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.

Next Chapter: Chapter 127 - Another One Bites The Dust Estimated time remaining: 15 Hours, 13 Minutes