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.

Next Chapter: Chapter 132 - Eclipse Estimated time remaining: 13 Hours, 54 Minutes