurried between the train cars, around crates and barricades, and finally to a set of concrete stairs that led up to the buildings. The fighting was much closer now; close enough for the trio to hear the grunting of zombies and soldiers alike as they fought. 

Luna found that she could hardly breathe as she crept up the stairs. Her legs felt like they were made of lead, and she was sure that the Tide Stave wasn’t this heavy five minutes ago. Worse was the way her stomach churned with every step she took.  

Just as Luna reached the top of the stairs a zombie stumbled out of the nearest building. Her first reflexive shot blew a chunk out of its throat. The second put it down properly. 

“Did you forget they need headshots or something?” Sonata asked. 

“Focus!” Luna snapped as another zombie lurched out of the same building. She took it out and darted over to the door it had come through. Glancing inside, Luna shot the zombie waiting in the foyer and slipped in. 

“Do we have to go that way?!” Trixie wailed.

Luna understood the sentiment all too well, but there was a method to the madness. “We’ve got to clear out all of the enemies, so yes, I’m afraid it makes the most sense to go this way.” 

Trixie whined under her breath, but she followed anyway. 

Keenly aware of the risks a zombie horde might pose in a confined area, Luna advanced cautiously and paid extra attention to keeping a clear escape route. Thankfully, the only zombies they found on the first floor were either alone or in pairs; easy enough to deal with. It wasn’t until they climbed up to the second floor that the trio ran into trouble. 

Luna was leading the way up the stairs when she heard a whoosh followed by a muffled explosion. “Please tell me that was just a firework,” she said half-heartedly. 

“No way, that was way too big,” Trixie replied bluntly. 

Keeping her mouth shut was harder than Luna cared to admit, but she just about managed to bite back a sharp comment. Instead, she mumbled a warning to be careful and pressed on. 

Gunfire echoed through the corridors as the trio advanced. They reluctantly headed towards it, keeping a careful eye out so they didn’t blunder into the path of the gunmen or whatever they were shooting at. It didn’t take long for the trio to find what they were looking for; a long wide corridor, a handful of Chinese soldiers camped in a room at the far end, and a steady stream of zombies trickling in from side doors. Unfortunately for the trio, they were right at the bottom end of the corridor, opposite the Chinese soldiers. They were going to have to fight through the zombies to reach them. 

“What now?” Sonata asked under the cover of gunfire. “Want me to blast them?”

Luna shook her head. “It might come to that, but your magic isn’t all that effective at destroying the zombies. We might end up just drawing everyone’s attention and getting ourselves trapped.”

“There’s nothing back here so far,” Trixie called from where she was watching their way back. “What about our new, uh, magic? Should we try using that?”

“Wait, new magic?” Sonata prodded. 

Luna just stared at Trixie, dumbstruck. She had been so distracted by what had happened to Sonata that the creepy girl’s ‘gift’ had completely slipped her mind. “I… We probably shouldn’t mess around with it just yet. We don’t even know what it does, or if it does anything at all.”

Trixie nodded solemnly, but Sonata wasn’t so easily brushed off. “So you did get new magic?! Tell me how!”

“Quiet!” Luna hissed. She risked another anxious look into the corridor, but thankfully the zombies and soldiers were still oblivious to their presence. The sound of their own battle was covering the trio’s conversation “Okay, I think our best option is for Sonata to-” Luna’s explanation was cut off by a loud bang and a multi-colored flicker on the walls from behind. She slowly turned to see Trixie standing wide-eyed, one arm outstretched, with smoke rising from her fingertips. “Seriously?!”

“I-I’m sorry! I was just-” Trixie’s stammered apology was cut off by several voices suddenly shouting in Chinese. A quick glance revealed that one of the Chinese soldiers was pointing in the Moons’ direction, while fully half of the arriving zombies were turning to advance on them instead. 

Luna said a silent farewell to the element of surprise and stepped back from the door. “Sonata, blast them!”

“On it!” Sonata stepped through the door and let out an earth-shaking blast. “Ha! It worked super well on the zombies this ti-”

Luna hauled her out the doorway just as gunfire crackled; bullets whizzing lethally through the air where the siren had just been standing. “And this time the soldiers have cover,” Luna reminded her. She risked a quick look into the corridor and grimaced. Sonata’s power had indeed taken out more of the zombies in one go than last time, thanks to the confined space, and the rest had been blown down towards the Chinese soldiers, but there were still more coming from the side doors with no sign of them slowing down. 

“They must be respawning again,” Luna muttered, more to herself than anyone else. If that really was the case, then she fervently hoped that it was only the soldiers that they had to clear out. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about. “Trixie, do you have any fireworks left?”

“No, I used the last of them earlier,” Trixie replied. “All I’ve got left are a couple of firecrackers and some smoke bombs.”

Luna leaned out and shot a zombie that was getting too close. “A smoke bomb will have to do,” she said as she ducked back away from any follow-up gunfire. “Sonata, you hit them again first, then Trixie will fill the corridor with smoke and… and I’ll try and use the cover to slip past the zombies to get to the soldiers.”

“That’s the craziest idea I’ve ever heard!” Trixie exclaimed. “Why don’t I just throw a smoke bomb so the soldiers can’t see what they’re shooting at and we let the zombies do the job?”

“That… that might actually work,” Luna admitted. “We’ll have to deal with the zombies that come for us, but…” She nodded curtly. “Do it.”

Trixie didn’t waste any time as she whipped a bomb out of her pocket, darted to the door, and risked a split-second peek before lobbing it down the corridor. “There’s a lot of zombies out there,” she said anxiously.

“I’ve got this,” Sonata said confidently. 

“No!” Luna stopped her just as she was sucking in a breath. “You’ll blow away the smoke, let me handle this.” 

Sonata shrugged and stepped aside, letting Luna take her place. Trixie hadn’t been wrong; there were a lot of zombies shuffling out of the side doors, but half of them were heading into the smoke to seek the Chinese soldiers. The soldiers themselves were still shooting, but hopefully the smoke would foul their aim enough that the zombies would break through. Taking a deep breath, Luna aimed her stave at the nearest zombie. 

It was a good thing that the zombies were slow. Luna was getting headshots as quickly and efficiently as possible, but they were pouring into the corridor as fast as she could drop them. Worse, the smoke was starting to clear but the gunfire was still ongoing. Just as the smoke thinned enough to see through, the Chinese guns finally fell silent. 

“I think they’re down!” Luna called out eagerly. “Sonata, see if you can clear the corridor so we can check!” 

The two switched places and siren magic tore through the corridor once more. Sonata must not have been satisfied by the results, because as soon as that attack ran out of puff she sucked in a deep breath and let rip with another. “There… all done,” she said breathlessly. 

Luna looked in to see that the corridor was completely clear. A couple of zombies were already shuffling in through the side doors but, for the moment, there was a clear path to the room the soldiers were in. “Let’s get past the zombies while we can, come on!”

The girls followed as Luna led the charge into the corridor. One zombie managed to stumble into her path, only to be slammed aside as she barged into it shoulder-first. She heard Sonata give it a solid kick for good measure as she ran past. Just as the trio got about halfway down the corridor, a lone Chinese soldier stepped into the far doorway. Luna’s heart leapt into her throat as he casually hefted what could only be a rocket launcher. “Look out!”

Luna threw herself sideways just as the soldier fired. The rocket streaked down the corridor, narrowly missing the Moons, and sailed straight through the opposite doorway. A tremendous explosion rocked the building a second later. 

Shock and terror froze the trio where they stood. The zombies were still advancing, shambling towards their stunned prey, but even Luna couldn’t force herself to move. It was only when she heard the distinctive clatter of metal from behind that she managed to rouse herself. Heart pounding, she looked around just in time to see the soldier stuff another rocket into the launcher. 

“Don’t you dare!” Luna sprinted down the corridor, desperate to stop him from firing again. She had almost reached him when he raised the rocket launcher, saw her coming, and instead swung it like a club. Luna just about managed to duck under the swing and crash headlong into him. 

The two hit the ground hard. Luna pushed herself to her knees and rammed the sharp base of her stave into the soldier’s stomach. An instant later the butt of his weapon knocked her sprawling. 

“Shă bi.” The soldier was awkwardly getting to his feet when Sonata’s knee smashed into his face at a full sprint. 

“And stay down you creep!” Sonata raised her foot high before stomping on his head with all of her might. 

The ensuing crunch echoed through the corridor, but, thankfully, the corpse disappeared in a blue flash before Luna could catch more than a glimpse of the result. Shock kept her staring at the empty air for several seconds, before she remembered the zombies with a jolt. “Girls! We need to- oh.”

The zombies were gone. All that remained in the corridor was Trixie, looking confused but relieved. “They disappeared as soon as he did.” She gestured vaguely to where the soldier had been. “I guess it is just the soldiers we need to deal with.”

“I guess so.” Luna got to her feet, dusted herself off and looked around cautiously. The room was entirely empty save for a broken window and a health dispenser. Aside from that, there was no sign whatsoever of any zombies that had broken through or the soldiers that had been guarding it. If it hadn’t been for the sound of more gunfire coming in through the window, the building would have been silent. 

Sonata recklessly stepped over to the window and looked outside. “Huh, there’s a whole swarm of zombies down there. Do you think they’re after more soldiers?”

“Probably, now get away from there before you get hit by a stray bullet,” Luna told her. The siren did as asked just as Trixie joined them in the room. Both looked at Luna expectantly. “I think we should make sure that this building is empty first. Once that’s done, we’ll try and find whatever that horde is looking for.”

The girls quickly agreed. A careful search of the building turned up nothing but another briefcase for Trixie, so the three cautiously made their way back outside. 

So began a nightmarish game of hide and seek. The Moons crept through the ruins as quietly as they could, doing their best to avoid the zombies while at the same time hunting down every pocket of soldiers they could find. 

Some of it was surprisingly easy; mostly when Sonata managed to get the drop on a group of soldiers and wiped them out in one go, thereby deleting the particular zombie group that was hunting said soldiers. Other groups were harder to deal with, where the trio were forced to go through the zombies to get to the soldiers, just like they had in the building. Thankfully, despite tearing through several different groups of soldiers, the Moons didn’t encounter a single trooper bearing another rocket launcher. 

It took almost an hour before the trio were certain that the area was clear. Their hopes that they were finished were dashed when they found a rocky ravine leading away, on the far side of the buildings. The ravine twisted and turned until, just around one last bend, the three discovered a squat concrete building. A steel staircase led up to a raised ledge, protected by rows of sandbag barricades. 

“Careful, there’s soldiers guarding the stairs,” Trixie warned as she carefully looked out from behind a boulder. 

“I see them,” Luna said quietly. “Sonata, you’re up.”
 
Sonata just nodded and rolled her shoulders before stepping around the bend. The soldiers shouted something in Chinese, but siren magic wiped them from existence before they could so much as raise a weapon. 

“Nice work.” Luna gave Sonata a pat on the back as she stepped past. “This must be the listening post we’re supposed to clear out. At least, I hope it is.” She led the way up to the ledge and followed it around. The entrance door was just around a corner, tucked in a little alley between the building and the edge of the ravine. “Don’t forget to keep an eye on every doorway in here. The last thing we want is to end up surrounded by zombies.”

The inside of the listening post was dark and dingy. A grim little antechamber greeted the trio, with heavy metal doors in the two far corners. One of them turned out to be a toilet that doubled as a broom closet, but the other opened into a wide generator room. 

A lone Chinese soldier was hunched over a radio next to one of the generators. Thankfully, between the rumble of the machines and the crackle of the radio, he didn’t seem to have heard the Moons enter. Luna dealt with him by stabbing the base of her stave into the back of his neck. 

The next door led to a narrow corridor. Luna took the lead; Sonata’s magic was just too dangerous to be used without warning in such a confined space, while Trixie brought up the rear. 

As they passed a small alcove full of steel drums, Trixie suddenly called for the others to stop. “Sorry, I just need to check something.” 

“Check what?” Luna asked.

Trixie shook her head as she patted herself down. “Uh, I think I’ve forgotten… or I’ve lost… I, uh… I just-” Without warning she ripped her knife from its scabbard and stabbed it into thin air next to one of the drums. The air rippled and a camouflaged Chinese soldier shimmered into view, clutching a sniper rifle, with Occam’s Razor buried in his faceplate. A heartbeat later and he disappeared again in a flash of blue light. 

“Whoa, nice save,” Luna said appreciatively, and even Sonata nodded in agreement. 

“Let’s just take this slow,” Trixie said quietly as she resheathed her blade. “That was too close.”

Luna could hardly disagree. The trio moved on even more warily than before, jumping at every faint noise and glaring into every nook and cranny. After a while, they came across a tall room containing another generator and a winding metal staircase leading upwards. Luna carefully leaned in to take a look then hurriedly ducked back. “There’s soldiers at the top of the stairs. At least four of them.”

The Moons quietly debated the best way to deal with the situation. It didn’t take long to decide that Sonata should blast the soldiers with her magic, then, if any survived, Trixie would throw a smoke bomb to ruin their aim and give Luna and Sonata a chance to get in position to take them down. Dangerous, but it was the best that they could come up with. 

When they were ready, Sonata sprang into the room and unleashed her power upwards. Luna and Trixie both hunkered down as the building reverberated around them, but thankfully it didn’t last for long. 

“They’re down, but I don’t think I got all of them!” Sonata shouted. 

“Smoke bomb, now!” Luna charged up the stairs as Trixie hurled the little bomb up. It didn’t quite reach all the way, instead exploding against the underside of the stairs, but it was enough to provide a little cover. 

As she belted upstairs, Luna saw one soldier dragging himself to his feet a little way ahead. Two quick shots from the Tide Stave finished him off. Another soldier thundered through a doorway at the top, bellowing in Chinese, but a lucky shot to the throat took him out in one go. Luna waited anxiously for the smoke to clear entirely, making absolutely sure that there were no more enemies around before shouting down to the girls that it was safe.

“I found another briefcase,” Trixie said as her and Sonata joined Luna at the top. “It was tucked away under the bottom of the stairs.”

“What do those things even do?” Sonata asked curiously. 

Trixie shrugged. “How should I know? Maybe it unlocks some secret door, or reward, or something.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve any more fighting, I don’t really care what they’re for,” Luna cut in. “Keep moving. This building didn’t look all that big from the outside, so there can’t be that much more to explore.”

Barely even five minutes later, Luna was bitterly regretting her words. Once they were out of the stairwell, the Moons found themselves moving through a series of winding corridors interspersed with low, dark rooms, each defended by between two and five soldiers at a time. It was a brutal slog; a never-ending gauntlet nearly identical to the one they had dealt with when on their way to destroy the artillery guns. Just when Luna felt like she couldn’t go on without a rest, she opened one last door and was practically blinded by glorious sunshine. 

The Moons blinked against the light as they stepped outside. They were on the roof of the listening post, with one last bunker perched right in the middle of it. 

Luna almost whimpered at the sight of it. Her arms and legs were burning, her lungs felt like they were full of glass every time she sucked in a breath, and she had a searing pain in her side that was either a bullet wound or a particularly nasty stitch, she couldn’t tell either way. A quick glance at the girls showed that they weren’t faring any better. Trixie hadn’t taken much part in the actual fighting, but even she was sweating buckets, while Sonata was stooped and sagging with every ragged breath. 

“Last bit,” Luna forced out painfully. “We’ve got to have earned a break after this.”

“Stuff break, want water,” Sonata said flatly. She took a deep breath and drew herself up. “Soldiers die now.” With a vicious snarl, she clenched her fists and stalked over to the bunker’s door. She wrenched it open and looked in with her mouth wide open, only to pause with a confused frown on her face.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Luna hurried to the door and looked in herself. The bunker was empty. Or maybe it just looked that way. “Stealth soldiers!” 

The air erupted as the two scoured the inside of the bunker with sonic blasts and magical bolts. Sonata alone dumped enough power to reduce Rivet City to scrap, but no camouflaged soldiers appeared whatsoever. There wasn’t even so much as a blue flicker to show something dying. 

“What the h-” Luna cried out and dropped to her knees as a heavy weight landed on her back, driving something sharp into her shoulder.

“Get away from he-whoa!” The weight disappeared from Luna’s back, and she looked around to see the murderous child from the last run chasing Trixie, swinging a bloody carving knife with wild abandon. 

The Pint-sized Slasher. Luna shuddered as she remembered the strange name the other creepy child had mentioned. She tried to raise her stave, but for some reason her right arm wouldn’t work and it slipped through unfeeling fingers. It took her a second to realize that her shoulder was soaked with blood. 

“Not this brat again!” Sonata spat. Just as she made to run after it, Trixie threw a smoke bomb at the floor with a loud bamf. By the time the smoke had cleared Trixie was gone, leaving a confused murder-brat behind. Sonata grinned and drew in a deep breath, but before she could release her magic the Slasher spun around and threw the knife at her. She squawked and stumbled as its handle smacked her square in the nose. 

The Slasher was already moving. Its throw wasn’t even hard enough to break Sonata’s nose, but the moment of distraction was all it needed to close the distance and snatch its blade up from the floor. 

Sonata growled and threw a haymaker at the tiny beast, but it ducked under and swiped at her shins. She howled as more blood marred the floor. Swift as a viper, the Slasher lunged and stabbed her right in the groin. 

“No!” Luna surged to her feet and dove on the Slasher. All of the air rushed out of it in a whoosh as her body weight crushed it to the floor, its knife scraping against her armor. A quick thump in its side made the brat twitch in pain. Blinded with rage, Luna made to push herself to her knees, intending to smash its face in with her good fist. 

That was a mistake. 

Just as she pushed herself up, the Slasher swept its knife across her face. Luna yelled and pressed her hand to her mangled cheek. The Slasher swiped at her again, but she rolled to the side and scrambled away. 

Terror flooded through Luna as the Slasher slowly got to its feet. It may have been a child, but it was utterly divorced from humanity, even more so than the mutated ghouls she had once fought. Ever so slowly, the Slasher turned to face her, the eyes of its mask as dead and soulless as the creature it covered.

 “What do you want?” Luna asked it bluntly. The Slasher cocked its head at her. For a moment, she thought it might actually speak. Then it charged at her. 

Panic seized Luna’s heart. Desperate, she felt for the new magic in her chest and pulled. Her whole body tingled just as the Slasher went for her throat. 

The blade sailed through her neck as if it were empty air. Luna braced herself for the pain, but it never came. She tried to reach for her neck, to feel for any injuries, but neither of her arms responded. In desperation, Luna looked down at her body, only to realize with a jolt that it wasn’t there. She had been completely transformed into a nebulous blue cloud, dotted with tiny lights that sparkled like stars.

“What in Tartarus?!” Luna instinctively let go of the magic and yelped as her body reappeared a foot above the ground, landing on her backside with a sharp thud. 

The Slasher cocked its head at her again. It raised its knife once more, but was distracted as a flickering orange light wafted in front of its face. The Slasher was still watching the wisp when Trixie stepped up next to it and slammed her own blade into its temple.