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?!"

Next Chapter: Chapter 152 - Gathering the Rainbow Estimated time remaining: 11 Hours, 19 Minutes